Control Isssues

Being bi-polar for me is a matter of begging for mercy at times. Someone over the past few days asked if it was scary not knowing when I will have the next episode. It terrifies me. I know that I will read scriptures out loud, quickly, I will pray and have physical pain. Deep gutteral pain. There is little control in these instances. So when I am "sane" I have a need to control things. Things that I CAN control.

I discovered over the weekend that I have a need to carry a task out: preparing and cooking a dutch oven dessert from start to finish without assistance. My husband was helping me. I understand his need to help me with things he CAN help me with. I know that there is very little he can do in helping me OUT of depression. But tasks around the house I think he helps me with because he CAN.

Anyway, back to the weekend. My husband set out the pie filling, pineapple and I found the butter. I appreciated his getting these things out for me. He set out the charcoal and doused it with fire starter. I told him it needed to sit for about 20 minutes to really get soaked in. He wanted to start it right away, that would burn off the fumes too quickly. So he waited. I combined my ingredients in the dutch oven. He helped by opening some of the cans. That was fine. I started to feel a little cramped when I went to melt the butter over the campfire and he questioned, "why don't you just slice off pieces of butter and let it melt in the oven?" I hadn't thought of that. I had my own way of doing things and it was not his. I ended up slicing the butter. I have made this dish for, I don't know, nearly 30 years. I didn't need to be second quessed. I didn't appreciate his help, but now see it really was love he was showing me.

Before I had the chance, he was covering the lid with hot coals. He asked me about how many to put up there. 15. After about a half hour I went to check on its progress, I used the end of a crowbar to lift the lid, it didn't quite fit, so my husband went and got another utensil to lift the lid so he wouldn't get burned and I checked it. I had to quickly remind him to not let the coals fall into the dessert. It was done, The other cook needed some coals so I was going to take the dutch over over and let him have the coals off the top, onto his oven's top. My husband did that. He then took it to the picnic table and got it ready to serve. My stomach was in a knot. WHY? WHY couldn't I just let him do these things as a nice person and thank him?

Because it was my need to be in control of something. Something I really knew how to do. My life is a bit of chum waiting for the sharks of deep depression to get their teeth into me. I'm basically floating at sea not knowing when the next shark will strike. If the chum had arms it would be doing all that it could to...what? get away? How do you get away from a predator that you can't see and have no idea how close it is?

So, I wanted to complete the entire task by myself, all with my own two hands, start to finish. It is a weakness to not accept help. Accepting help blesses others who do the service. But to one who has a constant shark waiting to attack...please hand me some amunition! As long as I can do things for myself, I feel somewhat normal. This is why I have a hard time riding in a car with other people wanting to go and stop different places, I need an itinerary. I need to know what is going on, where we are going, when we'll get home. This is why I drive my car when a car pool is needed. Sometimes I just need to drive completely by myself, I miss out on the camaradarie, but I get to have my hands on the wheel and know I have an escape at any time..(but that is getting into the PTSD part of me.)

At the camp out I met a person who also suffers from bi-polar disorder. They didn't have the same need for control, wished for support in fact. And here I was WITH the support and not appreciating it. I later had a talk with my husband explaining my need to have some control over some things in my life. I'm trying to control my weight, it has crept up after losing 65 pounds. I'm up by 18 lbs. I'm working on it. That I have control over.

So I do what I can and mostly I am grateful for my husband's help. But leave the dutch oven and my driving up to me.