Happy Birthday

I cannot believe that this experiment has lasted an entire year. I know that I could have written more but I think things have gone fairly well for the first year. It looks like through the generous donation of space by Rampant Lion Web Design we will have at least another year to come. I want to do more with the site, it is just hard to deal with everything that has been happening and keep a positive attitude. Working with the Brat Pack has helped. Even if I do not write as often as I want, the Pack has helped me keep the site active by posting some of my creative expressions on the web. I enjoy graphics and it is great fun to be pushed to complete something every week.

A View from My World is one year old. What do I want from the year to come? Well I want to see more consistent writing. Hopefully we can even generate some discussion in the bulletin board section of the Community pages. I want to work on some special projects like a History of my disease. How did I get where I am. For that matter where am I? (Is that even a proper sentence?) Anyway trying to get a handle on my disease and the day to day fluctuations in my emotional balance will be one of the key items up for discussion.

Well I am starting to babble, and that is a bad thing. Lack of sleep can do that to you. That is one of the problems with this experiment. When I have time to write I am also exhausted from working all night. Makes for some very disjointed entries. Bare with me, hopefully year 2 will be a better year all the way around then year 1 was.

Random Thoughts

Thought I would take a few spare minutes and write a bit. Waiting on my wife to get back from the store. It is very agrivating because she has this habbit of doing this when I have to go to work. So I am left wondering if she is going to make it back in time. That is life, one of those things that I cannot chage.

Life is life right now. I have not been 100% in taking my medication so my moods have been fluctuating a little. Ok, fluctuating alot lately. Its better then when I was off the meds but it still is not really good. The weight of our financial situation is a tremendous burden.

My daughter said the other day that she would rather be dead then poor like we are. She didn't know I was still awake and was talking to her mother. She couldn't know how very much her words hurt. I would give almost anything to be able to bring enough money in to meet our needs. As it is there is not enough to pay everything we need to. Seems we are always robbing Peter to pay Paul as the saying goes. Doesn't look like we will have enough money to even send the kids to the fair this year.

Well the wife is home so I will close for now. Hopefully I will write more often in the future.

A curse.....

Financial pressures still exist, that is not going to change very soon. Emotionally I am doing ok, not great and not poor, just ok. I am back on my medications which has helped a lot.Life still seems to be a series of chaotic steps, faltering steps. Sometimes it seems like we just cannot catch a break. I have a possibility o going back to school. Going to get some formal education in computers. It scares me.

Do I still have what it takes to be a student. Can the family survive anf how will the finances be worked out. Mostly I wonder if I can still manage to learn anything new.

I still struggle with an incredible sense of loneliness that pervades my life. I really do try and fit in, like at church, but I get this sense thaat I am still just an outsider looking in. I want to go back home, but my wife wants to stay here. She would really like to move back near her parents I think. Thats all I need. I would really be the odd one out if we did that.

No home is where I want to be. Wife says that it will not be like I remember it, and she is probably right. Still there were friends. File brankruptcy and move up North thats the plan. Yeah right, wife would never go along with it. Maybe it is just wishful thinking. Maybe it is just a memory I am chasing. Maybe I am just running from something. I just wish I knew what it was.

Wife thinks I have lost my dream. She has a point. I consider myself lucky to make it to tomorrow, so how can I dream about the future. Has God abandoned me? I don't have an answer for that question. Oh, I know the standard answer. I am told not to trust my feelings. Yet what else do I have. I have no dream. Everything that has happened over the past two years none of it makes any sense.

If I could I would send my wife and kids away and go off by myself and end it all. Part of what keeps me from doing that is I do not whant to have them have to deal with the mess. That and I know it would cause pain to those I leave behind. Not that they wouldn't be better off without me, they just don't know it. There is a curse on my life and they are caught up in it. If I thought that by my stepping out of the picture I could end that curse and thus free them to live I would.

Well enough of my ramblings. I know suicide is not the answer, it would just make matters worse. Yet I can fully understand why some people choose it as an answer. I just wish I knew what it was I have done to be under such a curse.

