To be or not to be...

I'm pretty worked up about all the "expert opinions" on suicide out there. Let's just get down to it. Suicide is a God awful thing. No one deserves to go out that way. No one in their right mind should feel that the best solution to any problem, no matter how horrible, is suicide. It's not natural. We have a built in defense in our minds to taking our own life. We are self-preservers at our core and we usually not only try to survive but work the better part of our life in efforts to not only survive but flourish in our existence. And yet, it seems more and more we have an increasing epidemic of suicides.

Without getting into the details, glorifying things or giving people ideas who don't need anything to help them get any closer to the edge, I will leave the credentials of my thought to this: I've attempted suicide twice. I've been hospitalized in psychiatric institutions twice and been hospitalized a third time for a suicide attempt but talked my way out of psychiatric hospitalization. If I had access to a gun on those two occasions I would no longer be on this earth. Period. I only say all that to help people understand that I know what it's like to mentally let go. To talk or think about suicide is one thing but to attempt it is another. I've mentally gone every place but joined those who've left this earth. I know what it's like to let go completely. 

No one should feel like life isn't worth living. No one should sit down and be able to justify ending their own life when they stack up the reasons to live versus going, but people do. The young ones probably just don't have enough life experience to understand things can get better. The first few episodes are so scary with any mental illness that you feel like there is no hope and no future. It's easy to want out when you look at life and see little to live for. To those people I say dare to keep living. Dare to see what God and life can do with you. I got a college degree, found an amazing wife and had a son that I love more than anything in this life! I got all that after being fucked up. I looked my wife straight in the eyes and told her I was bipolar and then gave here a year and a half to see it and she still thought I was worth marrying. She saw value in me I couldn't see. She didn't need me to be anyone more than who I was at my worst. You know what that did for me, it helped me be better and get better. It took me 9 years to get a college degree from the time I first attended classes but I walked across that stage as proud as any other graduate. 

I still have nights I want out. Just a week ago my wife was working back to back night shifts at the hospital and I was going crazy. It was 1:30 am and for a host of reasons I wont get into, my mind was not in a good place. Some of it was my fault, a lot of it wasn't. I sat in the bath tub for an hour as the shower head drowned me in despair. I wanted out so bad. You know what I did? I took a heavy but acceptable dose of anti-psychotics, drugged my self up and went and laid in my sons bed with him until they kicked in and i slept. I made that choice because I want more days with my wife. I've seen what her love has done to me in 7 years and I want to see what 10 or 20 years with her will do for me. 

I struggle to function. My therapist tells me I probably should get around to accepting that my life is going to be full of episodes. I'll never be what I thought I'd be in life and I probably wont be able to even work a full-time job, maybe ever. I'll probably have a hard time putting together more than 4-6 months without not functioning for a month or so. That's my life. It sucks in a lot of ways. It makes making enough money to support a family hard. It makes it hard to stay in touch with people you care about or consistently socialize. I can't even take care of my one kid more than two days straight without falling apart. It sucks a lot. But it doesn't mean life is worthless. I see people with similar issues struggle and I talk to them and I see a lot of them get better and sometimes I wonder when I'm going to snap out of it. It doesn't happen, but I keep going because I keep making progress. It's really really slow. If you look too close you wont see it. You see, where many of my friends are taking on the business world or medical school or climbing the ladders of corporate law. I'm climbing just as hard and fighting just as hard but mine involves a lot simpler things. I'm the man in the wheel chair learning to walk again. That is what I live for and to most they don't see it. They see what I allow them to see, but my amazing wife, she sees it. She sees it. What is great is that she sees it all and she doesn't want out. She stays faithfully by my side and we fight it together. If she can live with me than I can live for her. It's that simple. 

I've gone off on my own little life but the truth is, as I've said before, we can't know what God will use us for if we don't allow ourselves to live out life long enough to see it. I wont give up. I can't give up. The world needs people to stand up and say, "I'm suicidal but I choose to live." If you are suicidal and you want to have a one-on-one conversation so you know I know what you feel, we can do that. I know and I understand. I have lived long enough with it to know something you may not know, it will get better. It will get easier to manage and there will be days the clouds part and bright rays of happiness draw out the hope within you. 

To those who don't understand, try your best to understand, but don't be so arrogant to think that your worst day compares. It doesn't help anyone to try to relate to things you can't comprehend. If you've always been a preservationist it's impossible to understand the despair that has caused someone to forsake such a mentality, can you not understand that something has caused them to abandon such a position? Do us all a favor and quit trying to relate. Love us and give us hope. Listen to us and help distract us. Let's go have fun instead of dwelling in the darkness. The solution can only come from within the sufferer so quit wasting your efforts on solutions and start helping accept us and love us in our suffering. Be the reason we don't want to leave, not out of guilt but out of love. 

If you are struggling, understand those who love you are just trying to help. See their gestures as assurance you have value, not as mentally self-preserving means of relinquishing blame for what you might or might not do to yourself. Be honest enough with yourself to realize you have things to be grateful for and reasons to live. Spend your time enhancing those reasons and magnifying their existence in your life. The darkness will still come, and at times the contrast will be hard to deal with but hold on and you will find it worth the pain. No depression is permanent. It may last for months but there will be a day it doesn't hinder you from doing at least a few things you love. The greatest mistake any depressed person can make is to believe that what they feel is permanent. It is these states that leave to impulsive decisions with lasting consequences. When you find yourself questioning why you should live, please, go do the thing you love most. If you can't find the energy or ability to find joy in what you usually love, reminisce about it and re-live it and dream of it in your future. If none of that works then there is always the age-old method of distraction. I don't care if you have to watch all 6 episodes of Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings trilogy before you feel better, do it. Get your mind anywhere else but in that crevasse of self-destruction. There's nothing like watching Jason Statham and his bald head beat up a bunch of bad guys to keep you from your own demise. Whatever you do/watch, don't reinforce the suicidal thought process. If depressing music helps you let it out then listen to it. If it makes you want to die then don't. Sometimes it does one for me and sometimes it does the other. I have a play list for depression, agitation & mania, happiness and love songs. When I can't do it anymore I tell my wife i have to go for a drive and I just let it out. Sometimes it's Taking Back Sunday, Sia or a little Jason Mraz to remind me how much I love my wife. Every time is different but I do what helps me live. I may die of a heart attack at 50 because i binge eat but if that keeps me from drinking, doing drugs or killing myself, I'll take it. 

Life is amazing! Honestly, it is. I haven't worked more than 5 hours in the last 8 weeks, my wife and I have no savings and we've lived with my parents for 6 of our 7 years of marriage, but I love it. Sometimes it's embarrassing but then their are times where I meet people struggling and I get to see my talents and gifts. Just like most people, my talents are in things I've spent years improving and skills that have taken thousands of hours to perfect. I have the gift of understanding and empathy. I know what it feels like to want out and to feel no hope for the future, much less tomorrow. I know what it's like to cry until there is nothing left, to hate your body and mind because you can't will it to do anything. I know what it's like to crawl up in a ball on the floor because you can't make it to the bed. I know what it's like to take your pain and hate out on yourself because you think you're defective and it's so easy for everyone else to do things that take everything you have to even attempt. I know more fully than I can articulate. I've been shrouded in darkness and nearly suffocated from suicidal ideation. Not shown in the two attempts on my life are the hundreds of nights it has consumed my thoughts. I feel your pain even now. I cry for you and I pray for you. I pray that you'll have the courage to reach out of the fog of darkness to someone for help. If you can't feel hope, seek it out. I am here and there are others. I've walked your path and I will come back down it for you. There is no darkness too dark and no despair too deep that I can't join you. We can laugh and cry and cuss each other out if it helps. You can't shock me or send me away disappointed. There are others like me. Join us in the fight to live. Who knows, maybe you'll look back in 10 years and be able to help someone else on the brink of death. 

