More Brilliant than the Sun

                                                                           

                                                           

"And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom."   Anais Nin

June 12, 2021

How many of us, when we come to the end or our journey, can honestly say we have lived our lives without regret?  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” What if upon reflection, we come to realize we had never truly lived? What if we, those like me (the woman I used to be) “the people pleasers” who feared breaking the rules, the social constructs, and in seeking others approval, discover so late in life, we had never truly lived? What if we discover that we had become merely spectators in our own lives? Those of us, who watched life unfold around us, whilst we sat or stood on the sidelines because we did not want to appear foolish, or overly happy, or severely depressed because we feared being judged? What if everyone else’s wants, needs, desires, dreams, and feelings mattered more than our own? What if the court of public opinion and or approval mattered more?

Seriously, what kind of life would that be? Why do so many of us do this? We deny authenticity and fail to be honest with others, and worse, with ourselves? We delude ourselves into thinking we are sparing their feelings, or ours, and so we tell and accept the little white lies, deceiving ourselves that it is the right thing to do. But is it? Is it really?

 It is a common practice in Western society, not only to teach our children to believe in: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, fairy tales and nauseating romance novels! The worlds various religions, often expect their children to then believe and accept the presence of an omniscient, omnipotent, invisible God! 

 As children grow older and discover the truth and realize they have been lied to many times throughout their lives. How then should they react? Do we honestly expect them to then trust anything, we as parents tell them afterwards? It is, and seems it always has been an acceptable practice, to lie! It is passed down from generation to generation.  When some brave and precocious children question whatever faith/organized religion they were raised in, they are punished, ignored, shunned, and sadly in too many cases disowned!

In Catholic primary school, I was eight, or nine years old, in grade three or four, I remember the teacher presenting the biblical story of Cain and Abel. How Cain slew his younger brother because he was jealous of him. How Cain was later disowned and went to live in the land of Nod. How he married and bore children there etc. I mistakenly asked the teacher where Cain’s wife came from if he and his parents were the only people on earth at the time. In my young mind, it made absolutely no sense to me. But rather than answer my question, I received a sharp wrap on my knuckles with a ruler for asking.

 Why do so many adults get on the defensive, ignore important questions, and skirt around and avoid uncomfortable topics because they cannot deal with their own emotions, far less another’s? Instead, they lash out, often in the most destructive and self-destructive ways. We expect our children to identify, express, and handle their emotions when we ourselves are incapable. Why is it so difficult for we adults to admit we do not know, or have all the answers, or know as much as we think, or they think we know?

 Henry David Thoreau wrote: “The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation.” It is both my contention and experience that even more women do. Can any of you women I know and who know, or think you know me, relate to this?

My thoughts and emotions are intense. They always have been. Some people have thrown the word “intense” at me over the course of my life, as though it were a dirty word, or a trait to be ashamed of, or worse, to fear, and be rid of. But what does it mean to refer to me as such? Would you prefer me “shallow,” "aloof,” “distant,” “pretentious?”

People have complained to me during my teens, twenties, and thirties, they cannot get past my walls. When I have let them in (trust me few do), some had come to regret having gotten that close to me. Few can handle the full essence of me. The depth, breadth, and sheer magnitude of my emotions can be overwhelming even for me.  I confess at times my thoughts and feelings seriously frighten me.

There are times, even now, though medicated and in therapy (these last twenty-four years) they still debilitate me on occasion. However, not to the extent they once did. Not to the degree that I wind up hospitalized in a psychiatric ward literally out of my mind. The medication grounds me, tethers me, where I am unable to fly. At times I must confess, I miss the sheer majesty of my mania.

 I know what it cost me to suppress my feelings and traumas. When you do it most of your life as I used to, repress, and suppress experiences and emotions, it eventually for me, resulted in my spiraling into lunacy on four separate occasions. The times I was so engulfed in unresolved trauma, grief, and lost relationships, trapped within my unquiet mind. Where I could not sleep or see beyond the mental and emotional pain that blinded me. I did not consider my personal needs or attend the needs of my family and friends. I was literally flailing. It took me years to come to terms with this and to forgive myself.

