Well, don’t talk about it, write it down, but don’t ask for help. I can’t be honest with even myself. Did you ever wish you were somebody else? Accomplishments are transient. They pulled me in unremittingly. Just lasting this long I feel relieved to let the repetition save me.

I have strong feelings about everything written above, so I don’t lose train of thought for this blog I’m gonna work top down in expressing my feelings.

Let’s start with the title. The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose. This is simply fact right? For the last three years I’ve been on benzos for anxiety and panic attacks. A classification of medication so strong withdrawal symptoms can include death. You’re telling me that medicine can kill you if you stop taking it? Sounds like poison to me. It is poison too, people like to take benzos recreationally and drink. This can easily and accidentally lead you to death as well. Side effects include increased risk of dementia and Alzheimers. So you’re telling me “medicine” given to me by a doctor to make me better can ruin my brain, and kill me? Sounds like poison.

Well, don’t talk about it, write it down, but don’t ask for help. As a man from a young age you’re subliminally taught not to be vulnerable, not to show feelings. As I get older every time I’m struggling people tell me to write my feelings down. They say it so much I made a blog just for it. While I won’t discredit writing because it does help me, I feel like we’re encouraged not to ask for help. “Suck it up” “Be a man” these phrases are shit. True and utter shit. We’re slowly getting to a point where people are telling others to ask for help if they’re having a hard time. It’s still not enough. I encourage you to be there for as many people as you can because you never know how close someone is to doing something they’d ultimately regret. I was close once, so close I could feel it, looming like a dark cloud. I didn’t ask for help. I sucked it up. I started training Jiu Jitsu, fighting my feelings out like a man. HA. Jiu Jitsu was just a comfortable form of punishment for me, I stink at it, and while I don’t plan to stink at it forever, I’ve gotten my ass handed me to more times than not during class. The pain felt good. I told myself I deserved it, sort of like the therapeutic feeling of a tattoo. Talk about it. Write it down. Ask for help. I preach these things knowing I don’t have the courage to ask for help. What do you say? I’m having a bad day cheer me up. I’m not sure I’ll ever know how to ask for help. I do know how to give it, and my door is open to everyone.

“I can’t be honest with even myself.” That’s true a lot of days, I struggle, and I make excuses for it. The truth? the things I often avoid doing are the things I should in fact be doing. My therapist once said with depression, opposite action is how you dig yourself out. Don’t feel like going for a run? Go for a fucking run. Don’t feel like getting out of bed? Get the fuck out of bed. These are things I struggle with because I take this damn poison every day and my brain says it’s okay just stay in bed, it won’t make you feel worse. Of course it will, it always does, I always regret it, and I need to get the hell out of the cycle I’m in with it. terrible sleep patterns affect me daily. I have to be honest and admit that I’m allowing anxiety to not only win most days, but control me most days. The sooner I accept that, the sooner I can do as Joey Diaz says: “Get it together, Bitch.” I even have that printed in my room. Maybe I’ll hang it next to my bed tonight.

“Did you ever wish you were somebody else?” Come on, haven’t we all? I wish I was somebody else probably 9 out of 10 days if we’re sticking to honesty. I’m not sure if I imagine being somebody else, or just a different version of myself, a version I actually like. I have a good thing or two about me, overall I’m not my biggest fan. Truthfully I don’t think I ever will be. I really do hope to be, in a not narcissistic way. I want to be someone I’m proud to be, someone people can rely on, a genuine, good person. Some days I am that, not enough days though.

“Accomplishments are transient. They pulled me in unremittingly.” I’ve always focused on accomplishments, it’s how I gauge success. This line really calls me out, in a positive way. Accomplishments never last, you’re looking looking for the next one before the dopamine of the most recent even wears off. That’s a part of how society has been built, to always be looking for the next hit of dopamine. Quick wins I call them. They increase your dopamine but only for a short time, then you’re back to feeling like a bag of shit. Maybe I’ll work on not being pulled in by accomplishments, accept that they flow like the wind, they aren’t ours to keep.

“Just lasting this long I feel relieved to let the repetition save me.” My life has been a repeating cycle for about a decade. Do well for a while, get a little agoraphobic, stop leaving the house for some amount of time, repeat. The repetition really does safe me, just as I begin to lose all hope the agoraphobia lifts, I get back into the swing, I feel great, a life change happens, and the panic attacks come back from some memory that triggers my ptsd. One attack turns into an avalanche and before I know it I’m not leaving the house. I don’t want to be saved by the repetition anymore, I want out of the cycle, and this time I’m getting out.

I will never write a blog in this format again, I don’t have to read it back to know it’s not cohesive, each paragraph is it’s own island, I don’t like that. At least I tried something new.

Where the skies are gold not gray, J.