So, I'm reading an excellent book about surviving the suicide of a loved one. Coincidentally, the title is "No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving The Suicide Of A Loved One" by Carla Fine. It is a great read - a hard read - that makes you feel the entire gamut of emotions. I'm only about halfway through because it is depressing to read too much at one time. Click on the picture below to buy your own copy...
Something in my recent reading sparked a thought... the real tragedy of suicide isn't just the loss of our loved one(s) or all they've left behind undone. The real tragedy of suicide is that the person who has such an experiential gift, being so close to death (possibly on a daily basis) and surviving, will never be able to share their knowledge, insight, and experience with the world. In part, they have squandered it away from us all by ending their life.
Heaven doesn't house any death. So how does Heaven benefit from the gifts of these people?
But we who are yet living will do without "it"... the very people who desperately need "it", people who dance with death daily and could lend from these experiences the hope that can prolong our own lives... [If you haven't figured it out yet... the "it" I refer to is HOPE]
We then realize and accept that to live is to provide hope to all those living with us. It is understood why suicide touches us all so immensely and affects us - even if we feel generally unaffected by suicide as an act, in and of itself, but the occurrence of it causes most people unexpected emotions, even if they are unrelated or unacquainted with those it happens to.
Yes, "happens TO." Suicide happens TO people... regardless of the widely held belief that suicide is a choice people make... it IS somewhat of a paradoxical affair. It can result from an intricate mix of things... people, places, circumstances, choices, lack of sanity/coherence, etc.
I will go out on a limb here and say that I, for one, DO NOT believe that suicide is the worst choice a person can make... but it just might be THE MOST influential choice a person can make.
I admire the mantra "Keep Hope Alive" because merely being alive is the hope I have clung to for the last 6 years. I attempted suicide 8 times that I can remember. I say that because there are surely times I had attempted suicide when I was in an altered state that are not documented by any hospital, doctor, or institution. I have had people in the ER accuse me of exaggerating how many pills I swallowed because no human being could possibly survive that kind of overdose. At first, I felt like a failure at EVERYTHING, including suicide. I couldn't do anything right - not even kill myself. Then it just got irritating... I was angry at God... I didn't want to be alive... it felt like torture that would never end. But after a while, I began to think God had other plans for me, plans to sustain me and keep me alive. I still believe that very strongly. It has given me more hope than any other single thing in the whole world.
Therefore, as long as I am alive, there is still hope. As long as there are people living, surviving life one day at a time, and even thriving amidst their challenging circumstances, despite their desire to elope from this world, there is still hope. I wonder how many people feel like they have hope because I am still here... maybe nobody. But if there is just one person out there that benefits from me being alive, I guess it's all worth it. That's the kinda person I am today... I prefer to live no matter how hard it is... and I HOPE I always will...
When Buks arrived at Peoria International Airport... I didn't know whether to run towards him or stand where I was. My head was buzzing with excitement, but I was so nervous that my legs were frozen. Ah... love!
Riding the "Freak Out" with Tanya at the Oglesby Fun Fest in 2011. At first, it seemed like a good idea. Once the ride started, I changed my mind... let's just say that I was the loudest person in LaSalle County at that given point in time (and my choice of words was not all that great).
Writing love letters to Patrick Swayze as a 6-year-old. My best friend, Josh, was so awesome... he told me that he sent them in the mail and that Patrick was going to write me back soon. "He's in love with you, I just know it." I remember him saying something of that sort, and I bought every word. lol
There are a few fine memories that I've made so far in my life, memories that I hold onto because they bring me great joy in remembering. I've talked a lot recently about moving forward into the future and not holding onto the past. Which is why I also felt it is so important to bring up the subject of nostalgia and discuss why nostalgia can be comforting, especially to those of us living with a mood and/or behavior disorder.
In fact, nostalgia can be very therapeutic in nature. Scientific studies have investigated the psychological effects of nostalgia. One article published by Medical News Today in December of 2008 states that "nostalgia can promote psychological health. Inducing nostalgia... [results] in overall positive feelings... including higher self-esteem and an increase in the feeling of being loved and protected by others.... Another important function of nostalgia may be in providing a link between our past and present selves - that is, nostalgia may provide us with a positive view of the past and this could help to give us a greater sense of continuity and meaning to our lives." Click here to see the whole article.