The Divide

This is my coffin. This is my place of rest. I lay here under the sheets of ice, holding on to my last breath. Above me, through the glow of lanterns I see a world that once was mine. The smiles of my loved ones frolicking in the snow will be my last sight. I see their warmth and the happiness in their eyes. I see it and that gives me assurance, but it doesn’t penetrate my limp body. This icy grave has swallowed my ability to feel anything but emptiness. This frozen sheet barricades me from connection with that world, but mocks with its viewing pleasure to affirm my place in a cold dark world of death. It’s too late to fight it. There’s nothing left to do. With every passing minute the chill of the water enters my veins. It won’t be long now until my heart is just the same. Cold and lifeless is the way I’m meant to go. Do I embrace it or do I fight it? Does it even matter? The time for victory from its grasps has long ago faded. My end is not in question, just the minutes to its lead. Please God, I beg of you, just release me from this agony!

A rush of blood comes to my head and I jump to my feet. I gasp for air in a panic as my hand braces on my knee. Where am I? What has become of what reality so vividly seemed? I look out the window to the faces beyond in the snow. My wife and my son skipping around, smiling, their glances directed at me. With relief I return to my bed and lay my head tucked under the sheets.

A smile comes and peace of warmth fills my heart. Soon it is over and the cold rush of water fills my lungs and I sink.

This is something I put together in 10 minutes the other night when I was pretty depressed and couldn't sleep. It is about depression, not death. It's about how depression swallows you and makes you feel lifeless and dead inside. That happiness is right before your eyes but you can't seem to connect with it. Sometimes you're able to step out of it for a moment and feel alive again, only to slip back into its deadness of emotion. It can truly feel like a coffin, being buried alive where you're aware of what is happening but helpless to free yourself. Depression is like the cold water, at first an external pressure you fight from affecting you, but like the ice cold river, capped by a sheet of ice, there is no escape. You watch and feel as it slowly squeezes hope and happiness out of you, until even your strongest anchors (for me my family) are not enough to keep you in touch with reality. Like drowning, we all have a limit to how long we can hold our breath. Even the best and strongest eventually succumb to our biological limitations, the need for oxygen and for some, chemical depression. Yet in this there is a subtle message. A plea to God was answered with a moment of relief, a feeling of freedom and one less glimpse of happiness before the final plunge. I didn't expound on this but for me it is the process I endure. Those moments of remembering why I hold on before I disconnect to a degree with reality, carry over with me into the darkness and give me the strength to stay as rational as possible in the depths of despair.

The reason I don't let depression control me as much any more is because I know that it is temporary, though it feels like death, it isn't death. It is a state of torment but the torment eventually subsides or at least lessens. The decisions I make when tormented can either haunt me long after the torment or they can be liberating. I make a conscious effort to allow myself to feel horrible but at the same time limit the decisions I make in that state of mind. The simplest solution to making choices when you have an impaired judgment is not to try and remove the impairment but to limit the choices you make when impaired. For many you might be able to change the impairment but with Bipolar Disorder I've realized after 10 years, and yes it took me close to 10 years to realize, I can't remove/control the illness, especially once the cycling has started. The best solution is to weather the storm.

It sucks to be depressed, especially deep depression, but if you've ever weathered them and come out of them feeling that relief of surviving and then had the moment to reflect on your choices and realize you didn't do anything stupid to jeopardize your finances, relationships, spirituality, etc. that is the greatest feeling of all. Sometimes in life the greatest successes are not shooting ourselves in the foot. It doesn't take Bipolar Disorder to shoot yourself in the foot. Your own pride will do the job just as well. Fortunately, God allowed me the chance to wrestle Bipolar Disorder so I could learn to wrestle my pride.

I use everyday as a platform to strength my position in life: mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The feelings expressed above about depression are as real as my optimism. They coexist within me. There is room for both and neither keeps me from strengthening my relationship with God or my family. That is the beauty of this life. My depression isn't hindering my progress in life. Sure it may stop me from being a CEO, but every time I face it, accept it and manage it, I learn that it is the means of becoming a better human being. Besides, the world has plenty of CEOs. God needs me to learn different lessons. Who knows, maybe He needs you to stop trying to be a CEO too and start by not letting your pride shoot you in the foot. =D Just sayin'....

The Great Expectations Problem

In 12 years I've had a lot of time for soul searching and self-evaluation. In that period I've found out a lot of things about myself. The truth I've found most pertinent to myself, and almost every other person's biggest life issues is this... (drum roll) The biggest problems most of us have in life center around one problem, what I call an expectation problem.

To many this might seem self-evident. To others it may cause some reflection or the thought that, no it is actual difficulties that are at the root of my problems. I've suffered from an illness, been through difficulties you can't even imagine, etc. I don't discount that all difficulties shape us and tend to create hardship that molds the way we view life. The scars of such difficulty alone can cause great pain in our lives. I don't want to lay down all inclusive stereotypes so I'll just share this revelation from my own perspective and you can be the judge of your own life.

I'm not sure how my friends would describe me growing up. I probably was always a bit more abnormal than I'd like to admit but for the most part I was an amiable, high performing individual who was very confident in my ability to achieve. I took on an underdog mentality and loved a challenge. I was never the smartest, most athletic or most charming, but made up for what I lacked with tireless effort, especially in the charming arena (that's a joke). A lot of people would probably describe me as arrogant and holier than thou. I honestly had very little self-esteem and gained all my confidence from performance. In high school and freshman year in college it was easy to be confident because I always achieved. Whatever mattered the most to me I found the ability to excel.

A side note is this- I wanted to be a lawyer since about 8th grade. I always dreamed of going to University of Chicago or Northwestern for law school. I wanted to be in business law and do mergers and acquisitions. Honestly, I'm not sure I knew anything about mergers and acquisitions but it sounded prestigious to me. I even went and visited with one of my Dad's business lawyers for his company several times in high school and college. Like most 14-18 year olds, I thought I had life figured out. I was given more than ample educational resources in life to be able to achieve anything I put my mind to and I thought the only way I wouldn't become a lawyer was if I found something else along the way that interested me more. I knew the grades and LSAT scores I needed to get into those schools and I knew what undergraduate programs would be helpful and appropriate. I had it pretty well figured out and I had it figured out long before most of my friends had decided on which college to attend, or even at which ones to which they'd apply.

Drop this back to when my issues started after my freshman year at college. The bottom floor fell out from under me and I was falling faster than I could find something other than air to grasp onto. Without going into detail, the first few years were a mess and it was all about survival. Half of my brain was just trying to hold on to anything that gave me purpose and value enough to live and the other half was trying to smash my fingers from the grasps of what kept hope alive. It was a hard time. (that is the biggest euphemism ever. Once again, if I was honest about those times it would be expletive filled and turn off many of my readers.)

