I was challenged with the question of what was reality? Had all that I gone through with God been real or just a figment of my imagination? I refused to believe that my friendship with Jesus was some made up story. I did what I only knew to do, I clung even tighter to Him. I searched for the unshakable truth.
I also continued on the path of becoming intimate with the understanding of my sickness. As well as accepting medications to control my unstable mind. As the months have passed I have begun the mourning of who I was and who the medications are making me out to be. In some ways bring balance to my mind, imprisoning bi-polar, can be, I imagine similar to loosing my twin. I'm reading of a lady who has walked my path but also is a psychiatrist by profession. She does an amazing job of expressing my emotions as I walk through this.
"My family and friends expected that I would welcome being 'normal,' be appreciative of the lithium, and take in stride having normal energy and sleep. But if you have had stars at your fee and rings of planets through your hands, are used to sleeping only for or five hours a night and now sleep eight, are used to staying up all night for days and weeks in a row and now cannot, it is very real adjustment to blend int a three-piece-suit schedule, which, while comfortable to many, is new, restrictive, seemingly less productive, and maddeningly less intoxicating. People say, when I complain of be less lively, less energetic, less high-spirited, 'Well, now you're just like the rest of us,' meaning among other things, to be reassuring. But I compare myself with my former self, not with other. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been mildly manic. When I am my present 'normal' self, I am far removed from when i have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing, and effervescent. In short for myself, I am a hard act to follow. And I miss Saturn very much." (An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison)
Now as when I had questioned my relationship with my Savior I am now questioning all that happened over the conference. Was it a God thing or a mildly manic time for me? I'm talking of the speaking part, the normal Shandy does everything she can to stay away from the stage, even the side stage. The normal Shandy works in the shadows.
If it is not true and all that I was able to do truly was a God thing then I could be beginning a brand new roller coaster ride that I am unable to see the end of. A brand new conference for next year, a small group to lead, or maybe even a repeat of this last conference in another part of the state.
If this was a God thing then what is the difference between mildly manic and the Hand of God? How do I ever separate the two? What is taking a step of faith vs. what is taking a step into darkness? Because I do not trust my mind I want to think that it was a mildly manic time. If this is true then I am relieved of the conviction to teach ever again. I am able to put who I am and my sickness into a neat box, not allowing myself to do anything big.
Am I in a depression, with Bi-polar dragging me into the blackness that I recently escaped from? No I don't think so. Am I struggling with soft spoken, could almost be truth, lies? Yes, I think so.
Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that i may observe your law and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to dishonest gain.
~ Psalm 119:33-36
2138. A God who protects my mind.
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