Category Archives: Mental Illness

What Bipolar Disorder Feels Like

Posted on by
Reply

bipolar

I notice there are a lot of videos on YouTube about what bipolar disorder feels like. I relate to them a lot, having Bipolar Disorder myself, but for me, Bipolar Disorder also feels like THIS.

Of course, what it feels like is never what it looks like…which is why there are so many YouTube videos trying to explain what it feels like.

It’s sad that so many people don’t seem to know about redemptive suffering, as I see in videos: Here, here, here, here, etc.

Their status with God doesn’t concern me a great deal. The ones who concern me are the very many people who seem to believe that if you have Bipolar Disorder and you become a Christian, you are going to automatically be miraculously healed. Miracles happen, but only rarely. Prayers for the intercession of St. Dymphna are a good idea, but sometimes, it is not God’s will that people be healed, because, well, some of us are called to better things.

By the way, St. Dymphna was not mentally ill. She’s a saint because she was martyred, having been murdered by her mentally ill father. There is no saint known with certainty to have had mental illness. As it stands, the mentally ill are said to be virtually guaranteed a place in heaven, albeit with a tiny crown, because our free will is not strong. I don’t expect that the Church will ever name anyone who was certain to have a mental illness to be a saint, and there is good reason for this. The free will thing.

Bipolar Disorder is a mental disorder that people are born with and that is chemical in nature. There is no cure for it. You don’t stop having symptoms when you become a Christian. They are made easier to bear, if you offer them up in union with Jesus on the Cross, and you can learn habits that make life easier…but being a Christian doesn’t mean you won’t suffer. To the contrary, being a Christian can cause any form of suffering to intensify, because some are simply called to it.

Few people understand these things…but these things are among the things I know that keep me alive.

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. — Vincent Van Gogh

HENDERSHOTT: Acceptance of Homosexual Identity by Catholics Creates Confusion, Conflict

Posted on by
Reply

identity

Anne Hendershott, a professor of sociology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, has written an op-ed at the Washington Times explaining why Catholics must reject homosexual identity and how those who do not reject it are the ones inciting a “Catholic culture war.” She writes in the context of the attacks on Fr. Derek Lappe by Catholics United after Fr. Lappe wrote an article explaining why his parish is cutting ties with the Boy Scouts.

While Mr. Martin [chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting] is correct that the church teaches that homosexual persons are created in the image and likeness of God and are deserving of our love and respect, the catechism of the Catholic Church also teaches that same-sex attraction in and of itself is disordered, and that engaging in homosexual behavior is not in keeping with the teachings of church. The celebration of a homosexual identity by uniformed Boy Scouts and their scoutmaster as they participated in the Utah Gay Pride parade in Salt Lake City earlier this month is likely a harbinger of what is to come for the Scouts — creating confusion for Catholic parish-based Scout troops and conflict within the church.

The first battle on this topic was fought on my blog when I wrote a criticism of this post at Little Catholic Bubble, the blog of my former spiritual director. I lost MANY friends over it, accused of being a “drama queen” because I was suicidal. [I also have a disorder. Bipolar Disorder.] When your spiritual director is denying the only thing that keeps you alive…it’s a big deal.

After I got out of the crisis unit, Rick Santorum called me on the phone to tell me he was praying for me. He was the only one who called. I was quite alone. This is why I call him “friend.” The only person to call me on the phone and tell me they cared, after I left the crisis unit, was a man who was on the campaign trail, running for President of the United States.

Don’t tell me God is not involved here.

WHO YOU ARE is everything to God, and HOW HE SEES YOU matters more than how you wish to see yourself. If you see yourself as something different than the “real you” our Father in heaven has made you to be, and you refuse to let go of that because of pride, you are swirling in the sink, toward the drain.

If you deny your own identity, you cannot survive it.

You will lose friends for saying these things, but the wounds of a TRUE friend are out of love.

Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts,
but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

– Proverbs 27:5-6

I am broken. But God has plans to perfect me, eventually.

What is the ‘Gay Lobby’ at the Vatican? Sheep Know

Posted on by
Reply

Jesus-Shepherd30-300x225

My friend Bob Belvedere sent along a post he wrote on remarks attributed to Pope Francis acknowledging that there is a “gay lobby” at the Vatican, referring to the Curia. Rorate Caeli broke the story, as I understand it. Belvedere quotes an article reprinted at Breitbart from UPI. Fox News reports on the unsourced comment. Over at Vatican reporter Rocco Palmo’s blog, Whispers in the Loggia, we read some details, too.

