by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2018 | Adult Child Loss, Bipolar Disorder, Caregiver, Coping With Depression, Coping With Losing A Child, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Leukemia, Loneliness, Love, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Health, Sadness, Stress, Suicide, Uncategorized |
In June of 2017 my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. She passed away in November. My husband and I have custody of our 11 year old granddaughter. Grieving is taking it’s toll. Last month I was admitted to the hospital for being suicidal.
I think about my daughter all the time. I spent every minute in the hospital with her for 5 months. Telling my granddaughter that her mom was dead was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. Whenever I go outside for a smoke, I think of my daughter. Whenever I drive the car, it reminds me of the drive to the hospital.
My mind won’t stop thinking suicidal thoughts. My brain constantly hammering me with negative thoughts. I’m hopeless, sad and feel out of my body. I don’t recognize my thoughts or myself. I am so lost. The emptiness is everywhere and I don’t know what to do.
I’ve been treated for depression for years and have had suicidal thoughts the entire time. I spent 2 days in the psych ward. I slept most of the time. I attend an outpatient program and went to a new psychiatrist today. He said my bipolar diagnosis was incorrect and adjusted my medications.
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2018 | Abuse, Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adoption, Anger, Anxiety, Cocaine Addiction, Compassion, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Denial, Domestic Abuse, Family, Fear, Feelings, Forgiveness, Guilt, Happiness, Helping Someone In An Abusive Relationship, How To Help With Low Self-Esteem, Jealousy, Loneliness, Loving An Addict, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem, Shame, Stress, Trauma, Trust |
Me. Briefly.
The first time I used, I was 9. I stole some of my mom’s appetite suppressants. For the first time in my short little life, I felt like I could do anything. I forgot that I felt like I didn’t belong. Don’t ask me why I felt that way. I am an adopted child raised by a good family, so I should have felt fine. I truly believe that addiction is genetic. With dope, at long last, I belonged. I wasn’t afraid.
Life went downhill from there. I gradually branched out to other drugs. At 14, I was stealing my parents’ cigarettes and booze and smoking pot. At 18, I got introduced to what would become the great love of my life-meth. I really could do anything on that stuff-no job was too big, and my mind worked like a pinball machine with an electrical short-thoughts careened around so fast I never held one long enough to examine it, so I never really thought about feelings of inadequacy or fear.
Or shame.
At 19, I was tired of trying to make it on my own, so I found myself married to an abusive bastard; anybody who’s ever been through that can understand what I mean when I say that it destroyed any shreds of self-worth I had a chance of having. By then, I knew how to fix that-I used more dope. It didn’t matter what kind as long as it helped me shove those feelings of worthlessness into some dark, forgotten corner of my soul.
After 3 years of being smacked around, I fought back, left, didn’t look back, and didn’t quit fighting for a long time.
I went through a string of failed relationships for a couple of years, until I met “the one.” He actually started to redeem the male of he species for me. For a year and a half, I somehow managed to limit my drinking and drugging. Life was pretty good. I was living the suburban American dream.
In the end, untreated addiction always wins. I got involved in some unsavory business, running drugs up and down the interstate. For each time I got arrested, I made it through at least a few more times. I guess sometimes it really is better to be lucky than good, or I’d still be in prison.
My second husband finally had enough, and I got sentenced to prison knowing that divorce awaited me when I got out. Looking back, I can’t blame him. At the time, I was just enraged.
In prison, in a state far from home, I didn’t have drugs but I still had that fight in me, and the ability to stuff my emotions into some dark corner of myself and forget them. It allowed me to survive in a cold and lonely place. When I got out, I did what I always did. I got high. How else was I supposed to deal with my situation? I was 4 states from all I knew, being held against my will by a parole officer who wouldn’t let me move home.
Fast forward to 2005.
I’m on probation for yet another drug offense, headed for an inpatient drug treatment center at the judge’s (and probation officer’s) suggestion. I had reached that point where I used dope to become that static-y snow on a TV with no reception. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to deal with the mess my life had become and I damn sure didn’t want to deal with the mess that I had become.
I muddled along for a while until I had a using experience so horrific I will never forget it. I had finally used so much dope, trying to kill my feelings, that I had used myself into a corner and it was that dark corner of my soul that I had been avoiding for 27 years.
The dope had led me right into the hell I had been denying from the time I first discovered dope at the tender age of 9.
