Tag: personal

Have Faith in Yourself

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One may expect nothing good coming from completely losing one’s mind to madness, and dealing with the aftermath. I often heard the cliches about how I would be a stronger person as a result and I would learn so much through these experiences. However, looking back, those words of encouragement only spoke of the beginning of what I gained resulting from embarking on the recovery process.

I did a little bit of reflecting in my journal this evening about what I have lost and gained over the past fourteen years, since I was diagnosed with bipolar I following a psychotic break.

Here’s a small list of profound losses I experienced within the past fourteen years:

  • My physical health and good looks
  • My religion, which was a foundation of my life
  • My spirituality
  • My sense of identity
  • My sharp intellect and ability to learn new things went into remission
  • At a couple points, I lost my mind completely
  • My ability to adequately care for myself and my environment

I still struggle hard with my physical health and my ability to adequately care for myself. However, in the past fourteen years, I’ve regained much about the other items on the list.

So, not only have I gained back most of the above list of losses, I’ve found the following:

  • I’ve broken free from the institution of religion
  • I’ve broken the generational cycle of madness
  • I understand family and friends better
  • I’ve learned who I am and what I need to explore about myself
  • I’ve embarked on the road to recovery from severe verbal abuse and isolation growing up
  • I’ve discovered some things never go away, such as my analytic mind
  • I’ve confirmed my passion for writing
  • I’ve found wisdom and a new way of seeing the world
  • I can explore a rich spiritual identity and experiences

During recovery, there are seasons and there are trends. It was pitch black for many years of my life. I had therapy nearly every week for 9 months after my first episode, often focusing on the reasons why I shouldn’t commit suicide. All seasons of recovery present their challenges. Over time, the light becomes brighter, and during the seasons, this light will fluctuate.

However, just know that the deeper my pain, the deeper my loss, the more constitutive my loss… the deeper character I gain, the more I find, and the more cohesive I become as a result of these experiences. I’ve reached a point where I have become someone that is beyond my wildest dreams or imaginations, compared to fourteen years ago.

I’m at a brightly blossoming point in my road to recovery. I still have a ways to go, but I’m making progress faster than I have ever before. The truth is… those cliche encouragements did help a little bit when I took them in good faith. The darker the valley, the harder it is to climb out and the longer it takes to climb out. I had faith in myself that I could get through when I was unable to call on God for help and no one could be there for me.

One thing is always true: have faith in yourself. No matter how bad it is, you can overcome.

-theothersid3

photo credit: Stuck in Customs Aurora Over The Valley via photopin (license)

From the Ashes

Male Jack pine cones
Male Jack pine cones

(Journal entry excerpts from today)

I feel pretty steady at the moment. Reading good material helps. My meds are kicking a little bit more as well. My mind still wanders when I’m alone, not to thoughts of despair and suicide, but rather of how I think about and understand the world, and reminisce about my past experiences.

I feel like my mind is sprouting and blooming again. Is this what the Christians call “faith”? One little spark starting a fire inside me? A spark small as a match strike, growing much like a forest of Jack Pines after a wildfire?

The turmoil inside of me is spinning down. I’m reconnecting with my dreams and ambitions. I’m starting to take better care of myself.

It’s a start.

photo credit: Martin LaBar via photopin cc

Bouncing Back

My special pen and journal.
My special pen and leather journal.

I won’t lie. The past few days have been rough. However, I am bouncing back already. Years ago, this may have triggered a major depressive episode for me lasting who knows how long. I’m reminded of how far I’ve come when I can feel normal after a few days of grieving the loss of my job on top of other triggers that came my way. I’ll be much better after I find a position, but I’m not too worried about it.

I’m sorry I haven’t written too much specifically about bipolar lately. I sense there will be much more on that soon. I decided to put ink into a special journal I’ve wanted to start for a while, now. It is the journal I intend to keep that will be the inspiration for my book about my psychotic breaks, as well as a book telling about my journey to recovery.

