There Is Always Something (re-post)

I was in my car driving and I felt the urge that I've felt so many time before but upon which I have failed to follow through. I want to take the time to publicly share some of my feelings and thoughts on the difficulties of Bipolar Disorder. I've not been shy about explaining to people that I have Bipolar I Disorder. I fall into craters of depression so low I find it hard to get out of bed along with times of extreme agitation where my mind is literally bombarded by incessant thoughts of suicide. These started when I was 18 and have continued to varying levels of difficulty for the last 11 years. I say all this to show that 11 years and still living has given me a wealth of experience in dealing with these difficulties. I haven't always made good choices in coping with my problems and even have attempted suicide twice. By the grace of God I'm still here and have added 2 reasons to live that make every battle worth winning, in my wife, Teana and my son, Ezekiel. But I didn't always think I would have them to help fight the fight.

I used to want to share the sufferings of the illness with others. I'm still app to do that on occasion when solicited but at this point in my life my desire is really to bring understanding and hope to those who need it and their families. There was a time in those early years where I was barely hanging on and felt abandoned and alone. My mind had turned on me and was rooting for my demise and even arguing its inevitability. I believed it to the point of almost not making it beyond that period. I often think now, what would I have said to that scared, fragile boy who was so consumed by darkness and madness that there was no way for him to see the life before him. In those times God spared my life, despite my every effort to end it, and I found a Doctor who did so much for me that my son is named after him. The path was a lot more complicated then that but the point was I went from a boy with little to no hope for the future to a still struggling man with a loving family that battles for the tender mercies God has bestowed on him in his wife and kid.

It is those who are in the fog of despair that I direct my thoughts. What would I say to those people? I would say hold on. Hold on with everything you have. Hold on like everything depends on you and then lean on others and the Lord like you have nothing left to give. I've always found that at the moments of deepest darkness, when I'm ready to throw in the towel, there is always some thought that comes to mind of why I am here on the earth and why I haven't given up yet. The thought of a loved one, or a game of one-on-one with my brother; One more joke I need to tell my sister and make her laugh; A memory of a time where i could feel the sun warming my skin and the joys of summer; A court side Mavs game with my best friend. I don't believe there are many people in the world who 100% want out of life. If we all think hard enough there are people we will miss and memories made that we want to make again. Those are what I have always held on to. They may not be that reassuring in the moment of bitter torment, but they are as real as the suffering and so is the fact that more of those memories can be our future. My life is evidence of that. I always told myself I'd never find a girl who could put up with me, who would love me despite my craziness. I found her and she has given me joy beyond compare, even at times of great suffering.

This battle is one fought behind closed doors in dark rooms and under layers of covers. It is a battle fought with torment at the very hours most of the world peacefully sleeps dreaming happy thoughts, on dark roads with blaring music at 3am. It is lonely. It feels lonely and it seems hopeless. But I assure anyone dealing with it or loving someone dealing with it that it isn't hopeless. There is always hope. If you want a fairy tale ending, I can't assure you of that. This is a battle you will face the rest of your life. But it can get a lot better and it can be an impairment without being debilitating. I have 11 years of evidence to prove it. And that's just me.

How Do We Help Those We Love? (re-post)

Now I have to start by saying I'm not a trained psychologist and that this is only what I've felt was helpful for me in my experiences. You have to know that because of my strict adherence from childhood to my religious code of health I never struggled with drug and alcohol problems. In my worst of times I knew that they would send me over the edge and luckily had the self-control to never even try them. (Full disclosure- I did try alcohol once but didn't get drunk).


What I do know about getting help for loved ones is that it starts with them. The truth is that like anything else in life, if they don't think they have a problem or don't think they need help for it, there is little you can do for them other than be patient. That's not always a situation a loved one can wait on. Also, as great as GPs can be as doctors, if you feel you or someone you love has a serious issue, get the proper help and request a referral to a Psychiatrist. They are trained on these matters in ways GPs have little knowledge. The wrong medication administered by a less knowledgeable doctor can dramatically increase suicidal ideation along with a myriad of other things. Get the proper help from the beginning. I would say that if there is any sign or talk of suicide that regardless of the willingness of the afflicted to comply, action should be taken and a physician should be contacted immediately.

