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Voices of Glass

~ One man's journey through Paranoid Schizophrenia, Mental Health, Faith and Life.

Voices of Glass

Daily Archives: December 8, 2012

The Editing ‘Flu’ By!

08 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Journal Entry, Publications

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Christianity, Christianity and Mental Health, Personal Journal, Publications

‘The Editing ‘Flu’ by.’  Catchy huh?  Well trust me the ‘Flu’ is by no means and typo.

It is now 7.40 am and I have been up half the night as a result of not being able to sleep due to my coughing and spluttering with this darned flu.

The good news however, and yes there normally is a good side to most things, is that I have not wasted the time.

Instead I have just this minute uploaded “Through The Eyes of Smudge” – the third book in the Whispering Winds Series – to the publishers and it should be ‘out there’ and available real soon.

Book3 Coverbdr

Feedback on the first two books have already been very positive and I am hopeful that this third one will prove just as popular!

Who knows?  But my prayer is that they will help folk when it comes to faith.

As for me and my flu, well I am going to see if it and I can come to some sort of arrangement and it will let me sleep a little.

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Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 01

08 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Challenges, Christianity, Feelings, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge, Paranoid Schizophrenia

TTLAITMECThe other day I draw up, with the help of my daughter Nicky the above 12 day challenge and wishing to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, I have been keen to take the challenge myself and to see how I get on with it.

Here is my response to day one’s challenge….

Day One – “She” (Or if you are male “He”) – Write a short story about someone who has just been diagnosed with your mental illness/condition and who is the age you were when you were diagnosed.  What happened, what were they expecting, what are their feelings etc?

He…

He sat in the taxi, not physically alone, for his wife and son were with him, but mentally, emotionally, seemingly even spiritually alone and he knew it.

Within the hour he would perhaps, most probably even, know what had happened to cause him to come unraveled, to become undone.

Unraveled an undone.  Yes they were good words.  Horrible, rotten, revealing, naked, vulnerable, bad words but good for explaining for describing where he was at.

Questions and comments addressed to him as they journeyed towards the psychiatrist appointment echoed within the chasms of his mind as he journey back and forth between the urge to escape, the need to hide and the longing to understand.

To understand the very thing that he had hidden for as long as he could remember. The very thing that had begun in and that had tainted his own childhood and now some 30 odd years later was tainting his own child’s childhood.

The secrets of his mental illness – hidden for the past 30 odd years behind a mask of confidence and capability –  had suddenly erupted, exploded, perhaps imploded, causing him to hide behind a closed bedroom door for the past 3 month and to steal himself from anyone and everyone even his own family, his own son.

As the car continued its journey towards the answers and his wife and son continued their conversation and comments of encouragement so too did his mind continue its journey into more and more questions and its conversation and comments of discouragement and of slanderous attack.

“They’re gonna lock you up”  “They’re gonna put you away”  the voices chanted and jeered. “All these years of running and for what?  Just to fail and end up where you have always wanted never to be!”

His thumbs traced the furrows of his palms, skating off of the film of sweat that somehow seemed to be there. 

“But I need to do this.”  He silently screamed at the voices.  “I have a son and a wife and they need me.”

“Yeah right” The voices screamed back “They need you like they need a dose of botulism!”

The car pulled to a halt outside it’s destination and he was helped out of it and led to a waiting room within the big old formidable house.

“Oh God,” his fears called out. “Will they see how damaged I am?”

The sense of panic was mirrored by the film of sweat on those palms he had been etching with his thumbs.  Lines and furrows now flooded with sweat just as he himself was flooded with fear and apprehension.

“What would they ask?”  “What would they ask his wife and his son?” “Would they even talk to his wife and son?”  “Would they even talk to him?” “Is there survival from this point on?”  “Is it even worth it?”  Still the questions came.  “What if they see the real me?” “Find the real me?”  “Heck I can’t even see, can’t even find, don’t even know the real me!”

He heard his name being called and stood up looking at the doorway from whence it had come.  “Is that the doorway to the rest of my life, or to the end of it as I know it?”  He asked.

He glanced at his wife and son, there encouraging, concerned and loving faces pleading with him to believe.

