Talking to anyone about my inner demons is hard for me. I talk to myself plenty. I have long-winded dialogue with myself almost every minute that I’m not conversing with another human being. A lot of those inner conversations are ugly, unvarnished truth. However, admitting my vulnerabilities to others has never been part of my make-up. From where I sit, the world, particularly in the individually-driven country in which I live, tells us to handle our own business. I try not to pry into the personal affairs of other folks unless I’m asked to, and I generally don’t like it when people pry into mine.
It’s a glitch in my programming. I’m not much of a talker unless I really, really trust the person I’m sharing with, and there aren’t too many folks I trust. That’s somewhat unwarranted, I suppose, but the people I open up to seem to understand.
When my dear friend started this blog, part of me shuddered at the notion of her openly sharing, in vast detail, her struggles with not only addictions, but various other emotional and mental struggles. I wanted to caution her to keep her demons close to her vest, but she arrived at an epiphany long before I did. She called it like it was, which filled me with admiration and awe, but also with a tremendous fear. The potential stigma - at least that’s what I perceived it to be - seemed so great to me that I feared what I thought would be the resulting damage to her anonymity, privacy, and reputation. I saw the inherent value in her sharing her own struggles so that others might not feel so alone, but my brief flirtation with following suit and writing my own story was quickly tempered by trepidation. I resolved to follow her lead at the time, and then rapidly retreated into the safety of hiding my own significant “craziness.” After all, I rationalized, I was doing OK. I was sober, getting by day-by-day, maintaining a comfortable façade of respectability, and rationalizing my near-daily anxiety as just “something to deal with.” Sure, I worried about things, and I checked the stove, lights, and doors a few more times than normal before leaving the house, but I was working hard, exercising, and doing my best to be of service to others. My internal fears and obsessions were nobody’s business but my own. I didn’t feel like there was much reason for me to open myself up to the potential ridicule from those who wouldn’t get it.
I can no longer, in good conscience, be governed by that fear. You see, about a month ago, my mind decided it had had enough. Out of nowhere, an overwhelming remorse and shame for my past met with an intolerable surge of anxiety about my future, and the ability to maintain the facade became not only a difficulty, but a complete impossibility. My pride in four years of continuous sobriety suddenly became meaningless as I tried desperately to find some way to quiet the steady drumbeat of voices in my head. I tried many responsible ways to keep at bay what was quickly becoming a monster that was all-consuming. I walked for miles, praying the entire time for the pain to go away. I got down on my knees three or four times a day, praying earnest and pleading prayers that brought little to no relief. I tied literally dozens of flies at my work bench for trips to the river with my fly rod that couldn’t materialize, thanks to the frigid cold. I cleaned my house incessantly, laundering clothes that hadn’t been worn. I volunteered for extra work at the office, although my lack of concentration should have dictated that I choose the opposite course. The solution that I once knew to work so well - a stiff drink or two - began to occupy my thoughts almost as much as the loneliness and anxiety. To put as fine a point on it as I can, my mind and soul became hopelessly sick. In retrospect, I’m disappointed in the choice I made, which was to reach for a solution that I knew would provide at least a temporary respite. When the respite was over - too quickly, I might add - I was back to self-hatred and hopelessness.
I’ll admit it without reservation. A constant flow of booze long ago became the only solution that ever worked to stop the squirrels from sprinting endlessly in my mind. At the risk of suggesting that alcohol is a solution to anxiety - which I am definitively not doing - it always seemed to work. Obsessive worries always disappeared when I got good and drunk. This occasion was no exception. The first gulp of vodka I took brought instant relief: a nice, warm glow in my chest, a comfortable burn, a demonstrable slowing of my heart rate, and most importantly, the damn squirrels stopped running so fast. I don’t know about you guys, but when the squirrels in my mind start running and don’t stop, getting them to at least slow down causes me to cast reason aside. Never mind the damage I’m doing to my liver, stomach, heart, esophagus. Who cares? I just want some peace.
Peace, of course, never lasts very long when it’s alcohol-induced. Pretty quickly, it became obvious to me that I was on the course for death…again. By this point, I had skipped a week of work, and just assumed I’d be fired, not knowing that I had two bosses who were worried sick enough about me to call the police and send them to my house to check on my welfare. A co-worker suddenly sent a request to be friends on Facebook, with a simple note of “concerned about you.” I was so far gone that I waved off the officer at my door with some lame excuse about just being “under the weather.“ I got to thinking that dying wouldn’t actually be so bad. Waking up every day with a new worry or obsession in my head had grown to be an exhausting routine, and now I‘d essentially cast aside everyone and everything - a good job where my bosses clearly cared about me, a family that has never given up on me, and relationships that I had spent four years cultivating and treasuring.
