Hello, my name is blanc, and I am a chronic over thinker, worrier. I have been diagnosed with things like depression, anxiety, ptsd, ocd, and adhd. In addition, I struggled with substance abuse.
The way I can explain it succinctly though, is this. There is no chemical imbalance. I was lucky to be born in the circumstances I am, and am grateful. I know after reading the last sentence, you’re probably thinking, what on earth have you got to be grateful for.
Gratitude is a choice. It is hard to find the balance between what is truth, and what is a lie. My mind likes to lie to itself. In a sense this is the essence of all mental disorders. Not to be confused with personality disorders. Is simply put, your mind is playing tricks on you.
There is no medication that will make you see that clearly. You have to do the work to achieve that kind of clarity. I spend a lot of time arguing with myself, and I mean a lot of it.
Because, of my inattention and lack of focus, it is like having many ovens in your brain, and some mad chef, is throwing pizzas into every oven at rapid fire speed, sometimes double stacking triple stacking into each one. Taking them out another goes in. And it’s this mad house factory of pizza ovens right.
These are lines of thoight, each oven, is a stream of consciousness, and each pizza is a thought or the seed of one.
I can do ten things at once, while also thinking about what seems like 90 million things at once.
But what it comes down to is self mastery.
I live in a time that is disparing. Weary. War ridden. There is virtually no hope, for anything. Good, bad, change, no change. You can count on nothing, as the uncertainty grows and the slimming gap between reality and the lie we tell ourselves, has come to a close.
Everything is in balance. There is never a deterministic point where we have achieved a finish line or fulfilled a promise. There is simply balance. And that is all we can achieve in this seemingly god forsaken world.
How does a young, dumb, 20 something, with multiple mental illnesses, achieve self mastery?
It starts with balance. Recovery starts with serenity.
This week, I have been thrust into what I believe can best be described as the 7th rung of hell. I was doing really well, and then all of a sudden, something split in half and out of the core, came what had been masked so long by these medications (which I’m not knocking- they saved my life, because they got me to this point).
I have reached the 6th month mark of SSRI acquittal. Which means all the same symptoms, which I knew this going into it, could possibly come back- that I was experiencing before when I originally went on it. And back with a vengeance I might add.
However, because I did my best to achieve my own recovery- though looking back, I had no idea what I was doing and it was very much a blind stab in the dark. It was enough. And that little bit (well, it wasn’t a little, it was 7 years) of work that I did- it has lended toward making this recovery from depression, anxiety, ptsd, ocd, substances, trauma, possible, as it laid a lot of the foundation.
The only reason I got so off, in this past week was because I did only one simple thing wrong. Nothing wrong with me intrinsically, I just stopped putting my recovery first. Truly.
I said I was- I still valued it the same in my heart. But if you are not loving yourself like an action, loving your recovery like an action, working your program, showing up, etc. You don’t get to say you still value it the same in your heart. There is only one thing that talks in this world and it is action. That is all we have. For whatever reason, us little humans, it is what we are designed for. It is part of our balance. We must proceed, with action, in order to fulfill our purpose- which again/ is not the end goal, but is simply the purpose of taking action. That’s it. That’s all you can do, that’s all you have control over.
I got unbelievably stressed out, and depressed, because I was stripped naked in front of myself. Hah, not literally. Metaphorically, spiritually, mentally. The feel good haze, of somber chemicals, that left me able to sleep have all but worn off. As did too, however- because I had approached this point in my recovery- was the wearing away, of denial. Dissociation. Distraction.
I truly was sitting with myself, me. The integrated aware self. I saw all my past, I saw all my future. I felt everything I used to never feel, and all at once, at full volume. I thought about everything I had avoided thinking about. I became obsessed with truth, with genuine, with knowing the best possible answer for myself, with knowing what is most right. As if this is something you can ever know. As if we can ever be perfect.
I was overwhelmed with questions, which I had no real answers to- questions of psychology, or questions of humanity, even questions of god.
I really struggled to see my place in all of it, or what was the point. Given my circumstances. Inevitable struggles with mental illness. Inevitable circumstantial struggles which I see no way out of- like being gay in a house hold of conservatives who will never really accept or love who I am.
At a certain point, I had to accept my limitations. And find a point of balance, to restore clarity and stillness in myself.
And that is all it’s about for me is restoring and finding that balance, of where I can accept reality, but still love accept myself regardless. I can pursue my recovery everyday, and to me there is freedom in that. And I can choose not to listen to the voice of negativity in my head. I can choose to do what I need to do for my own sake.
I am lucky because even though my family resents what I am, I have a family. Even if they beat me in the past, even if they made mistakes, that I paid the price for. I’m still lucky, because I get to eat. I still appreciate the food in what they are, and what I have to offer them, what they have to offer me- though they are flawed- I understand now about all sin being equal. We are all flawed. I feel so confidently about this notion, I would stand in front of a church to speak this message. We are all sinners, and we are all flawed, we are all doing things wrong, even with the most pure intentions, with the kindest generosity, courageous, gratitude, forgiving nature in our hearts. We are flawed! No body’s guess is better than others. The point is not to be the most sin-less, to be the most holy, to be the most pure- to receive all the accolades, as if it gets you a better seat, behind the pearly gates, before the face of god. The face of god is here before us, now. And in our sin, through our sin, we come to him. Yes you heard that right.
It is about here and now, the present moment- not life after death. I am before god in my sin, and in that, I can feel the presence.
Everything I approach, I approach that imperfectly. Maybe I am not yet whole, maybe I am not yet complete, maybe I am an indefinite work in progress. Maybe my journey is eternal, as is this infinitely expanding universe. But in that knowing. I can find for once, peace, among my millions of pizza ovens in my head- for once I am enough. For once I don’t have to overthink, and send myself into over drive, or medicate myself- not a single benzo, I might add- despite a multitude of reasons to take them! In order to achieve balance, serenity, and survival.
These are ultimately the core goals, and if you do not achieve these first and focus on these and your action in them- for you- not for anyone else. You’re not recovering, you’re just white knuckling!
When you open up this leeway, for a calmer state of mind, that is when the real work begins. You can stop focusing so much on your mental pain, your suffering, etc, and how you will end it- or control it, and start just living, working on more opportunities for growth, for more opportunities for wellness, building blocks of recovery. And as you practice gratitude, balance through out this process. By accepting and healing yourself. You’re allowing room for all the things you didn’t have time for before. All the things that seemed impossible to overcome suddenly are not so hard. And the problems that seemed so large, suddenly become much smaller. And you can breathe again.
I accept that I am flawed, and through acceptance I find my path of recovery.
