If you happened to read the previous article, it goes without saying that having existential crises about the vastness of our universe and the significance of the human species at 8 years old tends to mess with your mental health. This week, we take a journey into how I found an understanding of what was happening inside my head.
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In case you missed the last article, I’ll summarize it here as quick as I can - Essentially, it boils down to me having questions about the universe and planets at a very young age. This led me to take the scientific approach to religion, which basically dismissed the idea of a God by the time I was about 8 or 9 years old. Please understand that this is a gross oversimplification of multiple pages, but having that background will serve you well into understanding what happened next.
Moving forward a couple years, these thoughts were always circulating in my head, but I never really dove into them too much until I hit puberty. Like any other pre-teen, I couldn’t really control my emotions that well, but I would also contemplate life under what seemed to be the worlds strongest microscope at the same time. Over time, this developed into a whole new side of an emo teenager - If I didn’t believe in a religion and thought there was no greater purpose to this life, why would I be a good person? What’s the point? Fortunately, my parent’s raised me well and taught me to have a conscious, so I never really contemplated actually doing anything heinous… What is stopping me from doing bad things if there is no such thing as Hell though? My family and friends might get upset at me, but why does that matter? After all, they are just as insignificant as I am in the grand scheme of things, right?
By the time I was 12, suicidal thoughts were starting to creep it’s way into my mind pretty frequently. I was generally a happy kid with a great childhood though, so it was honestly more confusing than anything. I never had the full motivation to take my own life, but the idea was there way more often than it should have been.
“I ain’t suicidal, it just sorta crossed my mind.” - The Palmer Squares
As I grew older, I found out this is called Passive Suicidal Ideation - The thought of suicide with no intention of actually following through with it or of hurting yourself. I made one small mistake and referenced it at the wrong time to the wrong person, which eventually changed the trajectory of the rest of my life…
It’s very important to remember that in this story, I’m 12 years old and complete dumbass, as any 12 year old is… I don’t have too many specifics, I just remember that I wrote a note to a friend that mentioned taking my own life. (This was in 2002 or ‘03, so texting wasn’t an option). It most likely had to do with a schoolboy crush or hating my parents (for no reason), or any other common problem that a teenager thinks is the end of the world, I honestly couldn’t tell you. To her credit, my friend did the right thing and took the note to a teacher so I was immediately called into the principals office. I believe my parents were also already there as well, which obviously made things way worse in the moment.
At this point, I should also mention the fact that I always convinced myself that I was adopted as well. I know that’s a very strange thing to convince yourself of, but that gives you some more context into how much of an outsider I felt like, inside my own head and in my own home. Looking back on it now, these were purely stories and scenarios that I made up in my head, because, again, my parents did absolutely nothing wrong. I only bring this little addition up because it was also in part of the note, and I believe it was the tipping point as well.
The majority of the meeting with the principal has been wiped from my memory, but I know it ended with everyone agreeing that I needed to go to therapy. Keep in mind, this was nearly 20 years ago when it was frowned upon and you got labeled as crazy if you were seeing a psychiatrist, so I didn’t want to go. I knew I was in a weird situation though, and I just went along with it to get it over with. I don’t know if I blacked out the next day or two or what, but I honestly think we left there and went straight to the therapist with no delays at all. I could be wrong, but if I am, I literally don’t remember anything between being in the principal’s office and sitting across from a stranger who is drilling me with a million questions. Again, this part is somewhat removed from my memory, probably due to the dysphoria of the entire day, but there was one moment I’ll always remember… When the doctor told me I was Bipolar.
Now, in all fairness, I’m not 100% sure that it was an accurate diagnosis. First of all, I’m clearly not a doctor, but I would think it would be difficult to diagnose a pubescent boy with this mental disorder in just an hour or so. On top of that, he tried to push medication on us immediately, which set my dad over the edge and we left right away. I’m not sure of his mindset at that moment, but I just remember crying on the car ride home thinking I was broken, and my irritated father in the front seat saying (and I quote), “This is a crock of shit. You’re not fucking bipolar.” To his credit though, I think removing me from that therapist was one of the best decisions he ever made.
