Seen and Unseen

There is a book called Blindness, by a guy named Saramago, or maybe a movie that I am getting it confused with, but basically the concept is that everyone goes blind except this one lady who can still see and she gets mixed in with all the blind people and is able to help them because of her sight.  I really liked the book and was thinking the other day that some of my experience with mental illness is like being both a blind person and the seeing person in that same scenario.  And it might not be my mental illness as much as it is an Asperger's profile with extreme gifts and extreme deficits.  Basically what happens is that I am a terrible helpless mess a lot of the times, but also a very capable strong person who can save the day for everyone around me.  There are days and times where I lean more in one direction, but mostly I am just a mix of these things every day.  And the effect it has is that I see for myself how disabled people are treated, but I know the cost and intent of that treatment as someone who is also not disabled.  I could probably write a much more thorough essay with examples, but I think that just mentioning it is enough for now.  I think in a way we all have kind of a spy quality to us as humans, and Christ himself said that what you do for the least of these is what you do for him.  So people are all kind of in a Shakespearian Twelfth Night play where people's true identity is eventually revealed and justice happens as people are exposed in their compassion or snobbery.  But I do think that there is some weird way where as a mentally ill person I experience this more than normal, and I see people include me with strength that I have used for other people before, or I see people dismiss me or even abuse me when they do not know what kind of insight I have into their absolute hypocrisy.