Before I can really delve into that, though, I must finish doing my reflections on all my journals to help understand myself and the course of my bipolar much better. Not to mention, I would like to understand my breaks better. Meditation and reflection will help on this. My breaks are part of my experience, and I see great opportunities for growth in understanding them. I want to write these books the right way. No short cuts. I’m in it for the long haul, and it may well take a decade to write the books to my satisfaction, but I’m okay with that.

I’m starving for inspiration, too. It’s so easily to get discouraged in the midst of all this, but I press on…

Bawling My Soul Out

I have three things going on in my life that are all stressing me out to the max: I’m losing my job tomorrow, my mom, and something personal.

I’m in tears at this point. It sucks. I don’t know what to do. It’s been so long since it’s been this bad. I need to cry. I was doing so good before, and now I’m broken AGAIN! WHY?! What did I fucking do to deserve all of this? Why can’t life just go smoothly? I haven’t stopped crying, bawling my soul out. It’s taken me over 5 minutes to write this paragraph.

After crying so hard, I feel oddly okay. After processing in my journal, things are much better. I think I just needed to do both. More of both lay ahead of me, however. Sometimes, you can’t stand strong or stand tall. Time to meditate.

Change in Heart

Sometimes, change needs to happen!

I went to a group this evening that surrounds the theme of “Love and Forgiveness.” It’s a very open group, and someone shared part of herself that describes many men and women and what they struggle with today. She just got out of a relationship a few weeks ago and *all* she wants is another one. She can’t stand being by herself because she wants the affection and emotional intimacy of a romantic relationship. Everyone has told her and she knows in her mind that she needs to be single for a while and get to know herself, but her heart refuses and seems out of control, in need of a relationship. What do you do about this?

The surface of this proposal is simple: don’t get in a relationship, but stay single! Easier said than done – how exactly can someone DO that? The common saying is in order to change the world (say, your behavior – stop dating for a while), you gotta change yourself first (change in heart). After all, things are how you perceive them, and most of your perceptions come from yourself through your heart and mind. However, the heart and the mind are not yourself, but extensions of yourself.

However, the first step is to change your mind (decide you want to be single) and be aware of the need to change your heart. If you haven’t decided this, then your mind will do whatever it wants to do, with the deception your broken heart to support it, and there will be no change in behavior. Also, perceptions largely determine what things are. Since you perceive things through your mind and heart, changing them can change your world and your behavior.

Practicing meditation gets me in touch with my essence that drives everything else, and helps with the process of a change in heart. While meditating, I recognize what it feels like for my heart to start to run away with something, which pulls on my mind and tries to convince me to do things I don’t truly want to do. Regular meditation leads to greater understanding of the self, mind, heart, and how they feel and relate to each other. It also brings the heart and mind closer to the self, and keeps them from going awry with time.

I’ve learned more about what drives me, what my passions are, and my place in this world after finding myself and getting to know myself. It may sound selfish, but it’s a necessary and beautiful thing to do for the sake of myself and other people.

After a change in heart, be ready to practice civil disobedience with your old ways. Civil disobedience is the idea from Thoreau in that revolutions start with very small, subtle changes. Specifically, an idea in someone’s head that goes completely against the system that needs to happen, which he or she talks about with the next, then spreads till it actually happens.

The idea of needing to remain single, say, has been planted in her mind and it needs nurturing to grow. It may grow in the easier parts of her life (though difficult in and of themselves), such as simply saying, “No,” to guys when they want to start a romantic thing. This requires a small change in heart. As time goes on and the heart becomes stronger, more independent, and healthier, the seed will sprout and grow roots in her heart from the mind. The heart begins to cooperate more with the idea in the mind.

She will start to feel less desperate to be in a relationship, and the seed will begin to grow further and produce fruit in her behavior, thoughts, deeds, and feelings. Hopefully, she will reach the point where she loves who she is, and though perhaps a little sad to be on her own, she will be able to do it on her own and live as a single for a while. This change in heart is traumatic, as is any big change. The first step is always the hardest.

