Her Way Home

By Cathy L Jones

Her Way Home is an amazing testimony about one writer's story. Living unknowingly with Bipolar disease her untreated behaviors led her into the scariest ride in her life. A very dangerous lifestyle that almost took her own life. It shows you the miraculous opportunities God put in her path for her to find her way home.This is an amazing survival story of a woman's strength. It is sure to leave you inspired and hopeful.It is "Powerful!" and "Miraculous" according to The Xulon Press. It is wonderful reading for anyone. It is a must read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cathy L Jones
• Release date: Nov 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463240151

Cathy L Jones

Cathy Jones is an inspiring writer. She holds an Associates degree in Administration, certified in Retail Management with knowledge of Business Information Systems. Her hobbies include writing, traveling, pen collecting and bike riding. While traveling through the USA she took many wonderful pictures for her Cathy J Photography collections which will be reviled on her website cathivisions.org in the near future.

Book preview

Copyright 2018 by Cathy Jones

Her Way Home

By Cathy Jones

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 9781545672013

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author.

The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations and scriptures are taken from the King James Version.

www.xulonpress.com

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Home

What’s Wrong With Me

Chapter 2

Peer Pressures

Russian Roulette

Chapter 3

The Spiral Cycle

The Transition

Chapter 4

A Fresh Start

Fear Of Success

Chapter 5

Now It’s Time

Bibliography

Introduction

God saved my life! There is just no other way to say it. God saved my life! Anyone who has ever had to fight daily with the disease of BiPolar has at some point in their life had to fight the disease of addiction as well. Each and every day someone overdoses or commits suicide using too many drugs or alcohol because they cannot deal with or do not understand the severe emotions of BiPolar. While everyone is different, some people can drink responsibly and maintain marijuana for medical reasons, while others are unable to do that. Bipolar disease is a chemical imbalance in the brain that leaves you with extream emotional ups and downs due to too many or too less of natural chemicals called serotonin in the brain. (Cafasso, 2019) They are what helps the neurotransmitters function properly. Only too often do these medical conditions get overlooked or miss diagnosed for something else leaving one to deal with hi’s and low’s of this disease on their own, this can lead to deep depression even possibly taking their own life.

The manic stage of bipolar is the total opposite and while it is the better side it is not necessarily always good. It can leave you feeling, invincible, euphoric, hyperactive, and very productive. This can lead to excessively risky behavior, grand delusions, uncontrollable thoughts and actions, irritability, rage, and insomnia.

The depressing stage of Bipolar leaves you feeling intense sadness, despair, fatigue. insomnia, difficulty concentrating, changes in appetite and constant thoughts of suicide.

Living with someone who has Bipolar can also be very intense. So much that we often don’t know what to do or how to handle what our loved ones are going through. It is hard to know what to expect from day to day but that is why, according to Everyday Health, first and four most we must remember that it is the disease, it is not the person. (Madeline R. Vann, 2019) Vann goes on to give you the ten things you can do when it’s a bad day at www.everydayhealth.com/bipolar-disorder/ten-tips-for-coping-with-a-bipolar-spouse.aspx

According to The Trevor Project (The Trevor Project , 2019) the youth of the LBGTQ nation have a high-risk suicide rate once they think they have tried everything else and there is no hope left. Remember there is help out there! You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at [phone] or go online at https://suicidepreventionlifeline,org If you are more comfortable with organizations that are qualified with the LGBTQ nation you can reach out to the Trevor Project at https://thetrevorproject.org or call [phone]

For addicts, addiction is the habitual avoidance of uncomfortable feelings. For non-addicts or maintenance users, it is balanced with medication under a doctor’s care. The addictive gene is very strong either way, but it is habitual avoiding bad feelings that create addictive destruction. There was nothing me nor anyone else could ever do to fix this problem. No matter how hard one may try to help fix a loved one, it is impossible. It’s hard to accept that I have an incurable disease. The truth of the matter is that this disease can kill you just like other noncurable diseases. It is extremely important to maintain your stability with medication and see your physician on a regular basis.

