When I got in trouble in grade school, it began with defiant anger and ended with a waterfall of tears. The swing went from one mood to the other. Quite a big change. I would go home having been in trouble in school again. I did not tell my parents this of course (because I would get in trouble again) and hid or destroyed the notes that were sent home with me. Good thing there weren’t computers and cell phones then. I love you Dear Jesus but you couldn’t keep me from getting in trouble again. It didn’t matter how ashamed I felt or the amount of snot that my nose rubbed on my upper arms and sleeves. There it happened again. I just couldn’t help getting in trouble again. I remember sitting on a church bench or folding chair while my parents talked to my teacher about my bad behavior. I just couldn’t help getting into trouble. And that would be about in third grade.!
It wasn’t long before it became a hopeless or helpless situation. “Trouble” was my name and teachers tried to keep me busy to keep me out of trouble. I had no trouble with the schoolwork and became bored while the teachers endlessly drilled the students who couldn’t get it. I was imaginative and ingenious. I read endlessly and finished the school libraries in each of my classrooms. I loved art and once left cupids I created for a Valentine’s day display with bare spots between their legs. I had to redo them and put ribbons down there. I also remember being given the
Wechsler Intelligence Test For Children in grade school. I guess because they couldn’t figure me out any other way.
At the spritely age of 76, that has been a long time to be Bipolar altering periods of manic behavior with periods of depression to put it simply. I never thought of myself as bipolar as my first glimpses of Manic-Depressives were in the State Hospital working summers in college in the state hospital. Bipolar wasn’t a popular word until long after I finished graduate school. The behavior of Manic-Depressives was much more exaggerated than what consists of manic behavior now or depressive behavior now. My second summer at the state hospital, we had a man at the ward who was manic-depressive. He pinched one of the nurse’s large boobs to see if they were real. When he was depressive, he regressed into himself and did nothing in group therapy. It was then his wife took him home as that was normal behavior for her husband.
For me, my “manic state” was being outgoing and/or up. Then I had no trouble speaking to strangers by making a glib or funny remark. When I was depressed, I wanted to be left alone and I didn’t want to talk to anybody. They already had their chances to talk to me before I became depressed. See this post of mine, Been
Down So Long, It Seems Like Up To Me. When I was “Up”, I just thought I was being outgoing. I thought that I was just trying to cheer somebody up. For a long time until recently I thought that I was just depressed. Later on, I discovered I was a victim of sexual abuse and that was why I had been afraid of the dark.
I did not learn until recently that I was bipolar and that I had symptoms that fit that diagnosis. I am continuing to explore the bipolar dianosis.
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Thanks To Facebook And Twitter And politics, we are having a rash of rash conclusions about what should be going on in the world. Last night I heard on Fox News that oxycontin was responsible for drug deaths and was falsely promoted by the drug company as a safe drug that could be taken for pain in increasing amounts and was responsible for a rash of deaths due to people becoming addicted to the drug implying that nobody should be-be taking the drug even reasonably for moderate pain relief. The speaker was completely sure that nobody should have access to the drug even if they suffered from intolerable pain without it. Needless to say that this speaker was very confident about his conclusions but he had totally left out the other side of the story since it didn’t affect him. Opinion-oriented presentations can lead to one-sided presentations and to making decisions that affect people who are not misusing the drug and who can’t receive massive amounts of drugs under current prescription laws and who wouldn’t ever try to get them from the black market.
I am one of those patients. I have neuropathy due to spinal stenosis and even though I was successfully operated on many years ago to prevent me from becoming a quadriplegic; I still had some neuropathy which initially developed before the surgery which still exists and persists. I am on medication for this but it is limited in what it can do and it has progressed so there are times when the pain is intolerable and the medication for the neuropathy can’t control it. I also take over the counter pain medications with my doctor’s knowledge but there are times when neither medication can control the symptoms and there are times when I feel like I could wind up in the emergency room which is some distance away and an intolerably long ambulance ride because I can’t take the symptoms which involve spasms and burning pain. I receive a limited amount of oxycontin which I cautiously use for this but not every time it happens which can be every day, but I limit it by what I might have to do that day and what I can tolerate.
I fortunately or unfortunately have had oxycontin before after a couple of surgeries and in one case developed intractable constipation and loss of time where I thought a long period of time had passed and it only was a few minutes. I had a pump that time which was supposed to limit how much of the drug I got but it was too much for me and on top of that it seemed to me that nobody was checking on me either.
To me, it seemed that presentation was made by a “smart aleck” that thought he knew what he was talking about, but who had not really covered the subject or investigated what he was told or read somewhere and who could be responsible for a group of people who might not abuse the drug not getting the pain relief that they needed and would cause needless suffering.
It seems to me that people often promote ideas about things that will not have a direct effect on them rather carelessly and often from a dictatorial point of view being that most dictators tell others what to do when they themselves will suffer no direct effects from their own commands.
Haven’t you heard that before? Is it really the devil or are there self-defeating thought patterns that cause you to make a mistake, a big mistake.
Then when you are fired, have a traffic accident for which you are considered to be a fault, or blow it somehow and lose a relationship, you are initially entirely mystified as to how you could have fallen into that predicament and until the shock wears off, you are thinking, “Hey, what did I get into? How did that happen? Who, me?”
