Depression, PTSD, and Future Trippin'

 Many, many moons ago I knew this guy. He was not a very nice example of humanity. At that time neither was I.

He was older than I and had spent a tour and a half in Vietnam during America's wonderful little conflict there. And he had all the baggage that Vietnam Vets had.

We used to sometimes get stoned together. And there were a few times when we were getting high I saw the strangest thing. We would be smoking and talking, usually about nothing important, and all of a sudden I would see it.

His eyes would kinda lose focus and he would just go away. And I could almost see the films rolling behind his eyeballs. I knew somehow when this was happening to just be silent and still. And after a while he would come out of it and we would carry on as if nothing had happened.

And I knew, somehow, that what I was witnessing was PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Was not until many years later that I understood why I knew what it was and how to act around it.

Life went on. And I started not using drugs and began learning how to practice a program of Recovery. And along the way I began to see my experience Mental Health issues in my life. I had not been able to see them before due to self medicating.

The first thing that I noticed was Depression. I would get to where I was really having a hard time going forward. Getting out of bed was, at times, the best that it got. Depression would sit on me like a blanket made of lead that just would not go away. And this would last for days and weeks sometimes.

And I had no understanding of what was happening. I had self medicated for so long that I had no idea what I was feeling for a long time after. I had no experience with actually feeling something so I had no way to identify the fact that I was dealing with crippling, at times, depression.

And I also began to experience times when I would be reliving some horrific event in my past. And it was not remembering, it was being inside it like it is happening right now with all of the feelings that went along with it. These were real time events as far as I was concerned.

I, again, had no way to identify what was going on. I had no understanding of my own PTSD. I had robbed myself of the experience of dealing with my emotional state for so long that I was not at all equipped to do so now.

I also began to notice something else that I had been experiencing for years. A friend of mine, after I had told him about this, shared how he also experienced this and called it Future Tripping'. I have decided to keep that name.

And it works like this, I begin to imagine an event in the future, and it is a bad event. A death or massive injury etc to someone that I love. And, again, I am living inside this experience, it is a Right Now thing, with all of the emotions that go with it.

All of these experiences are emotionally wrenching. And I am totally powerless to stop them once they start happening.

Fortunately I had hooked up with people who could help me. Not overtly. I was still unable to tell people what was happening for three different reasons.

1) Shame. I thought that should be further along in my recovery than this. I had no concept of Mental Health issues being outside of Addiction. I just thought  that I was too sick and would never truly get better.

2) I did not understand myself what was happening. I still had no experience in identifying feelings. Had no clue that I was a walking mental health crisis.

3) I had learned to keep secrets at a very young age. And the person I kept secrets from the most was myself. I had no way to communicate these things yet even had I understood them.

Fortunately I learned how to see and share these things because other people did exactly that. They saw within themselves their own mental health and other issues and shared them openly and honestly. They were vulnerable.

I had no idea how to do that. And I learned.

Because the process of Identification happened. For clarity, Identification happens when you share your truth and I see my truth within that sharing. And, oh so slowly, I began too see my truth.

Over a long period of time I began to be able to deal with my mental health issues. Are they cured? Oh Hell No. I have just learned how to deal with them is all. And I am getting better at dealing with them as time goes on.

While I have not professionally asked for help, and I am not against it and would urge anyone who thinks that they need it to go get it, I have done a lot of work on these things in the outside world. And, for me, the biggest thing that I can do to combat these things is to get plugged into the World as it Is and NOT as I wish it to be.

Or, as I call it, Radical Acceptance.

Does this work all the time? No. It does help a lot in keeping episodes from starting. Because, for me, a lot of my mental health issues seems to stem from not accepting reality and trying to live in the fantasy that my head has created for me.

And again, this is what it seems like for me at this time. I have no idea what it is for you.

At this point in my life I still experience Depression. And I have gotten a lot better at seeing it coming and taking measures to cut it off at the pass. Or to take action and move if within a depressive episode. Not always. And more often than not.

So depression has much less of a hold on me than it formerly did.

I have not had a PTSD episode in a while. For which I am very grateful. And part of the reason why, I believe, is that I began telling myself, when they were happening, that this not happening now. This is an old event that is in the past and not my present. This is not real. After I started doing this they got less intense and occurred with less frequency. Am I cured? I think not.

So PTSD has much less of a hold on me than it did before.

As with PTSD, and I think that Future Trippin' is a variation of PTSD, I have been able to cut down the number and intensity of the experiences with self talk. And it goes like this, This never happened, This is False, Why are you trying to write this future, etc. Over time, like all the rest, they have lessened in occurrence and intensity. And again, am I cured? Not in the slightest. I have tools.

So why write all this? Why should you care about this? What is the point?

I do all this so that someone who needs this can find it. I Recover out Loud so that possibly someone else will not Die Quietly.

I share in the hope of someone else's Moment of Identification.

I write this to pay back all the people who helped me by sharing throughout the years in the only way that I can, by paying it forward.

So if you read this and could feel like finally someone else understood, then know that you are not alone. That you need never be alone again. There is a community of like minded people out there for you.

Please, go find them.