Comfort and Security

After weeks of having most of my buttons pushed I decided to take the day off. The entire weekend actually. Rather than hole myself up in my house I planned to get out and just breathe. There comes a point when I just have to take a step back from my life and most of the things in it so that I can be still enough to actually hear God. I believe that God speaks to us every day… we’re just t0o busy to listen.

There was really only one thing on my agenda for Saturday. Ok…only one thing that I absolutely had to do. Being me, I did have a tentative “To Do” list for the entire weekend, but most everything on it fell into the “Suggestions” category. Life as I know it would not end if I didn’t get things on the list done. I like to make lists and I like to check things off because it helps control my stress. At the top of my Saturday list? Get my lithium levels checked.

With all the mounting stress of the past few months I had come to an unwanted conclusion: It might be time to up my medication. My goal for 2012 was to actually have my doctor ween me off of the lithium since my dosage is not even at a therapeutic level anyway. I’ve been on it for a long time and it’s been a LONG bumpy road. I’ve had mixed feelings about taking the lithium, but it was the first thing that ever gave me some semblance of normalcy so I hesitated to kick it to the curb. My doctor has advised me to just keep taking it. I stopped taking anti-depressants in 2006 and haven’t missed them. For a season I really needed them, but when that season ended God made it clear that they could not accomplish what only he could do. Now God seems to be reminding me that medication exists for a reason and it’s ok to take advantage of it.

Before I could up my dosage my doctor wanted me to have my levels checked. Oh, joy. Some women are blessed with a tiny waists. Others have tiny ankles. Me? I got tiny veins! I’ve been getting my levels checked roughly every 3 months since 1998 and I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been told how tiny my veins are and how hard it is to find them. If you think I’ve got a million cane spider stories… I’ve got double that when I tell the stories of my misadventures with blood draws. As a result of said misadventures, I have issues with needles. Or should I say issues with medical personnel with needles??

I wasn’t exactly happy to go to the medical center first thing Saturday morning, but it needed to be done. Finding out that my doctor also ordered urine tests wasn’t fun either. Nothing like trying to pee into a cup to get your morning off to a weird start. When I sat down in the vampire chair I told the phlebotomist what I always tell the phlebotomist:

I am a difficult draw. They can never find the veins in my arms, so they take the blood out of my hand.

Yep. They take the blood out of my hand, but not until after they’ve all tried to get it out of my arms. And it’s never enough to try it in one arm and give up. They generally have to try it in both arms numerous times. It’s like I’ve presented them with a challenge and they don’t want to give up easily. I generally walk out with bandages on both arms and both hands. It is the rare phlebotomist who can get it on the first try.

True to form, she took up my challenge. She asked if I’d mind if she tried my arms first. She tried the left arm. No vein. She tried the right arm. No vein. She tried my hands. No vein. If I wasn’t absolutely positive that I was alive I’d start to wonder. She never got as far as poking me with any needles, though. I just sat there holding my breath wishing it was all over.

“God? Why does it always have to be like this?”
“When is it going to be over??”
“Can I be done now??

All of those things went through my mind and I wondered if God was listening.

Then she tried a spot halfway between my elbow and my wrist. I turned my  head away and clenched my eyes shut. I was certain that was going to hurt. Nobody had tried that spot that I could remember. I was just hoping she’d do it and get it over with without telling me that I’d just feel a “little pinch.” I wanted to give her a little pinch. Those “little pinches” are usually followed by my vein closing up and the person having to start all over again. This is generally when I start feeling lightheaded because I’ve been holding my breathe. On cue she asked me how I was doing. They always ask how I’m doing. I asked her if she was actually getting any blood. When she replied that she was, I told her that I was  doing ok.

She finished the draw and put a gauze over the spot. I could not look at her as she used another needle to transfer my blood into the small vials. I looked at a poster on the wall. I’ve seen it before, but I needed to see it again. It always reminds me of God. It reminds me that into our lives painful  things must come, but some are necessary to our health and growth. It is a poster for parents on how to hold their child when they are getting various shots. The title on the poster is in big letters:

Positions of Comfort and Security:

and it has pictures of parents holding their kids close while they get their shots. No kid likes to have blood drawn or to get immunizations. Most get scared or angry. They scream, cry, kick, and try to get away. It’s scary and painful… but necessary. The parents aren’t hurting their children, they are helping them. They are making sure they are as comfortable and secure as possible as they experience the pain. Sure, it might actually hurt, but only for a short while and the benefits of it far outweigh the momentary pain.

When I see that poster I think about how my Father, God, allows painful things into my life. Life has been rather painful of late, but I must never lose sight of the fact that my Father loves me. The pain he allows into my life has a purpose even if I do not understand it or like it.

