A Brain That Don’t Quite Work, Or Where’s That God Guy?

When Cole met Jane, something special happened, and they found love.
He never expected Anthony to return…

Three Ways – The Ways In, a contemporary romance in

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      Hi guys,

      Well, look at that, I posted a blog three weeks after my last one! Been a while, huh? Don’t worry, it’s me, not you.

      So, low motivation to post blogs is just one thing of mine. So’s motivation to write. Or making my coffee the night before so I can chug it cold in the morning, before going for a walk, before praying, before going to work. Um… yeah, it’s a mood thing, and something I have to fight.

      But, well, waking at 6 in a cold winter? Bed be warm. Working? Yeah, gotta pay the bills, but takes it out of me. Home in the evening? Can’t be bothered with writing… Actually I snuck down to Macca’s last Wednesday for a coffee and got into a fight scene, then closed off three quarters the way through at 7:20. And that was it, I crawled into bed, crashed around 8:30. Early bed for the next few days, too. And no, it does nothing for making mornings easy.

      That’s giver upper for you. It’s ingrained in the brain, makes its workings quite, well, meh. Now, throw in the bipolar and possible schizoaffective (been psychotic, so yeah), and blend with ice. Quite a recipe for whatevs – or feeling peaked because I forgot to take my night meds and finding lights in the car park, keys very entrancing. Sounds like fun but, after my very public manic episode, something acutely dangerous.

      It all comes with a wish, that I was normal. That I could live without needing three different meds to function. To wake after eight hours of sleep feeling fresh, downing that coffee, going for that walk, and not feeling exhausted and needing to lie down after it. To write when I get home (okay with a coffee pick-me-up). To go visit the GF and three days a week and feel drained (yes, it happens, and no, I haven’t quite brought it up yet). To go out to stuff like Hamilton mid-week without it impacting my sleep or my mood for the rest of the week, and triggering unhealthy coping mechanisms. Without grogginess and sleeping in to twelve on my dedicated writing day.

      Quite a wish, huh? Let’s not forget everything else that went wrong in my life (Sometimes I’m surprised I’m still kicking). And that, coupled with that tweeter person I dealt with telling me what good is a God that couldn’t save me, the tiny thoughts I’ve had about that on my own time, leaves a feeling that kinda hurts. Where’s God, or especially that wondrous, healing, demon-casting-outer Jesus guy?

      Faith wasn’t my thing. In fact the very mention of spirituality conjured thoughts of angry God. Reading Revelation, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers didn’t help there. Then there was dealing with the no outsiders allowed to marry in, the “go back and kill all the men, boys, women who’ve given birth, and take the virgins as your wives.” That messy OT… It still gets to me. But fast forward to the Gospels and, nice God, loving God, healy God.

      Where does it put me, just about two thousand years later, scatterbrained, on meds, slammed by memories, in bed early and not sleeping all that well to begin with (let alone when I forget my meds), low motivation, bouncing along in my stuff and needing to pop by ye olde confessional again? Let’s not forget getting locked down for the next two weeks thanks to the Golden Crowned Lurgy – that’s gonna be fun!

      Though its lesson was great on Boston Tea Party day, when I wrote my prompt for this blog, what hit me got lost on me. Good thing at least for coming back to the prompt and putting this back fresh in mind. I know, I’ve round-abouted, so here’s what I got from Corinthians 2 – The Lettering, courtesy of Paul, Patron Saint of Talking Underwater:

      “To stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud. I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, ‘My grace is enough for you, my power is best in weakness.’

      “So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses…”

      What was it Paul had? From the homily, it was intimated the guy was beset by migraines. And no, he didn’t have codeine to do much about it. And as he says, he turns to say hi to the guy in the sky, but doesn’t actually get relief from his ailment. As Jesus said to the horse thief in The Chosen, there will always be broken bones in this world.

      So, where does it leave me? Where is God in this S. H. I. T. in my head? At the time of the reading, in wonder; three weeks later, well, you’ve read this post up to this point. It’s ultimately in the giving up – and the forgetting (thanks, turbulent not-working-properly brain). Am I doing something wrong? Is the faith I found failing already? Am I not taking Paul as an example? I felt better, smarter, than the faithful, then, one kawham of a conversion later, I’m religious. Am I failing the zeal test? Are years of atheism putting up barriers for me?

      Time to stop that tangent, least of all for the unhealthiness. It might not be time for the answer. There’s also the matter of not praying, not going to that team of saints, and yes, that’s on me. And there’s the thinking that no matter what faith, there’s no healing of this brain of mine. Perhaps I’m waiting on magic, or that miracle when I was eighteen was what I needed and I’m not reflecting on that.

      Ho hum. This has been a long and deep one. But, I'm in lockdown so another week off at least, I've gotten to walking in the morning. I've been grinding ground coffee to knock up heart starters. I’ve gotten some writing done, I'm play Oblivion some more, I took a lamb roast over to the GF's (I promised her lamb,) and I'm getting into my wines from last year. And I’ve got church services to watch from around the grounds courtesy of ye olde internette.

