The belief that I should tread lightly and maintain to carefully measure my impact on the world is one that I hold near and dear. I've become aware that we as humans create most of our own suffering, but I also see small tragedies between human beings happening every day.

"Don't hide your light under a bushel," my friend always tells me. I think it's funny that he unironically quotes Christ at me like this, but aside from that, my conditions make that exceptionally difficult for me. For the last half of this decade, I have been a purveyor of erratic behavior. First, it was diagnosed as 'rapid-cycling bipolar', but now it is the most embarrassing slap in the face of maladies: a borderline personality.

It would be crude to use my "illness" as an excuse for my behavior, so I do not think or speak under that guise. Yet I fit eight of the nine criteria for diagnosis and regularly go to war with myself, thinking, Heather, you have free will, you have intelligence. You are not sick.

Caution is absolutely necessary for me because of this disorder. I often say and do things that have intense repercussions or can be/are harmful to others and fail to rationalize past the indulgence of intense anger. Without caution, I believe I am a detriment (and have evidence to prove it).

And yet, caution is also a crime. I hide who I am from so much of the world that it makes my mind feel pained when I think about it. I know many people who struggle with this. It's taboo to be "extra", frowned upon to be loud. There are politics to caution: look straight ahead and be who the world wants you to be.

I propose a solution both for myself and for anyone who feels that they must hide because they are different. We can continue to try and fail and forgo the turmoil and suffering of one who never quits, or we can hide.

I don't want to suffer. But I don't want to hide and I'm sure you don't want to, either.