My Story about My Mental Health

I'm feeling a little emotionally drained today.

If you were unaware, yesterday Bell Media started an initiative called #BellLetsTalk.  It was started with the intention to promote awareness of mental health issues, create a place for people to openly share their struggles and stories involving mental illness, and to help lay the first few bricks in a culture that does not see this debilitation as a sign of weakness. There was also the incentive to use the hashtag listed above, and for every time it was in a tweet Bell Media would donate 5 cents to mental health programs. They also encouraged long distance calling, claiming they would donate more money for the number of calls.  Near the end I think they would end up donating close to 5 million dollars.

Upon realizing that a major corporation was injecting itself, and it's name into a dialogue on social issues, a chunk of the internet stood up, and said "Screw that."  This included people I love, and respect very much.  (Still do)

I opened a few articles written in defiance of the BellLetsTalk campaign people had retweeted, did some minor web searching, and read tweets from these people in an attempt to understand their position.  In all honesty, I did not get very far.  I couldn't bring myself to read them all the way through.  They were sucking the life force out of me, and while I tried to wrap my head around the concept of trying to shut down, and call out a surge of discussion simply because a massive media conglomerate (communications no less) was behind it, I simply could not. I was left shaking. As in, not just my head, but vibrating all over.

Many were talking about how Bell should care about mental health for more than just one day a year, or even saying things like "Why today is about Bell, and not mental health." 

I came close a few times to resigning on my position.  I remember telling myself that it's good, and healthy to be critical of big business, that it is a necessary perspective.  A stinking rich communications company is filling the television, radio airwaves and the internet with their advertising.  Maybe the opposition is on to something.

However, no matter how far down I went with that line of thinking, I always came back to "People with mental illness, are talking about their problems, and finding support today.  Some people, who feel like they are completely alone, might be seeing that they aren't." 

And, on a day that had a lot to with learning to manage emotions, I completely lost control of mine.  I spent the day angry, and frustrated.  On a day that was supposed to be about healing, I was not in a healing frame of mind.  I was furious, for almost an entire day, because a subject that is incredibly close to my heart, was being addressed, and people were telling the folks behind it, to sit down, shut up, and keep out of this conversation.  That their advertisements (designed to tell people how to take part) were unwelcome, and that in general, there was NO way a company like Bell actually cares about about the humanity of the issue.

Well they care enough to donate close to 5 million, and that's a start.  Donating lots of money is the least thing we should expect from a gigantic company.  It would also be foolish to believe that the people at Bell are robots, and never at all in their life go through these things. We consumers are allowed to be human, and angry, and depressed, but the people working there aren't?  Bell isn't some piece of technology, or a bunch of metallic parts put together that makes decisions, they are people, who work in the media and communications industry. Human beings.  Are there going to be people who work there that are jerks in intention?  Sure, but not everyone, and probably nowhere near as many as you might think.  

If you follow me on Twitter, you would have seen an emotional few tweets coming from me.  While I was trying to better understand the resistance to what Bell was doing, I was concerned I could't contribute to the conversation on the grounds that I was taking things personally.  Which is a bit ridiculous, but y'know...That's kind of my thing sometimes.  I take stuff personally, when I really shouldn't.  I'm aware that I do that, and I monitor it.  I've also gotten pretty good at calling myself out on that behaviour, something I learned to do while battling depression a few years ago.

A lot of people ask me when they first meet me, "Why did you move to Victoria?"  There's a lot of reasons really, but the most honest answer I can give is that "I wanted a fresh start."  I never elaborate further, because that would be a LONG, far too personal elaboration for a first encounter, and I'm in the habit of being someone that is  comfortable to be around.

I'm not going to go in great detail. This isn't me sharing my full story, but what I will say, is that the year before moving to Victoria was the worst year of my life.  

Maybe you couldn't tell, I'd spent my whole life faking a lot of things, so I'd gotten pretty good at hiding my problems.  But I was suffering from a depression that finally manifested itself during the summer of 2009.  I had made a lot of mistakes, and poor choices, and I was finally paying for it. A few years prior, I had also been the victim of some terrible abuse at the hands of a girlfriend.  I swore I'd never become that.  But as I learned that year, we create what we fear.

It was my own personal hell, and sadly, that same hellfire burned a number of other people around me.  Including my family.  In the last 4 years, I have come to love, and appreciate my brothers, and my parents on an entirely new level.