Additional research, conducted by Loyola University, suggests that it is beneficial to be nostalgic daily. An article published in Psychology Today in 2005 purports that "[t]hinking of good memories for just 20 minutes a day can make people more cheerful... and happier than if they think of their current lives." See the entire article here.
This article was particularly interesting to me and fit my mindset exactly when I sat down to write this blog tonight. The researchers suggest "For best results... [reminisce about positive memories] in your head rather than on paper... [A] large body of research... shows that [ruminating about unpleasant life events] re-traumatizes you, whereas analyzing them through writing helps you get past the trauma." This is exactly what I have set out to do recently in my blog - analyze my experience of early sexual abuse by writing about it. I find great relief in knowing that my continued support of journaling for stress relief is sound. I plan to continue utilizing this recovery tool to get past some of the traumatic events I've experienced in my life and also as a means of looking forward to the future. For the benefit of my readership, I chose to reiterate the article's instructions of how to include reminiscence into your daily life. (see below)
"You don't have to wait for nostalgia to strike. These steps can help make it a regular part of your life.
Make a list of cherished memories.
To jog your memory, find some photos or other mementos from good times past.
Close your eyes to block distractions. Then think about what's outside the "picture frame" to bring back subtle details. Mental imagery produces greater happiness gains than does simply looking at old photographs.
If possible, reminisce with people from your past. It strengthens close relationships.
As you go about your life, sock away good moments and mementos for later reminiscence. Take a mental snapshot and hold on to that feeling."
Here is another article that I found very interesting.
My Cherished Memories
(a partial list)
Going to the fireworks with my best friend, Kristy, in 2007. We were sitting so close to the Illinois River that when the fireworks lit up the sky, they were SO HUGE above us and encircled us. It felt like we were "inside" of a bubble with our own private firework display. It was awesome!
Sitting in front of an empty storefront at Peru Mall with a friend, pretending that the glass doors were the TV screen and we were Beavis and Butthead. People stared at us, they probably thought we were under the influence, but we were just having an innocent, good time!
Watching my son listen to music from his iPod on the train, on our way to the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. He was so cute, bobbing his head, smiling like he didn't have a single thing to worry about... it made me feel so lucky to have him in my life.
My newest muse has been that of energy. Not necessarily the energy we use to fuel our stove or run our A/C unit and get a monthly bill for... although it isn't far from that concept. I'm talking about the energy that we neither create nor destroy but continuously absorb or release. The energy that opens our chakras and gives definitive meaning to all that we think, say, and do.
I recently read this excerpt from One Universe, a forum for big thinkers, and it succinctly says all that I could imagine is most important to say: "In today’s society the vast majority of people are searching for meaning and purpose to their lives. In doing so they often find themselves shunned for not keeping a firm grip on reality. The truth is reality is not defined by the rat race in which the world is living at all, it is merely an illusion distracting you from your true inner purpose. Which is why you find yourself constantly seeking something more out of life. If you are serious about living a more purpose driven and harmonious lifestyle, then it is time to slow the pace and focus upon that which you truly desire to achieve." ~ One Universe
What we think affects what we do and what we do has a definite impact on our values, families, friends, even strangers, society at large, the world, and our journey in it because we cannot compartmentalize the energy world into individual entities of varying power/energy... it is (we are) all intricately intertwined. Thus, it is important to learn HOW we think and then FOCUS on what we think and express our awareness OF it as a means of controlling the flow of energy in and through our being.
From my experiences, I gather that positive energy has less potency but is unquestionably preferable to negative energy. Contrarily, negative energy is very potent but relatively undesirable. A key to attracting more positive energy and deflecting more negative energy is knowing what the difference is between the two variations... what constitutes positive energy and what comprises negative energy? And how do you truly know if you are absorbing one or the other?
We often fail in understanding that who we are becoming is more important than who we have been. That is to say we tend to focus on things that are of lesser importance. Why? Do we inherently believe we are virtually powerless? That our actions occur without consequence? Do we fail to comprehend that our words ARE actions in and of themselves, thereby mistaking words as meaningless accouterments?
In addition, who we are right now in this present moment is a large part of who we are becoming. What we do with this present moment determines what we will do with the moments to come. What we think in this present moment directly affects what we think OF this present moment and those to come. And what we think OF this present moment is evidenced by what we say and do. Essentially, this is chakra, described as the endless flow of prana or perpetual rotation of shakti.