Though these two disabilities are usually sided and learning to handle the Bipolar symptoms properly can prevent destruction from any active addiction in the future. Statistically, approximately 56% of the entire population suffer from this incurable disease. Like I said before, we can never get rid these disabilities permanently so it is up to us to make sure that they are controlled in order to live happier, healthier lives. While we will never be cured of BiPolar nor addiction, we can choose how it is to be controlled so we live a healthy and happy life. This is what I did and although what I went through was traumatic, what worked for me might not necessarily work for others. Until I found out that with God, all things are possible. I will still have some permanent side effects such as, quick movement of my head and biting my lips that will be with me for the rest of my life. I can learn to pay attention to these little ticks and try to control them the best way I know how and just stay focused on keeping under control. God took the cravings away for me. I asked him to remove the taste from my mouth and he did. I have never been stronger knowing what side of the fence I belong on. But, be aware, it does not always go away, the way people see you and will judge you for everything you used to be. They will not believe you and try to bring you down. This is why we need our support groups and mentors along the way. There are going to be days that hurt so much you think your heart has been ripped out and stomped on over and over again. Do not give up! God reminds me every day how special I am and how he does have bigger plans for me. Only thing is, I have to believe and never lose my faith because I know that God did not bring me this far to drop me off. I love my life today! God is with me every day guiding me to a better way. I have never had it so good in life as I do right now and it has been the roughest life. I hope that you or a loved one will learn of these signs between bipolar and addiction as they can be misread often.

I do not like being the way I am. It is embarrassing and humiliating because society looks down on mental health issues. We also do not mean to be so much out of control. It will feel like you have to say sorry all the time and that gets old and will take its toll on any relationship. It is extremely hard for the other person in a relationship too because when you are not educated about how to handle certain situations they get blown out of proportion and end up worse than they need to be. Some may even end in divorce and loss of a love. This can be prevented with the knowledge of Bipolar and addiction. It wasn’t until I learned to listen to my body that I was able to start to look for what would work and I found, through my doctor a happy balance.

Chapter 1

HOME

Psalms 18:32

"It is God that girdeth me with strength

And maketh my way perfect"

(King James Bible Old and New Testament, 2019)

IIt was fun growing up at my house it was described as a beautiful, brick two-story home with tan siding, five bedrooms, and on the south side of town. The front sidewalk was lined with flowers and led up to a dark brown two-pillared porch, which was open on both sides and had flat top boards that we used to sit on while we were visiting out there. It had a white, two-window screen door and beyond that, there was a solid wooden door with a small design window used for a peephole. The left front part of the house displayed a three-section set of large windows that had two Azalea shrubs under them. One of them was pink and one of them was blue. The yard went completely around the whole house and was fenced in. To the right of the front porch, there was a walkway around to the backyard-passing mom and dad’s bedroom window and the plum tree just before arriving in the backyard. The sidewalk continued around to the left of the house right up to the back door. On the left side of the backyard, it was a grassy area with two

pine trees, one at the corner of the house and the other one was further out in the yard by the garage. The whole left side of the house was lined with bushes, trees, and plants to separate us and the next-door neighbors. His name was Charlie and was the sweetest old man you ever met. He and his wife, we call her Mrs. never had an issue if we came over to see them. He always had oatmeal cookies or treat. Out in his garage, there was a swing made of chain links and just a steel metal seat. During the summer months, it would get hot in there, but we did not care, my friends and I would still go over to swing while Mr. Charlie would work in his yard and the Mrs. was in her chair in the house reading or crocheting. They were truly the old fashion couple where she took care of the house and he went out to work in the yard and tend to all the other jobs that needed finished and the garage, you know the man work.

Every now and then, the Mrs. sent over a rhubarb pie to mom for all of us and we would have to wait until mom thought dad would be around, so he could have some too. She would say, Charlie, will you have one of the girls get the rhubarb out of the garden and bring in the house, so I can start this next pie?’ If you want pie tonight you have to get it done now or you won’t have any with your ice cream." Therefore, he made sure we girls would get all the rhubarb that was ready to come out of the garden and after we got the rhubarb from the garden, we took in the house the Mrs. always gave us fifty cents. We thought that was a huge deal because, at that time they had penny candy at the corner store two blocks away from the back door of our house, the sidewalk went down the middle of the yard to either the two-car garage or the den that dad built on to the right of the garage. There was a huge willow tree on the right that had a fire pit just a few feet from it, and the left side had two small pine trees just shy of the swing set and a pussy willow tree I had planted from a branch I picked up from school one day. On the right of the den, there was space just enough for one car to park, which entered through the back gate.

