Soul Custody

I am a writer. All the questioning and confusion over so many years, and I learned something about myself that I already knew. I had a feeling that the answer would be simple, but I had no idea it would be so obvious.

I have been on bipolar medication for the past year-and-a-half, and I have yet to decide whether I prefer it or not. It is certainly a grand step better than where I was when I started this work of personal art. But now I'm left with a new question...is it just the meds?

It is so very painful to question one's own existence only to be blinded by the truth of it - the simple truth. I was born to express thoughts, feelings, ideas, and concepts in the written word. It's what I do better than anything, however doubtful of my talents some may be. It's who I am, and I'm damn proud of it. All it took was changing the kinds of drugs I took. God knows, two-and-a-half years of sobriety didn't help. The meds narrowed my focus and took away the chaos, but at what cost?

I can still write, but I don't know how good I am anymore. I can't see the all-encompassing big picture of my ideas the way I could off meds, and it makes it quite difficult to judge the words I put on screen. Even now, I have no idea where this is going. I just know that I'm supposed to be writing right now. About what?

As it turns out, I am being indicted for what I am. To make a long and dreadful story short, my ex is trying to use various samples of my work to show how incompetent I am and that I don't deserve my legal right to visit my daughter.

Oh, yeah...I've had a baby since I've been away. I left her with her mother just over 14 months ago because I was being put down, abused, and taken for granted by the mother ex, all because I wasn't there when my baby was born. But I manned up and went back to be a father to my child only to find that nothing had changed. The mother was still paranoid and depressive and argumentative, all for which I took the blame because she threatened to take my baby away from me. I should have been stronger, but I was going on a month of no more than five hours of sleep per night.

I've been accused of being a liar, a cheater, a paedophile, and a sociopath for doing nothing more than the right thing...leaving the situation to better myself. I offered to stay the weekends and be there and pay for my baby's expenses, and I explained that I just needed time for the therapy to work to find out exactly what I could do as a father and a friend. It's not easy coming from uncontrolled chaos, but I did what was most difficult and most correct, and I focused on healing myself from the pain of a lifetime that was being exacerbated by a pain in my ass.

Yes, I said it. Having my words of satire and beauty turned against me has made me realize that my one constant belief in my freedom and liberty to be who and what I am is what is most important in my development. I will not censor myself simply because I'm being cyber-stalked by the prototypical crazy ex-girlfriend/baby momma.

If only they knew what she did to me. If only I could prove it. But she deleted all my e-mails, deactivated my accounts, and stole my identity, all because I said that I don't love her anymore. God knows I tried. It was the right thing to do for the sake of the baby, but in the end her insecurity left my efforts futile at best.

So I moved on. I moved away. I bettered myself. My reward? Being denied my right to be with the one person in this world I can truly say that I love.

I fought a long and trying fight to get to myself, to who I really am. She tried to undermine that process every step of the way, but I succeeded. I'm a man now. I take ownership of myself and my responsibilities, and I refuse to take the blame for the personal and emotional failings of others. I made that mistake too many times, and now I disown it.

So what do I do about the drugs? (The meds, retard.) Her lawyer asked me a question, which I have yet to answer...what would be the effects if I stopped taking my meds? Do I take a drug holiday and find out? Because, honestly, I have no idea what would happen. I would like to find out, though, before it all comes to a head so that I can stand up and say once and for all, "I am HEALED!"

I just wish that I could elocute it. But these meds that have helped me come this far are now proving a hinderance to my further development. And if I go off them, I just know that she will use that against me, as well. But I have to do what's right for myself before I know that I'm doing right for my baby girl. I simply have to answer this question - who owns me, her or me?