My Father is not only aware of where I am… he’s with me.

My Father knows that I am afraid and he cares.

My Father is holding me close and is never going to let me go. And even if I get scared or angry… If I kick, scream, cry, or try to get away…  he wants only the best for me and knows what he’s doing. He is my Father and he loves me.

It was over and I hadn’t really felt any pain. That had to be a record. She got it on the first try, the vein didn’t close up, and I didn’t have a bunch of gauze taped to my limbs. If you knew my history with needles you’d understand how monumental this was. I needed to thank her. She wasn’t wearing a visible name tag, so I asked her name. Her reply made my heart jump.

Charity.

Her name was Charity.

Immediately a verse popped up in my mind:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 New International Version).

In the King James Version, the word “love” is rendered as “Charity.” You can doubt this all you want, but I believe without doubt that God sent a phlebotomist named “Love” to remind me that despite the struggles I’ve been having he loves me. He is holding me in a position of comfort and security whether I realize it or not. I fairly floated out of the clinic certain that God was going to eventually lead me through all of this and I would make it to the other side with my mental health intact. These momentary trials that I am dealing with are for my overall health and growth. God wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.

Oddly enough, later when I removed the gauze and threw it away I looked down to where Charity had drawn my blood. I bruise. When they draw blood I generally have green and purple bruises for days. There wasn’t a mark on me. I couldn’t even tell where the needle had gone in. It was amazing. My Father had held me in a position of comfort and security while Love had done what needed to be done.

The Pony….

Is having some  issues….

 

And I don’t have much to say….

Because sometimes, the less said, the better….

God is showing me that the “[wo]man in the mirror needs to make some changes…

But I’m finding it safer to just stay behind the mask and lock the door on the bubble.

Good thing I’m counting on Jesus to save me and not some pony!

 

Related articles

• Return of “The Pony” (theadventuresofbipolargirl.wordpress.com)
• http://oculoid.com/my-little-pony-by-mari-kasurinen/

Deja Vu: Do Not Suffer Fools Gladly

One of my readers read this post yesterday so I thought I’d reread it. It SO completely spoke to my current situation that I decided to reblog it. I originally posted it on November 15, 2010, but it could have been any day in the past week, thereby proving that it sometimes takes putting my finger in a socket more than once before I actually learn my lesson.

 

Do Not Suffer Fools Gladly

 

I am a fool.

It’s not a new revelation. I’ve known this for some time. And don’t let my tone fool you, I’m not being tongue-in-cheek. I’m  dead set serious which makes you wonder just how many more cliches/idioms I can possibly squeeze into my opening paragraph. Once I had a high school English teacher make a snarky comment about my use of “trite, worn out phrases” and my response was to write an entire humorous essay loaded to the gills with cliches. He couldn’t stop laughing… and I couldn’t stop laughing at him. I thought the man was a fool. Since he’d been an undertaker before becoming a teacher, I also thought he was creepy… but I digress.

Fools. Most of us have little patience for them. We mock them. We try to avoid them. We use them as cautionary tales for our young. Few, if any of us, like to admit when we do something foolish or worse... admit that we are, in fact, fools.

This morning I had to meditate on scripture because I was in a bad mood when I woke up. Tense. I gave up trying to sleep at 4:30. Eventually, I ended up reading an old blog post back from when I first moved in to my place to remember just how far I’d come and how happy I was. By the time I left for work I was in a good mood, but that mood slowly got eroded away as I had to deal with stressor after stressor culminating in a staff meeting. I am anti-meeting. They generally go longer than they have to and don’t accomplish as much as they could. I was in a royal snit when I left and by the time I got home (8 minutes later) I was grumbling from the car to the front door and just wanted to start slamming things. I laid on my bed and tried to massage the cramp in my leg that has been getting worse since yesterday and I tried repeating that verse I’ve memorized on not being anxious… but even as I said it the anger rolling off my words was not lost on me. I tried praying… but the anger ringing in my ears was disturbing. If I could hear it, God certainly didn’t miss it and I learned a long time ago that being snappy and demanding with God gets you nowhere fast.

And that’s when I remembered one of the “sword” fighting tips from long ago. God gave me this verse years ago and it comes to me when I least expect it, but need it most:

The end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit because anger resides in the laps of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

Does it get any clearer?? Things have been pushing my buttons all day and rather than be still and pray about it… I take the low road. I get mad. And I don’t just get mad, I stay mad. So anger doesn’t just “reside” in my lap, it’s taken out a 30 year mortgage! Being angry all the time was a hallmark of Bipolar Girl up until recently. Unaddressed anger has taken me to some very dark places. All this waiting is getting to me. Work? God said, “Wait.” My health? God said, “Wait.” You name the area and God’s response has been, “Wait.” But I don’t want to wait. I want to move.  I want to get on with the rest of my life now that I’m not actively mental and they removed the uber-uterus. But I’ve learned my lesson about running ahead of God. I might be a fool, but I’m not stupid. This is where I have to really think about what that verse means and whether or not I really believe it. That would make waiting a lot easier and probably take the sting out of my anger.

