I just got back from a trip to Fort Lauderdale, FL. While I was there I saw some of my friends and even had the opportunity to go out to lunch with one of my best friends in this world. I missed seeing one of my other best friends because she was busy the day I had free, but somehow just being in the same county made me feel closer to her.

I attended an ADM Planning Council meeting while I was there and got to go to PEER Center, a drop-in center operated by mental health consumers. At both the meeting and the center I saw old friends and made new ones.

One day we made the drive from Fort Lauderdale to Key West and back to Fort Lauderdale. Driving through the Keys is one of the top five most beautiful drives in the country and ends at one of the more unusual places you can find anywhere.

So for a few days I have almost felt normal. Sometimes I pretend I am a “chronically normal person” then something happens to remind me that I am not. Either someone will simply say “remember your illness Ed” or words with that meaning or I will feel so bad I can’t forget I have a mental illness.

I am writing this at 2 am. My mind will not be still. At this moment I can’t forget I am bipolar. I can’t pretend I have a normal brain. I almost felt normal seeing friends and going to Key West, but my reality is that I must live daily with a mental illness they call bipolar disorder.

The other reality that I must deal with is the fact that as a boy I was sexual abused. It started the winter before I was old enough to go to school. Although it physical stopped at some point, it has never really stopped because it can happen again any night. Any night I can be taken to the barn and raped again and then the blood cleaned off me. I usually wake up in the tub being washed and cleaned up, but it seems I just never get clean.

Feeling almost normal is simply a delusion for me I guess, but it was nice. A peek a being fully human. How wonderful. Recovery is about turning that delusion into reality. Maybe someday I will, but for now I am still on the journey. I am just grateful for any moment a friend makes me feel ALMOST NORMAL.

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