3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
The God of my understanding is a God of Love; within Love there is balance, health, wisdom and compassion. What Buddhists call “Buddha Nature”, which is seen as the core of everyone of us, is God. I see God everywhere, in everything, especially in our hearts and minds, which when combined seem to form our spirit. From this perspective we never have been, nor ever will be, disconnected from this Higher Power. And yet so many of us walk around feeling as is we are separate, not only from others, but from God. I’ve felt this way too when I was young and especially when I was in a co-addicted relationship where I unconsciously turned my will over to my human partner, not yet having had a clear conception of God in my life till then. But falling quickly to one of my bottoms within that addicted relationship taught me more in five and a half years than my whole previous life. My partner, who suffered greatly both before I had met him and with me, was my greatest teacher. He taught me sweet lessons and he taught me horribly painful lessons, but I realized that that was just the Higher Power working through him, not letting anything go to waste for either of us. It was up to us to learn the lessons and move forward towards health and balance.
I did so gradually wandering a meandering path up and down still not knowing how to direct myself towards a good and useful life. When I wandered away from the path, away from the Higher Power, by forgetting the great lesson I was given about admitting that I was spiritually and mentally ill and that I needed to reach out to other recovering people, I was brought, I believe with a most deliberate intention, into several years of acute psychosis. Over three years time, I hit bottom three times. The problem and the pain were no longer outside of me in an addicted relationship with an abusive young man, but within my mind itself. I was given the opportunity to experience the nature of delusions and paranoia. From the very first moment that this psychic mental illness descended upon me in my already sick, self hating state, there was the strong presence of God there. When I was most desolate, I never felt abandoned. It was early in my psychosis that I turned my will over to God. I know I was thoroughly prepared years before I became acutely ill to endure the hellish times and to place God above every person in the world by practicing peace towards others, towards the voices in my mind, towards myself.
It’s been sixteen years that I have been turning my will over to God during adverse circumstances and good ones equally. In the beginning it was excruciating and off and on I wanted to die, but the very clear answer I got when I called out to God was - it was not allowed; I had to stay and continue which was the biggest test of my faith I’d ever had. But in my mind to reject my faith in the absolute goodness of the Higher Power was to be pulled deeper and deeper into the horror of insanity. And I struggled with having faith when I tried to do what I thought God wanted and still was in so much pain. But the alternative was so much worse and on a very basic level the sickness within me did not make sense to me, it was illogical, perverse, distorting basic truths. I was already in love with seeking the Truth since I was a teenager. My main motivation for continuing to live was that I just wanted to understand the Truth regardless of whether it worked in my favor or not. I wanted to know because I already knew that revealing the Truth brought God in my presence too and when God was there so strongly I felt myself being healed.
I am in a very good place in my life right now because I am improving my conscious contact with this Higher Power. I turn my will over every day and ask for guidance throughout the day to be given the clues and intuition to be of service in whatever way this great force, this Great Mystery, decides for me. As best I can, I go with the flow of the goodness I find all around me. This is not a painless process. Following God’s will is not about removing pain and there are times when I absolutely must just sit with the pain and wait. But now, as compared to before, the pain is mostly minimal and I feel and express a lot of joy in living.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The Second Step
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
After admitting to powerlessness, to the insanity in our lives, this obviously leaves us face to face with our own weakness and with a natural desire to find some source of strength to lean on and provide us with guidance for continuing in our struggle to find health and happiness. We know that we cannot heal ourselves on our own. Our sense of isolation is great at this point. I, like many addicts, put my life in danger in order to continue a self destroying pattern that began to emerge sometime in childhood. After surviving each attack, usually with my house trashed by my boyfriend and myself in a state of shock, it felt like I was outside the circle of humanity. All I wanted to do was pull deeper into myself. I was out of touch with the fact that so many other people were experiencing their own version of just what I had endured and survived.
I don’t remember how I found my way to an Al-Anon meeting, but I knew after just one meeting that there were other people going through some of what I had been going through. That in itself was a comforting revelation. I quickly bought a daily reader for the group and reading it each day gave me another revelation: not only was I not alone, but there was this program that seemed full of health and guidance and comfort. Much of the guidance consisted of practical ways to apply common sense to the challenges of daily life as a codependent addict affected by other addicts. This wealth of healing common sense rested on a core belief, that there was some benevolent, unconditionally loving Higher Power.
In some ways I was fortunate because I had no formal religious training. I could reach for my own concept of God from an open, fresh place. I had not encountered what many had encountered: the human frailty of saying one thing and doing another, of hypocrisy within religious communities. Children who are taught to believe in God start from an open, fresh place too, but we are too sick a species not to lead those children straight into a shocking disillusionment as they grow and begin to suffer from the effects of seeing for themselves the sickness in those adults who tried to “teach” them and failed to live by their own lessons. Disillusionment with the people around us can all too often lead to a loss of faith in a benevolent God. The question comes up: “If God is so benevolent and powerful, how could God let these hurtful people into my life?”
