Posted by rayww on December 31, 2002, at 21:12:36
In reply to Re: empower » rayww, posted by Dinah on December 31, 2002, at 17:36:25
> I hope it isn't terribly rude to ask, but you refer to being bipolar and having very large swings. Are you bipolar I or II? I'm cyclothymic myself, down there towards the end of the spectrum.
I wrote a story that tells how I perceive bipolar disorder as it is with me, and that's what I believe. I could email it to you if you're willing to read it. I'm not a label person. I'm in my mid 50's, but locked into a bit of an 18-year-old mentality from my father's death trauma. so, don't ask me what I am, I don't know. I just know I am. Did that answer your question? I would like to know, don't get me wrong. My GP Doc said I was bipolar.
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> Are you on nothing but the Empower program now? No other psych drugs? And it's working well for you?Empower is all I do. I felt an episode coming on in the late summer, so i went along with empower as an experiment, and did well.
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> I don't particularly see my faith as tied into my illness. Although I do get attacks of scrupulousness due to my obsessive compulsive disorder. And probably also due to that disorder, I sometimes am overcome by a sense of my personal unworthiness and sinfulness. But I don't see those things as parts of my faith as much as I see them as parts of my illness. And the better parts of my faith I don't see as being connected to my illness. My faith seems to be of the warm calm type that is very centering. As I've already said, it almost seems more belief than faith. I don't reach the heights of feeling the Spirit the way some people do.
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You explain that very well, and I like your description of it.
Sometimes those spiritual highs can be polar extremes. I felt a high when my sister got her foot stuck in a mud puddle one day -- just because when I was a little girl on the farm following after my daddy, and got stuck in the mud, and called for him, he always came to my rescue. Seeing her step knee deep into some mud immediately took me back to a childhood moment, and I was swinging high in the spirit, thinking and feeling my dad was right there. this likely doesn't make sense. Who knows, maybe it was real? The most difficult thing for me with the diagnosis was wondering about the reality of my spirituality, and the validation of all my previous thoughts, words, ideas, writing. I felt like a new person with no real past, only a fake one, and even while I was feeling this way, I continued to serve in my family, community and church as usual, hiding it all inside.is it all right to babble like this here?
I don't have the highs now, you know where you get all caught up and fly away in it. But I definately feel support, and sustained in the things I choose to do (agency). This is kind of elementary, but when I spend time here on PB, I expect extra help to compensate for the time, and I usually receive it in an unseen sort of way. do you ever find that dinah?
poster:rayww
thread:1478
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20021227/msgs/1483.html