My experience has a happy ending, but it was the most painful thing I'd ever had to endure.  People that loved me saw me turn into this Mr. Hyde character, and some people felt the brunt of my anger, confusion, and depression more than others.  At times, while never physically crossing the line, my behaviour could definitely fall under the category of abusive. My change in behaviour was so drastic that it even led people in the circles I was a part of to believe I had a cocaine addiction, or some kind of substance abuse problem. None of which I could really address with them, nor was it something they came and asked me about.  Someone else was doing a lot of advocating on my behalf, but aside from that, no one really pulled me aside, and said "What's gotten into you? What's wrong?"  Aside from my counsellor, there were only two other people I could truly, without censor talk to this about, and I pushed them away right from the get go.  

After that, I couldn't really talk to a lot of people about it.  Everyone knew everyone, and to open up about this part of my life invited a myriad of other potential conversations I was not going to engage in, nor did I feel I could, so I felt my best option was to confide with only a couple of people.  

I remember telling my folks that I needed help, so steps were taken.  I went to visit my family doctor, who set me up with a counsellor.  They paid for it entirely (thanks guys) and pretty soon the subject of anti-depressants came up.

Before ever going on them, I was of the opinion that anti-depressants were screwed up.  I didn't want to take them, I didn't understand them.  Saying yes to pills was admitting I was sick, and I didn't want to believe I was sick. I was just depressed.  I wasn't looking forward to any side effects either.  One of the very few people I'd been confiding in told me how important they are to this process.  That more people were taking them than I knew.  They are fuel.  So I started taking them.

My pills were nortriptyline hydrochloride.  Side effects included some weight gain, metallic taste in my mouth, and irritated eyes.  I was mostly concerned about the weight gain, but the others were kind of annoying too.  The pills were kind of weird, and I remember this one moment when I first realized they were working.  

I had just finished a fight over the phone with someone, and I was sitting in my car in a Safeway parking lot, running through the fight in my head, and it's at this point I'd usually break down and start to cry.  All the things that would make that happen were there, emotional stress, a fight with someone I cared about, you name it, and right when it felt like I was about to break down, I didn't.

Which makes this next part kind of funny, because I started having a panic attack because of it.  I started breathing quickly, I got incredibly anxious and I was a bit scared.  It felt totally strange.  Like this natural part of my experience was being taken away.  The pills were working, but I was choosing to freak out about it.  I didn't really see the lesson here, but all the same it was a weird experience.  I laugh a bit when I think back to that moment now, it's a little silly.

Anyway, as the year went on, despite the good conversations I was having with my counsellor, and the progress I was making on better understanding all these things, I was becoming increasingly depressed.

I had wanted to put some money away for something, so I picked up a day job at an old place of employment.  It was a lot of work, with gruelling early morning hours, long days, followed by shifts at my night job after.  I was able to save money, but I was also fairly isolated.  Going out to shows, and meeting friends was something I didn't really feel comfortable doing any more, and when I would go out, there was always high amounts of stress.  I'd usually wind up arguing with someone, or sitting there looking absolutely sad.  I was certainly not fun to be around, or comfortable.  

I held my family hostage with my temper, and pushed away all attempts at them trying to reach me.  I had put this energy into our house that made it feel like a prison.  They had to tiptoe around me, and knew that they couldn't bring up certain issues, or I'd lose it.

The only escape I really had, was World of Warcraft. *groooooooaaaaaaaannnnnn* Seriously though, that sounds kind of sad.  Okay, a lot sad, but it was the only place I could be "social" and not experience all the terrible anxiety I would normally be faced with.  So in a way it helped.  Though I don't really recommend anyone else use it as a method of coping.  It can be/is incredibly isolating.  Especially if you marathon played like I did.  I would sit there for hours and just play.  I'd go to work in the morning, come home, play for a couple hours and then go to work at night.  If I had the night off, I'd just play all day sometimes.

Being left alone to my thoughts was not a good thing.  My inner dialogue was incredibly toxic.  There wasn't a healthy thought in my head, and I couldn't shut it off.  I'd be constantly reminding myself how terrible I was, how I hated myself, and how I'd ruined everything.

We all complain when we get that one song stuck in our head, and we wish we could just expel it, well imagine that happening from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to sleep, and instead of a bad T.V. jingle, it's your own voice reminding you how much of a fuck up you are.  There was no relief from it.  And when you're standing somewhat still at a drive-thru coffee station for 8 hours straight, there is a lot of time spent being in your head.  

My depression kept getting worse, and it didn't help that my medication was constantly not available.  At one point, I had to go to a walk-in clinic, speak to a doctor about how they were always running out of my pills, and have him prescribe me something new in the middle of my treatment.

Some of the worst things that ever went through my head, happened while working at my day job.  I worked right next to a highway, and sometimes I'd think about what it would be like to walk up to the edge of the highway, wait for a semi-truck to come by, and then step in front of it.  Now, every time I had this thought, it always ended with me jumping out of the way before anything could happen.  I certainly never came close to committing suicide, or even trying, but I certainly had thought about what it would be like if I wasn't around anymore.  It was exhausting being in my head, and I was honestly tired of feeling terrible. 

