Mental Health – Page 2

The Collapse Pt One – The Golden Age

If the title seems odd, it’s only because I think reading, no matter the subject, should be enjoyable. This dramatisation that persists in my writing is intentional, if it’s found to be in poor taste I apologize but i’m not going to change. My words are not hyperbolic, I am not stretching truths or making light of these topics. I would name it “Flowery”. I use flowery language because I like to use flowery language. Read How Fiction Works by James Wood if you feel the same or want to understand why. And yes flowery language is pretentious, but fun.

Tensions between my wife and I existed long before we were married. We met by chance when I found the only off-campus housing I could afford as a college student with my only job being a non-graduate teacher’s assistant. Don’t remember my pay otherwise it would be explicitly stated but I do know rent was about $600 a month + utilities. There were three (then eventually four with some ingenuity) roommates here to split the cost of our three bedroom, one bathroom apartment. One was an American-born white guy, myself (another American-born white guy), and then my Chinese-born soon-to-be-wife.

Her first impressions of me were of mild fear. I listened to death metal and didn’t talk much, but we met in the kitchen. I learned basic nutrition in high school for effective weight control in wrestling and have cooked my own food since. This means we both spent time in our 80’s patina kitchen. It was in those rare moments where we were both cooking that we connected. The conversations started small and became bigger over time. Then we started spending time with each other outside of the kitchen. This led me to ask her to accompany me on my family’s annual trip to Tennessee for the winter holidays which she complied to. One night we were all just sitting and talking and my father, recognizing our closeness, placed a blanket across her and my collective laps. We were sitting alone on a couch (actually a bench but hey) and this blanket combined us. Then later that night my parents took my younger sister to watch Frozen in theatre which had just come out. X (my wife) and I stayed behind. By the end of the night I was watching the film adaptation of Solomon Kayne and while she texted or scrolled social media. She was starting to come around to the romantic interest between us but it was uncomfortable for her because she kept calling me “white devil”. This is because of the cultural separation which very obviously distanced us while she dealt with her feelings of attraction.

From this point it would be honest to say we were “dating”. Nothing much changed but we both intended to spend more time with each other and eventually I started sleeping in her room (nothing happened, we were just physically and emotionally closer. Get rid of those dirty thoughts!). This meant conversationally sharing things, cooking together, bike rides together and all those other activities couples do. However my job didn’t provide a properly sustainable income combined with my first attempts at budgeting. She had to help with multiple months of my rent because I was a little short. I always paid her back but a certain seed was planted. One semester my family couldn’t afford tuition and I didn’t receive enough scholarship funds to compensate so I spent it just working and figuring out my life (which I obviously still haven’t done well enough). This agitated her to no end and she continued to pressure me into accepting a loan from her to resume schooling. I didn’t want to accept her money then, but eventually and begrudgingly I complied. I still think I made the wrong choice agreeing to it. I skipped one semester and had my following one subsidized by my girlfriend. This is where the cracks in our future foundation would become beyond obvious.

From here we would find another apartment together, the fact she and I continued to live with each other caused her father distress knowing we were now entangled despite not explicitly telling him as much. This was the time where our relationship was solidified. Thanks to her urging I started working in several varieties of game development, my then-at-the-time goal.

However she was a graduate student and I was an undergraduate. She already had a bachelor’s degree from China while pursuing her Master’s at IU while I was still an Undergraduate, she’s two years older than I am. Then came the dark times when after this year she graduated while I still had several semesters to finish. We were together for two years and for me she was the “one”, but she was also my first serious romantic partner. My inability to keep up with her (across multiple vertices) led to us separating for some time. This time lasted almost more than a year.

During that time she started dating someone else which absolutely broke me. I exercised so much I was probably in the best shape of my life but ran so much I fractured my fifth meta-tarsal bone (this has more to do with the type of shoe I ran in and less about my persistence; always run in good shoes). The upshot was I had a lot to talk to the ladies of the natural history building about since I’d fractured my 5th-meta-tarsal and my 5th-meta-carpal within a year which was unusual. It’s really because I don’t emote well and turn my frustrations upon myself resulting in real long-term physical damage. Exercise is good for you but we need more than that for healthy coping.

