The Real Source of My Pain

     If you are not one who likes personal over-shares, then this post is not for you.  I will reveal too much of myself in an effort to begin the healing process and because I am an extreme extrovert, I need to share my thoughts with people who might care.  This post is not intended to be a fishing expedition for compliments and if I get any compliments in the comment section then I might consider un-friending you on my FB page.    I find it rather odd that I have to reach out this way (through impersonal means to reveal my very personal matters because I am people needy) because I have no shoulder physically close enough upon which to lean or cry.  I have no family nearby and my friends keep moving away or become so busy that friend time is no longer possible.  If I call someone I just get guilt from hurting their feelings, advice, or they just get angry at me.  So what's the point of actually talking to someone?  I thought I had worked all of this out with my therapist after Adam was born, but I guess I didn't get to the root of it and I don't want to go back to therapy.  It is too expensive and I know what advice he is going to give me.  I was going to be a therapist after all.  All this recuperating from my broken ribs has given me time to think about the real source of my troubles, where my real pain is coming from; why I have become obese and unhappy.
     So, I repeat again, if this makes you uncomfortable at all stop reading and I will never know and you won't feel awkward in my presence.
     I warned you.
     There was a time in my past that I was a spiritual giant.  I awoke early and studied my scriptures, I had a constant prayer in my heart and never left my room or went to bed without a lengthy and un-vain repetitious prayer.  I had the gift of discernment in matters that were important to me.  Don't get me wrong, I was very far from perfect, but my testimony was unwavering.  Or so I thought.  When I needed discernment most in relation to the answer to a specific prayer, I got my wires crossed.  I thought the counsel given was describing me, that I needed to seriously repent and was therefore not worthy of any future blessings that I so desperately sought.  My heart was broken and I wracked my brain and spirit to figure out what I had done wrong that would prevent me from experiencing all the blessings the Lord had in store for me.  I couldn't come up with anything that would qualify.  I then thought that I was somehow responsible for some dreams that I was experiencing and that I must be guilt of some sin or I wouldn't be having such troubling dreams.  Needless to say, this experience shook my ability to believe that God loved me at all, since there was no way I could control these dreams.
     I was also struggling with the belief that my family just endured me and didn't like me.  I was the only one treated differently in my home.  My older sister was adored no matter what she did and I always got in trouble for what she started and she would gloat about it.  She beat me up often because she could not get the verbal upper hand.  My parents invited me to leave the house because I was not what they wanted in a daughter.  When I went away to college I had to go by myself because my family was moving the very next day.  I was not informed of my family's new phone number nor the new address.  I couldn't contact them.  I was terribly lonely and it didn't help that my roommates thought I was crazy.  I finally got so lonely that I decided to move to where my family had moved after graduation and attend BYU.  My family relationships improved, but they were still very strained.  Nobody wanted to sit be by me.  Nobody wanted to talk to me.  I could never be at a family gathering without causing some problem.  I felt like the proverbial hated thorn in my family's side.  If my family didn't love me and God didn't love me, then I was going to find someone who would love me.
     I thought I did for a while, but then how can you really feel loved when you do not believe that you are worthy of love?  This lack of connection to anyone has influenced my decisions ever since.  I started pulling away from what I thought was an unloving God.  I still believed and had a testimony, but there was no longer the fire that I once prized.  I have now become like King David.  No I didn't commit adultery then commit murder to cover it up, but I have strayed away from what I once was and now do not see how to recover.  I take no pride in keeping a clean house or any other housewifely duty.  I have no motivation to get ready for the day and do anything productive.  I feel alone in a room full of people.  I have taken the path opposite of that which I felt was right.
     I do not write this to garner sympathy or advice.  I know what I have to do, but doing it is the problem.  A symptom of my genetic bipolar disorder that has been exacerbated by my choices is an inability to make the choices that I know need to be made and follow through on them.  Many people do not understand this.  They realize that schizophrenics do not have the ability to chose their actions, but they do not apply that to those who suffer from depression or bipolar disorder.  They believe people should just buck up and do what they know they should.  If it were only that simple.
     I write this as the first step in healing; in overcoming the problem.  You cannot change what you do not acknowledge.  So, I am acknowledging it.  One reason I am doing so publicly is because my behavior has hurt all of you in some way.  I want to apologize and tell you how sorry I am that I let that one misinterpreted answer mess up my whole life and hurt you in the process.  I am working in it.  I have hope that someday it will be better and that I can be in public (or in private) without hurting anyone including myself.  I now realize that I was not the one who needed intense repenting, but I do now.  Be patient with me as I put my life in order, sort through all the trash that I have allowed to pile up in my life.