I am planning on writing a Christian Devotional on Borderline Personality Disorder. There is nothing like it out there and I have been contemplating writing for a long time. I thought starting with a Devotional to help people grow in the Lord would be a perfect starting point. For those of you who may also suffer with Borderline Personality Disorder, what would you like to see in a Devotional? What matters to you? What do you want the world to know? May I ask you to pray for me during the writing process and it be less about me and more about Him. I want God's voice to be heard and I want those who may have been hurt by Christianity in one way or another to soften their hearts to go through the Devotional and give God a chance. Pray that a publisher will pick up the book. If it is in God's will it will happen but I want the right publisher, a Godly publisher. Whatever God hands me with this I am ready. Are y'all?
Lots of Love folks!
Monday, January 13, 2014
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
In Chaos: Remember who YOU are!
Spirit vs. Flesh is a hard reality for me to live out depending on episode. I am no Bible scholar here by any means but I have a pretty good understanding of the word. When I say Spirit vs. Flesh I mean that daily we are to die to ourselves and pick up our cross and live in the Spirit living out God's will. That means my wants, my needs, my selfishness, my anger and whatever else lives inside of me I need to give to God and let Him help me through those things so that I can move on and do His will. This life isn't about me. Romans 8:5-7 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to Gods law, nor can it do so.
I have recently wondered how a person like me, with bipolar disorder, can live like this. I don't know sometimes day to day who I might wake up and be. I may be in a manic phase where EVERYTHING is about me and all I look at is Earthly things. All I want are Earthly things that will please me. My mind is governed by the flesh. I can say this, while my mind is governed by the flesh it does feel like death, I am hostile and not submissive to God or anyone else in my life. It is a constant battle with my mind and the Spirit and until I come down from that mania I live a destructive life. I do not live the way a Christian should, I am the most poor example of what a Christian should be and do things that are unthinkable to most Christians. I fall again and again but I get back up and receive the mercy, grace and forgiveness that God gives all His children.
I know that the Christian Community is going to say, "what about self-control, the fruits of the Spirit?". All I can say is I don't know what to say about it. I lose all self-control when it comes to an episode. Medically speaking I cannot help it, if I could it wouldn't be a disorder I suppose. I want so much to control it, get out of it, away from it and I can't. Then the community will say something like, "with God all things are possible". Absolutely! I know I say "can't" a lot. When I am in an episode I am not myself and can't get out of the episode and can't run away from it. It is like a tornado. The storm is coming in the distance. You see the darkness miles away and eventually the storm is right over your house but before you know it a tornado appears and I, the "normal" me, am standing in the eye of the beast watching in snap shots all the disaster around me I am causing. All the chaos I am responsible for I see but I am in the eye of the beast and there isn't a thing I can do about it until the storm lifts. Then there I am like all the Oklahoma folks coming out of shelter to open the doors to see all the damage, putting the snap shots together, to see what's left and who is left standing.
Does God stop tornado's? He could if it was in His will. Does God stop my disorder and heal me? He could but doesn't. Instead He uses me in all my brokenness to do this. To reach out to others who suffer and remind them that when we are the eye of the storm and have lost all control God is still in control. He still loves us, He isn't mad at us, He has plenty enough Grace, Love and Forgiveness to go around when we go to Him and repent. He knows our hearts, He knows our disease and He waits patiently for the storm to pass. Try and learn from the last storm and move on along the narrow road and try again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8
I have recently wondered how a person like me, with bipolar disorder, can live like this. I don't know sometimes day to day who I might wake up and be. I may be in a manic phase where EVERYTHING is about me and all I look at is Earthly things. All I want are Earthly things that will please me. My mind is governed by the flesh. I can say this, while my mind is governed by the flesh it does feel like death, I am hostile and not submissive to God or anyone else in my life. It is a constant battle with my mind and the Spirit and until I come down from that mania I live a destructive life. I do not live the way a Christian should, I am the most poor example of what a Christian should be and do things that are unthinkable to most Christians. I fall again and again but I get back up and receive the mercy, grace and forgiveness that God gives all His children.
