Saturday, April 19, 2008

Trusting Myself (Not)

I used to trust myself.

Once I had a wonderful relationship with my mind. We spent long hours together dreaming up stories and songs and poems, playing with color and light, creating whatever took our fancy...School was easy...I sailed through it confident in the knowledge that I could do anything I wanted to in life if I only applied myself.

And then I Lost My Mind.

Under the influence of mania, hypomania, screwed up brain chemistry, or whatever other label you want to give it, I sought to destroy everything I had built.

And it seemed like a Good Idea at the time.

What do you do with that? In the aftermath, when you've come down and are finally able to admit to yourself that yes, you did these things, and that while they indeed did seem like Good Ideas at the time, they were most definitely not?

It has taken me years to admit to myself that the things that went on during my last big hypo/mania were part of my illness and not just me trying to have a good time and assert my independence and allow my creative spirit to have free reign. And now that I can see that period of my life for what it was, how can I possibly trust myself in the future?

3 comments:

jennifer said...

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jennifer said...

I'm not quite sure I ever really trusted myself. Being borderline, I've always been a little crazy. I've made a lot of mistakes, and each mistake makes me trust myself a little less. The medications help, but in the end, they can't make you trust any more than you do. I find it much harder to trust myself than to trust other people.

Jazz said...

Yeah, I think the only thing that's going to help get that back is time...but there's no guarantee that time isn't going to bring more crazy manic stuff.