Fast forward a bit and I found myself in a more stable position trying to figure out what to do with my life, working my way, sluggishly through school and in a stable therapeutic environment. I would tell my therapist all of my expectations. I needed an education so I could go back to getting into law school and yaddy yaddy yaddy (yup, I just Seinfelded that!). He would so gently and clandestinely, so that I thought it was my own idea, help me lower that expectation. First it was I'd probably never go to law school. Then it was I'd probably never get a graduate degree. Then it was I probably wont be able to go to a prestigious business school. Then it was it might take me longer than I expected. Then it was I'll probably never be a CEO. Then it was I'll probably never be an upper-level manager. Then it was I'll probably never be a mid-level manager. Then it was I may never be able to deal with the stresses of management. Then it was I'm not sure I can work full time and support my family. Now I find myself somewhere between figuring out how many hours I can work and what kind of job and whether it's better long term to be a stay at home dad until my kids are at least in school so my wife can work on supporting us more fully. It's good fun. I tell all this because I obviously had a lot of high expectations for life and a lot of them obviously centered around the ability to provide for my family and admittedly, also be able to stroke my own ego.

In that process of continually pushing myself and then falling short of my expectations, the Bipolar cycles sucked and I thought it was because I was bipolar that I wasn't happy. How can I be happy when I can't be consistent in life? How can I be happy when I'm literally depressed a lot of the time? How can I find stability and a path of comfort when I could wake up in the morning and want the world to end, when yesterday was great? That's a crappy reality to adjust to for most people. When the internal mechanism of comfort in our minds doesn't function properly and is creating a good portion of the storms, it's hard to find shelter. We can't really escape our brains, in fact, they are usually the place of mental solace we go to in the storm. In my life, I've found that there are few roofs when it comes to difficulty, because the storm that is beating hard on me outside is coming down just as hard on the inside when I seek shelter. What I've come to learn in time, though is that it's not usually the storm that is the greatest culprit for dissatisfaction in my life. In fact, for some reason God seems to give us an innate ability to weather quite difficult storms. As humans, we tend to be survivors, we have innate ability to fight and battle until we have nothing left, often thinking we can't push any further, only to find we've found a 3rd, 4th or 5th wind.

What tends to bring most of us down when facing adversity is the juxtaposition between where we find ourselves in difficulties and the expectation we had for our life or the situation. We feel like we should be able to handle it better, or it shouldn't affect us physically or emotionally as much as it does. We feel like it doesn't line up with the optimistic view of our childhood or with how we were taught life was supposed to be. We don't understand how God can love us and allow us to struggle so much.

Our whole life is shaped by expectation. That is why the first years of marriage are really hard for many and filled with adjustments. We come to marriage with an expectation of what it will be like, usually stemming from the understanding we gained of marriage for the example our parents set. That will lead us to expect our partner to uphold certain habits, tradition and roles that we know to be part of being a family or couple. They will come with their own expectations. Sometimes we have negative expectations because of difficulties we've seen in the circumstances we were raised. We may distrust our spouse or question the sincerity of their motives or compliments. There are a full range of expectations we come to marriage with and trying to find the balance between give and take with the expectations of our spouse can be a difficult dance.

The same is true internally. Most of us grow up with dreams and aspirations. We want to be something better, to make those we love proud and to see how high we can fly. We want to prove to the world we have value and maybe even to those who have doubted us or not loved us enough. We want and yearn for significance, at least I did. I thought that who I was tied to those expectations I had for myself and life. What I found when I peeled back the layers was the antithesis of my belief system.

I realized over years and years of adjusting my expectations for life was that most of my disappointment and anger was tied more around the expectations I wasn't meeting than around my actual illness. I had set up a whole fantasy of what was a measure of a meaningful life and how that was applicable to me and had put all that pressure on myself to meet that expectation, when in reality the expectation was only internal. No one else said my value only came from being a CEO or even a college grad. My parents never said they'd give up on me if I couldn't be something more. My wife never said she was going to leave me if I didn't find a way to support her. I put those expectations on myself so when I felt like I was failing at meeting those expectations, that disappointment loomed far greater and deeper than the disappointment of the millionth depressive cycle I'd had. It's easy to accept you have Bipolar disorder when you can quantifiably track your mood swings and remember being in this same trench again and again. It becomes a lot harder to accept that when you think that it is why you haven't become who you expected you were supposed to be in life.

Don't get me wrong. Having goals and expectations for life is a healthy thing. We all dream and hope for a brighter future to push us to be something better. It creates growth and builds character. The problem looms when we fall short of expectations. How do we adjust to that? Do we reframe the expectation and see that in our zeal we may have fallen short but came so much further than we would have if we didn't try? The problem with most of us is we aren't the most rational beings. We often believe our expectations for who we should be are completely rational, when the truth is most of us are far more average than we like to imagine. We believe that it is normal to expect that we perform at our best all the time or even 90% of the time when the truth is we can't. We believe everyone else in the world is so much better than us because we spend way too much time comparing their strengths to our weaknesses and looking at their stupid Facebook posts. We allow a 1% percentile of athletes, movie stars, musicians, politicians and who ever else we idolize to skew our view when they don't represent a reality or the projection of our future for most any of us. Our expectations are a product of our belief system about who we are and what brings us value. I've found the only place to find true value is in God.

This is what God has taught me. You may or may not choose to believe, but I know it to be true: Heavenly Father loves me for one simple reason, the same reason we love our children as parents. He created me and wants only the best for me. Just like a truly loving parent who is able to separate themselves from the fears and anxieties of life, His love is unconditional. He will love us no matter what we become in life, no matter how rich or poor or how educated or simple minded. He loves the murderer and taught us to love our enemies. He loves the beggar the same, if not more than the banker, and as the scriptures show, a lot more than the lawyer (that's kind of a joke). I always wanted to be a lawyer. I found God just wanted me to be His child.

I removed the expectation for whom I need to be to be good enough. I try everyday to do a little more and I measure my life in three year periods to ensure progress of some sort is being made. What I've let go of is trying to create an expectation around who or what I need to be.  My life is measured in the conversations here or there with someone in need and in the type of love I show my son, wife and others. That may seem far too simple a life and way too convenient a reality to believe, but it works for me. I've removed most of the expectations I feel outside of what God has taught me I must be in terms or morals, ethics and obedience to His laws. I found that in removing those expectations I tend to see more clearly God's expectations for me, and more importantly, His great love for me and everyone else. The promises He gives us are eternal in nature, expectations set towards eternity. Job knows better than most that God gives us little sure expectations for what this life will hold. At worst case, our consolation will come at death. If that is our expectation than all of us will find our reality a lot more manageable than Job's.

So ponder on this a moment. Is what is giving you trouble a result of the things happening to you in your life or is it more a result of your expectations, hindered or thwarted by the difficulties? If you're completely honest with yourself, I think you'll find your answer leaning toward the latter.

Those With A Voice Must Stand And Raise It

I’ve been thinking about the topic of suicide and mental illness in general for the last couple of weeks since my heart was broken by an article I read about a cute young girl who committed suicide and left a final message on you tube. I know this is a very, very sensitive subject, and honestly I don’t want to get into the details of suicide so much but rather reflect on the battle that many are losing to very serious illnesses.

I heard a quote once that I loved. I tried to Google and find out who said it to no avail. It said something like this, “Suicide is what it says on the death certificate of someone who died from depression.” 

