The time I didn't know where to begin

I thought I had things figured out... but I really, really don't.

The breakdown

I spent 49 days in a mental hospital this summer.

In August, my whole world came tumbling down.

I was fighting with Sara Jones (not her real name by the way, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because I’m pretty sure she’s gone for good).

I wasn’t getting the help I needed from the VA – and the help I was receiving, wasn’t helping.

I reached out to the Lubbock Vet Center (a separate branch of the VA dedicated to helping combat veterans with their mental health), only to find out that they won’t help me because even though I deployed to the Arabian Gulf for the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m not technically a combat veteran – which I told them when I called!

But they said they’d see what they can do… only to call me back two weeks later and tell me they can do nothing.

Never mind the fact that deploying in Operation Iraqi Freedom is what caused me the mental and emotional anguish that ultimately led to the VA awarding me disability for life. I wasn’t “in the war” like the men and women on the front lines… and they only work with veterans who were…

Which is fine, but I mean… I was in the Arabian Gulf… and I still don’t qualify for their support?

Cool. Thanks for absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing this newsletter for almost two years now… with the explicit goal of reaching 100,000 subscribers and converting 1% to paid… at $8/month per subscriber… or $8,000/month total.

And after two years of pouring my heart into this, I have two paying subscribers, and after processing fees, they bring in about $12.50 each month.

I love writing this newsletter though!

And I’m happy if each issue gets read by one person, honestly. So the fact that there are two people who like it enough that they’re willing to pay me for it – that really is pretty exciting. It’s just… my goal was $8,000, not $12.50… and I guess I was just naive enough to believe that $8,000 really was possible.

So of course, now I hate myself for not reaching an impossible goal (and for not even recognizing that it was an impossible goal, in the first place).

And if that’s not enough to drive a man mad…

I also launched my own veterans support group back in March, and got to about 24 members… and then completely stalled because I don’t know how to build that kind of community in the first place!

And now I’m beating myself up for losing my nerve and basically walking away from the whole project… after spending in total, probably five or six thousand dollars on it…

Oh, and I spent 49 days in a psychiatric hospital, crying every day, journaling, writing down all the events from my entire life that led up to the night I called the Crisis Line, ready to commit suicide. (I probably should’ve led with that…)

The hospital stay that changed everything

The night I called the Crisis Line, I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital for the first time in my life.

I was there for forty-four days. It was frightening, and difficult, and overwhelming… but it was also safe, and comfortable, and secure. I felt like I was finally free to let my guard down, and to start dealing with things I’ve been running from for thirty years.

I started to write about all the things I’ve kept bottled up since I was fifteen. I cried a lot. I wrote about things that I didn’t even know were still bothering me. I worked through years of pent-up emotion.

Every day I was in the hospital, I felt more alive than the day before. I knew I was finally making progress – finally facing my problems, instead of just running away.

Then they sent me home before I was ready… and I spiraled so badly, I started cutting my arm. I didn’t sleep for two days. I felt hopeless… abandoned… lost… I didn’t feel safe in my apartment – and I did feel safe in the hospital. So I did what I had to do, to be let back in.

And I realized pretty quickly, once I was back inside, that they’d already given me everything they could. What I really needed now was therapy – and that’s the one thing that this hospital didn’t have to offer.

So I left, after only about five additional days. I enrolled in outpatient treatment at a private hospital in Lubbock, only to have the VA deny my treatment because they “didn’t get the right referral letter from the hospital.”

Which, kind of put me all the way back at square one, because I mean… my hospital stay opened up a lot of emotional wounds… but I was really counting on outpatient to show me how to heal those wounds, and now that’s been taken away from me… just like everything else.

Two and a half months after the fact…

I still haven’t got the VA to approve me for outpatient treatment. So, I’m in Seattle for the holidays, visiting Mom and Dad, and waiting instead to get approved for more inpatient treatment, only this time at a long-term facility that includes therapy.

Which no doubt will cost them more than sending me to outpatient…

But which, honestly, might be the better option anyway…

Because even today, when I’m alone for too long, I still feel suicidal.

Not enough to act on those thoughts — not while I’m safe at Mom and Dad’s. But enough to remind me that I’m probably not safe to just go back to my apartment and carry on as if nothing bad ever happened.

Which is pretty much all I’ve ever known how to do, when it comes to mental health. Well, really, when it comes to any problem at all. I just… ignore it… and hope it goes away… and if it doesn’t, then I just try to bury it deep inside, and put as much distance between me and the situation as I can.

Which probably has something to do with why it’s so hard for me to leave my apartment, explore Lubbock, meet new people and make new friends. I want those things – I really, truly do – but I also want to stay safe and in control.

A life I want but can’t reach

The truth is… I want an active lifestyle, filled with friends, and fun, and laughter.

I want new experiences.

