Mentally ill people, do you think that your mental illness has taught you certain things?

Has it made you more compassionate, loving, self-reflective, spiritual, responsible, etc?

Has it given you an outlook and a perspective that you’re grateful for?

An undeniable truth about me is that I would have been a completely different person had I not been mentally ill, and particularly bipolar (I have several MIs, lucky me).

But I like the person I am now, compared to the person I likely would have become.

I feel like exploring this topic is usually seen as manic behavior (in my case) or as glamorizing mental illness, so we don’t talk about it much. And when we do, we’re only supposed to say that the experiences we had made us stronger or something.