Eventually I was just three credits from graduating so I moved to California while I finished my degree online. Believe it or not I moved in with my ex and shortly after, we were together again. For fun, we met at a fancy Italian restaurant and exchanged feelings, deciding we could live together again. For more fun she bought me Fallout 4 on PC (just released recently in 2015) that night as a gift. If you’re starting to create a through-line, yeah she was better off than me for a variety of reasons. While she could offer a lot, all I had was me which is now obviously not enough.

After this our relationship accelerated as we both started our careers and began to live our adult lives together.

If the question of why I would post this arises, it’s because it’s much easier to look back now and see how things could’ve been different with the understanding of today.

I Failed

For the past few years I’ve been dealing with a lot of things. This blog has been a great way for me to talk about it and self-examine. I haven’t posted in something like two years. I plan on posting again and should. However I have to be absolutely honest. I have failed. I have failed miserably. In my post Jekyll & Hyde I talked about giving up alcohol. I did, then I did not. I was sober for about eight months before I relapsed. Since then I’ve slipped further and further into my own abyss. As a result I’m now living with my parents, lost my job (not actually related to my drinking but hey let me run with the dramatic because it’s still true), and my wife has left me. While only two of those three is directly tied to my drinking the fact I haven’t found a new job is directly tied to my drinking.

I have my own yarn to spin about my divorce saga but right now I’m just re-acclimating to posting again. I think this blog is emotionally necessary for me. I have a lot to say but I do not like talking usually. The problem is then self-obvious. Hence this blog. At first I didn’t know what this was but over time it’s purpose became more obvious. I’m a human going through a lot of shit like we all do but now I can talk about it without fear. Fear of retaliation, fear of indictment, fear of being vulnerable and more. I started this blog because I have things to say however useful or non-useful. Our many insights of other people come from their private thoughts written in journals a la Anne Frank. Not like I think I’m some important historical figure but if we don’t record these things no one else will ever know and it’s only in the knowing that things can be learned from, changed, understood, etc…

If all I do is shout at the heavens and get no response at least I get some reprieve, but if there’s at least one other human who can benefit from my words then I have done something good. Therefore I feel absolutely obliged to be as honest as possible.

I have failed and miserably so. There are good ways to deal with problems and bad ways however I took some sort of middle road where I somewhat managed to deal with them but also managed to do it completely wrong. I read, I am in therapy, I write, I explore, I create but still I drink. Drinking is not some great evil and people who drink can be completely happy, fulfilled, and not hurt those around them but not everybody can drink and do those things. Some of us struggle with moderation. Some of us struggle with our emotions. Some of us struggle with the pressures of life. Some of us struggle being alone and bored. Alcohol will never be a good prescription for those ailments.

For those of use where alcohol or really any drug (whether it be marijuana, alcohol, sex/pornography, video games, constant netflix streaming, eating fast food) become crutches, know that crutches don’t make you stronger. Being vulnerable and asking for help is strength. Being able to acknowledge your weakness and find real support is strength. Facing down your difficulties and doing the right thing is strength. Forgiving yourself for your mistakes is strength. If you get into a cycle of “I did bad thing -> punish self -> self is still same way -> I seek bad thing for better feeling -> I did thing” then that cycle needs to be broken. Not by seeking outside of yourself for assurance, peace, or atonement, etc… but by being able to say “I did a bad thing and I may do it again but it’s Ok as long as I realize the consequences and am willing to *NOT* do the bad thing again”. It seems counter-intuitive as it first seemed to me, but if you’re constantly seeking to punish yourself then you will only ever end up punished but not changed.

Forgive yourself. You are not ultimate evil. You may have done some things you wish you could take back. Things you will never forgive yourself for but if you’re opinion of yourself is so low you won’t love yourself enough to change for the better then you won’t be able to change. Changing or self-improvement relies on you thinking it’s actually possible but if you think you’re some sort of unforgiveable monster you won’t be able to love yourself enough to enact that change. Sorry if that sounds like mashed-potato words.