As you entered the front door of the house, there was a closet straightforward, stairs to the right that led upstairs, and you would enter the living room to the left and then into a very large dining room where the pool table was kept. The entire house beautifully carpeted with light tan colored carpet and had wood paneling walls. Off to the left in the dining room, it had two sliding windows and a window seat directly in front of it that housed the baseboard heaters and were able to lift for storage. To the right just before the kitchen doorway was an entryway, to the left was the bathroom and to the right was the main bedroom. Through the doorway off the dining room was the two-section kitchen. The front section had all the appliances, on the right, large cupboard space and refrigerator. On the left, there was the stove, sink and more cupboard space. The back section had the dining table big enough to seat seven right in the middle, on the left were large windows on the back and side wall. Under the side window was all counter space. That is where the telephone was, the kind that hung on the wall with a long cord. Whenever I would get a phone call, I would sit on one of the chairs at the table and put my feet up on the counter. I would talk and turn myself around wrapping the cord around me. Then mom would come in and tell me to stop that and get my feet off the counter. We all did it, to the point where the cord was stretched out.

To the right of the dining table were two doors, the right door went to the laundry room that had another large stand-up freezer, washer dryer, etc. and the left door was the back door that went down about four or five steps to yet another back door that leads out into the backyard.

The stairs inside the house that went to the second floor, were to the left of the front door and were in an L shape. Standing at the top of the stairs, there was a front bedroom to the left that had a two-paned window that looked out over the whole front yard. To the right, halfway down the hallway, there were two more rooms, one to the right and one to the left. Further down to the end of the hallway was the last bedroom. This room had two sections, the front section came with the house and the back half was a re-build add-on that the men of the house built.

Our house was the second from the corner and usually had a basketball hoop in the street right in front. On nice days, we would have the whole neighborhood out there playing a game of ball. It usually was not that fair to my friends and I because my older brothers would normally take over the whole hoop or even the whole game until we would just quit because we could not beat the bigger boys. I would go tell on them of course but it really would not make a difference when they would just keep doing it when mom or dad was not in sight.

Dad worked nights, so I do not really get to see a lot of him during the day. He would leave at eleven o’clock and get home around seven or seven-thirty in the morning, about the same I would be getting ready to go to school. He always took lunch to work and my mother would always put a desert in there that he would save for me and give to me each morning. Then we would sit in the living room and watch cartoons such as the Road Runner or the Bug Bunny and Friends Show before my mom would tell me I had to go get ready to go to school. If we had time, sometimes he would play a game of pool with my sister Stacy and me.

He always made me feel special by letting me win at the pool even though Stacy did not like that she would tease me, you do not win dad just let you win. she said, I was the one that really won, not you. I would run crying to my dad, dad, Stacy is teasing me, she said I do not win that she did! My dad would look at her and say, Stacy, stop teasing your sister, then look at me, and tell me, You still won honey. I would just smile at Stacy as if, neener, neener, neener, (singing teasingly) until she acted as if she was going to come after me and I ran to my mom hiding behind her. Mom said, You two stop and get your stuff to get to school as she began to shove us both out the door.

I was in kindergarten with Mr. Webster as my teacher. He would always make sure we had what we needed and took us on field trips. On April 23, 1976, one of those trips put us in the local newspaper The News Tribune. Mr. Webster arranged for the whole class to go out on one of the Washington Army National Guard landing crafts to the Robert F. Kennedy Recreation Area on the Long branch Peninsula, Long branch, Washington.

The newspaper was there and caught a picture of Mr. Webster helping the kids’ board at the 144th Water Transportation Battalion dock on Tacoma’s Pier 23. I always loved to go out and do things outdoors. I would try to look at everything I could and absorb every little detail to figure out why things were as they were. I was the child who always the question why?

During the summertime, my family would take trips down to Westport Washington to go camping at Grey’s Harbor campground, usually for just a weekend but a couple of times week took a week down there. That was sometimes too much for me, I would be ready to get home by the end of the week, but we would have a good time. Building fires with my dad, roasting marshmallows with my mom and going into Westport to the little strip mall where we would go into the aquarium to see all the animals and feed the otters that were my favorite part besides going into the salt-water taffy store. My mom and I would begin to walk around the store looking at all the new things they have since the last time we were there. It seemed like every time we went there, they always had something new in the decorations, knick-knacks, or candy treats. In the middle of the store was a real fishing boat filled with every kind of salt-water taffy that had ever made there with real saltwater. I think that was the only reason my mother even went down there was to get her taffy.

