I'm in the process of rewriting this in a better format, but I'm sharing it right now just to put it out there.
I'm writing this to inform others that with a little accountability, and willingness to change, you can really pick yourself up and live a life worth living. Sometimes what it takes is just being in a position where you have to decide to live or die. I was living in the lowest of the lows I have ever experienced and I chose to live. I hope that you do, as well. I feel like it's still challenging, but at least I approach the day differently. I allow myself the chance to make it better. I gave myself the control and power I needed to stand back up and life a life worth living. I did it by starting small and overtime developed habits that improved my life. This isn't a simple fix. It's retraining yourself.
It was a few years ago. I was about 33 years old. I was sitting at my desk. Laptop open, second monitor hooked up. I had been off of work for a few hours. I was scrolling through Twitter and Facebook, I had music playing on a tab in the background. I was looking for anything to distract myself from the heavy thoughts in the back of my mind. I usually played video games. I would disassociate by putting myself as the main character in the game and just play until my eyes were so heavy that I couldn't stay awake any longer. For some reason it just wasn't doing it for me this night. I could not sit alone with my thoughts at all.
I'm sitting in my rented one bedroom town house. Dilapidated. Dirty. Neglected. A huge reflection of myself. I couldn't lay in bed without music on because I couldn't be alone with my thoughts. I was listening to a playlist on YouTube and a song from when I was a kid played. Flowers by the Door by T.S.O.L. Listening to the lyrics, and really feeling the song, tears were streaming from my eyes. I think I truly felt like I didn't want to take another day of it. The song basically talks about how a person decides that this is it, they can't take it anymore and they are done thinking about yesterday and what people think, and even though they've said it before they are really going to follow through now. To me it felt like a final farewell, or a suicide note. I'm still alive but I'm in the grave. Intrusive, bad, negative, suicidal thoughts just kept swirling and circling. I don't know how your mind works but I tend to think things over and over. I think things into a circle and they just keep swirling like water down a drain but they don't disappear, they just keep pouring.
Outside of the house was just this image of myself I was trying to maintain. I graduated from an art school with honors. Studied animation and illustration, but here I am working these dead end jobs just barely trying to get by. No family, no real friends, nothing significant in anyway. Stuck without a car because of a repo. Riding a bike everywhere. Is this how someone in their 30s should be living? Sure, working a part time job at a record store is cool but is this truly where you should be? I have to fight myself every damn minute of the day with this crap. Repeating thoughts of being a failure, despite me doing some actual good. I was just blind to it all. I had a huge dark cloud over me. It was very heavy.
How am I going to pay rent, and my credit cards... How am I going to feed myself? Can I use this credit card for that, and this isn't due until then I can just swing it. I need a car to get a better job. I'm being garnished. How am I going to take care of myself and my cat? I work very hard, why can't I get ahead? I am a punctual person, why am I not being recognized for my hard work and attention to detail? Why do my co-workers openly talk shit about me and talk down to me? Where's the respect that I give to everyone? Why am I such a failure? Why don't people like me? It's not like I'm mean or rude. I really just don't understand how any of this works.
Anxiety and doubt. Fear and worry. Depression and sadness. These are things that just controlled my life. I never felt like I was in control. I was just winging it minute by minute. Full on survivor mindset.
When I was a little kid. My stepdad let me hangout at a friends house where I stayed the night. He told me that I would have to be home before a certain time because something was going on. I remember having so much fun. Me and my friend played video games and played outside, did all the cool shit you would expect kids to do. Bike riding, wrestling, teasing siblings, the whole nine yards. Well fast forward to the next day. I wake up in a panic and realize that I'm late and that I'm in deep shit. I start running home, tears running down my face, snot bubbling out of my nose, just upset at the fact that I said I was going to do something and I was late. I get to this little industrial part near my house and this gate that's usually open is closed. So I'm climbing up this gate, crying, and get stuck near the top. It's a huge 15 ft fence. A guy who knew me from the area asked if I was OK and helped me get down and through the gate.
I ran inside the trailer and my stepdad was sitting there waiting for me. He was pissed. The second I saw him look at me I knew I was getting my ass kicked. This was normal for me. He would full on punch me. I'm just a little boy. He told me there's a lesson to this and justified it because I was late. I mean, as a kid, sure. Who am I to challenge my parents? They are supposed to be looking out for me. Help me become a better person. But to do it in this way. It just really set the stage for me later in life. This wasn't the only time he did anything like this. There are several other times, but that's another story.
What I'm getting at is that since I was a child, it was engrained in me that I have to behave a certain way. Every time my step dad beat me up, it was because there was a lesson to learn behind it. Don't be late. Don't disrespect or talk back to your elders. Don't skip out on your chores. I didn't understand how this would condition me as an adult.
