A Single Step Starts Thousands Of Journeys

I am not writing this blog in victory. Were I a victorious man I would be too busy being happy to be in the head space I reside in currently. I am however a fighter. I love a good scrapping, knock down, drag out fight where no one leaves unscathed and bloodless but one also where the fight never really ends. However, I have never physically struck anybody in my life. I fight internal battles that leave me as a hollow shade of the person I used to be, from which I only return out of anger and shame of what I have become. I have been this way ever since I was first put in a pediatric psychiatric ward at 17 and the two times I have gone to adult wards since, and sometimes honestly feel I should have been left there to rot. At first they called me Bi-Polar, but now am on the far side of schizo-effective and my mania, depression and psychosis are spiraling out of control. I am burned out from a long and tiring day fighting demons and losing, with hope fading that I can win. I have read many stories that tell me it grows darker before the dawn, and that hope is the only thing that will lead with the strength to pass through dark times but I just don't know. It seems like whenever I try to be healthy and happy I am dragged down by old demons, but when I get angry the only thing that stops me is my ever waning will not to hurt myself and others and getting locked up in an institution and sent away for months or even years. I feel however that this sickness is not just a random flurry of symptoms but rather a journey in my mind to get to internal happiness and peace that I have been preparing for my whole life. I have been reading heroic stories of freedom and liberation in fairy tales and history for as long as I can remember and long for happiness and freedom from my tribulations more than anything, so I might be able to be a positive, not negative, force in the lives of my loved ones and the world as a whole. I am of the strong belief as well that if I can't reach that here, I can't expect to find any such analogous freedom once I die. So it is out of desperation, not hope, that I start this blog so that I may starting re-mapping my path to freedom as I have tried several times before. I have noticed one thing though, that though my mind seems to be getting more and more torn, my actual physical actions and decisions have been starting to move in a positive direction. The progress has been and remains haphazard though, and a step forward in one direction often is proceeded by at least two collective steps back there or somewhere else. It is my goal to lockstep into progress, to roughneck into inner and outer peace, love and prosperity. It is becoming clearer and clearer that this won't come by ignoring the darkness in my mind but rather but understanding it well enough to recognize how and when I use it. Only by knowing my demons could I ever have the courage or even ability to ever beat them back and repay them for the damage they have created in my life, though it was by my hands they ever existed in the first place. I want to be a better man and know I am on my way to becoming one, but it has not been a bloodless one in mind and spirit, and I am doing all I can to keep it bloodless physically. I wish I could end this on a positive note but all I can do now is pray that tomorrow I might be able to, I'll leave it at that.