Bullies

Bullies are a tough subject and one that is getting tougher.  I faced them as a child and now my son is facing them.  They come in all shapes and sizes and can be male or female.  The one thing that most bullies have in common is denial by there parents.  DS is a rough around the edges kind of kid.  Socially delayed from kids in his age group, he is often more comfortable (or so it seems) with kids who are younger.  Couple with that that he occasionally is in desperate need of a shower and has some control issue when it comes to bowel and bladder.  He is a kid that it is convenient, and fun (I guess thats how they would see it) to pick on.  We live not far from a park where he likes to play.  Adjacent to the park is the city pool.  The whole place is a kids hang out from high schoolers to kindergarteners.  DS is 12 years old this year and that is the age that the police in there infinite wisdom start issuing tickets for disorderly conduct and such.
 
That is the stage.  The problem is we cannot keep a 12 year old cooped up in the house 24 hours a day, particularly in the summer.  It is also very dangerous to allow him to go to the park by himself.  We have learned from other parents in apartments closer to the park that he is the target of much taunting by other kids in the park.  It seems they know just how far to push him before he will snap and either yell back at them, or push them or something.  They then go running to there parents that Jonathan was threatening them and the police get called.  that's another thing about bullies is they tend to run in packs.  It makes them hard to challenge because they always seem to have the advantage number wise.
 
DS came home today with a story that two girls were taunting him today saying that the police were called on him yesterday.  Of course he cannot remember yesterday much clearer then I can remember it.  It took me over an hour very pain stakingly going through today's event for him to even be able to piece together what happened today.  I gave up on yesterday.  Whatever happened you can bet that if the police were in fact called (it takes them a day or two sometimes to actually investigate these things around here, so we may not know for a couple of days) there were at least a couple of witnesses that saw him do whatever it was he was supposed to do.  Of course by then his memory of the events will have completely faded.
 
It would be in a day gone by that I would tell my son if someone is bullying you fight back.  He actually did that with a kid a few days ago.  His mom in a fit of insanity as she calls it told him "if he hits you hit him back."  Unfortunately that could lead to a battery charge and even though we could provide an abundance of witnesses as to the general character of my son, and how he gets pushed around it would probably mean a court fight.  DS is scared to go to the park.  He wants to go and have fun.  He tells me about how he tries to walk away.  Deep inside I feel his pain more then I can ever express to him.
 
It feels like the whole world is against you.  Like you have no friends, and no one cares.  That is why I strive so hard to keep him in scouting.  I keep hoping that he will connect with the boys and make some friendships that will help support him through this time.  You see he enters Junior High this year.  I just realized how much I owe to a friend of mine that I met in Junior High.  that's one letter I am determined to write before my two days off are over this week. 
 
Anyway friendships are so very important.  You can get through the most horrific of circumstances with just a little help from a friend.  Our temporary solution is for Grandma to buy him a pool pass.  She can't afford it much more then we can but she is willing to do it.  The theory is that if he is in the pool area he will have the life guards to watch over him and it will be more difficult for him to be made a target.  I just hope my DD has enough understanding if Grandma cannot afford two passes.
 
This doesn't seem like a real solution.  The physical and psychological abuse that my DS must face simply to go and sit on a slide in the park.  The pain and the scaring that this is causing him.  I know because many of those scar still hurt me very deeply when I think about them.  There has to be an answer.  My dad had the answer.  When he was a kid he had this other kid who kept bullying him.  One day he waited and caught the kid alone and off guard and beat his head into the black top.  He was never bothered again.  The bully was probably to embarrassed to admit who had done it to him.  That would never work now days.  I am reminded of the Kenny Rogers song "Coward of the County." 
 
Well I have rambled on long enough.  Time for a little experiment.  I am taking my two youngest daughters to the park myself.  Hopefully I can convince DS to go along and help me keep an eye on them.  Maybe I can see some of this bullying first hand and be there to put a little fear of God in them.  Ok, without getting me thrown in jail in the process too.
 
Any comments, questions or concerns please visit our bulletin board on our community sight.  I would love to see what others of you out there have to say about the topic of bullies.

Been a while

It's been a while since I have written.  A lot has happened and a lot has not happened if you know what I mean.  We are still in desperate financial situation.  I feel like we take one step forward and two steps back when it comes to our finances.  I just feel so powerless over my life right now.  I was off my medications since about February and just last week my regular physician got me back on them.  I know that I should not expect an over night change but I can already see some improvement in the symptoms.
 
