Is My Health Mental

It’s just a thought since I had my first visit with my first Mental Health Clinician in an office setting anyway. I have met many during my numerous stays in Washington State Behavioral Health Units over the years, but this is my first time having one I see weekly and ongoing to see if we can’t uncover some of the trauma that I experienced as a child and hopefully deal with it.

I know it is in there because I catch glimpses of it in the back of my mind. I know it is there because of the stories I have been told by Aunt’s and Uncles over the years. And I know it’s there because I have some damn issues if ya haven’t maybe noticed yet 🙂 and there has to be a damn good reason for them. Or at least that’s how I see it. I do not believe for one moment and I have been told this over the years by Doc’s as well. That odds are even though my dad was bat shit crazy, that I probably wasn’t born mentally ill. More like it is a mood disorder due to unresolved early childhood trauma that my mind has hidden the memories of from me.

Where Does It Go From Here?

Slow and steady I figure. Week by week peeling back a little bit of that rotted onion that sits in my gut layer by layer. Slowly, safely, and cautiously. I feel very comfortable with my therapist. I had my choice of three all at the same clinic, all with varying years of experience. One and the one I ended up selecting after careful deliberation. Is a young gal brand new to the clinic, only had her master’s two years, and has some fresh and exciting, and the most current up to date techniques fresh in her mind from her 6 years of residency at the Oregon State Mental Hospital in Portland.

Another was a man so he gets disregarded simply because he produces Testosterone, sorry guys it’s definitely not personal but if you grew up like I did then you would probably react the same way as I regarding that issue. The other although an ultra seasoned clinician with years of experience and the one I was suggested in my referral as needing to see I opted not to. It was for no other reason than there was no connection, I felt pushed away by her vibe not invited in, I am very sensitive that way and I pick up when peoples emotions change super fast. I think it’s a defense mechanism I developed over the year’s, to be honest with you.

But the gal I chose to use we connect like I have known her all my life and I just want to talk to her and I am excited already about my next visit with her. She gets to be the close friend I don’t have right now. The one who outside of you all, I share my deepest personal secrets with. Someone I am always excited to go see for an hour, and who eagerly awaits my crazy, giggly asses arrival. I need that in my life right now more so than I ever realized and actually, I did not just realize that until right as I wrote it! Gosh, I just love what writing does for me and heck its gotta be a bit amusing to read at times if not eerily entertaining at others.

So What Does The Future Hold?

Well, I can’t tell the future that superpower has yet to surface at this point in my recovery but maybe once I hit the year mark it will. One thing I know for sure is that it is going to be a good one for sure. It is my time to shine, to spend the rest of my life learning and becoming all that I was supposed to have already become I think. It’s my belief that fate did not directly send me a one-way ticket to the land of darkness and despair for twenty plus years. I believe I led myself there trying to satisfy the insatiable desire I had to do cocaine.

I do not for one moment even believe that God created me for that specific reason, there is no way! I do believe though that he definitely allowed me to suffer for my poor choices over the years despite my desperate, tearful pleas on more than one occasion to either take this demon from me or kill me then and he did neither. And yes I know he heard me. But I never, well I take that back. One time just before my last suicide attempt I gave him a very poorly judged ultimatum to take this monster out of me or I was going to kill it myself by killing me and he did not! I always like to keep my word so the next day I tried.

What Does It All Mean?

Shoot, now I’m really not sure because I kind of took off on a tangent there but I think it means, that although there are always consequences for our negative actions that it doesn’t mean things can’t be restored to normal. I think it means that if you think your higher power if you have one, has turned your back on you to not lose hope. I think it is “faith the size of a mustard seed” coming to fruition.

It is simply keeping a positive attitude or at least keeping some semblance of hope alive in your spirit despite the worst of circumstances. I know we all have our breaking point. I know this because I have reached mine three times over this 22-year nightmare, but I am still here and I simply should not be! There is a power out there in the universe you all that you can choose to name whatever makes you comfortable. I believe just personally that it is one universal power we all refer to as many different God’s but that’s a whole other deal another time.

Simply put, we are all living miracles because we have survived whatever we have had to go through and are still breathing. We are miracles, living breathing proof that this recovery thing works, that change is possible. That if this eating out of the dumpster, crack smoking, no good, homeless drug addict can be changed, then anyone can. We can do this you all. I’ll see you when you get here the view is simply amazing from this side of life!

About the Author: Marc is a 48-year-old Author, Speaker, and Soldier in a war to loosen the grasp that Substance Abuse has on our society. He is a Father, Son, and friend to all those seeking refuge from this incorrigible disease. Marc resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest where he enjoys, writing, hiking, and kicking the disease of addiction in the teeth, every chance he gets. As Marc always likes to say, “be blessed, my friends!”