I feel guilty when my mental health is good.

My experience dealing with my mental health is the main focus of my current writing efforts. My personal health is not something I focus on. I like to think that I spend most of my time talking about mental health. My mental illness got the best of me at times in my life, whether it was suicide, self-harm, or psychotic episodes.

I need to help others more than ever. Writing about the experiences that shaped the person I am today is the best way to help. If I run out of material, how am I going to help people?

When I feel like writing about my personal life, there aren’t many scary stories left, because I’ve been thorough and have hardly left a stone unturned. I don’t like writing about the mundane details of everyday life on my Facebook page. within this website is where I save my time for the remarkable.

I am all about honesty. Is it weird that I feel guilty that I don’t have more bad things happening to me so I can write about it?

My whole persona, my voice, my relatability, is built on the fact that I am honest about the things that happened to me in my life. Even if they are heartbreaking and embarrassing, I never hold back important details. Can I make up scenarios and create lessons around them, like Aesop’s fables?

Is that understandable? I don’t want to jeopardize the reader’s feelings toward me but my own, so I don’t do anything that would do that. I am not sure I can make an impact with stories that I am not invested in. I am who I am for views and reads. I know the purpose of the views and reads is to help people, but I would feel bad if I made up stories about my own experiences.

I will keep writing about my life, but eventually people are going to get tired of me talking about my suicide attempts, depression, and voices I hear, and I will no longer be able to put a different spin on the story. Where do I go after this?

I need to find a way to use the stories I have to help others, because I only have the stories I have. My job as a writer is to find ways to tie them together with my new stories of building a life after a mental illness. I can’t count on bad things to keep happening because my recovery may be progressing faster than I thought. Being guilty for having good mental health is the funniest thing I have ever heard.

I am unique in many ways. I know I have an interesting story to tell. I’ve made it through some of the most difficult years of my life. Despite being schizoaffective and hearing voices, I am building a life. Most of the time, an illness will send the person to a life of mental hospitals and medication. There is a different path.

It was a hard battle to get here, and I am on the road to better mental health. I am sure the stories I tell can be used to help others as well. I used my attempts to change everything about myself after almost ending my life. I used my scars as a lesson to others that even if you hit bottom, you can still find your way out of the rabbit hole.

Every day I walk a path to greater happiness, and I feel fulfilled by every small event in my life. At 50 years old, I am a brand-new father. I have been married for eight years and every day I see myself getting happier and more fulfilled. I am a father, a husband, a son, an advocate, a writer, anentrepreneur, and a damn-good human being despite what I have gone through.

I may have the same painful stories of the past, but my hopeful stories from my future will help even more.