This Ain't Love or Other Drugs

                    



                      For the majority of my life I've been dealing with depression on some level. It's been this ever evolving roadmap that if I were being completely honest with not only myself but the bevvy of medical professionals that seemed to DEEM it necessary to label me with some sort of diagnosis that never quite stuck. Medicate me with pills that never really did anything but make me feel worse. About five or six years ago I made the decision to stop taking medication altogether after it was made clear that nothing helped. Being made a shell of myself wasn't something that I liked or needed. I didn't want it. 

                       Of course that also left me with the anxiety. Something that is so hard for someone who doesn't suffer from it to understand. It's hard for them to understand that there are times when I feel as though I'm being caged like some kind of animal. I can't breathe and god it's an awful feeling. Sometimes I can talk myself down and other times there's nothing I can do to stop it. I just have to sit back and let it happen because trying and failing to stop my anxiety attack is even worse than dealing with the anxiety alone.

                        I remember being a teenager and having a breakdown. Crying, screaming and just all in all breaking everything. It was shortly after my uncles died and to be honest I don't remember much about that time except for the turmoil. It was bad-- dark and honestly I really am not proud of the things that I did and the way that I handled myself through a lot of it. The two of them died nine hours apart in unrelated incidents. It threw our family into an uproar and while we were doing our best to cope and hold it together some failed miserably. Things were said and done that people maybe regretted and OTHERS maybe not. For the most part I have forgiven that part of life but, WHAT I will never understand is how someone can say such nasty things to a child. (because at the time that's what I was) 

                       Life was never something that had been EASY for me. Don't get me wrong-- I've never been one that thinks that I've had it worse than anyone else. (because I haven't and I'm well aware of that) There are people who haven't been able to cope with the things that they've gone through HOWEVER, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't come out bruised, broken and a little damaged on the other side. 

                       Losing my grandma-- (both of them) was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever had to go through. After my uncles which was the first taste of death that I had. BUT-- to say that it was the worst would be a lie. I was close to both of my grandmothers. Unbelievably close to one and seeing her fade away was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do. 

                       Another thing that makes life difficult is my inability to talk to people. (it's a defense mechanism more than anything) Although the truth is that I've always been a private person. I don't like talking about myself or opening up. Nothing that could in any way make me appear weak. It's just something that I've always had a hard time with. I hide behind a lot of things-- walls, humor and sarcasm. I've gotten good and getting people to think I'm one person when really I'm someone else. 

                        I think that when I REALLY started to question things about myself-- my sexuality was the big one I realized that each time I slowly started to become more and more comfortable with myself things started to actually go downhill. WHY? Simple because the more comfortable I was the more the realization hit me-- acceptance wasn't something that was going to be there from my family. (they would never understand how I could NOT want a relationship) OR how a relationship to me is something that's not physical in nature.