a thought

if you can let go of others consideration of you, then you'll find yourself being you more often. now let's say you were bashed, hurt, or experienced a bad feeling caused by others. in the final analysis if it was a result of you being yourself, let's say you can live with that. you can be ok with it, even as it stings.

don't put on an act. go with you. if you go with you, then you really experience things, and you're alive. there's no better feeling than being alive. the price of being false is not being alive. not experiencing things. hidden we find nothing.

Boards of Canada's music has helped through the ruff times. So here it is. A stellar track. When my symptoms were at there worst I walked around everywhere with headphones and their album "The Campfire Headphase" playing. Sit back and relax. It's recovery noise. whut whut!

We lack the self control inside us, so what's happening outside of us is just a manifestation of the inner unruliness. Or something like that. God this is so true. I've heard it said that mental illness is just an internal build-up of problems over-time that have covered up, and diminished our true spirit. What's hopeful about this is we have the power to rid these problems from ourselves. There's so much work to do though. It's tough when you realize just how far you have to go. One day at a time.

introspect that sheeeitt

Introspection is hugely necessary to recovery. I MEAN IT. I don't think you can get anywhere without it. Now I used to say thought is like a wall to recovery. I believed that thought gets us nowhere, and that's a hard stance. In my case thought would not lead me in the direction of progression. It would only make things worse and more negative. It wasn't til I found enough stability that I began giving my thoughts the right direction. It started by basically taking the parenting approach. How would a parent treat their kid, and from that I went well they would encourage and support them unconditionally. Starting out when you're weak you need to start loving yourself as a parent would their kid. We are the lost and confused, but we're going to start giving ourselves the boost we need.

In the beginning I would remember a thought I had that day, write it down, then turn it around. Thought-changing is a basic idea in recovery circles, anyway that's where I started. I believe through the process of subjecting our thoughts to our inner parent we are able to change them for the better. This can become common practice. You can do this on the fly when a mean thought enters your brain. I prefer writing it down so I can cross out the old thought, and write a beautiful new true thought.

Of course introspection is not limited to thought changing, but it might be a good excecise to start with. Write out a thought, and summon up your inner wisdom and inner parent and change that thought around. Over time you can start looking over all the thoughts you've had and begin seeing trends, a good step to a self-inventory which their will be a lot to talk about later.

good luck yo!

VOLUNTEER YO!

I think I'll start updating this blog again. I don't know if anybody is out there reading this, and I don't really care, but I'm going to try to inform you on the subject of mental illness to the best of my ability.

I harp on work as the foundation of stability. Now I realize not everyone can work. If you can't, then I don't know what to say. In my case without work I get sucked into my emotions. I can feel shitty all day with nothing to pull me out of the dumps. I mean a phone call to someone is great, but when it's over if you're just going to hang out on the couch and stare out the window... biding your time til the next thing presents itself I think you're going to need help.

When to-do lists don't cut it what do you turn to? I could make all these little suggestions... like balance your life out. Apply attention to whatever is important to you, but still without a job you're going to get complacent. I would say the next best alternative to not working is volunteering. Yes.

If you can muster up the energy to to a google search and find out about a food pantry that'd be awesome. A soup kitchen. A red cross blood drive. etc...

So I guess my opinion on the issue of working is, if you can't work VOLUNTEER.

normal, yes!

So my life is sorta normal, and what's wrong with that? I know people eek at the word normal. Like whaddya mean, it's gotta be interesting, spicy, we must do the unexpected. Yes i'm down with all that, but honestly with mental illness it's a struggle toward normalcy.

If you don't have a job try and get one, honestly work is a huge step in recovery, and the centerpiece of living a normal life. Whatever your work entails, as long as you're working. I believe it's necessary to get away from the obsession that characterizes having a mental illness by getting a normal life. That means: having relationships, working, having conversations, getting up at a decent hour, getting three meals a day, taking care of finances whatever... One thing I don't mean is being like everyone else, and honestly, we don't have to worry about that. We have mental illnesses, nuff said. We'll never be normies, but we must struggle towards it.

Why? Why, because at some point we lost touch with reality, or just lost our way, and we rediscover it through what everyday people go through. We don't know it, until we've been through it. It takes time, are we willing to spend the time getting ourselves straightened out? Isolate all you want, you'll never know the feeling of being part of a group, or what the significance of it is. If groups aren't your thing, maybe it's to care about a project. Now we're talking free-time. That's when we have sex, create things, and rock out!  Whatever it is, it's important to experience the significance of it!

