Shadowed Soul (31 page)

Man’s best friend beside me, my dog accepted me depressed as I was, and gave me unconditional love even when I was at rock bottom.  It was not until I overstepped my dog’s limits with a fit of rage that even my dog hit a turning point.  Seeing an innocent creature shake in fear of me was my wake-up call to seek professional help and fix myself. 

In therapy I could explore what was going on with me at that time in my life, look at the issues objectively.  Gradually, I was able to gain resolution to my problems as I came to understand the anatomy and history of my demons.  Millions of people go through depression in silence; understandably, sharing is as hard for a bi-polar adult as it is for a child.  Bi-polar and clinically depressed individuals may suffer extremes and stages that change according to the variables of their environment and self-care.  They may feel out of control and powerless.  Like most people with my condition, my feeling of powerlessness over my condition further angered and frustrated me.  The painful and hurtful downward spiral continued.  Ultimately, after many months of therapy and some
Rx
support to even out the extremes for a short time, I found writing gave me back a feeling of focus.  Focus helped reign in a feeling of control, and gradually, I began to gain traction and find clues to a solution.  Soon, I gained a clearer view of where to go with my life. 

To explore and express emotions can be difficult at first.  And it can become a habit:  A healthy obsession.  For me, writing purged my mind of cobwebs and misunderstood memories, and helped me find a path toward resolution and reconciliation.  Writing gave me a sense of continuity and, eventually, too, of great fun.  That’s not to say everything suddenly became unicorns and roses.  It didn’t.  The
Shadowed Soul
concept continued to burden me.  Hardships come and go, and I learned I had the power to navigate without falling into despair and depression.  The clincher was in my choices.  The choice was mine in how I reacted to the ups and downs and perceived demons.

When I first spilled my emotions on paper it was a torrential relief.  Truly therapeutic!  As I got the feel of my book I experienced emotional waves, up and down.  Writing provided an objective place-holder for a rainbow of emotions.  I started to understand the influences of my childhood, from my parents and relatives to various losses, to issues of chemical imbalance, and how these forces inter-related.   I was able to start to make sense out of each influencer.  At first it was hard to let go and stop taking personally every affront that had ever been dealt me.  But, you can’t change the past.  I had to let go, or remain beached forever in shipwreck mode.  When I made a conscious intention to let go, it provided relief and a surprising rush of well-being.  With it came the revelation that acceptance and forgiveness were within my control.  Like everyone, I had the power to choose how I react to each person and each memory.  Like everyone, I had the power to choose how I react to any situation moving forward.  With the knowledge that the past is truly
passed
, I started to see how I could direct my own future.  I accepted that I had lost years to depression and anger and feeling powerless, and I took steps to move on.  My choice was to create
better
.  With choice came hope that better challenges would come.  Fun challenges.  I wanted to choose anything that would give me more strength and understanding of where I was headed.  The book was fun.  A relief.  For the first time in a long time I looked forward to the feeling of being in control of my life.

Many people from all walks of life suffer unnecessarily and could seek relief from similar issues.  Buried under layers of regret, anger and misunderstandings, they never resurface.  Clues elude them and their situation remains entrenched.  They expect more hell, not improvement.  They don’t believe they have the power to change because the cycle of depression can be so utterly crushing.  In many cases, they have lost hope for so long they can not recall a time when they ever experienced joy or hope to begin with.  If there’s one thing I aim to convey in my book it is the idea of hope.  Hope exists, but you have to shave away some layers to feel it.  Hope comes with relief.  Relief floods you when you see hints that you are not powerless.  When you embrace the fact that you do have power to change, that’s the tipping point!  Once you get a taste of hope, it becomes clearer how very doable it is to create an excellent life. 

So how did I get relief?  It sounds so simplistic; I got it from writing and talking with a therapist, and coming to understand that the past is valid but that it does not have to continue to be the same way forever.  There is hope for change.  Slowly, I came to respect myself for the work I was investing in myself in order to improve my own well-being.  With that came a flickering of self-love and an awareness of an energy greater than myself.  What’s this?  Life?  Plain old life happening all around me!  I started to feel the force of life again as I had when I was a small child.  Some people call it awareness of God’s love; some call it the universal life force or force of nature.  Call it what you wish.  It’s there.  And it’s always present.  I had to open myself to it.  I set in motion the ability to open myself to it when I asked for help from a professional.

Statistics on suicide and depression, self-abuse, domestic abuse, substance abuse and addiction,
hand-to-mouth
disorders, and dysfunctions of many kinds can be lowered when one asks for help.  The opportunities are there for each of us to become whoever we want to be, and not remain buried in isolation, feeling like hell.  In realizing I was not suffering alone, and that my energy, my life force, is an extension of a much greater universal life force to which every one of us is connected, that was a relief.  It is the individual who chooses what to do with his or her own slice of life.  My choices, each and every one of them, were pivotal to my next step and the next and next.  With each choice, at each split in the road, my confidence grew, and I found new ways to make the best of a situation.  There was a learning curve, of course, so not each and every single choice resulted in fanfare, but increasingly my habit developed to pay attention to present choices in order to plot my course for the future. 

It was an eye-opener to me to discover that each choice lead me to many other choices that opened up as I went along.  Ultimately, after plenty of mishaps, I accepted that I am accountable for my choices, each and every one of them.  And I am responsible for outcomes within my sphere of influence.  Up until the healing process began, I did not like the man I had become.  To become whoever I wanted to become seemed so remote.  If I disliked who I was, then who could I become that I would like?  What attributes must I acquire in order to like myself?  Who did I want to be?  I had to start writing down a description of who that man would be, and what aspects of my character I did not like that I wanted to discard.  Initially, I had to be brutally honest with myself and listing what I disliked about myself was painful, as it seemed to include just about my entire life up until that point.  So, I had to ask myself what attributes would this new me have.  At first it was general stuff:  health, thoughtful toward my wife, feed my brain, things like that.  In time, my description of ideal-me became much more specific:  Workout with weights to build core strength and run one mile every other day, eat more vegetables daily, ask my wife how her day was and listen daily, buy her flowers weekly, make time to read to my child, study more for my master’s degree daily. 

