Re: 5 weeks » undopaminergic

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> > > > My praying behavior is a bit odd, I think. I can easily pray for others, but have a hard time praying for myself. As far as my Bipolar Depression is concerned, I stopped praying for a cure decades ago. I acted under the premise that He knew what I needed so desperately without my having to petition him for it. I don't get the impression that God is so narcissistic as to deny me my healing for the sake of His ego.
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> > > > - Scott
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> > > In my experience, God loves you when you're feeling good. When I'm up and active and positive, he participates in my life on an almost daily basis. When I'm down, he's nowhere to be noticed. Putting myself in his "shoes", I can understand why he likes people who are up and feeling good, and why he doesn't enjoy getting bogged down in the lives of people feeling bad. So how do you approach him when you're needy? A sense of humour probably helps, but that too can be difficult when you're down.
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> > > -undopaminergic
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> > I hope that what I'm about to say reframes things for you in a way that works better for you.
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> > My ability to connect with my spirituality, as well as my visceral connection with God, is impaired and blocked by my depressive state. God hasn't disappeared. I have. Now that I have reappeared with the lifting of depression, I feel more connected than at any time in the past.
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> > It's a Catch-22. When you are mentally healthy, you have the capacity to feel God, but have no need to pray for your mental health. When you are depressed is the time when you need Him most but feel Him least. God hasn't left you. Your ability to feel Him has.
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> > For a 2-year period, I was an ultra-rapid cycler with a depressive phase lasting 8 days followed by a normothymic phase lasting 3 days. It never deviated. Not even by a day. Well, actually, it did skip the depressive phase once. I used to keep a social calendar around my cycle. Not even a day. The reason I mention this is because every 11 days, I had the opportunity to watch my spirituality come and go with the switch between mood states.
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> I see what you're saying. It is a reasonable hypothesis that God doesn't leave when you feel down, and that you just can't feel him. The question is why doesn't he speak to you in a way you're receptive to?

I love your questions. Unfortunately, I can't provide answers to them. My (cop-out?) position is that I can't possibly know the Mind of God, and it is likely that no one ever has - not even Moses.

People who are well-adjusted or self-actualized are comfortable with uncertainty. I don't know where that leaves me, but I can deal with not being able to call God on my cell phone whenever I want answers from Him.

I know that our conversation here would seem out of place on Psycho-Babble, but it really isn't.

I have the ability to give you all of my money, but I choose not to. You will never know why. At the very beginning of our relationship, my fiance told me that we hold God within us. I was hooked. Speaking for myself only, I actually do feel God within me. I can't define how it happens, but I do know how it feels. It is very visceral. I have learned to use "good" visceral feelings to help me distinguish between what's right for me and what's wrong for me. That includes the pondering of the mystery of existence.

As a result of my handful of drug-induced manias, I now give people a very simple instruction for how to recognize a manic state with me. If I talk to God, that does not by itself indicate mania. It's when God talks back to me that there is a problem.

> I think maybe the answer is time. God has a very different perspective on time than we do: eternity. A year of depression for us can be an instant for him, at most. Maybe he doesn't even notice we're gone for that instant -- even if he does, it wouldn't alarm him.
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> -undopaminergic

You are big time deep. This conversation is a welcomed surprise. I suggest that God wouldn't be a true god if he has lapses in omniscience.

I get the impression that you might be in the midst of an existential crisis. I understand how serious you are. I hope you find your healing in treatment with whatever works. I can all but guarantee that it will be much easier for you to come up with your own, unique answers.

Remember, you have the rest of your life to toy with ideas without having to be certain about any of them. As far as a methodology is concerned, I began with - If it feels right, it probably is. If it feels wrong, it probably is. If you feel nothing, consider giving more time to deliberate your conclusions and decisions. You may have to rely upon your skills of critical thinking. We all do.

Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Re: 5 weeks » undopaminergic

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