Right now I have absolutely NO control over anything happening in my life. I have to wait… but waiting in anger is the same as not waiting at all. By being angry I’m telling God that my plan would somehow be better than his plan… but when you hear that out loud you can’t help but realize how stupid that sounds. I’m still mad, but blogging has helped me. My anger has downgraded to frustration. And you can reason with frustration. Anger tends to be blind and deaf. Maybe tomorrow when I go to work if I let God adjust my attitude I won’t do a slow tango with anger. Maybe I’ll stand up and pick up my sword and slice my pride and my impatience to shreds and stop anger before it starts building a second floor skylight. My students might make me mad with their immature antics… but if I come home dwelling on the anger, who’s the fool? God doesn’t suffer fools gladly and I don’t want to either. Especially when the fool is looking at me in the mirror.

Comfort #4: The Reason

First, I’d like to say that I wasn’t going to go in this direction at all with this series. I wanted it to be a reflection back on things that have been comforts to me over the years that could apply to anybody — whether you had a mental illness (like I do) or not… and whether you were a Christian (like I am) or not. So I purposely didn’t talk about stuff like getting medication, because if you don’t have one “medication” becomes illicit drugs and that’s illegal. I also didn’t want to go the God route because not everybody who reads my blog is a Christian so I wanted comforts that the non-believer could relate to.

Personally, I don’t understand why non-believers read my blog since I’m so un-apologetically  Christian and my blog fairly oozes most times, but they do. Knowing this I wanted to put out the top five comforts that really could apply to the “neurotic in all of us.”

That song, “The Reason” and the events of the last few days made me see that I’d be less than honest if I left out the real reason for any comfort that I have received as I’ve struggled with my mental illness. Jesus IS the reason for any and all comfort that I’ve received and the source of all comfort that I can provide other people:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 2Corinthians 1:3-6

When I was suicidal I used to wonder about this. Where the hell was this “God of All Comfort?” He sure as heck seemed to be absent from my universe. When I was in the grips of my sexual addiction and violating all my values, why wasn’t this “God of All Comfort” comforting me?? Where was he when I was molested? Or when my dad tried to kill me with a butcher knife?? Or when my mom told me that my Christianity was a lie and that she didn’t want my prayers?? Those things hurt me and I could have used major comfort… like his audible voice… or some smiting. Instead God kept sending more trials my way that I despaired of life. I was certain that I’d commit suicide before I was thirty years old.

I actually wrote a paper in college saying just that.
Scared the everlasting gobbstoppers out of the professor.

It is a comfort to me that I am not dead now. Especially since I’m way past 30. With some of the things that I’ve done, I should be dead but for the grace of God. The best thing I ever did in my life was to hit bottom and look up. My first pastor used to say that Jesus hangs out at the end of ropes — because people generally have to be at the end of theirs before they will call out to him. That was me. Prideful to extremes. I didn’t think I needed God. I’d seen enough of him in church growing up to know that he was no good. Having my nephew murdered my first year at Berkeley cemented my belief that God was either powerless, evil, or imaginary. Whatever comfort this “god” could offer I did not want any of it.

It would be four years after college that I reached the end of myself. When I hit bottom I called out to Jesus and he caught me. But that didn’t make my mental illness go away or any of the problems that I had before I became a Christian. In fact, some things got worse. I was now working out of a different play book. The rules had changed and some things that weren’t issues for me when I was a non-believer, became big fat flamin’ issues once I met Jesus. The whole sexual addiction thing bothered me before I became a believer, but knowing that I was called to a life of purity that I personally couldn’t sustain was not a comfort for me. I felt like a pervert on most days, a nympho on others, and a lying hypocrite on all.

There were short seasons of comfort… usually because God sent some Christian into my life to help carry my burden. He also sent Christians who loved me and provided for my needs in his name. That was a comfort. Once, this pastor who was the father of a friend just sent me money out of the blue. Enough money to buy my medication when my paycheck wouldn’t stretch to cover it. That was a HUGE comfort. Jesus has sent people to listen to me. People to pray for me. People to stand with me when I could not stand life anymore.

Now I’m at the healthiest point I’ve ever been in my life. My mental illness seems to be in remission. My spiritual health is at an all time high thanks to that intense prayer counseling. My financial house is in order and I accept that my physical health is as good as it’s going to get right now. God has used people to comfort me in more ways than I can count because the body of Christ extends everywhere I could imagine living. No matter where I go, Jesus will send Christians there to comfort me in his name.

