So, What Do You Do?

And she heard the dreaded words, “so what do you do?”
She twitched a little, thoughts raced – “what excuse shall I use? What do I possibly say? I don’t do anything, I’m mentally ill,” she became choked up and stuttered and mumbled her words, like she was learning how to talk.
“I’m off work for mental illness” she muttered silently as she looked down at her gripped hands. White knuckles once again. Just like every other time this conversation happens.
They looked at her, so clearly showing that they did not know what to say. There were different responses. Always different, but never any positive.
She released her tiny fists for fear of piercing her skin with her nails. The grip was always so tight.
Back to reality. Clueless faces staring.
She did not know what to say. No one did.
What she wanted to blurt out was so very much more than what she revealed. She thought and thought:
“I have Bipolar but I am not my mental illness. I beg of you not to think any differently of me. I am a normal person just like anyone else, but I am sick. Very sick. And I can’t help that and neither can you. It’s sad and cruel but that’s the way the world is sometimes. I take my medication and I do my therapy and I try my hardest to get up in the morning and live my life. That’s all I can do right now. And that’s okay with me. I don’t expect you to understand and I don’t ever really want you to – for no one should ever have to go through what I go through. It’s not that I don’t want you in my business, no, it’s that I don’t want you to go through it as well. No matter who you are, I don’t want you to get sucked in. I don’t want sympathy and I don’t want the sad, awkward looks. I just want you to treat me like a fellow human being”
And every time she didn’t say that, a bit of her heart broke.
She didn’t want to be ashamed. She should never have to be ashamed. But yet she felt that way anyway.