Facing Lies

I’ve been trying to work on my memoir for some time. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough. Maybe I don’t feel my life is at a point to where it is complete. Maybe I don’t feel it is worth publishing let alone reading.

My life has been anything but boring. It has been laced with Bipolar 1 and psychotic episodes, alcohol and drug use…marriages and legal problems. But I’ve had successes and victories in my life.

There have been times when I have tried things and failed. I’ve walked away satisfied just for trying.

Memoirs of bipolar and alcohol use are a dime a dozen. Who would read a story of another? Sometimes I choose to believe the lie I’m just a messed up freak who writes about dark things intertwined with stories of faith and promises of good. So I quit.

Miserable humans we are, we sometimes feel, trying hard to make our fantasies and deepest longings come true for ourselves. We whip lies into submission until they become crystal clear reality in our squishy brain folds.

But then, actual reality. The cruelty of truth creeps in warning us to never do that again.

Then I think of playing in the pain – not being afraid of the darkness, because in the darkness, we find the light. And I’m reminded of that feeling crashing into your purpose and realizing that you’ve been wasting a lot of creativity and energy with excuses.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about.

All of us have dreams. Those dreams are built around purpose – what we’re made to be – what’s in our bones to do. And every single one of us faces a moment where we decide whether or not we’ll go through with it. Every single one of us has a chance to either push forward or quit.

And here’s the best news: even if you’ve quit, even if you’ve believed the lie that whatever it is you want to pursue isn’t worth it or that people won’t understand, there’s always a second chance.

Your dream is worth it. You are worth it. What if you ran with it? What if you didn’t give up and quit?

Grace in labels

The shortest amount of time I’ve ever held a job was three days. And that was last week. Like so many times before my past had followed me. This time it was my legal record. A felony. Some DUI’s. I was upfront about my felony. How I had blacked out after taking an increase in dosage of one my medications that my doctor and I agreed on and then got into a strangers car. The person who hired me had no problem with my criminal record. It was her bosses so I was let go.

I’ve learned throughout my life that the majority of the time what’s on paper is too black and white. If someone put it on paper before you then they must be right.

We have many ways of identifying and labeling people. I have a DOC number. It is to identify me. Yesterday, I saw my probation officer. Pictures of my tattoos were taken. They are to identify me. I lost my job because I have DOC number and a probation officer. Because I have a record.

So I am judged and labeled.

I am bipolar. So I am labeled. I used to self-medicate to try to cope. So I am judged. I am labeled. 

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.