My #SACommits
Confessional
[Note: Some language, suicidal ideation, real talk. Also, there is obviously much more to this story, and I hope to
write more companion pieces stemming from this post, so please stay tuned!]
Being an extrovert can be a lose-lose personality type.
People often look for you to be the source of energy in a room.
You're expected to be upbeat and bubbly all the time.
But sometimes life happens...
Essentially, when I am too loud, people get annoyed.
And when I’m too quiet, people get worried.
Yet, as an extrovert there are advantages and
disadvantages.
Advantages:
Outgoing, energetic, positivity, people skills, self- confidence.
Disadvantages: Obnoxious, annoying, selfish, perceived unintelligent, over-commitment.
(Note: These do not apply to all extroverts, obviously.)
I am all of the above.
 |
Me during high school.
I may never grow up. |
First, a story of my youth—
In being such a young energetic (ADHD) kid—with hardly a
language filter—I alienated myself from a lot of people and said a lot of
things to a lot of people I should have never said. I was, and still am, a
polarizing person. I recognize that.
And especially while growing up, I didn’t really know how to
harness my energy constructively.
So I destroyed things. I smashed windows with rocks, kicked
through walls, started fires constantly, and hit golf balls with a baseball bat
into traffic. Those are things that I actually did.
And when I ran out of things to destroy, I would turn to
myself.
My anger derived from feeling as though no one could relate
to what was going on in my head.
And no one reached out to help me.
Counselors told me I needed to “calm down.”
Teachers told me to sit in the hallway so I wouldn’t disrupt
the learning of others.
My parents told me I needed to “quit acting out.”
I often made a scene during class because I
WANTED HELP!
But I didn’t know how to ask for it.
Instead of asking if I needed help, teachers just sent me to
the principal’s office.
Effective.
I was aware that my obnoxious nature alienated me from many
potential peer groups and honestly led to many people thinking I was very
immature and idiotic. And that affected me. I genuinely had no idea how to help
myself, and I didn’t know how to ask the few close friends I had for help.
This led to me developing a lot of issues with depression.
I felt alone. I would come home, crawl into bed, and cry in
my room.
And the destruction issues I had regarding things evolved
into harming myself.
I have attempted suicide twice in my life—the scars of one
attempt are now covered with tattoos.
I honestly do not wish to return to those memories, so the
exact circumstances will not be referenced, but I need to get that out of the
way immediately.
Throughout high school and the early years of college, I
harmed myself in various ways of which I hid. Much of this harm was due to
multiple aspects of my mind fighting against me.
A lot of this harm was due to my consistent failures with
relationships—of which I had little faith until about two years ago.
As I said before, a disadvantage to being an extrovert is
that some of us are pretty selfish people. I am selfish. I acknowledge this.
And I’ve learned a lot since getting older, but I surely was a terrible person
to date because I like being independent. And I also like being selfish. And I
feared compromise. However, I also wanted companionship. And I wanted to care
for someone. And I didn’t want to be alone. But I do not deal with rejection
well.
However, all of this cognitive dissonance led to me having
no idea how to support someone else when I couldn’t even handle my own shit. I
also overthink everything—if you couldn’t tell.
And when I felt things falling apart I would try to
drastically solve all of the problems all at once to fix the relationship. And
I always failed. I failed constantly. I would use guilt to manipulate whomever
I was with because I didn’t know what else to do. And it was impossible to gain
any sort of self confidence in relationships because I knew I would destroy
them eventually.
And then I would turn on myself.
Probably the strangest thing about being an extrovert is
that I was able to hide a lot of my pain, frustration, and anxiety by forcing myself
to be myself—an overly enthusiastic, life of the party, energetic, lover of
life. You know, like an extrovert.
But I haven’t always loved life.
I have always had to hide.
 |
| I always come back to this image. It's too true. |
Writing has always been my most effective way of working
through a lot of my depression and anxiety throughout high school and college.
I don’t have to hide when I write.
And if you haven’t noticed, I write a lot.
