“It’s 1 AM and this might be the bad pizza I had earlier talking,” he begins, “but I believe I have something to say.”
-Jerry Macguire
Recently I was at a social gathering. I didn't know anyone. A woman came up to me and we started talking. First just small talk, weather (seriously), the new beer she was drinking, getting out of the house that night. Then as any conversation goes if you have enough in common and maintain eye contact we started talking about ourselves. Jobs, hobbies, partners, kids....and so on. After hearing about her family she asked about mine. I gave some basics and said something about having seven children ages 5-21.. And just like almost every other time I say this, her eyes got wide and she said "that's amazing! You look so young. How do you do it? You are so put together".......
I hear this a lot. Not because I am special in any way, but because seven is a lot. Because when I leave my house on the rare occasion it's "shower day". I may even wear makeup. Fix my hair ...I don't know, but I sure don't look like I do 90% of the time while living in yoga pants home schooling the herd of children in my home. I put on a good face. We all do. That is WHAT we do.
It got me thinking.
I don't have Facebook, but I do have Instagram. I post pretty regularly for someone who really doesn't do a whole lot. It's the artist in me. But most of the pics as I have come to notice are done in a flattering light... pics of me smiling, kids doing fun things, my house when it's clean... best foot forward and what not. It's cool...no one want's to see the shit side of a mundane life.
This is also not a true representation of who I am.
So today I am going to talk about the other side. We all have it. Some more than others.
My whole life I have struggled with my mental health. I feel like it first started to show in my early teen years. Impulse control, drug use, a couple rides in a cop car, destruction of property, sudden outbursts, dangerous self harming behavior, a stint in-patient, a stint out-patient, several marriages, over eating, under eating, running for problems, hiding from people, self loathing, days of no sleep, days of only sleep. I can keep going, but you get the idea.
Some people never experience this and so they have a hard time understanding or sometimes even believing people like me. Especially when you throw in the attention seeking aspect that a lot of people like me have in some episodes.
It was over 25 years ago that I first started on pharma meds. Briefly. This was a frowned on practice for normal, healthy kids. Kids who played sports, got good grades, played instruments, had lots of friends. I was just adjusting to transitional period in my life they said. I was going to be just fine.
12 years ago I was on one pill for anxiety, one for depression, one for insomnia, one for bipolar, and an all day popper to keep me going. I also self medicated in every form.
11 and a half years ago I stopped it all cold turkey. I do not recommend this. But I didn't have insurance.
Since then have been on anti-depressants twice but couldn't stick to it. Sure I was much more level, but my brain felt like it was the fog rising off a lake. I wasn't acting impulsively or going from manic to crash in a two day period, but I was also not really feeling anything. The hardest part about being medicated for me is it kills my creativity. It mutes all the colors I see, kills on the melodies I hear. This is not the case for everyone I am sure, but for me the ups and downs were better than the alternative most of the time.
A few months back I decided to start addressing my health. I was not working out or eating right, I was drinking a lot...it was right after summer. Everyone on the lake drinks during the summer. This was my justification. I didn't have a problem, I wasn't self medicating, I was just behaving like everyone else. This is the dialogue I have used with myself my whole life. The problem is when you don't have good impulse control one is great, two is better an if you keep going you can feel like you are on top of the world. You can be giddy, funny, as interesting as you want. People use the word invincible and I can sometimes see that. So I thought I would get a handle on it.
I started doing keto, started going to the gym, stopped drinking. I felt better. I looked better. I even started to feel pretty darn level. If you have ever done keto you probably know that it is no joke if you have a couple drinks. It hits you like a freight train.... I did this several times. I paid dearly for it.
Cue holidays. Holidays kick my ass. I don't like them. They are exhausting and no matter how hard you try you can never make everyone happy. My mental state started to slip. The depression was as bad as it had been in a long time, so I did what I always do when that happens and I started to drink more. And for the first time in years I was truly and actually out of control.
If you know me personally you know that at my core I am a musician. I play every day. Sometimes for hours. I write poems and songs and stories all the time...notepads full of them. I don't perform often, because if you have been to one of Violent Bear's shows you know it takes several drinks for me to just get on stage....and then I am at the point of no return. There isn't an off switch. Especially if I am in a melancholy state for the days or weeks prior. The pendulum swings all the way up, hits the ceiling, crashes the light fixture and has to be carried to the car. This happened in the fall....several times. These are not my finest moments and the next few days are the lowest of crashes. The self loathing kicks in...the what did I say what did I do starts to take hold of my mind. It's hard to climb out of.
I used to think that I had a drinking problem. But I can go weeks without a drink and without wanting one. It's an impulse problem. It's a depression problem. it's an "I just want to feel good" problem. It's a bipolar problem.
I often tell myself I will just quit putting myself in these positions. I will just not have a drink while playing... or I'll just have one, or I'll just drink beer or whatever....
But everything I do I do out of balance. Everything I do is at full speed and without fail eventually crashes.
Some people can stick with things really well. I have a husband who has more self control than about anyone I know. He is the master of balance. He is my rock. He takes the good with the bad. He forces me out of bed, he questions me, he holds me accountable and he loves me unconditionally.
There was a really bad episode after a holiday party. I drank too much on a really really low time. Like I almost couldn't get dressed and cried in the shower because I had to socialize kind of low. When I drink too much on a cycle it also cues the insomnia part of my brain. So I am awake as I crash. I sat in my bed and wondered if it is even worth it. Should I keep going. I am broken, my brain hurts, my heart hurts, I made a fool of myself yet agin. This is not suicidal tendencies, this is literally just the I want to stop. How do I stop. How can I stop. Ask myself, would they be better with out me? Tell myself, they would be fine I am bringing them down. I joke (and I shouldn't, but you know...coping) that I go from high as a kite to I'm going to throw myself off a bridge in less than 24 hours. I have been doing this for years.
I share all this not because I have a solution. I share because I know I am not the only person like this. I share because just like everyone else I give the best foot forward, the best picture, the best and most carefree smile I have when I see you. I want to strive to become a better person tomorrow than I am today. I want to face who I am with a level of dignity and seek understanding. I want to know I am not alone.
I am hoping this is not my Jerry Macguire Mission Statement moment. That I don't throw this out into the world and then end up tail between my legs with no one getting me besides a goldfish and Dorothy from accounting.
I haven't blogged in a couple years. I don't actually think anyone reads them any more, so I assume I am doing this mainly for me. And my demons.
