Skip to main content

I Did It My Way - Four Years Sober

 In 2008, I attempted suicide. It was the biggest failure of my life. I failed to end the pain and chaos inside my brain. I took a lot of pills that night and then I woke up. I woke up and felt like I was never going to get my brain straight. I felt so lost after Jasper died. It was my first experience with death that I lost it finally a year later. I had written suicide letters to my mom and dad, Rodney, and a bunch of other people. I found them a few years ago and I shredded them. I have bipolar 1, it's a genetic disorder that unchecked, I'm a living nightmare that is manifested from what's inside my brain.

When my parents moved to Florida in 2013, my life took a spiral trying to make it on my own. I started drinking harder when I partied, I only drank alcohol and that got me misdiagnosed as bipolar/schizoaffective which is a diagnose of symptoms of schizophrenia. I was told many times by Dr. Ross that I have to stop drinking alcohol. I lost my meds in 2015 for a week or so and then I went on the heaviest drinking bender because of my mania. I don't enjoy alcohol and I don't enjoy trying to fit in. I just wanted to be accepted by my service industry peers. I wanted to be "normal". Things weren't okay and I did stupid things then crashed hard into a really dark depression. I got help and I even see posts where I said I don't like drinking anymore, I don't like drinking all these red bulls and I should stop. It's perfectly acceptable in the nightlife industry to forget to pay if you're on the inside. It's embarrassing to live life like that or get so drunk that I puke. It gets embarrassing being a bumbling idiot. I liked loosening up but I started feeling so much more uncomfortable and insecure. I didn't like driving drunk ever but it happened. My coworkers stopped inviting me out, I wasn't in group texts, what really hurt was to be excluded from a GM of mine's birthday dinner; and I didn't fit in. I made some really bad relationship choices and I decided in December of 2017 to stop after a Christmas party.

I've been sober for 4 years, living the lifestyle of trying to have stable mental health. My new Dr. took the schizoaffective label away when I started evening out. I have heard and have been told don't say that I'm a sober person because it was my choice and it was my choice to try and put myself in the grave. This past spring I boxed up all of my prescriptions that I had on my nightstand and when I moved I finally dropped them off at CVS. It was the biggest weight ever removed. I know that since I failed to commit suicide, that the way to succeed would be to take as many pills as possible and do it the right way this time with as much alcohol that I could possibly drink. I don't smoke, no drugs even weed, limited caffeine; and I don't drink alcohol. I have to not drink choice or not. It's the best thing for me.

I'd never been where I am today... like as in 12/19/2020. A former roommate fell hard off the wagon when his dad passed away and it really woke me up also. I wouldn't have been able to process the death of my Mom on December 29, 2018, and having to bury her a year later back in Charlotte would have been the nail in my coffin. This is the single most important decision I've ever made, to preserve life. I can't operate The JasperTree down the road if I'm dead, I can't get married if I'm dead, I won't have an opportunity to be a Dad if that's what God has in the plan, and I won't get to be a teacher, all this will be in vain. 12/20/2017 is the day that I've selected to remind myself of all of the things that I've accomplished in 4 years. I don't miss puking, feeling insecure when I'm supposed to be having a great time with friends, I don't miss saying things that are stupid, and I don't need it to still dance around and have fun.

This is my story, it's the only one I have; I somedays I wish I was dead but the story isn't over. I gained the courage to reach out to my biological mom and sister, I graduated from CPCC again, and made it into UNCC. I take my meds regularly, I'm trying to brush my teeth regularly(trying), I try to eat healthier, and I've taken a shower every day since January. Which even if I'm depressed that's a huge accomplishment. I'm going to say that I don't want to give up but I want to keep living and fighting this thing in my brain for as long as I'm allowed. So here's to four years sober because this is my story and it's the only one I have.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

To Whom the Bell Tolls

 Hi, my name is Joshua Harke and I’m from Syracuse, NY. I’ve lived in Charlotte since I was 13 years old. In the summer of 1994, we moved to Charlotte, NC. It was a huge culture shock and life change for a new teenager. I went to a few different schools here; I went to Randolph Middle School for 7 th grade and I was bullied there so my parents moved me the next school year to Bible Baptist Christian Academy in Matthews. I liked it there and played soccer in middle school. I also attended church there with my family. I transferred schools after my junior year to United Faith Christian Academy. I loved it there and grew into a great high school athlete. I played in the praise band and played soccer, baseball was even the mascot, and outside of school, I played ice hockey on a local team and for the Junior, Checkers travel team. I made Who’s Who Among Highschool Americans my senior year. I also couldn’t decide what I wanted to be as an adult and that’s fine. I had an internship in a ...
Read more

Education Inequalities Based on Class, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity

 This is a discussion that I posted in my Sociology of Education class here at UNCC and the dialogue following. 1. I think that today in the climate of education being a minority can have its advantages for education. I feel that being a mixed male special education teaching student might afford me a better chance to obtain job placement when I graduate and being that there are fewer males in elementary teaching roles now. That's my intersectionality. I believe that the demand for minority teachers is good for me but they shouldn't place a male in a teaching role if they're not qualified same as a woman, it just so happens that it's a role that is needed to be filled in society. 2. Attention should most certainly be given to economic segregation. It should be addressed but as the problem that whites have been afforded a head start in the game. It's like a video I just watched in Child Psych. If we as a society could get over living in white-walled neighborhoods wher...
Read more

The Existenstial Ant

The dictionary defines existential as an  ADJECTIVE Relating to existence -  concerned with existence, especially human existence as viewed in the theories of exist entialism   LOGIC - (of a proposition) affirming or implying the existence of a thing. In 20219, I decided to go back to school/college to become a teacher. Out in the left field, a truck hits us with Covid, the worst thing to happen in my lifetime. As a whole, 9/11 and this are pretty terrible things. Back to me. I have been a worker ant, pretty much my entire adult life. I've taken on grunt jobs that don't pay much and when I take on something people don't understand that I don't fit in their box for me they get confuddled. This is where my existential problem comes into being.  Why am I here if I can't make my 2/6 year associate degree work for me. What's my calling? Is it to just be a barback and never make it to bartender or manager(side joke, I made it to a manager at a restaurant here in Charl...
Read more