How many times in our lives do we notch it up to something else, weakness of mind or character, or a great sin to be damned to hell. I can only speak for my own experience. I’ve been to the depths of depressive Hell and I’ve looked the devil in the face. I’ve felt darkness engulf me and blind me from reality. It was my reality. To someone in that state you can’t just say snap out of it, change the paradigm, see what you have going for you in life. Sometimes that just makes you feel even worse because you know you should want to be happy but you can’t muster an scintilla of strength. I’ve been there. I’ve spent days and months and the better part of some years of my life near and in that place. Those days were just as real as the days I live today. I will not try to rationalize away the pain of that darkness nor take away from the truth of despair that can be overwhelming in the mind of a sufferer of such. It is deep, dark pain and to hell with the person who thinks otherwise and or tries to tell someone that it isn’t real. I’d like to see how that person reacts when they are thrown in a cold, ice covered lake with no hole for air, gasping for relief and the gaping jaws of death open after them. That is what it feels like. It is a terrible place to be and hard place to keep one’s mind and wit about them. Please, don’t stop reading now. I fear you might not see the point, and hope that there is and the truth I must declare. 

You see, as dark and horrible as this illness is there is a media attention and spotlight on it that is very concerning to me. A war is being waged for the minds of the world on mental illness. I believe there is a large majority that is ever being reduced that is largely ignorant to the difficulties of mental illness. I can say this confidently because I was a part of that group until I started to have my own problems. These are the people that think just counting your blessings, changing your paradigm or “picking yourself up by the bootstraps” is an adequate remedy to the mentally ill. I cannot fault the majority of these people, because they haven’t been personally exposed to instances to give them understanding otherwise. Though these are all helpful solutions to dealing with the majority of life’s difficulties they do not take into consideration any neurological issues that, I’ve personally found, cannot be solved by any of the above. 

These people, along with everyone else, are being brought to the attention of mental illness. It is widely spoken of and publicized in all areas of our life. Companies, schools and religions are all coming to understand this illness is real and a growing epidemic in our world. Much of this is to be applauded, I suppose if I was born a generation before I wouldn’t have the confidence to raise my voice in bringing awareness and so we are making strides in the right direction. 

The problem is that among the rise in awareness and shock at suicide rates and psychiatric medication distribution rates and all of the other aspects of mental illness, there is this increased sympathy and publication without very much advocacy on behalf of the mentally ill. I hear about how sad it is that someone committed suicide. I hear that someone with an illness has gone and done something terrible and I hear concern over the need for increased screening of the mentally ill to obtain guns or other things. You know what I don’t hear? I don’t hear the mentally ill, or those who advocate on their behalf standing up and shouting that we are people all around you who can function and add to society. We are people working to support ourselves and our families. We are students pursuing a future. We are people fighting a battle and winning it. 

The girl I was reading about had a quote on her Facebook or somewhere that I wanted to share that reaffirms the attitude society is reinforcing because those who suffer and endure are not speaking out:

Doug Stanhope: "Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early."

I call BS on this. (I’d let out some expletives but most of the people reading this wouldn’t appreciate it.) When I read this it pissed me off so much I can’t even communicate the frustration that filled my heart. This is complete garbage. Life is nothing like a movie. There is no predestined script for our life written out by some script writer or vengeful God. There is a God and He gave each of us agency- the ability to choose. All of us have an opportunity to make choices every single day of our life. We can’t control much of what happens to us or even sometimes how we feel, but we always have a choice to what we do with it. That is the truth. If our life sucks every day we live, we can decide to change what we do to reinforce those feelings or not to reinforce those feelings. Remember I’ve been to Hell and back, so I’m not getting on a pedestal and saying it’s easy. What I’m saying is this, the path out of Hell is one step at a time. The path out of depression is taken one step at a time. I don’t fault anyone who forgets that and takes their life. What I hate to see though, is for someone to think there isn’t hope when there is. They don’t see it because our society makes people with mental illness out to be gun wielding lunatics. How do you think that is processed by a mentally ill individual who sees a similar diagnoses as a killer in themselves, even if they don’t have homicidal tendencies? The media makes the mentally ill out to be incompetent and incapable. That is their prerogative. However, if those who have mental illness don’t stand up on the roof tops and show what they are capable of and the kind loving people they are despite having these grave difficulties then everyone loses. Everyone.

I have dark days still. I have times where I lose the plot and want to throw in the towel. I need support just like anyone else. Do you know who gives me the most strength in life in a way even my loving wife can’t? It’s the person whose arm is full of scars just like mine and who says there is hope. We’re both holding on to the same rope and we’re climbing our way up it. 

The truth is most people with mental illness learn to cope with it. The first 3-5 years are horrible but it gets better. You learn your limitations, you learn that you can’t compare your life to your friends or families. You’ll be a downer at times and people won’t enjoy it and there’s nothing you can do about it, except accept it. It is an illness but it isn’t a character flaw. So what if you can’t have a family or kids or the life you dreamed of. It’ll suck until you learn to realize that and make the most of what you have. There is still so much to live for other than lost dreams and life expectations. If a dream is lost, start forming a new, more realistic one.

I guess in all this is the point that I wish I could have sat with that young girl face to face. I wish I could have put my arm around her and just hugged her. I wish I could have said that thing or two about being in the darkness that would make her know I knew exactly where she was. Most of all, I wish I could sit there and tell her of how I came from that same place to a place of so much peace, joy and happiness that I never imagined was possible. 

I’ve written a script with the help of God and loved ones. I’ve chosen to see that the ending of my story has not been written and what started as a bad movie can end a story of triumph. I will write another ending. I will write one that doesn’t talk about happily ever away from difficulty, but happiness far greater. I will write of finding joy and happiness while the tempest rages around and in me. There is such a joy and it is worth holding on for. There are darker days before the light comes but it will come and it can encompass the mentally ill so fully that we can hold on to the true perspective even in troubling times. 

My name is Aaron, I have Bipolar I Disorder and I choose to live every day, along with many others, as a witness that death is not the answer and life is worth living. We will beat these illnesses hand and hand. Please, come write a better ending with me.

I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night

So it's 1:00AM. Earlier than many nights I get the blogging bug, I was out driving on the streets on a Monday night/Tuesday morning and was thinking about why I find myself out about that time so oft in the early morning hours. I'm not sure I can accurately articulate the reasoning for the desire, though I have my theories, I can at least start with an explanation of the feelings these late nights arouse.

Have you ever seen the first scene of Vanilla Sky? I don't remember the whole gist of whats going on, if I remember right, he's dreaming but doesn't realize it until later. He gets in his car on the way to work in Manhattan and he doesn't see anyone on the streets. Long story short, he drives around a bit, even to Time Square and the streets are empty at 9 or 10am. It creates this feeling of surrealism that indicates some underlying reality of the main character of feeling alone but alive, living but without human connection, which if we think about it is at the root of why we live, for the connections with others in this life.

I've always loved that feeling. I can't quite explain why but there is something validating about driving the streets late at night and getting gas at a station alone, without a car in the lot. When you are on the city streets, especially between 2-4am, you hardly see a soul. It's almost as if there is this vast concrete jungle for you to explore on your own. I used to go up to my college campus at 3 or 4am to study for tests. Being the idiot I am, I would often freak out all night about the coming test, not able to sleep but not studying either, and then at 2 or 3 I'd realize I need to study and drive up to campus and study at the library that was open 24 hours. Those were some of my favorite nights, studying aside. I went to a campus with 30+ thousand students, so it was big. The library was somewhat centrally located and though there was parking close by, it became teacher parking after 7am and since I often couldn't be bothered to re-park my car later, I often parked further in the normal student parking lot. I loved that walk. It was probably 400 meters to the library and there were lamp poles but they were old and gave off a ghostly light. I loved the feeling of being surrounded by the quiet shadows of still buildings, themselves sleeping off the burdens of the prior day. Occasionally, I'd even detour through the middle of campus to the library so that I could bask in this solitude even longer.