I got clean, finally. It hurt. Detox can kill, and I guess I considered myself lucky to be alive, considering the way I had used my body for a toxic waste dump.
And I grieved the loss of the drugs. I grieved the loss of the numbness. I was FEELING shit again and it was ookie and I didn’t like it.
The human psyche is an amazing thing, with a remarkable talent for self-preservation. I managed to avoid the real problem: here I was drugless, and the big shitty mess inside was still there. Denial became my best friend. I felt no emotions (or so I told myself.) I damn sure didn’t show them.
For the first two years I was clean, I was involved with another abusive bastard. Got a busted eardrum out of it. During that two years, I did a good job of not allowing myself to feel much of anything, partly out of determination to deprive that bastard of the satisfaction of knowing he had affected me, and mostly because I didn’t want to look at that big shitty fucking mess in my mind and soul.
I did all this while calling myself a member of a twelve step fellowship.
Two years into my abstinence, the pain of my living situation became too much. Denial, toughness, bad attitude-none of it was working anymore. Without the dope to numb my soul, the big shitty mess in the darkest corner of my heart began to fester. So I got honest. Well, a little bit, anyway. Six months later, I was out of the abusive relationship. I was healing.
At least that’s what I told the world.
Until the physical after effects of the corrective surgery on my eardrum became unbearable. They also became a physical representation of all that was wrong with my psyche.
Broken.
I could no longer use those old defense mechanisms. I could no longer be the hardass, the tough girl who didn’t give a fuck. I gave a fuck and I was tired of being broken.
Aunt Becky, I cried. Like I don’t think I have ever cried before.
I cried for all I wasted. I cried over all the wasted potential, the wasted years, the wasted lives I destroyed with my sick spirit.
I cried for a little girl who never felt like she belonged. I cried for my mother who couldn’t fix her child. I cried for what was left of myself and for the parts of me that were lost forever. I screamed. I cried until my throat hurt, my rib cage hurt, my head hurt. I cried until my entire head was so congested I couldn’t breathe. I cried over all the sadness I had never cried over, I cried over all the pain I never cried over, I cried over all the fear I never cried over. I have no idea how long I cried. It seemed like forever.
And then I slept. I slept the sleep of the damned. Because as I cried, screaming about how I was tired of being broken, I realized that nothing could fix me. I was doomed to this existence of knowing I was broken and the only thing that ever made me feel whole was dope and I couldn’t have it anymore. It had been killing me while it killed my feelings, except it wasn’t killing the feelings anymore. I couldn’t stop using once I started, and once I used I became this horrible beast who got arrested and burned bridges with the people in her life. So dope was out.
I was, finally, alone with the truth. I was rotten inside and nothing could fix me.
At 40 years of age, I’m glad I can say that a lot has happened in the 3 years since I cried that night and screamed my frustration at being broken. I started working the 12 steps of recovery from addiction. I have a sponsor. I have 5 years clean. I have a reasonably good relationship with my mother these days. I am now in a very serious and mostly healthy relationship with the man who held me the night I cried-he is truly a good man. I am in my first senior year of college. I have been well trained in the work I do and have been working the same part-time jobs for 5 years now. I’m good at my job. I have a few friends-true friends.
Aunt Becky, I wish I could give you a happy ending. I wish I could say that I have finally progressed through the 5 stages of grief. I think it’s safe to say I have passed through denial.
Yet I still can’t let go of those old defense mechanisms. It is so fucking hard to express emotions. It’s just as hard to live through them. So I shop. I eat chocolate. I find things to distract me. Often, I stick my feelings in that dark corner of my soul. Even the good ones. I still miss the ability to deny their existence. I don’t know what to do with them, so it’s easier to deny them.
I guess it’s progress, being able to admit I have emotions.
Some days, I get so angry. Why the fuck can’t I be normal? Why oh why do I always seem to feel inadequate, less than, afraid? At least the rage can be empowering, motivating me to get up and try one more day to find a way to heal my sick spirit. If nothing else, rage feels good. It’s so primal.
Some days, I’m depressed. The possibility of spending the rest of my life knowing I am irretrievably broken saddens me beyond belief. This is where I am grateful for my adoptive mother-she’s my REAL mother. Nothing ever stopped her, and rarely did anything slow her down. She always kept going. What an amazing example; I believe it’s the only reason I keep going on my depressed days.