I know there are those of you out there who are reading my ramblings because I get the occasional email from you.  I invite you to join in and post in the community section (while I still have the finances to keep it open).  I feel somewhat disappointed with the whole experiment of this BLOG as it has not become what I thought it could.  Maybe that is my fault for not posting as often.  Maybe it was just never meant to be.
 
What I hate worse about bipolar are the ups and downs.  The ups, when I have that brief moment were it looks like I am going to make it.  Where it looks like I might actually be accomplishing something.  Then the bottom falls out and it seems like the whole thing comes crashing down around us.  The despair of failing yet again.  The loneliness of knowing that you have disappointed those around you.
 
Part of the problem is that I know all the right words.  I am just not sure if I believe them anymore.  Like the man crying out to Jesus, "Lord I believe help my unbelief."  I know that scripture teaches that God will never leave us nor forsake us.  What do I do when every fiber of my being is crying out that he has left me.  I don't know what it is that I have done but I have some how reached a place that even God cannot find me any more.  I live a cursed life, everything I touch is cursed.  I pray that my wife and children will leave me.  Not because I don't love them any more.  I do love them.  I love them more then life itself.  They deserve better then to be shackled to me when the end comes.  I want to scream this at the top of my lungs but I am a good Christian so I nod my head when someone tells me that God will come through for me.  The words ring hollow and I repeat the words but they are just that words.
 
Friends gather around me and hold me, but they can do precious little about meeting the mounting crisis.  Most either do not know how, or do not have the means.  I view a lot of this through the eyes of our current financial crisis because it is the most immediately pressing on us at the moment.  But the lessons here apply to the other areas of my life.  I have no real solid connections with people in my community.  I have no real connection to people in my church.  I am involved in a couple of groups on the internet and while there is great love and empathy that can be shared online it can only extend so far.  It cannot put an arm around your shoulder while you cry. 
 
I am isolated and alone, even in a crowd of people.  That is the worst feeling of all.  I need to connect to something.  That is why I have taken up my Brat Pack membership again.  The creations will be hard for me at first, but I really did miss the friendship of the Ladies in the group.  As nice as the group is I still need some male companionship.  Even our scout troop has mostly female leadership.  DS has his camp out next week and dad gets to go along for the ride.  I try to be a steadying influence has he deals with the emotional upheavals of impending adolescence and the complications to that from his ADHD.  Who knows he may even be Bipolar like good ol' dad.  The doctors just are not willing to commit to that diagnosis.
 
Hopefully with being on the new medication I will write more.  I want to write more topically and less crying about our finances or my lack of friendships.  For now I will sign off, I have a topical entry that I will be submitting after I post this one.

Back to the Dark Ages

I hope and pray that things go well tomorrow. DW and I have to go down and try to get the electric company to keep the lights on. If it doesn't work then I am not sure what we will do. We need about $500 to guarantee that we can get them to work with us, of which we only have $100 and that is stretching our living budget for the next two weeks. We thought we were going to get a state tax refund, but that looks like it was gobbled up by someone else. Our only hope now is that it was taken by whom we think it was. If so it will still leave us with some cash to work with, but not before tomorrows deadline. We did manage to scrape enough together to pay off a chunk on the overdrafts (the ones that would have ended up going to court) and pay this months rent. Not sure what we were going to do on the back rent as we were counting on this tax check to take care of a large portion of that as well.

I know God is good, but I have to wonder where he is right now. This is not his fault it is our fault, but doesn't scripture say that even when we are not faithful he is. I could sure use some of his grace and mercy right now. I just want this nightmare to end. Every time it looks like we get a bit of good news (like the tax refund) we get slammed. Every silver lining has its cloud. I keep telling my family that this will all work out, that God will take care of us. I just wish I could see some evidence that is truly what will happen. My faith is wavering, like Peter drowning in the sea that he was so confident that he could walk on. I need Jesus to reach out and grab my hand, in a very real and practical sense.

