Victories in Disguise

Part 12: June 29, 2016

This past month has been a maelstrom of terrible mental health for me.  It’s actually the worst it’s been in almost a year.  I haven't been too verbal about it because it's not something easily discussed, especially while I’m in the thick of it.  That and I’m really used to hiding it. 


I wrote a lot about my anxieties last year and, though it wasn’t easy, I found it helped.  So, that’s what this is.  It was necessary for me to write it and share because the sharing part is something I need to work on.  I usually try to inject a bit of humor to make it easier to digest for those who read it, but I’m not in the mood to be funny this time.  Truthfully, it’s not necessary for you to read it.  I haven’t written this for consolation.  I’m not looking for pity.  I haven’t written too much on the things that follow because many of them sit at the heart of my anxieties, but they are a part of what makes me who I am today for better or worse.  Therefore, they’ve earned their place on the page.


Depression, anxiety, and the like weren’t notions I was exposed to until I went to college.  I started to develop symptoms of social anxiety in the fifth grade.  That left me in ignorance for the better part of a decade.  Whoever said such a state is bliss was either woefully misguided or lying.


I was desperately lonely at a young age and didn’t know why.  The other kids made friends easily.  I couldn’t.  No matter how hard I tried, it never seemed to work out.  The interactions weren’t fun for me.  The other kids laughed and joked while I was busy mapping verbal minefields.


To cope, I started playing out social scenarios in my head over and over, plotting out every conceivable eventuality in any interaction that held my worry at the time.  I memorized my dialog and their responses like an actor preparing for the stage until I felt I could, at least, pretend to be at ease.  Only, during every performance, the rest of the cast threw the script out the window and improvised, leaving me stumbling to catch up. 


I wish I could say this is a habit I outgrew.  This battle with my own fictions still causes me grief to this day.


There were the occasional classmates in high school who were nice enough to talk with me at lunch time or sit next to me in class, but it was rare anyone took enough interest to invite me over after school or to birthday parties.  I thought of these kids as “friends-by-semester” because, once the class schedules changed at the start of a new semester, these fragile associations dissolved and I hardly ever talked with any of them again. 


Because of this, I’ve never allowed myself to feel like I fully belong anywhere.  Even social arenas where I share interests with friends and contribute in significant ways—like student government in college or my writing group here in Chicago—have always been tainted with this worry I’m intruding on their space.  I know it’s not true, but I’m always standing with one foot out the door like it’s only a matter of time before I’m asked to leave.  This separation from others expanded, over time, to include my relatives.  Unlike the partition between me and the rest of humanity, which has somehow always existed, I can remember with clarity the night the first brick was laid in the wall that cut me off from my family.


For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with me—not in the medical sense, but in a cosmic one.  I thought the universe itself was against me.  At that age, I couldn’t comprehend things like cognitive distortions or other psychological terms regarding neurotransmitters and dopamine levels.  What I did know was what I was taught in church and my parents reinforced at home:  God doesn’t make mistakes.  Everyone was made exactly as He meant them to be for a reason.  It’s not a horrible notion on its own and it was taught to me with loving intentions.  My folks meant to encourage their awkward son to find strength in what made him unique.  Instead, I couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that, if I wasn’t broken, I was purposefully made to be lonely.  God wanted me to be alone.


That is a devastating revelation for a twelve-year-old.  It broke me in ways I don’t think I can fully repair.  Maybe something similar happens to a lot of us around this age, when the eyes are opened to more adult view of the world and we begin to recognize the flaws and shades of gray.  I don’t know.  All I remember is sitting at my desk in school one day with the realization I wouldn’t get to fall in love and have a family of my own.  I was destined to be one of those misers who grows old and dies alone.  What made having a soul mate so precious was that there were people like me who were denied such a blessing.  I spent many years with this foolish belief fueled by the fear that telling anyone how I felt would lead to ridicule or, worse, confirmation.


I can say things got better in college.  A psychology class introduced me to terms like “depression” and acronyms like “SAD”.  For the first time in my life, I saw my mental health struggles for what they were on a scientific basis rather than some divine affliction, which lightened my burden considerably.  Furthermore, I learned I wasn’t alone in my struggle. There were countless people who endured something similar every day.  A lack of ignorance became my bliss.