Here’s the quote about the “gay lobby” attributed to Pope Francis.

“In the Curia there are holy people, truly, there are holy people. But there’s also a current of corruption – there’s that, too, it’s true…. The ‘gay lobby’ is spoken of, and it’s true, that’s there… we need to see what we can do.

The reform of the Roman Curia is something that almost all the cardinals sought in the congregations before the Conclave. I sought it myself. [But] I can’t do the reform myself, these matters of management…. I’m very disorganized, I’ve never been good in this. But the cardinals of the commission are going to carry it forward. There’s [Oscar] Rodríguez Maradiaga, who carries the baton [as the group's coordinator], there’s [the Chilean Francisco Javier] Errázuriz, they’re very organized. The one from Munich [Reinhard Marx] is also very organized. They will take it forward…. Pray for me that I make the fewest mistakes possible.”

Um…wow? No, I’m not saying “wow” about the presence of the “gay lobby.” I knew that already. What I’m saying “wow” about is that the “reform of the Curia” seems to be moving alone fine. Thanks be to God…but who’s worried? Not me.

As is noted at Fox News, the quote above is not a direct quote from Pope Francis. There was no recording of the conversation which was between himself and the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious (CLAR), and the quote is written from the memory of someone in attendance. Nevertheless, it is news. It means something to a lot of folks. A lot of people will be happy about it. A lot of people will be angry about it. So it goes.

What, exactly, is meant by “gay lobby?” Reportedly, Pope Francis himself used this term, but I have no idea who coined the term. Maybe Rorate Caeli? That would be my guess. Anyway, there are a lot of rumors about things supposedly going on in the Curia. I don’t see any reason to mention them. I don’t really use the term, myself. I do know, however, that there are things that only the sheep know…and this is one of those things.

Jesus said:

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

They had no idea what Jesus was talking about…and you won’t either…unless you’re a sheep….so it won’t do much good for me to explain it to you. I am not the Shepherd. Jesus is. Get to know HIm better, and all of this will make a lot more sense to you. If you don’t know Jesus, some things just won’t make any sense at all.

So it is today that everyone wants to be a shepherd and no one wants to be a sheep. If you’re pretending to know Jesus but not listening to Him all the time, you’re going to forget who He really is. You’re going to drift away from Him. If you have drifted, no amount of explaining about the “gay lobby” is going to make sense to you, and if you have not drifted…you already know all there is to know.

Another way of putting it is as Peter Kreeft did in writing his Refutation of Moral Relativism, that we desire to measure alligators with our yardsticks, but we choose a yardstick that twists right along with the twisting alligator.

If the yardstick with which to measure the length of a twisting alligator is as twisting as the alligator, you cannot measure with it.

So it is with the moral relativist. Where a standard will always be considered as slippery as a twisting alligator, there is not going to be any rational debate or discussion about such things. As Kreeft said, “The relativist can condemn only moral absolutism..”

Even worse, I have learned, much to my dismay, that it is also true that there are those who have the right yardstick but they are afraid to measure the alligator, or they have some other reason for not wanting to measure the alligator. Those yardsticks are, I think, the “gay lobby,” in the Curia, in the blogosphere, in our parishes…all over the place. They’d be appalled, of course, if you called them the “gay lobby” which is why I try not to use that term. It’s probably the best term, though.

Again, this won’t make any sense to you at all…unless you’re a sheep.

Jesus said:

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

If you don’t understand any of this, fear not. I’m just a teeny tiny sheep. Baa baa baa.

To Mock Cardinal Dolan, ‘Gay Rights’ Activists Intentionally Dirty Their Hands To Go to Mass

Posted on by

Intentionally dirtied hands of "gay rights" activists at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Photo: New Civil Rights Movement

Intentionally dirtied hands of “gay rights” activists at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Photo: New Civil Rights Movement

In New York City, early today, “gay rights” activists intentionally dirtied their hands before attempting to enter St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Holy Mass. This was an attempt to mock Cardinal Dolan for a blog post he wrote on April 25 explaining the Church’s teaching that homosexual acts are sinful. In that post, he had shared a story from his childhood about washing our hands before eating a meal.