If the lights do go off, then my notes here will be even less frequent. I will have to use public access computers to write my logs. Just downloading my emails will be a nightmare in a public access setting. Well anyway I have to be prepared for that eventuality that by tomorrow we will be living in the dark. Not a pretty thought but it will teach the kids what it was like before the electric light bulb.

God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or imagine. So the scriptures teach. I can imagine not being in this financial abyss. I don't want to be rich, I just want enough to be able to see my family fed, clothed, and have proper shelter over our heads. God if your listening, and your word says that you are, show myself and my family some mercy and make that way of escape. I am trying to believe, please help my unbelief. It is so very difficult to trust you right now, give me the strength to trust, and the will to follow through where you would lead.

What does God want?

Well what can I say. We got our 14-day eviction notice today. Sucks really thinking of my family of 6 out on the street, but that is where we are destined. Life should be good right now. I have a job, my son is graduating from cub scouts. We lost our housing and now are up a creek without a paddle. It is a struggle to get the current months rent out let alone the back rent. Then you add the utilities on to the picture, and trying to redeem all the bounced checks before one of us ends up in jail or owing even more.

I am not sure what to believe anymore. No matter what we just can't seem to catch a break. I just don't know what is real anymore. DW says she has conversations with certain individuals, and yet then seems to contradict herself later. I want to believe her but it is difficult. She herself admits there are times when she does things and doesn't remember doing them. Maybe she is honestly remembering doing things that she has not done as well. As much as I love her she can frustrate me sometimes. Simply writing a letter a day or two earlier then she did might have been the difference between us loosing our housing and getting it restored. She refuses to tell me when she makes a mistake because she is afraid I will get mad at her. She has actively chosen to lie to me rather then admit that there is a problem in the past. So now when I need her to be honest, and I need her to fight along side me to save our home, I cannot be certain she is doing either.

I feel so helpless, so very alone. Those who care, and would want to help haven't got the means to do anything. If God is trying to get my attention he can stop anytime 'cause he has it. I just do not know what more he wants of me.

Venting

I think I just need a place to vent tonight. If your not into listening to someone vent, please just hit the delete key now. It seems that no matter what we do life is turning on us. I wonder sometimes if even God is left on our side. It started, last year January when the bottom of our world fell out. I lost my job (fired) and it took us a while to get things under control. That was my first hospitalize for depression in several years. Things were tough financially but we were hanging in there. Then I finally did find a job, and things went ok until September when I had my second hospitalization. So much was happening and now here I was out of work again. My wife was struggleing with her own illness (ADHD/Depression possible bipolar) and my son's (ADHD/depression possible bipolar) and our finances went in the crapper. We started to float checks and eventually it caught up with us. Once I got back to work we tried to catch up but could not keep ahead of the bounced check fees etc. We ended up having to switch banks because our old bank would not work with us at all. Despite letters from them offering to help, and us calling, and writing emails asking to take advantage of those offers, nothing was ever done. It was a viscous cycle.

In the hospital the medications prescribed worked but my Insurance decided out of the hospital it would not cover one of my prescriptions (Provigil). I am on Ritilin now and it is a poor substitute. I work third shift and the hours are just killing me. My medication schedule means that I have to keep the same basic schedule on my days off. My relationship with my family is really suffering.

The same time that I went back to work we faxed over a change of income form to the housing department. The claimed they never got it, but it somehow showed up in our chart, with the date stamp conveniently cut off. After a review it was determined that "we were at fault for not turning in a timely notice, but that we would not have to repay the difference in the rent amounts." Can you say CYA. Then come November and the beginning of all the chaos surrounding the holidays. During this time we had our annual housing inspection. The inspector not picked the house to death. Holes in screens, a minor crack in a water faucet handle, stains on the carpet, a broken ceiling tile in the bathroom, were all things that had passed without mention the year before. The landlord came over once to review the repairs and we never saw him again. Despite calls that were never returned. We ended up initiating the repairs ourselves. All that we could do. Our housing caseworker assured us that since the landlord was at fault in not making the repairs that we would not be liable for the difference in the rent. Then we get a letter that stated that since "we" did not let our landlord in to the unit to make repairs we were being terminated from the housing program. We sent in our appeal to the decision but that too was lost for a time until it was late.