To my mind, that is one of the dangers of anthropomorphizing our concept of the Higher Power. It’s not that we are made in God’s image, but that we make God in our own image. In doing so we can’t help but paint a picture of an imperfect God. My conception of God was and is more abstract than many others’ conception. I believed from childhood in the value and power of human kindness. Whenever anyone acted with kindness towards me or anyone and I in turn towards them, I knew it was precious. That knowledge and response was my link to my spiritual center. No matter how bad life got, the kindness that came out of people never failed me and my essentially kind nature did not fail me either, except mainly with me to myself. And so it was not hard for me to believe that God in its essence is Love. I did believe that love, was restorative, was in fact the core of sanity. But I had to learn to disentangle my sick belief in “romantic love” as a means to salvation from a deeper belief in a love that allowed no room for self-hatred and abuse.
After admitting to powerlessness, to the insanity in our lives, this obviously leaves us face to face with our own weakness and with a natural desire to find some source of strength to lean on and provide us with guidance for continuing in our struggle to find health and happiness. We know that we cannot heal ourselves on our own. Our sense of isolation is great at this point. I, like many addicts, put my life in danger in order to continue a self destroying pattern that began to emerge sometime in childhood. After surviving each attack, usually with my house trashed by my boyfriend and myself in a state of shock, it felt like I was outside the circle of humanity. All I wanted to do was pull deeper into myself. I was out of touch with the fact that so many other people were experiencing their own version of just what I had endured and survived.
I don’t remember how I found my way to an Al-Anon meeting, but I knew after just one meeting that there were other people going through some of what I had been going through. That in itself was a comforting revelation. I quickly bought a daily reader for the group and reading it each day gave me another revelation: not only was I not alone, but there was this program that seemed full of health and guidance and comfort. Much of the guidance consisted of practical ways to apply common sense to the challenges of daily life as a codependent addict affected by other addicts. This wealth of healing common sense rested on a core belief, that there was some benevolent, unconditionally loving Higher Power.
In some ways I was fortunate because I had no formal religious training. I could reach for my own concept of God from an open, fresh place. I had not encountered what many had encountered: the human frailty of saying one thing and doing another, of hypocrisy within religious communities. Children who are taught to believe in God start from an open, fresh place too, but we are too sick a species not to lead those children straight into a shocking disillusionment as they grow and begin to suffer from the effects of seeing for themselves the sickness in those adults who tried to “teach” them and failed to live by their own lessons. Disillusionment with the people around us can all too often lead to a loss of faith in a benevolent God. The question comes up: “If God is so benevolent and powerful, how could God let these hurtful people into my life?”
To my mind, that is one of the dangers of anthropomorphizing our concept of the Higher Power. It’s not that we are made in God’s image, but that we make God in our own image. In doing so we can’t help but paint a picture of an imperfect God. My conception of God was and is more abstract than many others’ conception. I believed from childhood in the value and power of human kindness. Whenever anyone acted with kindness towards me or anyone and I in turn towards them, I knew it was precious. That knowledge and response was my link to my spiritual center. No matter how bad life got, the kindness that came out of people never failed me and my essentially kind nature did not fail me either, except mainly with me to myself. And so it was not hard for me to believe that God in its essence is Love. I did believe that love, was restorative, was in fact the core of sanity. But I had to learn to disentangle my sick belief in “romantic love” as a means to salvation from a deeper belief in a love that allowed no room for self-hatred and abuse.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
The First Step
1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions (including to other people) -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
To admit to something is to “confess, acknowledge, own, concede, grant, accept, allow; reveal, disclose, divulge; plead guilty.” It is the opposite of denying something. And denial is what we are nearly sealed into when we first consciously realize that our lives keep going out of control because of our addictions. In denial, we accept the unacceptable from ourselves and others, we adapt to the insane pattern of doing things the same way over and over, each time expecting a different result. For me it was continuing to return to my co-addicted alcoholic partner when he would not seek outside help and kept acting out against me and ultimately himself. We each were responsible for choosing each other, but after we made that choice we sank into quickly into the addictive system of self hatred and blame, a no win situation.
Addiction is a no win situation, a no way out situation. One of the definitions of addiction is trying to control a behavior that over time becomes obvious that we can’t control. When we can admit this powerlessness to ourselves after each failure, we begin to approach a path back to healthy personal power, the power of self honesty, from a place of humility. We can acknowledge that the sickness we have is indeed an addiction.
The nature of addiction is that it goes in cycles. When we’ve crashed down to the bottom of the cycle, it is possible to admit to defeat and to know that we are helpless and need help. That’s a window of opportunity. Some of us wind up in hospitals or jails and from there get court ordered to deal with our devastating illness. Others of us suffer in isolation until we reach out to support groups and literature and possibly therapy. But many more seem to make an illusory “recovery” without once reaching out for the help that is available. At that stage we deny powerlessness, we deny that we are addicts and we continue to hide in the very deep holes we’ve made for ourselves.