Giving my issues a name did not dispel them like some exorcist casting out demons, however.  I still had to fight them, but did so with more daring.  I found my boundaries and pushed to expand them.  As with any challenge, I had my setbacks.  Regrettably, the greatest one hit me at home.


One evening, after a fight with my brother (the only time I ever hit him), my father took me outside to calm me down.  He wasn’t angry.  My brother had been in the wrong and I was defending myself, but I was shaken by my act of violence.  We talked for a bit and I decided to tell him I suspected I had a social anxiety disorder.


I haven’t told too many people about his reaction.  It’s not for fear of what they’ll think of him or what he’ll think of me if he discovers I’ve shared this story.  It doesn’t matter at this point.  It still happened and it shaped who I’ve become.  I don’t mention it because his reaction marks an event of deeply personal significance to me.  It marks the first time someone broke my heart.  It laid the foundation of the wall that surrounds my family.


I remember feeling like the silence following my admission—that’s what it felt like, an admission of guilt—and his response spanned centuries.  Before this moment, I’d never voiced my concerns regarding my anxieties to anyone.  It was a milestone in my life before he said a word.  I couldn’t look at him directly, but I watched him mull over the new information out of the corner of my eye.  Then, he sighed as if relieved and said, “I was afraid you were gay.”


Had I not already learned how to control my outward expression of emotions, I would have started crying right there.  He followed up with promises to take me to talk to a doctor, but I wasn’t listening anymore.  His sigh of relief was my greatest fear come true.  It told me he didn’t consider my deepest pain to warrant much concern, at least not when compared to what he feared my truth could have been.  What I realized in the wake of what he said was that my father’s love had limits and the knowledge those limits existed essentially carried me over that threshold regardless.  Had I been gay, I knew my father would have perceived it as a serious problem, which I find ludicrous and unacceptable to this day.  It was at that time and place the first brick was laid.   


Months passed and I never saw a doctor.  No calls were ever made.  No appointments were ever set.  None would ever be.  I assume he mentioned it to my mother but she never tried to talk with me about my concerns, which meant they both decided I was probably overreacting.  The wall grew higher.  I never spoke with them of it again.


I still stay in touch with them, but I don’t make much of an effort to reach out anymore.  For the most part, they’ve allowed me that space.  Months often go by between conversations.  I don’t want people to come away from this thinking my parents are bad people.  They aren’t.  Other than this one instance that has divided us, I consider them very loving parents.


I’ve since learned there is a history of mental illness in my family ranging from bipolar disorder, in the case of my father who was diagnosed several years ago, to depression and anxiety.  Some of my recent ancestors committed suicide, one of which was my great-grandfather, who was first discovered after the act by my father as a boy.  Mental illness is terrifying.  We’re taught from an early age by society at large that “crazy people” are often monsters prone to violence.  Maybe that’s why my parents forced themselves to ignore my cry for help.  Their worry about what it made me mirrored my own and it was too much to bear.  So, it was easier to pretend the problem didn’t exist.  But, just because you can’t see the breeze, it doesn’t mean it can't knock you down.


So, what am I trying to say with all of this?  I’m not really sure.  Most of it was written by whatever stream of consciousness flows at 3AM after a particularly bad day.  Perhaps it’s just stuff I needed to get out in the open.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m not the best at sharing these things.  I’m always worried people will think I’m whining or exaggerating for dramatic effect or, worse, won’t care at all.  I have to remind myself none of that matters.  It doesn’t make what I’ve written untrue or any less important for me to have written.


I guess, if anyone comes away with anything from reading this, I just want people to recognize how hard I’m trying, even if I appear at ease.  That little boy desperate for friendship still exists.  He’s just bound up in an armor of wit and wields an over-eagerness to ensure others feel more welcome than he ever will—sometimes to the point of damaging the very friendships he’s attempting to forge.  So, if I overstep by bounds, let me know.  I’m often viewing social situations from far more angles than actually exist and it’s easy for me to lose sight of where I am.  I always appreciate it when people help me find the ground again after the storm carries me away.