I address this to the people pleasers, the overly passive, and the extremely sensitive persons who feel they best avoid confrontation. Those who have not yet found their voice. To deny the heartbreak, the darkness, the shame, and the fear that binds and surrounds us, simply to make others feel better is a recipe for disaster with dire consequences, not only for us, but all within our orbit. To put on pretences merely to avoid others scrutiny, and judgment is not healthy. My best advice is to pick your battles, find your truth and your passion, and above all strive to lead authentic lives.

The next part, I address mainly to those who live with bipolar disorder like me. There are times I literally see, feel, and hear colours. Times I have seen a brilliant, blinding light.  A light brighter than a thousand burning suns. It is a light, warmth, and peace I had been privileged to feel and experience more than once. One of the most important lessons I learned during my first manic episode was that all living things are connected.

 My bipolar peeps may feel we must dial it down when the euphoria comes. Or we must suppress our true emotions. However, for me, I eventually learned to embrace both the darkness and the light. Both intense states, two sides of the same coin. Two sides of my life and my person. I learned to sit with my emotions, to feel the full weight of them and let them go. To remind myself, it is temporal, and will pass.  All were teaching experiences. I learned to be more assertive, to stand and speak up for myself. To share my disorder, especially with those closest to me or potentially would be. Then I leave it up to them to decide whether they want to stay in my life or not.

In my early thirties I learned to have trauma build up over time, the load can become too much to bear. I had not yet found my voice or assertiveness, was attending to everyone else but myself. Until one morning, I lay in a fetal position in a chair in a psychiatrist office unable to move. The complete and utter exhaustion worse than childbirth or any other previous experience. The fear of not knowing what had happened to me was debilitating.  Why was I hallucinating and delusional? The fear in my husband’s eyes sitting next to me, that morning, is a look I will never forget. Did his fear equal mine? Somehow, I doubt it. You cannot know unless you yourself lose your mind.

After thirty-two years of living with bipolar disorder, literally half my life; there are times, I still feel very much alone and misunderstood. Not that I do not have those who deeply love me, who care about me, appreciate, and value me. It is the battle within my own mind, heart, and spirit no one sees that troubles me. It is a soul sucking pain and a dense, dank, darkness that comes periodically without warning. It is the dark side of living with bipolar disorder, you can never fully relate to lest you know and experience clinical depression yourselves. I am not referring to situational depression. There is a marked difference between the two.

Though I will love and appreciate you for trying to understand my journey. To love and to stand by me, more than I feel I deserve, is surely not for the faint of heart.

All my life, these sixty-four years, I seemed to feel things on a scale most people in my personal orbit do not!! But thankfully those within my mental health public page and private support group do. They get me. I need not explain. There is a haven, a home, where we share our experiences and there is no judgment, only compassion and understanding, and fortunately for me genuine love and solid friendships.

I do not know where I would be today without them. I can vent, share my thoughts and experiences, and feel comfortable sharing, knowing they understand my journey, because they are living it too. For this understanding and camaraderie, I am so deeply and eternally grateful.

To those family and friends who stood by me through it all;  I love and appreciate your love, friendship, loyalty, and devotion more than you can possibly imagine.

Love and Prayers

Lynn Marie Ramjass

Facing Our Fears Together

 Sunday, January 19, 2014

                                         

                    "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" Anais Nin. " 

Note:

Originally written in January 2014. I have included some revisions regarding my personal status and my journey living with bipolar disorder. Since beginning the main mental health page Living with Bipolar Disorder and the Living with Bipolar Disorder Closed Group on Facebook in April 2012, I do not think there has been a darker period than this past week and a half. The sudden death of my friend and co partner Tracey Lynn Barfield has affected so many followers publicly and in our private group. We share the loss and grief, collectively and individually.

I had grown accustomed to Tracey Lynn’s help running things before her untimely passing January 10th, 2014. I had forgotten what it was like to manage the page and group without her input.

It is hard to accept that I will not have her at my side as I continue the journey without her. To not be able to hear her voice every day or collaborate with her online as we had. Though I know I carry her with me always, I feel her presence at times, and admittedly, it has been hard to cope with the needs of so many and not be able to discuss matters with her.
I am fortunate to currently have the love, friendship, and support of two other women in group who have taken on the responsibility of administrators in helping me with the page and group. If not for them, Claire and Renee, I don't know how I would have managed this past week. 