I know that the Christian Community is going to say, "what about self-control, the fruits of the Spirit?". All I can say is I don't know what to say about it. I lose all self-control when it comes to an episode. Medically speaking I cannot help it, if I could it wouldn't be a disorder I suppose. I want so much to control it, get out of it, away from it and I can't. Then the community will say something like, "with God all things are possible". Absolutely! I know I say "can't" a lot. When I am in an episode I am not myself and can't get out of the episode and can't run away from it. It is like a tornado. The storm is coming in the distance. You see the darkness miles away and eventually the storm is right over your house but before you know it a tornado appears and I, the "normal" me, am standing in the eye of the beast watching in snap shots all the disaster around me I am causing. All the chaos I am responsible for I see but I am in the eye of the beast and there isn't a thing I can do about it until the storm lifts. Then there I am like all the Oklahoma folks coming out of shelter to open the doors to see all the damage, putting the snap shots together, to see what's left and who is left standing.
Does God stop tornado's? He could if it was in His will. Does God stop my disorder and heal me? He could but doesn't. Instead He uses me in all my brokenness to do this. To reach out to others who suffer and remind them that when we are the eye of the storm and have lost all control God is still in control. He still loves us, He isn't mad at us, He has plenty enough Grace, Love and Forgiveness to go around when we go to Him and repent. He knows our hearts, He knows our disease and He waits patiently for the storm to pass. Try and learn from the last storm and move on along the narrow road and try again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
AH-HA Moment!
I'm just gonna get right down to it partly because it is such a great moment for me and I can't wait to tell about it and partly because I am so tired from working out at the YMCA this morning. :)
I am a sensitive person. Sensitive in many ways. I am very sensitive to love (until it becomes damaged), my feelings are easily hurt, my heart breaks easily and I am easy to anger. I think the anger may stem from the inability to show when I am hurt (AH-HA). I have the ability of course but the reluctance to show emotions. I don't know how to sift through all of these emotions I have to get to the root of what is really bothering me. Maybe I don't take the time to sift through. My first emotion is always anger. Why? Today I got a little upset/angry with someone in my life and when I sat down to think about it I realized that my feelings were hurt. I wasn't angry. I have a hard time showing any other emotion other than anger because all the other emotions show my vulnerability. Me be vulnerable? I don't think so. I'm tough and nothing can hurt me. I shake it off, whatever 'it' is.
I guess that I may have been stuffing down all these emotions for so long that I have just now realized that I am sensitive and it's okay that I am sensitive. I don't have to be the tough guy. Another thing I realized is people with Bipolar Disorder tend to be more sensitive compared to healthy people. And the puzzle pieces come together. I am Bipolar and I am a very sensitive person and they go hand in hand!
Now I am thinking of all the things that have hurt me that I have been unable to admit to because I don't like to show vulnerability. I have stuffed all this stuff down, all this hurtful stuff, and now here I sit sorting through the mess. Instead of allowing myself to feel that hurt and resolve that hurt I would get angry or I would avoid the situation or person. If I would have let myself cry in front of a person who hurt me and not put on the tough guy facade or if I would have said you hurt my feelings things could be so much different now. When did I learn or start hiding how I really feel? When did it become not okay for me to share my feelings? What was it that told me that it isn't okay to be who I am or feel what I feel?
I said in an earlier post that it's okay for me to be different. It's also okay for me to be me. It's okay that I feel what I feel. Somewhere before I have been scolded for being me, feeling what I feel and saying what I say. Maybe that is why when people "point out my flaws" I feel as if I am being scolded for being who I am. Another AH-HA moment for me folks! I'm on a roll!!
I need to let my brain rest for now. The YMCA drained me!
I am a sensitive person. Sensitive in many ways. I am very sensitive to love (until it becomes damaged), my feelings are easily hurt, my heart breaks easily and I am easy to anger. I think the anger may stem from the inability to show when I am hurt (AH-HA). I have the ability of course but the reluctance to show emotions. I don't know how to sift through all of these emotions I have to get to the root of what is really bothering me. Maybe I don't take the time to sift through. My first emotion is always anger. Why? Today I got a little upset/angry with someone in my life and when I sat down to think about it I realized that my feelings were hurt. I wasn't angry. I have a hard time showing any other emotion other than anger because all the other emotions show my vulnerability. Me be vulnerable? I don't think so. I'm tough and nothing can hurt me. I shake it off, whatever 'it' is.
