Livin' on the Edge

<sup>My poor husband lives on the edge:

                     

                                     Proverbs 25:24

                                    24</sup> Better to live on a corner of the roof
                               than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

The edge of the corner of the roof this man lives! I read this scripture and I thought, what about me? I am different. I am a Christian but I am a Christian with Bipolar Disorder. I don't always function the way a healthy person would function. I get irritable and agitated and then lose my temper. I myself am always on an edge that is easy to fall over. So to say that I am quarrelsome is an understatement. I get mean, hateful, angry, out of control, degrading and hurtful when I've had a Bipolar day, week, month. I say some very hurtful and negative things to the people I love but my husband gets the wrath. He has seen the good, the bad and the ugly. He has put up with my anger, rages, hurtful outbursts. He frequently says that he is walking on egg shells. Indeed he is. I couldn't live with me and I don't know how he lives with me. Would he at times rather live on the corner of the roof? If I had to answer for him it would be a resounding YES!

I hate the guilt I feel because I feel like I can never live up to God's expectations of what I should be. There are these guidelines so to say for living a life for Christ. I know that your everyday person falls short of the glory of God daily but I fall even shorter. So, I am reading this verse and all I can think is I am different. I can't control the anger or rage sometimes. I can't stop the mood I am in. I get so angry that I could easily hurt someone a lot of the times. Yet I am supposed to have the fruit of the spirit and be a Proverbs 31 woman. I am supposed to be a reflection of Christ. I feel so guilty because I can't be those things. The monster on my back will not allow me to be the woman of Christ I so long to be.

Before you think or say with Christ all things are possible and he is the healer let me say this. I am so tired of people saying that. Do they not think that I don't think of that same verse? I wrestle with this myself. You must remember I have a mental illness. A mental illness that requires me to take medication for the rest of my life to keep me alive. I can't live a life like a healthy person can. I often wonder what God thinks about me and this illness. I wonder if the illness is taken into consideration. I'm trying to compare it to another illness and Downs Syndrome keeps coming to the forefront. I don't see a someone telling a person with Downs Syndrome that with Christ all things are possible and he can heal you. A miracle could happen and I am not saying that it couldn't. I am not saying that if it's in God's will that he couldn't do it because I know that he could. All I am trying to say is I think that because my illness is invisible it is easier to say that God can and will heal me. I don't look sick and so it is easy to throw around those Christian cliches.

There are all these blogs that I follow and most of them are christian moms. They have all this inspirational stuff to say and inspirational stories but I have yet to see a Christian blog that also deals with mental illness. I feel so alone and isolated. I don't know how God see's me or a mental illness because I don't know anyone else who is talking about it. You don't know my struggle until you have walked the path I walk. I would love to see other Christian blogs that also talk about mental illness. A lot of times I read these blogs and I feel sad afterwards because I can't be like them. I try and I try but I can't hold it together like a healthy person can.  

I guess I do know this, God covers me in Grace and Mercy and he loves me unconditionally. Maybe that's enough, maybe that is all I need to know? I don't know. I do know I don't want to mess up like I do and I do everything I can to try and control the monster on my back. I can't always. I wonder if God understands since it's an illness?