Coming Back From a Little Hiatus

As some of you have pointed out, and others probably didn't even notice, it has been about two weeks since I wrote anything.  This wasn't really planned, it wasn't for any other purpose than I didn't know where I wanted to go with it.  I had a lot of things in my mind, different posts I could write, different avenues and arguments.  I am still debating with myself on some things as it relates to this blog, but just know I have not gone anywhere.  I know there are some of you out there with similar stories.  They may not be your own, but family members or friends that have struggled with depression or mental illness.  I have kicked around the idea of having a "guest blogger" do a post or two.  If you or someone you know might be interested in doing one let me know.  You can message me on Facebook or e-mail me at scottarivera@yahoo.com.  It doesn't have to just be depression.  There are a ton of topics that would work: PTSD, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Addiction, OCD, Phobias, or even living with someone with a mental illness.

As most of you know I am in nursing school, and this semester I have been doing my mental health rotation in clinicals.  It has been kind of an interesting time.  It is hard to not share too much of my own experiences.  I see these people, going through some of the same struggles I have and am still going through, and sometimes it is just as simple as them needing to know they aren't alone.  They aren't broken or damaged.  I'm not broken or damaged.  We are just sick.

That is hard for people to hear.  I'm sick.  I have an illness.  I did not choose to have all of this happen to me.  I did not knowingly choose a lot of things over the past few years that were toxic for myself and others.  I could not see through the dense fog of depression to make good choices.  I made mistakes.  Big mistakes.  I hurt people.  Not physically, emotionally.  I drove people away.  I did the bare minimum to get by, sometimes not even that much.  I was a burden on the people around me, but not in the way it was in my mind.  In my mind I was a burden because I was alive and in their lives.  In reality, I was a burden because I was unstable.  I couldn't be trusted.  I had to be looked after, not unlike a child.  You wouldn't call your kids a burden, but they can be... taxing?  So maybe I was taxing and not a burden, because the people looking out for me loved me.  They didn't want to see me the way I was, they didn't want for me to go.

But no matter how much someone else wants you to get help, no matter how much they try to lead you in that direction, you yourself have to want it.  No one was going to make me do anything.  I knew what was best.  It would be best for everyone if I killed myself.  It would be over and they could get on with their lives and not have to worry about me taxing them, burdening them any more.

I should have pushed myself to get help.  More help than I did.  I needed ways to deal with my emotions.  Ways to deal with my feelings.  I kept things under lock and key for a long time.  Pushed down, unexposed.  That is the only way I knew how to deal with it.  I had to be strong, had to be stoic.  In the end, I found out I was neither.  Being strong and being stoic doesn't mean you have to bottle up your emotions and your failures.  It is dealing with them.  Pushing them away was more cowardly than it was anything else.  A real man isn't afraid to deal with emotions, to deal with short comings, to deal with...life.

I can not even attempt to undo the failures I have had.  Some small, some large, they are failures.  Failure to get help when I should have, failure to reach out, failure to be a good father, failure to be a good husband, failure to be a good brother, a good son, a good friend, a good member of society, failure to not let my emotions get the better of me, failure to learn coping skills, failure to deal with life, and a failure to see that life was worth living.  All I can do is apologize for my past transgressions.  Apologize for not living up to my end of the bargain.  Apologize for not being what I should have been and hope for forgiveness.  Some bridges have been burnt to the ground, some are hanging by a thread, some are intact but potholed.  I've never been good at manual labor, but I am trying to build bridges back up.  I can only do half of the bridge, maybe a little more, but if the other side does not want the bridge to be there it will inevitably be a bridge to nowhere.  I have to find a way to deal with that.  I did the damage, even if it was because I was sick the damage was done.

If you are struggling with depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, reach out to me.  I will keep everything confidential and will try to point you in the best direction.  These words may fall on deaf ears, because I know it did when people said it to me.  But try to listen to them.  You aren't broken or damaged.  You are sick and need help.  Let me help you.  Let someone help you.  You can not do it yourself.  Let me repeat that.  You can not do it yourself.  No matter how good you think you are at handling it.  You can not do it yourself.  I thought I was handling it ok.  I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.  I reached out, went to a psychiatrist, got on medication.  That was what I was supposed to do right?  It wasn't enough.  I still broke down.  I didn't know what to do in that moment.  I didn't want to bother anyone with what was going on.  Even those who knew, they offered help.  Anytime, anywhere, if I needed help to tell them.  I didn't.  I overdosed trying to solve the problem temporarily.  I had, as my therapist called it in my last session, a nervous breakdown.  I lost it.  By it I mean perspective.  A sane person knows that taking copious amounts of trazodone and benzodiazepines is not a good way to deal with things. In the moment, I was not a sane person.  Truth-be-told I probably hadn't been sane for some time.

For me losing my mind was not a sudden thing.  It was a gradual process over time.  It is that way for many people.  Things start out slowly.  You are sad, you don't like yourself, you start to pull away from social interactions.  Slowly things snowball and before you know it years have passed and you hate yourself, you are beyond sad, you seclude from everything, you want to die.  This is the point when things start to move faster and faster.  Most people fear death, at this point you just wish it would happen.  You aren't ready to take your own life, but you would welcome something that would do it for you.  While driving you secretly hope to be broadsided by a semi.  You wish you would get very sick and pass away.  Why can't someone just try and rob me or carjack me so I can fight them and make them shoot me.  A lot of times this is the stage where people begin to take big risks.  Deadly risks.  Driving erratically, extreme sports, dangerous drinking, and heavy drug use to name a few.  My case would also fit in this group.  Self-medicating with prescription medications.  A majority of the time the people do not even know they are doing things that are dangerous and reckless.  Subconsciously they are just doing them.  It comes back to that whole I want to die, but I am not going to kill myself thinking.  

As things get worse, that is when people turn that corner.  They make that move from wanting to die, to attempting to or taking their own life.  This can happen quickly or over a period of time.  Unfortunately, those reaching this point are often so far into their depression there is no escape in their mind.  They don't even think with help they would get better.  It would just be a waste of time and resources.  They feel they are a lost cause.  A pointless venture.

My case was somewhere in between.  I acted knowing that what I was doing could have a bad outcome, but I had to get rid of the thoughts in my head.  They were so loud and so constant that day I couldn't focus on anything except I was either going to get rid of them, or I was going to die.  I have very little doubt in that.  It took hitting that low.  That point where I had to go through that experience to understand I needed help.  I needed to be around.  I needed to get my life back.  

I know I could be doing more to help myself.  So it is with that thought that I have decided to follow through on one of the things I said I would do.  I have looked into it and there is a depression support group that meets in Olathe on Monday nights.  I am going to give it a try.  At least it will give me a topic for my next post, right?