All of this brings me to one of my favorite poems. Though many of these nights are filled with different intervals on the spectrum of emotion, there is in many of them a deep loneliness, as shown through the Vanilla Sky analogy, not so much of sadness, but of a disconnect between myself and the rest of society, and more importantly with those with which I long to connect. Part of the reason I love the nights is because often it is where and when I feel most at home. There is no pressure, no one asking for my help, no need of my labor, time or emotional strength. It is just me. There is great relief and even a small internal leap of joy in these moments, where the rest of the world shuts down and I can take care of my needs alone. This is juxtaposed to the feeling of simultaneously desiring to share this relief and joy with someone, someone who cannot be there because there very presence would alter the demand on yourself.

There is a lesser known poem by the great Robert Frost called "Acquainted With The Night." Here it is:

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Ahh... so delicious! Love it! That guy is a genius, and might I add Bipolar. 

So this is a complete side-note but here are my favorite writers, strictly based on their writing styles and narrative alone.:

                   Charles Dickens - Depression

                   Ernest Hemingway - Bipolar

                   Edgar Allen Poe - Bipolar

                   Robert Frost - Bipolar

                   Victor Hugo- Bipolar

                   Mark Twain- Bipolar

                   William Shakespeare- perhaps not, but had a lot of insight into the instability of the mind.

I didn't discover this until one day when I was researching Ernest Hemingway's life out of curiosity.

Back to the task at hand... acquainted with the night. It's difficult sometimes to avoid staying up when you're heart and mind seem to long for it so fully. In my mind I know tomorrow I will pay for it. That tomorrow will be a better day if I just pop some meds to sleep and lay on my pillow until it takes affect on my mind. A greater part of me longs so much more for that freedom from responsibility and duty. Yet, tomorrow will come. It always does. Then, like the detox from a drug, those midnight highs are easily forgotten under the burden that comes with the dawning day. Do I heed the thought of tomorrow or do I live in the moment of tonight? I know the smart choice. I know the right choice. I also know the choice I made tonight. It's almost 2am. I guess the alternate lesson is that it's never too late to make a new choice. I better get going to bed. I bid thee ado. (Please excuse the wording. I've been watching Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet while writing this. Love it!)

              

Baby Steps

Bobby Wiley taught us all a lot about psychology and as I happen to refresh my memory of one of the greatest movies ever in "What About Bob", I start to see parallels with my somewhat unhealthy relationship with my own Psychiatrist. I guess I'm Bob in more than one way. That is all beside the point. What isn't is the notion that baby steps are really what progress is all about, it may be terribly cliche but it works, and I have a lots of proof to back that up.

I must interject, unrelated, that if you've never seen "The Man Who Knew Too Little" you are missing out on the greatest movie of all times. I'm pretty sure it won a few Oscars, but encase it didn't, it should have. It's 2:30am... maybe I'll pop it in right now. I'm not sure I'd like the look on my wife's face when she wakes up in the morning and I'm grinning from ear to ear watching Bill Murray doing a Russian dance with a little Russian doll. She'd probably roll her eyes at me and say I'm an idiot. I better go to bed after this.

After my coming home from my 2 year mission call to Kennewick, Washington, the self proclaimed, "land of milk and honey" (that's a shout out to my cousin) after 4 months, I realized I had to put my focus somewhere else and school was the next best bet. I went back to BYU in January and within a month, as previously described, started mentally getting so manic that the world was going super fast. It's a lot like that movie Limitless where he takes the drug and everything is so perfect and he is a genius, though unfortunately that has always been a bit elusive to me but not because of a lack of effort. But then it gets to be too much and his mind is racing so fast it is making him crazy and erratic. Obviously that is a movie and a bit dramatized, though I've heard stories of others with mania on that level, for me it was mostly a lot of maddening thoughts and voices in my head and a desire to just keep going and going. I sat through lectures for an hour and a half and it seemed like 10 minutes and didn't remember a thing that was said. It made maintaining a 3.95 GPA quite difficult, so I withdrew from the semester.

Long story short, things would get better and after about a year of working on my problems I decided to try and go back to BYU full time again. I had a academic scholarship that was only applicable if I went full time so I always felt the need to accept nothing less than a full load. More than the tuition cost, was the always growing desire within me to make up for loss time. I had a notion in my head that my illness had stymied the progress of my life plan and that as the months and years started to pass with little to no progress in my life plan, then there would come some point when I might actually literally timed out and explode or something. I don't know, it sounds a bit silly but I felt a very real internally driven pressure to push forward in life and keep up with my classmates from high school that I constantly saw progressing via the always wonderful and self-degrading social media resources of our day. Long story, still long but trying to make it shorter, I withdrew again from BYU. It turned out the stress of the environment and the heavy load just weighed me down and I fell into a lot of old habits and difficulties and eventually realized I couldn't do it, or at least I thought I couldn't. The truth was I probably could have finished the semesters, it just wouldn't have been with A's like I expected.

I went home and regrouped. Turned to the Lord and decided to take a smaller step. I got a part time job at a retail store I liked the clothes from and I worked 15-20 hours a week. It was simple retail. I either faked a smile and avoided talking to customers unless pressed to, or I worked shipment and came in early in the morning at 5am to process new arrivals. I loved that job. I learned that if I had someone I feared I'd disappoint that I could find the will power to get up and get to work, even at 5am and even on days I didn't sleep the night before. I think in the 4 months I worked there I only called in sick 4 times. There were a lot of days I looked like the most depressing person whom you'd never want to take a clothing suggestion from, I think that's why they put me in the fitting rooms and on shipment a lot. Every once in a while they'd make me the greeter. I prayed every shift I didn't have to do it. It was so simple, you just smiled and greeted everyone who came in the store. We were a mall entrance and so a lot of walk-through traffic came in our store. It was the worst. I remember just plastering a smile on and just saying hi to a million people. I'd make it a game and see how well I could over express my enthusiasm and crack an odd looking smirk from a guest. (I'm getting way off topic). The point was it got me out of the house. I faced a fear and I chose an environment I liked, with a level of pressure I was prepared to handle and a reward in clothing discounts that made it worth my effort. That was the first baby step I took.

It was shortly after that success that I met my now wife, Teana (that's pronounced Tiana, for the record, or Teena really, but that's another story). Once we started getting serious, I knew I needed to get back on track with school. I always wanted to be a lawyer so there was never a question in my mind about getting an undergrad degree, it was really only a consideration of what graduate level study I would pursue. When my parents came home from Australia I started back at community college locally in Texas. I honestly felt embarrassed at the time. The classes were not the most intellectually stimulating and I barely had to study to get through them. I remember thinking I was way too proud to go to community college. So I went to community college and took a full load, remember because I'm way behind my peers and need to catch up. So what happened? I ended up withdrawing because it got to be overwhelming and I realized it's really hard to succeed in school if you can't create enough consistency to get out of bed and actually show up for class. (I'm a really slow learner.) I did succeed in taking a few classes but then it came time for marriage.

