Tag: depression

Lost Passion

On By inspiredodysseyIn LifeLeave a comment

I used to be a Vibrant Scripturient. Writing used to be my passion. The words used to flow like diamonds in the sky trickling down on the Earth during a twilight evening. I can’t find my grip, I can’t find my place. I am lost in an abyss of duty and responsibilities. Is it wrong that when I was a bum living in my parents’ house, my muse was ever-present in my life?

I am battling my demons in this rehab. I want to get out so bad, but where am I going really? To an Oxford House? Is that any better? I mean it will be more rules and I probably won’t get my own room. I will have to research it first. I want to get my court case over with so I can expunge all the unpleasantness attached to my name. My reputation is ruined, my credit is shot, and I’ve lost my drive when it comes to my words.

I am forever a future forecaster that can’t stay in the present – everyone at this rehab sees it. I can’t accept the day as it is, even though it’s a beautiful day outside with the sun shining brightly. My mind is a rollercoaster of unhappiness and I am in such fear of telling anyone because they will insist on a “meds evaluation.” I am bipolar so I am always up and down but I don’t want to be anyone’s experiment anymore.

I just want to be free.

I want to live.

I want to be happy again.

I want to be inspired so my passion comes back.

God, please help me.

Stay Tuned.

Miracles in the Abyss – What Life is Like Now

On By inspiredodysseyIn loveLeave a comment

Two years ago, I sat on the floor of a jail cell, crying, because my life was over. Or so I thought. When was your life-changing moment? Did it define your future? That floor defined me. I sat there and asked God to hold me in His arms and see me through, and He did. I am in this rehab now about to face the next chapter of my life, and I am excited and scared at the same time.

Romantically, I am worried. My husband talks about smoking weed, but I know that will probably lead back to a cocaine and crack habit. I am hoping with all my heart it won’t lead down that road. I am also online chatting with a lot of different guys and learning about how much I actually love my husband. I have waited all my life to be in love – I remember reading my old blogs and seeing how far this quest for love has taken me. I used to obsess about so many things. My weight is one of them. I thought that if I just waited to lose weight and find a guy then I would be able to go back to work and get my life in order. These were unrealistic expectations and unrealistic goals. I think most of my life is based on unrealistic goals, compared to where I am at now.

Where I am now, life is a lot clearer. I know that I want a career doing something meaningful. Since I have a record now, (well at least an arrest record), I can kiss my career in Human Resources and Finance goodbye. I am looking into Peer Support or something I can do to supplement my disability income.

Life has new roads ahead for me now. I am no longer hiding in my parents’ house, searching online for Mr. Right to find me and sweep me off my feet. I have a real relationship now with a man that loves me completely, and a future that is bright and hopeful.

I hope wherever you are and things are bleak in your eyes you hear this message that it will get better. God only gives you things that you can handle. No more, no less.

Stay Tuned.

A Hopeful Future

On By inspiredodysseyIn work2 Comments

So, in the midst of depression, how do you get out of bed? Why is everyone so tired these days? Are we all Post-COVID burnt out? I really want to believe there is more to life than this, but I feel like all anyone wants to do these days is just sleep their lives away. Life is hard, these obstacles aren’t going away and with At-Home work being the thing now these days, it seems everyone is just getting lazier and lazier.

I fall into this category too. The idea of going back to work scares me more than I can say. I am having a hard time adjusting to a life in which I actually have to be responsible for myself. I have lived under my parents’ roof for so long, I have forgotten what it is like to be self-sufficient. I had a job interview today and I am so scared of what will come up in the background check. That’s another mountain I have to climb, and what a mountain it is!

Through all this though, I am hopeful. I no longer have the desire for alcohol, something which I never was able to get rid of. It had hindered me for so long while I let my bipolar disability consume me. I could have had a career a long time ago, but I just wanted to lose weight first which was something so stupid, even though it didn’t look like it back then.

But now, it’s a new me, a new future, a new beginning – and it’s very hopeful.

Stay tuned.

Lemons into Lemonade

On By inspiredodysseyIn LifeLeave a comment

I am a rampant procrastinator. I have watched this whole day go by without accomplishing the things I set out to do today. I believe there us only one cure for this: self strength.