Bottom line is, if you want to change you have to care enough about yourself for that desire to better to be a useful motivation.

If you’re depressed or just don’t like yourself it starts with small things

Take a shower (and if you’re a man shave your face)
Wear some nice clothes (if you don’t have any just go buy one “set” of nice clothes, or just wear something different if you can’t or don’t want to spend money.)
Talk to those closest to you; if you feel like no one exists like that then you need to find some groups to socialize in. There are many social groups catering to different activities, try Meetup or many of the other widely available resources. I know it’s hard but you can do it.

You won’t always intrinsically feel better but you just took three steps in loving yourself no matter how small. Small steps every day can take you miles over time. And yes this will take time.

You may not think you can do it, but I do. I think you can do it. I believe you can do it. I know you can do it. This may sound empty but I welcome anyone who wants to talk, just reach out and I will listen. I will do what I can to be there for you.

Don’t Make New Year’s Resolutions

Every year instead of telling yourself you’re going to do this thing or that thing this year look at who you are and think about who you want to be. All year every year you should be striving to be that person not just January 1st. Instead of waiting for an arbitrary day to try and change, make a plan that overcomes the difference between the you now and the ideal you. Then instead of resolutions every year use it as a moment of self-reflection trying to identify how you failed, and how you can better approach your changes. There’s nothing wrong with failure, usually, if you can use it to learn and grow. Accept that you can make mistakes if you can objectively allow yourself to grow from them. In example if you want to run one mile everyday it may be too difficult to just do that right now. Instead run what you can and over time add onto how much you run every day. It may take weeks or even months but with constant effort it will come. With that constant effort comes a constant drain on your energy and motivation. So, pick effort that’s achievable and build up.

Instead of expecting yourself to just be immediately better because the calendar went up a number examine the ways you can plan for that change over the year. Then every year re-appraise that plan and whether it needs to be more or less ambitious, more or less taxing, more or less important. Every day is a chance for improvement and acknowledging the best way to change and planning around that is more effective than just changing all at once.

(If you’re a reader the books Atomic Habits by James Clear and Designing the Mind will help identify, create, and improve those plans more than my little spiel.)

Burnt + Self-Flagellation

In the movie Burnt, we start at the end of Bradley Cooper’s character’s self-imposed punishment of shucking 1,000,000 oysters. By the end of movie we know his self-flagellation is proven to have no effect on anyone really but himself and his sins against the world still need atonement.

This mirrors a similar ascetic journey I undertook as a college student, where I also underwent a self-imposed flagellation. While I was situationally poor I took it to the extreme and would forego eating up to a week at a time and skip sleeping for days at a time, this lasted for months. I hoped that this penance would bring me some greater clarity concerning life and my place in it. All I really learned is a short path into psychosis complete with auditory and visual hallucinations. The kind of self-loathing that convinced me this was ok was great fuel for excercise and I pushed myself so hard I eventually fractured my foot running, an occurrence that helped end a life long habit of exercise. Obviously such powerful motivation is desireable but not at the costs it took. There is something useful in self-deprivation of desires, not needs, but in all things moderation is important.

By the end of Burnt Cooper’s character doesn’t become better because of his self-flagellation but because he learned to accept his mistakes, he learned gratitude (even in the hands of his opposition) and as a result he became a more complete person. Emotions are powerful motivators but if you don’t manage them properly they can just burn you.

The Death of Friendship

(This was something I meant to publish in October but felt it was a little too depressing to riff off of the ‘horror’ tide around Halloween.)

While not of the gory variety there is an existential horror within the dying embers of old friendships. Expicitly none of my friendships are truly dead but it’s hard to ignore how thin some have become. At no point am I blaming or pointing fingers, if nothing else my awareness of this state but lack of long-form action could justify blame levied at me; but blame doesn’t shift reality.

Before I knew I’d be a father I agreed to be a best man at a friend’s wedding. I think the exact words were “I’d be honored.”. Later as the date approached I had to call and let him know I couldn’t make it as I’d be taking care of a baby then. In between those two conversations we hadn’t chatted once and I was telling him I wouldn’t make it and that I would soon be a father at the same time. He’s a chill guy and seemingly wasn’t bothered by the change in circumstances.