I’m working on a chart purging project, and there are old charts in the downstairs cage that need to be sent to storage, along with sorting through 10+ years’ worth of old billing records. Upstairs, there are newer charts that need to go where the old charts are now downstairs, so they can add something new to the office where the new charts are currently. The cage is an absolute disaster, and change needs to happen. It’s inevitable. I had to take apart everything, and the mess was of epic proportions – there were boxes, papers, shredding bins, charts, boxes everywhere, even in the hallways! I had a hard time figuring out where to put everything when I started this project.

However, slowly but surely, things get sorted out, put away, carted away, and organized and catalogued. Now, it’s looking much more manageable, instead of an insurmountable mess. I believe change in heart is like this, too. Through meditation and exploring your heart, you can find a starting point to work from. After the starting point, a rhythm begins and it’s easier to move forward. You will know what to do from there.

A parting thought: Things will happen the way they should, not the way you want. I believe life has a way of working things out, sometimes in the harshest and most beautiful of ways. It also teaches me lessons I need to learn, when I need them most. Looking back, I am now thankful for the atrocities and their impeccable timing.

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Being a Little “Up”

My mind and heart were floating away last week...
My mind and heart were floating away last week…

This past week, I’ve noticed that my mood has been off a little bit. Other people haven’t picked up on it, which indicates I was not hypomanic or anything, but I noticed things internally.

I’m also aware of what brought this on. I recently learned my current job position is being eliminated, which caused a lot of negative stress. I’ve been staying up too late on my own and that has added fuel to the fire. I haven’t been eating very well, either, and that combined with lack of exercise can cause problems. Also, reducing my Zyprexa about three or four weeks ago may have gradually brought this on. There are other personal reasons as well I will not get into at this point.

There have been positive happenings as a result of being up. I’ve been very creative, and able to ponder my spirituality, myself, and the universe in great depth. I’ve been more witty, spontaneous, and outgoing than usual. I found I could talk much easier with people in person and didn’t think too much about being judged socially. Writing and ideas came easier to me, and my mind was much sharper. I had more energy than normal. I sometimes felt a bit euphoric. My eyes saw colors more vividly, I could notice more details, tastes were much more pronounced, and my sense of smell was better than normal. Meditation came very easily, and I could find the balances and the voice efficiently. Basically, everything was a little magnified.

However, there were negative things as well. I felt a lot more impulsive than normal, I said weird things to people that I normally wouldn’t say, and sometimes wished I could take them back. I became more obsessive about thoughts and sometimes people, concepts, ideas, things, and couldn’t stop the obsessions at will at some points. I tended to overanalyze everything and it started to drive me nuts. One example of this obsessing and analyzing was my manager who broke the news to me about my position. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and the situation at hand, which led to bad conclusions. Fortunately, I was not so “up” that I was hypomanic and didn’t actually act. It all mostly stayed in my head, but not all of it, I’m sure.

My course of action? To start going to bed on time, for one! Also, I am starting to eat healthier again and I am noticing a difference after a few days already. One night, I had to take a prn dose of extra Zyprexa to slow my mind down. Also, I need to come to terms in that this is the beginning of falling off course, so I’m not tempted to just “go with it” and fall way off course. Instead, I am being proactive and preventing the mood swing from turning into a significant one.

Meditation also helped, along with keeping my heart on a very short leash. When my heart gets carried away, the mind goes with it. When the mind gets carried away, the heart wants to skip away. When the mind or heart begin to drift away, that’s a warning sign. It’s hard to recognize, as I largely perceive things through the two.

However, I look from within myself, my center, if you will – the mind and heart are extensions of me. I am getting to know them and learn how to keep them close to me. When they drift off the ground is when other people will begin to notice and not just me, which is a place I don’t want to be. It can lead to doing things, big or small, I’ll regret doing later on.

