Time To Vent!!!

Time to vent.  I’ve got to get this out.  I’m angry, in fact right now I’m pretty well pissed off.  I’ve got so much anger built up in me right now it’s not even funny.  We were walking through Wal-Mart this evening and I just wanted to punch someone, somebody, something.  I really didn’t care, I just wanted to beat the crap out of something.  To make matters worse I hate when I get this way.

Why am I so angry?  I really feel that I’m angry at my Bipolar disorder.  I have been robbed so incredibly much both by my disorder and people taking advantage of me because of my disorder.  When I was in school I used to get beat up because of my disorder.  When I graduated and entered the workforce I wound up working for some very manipulative people that new how to pull my strings back and forth and take advantage of me.

Over the years my disorder cost me a ton of great jobs.  My disorder also cost me a business that I built up, poured my heart and breathe into, a business that I loved and was making some serious money with.  I figured it up a while back and the best that I can tell this disorder has cost me way more money then I care to discuss here.  Money is not all this disorder has cost me.

The emotional and relational damage done by this disorder is beyond measure.  I’ve lost count of the number of friends that I’ve lost when I’ve went off of the deep end one way or the other.  There would be times that I would blow off some of my friends and in fact I would hurt them first just so I didn’t have to risk them or anyone else having the chance to hurt me first.

In 1996 my disorder ripped away from me the greatest thing that God had given me on this Earth.  In 1996 my wife divorced me when she was almost nine months pregnant.  That divorce was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to go through in my life.  Shortly after we were divorced my at that time ex-wife gave birth to our third child.  That was the only child I wasn’t there for when one of our children came into this world.  To this day that still haunts me.

To this day, and I still don’t know how God did it, how God managed to get me to chill out long enough so that He could get my ex-wife & I back together and get us remarried.  All I can say to that is that I’ve got a wife with more guts and intestinal fortitude then I could ever hope for.  But even at that I’ve still managed to hurt my wife at times when I’ve been going off one way or the other with my Bipolar disorder.  When I get out of control and do something hurtful to my wife it makes me just all that much angrier.

Flashbacks suck!  I don’t know how else to put it.  I don’t know why but for the last couple of weeks I’ve been having flashbacks to my life 10, 15, 20, even 25 years ago.  Having these flashbacks has opened up a ton of old wounds.  Having these wounds opened up I know has added greatly to my anger.  Forgiving the people that hurt you is one thing, but forgetting the pain and agony that they caused is a whole different ballgame.

Tonight when I was taking my meds I heard a little voice tell me “Go ahead, dump all of those pills right down the drain.  Go ahead and do it.  Go back to the way it used to be.  At least you won’t have to deal with the pain that you’re dealing with now.”  I didn’t do it.  I didn’t dump my meds.  I know the voice wasn’t of God and that’s why I didn’t dump them.  I will say that I was tempted though.

Right now my meds have me so screwed up with my sleep pattern that it’s not even funny!  I can’t get to bed at night and I can’t get up the next day.  How bad is it?  If Pam won’t come in and fight with me to get me out of bed I’d probably sleep till mid afternoon and I’d get up just in time to go to college.  This sucks and it’s driving both Pam and I nuts!  I’ve got maintenance work to do for Pastor Rob and I can’t even get around and go do some simple little chores for him.

Pastor Rob called me yesterday and had a talk with me.  Pastor Rob told me that he was concerned for me.  Pastor Rob told me that what he was seeing in me was not natural for me.  Pastor Rob also told me he’s never seen me get this bad before.  For some reason I believe that pastor Rob is exactly right.  I am in bad shape right now.  What I’m doing now is way out of characteristic for me.

I’ve got some bad news for Pastor Rob.  I’m concerned about myself too.  Tonight I had some of the bad thoughts trying to start creeping back into my mind that I’ve had in the past when I’ve started going off of the deep end with my Bipolar disorder.  I know this for sure, if it wouldn’t totally screw up my college for this semester I would seriously consider doing a week’s worth of inpatient treatment just so I could get my life headed back in the right direction.

Venting helps.  If I can get it out and write about it I do start to settle down at least just a little.  I wish that I could somehow just give all of these pains and hurts to God and just be done with them.  I’ve lost count the numbers of times that I’ve heard someone say something like “Just give your pain to Jesus and be done with it.”  It might be easy for someone that hasn’t been running down the path of an emotional train wreck for the last thirty years of their life.  But for me it’s not that simple.

I grew up in a God fearing home.  I was taught the Bible growing up.  I consider myself very well versed in the Bible.  I’ve been a born again Christian now for almost twenty years.  Since 1988 my whole life has been centered around Jesus and getting to know Him and His word in a deep, intimate way.  But after all of this time I still don’t know how to give my hurt and my anger to Jesus.  That in itself hurts me and makes me just that much angrier.

I’ve got to wrap this up.  It’s already 3:15 in the morning and I’m still not in bed.  In summary I’m hurting and I’m angry!  Right now I hate my life.  If it wasn’t for the fact that God gave me an awesome wife and a bunch of great kids I would have been sunk a long time ago.  It’s both because of the love of my family and the fact that my family needs me that I don’t just run off and do something insane.

Oh well, life goes on.  What can I do?  Right now I don’t know.  I’m feeling pretty helpless right now.  I’m also feeling pretty defeated right now.  This is the lowest I’ve felt since my world fell apart a year ago and I went into treatment for my Bipolar disorder.  Something has to change.  I can only hope that God will change it for the better.

As always…

Be Blessed

BIG SCOTT