A speaker reflects on trauma, abandonment, and sexual assault, and their journey toward gratitude despite institutional harm. They critique the religious upbringing that shaped them and psychiatry's medication-first approach, while paradoxically thanking their mental illness for the perspective and growth it forced.
Like many, I'm no stranger to trauma, which has caused me to act out in unhealthy ways. I've done therapy and tons of introspection to realize this. My happiness is my responsibility and no one else's. I have no control over others, but I control my attitudes and choices. I've had to face some uncomfortable truths about my life and place. I was abandoned to fend for myself in a world hostile to people like me. It's hard to believe in my worth, and I struggle with self-acceptance. So, I'll practice gratitude. I'm grateful to you dogmatic institutions for enslaving my birth family into a cult of cold-hearted love that was distilled with candles, tithes, offerings, hymns, and a Sabbath to preach unconditional love for 90 minutes and ignored my needs, shamed, devalued, and invalidated my feelings the rest of the time. Thank you, bloodline evangelists, deacons, preachers, choir directors, and praise dancers. For a time, the woman paid by the state to care for my needs as an orphan raped my self-esteem. Starve my dignity, and rob me of a happy childhood by holding my emotions captive. Others kneeled with their faces turned the other way and said, "Bless the child. Thank you because I've discovered the love you claim to have, and I honor it and generously give it to others without discrimination because love knows no bounds." I found that, Like Father Time, love heals all wounds. I'm grateful to psychiatry because, for decades, the answers to my condition were only concerned with my compliance with dosing regimens and blood tests or whatever new pharmaceuticals being pushed any fiscal year rather than looking at other factors like the neurological damage caused by not having time with my mother after I was born before her death, or being born a trimester too soon, or being sexually assaulted in my teens. 20s, and 30s. Your solution was to take more pills. Still, you asked why I wasn't getting better. You should have approached my illness from all sides rather than just filling a prescription and seeing me every 30 days for the past 20+ years. So, thank you all for your brilliant minds and perfectly thought-out mismanagement of my mental health. I'm grateful for my mental illness because it has allowed me to experience the world in ways that most people don't. How blessed am I. I'm thankful for this.