You have to understand something about my dad - He is a firm believer that the strength of your mind can take you to places and feats that you never thought possible. You might be asking, how is that relevant to a potential psychological diagnosis? Well, to be honest, my dad has zero knowledge about mental health, but one thing he does have his PhD in is the science of Mind Over Matter. He always preached that the first step into doing anything is gaining as much knowledge about the subject as humanly possible, so that’s what I did. Unbeknownst to my parents, from this point forward, I took every second I had to learn about what Bipolar Disorder actually was and what caused it. I would purposely not work on my assignments in computer lab because I was on the internet googling and reading as much as I could. The same thing goes for when we were in the school library - Just reading anything and everything on the topic, and it really did help. I dove into the chemicals in the brain all the way to the reactions within your nervous system and so on. After a few months of this, I had a pretty solid, albeit basic, understanding of the disorder… The next step is controlling it.
For the next few years, I would try to be aware of my moods and emotions at all times. When I was depressed, I would lay in bed and talk to myself. “Why are you depressed? You have no reason to be depressed, your life is pretty good! You have friends and a loving family. What is wrong with you?” Normally, you would think that would help, but it almost did the opposite. I had no reason to be depressed and I knew that, which was kind of… depressing. It made things worse for a while because I had no reason to feel this way. Same thing goes for the violent outbursts (shout out to Patty Lite, I know you’re reading this). I would get triggered by innocent jokes or things that normally didn’t bother me, and then I would sit there and be upset at myself afterwards. If I couldn’t control my reaction in that moment and wound up hitting someone or yelling or doing something bad, I would be extremely hard on myself because I never wanted any of that to happen.
I wish I could tell you that there was a secret sauce or moment that changed things for me, but there wasn’t. It was just a full decade of constantly taking a second to weigh my reactions, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. The good part though is that after a while, the needle started to tip in the Calm direction and my emotions became easier to handle in real time. At first, I was basically on a hair-trigger where anything could set me off, one way or the other. After a while, I was able build up the literal seconds between when something happened and when I would react. Being aware of the situation and my emotions for that extra split second made all the difference. That type of self-control only became possible due to the knowledge of the chemical reactions in my head, my parent’s patience while we were figuring this out, the mind over matter perspective, and about 10 years of practice. I also continued to study psychology in high school and majored in the subject in college as well, just to further my understanding of how we are programmed. In the end, I never gave in to this diagnosis, whether it was legitimate or not, and I was able to come out on the other side without ever taking any medication.
This entire article may sound foreign to some of you, and some of you may be able to relate. For me, this was an hourly battle throughout the entirety of my teen years. The most positive thing about all of this is that I’m essentially in a meditative state now at all times, and I legitimately attribute that to just being able to think calmly about the situation. You will rarely see me upset because I’ve extended the time before I react so far, that now I can really dissect and break down what’s going on and handle it in an appropriate, calm way.
To bring it full circle, I believe my understanding of the size of the universe mixed with some basic human psychology and purpose is what keeps everything in perspective for me. I may want to get upset in the moment, but then I take a second and remember that whatever happened doesn’t really matter in the long run. I don’t let small moments or situations get to me anymore.
I want to stress that it is not a depressing view on life, but quite the opposite - It’s freeing. When you realize that nothing truly matters, then nothing truly matters. Someone standing you up on a date might make you upset, but does it really matter in the end? Nope. That person cut in front of you in line at the store and now you have to stand there another two minutes - Does it really matter? Nah. Somebody doesn’t like you and is spreading rumors about you - Does it matter? Negative. I’ve gotten to the point where I am so in tune with my emotions, that you will never see a single reaction from me. Why? Because at the end of the day, whatever just happened doesn’t matter. I’ll take that new information in, learn from it, and move on, just like I always have.
Thank you.
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Very introspective! I appreciate the way you fleshed out your handling of your diagnosis, while not disrespecting any other paths. I admire your zen.