Bloodlines and Bipolar Disorder

 

6202022

Bipolar... “the truth will set you free, but not before breaking your heart, your bank account, a few bones, a few boundaries, a few good relationship, here and there, and your sense of “reality.”

Courage is not being “fearless.” Courage is being scared “shitless,” savvy? “Pause....” taking that deep breath, holding it for just a second, then slowly letting it out, moving outward of the fear, with the breath... then move forward, one step at a time, ten-minutes longer, ten-times stronger...

… “that” is “courage.”

I've been wrestling with the “angels” every since I had this “manic” episode 4-5 years back, when I was so sick with chronic pancreatitis, in so much unbelievable pain, on so many different levels, dying daily.

It pushed me over the edge, it was more than my brain could compute, my emotions could handle, and it landed me a diagnosis of “Bipolar-1” at the time, because it presented itself that way, and I concur, the “appropriate diagnosis” for if our seats where switched, and “we” put on different hats, I'd say the same.

Seven-years later... progressing miraculous in “Recovery” I still see the same Psychotherapist/Spiritual Director with a (PHD) a “Christian” and not the bumper-sticker shit, I mind you.

“If it works, it's not broke.. don't fix it.”

I don't just trust “anybody” with my heart and soul,.. been there done that.

I've taken some bad advice way back in the day because I was vulnerable, “wet behind the ears” new to the program, put people on a “pedal stool,” was “gullible,”and I think it “set me back more than helped, way back.”

This, by people I “trusted,” who “at best,” were “half as smart as me, had no degree's in psychology, let alone their “ABC's,” having no “real love” of psychology, spirituality, healing hearts/minds, for the love of the art, the practice of it in the field, the “theater.” It was “Ego” instruction, rather by “negation,” of how not to “heal” people if anything else. Good education. ;)

Some “advice” is better not listened to; “always trust that gut feeling, that intuition, don't betray yourself, for you will definitely suffer from it if you don't, the spirit doesn't like that monkey business.”

“Conscience” is the one thing that still hurts, when everything else appears “fine” outwardly.

I'm still trying to fuse my heart and soul back together from stupid advise given 30-years ago. That's a long stretch to patch the heart back together.

I hope that registers.

Bloodlines...

… Imagine how it feels to have a “spatial” and “abstract reasoning,” ability that only a very tiny fraction of the world population has? Imagine it kind of has a “mind-muse” of it's own, unbridled?

Imagine being “driven” like a buffalo marching forward in the raging winter winds, where you have to trudge, march, to work “it” off, and sleep is no longer is required?

Who needs dope? Lmao.

Slippery slopes... without any ropes to anchor the ass.

That kind of stuff killed my sister,(on one-side of bloodline) whom I know had an IQ over 151 and most likely “bipolar.”

My mother... with what I know now, this long in the tooth, three-decades into my recovery, I suspect “Bipolar” or something close to it. It would explain so much... does explain so much, and I find more compassion for her, forgiveness, for how hard it must have been for her especially back in those days, and more grace in my own life to raise the bar for my progeny.

On the other side of the bloodline, I have a late sister who was pretty damn rowdy when young, a cop, a military vet, first women in her county I think to be a cop.

My father died in a Texas prison as a result of his poor choices... He was a Veteran of the Korean War, wounded in battle from what I understand. Before the war, I'm told he would take his shirt off his back to help people, I imagine he may have also been showing off. lol

How the in the Hell did he go off the rails like that, fall so far from grace?

It took some time for me to understand, to make sense of his senseless life.

My fathers progeny share many character traits. Strong DNA. I discovered I had a brother out there, who looked remarkably like me when young, who drank himself to death basically. I suspect “Bipolar.”

It was so uncanny, it freaked me out a bit, it was like there was this “parallel” universe, of family members I had no idea even existed, and they were all living remarkably the same kind of life as me.

So, the odds of me being “Bipolar” are pretty much “off the charts.” I'm not sure why the “label” bothers me so much, like, why is it okay to be “ADD” but not “Bipolar?”

What is the hang up? Stigma? Denial?

That fact that the word “bipolar” pisses me off so much, is because it “scares me,” honestly, and it's probably a good indicator, “it's the God's honest truth about me.”

The word “Bipolar” represents to me; “My late mother's behavior, my late sister's behavior, my late fathers behavior, my other late sister's behavior, my late brothers behavior... and nauseum.

All of them were “untreated.”

I started my recovery, my journey at the same time my “creative genius” fired up, “25-years old.”

God brought me children at that time as well. Good timing Jesus. I was taking my kids to meetings when they were in diapers, for I already knew then... I would have to “save a set for them” in the future.

Addiction “masks” mental illness, but if you stay sober long enough, you will see what your being save from, and get a glimpse of the “coming attractions” if you don't stay sober, get the help you need.

One would be “Hell-Bent” to find somebody in the program(and there are millions)who isn't “co-morbid,” meaning...at least, “dual-diagnosis,” just beneath their addiction.

I don't have a drinking problem today, or a drug problem today... I have a “living” problem, and the problem is “me” with the way I want to live at times; “my way or the high way, flying by the seat of my pants, just to be “stay'n alive.”

I am my worst enemy, and I battle with myself, more than anybody else.

I share this because; the times are tough, and they are even tougher for those struggling with mental health issues, alone, in silence, locked into fear... sinking ever deeper into the abyss.

If I can make it this far... You can too. The program doesn't work real good for “geniuses,” people who have it already all figured out, (but you wouldn't know it by looking at their lives)or for those who try to figure it all out, they are not “teachable.”

Most show up on sobriety' front porch because it's the last house on the block that even gives a damn, and the only home that will still have them, love them unconditionally.

There is help... there is a solution, there is freedom, there is peace, there is love and hope, there is a fellowship, waiting just for you with open arms, people who truly understand You, who may be the only help available to You on this planet, don't delay love, it is a potent healer.

Pek.