oversharing: a life update for the ages

One of the last writings on my old site that I had drafted up included mention of growing awareness of the importance and de-stigmatization of mental health through self-care and self-preservation. My relationship with mental health - whether with my own or with the concept of mental health in general - since 2015 has been deeply personal, significantly affected by substance use, and has impacted how I view and form relationships and connections with people.

This is going to be a long read. These writings are the first I’ve done in a while, and I had and still have a lot of life to catch everyone up on - most of which has all been shaped by events that have taken place over the course of the past 8 years. While getting ready to start my writings again, I knew I wouldn’t be comfortable writing much about anything new happening in my life until I went on record to address a few things.

That dream world inside of my head where I am an established, fully-realized and successful person is where a lot of my interactions with people take place. One of my focuses this year has been working on follow-through by bringing those interactions out into reality and holding myself accountable. With accountability comes vulnerability, and in owning my vulnerability, I’m learning that with vulnerability comes transparency. Transparency can be powerful in shaping interactions and building relationships with anyone. This might be common knowledge to some, but this is something that I’ve only been aware of since 2015 and finally came to terms with and put into practice just in the past year.

In the dating realm, 2015 was the first year I remember being aware of giving myself the wrong ideas about someone and running with them: I misread cues, played moments over and over in my head until they became something they weren’t, conveniently forgot how much we didn’t know about each other because of how much we didn’t talk or spend time together, and ultimately overestimated my place in someone else’s life. As I have done in other contexts before, I talked to everyone but the person in question until I was convinced (by the people I convinced first through presenting my case) that a true connection was possible – a relationship, started from nothing but my good but still unspoken feelings and intentions, and a seemingly justified over-confidence that the other person would reciprocate these feelings and intentions. In this instance, this was not the case.

I hate using the word “rejected.” Coming from me as the person rejected, it sounds like I’m whining about not getting my way, even though that is basically what happened. This was the first time I remember being seriously affected by this kind of rejection. This, coupled with whatever else I had going on at the time, brought me to new mental-health lows and I suffered serious self-destructive (read: suicidal) thoughts. Fortunately, I sought medical help. I was then diagnosed with moderate to severe depression, and I started medication. Not realizing that medication alone wasn’t going to be as effective as I would have needed, I stopped addressing my mental health and started going out more and self-medicating (read: drinking and smoking).

My story and connection with alcohol is not uncommon. My first drink was in college at age 18, and I scared myself sober for a while after losing control (read: consciousness) and getting a minor-consuming citation one night. Reeling from that citation, and figuring that I was legal for something, I started smoking at 19. I continued to smoke and drink after that, but took extra care to keep in moderation and to not get caught drinking.

After turning 21, in addition to being a tool of celebration, alcohol also became a coping mechanism for when things got difficult or boring. After moving to Anchorage, supporting my friends in the local music scene became a partial front for going out to drink. As soon as I would get to the gig, I would immediately get a drink and take it outside for a smoke because my social anxiety would require both. Other insecurities in my love life and self-image that also helped fuel my desire to drink since age 18 (“where’s the harm in destroying a body no one wants?” - a sentiment I am working to un-learn to this day) would continue to do so for another several years.

Acquiring my own apartment at the start of the summer of 2016 brought me to stop actual medication, because I thought living alone would be all the help and therapy I would have needed at the time. While that wasn’t my healthiest year, I still made it out alive. In early 2017 I left the first job I got after moving to Anchorage, a job of three and a half years, on less than stellar terms. After and because of that, I continued to drink, if not started to drink more.

After a month on unemployment, it became clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to keep my apartment for another year. Accounting for that and the existential dread that came with what was my first experience on unemployment, I knew something had to give, so I cut back on drinking until I found another job. Unfortunately, I still carried on drinking after finding that new job - likely because of continued lack of success in dating, and the resulting self-image issues that came with continued rejection.

Early spring of 2018 was the next – and so far, last – major time that I lost control after being rejected (that is, after romantic rejection, specifically) because I gave myself the wrong ideas and ran with them once again. It was at a Cinco de Mayo party where I brought three tall-boy Lime-a-Ritas and an empty stomach that I blacked out. In my blacked-out state, I went to discard a cigarette butt in a fire pit that was burning for hours already by lifting the cover with my bare left index finger. It wasn’t until after I lifted the cover off and then back on that I must’ve realized how and why everyone was reacting, and then noticed that I just burned the hell out of my finger. The last thing I can remember is coming back inside the house to have one of the hosts administer first aid, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in one of the bedrooms at that house the next morning. Having nursed the blister that formed over the following month or so, and recognizing the damage that is still there on my finger today, should have taught me something. The court-ordered rehab education I completed after getting my minor-consuming citation in 2007 should have taught me something. Years of tumult in my life and the lives of my loved ones, surrounding and resulting from drinking since 2010, should have taught me something. September 7, 2018 would prove that I didn’t learn or remember to apply anything.

