So I was at a real low point a couple days ago. Being bipolar, you experience amazing heavenly highs and crushing earth shattering lows. So as I'm facing a pending divorce, being jobless, penniless, and on the verge of homelessness, it can be hard to keep an even keel most times. I feel constantly tormented by my thoughts...
if only I could get her on the phone - she'd take me back
if only she'd answer her phone - we could work this out
if only I said this, or did that, or didn't say this, or didn't say that - I wouldn't be in this position.
Then there's the berating myself...
nobody's ever gonna wanna have a relationship with a 40 year old twice divorced looser
you have no job, no prospects, no degree, no money (literally), no place to live, you don't deserve another chance
you blew your last chance at life - you're going to live the rest of your life alone and you deserve it
I've been scared to death because the last time I went through a divorce, I lost many friends, spent way too much time alone and I tried to kill myself three times. I didn't want to go through that again. Especially since I'm barely 2 1/2 months out of a mental hospital, where I was sent because I tried to kill myself.
I will say that for the most part, I'm many ways, I'm handling this go around a lot better than last time. Since I'm literally broke, My massive caffeine intake has stopped cold turkey, I've stopped smoking, I'm not drinking on a daily basis, and I've been doing a lot of walking.
I'm at the library every day from open to close. That means I only eat once a day. combined with my regular walks, and cutting out booze, soda and junk food, I've already dropped close to 20 lbs.
But I was afraid that I was using exercising and not eating as just another way of self medicating, and soon enough I would enter into another relationship, or my wife would take me back (not likely) and I would just end up repeating the same behaviors over and over again that end up driving everybody away and ruining every relationship and costing me every job I've ever had.
That brings us to earlier this week. I was feeling real low. My mind is always racing, and it was tormenting me with thoughts, of guilt, remorse, sadness, depression, self-hatred, and I couldn't turn it off. I decided to go for a walk, thinking maybe I could walk away from it somehow, but that wasn't working. It was starting to get dark, there were no cars in sight. I had the whole road to myself.
The harder I tried to let go, the less it worked. I try to keep my attention on the present moment and bypass my ego, bypass my thinking, but ego kept finding a backdoor to torment me. My wife has had enough of me, my parents have had enough of me. I miss Sacramento, and I have no way to get down there. I was convinced that when I got remarried that this was would be my last chance at love, and life, and now I blew it just like I always do. I can't live another day with this torment, and guilt.
I reached my breaking point.
It was a little after 8pm. I was walking down a mile long stretch of paved road that has the residential neighborhood my folks live in, on one side and a school and some farms on another. It's the dividing line between old, rural Queen Creek, and new suburbia Queen Creek. I walked into the middle of the road, and sat in the left turn lane, legs crossed in the half lotus position. I closed my eyes and told myself that I'm going to settle all these issues, put this torment to rest once and for all, and make peace with whats happened to me in life, and I'm not gonna move until I resolve it all. The cops may end up forcibly removing me, or scraping my brains off this road, but I wasn't moving until I made peace with myself.
I didn't know what else to do. I was that desperate.
I believe in God, but not the Christian God. Not the old, angry man in the sky. I believe God is, as whats been called, "The One Consciousness" or "The Universal Mind" and I believe that we are all connected to that, its just for most of us, that connecting link is dirty and corroded because we either hardly ever take advantage of that connection or we don't believe it exists. I'm not trying to start a debate, that's just my view.
I was in tremendous emotional agony. I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I turned to that voice within and asked why have I always been so angry? why have I always sabotaged every chance a happiness in life? Why was everything always so hard for me? Why have I caused so much pain and misery to the few people who have actually loved me?
I've asked these questions before to that voice within, but I've never gotten any answers. However I don't think I was asking right all those times before. If I ever asked these questions before, I was asking with an agenda, usually with no other interest than to appease my ego, by getting that person or thing back in my life, and fulfill my definition of what I thought I needed to be happy in life? I never got any answers when I asked from that place.
I made my plea to God, and kept quiet. My resolve was firm, I was not getting up and getting off of this road until I figured it out...I kept my eyes closed. I tried focusing on my breathing but my thoughts were too powerful. They kept baiting me into the same old circles of endless self-abuse, guilt and torment. I kept my eyes closed. I have a realization, not a thought a feeling. Maybe I'm not bipolar. Maybe I'm just guilty of compulsive thinking. If I could learn to stop the compulsive thinking and learn to live in just present moment awareness, I could stop tormenting myself. That kind of realization is an attack on the ego, and it was there to fight back. Every time, I tried to let go of my thinking, my thoughts, my ego fought back, each time stronger than the last.
It wasn't working. I felt like I was burning inside. I didn't want to go though another 40 years of this kind of torment any longer. I wanted this to stop, and not for any selfish reasons. I was sick of the depression, the misery, the constant mood swings, and highs and lows. Not because I wanted anything, or anyone. I just wanted to be at peace, and enjoy my life, however that looked like.
There was no way in hell I was gonna get up and get off this road. I was beginning to think they were going to have to scrape me off of it. There are hardly any lights on this road. I didn't have any ID. I wondered how long it would take to notify my parents. I wondered if they would even bother calling my wife to tell her. Or if she would even care. I was breathing heavy, tears rolling down my cheeks. I stood up and said out loud to that voice within,
DAMMIT! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE. I'M TRYING BUT NOTHINGS WORKING. PLEASE JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO.PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!
My head fell in my hands, I was blubbering like a child. I had given up. Then I finally heard that voice answer back for the first time ever.