      Maybe that’s where God actually is for me. And for my next blog, more on how I wound up Catholic.

      So from Golden Crowned Lurgy Lockdown, have a good one, and put your thoughts and prayers towards those of us with Covid, those of us in hospital, and those lost.

      T.M.

Out of the Wilderness, I Think…

       Hi guys,

      Welp, it’s been a looooooong while since my last post - around that deathy and rebirthy time - and, while I entertained a post back in May, I never felt right about it, and never got the mood to proceed with anything.

      It’s like my writing, it’s taking forever, motivation is low. Just depression talking? I don’t know, I am flustered, trying to dodge flatmates in the morning and still feeling prefigured when they’re in the bathroom or kitchen when I get up – I love a quiet morning, no noise, often no lights, its great when I have early starts.

      The psych suggested a paradigm shift. Get up early on first alarm, have cold coffee, go for a walk. So far, I managed a walk once. I’m still sleeping in half an hour, having shower first, but I’ve changed my rhythm. And just as I got into one… My weekend got stuffed around thanks to training, shifts got swapped (I still hope it was because of a reasonable reason, not party time), and wasted a day for a three-hour shift (long story). And yeah, back to square one.

      I feel this happens a lot, whenever I get the motivation to start something new, things come along that week and derail it. Want to go for morning walks? It rains. Want to start this early stuff? Flatmates, work in way. Have a go to church Thursday and Sunday? Late finish thrown my way. I hate it, the idea of a great life conspiracy. It hits the depression up, cues the “Why bother?” Meanwhile I’m steadily putting on weight, spending is, well, happy, faith is getting left in the wayside – so much for calling on help from above.

      I’m a giver-upper. I’m also a rut-runner. I really need scheduling in life, a rhythm, and if I’m knocked out of it, it’s off into the wallows. I hate the pick back up, get going again. I know it’s part of life, so being bipolar, possibly schizoaffective, certainly doesn’t help. But here I go, back into the breach, try again, again, and again, trudge, trudge, trudge. No, I’m not looking forward to it, going cap in hand back to confession, but, well, unlimited forgiveness, and I’m sure the guy upstairs knows how messed my life is, has been, and will be. Looks down, but, well…

      I was told I needed a better God because I went through hell and nothing was done, “What good is a God that won’t protect you?” It bemused me more than anything, I’m on the other end of the skateboarding kid analogy from Angels and Demons – you want your kid to live, even if he wants to Tony Hawk off gutters with its mad risk of ouchies. But it came on the back of an example of God’s plan relating to a child’s death.

      How do you fit into a plan that allows this pain? Put simply, the example in question held a faithful position and kept things in perspective, what you’d expect to be a harrowing time. Chances are it was a harrowing time, and still will be, but the faith was kept, though the non-faithful person observing it found it callous. Then there was my turn, the observer going on to tell me what I needed from those times when I was abused.

      Put simply, I got that intervention the night I wanted to end my life – something I could not explain at the time, but a voice I knew I could trust. That, too, has put me at odds – why was I so lucky, when so many torn apart don’t? Is it because I can write about it, have that empathy for them? Is there a whole Catcher in the Rye deal for those who pass? (This is what I believe).

      That moment put God on the backburner for me; 18 years later, here am I, ex-atheist, getting God in my life, though it’s a patchy thing. Yes, I get my doses of Church, pop of to adoration at Saint Jockas, Mares’ dad (that’s Saint Joachim, father of St Mary), love that bite of Jesus. But prayer? Yeah, slack at it, but always wanting to improve. Maybe its best as a morning thing, rather than an end of night deal (which I’m failing at).

      But even with the downs, the stumbles, the sight at the end, I’m succeeding. In two months, I’ll be able to move out again on my own, hopefully somewhere closer to work, and prepare for life ahead, the GF and I, well, there’s plans afoot. And after two months of dragging-out, I finished another chapter of TWO – the GF was very happy.

      And if I call upon them, I’ve got 18 Simons of Cyrene to trudge along with me – yep, that’s a footy team with an exchange bench. That makes me smile, a little shyly, but hope is hope, it’s good, and can help me through to the plan when life sometimes throws you to the mud.

      Still, my woes are small compared to others, and my hopes aren’t everybody’s. Before I go, a shoutout to those doing it tough, tougher, toughest. Have a think about them, not to consider how lucky you are – that, to me, is the wrong way to look at life – but to consider their wants, needs, dreams. While you’re there, consider a charity serving those wants, needs, dreams, so it’s more than thoughts and prayers – could be once a year, or a monthly contribution.

      And when you’re there, consider voting and agitating for them. I don’t know if it will help, but it’s back in that try again, and again, and again, trudge, trudge, trudge.

      And… Yep, that’s all I got. Okay, it’s Corona Cave time with lockdown, room for a bit more gaming and writing, but missing of the GF and Jesus – but there’s livestream mass. Hopefully I’ll get back to a three-week blog cycle, and hopefully, it’ll be out the Corona Cave by then, so, until then, or whenever,

      Have a good one!

      T. M.