I want to feel comfortable getting in the back of an Uber, going to see a play or a concert, or going to dinner, or to a friend’s house.

I am comfortable renting a car for three days, and taking a road trip by myself, and driving through miles of open countryside in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico (or spending three days driving from Austin to Lubbock and stopping to see all the wacky roadside attractions along the way, and eating a cheeseburger at a cafe on the Route 66 midpoint, also all by myself).

But I’m terrified of having genuine, shared experiences, with other people.

I’m afraid if I open up, no one will want to be around me.

I’m afraid I’ll chase everyone away, and I’ll end up alone again, only this time I’ll be alone alone… and I’ll know that people really don’t want me around, and there really is no hope, and I’ll never fit in anywhere and there’s no reason to keep trying because if I do chase everyone away, even one time, then I have real empirical evidence that the only safe place for me in this world is for me to be alone…

And alone is the worst word in the English language.

Alone is why I kept chasing Sara Jones, even when I knew it would never lead anywhere.

Alone is why I kept going back to the VA, asking for help, even when they kept denying me the help I need.

Alone is why I reached out to the Vet Center, even though I knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t take me since I’m not a combat veteran.

Which, by the way, I just want to be clear: I’m glad I’m not a combat veteran… I’m proud of my service and for the most part I loved being in the Navy… but no way could I handle combat. If I’d been foolish enough to try and go that route, I probably would’ve got somebody killed. Just saying.

Alone is why I moved to Lubbock in the first place: so I could overcome the challenges in my path, put the past behind me, learn new skills, make new friends, and build the kind of life that I think would finally be worth sticking around for.

And I’ve overcome a lot of challenges in the last three years — on purpose.

I intentionally put myself in an environment when I moved to Lubbock where I would be alone, at first, so that I could learn how to not be alone, ever again.

And I failed.

I failed to the point that I called the Crisis Line because I couldn’t stop my suicidal thoughts… and then after 44 days in the hospital… thinking I was getting better… I came home and tried to kill myself and wound up back in the hospital for a few more days…

And then I came home on Day 49, and really believed I was on a path towards finally getting the lifestyle I want…

And the VA took it away from me, after only one day of outpatient treatment…

And now I’m alone, again… and feeling like this is just going to be the rest of my life…

The fear that follows me everywhere

No matter what I do, I’m terrified that I’m always going to feel alone, afraid, and abandoned.

I’m never gonna get married, never gonna have my own family, never gonna have a career, never be brave enough to step outside my front door and face the outside world…

And I honestly don’t know; I might feel this way for the rest of my life. And at some point in the future, I might give in to the darkness, once and for all.

I. Don’t. Know.

And that’s the scary part of mental illness.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

I don’t know if I’ll ever overcome these thoughts.

I don’t know if I can change my lifestyle.

I don’t know if I’ll eat the bear, or if the bear will eat me.

But I do know that I’m not going to give up, today.

The part I hate admitting

I honestly don’t know how to change.

It’s not just a matter of “you need to try harder!”

My mind honestly won’t allow me to do anything other than what it knows… and all it knows, after all these years, is desperate, anxious, fearful self-preservation.

All I know how to do is run and hide.

I don’t know how to face reality. Like, for real; I just don’t.

I don’t know if that makes me sound immature, or irresponsible, or possibly just lazy? I don’t know. And, at this stage, I really don’t care anymore.

I’m forty-nine years old, and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

I legit feel like the biggest impostor on planet Earth. I feel like I’ve been lying to everyone, my whole life, trying to impress people with how brave and smart I am…

I feel like it’s all been one big show, and everyone can see right through me but no one knows how to get through to me and tell me that it’s okay to stop trying to impress everybody, and it’s okay to just be me, and nothing more.

I feel like the only person that ever did get through to me… is now gone… and it’s my own fault for pushing her away and then blaming her for abandoning me.

I feel like I’m buried under a mountain of problems that I’ll never dig myself out from… and like the easy solution is to give up… and to end my life now, before it has a chance to get any worse…

But I’m not ready to give up

Not today.

Not even if I know I’m going to lose.

I still want to give it at least one more try.

I know: there’s no promises. Nothing that says I’m going to succeed this time.

In fact, I’ll probably continue to fail, for awhile, just because my mind is used to going in that direction, and it’ll take time to rewire my neural pathways.

Which, probably means, that the fight ahead of me is about to be harder than the fight that’s already behind me… and I honestly don’t even know if I have that much fight in me…

But I know what happens when I stop fighting. I’ve got the scars on my right arm to prove it.

And besides, even if I am meant to spend the rest of this life alone (which, I’m still not sure that’s my destiny, but we’ll see…), there are still things in this world I want to see… experiences I want to have… dreams I want to try and make come true…

I don’t know how I’m going to do the things I want to, while living with this mental illness that quite literally threatens to take my life away…

But I know I have to try.

I just don’t know where to begin.

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