I died 3 years ago, on a park bench on a warm summer's evening

"I died 3 years ago, on a park bench on a warm summer's evening.

On that evening I tried to commit suicide for the 6th time; this time I genuinely wished to die. I left a note. I took the pills. I woke up in hospital. That was the end of my life, and the beginning of my new life.

I'm 23 years old. I have suffered with depression for 10 years. I have tried to kill myself 6 times. And I have been admitted to a psychiatric hospital twice. It has been suggested (but not officially) by several psychiatrists that I have Borderline Personality Disorder; but I'm not sure that I need another label.

On the 29th September 2008 I became a student doctor. So while my classmates struggle with the complexities of the human body, I struggle with the dilema of whether to go back onto medication or not, or try to talk myself out of slicing open my arm with a kitchen knife.

While my classmates dicuss the "friend who decided not to apply to med school because she is mad", or gossip about the colleague searching despirately for a cure for her depression, I can't help but feel like a spy watching their conversation while contributing little for fear of exposing myself as the mole within the sane world. The only thing that stops me feeling like a mad version of James Bond is the overwhelming wave of anxiety that swiftly follows the beginning of such conversations; the fear of what would happen if they knew my dirty little secret. What would they think if they knew that sometimes I go home and cry myself to sleep for no reason, and *enjoy* the fact that I feel the emotion of sorrow? How would my teachers and future employers feel about me having more in common with the psychiatric patients than with my fellow doctors?

I somehow wonder if the answer is to pretend to be proud? Whether we should celebrate Mad Pride, with banners, flags and bunting; not only point out the elephant in the room, but cover it with fiary lights and launch fireworks off it's back. Yell from the rooftops that people with mental illness exist, and are in fact real people. They are teachers, doctors, police officers, shop assistants, bankers, truck drivers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, lovers...

Yell from the rooftops that we aren't crazy."

Source: http://whydowesearch.blogspot.com/