On the contrary God has everything to do with magick. As I stated before, if your magic isn't coming from God then....well...it comes from "you know who." As I stated in my letter my practices are less than "conventional" and are modeled after those of the Golden Dawn though more strictly speaking based in Qabbalistic practices of ancient judaism.
I can't say I don't stuggle against suicidal thoughts. But to believe that "God has abandoned" me, would be a cue for me. A cue into the fact the my thought pattern was irrational. Where I have trained myself to reach out. to supportive friends or family. God Exists in every fiber of our being. He IS the atomic partices and his actions are their relative uncertainty.
You say I am playing russian roulette with my life. I take it you mean this goes back to your previous point about "taking medication." I am taking the only medication that has ever done anything for me. I took medication till I was 17 at which point I chose to stop taking medicine and did fine for several years till I joined the army. I've even conferred with my parents recently about the medicines I took back then and they concurred with me about their relative ineffectiveness. Interestingly enough Basic & AIT we're a breeze and I had learn to cope without medicine by then. When I got to my duty station though several factors caused me to bottle anger and my bipolar began kicking in with sleepless nights of bingen drinking till 5:00 am at which point we went to work till 1:00 and I'd sleep till 10:00 the next day. My rage became explosive and I did a lot of stupid things and my military career was hence short lived (about 1 year at my duty station). Towards the end of my tour I had smoked pot for the first time in my life. The shit was some potent euro homegrow I've never seen in my life since. SO I was way to high to really notice the medical benefits beyond that for the recent chain of events I had a very tranquil state of mind (when I wasn't high, but in the period several hours later). In the three & a half years since I have smoked pot regularly with very few episodes either way. I've been studying my magic for about 5 years now and it has proven a great saftey net when I experience pot-dep.
You may not think these to be great recourses, especially considering your friend's story. But what else do I have? Pills don't work. I've even tried a handfull of "new" stuff like abilify with less than satisfactory results in the last year in an atttempt to stop using pot and become legal again. I have tried as you suggest to "get back on my meds" I gave abilify about a month and a half without simultaneously using marijuana. However it was too much andI couldnt cope, couldn't sleep, and everyone around me was suffering. My girlfriend was also tring to quit. However her deit suffered, and we mutually agreed that our plans were not working. We bought a half and smoked a fat blunt with the neighbor and I made my famous pork chop dinner that snagged her in the first place and it was a great night. =D

If you have read your Bible then you know that God has nothing to do with magic. You and your family are not doctors. You don't know squat about medicine or its effectiveness.

You don't know pills might work you haven't tried them all. Sometimes they don't completely kick in for a couple of months you need to give them time.

What did you mean by "my girlfriend was also trying to quit. However her "deit" suffered. What is a deit?

This can ba a slow process. Took me over 10 years to find a doctor who diagonised me correctly. They all said I was depressed. Until the last one who was the frist to talk to me. After 10 minutes he said it's OCPD.

Read you Bible. God and magic don't mix.

You sound young and impatient.

when looking at one's self, no one is objective enough to either diagnose or treat their own mental conditions. if you do not believe this to be true then you are in a very dangerous predicament. yes, you can guage certain aspects of your symptoms but you won't see the entire picture by yourself.

it's good that you feel relief but you really owe it to yourself to let the people who are experts help you along by asking their opinion and following their advice.

take care.

__________________
"But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race."

- Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, Hero to the servants of big government, Racist War Monger

Thank you I couldn't have said it better. I wasn't objective about my own situation. I needed someone from the outside to look in and give me their view. Totally unbiased and professional.

deit = diet; typo.
I have been on just about everything available for bipolar with the exception of two antipsychotics. Effexor I won't touch because I've heard horror stories about it, plus the weight gain attatched isnt worth it. theres another between abilify and risperdol I haven't tried yet, but quite frankly I don't care to.
All the medicines I have tried have been under the supervision of a doctor. I have been on enough medicines and listened to what the doctors say and done my own research about them. I sure as shit know what I'm talking about when I say they haven't worked. I better than anyone remember how I felt while taking them. Moreover, I have the input of the doctor and my family to take into account in that area. It's on paper. Every medicine I took that didn't work. I've functioned fine in the past 3.5 years, held a steady job and all. No episodes. Just a little swinging when I'm out of medicine for more than a few days at a time.
As far as the good book. Give the weekend I'll be back Sunday with the scriptures that support my practices, and list of historical figures in the bible that practiced also.

euthanatos,
May the Spiritual Armor of Christ rest over you, your family and your home.

~sp

I'm wondering if anyone has done any research on Aspartame and its effects on bipolar folks.

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

I take effexor no horror stories here. No weight gain either. Sometimes stories are just that stories. Lived with undiagnosied problem for over 20 years. Now that sucks! Finally got it diagnosied correctly 2 years ago (approx) with the right meds and mm it's like awakening from a coma a living like a normal person. Have been there and done that. I mean the whole thing. It's nice to feel normal but had to have it pointed out to me. I was so used to not feeling normal that at first I didn't know what normal was. Thought it felt too good. Don't let religion become a crutch. You have to stand on your own.

I have to go see a shrink at the end of April to find out if I am Bipolaristic because of some of the things I do. Y'know every single day for about 10 years I thought I was gonna die on the 5th of April 2005 because of somethin' that my friend said when we were about 13 or 14. We were big fans of the rock band Nirvana and I have the same birthday as frontman Kurt Cobain (who blew his brains out) an' my friend says to me "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you died at the exact same age as him? ". I know, pretty stupid, but he was just a kid at the time. But from that day until april 2005 I thought it was going to happen. When that day came and went I thought I would be able to breathe a sigh of relief, but then I started thinking of things that are gonna bring about my untimley demise. And I still do this, but deffinately not as much as before I started smokin' weed.

__________________
Take me dissapearing through the smoke rings of my mind.
-Bob dylan

I have been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder ever since I was a kid. I've been locked away in every kind of institution you can imagine from Charter to the county jail as a result of this condition I was assured of being cursed with. They had me on every new drug that came out, like some kind of lab animal, but nothing helped me. Ever. Often it made things worse. There were so many times I had the gun in my mouth, ready to paint the walls with my brains that now (years later) I can't even remember all of them. And, of course, I became a very voracious substance abuser. God had failed me, drugs had failed me, psychology had failed me; and inevitably my health started to fail me too. It was then that I began to take a true active interest in myself and how I was living my life. I began eating right, and I began dealing with the issues that caused me to do the habitual self destructive things I had come to know as normalcy. The turning point was the total internal detoxification of my body; cleansing my colon, liver, kidneys, and blood of parasites and heavy metals. The poisons of everyday life that had accumulated inside of me for years and years and years. Almost immediately the mood swings, the paranoia, the suicidal and insane thoughts, the inability to function...everything that used to happen when I started going haywire, subsided entirely. It truly was miraculous. My doctors were completely dumbfounded. I've been off their medication for years now, and I live a completely productive and balanced life. And I smoke the fuck out of weed every chance I get. The chemical and physiological issues for me have been remedied by a good diet, exercise, and a regular detoxification of my body. The psychological, spiritual, and emotional issues I quell with meditation, honesty, and lots and lots of marijuana. I don't pretend to have any answers for anyone...I am not a doctor or a shrink or a priest. I'm not suggesting that anyone stop taking their meds or anything. I don't know now if I have or have ever had Bipolar disorder or not. For all I know I'm as crazy as a shit house rat. I'm not sure if it really makes a difference. I just know that my life is good now and, that for me, cannabis was indeed part of the answer I was looking for. May you all be well, happy, and peaceful...

A. Lee