The resulting shame led me to a conclusion that I never in a million years would have expected from myself, and that was that life was no longer worth living. A mere two months ago, I’d have told you that I was happy. Then, with no warning, obsessive thoughts came from nowhere, and with no comfort level to share them with anyone, I had quickly spiraled into an unwarranted sense of foreboding and hopelessness. The thoughts had entered my mind without any warning, and I couldn’t let them go. The only way I knew to stop them was to drink them away, which doubled my shame and put me into a familiar cycle of self-destruction. Feeling as though I had thrown away everything I’d worked to achieve, I started thinking of the softest way to simply disappear. Suddenly and inexplicably, I no longer wanted to live, let alone fight or struggle to simply endure what was temporary, but certainly not unfamiliar mental anguish.
With no firearms in the house, I found myself having to think creatively. I hopped online and started researching how to tie a proper noose. I couldn’t find any rope, so I thought maybe some excess telephone cable might do the trick. In my state of intoxicated apathy, I found myself unable to get the noose tied properly, and in any event, there didn’t seem to be any beam or bar that would support my weight.
I tried cutting my wrists, but I simply didn’t have the nerve to go deep enough, and the knife I tried seemed frustratingly dull. The outer scars are faint now, visible only if I look carefully enough. The inner scars will be with me for some time.
I finally surmised that taking enough of any kind of pills would bring about the result I thought I wanted at the time. I didn’t have anything really powerful in the house, but I did finally find a bottle of old, expired blood pressure medication that I had been prescribed long ago but rarely bothered to take for some reason - benign neglect, I suppose. I swallowed a handful with a vodka chaser and waited for the end, wondering the entire time if it would be enough, or would simply add some vomiting and diarrhea to my already pathetic condition.
Here’s where something happened that was either spiritual or simply medical, or maybe a combination. I briefly left my house for no other reason than to take one last look around outside. After a half hour or so, I had to return quickly, as the toxic brew churning in my gut felt as though it was going to expel itself from my body. I raced to my bathroom and there, in black ink, was a long paragraph of text on the bathroom floor. It was a message from my father, and not just a simple “don’t do it,” but a long letter, written in stark detail and demonstrating intimate knowledge of the issues that had been plaguing my mind for days on end. I can’t remember the exact wording, but I can best describe it as a loving rage, questioning on the one hand why I would choose such a selfish solution, but including an offer to walk through whatever fire was burning me up inside. I glanced to the right and saw another long message from my mother. I remember even less of what her letter said, but it was clear that my death would take a piece of her with me. I began to walk around the house, and suddenly realized that the carpets, tables, doors, and walls were covered in messages from my two oldest nephews, my siblings, friends, and even some that were signed by people I’d never heard of or met. Members of my twelve-step home group had left lighthearted notes designed, I assume, to ease my burden in the only way they knew. In all, they were pleas for me to reconsider, expressions of love, suggestions for new career paths, and personal stories of anguish-turned-triumph.
I made it to the front door, and read one last message, written by my friend and author of this blog. Unlike any of the other notes, this one expressed a vivid, prescient understanding of exactly what I was going through. It was a message of empathy. Not sympathy, but empathy. She understood, and her note urged me to find another way. If my current approach, which had worked so well but no longer seemed to do the trick, wasn’t the way, then certainly there was something else to be tried. When I saw her later, in the days after my attempt at stopping the damn squirrels for good, she simply encouraged me to “get at the root” and seek the right kind of help.
I pulled out my cell phone to take pictures of the letters, and just as suddenly as the messages had appeared, they vanished, and I sunk into my easy chair, exhausted and confused.
As it became clear to me that my attempt at drifting away into irrelevance was going to do nothing other than make me sick and more twisted, I started trying to process what had just happened. At first, I suspected that a friend and mentor of mine had intuitively known what I was going through, and had orchestrated the entire event using some kind of special ink that would disappear after a certain amount of time. When my sister and brother in-law suddenly showed up at my door and exposed my obvious intoxication to the light of day, I opened the floodgates and confessed to my days-long battle with my own mind. I began to quiz them as to how everyone had gotten in the house so fast in my brief absence and written such detailed notes to me in disappearing ink over every square inch of my home. Obviously, neither had any clue as to what I was referring. I expected anger and dismay. Instead, I received kindness, but saw sadness and worry in the eyes of my sister.
I’m guessing now that the messages, at least in logical terms, were simple hallucinations. Still, I have to wonder if the God I believed in, but lacked faith in, had a hand in all of it as well.
