“You are not your mental illness” is a message I see come up pretty often when people are discussing mental illness. You are not your anxiety, you are not your depression, so on and so forth. I think the purpose of this message is to reinforce for people that their mental illness is not all consuming, and that they are more than their anxiety, more than their depression, more than their so on and so forth. I understand the importance of this message for many people, but at the same time it’s message that I have always found that I could not resonate with, because in my experience, my mental illness is not something I am more than or less than, it’s just me.
I’m bipolar. In my experience, being bipolar is something that permeates every aspect of life. I can’t understand myself outside of being bipolar, and I don’t care to. Sometimes being bipolar makes things really hard to do. Sometimes it makes things really easy. This is not different from other, non-pathologized ways I interact with the world – I am very stubborn and almost always refuse to go along with plans I don’t like. Sometimes this has saved my ass, and sometimes it has gotten it whupped. And honestly this is about all I really want to say on my relationship with bipolar disorder. My experience is a feeling of neutrality, and I think expositing on a neutral relationship only serves to detract from that message of neutrality.
There is a vast range of experiences that people can have with any mental illness, and I have no desire to speculate on anyone’s experience beyond my own. I have had the privilege of getting to work along with some amazing and very talented therapists who helped me develop a lot of comfort with intrapersonal communication, assertiveness, and emotion regulation, all of which have had massive impacts on the relationship I have with my body. The purpose of this piece is not to say be like me. I am writing this because I do not want people to misunderstand what I mean when I say I’m bipolar. I am not proud nor ashamed to be bipolar; I am proud because I am interesting and kind and I am ashamed (today) because I let a pot of pasta boil over. Body neutrality (brain neutrality [Me neutrality]) about being bipolar gives me a peaceful foundation to build my life around, without any presumptuous prides or shames to drag me off course.
Unruly Bodies 
I really liked this piece. I have definitely felt some of these same feelings, but never named it. The idea of “brain neutrality” is super helpful.. my ADHD is really difficult sometimes, mostly when I’m told to focus or do something I’m not really meant to do. Instead of being able to succeed in an activity that my brain is well suited for, I’m forced to struggle and “fix” myself for things that don’t really matter. My ADHD has also benefited my life and helped me think creatively and be able to focus on the things that most interest my brain. But I want to move away from the language of “well it does good things for me” (or it has to be good or bad) because, like you said, it’s just me. It informs that way I am in every way.
This work was fascinating to read as it felt as if my thoughts and feelings on how I deal with my mental illness were being brought to light. Being a Psychology major, I have taken many courses that revolved around overcoming one’s mental illness and not defining yourself as someone who is just mentally ill. However, I feel as if this kind of advice can be problematic, as it can be interpreted as rejecting this side of yourself because it is hard to deal with or a “bad” thing to have (being mentally ill). So, it was hard trying to accept myself for who I am because so many things and people have tried to make me disregard my mental illness because it is a bad thing to have (which people have told me to my face something like this). At the current moment, I have learned to accept my flaws and understand that rather than overcoming this “bad” or “inconvenient” condition, living with who I am and taking things one step at a time and slowly but surely working on how to adapt to something like mental illness is the path I have chosen to take. Thank you again for writing this, as it is a reminder that others share my feelings on certain matters but are strong enough to share their struggles (it encourages me to express myself more too).