Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things: Standing on the shore...5/21/2008

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Standing on the shore...5/21/2008

So I seem to be softly and slowly moving around the corner of the perpetual funk I've been in. Not much has changed in terms of my circumstances, but I've had some time alone and it has been vital in my dealing with my life.

I have a process. Life goes belly up...I panic....I stress....my anxiety disorder brings on the kind of hell not fair even to a bad person...everything in my environment and my relationships begins swaying dangerously out of control and that aggravates the delicate balance I have going with my bipolar. The "sleeping giant" awakes and then everything that has been going on in my life in any way, shape, or form is suddenly distorted and stretched to breaking...and I am lost...small ponderings become gynormous potholes and suddenly I'm questioning my faith...my anger flows at the injustice of the world and how it pertains to me, as it increases exponentially. All of a sudden the main componants of my discomfiture have disappeared beneath the pile of crap my bipolar has been trying on and discarding...I become willing to throw eternity away along with life...and that is when I short circuit, reaching desperately for nothingness.

What I long for is what I'm running from. I know my process. I need to not look for escape but the things that bring me back to essence and meaning. I need to see God's love for me in the things that speak to me. I find it in silence and solitude. I find it in music and Edwin McCains' voice, his lyrics and sound weaving that creative magice that takes me down the trail to my soul. And slowly as the days go by, I am finding my face again. I am seeing myself in my reflection and I am understanding yet again that sometimes, much of the time, just being is what God requires of us. I have a picture on my wall of a woman standing at the water's edge while a great storm blows around her. Her hair is whipping around her, flame red and riotous. Her dress blows around her and the waves roll in, crashing at her feet. And she ist standing in serenity. I love that picture. It is a reminder to me of what life looks like and how I should look in it.

So I am allowing my mind to calm, the bipolar begins to sleep and the anxiety calms. I am able to pray again. I know God never left me, but I distance myself from Him when I am angry and struggling, trying to solve everything on my own. I need not be preached to. I know what I should and must do and not do. I have just not managed the execution. I know that God knows my heart and understands me, even when I don't understand myself. He takes me further and further into knowledge of myself in quiet and in chaos. In learning more about the world of me, I learn more about others and about the God who created me. I am still in struggle, but I plan to stand at the shore of my storm and, for once, be still drawing on serenity. Wishing calm,

Life' s little ironies

I sat on a stool at the end of the counter watching my friend, inventory merchandise she had just received for her natural foods store. We were just catching up on all the gossip in small town Powell when the door was flung wide and a woman who looked to have wandered far and away from the red light district of some other state (none of the towns in Wyoming are big enough to have red light districts) made a rather dramatic entrance.

“Sarah, where is your mother,” she asked, though it sounded more like an exclamation than a question as she hurled the words like small pebbles at my friend. She stepped forward slamming the door shut behind her, its little jingly bells that announced a new caller sounding wildly with the force. The woman took another step forward toward the counter glancing briefly my way, and then dismissing me once she had determined me of no use to her. I heard Sarah answer but what she said was lost to me as I stared in fascination at the woman.

Her hair was a very yellowed bleached blonde with dark roots of about two inches. Her makeup was thickly caked on her face, her eyes painted with frosty baby blue eye shadow. She wore a white tank top that was low cut and kept falling off one shoulder. She had on a wide black belt over her hot pink miniskirt, which was so short it hardly qualified as one. Leopard tights and high-heeled boots completed the ensemble. She was tall and thin and I had the impression of taffy having been pulled to distortion.

But it wasn’t the ensemble that had me entranced. No. It was something else. There was an energy emanating from her; a kind of frenetic-ness that had me both fascinated and frightened. She was hurling words at my friend so fast and with such force, I expected to see Sarah thrown backward from the impact as if hit by bullets. I realized I was staring openly, my mouth ajar, and quickly shut it. I felt as though I was watching a human bomb detonating right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t even concentrate on what she was saying, or even understand it for that matter. I marveled at Sarah’s composure and ability to decipher what the woman was saying, such was the speed of her dialogue.

In my mind it seems as though the conversation was lengthy, but in reality I believe it only lasted a few minutes. The woman left in the same manner she had come, throwing the door open. It swung shut with a swoosh of air, leaving a final benediction of the small jingling bells. I looked at Sarah and said, “What was the matter with that woman? She acts like she’s on drugs.”

Sarah smiled calmly, “No she’s not on drugs. She’s a friend of my mom’s. She has a mental illness called manic-depression.” (bipolar disorder)

I stared out the glass door, still able to see the woman’s retreating form. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment feeling drained and thinking, “I am so glad I don’t have that.” I was frightened by what I had witnessed and I was so relieved to know I wasn’t like her.

It wasn’t too many years later as I sat in a doctor’s office looking at the ceiling that I remembered the incident with the woman in Sarah’s shop. I was in a psychiatrist’s office and he was in the process of diagnosing me with bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depression. Generally I appreciate irony in life. It is often amusing. In this particular case, though, I was not amused.

Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Standing on the shore...5/21/2008

0 comments:

Life' s little ironies

About Me

Followers

Subscribe Now: poweredby

Product Cloud

Quick Linker

Lael on Facebook

Blog Archive