[ozzie]

Some of you know that my brother writes on one of my blogs with me. He continues to impress me with his ability to express how he is feeling when such a short time ago he had no idea what was wrong or how to deal with it. I am so proud of the progress he is making and wanted to share this article with you. I hope that's ok.

Anxiety and Responsibility
by David
I am diagnosed as bipolar with severe depression/anxiety. At times, the anxiety is a very crippling thing. There are days that I can only handle doing one thing at a time. If you add going to the store, crowds of people, commotion, loud traffic or personal relationships, things become very hard to cope with.

One big thing I have been able to accomplish in the last few years is not taking it out on other people when I am so stressed out. It's possible that I am able to refrain from doing that partly because I try to stay away from people as much as possible. Living by myself accomplishes most of that, but it's still a special thing I have learned to do and it comes from an action that is called being responsible.

After I started receiving Veteran's Administration disability benefits, it was very difficult managing my money. Well, I went through this for about four years. Then, I guess I got tired of it. It started appealing to me to be comfortable as opposed to spending money frivolously. This special newly acquired trait of being responsible soon spread over to other aspects of my life.

I started paying more attention to my children as far as the important things are concerned, even though I deeply affected them in a negative way prior to my getting hep eight years ago. I have come to the realization that the best and only way I can help them from now on is by the example I set with the rest of my life. That awakening and the one regarding not taking my hardships out on other people helped me to stop justifying my negative actions or words that I thought were the result of someone else's actions or words directed toward me.

I guess if I had to wrap it all up into one word, I couldn't. It means more using two words...."being responsible". When we all turned eighteen, we became (officially) our self's own individual. It didn't matter whether we had the most perfect parents of all time or whether they were only human ones who made mistakes. We were who we were, a confused person with both negative and positive qualities and probably unaware at the time of how to retain the positive and discard the negative.

It is a shame that if we are lucky, twenty years later, we may see the light when our children are resenting us because we made mistakes being a parent. After eighteen years of age there is no one responsible for you but you. You may try to hide from that truth your entire life, but you will never truly be what the final word of this article hopes to help you be and that is..............happy.

[sabby]

(((((((((((((((((((ozzie & david))))))))))))))))))))))

Thanks for sharing your brother's words of wisdom! He is truly a wonderful writer. I'm so glad to hear of his "enlightening" through the years and that he is feeling better about himself and his life. YAY!!!!


sabby

[lenjan]

What a wonderful article, and inspiring too! Thank you for sharing it -- gave me something to think about regarding my own life, too.

((((Susan))))) and (((((David)))))

Love, Candy

[wickedwings]

(((((ozzie & david))))) that was really very deep. i wonder if i could save it in my computer because i'll need to reread it many times, as i have memory-retention issues.

[MyBestKids2]

((((ozzie & david)))))

wow, that was a great honest open blog. Your brother should be so proud of himself for being able to write all this down.


Dee

[biiv]

ozzie i have so much appreciation for what you deal with and how well you deal with it. it sounds like both you and your brother are gaining a sincere level of maturlty which is great.
just wanted to let you know that, even apart from your brother, i look up to you.
take care of you,
biiv

[January]

What a wonderful, enlightened post. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Hugs,

Jan

[ozzie]

Thank you everyone for your very kind words. I sure appreciate it and am so glad that you appreciated my brother's article. I'm so proud of his accomplishments.

[kimmydawn]

((((((((( susan and david )))))))))

My brother's name is David and he's bipolar. He's 39. He's beautiful, giving in some ways, loyal in many ways. His thinking on alot of things though, isn't complete. He lacks, alot of the time, the capability your David has shown to think things through, taking in more of the bigger picture and considering the end result.

I pray that he comes to the realizations and understandings that your David has come to. That article brings much hope to me and I thank David for writing and you, Susan, for posting it.

KD

your brother is wise and you my friend are wonderful..........

[ozzie]

Give your brother David time, Kimmy. My brother is 55 and most of his progress has been in the last 10 years. By the way, one of my three sons is named David after my only brother. Thanks for your reply.

[ozzie]

(((((((((((((Julia)))))))))))))))