My Bipolar Faith - No that's not a joke

One of the million and one fun facts about being Emily is I wrestle with being bipolar. When I tell people this I often get that “Ah, I see you are telling a self-deprecating joke and I am going to play along” giggle, followed closely by the “Oh, crap! She’s serious and I have no idea how to respond” fumbling attempts at politeness. Now, just to be clear, this in no way offends me. After all, that’s exactly the type of joke I would crack about myself and expect you to laugh along. I can’t blame anyone for being confused, but the fact is I have an official diagnosis of “highly functional bipolar complicated by PTSD.” Doesn’t that make me sound like a fun fill bag of unpredictability and chaos?

I decided to write about this because I have recently learned that many of my friends had no clue. I have never considered it to be a secret or an overly sensitive issue that I have tried to keep hidden. It is just part of my life and a part that I have to deal with on a daily basis so I rarely feel the need to bring it up in casual conversation. Besides, it rarely works out well.

“I just repainted my bathroom a lovely green, not too sherberty and not too sagey. What have you been up to?”

"Me? Oh, I haven’t done much. Just got through a hypo-manic episode so I have been on lock down in my house and trying not make obscene posts to Facebook.”

I don’t think that I will ever get to the place where I will celebrate the fact that I have to constantly examine each and every thought, emotion, and impulse because my brain has decided that it didn’t like all the chemicals to be properly balanced. Dealing with that is draining at a level I cannot begin to articulate. However, I can say with conviction that it has forced me to be intentional about many of my life choices that I may have otherwise cruised past without a thought.

I had to accept that my emotions lie to me, and if that wasn’t special enough, so do my thoughts. I have to actively work to silence the voices that tell me to get in my car and drive until I hit an ocean, that I can always get more credit cards if I max out the ones I have, or that taking off my clothes in public is great idea. At times like these, when I too big and too great to be contained by anything and every fiber of my being is fighting against the restraints, be it geographical or financial restraints or even just my socks, I have to remember the truth. This is nothing more than the chemicals in my brain lying to me. These are not good options and I would be destroying the good things in my life, things I may not think I love today, but will remember I do love tomorrow, or in a few days at least.

But that is just the beginning, because human beings don’t like confinement and especially not those of us with a major malfunction in our heads. I react to this type of self-imposed discipline with anger - unrealistic, irrational anger that can spew out on those closest to me with the least bit of perceived provocation. (Please note the use of the word perceived in the previous sentence.) In my state of hyper-vigilance, I notice everything and I have to fight the feeling that everything is directed at me on the most personal level ever conceived. Music too loud? You did that to make me mad. Dirty dishes in the sink? Really, you want to set me off. Didn’t call? Did call? You are ignoring me or trying to disrupt my day. Got sick, can’t make our lunch date? Sure, you really just could stand to be near me.

You name it. I can find a reason why you meant it as an attack. So I swing the other way, and deliberately attempt to depersonalize everything. I shut down. I don’t respond, and I keep you at arm’s length. It is easier that way, and I am far less likely to say or do something that is unforgivably cruel. The problem is that safe guard is also cruel to those who genuinely love me and feel as if I don’t care about them when I can shut it down so effectively.

There is no winning this game, but it is one I will play for the rest of my life. It isn’t easy and I there are some days I would give my left leg to be normal. (Whatever that is.) And yes, I am serious. Did you notice the specificity of the limb I would relinquish? You don't get that specific if you didn't put some thought into it, but that is pipe dream, and I have to accept that.

I also have to accept that I have hurt people in the wake of my fury and despondency. I have to own that, because no matter how great the chemical imbalance tempted me towards irrational thoughts or behaviors, I made the choice to do as they dictated or to deny them the right to define me. I get to choose if the sum total of my life would be a disorder or something of my own making. Some days, I choose better than others, and I am learning to be more consistent in those choices. I had to learn to accept help, to be open with my family about those days when I felt the world beginning to spiral and stop acting as if I had it all together all the time, and I had to learn when to say “enough, I need a break” without just running away leaving everyone to feel like I had abandoned them.

It is hard on my pride. I want to be in control, and I want to have it all together. Above all, I want to be there for those who are important to me, and I am still trying to figure out how to do that in better ways than I have in the past. I am also learning how to remain open even in those moments when shutting down is safer and easier than running the risks of annihilating the world around me, and that has got to be the scariest thing I have ever attempted because I know how thin that line between open and out of control really is.

In all the years of fighting this, there has been one saving grace. I had a standard of truth to cling to. I did not have to rely on the thoughts inside my head or the feeling that washed over me to tell me what was good or right. The answers do not come from the inside, they are found in the revelation of God in his Word. I had to decide to hone my ability to empathize so that I could offer what I believe my faith requires of me.  After all, even if I feel like I am huge black hole of impenetrable darkness that does not mean I can act as if everyone else is. So while careening my car into oncoming traffic might solve some of my problems, I have to remember it might put a huge damper on someone else’s big day. And those days when I am too great to be bothered by the pettiness of your life, I am really working on trying to remember that your pain is valid and real and should be honored as such, instead of cavalierly declaring that death of your dog is just part of life and you should get over it.

I had to decide what I believed. By that I don’t mean that I could just make an intellectual assent to my faith or the dictates of it. I had to get honest about how sincere I was about the Christian ethic of love, kindness, and grace. I had to make a cognitive choice to live these things despite what I may or may not be feeling in a moment, and the most beautiful thing of all is I am not expected to give you a feeling that I have to manufacture on my own. I just have to give you the love that I have been given, the love a Savior that is supposed to flow through me – a love that is far superior to any created within my heart or mind. In that there is freedom, from the condemnation of my inadequacies and the shame of not always feeling as Christian as I think should. The command to me, to us all really, isn’t too feel a certain way, but to act in accordance to His word. So that is the part I am working on. You know, the stuff I can control, most days.