Self strength is a new concept I’ve thought about as being better than self reliance or self will, but more like something that’s got to come from within myself to win this battle over my laziness and procrastination. The truth of the matter is all I want to do is sleep, and that funk I’m in has become a daily thing. How do I get out of it? Self strength. Basically pulling myself up by my own hair and forcing me to get up and out of bed and do what I’m supposed to do.

Self strength will be my new mantra and how I can turn these lemons in my life to lemonade.

How do you find your self strength? I would love to know.

Stay tuned.

In the Heat of the Moment – “She’s a Runner, She’s a Trackstar”

On By inspiredodysseyIn LifeLeave a comment

Do you jump to conclusions easily? Do you have a knee-jerk reaction to confrontation? Are you a runner when things get tough? I epitomize the word “runner,” in so many ways that I have to laugh every time I hear the song: “She’s a runner, she’s a track star,’ lol. Things got really tough at this program last Friday, and just as usual I’m out the door. Something definitely has to be done about it.

My dad was very violent and had that knee-jerk reaction too. I grew up in a very abusive household, so I ran every chance I could and that same behavior is showing up in my life today. When I was using a ton of drugs with my husband last year, I used to constantly try to run from him by opening the car door while he was driving, and even ended up jumping out of the moving car onto the highway. Needless to say, I have a very dangerous pattern.

Out of all the character defects, (that’s what they call it in recovery), this runner syndrome seems to be the hardest to shake. When I am down, I am really down, and my depression takes me to a place where running seems like the only option. God, however, had plans for me to sit my ass down this time because no matter how much I’ve wanted to run since I’ve been here, the court system made sure I stayed put. Being mandated here has been the best blessing that could have been bestowed upon me, even though I fought it all the way and absolutely thought it was a curse.

What do you do in the heat of the moment? Do you run? Or do you face things head-on like I wish I could do?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Stay tuned.

Love. The Battle. The Dagger. The Perseverance.

On By inspiredodysseyIn bipolar1 Comment

I was reading one of my other blogs from a few years ago, and couldn’t help but feel sorry for the person I used to be. Love finally made it into my life, and even though it is at a great cost, years ago I would have killed to just have had the opportunity to experience it. There was a post of mine called “The Dagger” in which I glorified what it would have been like to kill myself with a knife – needless to say it was a very dark time in my life.

The Dagger

Posted on February 10, 2015 by unchainedsoul

Plunging in my heart.   I am here again.  Loving so hard and so fast that I want to die. Bipolar.  Pills.  Do I go to my psychiatrist and tell him to give me something else?  Or do I fight through this?  Feel it.  All of it.  I want to be taken.  Off this Earth.  It’s the same old story.  So much pain.  What is this?  Why does it hurt so bad?  Feel it.  Feel all of it.  Let it kill me.  Let it consume me.  Feel it.  Like a dagger.  Like a dagger.

Want to be better.  Don’t want this.  I am envious of people that don’t feel.  Live life through their texting, Facebook, and laughter.  Marriage, children, and careers, and I am left behind.  Can I have all those things?  Where am I in this life?  35 years, 10 years in total darkness.  Sex, alcohol.  Drowning in pills.  Like a dagger.  Time, sneaking up on me.  Like a predator stalking me.  Why does he have teeth?  Why is he biting down upon me?  Take me from this life.  This hell.  Do I find Jesus? Will he be my salvation if I turn to him?  I am too far gone into my hell to find him.  Like a dagger.  Take me, aliens.  Take me up, change my brain.  Show me what I am capable of.  Make me an artist.  Make me something more than myself.  I feel like nothing.  Drowning.  More pills.  Bipolar.  Fuck.  Just take me and kill me.

Pretty deep huh?

Even though I have been feeling down in the dumps lately, my life is so much brighter today. I battle with my bipolar disorder and the highs and lows that come with it, but my medication is on point and my CPAP machine helps me with restful sleep. I do feel tired though, and I chalk it up to just being sick the past week. I am noticing that I am dramatizing my life a lot more than it is or it should be. Not everything is a meltdown, and not everything is a travesty.

