1. borrowing misery from future

2. carrying grief of the past

I was born with the emotional state of a cheetah.

That is to say, I was born a nervous wreck.

I had more phobias then I could count. I wasn't able to ride a bike until I was 9, couldn't ride a two wheeled kick scooter, wasn't able to climb a tree without a panic attack, etc.

I had a phenomenon I call "spooking" where if I hear an odd noise at night, I spook, and it effects my sleep for hours. It's nowhere near as common as it used to be

it was my natural state, to be a nervous wreak. I thought I was just careful.

then, about a year ago, I decided to go on antidepressants.

My anxiety was pilling up, and I had actually tried to commit a couple times the summer prior.

about 4 months ago, we got the dose right.

and now?

I'm finally free.

I climbed the tree I always wished to climb in front of my childhood home, and read in it (another thing my anxiety used to stop me from doing, terrified for the characters)

I discovered the pure joy of kick scooters, and roller skates too.

I'm going to try to go ice skating this winter, another thing I couldn't do

I spook maybe thrice a year. I've never slept better

Before, it felt like I permanently had a brick duct taped to my chest. whenever I get anxious enough for the brick to return, I always wonder how I felt like I could breathe.

Falling was one of my greatest fears, more specifically, jumping off a raised platform. Still is, to a level, but now?

I can conquer it.

I went on the one meter board countless times when I went to the waterpark in my hometown with my best friend, and the 3 meter twice.

Those always felt terrifying. They aren't anymore.

Freedom is the best thing I've ever felt.

Make sure your patients get it too.

There are a lot of things that can help people who are struggling with mental health. Medication is one of them. And it’s one that some people have a hard time with, so I’ve got a story:

I was a senior at ASU and a newly-minted tgirl. I felt better than I had in a long time, but I was also so goddamn tired I could feel it in my bones. I knew I needed a break. More than that, I needed a break and a LOT of distance from people and lights and traffic. So I decided to go camping! I was raised by cowboys, I was in the Boy Scouts, I have gun autism, I LOVE camping. So I call my dad and ask if I can go camping in our little cabin up by Flagstaff. He said yes! But! He said to be careful! Because it had been raining for a long time and it could be muddy!

And I, being equal parts overconfident and impulsive, thought, “it’s Arizona, how muddy can it be? It’s a goddamn desert.” So I didn’t take his truck, I grabbed my puppy and my guns, a sleeping bag and some food, and I rolled out to camp in my little mini cooper. And I got stuck in mud. Because duh, I mentioned it WAY too much for that to not be relevant. That was Chekov’s mud.

So there I am - a three hour drive away from home stuck in a puddle of freezing mud. But I was RAISED BY COWBOYS and also a GODDAMN BOY SCOUT and also NOT DUMB so I had stuff for this! I tried digging my car’s tires out! But no luck - it was just too deep. So I tried putting boards under my tires to get extra traction! But no luck, the mud was so pervasive, so invasive, my tires could find no purchase. I tried filling the puddle with dry dirt, but everything was so damn muddy I just did nothing. I was stuck. Truly, deeply, profoundly stuck. Not only was I stuck, I was stuck in a tiny car that had gradually sunken so deep into the mud I could barely open the doors. I was stuck in the middle of the road, about 3 miles from the cabin. It was cold, I didn’t have more than a sleeping bag with me, and it was getting dark. So I did my last-ditch maneuver and called my papa.

I felt like the world’s biggest burden asking my dad to drive three hours in the dark and the cold to come rescue me from something he had already offered to rescue me from by lending me his truck. I felt like I deserved to be stuck. I felt so guilty asking for help it felt like I had swallowed a fist full of nails and they were only now starting to bore little holes in my stomach. I felt *miserable.* But my dad, self-sacrificing and kind as ever, came to rescue me from my stupidity. He shows up with my littlest brother and grabs some shovels and says “Ok, we’re gonna try digging the tires out a bit,” and I said “I already tried that!” so he didn’t waste his time and he paused for a second and then said:

“Yeah, but you didn’t try it with me.”

I was nervous. I thought he meant I’d fucked it up somehow, I thought it wouldn’t work and I’d just be making my poor patient papa tired for no reason, thought nothing would work. But we dig the tires out and somehow, some goddamn how, I got enough purchase on solid ground that he could then pull me out of the mud with his truck with minimal difficulty. And then, standing by the empty pit where my car used to be, a cavernous 3-foot hole filled with icy water and sticky mud, he says “Yeah, that was quite the pit you got yourself stuck into” and it only dawned on me a few hours later that his statement worked on multiple levels.

