Year in reflection
This is long and full of emotion. It’s probably as hard for you to read as it was for me to write.
2013 was the year I finally let everyone know that a lot of things in my life were very wrong. That didn’t work as planned because instead of those problems withering away they just continued to grow, fester, and develop themselves as gigantic issues. There were some definite missteps I made this year -- I also learned to call out for help when things were at their darkest. In between there were some moments that in any other year would have been classified as great; their only problem was they happened this year in between things I thought were pretty negative deals, things that were thought as such because of heightened anxiety and depression.
The hardest thing I did this year was simply letting people know something was really wrong. Those feelings and confessions were pretty meaningful for me to write though the basis of it was simple: Get home from work at an hour in which most people are getting ready to go to work and write every meaningful thing I could before falling asleep. It took a couple of hours to do and the real world response was almost immediate -- that night at the basketball game I was asked about it, got a message left for me about it, and almost cried in front of a very attractive girl because of it. (Oh yeah the team almost lost but somehow won that night, too.) I think writing that note proved there was something seriously wrong with me to everyone and thus began my year of being totally, painfully honest with myself. It was a painful step towards getting myself some professional help, which happened later that month, actually. Before I started talking it over with my therapist, I had a talk with my brother about lots of stuff as he held his then newborn second child close to him. I’ll never forget that talk, as I basically laid out a bunch of issues I had, whether they were real or perceived. That evening concluded right before I went to take a nap before work.
There were a couple of points in bold that I wanted to re-address here:
My biggest fear is that I am letting everyone down. The more I think about it… the more it hurts. But here’s the reality. Yes, I have made mistakes in the education part of my life. Yes, I have debts. But I am also hacking through the brush of uncertainty and trying my damndest to keep working and keep making money. I am also trying to make smarter decisions with my money, a practice that takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.
I am afraid I am hurting those closest to me. I haven’t done anything this year but bottom out emotionally. I think I’ve done more self harm to myself but have had a lot of people become emotionally concerned about me. I don’t really know how to handle this one except that I now know the long arm of social media more than I ever have. It is one long arm.
I sincerely want to apologize to anyone I have hurt by my actions. Yup, still do.
As ashamed as I am of my debts, I am more ashamed to ask for help. Finally bit the bullet on that and got some help and I think that the people that stepped forward to help got me out of some tough tough stuff. So thank you. Again.
I started seeking professional help in February. The first couple sessions were expensive because I had not yet met my deductible for the calendar year. (There’s a nightmarish term -- one that will be way more annoying as I go through life. Not calendar year, but deductible as it relates to health insurance premiums.) I remember the therapy sessions as being kind of hit or miss early, but once he got some information about me we started having some serious deep conversations. I opened up to my therapist in a way that I never would have thought possible just a couple months prior. I learned right then that it was okay to be emotional and real with people instead of keeping your guard up like a boxer. There were a lot of tears shed in that little room in Fairhaven -- a lot of fears confronted, a bunch on concepts presented to illustrate and make real the demons that were abusing my mind and holding me back. Some still are there. I had a lot of concerns. I still do have concerns -- they are just more obvious and real instead of muddled and hidden.
I have seen my fair share of doctors this year. It has sucked at times but been helpful in others. Of course, the more doctors you see, the more opinions you get. Some of them conflict with each other… that is a challenge to deal with. Who is right on this subject? Who does more than prescribing drugs? Whose advice is the best for the situation? Still trying to figure that one out. I wish there were a simple answer to this.
The first half of the year was tough as nails. Started with naturopathic remedies to depression which didn’t work. Then came the antidepressants, which my doctor prescribed to me as a second effort. That drug got more potent as time went on and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. It seems to calm me down and/or make things not as bad as they could be. One thing I will say about all of this: Pills aren’t magic. They’re science. They’re for specific certain situations. And… yeah, they are a bitch. And yeah, my emotions were stronger than the pills.
