December 26, 2023
Me Actually Working Challenge One – Do The Work – 2nd post
(First post 11/13/2023)
Part II: Analyze my past and identify patterns of behaviors that have led to negative consequences for myself and others.
Prior to my arrest in February of 2012, I was living for the moment versus living life with any sort of a plan. I fell short of fulfilling basic responsibilities like building a savings account for emergencies. I had no long-term goals at all, period. Whatever “plans & goals” I did have back then, I kept them inside of my head. I never put forth any effort to see beyond the moment and stay focused on my ideas for my future. I had no visual representation of what I wanted long-term. Nothing to measure where I was at in life, against the place I truly wanted to be. I was working to survive and had no idea of how to even begin working towards any specific direction.
Therefore, in difficult times those plans, goals, and ideas were the first things to get discarded out of my mind. All of my mental focus was on what was right in front of me. All of my time was spent creating future problems to solve one “pressing” problem right then and there. This pattern became extremely problematic the two years prior to my arrest. Those two years were the worst years of my life.
Please reference the Facebook page: I’m Here – Sam H. or: www.badboymikesblog.com to read the Sam H. (suicide, addiction, & mental health) article I wrote called: Stop! Don’t Kill Yourself & Don’t Hurt Others. It goes far in sharing about the divorce and mental health breakdown I underwent. When one has plans, goals, and a visual representation of what they want to achieve, they can test the viability of those long-term plans during their normal day-to-day activities. If you don’t test them, you’ll never know whether what you want is unrealistic for your specific skill set and abilities, or not. Back then, I hyper-utilized my skill set of solving problems by creating new ones to meet my basic, short-term responsibilities.
Unfortunately, when you’re going through a divorce and simultaneously experiencing psychosis, your skill set is a bit questionable at best. Those are not excuses, they’re simply facts. They’re the patterns I displayed that I can see clearly now, but not back then. Subliminally, I knew, I just didn’t know how to break the cycle; nor did I take the time to care about what I was experiencing. All I did know was that I didn’t like the results that these patterns generated for me.
As I shared in my first post, I also craved attention because the feelings I received from getting it filled emotional voids. Part of “living life in the moment” involved relationships as well. I let them distract me from my responsibilities in order to get the attention I needed. I was a people pleaser. Those efforts to please others temporarily removed the negative feelings I would experience due to the mounting failures, consequences, and bad decisions. The attention I got from my relationships filled that craving of having to feel better about all the negatives that these patterns brought to my life. The cycle continued. I chose to live in the moments that felt the best even though they were having the worst effects on my life.
Needless to say, I wasn’t doing the things I needed to be doing in order to overcome the difficulties I was facing at that time in my life. This not only had negative consequences for me, but also for anyone and everyone that was dependent upon me in any way to be my best or fulfill my obligations. Obviously, anyone involved in any sort of relationship with me wasn’t getting a secure, stable relationship that helped them thrive in life as well.
Other behavior patterns that I’ve identified were the lies I was telling in order to get work as a painter or any construction-oriented job I could to obtain an income. I call them lies today because that’s what they were. It doesn’t really matter at what point in my life I told them, when you’re living life from a point of desperation, you lie to yourself first.
When I operated from a desperate position, I would see my skill set and abilities much differently than when I was not. I would lie to myself by telling myself I was capable of meeting the expectations I was setting with people in order to get work. Knowing I needed the work, I wasn’t being realistic about actually getting the work done.
Failing to meet expectations generated more excuses/lies.
In conclusion to Challenge One, I know that all of these patterns played off of and into one another. As time progressed and failures were mounting up, I was running out of the skills, abilities, desire, and the stomach to continue on. I was disgusted with myself.
The only recognition and attention I was receiving at this point was bad and negative. It no longer did anything for me either. The only positive I had to hold on to was my marriage and my kids. Then, just the kids 3,000 miles away, then nothing.
I couldn’t even live in the moment anymore. I was constantly living behind it!
These patterns I’ve covered so far, along with: the “I don’t care anymore” attitude, self-medicating with alcohol and prescribed medications, financial struggles, the bad choices that accompanied those struggles, and holding on tight to toxic relationships, all played a role in my attempted suicide and ultimately led to the corrective measures implemented (not by my choice), prison.
The last pattern I’m sharing in this conclusion is my mental health patterns or cycles. They still continue on today, but the mindset, attitude, and responsibility I’ve taken towards managing the patterns/cycles has allowed me to have total control over them.
Mental health conditions are not excuses, they’re responsibilities, period!
I no longer have negative consequences being generated from my condition of Bipolar I. I’ve actually learned to capitalize from the affects it has on my life. I use the manic cycles to be productive and rest my mind in the depressive cycles. I simply focus on physical activities during the depressed days.
I use prayer, meditation, contemplation, and reflection activities/practices daily to combat the negative thoughts and feelings generated from the mood, or as I like to call them, “mind cycles” I experience. These daily activities keep me grounded and in touch with all aspects of my life and surroundings. They help keep me baseline if you will.
It wasn’t always this way for me. I dealt with patterns of suicidal idolatry. I was overwhelmed with thoughts about killing myself at times and I never felt like I did live in any moment or was connected to the moments I was living in.
Today, I’ve been able to transform those old patterns into new patterns. The new ones are positive, productive actions that do serve similar emotional and mental purposes as the old patterns did in the past, they’ve just changed.
They have a totally different meaning for me and how I’m choosing to serve those needs is producing successful results for me versus negative consequences. Also, I’m helping others versus having a negative effect on others lives.
In this first challenge, the goal is to take a deep look into ones past and identify old B.A.D. behavior patterns.
As human beings, we tend to have the unique ability to forget or alter the way we think about the way we’ve lived in the past. Especially when those choices had negative impacts on our life or others as well.
This challenge is designed to bring those old patterns that contributed to incarcerated individuals being in prison, front and center in their minds.
Challenge Two is a complete opposite of this one. I hope you can appreciate the uncomfortableness associated with sharing these old behavior patterns openly and honestly. It’s not easy to be so vulnerable. So please, even though it may not be written as a novel or to perfection, it still takes a lot of effort to formulate the words to share these testimonies.
I hope you, The Reader, will comment and interact with what I’ve shared, and will continue to share. Bad input is better than no input. If you don’t like something, please share. Any input you offer will only help make this project better, more effective, and may prevent someone from being hurt.
Bad Boy Mike
Mike Brunsman #676-192
P.O. Box 45699
Lucasville, OH 45699
12/26/2023