I think that it is part of human nature to keep falling for the illusion that we are in control over our lives. What is the truth? We don’t know when we will die, only that we will die, that is the real powerlessness we face, this foreknowledge. Our fear of death is the fear of the unknown. We cling to comfort to hide from this. Unfortunately the many behaviors we generate to comfort us from time to time often turn into addictions: drug use, sex, relationships, gambling, overeating, overspending, working too much, etc... We look outside of ourselves for meaning and for solutions to problems, while our meaning and the solutions to our problems are inside of us. No person, place, activity or thing can give us what we need to grow and heal.
This increasingly compulsive need to control our environments and the people we encounter within those environments is back to the no win cycle. Admitting to powerlessness puts us back in the right relationship to the world. We are small and vulnerable and the universe is vast and a mystery. That’s the way we began and that is the way we will end this life. But look around you at all the even smaller elements, smaller lives; all valuable, all meaningful, all part of the great whole. We count, but to delude ourselves that we have God like powers to design our lives is to be lost and even weaker than when we started out.
And so those in recovery from addiction admit powerlessness, admit to defeat and are freed to reach out, most likely over and over again. It is a retraining of ourselves away from addictive thought/feeling patterns and it brings with it relief. To aspire to be powerful figures is to take on a great weight, a weight we cannot carry that will direct us to taking on other people’s responsibilities while dodging our own. It’s both a pressure and an excuse to avoid the one person we really need to face, ourselves.
To admit to something is to “confess, acknowledge, own, concede, grant, accept, allow; reveal, disclose, divulge; plead guilty.” It is the opposite of denying something. And denial is what we are nearly sealed into when we first consciously realize that our lives keep going out of control because of our addictions. In denial, we accept the unacceptable from ourselves and others, we adapt to the insane pattern of doing things the same way over and over, each time expecting a different result. For me it was continuing to return to my co-addicted alcoholic partner when he would not seek outside help and kept acting out against me and ultimately himself. We each were responsible for choosing each other, but after we made that choice we sank into quickly into the addictive system of self hatred and blame, a no win situation.
Addiction is a no win situation, a no way out situation. One of the definitions of addiction is trying to control a behavior that over time becomes obvious that we can’t control. When we can admit this powerlessness to ourselves after each failure, we begin to approach a path back to healthy personal power, the power of self honesty, from a place of humility. We can acknowledge that the sickness we have is indeed an addiction.
The nature of addiction is that it goes in cycles. When we’ve crashed down to the bottom of the cycle, it is possible to admit to defeat and to know that we are helpless and need help. That’s a window of opportunity. Some of us wind up in hospitals or jails and from there get court ordered to deal with our devastating illness. Others of us suffer in isolation until we reach out to support groups and literature and possibly therapy. But many more seem to make an illusory “recovery” without once reaching out for the help that is available. At that stage we deny powerlessness, we deny that we are addicts and we continue to hide in the very deep holes we’ve made for ourselves.
I think that it is part of human nature to keep falling for the illusion that we are in control over our lives. What is the truth? We don’t know when we will die, only that we will die, that is the real powerlessness we face, this foreknowledge. Our fear of death is the fear of the unknown. We cling to comfort to hide from this. Unfortunately the many behaviors we generate to comfort us from time to time often turn into addictions: drug use, sex, relationships, gambling, overeating, overspending, working too much, etc... We look outside of ourselves for meaning and for solutions to problems, while our meaning and the solutions to our problems are inside of us. No person, place, activity or thing can give us what we need to grow and heal.
This increasingly compulsive need to control our environments and the people we encounter within those environments is back to the no win cycle. Admitting to powerlessness puts us back in the right relationship to the world. We are small and vulnerable and the universe is vast and a mystery. That’s the way we began and that is the way we will end this life. But look around you at all the even smaller elements, smaller lives; all valuable, all meaningful, all part of the great whole. We count, but to delude ourselves that we have God like powers to design our lives is to be lost and even weaker than when we started out.
And so those in recovery from addiction admit powerlessness, admit to defeat and are freed to reach out, most likely over and over again. It is a retraining of ourselves away from addictive thought/feeling patterns and it brings with it relief. To aspire to be powerful figures is to take on a great weight, a weight we cannot carry that will direct us to taking on other people’s responsibilities while dodging our own. It’s both a pressure and an excuse to avoid the one person we really need to face, ourselves.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
My Return To The 12 Steps
There’s an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that meets once a week in my town. This meeting has been active since before I arrived here 25 years ago. It has always had the reputation of being a very good meeting. I went to this meeting a couple of times when I was in a relationship with an alcoholic many years ago. Last Friday I went to my first meeting and yesterday I returned again. I plan to go each week from now on. The reason I can go is because it is a beginners meeting and open to anyone. Though I am not addicted to any substance except the nicotine in cigarettes, I consider myself an addict, too. I am a recovering codependent addict. I crossed the line into addiction when I chose to begin a relationship with a young alcoholic who was cyclically abusive to me. I remained in that relationship for over 5 years, which was plenty of time to establish this chronic illness inside of me. Some people may claim that addiction can be cured; most do not. The 12 step program is meant for those affected by addiction who believe that they must follow a lifelong recovery program based on strict self-honesty combined with compassion for themselves and others. The basis for this program rests on coming to believe in a Higher Power and then turning one’s will over to that power by continuing to ask for help and by following the guidance that comes.