In the mean time our landlord committed suicide. His father is taking over the property so that is a small ray of light in the whole mess. Our appeal of the denial of the appeal was turned down. We have had three denials and have not even had the courtesy of presenting our case. We got a notice today that we are being sent to a collection agency for not paying a school registration fee (which we were assured by the principle would be waived back in September). And my wife got stopped for a headlight out, only to find that her license had been suspended back in November. Something about failing to pay a fine. The only fine we can think of was paid, and we never got notice of the suspension. The only thing that we can figure is that it was one of the checks that bounced, but we thought we had taken care of all of them (or at least made arrangements for them).

Speaking of bounced checks we are again in a pickle due to a mathematical error and a fanatical bank policy. Right now half a dozen checks for about $400 are sitting with the local police department, and they need to be paid by the end of the month. We still have $200 dollars worth written to the place I work (yeah, I was written up for that), but they at least are being somewhat flexible. There are a handful of misc. checks out there that need to be taken care of and they are all demanding immediate payment. The checks already with the police will turn into $475 dollar tickets a piece if not paid by the end of the month.

My son (the one with ADHD is on a rampage and seriously acting up in school again. My daughter is given up on the 6th grade and has stopped applying herself to 95% of her classes. I have stopped wondering what more could go wrong because it always seems that something can. I am honestly at the end of my ropes, and have no idea where to turn. Our church has helped us so much in the past I hate to go to them yet again. Both of our parents are tapped financially. I too will soon be faced with past due utility bills that we have been lucky not to have turned off due to a winter moratorium. That will be ending soon.

Well I suppose I should end this email. I just needed a place to vent. Someone's shoulder to cry on for a while. Just not sure what I am doing wrong. Is this some sort of cosmic judgment. I am so trying to stay faithful, to not shake my fist at God and demand an answer. I have pleaded for one, but have not received one. I have no strength left to fight. I don't even think I want to keep fighting at times.

Day 2: I am not an accident

It does seem like it at times. This strange concoction that is my life. Much of it I did not ask for and would not wish on my own worst enemy. Why did God allow the things to happen to me that did? To what end do they serve? If I had been planning my life there are alot of things I would leave out, my mental illness for one. Number two would be the sexual abuse and the resulting sexualization of my young life. The combination of the two lead for some turmultuous years that still effect me to this day.

There are other areas of my life that God spared me from. I have to believe that in his infinate mercy he knew that those pits would have been too much for me to handle. What if I had never made that step toward God. I would not have had the dichotomous life that I had growing up. Having to be one thing on the outside but compelled to be another beneath the surface. I wonder sometimes if I could go back, back before the snowball started to roll down hill. If I could just have said something to someone. Said the right thing to make them see that I really needed help. I have a hard time describing how I feel now, I had no idea what depression or bipolar were back then. I had no idea what a sexual addiction was, and how I was using it to medicate the pain short term, but how the guilt would fuel the depression. I had not idea, and yet I have to believe that it was not an accident. I must confess I do not understand how this could NOT be an accident. If it was not an accident, then I want to scream, "Why did he turn a blind eye to all of it!" Yet even as I do I realize that worse things could have happened. Things I was saved from. Deep inside the truth that I am not an accident resonates.

I do not understand what purpose it could be for, but it is all for a purpose. If it were not, it would be like cutting the last thread that holds this fragile existance together.

The Brat Pack

The Brat Pack. Not quite sure what I am getting myself into but I have joined a group on the internet known as Brat Pack. They seem like a friendly enough group and are into graphics. I consider myself a beginner when it comes to my graphic skills so I joined to improve my skills. Little did I know I would be there first and so far only male member. Should be an interesting endeavor to say the least.

On a different note, I have started reading Rick Warren's book "A purpose Diven Life". It is a 40 day adventure type book, with 40 small chapters to be read over consecutive days. Todays chapter was basically about the truth "It's not about you." That is a hard concept to really sink in. I know its not about me, but when your dealing with bipolar it is easy to make it all about you or to make it completely not about you. Personally aI do not think that either extreme is really that healthy. While the search for human purpose is indeed not about me, it is about God and his purpose for our lives, we are in the picture.

We cannot disassociate ourselves from our search for purpose. We must seek to find what God's purpose is for us, not what we want his purpose to be.

