Here I Am
I am here because I want and need to be. I can help and need to be helped here and there.
Like tonight, when (as per usual), I am too exhausted from constantly needing to explain myself to offer anything but bullet points.
-All of the mental illness family history. Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, xanax, prozac, and valium, oh my!
-At 8 and 12 I won Young Authors competitions sponsored by the university I would eventually attend for my BA in Psychology (Sociology minor).
-At 10 years old I complained of chest pains. It felt like that tightness in your chest when you're about to cry, but I wasn't sad. My body just felt like I was. This would continue until I began taking Sertraline at 21.
-At 13 my mother had begun talking about eventually divorcing my father...when my younger sibling and I graduated high school of course (I knew why and didn't blame her. My parents did their jobs where we were concerned. Dad was stuck at 25.) Soon after I shed my monochrome pink for monochrome black and began writing the kinds of things that were obviously crimson red flags in retrospect.
-At 14 I would go to high school to meet all kinds of people like me. People that cut (a practice that would take me until 20 to outgrow, but you wouldn't know now unless I...told you!), theatre kids, GSA...people like me that tried to let our freak flags fly and had them burned at the altar of southern style conformity.
-At 16 my fellow weirdos and I introduced ourselves to self-medicating by way of pills and alcohol. This coincided with my father asking my mother for a divorce she wasn't yet ready for.
-At 17 I became poet laureate of my high school.
-At 18 I began to worry about my mental health, knew I was depressed but didn't fully understand why or to what extent. I couldn't come up with a reason, so I figured I was another moody teenager...Until after my first semester at college I would alienate all my best friends for people and a boyfriend that were psychologically abusive enough that once I was dumped during winter break (my additional SAD has seen a lot of break ups) I attempted suicide by way of unisom and tequila. My survival would see me abuse unisom (I would take at least 5 and stay awake, 10 to sleep; when I stopped after a month I couldn't sleep for 3 days.), marijuana (4/20 birthday and it took me until 18 to try, until 20 to enjoy it, until 21 to enjoy it responsibly), and the inevitable alcohol. It would take me until 22 to break ties with the people that had convinced me of my own "insanity".
-December 2011 my father died. Alcohol related, mixed blame, no fault. A certain hospital in Winston got to eat the bill for jerking my family around with his living will for 5 days before we were finally told his brain stem had been damaged on impact.
-May 2012 I would graduate with my psychology degree, no friends made (commuter that kept friends I'd met before or outside college), no professor that would remember me, and no desire to continue fighting to learn at my own pace in my own way. (For example, a professor would resent me for making a B+ in her class while skipping her lecture. I learn better reading in bed than nodding off in lecture halls.) I decided to take a year to relax and make money. I had every intention of returning to pursue one of the best clinical mental health counseling programs in the country. I had my mission statement written in my sleep. Until...
-January of this year I asked to see a therapist to try to keep me on track with what I was "supposed" to be doing. He made me realize that I had a better idea of what I needed to be doing than I had been led to believe.
-At 23 my state would become 48th in public education and most of my family/loved ones were too mired in 60 hour work weeks to learn that or anything that kept me from sleeping well at night. I panicked when my brainstorming for a better plan for myself was judged as erratic, psychologically concerning (until my therapist convinced them otherwise), and hyperbolic by the people that knew and loved me the best. I was simultaneously livid and crushed to the point of screaming and crying at my mother and boyfriend for an entire day, talking to three therapists (one my usual, one called by my mother, and one called by me) and unable to eat, sleep, or be calm Until...
-My senior AP english teacher from high school reached out to me, supported my idea to "write the book" that was shoving its way out of my head and calmed me down enough to get me to sleep.
I still have my boyfriend, who understands and accepts me with my sometimes unpredictable illness. My mother finally understood what I was trying to tell her. And I have a 5 book deal with a series symbolic of the 5 stages of me recognizing and dealing with depression. The first book (denial) is too hard for her to read without crying, but she tries. Few other people ask to read the cries for help and love poems I've been writing them for years, but hey, I guess there's a market for that too.
And now I've written this down and joined a support group at long last.
