If we just keep beating our wings they will get stronger and stronger!

I think I’ve shared this story before, but it still applies to this subject:
I was literally voted “most likely to succeed” at my high school. Alas, there are several millionaires (by marriage or entrepreneurship) from my class; and my net worth is several digits short of that.
So needless to say, I am dreading my upcoming 20th year reunion.
Perhaps because it forces me to face how my life was SUPPOSED to be — beautiful wife, adorable kids, big house in the ‘burbs, powerful job, instead of an ugly divorce, no kids, nice but tiny apartment in a small city and, currently, no job (and certainly no hopes for a “powerful” one). Not even a car.
Now I know, as John Lennon said, that “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” And for all my unsorted envious feelings, in the last two decades I have genuinely become less materialistic, less impressed by power trips, and more impressed by urban than suburban neighborhoods. Also, I’m a terrible driver — and I’m extremely firm in my desire not to have a family. So much of what I never expected out of life as a high schooler is actually OK — pretty good, in fact — if I think about it.
There is still cruel irony in all this, though, and I’m not talking about the feeling (somewhat) sorry for myself.
When I was in elementary school with some of my future high school classmates in the 1970s, the big fad (along with open classrooms and “new math” — which I just ignored and did it the old-fashioned way!) was “grading on the Bell curve.” At a time when educators seemed more concerned with self-esteem than the 3 R’s, this was supposed to magically make mediocrity the average, the average pretty good and the pretty good downright great — as long as all the kids stayed within the expected ranges.
Well, I made a mockery of that. I was always determined to succeed, to do the best, to learn as much as I could, ALWAYS. So the way teachers were told to grade, my 95s and 99s inevitably lowered the grades for the rest of the class. And my classmates absolutely despised me for (and this refrain will ring in my ears as long as I live) “messing up the curve.”
Today, if I grade myself by everyone else’s expectations — not least being my family’s — I’m a failure. If I grade myself by the struggles I’ve overcome and still face, I think I’m actually doing pretty well. But that’s “grading on the Bell curve” — the very thing I hated (and was hated for) as a child.
ISN’T IT?

I am so happy to have met you–and I’m SO happy to know about this web site, so I can come here for a boost on those very dark of days.

That reminds me of something I heard once…When you get the edge of everything you know, and you jump, one of two things will happen: Someone will catch you or you will learn how to fly.

OH Yes, I have literally pulled myself up, during some of the most unbelievable trials in my life… It’s amazing the strenght that god will empower us with @ the deepest, darkest, moments !!! ask and we will receive,as it is said, but when we are @ our trials ,and our darkest moments, we tend to ask god for help, and” we make promise’s ” to our father in those times… and so many of us tend “to not fullfill our promises” to him ,when we get out of our troubling times !! then when we ask for help at another time of despair , he seems to not answer our prayer’s as we asked, because god is waiting for us ,to follow threw with our promises we made to him… at those times !! so stop and sit quietly and think back to what you said to god and start your works for him in return and you will see how your prayers will again be answered !!!

A very inspiring sight that I’d like to know more about.

Oh thank you for being here! The latest of life’s trials piling up seem more than I can bear anymore. I wish I could ‘think myself’ up like we read so often. Yet I wonder how much our chemistry has to do with it. Somehow that chemistry MUST be acknowledged. And I so agree, it would be nice not to have to work so hard at keeping depression at bay. Life in general is hard enough work as it is.

I’m very grateful to have stumbled across this site, in the depths of a relapse, I struggle to keep it together enough to make my next appointment….so much effort is required to appear and act normal at work, to hold back the tears, and when I walkout the door to go home, it’s all I can do to make it to my car before the dam breaks…working 12 steps, I’m aware how things are beyond my control, but admitting that it’s more than just my additions, that it’s more than just the depression, the over-eating, finally admitting that my current medication has probably ceased working effectivly, so I’m waiting to be seen….in the mean time, I’m fighting the complete meltdown…seeing the therapist, taking things one day at a time, my home is a mess, I’m a mess, but Theresa you give me hope there is something ‘Beyond Blue’ – even if I’m not feeling it right now…Please don’t stop sharing your experience, strength, and hope, right now it’s keeping me alive.
~~Shannon

Yes we are strong people and we should sometimes learn to credit that. God has always placed his strength and wisdom in us, it is us who choose to turn our back away from these God qualities. Thanks for the reminder and God bless!!