University:
Yeshiva University
Course:
2420 | Modern Philosophy
Academic year:

2019
Views:

305

Pages:

2
Author:

Logan L

“Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am” PSA Blog The short story “Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am”, by Terri Cheney, is a powerful piece that tells the story of what living with bipolar disorder is like. Looking at the title and reading the preview, I knew this story would be about the struggles of mental illnesses and not feeling like yourself. The story begins by explaining what having bipolar disorder feels like. Cheney constantly feels like a different person, and her moods often change very quickly. She describes how she often goes days without sleeping and feels dead inside. One day, she meets a man by the name of Jeff at the supermarket. After rambling on with him for a while, they plan a date for two days later. However, despite her being happy and outgoing when she met him, she quickly fell into a state of depression. Just like that, her personality had completely changed. The day they were supposed to go on a date, she couldn’t bring herself to find the happy personality that Jeff first met. She barely talked on the date, and after, she never heard from Jeff again. Soon enough, she fell into another happy state. It had been a while since she talked to Jeff, but early one morning, she gave him a call in the middle of her sunshine-like mood. They agree on dinner that night, because Cheney does not want to wait any longer in case she falls into another depressive state, but by the time she is putting her makeup on, it is too late. She sits on the toilet as tears fall from her eyes, and simply put, the dinner date did not go well. The story ends with Cheney never hearing from Jeff again in five years. However, she has finally accepted that nothing will completely fix the chemical imbalance in her brain. She now takes medication that helps stabilize her moods and does not allow her to completely change into a new person like before. After reading this story, I couldn’t help but feel utter sympathy for Cheney. I have dealt with people with mental illnesses before but reading such a powerful story made me sad and extremely grateful that I do not have that burden in life. I can see how difficult it is for Cheney, but also how strong of a person she is. One line that stuck out to me was, “Pleasure was for the living” (Cheney 137). This simple sentence holds so much meaning behind it. Through these words, at times, Cheney did not even feel alive. She mentions that her skin looked pale and ghostly, which is another reference to feeling like she was dead. These words struck something in me and helped me understand how so many people in the world feel daily. Although there were many statements that described the feeling of depression, this specific one was the hardest to read. Cheney felt like she didn’t deserve normal feelings, such as pleasure. Overall, this story impacted me in more ways than I expected, but I’m so happy I read it, because maybe now I can understand a little bit better what people are going through.

Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am

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