On the note of suicide, you should always watch the signs. There is no full proof way to know for sure whether someone will act out an attempt on their life but usually it is progressive. All signs of suicide should be taken extremely serious but it can escalate. Comments of ending their life in moments of frustration is perhaps a first step down the road. Any signs of Internet searches on items or pill doses that could be used for such an attempt is an obviously an escalated red flag. Attempts of self-injury or more minor self-injuries including cutting or other forms should be taken very seriously and a sign that one is building up the capacity to act out in a more extreme manner. Changes in behavior that leads to high levels of impulsivity, especially combined with any of the above should send alarm bells off and be a time where the sufferer is not left alone, regardless of the reassurance they may give. These are definitely generalities but if any of these signs are visible one should not only try and remove the more accessible means of self harm, but also make sure the sufferer understands there is an readily available, open line of support and communication no matter the hour.

Back to the less depressing matters. Loved ones need to understand that mental illness is extremely difficult to understand and accept for the sufferer, especially in the initial years. There are feelings of denial, defeat and depression. It is hard for anyone to understand how their mind and body could function with great capacity a short time before but then all of a sudden is so "pathetic" that it is difficult to get out of bed. Often those who don't suffer from the illness have a hard time understanding how a little will power, "sucking it up" and/or a shift in paradigm aren't effective means of motivation for depression or mania. I relate the state of the sufferer to the kid who twirls around faster and faster with their head on the bat and then tries to walk, dizzied by the movement. We've all experience that inability to gather our bearings in that circumstance. Now imagine if that state of dizziness never ended, but you were still expected to perform like a normal person. You would know in your mind that is shouldn't be hard to snap out of the dizziness and chaos and that in the past the feeling had left after a mere few minutes. This time is different though, no matter your will power or determination to stop being dizzy, you cannot help it. Now imagine in that state of disorientation, how maddening it would be to live your normal life, go to work, interact with others, or even participate in your favorite hobby. It would be next to impossible, especially initially to do those things, and even while doing those tasks that were manageable, your mind would be filled with frustration over the fact that you can't snap out of this disorientation when your whole life to this point it had always left you within minutes. That dizziness is a lot like the bombardment of thoughts and feelings that come with both depression and high manias. As difficult as the feelings and thoughts are to manage, the greater frustration is often that you can't seem to snap yourself out of it no matter what you do.

To be completely candid I have a tattoo, something in my church that is pretty much frowned upon. Regardless of my current ambivalence about that decision, I'd like to show you what it looks like and explain it because it summarizes some of my own feelings and how it helped me get through some darker days. Early in my struggle I had an addiction to cutting. I have probably 30 or so places on my arms, legs and chest where I have carved or cut on myself in some form or fashion. I felt I was so worthless that it was a way to purge all the self loathing feelings I had because of my inability to push out of deep depressions and high agitated states. Some of those cuts were so deep they have caused permanent ligament damage in my forearm. One of the things I loved about cutting, especially on my arms was that it was something visible to me and everyone else that showed I felt I was defective. After spending time with Teana and growing close to her, I realized that I couldn't keep hurting myself all the time and that I needed to move forward in life. One day, impulsively, but having been thought of long before, we drove to Deep Ellum and they sized me up and charged the white suburban kid double for this simple tattoo. (it's a bit better than the picture) Now Teana makes fun of me for getting it and that of all the ways I could express my illness, I chose that. But I had thought about it and I knew I needed to express something I felt was at the core of my difficulties but also was something I could look in the mirror at everyday and remember. On the deeply depressing days where no hope was in sight, I could look in the mirror and see where I was but then also that there would come a day when i felt the sun shine again and could smile one of those smiles that you feel in your chest and gut. On the reverse side, I could remember in the good times to not get overly excited and to not make too many commitments and load myself up in a way that couldn't be kept when the down times came, as they surely would.

That is how you can help your loved ones who suffer. You can realize that if you or them are going to try and get in a fight with bipolar, thinking you will win, I assure you, you won't. You can't cure it. You can't beat it, trust me I've tried for years. The best thing to do is accept it and accept those who it affects. Progress will be slow and patience will be required by all parties. The sooner everyone can realize that bad days are bound to come but so are good days then the better it will be for everyone.

I tell everyone that about 4 times a year I come out of a terribly dark time. There are a lot of periods toward the ends of those dark times where you start to feel better in the morning but then slip back into darkness by the afternoon and it plays with your head, like the old man on the insurance commercial pulling the dollar away on the end of the fishing rod from the girl with a grin on his face. But on that day when you finally come out of it for real there is a joy and gratitude to God that I can not put into words. I tell my family that I know what the resurrection will feel like because it feels like my body has gone from pathetic to perfected and the contrast is so vast it is almost surreal. Those days don't come along too often. Most days are somewhere in between good and bad but those are days that I feel hope and I know I must keep pushing along. Trust that your loved ones can feel that one day too. It took time to appreciate those days and even to appreciate the dark days. I'm bipolar. When I talk to God sometimes there are expletives thrown out there and then other times I kneel so humbly that I know my Heavenly Fathers eyes are watering too.

