I was thinking the other day about the indescribable awfulness of not having a safe place inside my own head. There was a span of three or so years when the very un-fun kind of mania set in. I had excessive mental energy and slept very little, but it wasn’t feelings of euphoria I battled, but paranoia. I started hearing voices behind my door, out of the corner of the room, and from under my bed. Fears ran deep enough to frighten me into thinking the government was monitoring my thoughts. I had to take down all my beloved super hero posters because the eyes would follow and watch me. For a short time, family had to take shifts watching me during the daytime. I wasn’t suicidal, I was simply too terrified to be left alone.
My days were filled with lonely apprehension for when the sun went down. I spent as much time as I could around others, but most people need to sleep at night and go to work. Since I did neither of those things, being alone was inevitable. But even when with people, I felt alone. Not because I was lonely, but because I was scared. I felt scared all the time. There was a constant tightness in my chest and my brain was on high alert. This went on for about a year without a day off.
Since overcoming temptation in my teenage years, I had been very smug about never using illicit substances to cope with things like depression. But I had never dealt with these kinds of symptoms before. My psychiatrist had forbade me from drinking or smoking weed. Probably because of my medication and also my family history of addiction. But I was sorely tempted to ignore his instructions. Now instead of judging my friends for self-medicating , I was jealous. It seemed so easy for them. When they got out of sorts, they just got high or drunk. It felt like they were free and I was not.
One night when I was chugging Nyquil and it clearly wasn’t working, my dad asked me, “Do I need to go get you a fifth of jack?” I politely declined mixing my meds with actual alcohol but I appreciate where he was coming from. It was a particularly bad night. I’d been prescribed heavy doses of anti-psychotics a few days before and they were not working in the slightest. I was pacing the house feeling frantic about my medicine not working. I thought about my dad’s offer. I thought about contacting a friend to get some weed. I suddenly realized that I was willing to take anything I could get my hands on for some relief. It hit me all at once how judgmental I’d been towards anyone who self-medicated.
How could I have been so arrogant? Here I was, staying in my parents house, being provided for with food, medicine, shelter, and love; all the time thinking I was stronger than everyone else. That somehow I had more willpower or some such bullshit. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe I was just luckier than other people.
Now a days when I have a few bucks to spare someone, I don’t worry that they’ll spend it on cigarettes and booze, I remain open to that possibility. Because you know what? That stuff is cheaper and more accessible than mental health care. Do I want people to drink and abuse drugs to cope? Of course I don’t. But when they do, I truly empathize.
And what I understand now is that empathy does not equate approval. I can feel what someone else is feeling without condoning what they do. But I don’t have to condemn it either. It may seem like a paradox to do neither, but it’s how I roll.