Jesus.

To many people around the world that name alone is a comfort. To others it is a named to be mocked and reviled. To those people who would treat this comfort that way, I wonder… have they ever sought to really know him? So many hurting people the world over are missing out on the comfort that only Jesus can give. They say that they know enough about him to know they want nothing from him. I used to be like that. What turned my life around? I started looking for truth. Literally. I decided that the only way my life would change was if I went on a search for truth and didn’t stop until I found it.

I am a firm believer in people searching for truth and not God… because people believe in a lot of stuff masquerading as God that couldn’t be any further from the truth. I tried to find comfort in erotica/porn, romance, men and sexual relationships, alcohol, academics success, and a bunch of other things that were no real comfort at all. And when I finally met Jesus, I erroneously believed like many people do, that he would do a mojo and make all my problems go away. Jesus never promised that. In fact, he promised that we would have trials in this life, but that he had overcome them. Jesus helps me overcome my trials and there is much comfort to be found in that.

If you are searching for comfort and don’t yet know Jesus… what’s stopping you? We live in a western country. There is a McChurch on just about ever other corner. The net is full of churchy websites and religious blogs like mine. This is not rocket science, but neither is it Russian Roulette where you spin around until you land on a church. Playing that game with churches is just as dangerous as playing with guns. Lots of cults talk a good “God game.” How can you find that comfort of which I speak without ending up with more than you bargained for??

1. Talk to Jesus: You got issues with him?? Tell him. He already knows anyway.
2. Open a bible: Read the book of Matthew. You want to meet Jesus?? Here he is: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201:%2018-&version=NIV1984
3. Commit yourself to a search for truth: Even if you aren’t a believer, if you sincerely look for truth…  you will find Jesus at the end of that journey. He says that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I do not apologize with this blatant plug for Jesus. Yes, the meds have been a comfort. The therapy has too… and all those other things that I put in the last few posts as well, but without Jesus I would have had no real and lasting comfort and neither will you. Jesus is the only guaranteed source of comfort for the “neurotic in all of of us”… if you don’t believe me, investigate him in the the New Testament and find out for yourself.

 

Comfort # 2.5

With all the emotional drama of Wednesday night, it’s a wonder I didn’t have horrible nightmares. I believe without doubt that it was because God answers all the fervent prayers lifted up for me by friends. God gave me such clarity that I knew exactly what I needed to do because God used a lesson that I hadn’t learned in the past.

One of the biggest, unresolved conflicts in my life is with a Christian leader. She hurt me pretty badly and if you were to hear just my side of the story you’d think she was a really horrible person. Oh, I knew she wasn’t horrible. She was actually quite a good person but I hated her. The wound that often hurt the most are the ones caused by “good” people. To this day she does not think that she did anything wrong and, in my eyes, that was worse than the original offense. There I was emotionally scarred and spiritually battered and she had no clue. And even when I brought the matter to her attention, she still maintained that she hadn’t done anything wrong. That response ignited a burning wall of rage and resentment in me that I’ve been nursing ever since. I know that forgiveness is an event and a process. I have forgiven her, but the healing is taking a long time. I keep wondering when I’m going to get to the end of this process and not feel the pain.

In the wee hours of the morning, God used the current drama with this co-worker to shed light on that old wound. When my co-worker left the room we both thought everything was ok. She asked if we were good and I said that we were. I had no idea that meltdown was right below the surface. I didn’t lie to her. I think I lied to myself first and God only let me see the truth once she was gone. I wasn’t angry. I was afraid. Anger is a secondary emotion. As this pushy co-worker kept demanding more of my time, resources, and thoughts I could feel the boundaries of my mental health being transgressed. I’d been struggling for the past month with work triggered nightmares and the stress of trying to hold it all together. Thoughts of quitting my job had crossed my mind. Mental health is the answer to nearly two decades of prayer and over three decades of searching. As far as I was concerned, I would not surrender it passively.

This woman was a threat to my mental health and I was afraid.

 

Good Christian people will tell me that I shouldn’t fear this. And I would tell God Christian people to shut up and speak not about what they know not. I spent the last twenty-five years in a deep dark pit fighting for my life against an enemy that wore my own face. I wouldn’t wish that on any of the people who have left emotional, mental, or spiritual scars on me. Imagine the worst day you’ve ever had and intensify it by a hundred and then live it every day for twenty-five years. Come May it will be two years since I last battled with the depression and the suicidal ideation. I praise God every day for that no matter what is happening in my life. But there has always been this fear at the back of my mind… that something might trigger the depression and God will let me fall back into the pit. And before all those well meaning Christians chime in to tell me not to fear that… if people whose cancer has been in remission can get it again… what makes me think I’m so immune? Bipolar can kill just as surely as cancer. And now that I’ve tasted and seen that the Lord IS good… I want to live. Rational or not, the fear is there and God used this conflict with the co-worker to reveal it to me.

