Often, in dealing with grief, you have to decide, what do you want to be?

Actor Crush of the Day: Bill Pullman (Independence Day or While You Were Sleeping)

(Note: My thoughts and prayers to anyone in Hurricane Katrina's path, or have already been through it. My hurricane allegory below is in no way meant to say that I am physically suffering in the way that those in hurricane regions are.)

This was a post on a blog I am linked to, Ethesis, and below was a comment I posted there about 2 1/2 weeks ago or so.

This is a hard one. I haven't suffered the loss of a child or parent yet, and not to say that what I am about to talk about is in any way as deep or the same kind of thing, but I am going through a grief-like process as I begin therapy with a psychologist, and treatment from a psychiatrist, as I have been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a variety of anxiety disorders, although they are still nailing those down, they are the working diagnoses at the moment.

I am 33 years old. And my daughter was recently diagnosed with high-functioning autism. And I can barely function, and somehow the Lord thinks I am the best mother for her? I actually do have faith in his faith in me, so that answers that question.

But having been mis-diagnosed with depression for so many years, I am grieving for the person I could have been. The chance at normal choices and normal experiences and a normal life that apparently I never had, because it seems that these things go back to childhood.

My very ability to choose, my judgement, is affected and swayed by my illnesses. Brain disorders, they call them. That could take me off into a whole other area of free agency/mentally ill and what all that means, but the point here is (and I have trouble being as concise and well-written as I used to be able to be, so bear with me), I have chosen to fight.

Though the struggle is hard, and I have no idea how to cope with my illnesses, let alone be able to mother my child and teach her and access services she needs, all I can do is try.

For me, it is though I am walking into the darkest hurricane you can imagine, facing it head on, and boldly striding towards the tempest, and knowing that all I can do is try. That is what I have chosen, as I have struggled this week with my own dark despair and whether or not to give up my option "to get out", as it were. I did, just so you know.