That Friday night in September started as a casual hangout at a bar in Spenard right after work. As I usually did going out on a budget, I started with tall-boys of PBR. This was during a time where I worked through my lunches and left early, so I wouldn’t eat anything during the day. The last thing I remember was taking lemon-drop shots and chasing them with more PBR around 9 PM. The next thing I knew, I was waking up around 3 AM in my car, properly parked and still buckled into the driver’s seat, in a parking lot next door to another bar downtown.

I didn’t remember driving the three or so miles between bars. Luckily, I didn’t remember causing or sustaining any damage between bars, or law enforcement getting involved, either. I do remember, however, that I was so disoriented after waking up and coming-to that in trying to leave the lot to drive home I bottomed out over a median, damaged my car’s oil pan, and then ran it out of oil on the highway and seized my engine.

Thousands of dollars in repairs later that my family was gracious enough to help out with, my mental health had reached new record lows, and my suicidal tendencies spiked again. Blacking out between bars alone was enough to scare me off of drinking, but I sought medical help again and opted for both medication and counseling. Counseling helped me and continues to help me identify problems I’ve been dealing with. The medication I started does not interact well with alcohol at all, with interaction effects up to and including seizures, so my commitment to not-drinking anymore has since been solidified that much more. The medication I started is also popular and successful in nicotine cessation, so I’m not smoking anymore, either.

Outside of this writing, the only journaling that I did since starting counseling was keeping a log of intrusive thoughts or my perceptions of whatever was happening during times of heightened anxiety. Doing so has helped and continues to help me to identify and diminish thoughts or incidents to a point where they become more objective and clearly-defined. As things are happening in the moment, I don’t have time to think about why they are happening or why I’m responding the way that I am. Writing things down like this has helped and continues to help me put things out of my mind, if even just enough so I can get back to work. Looking back at these journal writings after the fact has helped and continues to help me analyze situations to learn how to recognize and better handle them in the future.

I’ve been hesitant to write all of this out because this is an awful lot of very sensitive information on very sensitive topics. I’m so tired of explaining myself and opening up to the wrong people, but I am also tired of punishing myself and trying to heal in silence. I want my story to be heard, and in writing all of this out, I want to continue to hold myself accountable. I also want to normalize discussing mental health, but I already know that that is a whole other writing for another day.

As of this writing I am nine months sober, and after a minor setback I am just over six months nicotine-free. Growing up, in and out of school, I was not a good kid and I did things that were not all good. After I started drinking and smoking, I was not a good adult and I still did not do good things. I was toxic and reckless, and I take full responsibility for all of that. Anyone that has seen or interacted with me in that state, even and especially dating back through the years since I first started drinking, deserved and still deserves better. While I worry that this and any old version of me is all anyone will ever see - and while in everything I do today, I still carry the weight of the kind of person I was and all the things that I did - the best and only apology I feel I can offer is well-wishing, quiet distance, and changed behavior.

When it comes to relationships, my understanding now is that fostering a healthy mutual connection with a person should come first by meeting them halfway, where they are. Getting to know someone - their communication styles, their love languages, their comfort levels and boundaries, their personal stories - is crucial before making any kind of move.

Moves don’t even have to be made, either! Forcing something that isn’t established as mutual, even when it makes sense and seems realistic, is still forcing something that isn’t mutual.

Transparency, specifically of these moves - through communicating your thoughts, feelings, and intentions - is a form of honesty that not only does the other person deserve to hear, but that you should also put into words to hear and acknowledge yourself.

As briefly mentioned in one of my earlier posts - my first post here, actually - I’ve learned that it’s okay to have feelings and ideas. Instead, I’ve learned that it’s not just having feelings and ideas that people (like myself, until recently) seem to have villainized. Whether and how those are expressed is where problems can lie, especially when the results are negative and are then decontextualized and amplified - making proverbial mountains out of molehills.

Idealization and romanticization are what happen when you leave feelings and ideas unspoken. When these are left unspoken, we can only to continue to wonder if there could be something where there likely isn’t. In wondering alone, we are biased towards ourselves. It’s part of human nature to want for ourselves what makes us happiest in the moment, and we each have our own idea of happiness. After reflecting on all of this (that is, all 2,368 words of this whole post), I believe that it’s on each of us to bring our ideas out of these dream-worlds in our heads and speak them into existence and motion.

For a lot of people, myself especially, manifesting happiness is easier said than done. Living with depression, anxiety, or other conditions means knowing that there are times where it’s difficult or even impossible to do sometimes even the simplest things. The only advice I can offer is to take care, to know and enforce your limits, and to be kind to yourself. Recovery is constant, but is not a straight line, and is not without setbacks. Things do become easier when you address them, whether it’s through self-reflection, direct action, or through finally reaching out for help.

There is no weakness in reaching out for help, either. Instead, there is immense strength in making efforts to self-preserve. The right people won’t mind helping. The right people will respect and appreciate your vulnerability, and will also be just as invested in your health and self-preservation.

Whether “it gets better” or easier, and whether people can be trusted to contribute to that… There is only one way to find out.