It would have been easy to learn that part of the lesson then try to put the whole incident behind me. Lord KNOWS I hate the clean up that comes after a meltdown. I’m not embarrassed that I have a mental illness… but I tend to get embarrassed when I act like I have one. I didn’t have my meltdown at work, but I was embarrassed about crying in front of this woman. I didn’t want to talk to her about it. I considered putting on the “I’m OK mask” and faking like things were ok and that’s when God reminded me of that other woman who hurt me in the past. That particular drama was epic and because I believe that conflict is inevitable and that God gives us biblical ways to handle it, she and I had one of those cathartic talks where we cleared the air. We even hugged in the end. The only thing missing was us sitting in a campfire braiding each others hair, singing “Kumbaya.” When I left her she thought we were ok. I did too.

I didn’t count on having a meltdown afterwards. I didn’t count on having a really intense negative reaction to her the next time I encountered her. It was like I was having a delayed reaction and I was embarrassed by it. What kind of Christian was it that I couldn’t just forgive her and get over it?? She was ok. Why couldn’t I be ok???

Because she wasn’t the one who’d gotten hurt and was carrying the wounds. Without help to deal with the spiritual wounding I retreated deeper into the Bipolar Bubble. I also couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see that I wasn’t ok… especially since there were still some current issues that had been left unresolved. It was only when I did that intense prayer counseling that I was able to really address that wounding.

 

But it wasn’t until the other morning that God showed me that some of that wounding came at my own hands. I should have told her that I wasn’t ok. It would have involved more talking and more prayer. It might have taken a lot more talking and a lot more prayer… but the pain wasn’t going to go away if I shoved it under a dirty band aid and hoped it didn’t fester. Well, it did fester. It turned into a ball of rage wrapped in resentment and bitterness. I couldn’t even look at her without being consumed by rage. It would have been difficult to tell her that I wasn’t ok, but if I’d said what I should have said, things might have turned out differently. That conflict changed the entire course of my life, which God actually did  use for my good… but there is still this unresolved conflict that I don’t think will ever be resolved.

That altered how I viewed this current conflict. As much as I just wanted to avoid her, I needed to let her know that I was not ok. I had a whole speech planned. That morning I went in and talked to our supervisor and told her the whole sorry mess. I also told her that I didn’t want her to try to fix it — that I needed to do the godly thing. I told her how I’d gotten prayer and how I’d sought God’s counsel and I knew that I needed to talk to the co-worker. It was more than  “SWYNTS.” It was “say what you have to say.”

In the end, she came to talk to me and asked how I was feeling. I looked her in the eyes and told her the truth. Short and to the point (minus the speech) but I let her know that I wasn’t ok. We talked more and cleared more air. We would need to continue communicating if things were to stay resolved. I knew that it I had done the right thing. I still don’t like her… but I am able to work with her without fearing for my sanity. God used the present pain to help heal a wound of the past. All this time I’ve been blaming that original woman, playing the role of “Victim”… not knowing or trusting  that speaking up again could have made a difference.

Things are still pretty chaotic at work, but I’m handling the stress better than I would have thought possible. God has been comforting me more than I deserve and I am forever grateful. There was more… but I’m way past my 1300 word limit. I guess I’ll end with: When you seek comfort in prayer, don’t be surprised when God answers. That’s what he does.

 

Related articles

• Comfort #2: Neurotics Need Prayer Too (theadventuresofbipolargirl.wordpress.com)
• Say Say Say (theadventuresofbipolargirl.wordpress.com)

Comfort for the Neurotic in All of Us

Most of the people who used to read my original blog back in 2004 were drawn by the title because they, themselves struggled with some sort of depression. Misery loves company… so finding out that you’re not the only person that deals with dark days is comforting. Back then, it always felt like nobody understood and that made the darkness all the worse. Blogging helped shed light into my darkness.

Over the years I came to understand that while not everybody suffers from a mental illness, everybody has challenges in life. Some people will be motivated by the “Super Heroes of Adversity” — people who lose body parts and get movies made of their lives. While other people will be motivated by the lives of people like me — every day people who haven’t done anything spectacular, but who deal with life and all of its challenges in faith. It wasn’t until I attended my last Hawaii Writers Conference that I added the tag line (Comfort for the Neurotic in All of Us) because I finally realized that you don’t have to have a mental illness to take comfort in the things that God has taught me. I also realized that you don’t even have to be a Christian to take comfort in God’s truths because truth is truth no matter what you believe.

