LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  73 

(June 12, 2007)

What a difference a couple of days can make when you’re dealing with bipolar! In my last post I sounded so strong, yet over the last couple of days I’ve started to feel an inexplicable anxiety, bordering on depression. Inexplicable, because I don’t feel fearful. Explicable perhaps, because my husband is away and I have been spending long periods of time alone.

I should be happy. I should be grateful. Actually, I AM grateful for the way things are going in my life and the way doors are opening to build awareness about mental health issues among church people. Yet the anxiety and slight taste of depression remain.

This being early in a new day, I will have to take myself in hand and plan some things to fight this thing off. Yesterday I found that cleaning up the dirty dishes in the kitchen, accompanied by some of my favorite music, helped me feel better. There’s something about work of a physical nature that is healing. Could I get myself up to do a big project like cleaning up our workshop? It’s a HUGE mess! I could play my music loud while I work. How good I would feel if I could accomplish that big job! Then I could reward myself with something fun like painting. After energizing myself with the work, I might welcome the play.

I must write a little as well. That is the most significant way to use my time today. I am happy to have been asked to write some things on mental health topics by a Christian publication and I mustn’t let those jobs sit in the wings for too long.

And, of course, I should try to get together with a friend today.

I want to thank author Howard Freeman whose comment on my last post was the first thing I read this morning. Today I will hold close the verse he has found helpful from 2 Timothy 1:7. In fact, I found I already had it underlined in my own Bible as well:

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”