Disclaimer I can't write, not a blogger and don't know what I'm doing here. But here goes.
I have been trying the last couple days to take inventory of this last year. Let's see. Well, the beginning of the year I had made some headway starting to break several years of depression. I started learning "mindfulness" techniques to cope with my chronic pain. While still taking a reduced level of morphine" I was on that shit for most of the last ten years". I had begun to go back to work. I'm self-employed so that means started to make a little money again. I had accepted that I needed some help because trying for so long to fix myself didn't work. Acceptance was my theme for the 1st couple of months.
Then spring came. Started with losing my mother. When she passed I was taking three different antidepressants, morphine, and benzos. While I was somewhat devastated by her passing, the drugs had made me more of an emotional zombie I think. Somewhere deep inside the pain was there but found out much later it was masked. Dark thoughts of suicide began to creep into my everyday. My physical pain seemed to intensify. New health concerns popped up. Crazy things I never had to deal with before. Started to need and or want more drugs to "cope". Not realizing that I had taken a serious turn for the worst. Burned through a lot of money that I shouldn't of. All the while retreating farther from the people I still had in my life that cared about me. The progress I had made in the few months before evaporated. The hopelessness had taken over and complete absence of joy in my life was daily. My loved ones feared that I was going to give up completely. And honestly not sure how or why I didn't end it all.
Summer began and really don't remember much. My drug use both legal and not was overshadowing everything. I was killing myself slowly I think, as I look back. At the time I just wanted the pain and suffering to STOP. But I just made it all worse. Didn't want my wife and kids to know how deep I had sunk. So I began to lie about my feelings and the drugs. That led to lying about the money. And so on and so on. And I didn't fool anyone. Before I knew it I had become someone I didn't recognize anymore. Everything was tainted and I was drowning. My wife had begun to try anything to save me from myself. Hiding the keys to the car because she was scared for me to drive. Insomnia had begun not sleeping for days at a time. Belligerent denial was my response to every attempt to talk to me. I was lost in my own mind and losing a grip on reality. I didn't want to see or feel what I had become. This was going to end one way.
Fall had come. And something happened that I needed. And I didn't know it at the time. But now I know for sure. My Doctor for the last several years, because of fear of the new political climate cut off my meds cold turkey. That was a pivotal day in my 43yrs here on earth. I was forced to make a choice. Not sure how I made the 15 min drive home to an empty house from that appointment. The fear of what was to come next was overwhelming. Not just the withdrawals but the fear of the pain and what was my life going to become now. I had no hope for something better. No real reason to expect things to get better. As I pondered what direction to go, strait to heroin? To just say fuck it all and kill myself? Not sure if it was the anger inside or maybe providence. But that day I decided to live, to change what I could and live with what I couldn't in the best way possible.
Today the day after Christmas I have made changes. I stopped taking all the drugs the doctors where giving. Everything, the pain meds, antidepressants, benzos. I have to face the pain everyday. The physical and mental. No hiding, no taking the "edge off". All I had done to escape had trapped me. NO MORE! I have begun to exercise everyday, it helps the pain. I now eat healthy. Those two things have helped to lose weight. That also helps decrease the pain. Radical honesty is what I practice now. Especially with myself. Dealing with the feelings that I have diluted for so long. Embarrassment, shame, anger, resentment, there are so many. But now joy, peace, fulfillment, and hope I can feel those now too. And I can actively increase the positive things. Make no mistake it's not easy and I didn't get all fucked up overnight and I won't get better overnight either.
But if your reading this, we have today. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn't here yet, and today I can do it. Bring on 2018!