subject: Bipolar Mood Swings, Anger, Depression? This Too Shall Pass [print this page] A bomb exploded in the middle of my life when I was expelled from St. Thomas University School of Law. I was hurt, angry and confused. And fighting the lawsuit against the school without an attorney became my life's work formore than four years.2
I wish I did not have to admit this because it is not good for Christians or anyone else for that matter to be consumed with anything but Christ. But there were times when I was consumed with the lawsuit and expulsion. Now, not two years later, thank God, I can hardly get interested in it enough to write about it. It just doesn't seem to matter anymore beyond the specific circumstances that I mention here as examples of the blessings of bipolar.
HoweverI have had this nagging sense of being obligated to put the thing down on paper in detail. But I have not been able to bring myself to sit down and tell the full story beginning to end. That puzzles me. It seems worthy of at least a chapter. In fact, I had thought I would write a book about it. That was my plan prior to almost accidentally starting this book.
The expulsion/lawsuit deal seems like a good tale to tell. My guess is that it doesn't happen to most people. Add in the fact that I was falsely accused of wanting to blow up a building and being "on a divine mission to save the soul" of a professor and it would seem to get even more interesting. And a bipolar man representing himself in federal court without a law degreewell, now that just has to be a story, screwy enough to publish.2
So, why have I not been able to tell the tale? Why haven't I been able to recount the events that swept me out-of-the-blue from Pittsburgh to Miami, pitted me snarling face-to-face with a law professor in a men's room, commanded me into exile, and landed me before the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals?
Answer: I cannot write out the details start to finish because it honestly just does not interest me all that much anymore. And that fact is the very reason for this chapter: No matter, how overwhelming, all-consuming, and just plain bad the present moment may be This Too Shall Pass.
One of the things that can make bipolar depressive episodes so dreadful to endure is that in that moment one can have the distorted belief that it will never end. It isn't true. The episode always ends. It may take a while and in the midst of the episode it may seem like things have always been miserable, but it will end.
(There are, or course, some life-changing tragedies that are so severe and cause such unavoidable emotional trauma that it would be foolish of me to argue that the pain will ever fully go away. But we can get to the point where it is not so all-consuming and we are free to move into the rest of our life.)
The expulsion/lawsuit was an epic battle that I fought with passion, perseverance, love, and anger. It forced me to continue studying the law, to read hundreds upon hundreds of cases, to write numerous arguments that I would have called impossible before I filed the initial complaint. I was absorbed with it for five-and-a-half years. I raved with mad enthusiasm over it. I barked at my opponents. I straight-faced my way through a mediation conference in which I exposed with documentation the lie of an opposing attorney seated directly across the table from me. I had my faith maligned and stood up for it. I was inspired and punched my fists in the air, confident of victory and certain that my God was with me. I was broken and punched my fists in the air, growling, "My God, why have you abandoned me?" It was an amazing, extreme experience that helped to change me and lead me closer to God in ways that I write about in other chapters of this book. But the details just don't seem to matter much anymore. This too has passed.
The expulsion and lawsuit became so desperately important to me that I falsely believed that my future success or failure depended entirely upon winning the lawsuit. There were many times when I was not sure how I would go on if I lost. Times of such despair that I failed to function for days. I Was Wrong.
I lost and the world did not end. The desperation passed. And life is now better than ever. I could not possibly have believed that things could be so good after losing that lawsuit.
Learning that I did not need to win may well be a greater blessing than actually winning would have been. (I might feel otherwise if a jury had awarded me all of the damages I was asking for. It was no small sum. Nah. It would have ruined me. Maybe. Alright, so, I wouldn't have minded finding out. You can't sue me for that.)
I want you to be reassured. You may not see it, but I know you can imagine the light at the end of the tunnel. It is there!
No matter how desperate your current circumstances may be (and I have no doubt that there is legitimate reason for unavoidable pain), no matter the depth of agitated depression you may now be struggling, no matter the extreme bipolar episode, financial failure, or relationship breakdown This Too Shall Pass. There can and will come a day when this dire moment is over. Hang on! God really is at work. He is for you and not against you. He is with you. His strength is, indeed, made perfect in your weakness. Hang on! THIS TOO SHALL PASS.
I've been there.
Bipolar Mood Swings, Anger, Depression? This Too Shall Pass