We would walk the whole strip me holding my mom’s hand, my sister walking further ahead with my brothers and my dad, looking at every shop, the ones with all the windsocks and all the cool fishing gear and many different tackles bates. At the end of the strip, they have a lookout tower where you must climb a circular staircase in order to reach the top. Once there you can see as far as the eye can see out over the ocean. It was so beautiful to be looking out over that wide-open ocean as the sun goes down with the wind is soft and warm. Watching just as the sun touches the tip of the water until it appears that it disappeared by God’s wonderful creation, the ocean.

The jetty lined with amazingly huge rocks that we would climb to the top also looks out onto the water. I asked my mom, mom, how did these rocks get so big and how did they get here all lined up like this? Well, she explained how God had made the rock with the earth and I guess to keep it simple she told me that he (God) also put all those huge rocks lined up all the way around that little town to protect the people on this side. It is because the ocean is not only beautiful, but it can be very dangerous too and those rocks kept the waves on that side, so they would have drowned anybody in the town. We walked our way back through town on the other side of the street where we must see all the boats and angler that were getting ready to go out for the day. There was an area where they held the biggest catch of the day. The angler would bring their catch to the covered area weigh them and hang them for the show until all competitors were weighed in. The one with the biggest catch would win a free day on the water or other prizes for that competition. I was little, so the biggest

Catch seemed to be as big as my dad was. I said, Daddy, look that fish is as big as you are. He told me, Yes honey, that one is so big it could probably eat you in one bite. The vision of that became clear in my mind, so with eyes wide, I responded, daddy! You wouldn’t let it eat me, would you? He began laughing, as he looked my mother’s way, no sweetheart, I wouldn’t let it eat you, your mother might though. My mother looked shocked at my father’s joke because she understood that I was going to take that literally. No, I wouldn’t honey. She reassured me caringly.

We continued down past the docks and as the fish smell grew stronger, I knew we were coming up on the The Crab gift shop. This gift shop was way in the back down a long pier. As we walked the pier, we would explore the sea creatures off the side of the pier like the starfish that oddly attached to the pillars holding up the gift shop and the pier we were standing on and the smaller crabs that walked the bottom by the shallow rocks. There were always many seagulls flying around, so we had to be careful to make sure that the birds did not poop on any of us. My brothers and sisters would tease me when there were a lot of them around, they would say, You got pooped on! You got pooped on! so I would cry to my mom, she checked me out and then said, no you do not, and you two stops messing with her! My mom took my hand and we went into the gift shop where she said multiple times to us all, you guys do not touch anything in here unless I say you can.

The boys would go with my dad and us girls went with my mom. They allowed us one small thing as a souvenir, but it was very hard to decide which one because the shop had everything, toys, kites, shells, windsocks, pinwheels, pictures, dried creatures like real starfish and crab

Shells, stationary, pens and pencils, those were my favorite, and clothing representing Westport and all it had to offer. By early afternoon, we had our souvenirs, mom had her taffy and the troops were getting hungry, we were ready to head back down towards the campgrounds. On the way back, we stopped by the lighthouse. My brothers, sisters and I must run around and go inside the lighthouse to see how the light works, there, my sister gave me a piece of her bubble gum and we continued inside the lighthouse. It was so big, and my parents would only allow us to go so far in. After we played for a moment or two, we all packed back into the car a headed for the campsite.

It was around five or six in the evening and beginning to get dark as my mother began setting up for supper. My father began to gather us kids to go get firewood. He would either take over the dunes to get wood off the beach or just take us around the grounds to find wood that was just lying around. Once each of us had our fair share of wood we went back to the campsite and piled it all into one spot for my dad to make the fire. I always loved to help build the fire even though my mom thought I was too little for that. My dad would still let me, teaching along the way. Letting me crumple up the paper to put under the wood or pile the kindling over the paper telling me how important kindling was to get a good fire going. Once the fire was set up, I had to get back, so my dad could light it. I never liked to wait for the coals to get very hot, so we could roast marshmallows for s’ mores. I would sit in my folding chair with my marshmallow on the stick, drinking around accidents always happen and I was poking my stick around the fire and fumbled in my chair, the marshmallow ended up in the dirt and the bubble gum my sister gave me, slipped out of my mouth into my hair. Too afraid to tell my mom I tried to get it out myself, this only made matters worse. The gum smeared to a large area of my hair. Stacy saw what had happened and began to laugh at me. I’m telling mom. She said. I yelled, Better not Stacy, you gave me the gum in the first place. Not listening to