The Changing Truth

I talk a good game but really I’m a falsehood. I’ve ignored facts of my life. I’ve lied to myself and, therefore, I’ve lied to anyone who has read this blog.

I didn’t set out to do this. I am surprised, even stunned, to reach this conclusion. I’ll try not to lie again, but how I viewed many years of my life has changed—dramatically.

Over the past few days, after getting through a serious medical situation and of course still living with bipolar, I have spent time reflecting. A few days of reflection that has shifted how and what I think. Some might call it an epiphany.  I can’t be that grandiose.

What I write is honest. My prime goal of this blog. Honesty, I see now, shifts through time and perspective.

I have been tumbling through life. Not in control. Not wanting to be in control. Just tumbling as the winds of this disease have pushed me this way or that.

I am struck forcefully that I was just breathing to exist, not breathing to live. I was letting my life slip out of my hands, just watching it slowly turn grey and turn to nothing.

Perhaps this was the only way I saw to cope. Perhaps it was a manifestation of my anger—no rage—I’ve felt at having a disease that has no true solution. Maybe I just gave up long ago and became used to having no power.

If I accept one or all of these suppositions then I have to accept my own irresponsibility. I have to take responsibility for where I am and the state of my life.

Simple, I was sorry for myself. Letting life batter me as though I had no defences. I wasn’t even trying to defend myself. I was standing still while my life went by.

And I liked it that way. It was easier to blame something else for ruining my life. In truth, I was a tag-along passenger and had no interest in driving. Without consciously knowing, allowing myself to complain silently and go on without thought or positive effort.

My life became nothing but bipolar. I’ve been hiding behind it.

Looking at some of the posts in this blog, I see a lot of words, a few interesting ideas and a lot of setting myself apart from myself in some way. The whole situation just saddens and frustrates me.

Positively, I’ve come to this realization. Now I have to make it real.

 

peace and love

loss and hope

Hope.

I remember that. Vaguely. It feels like years ago.

It feels truly alien. A foreign force. A language I thought I understood only to realize that I understood in the same way a blind person can see. Unfortunately, I have no white cane to help me avoid the bumps and falls. I have nothing memorized anymore to help avoid the pitfalls or climbing a ladder that I have no idea where it will take me, how long I will climb, how high it is.

I’ve had hope and understanding stripped away from me. Now moments are empty. I live with a devastating loneliness that is inescapably deep. It’s in my blood, in my DNA. It’s not loneliness that can be alleviated in the comfort of being friends or family.

This loneliness sits in the pit of my being, overwhelming my breathing, my body, my spirit, my soul.

I’m simply hollow. And today I can’t imagine finding a way out of this. I find myself drifting in the belief that this is all life has left to offer. I’ve used up whatever chance I’ve had for happiness, for fulfillment, for some sense of control.

This all wraps around the strong feeling of what is the purpose of going on. Why live in this place of terminally being apart from and not understanding people and the world I’m supposed to live in.

The truth is after 8 years of being seriously committed to treatment under the care of an excellent, compassionate doctor, I’ve never found a medication or combination of medications that have had lasting positive effects. Either I have immediately reacted badly (there’s a whole range of medications usually prescribed to people with bipolar that I cannot handle) or after a few months I’ve developed some negative side effects ending whatever promise I had for the future.

Now, I have no faith that this combination that I’m currently using will last and I will inevitably be devastated. Again we will have to start over. I’ve been through enough beginnings. I’m worn out.

I’m eroded.

This has been drastically impacted by last year, which was one of the worst of my life. I was hospitalized for 2 months. The position that was being held for me while I was on disability was eliminated as the Government of Canada vanished 20,000 jobs. So the little hope that lingered in the back of my mind that one day i could work was gone. I had serious financial issues to settle. I went through a very dark depression for 4 months in the fall. Last, due to a terrible reaction to lithium, I fell in the middle of a busy street, cracked my head open and again spent a week and a half hospitalized.

Hope.

I have none, certain that the dismal cloud of loss will return with torrential impacts. Raw and cold.

I started this blog determined to be ultimately positive, thought provoking and perhaps helpful.

But I think it should also be truthful. Maybe someone out there is experiencing the same. Maybe.

Hope.

It’s vanished. I’m lost and merely exist, breathing robotically, attempting to find a place to hide.

I do not know where that hiding place is, what it is. I do not know how to continue. I do not know how to walk this tight rope with the certain expectation that the next step will send me crashing.

Hope.

Where?

Hopelessness.

Inevitable.

terry

 

A Time for Trying

Or at least that’s what I’m trying to think these days. The truth is that trying is very trying these days. I feel worn out by struggle that has seemed to become more and more of a struggle as time erodes.

Not that everything, everyday is a struggle. There are the moments as shining and glittering as any imaginable, that only a god could describe or create. But having gone through these magical moments only to  find crippling facades at the other end, these are unwelcome and unseen visitors. 

This has been a lost month. Swinging on a pendulum. Not able to explain to my doctor or to anyone exactly what’s happening. Not understanding myself what’s this or what’s that. Not knowing what’s the right way to be and when I should feel comfortable with myself. I’m an alien in my own world.

Mostly, these days, I’m exhausted. Writing this is like running a marathon. But I’ll keep trying. Because trying is the only thing I know to do right now.