I Will Fight

I get mad, furious, and so outraged I can throw a dish across the room. I get sad, depressed, and cry so much that I run out of tears. I get overwhelmed, frustrated, and discouraged to the point of feeling hopeless. But I also can be so happy that I feel my soul will overflow with joy.
I have experienced abuse at the hand of someone I thought loved me and felt the pain of being left to stand on my own. But I have also felt the warm embrace from a man who truly does love me. A man who holds my hand when I am scared, who wipes the tears from my face when I am sad, who lifts me up when I have fallen, and who challenges me every day to fight my battles with everything I am.
At 37 years old I have already fought an overwhelming amount of battles that no one should ever have to fight, but yet so many of us do. We fight and we fight and we fight some more. And no matter how many times we hear those words...fighting makes you stronger...we have a hard time believing it. But it is so true. With every battle we fight we do gain strength. It isn't the battle that makes us strong, it is the fight within us.
I am unique, creative, loving, kind, caring, supportive, loud, and proud. I am proud of who I am, proud of where I have come from, and proud of where I am going in life. I am proud of how hard I have fought to win this battle against mental illness. And I will continue to fight with all that I am. I will fight for myself, but I will also fight for others.
I will fight for those people who feel they are alone, abandoned, and afraid...I will stand up to those who call us "psycho", "crazy", "insane", and let them know exactly what they are up against. They are  up against individuals who never know, from one day to the next, what they will feel or experience, yet they survive. Individuals who can be in the depths of despair, yet pull themselves out and survive. Individuals who never stop fighting no matter what the odds and no matter what the battle is. Individuals like you and me! Fighters with the greatest will in the world to survive!