THINK DEEPLY WITH ME: What are YOU saying and doing in these present moments? How is it affecting what you think about your life right now? How does your judgment of your present self affect what you think about from moment to moment? And how do those thoughts predict what you do and say?
Taking into consideration that even a single word can bring to life a marked difference in our realm, we need to be more careful with our words and actions. To do this, we must first be more careful with our thoughts. To be more careful in our thought life, we can learn to control our thoughts. To learn this, we can meditate.
When you think, do you think on good things? Do you think on things that attract positivity? Do you employ the law of attraction in order to draw to yourself the love, joy, and peace that you desire?
Does your energy embody MORE THAN merely what you desire to have or be? Are you allowing your energy to flow forth freely into - and as a genuine asset to or expression of - the universe? Open yourself up and explore... if you don't know where to get started, take the chakra test and find out more here. Or try looking around this website.
"Thinking big but acting small is the same as thinking small."
At the bottom of this post I have lists of links to internet resources about various mental illnesses and the comorbidity of certain disorders.
Keep in mind that the enigmatic web of overlapping symptoms and co-occurring disorders is the very thing that makes accurate diagnostics extremely difficult for professionals. The next time you think a psychologist is getting paid too much to do his/her job, think again! (pun intended)
Symptomatology is a difficult, if not impossible, art to master. To derive, decipher, and demystify... It requires an in-depth examination of a WHOLE person, including their life history FROM CONCEPTION. (As a side note: Research now indicates that exposure to stress hormones in the womb DO significantly influence a child's risk of underdevelopment of cognitive functioning including developmental delays, emotion-regulating deficits, and/or affective disorders well into adulthood; prenatal exposure to gluco-corticoids are a key, predisposing factor in regards to pediatric mood disorders.) It can take YEARS... or even an entire lifetime... for any one psychologist to gather enough information about you to make an informed, concrete diagnosis. The intricacy of symptomatology is, in my opinion, the primary reason that being a diagnostician in today's society sucks... it has got to be the most miserable career EVER! House makes it look so easy... (tsk, tsk)
The age-old quest for information regarding evolution (or its non-existence) impede upon our ability to sift through the physiological manifestation of miniscule incongruencies whose discoveries are so desperately necessary to successfully treat any specific disorder. The Nature vs. Nurture debate continues on a more modern stage - a conglomerate of behaviorism, intelligence, psychosocialism, sociocultural conditioning, operant-driven humanism, and archetypical psychoanalysis - founded in the work of great psychologists such as B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, Alfred Adler, Carl Rogers, Albert Bandura, John Watson, Karen Horney, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Abraham Maslow.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
I recommend that if you desire to read up about these disorders that you seriously avoid self-diagnosis. Trust me, it happens... more than any individual cares to admit. But, since psychology IS the study of the self - and who better to do it than us - it IS a predictable behavior... one that unfortunately leads to places one does not want to go... BEWARE!
Upon researching these various illnesses, it is quite easy to see how one can feed into another. When I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I started surfing the web to find some answers... what IS BPD? I found this wonderful website (BPD Central) with stories from other people diagnosed with BPD and found their testimonials to be eerily similar to my own. I wanted to know WHY I had so much trouble with relationships... WHY, WHY, WHY couldn't I just decide to be better and then BE better? The question never ends, it is something that happens daily in my life, even to this very day. It can feel all-consuming at times, but I've learned some coping skills to help manage the consequences of BPD.
As I began to understand how misunderstood I have always been, and how grossly I misunderstood my situation as being induced by a mental illness, I also poked into information about Bipolar Disorder I - my primary diagnosis. I took note of what my diagnostician told me - that early sexual abuse was predominantly the cause of the BPD and considering my attachment problems, abandonment issues, and intimacy difficulties, it was VERY indicative of sexual abuse as a child. I started to realize a pattern developing across my diagnoses... eating disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, borderline personality disorder... all can be caused by early sexual abuse.
