So
the coast shapes the water, the water shapes the coasts. These are the
equal yet opposite forces that combine to form the self. I believe we
are, within approximate boundaries, birthed by nature and solidified by
nurture, still amorphous and malleable — each wave imperceptibly alters
us with each successive crash. Memories are sand washed out to sea. The
maps we draw to chart our terrain, distorted by our own projection and
myopia as all maps are, become the seafaring stories we tell ourselves
about our selves.
Within
our souls lie secrets. Secrets we keep from ourselves. Truths buried at
the bottom of the sea by trauma and the tales we tell ourselves. The
restless, raging ocean roars above — altered and unnerved. We float
above the trenches. Sharp, stinging suffering erodes into dull, aching
melancholia. Our stories become our truths. Our maps become the
territory. The sea comes ashore: inevitable as change itself, yet
individual as the breathing vessels of blood, brain, and bone we can’t
abandon. And in the ocean of my self, this is how it all began.
For the better part of three decades,I
have struggled with the twin-barreled blast of depression and anxiety. I
don’t remember when it started. I don’t remember how. Around the time
of the Gulf War and the Buffalo Bills’ Sisyphean Super Bowl run, our
classroom sent handwritten letters to Western New York troops serving
overseas. I remember, even now, claiming my life was like the stock
market: finally on the uptick after years of depression. Yes, at age
eight. This memory is seared into my brain.
I
took the letter home to finish, and as my mother read it, she accosted
me: “Johnny, why are you writing things like this? Your life is not that
bad!” And, to her credit, she was right — my life was notthat
bad, yet my impression and assessment of it was. Depression cares not
for objectivity. Emotion pays reason no mind. Just two years later — a
fifth grade graduate, on my final day of school before moving some 176
miles down the I-90 from Niagara Falls to Utica — I was voted “Most
Happy” by my classmates. It was all a ruse.
I walked on eggshells. I drank to parade on them instead.
I
smiled because I got sick of being asked “what’s wrong?” and being
unable to formulate an articulate, defensible answer. Better to be the
life and the light than to be abandoned and admonished for your
darkness. That was, with rare exception, my default programming from
that point forward: Smile and people will feel good. Sit stone-faced and
they’ll inquire. Joke and folks will dig you. Express your tumult and
folks will joke about you, if they even notice you at all.
As
an adult, major depressive episodes raged on six separate occasions,
resulting in seven arrests, two DWI charges (neither stuck), $57,000 in
toxic debt, a credit score in the 300s, 47 trips to emergency clinics
for “heart attacks” (panic attacks), three stints in outpatient rehab,
two evictions, an extended era of homelessness, waxing and waning
alcohol and drug abuse, and a kind of bitter, spiteful anger that
emerged only when the smiles could bury it no longer.
I
dropped out of college. Twice. I transferred schools. Three times. I’d
been fired from every job I’d ever held, often after less than a year in
my role. I was perpetually broke. I was also perpetually flirtatious,
often without understanding just how nonreciprocal the advances were. My
six long-term relationships started blissfully and devolved into
anxious insecurity, overzealous attachment, and a forgoing of autonomy
within six months. I was sexually promiscuous while single, sleeping
with somewhere in the ballpark of 300 partners, half of whose names I
still remember, and some 70–75 of whom still adorn my Facebook friend
list.
My
only moral compass, or gauge of appropriate and healthy behavior, was
“Will this make someone mad?” I walked on eggshells. I drank to parade
on them instead. And yet, I continually hurt and angered people, let
them down, and drove them away. I knew it was my fault, and yet I knew
it wasn’t me. Deep down, I still believed I was different than my
rotten, broken core. Deeper down, I merely wantedto believe I could
be different. I had no idea if my behavior was a manifestation of my
mental state, or if my behavior amplified my rage and sadness. Both
perspectives, I now believe, were equally true. The coasts shape the
ocean, the ocean shapes the coast.
Despite
my best efforts at self-sabotage, I began to turn my life around not
long after moving from upstate New York to Austin, Texas. I secured
steady employment as a copywriter at a Fortune 500 global technology
conglomerate. I’d always loved to write, yet never studied it in school,
nor held a writing job. I still work there — seven years later and
counting — and after nine raises and three true promotions, I’ve climbed
as high as any writer can in my position. I only half-jokingly call
myself their “Chief Storytelling Officer.” This is not only the
longest-tenured, most lucrative job I’ve ever held, it is my favorite
place I’ve ever worked, and the friends I work with are as radiant and
compassionate as anyone I’ve ever met.
In the summer of 2014, I started (infrequently, for the first three years) writing for Medium.
In the spring of 2017, to process a particularly swift, harsh, and
unexpected relationship termination via move-out ghosting, I began
examining and exploring my life in ruthless and filter-less detail. I
wrote my findings here. I began to do the emotional labor and deep
self-reflection I’d been neglecting for so long. I grew by leaps and
bounds as a writer and person. I found new levels of joy, developed my
first-ever moral compass and value system, and cultivated a self that
was true. Much of it by accident, as a means to exploring other
horizons.
