The Precious Present

There’s a book called the “Precious Present” by Spencer Johnson It’s a great read and one of my favorite books. It’s not at all what you think it’s about and unfortunately this post is kind of going to give the message away… Sorry for that!

For those of you who don't know, for 40 years I suffered with mental illness before being diagnosed. I always knew something wasn't exactly right, I knew I was depressed, but I thought it was my circumstances and I was always blaming whatever was going on around me for my depression.

In 2006, I somehow, somewhere, figured out that my husband had hired a hit man to kill me. I contacted my family and explained to them why I thought this was going to happen, told a very few close friends and I was counseled to hire an attorney. With the help of the attorney, my husband was served an order, and was removed from the home. He knew nothing of what was going on… When he left for work in the morning and later that afternoon when I talked to him by phone I asked him to pick up some bread and milk on the way home from work. I didn’t want him to know anything was going on. When he came out of work, he was met by a sheriff who presented him with the order and the next few weeks were Hell!

One morning, about 8:00 am, I got up and was going about my business and picked up my cell phone, which I never really did and noticed I had a text message. I never received text messages. I opened it up and it was from my husband. It said, “I’m sorry, I love you, the back door is open.” I FREAKED OUT! It was like I woke up from a horrible dream, like someone flipped on a light switch that had been turned off and I began to be hysterical and I called 9-1-1… You see, I didn’t even know where he lived… I knew the basic neighborhood, but because of the order, we weren’t allowed to have any contact, so there was no reason for me to know. They transferred me to the city police where he lived, I gave them the description of his car and they started to drive up and down the streets and found his house. When they found him, he had overdosed… He had taken enough pills (according to the doctors), to kill 4 horses and it had been in his system for 8 hours… He was barely alive…

By the grace of God, my husband’s life was spared, and when he was seeking help from a psychiatrist and I was with him at his appointment and the Psychiatrist was asking him questions about the suicide attempt, the details came out and I explained what had been going on in my head. It was at that point that I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.

For those who don’t know my whole story, you can go to http://www.brainbehappy.com/about/cathleen/. After losing my memory after my last psychotic episode, and reading journals of my childhood and teenage years, I ended up beating myself up a lot about some of the things that happened. I have even at times beat myself up about my illness and how I have been a burden to my family, especially my children and my husband.

I look back on several situations from my childhood and teenage years and even into my twenties and wonder if the things that happened in my life really happened or if they were psychotic events that I made up in my head. Sometimes it really confuses me and I could spend hours, and even days dwelling on it. But that doesn’t do me, my illness, or my family any good.

The most important gift I can give myself, especially as a person with a mental illness, is the precious present. Even those of you without a mental illness… The present is the most precious thing we have. It all comes down to choice. I love CHOICE. How are you going to choose to live your life right here, right now? Are you going to choose happiness, joy and peace? Or are you going to choose frustration, sadness and pain?

God has blessed us with so many things in this world. He has even blessed us with challenges. With these challenges even comes a choice. We can choose how to handle these challenges. Are we going to choose to handle them with a smile on our faces or are we going to grudgingly go muddling through complaining about “poor me”?

I’m as guilty as the next person about not always being as happy as I should be when a challenge is put in my path, but as I thought about it this morning, I thought “I have a choice!” When I make the choice to choose happiness and joy over sadness, frustration and pain, my present circumstances don’t seem so challenging.

We can look to the future with hope! I choose to not dwell in the past – it’s not where I want to be. But I love the precious present!

Hugs to all!

Cathleen