Mental Illness has been the topic of my tv viewing twice in one week. Being mentally ill compels me to write about it. Both of the vids I saw pointed out that being mentally ill does not excuse the behavior of the mentally ill person.

The first video was of Jason Brooks the NYTimes writer who faked out the world. He claimed in an interview on FOX that he didn't want his mental illness to excuse his actions, that what he did was wrong and he intended to tell the world about his experience. He was interviewed just prior to going to teach a seminar on ethics. Who better to teach about unethical behavior than someone who has been unethical and immoral?

The second video was one of my favorite tv shows, Law & Order SVU. The prosecutor, Kasey, spares a man's life because he is schizophrenic and was off his meds when he raped and nearly killed several little girls. When on his meds, his actions were so horrific to himself that he tried to kill himself. He feels responsible, guilty and convicted on his own conscience without any regard for what the state thinks. She states that one day maybe he will be able to forgive himself because he's not responsible. "Oh, aren't I?" he retorts...

I have a mental illness. When intoxicated I do things that I would never do when sober. I have behaved in incomprehensible pitifully demoralizing ways. In order to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, I had to do some real self searching, level my pride and confession of sin for a successful consummation. This discipline allowed me to right the wrongs of my past so I can stand tall and look the world in the eye without any remorse, guilt or conviction. I have assumed the responsibility for my past and now use it to help others know that they too can get better.

My professor saw Mr. Brooks as a sorry s.o.b. who would never amount to anything and should never be trusted. There was no room for forgiveness on my profs part. All I could think was that I would never tell my prof about who I really was because who knows if he would forgive me for my sins? The character Kasey instantly recognized the mental illness and found compassion in her heart to excuse the schizophrenic for his heinous acts despite his own repugnance for himself. Some days I wonder if I can ever forgive myself too.

I hear over and over this question:

Is mental illness a moral issue?

Some days it is and some days it isn't. I find that when my mental illness is in remission my actions are absolutely a moral issue, but when I am in the thick of my disease I cannot not drink. I cannot not be a stark raving lunatic. I go bezerk some days off of my own thinking without ever taking a drink and it is just all mentally irrational thinking: very similar to a skitzoid's. It is a very thin line. Skitzos can take pills and their mental illness subsides, a bit. There is no pill for me. There is no cure. There has only ever been one solution ever offered that seems to work on my mental illness. Most people find the solution to be a farce. These people really believe mental illness to be a moral dilemma. They believe that it is about will power that I am able to be a useful member of society. As much as my ego would like to let me believe that I am truly that strong of a person, I humbly recognize that I am just not that powerful.

The only solution I have ever experienced that has arrested my mental despair is just so simple people don't believe me when I tell them unless they seek it for themselves. It is because there are those who believe and then there are those who experience. The only solution available for my particular mental defect is the Grace of God.

If God's Grace is the only solution, does that make the problem moral? or mental?

Is God's Grace a moral issue?

"Become willing to meet the challenge of taking responsibility for yourself."
~Language of Letting Go, Melanie Beattie

Willingness is not something I come by easy. Mostly, I don't want to do anything I don't want to do. I have been stuck in the mind of my two year old self for thirty-one years. Generally speaking, the way I become willing is through pain. When I first came through the threshold of pain, the pain was severe. A lot of people have died as a result of the pain I experienced in my life. I was lost, alone, drunk, felt completely separated from God and thoroughly hopeless. I was empty, void, numb, comfortable in my emotional, mental, physical and spiritual pain. And then, finally, when the pain was too great, I became willing. I can hear Dad saying "willing to do what?that doesn't make any sense to me". Willing to do whatever anyone told me to do to get out of the despair, bewilderment, terror and frustration.

I became willing to change.

Today, my pain threshold is not all that high. Mostly, people point things out to me and I am willing to try something different. Sometimes it takes a little insanity before I become willing to change, i.e. I try over and over again to believe that if I send signals to John, he will get the message but inevitably he is incapable of reading my mind and I have to tell him directly what I need or want. He just doesn't have that esp in him. Although time and time again, I think he does.