I guess that I may have been stuffing down all these emotions for so long that I have just now realized that I am sensitive and it's okay that I am sensitive. I don't have to be the tough guy. Another thing I realized is people with Bipolar Disorder tend to be more sensitive compared to healthy people. And the puzzle pieces come together. I am Bipolar and I am a very sensitive person and they go hand in hand!
Now I am thinking of all the things that have hurt me that I have been unable to admit to because I don't like to show vulnerability. I have stuffed all this stuff down, all this hurtful stuff, and now here I sit sorting through the mess. Instead of allowing myself to feel that hurt and resolve that hurt I would get angry or I would avoid the situation or person. If I would have let myself cry in front of a person who hurt me and not put on the tough guy facade or if I would have said you hurt my feelings things could be so much different now. When did I learn or start hiding how I really feel? When did it become not okay for me to share my feelings? What was it that told me that it isn't okay to be who I am or feel what I feel?
I said in an earlier post that it's okay for me to be different. It's also okay for me to be me. It's okay that I feel what I feel. Somewhere before I have been scolded for being me, feeling what I feel and saying what I say. Maybe that is why when people "point out my flaws" I feel as if I am being scolded for being who I am. Another AH-HA moment for me folks! I'm on a roll!!
I need to let my brain rest for now. The YMCA drained me!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Livin' on the Edge
My poor husband lives on the edge:
Proverbs 25:24
24 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?
Proverbs 25:24
24 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?
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
M.I.A
I've never been very good at keeping a commitment. I've quit college, relationships and jobs. To keep writing is going to be a challenge for me. I was going to write yesterday or the day before but I didn't feel like it and now I have forgotten what I was going to write about. I'm here today, writing.
I've been moody a lot lately. I don't know what (if anything) triggers these moods. I was fine and finally feeling stable and then BAM out of nowhere I start spiraling again. I'm angry and hateful again and do not want to be around people. Some of the anger is justifiable and maybe some of the trigger is because of some issues in married life these days. I get angry even thinking about those issues. I'm left to stew in those issues alone because my feelings aren't considered. ANYWAY.....
I hate that I am always going to be bipolar. I never can enjoy normal for too long obviously. I thought this time the medicine combination was right and I was going to be better and stable only to feel like this again. I just want some relief and happiness. Peace of mind would be wonderful! I don't get that luxury that mentally healthy people get. I'm just tired and need a break but I can't run away from myself and that is what I need, a vacation away from myself.
Along with the moods swings I have been having I also feel like I am living in a fog. It is so hard to explain but I feel like my body is going through the motions and my brain can't catch up to what is going on. I can't focus. I am not able to concentrate on anything. That is probably why my house has been a mess. When I can't focus or concentrate I get overwhelmed easily and everything is too much. This fog has been terrible. I feel like I am living in my own little world and lose track of time easily. I've never felt this weird before.
Time is slipping away again and I can't concentrate to write anymore today. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
I've been moody a lot lately. I don't know what (if anything) triggers these moods. I was fine and finally feeling stable and then BAM out of nowhere I start spiraling again. I'm angry and hateful again and do not want to be around people. Some of the anger is justifiable and maybe some of the trigger is because of some issues in married life these days. I get angry even thinking about those issues. I'm left to stew in those issues alone because my feelings aren't considered. ANYWAY.....
I hate that I am always going to be bipolar. I never can enjoy normal for too long obviously. I thought this time the medicine combination was right and I was going to be better and stable only to feel like this again. I just want some relief and happiness. Peace of mind would be wonderful! I don't get that luxury that mentally healthy people get. I'm just tired and need a break but I can't run away from myself and that is what I need, a vacation away from myself.
Along with the moods swings I have been having I also feel like I am living in a fog. It is so hard to explain but I feel like my body is going through the motions and my brain can't catch up to what is going on. I can't focus. I am not able to concentrate on anything. That is probably why my house has been a mess. When I can't focus or concentrate I get overwhelmed easily and everything is too much. This fog has been terrible. I feel like I am living in my own little world and lose track of time easily. I've never felt this weird before.
Time is slipping away again and I can't concentrate to write anymore today. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
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