If you know me well enough, then you will know these things about me: I don’t talk much, but when I do – I talk fast and loud to try to get my point across; I get nervous easily; I obviously don’t take care of my appearance enough; I drink a lot of beer; I have poor self esteem; I don’t go out often; I’ve been looking for a job for the past 36 months – the same length as an average cellphone contract in Canada, and lastly – I’m stubborn and dislike any sort of criticism, even helpful.

The last year or so has been quite a unique experience. First off, my girlfriend broke up with me because I was a shitty boyfriend. I’ve been unemployed the entire time, even with several dozen interviews, hundreds of dollars spent on clothing, transportation and accommodations and – I’ve slowly tried to change my life into a positive one. I’ve finally accepted that I have problems in my life and that I need to deal with them FACE ON. I will be discussing the issues below.

Depression

I’ve had depression since I was around 6 years old. At a young age I knew what depression was and it was a faux pas to discuss the whole time. I had lots of issues in my childhood – I was socially awkward, I didn’t have many friends, I was the prime candidate for all the bullying and teasing, I just wasn’t great at anything and all these combined have made me into an awkward individual who gets anxious incredibly easily.

I saw psychiatrists when I was young, it didn’t help. Depression was something you’d get made fun of for. Teachers didn’t know what to do so they would send you to see a guidance counsellor. My parents obviously didn’t know what to do.. Dad thought it was just a phase and that real men don’t get depressed or cry.

I contemplated suicide more times than I could think, but when it came to it, I just never could do it, thinking that one day I’ll make something of myself where I have lots of friends, become successful in whatever field I ended up in (which back then, I thought I’d be President of the Royal Canadian Mint, or at least work there), travel all over the world, have a car and a house by age 25 and a girlfriend or wife who was my soulmate. None of that ever happened, but I still kept going. Seeing the shotgun in my parents garage tempted me time and time again, but I just never did it.

Having Aspergers made things even worse, it makes me even more socially awkward than I should be. Since I was diagnosed with Aspergers at age 13, I just tried to hide it, because most people I knew with Aspergers in my youth were kind of… creepy and weird, to tell the truth. So did that make me creepy and weird? Probably, but I tried my best to act like someone who didn’t have it.

In university, my depression just kept continuing. I joined several clubs around campus and made some great friends, but I just didn’t feel like I belonged at all. In some of the clubs I joined, I was needed to show up to the meetings or they couldn’t HAVE a meeting. I was secretary for one of the clubs for a year and half before I lost for re-election, and during one of the club’s meetings, I just had it.. I lost my cool, I raised my voice for the first time since highschool. One of the club’s members said at a meeting “our previous secretary didn’t do his job, so now our website doesn’t work, and thats why we have problems with having our annual general meeting date assigned.” I did exactly what my job asked me to, and even more, but I just didn’t feel like anyone ever appreciated anything I did, except for two people, and it just made me feel like dirt.. like I wasn’t welcomed.

Fast forward several years, I get my 3 year Politics BA in 6 years and looking for a job. I hoped to move to Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto or Quebec City. I thought I could get any job I wanted. 3 years later – ditto, nadda, rien, squat. I’ve had more than a few thanks but no thanks and interviews but just nothing. Every interview I got, the more anxiety I got, it would get to the point everything was starting to go blurry in the interview and I felt like I was going to faint. This only made my depression worse as I didn’t have ANY confidence in myself. I finally did SOMETHING about it, after 21 years with battling with depression and anxiety, I went to my doctor and just told him straight up that I can’t deal with it anymore. He set me up with some anti-anxiety meds which sort of worked but not really. Then he set me up with some anti-depressants which.. frankly make me crankier than before and there are too many side effects to even dare mentioning. I still feel worthless, I still feel a great amount of stress throughout my body. But that all being said, 2011 was possibly the hardest year in my life, it was a rollercoaster year. So for me to ask for help for the first time in my life, at least I was making a change.