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
What do you mean be good to myself? What kind of crap answer is that? Why should I be good to myself, I suck right now. I can't do anything right. Nothing ever works for me. I've ruined two marriages. I'm almost 40, no job, no money. I'm nowhere near where I should be in life. Nowhere near where other people my age are. Why should I reward myself by being good to myself at this point! huh?
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
I suddenly remembered that David Icke video I was looking at the other day. He said everything we see and everyone we meet in this world are just projections of whats going on in our own heads. If somethings not right in our life and we try to solve it by changing whats on the outside, its like combing the mirror. When we change whats inside, then we change whats on the outside.
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
If that's true then maybe everything I complained about and accused my wife of doing to me, happened because I was doing it to myself. I accused her of being overly demanding with me, impatient, not understanding, not nice or affectionate. But in reality I was being overly demanding with myself, not nice to myself.
She accused me of being impatient and too hard on Ava. In reality I was actually being impatient and too hard on myself. This marriage doesn't look the way I want it to so I can be happy.
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
Shit. I start to rewind the clock. I see that every relationship I've ever had, both my wives, every girlfriend I ever accused of being, mean, bossy, demanding, rigid, having a love that was based on conditions. That happened because I was doing it to myself.
The more relationships that failed the more hard I was on myself therefore more relationships failed. It was a sick, cycle of dysfunction and self abuse.
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
I was starting to understand. I haven't experienced lasting love or goodness or happiness in my life because I've never gave it too myself. I was punishing myself. Time to turn back the clock some more. Where did this all start. When did I start punishing myself, and why?
Every time I was picked on at school, I didn't fit in, I was a minority living in white suburbia, going to mostly white Catholic schools, I didn't fit in with the other kids, I wasn't smart enough, I didn't have as many friends, I got turned down for dates. My parents didn't show the affection or understanding that I thought they should. I didn't finish college like everyone else. Nothing is going right, I'm not as far ahead as everyone else in life,
I've been frustrated and impatient and demanding of myself ever since I was a child. I had this solid, inflexible idea of how I should look, how my life should look, how my relationships should look, and when that didn't look exactly the way I wanted it too. I punished myself. After all why should treat myself good when I've failed in all these areas. I must punish myself so I'll try harder.
And if something good did come along, then I would tell myself. Hey remember you don't deserve anything good, you suck, you're a failure, so I would punish myself even more by not letting myself have anything that was good in life.
But that shit don't work. Like combing the mirror. I'm beating myself up, then looking at the mirror and what I see is beat up, and I get mad at myself for that and beat myself up more then just get more confused when I see that everything I'm looking at in the mirror is beat up too. I've been beating myself up for shit that's happened ever since I was a child.
THAT'S IN THE PAST, AND EVERYONE HAS MOVED ON BUT YOU. NOBODY IS PUNISHING YOU, OR TORMENTING YOU BUT YOU NOW. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
OK, so maybe for once in my life I can start loving myself. I never knew what that meant to love myself. It means to be accepting of myself, be understanding of myself. Encourage myself, not put harmful things in my body, Not berate or call myself names. Be flexible with myself.
If I'm good to myself, then others will be good to me. Others are good to me because I am good to myself. Stop combing the mirror.
Be good to yourself. Do you understand?
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You. Yes, I understand now.
This didn't all happen instantaneous. It was a long process, it was painful too realize the truth, my ego didn't wanna believe it, I was in denial. I was wracked with pain,and tears as it seemed I was purging myself of my inner demons who didn't go without a good fight, all along just that kind, deep voice from within, patiently repeating, "Be good to yourself."
I don't have to cope with this situation by reading every damn self help book in the library. I don't have to search the Rig Veda for special Sanskrit Mantras that have special powers. I don't have to have Eckhart Tolle's Audiobooks in my ear 24/7. Thats just self medicating just like how I nearly drank myself to death 12 years ago with my first divorce. All those authors, all that advice can be summed up with just 4 words - Be Good to Yourself.
I was amazed at how simple, yet elegant God speaks. Encyclopedias of information conveyed in just 4 little words. A lifetime of therapy wouldn't have given me that kind of insight.
Now it's not like I'm crapping rainbows of pure conscious, light, love and sushine. But I've stopped that bad habit of compulsive thinking. In my experience thinking is overrated. I've started to let my gut, my conscience start handling my problems instead of my mind. Sure I have dark thoughts like everybody I'm human. But thats just what the mind does, and I can let it be and I don't have to play into that. Thats being good to myself.
I'm not in pure bliss or anything. But I've decided to just let life take me where it wants to. As long as I'm being good to myself, I can set goals and I will achieve them. But I don't get to decide how long its going to take to get there. That's for God/The Universe/whatever you wanna call it to decide. I don't have to beat myself up because its taking too long, or it doesn't look the way I think it should or because other people have more than I do. Thats not being good to myself.
You may be all JOE ATHEIST and think thats all just a bunch of bullshit, and you'd be absolutely right. I'm only trying to share my experience. I can honestly tell you it's true. Thats too complex to have made up. I'm not trying to entertain anybody so much as I'm just trying to share my story. Let anyone who cares know, that I'm going to be ok, and by writing this I'm kinda purging myself, getting rid of all this baggage once and for all.
Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations. - Carlos Castaneda
If you give up your personal history then you don't have to live up to others people's opinions of you, and mostly your opinion of yourself.
PS: As I was writing this, I was called and officially offered the job that I had been wanting. I start tuesday. And I was called by the other people I had applied to for a second part-time job, who I'm meeting with on Monday.
Very cool indeed.
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