I've been away from this site for a long time, but I have been sending people your way, mostly to get them to read the article about World Domination Disorder.  I've been off of meds for two years and it hasn't been easy, but I am free from the doctors and the hospitals and the therapists, which makes any extra suffering that I have to do worth it.  It is hard to explain that.   Why would a person choose more pain from the disease to a cure?  Well, because there is no cure for what I have and all of the things that were given to me in the past were just band-aids on a bullet wound, kind of like the Wall Street Bailout.  The money that the Feds have stolen to pay off the crooks at the top will not help, the wounds are inflicted and the world is just going to have to witness its own bleeding until nature stops it.  So, it is with me and allopathic medicine.  Let's take trazodone for example.  If I take it out of desperation some night, I will go to sleep, but the next day, my anxiety level is so high that it is almost unbearable.  So, to me, a glass of beer on the day that the stock market crashes is a better idea.  Not several beers for days in a row, mind you.  One beer.  One night of sleep.  Then back to coping with the illness.  Managing.  Taking care of things like sewing my son's winter coat to save money.  Or exercising.  Since I was on here last time, I have lost 35  pounds.  I excercise a lot.  I was very overweight and the meds helped to make me fat.  Or, let's see, writing or loving my family.  Whatever it is that keeps normal people going, that is what keeps me going.  I just deal with the pain and compartmentalize it.  If it tries to take over, then I just put my foot down and tell it to get back in the place that I told it to go.  I was afraid that I would have had a manic episode by now, but I haven't.  Mania seems to be related to denial, so I do my best to avoid denial.  Denial feels oh, so good, but for a person with mania, it can push you into extreme ill health quickly.  For me, if I let myself go into denial, then I start to create a fantasy world that only restraints and medication can bring me back from.  Haven't been there in almost twenty years and don't care to go back to that.  So, my eyes remain pretty much open to the world.  I thank God that my family is here for me.  If I had to go into denial to deal with an awful family, I would end up back in restraints.  It's the world beyond my front door that makes me  so very unhappy.  Mostly the wars, the governmental corruption, the food riots, the starving people, the war profiteers, the indifference of the average American, the greed, the plight of our planet in terms of global warming and pollution, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, homelessness, debt globalization, and above it all, Satan and God just tossing the whole human race around like rag dolls.

But, if I try really hard, there are things that make all that fade away.  My family.  The way my family and I love each other.  The sunrise.  The trees outside my front door.  The sunset.  That kind of thing.  Sometimes I reach a place in my mind where I really really believe that we're gonna be ok as the human race.  That we'll come through the global crisis ok on the other side and people will stop being greedy and start taking care of each other like God intended.  That we will care about old and infirm people and babies in other countries that have nothing to eat.  I have to believe this, otherwise...well, it would be unbearable.