I'll go back to my original point. We have to accept the lot we've been given in life. I believe there is something beautiful in everything we go through, even those trips to hell that we travel on alone without the companionship of those we love most. In the darkest hours it feels lonely. It is difficult beyond belief. But the Lord will sustain us as sufferers and loved ones of those who suffer. The first step, though, is to admit we have a problem and in the case of Mental Illness, there is no easy way out.

Depression: Seperate Your Thoughts & Remember It Will Get Better

The number one problem I see in myself and others is the paralysis of depression. The deep dark times come and it feels like we are suffocating, kicking and screaming for relief and as that depression intensifies, so does the urge to do whatever for relief, much like someone drowning will pull under the person trying to help them just to get air. In those times you’ll see self-destructive behavior or relationship destructive behavior. There is a feeling that no one understands and when someone externally questions our motives or will-power, like we are causing this our self, it usually results in a further isolation from those who can be of help in these times. 

Years of therapy have helped me in those times to do a couple different things. The first is to separate myself, or at least my thought process, from what I feel. I tend to try and be as logical and fact based in my thinking, based on past experience and on what I have taken time to pattern in my brains as to what I want for life when I’m stable. In my world, that is my wife and my son and a life with them and honesty to them and with God in all I do. When I feel deeply depressed I try to separate my thoughts from those emotions and into the past episodes I’ve had. What actions when I was depressed before were helpful and what weren’t? What gave me relief in that moment and maybe kept me from worse behavior and what were the consequences of those decisions after I felt better? It’s not a real black and white analysis but over lots of years I’ve come to create a methodology of good, better, best. Sure going and buying clothes or eating at some restaurant you really crave may help you feel better but what happens when the credit card bill comes? Obviously, there are much worse coping mechanisms and addictions and some that are not so bad, like exercise. It’s about finding what works and doesn’t create a lot of collateral damage that has to be cleaned up when you do feel better again.

Often we feel the only way to keep going through those dark time is to appease the needs of our emotions. I would suggest that that isn’t true. In fact, sometimes greater long-term strength comes from doing one or two things you should do but don’t want to do. I’m currently working on pushing myself to get to work when I feel deeply depressed. It’s easier to rationalize that staying in bed and waiting it out will make it last less time and will be more beneficial, as you won’t have to face triggers and stimulation and things that make it worse or tire you out more but I find that the confidence that can come from years and years of increase productivity despite severe moods swings has given me greater confidence in life and that just because my mood changes doesn’t mean I’m still not in charge. We don’t have to be slave to mood swings and mood disorders. We may not function as fully as we want but I believe if we challenge those internal notions of inability and try just a little to do one thing that makes us uncomfortable we will learn we have greater capacity and also gain confidence in managing the chaos in our mind without. That was a hard notion to swallow 10-12 years ago but today it has become almost innate in my life. It has been most affective in the way I father my son. He is a huge trigger at 3 years old during depression but I've come to know how to interact and show love to him and smile and play for an hour or so even when I feel terrible inside. I can't do it endlessly but I can put my emotions to the side for him for a period to make sure he know I love him. I couldn't always do that, but have learned how to set the emotions aside and have also learned the negative consequences of doing so are not usually as bad as I think. It usually just means a longer nap, maybe with the help of some medicine. 

To those who love and support someone with mental illness, please, please, please don’t question the motives of someone who is struggling. It is easy for you to look at their actions and see the irrationality in them, how they are self-sabotaging and making it harder on themselves. Just like marriage, no good comes from pointing out someone’s weaknesses. Your true value can come as someone to vent to, lean on emotionally and to build them and noticing and applauding the efforts you do see them making for good. If we could all get the mindset of looking at others difficulties and thinking about what kind of trauma would cause me to feel and act in a way as someone who is severely depressed. Maybe you can understand how anything they’ve experience could cause that, but that isn’t your judgment to make. If you could imagine what it would feel like, regardless of causation, you will come closer to them opening up to you and feeling like you are their teammate and confidant in this battle. As someone who suffers, there is nothing more desired by someone who is suffering from depression, than knowing they aren’t alone and that they will not be abandoned by God and those they love. Often, they feel abandoned by God emotionally, so if you abandon them also it will give emotional cause, justified or not in your mind, for further isolation and irrationality.