I had to live with myself, whether I was wrongly accused as a child or I blamed others for my misery, whatever happened, the buck stopped here, with me.  If you ever had a chronic physical pain, you know it can wear you down.  You feel tired and cranky.  But eventually, you feel relief when it heals and you forget about it.  When you have an emotional pain, it seems never to heal, and your energy is siphoned off as your mind tries and tries to make sense out of it, returning again and again to one thought, like a rat in a
Habitrail
that’s too small for it.  In my experience with writing and discussing my concerns with a therapist, all that energy that had been wasted on emotional pain-management was now rerouted back into me.  Suddenly, I had the energy to explore new ways to live.

Therapy triggers all kinds of emotions on the spectrum of misery to bliss.  No one has to become an emotional wreck and lose everything as I did just to ask for help.  You do
not
have to wait to hit bottom to take a gulp of air.  The sooner you can face the demons of the past head on, the sooner you are headed to recovery and a life of fairly consistent joy.  I am not saying drunken euphoria; I am saying
fairly consistent joy
.  I like to compare the process to a head cold that gets worse before it gets better.  When a fever gets so hot that it burns the sickness in order to kill it off, it puts a strain on you, and you feel achy and tired.  Similarly, when therapy digs so deep into a hurtful past, all manner of friction is released.  You feel drained for awhile as your mind processes the hot thoughts.  But then, you feel measurably better.

The longer you carry around burdens of the past, the harder it becomes to hide the fact of depression.  I, like many people, had developed habits to mask my condition from others.  Compensating for my mood swings, I avoided people, and sought emotional safety in reclusive behavior.  Many mood disorders, such as bi-polarity, are compounded by other conditions such as ADD/ADHD or PTSD.  To compensate for the sudden swings, often an individual is propelled to self-medicate in order to feel better.  This may come in the form of a simple
hand-to-mouth
chocolate addiction or the more damaging consumption of excess alcohol and controlled substances.  This compensatory masking behavior is often followed by guilt and continuation of the cycle with no exit strategy.  Consequences harsher than plumpness from ice cream
overdose
can include penury from gambling, violence to self and others, increased depression from alcohol and substance abuse, suicide, or merely slower recovery time.

While writing
Shadowed Soul
my discoveries of hope and fun and love were very freeing to me, and delivered answers to many important questions, such as,
why me, why must I struggle?
  Of course, struggle is relative to each individual, and we all struggle in some way from the moment we are born.  We learn to control our bodily functions, walk, talk and read.  Some more complex difficulties plague others, and if anyone has a completely carefree life, I’ll show you an individual who is bored and unchallenged, or lying.  Some pretend it is easy, yet they struggle miserably.  The grace is in how you manage your struggle and keep it in perspective, how you validate yourself.  There is always someone with a worse scenario than yours.  So, I have to say, the magic is in how you choose to deal.  In knowing what you
do
want, then those choices become clear.  Keep asking and specifying what you
do
want, then it becomes clearer how to manage struggles better as you proceed.  For me, learning about myself provided the greatest number of answers to
why struggle?

When I escaped my depression long enough I noticed others suffering and asked myself,
where are we headed?
 
If so many people are suffering, why?
 
Should we all be in therapy and take prescriptions to balance our chemistry?
  Men express less than women for different reasons, and often undisclosed problems can not resolve if the problem is not identified and treated.  A downward spiral habit can result from environmental influencers; any number of factors can trigger a bi-polar high or low, whether incited by abusive people or rainy days, DNA and chemical predisposition, or what you choose to put in your mouth or up your nose. 
Rx
can balance imbalances in one’s chemistry temporarily, and help get past the trap of indecision.  Sometimes making any decision gives relief, even if it proves to be not the best decision.

As I pondered the mire of indecision, I could not help asking,
what’s the point? 
Given my own chronic isolation and self-neglect, I wondered if, to find meaning in my life, I must climb Mount Everest or make a pilgrimage to Tibet to ask a monk what the point
is
?  In contrast to therapy,
that
seemed like a lot of work to me.  Everything felt so pointless and all the solutions seemed too extreme.  If so many people are suffering, where is all this meaningless suffering leading us as a society?  Through therapy and regulated wellness, I came to the conclusion that I am here to make a difference, to share, to create, to help people if they will accept what I have to offer, and to en
joy
the joy in every-day challenges.  I feel fulfilled and accomplished because I recognize that I have something to contribute to others.  Each person has a story that is relevant.  Each person deserves to be heard.  Everyone deserves a support system and sense of community, a sense of place and acceptance, to feel relevant to others and to one’s self.  Miniscule and cliché as terms may sound such as
community
and
acceptance
,
being heard
and
sharing
, each of these old–standbys individually and together create a feeling of hope and joy.

So then, I had to wonder,
how can I get more happiness? 
How can I extract more joy and fun from life?  The process of writing my own story gave me relief and then joy and even fun in the process.  Understanding myself brought me increased relief and an appreciation for the complexity of my emotions.  Publicly, I became more effective at expressing my emotions, rather than suppressing them in a pressure-cooker or remaining emotionally constipated, as it were.  By allowing myself to be more expressive, I felt more clear-minded and more open.  My sense of humor improved, and I was able to have a greater appreciation for the silliness and irony in life.  This brought a feeling of delight.