It took me four or five attempts to leave my codependent relationship with my abusive, addicted lover. In the final year I prayed to be released and was given the ability to do so in the summer of 1995. But I haven’t all these years treated the root cause of my addiction. Instead I chose to avoid all romantic relationships and have been on my own since the day I left him. Part of why I chose to stay alone was because I became psychotic in the Spring of 1998. For over 3 years I was too sick to be in a relationship with anyone. Gradually, after committing to take the anti-psychotic medications, I entered into an early recovery stage but was plagued by depression and the continuation of voices in my mind. Several years later I believe I could have tried to find a new relationship with someone, but hid behind the weight I had put on because of the medications I was taking and continued the self hating practice of calling myself “fat and ugly”. I had also entered into middle age and had to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer young. I was aging and my body was gradually changing. I held onto the slight possibility that I might have a child still, but let go of that once I reached my mid 40s. The truth was that I continued to struggle to take care of myself and was not fit to care for a child and I knew it.
Now, at almost 52 years old, I am finally ready to address the roots of my addiction, which began to develop I believe in childhood. I have decided to commit to the 12 Step recovery program. This program has been my guide during the most traumatic times in my life when I was in a self destructive mutually codependent relationship and when I was in the acute stages of my psychotic illness. I never fully dedicated myself to going to either Al-Anon or AA meetings, but I did embrace the study of 12 Step daily readers and other support literature and worked to apply the concepts to my daily life. Self-honesty has been the foundation of my recovery. I know now that there can be no recovery for me without this practice. By the end of 2006 I did two things that set me going in a healthy direction; in addition to a written journal, I began an audio journal using a small tape recorder and I began my Yin And Yang blog. The audio journal became my daily self honesty practice just for myself. The Yin And Yang blog became my public self honesty practice.
The spiritual path I chose to follow combined elements of Christianity and Buddhism. I was raised by parents who had rejected their Catholic upbringing and chose to become committed to atheism. But I knew at a young age that I was different from them in that I believed in something greater than myself that I could not clearly define. I studied Christian history and art in college, but did not become converted to it. It wasn’t until I was around 30 years old when I first went to Al-Anon that I began to consider deepening my shaky faith in a Higher Power. I read and studied the Al-Anon daily readers and read books on defining and treating codependency addiction. One of my favorite authors was Melody Beattie who was an expert on codependency and a firm believer in the value of applying the 12 Steps to daily life. She wrote a daily reader for codependents called The Language of Letting Go and this book, along with the Al-Anon daily readers, gave me permission to put the focus on myself and my recovery.
Ms. Beattie wrote several times that it was important to believe in a totally benevolent Higher Power and also to believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, even though I was desperately miserable because I was stuck inside self hating attitudes and behaviors. But at least I was coming out of the fog of denial about my own sickness. I was learning to take responsibility for myself, for my thoughts and actions. I began to see that I had many more choices in life than I had thought and that, with the help of a Higher Power’s guidance, I could have the courage to change myself from an actively addicted mess into a person who could practice recovery attitudes and behavior, into someone who could heal.
Twenty two years have passed. I did have the courage to leave my addictive relationship, but did not have enough faith in myself to try to have a healthy love relationship. Before I was pulled into psychosis, I did not return to Al-Anon, only temporarily saw a therapist, continued being reclusive, and continued my practice of relying on addictive fantasies about unavailable men. Too often I chose fantasy over reality. In my journals of the time I realized that on some level I was hating myself and yet I did not reach out for help. I thought going back to college and getting a second bachelor’s degree in art and photography would be enough to give me a fresh start. It did not. By the end of my first year I was delusional and paranoid and had to take a leave of absence from school.
I believe now that I was deliberately led by the Higher Power into an even deeper mental illness than my codependent addiction because I had continued to live according to one of my deepest character defects: self imposed isolation. How could the Higher Power help me when I refused to seek out help from other recovering addicts, when I refused to practice a recovery program, when I refused to be of service to the people in my community? I had been given many opportunities. In fact, once I left my addictive relationship, I had been given another chance to really get well. I don’t think God had any other choice but to bring the abuse that had once attacked me in the form of my lover into my mind, into the one place where I could not run away from my core issue of self hatred.
The voices in my mind, which I had been conscious of since my mid 20s, now transformed from mostly benevolent guides that did not intrude upon my life into two groups. One group was devilish and the other was angelic. It was as if my very soul was being fought over. While the devilish group tried to convince me that I was some kind of anti-Christ figure, the angelic group tried very hard to teach me how to help myself. In the midst of my desperation, I was directed to get admitted into a hospital, which I did. I stayed only over night, but it was enough to get my diagnosis of schizophrenia from a psychiatrist and a prescription for an anti-depressant and an anti-psychotic. My father arrived the next day from Florida and stayed with me for a month and then my mother came an stayed with me for another month. From there the helpful voices told me to get a therapist and to go to two support groups: Al-Anon and a domestic violence support group. From there I was told to pray for the people in those groups and actively try to help them however I could despite the fact that I was still very psychotic. I agreed to take the anti-depressant, but not the anti-psychotic. It would take me over three years and three break downs before I would take them. I mark January 2002 as the beginning of my recovery from severe mental illness.