I have kept journals for as long as I can remember.
I wrote for myself and it was the best sort of therapy.
Many of my notebooks and journals are no more.
I often destroy them once they fill up because the simple
act of having written out my words is enough for me.
I have no need to keep
those words.
However, since I love words and I love writing, I decided to
become an English major, which was the best and worst thing to happen to me.
I kept journaling through college, but it took a different
shape.
I would compete with my classmates in a way that was unnecessary.
I wanted to impress my professors. I wanted to challenge my classmates by
writing about REAL LIFE. And honestly, I think some of the tactics I tried were
doing more harm than good for my credibility as a writer. I mean, I thought I was a good writer.
And it only led to great amounts of anxiety.
Why the fuck am I not
getting As on these stories?
How did they get a
better grade on this paper than me?
I poured my heart into
this story!
I thought I was a good writer.
How do they write more vividly?!
What do I need to
write to impress you?!
These thoughts would race through my head whenever I
received a grade on a paper or a story.
I knew I was a good writer, but I wasn’t seeing the results.
I thought I was a good writer.
I felt as though I was failing at being a writer, just as I
was failing at relationships at the same time and writing about those failed
relationships as a form of therapy.
It became a vicious cycle.
I thought I was a good writer.
I thought I was a good writer.
I thought I was a good writer.
But I kept feeling I wasn’t good enough.
I would go days without eating—obsessing over being a better
writer.
When I didn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and when I couldn’t
sleep, I would obsess over how it was impossible for me to ever reach the level
of my classmates, and I certainly wouldn’t reach the level of the writers I
admired. After all, I thought I was a good writer.
It was vicious cycle on top of vicious cycle.
I thought I was a good writer.
I thought I was a good writer.
I thought I was a good writer.
But I kept feeling I wasn’t good enough.
This unnecessary competition that only happened in my head
went on for at least three years.
It made me a mess of feelings and anxiety.
I THOUGHT I WAS A GOOD WRITER.
There are many reasons I didn’t continue pursuing writing as
a career.
My anxiety toward a life full of failure and rejection was a
major factor.
It also had to do with another element—alcohol.
I used to drink constantly when I wrote.
Now, for starters, I didn’t drink alcohol until I was 21.
That’s right. I waited.
And when I started drinking, I HATED IT!
However, it just so happened that my 21st
birthday and ending a nearly two-year relationship closely coincided. So I developed
a taste for beer quickly as I found that it helped me repress the feelings I
still very much had for the partner who left me.
My second suicide attempt actually occurred shortly after that relationship ended. And my motivations were
purely fueled by alcohol. I felt like a failure again. I was so sure that this
relationship was it for me, but I was wrong. My trust and faith in
relationships was destroyed. I had no idea how to process this pain, so I
drank. And I was so new to drinking that I didn’t know my limits, so I wound up
making a poor decision while under the influence of alcohol.
I never thought of myself as having a problem in comparison
to how much I saw others drink—but the point of this is not comparison. While I
may not have had issues with drinking to excess, I personally struggled with the
reasons for why I was drinking to
begin with.
I drank to not feel pain.
I drank to fall asleep at night when my mind kept me awake.
I drank to ignore my depression—to lessen my anxiety about
writing, about life, about relationships.
I was actually an RA at this time. And I was pretty good at
hiding my depression around my residents because I ignore whatever issues I was
dealing with in order to help them with their issues. And that only made things
worse for me. I was taking in a lot of emotions and not letting any of mine out
constructively. Except through drinking.
And of course I didn’t want anyone to think of it as an
actual issue, so I’d often sneak alcohol into my room—like my underage
residents would do. I was ashamed. I
didn’t want to admit to anyone that I was struggling with a hidden drinking
problem.
The issue only perpetuated further when I was teaching high
school English. I would read so many stories of students struggling with the
realities of their own lives, which made it more difficult for me to process my
own life. So I drank. Every night I would come home, decompress, drink, grade,
drink, and sleep.
