A poor child's wealth is hard to find and so much harder to live from day to day. You learn from an early age that what is going on all around you does not make sense, when you are standing on the other side. Surely, the grass is greener, and the life is better in the white picket fenced houses on the other side of town.
No matter the city or town, the house next door always looks better - more normal, more functional, more sane, and happier. Almost everyone and everything looks better on the other side of the street, on the road, and in the classroom, especially in the classroom.
Hand-me-downs or hand-me-ups - from where? From whom? I don't know! I am the oldest! The oldest of seven, since ten! Why did we move so much? What is love, and nurturing, and security? What is wrong with me? With my family? I don't belong with these people, or on this side of town, or in this school, and especially in this classroom where mostly everyone seems to be blessed with whatever they need in life. Surely, I am here because my parents, well my mom, needs time out. School is like a babysitter. That's it!
That's why I'm here, just like everyone else. I'll just fill a chair and wait for the lunch bell, and hold my breath for recess, and count the hours till the end of the school day. Tomorrow comes and I know that it will be more of the same. I know that I will never measure up, fit in or belong and today is baseball. I know that if I can just hit that ball straight and hard through the field, maybe I won't suffer the humiliation of being the last picked for a team. And so, I learn to hit that ball! Wow, it is starting to work. I hear my name closer to the beginning. What a revelation, what a relief!
I hate getting up in the morning. I hate oatmeal, and powered milk, and peanut butter and jelly. How can anyone in their right mind eat that crap? Especially, the oatmeal; it looks like puke! I really hate school. I plan well in advance to have a stomach ache, a headache, or something else, many times a year. Just be convincing, I learned quick to make it work, and it did. I'll never forget the time, I made the ceiling spin to really get sick and dizzy, and I did. That day I stayed home, with some regret. Why did I have to make it so real?
So much better to lie around watching I Love Lucy, The Beaver, and Let's Make a Deal. These three were my favorites. What a comfort not to have to deal with the format and lessons of the day at school. I really hated school for so many reasons, especially, not having good clothes to wear, like 99% of the class, or so it seemed! That's one thing that I will change as soon as I figure out just how to do that, and I did!
When I was eleven, we moved to the next town over and I knew that this was the time to make my transformation. The timing was perfect and I was to enter Junior High School. I had big plans and was ready to do whatever it would take to become a whole new me with a whole new attitude and life. I was almost twelve, and thereafter I learned to lie, I skipped a year, and said that I was thirteen. I started babysitting and earned my own money, usually fifteen dollars a week. I was not extravagant, but my appearance began to improve, as I learned to take the reigns of my own life. Okay, you caught me, I already knew how to lie!
On the outside, things must have appeared that, all was well within, but looking back from the future, so much was actually a time bomb just waiting to explode, and it did, at some future date. I had become a perfectionist, and pretty much still am. I found that my life had spiraled into an abyss of darkness and depression by the time I was nineteen or twenty, preceded by alcohol and substances, toxic relationships, and the birth of my two precious children.
While working at the hospital in dietary, I was introduced to alcohol and marijuana, which became my first love. To this day, it is something I will always think fondly of, but something I have had to divorce myself from. I found myself in the mirror of truth, realizing that I could not afford to chance what the affects may ultimately be creating for me, and I did not want to retreat into darkness and depression. The insanity of bipolar illness, which had already eaten away so many years of my life, with numerous hospitalizations and personal loss and heartache.
Not to mention the affect my foolish choices and parenting weaknesses had upon my two precious children. To this day, our togetherness and unity, has been shattered in ways that I would love to change, but don't know how to make it all better, like every parent would, right? So many hard and painful things happened over the years. I don't see my two precious children that much, and missed 80% of their childhoods. I grieved over the heartache and losses for so many years, unable to accept my own shortcomings and sins.
My two precious children mushroomed, and each became a parent of three. So God has blessed me with six beautiful and wonderful grandchildren. My daughter has two girls and one boy, and my son has two boys and one girl. So I have three granddaughters and three grandsons. Even Steven, all the way. Perfectionist that I am, it is no surprise to me.
Bipolar means two sides. For me that was high or low, depressed or elated. Chemical imbalance they called it. You know manic depression. That's what they called it back in 1977 when I was diagnosed. I didn't really know anyone who had it, but me, and I sure wasn't going to broadcast it. It was frightening to know that I had a mental problem that I really didn't understand and could not control. Was I some kind of a freak? And they didn't know what caused it: childhood, chemical imbalance, environment, or genetics. In my mind, I reasoned, all of the above!