I visited the hospital twice in 2013. Missed seven plus weeks of work at Fred Meyer because of it. Life was incredibly tough for me this year. I think the low point was when a doctor asked me how I was feeling and I told him point blank “I don’t care if I live or die.” That is a direct quote. It was accurate. It was as dark and terrible that day as it sounds today. There were some incredible moments this summer. There were some bad moments this summer. There were some incredibly bad moments this summer also. I had a lot of conversations that started with or included “I read your stuff on facebook/twitter, what’s going on?” and ended with “If you need anything I/we are here for you.” Here’s one of the quandaries of being me… I will help anyone at any time. Asking for help from someone? That’s when I get kind of weird and uncomfortable because I don’t know how much help I need and I also don’t know how much help people are willing to give. I guess I have to experience it to realize it.
And all of that happened before the moving fiasco.
Where to start? Moved out of the apartment I lived in for a few years with super cool dude Mykul Breeze. Moved in with… this dude named Chris, who turned out to be a huge douche with a newborn and a paucity for weed. That didn’t work out very well for me. Chris wasn’t my first choice, no. There were eight other houses I tried to move into and I settled on THAT ONE. 3.5 day lease. I may never write about that because it was a horrible experience. So I went from a weekend at my aunt and uncle’s house to 3.5 days with Chris BACK to my aunt and uncle’s house. Then… over to “the dark house”. I’ll lift some text from “Forgotten greatness” to get you through this one.
“The house on F Street, thankfully, is a saga that has ended, and none too soon. I have gotten all I need from said house except for airing out the person that got me involved in that and the renter who was defensive about the money… but thankfully I no longer have to worry about what happens there, nor do I need to break down the doorway in order to get my money back. Just a matter of time before some drug bust happens there.
The house I am currently living in? Picture the old lady who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. Replace “children” with “housemates” and yep. First of all I didn’t know that they’d watch television all day with the volume turned up to twelve (Seattle Seahawks 12th man levels of sound) and that they’d watch television all day. It’s like I’m powerless to get in there and ask if I can possibly watch… something. Maybe I should ask, but I don’t really want to watch anything. Nor am I interested in investing money in a television, then further money in monthly cable. I am not going to be whipped soundly, then sent to bed, trust me on this. I had an idea of what I wanted in a roommate situation and the whole “bunch of people in a house” situation occurred twice in a row -- once (illegally) at F Street, now (legally) where I am living now! I can’t believe this would happen twice in a row. It’s like I’m back at an apartment complex where I really have no control of the noises that reverberate around me. Damn man. Damn.”
So if you’re keeping track of this, I went from an apartment to Mykul to my aunt and uncle’s to the Chris House back to my aunt and uncle’s to the Dark House to a couch in my friend’s basement, which despite being a family home full of love and normalcy (and a place I am happy to be at) is still really hard on my back every day. This is only temporary. Then it will be off to somewhere else. Hopefully it will be way less of a fiasco than the entire fall of 2013 house hunt.
I changed jobs. I no longer work at Fred Meyer. I am getting used to procedure and such and stuff at Barlean’s. Maybe someday I will get used to it and have some sense of mastery of it and it will be a better thing but right now it’s just a thing.
I lost a lot of confidence this year and replaced it with fear of the unknown. There have been a lot of moments this year I have felt incapable of handling. Maybe I could have tackled these moments some other year. Nope, they had the fortune (maybe misfortune…) of happening this year under really stressful circumstances. There’s a lot of pain where there used to be apathy or no feeling at all. Looking forward to events has been replaced by just getting through days and hoping I can get through the bad ones with relative ease. I think my personal scale has been recalibrated to give more emphasis on negative events and less emphasis on purely positive ones.
AND YET… here I am. On the precipice of a new year. Still here. Yes, things are bad sometimes. I flip out. I have dark thoughts. I cry. I can’t make things seem right. But I’m still here. I’m trying to make it work every single day. Sometimes things get rough and the long arm of social media reaches out and… gives me a hug and says “It will be okay.” Yes, people accept me, flaws and all. I am a work in progress. I just have to learn to be proud that I am under construction right now.
I could be abandoned. But I don’t think my friends will let that happen. And I’ve made it this far because of you guys. Thank you.
