“You must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.”
Now that I’ve had this draft opened up for the past 4 hours and have run out of things to do while putting it off. This is a post that has been needing to be written for several months now, and due to the nature of it I have not been overly inclined to write it. However, I recently had a bringing down to Earth moment that has forced me to really get in my head the past week or so and think about it and so, here I am.
Idk if any of you have watched Will Arnett’s new show on Netflix, “Flaked”, but it’s a pretty solid story dealing with recovering alcoholism in a small community. (Un)fortunately for me, there was a bit in the finale that has caused this introspection to commence. Well here’s an excerpt from the show description: “…Chip’s the go-to guy for personal insights. But he isn’t quite as enlightened when it comes to his own baggage.” Right. Now, here’s the conversation from the finale between Chip, and the man who was originally his sponsor when he joined AA. This comes at the end of what was a pretty heated and personal exchange and is his sponsor talking to Chip:
“You’re a good man. I mean, whether or not you want to admit it, but.. I know you are. I’ve seen you stick your hand out to help other people, complete strangers, drunks, I mean countless times I just wish you would listen to half the stuff you tell them. I just hope that someday you can just step up, and just, finally help yourself man.”
Now, for those of you who either know me or have read most of this blog, substitute the drinking for depression and that pretty much sums up where I’ve been at for the past several years. Not too long ago I was able to be helping several individuals, some that I know personally and some that I do not, in dealing with their own struggles with depression. I didn’t do this for myself, although it does help me deal with my own shit by talking about related issues with others, but I did it for them because I know firsthand how much easier it makes it to have someone who will legitimately just listen and can honestly relate to what you’re going through. However, the past few months I’ve been slowly distancing myself from these situations. I had rationalized it out to myself because these individuals for the most part had been making a lot of progress, and thusly didn’t need to look elsewhere for guidance or advice anymore, which for the most part is true. I am very proud of them for how much progress that has been made, but that is not the reason. Namely because I know how damn easy it is to backslide, and how quickly that innocent backslide can turn into a freefall.
The real reason is what gets us back to the Flaked reference, it makes me feel like a fucking fraud. A hypocritical fraud. Looking around at my li(f)e, I don’t do half of the things anymore that they have looked to me as a source of knowledge and experience on. I wax poetic about the importance of finding something that makes you happy and making time for it at least once a day, or the importance of exercise no matter how basic, and the effects of healthy eating on the mind and cultivating a healthier body image as well. I talk about how monumentally powerful meditation can be at even just 10 minutes a day. I recommend the creation of a morning ritual of 5-6 things or habits to do every morning first thing to always get the day started off right as that’s usually the hardest part. I talk endlessly about how important it is to accept depression and instead of winning or losing, you’re simply making lifestyle changes because if you focus on winning and losing you’ll never make it past the first fucking day.
I no longer do any of these things. Not on any sort of regular basis at least. And it’s not because I’ve made so much progress or “gotten better” that I don’t need to anymore. I’ve been lying to myself about being too busy to worry about it, falling back into the “good enough” trap that got me into this mess to begin with. And quite honestly it makes me sick.
There’s bound to be a few people reading this that are going to try to tell me I’m just being too hard on myself, so for fun let me just give an example of how much this struggle still impacts my daily life in topic that everyone can relate too, relationships. Now, I don’t have too much of a problem meeting people, making good first impressions with people, or anything like that. However, the moment it begins to become more than casual flirting and we actually start to spend an extended period of time together, I immediately start to distance myself, almost without realizing it now it’s become so natural. I’m not afraid of commitment, in fact I rather prefer commitment to the casual hookup culture we have now. The problem is, I know that the more time you spend with someone you start to rub off on each other. And I know that more than likely it won’t happen, but just the thought of all this fucking dark depressing shit that rumbles around my head all day rubs off on them and infects them with it is too much. Yes, everyone has their own problems and that’s part of the bit with a relationship is you take on each others burdens blah blah I know. I also know that they are fully consenting adults and it should be their choice not mine. To which I say oh well, still not worth it to me.
So. I am sorry to those of you who I have been a fraud to. I am sorry to those of you who wanted to be a part of my life and thought I didn’t want you to be, I did, I just didn’t want you to suffer or resent me for it. And I am sorry to myself, for allowing this to continue to be such a large part of my day to day life.
Just know, that I’m working on it.
Embracing the Struggle 