Teana lived in Australia and I lived in the U.S. and it became increasingly difficult to always be saving money and traveling so far on flights that are a couple thousand dollars each time so we got to a point where we knew we loved each other and had to either get married or move on. I promise it wasn't a 50/50 coin flip. We were in love, it was just a matter of how to get it all figured out. We were married in Australia and I came back to go to school a semester (remember I thought I was in a race against time to graduate) while she stayed in Australia. That semester I took 3 classes and only attended about half of the time. Luckily the teachers were really lenient and loved me and gave me good grades even though I never went to class, I crammed well for tests, a perk of insomnia.

I moved back to Australia and the urge to go back to the BYU, after she received her visa, came over me again. So we went back to Utah and what did I do? That's right, I decided to take a full load of classes to make up for all the lost time, especially now that I had a spouse to support. This was so stressful and the environment so full of past traumas and memories of dark times that it really drove me to the edge. I made an impulsive decision that put me in the hospital and we had to stop and re-evaluate everything.

This is when I first started believing in "baby steps." It was a humbling experience. It took me 4 attempts, a lot of money (of my parents) and a my wife emotionally falling apart to realize that just trying to smash and hammer the square peg into the round hole wasn't going to happen.

We moved back in with my parents in Texas and I gave up my dreams of graduating from BYU's prestigious Accounting program. I went back to community college. The first semester I think I took two classes, and then three the next, and then eventually 12 hours at community college. The last semester I added a part time job to that and realized my capacity was slowly, step by baby step, increasing.

I finally made the jump to a commuter school in Dallas, that growing up I swore I'd never go to, and I realized after one semester I couldn't do work and the higher level of school. I dropped back my hours and I did the same thing I did at community college at UNT. I took first, 1 class in the summer, then 2 in the fall and then 3 in the spring and so on. The final year both semesters I took 12 hours each. I always wanted to load that 15th credit hour to prove I was really going full-time but I knew in the back of my head four classes was enough and it wouldn't change the time table of my graduation.

I graduated early from high school in Dec of 2002 and walked across the stage in cap and gown in May of 2012 with a BBA in Finance. It took me nearly 10 years to finish an undergraduate degree. I had all the financial, emotional and physical resources I needed and it still took me 10 years. If you would of told me it'd take me 10 years those first few years, I'd of probably quit. But I didn't. I wanted it and I learned from all of it that with my illness progress is slow. When we start comparing to others, as my Dad would say, "it's a slippery slope." I didn't go to my dream school by any means but I finished the task and I learned that as I became more patient with myself along the way and took baby steps, one class at a time, one semester at a time, I achieved my goal. I had a great internship offer even though I was way older than most other kids and the Lord blessed me. Now when I got to the work place that was a whole new mountain to climb.

I'm now back at the foot of the work mountain. Currently I'm not working but have an opportunity for part time work lined up. I thought graduation would be the Everest and I would plant my flag and the confidence and experience it gave me would end the difficulties and I would get back to the plan of flourishing. That hasn't been the case. The time commitment and stress of a full time job in business has been a lot more than expected. Intellectually I have the capacity but anxiety and pressure cause a lot of instability in my moods and thoughts. It's an odd and frustrating feeling to sit in a cubicle working at the task at hand while dealing with all sorts of random thoughts and feelings from extreme agitation to the feeling that your boss is going to come over any moment and fire you. Needless to say, I take a lot of "smoke breaks." It's where I go outside and walk around a bit and clear my mind of all the smoky thoughts that keep me from thinking clearly. When your mind and illness feel as if you're labeled defective it's hard to overcome that self-perception. That's why I choose to be so open about my diagnoses. I find that most people have the opposite reaction I would think, they are sympathetic or admire me or even can't believe it's true because nothing in my behavior seems to reinforce that to them.

Life for any of us is about making small improvements that over time amount to larger ones. With Mental Illness, especially, any step can seem so daunting that it is often important to think about what we want to do and create a step short of that to bridge the gap. I look back now at my community college experience and am so grateful that a resources such as that exists for people of all sorts. Very few people question where people started their progress unless it's to find out how they ended up where they are today. There is no step to small to not be noted as progress.

To some, the thought of school being something to build towards is silly, for others they may be thinking that the thought of school is even too stressful to make a reality. I wanted to get an education for me so that I could do the best job possible at supporting my family. It's turning out I may not even be able to do that without my wife's help now but I know that it was worth it for me. It may not be school for you. It may be finding the courage to socialize a little more and isolate a little less. To choose to listen to a song that uplifts you rather than reaffirms your emotional difficulties. Everyday there are hundreds of choices and everyday is a new day.

Recently I talked to my Dad about some of my problems and wanted his counsel. I want to be so much more than I am but I feel so incredibly limited by my illness. I believe literally in the faith of men in the scriptures and in the miracles performed by many. I asked him what he thought the Lord expected of me and what I needed to do better. Now my Dad is probably one of the wisest people I know and has had a lot of life experience and counseled people with lots of issues, so I hold his counsel close to my heart. He said to me, "It's pretty simple. On the days you feel good, act on it. Do something to build yourself up and lift your spirits. Go exercise or be a better husband or father. Do what you feel you should for others and yourself for your long-term improvement. On the bad days, weather the storm. Don't expect more of yourself than anyone else with a flare up of an illness. Take care of yourself and try not to destroy the progress you've already made." That was maybe not an exact quote, rather an interpretation but you get the gist.

We can't expect to always be moving forward. Sometimes it's two steps forward, three steps back, but overall if we stay with the course we know that we can find progress.

Along the way I always told my therapist I couldn't do it anymore and I'd never graduate. I look back now and realize it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and I did make it through, despite a lot of difficulty. Now I tell him I can't do work and I don't know if I can support my family. Do you know what he says? One day you'll look back and you'll see that you did it, you know how? Baby steps...

My Peace I Give Unto You

My desire has always been to write this blog as open dialogue to any who might need strength and support regardless of their background. The truth is most who read this will be those who love me or who have heard from those that love me. Regardless, I feel I have to write as if to those who need it.

I often remember the conversations I had and the people I met in my two hospital stays. The first stay there was a lady that was sort of a mother figure to me. I was a young scared 19 year old who had just spent two or three days on a closed unit, an experience I would wish upon no person and fills my heart with sadness for those with so much greater difficulty than myself. I was on an adult unit with various levels or privilege, as I was fresh from the closed unit, I was not allowed to go down stairs for meals or recreation and was somewhat more closely monitored.

I think Debby (I will call her Debby for confidentiality), saw that I was afraid and not exactly mentally stable, not just from the attempted suicide and the 3 days in a closed unit, but also from the shock of recognizing there was something more permanently wrong with me. She took me under her wing and always looked out for me. She was there for a lot longer than me for ECT therapy. This affected her moods and at times after the therapy was not to be found. Overall though, she looked out for me. We talked a lot. We ate together and sat together at group therapies. She told me much of her life story. I saw the loving, nurturing person she was but what she told me was of someone very different. She was an excessive alcoholic and had lost pretty much everything that she loved. It had cost her her job, her church, and most of all, her relationship with her two daughters. She showed me scars on her arms from dark nights of self hate and loneliness. It was hard for me to comprehend how someone so loving and nurturing as this woman, who had once been a school teacher and an organist in her church, could really be the same as the person she told me about. The reason I've never turned to alcohol to cope is because of her. Yes, my religious upbringing instilled a contempt for alcohol, but in those dark days I didn't much remember my religious upbringing, I just wanted relief. I couldn't ever get out of my head though that Debby looked me in the eyes one day and grabbing my arm firmly said, "Promise me you will never try alcohol. Promise me. It has ruined my life. It has taken everything I love and have worked for in life." I was so startled by the firmness of her voice that it still sends chills through my body. When it was finally time for me to go she sent me on my way with a picture of her and her dog. I loved that lady. I never knew her last name so I have no way of knowing where or how she is today. That was 10 or so years ago. I thank God everyday though, for putting her in my path.

