I haven’t wanted to blog here since my last post. This open transparency stuff leaves a lot to be desired when people who read this actually know who I am in real life. When I was just Bipolar Girl back in the early days of my blogging career, I poured out everything in my blog. As soon as I woke up I poured out the thoughts that were in my mind. Most people wake up with a full bladder. Me? I got the double whammy: a full bladder and an overflowing mind. Since nobody knew who I was, I could say pretty much what I wanted without worrying what people would think of me. It’s hard to project an image that I’ve got my act together when people read that I’m having suicidal thoughts and then see me in church on Sunday. What do you say to that?

So for a few days atleast, I pulled inward. I do that bubble thing that Bipolar Girl is known for. I didn’t want to tell anybody anything. After spending my entire adult life on the suicide rollercoaster, even I get tired of hearing it. The only thing this time is the more I isolated myself from other people, the stronger the thoughts of suicide got. It’s like they seemed to be the most rational thing in the world. The natural conclusion to my life’s struggle.

The way I see it now… I was in the middle of a circle of dragons getting my spiritual butt kicked. The more I focused on what was wrong with my life the bigger the dragons got. To deal with some of them I got in the habit of sleeping with this small red bible that I have. I’ve had it since high school, before I’d even accepted Jesus. The beat up little bible is dog eared and marked up now that I’ve been walking with Jesus for some time, but as far as being a weapon, it didn’t serve me well this go around. Or maybe I should say that I didn’t serve it well. The Bible calls the word of God a sword. Able to kick some serious spiritual butt when handled correctly. Handled incorrectly, you could do a lot of damage to yourself or somebody else.

Me? I like movies with swords. Or even if I don’t like the actual movie itself, I love the sword fighting. One common notion in all of the sword fighting movies that I’ve ever watched over the course of my entire lifetime, is that in order for the hero to defeat evil with his sword… he has to know how to use it. He has to train with it.

So what do I do? I sleep with my bible. Ok. It sounded like a good idea at the time and it did prove affective in confronting some drags, but when the stress go really high, I put my little red bible on the nightstand and told God I was tired of fighting a losing battle. In the movies. all good soldiers would sleep with their swords or light sabers or whatever sword like weapon they had so that they could slice and dice the enemy trying to sneak up on them. So my idea wasn’t so far fetched afterall. But what good is a weapon that you don’t know how to use?

So much of what is going on with me is spiritual. Having Bipolar Disorder doesn’t help matters… but I doubt with every fiber in my being that this current trial or any of the trials leading up to this situation I find myself in has anything to do with my bipolar. When I take a step back and look at the entire journey thus far, I see God’s hand leading me to such a time as this. And I can either have faith and walk through it, or I can punk out. Suicide is punking out. I can say this because I struggle with suicidal tendencies. I REALLY would discourage anybody reading this to take that approach with somebody who is struggling. You just might find yourself mentioned in a suicide not and not in a good way.

Mainstream secular therapy cannot help me at this point. Don’t get me wrong. I am not dismissing the benefits of modern psychology. For the better part of a decade I had fair to really good therapists who helped me deal with my illness when the church was still in total ignorance to the needs of the mentally ill believer. But keeping my mental health in the hands of people who deny the spiritual connection to mental health at best and who deny my God outright at worst… is not something I intend to do. Besides, image me going to a doctor last week saying that Jesus told me to quit my job and that Satan and a bunch of dragons have been terrorizing me. I’ve heard that the psych ward here is very comfortable… but I don’t want to experience it first hand.

Why is it that mentally stable Christians can talk freely about spiritual warfare, Satan attacking our minds, and God speaking to them and nobody questions it but if Bipolar Girl says stuff like that people ask if I’ve taken my meds? I only doubt the path I’m on when other believers start doubting that Bipolar Girl could actually be hearing from God. I also get a bit iffy when I think about how insane I’d sound if I did try to explain it to a secular therapist. So with all these fears of judgment swarming around me the circle of dragons just got bigger. I thought being  jobless was at the center of it but the dawning awarness has been that it isn’t a lack of a job that has me so strung out although that’s not helping. It’s lack of an identity. Not knowing who I am in Christ or why he made me or how he could use me given all my many failures… that’s at the root of my problems. Having a job won’t change the fact that I see myself as broken and useless. Only God can change that and only if I actually open my bible and see what he has to say about me. I may not know who I am but he sure does.

While I was in the middle of the fray getting trashed by dragons some other Christians came to my defense and spoke truth to me in ways that I could hear it; ways that wouldn’t cause more damage. I’m happy to say that the suicidal thoughts receded back into whatever cave they slithered out of… but I do not delude myself into thinking that they won’t come back. I need to know what God has to say about who I am and I need to seek out that truth in his work. It’s not just enough to read it either. I have to believe it even though I might feel differently. Since God can’t lie… my feelings and my past experiences and the harsh judgments of others must be the lies. I can’t just hold on to my sword and think I’ve accomplished something. If I want to be able to strike down those suicidal thoughts the next time they begin to circle me… I need to know how to use my sword.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• The Princess and the Sword
• The Director’s Cut w/Deleted Scenes
• Sell Your Coat and Buy a Sword!
• The armor of God – what is the sword? (part 2)