Perseverance comes through the strength of the spirit, and I have just been spiritually sick these days. My trust in God has wavered, and I feel like I have been losing my way. I have to be vigilant in my fight against the Devil – he’s telling me that I am going to fail, he’s telling me I am ugly, and he’s telling me I will never see my husband again. My fault is I have been listening to these horrible thoughts in my head. We know we shouldn’t listen to that “voice,” but we do every time.

I am coming home to the realization that I am going to be okay. I may not have a high-powered career like I used to, and make all kinds of money like I did in New York, but maybe being a Peer Support Specialist won’t be a bad alternative. I go to this place called NC Works tomorrow to talk about what options I would have for a career since my mugshot is plastered all over the internet and no employer will ever hire me. There I go again, thinking extreme.

It’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it? How on Earth do we break it?

Faith. Perseverance. Strength. Hope.

Love for myself.

Stay Tuned

The End Goal is Near And I am Self-Sabotaging

On By inspiredodysseyIn LifeLeave a comment

Did you almost complete something? Have you always started things and never finished them? Have you always quit before seeing it through? This is me, and where I am at today. I was in jail for 10 months in 2021, and I remember the staff telling me, “well you need to go to a program for another 12-15 months.” My world imploded because I thought I could get out on probation.

Well, it’s 12 months later and I haven’t learned anything. I still feel my old self coming through with the same old negative behaviors. I put up a good front, as if I got it and I have it all together, but inside I am dying. I am screaming at the top of my lungs inside my heart and no one can hear me. I am almost at the end of this program and I feel like I am going to screw up and throw it all away.

I am suffering. I miss my husband dearly. We are separated by the system right now where he is in a hospital and I am in this rehab. On Sunday, when I visited him they wouldn’t let me kiss or hold him, and I wanted to die. This is so hard. I keep asking God why this happened to us – and then I realize we did it to ourselves. We drugged, we partied, we thought we were above the law, and now the consequences are so severe we may never recover.

I can’t go on like this. I feel completely ungrateful. I am underserving of all the good that has come out of this program as I am rebuilding my life. Why am I so unhappy? I know why. Because my whole life all I have ever wanted was to be in love. And now, it comes with a terrible price. I am so upset in my heart, I feel like I don’t want to go on even though things are moving in the direction that they should. I keep hearing that “it’s all in His Timing,” but I am tired of being miserable. What’s worse is I can’t even pray anymore because I don’t even believe.

I am trying my best, but I feel lost. I am almost through with this program and I feel like I have a high school senior’s sickness. I am ready to run out the door and go back to jail – why would I even do such a stupid thing? Because I’m bipolar and my highs and lows are so severe I can’t make heads or tails out of it.

If there is a God, please see me through this month, please.

Or at least hold my hand till the end of the day. Please.

Just please someone help me.

Stay tuned.

What It’s Like Being a Model Citizen to Jails and Institutions

On By inspiredodysseyIn LifeLeave a comment

This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I played it straight and arrow for 40 years. Then a man came into my life with promises of adventure, love, and mayhem that was too good to pass up. Sometimes I wonder why I did what I did or why I just went along for the ride.

I’ve looked at some of my other posts from earlier years and seen what a good writer I used to be. The zeal for being creative and original isn’t as appealing as it used to be. I’ve lost my streak and my muse, much like how I lost my soul on the floor of that jail cell last year. Never had I imagined the horrors that I’ve gone through or the pain I put my family through – because it all was, in essence, for Love.

I’ve loved before in my life, but never like this. I watched myself become a drug addict and a convict overnight all because I followed someone down this path. But it was my choice too, I am not going to dodge the responsibility, it’s the least I could do for myself. I feel like a sorry individual who is just scraping by. I am in a homeless shelter now, which feels like the worst of the worst, and I can’t wait to be out of here. I have been here for almost a year, and in jail for almost a year. All these institutions are driving me crazy – I used to be an executive in New York for Christ’s sake – how did it ever get to this.

I am spinning down this crucible, and it feels like it is never-ending. The bottom is bottomless, and the sky is hard to see. My sanity is barely holding on because I think another bipolar meltdown coming on any day now. I have been sick lately too which doesn’t help, but I think it’s mostly me being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

God help me through this. I have had enough of these places, these rules, and these stipulations. I just want to be free.

I just want to be free,

Stay Tuned.