My parents hung around some pretty scummy people and it helped me learn the bad side of drug usage. I never wanted to end up like the people they were or hung around. It didn't make sense to me, they worked so hard for money and things and they traded it away to get high. I got a Sony PlayStation not too long after it's release because of it. Blows my mind...
As a kid I grew up wanting to be away from home. I did anything I could to be away. Staying at friends houses, after school programs, missing the bus so I had to walk. Literally anything. This was great because I became very social. I developed skills that helped me as an adult. I was punctual, had a strong work ethic, a high level of integrity because I had to do everything myself anyways, and a common understanding of humanity. I saw it all as a kid and even more so as an adult.
I realized I was living my life, controlling this vessel, with no hands on the wheel. I basically just let it roll. This meant that my deepest fears and depression were in control. I lacked a healthy routine. I had discipline, but lacked it in the areas that helped me in a healthy way. My parents never showed me how to properly live life. Or teach me real things on how to take care of myself. I never had the right role models in my life. I had to make it up as I went. With the abuse and drugs all I knew was survival mode. I really had to relearn how to do things in life.
Of course that takes a toll on you. So from childhood I have had a voice in my head telling me I'm a failure and that I will never amount to anything, because look where I came from. A dilapidated trailer, roaches in the bed, no food, worrying about how to pay the electric bill when I was a mere child. To an adult whos basically in the same fucking spot. I did things to try and improve my life, of course! I went to college. I graduated with honors, I cultivated relationships that I hoped would last. I worked very hard at all the jobs I ever did, in hopes that I would become something greater. In my life at that point though, everything revolved around money. I never made enough, never had enough, always stressed about it.
It was that night, of my terrible breakdown that I decided to no longer let money control my life. I was no longer going to worry about how bills were going to get paid, how I was going to eat, or anything. I would just live my life and if it worked out, then cool, if not, I would figure it out. Like I had always done up to this point. I wasn't going to hurt myself twice over it. I wasn't going to worry about it, stress out about it, then it happens, and get stressed and hurt even more about it. It was very liberating. I envisioned myself floating above money. I separated myself from it, because I knew that I would do what ever it took to get by. It was in that realization that I affirmed to myself out loud, I will always do what is necessary to get through it all.
It's not easy, just being like, OK I'm not going to worry about it anymore. But like a switch I just turned it off. I was tired of feeling sick over it. I didn't want to be controlled by it anymore. It was truly a breaking point. I just stopped. It seems strange I know. But when you reach a certain point of pain and suffering you have to make the decision like that. Level up right now and become stronger, or accept defeat and quit the game. Live or die. It's really that simple. It's just hard when you get put in that position because one option is the hardest and the other is so easy. People who are weakened by their traumas and everything always want to take the easier option, which to me, and others, was to die.
I had to use this part of my brain to look at the other areas in my life that I was struggling with. I really liked this idea that I could take my problems and put them into little chunks to solve one at a time, instead of all at once. It's really hard to look at yourself and peel back the layers of shit, look at this broken thing and have the guts to start really nurturing it back to health. Like a gardener repotting a plant. I always thought of myself as an Orchid flower. They are beautiful but they grow in toxic environments where not much else can survive. I had discipline in paying my bills. I had discipline in being a compliant worker. I was eating OK. But still something was not right.
This is where my life started changing. Where I slowly started gripping the wheel and taking control back. I was no longer going to let fear and anxiety drive anymore. I had to form new habits. I had to create a new version of myself that would be a champion. That doesn't mean I don't get scared, or anxious anymore. I do, it's natural. But I started training myself. Anxiety is just excitement with a negative thing attached to it. I started questioning what's going on around me when I started getting anxious and I found that it was fear speaking, when really I should look at the other side. The excitement of what's going to happen. I wanted to find ways to improve my life.
I decided that I was not going to take pills. I watched pills destroy my mom. She would take one, for one thing. Get a side effect, take another. So on and so forth. 40 pills later, she's a wreck. A literal walking zombie. Sleeping all day, checked out from life. I just couldn't live like that. I want to be out doing things. I wanted to live my life. I'm sure it was hard on her as well, but from the outside looking in, I just did not want to be like that. I kept on thinking of ways to help myself cope. Drinking did help, but I couldn't do it all the time. I liked having money and not feeling hungover all the time. It was nice to escape every now and then but if I kept doing that am I really progressing and healing? It made me feel like I was giving into that addict lifestyle. I can't use alcohol as a coping mechanism.
