I'm having anxiety. I'm having the type of anxiety that sent me to the hospital when I was in my late teens because I thought I was dying of a heart attack and then I followed that visit with heavy doses of sedatives. A big glass of booze sounds good right about now but I'll deal with this.Having anxiety issues can be a real bitch sometimes. Granted I don't help my cause with my caffeine addiction. I also don't take anti-anxiety medication because that's a crutch and not a solution. What I have is a voice inside my head that I need to channel and override the other voice that gives me anxiety. I literally say to myself DEAR BRAIN, YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF AT THIS POINT AND I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE, GO TO SLEEP BEFORE I PUT YOU TO SLEEP. Then somewhere along the line my common sense kicks in and my brain shuts up. Luckily my anxiety is a fraction of what it once was and it rarely effects me anymore. Periodically I get this and I'm not sure why, it's just been a while since I've had it this bad. Since I can't sleep with this anxiety, I keep myself awake until I knock myself out cold. If I try to sleep I end up waking up every 2 minutes with my heart racing and that gets old, really old.
Today's tragic news is what triggered my anxiety today, I'm sure of it. There really is no other explanation.
So this girl I once knew committed suicide. I feel like people that I once knew are dropping like flies. A couple of weeks ago, someone else passed away that was once an acquaintance, and I hate to say 'thankfully' but --- 'thankfully' his death was an accident. I say that in the sense of where no one is left behind saying, "I can't believe I didn't see the signs," or "I can't believe I didn't help him/her when I knew she needed it," etc. No one is left to sit there and blame themselves. An accidental death, like any death, is always hard but when it's something like a freak accident, you just have nothing but good memories to reflect on.
I have such a rough time hearing when people die of accidental overdoses and suicide, especially when it's from people in my area. I live in an upper middle class, borderline filthy rich neighborhood. I live in an area where everyone has the opportunity for a top-notch education, where everyone has a roof over his or her head, where everyone has food on the table, where everyone drives expensive cars, wears expensive clothing and just simply has the good life that so many millions could only dream of. I find it so hard for a person to actually sit there and think suicide is the best option. It's sad when one is given so many opportunities in life and pisses it all away for a drug addiction, an addiction that ultimately leads to depression and other emotional and mental issues. Often times I'm driven crazy by the problems that people I grew up with have and it's like no one has ever been thankful for anything they've ever received. ever. Forget that we're Americans with more over-all life opportunities offered here than any other country in the world. Forget that. Here. Bubble Town. Where everyone is rich. Your greatest problem might be your parents who don't hug you enough, but that's menial in the great scheme of things. Life goes on whether you want it to or not, and dwelling on the past and not even looking to take a step forward will never help you. Everyone wants to play the victim. Everyone wants to find a reason to be sad. Everyone wants to cry about their problems and not accept them for what they are and move on.
I've become less tolerant of suicides, depression and the absolute need for therapists and pills to get you through life after reading The Mole People by Jennifer Toth. It's about the homeless who live in underground tunnels in New York City. Talk about poverty. Talk about mental issues. Talk about the seriously ill who need the most help of all. This book is her first hand encounters with the mole people as part of her research as a graduate student at Columbia U. A huge chunk of this book is her direct quotes from interviews and her reactions and interpretations. There's also a lot of her interaction with the NYPD and their issues with the mole people --- Some who understand the plight of the mole people, and some who don't.
It's sad, really --- All the dwellers in the tunnels gives Hoovervilles a better, hotel-like name in comparison to the the way the mole people live. Even more so, it makes my upper middle class neighborhood filled with prescription drug addicts and suicidal kids look even crazier than anyone living in the tunnel, that's for damn sure. Reading this book, reading the lives of so many who live in completely destitute, whose living situations are worse than your stereotypical starving third-world town, really gets your mind going on a whole new level. These people live in complete squalor. These people eat and sleep where they defecate all while being survivalists --- Because murder is common. Because you are never safe. Because someone is always watching you and wanting to steal the few possessions you may have that more than likely have a lot of emotional value. It's not just sleeping on a park bench --- it's being so completely screwed up that you're willing to live a hundred feet or so underground, never see the light, hunt 'track rabbits' (aka rats) to eat and hope to join a community of other homeless is really, really sad. And you know, none of these people end up becoming suicidal. Surprisingly, there are so many hopeful people in the tunnels that it sort of makes all of YOUR problems seem completely inferior and meaningless. Yes, a majority of these people are ridiculously hooked on drugs and yes, there are a lot of accidental overdoses or whacked-out people who die on the tracks for being methed up and losing their minds. However, that is not the case and story of many of them --- Some are just purely down on their luck, and some just never had a chance at life. There are also some who are illegals, working minimum wage jobs no one else wants to work, who save every single penny of their earnings to hopefully buy land somewhere and find a better life --- But there is hope there and a lot of it.