There are some things that I learned along the way that I’d like to condense and share now. Not sure if this is going to fully evolve into a line of thought or if it’s going to be a one hit wonder…. but for what it’s worth, here are some things I have found that comforted me through the difficulties of life; things that I think could comfort the “neurotic in all of us” and let’s face it… if we’re honest, we are all a little neurotic. Only thing is, some of us have to take prescriptions for it.

Comfort #1: Find an Outlet.

Not THAT kinda outlet.

For me, my outlet was blogging. I’d been journaling for years and had a mountain of journals to prove it. That was helpful... but there was still all this darkness bottled up inside me that was oozing out of my pores. I needed a safety valve to help let off some of the pressure.  I’d tried therapy for years and only had minimal relief. I was put on meds in 1998 and that helped some, but nothing helped me like being able to pour out my soul to a faceless, nameless audience of people who cared enough to read. There were no string attached and nobody expected more than I could give. The loneliness that had shadowed me around like a phantom would evaporate when I sat down at my laptop to express what was on my mind. I’m not trying to act like I’m the poster girl for Bipolar. I can only speak of my own experience, but having an outlet for what I was living and feeling had the biggest impact on my life. Blogging saved my life. Because of my depression and my basic personality, I leaned heavily towards isolation. And isolation and depression are a dangerous combination. Yet even in a crowd I could be painfully alone because I never let people in enough to know what I felt.

In my original blog I could just feel. I didn’t concern myself with what other people might think or what pictures to add or how to express my point so that people would get it. I just wrote what needed to get out. I still maintain that blogging is the best free therapy to be found. It offers something that journaling to yourself can never provide: other people. Real human contact with people who care enough to read. Personally, I think everybody should blog no matter what their writing ability is. We all have a story to tell. There are lessons to learn from every life that was ever lived so if you never take the time to record your story… who will read of it when you are gone?

Worried about what people will think? Blog anonymously. I did that up until 2009 then I started inviting all my friends and church family to read it. That was weird and still takes some getting used to especially since I’m pretty open about my struggles with mental illness, sexual addiction, and porn. But it’s weirder for me than it is for the people I know because not one of them treats me any differently now that they know. If anything it has taken a King Kong sized monkey of fear and shame off of my back.

Things bothering you that you can’t keep in your head?? Not able to express them to the people concerned? Find a place to blog and exorcise your inner demons. Why not?? It’s free. Don’t have time?? What about all that time you lose worrying and stressing?? Don’t mention names or details that will later come back to haunt you. And don’t tell your friends and family if you don’t want people to know… but holding it in and trying to be all stoic never really helped anybody. Is it really helping you??

Gone are the days where I needed to blog several times a day… or in the wee hours as I fled a nightmare. Now I blog when I feel like I have something I want to say. I am more the master of my own thoughts than I’ve ever been… and that right there gives me comfort.

 

 

Next time:

Comfort #2 ???

 

I Feel Good

‘nough said.

Is Too Much Honesty Bad for Mental Health?

The other day I told my boss actual details about my history with Bipolar Disorder than I’d ever planned to tell her. I felt like I needed to because of something that she is asking me to do at work. It has the potential to really set me off. Now she seems distant. Is it because of all the stress of ending our school year and sending the students home? Or is it because I shared too much information and she’s questioning her decision to hire me? I won’t have a chance to ask her until next week and it’s getting in my head. It feels awkward when I run into her. I don’t like awkward. I lose sleep over awkward.

Two days ago I told the Christian counselor via email exactly how her latest request made me feel. She wants me to read a  book by an author who does not adhere to secular labels like Bipolar Disorder. That was what upset me in my last post. I have had it with Christians who completely dismiss mental illness and say that if I just pray harder, repent more, or believe whatever Christianese jargon they are pushing that I will be ok. Been there. And I haven’t been ok afterwards. That kind of stuff has messed me up in the past and pushed my suicidal buttons. Such teaching is a dangerous road and being told that I need to face that road again before I do this counseling was the last straw. To come so far and then to face an immovable wall? I lost it. I am not reading that book. IF it were shorter I might just suck it up and read it, but it will take me over a month read it. One month where every time I pick it up my buttons get mashed. I’d be giving depression, fear, rage, and suicidal thoughts entry to my mind every day. One month where I’d have to struggle to pull myself together enough to try to function like a normal person. That isn’t even considering the other book on sexual abuse healing that she wants me to read. That one is sure to bring up issues.

Which brings to mind a question: should I have kept my mouth shut? Should I have kept my boss in the dark about work related triggers for my Bipolar? I’m not actively struggling with suicidal thoughts or really deep depression now. Maybe I would’ve  handled these upcoming triggers differently. And maybe I should have maintained a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with the counselor, because now she’s saying that maybe the counseling isn’t for now.