I started with this simple thing. I would go to bed at a reasonable time. Yeah, I know, but I thought long and hard about it. I had to stop going to bed at 7 AM and waking up at 4 PM. I let fear and bad thoughts control when I operated. It was difficult at first, laying down and trying to wrestle with your mind to go to sleep. I just had to power through. It takes time to form a new habit. I spent my life manic, sleeping all day, up all night. Or awake for a day or two then sleep a few days. I struggled a lot with a schedule. When I was scheduled for work, of course I would be there. I always worked it into my weird life. I decided to just turn everything off at midnight. Give myself the chance to get to bed at a reasonable time so I could combat the next day at least well rested. Knowing I had a good nights rest always made me feel better about getting out of bed. I felt ready to fight.
I would make my bed. If I failed at anything else that day, at least I made my bed. I accomplished one task. Yes it was a simple one, but it was so massive in the whole narrative. I made myself breakfast. I usually would eat oatmeal with some peanut butter and honey. Or I'd make 4 eggs with some toast. I would bike about 8 to 10 miles a day if I worked, so I had to have something substantial to start the day. It was pleasant, being able to do that for myself. Something as simple as nourishing myself with things to help me fight the good fight.
It helped lay the foundation of all the other areas that I was lacking in my life. Much like I needed with my mind, I started purging things out of my house. I did a deep clean and had two boxes. Trash and Sell were labeled and filled. I swept up months of dirt. I washed away months of filth. I wiped up years of neglect. It made me look at myself. I just kept thinking of all the similar things between this house that I live in and myself. Some stuff was functional, but realistically broken. It showed me that I never really got out of the trailer I lived in as a kid, and no matter where I moved or what I did, it was going to be there unless I addressed it and really understood it. It was not easy to get started but overall it was a really healthy step forward. I realized I was attached to the things emotionally but not physically. I thought that having these items would make me better, but in reality, they were just trinkets of a time long since past. I understood that the value of the items were already a part of me and when I see them, I remind myself of how they impacted me. I was able to let them go. I had a very massive collection of video games and collectables. I was sad to let the stuff go, but overall it was really worth it. If ever in life I truly want them again, I can find them. But for now, let someone else enjoy them. I don't have to have them anymore to be reminded of the joy they brought me.
I had let go of so much while cleaning my house. It was really weird. I was hanging on to so much stuff that when I looked at it, it held no value to me anymore. Doing this really helped me get my mind right. I was able to think about things and see my growth. I was able to understand some of the changes I needed to make in order to get my shit together. I was literally getting it together physically and mentally. I thought a lot about the things I did when I was at my worst. I had the hardest time doing one task. Taking a shower was a battle. Doing the dishes was a huge fight with myself. But in just accomplishing that one simple thing I felt so much better. I realized I wasn't living for now. I was thinking too much about the future and the past.
I thought about myself as a person and I really liked how I treated others. I also thought a lot about how I talked to myself and how I saw myself. The hardest thing is realizing that you owe yourself basic and common decency. You owe yourself the chance to be great. Every day you are there in the rut is another day practically wasted. I told myself that I would never kill myself, but everyday I did nothing was another day I ultimately did. I had to collect perspective and show myself that even though I said I wasn't going to kill myself I was doing it by inaction. By choosing not to move I put myself farther behind. What I'm saying is that we are here to do something. That something is up to you. If it's laying in bed depressed, then cool, but really you are capable of so much more. It was a form of comfort seeking. It's easy to lay there and not do anything. It's easy to not get up and exercise. The rewards in life are on the other side of challenges. That fear, doubt, and anxiety are blockers of the mind. To be truly alive is to be challenging yourself to be better. This is where my mind started opening up and I felt like I hit the next level.
My life at this time looked like it was getting on track. I was sleeping and eating better. I started working on saving money. I was putting together little blocks to build a better future for myself. I still was stuck in this catastrophe psyche. Every time something happened to me, a flat tire, another bill I didn't expect, someone being rude, a bird shitting on me, these things all were just life ruining, devastating acts that I would surely never recover from. I felt like I was already down, how could I keep getting kicked. Why punch this dead horse? I felt like the universe owed me so much because of all I went through as a child. I survived, so why am I not happy, rich and living my best life? I remember sitting there just being mad and sad and thinking, why is this bugging me so much? Why am I still just letting every little detail ruin my day. This little thing is just one interaction out of a thousand. Or one hour out of 24. I had to quantify my suffering in the grand scheme of it all.
I realized that I had to stop living with all this negative energy. It's no wonder bad shit was happening all the time, I was fucking looking for it every second of every day. I was hyper vigilant on seeing every bad thing that was happening. The thing I had to realize was that life is a perfect balance of good and bad. I had to retrain myself to look for the good, instead of the bad.
Who am I, what did I go through as a kid?
Where was I?
how was i struggling / what was I doing / why was I stuck?
Where did I put myself?
How did I challenge myself / What I did new / how I unstsuck myself
How it's working now
Those challenges are happening all the time / How I'm feeling now / How I keep myself above water
