The heart of the matter...

"The Heart of the Matter" is one of my favorite songs by Don Henley. It's a lesson to everyone.....more profound words have hardly ever been written.

I have been honest here on my blog about bipolar disorder...although I am lucky in that mine is not as bad as it could be--that doesn't mean I don't have bad cycles. I do.

And the past month has been one of those bad episodes. It's the first depressed episode since I was diagnosed five years ago. I consider myself lucky....and thanks to a good doctor and good meds, I am already on the mend.....

....two weeks ago, I couldn't say that. I sat in my car in the parking lot of the skate park and just sat behind the wheel and cried. I was so close to not going home that I actually made a left hand turn toward 575 and reluctantly turned around....only after I remembered: my babies.

During a check up today, to see how the new meds were working and to talk about what was bothering me....I broke down and cried, out of absolutely nowhere.

And--LOL--she was probably glad to see me go today. She was kind and caring enough--but today I was having a pity party of the first order......or maybe not.

It's alot of things that are bothering me. Things I haven't been able to give a name to. For someone I hadn't seen in years and years, my cousin's suicide haunts me.

It's George, but it's other things, too. It's the desperation to get into clinicals in the fall. It's work....I am so very disgusted with the situation there.

But today, the doctor was able to put her finger on it and name it, and it was so obvious that I am ashamed to admit I couldn't give it words: my overwhelming need to have people like me, to need (for the most part) forgiveness.....that nothing I am doing in making a difference, and that I am a burden to others. My condition alone is a burden.

It's when my paycheck falls short. And when it does, Bill has to pay for groceries. It's the look on his face at the check-out....pure disgust. It makes me feel helpless and yeah--like it's a burden to him to have to feed his family.

It's the messes the kids leave everywhere. I clean like crazy on my days off.....it does absolutely no good. I come in most nights and have to pick up, or clean up a mess the dog has made they didn't bother to pick up. I woke up this morning to find my son had emptied his backpack of his gym clothes......and had strewn them all over my office floor. What kind of shit is that?

It's when I clean the living room couch and chairs, and lift the cushions--the shit I find. I took covers off the couches the other day, washed them, steam cleaned and Febreezed, and found yogurt cups, spoons, broken pencils (Christopher) and any number of small toys and doo-dads.

It's going in to work to find a packdown list a mile long, and it all requires using the lift equipment--and that means me.

It's Bill telling me that respect is earned. It was a blow.....three kids. Worked up until the day before the girls were due. Came home from the hospital and cooked dinner after they were born--he didn't want to spend money on eating out. Work. Raise the kids. Go to school.....all this with a heart condition--not to mention the emotional issues.

It's Misty......when she says, "Go take a pill--you're good at that."

It's my father's wife, for whom I can never do anything right. It's the scares-the-living-shit-out-of-me fear that something is going to happen to Dad and she'll keep me away. When wondering aloud why she thinks I'm such a bad person--both my Dad and Misty ask me, "She never said you're a bad person...." Does she really have to? She won't speak to me and has spurned my efforts to make things right. I know that Misty has had at least one discussion with Dorothy about the whole situation.......that knowledge that Misty and Dorothy have discussed me feels alot like betrayal....because I know that Misty is willing to do just about anything to stay on her good side--up to and including writing me off. While I don't want my sister to write me off......the small part of me wants to write her off for siding with Dorothy. And while she says she isn't taking sides--her actions say different.

It's my father-in-law. Bill--without thinking, no doubt--revealed a conversation he'd had with his parents a few weeks ago. The impression I got was that, once again, his father was putting me in an unfavorable light. The fact that Bill allowed the conversation to go on makes me feel pretty shitty. For the kids' sake, and in the interest of hoping--as I always do--to repair and make amends.........allowed him back in my life. Temporarily. And damned if he didn't turn right around and piss me off once again about my lack of submissiveness and the fact that I am not under the authority of my husband--nor do I obey him. (I never promised I would--there's no way in Hell I'd agree to that.) Since Bill allows this of his father, I decided to let Roger in on what his beloved son--you know, the one whose authority I'm supposed to be under--has pulled here lately. He lashed out at me for airing dirty laundry.....and I told him he seemed pretty eager to air mine; and that if he wanted to bitch me out on the Biblical characteristics of a wife, Bill's job is priest, provider and protector--and that he's got the provider part down for the most part--but I still have to work, so he's not holding up that end of the proverbial deal. If he was providing, I wouldn't have to. And as to protector--there have been times I'd have been better protected by a serial killer........

It's Rebecca. She is steeped in her own issues right now, and I haven't been such a great friend to her. I am trying to do more of the listening.....I hate to think she is going through what I am, because it's a living hell that I wouldn't wish on anyone, especially not my best friend. She doesn't deserve this.

I think I have decided that my need for forgiveness......and it always points back to this--and I don't mean for it to; Mom is dead and not here to defend herself. But......I always wanted Mom's love and forgiveness.......and yeah, for her to like me. Ultimately, I know she loved me......but I don't think she ever LIKED me.

And.....back to the heart of the matter. I have done what the lyrics say--I am carrying alot of anger--among other things, and it is eating me up inside right now, I do believe.

While I'm doing better than I was two weeks ago, I'm still ironing some things out. There are some things that I have to work on--as always.

Now these times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness--
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
You know it doesn't keep me warm