I have been diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Generalized Epilepsy for eight years now. Since then, I have struggled, sobbed, and sacrificed just so I can live and not just survive.
At the age of fifteen, I was given another diagnosis: Depression. In that period of agony in my life, stories healed me in ways I could not have imagined. The life experienced within the stories, the ludicrous and convincingly-normal conversations among the characters, and their views on the unexpected allowed me to live life vibrantly and vicariously.
Their experiences combined with mine resulted to a powerful realization:
A diagnosis is not a hindrance, but a superpower.
The Goal
Due to the severity of my diagnosis, I promised myself that I will be an advocate for persons with disabilities, particularly, Tourette Syndrome. Patients suffer as others judge; thus, the ultimate goal is to spread awareness.
The diagnosed child will feel tormented, lost, unhappy.
On his okay-days, he would constantly pray for happiness; the type of genuine joy that will last for a lifetime.
On his sickly-stricken days, he’d beg the Almighty; to ease his pain, his suffering, his sorrow.
All his life, the diagnosed child thought that hope no longer exists, especially for the existing abnormality such as he.
Growing into an adult, he realized that he was mistaken all this time. To be diagnosed means not to be without hope, but to live with it. It means that despite rainy storms which gloom the skies he lives in, there will and always be an infinite rainbow.
Life is not meant to be cruel to the diagnosed child, nor is it supposed to be the harshest to an adult.
Life is knowing that each day is meant to be lived and not just be survived.
Writer's View 