To “believe”?  To believe what?  He didn’t even know what he believed anymore an belief had been a part of his life for even as long as his torment had been.  “Did he still believe?  Still believe there was any hope?  Did that lack of belief speak of God or of him?  Even in the depths of the torment he had never had trouble believing in God, but always in believing in him in God.

His eyes lingered before moving once more from looking at his wife and son back towards that doorway.  How could he leave them, go through that doorway, and run the risk of not coming back? 

How could he not leave them, not go through that doorway,  and lose the chance to find his way back to them?

I think that is all I can write right now.  It’s long, I know that and I apologize, and yet how can you write something shorter and do justice to the myriad of thoughts and fears and emotions and torments that took place.

In truth is has not been a place, a memory I really wanted to go back to and I am aware that I am left more out than I have put in.

But what is most painful to me is the look on the face of my son during that time and other times, back then.  He was I think 9 perhaps 10 when this all took place.  I can still see the look on his face at that time and at other times when he tried to reach out to me in the world within which I was trapped.  But I thank God those times are behind us and that my son i who he is.

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30 Day Challenge – Day 30

08 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in 30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity, Just for Fun

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Just For Fun

Fanfare please!

mariachi-trumpetmariachi-trumpet

Yes today is the end of my 30 Day Challenge and I am delighted!
30DayChallenge30 I have without doubt enjoyed doing this challenge and it has generally speaking been fun. But I am keen to get on with other things now and specifically to see how I myself respond to the challenge that I designed with the help of my daughter Nicky, namely the “Try Looking At It Through My Eyes” challenge.

So let’s look at the final challenge/subject in this challenge which is…

One Thing You Are Excited For.

There can of course be but one answer to this for me personally but before I get to that I want to explain something.  It is something that I have written about before and something that I just don’t fully understand and that is my apparent inability to experience certain emotions.

I found this fairly basic and yet creative graphic on Pintrest and it demonstrate certain moods in the form of a wheel.

18295942206128391_paWvZ2Vx_c

And I have to say that whilst it is basic ad I may have a different view of the listing included it can be used to demonstrate my point which is that there are it seems certain moods which escape me and one (in respect of this wheel) which always seems to escape me.

18295942206128391_paWvZ2Vx_c1

I am of course referring to the whole ‘being excited’ thing.  I just don’t seem to do it or experience it in any positive sense.

Whether this is a result of one of my mental health conditions or whether this is a result of my seemingly needing always to be in control of my emotions (which could be argued as being genetic in as much as I am English and we English don’t like to lose control or show the loss of control of our emotions old chap LOL) or whether it is because I have a tendency to intellectualize and logic most things out I have no idea.

But being excited in a positive or constructive way is just not something I am used to or seem to experience.

That is not to say I do not experience any form of excited state.  Put the welfare of my dog at risk or confront me with extreme injustice and you will see a very different side to me.  But even then it is likely to fall more into the (verbally) ‘aggressive’ region rather than the excited region.

Likewise that is not to say that I am not passionate.  There are numerous things about which I am extremely passionate but in a more quiet warm rather than fiery explosive way.

So having explained that it is in that context that I am able to say that the one thing for which I would consider myself close to “excited” for would have to be heaven.

The chance to finally go home. The reward of reaching the end of this earthly section of the race.  To be with my Christ and my heavenly Father.  What a glorious thing to be able to have.

No more pain, no more sorrow, no more suffering.  To have this damaged, altered or confused mind finally healed and to know the answers to the questions that have eluded me most of my life in that respect.  Can you imagine it?  To have the Father look into my eyes and to be able to look into His.  Oh trust me I could go on for hours.

But I am mindful of Paul’s approach to this also.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21 NIV

I long for heaven, yearn for heaven and I am as close to “excited” about heaven as I could ever be close to “excited” about anything.  But I live for Christ and the gain that I will get when I die must, if I truly do live for Christ,  come in accordance with Christ’s will and I know that.

So there you have it.  As predictable as it may seem that is the “one thing that I am excited for”  And interestingly it may be the one thing that is the end of this my 30 Day Challenge,. but it is also the one thing that is the constant source of my daily life-long challenge.  To fulfill the will of Christ in and for my life.

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