How I got here

Welcome to my story.  I tell it from a place of moving and grooving otherwise it’ll be long, triggering and sad.

Here’s the score:

I first got depressed as hell when I was 11. I went from being relatively fine to feeling nothing at all, it was very jarring. I started my period at 13 and that’s when PMDD kicked off too - except I wouldn’t realise that was what was happening until I was 23. My teenage years were miserable yet also super sociable, creative and really fun. All underlined by depression, anxiety and the usual teenage coping mechanism that I’m still wearing the scars from.

Talking about mental health was not an option - is how I felt. I didn’t know how to talk about feelings and so would express them via suppression and dodgy coping mechanisms. This changed when I was 17 and finally asked for help - realising that I wasn’t going to make it much longer if I didn’t do the scariest thing I could think of: admit I reaaaaally needed help. ASAP. Like, 5 years ago.

I got sick of staying sick.  I wasn’t getting better, the light was closing out and I literally was so BORED of feeling horrendous all the time.  As I moved into my twenties, the ‘cool and edgy’ aspect of acute depression wore thin - and it was so evident to everyone around me.  I had bought into the identity of mental illness and wore it like a really grubby cape.

This worked for so long, no one expected anything of me and I was somehow getting away with being stoned all. the. time.  It was so boring.  I was so limited in what I could do, and where I could go.  My whole thing is connection and clarity - being able to be surrounded with people who light me up and I had no access to ANYONE.  I was severely sad, stuck in a co-ercive relationship and addicted to everything.

After yet another rock bottom (I used to be a regular) it was time to change, for real for real.  While I had seen talk therapists, psychiatrists (hi, misdiagnosis and medical trauma), nutritionists, herbalists, weird people who touched my neck - none of it made a dent.

Now, this isn’t to say that these professionals were inept: the issue was me.  I know, imagine that conversation with myself.  Jose, you are the problem mate.  But guess what: you get to be responsible.  You have the opportunity to claim this situation, and commit to actions that you have discovered and feel aligned with. That’s an abridged version of the conversations I had with myself

A curated edit of my full on pharmaceutical medication collection, started at 17.

What made the shift was going on holiday and realising I had forgotten the maximum dose of the medication I was on.  Lamotrigine.  A classic mood stabiliser prescribed to bipolar ii girlies, even if they’re under 18 and it’s really Autism and ADHD ricocheting through their system.  Happens to the best of us (still not overly impressed with that half a decade of my life).

This forgetting of the medication presented me with an opportunity: cut ties with the drugs that I was aware but not embracing the fact that these drugs were not helping.  I was raised in an era where the only solution to any mental strife was pills.  We put pills on a pedestal.  Prozac Nation, Girl Interrupted, every mental health Tumblr blog (think: a lot of graphic images, angst and thigh gaps). The idea that the pills were a problem was radical for me at the time - which is laughable now given my verrrry integrative stance on healthcare, wellbeing and generally nurturing the human experience. After the first day I realised I hadn’t forgotten the medication, but as I was already 24 hours into living hell - I decided I may as well keep going ‘otherwise the day will be wasted’. Wild.

So, I get clean from the prescribed drugs.  It takes six months to feel relatively like a human being again.  Picture me cleaning people’s houses and being unable to talk to them properly. This clear up allowed space to FINALLY quit smoking weed - and realise that I was self medicating the effects of the Pharma drugs.  Honestly this was such a wild time.  People are so quick to judge addicts as so many things, when for me I was so desperate to be moved out of CRUSHING PAIN AND DESPAIR that drugs initially seemed like a great option.  It works (and no one gave me any other options) - until it doesn’t.

A year later I moved out of my parents’ house, got kicked in the head by life even more.  Embraced it all.  Kept cleaning houses, clawing my way through - this time with the fire of disdain moving me.  I won't lie, it did take years to move from judging myself through challenges into making changes from a place of actual love.  I accept that I decided I had to earn my love - because now I do love myself, and have a lot of respect too.  I make things happen, especially in situations where people deem it impossible.

Storytime is continued on the next blog: