The words to recent and classic songs remind me of tools that can control my mental illness. In the number one video of the year, "I'm going to Soak Up the Sun," Sheryl Crow sang, "Its not having what you want, but wanting what you got." My wishing after things I had little hope of obtaining formed the core of my depressions.
Before talking about songs, I want to tell where I am coming from. After stumbling through elementary and high school with various learning problems, I attended college but after a few years came down with bipolar illness. A hospital stay followed by years of taking handfuls of pills daily made me sort of functional. The pills helped make me the fattest person I had ever known, and they reminded me of my insane status.
A few years after college, drinking brought me to my knees. That was 28 years ago. Since I walked into my first AA meeting, I have not had to drink alcohol. Then, with the guidance of my psychiatrist, I gradually reduced, then eliminated all psychoactive medicines from my life. When I had my nervous breakdown, the doctors convinced me that I would be in and out of hospitals all of my life and that I had better accept that I needed to take strong medication for the rest of my life. Well, for decades I have not had to return to hospitals or take my meds. In contrast to the usual life of a bipolar, I stayed with a career through retirement, raised a family, and won awards from my place of work, my community, and my college almamater.
Because I've now gone through a lifetime of normal events, I believe it is time to stand up and be counted as an example of how one can live normally even through labeled as crazy.
My recovery came in phases. First, my violent mood swings needed to be controlled. Pills, exercise, and 12-step fellowships moderated my ups and downs. Later, I had to work on myself when my mood was more moderate. Most bipolars do not work on themselves when their life gets stabilized. I was blessed with alcoholism; I had to work the program or die. The answer to my mental illness is in the 12 steps. To help relate the steps into the specific problems of mental illness, I used a self-help program called Recovery, Inc. It uses a form of cognitive therapy.
In this article, I want to describe some of the tools I use by quoting phrases I read and hear in my everyday life. They may not work for you, but they did and do work for me. I talking real life, not theory!
Back a few decades ago, Linda Ronstadt sang, "You only want the things you can't have." My unreasonable demands fueled nearly all of my depressions. My desires possess a subtle nature. Instead of yearning for material things. I wanted the good looks, the athletic ability, the high IQ of others. Actually, it was praise and attention I wanted because I thought I did not get enough from my family. I studied what brought attention to others. Girls chased after good-looking boys--it did not matter how they treated the girls. Where I grew up, everyone worshipped the football players. If I had a high IQ, I would not have to study and people would constantly praise my potential.
These wants changed into resentments. I hated God for not endowing me with more superior traits. When girls turned me down at dances, I stood on the sidelines fantasizing how some day I would become famous and then they would feel bad for how they treated me. Upon gazing back at my past, I realized that God made me the same as everyone else--I was average. I had average looks, average athletic ability, and an average IQ. My anger was based on wanting to be superior to everyone at everything. Before, I thought my resentment was justified since God made me inferior.
Everyone probably experiences some of these thoughts as they grow up. However, I did some mental gymnastics to enhance my suffering. As I found myself succeeding at certain endeavors, I imagined that maybe I could succeed in a big way someday. Maybe, I would not be inferior all my life. Maybe, I still had a chance to be OK. When my weight-training began to produce muscles and strength, my imagination took over. I thought that the extra muscles would be my ticket to winning at athletics and with the girls. I failed to see that my body had limits and that muscles can't completely fill that hole in me that made me feel not as good as others.
For years, I tried to fill that hole of inadequacy by turning into a workaholic--eternally climbing the mountains of achievements. I set sit-up records by doing thousands of sit-ups. I made the dean's list in college. I made the college wrestling team even though I never had the experience of wrestling in high school. My imagination and intellect encouraged me with visions of hundreds of people accepting me as soon as I made it to what I thought was the top of the heap.
Focusing on achievements brought me some honors, but the good feelings never lasted very long. Also, slowly my social life decreased because working for praise took over my life. Often, my only relief from work and the thought of work was booze.
Besides consuming vast quantities of booze, I experimented with various drugs. After practicing better living through chemistry for a while, my mind speeded up. For the first time in my life I felt confident. But after a short while, my cute ideas became more and more bizarre. I went from trying to invent a machine to recycle beer to designing a ray guy to destroy the moon. I lost patience with everyone. As with many bipolars, I picked an important person to become. I believed I was Jesus Christ.
My downfall started with great wants combined with little insight or wisdom. My pattern is not new for about 2000 years ago Horace said, "Those who want much are always in need." My manic phase evolved to a total loss of patience. One can't do much without patience. As a manic I wanted thousands of people to run around transforming my ideas into reality. I came up with several lifetimes worth of dreams--but I wanted them all done in a few days. I did not appreciate all the work it takes to do great things. Later, I saw that I just was not willing to pay the price for greatness. Great deeds require great effort. People who win an Olympic medal practically give up every spare moment of their lives.
I failed to observe the downside of achievements. There is an old myth about a man named Tithonus who was granted his wish of living forever. However, he still aged. He lived but suffered more and more from the pain of his body wearing out. Today, if you get rich and famous, you might lose your private life. You might revel in fame for a while, then the press might decide to follow you around 24/7. Sooner or later you might be written up on the front page of some magazine about some terrible thing you may or may not have committed. Perhaps you can escape that fate, but you will still have to devote great amounts of time to being great. I went to Woodstock 99 and witnessed the many beautiful girls baring their breasts for the rock stars. Being a rock star seems to be the ultimate achievement. However, most of them do not live very long. So many of the best and brightest have died early.
I have found that my depressions, and I have had many, are usually caused by a loss. However, the loss is sometimes hard to identify. For me, depressions start with the loss of a dream. I image how my life is going to be so much better when... My imagination turns stray ideas into vivid scenes like television commercials. That is, a single achievement will fill my life with happy, beautiful people paying attention to me. A single loss in a judo tournament I saw as the end--I would not win the Olympics and be on all the talk shows. My judo was supposed to be my ticket to a life like the rich and famous. The loss meant I would never be happy. Like Otis Redding sang in Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, "Looks like nothing is going change."
Today, I still get mild depressions, but am not controlled by them for more than a few hours. I know how to get out of them. I set myself up for sadness because I've always believed that I should be happy and successful all the time. I wonder what percentage of people never experience down times or sadness. Maybe, I'm asking for too much wanting to be happy all the time.
Socrates, thousands of years ago said, "Know thyself." I need to know what my purpose is, what I want, why do I want what I want, what makes me happy, and am I willing to pay the price for what I want. For a long time I chased after achievements just to prove something or to get attention. I must know my limitations and accept them. Much of my mental anguish comes form denying and covering up my human limits. I had to root out the thought patterns that sent me into depression. Growth comes with acceptance. Helen Keller said it best, "I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, my God."
My quest for acceptance, began with an attitude of gratitude. I listed all the good things in my life. I compared myself to where I had been. I remembered the times life felt hopeless. I felt grateful for wanting to be alive--there were whole years in which I wanted to die everyday. Instead of looking at the world with an attitude of envy and greed, I had to see that there are many people in the world worse off then I.
In my journey to control my moods, I allowed myself to dream. I turned my life into, what in my heart, I always wanted it to be. The stigma of being branded nuts had made me afraid of dreaming. I received much needed hope by meditating on some of my favorite music. The Rolling Stones sang, "Lose your dreams, lose your mind." In that wonderful movie Flashdance, the final song sung by Irene Cara contained the words, "Take your passion and make it happen." Jon Bon Jovi in one of the top songs last year said, "It's my life. It's now or never." When I started to work towards my dreams, my moods stopped jumping around so much. The method I found for reaching my dreams was to just break the project into tiny, tiny bits and do each tiny piece one at a time. After each tiny success I give myself a pat on the back. Today, I grow flowers, bake cookies, practice martial arts, travel around the country, and read several books each week. You might not approve, but I feel good because it is how I want to live. It's my life.
After discovering my likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, and dreams, I had to face my fears. It is easy to be a nobody. It is easy to be numbed out on pills everyday. If I seek my dreams, I may fail. What will people say? The problem is that each of us know if we are being true to ourselves. As the years roll by, our regrets at not getting out of life what we really wanted will haunt us. Many artists have sung about this: "It's the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live(Bette Midler)." "Two thousand miles I roam just to make this dock my home.(Otis Redding)" "Never settle for the path of least resistance. Living life means taking chances, but they're worth taking...and when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance," as sung by Lee Ann Womack. "If I fail if I succeed at least I lived as I believed (Whitney Houston)."
If I can act normal, so can you. Good Luck, Jim S.
Sheryl Crow. "I'm Going To Soak Up the Sun." C'mon, C'mon. A&M Records. 2002
Linda Ronstadt. "Desperado". Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits. Elekton/Asylum Records. 1976
Otis Redding and Steve Cropper. "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." The Dock of the Bay. Atlantic Records. 1968
Rolling Stones. "Ruby Tuesday." The Rolling Stones Hot Rocks 1964-1971. ABKCO Records. 2002
Irene Cara. "Flashdance What a Feeling." Fox Fanfare Music. 1979
Jon Bon Jovi. "It's my Life." Crush. 2000
Amanda Mebroom (Sung by Bette Midler). The Rose. Atlantic Records. 1979
Lee Ann Womack. "I hope you dance." I hope you dance. MCA 2002
Whitney Houston. "Greatest Love of All." Whitney Greatest Hits. Arista. 2000
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