I have mentioned in previous blog posts about how I had repressed the memory of this abuse to the point that I had convinced myself it never happened. I disagreed with my counselors repeatedly, denying that sexual abuse as a child ever took place. I really believed that was the truth. I continued to search for answers and my journey got tougher. Forced to face the reality of my impulsive decisions and feeling as if I had no reliable person to turn to for guidance or help, I walked a path of self-loathing, hatred, bitterness, resentment, guilt, internal pain & suffering, a deep depression, and an intrinsic tendency to feel like I would never be good enough. I felt completely hopeless, in a state of utter despair. My lack of self-esteem and poor body image caused me to participate in self-mutilating behaviors, self-medication with periodic binge-drinking that led to high-risk sexual activities. I was once drugged and gang raped... I doubt I will ever truly know how many men there were...
Even in a coherent state, my self-esteem was so low that I obliged ANY attention from the opposite gender. I did not enjoy it... but at the time, I tried to convince myself that it felt good because I so desperately wanted to feel good about myself. Women do these things... we want to feel good about ourselves, we motivate ourselves to get dolled up, go out to the club, and demand the special attention of any and/or every male we come across - bloat our ego a little bit - then we insist we are just out to have fun, end up going home with or being taken home by a man we've barely just met who says all the right things at all the right times (to be honest, they sometimes say all the WRONG things, but we dismiss it eagerly because we are only after what we want and we only see things that we think lead up to it), and then we degrade and defile ourselves for a night of clumsy, sweaty, somewhat nasty sex with someone that very well could be infecting us with HIV or another STD, we fall asleep, we wake up in the bed alone, never hear from the guy again, and feel ever worse about ourselves for having believed the guy when he said he wanted to date us... and we feel even WORSE about ourselves for having believed our own lie that we were "just out for a little fun." We loathe, loathe, and loathe some more... drink a little more, get a little more depressed, get the great idea of trying it again in search of momentary relief from our agonizing emotional pain... and the cycle perpetuates.........
You see, some males can be really good at being instinctively predatory. Not that some females can't - some females are more than capable and they practice it often - but some males have a special sense that females do not possess and that is their wonderfully horrible sensitivity to our emotional vulnerabilities. They know how we're feeling, they know that it means they have the upper hand, and they use it to their advantage to get what they want from us and then they leave us in an emotional heap for the next person to come along and "clean up."
The problem is... once that has happened to you, you don't care to trust anyone that comes after.
Now imagine that the first person that you have this experience with... is your very own father.
OUCH!
Big time burn. Men like to prey on our "daddy issues" because they ARE hard-wired to be fathers and hard-wired for sexual activity... but it is extremely dangerous - even life-threatening - for a woman with such vulnerabilities to get mixed up with a predatory man. It can literally leave your life hanging in the balance...
You develop these ideas about your body that aren't even close to the truth. "I'm too fat; I'm too skinny; I'm too short; I'm too tall; My eyes are too far apart; My nose is too big; My knees are too knobby; My ass is too flat; My hair isn't the right color; I have stretch marks on my breasts; My thighs are too flabby; I have too many freckles; My teeth are too crooked; My feet are too manly; My toes are too hairy; My nipples don't hang right; I can't walk like a model; I can't sing like a bird; I don't look like a porn star; I can't wear a bikini; I don't have good skin; etc." Now you change your social habits and places you frequent as a means of self-regulation of your insane ideals concerning your body image. If you don't go to places or hang around people that make you feel uncomfortable, then you shouldn't feel uncomfortable... right?! WRONG! If you have a problem with your own body, if you hate how you look or you're not happy with some physical feature... you are in for trouble because you can run away from others but you cannot run away from yourself. Every time you look in the mirror, you are painfully reminded of how dreadful you are... how unworthy you are... how you will never be good enough... how even if a GOOD MAN did desire to be with you because looks don't matter to him, he wouldn't want you for the fact that you've done horrible, nasty things with too many men - some of them complete strangers!
So, who do you think you end up having a relationship with? The guy that says the things that make him sound like a GOOD MAN, but does all the things that make him a BAD BOY. Most of the time, these relationships are codependent and/or abusive and cause further detriment to your already poor self-image. You lose your trust in him, or at least the tiny bit that you convinced yourself that you had in him, thus losing trust in all men to come in the future. The cycle continues...
Fathers really play a huge role in their child's life - especially their daughters. The way you "love" your daughter or show your daughter affection and care actually CONDITIONS HER at such a subconscious level that EVEN IF she has decided that you were a deadbeat and she doesn't want to marry a man that is anything like you, she is somewhat destined to be drawn to other low-lives... not because she is attracted to it, but because low-lives employ counter-intuitive tactics and make sure they arrive packaged in a divine disguise that perfectly implements their plan to dupe her indefinitely.
