Christ_empowered
Member
I still get stuck in the past, but I think I'm getting better. Trying to, at least. This is my current go to verse: Luke 9:62.
I'm making good grades at Liberty online. I'm beginning to think that History is the perfect major for me. Lots of writing, and I"m applying what I learned in all those sociology classes w/o being brainwashed by pompous, liberal faculty (I'm liberal..but not pompous...and I think people should have freedom of thought). Anyway, its like this...age 20 and 23, heavy involuntary shock treatment. The round at 23, in particular, was dreadful. I mean, I was annihilated, totally and completely.
I think shock, heavy shock, at least, destroys your sense of self. Its crazy. Its torture, really. Who am I? I dunno. Who was I? Yeah, those memories are gone. Not to mention the dulling of mind and personality.
Now, here's the thing...in Christianity, you must die to be born again. You're not supposed to think on what came before. 2 1/2 years in to being Born Again, I find that I write well, I can learn and retain new information, and my social skills are up to snuff, more or less (I'm not sociall inept, at least). Physically, I'm quite healthy. I need to lose weight, but whatevs.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter who I was before. I catch fleeting glimpses now and then of the old me, in small memory fragments that return to me during waking hours or, increasingly, during dreams. What's sad about this is...working class, flaming losers don't matter, especially when you're surrounded by affluent people because your people are well-educated and upwardly mobile. The deck was stacked against me from day #1.
Now, its different. He causes all things to come together for the good of those who are called...
I'm told that I'm "in recovery from severe Bipolar I." Good enough. Sometimes, I think of my "bipolar I w/psychotic features" label as a useful fiction. I say "you know, you're right? Manic depression!," and I get disability, to go back to school online, a safe, comfortable place (my parents' home) to recover from...well, life, really. Mine wasn't all that great, lol. Sin does that to people.
The mental health people get to call my problems "mental illness" and ignore, as they do with most people, what's really going on...and all its costs society is disability money and medical coverage. My parents, meanwhile, have an excuse for continuing to support me at 30 years old and letting me live here, rent free, chronically unemployed, eating their (very good) food. I'm "severely mentally ill," right? Right.
Or maybe mental illness is real, and Thomas Szasz is a crack pot, lol. I dunno. Point is...shock obliterated me, my sense of self, everything. And that wasn't all...I had tics after shock, I had memory problems, I had social problems, I had...on and on it goes. Yet another victim of psychiatry, I suppose.
Enter Jesus. In only 2 1/2 years, The Great Physician has done a work in my life. I get along well with my parents, especially my dad. My old "friends" don't come around and our increasingly infrequent phone conversations are brief. Probably for the best. They weren't really friends, anyway....I remember that much.
Shock isn't the worst thing ever. Hell is the worst thing ever. No, I'm not who I was before, but, as a Christian, I'm not supposed to be, anyway. I can't for the life of me figure out what I was doing in that city, going to that school, at that age (17-19, again at 23). Why? What was the point, anyway? Oh well. Doesn't matter now...
So, I'm not the same. Can't be the same. Before Jesus saved me--and I was, in fact, utterly incapable of saving myself in any respect--I was just another victim of psychiatry (the shrinks said it was "poor life choices," of course). Now...more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. How does that play out in real time? I guess I'll just have to keep on at school, doing my work as unto The Lord, and see where things go...
Anyway, I'm hoping this will be the last time I write a lot about my shock. I wrote about it tonight because...well, last night and today I slept (yes, I take naps, lol), and I had vivid dreams. Not nightmares, just bright, color-saturated, all that, and...I remmebered some of them, at least for a while. A level of intensity seem to be here, a level of cognitive ability, writing ability, and so...I dunno..."recovery." "Bipolar I w/psychotic features." fine, fine...OK. My "recovery" is more a transformation, and my "Bipolar I w/psychotic features" seems to mostly be low moods, complete with voices from the past ("psychotic depression"). That's getting better, too. No additional shock required.
I'm making good grades at Liberty online. I'm beginning to think that History is the perfect major for me. Lots of writing, and I"m applying what I learned in all those sociology classes w/o being brainwashed by pompous, liberal faculty (I'm liberal..but not pompous...and I think people should have freedom of thought). Anyway, its like this...age 20 and 23, heavy involuntary shock treatment. The round at 23, in particular, was dreadful. I mean, I was annihilated, totally and completely.
I think shock, heavy shock, at least, destroys your sense of self. Its crazy. Its torture, really. Who am I? I dunno. Who was I? Yeah, those memories are gone. Not to mention the dulling of mind and personality.
Now, here's the thing...in Christianity, you must die to be born again. You're not supposed to think on what came before. 2 1/2 years in to being Born Again, I find that I write well, I can learn and retain new information, and my social skills are up to snuff, more or less (I'm not sociall inept, at least). Physically, I'm quite healthy. I need to lose weight, but whatevs.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter who I was before. I catch fleeting glimpses now and then of the old me, in small memory fragments that return to me during waking hours or, increasingly, during dreams. What's sad about this is...working class, flaming losers don't matter, especially when you're surrounded by affluent people because your people are well-educated and upwardly mobile. The deck was stacked against me from day #1.
Now, its different. He causes all things to come together for the good of those who are called...
I'm told that I'm "in recovery from severe Bipolar I." Good enough. Sometimes, I think of my "bipolar I w/psychotic features" label as a useful fiction. I say "you know, you're right? Manic depression!," and I get disability, to go back to school online, a safe, comfortable place (my parents' home) to recover from...well, life, really. Mine wasn't all that great, lol. Sin does that to people.
The mental health people get to call my problems "mental illness" and ignore, as they do with most people, what's really going on...and all its costs society is disability money and medical coverage. My parents, meanwhile, have an excuse for continuing to support me at 30 years old and letting me live here, rent free, chronically unemployed, eating their (very good) food. I'm "severely mentally ill," right? Right.
Or maybe mental illness is real, and Thomas Szasz is a crack pot, lol. I dunno. Point is...shock obliterated me, my sense of self, everything. And that wasn't all...I had tics after shock, I had memory problems, I had social problems, I had...on and on it goes. Yet another victim of psychiatry, I suppose.
Enter Jesus. In only 2 1/2 years, The Great Physician has done a work in my life. I get along well with my parents, especially my dad. My old "friends" don't come around and our increasingly infrequent phone conversations are brief. Probably for the best. They weren't really friends, anyway....I remember that much.
Shock isn't the worst thing ever. Hell is the worst thing ever. No, I'm not who I was before, but, as a Christian, I'm not supposed to be, anyway. I can't for the life of me figure out what I was doing in that city, going to that school, at that age (17-19, again at 23). Why? What was the point, anyway? Oh well. Doesn't matter now...
So, I'm not the same. Can't be the same. Before Jesus saved me--and I was, in fact, utterly incapable of saving myself in any respect--I was just another victim of psychiatry (the shrinks said it was "poor life choices," of course). Now...more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. How does that play out in real time? I guess I'll just have to keep on at school, doing my work as unto The Lord, and see where things go...
Anyway, I'm hoping this will be the last time I write a lot about my shock. I wrote about it tonight because...well, last night and today I slept (yes, I take naps, lol), and I had vivid dreams. Not nightmares, just bright, color-saturated, all that, and...I remmebered some of them, at least for a while. A level of intensity seem to be here, a level of cognitive ability, writing ability, and so...I dunno..."recovery." "Bipolar I w/psychotic features." fine, fine...OK. My "recovery" is more a transformation, and my "Bipolar I w/psychotic features" seems to mostly be low moods, complete with voices from the past ("psychotic depression"). That's getting better, too. No additional shock required.