One day I’ll write something fun.
--Keith
2013 was the year I finally let everyone know that a lot of things in my life were very wrong. That didn’t work as planned because instead of those problems withering away they just continued to grow, fester, and develop themselves as gigantic issues. There were some definite missteps I made this year -- I also learned to call out for help when things were at their darkest. In between there were some moments that in any other year would have been classified as great; their only problem was they happened this year in between things I thought were pretty negative deals, things that were thought as such because of heightened anxiety and depression.
The hardest thing I did this year was simply letting people know something was really wrong. Those feelings and confessions were pretty meaningful for me to write though the basis of it was simple: Get home from work at an hour in which most people are getting ready to go to work and write every meaningful thing I could before falling asleep. It took a couple of hours to do and the real world response was almost immediate -- that night at the basketball game I was asked about it, got a message left for me about it, and almost cried in front of a very attractive girl because of it. (Oh yeah the team almost lost but somehow won that night, too.) I think writing that note proved there was something seriously wrong with me to everyone and thus began my year of being totally, painfully honest with myself. It was a painful step towards getting myself some professional help, which happened later that month, actually. Before I started talking it over with my therapist, I had a talk with my brother about lots of stuff as he held his then newborn second child close to him. I’ll never forget that talk, as I basically laid out a bunch of issues I had, whether they were real or perceived. That evening concluded right before I went to take a nap before work.
There were a couple of points in bold that I wanted to re-address here:
My biggest fear is that I am letting everyone down. The more I think about it… the more it hurts. But here’s the reality. Yes, I have made mistakes in the education part of my life. Yes, I have debts. But I am also hacking through the brush of uncertainty and trying my damndest to keep working and keep making money. I am also trying to make smarter decisions with my money, a practice that takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.
I am afraid I am hurting those closest to me. I haven’t done anything this year but bottom out emotionally. I think I’ve done more self harm to myself but have had a lot of people become emotionally concerned about me. I don’t really know how to handle this one except that I now know the long arm of social media more than I ever have. It is one long arm.
I sincerely want to apologize to anyone I have hurt by my actions. Yup, still do.
As ashamed as I am of my debts, I am more ashamed to ask for help. Finally bit the bullet on that and got some help and I think that the people that stepped forward to help got me out of some tough tough stuff. So thank you. Again.
I started seeking professional help in February. The first couple sessions were expensive because I had not yet met my deductible for the calendar year. (There’s a nightmarish term -- one that will be way more annoying as I go through life. Not calendar year, but deductible as it relates to health insurance premiums.) I remember the therapy sessions as being kind of hit or miss early, but once he got some information about me we started having some serious deep conversations. I opened up to my therapist in a way that I never would have thought possible just a couple months prior. I learned right then that it was okay to be emotional and real with people instead of keeping your guard up like a boxer. There were a lot of tears shed in that little room in Fairhaven -- a lot of fears confronted, a bunch on concepts presented to illustrate and make real the demons that were abusing my mind and holding me back. Some still are there. I had a lot of concerns. I still do have concerns -- they are just more obvious and real instead of muddled and hidden.
I have seen my fair share of doctors this year. It has sucked at times but been helpful in others. Of course, the more doctors you see, the more opinions you get. Some of them conflict with each other… that is a challenge to deal with. Who is right on this subject? Who does more than prescribing drugs? Whose advice is the best for the situation? Still trying to figure that one out. I wish there were a simple answer to this.
The first half of the year was tough as nails. Started with naturopathic remedies to depression which didn’t work. Then came the antidepressants, which my doctor prescribed to me as a second effort. That drug got more potent as time went on and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. It seems to calm me down and/or make things not as bad as they could be. One thing I will say about all of this: Pills aren’t magic. They’re science. They’re for specific certain situations. And… yeah, they are a bitch. And yeah, my emotions were stronger than the pills.
