#InShadowSelfie

My friend Louise Gornall has asked people to participate in raising awareness of mental illness for Mental Health Awareness Week (which is this week–in the UK, at least) by taking a picture of your shadow and posting it online.

I may live in the shadow of my off-beat brain chemistry, my cyclothymia, my anxiety, my ADHD, and it can sometimes be a barrier to living a “normal” life. But it doesn’t dominate me, nor is it something I can lose in a Peter Pan way. It’s a part of me, for better and for worse, and I accept and embrace it, as painful as it may be at times.