Now I can sleep.
Like tonight, when (as per usual), I am too exhausted from constantly needing to explain myself to offer anything but bullet points.
-All of the mental illness family history. Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, xanax, prozac, and valium, oh my!
-At 8 and 12 I won Young Authors competitions sponsored by the university I would eventually attend for my BA in Psychology (Sociology minor).
-At 10 years old I complained of chest pains. It felt like that tightness in your chest when you're about to cry, but I wasn't sad. My body just felt like I was. This would continue until I began taking Sertraline at 21.
-At 13 my mother had begun talking about eventually divorcing my father...when my younger sibling and I graduated high school of course (I knew why and didn't blame her. My parents did their jobs where we were concerned. Dad was stuck at 25.) Soon after I shed my monochrome pink for monochrome black and began writing the kinds of things that were obviously crimson red flags in retrospect.
-At 14 I would go to high school to meet all kinds of people like me. People that cut (a practice that would take me until 20 to outgrow, but you wouldn't know now unless I...told you!), theatre kids, GSA...people like me that tried to let our freak flags fly and had them burned at the altar of southern style conformity.
-At 16 my fellow weirdos and I introduced ourselves to self-medicating by way of pills and alcohol. This coincided with my father asking my mother for a divorce she wasn't yet ready for.
-At 17 I became poet laureate of my high school.
-At 18 I began to worry about my mental health, knew I was depressed but didn't fully understand why or to what extent. I couldn't come up with a reason, so I figured I was another moody teenager...Until after my first semester at college I would alienate all my best friends for people and a boyfriend that were psychologically abusive enough that once I was dumped during winter break (my additional SAD has seen a lot of break ups) I attempted suicide by way of unisom and tequila. My survival would see me abuse unisom (I would take at least 5 and stay awake, 10 to sleep; when I stopped after a month I couldn't sleep for 3 days.), marijuana (4/20 birthday and it took me until 18 to try, until 20 to enjoy it, until 21 to enjoy it responsibly), and the inevitable alcohol. It would take me until 22 to break ties with the people that had convinced me of my own "insanity".
-December 2011 my father died. Alcohol related, mixed blame, no fault. A certain hospital in Winston got to eat the bill for jerking my family around with his living will for 5 days before we were finally told his brain stem had been damaged on impact.
-May 2012 I would graduate with my psychology degree, no friends made (commuter that kept friends I'd met before or outside college), no professor that would remember me, and no desire to continue fighting to learn at my own pace in my own way. (For example, a professor would resent me for making a B+ in her class while skipping her lecture. I learn better reading in bed than nodding off in lecture halls.) I decided to take a year to relax and make money. I had every intention of returning to pursue one of the best clinical mental health counseling programs in the country. I had my mission statement written in my sleep. Until...
-January of this year I asked to see a therapist to try to keep me on track with what I was "supposed" to be doing. He made me realize that I had a better idea of what I needed to be doing than I had been led to believe.
-At 23 my state would become 48th in public education and most of my family/loved ones were too mired in 60 hour work weeks to learn that or anything that kept me from sleeping well at night. I panicked when my brainstorming for a better plan for myself was judged as erratic, psychologically concerning (until my therapist convinced them otherwise), and hyperbolic by the people that knew and loved me the best. I was simultaneously livid and crushed to the point of screaming and crying at my mother and boyfriend for an entire day, talking to three therapists (one my usual, one called by my mother, and one called by me) and unable to eat, sleep, or be calm Until...
-My senior AP english teacher from high school reached out to me, supported my idea to "write the book" that was shoving its way out of my head and calmed me down enough to get me to sleep.
I still have my boyfriend, who understands and accepts me with my sometimes unpredictable illness. My mother finally understood what I was trying to tell her. And I have a 5 book deal with a series symbolic of the 5 stages of me recognizing and dealing with depression. The first book (denial) is too hard for her to read without crying, but she tries. Few other people ask to read the cries for help and love poems I've been writing them for years, but hey, I guess there's a market for that too.
And now I've written this down and joined a support group at long last.
Now I can sleep.
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