I wasn’t happy. I wasn't healthy. I wasn't me.
I felt I was destroying myself.
I struggled to go in to teach every day
because I felt as though I couldn’t actually connect with my students because I
was losing track of who I was as a person.
The interesting thing is that during all of this, when I
would talk to friends about drinking, many of them would say, “Oh, but you
hardly drink—”
And in my head, I would reply, “Yeah, that you know of.”
Even if I tried to explain the extent to which drinking was a private activity for me, I know that many of my friends would have never understood.
So I kept it hidden.
After a few years of what turned out to be meaningless
“romantic relationships” that ultimately destroyed trust in myself and
relationships in general—for various reasons, many of which are my fault. I own
that. Alas, while I was being reckless with my body, I recognized that I didn’t
like who I was becoming, so I reached out for help for the first time in my
life by going to Oregon State University’s Counseling and Psychological
Services.
I maintained going to counseling while I was an RA, stopped
for a few months, and then continued during my student body presidency, and
concluded counseling through being a high school teacher.
Counseling really helped me put a lot of things into
perspective. And it helped me conceptualize a lot of my feelings within the
larger social constructs that have led to my inability to properly communicate
all of the thoughts, fears, frustrations, and denials going on inside my head.
I needed to be able to share these thoughts and have someone help me process.
In many ways, I am who I am today because I asked for
help.
Being able to talk with someone about my issues and process
my depression and anxiety was incredibly necessary for me. I was able to
develop better self-control, a better sense of self, and a better sense of
identity.
As of today I am over 22 months sober and I have no intent
to pick up a drink again. I don’t like who I am when I drink and I certainly do
not like the feeling of being out of control of my body or my decision making.
And as I reflect on
so many past experiences, there are a few things to take away from this post:
- Sure, extroverts may appear to be fine on the outside.
But that does not mean they are fine on the inside.
- As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned how to ask for help.
It takes time for most people. And it is always okay to ask
for help.
- Many depression and suicide attempts during college stem
from relationships ending.
Being able to acknowledge these situations as valid
struggles for our students is important.
- Students want help and we need to know how to acknowledge
signs and ideations before they turn into larger issues. Because I have
struggled in so many ways with depression and anxiety, I know firsthand the
realities of feeling like no one is there for you—like you are alone.
- No one should ever feel alone.
In many ways, I am who I am today because I asked for help.
I was recently talking on the phone to my mother and twice
she said, “I feel like I’ve failed you, son.” To which, I replied, “No,
mom—society has failed me.”
Society has failed
all men.
Men should not be afraid to come forward with their
emotions.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone—even though I needed to do
so.
Ultimately, my reason in sharing such detailed information
about my experiences with depression and anxiety is simply that men do not want
to talk about this. And the only way I was able to get help was by reaching out
to a specialist.
Men cannot hide their
mental health issues any longer.
We MUST create brave space for men to feel comfortable to
share the reality of what it is like to deal with mental health issues.
Otherwise men will continue to repress their feelings & will perpetuate the
statistics proving that four times as many men commit suicide than
women.
This is our chance to create change and create a brave and caring community in which men are comfortable with their emotions to open up.
Otherwise, men will continue to feel as though they won't be taken seriously
when coming forward with ACTUAL issues.
Never tell a man they are being dramatic when they bring up issues
regarding mental health. THAT is the harmful stigma at play that makes it
nearly impossible for men to share in the first place. This takes reaching out
to young men early in their schooling and not trying to lump children into
these useless boxes of ADHD just because teachers are too lazy to actually sit
down and talk with a student.
I wanted help when I was growing up but no one knew how or
was willing to help me.
Society has failed men long enough. It is time to turn the
tables and show men that it is important to ask for help. Our culture must
eliminate stigma that men who share their emotions are weak or feminine.
Mental illness stigma
harms everyone.
To the friends who may know these stories and were there to support me, I thank you. Your care means the world to me. I know I am not alone anymore.
I hope this post resonates in some way.
Be well.
