The American Way

Thank god I don’t have the strain of mental illness that white men in America have

I hate living with bipolar disorder but at least it doesn’t compel me to murder innocent children, women, and men

Thankfully my mental illness doesn’t make me racist, sexist, ableist, heterosexist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and overall filled with hate and anger

I’m so lucky that my mental illness doesn’t make me feel entitled to take things that aren’t mine by force, it doesn’t make me vengeful, violent, or destructive, it doesn’t make me blind to my privilege, it doesn’t make me claim to be a victim in a world that was built by and for people who look just like me

Struggling with depression and mania is painful and exhausting but at least I don’t comfort myself with a pity party attended primarily by semi-automatic rifles

I’m blessed that my mental illness doesn’t make me a terrorist

But I’m scared because our great nation continues to confuse being mentally ill with being a monster — using “mental illness” as a distraction and a scapegoat in order to keep guns in the hands of sane white men who are determined to devastate

I didn’t choose my mental illness but politicians — and the people who elect them — keep choosing guns over and over and over again

That’s not mental illness, that’s the American way