Here. In Bubble Town. In the land of rich and spoiled, I honestly can't feel all too bad. It's hypocritical of me, in many ways, to just say GET OVER IT and move on. I'm one of the luckiest people on the planet --- I have everything I want and then more. I have two loving parents that despite all my screw ups in life still support me and love me so long as I'm not some freeloading junkie (this has never been an issue, btw). I have family everywhere I can turn to, who love me and I love them. A fantastic boyfriend who ultimately loves me for me even when I'm being a pain in the ass. I have an incredible network of friends. I have money in the bank, the ability to shop and travel and most of all, I am healthy and able bodied. Right now, today, in this world --- I am great. And sometimes I find it so hard when people around me have so much in common with me yet still find a reason to fall to drugs and take their own lives. It's selfish, and I don't care how mentally screwed up you are. I really don't. The Mole People in many ways confirms that you can be BEYOND mentally disturbed and STILL find a reason to live.
Don't get me wrong, I've had my hard times. Ive lost my mind on more than one occasion but I've always bounced back. I've had hard times as a kid that I really don't want to go into on my blog, experienced shit that I should have never that essentially stole my innocence as a child. I've lost a home due to fire and felt what it was like to lose all of your worldly possessions and feel for a short period of time what it is not to have a home because it's gone. There one minute and gone the next. Throughout my life I've had some hardships, maybe not to the extent of losing a parent which I believe would probably be the hardest, at least for me, but even through what I've been through, I've pulled myself together without the aid of a therapist or medication. I've never felt suicide was an option even in my darkest moments. I've never felt the need to dabble in drugs to fill whatever void I have. I've had it good my whole life when reading the lives of people here in America, much less in other parts of the world... And I know so many in my fucked up town who have had it better than i have yet still find a reason to let go. It's fucked up really. A majority of us didn't grow up to the theme of Bastard of out Carolina. Sometimes I just don't understand how people can be so selfish. I suppose that's the bottom line.
If you read this blog, I want you to take a moment and be thankful for your life. Be thankful you have the ability to read this, access to a computer, the drink, whatever it may be, that's probably next to you right now and the roof over your head. Be thankful. Don't wait for Thanksgiving. And if you read this --- and maybe you are a depressed and a suicidal person --- Please seek help. Don't do the selfish thing and hurt the people around you that you probably think don't exist or don't love you. There's help out there, I promise you. The same goes for anyone that reads this and is having issues with substance abuse. There is help everywhere. Just don't be afraid to ask for it.
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8 comments:
It's hard to blame where you live for all of this. Obviously Agoura is a fucking waste bucket of materialism and commodity but the problem lies far deeper in the way our society works, what we value, and the fact that there is relatively little diversity or discomfort in suburbia to foster the desire to get out, see the world and make each day better then the day before. Sad to see another person pass on, but a lesson for the rest of us.
Sweetheart, I read your blog a lot and I have to tell you that if you have this level of anxiety, TAKE MEDICATION. There's no shame in it. They make it for people like you.
Celexa is a good start.
Anonymous:
That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not saying everyone's fucked up because of their longitude/latitude points on the globe. I'm saying they're screwed up because they have nothing to be depressed about. I mentioned expensive cars and clothing, having it all and wanting more --- and not seeing what they do have versus what they don't have. I didn't word it well, like most of my writing on my blog. I usually write to put myself to sleep and by that point I'm too tired to word anything well. But I agree with you 100% --- and that's what I was trying to say. :)
Taking it to the streets:
Thanks for reading my blog often.