Responsibility is something people have always told me that I have. I have been babysitting since I was 12 and have yet to get away from it. Just last week I babysat a cat. I have a hard time thinking that I am responsible.

Part of becoming responsible for myself is finding out who I am. I had to find out what was true for me and what wasn't. What worked for me and what didn't. What was mine and what wasn't. I found my defects of character and ask God to remove them. I found my assets and use them to be of service to God and others. Once I know more about myself, I can own my actions. I can be responsible.

I take more responsibility for myself today than I did yesterday. Each day I make a new self discovery. I find I develop through prayer and meditation, through taking the time each day to talk and listen to God. This God-consciousness gives me the ability to be willing instead of having to suffer through pain. It is an easier, softer way. My actions are easier to take responsibility for because they are not so harmful as they once were. It's interesting how when I continually grasp onto the conscious contact with God, things in my life get better.

Butterflies and Birthdays

I have been making these butterflies all day. These are just a few. They are mostly glitter, paint and construction paper. They are not hard to make, just fairly time consuming. Butterflies have always symbolized metamorphosis to me. Having had a spiritual awakening that was without doubt life changing, I have come to find a small fixation with the butterfly. That whole process of change is ever present in my manner of living these days. I am making these particular butterflies for a women's retreat I am going on this weekend. There are sixteen women and we are supposed to bring something for each of them to put in their box. Don't know exactly what that means yet, but am looking forward to it just the same. I am on the broke side so I am making my something to go in the box. Since this is my butterfly month (I am 33 and I haven't taken a drink in 9 years) I decided to share. I will write scripture or inspirational poems or something warm and fuzzy about change on each one of them.

I can remember being touched when I was younger by an artists' rendering of doubting Thomas in a sand sculpture. I know that I have not just doubted my Lord, I have rejected Him. I was sitting in tonight listening to a few friends talk about making amends. To amend means to make it right. It doesn't mean I'm sorry. To make it right. I don't know if I can ever make it right for rejecting God. I do know that every morning and every night I embrace Him with prayers of gratitude, petition for me and others, of praise. I try my best through out my mundane day to hold His "hand" and thank Him when I see His presence. This is not the life I used to lead, but it is the life I lead today. It is a discipline that I have achieved as a result of a lot of pain and a little guidance. I can only imagine that as a caterpillar is wrapped inside that cocoon, at some point it becomes so uncomfortable that it has no choice but to break out and be a butterfly. That is my life in a nutshell, I was so uncomfortable, I had no choice but to be the butterfly God would have me be.

"What can you do today to stand together and believe with and for one another?"


Today I stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends, trusting in God, practicing spiritual principles. Today I pray. I pray for those who are sick and suffering, in great pain, those who are mentally ill, those who are in such need of God's grace that they know not what they do. Today I can love, give comfort, not judge, just listen. Today I can show someone what God's grace did for me and not just tell them what I think it can do for them. Today I can stand, hand in hand with others and have faith not just through my thoughts or words, but also in deeds. Today I am honest, openminded, faithful, courageous, have integrity, willingness and humility, have brotherly love, discipline and awareness of God and most importantly: I am of service to God and my fellows.

Grief is... undescribable.

Growing up my Dad used to say to me, "do what your told and don't give me any grief." I still don't really know what that means.

I do know that grief is a feeling like a twisted heart. It makes you cry, it makes you stay very, very still. It makes me want to scream and hit. It makes me hope

that if I just smile a little brighter,
make a better grade,
be a better leader,
stand strong in my self,


it will please just
go away.


Its having my insides just up and dump out on the floor when I least expect it.

Initially, I thought I was going to die it was so painful. That was eight months ago. These days it is a thought that just makes my eyes water with a painful smile that comes across my face in hopes that no one will notice or know of the reminder. I continue to experience things each day and there are days, not every day but some days, when I think she is not here to see this, hear this, know this, experience this with me. WHY did She Go?

