Reverse experience

 Usually the trajectory of one's life should be difficulties and being poor, leading to success and having more material wealth. But in my case, it was the opposite.

I grew up in a house, and I always had success and friends. I never wanted for much. After a certain point, I went out on my own but I couldn't hack it and ended up living the second half of my life in poverty.

Blame it on the mental illness, or perhaps there is something terribly wrong with the way I was raised. There should have been some sort of objective, some struggle within my child-hood that taught me to be motivated and succeed. I did push myself for a period, but my personal life suffered and I ended up in the psych ward. I'm not sure I can forgive my mother for driving me to the mental hospital at 4 am one day. On the other hand, I was 23, and a legal adult.

Mostly it was the decision to quit school in my 4th year and become a math teacher, an idea I had barely cultivated, that led to me missing out on the fruits of what I had worked and sacrificed for. But if you take the idea that I have this terrible ailment, a disease of the brain, then veering off on an alternate path in life, missing out on the joys of later adulthood (like a family or a car) could be rationalized.

I just don't like to think of myself as sick. Wallowing in the woes that belong to someone who is classified as "mentally ill" just, in my experience, makes the problem worse. I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and I don't know what I will tell her. I am not happy, and I'm not sure if the medication is working, but we have struggled to find a solution and it always seems elusive. There is something missing in my life, beyond medication, that I have to find. And living in poverty does not make it easier.