I questioned why I thought those things.  I had it in my head that it was just a cry for attention.  It kind of was, but not for reasons you might think.  If I actually had tried to step in front of a moving vehicle, only to jump out of the way, someone would come over and ask what the heck is wrong with me.  I'd finally have someone else come and ask what's wrong with me, without being able to just respond with "I'm just going through some stuff." "Some stuff" doesn't encompass suicide scenarios, I'd be committed to opening up about my problems to a world that wanted to know.

Without knowing that I needed it, I needed human connection, badly.  But not from people in my immediate circle, and I couldn't talk about it with my family. In a weird way, I felt they were biased, and wouldn't be able to be honest with me.  How's that for screwed up?  

There's help lines, and chat rooms and all that, but all that was admitting to being depressed, and I wasn't ready for the world to know that. Maybe on some level I was still in denial. I just felt incredibly alone, and cut off.  Some of it self-inflicted, other times not.

The me of that year, would have loved, and needed a day like #BellLetsTalk.  Overwhelming amounts of people opening up about their own struggles, TV specials featuring prominent members of society discussing THEIR own problems, and hearing the words "I will listen", would have done wonders for me back then.   Would I have opened up?  Maybe, maybe not, but regardless of that, the seed would have been planted.  The world wants to know if you're not okay.  There are people who want to know.  They don't understand, maybe, but they want you to be okay, and they want to know if you're not.

So yeah, when people tried to tell Bell, to sit down, shut up and back off.  I got angry.  I picture myself sitting in my basement bedroom in my parent's old house, listening to my toxic inner dialogue's greatest hits on repeat, all day.  

If I could have gone one day back then, without telling myself how worthless I was, it would have been such a reprieve.

Mental health awareness is more than just a one day thing, obviously.  I know that, you know that, Bell knows that.  Bell can't, nor are they trying to cure mental illness.  They aren't trying to brand mental health as theirs, nor can they take full credit, much credit at all for success stories.  But I will tell you what they are doing, from someone who knows what it's like to shut themselves off from the world.  They are in the business of connecting us.  Whether it's through radio, television, internet, phones, whatever.  They are providing the world with a service that allows people to talk to each other.  They aren't the only ones who do this, probably not the cheapest, and without knowing their track record, I'm sure there are other companies with tidier backyards, but yesterday they extended a hand down to the kind of person I used to be.  

How dare some of you try and slap that hand away.  Strong words? Yes, but now you know where I stand. And yes, it is personal, as badly as I don't want it to be, it is.

Yesterday someone tweeted "By tweeting #BellLetsTalk, you're mindlessly conforming to Bell's weak yet empathetic way of promoting their own company #commstudentfact"

I responded with "Another side effect of that hash tag? People are finding support, and are mindfully discussing their mental health issues."

I received no counter argument, no retort, nothing.  Because I'm not wrong here.  Are people trying to use logic against an extremely volatile, and emotional group of people? Yes.  So the results aren't going to be pretty, nor are they going to get the results they want.  I don't condone people telling others to fuck off simply for having an opinion (unless it's something truly heinous), but there were a lot of times yesterday where I bit my tongue.  There are so many good people out there, and while it broke my heart a bit to see this side of the initiative bring this opinion out of people, I am willing, on some level to see the strangeness of it all.  

The fact that it takes a giant media group to promote talks of mental health, and try to dissolve the stigma of weakness associated with mental health disorders could be viewed as strange.  But that's the sad state of affairs.  If it takes a sponsored effort to save lives, and help others, then sign me up for it, I thank them.  And will continue to do so until people who need anti-depressants, don't feel worse for thinking they need them.

Sometimes, people, the soapboxes need to be stowed. I'm sorry that all you saw yesterday was a marketing ploy.  From where I stand, your cynicism only attacked the spirit of that campaign, which is a shame.  The spirit of the campaign was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

From someone who spent almost an entire year of their life hating themselves. Reminding themselves every. single. day of that year, how worthless they think they are, how much of a screw up they are, and how they've made a mess of everything in their life, and others, I am telling you that's not what it was about.

My intention with writing this piece was to tell my story, and tell people about the other side of that day.  If you're not a fan of big business, or Bell, or anything like that, I can't argue with you on that, nor will I. 

My story has a happy ending.  My experience with serious depression was brief, and I was lucky, and very grateful for the support I had from my parents, and brothers, who eventually figured out what it was I needed. Once they knew, and I knew, everything started coming together. I love you guys with everything I have, Geoff, Mike.

Want to know how it ended?  I shaved my head, my beard, and jumped out of a plane.

Then I moved to Victoria. The rest is history.

I love you all very much. Every. One.