Sometimes our minds get us stuck - it’s not a moral failing, it’s a mechanical one. A mini cooper cannot haul itself out of 3 feet of sticky slushy mud. But once we’re stuck we’re stuck. So we can do what we do to make ourselves feel better, but damn it if some of these pits just won’t let go. It’s like they can’t. It’s like they won’t. So we dig and we dig and we pull and we pull and we try anything and everything imaginable and some crazy how it just doesn’t work. And when that happens, we have a shocking amount of options left besides surrendering to the power of the frozen hole we’re in.

The first option I want to point out is that sometimes we need help. When my dad said “you didn’t do it with me,” he didn’t mean I did it wrong, he meant a two-person job cannot be done by one person. It means we need help when we need help. It means we need support. It means sometimes we need someone else to do what we can’t, especially when we’re so stuck. I mentioned my brother came with, and that was a game changer because that was, in fact, a three-person job. The more support the better. In fact, the more support, the easier and the faster it can be.

Another thing I want to note is he did not lash out at me. There was no “you asshole, you made me drive up here in all this muck while it’s freezing outside because you got yourself stuck! You wouldn’t have even gotten stuck if you did this right!” That wad important because as someone who had called for help, I already felt bad, and I’m not sure if I ever would have called for help again if he had used that as an opportunity to lecture me. Even though it was by all measures true. I took a poorly-equipped car off-roading in mud up to my knees AFTER being warned not to AND after being given options to avoid such a fate. EVEN IF IT WAS ALL MY FAULT, he still wanted to help because he loves me and that is how he shows it.

Another thing, actually the last thing, I want to point out is that when he got to me, my dad didn’t say “lol you tried to dig yourself out with a shovel? You fucken pussy, you should have used your hands, shovels are for idiots and wimps.” He actually brought his own shovels, his own ~tools~, to dig my tires out of that trench I’d finagled myself into. After that, we used boards, just like I’d done before, to get even more purchase, and then used a big-ass truck to pull the car out of that massive fucking puddle.

When we’re stuck in our own mental health concerns, the last thing we wanna do is ask for help, but we need to ask. Not because it’s fun, or because it’s gonna feel good, but because when we are well-and-truly stuck we need help. When we’re stuck in our own mental health concerns, we also sometimes need tools, and that is what meds can be. That is what therapy can be. That is what socializing can be, or breathing exercises, or a hobby, or anything that helps, even if it feels like it “shouldn’t” help. If you’re stuck in the mud and someone tells you you’re weak for using a shovel to excavate yourself, that person is an idiot. 100%, guaranteed, that person is an idiot. If you’re in 3 feet of cognitive mud and slush from, say, depression, or mania, or OCD, or psychosis, or trauma, and someone says you’re stupid for using a shovel and some boards and a truck to get out of that pit THEY are being obstinate. That isn’t even a case for “everyone’s entitled to their opinions,” that opinion is just flat-out wrong. If you’re stuck, you’re stuck. And if there’s a little nagging voice or feeling saying “yeah but it’s all your fault” that still doesn’t change the fact that you’re stuck! And if you’re stuck sometimes you need tools to get unstuck!

The last point I want to make is one that comes from the privilege of having a good dad, @optimisticdad-blog. It’s one that comes from knowing that I can ask for help no matter how bad it is and no matter how much of my own fault it feels like. That is a privilege not everyone has, but I want to use it as a teaching moment: for those or you without that privilege, those people do not have to be removed from your life but they’re not likely to change for you quickly enough to help you out in this moment. Find other people, therapists, psychiatrists, academic advisors, mentors, peers, friends, professors, anyone who can show you the kindness and understanding you need to get unstuck. You can work with the people who can’t meet your needs later but you have to be unstuck first.

And for those of you who have received the dubious honor of being someone’s lifeline when they’re stuck, try to come at it the way my dad did: no blame, no anger or scandal, no lectures, even if they’re warranted, because even if there is a time and place for those thoughts or feelings it’s not right here and right now.

Obviously don’t put pressure on yourself to be available 24/7. Don’t pressure yourself to be someone you can’t be. If you’re stuck too you can’t help someone else get unstuck sometimes. If I had called my dad and he said “call a tow truck, I can’t go right now,” that would have been OK too, and this story would be largely similar. But if you can - if you have the space, the ability, the time, the ~tools~ to help, know that any and all help you give is changing the world. Not just for that one person, although it is doing that for them, but (and I’m gonna get a little “woo woo” here) it makes a ripple that effects more than just them. It affects their entire community.