Moving Beyond My Anger: Coping With Bipolar Disorder, Depression Symptoms
and Other Emotional Conditions
I ask God, “Why? “What’s the point of sticking around?” He tells me that my life matters regardless of what happens. He tells me not to be afraid of the scary places. He tells me that He can use me wherever, and however, He chooses. He says, “Alisa, don’t be afraid of where I will send you. Wherever you go, and whatever happens, I’m going to use you. Your life, no matter what it seems, is not sad. It’s not hopeless. No matter how dark things may seem my light is going to shine. You’re going to shine.”
Craig and the kids have cleared out of the house. I’m not able to handle the kids. That’s why I’m alone to make art today. I put my mountain of dread on my canvas. What I make scares me. It’s the truth of how I feel inside. What I feel frightens me. It feels disturbed. I’ve never made art that’s this disturbed before. I add a dark sky to the space around the mountain. In the darkness are words like “death, despair, horror, dread and fear.” They’re scary words but they’re honest. I feel so sick inside. In the past I’ve said I had reached the bottom, but I was wrong. I can go lower than I have in the past. I just did.
I add a “God’s Eye” to the top of the heaping mountain of stones. The God’s Eye says that God knows all. I wonder if God really knows about me right now. I consider all the evidence. I remember all the ways He has been faithful to me. I see that all the evidence points to Him. It all adds up to a God that I can hang my hope on.
Hope remains. “Hope Remains,” says my mountain of death and horror. That’s the part that matters. What matters is that at my very bottom hope still remains.
Coping with depressions symptoms and other emotional conditions, like bipolar disorder or other forms of mental illness, necessitates hope. You need to have someplace to draw your hope from. If you're angry about your situation you're not likely very hopeful. You're probably still fighting a situation that needs to be turned over to God. He can't help you move beyond your anger and into a place where you can cope and find hope until you trust him with the hard realities of your life. Once you let God in He becomes you hope and your reason to tell your story. Finally, your life has some encouragement to offer others.
Hope Remains
Age 38