A Letter to a Sane Person...From Me

To the recipient of this letter,

You treat me as though I'm different. But in reality, I am just the same as you. You ridicule me for my obsessivness. But aren't you just as obsessive too? You see me only for my faults. But don't you as well have your flaws? You think I have some catching disease. Act as though whatever madness I have you can catch it just by being in the same room as me. I am like an alien to you. You have no want or desire to hear my story. No time to sit down and actually listen to what I have to say. You never know, maybe if you took that time you would discover your perception of me is clearly distorted. Just because I observe the world through a different light to you, that does not make me mad. Just because I take drugs to alter my thoughts, that does not make me unequal to you. Just because you think you're better than me, does not mean that you are. Just because you can go aqbout your day without having to constantly ward off fear, paranoia and hundreds of voices, does not make you superior to me. Just because I see a psychiatrist, does not make me insane. Just because I have seen and lived on the inside of a psychiatric ward, does not make me deranged. Just because I may say or do things that seem odd to you, does not make me weird or crazy. Underneath all my flaws and faults, I too, am just the same as you. I walk, talk, eat, sleep and do all other menial tasks exactly the way you do. Yes, I have a mental illness, however that does not make me deranged or freaky or whatever other verbs you would like to use to try and describe the image of me that you have so clearly imprinted in your mind. I still have the ability to love and feel the same as everyone else. So please remember the next time you attempt to ridicule me, or put me down, or class me as different, I, too, have feelings, and they matter just as much as yours do.

Yours sincerly,

Me xx