Saving lives.

It's not enough to merely save people from death. We can save lives but if the quality of that life is not worth it to them then what is the point?
Before my brothers passing I had recently connected with two friends from high school, that are sisters, and had been two of those people that you just get along easily with, connect with, and will always cherish. After my brothers passing the younger of two tactfully asked "how."

As it turned out my gracious friends lost there dad about six years ago, he also "took his own life"... My friends shared with me about him. I am so appreciative of their compassion and willingness to share. He'd hit a point of complete madness. He was no longer himself or at least not the man that they all knew and loved. Why? He'd been OK for so long. He'd been an amazing dad, a kind and generous person. Brilliant even. but then it all started to fall apart and who knows if he got help in time. Who knows if he was even taking the "help" that he was being given. All the same, he was going and then he was gone. They all tried to help him and at times even tried to save his life but those closest to him knew that it was not their life to save. They knew that merely keeping him alive was not saving him. They had already lost him... Where did he go?
Did he just give up on fighting? Had is adaptive practices been changed to the point of demise? Are mental disorders/illness's degenerative? Was it merely a matter of time?

Obviously there is no sufficient nor satisfactory answer to these questions, especially to his family. He is gone.

I have another friend, with whom I was fortunate enough to work with this last year. Her father passed away a month before my brother. At one point, when I was struggling a bit at work, I asked her how she was doing and if she felt this way or that. She was compassionately willing to talk. Our brief conversation led her to tell me that it was actually not the first father she had lost (although I must tell you, as evidence of her compassion, it was not her loosing two fathers that brought up the subject but how she felt so bad for her mother because this was her second husband to loose). As it turned out, her biological father committed suicide when she was very young. Her father was about the age of my brother. I was amazed and so impressed with my friend and her graciousness in coping and sharing. I asked her what he was like. She explained that he was in the military. He loved to work out. He often loved life. He was kind and loving and not the type of person you might expect this from, though he did struggle with depression from time to time.


I remember thinking how both of these men sounded similar to my brother. I have often thought that if he had only gotten married and had a family of his own this would not have happened. But after speaking with these two friends about their own fathers I have realized that is not the case. Family does not cure some one of mental illness and it does not save one from this fate. Family can do a lot for a person including improving their quality of life but in they end that alone would not have saved my brother, no matter how much they may have loved each other. There is so much more to the story here.


One thing I would like to point out is that I don't believe that such interactions and the many other bizarre coincidences are coincidences at all. I am soooo thankful that wonderful people were so conveniently lined up for me! Thank you so very much, my friends, for sharing and for wanting to help and make a difference in this crazy mixed up world we live in!


But I will also re-iterate: keeping some one breathing is not merely enough. We have a responsibility to each other to do more and be more. And yet, likewise, when it is someones time to go, no matter how painful or hard it is to understand, then it is time to let them go and love them just as well.

*the story of my crazy little life*

So why the @$#* would someone want to start a blog exposing there own vulnerabilities and questioning their sanity? Why are you asking this question anyway?
Read my older posts and then here is where it all began:
After graduating from high school I went to live in Florida for a year. After being there for about seven months I somehow found myself spending the night in a Mental Health facility, not by choice, however, I must confess, that was not the first time I questioned my sanity. I remember explaining to the counselor that I for some time I felt like I had a little sanity chip in my brain that was somehow keeping my mess of a head together. I explained how I often wanted to break my head open so that it could all spill out and I could actually see it all and somehow put the pieces together like a puzzle. But this event in Florida is what really seemed to alert in a "Houston, we have a problem" kind of way.
Despite my "intensities" I really truly believed that everyone one was like me inside, they just did a better job of "pretending," and I didn't appreciate pretending. I really thought everyone contemplated ending there life and how. I thought it perfectly acceptable to set a date, as long as it was far enough off and I gave this life thing real honest effort.
The very talented psychiatrist that saw me somehow knew what I needed to hear and managed to work me over easily into taking medication. "At this point" she said "you can't afford not to." Then she proceeded to make sure I could get a few months worth for very close to free. She also put me on a medication that is not at all easy to stop taking. I think she did that on purpose.
Honestly it was a hard pill to swallow and I really didn't know what it meant. When I got back to my home state out west, I didn't like to visit psychiatrists or psychologists and relied on the library for any information. I was trying to get off the medication all of the time... Until I was a bit more "stable" anyway. But even after I had changed dramatically, in mostly positive ways and I fully recognized that this incident and medication really and truly did save my life, I did not want to stay on the stuff. I didn't think much about my sanity issue's so much but rather became a bit obsessed with other peoples "sanity" issue's. Eventually I was able to go off and I mostly had myself convinced that I didn't need them... Can't say that I was always a peach to be around, but other then my "intensity" I was fine...Really, I swear I was!

Sooo, I somehow got hit upside with life a few times and could very easily blame some of my "issues" on that but regardless I was starting to unravel. There were a few "coincidental" events that either fed a quicker unraveling or helped me to see that I was starting to unravel, thus preventing me from completely coming apart. The most notable to mention were my brother-in-laws book of his own personal story of bipolar and then that damned ol' boyfriend (whose wife also happened to be bipolar)... I found that I related a bit too well to people with some serious mental illnesses.
Now I fully realize that relating to be people who are "crazy" (and I mean that in the most endearing way) does not make one crazy. But as I said I was already unraveling... Despite my best efforts. And then the poor old bugger who used to be a "boyfriend" became a horrid obsession, which for the life of me, I could not get around... My mind seems to work that way. It was the first time I really realized and faced the fact that I obsessing over things in a way that is totally dysfunctional and despite my best efforts, I can't just "forget about it"... I am sorry old boyfriend and his wife to bring this up, but it is what it is and the best I can do is face it. So I started running more and taking supplements and reading more books and even going to counseling more...and many other things (like writing). They helped and they didn't.
You know, I think it might be a bit easier initially if I were just out right crazy, or if I did have a major breakdown. But I'm not and I haven't. I just have a body that reacts with shots of adrenaline for really silly reasons or even no reason at all. I have a brain that can't decide what it is, on any given day but is smart enough to somehow hold it together. I get terribly stuck in thinking patterns that I am still learning tricks to get out of (sometimes they work, sometimes I just have to go to sleep). I mimic cycles of a bipolar person and yet I have plenty of in between time. I have an irrationally and embarrassingly short fuss and all sorts of other issues.

So am I crazy? Not anymore then the next person because I am choosing to deal with it. I take medication now. I tried really hard not to. But you hit a point where trying to stay ahead of yourself and your "moods" is so time consuming and exhausting that it is not only not worth it, but also more fair to family and those around you (especially your kids).
... That and I rolled my car with my two kids in the back, all because I was "up" and overly confident. We miraculously all survived shaken but unscathed, I only had one minor cut on one finger. The car was a total, fortunately we were not.
That is when I took my sisters advice and "found a way."
Sooo that is the bulk of my sanity-in-a-nutshell but what sadly solidified the reality of it all was my brother's death, but I'll save that for another day...
Have a happy and mentally responsible day!