So, keep your minds and hearts on a short leash! Learn what little nuances show up when you’re about to have an up swing. Don’t be in denial, and do something about it when you have that inkling something’s not right – it could save you from crashing and burning down the road!

If you don’t have a plan for when you’re starting to swing up towards (hypo)mania, talk with your doctors about it and come up with a preemptive strike!

photo credit: Mark J P via photopin cc

Where Is My Inner Joy?

Where is my inner joy? This question posed strongly at the end of my meditation this morning, and I felt the strong need to reflect and gather my thoughts on that question. I feel too dependent on other people and on material things to give me joy. It scares me. What I am wondering, is how I generate my inner joy on my own? Where do I turn?

Other material things? This is not an option because they are a dead end. I’ve relied on material things and it’s just another addiction process.

What about religion? Even when I was at the height of my Christian self, I still was not finding inner joy. It was more like anesthesia for the pain in my soul I had. Not until I went through my first break and was cut off from God for a long time was I able to effectively begin to find myself, and my inner joy. However, God came back and fixed my heart in my second break. That was a beautiful experience that is a strong rope holding me to my Christian beliefs and principles somewhat. I recognize a higher power, but not within the confines of traditional religion.

What about pursuing knowledge and wisdom? Doing just this is important, but does not bring inner joy to the surface by itself.

Romantic love? This is a double edged sword. I’m a romantic, to the max. But this is not the inner joy I seek, even though it’s a very big part of it. Never rely on one person to make you happy.

Jesus? I know I mentioned religion. I mean him in a spiritual sense. There is power in his name, the reference to his blood, and to the cross. Jesus was in touch with what kind of world this is, and he was in touch with whatever is out there. He did what he had to do to fulfill whatever purpose he had, and his spirit is present everywhere now. Is Jesus a source of joy in the strictly religious sense? For me, no. But he is in a spiritual sense.

All things considered, something tells me there is no joy without the presence or memories of other people and things. Everything helps with finding inner joy, as long as you don’t overdo anything. Everything must be pursued in moderation, with balance. We are wired like our Maker, and the universe; we can’t be alone with nothing, or there is no inner joy to be had.

I live in finding my purpose and living it in love with other people, in all things big and small. That is my true inner joy.

Opening Up to My Aunt

This post is on the personal side, even for me. At my extended family gathering yesterday, I had an opportunity to talk one on one with one of my aunts. We’re both introverted at heart and needed to go downstairs to recharge, where we start talking.

We start off with the topic of losing weight as that’s something we’re both striving for. This leads to a discussion of my mental health and my medications. I explain to her where I am at, and she says she had no idea because I have left her in the dark. I tell her it wasn’t her fault as she tried to reach out and I pushed her away. She says to me, that my old self became lost and I turned into a different person after my initial trauma occurred ten years ago. I agree with her, and I’m inadvertently trying to get some of the good parts back of my old self.

She’s incredibly happy that I feel the way I do about my bipolar, that it is a very small part of me that I don’t think about other than here or in private conversations from time to time. She says it seemed to define me before, but not so anymore – not at all. I also share my desire to reach a point where I can go back to school and pursue a career in writing – at least give it a shot, if you will.

She suggests that I write down my story according to exactly how I feel first, and go from there. It’s hard for me to do that, as this involves real people whom I love and are close to me, and to share that stuff with certain parties would ruin them. The main one being that my mom played a very big role in pushing me over the deep end early and initially. I know that going over the deep end would be inevitable, but that’s how things went down. My aunt points out I need to get these feelings out sometime that I hold tight to in order to protect others, that it’s not good to keep them in. I know I’ve shared plenty with my therapist, but that’s different than sharing it with family or friend.

I also realize, something I failed to tell my aunt yesterday, that I pushed her away because of other extreme extended family drama from ten years ago and I feared I would repeat that pattern by opening up to her about my feelings.

It’s taken 10 years for me to have a truly meaningful personal conversation with extended family like that. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is.