Raising a Modern-Day Knight

Raising a Modern-Day Knight. I found this article interesting since I was going to touch on the subject matter anyway. With me working nights it has been ever increasingly more difficult to do the things that I used to with my DS. I was up to this job VERY active with the local cub scout pack. This year is his last year of Webelos. He moves up into Boy Scouts next in a couple of months. Up until this year I was his Den leader and my DW helped as an assistant DL. However this year I have had to push most if not all the DL responsibility onto my DW. She has handled it gracefully, but I know it was not a role that she really wanted.

I wonder some times if it is too late. You see DS and I have our differences. It is difficult for his 12 year old mind to understand his own ADHD, let alone his Dad's Bipolar. Most of the time he sees me as the disciplinarian, the one who yells alot. I really do not want to have that define our relationship, and scouts was one way that we were reconecting. I am hoping that will start to change with Boy Scouts. It is a balancing act to know how much he wants my involvement and how much he wants independence. I'd like to see how he does with a different leader other then his Mom and me. My thought at present is to take a year off and re-enter the cub dens at a tiger (first grade) level, even thoiugh we have no boys in that group.

I wish there was an easy answer. I think about my own relationship with my father (or lack there of) alot. I am trying to be the best father and husband I can with little or no practicle example to follow. That is however a subject for a whole new post.

Update

Financial: Life is still a mess. We have lost our housing and are attempting to appeal that decision, but it doesn't look good. Our landlord has committed suicide, so just who owns the property and to whom we need to pay rent is anyone's guess. Student loans still have us in debt to the nth degree. I have the opportunity to go back to school, but that will create several problems with the finances.

Work: I got my third day off, that is a VERY good thing. Hopefully that will take some of the pressure off that working third shift has created.

Spiritual: Read my Blog on the passion for details. The third day off has made it somewhat easier for me to attend Church. It still was very difficult. Life would be so much easier if I could just work a "normal" shift, all the way around.

Home: Still a lot of chaos, but it seems to at least be slowing down if not getting better. DW and I don't talk as much as I would like, but at least we are not fighting as much as we did. Intimacy is an up and down thing but that is life with bipolar and ADHD.

Health: We are still up in the air. My therapist has left my HMO so I am without a therapist yet again. My Psychiatrist is also moving to limit the number of family members she will treat within one family to one. My DW has decided that it is best that our son stay with her and that we seek other doctors. All of this is very frustrating and a little scary to me.

The Passion

I suppose it was inevitable that I address this movie here eventually. Now seems as good a time as any. My wife and I went with a group from our Church to see it opening night. The range of human emotions ran through me, but in a way that was unexpected even to me. To understand my response one needs to know that I cannot view a sappy cartoon without crying. I fully expected this to be my primary reaction as I witnessed the brutality against my God. I did weep, but not as much as I had expected.

What hit me hardest was that this level of brutality was even necessary. My separation from God was so real, so absolutely complete that Christ had this terrible price that needed to be paid to redeem me. Others who do not understand the Holiness of God see this as an example of God's wrath. If God had chosen wrath, it would have been simpler to start over to wipe us all off the face of his earth. Instead he chose to redeem us. To buy us back as it were.

One of the things that touched me was the reaction of Judas. He was tormented because he had betrayed the Son of Man. Yet his sin was no more severe then that of Peter, who betrayed him three times. So what was the source of his torment. You cannot come away without realizing that Satan was behind the torment. But he was behind Peter's as well. Some of the last words Jesus spoke to Peter was that Satan had asked to sift him. (ok my paraphrase). Judas had but to reach out to Christ, rather then take matters into his own hands and I believe like Peter he would have been restored.

Depression leads many to contemplate, attempt and even succeed at taking there own lives. I have been there, and have seen suicide from many different angles. Just recently our landlord took his own life, only days before he had planned on seeing this movie himself. The odd thing is all I saw was a man who was making my life difficult, and was causing us to loose our housing. I did not see him as a man for whom Christ died, and in need of salvation.

While I know the desperation that pushes a person to suicide, one of the main things that I came away from this movie with was a sense of acceptance. Judas felt condemnation, but Jesus offers us forgiveness in exchange for the condemnation that Satan offers. I still find myself listening to the condemnation, but the images of the beating help to bring me back. They help me focus on the reality that Christ did that for me. I must be worth something for him to have paid such a terrible price to redeem me.