It’s like being prepped for surgery and then having the surgeon tell you just before the anesthesia that it’s a no go. I have no idea where to go from here. She hasn’t  actually said that she wouldn’t counsel me, but it put me in a position where I actually had to ask her to do it. How can I so vehemently want to do something that I don’t want to do?? Their process is driving me crazy. I feel like all my innards have been dragged out of me and placed on a table in front of me — so much of my baggage is laying open and exposed to the light of day that I have no idea what to feel, what to think, or what to do.

The whole social song and dance where people don’t say what they mean? I’ve never learned the steps to that dance and I appear to be singing off key. If honesty is the best policy why to do I feel so distraught now?

Mental Illness in the Workplace…

Whenever I post, I try to be mindful of the fact that I’m speaking from personal experience. I never want to come off like I’m an expert because there is no PhD. behind my name. The only credential I have to write what I do is life. My life. I don’t intend to set myself up as the poster child for Bipolar or the mouth piece for Christians with Bipolar. I am a Christian who has struggled with Bipolar Disorder for all of her adult life, and with 42 years under my belt, I’ve lived a lot of life.Yet, if I try to take credit for anything I lie. It is only by the grace of God, the presence of Jesus Christ in my life that I am who I am. In the effort to tell his story, I hope that my readers never get confused and think that it is about me. It isn’t. It is about what he wants people see about how he works in the lives of his people. Even the ones with messy, convoluted lives like mine.

When I write about “mental illness in the workplace” I’m talking about my mental illness in my workplace. If anybody can glean anything worthwhile from whatever I write, then I’m happy. If by watching the way that I walk through things with the Lord helps another Christian navigate the choppy waters of faith laced with mental illness, then writing this blog serves a purpose beyond giving me an outlet. This is not a how to blog. It’s more like a “Who to”  blog. Who to go to when your life is out of your control and to go to him I have had to be honest and transparent about who I am.

Honesty and transparency used to be hard for me. I used to hide my mental illness because I was afraid of what people would do when they found out. Over the years I have learned that half-truths and whatever the opposite of transparency is doesn’t accomplish much. Hiding always seems to imply that there is something bad behind you and I hate that feeling where you have to look over your shoulder or watch your back. Over the years I got into the habit of telling people in my workplace who I thought I could trust that I had Bipolar Disorder. If something happened with my meds or I was in crisis, they would be living med-alert bracelets. Sometimes this has been a good thing. Other times it turned out to be an epic mistake. But if I let the few times that it was a mistake dim the fact that when it was good, it was very good… then I’m shutting myself off from support and relationships that could be mutually edifying.

Yesterday I had to talk to my boss about something that I was being asked to do that I thought might trigger an bad episode. There was no way around talking to her and no way out of what I was being asked. I tried to send her an email from work on Friday and would you believe that my computer died right at the end of the email?? It was hard enough writing it, but to have it disappear into whatever hole stuff goes into cyberspace right before my very eyes was hard. Personally, I thought God was telling me that  an email was not going to work; face-to-face was the only way. And would you believe that my boss came in to see me yesterday before work and asked could we meet about whatever it was I’d wanted to talk to her about? I didn’t even have time to think about what I needed to say to her. No carefully crafted email.

When we met I had to disclose more about my disorder than I had planned and it led us into a conversation that I hadn’t planned to have with my boss. I ended up telling her about the counseling. If she was a believer it might have come up sooner, but she’s not and if it sounds weird to me, I could only imagine what it must have sounded like to her. Actually, I didn’t have to wonder for too long. She was all for the idea! She said that if I needed to do it, she was behind me! I had to make sure that she did understand that it was intensive Christian prayer counseling. But she neither blinked an eye nor batted an eyelid in giving her support to me getting what I needed, even if I needed to use work time to do it.

I have been so worried about this counseling affecting my ability to function so that I wouldn’t be able to do my job, but in reality, now is the perfect time to do it. This job is the best environment in which to do this counseling. I am respected and accepted at this job. I have a supportive supervisor and colleagues who I can talk to plus, there are even a few Christians there to whom I can turn to for prayer. With that realization in mind, is it any wonder that my former pastor emails me this morning and tells me to keep him posted as to how the counseling is going? Or that one of the women who is supporting me through this process with prayer emailed me this morning and gave me a scripture that I’d been looking for on Sunday that encouraged me to continue to move forward and to not be fearful or discouraged?