Looking back, I know that my life was mostly a living hell, and 50% of the time, it was euphoria! Reality is overrated, don't you think? Well, in my world it just has to be. I have been through way too much to think otherwise. But, today, life is good and God is in mine. I met Jesus in 1977 and gave my life to Him. I was on fire for the Lord, but the devil just did not, would no let me go. But, all of this time, I know, that I kept the faith, which has served to resurrect me into a new creature in Christ. Jesus set me free and I am free indeed. Free/eeer than ever before in what I considered a miserable, unrelenting life. The enemy is tenacious! But my God is bigger, as BIG as I choose to believe Him to be. Without faith it is impossible to please HIM!
But, things are different now. I am actually happy, blessed, and functional today. I've learned to live in the moment and take it one day at a time. I've learned to balance my life and not cave into the stress and demands of life. I have taken so many routes in my recovery. I cannot credit any one thing that brought me through the long dark tunnel that I walked through, many times being overtaken by yet another train coming through. Many times, I've had to get up, dust myself off, and crawl, to begin walking again. Seeing that light waiting for me to reach, but never being able to just touch it, actually touch and breath in the scent thereof.
I stepped into the psychiatrists office of a pretty recent inpatient hospitalization. I sat down and began to answer his questions. After a short while he said, "I don't think you are bipolar!" After all of these years, what is he telling me? I am stunned. I leave his office and later in the day, I see him and call him over to say, "I am bipolar, you know!"
The next day, I sit in his office again. I say, "Tell me about that condition, what is it?" "I want to know more about it!" He says, "Borderline Personality Disorder!" "Yea, what is it?" He explains very clearly, "When a child receives love and nurturing , and their basic needs are met, the child internalizes these things and it becomes part of their personality."
"When these things are missing from a child's life, there is not a strong foundation, and the child internalizes this and resorts back to an old personality." What a revelation! Now this is an explanation that I can live with. I readily accept this new condition. It sure beats the hell out of being a manic depressive, bipolar, chemically imbalanced, unstable, unpredictable, crazy woman. When I began the outpatient program, I was once again categorized as bipolar. But, I don't care about that anymore. I am bored with trying to learn and figure all of that out. It never really made sense to me and seemed like a dismal life status or sentencing.
I needed something new to figure into the equation. Now I feel that my prognosis is much better, because I know that a whole lot was lacking in my childhood. Things are much different for me today. There are new medications, for good or for bad, I have found that I have to be my own best doctor. I have had to resort to fine tuning my medications at times, or insisting that I be given the opportunity to try something new. I have learned to be proactive in my recovery, as well as, to be my own best friend and advocate. I have a lot more years ahead of me, so I may as well learn to love myself and begin to fill in those empty places within me with nurturing love and seeing that my most basic needs are met.
I have witnessed the closet doors opening and tons of so called manic depressives stepping out. Seems today that everyone and his brother is bipolar. "Small world isn't it, after all?" Sometimes we feel that we are all alone and tend to withdraw and isolate to some deserted island in the confines of our bed and lie there staring at the ceiling with open or closed eyes. The TV princess has come a long way, too. Gone are the days or hopping up to change the channel of what, six to eight channels? Now you can just press buttons and whola, you can surf tons, hundreds of channels. But I don't!
To tell you the truth, I don't even have a television hooked up. To easy to become absorbed in all the garbage that is there calling, "watch this, no, watch this and the commercials, my goodness, give us a break, and they always get higher in volume, damn commercials!" It is too tempting to become a couch potato and I'd much rather be a part of the life, instead of someone else's. Writing is one of my strongest passions, because it is the one thing I could do, no matter my state of mind. I love the ability to express my deepest feelings into written form. Writing is a poor man's wealth and a rich man's dreams. Through reading my expertise of writing is enhanced.
I have been a closet writer for many years, and I have so many possibilities in this little brain of mine. I have reached a stage in my life where I can actually envision myself moving forward with the creation of many writings, including poetry. I am thankful to have the opportunity to expand my horizons with simple means, much like a paper and pen can provide. For I am but a worker bee, but I have learned how to make it all work for me. There is so much to learn and experience every day, and I am only at the precipice of the mountain.
How about you? Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart and is just waiting for you to invite Him in. He wants to set you free from whatever it is that has been holding you down all of these years. Has it been all of your life. I am amazed at how far He has carried me, and I thought I did it all on my own. But looking back I see only one set of footprints! Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light! Jesus Found Me
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