That was 12 years ago. I have come a long way in that time following a spiritual path that includes elements of 12 Step philosophy, Christianity and Buddhism. I have been vigilantly honest with myself. I go to therapy every two weeks and I take my medications, get enough sleep and eat well. But all through these last 12 years I have continued to be reclusive, going to support meetings only sporadically and never fully going through all the Steps. But two years ago I reached out to someone in my town in friendship and we have been close and mutually supportive since then. Now I know for sure that I am ready to push myself farther by going to the AA group each week while working the Steps each day. It is my turn to be of service to others while taking very good care of myself by continuing on my spiritual path. One thing I do know for sure and that is that somewhere along the line, I don’t exactly know when, but I have turned my life and my will over to the Higher Power. And so I have a strong foundation to work from as I go through the rest of the Steps. I know that after all I’ve been through that I love and respect myself very much. I know that I love my life and am grateful every day.
It took me four or five attempts to leave my codependent relationship with my abusive, addicted lover. In the final year I prayed to be released and was given the ability to do so in the summer of 1995. But I haven’t all these years treated the root cause of my addiction. Instead I chose to avoid all romantic relationships and have been on my own since the day I left him. Part of why I chose to stay alone was because I became psychotic in the Spring of 1998. For over 3 years I was too sick to be in a relationship with anyone. Gradually, after committing to take the anti-psychotic medications, I entered into an early recovery stage but was plagued by depression and the continuation of voices in my mind. Several years later I believe I could have tried to find a new relationship with someone, but hid behind the weight I had put on because of the medications I was taking and continued the self hating practice of calling myself “fat and ugly”. I had also entered into middle age and had to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer young. I was aging and my body was gradually changing. I held onto the slight possibility that I might have a child still, but let go of that once I reached my mid 40s. The truth was that I continued to struggle to take care of myself and was not fit to care for a child and I knew it.
Now, at almost 52 years old, I am finally ready to address the roots of my addiction, which began to develop I believe in childhood. I have decided to commit to the 12 Step recovery program. This program has been my guide during the most traumatic times in my life when I was in a self destructive mutually codependent relationship and when I was in the acute stages of my psychotic illness. I never fully dedicated myself to going to either Al-Anon or AA meetings, but I did embrace the study of 12 Step daily readers and other support literature and worked to apply the concepts to my daily life. Self-honesty has been the foundation of my recovery. I know now that there can be no recovery for me without this practice. By the end of 2006 I did two things that set me going in a healthy direction; in addition to a written journal, I began an audio journal using a small tape recorder and I began my Yin And Yang blog. The audio journal became my daily self honesty practice just for myself. The Yin And Yang blog became my public self honesty practice.
The spiritual path I chose to follow combined elements of Christianity and Buddhism. I was raised by parents who had rejected their Catholic upbringing and chose to become committed to atheism. But I knew at a young age that I was different from them in that I believed in something greater than myself that I could not clearly define. I studied Christian history and art in college, but did not become converted to it. It wasn’t until I was around 30 years old when I first went to Al-Anon that I began to consider deepening my shaky faith in a Higher Power. I read and studied the Al-Anon daily readers and read books on defining and treating codependency addiction. One of my favorite authors was Melody Beattie who was an expert on codependency and a firm believer in the value of applying the 12 Steps to daily life. She wrote a daily reader for codependents called The Language of Letting Go and this book, along with the Al-Anon daily readers, gave me permission to put the focus on myself and my recovery.
Ms. Beattie wrote several times that it was important to believe in a totally benevolent Higher Power and also to believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, even though I was desperately miserable because I was stuck inside self hating attitudes and behaviors. But at least I was coming out of the fog of denial about my own sickness. I was learning to take responsibility for myself, for my thoughts and actions. I began to see that I had many more choices in life than I had thought and that, with the help of a Higher Power’s guidance, I could have the courage to change myself from an actively addicted mess into a person who could practice recovery attitudes and behavior, into someone who could heal.
Twenty two years have passed. I did have the courage to leave my addictive relationship, but did not have enough faith in myself to try to have a healthy love relationship. Before I was pulled into psychosis, I did not return to Al-Anon, only temporarily saw a therapist, continued being reclusive, and continued my practice of relying on addictive fantasies about unavailable men. Too often I chose fantasy over reality. In my journals of the time I realized that on some level I was hating myself and yet I did not reach out for help. I thought going back to college and getting a second bachelor’s degree in art and photography would be enough to give me a fresh start. It did not. By the end of my first year I was delusional and paranoid and had to take a leave of absence from school.
I believe now that I was deliberately led by the Higher Power into an even deeper mental illness than my codependent addiction because I had continued to live according to one of my deepest character defects: self imposed isolation. How could the Higher Power help me when I refused to seek out help from other recovering addicts, when I refused to practice a recovery program, when I refused to be of service to the people in my community? I had been given many opportunities. In fact, once I left my addictive relationship, I had been given another chance to really get well. I don’t think God had any other choice but to bring the abuse that had once attacked me in the form of my lover into my mind, into the one place where I could not run away from my core issue of self hatred.