Obviously my communication skills aren’t that great but there’s more to it than that. We’ve been friends since middle school but went to different colleges and while he stayed in Indiana I moved to California. We even both became software engineers, but given our differing choice in college we developed new social groups. There is a stereotype that once you get married or have kids you can’t have friends, and maybe there is some truth there. However I’d guess the truth is much closer to: as people go through life they have evolving circumstances that influence their availability, ability, and willingness to engage. For example after I moved to California and got a good job my ability to visit family increased as I made more money but my availability decreased since I didn’t have many paid vacation days. If this is true then the “death” of my friendships isn’t as much my fault as it is consequence of living my life, making it all the more tragic.

Pushing past the bleakness there’s a couple more things of interest. Though the relationship may feel tenuous you’re still friends just not as close as you used to be. So, again, it’s not a true “death” but the extreme awareness in disparity between then and now. I’m sure if I reached out to my friends we could chat, catch-up, maybe play some games and have a great time. The friendship still exists.

Breaking the Habit

Perhaps I was just in the right frame of mind, but I was reflecting on how over-exposed I allow myself to be to those things I enjoy. For as long I can remember I’d played video games nearly every day usually much more than I should have. This also extends to film, TV or music. While games require participation to function these others do not so I could always fill my time with them even if it’s little more than ambient noise. Thus, over years this became less a conscious choice and more a habit. Having, over the years, indulged in alcohol and seen what happens when over-indulged it made sense to ‘quit’ playing games, watching movies, or listening to music just as I might quit drinking alcohol. By the time I had decided to do this several days had gone by being busy with my daughter, maybe making the choice easier. With my wife out of town for work I became a solo dad and couldn’t afford to indulge. When she came back I could but realized I shouldn’t. That was at the beginning of December and while I now decompress at the end of the day with some TV and listen to music during my morning exercise, I still haven’t played video games.

It’s funny for me to think that this may be the first time I’ve spent so long away from gaming since I was maybe a child. Even in my roughest college semesters putting in 80-hour weeks I found time to play then, but now I don’t. This isn’t going to be an indictment of gaming but an examination of ‘breaking the habit’ of playing and what it’s like, for me.

First and foremost, I’d like to point out my mental and emotional stability
is obviously not as stable as one would like but I do try to do better. That
said I’d been playing games consistently since I was young, began smoking weed in high school, and began drinking in college. For all that time it might be said I was distracting and self-medicating myself and after a week or two
without it my head felt like a room full of people shouting over each other.
Once that started the first few days were the worst. My attention was
constantly jumping, and I had trouble remembering what I was doing. Breathing exercises, journaling, and keeping a to-do list helped in the beginning (and still does) but after a while instead of maybe 30 voices it was down to three. Then two. Now it’s usually just a single line of thought with occasional interjection. I’ll try to avoid any armchair psychology or speculation but here are my thoughts.

I’m finally growing up. After an extended adolescence through my late 20’s I’ve finally had the self-control and will to try and be an adult…. all the time, as opposed to just when things need to be done. I have a schedule for when I exercise, when and what I eat, and never sit down to rest if there’s ‘easy’ labor to be done around the house. ‘Easy’ labor being started laundry, folding it, running the dishwasher, picking up clothes and other things out of place, etc. Basically, anything that takes less than five minutes of effort. Instead of playing games when I have ‘free’ time it’s now spent reading, writing, and preparing to change jobs. This has revived my passion for stories and writing in general. I did try to write two trashy young adult novels as a middle schooler but gave up because they were dumb and trashy. Now I have a full ten-chapter book planned with world building, character arcs, and historical research in effect. Already I’ve got the first chapter written with editing left to do. While it’s hard to focus sometimes journaling and lists keep me on-track. Not to say I’d left all this labor to my wife previously but now it’s a seamless single-person process to do it all and have it always done every day. I think what this really means is that these addictions I had were crutches I relied on when I needed to face the world but instead found a way to shield myself from it, in them.