I was so proud and happy.  Freddie was welcome in our house, at our table.  We both rushed in and sat down.

“Freddie, glad you’re here,” dad remarked, “but . . . looks like you and Tim better go wash your hands before you eat.”

 

Simple enough . . . common sense . . . you are a most welcome and respected member now of our table, our household, dad was saying, but, there are a few very natural expectations this family has.  Like, wash your hands!…

 

So it is with the supernatural family we call the Church:  all are welcome!

 

But, welcome to what?  To a community that will love and respect you, but which has rather clear expectations defining it, revealed by God in the Bible, through His Son, Jesus, instilled in the human heart, and taught by His Church.

The activists are reporting that the NYPD barred them from entering the cathedral unless they washed their hands. They refused.

"Gay rights" activists present their intentionally dirtied hands at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Photo: New Civil Rights Movement.

“Gay rights” activists present their intentionally dirtied hands at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Photo: New Civil Rights Movement.

How do you talk sense into people like this? Imagine, running to get your hands dirty ON PURPOSE before meeting Jesus (in the Eucharist.) Of course, no one who loves Jesus would do that. Consider the story of Martha’s sister Mary and the perfume.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him. Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist at Mass. You do not intentionally get yourself dirty before meeting Him…if you truly love Him. If you truly love Him, you will present yourself as clean in body and spirit as you possibly can.

In the end, this is why the Church is under attack on this issue of “gay rights.” They hate what they do not understand, and so they attack. They consider themselves to be holy saints even as they are intentionally dirtying themselves. St. Paul had something to say about those who believe we can make “grace abound” by intentionally committing sin (dirtying ourselves).

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

 

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin.

We are all given the grace to be able to turn from sin, and we are all expected to try to do just that. That trying is a suffering. That suffering is our “dying” that the faithful do every day for Christ. We stumble and fall, every day, but we do not glory in sin. We do not TRY to dirty ourselves and then present ourselves before Christ and demand He save us. We try NOT to sin, and we know that if we intentionally sin, we are rejecting His grace.

The idea of intentionally dirtying your hands before Mass is simply appalling to me…because I love Jesus and can’t bear to see Him treated that way. That is a failing of mine. It is the problem St. Peter had with not wanting to see Jesus treated badly. I have to work through that. We all have to work through our failings, not glory in them.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Terrorism at the Boston Marathon

Posted on by

terrorism1

Regardless of who may be responsible, and we still don’t know yet, what happened at the Boston Marathon yesterday was an act of terrorism. It is unclear to me why President Obama did not acknowledge this in his remarks to the press yesterday, but according to a report in the Washington Post, the incident is being treated as a terrorist act.

It is very difficult for me to mentally process events like this because they come as a shock, out of the blue. After the Tucson shooting, I ended up at the crisis stabilization unit, mostly because the shooting was politicized instead of concern being directed toward the victims. To this day, the Tucson shooting is treated primarily as a political issue with one side of the political spectrum using it to drive a wedge against the other side. The same is happening with the shooting at Sandy Hook. I cannot help but think that it will happen again with the attack in Boston. The difference is that the right to carry a gun is clear to (almost) everyone, but explosive devices are another matter entirely.

Catholic Online is offering a list of details that are not being widely reported in the press. There are several possibilities that come to mind. It could be an attack by Islamic terrorists, though so far there is no indication that there were suicide bombers. It could be an attack by right-wing American extremists who used Tax Day and the Boston Marathon to bring about a “Boston Massacre.” The problem with that theory is that it was the British who were responsible for the Boston Massacre, not the American colonists with whom the right wingers associate themselves. Another possibility is that these are left-wing American extremists who wanted to perpetrate an attack that would be blamed on the right wing in order to generate more anti-conservative sentiment and, with it, more calls to do away with the Second Amendment. My guess is that the anti-conservative bias in our media will bring about skewed coverage that will raise suspicion about the right wing that is not merited.

Of course, it’s possible that none of these things describe what really happened, and I agree with Catholic Online that the president is showing “reticence” on this. Whenever things like this happen, it is only natural that I call to mind that left-wing domestic terrorists may have been instrumental in propelling his political career. This, along with the administration’s hard line against the Second Amendment that contrasts his soft approach to Islam are enough to make a mom like myself, who wants a secure America, feel less than safe.