Don't get me wrong, I have anxiety with just about everything, but it wasn't until I was in the treatment center that I started to see just how limited my connections with other men could be.

As messed up as it is to hear myself say it now, I was taught (by example) that men don't show their emotions. They never cry in front of others, and......well, it's basically toxic masculinity.

During one of my last sessions with my therapist in Denver, he gave me a handout to read titled something along the lines of “Tending to the Wounded Inner Child”. I, of course, never read it, because...what the hell? “Inner child”? If ever there was something that seemed as stereotypical therapist gobbledygook, it would be that. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

When I arrived at treatment, I was thrilled to find that they had much of the therapy that I knew and had already experienced, such as Mindfulness, Somatics, and EMDR. As an adjunctive, my primary therapist decided that Somatics would be the best fit for me, to which I was also thrilled. But I never dreamed that it would help me to discover my own inner child. Much less three of them.

This post (or rather me collating the data contained wherein) has been a long time coming. Really I should have started recording back at the beginning, but -as with many problems- at first it didn’t seem like it was a problem, and then it was too big of a problem to analyze. Now, in the future of the past, my goal is to keep it documented what I did and when. Every stupid thing I tried, every test and theory, every doctor and every supplement. In addition to this being the main crux of this blog (at least for the CFS third), collating all possible cures might prove useful to someone, somewhere in the future. That’s a very distant hope.

And while I refer to it as “Chronic Fatigue”, there are a lot of other weird, bizarre symptoms that may show up and then fade away. The main crux is oversleeping and never feeling rested, but there’s also a giant menagerie such as dizziness/drowsiness, lack of mental clarity, being nauseated and tired after eating, beaches and visual problems. Eventually I made a list of all these things to take to the doctor, but that’s getting ahead. In the beginning, it was just about being tired.

I guess this is a follow up to the last post I wrote about “tired” and sleep, and yawning. But this is something a little more intimate: crying.

This post is all about terminology. I’ve said before that language is a fickle thing and that some words -in this context, referring to mental health- have different connotations in casual conversation, e.g. “I’ve been feeling anxious for my job interview” is not the same as someone with diagnosed anxiety saying they’ve been feeling anxious lately. And, as I’ve also said before, that’s fine. That’s how language works, not going to get in a huff about it.

What this post is about is actually my own terminology. I don’t mean to change the English language, it’s more just communicating more effectively with those around me.

Trigger warning: pretty dark sh*t incoming.

To go ahead and dive right in, suicide has been a large part of most of my life. Self-loathing started when I was about 13 years old and only grew from that point, and having thoughts of wanting to die or being better off dead were common by 15. From there the thought of taking my own life came in natural succession.

But I never did, obviously. The primary reason for this was religious: I was taught that my life was not mine to take. And even as much of the religiosity fell away from my belief system, that bit remained, even if subconsciously.

And yet, of course, it remained hidden. Even those to whom I divulged my battles with depression never really saw the depths of how much I yearned for death. How much I thought I deserved it.

Things over the past few weeks have been going well. Well, not “well”, but improving.

A while ago I wrote about “better” vs “Better” but it’s still something that I have to grapple with, not only with other people but with myself.

Things have not been going well. And what I’m about to post is probably the most crazy sounding (or at least nonsensical) thing that I’ve ever written down, much less published. I very much fear posting it at all for those I know reading it and deeming me certifiable, or at the very least: unstable. (Newsflash: I’m always a little unstable. It’s kinda my thing. (That’s a joke, potential/actual employers.)) But in my heart I know that I have to post it, because something happened to this blog that I knew was a risk when I de-anonymized it: I started writing it for people. Yes, for “what if this or that person reads it?” but much more so for “but can I make them understand?” As I learned during my time in treatment, it’s a sense of control for me. I want to say the perfect words in the perfect way so that everyone in the situation understands completely and complies. Even if it’s in the best intention -which is most often is- it’s still a sense of control. But as in treatment, I have to teach myself that I can’t control people’s reactions. I can even less control their understanding, and by trying to find the best way to say it, I’m bottling myself up to where it never gets out.

So, anyway, how have things not been going well? Well, that’s where it starts to get tricky. Nearly everything on my recovery plan has fallen by the wayside. Yes, I had some very objective stressors in my life, and those took their toll. But as of the last 4 weeks, it’s been something far more insidious. It took me a good 2-3 weeks just to determine what was even wrong, much less what was causing it. Since then I’ve got a bit more analysis, but not much progress on….well, progress, mostly due to the problem itself.

I just recently got back from a trauma treatment center, in which I spent 7 weeks and 2 weeks in a hospital prior. It was a long time coming, despite the progress I’ve made, which is evidenced well by the fact that in the post prior to this one, I likened my mental illnesses to a terminal disease.

Obviously too much happened in those 7 weeks to be covered in one single post, so my intention is to succinctly list the major breakthroughs I had there, then expound upon them later.

Originally written during treatment

‘Stay Positive.’ I’m so fucking sick of people trying to ‘Stay Positive.’ It’s a denial of what is, an illness; a disjunction between perception & reality. It’s anti-mindfulness. It’s like your car starts making a rattling noise, and you just turn up the radio so you can’t hear it. The problem goes unaddressed.

And the worst part is, it never works. Maybe for the most simple of problems, those that don’t even require treatment. For anything else, it’s willful ignorance. Treat the problem like it’s not there, and hope it goes away. Works with the common cold, not so much with pneumonia.

So no, I will not ‘stay positive.’ Not because I am weak or melancholic. On the contrary, I will swallow the red pill; I will accept things head on. I will stay present. I will be with what is, not deny them. I will feel my feelings, not stuff them. I will walk through sorrow with radical acceptance, knowing that it is part of life. I will sit down with Mara for tea, not attempt to shoo her away. I will not renounce that which is real, that which is valid; I will embrace it, love it, until it melts away and only I remain.