At best this may be self-aggrandizing or at worst a self-indictment but by sharing I hope others can turn a critical eye to habits in their life and how those habits affect them both daily and over time. (If a certain Linkin Park song comes to mind while reading, yeah that’s intentional).

The Walkabout

If you’ve ever been to the American Midwest, you’d know that like all places it has an inimitable charm and beauty. Quaint it might be compared to something so grand as Everest or vast as the Grand Canyon but it’s still there. I always found it far from the cities, lost in the woods. To wander and chance upon someplace free from the burdens of civilization. The more work to get there, the more remote the better. The existence of such places a mystery until revealed. For me my father was the one who showed me the outdoors. Since I was young, we’d always camped in state parks or similar places which is fine but as I got older my dad started getting out more himself and thus began taking me too. Hiking, backpacking, kayaking, anything to be in the woods. There’s therapy in the whole process. Picking a site. Deciding trip length and time. What food to bring and what gear and how is it packed. It all comes together as you set out packs on your back. In the first few minutes your body will begin to ache, sweat, and you’ll begin having more labored breaths. Maybe a bit of doubt about well you’ll carry and how far. Then before you know it, the body’s warmed up and what seemed difficult has become natural. Everything’s been prepared it’s just walking the space between you and setting up camp.

On the first night you can have fresh meat or to keep it easy stay with dehydrated every time. Either your close to water and will filter or you packed enough in. Camp is set, the fire is starting to build, the sun is low in the sky leaving just enough light to see through a few feet of trees. You sit back satisfied with the work, drinking in the lack of so many noises. Here it’s the occasional animal crying or moving about, a bit of wind, the crackling fire and nothing else. Dinners getting started, and water’s set to boil for coffee, cocoa, or tea. You finish standing the tent getting any ground pads ready and take in the peace.

Or you find a cave that’s open to the public for spelunking. Some are short some are long but being underground stands out as an experience. The temperature hardly varies. There’s bound to be belly crawls, climbing, wading, and sometimes swimming to move through a route. Everythings muddy from a creek running along most of your route despite the recent lack of rain. Lights often pointed ahead to catch looming head injuries or kneecapping rocks. When you take a break and look around you see ancient formations with water dripping like crystals. Everythings brown but with different shades and shapes rendering each “room” distinct. Then just for fun you and any one your with all kill your headlamps and soak in the complete darkness.

Each trip is unique, but all can provide that sense of purgation, a cleansing of the soul. Every person needs this in some form; a method or methods of achieving catharsis. It could be binging movies, a hard workout, backpacking, or more whatever works and is healthy. So, if you have the need to get away find a local park, cave, beach, whatever and have a walkabout.

Take only pictures, leave only footprints and bring plenty of water.

Jekyll & Hyde

I started writing this blog to have a place to voice my thoughts and share with anyone who cares to visit. Despite the many ideas I wished to record I engaged in a habit that sapped me of my will, determination, and curiosity. That was habitual alcohol abuse. I chose this particular title because it got to a point where my wife recognized me as a different person when drunk. Angry and illogical I become a cruel shade of myself, trapped by my addiction and an inability to change. My Mister Hyde released after the imbibing of a potion. Any problems, troubles, or anything negative that I discuss in this story I provide not for pity but honesty. I made these mistakes, now I’m trying to fix what I can. I’m not the first and I will not be the last but maybe writing this will help me, and if you read it maybe it will help you or a loved one.

When the Covid-19 lockdowns started I had no problem staying at home. I prefer my solitude. However, as the lockdowns continued, I found myself growing increasingly bored and disappointed in myself. When my wife and I spent a portion of the year in Tennessee I started drinking a lot more. Partly because I had been a habitual pot smoker for about a decade and stopped all at once living somewhere where weed was illegal, and partly because of the boredom. It was simple at first, drinking a few beers after work while watching TV. Eventually it became habit and my consumption increased from a few beers to a six-pack. Not only that but being stuck where we were in Tennessee left me feeling trapped, like living in a hotel room for months. We went out when we could, but we were very remote. The only food available to us being microwaveable food as we didn’t have a kitchen. All of this and reduced exercise made me 50 pounds heavier after a few months. This all seems like text-book depression and maybe it was, but when I was high school, I suffered from a savage depression, and it didn’t feel the same. Eventually we left Tennessee and moved to Colorado, while here I picked up my smoking habit again but severely reduced in consumption. Recognizing how much weight I had put on I knew I couldn’t continue drinking beer and that I needed to be exercising daily. My misgivings over drinking had already started to exist but either out of indolence, foolishness, or addiction I continued to drink but now hard liquor. Of any of the signs my body gave me to stop the one that has changed my life the most it’s that my digestion stopped working properly though I hadn’t yet determined drinking as the cause.

