In which our hero explains how he took his own advice after ignoring himself for many months and fixed his shit.
Yeah, so I was really messed up for months. I wasn’t posting or doing much online at all because it felt hypocritical to tell people how to get better when I wasn’t better or doing the shit I knew I needed to do to get better. I’m many things, but I try to never lie in word or deed. Anyway…
To get back, and get to an even better place, I’ve taken a multi-layered approach. I had to. My mental illness hits me on multiple levels, from different directions, all at the same time. It’s smart tactics. If the sadistic sonofabitch in my head wasn’t always trying to kill me, I’d admire the bastard.
I’m posting now because I’m better and I’m going to continue getting better. Took about two months. I’m not done, but I’m doing well. I’m going to go into detail over the next few days about what I’ve done and how it’s worked for me. You can follow my footsteps, mix and match to suit your taste, or ignore everything if you feel fine and don’t need to change shit. Or if you just want to stay miserable because it’s easier, I guess.
I guess this post is an intro to a series, maybe? Or maybe just a reminder to me and you, dear reader, that our trauma, addiction, depression, anxiety, whatever label you wanna apply, will sneak up on us if we let it. I ain’t no guru. I’m not always the role model I’d like to be, but when I’m not, I’m a bad example you can learn from.
Here’s how I screwed up and let my shit take over. Last spring, I started having mystery pains in my back and stomach. It became hard to sleep. Then, with camping in a trailer, I started losing more sleep, getting more stressed out. I jumped on the old “well, I’ll just start neglecting and abusing myself because I’m a worthless POS” bandwagon again. I started refusing to sleep even when it was available. I’d wake up at 2 or 3 am, say, “well, I’m up for the day now,” instead of trying to go back to sleep. I’d refuse to fall asleep, laying awake chewing on old hurts and shameful memories, ensuring I’d wake up at 2 or 3 am. On and on. Etc. Etc. I was self-sabotaging, so when life happened, like a sick kid or the dog gets the runs, I was on fumes with an empty tank. I did that for months. I went BUH-nanas.
Worse, I’d do dumb shit like, I severely injured my already-injured back canoeing. Now, a rational person would beach the canoe and get out for a while. I wasn’t rational. My crazy decided I had to finish the trip ASAP to get it over with. I was badly sunburned for the first time in my life, too. So, after 3 hours of misery, I was lost in an anxiety attack, dropped the canoe on my chest and ripped all the skin off my left side. Infection. Now I really can’t sleep. But I could have prevented all of it if I weren’t already stressed out from lack of sleep, so much of which was self-induced. On and on. Etc. Etc.
I’m bringing this up so you, dear reader, can understand how our trauma, illness, whatever, uses everything to its advantage and our disadvantage. It’s so easy to let it feed itself and feed on itself. But success builds on success, too. It’s hard to dig our way out of that pit, with our feet calf-deep in mud. But the harder we work at it, the easier it gets. I started doing the right things and built momentum. You can, too.
More to follow, over.