Alcoholism

I never really told anyone this, but while I absolutely LOVE beer, I also had an alcohol problem. I’m a bigger geek than most people in Manitoba, but for several months, I would regularly buy 6-12 packs of low quality cheap swill (Minhas Classic Lager, Lucky Lager, Molson Dry) several times to drink just so I could get drunk. It caused my tolerance of booze to go up, also used it as a way to hide my problems in life. I didn’t want to think about unemployment or my piece of shit of a life. In a given month, I had enough beer cans to buy me another 12 of bad beer.. so around 100-140 cans, so nearly a 6-pack of beer per day. I wasn’t happy when I drank beer, I starved myself and hoped the beer would mute the mental pains, they did not, they just made them worse. I gained significant amount of weight thanks to beer and a bad diet.

After several years of this, I hit rock bottom. I scared my then-girlfriend so much that she was too scared to be around me and we had to break up. Also, I drank so much one night I literally could barely walk – I scraped a part of my body every time I tried to walk.. barely any part of my body was unharmed.

Hitting rock bottom made me realized I’ve fucked up my life big time. Not only was I hurting myself, I also hurt the only person who truly cared about me at the time. I cut my consumption a great deal and only allow myself to drink when I feel like it’s a great day to try something new. Instead of buying 12 cans of Molson Dry (4x/week), now I would buy a 650mL bottle of Unibroue, a bottle or two of Something different and one beer for hoarding. This would usually be two times per week, tops. Also, I had to lose weight so cutting down alcohol contributed to this, as well as changing my diet.. no more TV dinners, eat better.

Hoarding

I think this problem roots back to my mom. Growing up, my mom rarely ever let go of things. Until recently the cupboards had food and items that were there for over 15 years. I think she was a bit of a hoarder because she lost her parents at a very young age, so she wouldn’t let go of stuff for as long as possible. I also turned into a hoarder. I hoarded nothing I needed. I would go to the store and see a t-shirt I liked, but ended up never wearing it. If I don’t buy it, I am faced with regret for years. I have a phobia that I don’t want people in my space, because I don’t want to see how I live (also has to do with an ex girlfriend cheating on me with a roommate), but my last 2 or three girlfriends never were allowed to come over to my place – Well, mostly because I just didn’t want to be in my dungeon of shame. Some of it also had to do with hoarding. I had clothes all over the floor, garbage, boxes, beer bottles, stuff I don’t need or even use, but had to keep it just because I had to. Oh god.. I remember back in 2004 I bought a bunch of hamburgers at McDonalds, and left it to rot on my bedroom floor…

After looking for my old HTC phone the other day, which I still never ended up finding, I was going through bags of papers, drawers, boxes, and couldn’t find it. I knew something had to change. Well, I’m finally working on that now, trying to rid my room of old clothes, old crap I don’t use or need and try to minimalize as much as I possibly can.

Now, if you know me, now you likely think of me AS the creepy roommate!

Lack of Motivation or Drive

I’ve always been a stubborn kid ever since I was young. I would wait until last minute to start on a term paper or start studying, because only then would I get a shot of adrenaline that pushes me to try to succeed. I did alright in school, but rarely got Bs or As. The lack of motivation continued post-university where I’m looking for employment. While quite often I can spend 3 hours straight job searching, working on my resumé and just trying to improve my life, I can go weeks, or in some times, months without doing a job search, applying for jobs or just seeing if there’s any employers hiring.

Last summer when I was having one of the worst depression spells of my life, I just snapped and realized I needed to change. First off, eat healthier, secondly, EXERCISE. I was contemplating on joining the army as they are always hiring, unlike the actual Federal Government and it would likely boost my career in the future. I looked at the requirements and immediately, I felt discouraged as they had weight limits. They wanted a male at my height to weigh less than 170lbs. I went from 230lbs to 190lbs in approximately 9 months. While now, my weight hasn’t changed, it’s all gone to muscle, I can still feel my tummy gradually shrinking.. this is the thinnest I’ve been since I was 14 or 15. The last time I was under 200lbs was in 2002, though my weight would fluctuate between 200 and 220 in most given seasons.

I’ve asked local employment agencies for help for finding a job.. while none of them have been able to help me with actually finding employment, they’ve helped me with interviews, cover letter/CV and other skills needed to make the right step towards a job.

All I want is a future where I don’t have to worry about every damned little thing, where I can go out for a pint with friends and it’s not because they feel sorry for me (oh it has happened before), if people will only hang out with you if they feel sorry for you, they’re likely not your friends.

Fin

Well, that’s it. My anger has minimalized since writing this piece and I hope I didn’t come off as wtf?