The voices in my mind, which I had been conscious of since my mid 20s, now transformed from mostly benevolent guides that did not intrude upon my life into two groups. One group was devilish and the other was angelic. It was as if my very soul was being fought over. While the devilish group tried to convince me that I was some kind of anti-Christ figure, the angelic group tried very hard to teach me how to help myself. In the midst of my desperation, I was directed to get admitted into a hospital, which I did. I stayed only over night, but it was enough to get my diagnosis of schizophrenia from a psychiatrist and a prescription for an anti-depressant and an anti-psychotic. My father arrived the next day from Florida and stayed with me for a month and then my mother came an stayed with me for another month. From there the helpful voices told me to get a therapist and to go to two support groups: Al-Anon and a domestic violence support group. From there I was told to pray for the people in those groups and actively try to help them however I could despite the fact that I was still very psychotic. I agreed to take the anti-depressant, but not the anti-psychotic. It would take me over three years and three break downs before I would take them. I mark January 2002 as the beginning of my recovery from severe mental illness.
That was 12 years ago. I have come a long way in that time following a spiritual path that includes elements of 12 Step philosophy, Christianity and Buddhism. I have been vigilantly honest with myself. I go to therapy every two weeks and I take my medications, get enough sleep and eat well. But all through these last 12 years I have continued to be reclusive, going to support meetings only sporadically and never fully going through all the Steps. But two years ago I reached out to someone in my town in friendship and we have been close and mutually supportive since then. Now I know for sure that I am ready to push myself farther by going to the AA group each week while working the Steps each day. It is my turn to be of service to others while taking very good care of myself by continuing on my spiritual path. One thing I do know for sure and that is that somewhere along the line, I don’t exactly know when, but I have turned my life and my will over to the Higher Power. And so I have a strong foundation to work from as I go through the rest of the Steps. I know that after all I’ve been through that I love and respect myself very much. I know that I love my life and am grateful every day.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Song: Right & Wrong
Right & Wrong
He is locked up
With only one key to freedom.
They sealed him inside of
Four walls
Because he took a life,
Took a life, because he took a life
That was not his to take
But he took it anyway.
Yeah, he was crazy
Out of his mind
That’s why he took a life
Took a life away.
There was method in his madness
That people mistook for culpability
But he lost his way
His ability to distinguish
Between right and wrong.
Yeah, he was crazy
Out of his mind
That’s why he took a life
Took a life away.
So he is locked up
With only one key
Yes he is locked up
With only one key
To freedom.
Play Song
He is locked up
With only one key to freedom.
They sealed him inside of
Four walls
Because he took a life,
Took a life, because he took a life
That was not his to take
But he took it anyway.
Yeah, he was crazy
Out of his mind
That’s why he took a life
Took a life away.
There was method in his madness
That people mistook for culpability
But he lost his way
His ability to distinguish
Between right and wrong.
Yeah, he was crazy
Out of his mind
That’s why he took a life
Took a life away.
So he is locked up
With only one key
Yes he is locked up
With only one key
To freedom.
Play Song
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Song: Boys Are Blue
Boys Are Blue
Boys are blue
And girls are pink
They get taught at a young age
Not to reason and think,
But to swallow it whole
With their toys and their clothes
And the ones that can’t conform
Are all told that they're wrong.
Boys will be boys
With so much energy
They climb the walls
And pick a leader
From their pack
And pick their spots
And wait to attack
Each other.
They’re given weaponry
It’s all fake
But we can still see the message
Behind the play
Kill your brothers
And then walk away
The victor.
War games
War games
It’s insane
How we teach boys
To maim and kill.
Boys are blue
And girls are pink
They get taught at a young age
Not to reason and think,
But to swallow it whole
With their toys and their clothes
And the ones that can’t conform
Are all told that they’re wrong.
So be wrong
And don’t conform
Take off the military uniform (x2)
There are peaceful ways (x3)
To be strong.
Boys are blue
And girls are pink
They get taught at a young age
Not to reason and think,
But to swallow it whole
With their toys and their clothes
And the ones that can’t conform
Are all told that they're wrong.
Boys will be boys
With so much energy
They climb the walls
And pick a leader
From their pack
And pick their spots
And wait to attack
Each other.
They’re given weaponry
It’s all fake
But we can still see the message
Behind the play
Kill your brothers
And then walk away
The victor.
War games
War games
It’s insane
How we teach boys
To maim and kill.
Boys are blue
And girls are pink
They get taught at a young age
Not to reason and think,
But to swallow it whole
With their toys and their clothes
And the ones that can’t conform
Are all told that they’re wrong.
So be wrong
And don’t conform
Take off the military uniform (x2)
There are peaceful ways (x3)
To be strong.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Song: Buddha In Her Body
Buddha In Her Body
There is Buddha in her body
And Jesus in her mind.
Buddha captivates her heart
While Jesus helps her find
The path of revolution
That others left behind.
