Watching Dominoes

Earlier today I volunteered to collect the teacher evaluations and take them to the English office, then I casually talked about my past experiences with marijuana in an anthropology discussion (yes Mom, if you ever read this, I admit I've tried weed). It just keeps getting easier and easier to open my mouth and speak up.

I've had a lot of trepidation about a summer lit. class considering it's open to both graduate students and undergrads, but I've been worrying less and less about looking stupid. It's not even so much about looking stupid as it's about feeling ashamed of looking stupid, if that's clear at all. I would just rather not care what the other people thought of me if I'm contributing to the discussion and I'm learning something. That feeling is my goal.

Here's something that surprised me: my good friend with bipolar disorder has officially come out of the closet with it today. He told me, and he's told other close friends in the past, but he's always been ashamed of the stigma surrounding a mental disorder (I can relate). Today he discussed it with my professor, who also has BPD, then he casually dropped it into a conversation with someone else. I'm so proud of him! He said it's helped him to talk with me and to see how I've been dealing with - and overcoming - my anxiety disorder. That makes me happier than I can tell you! And I have to just stress to anyone reading this: it's never a good idea to hold onto these troubles and try to deal with them yourself. Like my friend told me today, internalizing the problem for these past few years has damaged him.

It's not exactly a huge domino effect, but progress builds as you can see and eventually branches out. I'm getting further and further and now so is someone else.