(Update: Claire and Renee had helped temporarily until I was able to manage things once again on my own. Both have since moved on. I wish them both peace, happiness, and good health and will never forget either one of them.

Update June 2021

Over the years, I have had to delegate, and take on help once again, as the group has become larger than Tracey Lynn and I had ever imagined. Currently this June 2021 LWBD has 27.5K followers on the public page and over 900 members in the private group. These figures are small compared to other pages and groups. But I am pleased with things as they are and will see how things go from here. 

I currently have two other administrators Mike and Kendra on my team at LWBD. Mike has been a member of the private group since its genesis. He has become a close personal friend and more like family to me. He has helped me administrate part time for several years and has proven to be a prolific reader and proficient writer. He has remarkable talent and numerous strengths. Mike demonstrates strength of character and integrity, a fierce loyalty, compassion, unabashed honesty, and love. 

Kendra is a gentle-natured, kind hearted empathetic soul. She has a profound capacity to sit with the broken-hearted, hold space for them in their pain. She possesses the ability to put others at ease and make them feel safe. 

I am blessed and truly honoured to have them both as part of the LWBD team. Both Mike and Kendra work outside their homes and help with LWBD when they are available. Both help with the mental health pages and me personally as friends. 

Our group is not about numbers and or popularity. It was founded with the intention of affording people support and understanding. It was intended to let others with bipolar disorder like me feel less alone and misunderstood. People either like and benefit from our page and private support group or they do not. There are many members with overlapping disorders, such as anxiety, personality disorders, and such so we will sometimes post other mental health related matters on the main page. Every once in a while I will receive a comment or message from an angry follower asking what a post unrelated to bipolar is doing on our page. Though this rarely happens fortunately little drama all these years, I will calmly and as diplomatically as possible, point out that my life in particular, does not revolve solely round my disorder. My illness is a huge part of me, but it does not define me. I have interests and other things and people to occupy my time and attention. Things that bring me peace and joy, like art, literature, music, gardening, cooking, hanging with my family and friends. I will post something inspiring, something comical, something beautiful, and encourage others to do likewise in their daily lives. The private page, on the other hand is a discussion group where we face the darkness, our fears, suffering and continue to fight our demons together. It is a safe haven to air our grievances, experiences, to vent our frustrations and share our pain. We make space for one another, hold each other up in dark times. We are there sitting on the floor in the dark in a circle, holding hands, all across the globe. There we are understood by people we may never meet in person, with the blessed assurance that they, more than our personal friends and family, understand our struggle. No need to explain, to apologize, to fight to be seen, heard, accepted, loved. There in that darkness we are not invisible. We shine!!!

The aforementioned was the very reason I founded them in the first place. To provide what I never had at the onset of my illness. I have lived with Bipolar Disorder 1 with psychosis now for thirty two years. Literally half my life. 

Thirty-two years ago, at the onset of my disorder, and after eleven years of desperately seeking help, with my not having support, no one to talk to, to share the suffering of adapting to and learning to live with a serious mental illness prompted me to advocate strongly for such support and understanding. Once I found my voice and began public speaking in my community, I began to use my knowledge and experience and there was no stopping me. I have never looked back nor regretted being public about my disorder, or my pursuit of mental health advocacy. The need for support prompted me to found the public and private groups.

At first, it was extremely difficult without help as I cannot disregard someone's feelings or negate their pain and suffering when they desperately need help. The private group, is about sitting with someone in their suffering who needs to vent, chat, or know that you are listening, and you honestly care about their well being. You care enough to hold space for them, to extend an ear and a helping hand.

My point is, people come to group in different stages of their journey with bipolar disorder. Some are newly diagnosed, lost, frightened, confused, feeling unimaginable shame, pain, and sadness. They need to know we are here; we understand and are willing to help them cope with whatever it is they are going through. They need to know that they are not alone!

We steer them toward getting professional treatment. As in the group we can only offer so much emotional help. We are not mental health professionals and we make that abundantly clear. It is not a business! It is strictly voluntary. We may only share our experiences among ourselves. Some members have had the disorder for years and are in recovery and stable as I am. I have not been hospitalized since June 1997 (update as of June 2021; twenty-four years and counting)

Many members, like me have come to realize that toxic relationships are triggers. As part of our recovery, and as painful as it is, we often must either distance ourselves from such relationships or root them out completely. 

