My First Entry Reposted
PROVE IT, HERMY……
And here we are….my first entry on OpenDiary.com. I made it on November 8, 2003. Surprisingly, I find myself in much the same frame of mind right this second!
I sit here listening to music…right now the B52s…one of my favorite wacky groups. I don’t feel like being entirely serious, but part of me is aching to finish sorting out unfinished business. Lately, a lot of MAJOR changes have been taking place in my life. For starters, after being medicated for 5 years, I was taken off everything almost a month ago. It was a case of mistaken diagnoses…much as I had suspected for a while. I am NOT bipolar, and the sudden clarity with which I see things proves that. It was like someone lifted the last fourteen years off of my shoulders when I was informed that I was not diagnosed properly, and that I did not need medications to function. I never had seriously considered it, but it seems the back-of-the-mind notion that my meds were causing more problems than they were solving was absolutely zingo-jingo-on-the-mark.I’ll admit to being somewhat odd or bizarre, because I’m really not into self-denial. Never have been, and I hope I never will be.
Back to the diagnosis issue….I was told that I fit the criteria for a borderline personality disorder more than anything else. They told me (and so has my research on the subject) that bpd (as well as schizophrenia) often get misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder. It’s almost laughable the change that has come over me since that day. I wonder if God decided, after listening to 20ish years of begging, to heal me of my afflictions! I believe it is entirely possible that that is what happened. I know I surely prayed enough for it.
Something truly humorous about my situation : a few years ago, when I was on a better path, yet somehow worse off than now, I prayed literally EVERY NIGHT that I would not wake up in the morning. After several months of this, I was getting really upset and frustrated that God would not allow me to die quietly in my sleep, rather than my having to take the plunge and actually kill myself….well, one day, I woke up at 12:01p.m., and when I looked at the clock, something dawned on me. I burst into laughter as I realized the practical joke God had played on me. EVERY time I uttered the “no morning” prayer, God had granted my wish. I woke up at 12 noon or later!!!! It was so incredibly ridiculous that I HAD to laugh! It struck me then that my life must be His comic relief. Hey, I’ve always wanted to make people laugh, and if my life can make the King of Kings laugh, then that MUST be of some value, right?!!!
Right!
Now, as I face each new day with a newly-attained confidence and a cache of hopes, dreams, and goals that I never had before, I am more than a little daunted at what lies ahead. Ok, maybe not at what lies ahead, but at the damage I have allowed myself to do within a 28-year timeframe. At first, I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed by my life and with myself, but I’m beginning to get through that, with every passing day. Today, I feel as though I’m a new person. Oh, I still have the same feelings, morals, values, etc. as always, but I have never in my life been so optimistic about what COULD happen next. I’ve spent my entire 28 3/4 years being negative and putting myself down. As I jokingly like to say about so many things, “Those days is over, honey!”
I am me, and I don’t hate that anymore. Maybe other people still view me in a negative light because of my sordid past, but I hope they can rise above that and accept the me I hope to become. I no longer feel the need to pick up a knife or a piece of broken glass and slash myself open with it. I no longer want to bash my head into something solid and hope I crack my skull. I no longer want to poison myself, shoot myself, hire a hitman to kill me, electrocute myself, or purposely wreck my car (I could only have done this on an empty stretch of road, because I do NOT want to take anyone with me if I have to die!!!!).
I’m dealing with the issues I have regarding regrets from the past….family matters, particularly. Even though I still acknowledge that I am not a good-looking person, I FEEL more attractive. I KNOW when people see me, they see a man who exudes LIFE instead of the world-weary chump I had become. There will be tough times….there always are, and I’m IN tough times right now….but I will somehow get through. Before, in the situation I currently find myself, I would have given up. Just thrown my fists up into the air and screamed, cried, begged to die. NO MORE! It’s time to get my life together. I am a strong person with a wonderful support system (which I always took for granted before). People DO love me, and it is nice to realize that, at long long LONG last. I never realized that almost-29 years could have stretched into what seems a century’s length of time. Now, I am a little frightened, as I look around and see what is happening all about us. People are dying at ages far too young! My grandmothers are now octagenarians, when I can easily remember them being in their late FIFTIES!!!!! Even though it seems in one way that time has DRAGGED by, in other ways, it has flown faster than the speed of light.
Before, I never thought I would like to get old. Now, I know that old age is not a curse unless you see it that way. If I get a little weaker or frailer with time, I will still be able to survive. Alzheimer’s scares me. Dimensia scares me. CANCER scares me most of all! I know how close I have been to losing my mind completely, and I think I can relate to those going through Alzheimer’s and dimensia. The difference is, my situation is getting better. Theirs doesn’t and will not! I feel incredibly connected (on such a deep level) with the human race, and I cannot stand to see others suffer. It kills me, bit by bit. But what that kills, something else will either replace or bring back to life!
Enough for now? Yes, I think so!
Love,
Herm