                

The second point that every person in depression has to come to know as surely as they do anything else in life is that it will get better. No episode lasts forever. This is probably the most crucial aspect of improvement during episodes and improved choices as well. There is a reason that most suicides happen early on in the diagnoses of a mental illness. I attempted suicide about 6 months after I started having problems because back then I didn’t know that it would get better and that these episodes wouldn’t define my existence. Now I can more or less account for one major depressive episode every 3-4 months that will last from 2-4 weeks. I have rapid cycling bipolar so there are a lot of little ups and downs in between those major episodes, that can sometimes be annoying because you have to stop to assess every one of them to see if they will become something more or not, but I’ve come to understand that it will get better. I go into episodes knowing and believing that and then when I get to the end of my will-power two or so weeks into a really bad episode, I turn to my wife or parents or others I trust for reinforcement and encouragement to endure. Occasionally, when I’ve pushed myself for long periods of time to meet the demands of my family and a job I will fall completely apart and have a terribly bad episode that can last 3-4 months with variations of functioning levels during those periods. Those are the times it is most important to hold on to hope. In those times I try to pick one thing to do every day like exercise. I still won’t do it every day but if I can do it every other day, I’m doing more than I would if not. It helps give you something to hope for and to keep you going. I look at depression like something to beat. It is battle between a disorder and me and if it wins it ends in death via suicide. I win every time I face an episode with a different outcome.

What I’ve learned though is that there can be greater experiences and happiness than just enduring and not dying. We have the power to improve our choices every episode until we are becoming something more than we were to begin with. I’ve learned a lot in 12 years and though I still struggle to work and do many other things most people can easily do in life, I have come to know and understand the pain of those who truly suffer. My burden and most hated aspect of my existence has been the means of creating empathy in me for those who are in despair for a myriad of reasons, mental health related or not. The truth is, it’s probably the best aspect of my personality and I wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t for deep depression. So today, while I am writing this to distract and remind myself of how to manage the depression I'm currently feeling, I find solace and the desire to strengthen my resolve to endure and see my life beyond these emotional states. 

Beyond The Fog

I once heard the story of Florence Chadwick, a female swimmer who once held the record for swimming the English Channel. On a different occasion she attempted to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Islands and the California coastline. An excerpt from “Notable American Women” describes the experience as follows:

After about 15 hours a thick fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability, and she told her mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn’t think she could make it. She swam for another hour before asking to be pulled out, unable to see the coastline due to the fog. As she sat in the boat, she found out she had stopped swimming just one mile away from her destination.

That story came to my mind after reflecting on my most recent episode. It was about 3 weeks ago that I was in depth of an agitated mixed state. I was depressed and felt very little to no hope for the future. After, 12 years with this illness, it takes a lot for me to get to a point where I feel like there is no hope. Most of the time I feel pretty miserable but am able to tell myself that it will get better.  This was one of those occasions where those therapeutic skills were failing me.

I wasn’t helping myself either by not taking my mood-stabilizers consistently. I even told my Psychiatrist off a bit and let her know how easy it is for her to tell me to take the meds when she doesn’t have to fight through the haze and the complete lack of creative and intellectual thought process. When you’re on some of those mood-stabilizers, mixed with the anti-psychotics it feels like a miracle just getting out of bed and function on a decent level. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s a smart thing. As bad as all that haze is, I get a lot less impulsive and suicidal when I consistently take them. She finally suggested we try a liquid form of lithium which has since been really helpful, as it doesn’t make me severely nauseous, like the lithium does when I take it on an empty stomach.

Back to managing the feelings of the episode. This was a pretty bad episode. With my history, the first thing I have to work through is the urge to self-harm. I’m not sure why it is so strong, mostly because I’ve used it in the past a lot and probably because I feel it’s a way to force my emotions out and purge them and quickly re-gain emotional stability. It’s a horrible way to cope and it scares and stresses out everyone you love. It can also lead to more and more aggressive forms that can unintentionally or semi-intentionally lead to suicide. The number one job in those times is to keep myself out of those situations. During one period I hadn’t slept the whole night before and just kept trying to watch shows to distract my brain from thinking about how much I wanted to hurt myself. The next morning Teana was planning on going to very special day for my cousin but I walked in early that morning after pacing much of the night and told her I needed her to stay. I knew that if I had 3-5 hours alone that day after no sleep that my mind was ready to lose it and I may do something I truly regret. I did the right thing by letting her know where I was and how serious it was especially since it’s hard for her to gauge, as sleepless nights aren’t too uncommon and I’m agitated quite often.

The day and period passed with no occurrences of self-harm or any other major issues. I got focused on catching up on a bunch of movie’s I’ve never watched from a list I have and stuck myself in front of the computer on Netflix for the better part of several days. It kept my mind on something and then I’d drug myself up with a greater than normal dose of anti-psychotics (as directed by my doctor) and then I’d sleep.

