Speaking Bipolar
On Life: Suffering of a Soul — Have I Paid My Penance?
What is the Cost of a Soul?
In Greek mythology, the ferryman, Charon, dutifully transported souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead where they could rest in peace. However, without payment, the soul is left wandering between the lands.
A Ghost in My Own Home
Page 4 of my Pariah Series: We are Gods, trails off with my neurosis following me into this newfound relationship I was caught up in. He told me that I was “his kind of crazy.” He couldn’t take those words back. After fewer than two years into our invincible, passionate relationship, Jack and I began having real problems. He felt that my expectations were unreasonable. He claimed he was trying to negotiate but the only acceptable resolve was his own.
I was dismissed, disrespected, ignored, untouched, extraneous, unimportant, neglected. I had become a ghost in my own home. Wandering between the lands of the living and the dead. I hadn’t realized how long this had been going on until I went back through 12 years of my journals. I had been documenting our entire life for over a decade. I had been dying inside for a very long time. Because I admired, worshipped him so much, I continued to allow these things to occur.
His silence was the primary contributor to our demise. Leaving me in limbo. Unanswered questions. Too many unknowns. Leaving my imagination to determine what was being said in what he wasn’t. But if I were in a different state of mind, I might have responded differently.
I will write more on this later.
Who’s In Control Here?
I had been trying to prove him wrong for so long. Yet, all I was doing was demonstrating how wrong I was. How impenetrable I was. He would appear to be the cooperative, loving spouse, willing to do anything to save us. My outbursts and demands that people see him for who he truly was not resulted in me appearing to be the domineering monster in control. Couldn’t they see? As much as I tried to control this situation, I had no say in the matter.
If you don’t control it, it will control you.
As Matthew McConaughey explains in his book, Greenlights, which I highly suggest you read, you are the one behind the wheel. So, take the wheel and drive.
My Turning Point
There was an incident in 2018 that altered my view on things. I suddenly saw what others must see. It didn’t matter what he was or was not doing. This wasn’t about him. It was about me. I couldn’t control him or our relationship, but I could control me.
Without giving “it all” away, in my book, I present the approach I took that resulted in my own transformation. My focus on three specific things. Perspective being one of them. My approach changed everything. It saved my relationship but most notably, it saved me.
It took about three years, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
My Path to Enlightenment
With this new perspective, I decided to embark on a “personal quest for knowledge.” This began with a book that found its way into my hands: “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up,” by Jungian analyst James Hollis. This is where I began to consider the subject of life’s “meaning” and from there, the path unfolded out before me. I followed. I’m still following.
I wrote about the arduous search for my demon in much more detail in the following article. I also wrote about the requirements for true self-improvement, facing-off with yourself, and change. I highly recommend you read it, as it compliments this one and is very important to the bigger picture:
Finding My Own Life’s Meaning in My Own Soul’s Suffering
Suffering Adds Meaning to Life
I’ve said this elsewhere, but I want to make it clear: If you’re not hurting while trying to find yourself, you’re doing it wrong. Real suffering should hurt.
And it did.
It required looking at myself straight in the face. And I don’t exactly mean in the mirror. I mean gazing long into the great abyss.
You determine what gives your life meaning. It is your job to find your purpose here. To believe or choose not to believe in something higher than yourself. To discover, accept, and pursue your position in life’s big picture. Pursue your own happiness. Whatever that means to you. Your purpose isn’t going to just fall from the sky. Unless it does. Mine kind of did but you can read all about my own personal experiences in my book.
Change Requires Dying
I n my own quest for knowledge, my search for myself, I actually discovered things. Wow. Imagine that. We seek and we find. No romantic lost soul always in search of a love that never came. Something that just never or didn’t. A life never lived. Such good potential gone to waste.
As described in my article above, I committed myself to parting with things that were embedded within my psyche, that had shaped me into who I had become as a person, to gain back my own mind. To shed my skin. To be reborn.
Questionably misdiagnosed, I accepted as fact that instead of Bipolar, I was Borderline. While very similar in their manifestations, these are significantly different disorders requiring different approaches. Let’s just say that I studied a lot. Got my own therapist. Lots of worksheets. Lots of reading. And I began to apply what I had learned to my life.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life was to change myself, fundamentally, as a person. To recognize that my neurosis had consumed me. In turn, it was consuming everything. I hadn’t been the one in control for a very long time. In changing myself, a part of me had to die.
Penance is Paid with Change
Within every man are neuroses. Plural. Addictions. Perversions. Proclivities. Obsessions. Cognitive distortions. Biases. No one escapes mental disease of some kind. No one is truly “sane.” Everyone has their demons whether they’ve been “officially” diagnosed with a mental illness or not. And until everyone gazes long into the great abyss, they will suffer. Forever wandering between the lands of the living and the dead.
My biggest discovery was that my neurosis, my disease, was due to a refusal to face off with myself. Not the other way around. My conscious and subconscious weren’t on the same page, leaving me unstable, wandering in the dark, between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Something had to change.
Now that I’ve changed myself as a person, shed my skin, been reborn, discovered my “meaning,” have I been relieved of my disease? Have I paid my penance? Am I cured? Can I finally live my life in peace?
If so, what are my meds “fixing” at this point in my life? I’m too afraid to just stop taking them. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take. I have too much to lose.
Have I Paid My Penance?
I am not free of disease. I have shadows I haven’t yet faced. There is a demon hiding behind each one. My mind is full of my own shadows. Like mirror images. That great abyss is still gazing back at me. Reflections of those neuroses that remain. Cancers that need to be treated. Errors to be corrected. Wrongs to be righted. And there’s no way to measure the total cost of them all.
So, while I have paid some penance, I am not confident that I have paid enough. I believe the amount would be insurmountable and I will never be able to pay in full. Perhaps Charon has a payment plan available. I imagine the interest rate would be outrageous.
In the meantime, I will wander the lands, chasing my shadows. But remember this: the meaning to life is not suffering. Suffering adds meaning to life. Thus, my soul is not without meaning nor is my life without purpose, so I am not lost. I’m still on that path that keeps laying itself out before me. And I am still on course.
I will tell you how I know that later…
Follow my series: From the Pages of a Perpetual Pariah:
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