I believe there are levels to experience we can't explore in our heads, so if you want the solution, and are ready to listen, stop worrying about mental illnesses. They're actually quite empty, and no amount of interpretation is really helpful. Looking for a solution leads to emptiness, and meaninglessness. It will not prepare us for real life. When life goes down, challenges us, hurts us, teaches us, finds us.

Live a normal life, and you will find, the specialness comes to us through the pathways of stability. We need to discover things through action, constant action. We should learn how to do things the right way by doing them the wrong way, but to have done them! You will find your way through this approach: the approach of having a normal life.

structure

Structure is the key that holds a better life for us all. When I got a job it was like forcibly being driven out of my head and into the real world again. With all the time on my hands I used to worry a lot and get very self absorbed, now I don't really have this problem because structure has taken over. I'm not saying this works for everybody, but I think it could work for you.

At first I was scared about the stress work might cause. Would it exacerbate my illness? What if I had an episode at work? What I realized is nowadays I'm better at taking care of myself. I know after a stressful day it's onto the skateboard to forget and refresh, or it's a call to a friend to explain my day, hear their voice, words, and compassion. It's always a good idea to have some meds on hand for a PRM dose if things get hectic though. Purchase a small pill box and keep it in your car.

Work and the structure that comes with it are essential for a person like me to continue to get better. Work is a big step toward the vision of recovery. I could have applied for a hand-out and gotten my disability, but to me work brings the structure I need, and as a consequence, a newfound stability.

stigma, trust, risk

It's tough dealing with the stigma of mental illness. Do you tell the people you work with? Who can you tell? It's good to have people that you can trust who won't see you differently after you reveal yourself. In fact that's necessary for developing an effective support system. You must be able to reveal parts of yourself you may not be comfortable with telling just anybody. That's how you let people know what you're going through, so they may be able to understand and offer support. Though this can be done in small measure surreptitiously I think. But I think you're more apt to tell everyone you have a cold then tell them you're symptomatic.

Certainly not just anybody is a candidate for your trust. I wouldn't reveal my illness to those I work with 'til we establish a strong relationship, and even then i'm not sure if anyone's capable of holding it a secret. Trust is hard to come by. I mainly trust the people who I've grown up with, or other people with similar illnesses.

I'm not ashamed of what I suffer from, and I also don't see myself differently from other people. It's taken time to establish that. On a side note: often times we get consumed by our illnesses, often calling ourselves Bi-polar instead of a person with Bi-polar. We can get caught up in intensive and unhelpful analysis trying to solve our issues, or have constant worry. It's tough to take a step back and let ourselves fall into a kind of acceptance. My favorite phrase has been: to make sense of it is not to make sense of it.

Stigma is something you ought to be conscious of. Knowing who can be told and who cannot, yet that's not absolute. I myself have reached out to people on occasion and taken a risk by revealing a part of myself I'm not comfortable talking about. It was through this that I discovered another person with a similar illness to mine. The time is not always right, but taking risks shouldn't be completely written off.

However you want to avoid a situation where you face differential treatment, whispering, and gossip. Please use your common sense!

support yourself!

A strong support system in place, if you don't have one seek one out! It's one the best tools of recovery. The foundation you must have like solid concrete. Lean on it when you need relief, and use it. The whole point of having a sponsor in AA is someone to talk to when you're thinking of relapsing, or just to connect with someone who can help. Now if you get a sponsor and don't call them, you're not doing it right.

Having a support system means using your support system. Their will be times when you feel like the last thing you want to do is call someone up. Call anyway. Odds are if they're your friend they'll care and be supportive, even if they don't know quite what to say.

Cultivate your support system. Find out who you can call that you trust and can confide in. Take the time to seek these people out. You're not alone, and if you think you are and read this just now. Email me. I'd be more than happy to respond.

"Agony is truth it's our connection to the living,
i accept it as perfection, and keep on existing in the now."

One day at a time. I hear this brought up in AA a lot. It is a helpful reminder not to get ahead of ourselves. Worrying about the future can become overwhelming. This saying reminds us to scale back, and think in terms of what can I do today. For those in AA that might mean getting to a meeting, or not drinking today.

For someone with mental illness this catch-phrase works as an excellent motivator. It reminds us that today we can choose to recover. That what we do today can bring us closer to a life worth living, and the work that goes into it happens one day at a time.

When each day is thought of as an opportunity, we begin to do the work of recovery.