Peace on earth is not a promise
That either man made,
But they left a legacy a few have heard
On how love conquers hate.
It’s the only path to this world’s freedom,
The only path
It’s an illusion that we are not all the same,
That only some die in a savior’s name
And go to heaven while the rest of us fall
Down into the darkness of nothing at all.
She preaches to an empty choir
About the joys of reaching higher.
Because there is Buddha in her body
And Jesus in her mind.
Play Song
There is Buddha in her body
And Jesus in her mind.
Buddha captivates her heart
While Jesus helps her find
The path of revolution
That others left behind.
Peace on earth is not a promise
That either man made,
But they left a legacy a few have heard
On how love conquers hate.
It’s the only path to this world’s freedom,
The only path
It’s an illusion that we are not all the same,
That only some die in a savior’s name
And go to heaven while the rest of us fall
Down into the darkness of nothing at all.
She preaches to an empty choir
About the joys of reaching higher.
Because there is Buddha in her body
And Jesus in her mind.
Play Song
Song: Clueless
Clueless
My sickness started
When I was just a kid
With Mr. John Lennon singing -
He sang - Run for your life little girl
Catch you with another man
That’s the end
Little girl.
So here I was
Just 7 years old
Running round the house
Singing - Run for your life little girl
Catch you with another man
That’s the end
Little girl.
I was sweet, but clueless
Running to the rhythm of the music,
Mixing up images of love and war
Between lovers who want more and more
Conflict to fuel their passion,
Barely disguised aggression,
More about dominance and control
Swallowing the addiction whole.
Play Song
My sickness started
When I was just a kid
With Mr. John Lennon singing -
He sang - Run for your life little girl
Catch you with another man
That’s the end
Little girl.
So here I was
Just 7 years old
Running round the house
Singing - Run for your life little girl
Catch you with another man
That’s the end
Little girl.
I was sweet, but clueless
Running to the rhythm of the music,
Mixing up images of love and war
Between lovers who want more and more
Conflict to fuel their passion,
Barely disguised aggression,
More about dominance and control
Swallowing the addiction whole.
Play Song
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Song: You Have Never
You Have Never
You have never
Walked on the water;
You have never
Been nailed to a cross;
You haven’t raised the dead,
Except inside your head.
Extraordinary you are maybe
But more than that
You’re just crazy.
You’ve called me Jesus, too
But Jesus is not me, not you
And Lucifer is in recovery
He once was blind
But now he sees
If only partially.
It’s better than nothing.
This glass is half full.
You have never
Walked on the water;
You have never
Been nailed to a cross.
You haven’t raised the dead,
Except inside your head.
Extraordinary you are maybe
But more than that
You’re just crazy.
It’s better than nothing.
This glass is half full.
You have never
Walked on the water;
You have never
Been nailed to a cross;
You haven’t raised the dead,
Except inside your head.
Extraordinary you are maybe
But more than that
You’re just crazy.
You’ve called me Jesus, too
But Jesus is not me, not you
And Lucifer is in recovery
He once was blind
But now he sees
If only partially.
It’s better than nothing.
This glass is half full.
You have never
Walked on the water;
You have never
Been nailed to a cross.
You haven’t raised the dead,
Except inside your head.
Extraordinary you are maybe
But more than that
You’re just crazy.
It’s better than nothing.
This glass is half full.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Rest In Peace Moocher
I came back to my home in New York after staying with my father for two and a half weeks. I discovered quickly that one of my cats was dying, my oldest cat (15 years), Moocher. I've spent the last fours days and nights waiting for him to go and decided last night to have him euthanized this morning. I am both depressed and detached. All my cats have been and are great, but Moocher had been with me since almost the beginning of my acute psychosis all the way through into my recovery. He was a wonderful, little being, full of energy, affection and playfulness, not just with me, but with all the other cats. I will miss him. He was a great friend. May you be well wherever you are now my Moocher.
Monday, January 27, 2014
On Death & Ignorance
My mother has been dead for a little over three weeks and my brother and I have spent the last two weeks staying with my father. We will return home on Thursday. My father is in mourning, but I am very glad to report that he is not devastated. I don't think he is just going to give up; I believe he will continue and adjust to being on his own. His friends here at this retirement community have been very kind and plan to invite him to dinner after we leave. I have been gently encouraging him to engage in social activities and not spend all of his time in his apartment. He appears to be willing to try and that is all that I ask of him, to keep trying. I am glad that I have been here for him in his environment, but I also know I must return home. I will continue to stay in closer touch with him, but I cannot live his life for him. He must find the courage and the will to live and find enjoyment in his life.
Perhaps it is because I believe my mother's spirit lives on in some unknown dimension that I, too, am not devastated. I am changing with the change and accepting the loss. I am determined to continue living with as much appreciation for my life and for those still living. I have lived through devastation several times in my life so far and this does not come close to that experience. My mother was eighty five when she died and lived a very good life. I celebrate her life and am in awe at the mystery hidden within death. I see death as a transformation and not as a final, solemn ending. I believe too many people get caught up in the horror of the dying process and in the shock of the sudden absence of a living presence. And some do not like to encounter other people's deaths because it reminds them of their own mortality. I don't feel this way. To me there is meaning everywhere, be it in life or in death. I believe that there is a bigger and wonderful picture that includes us all.