I visited the hospital twice in 2013. Missed seven plus weeks of work at Fred Meyer because of it. Life was incredibly tough for me this year. I think the low point was when a doctor asked me how I was feeling and I told him point blank “I don’t care if I live or die.” That is a direct quote. It was accurate. It was as dark and terrible that day as it sounds today. There were some incredible moments this summer. There were some bad moments this summer. There were some incredibly bad moments this summer also. I had a lot of conversations that started with or included “I read your stuff on facebook/twitter, what’s going on?” and ended with “If you need anything I/we are here for you.” Here’s one of the quandaries of being me… I will help anyone at any time. Asking for help from someone? That’s when I get kind of weird and uncomfortable because I don’t know how much help I need and I also don’t know how much help people are willing to give. I guess I have to experience it to realize it.
And all of that happened before the moving fiasco.
Where to start? Moved out of the apartment I lived in for a few years with super cool dude Mykul Breeze. Moved in with… this dude named Chris, who turned out to be a huge douche with a newborn and a paucity for weed. That didn’t work out very well for me. Chris wasn’t my first choice, no. There were eight other houses I tried to move into and I settled on THAT ONE. 3.5 day lease. I may never write about that because it was a horrible experience. So I went from a weekend at my aunt and uncle’s house to 3.5 days with Chris BACK to my aunt and uncle’s house. Then… over to “the dark house”. I’ll lift some text from “Forgotten greatness” to get you through this one.
“The house on F Street, thankfully, is a saga that has ended, and none too soon. I have gotten all I need from said house except for airing out the person that got me involved in that and the renter who was defensive about the money… but thankfully I no longer have to worry about what happens there, nor do I need to break down the doorway in order to get my money back. Just a matter of time before some drug bust happens there.
The house I am currently living in? Picture the old lady who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. Replace “children” with “housemates” and yep. First of all I didn’t know that they’d watch television all day with the volume turned up to twelve (Seattle Seahawks 12th man levels of sound) and that they’d watch television all day. It’s like I’m powerless to get in there and ask if I can possibly watch… something. Maybe I should ask, but I don’t really want to watch anything. Nor am I interested in investing money in a television, then further money in monthly cable. I am not going to be whipped soundly, then sent to bed, trust me on this. I had an idea of what I wanted in a roommate situation and the whole “bunch of people in a house” situation occurred twice in a row -- once (illegally) at F Street, now (legally) where I am living now! I can’t believe this would happen twice in a row. It’s like I’m back at an apartment complex where I really have no control of the noises that reverberate around me. Damn man. Damn.”
So if you’re keeping track of this, I went from an apartment to Mykul to my aunt and uncle’s to the Chris House back to my aunt and uncle’s to the Dark House to a couch in my friend’s basement, which despite being a family home full of love and normalcy (and a place I am happy to be at) is still really hard on my back every day. This is only temporary. Then it will be off to somewhere else. Hopefully it will be way less of a fiasco than the entire fall of 2013 house hunt.
I changed jobs. I no longer work at Fred Meyer. I am getting used to procedure and such and stuff at Barlean’s. Maybe someday I will get used to it and have some sense of mastery of it and it will be a better thing but right now it’s just a thing.
I lost a lot of confidence this year and replaced it with fear of the unknown. There have been a lot of moments this year I have felt incapable of handling. Maybe I could have tackled these moments some other year. Nope, they had the fortune (maybe misfortune…) of happening this year under really stressful circumstances. There’s a lot of pain where there used to be apathy or no feeling at all. Looking forward to events has been replaced by just getting through days and hoping I can get through the bad ones with relative ease. I think my personal scale has been recalibrated to give more emphasis on negative events and less emphasis on purely positive ones.
AND YET… here I am. On the precipice of a new year. Still here. Yes, things are bad sometimes. I flip out. I have dark thoughts. I cry. I can’t make things seem right. But I’m still here. I’m trying to make it work every single day. Sometimes things get rough and the long arm of social media reaches out and… gives me a hug and says “It will be okay.” Yes, people accept me, flaws and all. I am a work in progress. I just have to learn to be proud that I am under construction right now.
I could be abandoned. But I don’t think my friends will let that happen. And I’ve made it this far because of you guys. Thank you.
One day I’ll write something fun.
--Keith