After a night in the hospital, I spent the next week with family, recovering. At long last, I began to share the worries and shame that had started what now seems like a ridiculous chain of events. What I got from this was not ridicule, but perspective. The sins of my past were overblown, they said, and in any event had been forgiven. The worries about the future were surmountable at worst, and opportunities for growth, at best. I quickly saw things in a new light, a light that would have shined vividly before any damage had been done had I bothered to simply tell someone. In the weeks since my nightmare, I’ve had the benefit of medical care and healing, with the opportunity now to seek real professional help for an obvious, if undiagnosed, mental illness.
The real point of all this, if there is one, is not to simply recount a horror story and admit that I, too, suffer from mental illness. I’m extremely fortunate to have family, friends, and resources to now move forward and not only learn, but heal. My siblings both work in mental health, and they’ve gone to great lengths to point me in the right direction. In plain English, I’m lucky. I wonder what would have happened had I not had the chance to finally tell someone, without judgment or fear of aspersion, troubles that had seemed so real to me, yet so manageable to an objective listener. In my travels, despite my own obvious sickness, I’ve met people who have the same demons, but no family to share them with. I’ve taken other alcoholics to the hospital, desperately hoping they could get some real help, only to watch doctors and supposed substance abuse “counselors” cast them back into the wilderness without so much as checking their blood pressure or blood-alcohol content. During my recent stay in the hospital, the security guard charged with watching me was by far the most compassionate, kind person I encountered during the entire process. He brought me food, and apologized profusely when the kitchen sent up a turkey sandwich instead of the roast beef I had asked for. I couldn’t have cared less that my order came back wrong, but the man actually wanted to send it back so I could have roast beef! I laughed and declined, so he sat in the room offering encouragement as I tried to get him to see the writing I was seeing on the hospital floor – clearly more hallucinations that were visible only to my eyes. I was uplifted by his kindness. That man did more to start me on the road to healing than anyone else, simply by showing some obvious, heartfelt compassion for the town drunk.
In her post entitled “My Daily Nightmare,” my friend wrote: “Other countries have more expanded options for people with mental health issues…our pharmaceutical lobby is so powerful that we often destroy the lives of people with mental health issues, treating them like guinea pigs when there are other interventions available that are never tried…community supports are often few.” My hope is that recounting my story might serve as a small bit of that community support. I want people with troubles to share them with supportive family, if they have them. I want our society to start taking mental health seriously. Not with derision, but with compassion. If my story can give just one person some hope, then I’m overjoyed. I hope others will set aside their fears and share their own stories. It’s high time that the stigma of being “crazy” goes away, and if my story can help move that process forward, it’s well worth any remaining apprehension I have with sharing it.
In the weeks since my own sudden, unexpected nightmare, I’ve alternated between hope and hopelessness. I’ve taken far too many over-the-counter sleeping pills, which seem to do no good whatsoever and, I think, are simply tearing my stomach apart at this point. Anxiety rears its head nearly every morning at 5 a.m., like clockwork. My heart races, my pulse quickens, and I try my best to breathe deeply and go back to sleep. Usually, I end up just getting out of bed and starting my day. I spend my days working as much as possible, because it seems like that’s the one thing that can distract me enough to make the days manageable. Quite frankly, there are days where I ask God to spare me any further time here. Somehow, I get the impression that those pleas are being deferred because I’m supposed to still do something better.
Still, it helps to know I’m not the only one. In the recent days, I’ve simply started to share what happened to me with people, few holds barred, in matter-of-fact terms. Both bosses, and several co-workers, have shown nothing but compassion and thankfulness that I’m back at work. Some have even opened up about their own struggles with Bi-Polar disorder, depression, and anxiety.
As I’ve taken the time to get this off my chest and share it with the world, I’ve been trying to think of what the overall point has been. Maybe the point has just been to put it out there in hopes that someone else won’t feel so alone. Maybe the point is that there shouldn’t be shame in seeking help. Maybe the point is that there just flat out isn’t enough help for us “nut-jobs.” Or, maybe the point is that there is help, but we just don’t seek it out. I don’t really know for sure. What I do know is that pretending it wasn’t an issue didn’t work for me, and succumbing to the idea that it’s shameful isn’t an option any longer.
To those reading this who suffer, I wish you all the things I wish for myself - some joy, contentment, and relief. Know that my heart aches along with yours, because in many respects, I’m there with you. Our demons may be different, but our pain isn’t. Maybe sharing it with each other is the best medicine we can hope for. I hope I’ve done my part.
