Born To Be Wild

My wife tells me that I have been in rebellion. According to her, I've been resisting her efforts to bring my life into order and rational response to her advice. It all started over my taking my sleeping medication twice, because I couldn't remember taking it once. Consequently, I missed a day of work due to being too sleepy to walk, much less drive.

Her plan was for me to put my meds in a pill box, so I would always know when to take them. The plan met my approval, so I did as advised. The problem began when I had gone through a weeks worth of meds, and then didn't feel like filling up the box again. I just didn't feel like it. I wasn't in the mood to organize my medications. I probably would have, in a few days, but at that specific time, I...did...not...want...to...do...it!

Then the order came down. "Fill up that pill box or else!!" Well, it wasn't put exactly that way, but that's the way I heard it. Sometimes things are said like that, and sometimes that is just the way that I hear them.

I'll admit that I have always had a problem with authority. Perhaps it's just that I resist dominance. I mean, I've never (with one exception) clashed with a police officer. I, for the most part, got along with my superior officers in the military. I obeyed my parents, until I left home. I only got one spanking at school. So, in my mind, there is really not an issue with authority, but I am resistant to any form of control.

By definition, I can't be, as my wife thinks, in rebellion. According to Webster, "rebellion is open opposition to a person or thing in a position of authority or dominance." So, it follows that she would have to have some authority over me, in order for me to rebel against it. No authority, no rebellion. Simple, isn't it?

Here's the real issue. When you have Bipolar Disorder, you yearn for self-determination. More than anything else, you want to be in control of your own destiny and your own decisions. Even regarding something as insignificant as taking your medications. It may seem juvenile to some, but I don't want someone else (not even my wife) telling me what to do. I am highly resistant to any perceived form of control. I respond well to asking, and I listen to persuasion, but I'm deaf to "telling." And I don't want to be told, asked, or persuaded, over and over again. An occasional, softly spoken reminder (pretty please, with sugar on top), might be acceptable. I don't know. It would largely depend on what kind of "mood" I'm in, I suppose.

For some reason, I've always felt a kinship with the little boy who had a conflict with his mother. He had been misbehaving (in her mind), and so she sat him down in a chair in the corner. In a moment, he was up and playing. She took him by the arm, and put in in the chair again. He stood up. Finally, she marched him back to the corner, and told him very firmly that he was to sit in that chair and not get up until she gave him permission. After a minute or so of silence, he said, "Mama, I might be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside."

It's really an issue of Physics. Newton's Third Law is that "for every action (control), there is an equal (or greater) and opposite reaction (rebellion)." Hmmm. Let me rethink this.

Oh, about the meds. I have faithfully taken them, without benefit of the pill box, but in a day or so I will refill the box. After I see if my wife is ready to submit to my authority.

["I'm so low, I could do a ten minute free-fall off the edge of a dime."]

sandtward@alltel.net