Some members are med compliant. Others can cope without meds. It is not our place to judge or condemn them. We each have our own path, our own drama, experiences, trauma, and means of grieving and coping with life’s challenges.
We must learn to root out toxicity from ourselves as well and learn to better cope with it as it arises. We cannot run away whenever there is a problem. We cannot recover until we face our fears, let go of the pain, the sadness and all the weight holding us down. Grief, however, is a process we cannot rush.
Tracey Lynn was and myself am as well as several of our members are Christians with an abiding love of God and respect of persons no matter their faith. Many within our group are of different ethnicities, religions, and from various parts of the world. Many do believe in the power of prayer and unconditional love. It is welcomed and encouraged here.

Though I generally pray in my faith and am prone to contemplative quiet prayer and meditation. Others are welcome to pray in whatever faith they follow whenever the need arises. And if they do not have a particular faith, or do not believe in prayer, they may offer love and light and positive energy instead. We make it abundantly clear that we do not discriminate for any reason.
Having bipolar disorder 1 with psychosis myself for the last thirty-two years, I must monitor my stress level, take my medication, and see my therapist regularly. I am fortunate to have the support of family and friends who love, respect, and accept me. They do their best to understand.

I am blessed to have the group who support me and one another. It is what Tracey Lynn and I envisioned it to be and so much more.

If anyone reads this kindly keep us all in prayer.

Lynn Marie Ramjass

               

Perhaps Now

       

 PERHAPS NOW by Lynn Marie Ramjass 

Note: I wrote this back in March of this year 2021.

                                             

Perhaps now the people will realize the importance of more hospital beds, equipment, and staff.  Perhaps now the government will admit the shortage of doctors and nurses existed long before this crisis hit and how little prepared most people are for catastrophes.

 Perhaps now the people will see and learn the interconnectedness of all persons and occupations and understand the six degrees of separation. Perhaps now there will be a renewed respect and appreciation for the ambulance driver and paramedic who drove you to hospital, to the orderly, who pushed your gurneys from ER to your ward.

 Perhaps now the maintenance workers who clean and sanitize the hospital, cafeteria workers, vending machine suppliers, those who produce and deliver the supplies and so on and so forth. Perhaps now you will see them and learn their names.

Visualize the world around you and how many people whose paths cross one another the moment one leaves the house.

Perhaps now many will stop devaluing one another, appreciate one another and see what affects one affects us all. 

Perhaps now the people will take the time to ask someone their name. Or how they can help and not just send thoughts and prayers. For faith without works is dead!

 Perhaps now, many will learn what and who truly matter in life and what every human being truly needs; perhaps then do what is needed to meet those needs.

 Perhaps now social issues like health, food, affordable housing clothing, education will get the much-needed attention, revisions and care will be given for the people and by the people because the people demanded it.

Perhaps now the priorities will change. Perhaps now there will be less need of a huge house, a four-car garage, fancy cars, clothes, and huge bank accounts.

There will be less need to build so many condominiums and monstrous houses most people cannot afford anyway!  Perhaps now the focus will shift and the people will think about more affordable housing and use land for more farming and community centres and services.It takes a village.

 Perhaps now the arrogance, greed and selfishness of the few will be replaced by the compassion of the many. Perhaps what is good for one culture may just work in another and apply such methods. We can and should learn from one another.

 Perhaps now many parents will find more time to really see, get to know and appreciate their children, grandchildren, and families more. 

Perhaps there will be a new respect for stay-at-home moms and dads and teachers, as working parents are forced to spend time with them at home and consider it a blessing, whereas previously they were too preoccupied and too tired before.  Perhaps they will learn less is more and give up working themselves into an early grave in trying to keep up with the societal notion that success is measured in currency. None of this matters! You can not take possessions  with you other than the memory of the love you both shared and received. Success is measured in loving, long lasting relationships! 

 Perhaps people will learn how quickly things can change in a heartbeat. Perhaps now the people will learn and have a renewed understanding, respect and appreciation of one another and all things and the planet.

Perhaps the PEOPLE will rise, roar, and revolt!