It has also had another unexpected result. It makes me think twice when temptations come. Temptations come to all of us. It has helped me to focus, so I know what the end result of those temptations. The result of all temptation to sin is found in the crucifixion. Christ's death paid the price for my sin, both those I have committed and those I will commit. I now have a clearer picture of what that "little sin" really costs.

Where to turn?

Here I am again trying to make sense out of the senseless. I am trying not to be ruled by emotions but it can be so hard some days. Seems most of my days are spent going to work, coming home, sleeping, getting up, and going back to work. Our debt load is unmanageable. The house is a shambles on most days, and when its not 4 kids usually make short work out of any cleanliness there was. Third shift is killing me but I cannot afford to go to first, the cut in pay would be devastating. I don't have the time nor energy to do family activities and when I do I don't enjoy them. Add to this I have to find a new psychiatrist and therapist.

I just wish this made sense. I have no connection to anything and that scares me. I try and go to church but I am so physically exhausted that I can't. Even when I go there is a disconnect. There is no commonality or true friendships. I sometimes feel that if I really let others know how much I am in need others will grow tired of hearing me complain. I have the same questions I did as a teen, and they all boil down to why me. It makes no sense. I know that God exists and that he sent his son to purchase my salvation. I know that I have accepted him as savior, and yet beyond that nothing seems to make sense. Is this all some cosmic judgment or discipline for my mistakes? Why does it seem that no matter what we do we just can't seem to catch a break? I feel like Job or Joseph having trouble heaped on trouble and yet I have no claim to righteousness. Quite the opposite in fact is true. I have wants and lusts, and desires that rage and for which I have found no freedom or spiritual release in the last 27 years. All I have been able to manage are momentary lulls and a lessoning of the urges but they have never completely gone away.

They are in themselves a form of self medication, and at the same time a part of the problem. My current medication regime does not appear to be working, but that seems only evident to me. When I talked last to my old psychiatrist she didn't want to make any drastic changes in meds. Probably waiting on the new psychiatrist to tackle that problem. I just want a sense of stability, where ever that may come from. I needed to know that I am on course for something.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I have moments, sometimes lasting a few hours in a day that I have hope. I go from knowing that God exists to believing that he is really in control. I have hope, a dream and a belief that it will work out. I have my DVR review coming up this month. That is a good thing. Its funny I went through them once before so I could leave manual labor behind. Now my mind is starting to fail me so where do I turn. Where can I find a low stress job that won't leave my physical body a wreck, but that offers enough financial reward that I can provide for my family without loosing my mind in the process.

The general question is how do I keep going, when most days I just want to crawl in a hole. I do manage to keep going bit by bit, mostly out of fear of what a complete breakdown would do to my children. This is so difficult for them to understand. I cry sometimes just thinking about the hell that they must be experiencing between my mood swings and those of my wife. Add to that my son's ADHD and his temper and our whole emotional make up of a family is short circuited.

Changes to Community & Misc. Ramblings

Good morning. It has been a while since I last wrote, but that is not new to our regular readers. Our visitor numbers indicate that someone is out there reading this, but I am beginning to have second thoughts to the whole community portion of this blog. Probably need something a little simpler then the full blown CMS that I installed. The CM has pushed me over the disk limit on the web host as well so expect a redesign in the community function in the next couple of months or so.

I was hoping for a more interactive web site but the forums in the community just don't seem to be a place to go. Its kind of disheartening. I know that I should not take it personally, it is just the nature of the web, but it hurts to fail. I am trying to look at things from a positive angle and try and rework the site to something that will be more meaningful to those out there that are dealing with depression and bipolar.

On a different note I have a doctors appointment next week and I am looking at a reworking of my medications. Things were working ok but now things just seem to be bottoming out. I am just not sure how much more of this I can take. I have put in for an additional day off from work but what I really need is a non stress 9-5 Monday - Friday job. I still have the stress of our finances hanging over us, and it is just a matter of time before that blows up. Our landlord has put us in a position where we might loose our housing allowance, which would be devastating.