Today I'm a Different Person?

I started this blog on December 31, 2005 with a plan in mind. Like a lot of other people I thought about the variety of ways that I could improve my life in the coming new year. Making a resolution is easy. The hard part is following through with that promise made from deep conviction.

A part of me was determined to find the peace that legal drugs had failed to help me discover. So, I wrote out a promise to myself to try something different, to walk down a different path than the one I had been on for the past 20 plus years. Since the age of 18, I had been on some sort of legal drugs, off and on every few months for my psychiatric disorders.

Just a few months before I started this blog, I quit taking the lithium that the psychiatrist had  prescribed for my bi-polar disorder. I hated the way it made me feel nothing. No highs, no lows, just blank wondering around most of the time. When the drugs finally left my body, I felt alive...on top of the world! I wanted to keep that feeling alive for as long as possible. I rode that roller-coaster to the highest possible point and tossed my hands up as I rode it down to the bottom. The hard part was crawling my way back up to the top, feeling like I was pulling the roller-coaster carts behind me.

For 20 years when this ride occurred I would seek the help of whatever quack doctor my insurance would pay for, and take whatever type of drug was offered until my mood stabilized. I never learned how to deal with the highs and lows without using medication. I let whatever the latest pill was, take care of my problems. Problem was, it never took care of the problem. The pills only made it all easier to deal with.

With all this in mind, I started blogging with the determination for the first time in 20 years to ride the roller-coaster without any type of psychiatric drugs. I have to say, it has been an incredible fucking ride! Sometimes I take a sharp left, but then things correct themselves and I’m again going the right way. I have days when things are just not clear, but other days I’m so high up, I can see for miles.

At the end of this year I will have been on here, and off of psychiatric drugs for 5 years. I feel like a completely different person than I was 5 years ago. I’ve learned how to deal with some of my ‘strange’ behaviors, and I’m sure I’ve have a lot more to work on. But I’m doing it on my own terms. Some (law enforcement) may think I still need to be on medication, and maybe they are right, but I just don’t see the same picture right now.

I jump right in. Sometimes without looking.

I’ll do what I have to do, even if it means just simply sitting in front of the police department watching them, and knowing that it’s fucking with their head wondering what I’m doing.

I’m just trying to feel some sort of control. Trying to figure out my own way to stabilize my mood, without using psychiatric drugs.

Life is short, forgive sooner and always keep smiling.