Never watch Law and Order SVU if there’s no plot synopsis.
Last night, that plot was bipolar, and I really wasn’t prepared.
I saw myself, fully, for the first time ever. Or as full as a healthy person can portray. I wish I could hate it, but I can only regret it while I use it, while I gladden myself with movement and change.
Stabler confronts his mother, speaking hard about his childhood, her threats to leave, to die, as she makes a sand castle, two planes, two people, one never listening, incapable of feeling for the people near to her.
Later, she says she’s lived the life she wanted, and paid a terrible price for it.
It’s cheesy to see one’s self on a TV, to face your demons on network television, but suddenly, vividly, I saw what I’ve been doing to my family, to the people in my life, for years. Sure, the TV version is always the most extreme, but what’s better? A slow death, or a fast one?
The voids I’ve left in lives, the utter wrung outness I give to people, squeezing them dry of everything inch of life, of passion, all the while demanding more, telling them they’ve stolen mine. I’ve made people raw, I’ve started down a path that would have destroyed everything in my life, made ruin of my children. All because I circled on myself, my own orbit, my planet around I the sun.
Oh how I saw that last night. How my heart cracked and shuddered, with that awful realization of who I have been, what this disease makes me into. What it could become, who I could be. Who I do not ever want to be.
I could be worse. I’ve never spent thousands of dollars on a spending binge-I’ve been too poor for that. But I’ve ran multiple credit cards up to the edge, destroyed my credit. I never ran around sleeping with everyone, but hey, I was never that attractive. Likely, without marriage to tether me, I could have at times. I’ve always felt one step away from catastrophe.
Then I fell into it, and came out of it and now I’m sitting here wondering how anyone could last though all of that, how I could possibly be in anyway redeeming, worthy of lasting through the hell that I’ve been lo these many years.
How crushing to discover you’ve been not only bad, but horrid. Like a haze clearing from an early morning highway, I can see the road ahead, and the carnage I’ve left in my wake, and no amount of apologizing, no amount of trying could ever make it right.
And that scares me, as does the image of my future, bereft of those I love.
I’ve made changes. I know that if I stick to this path, my future is open and wide and full of love. But it’s hard, and I’m frightened of my very easy weakness. I’m frightened of myself.
Spin Me I Pulsate 
I know it looks that way, but I’m sure you can rebuild some of what you’ve lost. People who see the change will be able to separate you from the sickness. It sucks looking at your past through objective eyes, but it will help you heal. I’ll say again, I only went through an infintessimal fraction of what you went through, but looking back at that time makes me shiver, and keeps me watching myself for signs of slippage. Good luck to you on your new path. And try not to beat yourself too hard. It’s one thing to see it, it’s another to flog yourself mercilessly for it. It happened and you know it, but you’re human like the rest of us and you’re entitled to mess up.
That is pretty harsh Thor. I think you’re being too hard on yourself.
You can repair past relationships. You make/have made changes to protect your girls. The future looks good and you can’t change the past, but can make amends for it. I believe you will be ok.
Yeah, pretty much what Carin said.
(…) I’ve made changes. I know that if I stick to this path, my future is open and wide and full of love. But it’s hard, and I’m frightened of my very easy weakness. I’m frightened of myself. (…)
in your last parragraph you sum up so much wisdom. you know what you need to do, the future is open and wide and full of love for you and your girls. but it won’t be easy, it won’t be pink and it won’t be perfect. You will feel yourself weak over and over, and as long as you have in your mind the consciousness of what would be if you let yourself walk certain paths you will be able to move forward and keep you three in a good place.
I hear you about being frightened of your weaknesses, to some degree we all are. The mantra to keep with us is that we can move forward, we can stay in the light and avoid the darkness, not easy, but we can do it.
I’m always praying for you to have the strength you need… I believe you have it in you to build a great life, just don’t let go of what your heart wishes.
My God I’m referencing this post. This happened to me when I ended up in a psych ward on a 51-50. Maybe I’ll finally really write about that.
Thank you. This is so raw, so honest. There’s beauty in that.
Found this blog through searching on ‘paranoia’ to try and understand what’s going on with me and came across your entry of 2nd August so decided to read on. Firstly, thanks – helps to know I’m not the only person out there going through something like this – please carry on writing. Second, I read this post and recognise it completely, but please remember that this kind of thinking is the symptom and not the cause. I’m sure that your family love you very much and do not want you to punish yourself. I lost a brother through suicide to bi-polar and the only explanation I have ever found that makes sense to me is that he must have thought we would have all been better off without him because he was too much of a burden. Nothing could have been any further from the truth. He was loved desperately and his suicide destroyed us all. You are not a horrid or bad person, but you have an illness which makes you susceptible to thinking so. I really understand the strange loops in logic which make it possible to think things like that because I do it myself, and I feel guily for the strain I put on those close to me. But having been on the other end of where thinking like that can lead, I never allow myself to believe that they would be better off without me. Go easy on yourself, give some of that compassion you have for others to yourself, especially when you are suffering.
Peace
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