Junk Drawer

That's right we all that dreaded Junk Drawer.  You know the one I'm talking about.  That drawer where you toss miscellaneous items.  It's a catch-all for the stuff you have no other place to put or you just don't have a categorical place where it belongs.  It's also the place you can go to when you've looked every place else for something and can't find it.  It's the one place in the house that initiates a deep sigh from each person as they open it.

Let's face it, we all have them and they typically look like this:

Not much organization, but you can usually find what you need to get you through whatever crisis you are in.  Need a safety pin to keep a shirt from falling apart as you walk out the door?  Need batteries for the remote so that you can flip through channels with ease?  Need a pen to scribble a quick note as you are talking on the phone?  It's all there.

The good thing is that the drawer stays closed unless you reach that point of desperation.  Out of sight, out of mind...right?

This is much what it's like inside my head most days and probably what I look like to the people around me too.  There's an array of stuff in there all the time and it would probably scare anyone to step inside.  I can get what I need, when I need it most of the time.  It might not always come out exactly when or how I would like it to, but I can usually make myself functional.  In fact, most of the time I can make myself look so functional that people would never know I have a problem.

There is one upside to the specific illness I deal with.  There is something inside me that puts it all together and allows me to look functional on the surface. 

Yep, that's right.  There's a whole lot of stuff in my drawer and it gets really messy sometimes.  But, really...it looks more like this at the core.  There is an organizational pattern that is far beyond what I can comprehend.  Yes, the illness is considered a mental illness and I'd like to think that I would challenge many opinions of what mental illness looks like on the surface. 

The truth is that mental illness has little to do with intelligence in my case.  Those close to me might forget that sometimes, especially when they see the less functional sides of me.  Even in a diminished mental state, my organized system is still functional and capable of maintaining.  An outburst, misunderstood action or just not seeming like myself isn't a reflection of my inability but of my ability. 

When there's so much junk in the drawer, it's hard to remember that it's all very organized in there somewhere.  So when I look like this:

...it's just me, my humanness, my brokenness, in my pain and striving to understand myself and accept myself.