COMPASSION

"We must remain as close to the flowers,
the grass, and the butterflies as the child
is who is not yet so much taller than they are"
-Friedrich Nietzsche

How hard we make our life sometimes. I am sitting in the living room this afternoon helping a friend of mine work on the answers to discovery in a lawsuit over a traffic accident. This was an accident which happened because, due to construction, it appeared there was an on-ramp to the highway and she entered only to discover at the last moment that it was not. She veered to the right back on to the feeder road along side the highway but over-corrected and lost control of her car a bit and it
swung out in the back to the left onto the highway. A speeding car ran into her and is suing her and the cab company she drives for. The guy, who was seeing a doctor all along for the past six years, all of a sudden has injuries he is saying are the fault of the accident. It's transparent as glass. He's seen the deep pockets of the cab company and is out for the kill. My friend is undiagnosed bipolar with a hip injury which gives her chronic pain. Her job may be on the line if this goes wrong. I'm hoping that it's a jury trial and that the guy doesn't pull much sympathy...but the bottom line is she went up a road that wasn't a road, she's a "professional driver". her car went out of control and she may end up really in a bad way. The guy never went to the hospital. Has no new injuries. Is making her life miserable and you can just see the $$ in his eyes. Oh, by the way, did I mention he's a postal worker? We really need to treat each other more kindly. So I AM. I'm using my paralegal skills to answer the discovery for her and get it to her attorney. She has her own personal paralegal. He'll be paying about $100+ an hour for paralegal time. So sometimes it all works out okay Treat each other well. Remember they're called accidents because they're not "on purpose to be mean and make your life miserable" Compassion...that's a really good word.
Peace.

THEY TOO HAVE THEIR STORY

"Those who believe they can do

something are probably right--

and so are those who believe they can't."

Unknown

We ought to take more time to appreciate folks for who they are and as they are. We've all heard the saying that life would be so dull if we were all alike...well it just might be equally dull if everyone were predictable and acted in the manner that we wanted them to. My brother has been driving me nuts the last month as he thinks his progress in regaining the use of his fingers is too slow. He makes comments about how he can't stand being handicapped this way. How inconvenient it is. And, frankly, I want to just yell at him "Yeah!!! try having it be permanent!! But I've mellowed with therapy and age and about the time I'm ready to yell, he compliments me on the nice dinner that I've made, says that he appreciates all the support I give him and takes me with him to a buddy's house to see his latest project.. He includes me in his world and lets me knowI'm important..Then he spent the weekend helping a friend put in wooden stairs and working in the shop with him..and taking me out for Mother's Day and Thursday night he bought a CD system for our friend's birthday (which always gets forgotten because he got married on his birthday so he would never forget his anniversary???) and we took over steaks and the gift and in cahoots with his wife had a surprise birthday party. Yep...I'll take Bill just the way he is..thoughtful, giving,loyal, loving...and a little bit disappointed and depressed for good cause...So probably the next jerk that I meet....has his story too. Peace.

permanence

Friday Bill had a new tendon transplanted in his third finger as the tendon had ruptured from the original surgery. This is a set bacck of nine weeks in the therapy on his hand from the power saw injury of a couple months ago. His mood is not good..he is depressed and discouraged. I had a talk with him about how it feels to have that kind of discouragement on a permanent basis. i.e., with bipolar disorder, the depressive states come and go on a permanent basis. In other words, there is no light at the end of the tunnel... He decided after our talk that maybe he is lucky in that there is an end in sight to his injury.

Maybe that is why we get so discouraged...we are like this for life. There is no permanent fix.

Today's Quote:
Forget mistakes.
Forget failures.
Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.
Today is your lucky day.
-Will Durant


And couldn't we all be better off if we drove our live according to that advice. It is so easy to get bogged down in "what did I do wrong" that we forget what we did "right". Today is Mother's Day. A happy day, you say. Well for some bipolars, it is full of memories of what we may or may have not done well. I look at my children and they are all doing fairly well...but then I look again and I know I have one in counseling (forever) because she has trouble coping with the world...I have one who is doing well but has had an awful time finding the right mate and is contemplating marriage number three (which I think may be the lucky number)...You see, he was picking women like his mother (bipolar was number 1; great intelligent, creative girl, but incapable of staying on her meds and being a mom and wife...he didn't know she was bipolar when they were married. He didn't know I was bipolar when they were married. Just a high energied, talented, creative young woman much like mom!. Then there's my youngest who is high energy, motivated, talented, has her own business, a rocky marriage - my own take, her choice in men not the best, and in my opinion is self-medicating with alcohol to overcome all the stress of carrying the load of the business and a bad marriage. Where, you might wonder, am I going with all this? Why of course, the mother's guilt of failure... Where did I go wrong...what could I have done differently so that these children of mine were more well adjusted? How much of my bipolarity is responsible. Was I not paying attention during my manias? I certainly wasn't a good role model in selecting husbands myself...never men on an equal intelllectual, educational, professional and strong as I was. One musician and intellectual too young, one chef highly unmotivated and a family boy, one baker, alcoholic and womanizer on occasion, one intellectual, musician, life experimenter, bipolar self-medicating soulmate died from later complications of surgery from an auto accident. My children grew up mostly with the alcoholic husband...not the best influence...it was sporadic sober periods. In the mix were two children of which we had custody (his) whom I had raised since ages 2 and 3. These two are better off than they would have abeen raised by either their father or their mother, but their lives aren't perfect as I would wish them to be. This is my lucky day. I raised five children and three of them are doing well basically. The other two, while I don't heave from them as often, are leading normal lives, just not what they could have been. I made a difference. I just expected so much more.