God used all of that to bring me to this fork in the road. They can’t all be wrong. Am I going to listen and stop mentally resisting this or am I going to keep trying to do it my way? All the significant people in my life (including my non-believing boss) think that I should do this counseling. What am I waiting for?? The stars to align? When I call the counselor today I need to set aside what is rapidly beginning to look like pride and ask what she recommends I do in terms of the scheduling. I’ve been so intent on what I want and what I think and what I think I need… that I’ve let fear (recycled as unbelief) control my actions. I have so much support in my life… from my friends, both my churches, and my work… that it is time to move forward even if God does not pave the road. There is no way to predict what this counseling will look like, but if I continue to be honest and transparent with my friends and loved ones and to trust God to work through all of them… then no matter how bumpy the road is… it will have been one well worth traveling.

*Of course, when it does get bumpy I’m going to need somebody to remind me that I am taking this path by choice because I believe that it is the right path to take.

I Am NOT a Rock. I Am NOT an Island

**Warning: Editing not included! I’m exhausted and am grammatically impaired.

 

The good moods bear noting. If I were to go over all the blog posts I’ve keep since I started blogging back in 2004, I would see that most of them were written when I was upset. If “misery loves company” is true, the one can say that misery is obsessed with the internet. So many people (myself included) sit down at the keyboard when they are alone, lonely, and feeling things bottling up that they cannot express to another person. Maybe there are no other people to listen. Years ago before I got diagnosed, I’d gotten to the point where I’d burned most of my friends out. They had tried listening to me and supporting me and got tired of having to go through the cycles with me only to see me repeat the cycle when they thought I should have gotten better.

I think it was back then that I started to think that being an island had merits. You can’t be hurt when people abandon you if you don’t let them in in the first place. And for me, being an island wasn’t enough. I had to go an move to an island, thereby making isolation a geographical reality as well.

Tonight I am reminded that isolation is not always good or healthy. I’m in a good mood tonight. I had a busy productive day at work — my supervisor even came in for an unscheduled observation. Normally, I hate being observed, but my class was on track. I was doing my best. I was cranked out when I got home… but when I walked into the door, I reminded myself that I wasn’t in a bad mood. I was just tired and hungry. EVERYBODY feels that at some point. Learning to differentiate between what is a mood and what is a cry for dinner is a good thing. I felt heaps better after I ate.

I could have happily watched videos until it was time to go to bed. Netflix has become a staple in my home.

Tonight I stepped out of  my norm. I didn’t watch videos and I didn’t put my earplugs in. I turned on my cellphone and called a friend who just moved to the mainland. The phone is a personal quirk for me. I don’t like to use the phone. I have 450 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends… and every month I use about 14 minutes. I hate talking on the phone and only have a cell in case I have car trouble or I get attacked by a biker gang or something horrible like that. My friends don’t even call me because they know my phone isn’t going to be on. Not using the phone that I have helps to keep the walls of the bubble intact. It also keeps people who I might want to let in, out. I used to blog because I’d kept people out for so long that nobody dared come near me.  I was lonely and I didn’t know how to change things.

Now? I realize I need more personal space than the average bear. I LOVE living alone and don’t plan on having another housemate unless I’m getting married. If I want people in my life I’m going to have to invite them in. The person I called tonight is very dear to me. I needed to talk to her because talking to her enriches my life. Would you believe that we talked for nearly an hour?? It was almost like she hadn’t moved an ocean away. Who knew that telephones could be so cool? I was on a natural high when we got off the phone. I was so buoyant that one phone call was not going to do it. I called another friend and made a breakfast date for Saturday. I ended up texting somebody ( I rarely do that) and we ended up talking on the phone for a while. It was awesome. Instead of feeling drained from the conversations I was feeling energized by them.

For so many years I have tried to keep people from getting close to me. I didn’t want them to see the depths of my mental illness or my sexual addiction. I was tired of fending off well-meaning advice from people who really had no clue what Bipolar was doing to me and my mind. I became an island like in the Simon and Garfunkel song:

Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Right now with this counseling coming up and all my buttons having been pushed, I need a lot more personal space than normal… but I also need people. I wish I could have learned how to express my needs to my friends back in the day the way I’ve learned to express them now. All of my friends I called tonight know about my past struggles with Bipolar. They were there for me during the worst of it. But they also know that I’m not struggling with it anymore and they want to be a part of that part of my life as well. And since I live alone and never turn on my phone, it was up to me to reach out of my bubble and connect with people. I am SO glad that I did. Living alone is a good thing for me, but isolation is not. All week I have felt like something was missing. Today I realized that it was human contact. And not the kind I get at work. I needed to talk to people who really care about me and my well-being. People who I also cared about and had formed relationships. That song might have catchy lyrics, but being an island sucks.

I might not know how to relate to people yet, but I have to keep trying. My steps might seem small to most people — picking up a phone. But if you saw how stressed out I get when I have to use my phone, you might understand how big of a step that was for me. Not just one conversation, but three?? I am NOT an rock! I am NOT an island.