There were others. A mom who with tears in her eyes explained that her kids had been taken away because in a moment of absolute mental fallout she had sat in her car with the engine on in the garage and the kids in the back seat. You could see she loved her kids more than anything. You could also see that she felt like it was the best option for her, at the time. Let me quickly explain that the point isn't that she shouldn't have looked for help sooner or done something else, but rather that someone who loved someone so precious as her children more than anything in the world. That she could be in so much pain in her head that ending their life along with her own seemed not only like a good idea but the right idea. This is how people feel in moments of crisis. It is difficult to reason at that point, and often times one's reasoning has been persuaded to align with the emotional mind, that just wants relief. I met another man with a similar upbringing to my own who had a back injury and started a pain pill addiction. He told me how much his life had been torn apart by choices he had made and how he yearned to right things with his young wife and his little daughter.

There are lots of stories and lots of people I think about. I wonder how they are doing and I wonder if they found the strength to continue. I often wondered what I would say to them now that I couldn't say to them then. How could I lend them support and strength from the life I've now lived? I've always had what I call a martyrdom complex. My favorite pioneer story, even as a kid was of the young men who carried all the people across the ice cold river to safety. I've always wanted to lend my support to others, even at the expense of my own strength. It's not really anything I try to do, it's just who I am, and so I yearn and ache often for those I see in distress and need.

What do you say to those people?

I've said a lot in previous posts about holding on and leaning on the support of others, but what I've failed to acknowledge to this point is the most important crutch on which we all lean, mentally ill or not. That is our Savior Jesus Christ.

I've wrestled with how to approach this subject. I am the first to explain that when I felt like I was getting little back from God early on in my illness, after desperately trying to do all I felt I should to be worthy of His support, I turned my back on my Savior. Since then it's been a slow road back. Fortunately, the Lord doesn't just leave it to me to find Him. I would like to tell you of a few of the ways He has found me:

A brother who picked me up at the airport on a lay-over after coming home sick from my mission and brought PF Changs and talk by Elder Holland.

An Aunt and Uncle who gave me shelter, physically and emotionally, when my parents were unable.

Old friends who reached out from high school and supported me in times of need.

A single Aunt who opened her door to a distressed young man barely hanging on with a bloody arm.

Parents who called often and prayed more often even when they were on the other side of the world.

An Uncle who asked me to help coach 6th graders in basketball, not knowing the distraction kept my mind from much darker places.

The sister who opened a knock at the front door early in the morning, on more than one occasion, to find a brother had driven through the night to her house.

Various friends in Australia, that got me out of the house when it would have been so easy to isolate.

A priesthood leader who denied my refusals for a Priesthood blessing and gave me one anyways despite my protests of a lack of faith.

That same man who called me the next day and told me the most sacred thing that I can't repeat but that hit me so hard, I knew that Jesus Christ really did know me and my suffering.

A doctor that was filling in for the one I was scheduled to meet with but then became one of my closest friends and allies in this battle.

A brother who related his dealings with the loss of a spouse to cancer and how to deal with affliction.

A woman on a flight to Australia who talked about her son with bipolar disorder for 3 plus hours and I was able to comfort her.

An Aunt who asked if I could help a friend of hers through a difficult time with her son and his own battle with mental illness.

The fact that in two attempts on my own life, the Lord spared me, and the second time was definitely divine intervention.

A lady that on a chance sit down visit, I could see the same mental anguish that had driven me over the edge and after a candid conversation broke down to me with the pain in her heart and soul.

A wife who not only married me but deals with some crazy crap.

The son that I used to go in and hold and rock on suicidal nights when I had a hard time remembering what I wanted to live for. I couldn't forget what I was holding there in my hands.

There are a lot more of these experiences and people. I've lost some of them because they weren't recorded but the point is that, especially in hindsight, I see how my Savior was there for me all along the way. Most of the time he provided someone for me and at the deepest darkest time of my life he sent someone specifically to tell and remind me of His love. You can choose to believe or see this or not. It can be a lot of coincidence or it can be divine direction.

Peace I leave with you, my ^bpeace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be ^ctroubled, neither let it be afraid. - John 14:27

This scripture has helped me a lot in dark times. It's one I think most people just know off the top of their head. The previous verse talks about the Holy Spirit but I think just looking at this individually, I've felt the Lord tell me that it's not just the spirit I'll give you, because ironically with mental illness sometimes it's next to impossible to feel the spirit no matter how hard you try. I feel like the Lord told me through this that I will be there to lift you up and support you. When I can't be there I will send someone in my stead. If they fail to listen and come, I will be there.

I feel like Peace is such an appropriate word because it is really what you seek so desperately when you struggle with mental illness. The barrage of emotional distress is incessant, at times and all the things you do are for relief. The relief that I keep referring to is really an assemblance of peace. When I read that verse I hear the Lord saying, this isn't going to be an easy fix. The world would say there is a pill that will fix it but this isn't going to be that easy, but I will give you relief. It may be just enough to put down the knife or gun. It may be just enough to call someone you love instead of act impulsively, but if you will come to me, I will give you a fraction of peace, but you have to believe it. You have to believe that I can ease your troubles better than the resolutions of your own mind.

In the moments of darkness it is always hard to make the right decision. Perhaps a post for another day, but that's why I think we can never judge anyone who hasn't been able to find that hope when in the darkness. If you have ever known the emotional state or fragility of someone who takes that step, you would know that they are not cowards. They are not selfish and the Lord will be there to embrace them and help them be who they need to be for Him. There are very few people who needs the Lord's embrace more than them. There suffering is one that should never be judged, except by The Lord. 

The Lord is the most important support anyone can have in dealing with any difficulty. If it's hard to see Him there with us when we are in the crucible, then perhaps we can have the strength to recollect when we have seen Him in our life in the past. He is our Savior, and He is bound to us. He is perfect and will not waiver. It is up to us to find the strength amidst the affliction to find Him. I assure you, it doesn't take much to find Him. We just have to look.

I spent the better part of my first 3 years not looking to the Lord for support. I've spent the better part of last 8 looking to Him for strength. I sometimes lean on my own understanding and strength at times and then I find it isn't enough and come back to the Lord. If you can learn to be smarter than me and always look with eye single to the Lord than He will support you. He will lift you up. Don't get me wrong, He's still going to expect you to carry your own weight, and with mental illness that's a heavy sack, but you can "let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Try it a few years and then look back. I think you'll be astonished, humbled and filled with gratitude by the results. I know I am everyday.

You Can't Do It Alone

I can't write too many entries without acknowledging the need for support when dealing with Mental Illness. Many of them are literally the reason I'm still alive today. Many have cried for me, prayed for me and even a few have held my hand down through the hellish abyss that is my illness. There are two that I feel the need to expound upon and along with my parents who have always been supportive.