I actually don't suffer from anxiety very often, and absolutely not often enough to take medication for it. The anxiety attack I had that lasted hours and hours the other night was the first time I've had one that bad in a decade. I'll get small ones here and there, but I've always been able to talk myself down from them and move on. I used to have anxiety flying and on my first long haul flight I took a bunch of xanax I received from my doctor and found myself to be worse off than having anxiety on the plane. Today, I now enjoying flying, really enjoy it... And I did it all by myself minus the one long haul and I wish I would have never taken anything in the first place. I figure if I can take care of it myself, there's no need to medicate myself. Having an anxiety attack one in a blue moon that I can talk myself down from (even this last big one I had I just wrote myself until I slept and I was fine), I don't need it. I like being chemically dependent on just caffeine. I'm sure if I quit drinking it to the extent I do drink caffeine I probably wouldn't have them. I figure the healthier option is to move on about life without needing to be medicated. Americans have a problem with medicating themselves every time we feel something that isn't classified as normal. It's not even so much 'westerners' as my family in Spain (my uncle is a doctor in Madrid) agrees that Americans take too many meds. The rest of the world just deals with their problems first hand. I'd rather be like the rest of the world. Anxiety isn't so bad once you figure out a way to talk yourself down from it. It lets you know you're human.
Hey, just trying to pass on a little wisdom from somebody who's been through it. It isn't about whether a society is medicated or not, it's about whether or not it can help YOU.
I'm hoping that since you've been with the bf that you can sleep through the night, because drinking until you pass out ain't the way to get to sleep, and it's telling of problems that runs way, way deeper than just insomnia.
I appreciate your concern, really, I do. However, I think you have the completely wrong impression of me. I have NEVER drank to sleep. Never, not once in my life, have ever drank myself to sleep. If by drinking you mean warm milk, hot cider or water --- Then sure, yes. But I've never once touched any sort of alcohol to aid me in my sleep. When I was a teenager and I sent myself to the hospital over anxiety (it was my first anxiety attack and I didn't know what it was), I was given a prescription of sedatives to calm myself. That's what I meant by the sedatives. Also, when I said I wanted a tall glass of booze, I was completely kidding. I know it can easily be taken the wrong way, but really, anyone that knows me personally will say I'm always the last one to start drinking and the first one to stop or sometimes I just don't drink anything at all while everyone else is. I'm usually the designated driver, not the one everyone needs to worry about if I'm going to get too drunk. Sure, I'll post about my drunken good times because they're usually interesting. Even over Thanksgiving when everyone gets together and drinks, I was so tired from all my cooking that I didn't even touch a glass of wine. I had water and went to bed early.
Don't get me wrong, there have been times where I've gone out with friends and have passed out on someone's couch from a good time... But those times are few and far between and I'd say by society's standards, pretty normal. I drank a lot more often when my ex and I broke up --- But that was a quick party stage, a much needed one, after being with a person for 6.5 years. That party phase never interfered with my daily life or my work. I'm the type of person that gets drunk on a Friday and feels like a worthless pile until Sunday. I can't drink very often so I don't --- and I don't particularly like drinking either. I like being whacked out on espresso... I've been drinking espresso since I was a kid. It's very Latin culture of me (I'm Cuban, FYI) --- and all of us in my family are all heavy coffee drinkers that all suffer from insomnia. My grandma is 84 years old and goes to bed at 11 pm. Maybe if we put down the espresso we'd sleep, but that's just how my family functions. My boyfriend just has a way to get me to sleep at night, and sometimes I'll wake up and just read or write until I sleep. I've been like this forever. I promise, I do NOT have a drinking problem. LOL. I might have a ton of other problems, but drinking would be the last one on the list.
Oh, thank God. I totally have misinterpreted your entries.
Haha, it's okay. I totally understand how you can misinterpret my blogs. Usually when I blog something interesting it usually has to deal with a drunken good time. But if you go back and read my posts... They've been sorta boring. Usually just "blah blah blah my boyfriend and I are hermits blah blah blah." lol. See, Friday night and I'm sober... But just went to coffee with a friend. My problem is coffee. hehe.
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