Then there are other days that are the greatest day of my life. I work, laugh, play, love with no attachment to the past or the loss. I move on and she is not a part nor do I feel like she is supposed to be. I don't notice. There is no shadow, no tug, there is no wonder.

I know that one day it will just be a story. Something I can tell someone else and let them know that there is change, that life becomes okay again and that while relationships end I don't have to. I can keep going, keep playing, creating, loving and maybe share all of it with someone new.

And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery.

I was working with a woman today on not drinking. It has overwhelmed me with the things that I remember when I share myself with someone else. On a daily basis, I forget the horror through which I survived until I share it with someone else who needs to know hope. She needed to know there was something worth working for and I know there is: I have lived it. I am living proof there is a miracle for all of us. I am a burning bush, on fire and not consumed. More importantly, I have the ability to give love to someone else today through sharing the debacles of my life and how I got through them.

Sometimes I don't remember in my drinking. Lots of missing information in my mind. I will sit here and think and think and think and try desperately to bring back an event I have been told about and there is just nothing. Nothing. I can't do anything about to hell I have raised and don't remember. Strangely, remembering nothing brings hope to her because she has periods of blackouts too. She knows that if I can not drink, she can not drink.

I can remember thinking that I was the only one who couldn't get themselves together. That I would be the one people referred to as a real drunk. I would be that drunk woman at the bar that night. I would be the only one who was unsuccessful, who vanished because of a drunk driving accident. I would be the one who people forgot.

I was in a storm all the time. I drank thinking it would stop that storm not knowing that was part of what was causing the storm. If I could just...not...drink...

Who knew?

There is a miniscule chance that I will never take a drink again for the rest of my life.

A slim chance. Here's to love's recovery.

I read a blog today that had a guest poster who was a journalist. His outlook on life seemed...bleak, at best. He was 28, single, well educated. His balloon of hope had been burst as a result of surviving his twenties. That fantasy that reality was a storybook was overwhelmed by the reality that has set in from the global issues he has entangled himself in as a result of...idk exactly.

I can remember coming to that realization that the world was full of it. I was angry, hostile, bitter, unable to complete a sentence without four letter words sometimes using them in the middle of words (except in front of my Mom for fear of abandonment). I was confused, overwhelmed, unsure of myself or my surroundings. Nothing made sense and the only thing I could see was others and their stuph. I couldn't see me. I didn't want to see me. No one else did either! for that matter!

I had to seek Love to find me. When I finally stumbled onto myself after a few years of uncovering, discovering and discarding, I had to go through a process to learn how to be me. It was strange. I continued to seek Love in my life. I found myself Loving those who are easy to love, those who everyone Loved. Then as I continued to practice being me, I found compassion for others with great capacity available within me. Then one day, I found that Love for me. It has only been recently that I have begun Loving myself. Loving me the way God would Love me. Whew, it is hard. I want to judge me, put me down, feel less than you, pity me, greater than you and arrogant with force. I want, I want, I want. But when I love me with God's Love. There is no defect of character, only perfection in imperfection.

Now I am sure you noticed that there is nothing about the world in my last paragraph. Because when I am focused on God and His Love, the rest of the world fades to grey.

I had a man who led a Disciple Now for my group when I was in 9th grade at Carla Dobbins house. He had a glass full of sand and several ping pong balls. When the sand is in the glass there is no way to get all the ping pong balls in the glass. We got two in the sand filled glass. When the ping pong balls go in the glass first, the sand fills in around them and meets the brim. The illustration has become paramount in my life today. When I put God first in my life, the world fills in the cracks, but is no longer dominant.

All those reality crushing heartbreaks the young man was going through just because he could only focus on the world and not God, it was a painful post for me to read. It reminded me of the hell I have been through and that I never want to go through again. Today, I have a choice: Seek God or be swallowed by the hell of despair. I choose to be a Seeker. I hope the young man Seeks Love too.