When the initial blankness wears off, next you face the consequences which can be overwhelming. “Me, how did I get pregnant?” “How will it change my life?” “What happened to my car?” “Is anyone hurt besides possibly me? Will I lose my license? How will I ever find another job with this on my record?”
Decisions may also have to be made at the moment which you might or might not regret later. You can possibly become defensive and whatever the consequences of your decisions you can and will defend them. You can then can become “Mr. or Ms. Neverever Wrong” and this too can prevent you from learning from your mistakes.
You may also have to come to some conclusions which you may regret later. Did you intend to do it or did the devil make you do it? You don’t have to be Christian to think this, but it helps. You may say that you won’t have any regrets because whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault and get yourself lost in denial even if it is not what actually is found to have happened. Sometimes reality can become really, really hazy when this happens.
You can see how your self-concept can keep you from seeing or acknowledging your mistakes and how valuable life lessons can be lost this way. Recently I had a conflict with a friend and lost my relationship with her. I didn’t know it at the time that the heat was getting to her worse than I knew and I was more concerned about my own ability to handle it. I learned, as much as I didn’t like it, that I was not acknowledging the signs she was giving me about her own deteriorating physical wellbeing.
I had had a long-ago lesson ( that pertains to the above situation) where an aunt of my husband’s who was helping me get my baby to the doctor in a far away city didn’t really want to do it and I learned that she really wanted me to read her mind when she said, “Yes” and she really meant, “No”. I was hurt when I found out that she felt I had taken advantage of her and was mad about it.
My husband’s aunt got really mad at me like my friend was when she had heat prostration. I learned that I had to read minds and therefore read between the lines when I was in certain situations even when I was not told something. It initially exasperated me, but I eventually got the hint. It was a very expensive lesson when I also learned that my friend and also a close friend of hers were very mad at me and did not want to communicate with me. Again they felt that I had taken advantage of her and was insensitive.
I certainly was part of the problem; but what if I considered that the devil made me do it. I am sure he would be happy creating conflict among people and making them behave less like a Christian. In the Lord’s prayer is the line,”and lead us not into temptation”. We need to keep on our guard as hurt feelings and confusion are a potentially bad mix. It has caused me a lot of grief. Can you conceive of the devil enjoying this?. I can think that is what God meant when he gave Christians this part of the Lord’s Prayer.
For a long time I was very rational about this part of the Lord’s Prayer and I didn’t think I needed pray it because I always knew what I was doing; but then sometime’s I made some dumb mistakes. For example, one was making a left-turn onto a four lane highway holding my fast food that I had just bought in one hand. I totaled my new car and wound up driving a used Cadillac. I always wanted a Cadillac but not that way. Who was at fault? me? God? or the Devil?
Also sometimes I have been very dense and as a result get caught in the same situation over and over. Was it my fault or the devil’s fault? I felt very strongly that I had to solve my own problems and often was confused in certain situations when I did not catch onto to what others’ wanted of me. I knew I was not meeting their standard’s but I did not know why. I was not getting their hints; but it was not malice on my part.
I have a little true story about me that illustrates this that I might have used in some other of my posts. My lady supervisor at a clinic told me that I had an odor problem. This was confusing to me because I was a regular bath taker, used deodorant, frequently changed my clothes, and washed those that needed it or sent them to the cleaners. Needless to say, I immediately either washed all my clothes or had them cleaned; but the odor persisted. It was very embarrassing and the staff felt like that I had some kind of problem that I wouldn’t admit like to being homeless or living in a dive and had no plumbing. Later I figured out that it was a perfume that I was wearing that didn’t mix well with my body chemistry. I stopped wearing it. Problem solved. But that never did connect with what the staff was thinking.
As a Christian, I latter learned to call on God especially for problems that I couldn’t solve and not to entirely depend on myself and view it was some kind of a test that I might fail. I felt that the devil always won in these cases. I had failed some kind of a test. I did in an indirect way (I didn’t ask for help); but I think I either had some kind of lesson to learn or I was inadvertently making the devil happy. Often it is the little things that bring us down. I don’t think the devil likes us to be happy, without serious worries, and confident that we are okay. What do you think?
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Two years ago in November I went to Sedona, Arizona, to find myself; but I did not want to take any old trip or stay in any hotel or spa. I wanted it to be a form of a retreat. I went to find myself and for that reason, I wanted to go alone. I found the site for Sedona Soul Adventures which offered an individualized retreat with three days of personally designed spiritual retreat with appointments with local practitioners of meditation, massage, and other types of personalized spiritual experiences.
(If you call Soul Adventures and set up a retreat, mention that you found them on this website.)
I wound up staying in a Yoga house in Sedona and I had my own room and the offering of vegan meals for a set affordable price. I was also directed to a local agency to rent a practical older car in good shape. I set up two experiences on my own: a visit to a power vortex with my own guide and a one-day bus trip to the Grand Canyon
It was a wonderful experience and it was all part of my goal to establish who am I really? Do you know who you really are? Even before birth, various experiences shape you and determine who you are going to be. Are you thinking right now, “Wait a minute, I know who I am.” But do you know how you got to be that way?
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