As the depression season slowly comes to an unceremonial end, I can’t help but reflect on what a long January it truly was for me. I tend to have ebbs and tides with my mental health. Things will hum away like a well oiled machine one moment. Then, a sputter then things grind to a halt.

I spent the better part of ten years of my life homeless in three different states. That isn’t me feeling sorry for myself. It just is stating the facts. In those years, my drug addiction wore me down to the point that I was willing to part ways with the great love of my life. Not a man. Not a woman. Just heroin. Heroin was there for me when no one else could reach me. It kept me alive on many a lonely night. Learning to live a fairly productive, happy life without heroin has challenged me beyond measure. I had put all my faith into this thing and that thing stopped working for me.

The last bit of surgical tape is still stuck to my arm from my last trip to the ER three weeks ago. I’ve had panic attacks, sure, but not the kind where I actually think I am dying. Maybe it’s the fact that I am firmly rooted in middle age now that escalated the severity of my obsessive thinking. Whatever the reasoning, I just wanted help. I wanted the feelings to stop. I wanted a practitioner to confirm that I was well. It was humiliating to hear that a condition in my mind could do this to my body. To think that a bear was chasing me when I was in the middle of my living room clutching my chest. But/and maybe this is what needed to happen to tear it all down. To remove that facade that I have been carrying around saying that I am okay when in many ways, I was not. How much secondary trauma can a person absorb and still remain upright?

I am mildly happy the past few days. It’s a relief.

I have been thinking a lot about my ex Daniel. The seasons, the lack of light, makes me think about the grimy alleys where we tried to make a home. I would push myself against the wall, gently laying out the dirty blankets for he and I to sit on. There is a special bond between a couple when both are heavily addicted to drugs. There is a beauty in the simplicity of not having to explain anything. There is no “why are you doing this to yourself” because that person is doing the same thing. There is a certainty in knowing that they are going to fuck you over but it won’t be because they didn’t care for me. It will be because they need the drugs more. It isn’t personal- just the business of getting high.

I miss Daniel this time of year because it is approaching my 22 years sober. Part of the reason I am sober today is because we broke up. Not “we broke up” as in there was any real form of communication. We broke up as in one day we were no longer pooling our money together. By this point, I was the dopeman. Selling heroin for low level Mexican cartel guys who would front me a ½ ounce of heroin at a time. Sell that package once ot twice a day. Spend an hour or more trying to find a vein. Because that’s what happened. I couldn’t stop myself. I HAD to get that drug in my vein and I would not let anything get in the way. So that was that. So much for love.

Sober- I become obsessed with other things, Staying busy, listening to the pain of others. Dragging myself into drama. Stuffing my face with carbohydrates. Anything and nothing at the same time. Mindlessly scrolling the internet for hours at a time. Looking for any type of attention, any boost of serotonin, I don’t know how to sit with myself. I don’t know how to be alone. I just know how to be whatever helps me survive the moment. I am tired though. I am tired of barely getting by. Of needing validation. Of having trouble sitting down without my phone and the tv on at the same time. I’m meditating. Learning to sit still. It sucks at first but it is getting easier.

I started on psych meds for the first time in my life. It’s weird that I’d let some other person with dirty hands hit me in the neck but I was afraid to start on meds. I’m not sure if it works or it’s a placebo. Either way, it’s almost a month since I had a panic attack. I don’t know why I had such internal stigma around medication. Having a mental health condition is no different than high blood pressure or asthma or any other chronic illness. Taking a medication can be part of feeling better. So, I pep talk myself each day into swallowing that pill. It’s been getting easier.