Swelltide.

In the car yesterday and my girlfriend started reading from a therapy module that I was keeping behind my visor.

Bipolar is often triggered by a time of great stress. She asked if I knew what this moment or time was for me.

We moved when I was sixteen, away from the only real friends that I had made up to that point in my life, where I attended a much more urbanized highschool. Superficial. Everything played like a bad reality television show. I ended up in an alternative school, where I took the minimum number of classes to graduate. Where I smoked a lot of pot. I was so angry at my situation, at my parents, at the dumb kids that I went to school with-- I would go days sometimes without saying anything to anyone. I spent two years like this, not talking to anyone. Hiding out, smoking too much and reading books. Sketching. Smoking pot. My friends would say that I always seemed sad.

I thought this was my moment, but after thinking about it, I'm not so sure.

I've had many moments of mania, or near mania, before this. I would go days without attending school regularly. I would scream obsenities at strangers when crossing the street. I would be a total oddball in the hallways at school. Then, it came across as a weird kind of confidence, and I or anyone else, never thought much of it. I would have weeks of eating my lunch alone, talking to no one, or not having anyone to talk to. Zoning out in front of the TV.

So, who knows really? It begs again, the question, what is bipolar and what is normal?

Swelltide.

I have started reading, at the request of my therapist, Louise L. Hay's "You Can Heal Your Life." Started it, in all honesty, because I have a session tomorrow and I didn't want to go in this week without anything to discuss, talk about, or feeling like I haven't made any progress.

I am surrendering the skeptical side of myself. For now.

She writes about positive affirmation-- about letting things go and getting to the root of why a person does not feel worthy. I am only about three chapters into the book, so there will be no grand conclusions on my part here. Only some things to think about, I guess.

She claims that there are three basic paths that a person seeks out to start healing. The physical approach, the spiritual approach and the mental approach. I can see the truth in this. A person, even without having heard of Louise L. Hay, might see something wrong and learn about it-- the mental approach, pray about it-- the spiritual approach, or do something about it-- the physical approach.

My bipolar diagnosis brought on a desperate need to do my homework-- the mental approach. I'm still not done doing my homework. I ask questions on the forums. I seek out bipolar blogs and websites. I ask questions. Which is fitting, for me. I am a rational, logical person. A lot of my worth, self-worth, has been tied into what I know (my being smart). Things are more comfortable for me when I know what to expect. I will never be done doing my homework.

She claims though, that for a person to become healthy, healed and whole-- you have to incorporate all of those aspects of healing into a single approach-- a holistic approach. I am going to struggle with this. Because, I am lazy and because I am not a spiritual person. See, this is me trying to not be so skeptical.

I have some qualms with religion, and with the root of religion-- tradition. I am not sure that I am going to be able to incorporate a spiritual approach. I don't know if God exists. I am not particularly interested in ceremony, ritual, prayer... what have you. I am not saying that I couldn't learn to incorporate some of these things into my path-- I'm going to have to get over seeing it as a waste of time.

Tradition is kind of what got me here. Not with bipolar-- but with the need to reconcile things within myself. Everyone deals with something from childhood. Part of my childhood was attending a church-school (two things in my opinion that should never be combined) and at the end my second grade, I could not recite the alphabet completely. I didn't know anything about math. I couldn't read. Why? Tradition. The stories from the good book, that were over two-thousand years old, were more important than those practical, earthly things-- like math, or science or reading. I spend the next few years recovering from feeling incompetent and stupid. I'm not saying that church made me dumb, not at all. My parents should have been making sure that I was learning all of the things I was supposed to be learning-- but church didn't really help much either.

So there it is. A big way in which I feel unworthy. A cornerstone of "You Can Heal..." A part of me is still that stupid, little second grader who couldn't recite his alphabet. Being smart is important to me now, because I remember what it was like being dumb. So called 'Spirituality' is a part of it.

It's a mess isn't it? Dealing with all those repressed things that you've carried over into your adult life from childhood. I have things other than bipolar going on-- as, I'm sure, most people with bipolar do.

I'm still trying not to be skeptical.