I have learned several valuable lessons from Tibetan Buddhism. They make a point of preparing for death in life through various meditation practices. I would like to follow them and prepare now for my turn to pass out of this life and into I know not what. One thing I do know for sure, I do not want to live the rest of my life in fear. When my time comes, I want to let go into it and not resist. I want to go with the flow wherever it leads me. I consider this the joyful approach to death. If one takes away the horror and fear, one is left with peace. Peace is what I want most within myself, in my interaction with others and in the world we all live in. I do think that so much of the pain we feel is self created and even glorified in so many of the stories we tell ourselves or read about or watch in films. The deaths of characters make for high drama, for a kind of sick entertainment. Personally I think we spoon feed ourselves a lot of bullshit. And this basis of bullshit, this essential distortion makes so many of us walk around in a delusion believing that the negative assessment is the TRUTH when it is only lies we tell ourselves to justify our reactions and our lifestyles.
I've seen people blaming other people or their concept of "God" for all the ills in the world. I've done some of this myself, but as I age I see that all this does is to contribute to the problems we face. The blame game is a cop out. It separates us when we need to unite for peace on earth. Death is a fact of life on this planet, but, for now, so is regeneration. And what exactly is death? Does anyone really know? Change your view on death and you change your world view; you change your spirit. I stay open to the view that death is a portal into the unknown. Within the unknown there is magic. There's magic in the universe. See how small you really are, but how valuable, too, and how each of us has a place in this seemingly unending puzzle.
What I'm suggesting is that our concepts of death are actually misconceptions. I am also saying that many of our concepts of life are also misconceptions. We live inside bubbles, dreams and we are all very stubborn. We think we know. We gather up knowledge to block out our fundamental insecurity and common ignorance. Really, how can you sum up a life? Why do you want to reduce a beautiful tapestry to one single thread? Yes, I know some things about my own life because I exist within it. That's as close as I get to knowledge. But it is still only partial knowledge and it will always be truer to say that mostly I do not know. From the stance of not knowing, you stay in a beginners' mind and that is an open, receptive and, to me, a very beautiful mind.
Perhaps it is because I believe my mother's spirit lives on in some unknown dimension that I, too, am not devastated. I am changing with the change and accepting the loss. I am determined to continue living with as much appreciation for my life and for those still living. I have lived through devastation several times in my life so far and this does not come close to that experience. My mother was eighty five when she died and lived a very good life. I celebrate her life and am in awe at the mystery hidden within death. I see death as a transformation and not as a final, solemn ending. I believe too many people get caught up in the horror of the dying process and in the shock of the sudden absence of a living presence. And some do not like to encounter other people's deaths because it reminds them of their own mortality. I don't feel this way. To me there is meaning everywhere, be it in life or in death. I believe that there is a bigger and wonderful picture that includes us all.
I have learned several valuable lessons from Tibetan Buddhism. They make a point of preparing for death in life through various meditation practices. I would like to follow them and prepare now for my turn to pass out of this life and into I know not what. One thing I do know for sure, I do not want to live the rest of my life in fear. When my time comes, I want to let go into it and not resist. I want to go with the flow wherever it leads me. I consider this the joyful approach to death. If one takes away the horror and fear, one is left with peace. Peace is what I want most within myself, in my interaction with others and in the world we all live in. I do think that so much of the pain we feel is self created and even glorified in so many of the stories we tell ourselves or read about or watch in films. The deaths of characters make for high drama, for a kind of sick entertainment. Personally I think we spoon feed ourselves a lot of bullshit. And this basis of bullshit, this essential distortion makes so many of us walk around in a delusion believing that the negative assessment is the TRUTH when it is only lies we tell ourselves to justify our reactions and our lifestyles.
I've seen people blaming other people or their concept of "God" for all the ills in the world. I've done some of this myself, but as I age I see that all this does is to contribute to the problems we face. The blame game is a cop out. It separates us when we need to unite for peace on earth. Death is a fact of life on this planet, but, for now, so is regeneration. And what exactly is death? Does anyone really know? Change your view on death and you change your world view; you change your spirit. I stay open to the view that death is a portal into the unknown. Within the unknown there is magic. There's magic in the universe. See how small you really are, but how valuable, too, and how each of us has a place in this seemingly unending puzzle.
What I'm suggesting is that our concepts of death are actually misconceptions. I am also saying that many of our concepts of life are also misconceptions. We live inside bubbles, dreams and we are all very stubborn. We think we know. We gather up knowledge to block out our fundamental insecurity and common ignorance. Really, how can you sum up a life? Why do you want to reduce a beautiful tapestry to one single thread? Yes, I know some things about my own life because I exist within it. That's as close as I get to knowledge. But it is still only partial knowledge and it will always be truer to say that mostly I do not know. From the stance of not knowing, you stay in a beginners' mind and that is an open, receptive and, to me, a very beautiful mind.
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