All right, yall. I'm here to give you your weekly dose of #vulnerability. I'm really good at being sarcastic, I'm really bad at expressing emotions. So here we are.

For those of you who don't know (i.e probably EVERYONE WHO CLICKED ON THIS ARTICLE), I have bipolar II, and before I was diagnosed BP II, I had gone through 7 different diagnoses. Lo and behold, they found something that included ALL my symptoms, so here I am in my little bipolar state of life. The bad thing about being bipolar is that I'm bipolar, the GOOD thing about being bipolar is that you can usually get your mental health straightened out pretty well with therapy and meds. Unfortunately for me, I'm a broke college student with parents who don't believe in medication, so here I am in my little bubble (don't worry y'all, I got it all figured out. Got me a savings account and EVERYTHING).

Regardless of what my diagnosis is, and regardless of what yours is, I'm here to tell you that failure is A-Ok, and it's a totally viable option. The option that isn't okay-- giving up. I feel like we're told all throughout life that failure isn't an option, and up until my sophomore year of high school, I believed this. But then I saw a sign on the wall in my high school (side note: I went to a high school with literally less than 250 students, and mental health issues ran rampant, so most people were pretty understanding) that said "FAIL: First Attempt In Learning".

Let me tell you, that hit me like a motherf*cking wall. Failing IS the first attempt in learning. Like when you starting walking you probably fell down around 9 million times before you figured it out.

Back to why my mental health and failing is totally viable. So, on a personal note, this past semester has been extremely difficult for me. The depression hit hard. And so, I've decided to drop one of my classes, take an incomplete in the other two, and work my ass off in the last one. While my GPA might be low, while taking an incomplete might be "failing", to me this isn't giving up.

I needed to start over after some time of getting my meds situated, after getting back up again, after re-starting therapy, after finding my footing. So while I'm failing, I'm not giving up (even though sometimes I REALLY REALLY WANT TO).

So, what is your takeaway from all this, be you mentally ill or not? Fail. Fail all the time to learn if you need to. Failing is the first attempt in learning, failing is the first attempt in life. But fail responsibly. Learn from your mistakes, and move on. Failing is an option, giving up is not.