Initial Diagnosis
            I could probably write a whole entry about this alone but I feel the need to mention a few important things. Those first few days, weeks, months and even years are the hardest. It is difficult to wake up one day and have your capacity diminished to a level that you can't even find the energy to groom yourself, or eat a whole meal. 
            There was a period very early on where I suffered long bouts of deep, deep depression. This was not right at the first but within the first year or so. I had been so depressed for so long that my clothes had piled up over the whole of my room. I would change everyday and just drop my close where they were because I couldn't be bothered to put them in the bin or even separate the underwear from the pants/shorts. I didn't go out much except for a drive-through meal occasionally so I had little need to wear anything presentable. It created a full wardrobe of options, and since I probably only changed once every three days, to cover my floor with clothes meant I probably had gone close to two months without doing my wash. I say all this to explain that one day I woke up feeling slightly better with the resolve to wash all my clothes. I remember being so determined, like this was tryouts for the high school basketball team or the big interview for my dream job. I thought, surely this is something I can easily succeed at. Long story short, I remember I gathered and separated all the clothes and then put a load of whites in the wash (my mom taught me right, to separate my darks and whites). After what was probably 20 minutes of work, I remember going back into my bed hiding under the sheets and just bawling my eyes out. That simple effort had exhausted what little resources I had to the degree that I felt like I had ran a marathon. This coming from a kid that was an overachiever in everything he did prior to his illness.
             The point of that example is that early on it can be very difficult. That's just one of many examples, and I wont even get into some of the scarier manic times when I had little self control. I did find a good drive from Dallas to Louisiana or Houston and back through the night did wonders though. I digress, for loved ones it can be difficult to understand how something can cause someone to change so dramatically. There is often a tendency to want to nudge or push them forward, to light a fire under them and get them back functioning. I assure you that if they have a mental illness, that will be anything but helpful and often cause further isolation or acting out, depending on the problem. What is needed by loved ones is support, encouragement, love and support for getting help. That's not always easy and most sufferers are in denial for quite sometime that they need help on a psychiatric or psychological level. If someone wont get help finding someone that has there same difficulties to talk to can often be helpful. When someone doesn't feel so alone or that just because these feelings and thoughts are foreign to them, they are not foreign to others and can even be understood and explained it will sometimes give them the nudge they need. All in all the truth is that, just like anything else, the person has to want to get help for any help to work.

 Back to My Support
             I was lucky enough to have parents who have always been supportive. Just like anyone else they had to learn and understand the illness better because at first there was a butting of heads and difficulty in communication between my needs and their desire to help. It's natural for confusion and misunderstanding to take place when someone you have known a long time starts acting very erratic and in ways you've never seem them act. It's important for loved ones, parents or spouses to seek out books and support groups or friends with similar situations for better understanding of how to help and the road ahead. NAMI has local chapters throughout the country that have meet up groups specifically for family members of those who suffer. I'd recommend them as an early resource, as they are designed by professionals with vast experience.
Here is a link to NAMI: https://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Family-to-Family&lstid=605
             Beyond parental support is professional support. I remember back in high school, a couple years before an official diagnosis, I was having some minor depression but was expressing suicidal feelings. My parents asked me if I wanted to see a psychologist about it. I remember thinking, I don't want to go because if I go and they say nothing is wrong with me I feel like an idiot for not being able to manage my emotions better. If I go and they say I have a problem, well then I'm messed up. That thought has always stuck with me. I look back and chuckle a little at that notion now. Therapy has been one of the most crucial elements of my progress. I may be a bit different than many because I sought it out early on because I was hearing voices in my head that were very vividly and specifically plotting my self-destruction. These were not your every day, "I'm not good enough" thoughts but rather full blown self-enmity that had separated itself in my mind to be something I found almost impossible to control. I thought I was going crazy, and to a degree, I was. My mind was racing so fast in a way I had never experienced. I would go days without sleeping and drive for 6-8 hours through the night. It was at this time I sought psychological support.
               In my mind it's always a good idea to see a psychologist/therapist first. They may or may not have the credentials to diagnosis an illness but they can get a good idea of whether you need to seek further psychiatric help and get on medications. Once again, if you have a severe mental illness and it is impairing your normal life performance, please see a psychiatrist, not just a family doctor. Something I didn't realize also, is that finding a psychologist that is a good fit for you may be difficult. It took me close to 4 years and 8 or so psychologists to find one that I've stuck with for years now. I'd say always give them 3-4 sessions before you find someone else but don't worry about their feelings if it doesn't work. They are used to it.
              I have a bit of a unique situation because the man who was my initial psychiatrist and who helped me get on meds that made a world of difference, after almost 2 years of trial and error. Trust me, when it comes to psychiatry, patience is a virtue. That doctor has become one of my greatest supports and did so much to change my life, not just with the meds but also his friendship, that my son Ezekiel Rich is named after him. We have a unique situation and most doctors are just that, doctors with which you will have a professional relationship. A good psychiatrist will not only know the meds but listen and be able to explain your problems to you, when there is a problem, with you saying very little. That means he/she has seen it before and that can give you confidence that they can help you. Just like a psychologist, you may need to try a few psychiatrists to find one that works with your personality. You need be honest and open up to them  for them to be able to give you the help you need.

Teana Gets Her Own Title
              Many of you may think you have the greatest wife/spouse in the world but you are incorrect. They may be a perfect fit for you, but I'm pretty sure there are very few people on this whole planet that when they meet my wife don't love her. She is one of the most selfless, caring people I've ever met. She has a soft outer shell and a interior of resilience that has withstood difficulties that I can't imagine dealing with. Her prior life made her able to go with the flow even when that flow was over a cliff and through the deep thicket. We joke that my parents were sent on a mission to Australia so that I could meet her and we could get married. Dealing with my difficulties is a roller coaster for any primary care-giver/supporter. It runs its course on you and beats you up. There are a lot of days it's like being a single parent. There are days there is little emotional support and even emotional abuse from the one you need the support from. There is a lot of listening to talk of suicide and a fear that one day it will become a reality. There is need to push forward when everything feels like it's stuck in mud. My wife deals with a lot. I can't even get into how hard her life can be. A friend of hers during a recent episode of mine was made more aware of the extent of our difficulties and she said to Teana, "I am so surprised because I never hear you complain." That is my wife. I love her dearly. I'm not always sure why she sticks around and why she puts up with my self-destructive behaviors, but I thank God everyday that she does.
                Before I met Teana I was very unstable. The previous 4 or 5 months before we met were the best I'd had in the close to 3 years I'd struggled. I was optimistic that things were changing and Bipolar was going to be a part of my past. We always joke that she hasn't since seen me quite as charming and bubbly as I was on our first date. I always tell her I was hypomanic and that was all the energy I had. Sadly, I think she thought that was how I was most of the time. She loved me even when she saw the other sides. I was always open with her from the beginning about my illness. Initially she thought it was like having diabetes or something else where you just do a little bit for it and no worries. Anyways... we eventually got married and have had a lot of terrible times and a lot of great times since. She is the most important support to me. She gave me hope and reminded me of the Savior's love for me through her own. I had forgotten that love and she brought me back, slowly but surely.
                 Every time I get through a bad spell I think about my wife and my son and the strength they give me. It was no easy decision to have a kid with my circumstance, and financial stability has been somewhat allusive, but it was the right choice for us. It gives me something to live for, not just today, but forever. He is a light to me. I don't want to just see him today and next week but I want to have the strength to live for his baptism, his prom, mission and wedding. I want to see the choices he makes in life and the man he becomes. There is no greater support than knowing there is a little kid at home that unconditionally loves you no matter how unstable you are and all he wants is his Dad. That is support.