As The Pendulum Swings

"Therefore I Tell You, Do Not Worry About Your Life, What You Will Eat Or Drink; Or About Your Body, What You Will Wear. Is Life Not More Important Then Food And The Body More Important Then Clothes? Look At The Birds Of The Air; They Do Not Sow Or Reap Or Store Away In Barns, And Yet Your Heavenly Father Feeds Them. Are You Not Much More Valuable Then They? Who Of You By Worrying Can Add A Single Hour To This Life?"

Matthew 6:25-27

I have covered part of living with bi-polar before however since it is a big part of my life, I am going to be revisiting it here....

I am actually going to try to go deeper then I ever have before...

I can give you the definition...

I can tell you what possibly happens to me...

I can even tell you how I react...

Today I am going to tell you what it feels like to live in my skin - In my mind.

To be perfectly honest, I miss the manic stage...

I do not however miss the depressive stage...

I am going to take this back to my last episode...

Before I found out about the cheating...

Before I had confirmation of another woman...

Before life as I knew it would soon be over...

Right before he almost shattered my mind into a million pieces...

If you follow my blog, you know the symptoms of bi-polar...

I try to educate the people in my life about it since for some stupid reason people either think it is really cool to have or they are scared I am going to kill them...

I am not Emo...

Though technically I could be...

I do live through music, I tend to gravitate towards loneliness, I prefer the color black, I love to write and I am a cutter (though reforming day by day)...

However that is just a small part of me...

It isn't all of me...

Bi-polar isn't all of me either...

It is a small part of me as well...

It doesn't define me...

For so long it did and when I think of all the years I spent fighting against it, instead of with it, I want to cry...

However that is part of the learning path I have been placed on...

Yes I screwed up however I won't allow it to hold me back any longer...

February 2009...

My last manic episode prior to accepting medication finally...

The highest I have ever been and the lowest I have ever fallen...

I knew something was off however I couldn't put my finger on it...

Something within my household as well as within me...

I was sleeping about 3 hours a night and mad at even wasting time sleeping in those 3 hours...

I was talking a hundred miles an hour yet it wasn't anything of substance...

I couldn't focus on anything not my boys, my job, my writing...

My mind was racing in a way it had never done before and I couldn't catch a thought if you gave me money...

At first I didn't tell my husband because prior to this, I welcomed the high...

After the first 2 weeks, the high seemed just out of reach and I was quickly becoming a basket case...

I went down to sleeping maybe an hour or 2 a night...

I wasn't eating and if I did eat, it wasn't anything healthy, just enough to keep me moving...

I couldn't sit still to save my life, how I got any work done is beyond me...

I was locked within my racing thoughts and didn't know how to get out...

I was so hostile to anyone within my reach because I couldn't reach the high I was seeking...

I hated everyone - Everyone.

No matter who you were, you were fair game...

I was irritable in a way I have never been before...

The high was supposed to make me fly so to speak, yet I couldn't grasp it...

Like the thoughts flying through my head, it was like trying to catch the wind...

Then in March, the pendulum swung a different direction then it ever had before...

The hallucinations started...

The delusions started...

The paranoia started...

I literally thought I was losing my mind...

I had slept maybe 8 full nights in a month...

I started seeing things that weren't there, or seeing things that were there then gone when I went back to look again...

I would hear voices and if I strained to hear what was being said, nothing would be there.

I started to question my own mental status...

Then the first phone bill came in...

An unknown number...

Thousands and thousands of text messages...

Over 4000 in the first month...

Phone calls that were hours long...

Pictures exchanged as I slept right next to him in the middle of the night...

I remember standing in the garage the day the bill came in after I had examined it, waiting for him to get home from work...

He uttered those infamous last words, "We are just friends".

From that moment forward instinct kicked in...

It would be another month before I would have concrete evidence of the affair...

My mind was already on overdrive...

The discovery of the number just kicked it into high gear...

I spoke to him numerous times about how I was feeling and what I thought was happening...

He would pacify me, tell me it was all in my head, he would never do those things to me, to his family, to his boys...

The more he pacified, the more I found, the more he erased, the more I questioned my sanity...

Was I really seeing divorce lawyers in the history of our computer?

Was I really seeing searches for apartments in the next town over?

Was I really hearing him on the phone trying to help her find a job here?

Absolutely not he would say over and over again...

I needed to see my Dr. he said...

Something is wrong with you...

You are paranoid...

You are crazy...

You are losing your mind, and sadly, I believed him.

I saw my Dr. about a week or so later...

She informed me I was 2 possibly 3 weeks away from a complete psychotic breakdown...

I started my meds that day...

Then he came back from being out of town without his wedding ring on...

I have a rash on my finger he said...

Later that night he would admit it...

She was his soul mate...

I love you but I am not in love with you...

I married the wrong woman...

We married to young...

You were a mistake...

I realized I never loved you...

The one that still haunts me to this day -

If you had taken your meds we wouldn't be in this position, I just never knew who I was coming home to anymore...

At that moment in time, it was like an explosion within my mind...

Ka-Boom and as the pieces fell, they all finally fell into place...

The paranoia, delusions, hallucinations - All gone at that point in time...

The pendulum couldn't have swung any lower then that moment in time...

The depression that followed the bomb he dropped almost allowed me to take my own life...

My mind was about 98% shattered...

Between last year and this year, I am in such a better place...

A place I haven't been in for such a long time...

Day by day as I sift through the debris, I pull out the good parts that I want to keep within my new life, knowing that He is providing better replacements where the discarded pieces lie...

I have an enormous amount of help from people who have been placed on my path by Him...

I have my Pastor, my Church family, my real family, my in-law family, some very treasured friends - old and new...

This past year took a lot from me, however what was replaced were gifts that I wasn't recognizing...

A smile, in the bathroom mirror as I passed by, making me stop and step back to actually see if that was on my face...

Peace, as I sat at the bank this morning waiting for my turn in the drive-thru...

Joy, as I glanced out the car window and saw a Cardinal sitting on the curb next to me at the bank...

The Cardinal - The sign I asked for, so long ago...

His sign to me that no matter what, Everything would be ok.


JONNY DIAZ
So Turn Around You're Not To Far
To Back Away Be Who You Are
To Change Your Path Go Another Way
It's Not To Late You Can Be Saved
If You Feel Depressed With Past Regrets
The Shameful Nights Hope To Forget
Can Disappear They Can All Be Washed Away
By The One Who's Strong Can Right Your Wrongs
Can Rid Your Fears Dry All Your Tears
And Change The Way You Look At This Big World
He Will Take Your Dark Distorted View
And With His Light He Will Show You Truth
And Again You'll See Through The Eyes Of A Little Girl