I was pretty proud of myself as I finally started to feel relief. Teana had a church camp to go to the next week and so I was going to have Zeke most of the time, except for when my Mom said she would help and he did have daycare some. I still had to take him from the time work ended until bedtime, as well as one full day, on top of that I planned on working 3 full days, per my usual schedule. I tend to not give myself as much slack as I need and to try and push myself when part of me knows I should slow down. I probably shouldn’t have worked much, if at all, that week but I felt like I needed to because they needed me and because I don’t want to be shown favoritism, even though I really could have chosen not to work if I wanted to without repercussion at work. Anyways, I got halfway through the week when I hit a wall and started to feel deeply depressed, as well as exhausted. My parents were already helping a ton and Teana was gone so I felt like I had to suck it up and keep going. It was at this moment that I was like Florence Chadwick. I was immersed in fog and I decided on some level to throw in the towel and say “Screw it! Screw God! Screw Life! Screw everyone who doesn’t get it!” The good and the bad of this was that I had to take care of Zeke. I knew I couldn’t hurt myself or anything because he needed me and so I turned to old negative coping mechanisms. Later that week Teana finally came home. I played off like everything was fine until she could tell it wasn’t. My mind filled with thoughts of suicide and anger and I deeply wanted out. I was tired and I felt like it was useless. Teana made me take a larger dose of anti-psychotics, like I’m supposed to take in troubled times and made me stay in bed with her until I fell asleep. The next few days were a little better but manageable. Finally, after a few more days the fog lifted and I felt relief.

Now that I am in a place of stability I look back and think, if I could have just seen the shore ahead or known it was there even though I was in the fog, how would I have made better decisions? I still did pretty well, all in all. I didn’t hurt myself but there were pieces to be cleaned up after some stupid decisions. The story of Florence Chadwick continues with her trying again but the next time she was in the fog, when she felt like she could go no further, she pictured the shoreline just a mile away as she had seen once she stopped before.

That may seem like a simple thing but to learn to see the end in sight when in the midst of an unbearable depressive or agitated rage or while experiencing psychosis, but I believe it can be learned.

It has been a long journey for me. 10 years ago I lived and breathed for my emotional states and acted out on whatever I felt like doing during those ups and downs. That led to emotional abuse, the beginning of several different addictions, a distancing myself from God, and a lot of reckless behavior. I didn’t care until the consequences caught up with me. You give someone an opportunity to end a relationship like that and they will, rightfully, leave to mend themselves. You realize that no matter what you do, where you go, what you buy that your illness doesn’t leave. You may find freedom from its cares for a period but you stay long enough in any environment and it will catch up. When your brain is the problem, lifestyle changes won’t create lasting solutions. So one day I looked myself in the mirror and knew I had to change. First it was finding God. Then it was overcoming addictions, which took years and years, eventually I added attempts to reincorporate myself into society. A simple job. A few college classes. At times, I’d get excited and try to bite off more than I could chew and then would come crashing down and have to slowly pick of the pieces again. The first few years it felt like you were building up and tearing down the same stuff and not making much progress but in time and when I stepped back far enough I could see simple undeniable progress. After 2 years, I finally worked part time successfully. After 3 ½ years, I got through some classes. After 5, I went full time to school and even though I only showed up 50% of the time I still did well because I got accommodations even though it was embarrassing. My relationship with God slowly improved. I went and met with church leaders more times than I care to admit and every time I made progress. I eventually found a confidence in who I was and how Heavenly Father saw me. There are times that the old thoughts creep in, especially when I’m cycling. Even today, with the amount of stressors in my life, I have a pretty significantly debilitating episode every 3-4 months, where I spend 2-4 weeks mostly in bed. I’m working on pushing myself to still show up for work at least part of those times or a few days a week during those times even if I’m horribly unproductive. My boss supports and encourages me in that and it has been helpful. Those days are very draining but they are also very rewarding because at the end even though you feel like you ran a marathon, you feel encouraged that you have greater capacity than you realize.

I have seen miracles in my life, or at least what seem to me to be such when I consider how broken I once was. I haven’t heard psychotic voices in my head in years. Nine years into these issues, about the time I graduated from school I quit feeling the everyday desire to kill myself. I now have a son that brings me so much joy and just last night I sat with my wife talking and felt as in love with her as I ever have. I am working now, when things are good, to prepare myself for the fog that will come again.

There are two sureties in my life. One, I’m Bipolar, so bad days are ahead and some of them will be close to unbearable and will take all I can muster to endure. Two, those periods are like a fog, they will entangle my mind into false precepts that their pain is never ceasing, but I am working at remembering that the shore is just a mile away. 

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.