Unfortunately, this is where the story takes a turn for the worse. My drinking had accelerated to a gallon of whiskey a week. I was occasionally day drinking, but certainly drinking far too much each night. This is when I started to lose control. When I started to argue with my wife. When she started to notice something was wrong. Too much alcohol and I can’t manage my emotions well, I start complaining about things to my wife. It becomes a debate. Then a fight, hurting us both. One could correctly guess this affected my wife’s disposition as well, quite severely. A tension had always existed between us as she’s highly motivated and hard-working, and when we met in College, I was struggling student who didn’t work as hard as he should or could have. After the alcohol she lost faith in me. She became afraid of me. Why didn’t I stop.

My wife had a hit breaking point with me and asked that I get into therapy. I met with a therapist for a few months but ultimately didn’t feel like it helped, and not for the first time. I had therapy as a high schooler when I was dealing with my depression. I attended several sessions back then but talking to my therapist I got the sense she either didn’t care or didn’t understand. She even suggested that my internal anger arose from contempt towards my mother because she and my older brother argued when he lived with us, based on me looking up to him as a kid. That’s absolutely a load of bollocks. I knew it wasn’t going to work with this therapist and I would have to figure it out on my own. Which I did, in a sense. One of my biggest inspirations back then was my French teacher at the time. This teacher really cared about her students and put a lot of effort into teaching. When I started to slip in grades, she’d talk to me about it because she wanted me to improve. She did all this while going through chemotherapy for cancer and she never lost her optimism. Not the overly bubbly kind but hopeful and determined. Knowing she’s probably suffering while doing all this it showed me that you must have hope and you must work hard every day to keep it that way.

Late in 2021 my wife and I discovered she had become pregnant. I had stopped smoking weed at this time in anticipation of my first-born, a daughter. This is also when I started studying seriously to change jobs and my first real attempt at managing my addiction. As a software engineer it’s required to demonstrate aptitude through a variety of tests and interviews. This means months of practice and studying. So, for three months I had purpose. Still drinking but I was too busy to drink a lot. For the first time since maybe college, I felt like I was working hard and had something. This was only a bright spot in a streak of darkness. I failed to get another job and I think the disappointment killed my remaining passion and optimism. Then I stopped studying and shortly after we moved back to California. My wife suggested it’s possible the constant moving prevented me from building solid habits.

I didn’t immediately relapse but I did start drinking again and it grew as a habit. Tensions with my wife, my own personal issues, a pull to change jobs, my day job, and most importantly my unborn daughter all weighed on me, asking me to find reprieve in a bottle. So, I did, and all that stress poured out of me whenever I drank too much. The pressure evolved into anger that I would direct at my wife when we disagreed, usually over my drinking. I never struck her, nor had I ever hit her, but the uncontrollable anger I exhibited frightened her. At least once she felt she should leave the house for her safety. Knowing if I want to be in my daughter’s life in a capacity that I would be proud of, I had to stop. I resolved to do so. Thus, this tragic tale of human foolishness reaches its present terminus (I apologize if I come across as pompous or anything of the sort).

My wife and I are trying to work through our shared problems. She’s suggested I see a therapist for my own issues. We’re also setting up time with a couple’s therapist. I’m looking into local AA chapters. Right now, the last bottle I drank is sitting on my desk empty with the date I began my abstinence “04-27-2022”. Hopefully in a year I’ll be writing about one year clean and how great it is to be a father.