Jail, Institutions and Death

On By inspiredodysseyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
To the Future

So, to anyone in recovery, we know those terms. I am in a rehab now, and on the rare opportunity that I have a chance to sit at a computer and write down my feelings, I’m going to take it. I’ve just been in jail, now I’m in another institution, I’ve been in so many mental hospitals, when does it end?

I had a good career, I have a husband, I relocated from New York to North Carolina during the pandemic; I thought this was it, my big break – but no, it was my downfall instead.

I am in this rehab, and everyday I want to leave. My sentence is 9 more months in this place and I want to die. I thought I would be able to make it here, but it’s hard. I want to go home. You guys don’t know how lucky you are to be able to blog and share – this was my outlet for so long, and now I have nothing to help me, really, through my struggles.

AA is helpful though. At first, the meetings were hard to stomach, a lot of sharing on topics that bored me; so much so that I would snore at meetings, (nice people tap me on my knee or shoulder to wake me up), but I think I am coming around to the whole idea of it. Will I attend meetings after I leave here? I honestly don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know how I am going to make it through my 4th step that I am working on with my sponsor.

Where do I go from here? Everyday is a girt I just want to regift back to God, I swear it’s true even though that may sound terrible. I am miserable in my skin. I didn’t want my life to turn out like this. My husband is in a mental hospital straight out of jail, I am in this rehab straight out of jail and it seems God deems to separate us for going on two years now. Hoe is this possible? I am grateful that I get to talk to him on the phone, and my parents did take me to visit him so I got a kiss. (YAY), but other than that, husband and wife are doomed apart for at least another year.

Jail, institutions and death – how close I have come to that last one this go around. I have always been on the outskirts – my crazy bipolar takes me just so far, but the crack and cocaine took me to jail. I am lucky to be alive after all that happened, all the poisons I put in my body, but I know for a fact that God has a purpose for me. What it is, and what it will be is hidden to me for now, but just for now. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Stay tuned.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

On By inspiredodysseyIn bipolar, Uncategorized5 Comments

anguish-d-rogale

I never wanted to date a drug addict – now I am marrying one in less than a month. I didn’t think things could get this bad, but if there is Hell on Earth, this is what it would be like. I’ve wanted 4 things all my life – and I wanted them so badly before I turned 40. I wanted a fantastic job, a brand new car, a lovely apartment, and a man who loved and adored me the way I wanted to be loved. What I realized was, God, gave me all these things before I turned 40, but with a “punishment clause.” God said, Lynn, I am going to provide you with your happiness and everything you dreamed about – but it will cost you your heart, your sanity, and your sobriety.

I am bipolar, and I am an alcoholic. Now, I am a crack and cocaine addict, thanks to my fiance. I tried it with him because I grew tired of fighting with him so much, crying every night, and watching my bank account shrink to almost nothing. After all, he was bullying me for money. So, I tried it. Now I want more. He is out there, driving around in my brand new car with the phone I gave him (that is currently turned off so I can’t call him). He is using me, he doesn’t respect me, and I don’t respect myself. I am drowning so far down that even when he hit me because I refused to give him money, I turned around and picked him up off the ground and gave him his money after someone hit him for hitting me. I never thought in a million years my life could be this bad – this horrible, where my insides burn in pain. We have everything – we have each other, now the drugs are in both our lives and I feel sick all the time.

Dear God, help me. I am not going to make it.

I honestly don’t want to leave him – what I really want to do is die. I don’t want to live no more really, because I have suffered so much in my life with men using me and this bipolar bullshit I just don’t want to do it anymore.

As the tears fall from my face as I type this, I will pray for this simple truth – in the world we live in today with all this disease and activism and death, could Jesus really hear us if we call out to him? Can he really save my wretched soul? I have so much talent and skill, my fiance is so smart and funny, why is it that there has to be so much suffering.

I don’t want to not wake up anymore – I don’t want to face tomorrow anymore. I don’t want to fight anymore. God gave me everything I ever wanted but ripped it all away at the same time. Who would want to live if that happened? If God gave you everything you ever dreamed of, that you prayed for years for through all your pain and misery – if he gave you all that you wished for when you were left for dead at the floor of a psych ward time and time again would you really want to live if he took it all away?

Wherever you are, God, I ask, I pray that you find me now before I take my life.

Stay tuned.