Bargaining. Yes. I do that. I make bargains with whatever’s out there-if you would just fix me, God, I would try to touch another life so some other woman doesn’t ever have to live with the pain I lived with for so long. Just please fucking fix me so I am not afraid, ashamed, and insecure. Make me not hurt and I will try to share it with someone who needs to know it is possible to not hurt.
Acceptance. Not so much. Today, I refuse to accept that I am irretrievably broken. Maybe that is where the twelve steps are beginning to work in my life.
And maybe that’s the happy ending after all.
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2018 | Coping With Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Illness Stigma |
I admit it.
I am a white a guy.
Alternately, I am half-Hispanic if I need to be, but really I am white – I have been all my life.
In high school, I refused a scholarship to a certain college because it was given to Hispanic (or half-Hispanic like me) students. I refused it because I am light-skinned and have always “passed” for Caucasian. I didn’t feel I was ever discriminated against due to my race, so on principle I declined the scholarship, deferring it as I felt it should go to to someone “more deserving.”
This one only one of many mistakes I made when I was younger. You might think this has nothing to do with depression, but you would be wrong. I declined the scholarship on “principle,” but it really was my best chance to go to a “real” college. I spent the next few years in a job that, although I was great at it, I hate. I got married and had kids way too young (not a coincidence) all while battling a depression that started when I was very young.
I made race (white) an issue in the title because white men are generally very privileged and should have no reason to be depressed. I won’t get into the specifics of my childhood here, but suffice to say that race played no part, but things that happened to and around me would cause anyone to develop depression. I singled out white guys because I knew a lot of white guys growing up and not one of them had depression, at least as far as anyone knew. Which Is really why I am writing this. That and the fact that I can make a kick ass margarita and don’t have to get up in the morning..
Men in general, and especially white men, are trained from birth to keep their shit inside. If you are happy you can smile, but not too much. Never dance with joy, never get giddy and above all, never fucking cry. If you HAVE to cry it better be because of some major happy shit, not you are sad or any weak shit like that. This is what you are taught form grade school on up. When I say taught I don’t mean in school – it’s that every male influence in your life imparts this to you overt and in subtle ways throughout your whole life. You are not allowed to not be strong. For your siblings, for your girl, for your parents and grandparents, for your classmates, etc…you are the rock. You have to be the strong one. Period.
Fuck your own personal shit; if you feel sad, cry in a pillow when no one is around ,and then buck up and be a man, for Chrissakes!
All of this only matters because if you are a man (or boy, ergo, man-in-training) you are not allowed to be anything but strong.
Depression is not on the table. Only. It is. It is a real thing. Without going into my personal shit, I had stuff happen when I was young that didn’t necessarily cause my depression, but it sure fed it. It fed it really well, until that beast grew bigger and stronger than I could handle but oh, I did handle it. I was a man, after all.
I doubt anyone who knew me as a very young man would ever think I was depressed. But I was. Some days it took more strength to get out of bed than I thought I had. This on top of being married, a new father, and just barely out of my teens (I’d just turned 20), oh, and I was a MAN so I couldn’t show any sign of weakness.
So when the darkness came, and the darkness always comes, I just had to “suck it up buttercup…” and not show it.
At all.
Eventually I grew up. I wised up and divorced the woman (girl) I never really loved, battled with depression, the pain of not living with my kids anymore (that hurts me to the bone), and I got over stigmas of gender roles and all that stupidity.
When I got remarried years later, I even cried at my wedding!
I have lived most of my life with depression and dealt with it many ways, not all of which were healthy. I am just writing this to let any one else out there know It’s Okay. Whatever you are feeling, no matter how down, how black things are, you are not alone.
Reach out and vent to someone.
Me, Aunt Becky, anyone you know. Just let some of your shit go. Medicate, self-medicate (responsibly, of course!), do what you need to do to get by. You are not alone, not by a long shot. Things DO get better. I know some days you can’t see it, but it always does. nothing is ever too much. You are stronger than you know and worth more than you could ever imagine. Sometimes life, the world, everything is too much. Nothing I can do can change that.
Just ride it out. It’s a few hours, then you can let shit go, and deal with whatever you need to. Those that love you (and me and lots of other people in your boat) will understand and accommodate however we can.
Shit gets bad, but shit gets better.
I promise.