Divine Disguise Elaboration: Bad boys come bearing flashy gifts that make them look generous and self-less, a grand sense of self-confidence that borders on cockiness, extreme narcissism passed off as a superior degree of self-awareness, looking responsible on the exterior but guarding secrets that mask their irresponsibility and selfishness, and they sometimes brag about the great achievements in their life which are usually bold-faced lies or flat-out BULLSH*T! To an extent, people only let you see what they want you to see. It takes some fine detective work to find their flaws. As a rule of thumb, if you have to dig deep to find a flaw, it's probably best to walk away RIGHT AWAY. Nobody is perfect... and anyone trying to pass themselves off as being such is probably a total whack job!
So, now our body image is so poor, we make poor decisions concerning our partners and our overall health. We develop eating disorders to bolster our poor self-image and continue living with a perpetual cycle of internal emotional distress. We develop bad habits, unhealthy lifestyles, and drive ourselves into the ground... pretty much guaranteeing that our life will be nothing but rubble and NO PERSON could ever want to love us.
It is in a moment of complete desperation that a GOOD PERSON'S strength of character sparked a glimmer of hope. Continual reminders of how fearfully and wonderfully made EVERY PERSON truly is. Every day, my path growing a little bit brighter, gaining a little more confidence in myself, taking charge of my emotions, taking better care of my body. It is exhausting to live with a mental illness... but what are my other options? It is painful to live with what has happened to me in the past... excruciating! But what are my other options?
Learning about my mental illnesses and how to cope have helped me deal with some of the most pressing issues I've faced since childhood. Some of them have had a greater impact on my life. I survived repeated acts of sexual abuse (my most vivid memory occurred at the age of 6) and then abandonment by my father at age 10. His abuse neither started nor ended with me. He was quite severely mentally ill. The courts didn't think it necessary to penalize him with imprisonment... so they tried to coax him into some self-help. Yeah, right. He was too busy being psychotic and paranoid... abusing my sisters... attempting to kill my mother... imagining that someone was trying to steal his tools... threatening every person in the house, intimidating us daily so that we would do every last thing he commanded of us. He had everyone outside of our home convinced that he was God's gift to the world. To this day, I'm not even sure how he managed to pull that one off. But because I know that he was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, too, I try harder everyday to be a better person. I could never respect myself if I were to become too much "like him."
I also survived a great deal of sexual abuse and coercion in my young adulthood. Don't get me wrong... I do not for one minute negate my own role in the decision-making process that occurs between 2 consenting adults! But a mentally disturbed person - a person suffering from true psychosis - has little to no control over such things. I could liken the situation to that of a child, a developmentally disabled person, or an incoherent person being asked to partake in a sexual act (degrading or not, aggressive or not) and their acquiescence is somehow unquestionably presumed. Unfortunately, for many people living with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, sexual promiscuity and risk-taking behaviors that lead up to the acts are not only expected but also readily dismissed as a mere symptom of the disorder(s). Having understood the direct correlation between substance abuse/dependence and bipolar disorder, it is easy to see why SO MANY people living with these disorders become sexually promiscuous or partake in high-risk behaviors... even when they are sober, they are not totally coherent. How much more so when they are drinking, or drunk... or otherwise altered?!?!
All of these lead up to more poor decisions, abusive relationships, incarceration, broken families, financial distress, self-mutilation, bad reputation, continuous self-loathing, permanent loss of friendships, self-deprecation, continued self-medication, and a total downward spiral into utter darkness...
Can you imagine how many suicides can be prevented if we (1) show/give our children real love, (2) get to know ourselves, (3) learn to love ourselves, (4) have respect for life, (5) desire good things for ourselves, (6) and then assert ourselves to go after/have those good things...??? I have met SO MANY people with tragic stories like my own. I can't speak for those individuals, but I for one can confidently say that I REFUSE TO BE A VICTIM. I refuse to take a back seat to my mental illness. I refuse to let the good things in life pass me by. I refuse to repeat mistakes and forsake lessons I've learned. I refuse to be idle and do nothing. I refuse to let someone else BE THE CHANGE.
And on that note, I'm calling it a night (even though it's morning now - OMG, I've been writing for 4 hours)!! Check out the links below and educate yourself.
