The View from Halfway Down
Hello dear readers, I know I have not written to you in quite some time and that’s 100% on me. I realize I may not have a huge following, but many of you do tell me you enjoy reading my little musings, and I sincerely appreciate all of your thoughts and feedback. I often use this blog to discuss motivational topics, things that I’ve managed to overcome with grit and resilience, and even more broadly things that I’ve learned. This blog is not going to be that.
As some of you may know, in the past I’ve struggled with alcohol addiction and I’ve experienced generalized anxiety in my past. Several years ago I had stopped drinking, though I never claimed to be sober. I, personally, still liked to go out and do some party drugs with friends or take some psychadelics to try to open my mind. This occurred infrequently, and overall, I was able to manage it and lead a pretty happy and fulfilled life. Recently though, life has tossed some things my way that were extremely challenging.
With the pandemic being over, and the world (finally) opening up more. I can’t claim that I didn’t have a pent up need to go out and enjoy myself. For so long, there’s been simply very little to do. As the world opened up, I found more things on my schedule that were centered around a good time, and not around productivity. Now, to be clear, I’ve learned this lesson before. I need a lot of space after I go out and I can only really handle ONE night. Recently, there were some situations where I did not follow that and I very quickly re-learned that I cannot do that to myself.
After a long weekend of not enough sleep, too much substance abuse, and the weight of work weighing on my shoulders as I returned to my everyday life…my anxiety, which often is just an annoyance in the back of my head that I know how to manage through fitness, meditation, and other tactics, had become a ROAR. A loud, overwhelming, terrifying, painful, ROAR. I felt incapable of doing my job. I felt incapable of living my life. I felt incapable of giving the people around me whom I love so much what they need and deserve. This broke me because, speaking for myself, this is ultimately what life comes down to. Can you show up for the people that you love when they need it? In this moment, I knew that I couldn’t.
One night, I laid my head down to sleep after a long, horrible day of trying to survive work and my personal life and I found myself unable to sleep because of racing thoughts and just fear for what was ahead. I couldn’t calm down so I got up and moved to the couch. It didn’t get better. I had a deep, deep inner restlessness that was unquenchable. I kept moving even though I didn’t want to. I’ve read about a condition called akathesia. It’s essentially a deep inner restlessness that’s often associated with psychiatric drugs. Though very temporary, this seems to be what I was experiencing. This sent me into even more of a frenzy and my heart rate skyrocketed. I began breathing heavily and I had tears in my eyes scared shitless of what was happening.
I was trying to think of ways to calm down, but I was coming up very short. I tried to meditate, but my thoughts were racing and too dark for me to look at honestly. Then, I noticed a weed pen sitting on the nightstand. Weed has a very calming effect for many people and struggling for other options, I reached for it and took a couple of pulls. This made my panic attack into something truly out of a nightmare. Suicidal thoughts began racing through my mind. I wanted to call the local hospital and check in. I googled it but couldn’t bring myself to call. Continuing to panic, I googled a suicide hotline, but couldn’t bring myself to call them either. I called a couple of friends who did not pick up (I don’t blame them, it was 1 in the morning on a Friday). I tried to go for a walk…in my underwear. And a talk top. I ran into a neighbor who had a deep look of concern on his face (for good reason). This did nothing.
Finally, I came back inside, still experiencing suicidal ideation and fear like I’ve never felt. I noticed a bottle of whiskey in the corner. Now, as you know my friends. I don’t drink. But recently, if I’m being truthful, there have been a couple of episodes where I may have slipped. Life has gotten hard, and I have found myself reaching for a numbing agent because my feelings just hurt. Thus, I had become slightly more comfortable with the idea of drinking than I had in these past several sober-ish years. I opened the whiskey, drank it until I couldn’t stomach more, and laid there waiting for its effects to pull me under to sleep.
You may read this and be giggling saying “lol ok, so you smoked some weed and had a panic attack.” Believe me, no. The panic attack was already happening and then the weed took it over the edge. I woke up so miserably hungover. A feeling that I haven’t had in years. I have never felt such shame, disappointment, hurt, and misery. Fortunately though, my hard work to get my shit together has taught me that you just have to keep going. The suicidal ideation was and is gone. After a couple of weeks of focusing on taking care of myself and doing the things that bring me joy, including writing this blog, have made me feel like me again.
I plan on moving through this experience and learning from it. I learned that I need to take a much harder stance on my substance use. I learned that no matter what, I cannot sacrifice taking care of myself because when I don’t, the backslide into that dark place happens so fucking quickly. I hope if you took the time to read this that you don’t see me differently. All I want to do in this life is to inspire, love, and live a good life.
I hope you will allow me the chance to continue to inspire you. And I hope you will support me as I push through this and continue to create the life that I want.
I love you all. Be well.
