Well, today was my birthday and it was pretty much uneventful, which I liked. Birthdays after 30 really are non-events, I'm not excited about getting older like I once was, and I'm not upset about it either, I'm just aging gracefully.
The day was nice, my wife and I went shopping a couple of weeks ago for our birthdays, so she just gave me a card, which I really enjoyed, and my 2 year old sang something that resembled "Happy Birthday to You" (that may have been the highlight of my day).
It was another unremarkable day of stability. So I hope the BLOG doesn't get too tedious, but I’m trying to be accurate with what's going on, even if it makes for boring reading. I only cheated on my diet a little for my birthday. The folks at the office ordered a cake and I didn't want to look weird, so I had some. Plus my wife made an apple pie for me, but she used sugar in the raw instead of processed sugar so I was able to rationalize it as being good for me.
I think I finally accepted that there really is some kind of chemical imbalance. It's made dealing with things much more manageable. Especially the obsess ional aspects of it all. I'm not beating myself up for having the thoughts; I am just dealing with them and moving on. They come with less and less frequency and have less of an impact, I can even laugh them off sometimes, its nice to have a say in what I think about. That may sound weird but its true, for the longest time, I was afraid of what I would be forced to focus on each day.
The tough part now is dealing with the fear of falling back into old patterns and dealing with the regrets of past behaviors. I think I've discussed the fear part more than adequately over the past week or so, but the regret aspect is just as troubling. I've done some pretty horrible stuff to people I really love, and I hate myself for it sometimes. My wife's born the brunt of it, for the longest time she pretty much let me run roughshod through the house for fear of setting off one of my irrational moods.
She's not a doormat or some kind of shrinking violet. It's just that for the longest time neither one of us understood the nature of my illness. She hated to see me in pain, so she just tried to smooth things out, and avoid what we both thought was just my moodiness. She deserved better, and she's finally getting it. But I really hate those years and some of the things I've done and said to her. I could wash my hands of it and just say, "I'm sick, not my fault," but it doesn't change the fact that I did those things. More importantly, it doesn't change the fact that I knew they were wrong, but I still did them.
My wife has completely forgiven me, and attributes my illness to the past screw ups, but I'm not letting myself off the hook that easily. I'm not dwelling on it, but I am trying to keep it in my mind so I work my hardest to try and control this stupid gremlin in my head. In a way, my regrets are my greatest motivators.
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