I recognize time is my friend,not the enemy I thought

Good morning journal,the time is 9:55am,I feel extremely rested,and my back pain is tolerable this morning,and that,believe me,is a blessing.Today I recognize that I have many blessings in my life,where before,I could only see the bad things.Time used to hang like a heavy blanket over me,it gave me time to think too much,time meant longer episodes of physical pain and mental instability;this morning I realize that time is not the enemy I thought it once was,but rather a friend,enabling me to recover a little at a time.There are times that I really do not recognize the man I am becoming,times when I see the man I once was in my youth,as a teenager,and times when I see the man who was a young father;then there are times when I see the sick man of today.I guess what I am saying is,I can spot when I am becoming mentally unstable,when I hear the voices,and today,I have the strength to say,okay,I see what's wrong,now I can lessen the damage that could have been.It doesn't always work out the way I plan,but the times that I do have a modicum of success strengthen me immeasurably.I can find positive things among the debris of negativity that sometimes threatens to engulf me,and my spirit is developing the art of rising above the sadness and fear that is a part of mental illness.I can accept that I am mentally ill,as well as physically unwell,without feeling that I am somehow undeserving of life.There are times of course when I still think of death and ending my life prematurely,but the difference today is that I have the mental capacity and strength to say,this will pass,and I talk about my feelings,either to my friends in this group through my journal,to my wife,or my therapist or doctor.Sometimes,I can feel very low spiritually,mentally and physically,but the glimpses of the possible good outcomes which I get when I feel okay,are enough to keep me going forward,albeit sometimes at a slow crawl.When I look back at my journal entries since I first came here,I sometimes do not recognize the man who wrote them,sometimes,I can still be that man,sick and confused,but today,I have a bit of steel in my resolve that enables me to fight,that fight has been sadly lacking since I became really ill.I have also developed the art of starting my day over at any given time during it,if I find myself having a bad episode in my waking hours,I simply breath deeply,or as deeply as a man with COPD can,and begin my day again.It doesn't matter if it's morning,afternoon or evening,it's my day and I get to live it how I choose,if breaking the day into segments means I end it on a good feeling,then that's perfectly okay to do.If it doesn't work,then I've lost nothing,but if it does,then I have gained a victory for me and my long suffering spouse.I have come to realize that although it is my illness,that I am the one who is sick,it doesn't just affect me as an individual,it also affects the people that I love;and I have no right to make them feel bad because of something that is happening to me.This morning,I feel strong mentally,I have control of my mind,and the difference today is that I am not waiting for that to change as I did in the past;it is my mind,and at the time of typing this,I am in full control of both my thoughts and my actions;that may change during the day,if it does,today I have weapons in my armory to fight it.Well journal,this has been most enjoyable as always,today,I am aware and lucid,and because of that we are going to experience a first since I began coming here,we are upgrading to the little green fellow that says he feels excellent,we are good to go,my day has officially started,let us hope that at it's end,we have won another battle;peace and calmness walk with us.