Thanksgiving of desperation

I’ve been mulling over two components lately; prayer and wisdom. Many times I find myself praying for wisdom or even contemplating the notion it’s in our wisdom that God hears us.

I’ve been out of work for a while and finding work is no easy task in my town. I’ve spent much of my kids lives before they went to school as a stay-at-home-dad so I’m no stranger to staying home. But now I’m alone in the house.

You may wonder what does this have to do with prayer and wisdom and praying for wisdom. By no means am “super-spiritual” but I try to spend much of my time conversing with God. Unfortunately, much of that time I question if He hears me. I know logically I He does, but feeling it is a different story.

Ever take anything for granted? Surely. Surely I have. And it’s how I feel about the wisdom God imparts upon me daily. I lost my job in March due to my disability. I’m handling that and that’s a different story to tell. But in the mean time it’s like Murphy’s law has sprung wide open on us. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I need to work and I have filled out numerous applications but my illness is actually preventing me from working.

Chasing Giants: A journal of my formal self

                

Chasing Giants: A journal of my formal self

Winter 1997

                Most of my years prior to my hospitalization I spent drinking heavily. Every chance I got I drank. Once it resulted in a DUI and that didn’t stop me.

                The mania was just as bad. Once on whim I talked my co-workers into taking a last minute trip to New Orleans for New Years Eve, and we live in Oklahoma. I constantly wanted to party. Looking back maybe it was it my way of masking my depression to extent. But then it caught up with me.

I vaguely remember that night before. But at that particular moment I have neither any idea where I am at or how I got here. I awake with two people standing over me bearing down with their condescending eyes. My head is pounding and the green colored plastic mattress and pillow doesn’t make it easy to find a 

comfortable position. That was 1997 and I was twenty-three.

                

“Good morning Mr. Picazo. I’m doctor ‘so and so.” I don’t remember his name. “What’s been going on that would make you want to hurt yourself?”

                “What the hell was he talking about?” I thought “Hurt myself?” But I’m pretty sure I answered that I had been very depressed lately.

                The memory came back to me. The evening before I had drank a fifth of Vodka and swallowed any number of sleeping pills. I don’t know how many. I just turned the bottle upside down and started swallowing.

                How did I get to this point? Why did I get to this point?

Trapped

I was a good kid. Kid that is. Good in school. No trouble My list of I never ranged much longer than my list of have done.

Where I grew up, maturity was keeping the rules and doing the right things, marking your checklist of spiritual accomplishments and sins avoided. On the outside, I was doing well.

But inside,……I was dying. Plagued with deep depressions and manias. Inside I was different.

My accomplishments never felt like enough, and I was being crushed under the weight of my own expectations. Grades were never good enough. My art was never good enough. I was never a good enough friend. I used faith like a self-improvement plan, but ignored my heart in the process. As I cried out for acceptance, inadequacy and inferiority were my constant companions. They taunted me screaming at me in my mind.

Yet when I was exposed to the message of grace as a young adult, I struggled to believe it was for me. Even though it was like a breath of fresh air to my soul, and spoke to my heart in a way that accomplishments and discipline never could, deep down I believed I could manage without it; I’d heard of dramatic turnarounds – stories of radical sinners embracing the grace of God out of necessity. But me? I followed the rules and tried hard; I didn’t need it. I could figure it out on my own.

I'm going to pick a fight

Each one of us is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God's grace. My wife is a miracle to me. My children are miracles.

But I do not always feel like an unrepeatable miracle of God's grace. Unique yes. Much of the time I feel alone in this world. But more often I behave as though God puts up with me because He made me and now He is stuck with me.

Logically I know this is false, but deep, and sometimes not so deep, inside it nags and gnaws at my heart, at the security and love I feel from not only others but also about myself. It creeps into my prayers, into my thoughts, into how I love and relate to her, to them, to me.

Bipolar disorder is one of the most elusive illnesses we know of. The lives of those who live with are written like a bestselling mystery novels. The beginning opens in the middle of nowhere and every page is a twist and turn full of surprises never knowing what is going to happen next.

Recognizing our thoughts are awry and our judgment is impaired is a risky business for anyone dealing with a mental illness. It all seems so sensible in our delusional state. We need to come to the conclusion there is an impairment in our functioning that prevents us from living life normally. Then again I hate that word, "normal." Who says what is normal?

Powerlessness = Choice

I met a man recently who is a lot like me. I don't want to be like this man.

Psychiatric hospitals are places you will always meet characters. Some you forget; some stick out.

I'm bipolar and 37, but look no older than 25. He is also bipolar, but 45 and looks no younger than 65. We are a lot alike. Both have succumbed to our manic states. Both experience disabling depressions. Both have lived years of abusing alcohol and drugs with bouts of binges. Both have ruined ourselves financially. Both have divorced. Both have alienated friends and family in the past. Both have been in trouble with the law. Both have received undeserving grace. Except.....