By
the end of 2017, 50 followers became 5,000. Since then, 5,000’s become —
literally, as of this very moment — 40,000. The opportunities and
experiences this site has offered me are incalculable. I’d spent over a
decade blogging for absolutely no one; I assumed I always would. I even
met my current adventure partner here. And, yes, my co-workers are some
of my biggest champions and most fervent readers.
I
dug my way out of debt, started running and biking long-distance races,
carved out a serviceable side-career as a singer-songwriter, started a
podcast, became secretary of the board for a local non-profit preschool,
and since early 2018, I’ve had the unique and unparalleled honor of
occasionally writing policy, copy, and communications for the campaign
and congressional office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I have a nest egg
now that, assuming an 8% rate of return until age 70, will make me a
millionaire — even if I never contribute again. For an anonymous nobody,
I sure seem to have one of the world’s most global, diverse, witty, and
eclectic friend Rolodexes. I’m in great health. Last year, I spent a
month in Europe — in what I termed my “victory lap.” I’d made it out of
the darkness and built a life I could be proud of. This was the proof.
This was the end-zone celebration.
And
yet, just a week after returning, at the zenith (or, more accurately,
the indefensible depths) of the Kavanaugh hearings, and just two weeks
after appearing on a local Austin television station to talk about my
first suicide attempt, I set out a stainless steel knife and an entire
bottle of Xanax with the intention of trying again. I almost did. Yet
that gave me pause: How could I be so sad, lonely, and angry? This life I
have now is such a blessing. What gives me the right — nay, the
audacity — to give it up? How ungrateful can one man be? If I can’t be
un-depressed now, then when? And how?
Ispent the next six monthsengaged
in an all-out assault on fixing my feelings: Lexapro helped a little,
yet the side effects included lethargy and the occasional 14-hour nap,
so I discontinued its use in January. I ran when I could. I made a point
to seek out social engagement in real life. I saw a therapist and a
life coach. I made dietary changes and lost 40 pounds. I mostly stopped
drinking, instead taking THC and CBD for creativity and relaxation.
Equally
important, I resorted to turning off the news. I don’t need more
information on how badly broken we are as a society anymore. All
additional information seems gratuitous. Unnecessary additional trauma
distracting me from my ultimate goal: radically reimagining society.
What I do doesn’t solve societal collapse, but it allows me to process
it better and adapt to it better, so I can make it better.
In
December, I spent a week microdosing psilocybin, where I discovered my
root pathology: I am an approval-seeking missile, and all
self-destructive behaviors I engage in stem from leaning in too hard for
validation (and the subsequent exhaustion-rooted neglect of basic
hygiene and upkeep when no one’s watching and nothing’s on the line).
The coined term for this phenomenon, “Millennial Burnout,” is too cute
and undersells the severity to which I experience it.
That’s the thing with depression and anxiety: even when you’re happy, you know you’re still not okay.
I
began to uncover layers of pathology. In doing so, I realized at my
root, my depression and anxiety — as well as my oversharing,
confessionals, defensiveness, self-sabotage, and passive-aggressive
system of over-promising and under-delivering — stem from a validation
addiction, fueled by anxious attachment, rooted in buried trauma, and
activated by associated triggers: rejection, dismissal, underestimation.
I hadn’t yet climbed out of the darkness, yet the sun was rising and
the clouds were beginning to part.
Still,
I felt underwater at work, overwhelmed with life, and burnt out from
our current kleptocratic techno-dystopia. So, in early March, lacking
focus and finally willing to confront my scatterbrained paucity of
goal-directed behavior and executive function misfires, I started a
daily low-dose course of Adderall. It gave — and still gives — me the
clarity and drive I desperately needed to begin to lift myself out of
erratic and scattershot solipsism. It was the first glimmer of hope I’d
had since the storms first descended upon me.
March
2019 was, by all accounts, the single greatest, most rewarding and
life-affirming month I’ve ever had slogging around this space-rock. I
felt shot out of a cannon. What was once a six-month flat-line,
precipitated by a swift and visceral free-fall into darkness, evaporated
with an equally astonishing and complete rise back to our regularly
scheduled programming. The depressive episode was over, but the series
was still in production. And that’s the thing with depression and
anxiety: even when you’re happy, you know you’re still not okay.
So
the coast shapes the water, the water shapes the coasts. These are the
equal yet opposite forces that combine to form the self. I believe we
are, within approximate boundaries, birthed by nature and solidified by
nurture, still amorphous and malleable — each wave imperceptibly alters
us with each successive crash. Memories are sand washed out to sea. The
maps we draw to chart our terrain, distorted by our own projection and
myopia as all maps are, become the seafaring stories we tell ourselves
about our selves.
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