The PTSD in purplePTSD
Joe Johnson
|
The PTSD in purplePTSD
Note: This article is brought to you by BetterHelp, the world’s leader in counseling (100% of which is online and done by amazing and accredited counselors across a broad spectrum of specialities). Click Here for more information and strap-in for a TMI article that explains where our site bane came from to prove that you’re not alone (and thanks to BetterHelp, you can avoid some of the apprehension and embarrassment described below as they’re 100% online before and after COVID).
For great info on the link between alcoholism and social anxiety, as touched on in this article, visit our friends at E-Counseling.com as well!
One of the main questions or random 3 a.m. emails that we here at purplePTSD.com still receive is where our name stems from. Some assume that we’re making light of a serious condition, until they learn that I (the owner of purpleTERRITORY Media) named our first site purplePTSD after I was diagnosed with PTSD (among other things) in 2014 while in intensive inpatient treatment at St. Joseph’s Hospital in downtown St. Paul.
I’ve always considered myself a very capable person. As a young, cocksure and ignorant youth, I thought that depression was a sign of weakness despite the fact that I used to get so nervous before hockey games that I’d fantasize about getting in a car accident simply to avoid a game or two.
Combine that with the fact that I inherited the worst possible traits (from a psychological well-being perspective) from my overly emotional mother and my incredibly stoic father. So, while I refused to admit it myself let alone another person for far too long, I essentially was falling apart emotionally while being almost biologically incapable of voicing what was happening to me from essentially the first semester of my freshman year of college in late 2002 until I went to treatment in 2014). That’s ten years out of 29 where I isolated myself in every way possible, where I went from a happy and gregarious center of attention social butterfly to someone who had to drink before doing anything social because of the crushing anxiety I felt whenever I left my house.
Imagine a 6’3” man in his late 20’s (at the time) that is built like an offensive guard being as silent as he was crying. That was me every time I tried to open up, but even getting there was difficult as I couldn’t relive some really traumatic things that happened to me in my late teens and early 20’s because I thought they weren’t important enough to hurt me the way that they had. I was embarrassed, in nearly every way possible, in terms of the subject matter and how I’d openly weep in front of a stranger about those things.
Stuff happens, Joe. Just bury it and try to use it for angry motivation. That was my philosophy, as like I said at the jump I’ve always been a very capable person and if there was anything wrong with me there’s no way that I couldn’t figure it out on my own.
I mean, I spend every moment in my head, so what could some subjective therapist tell me that I haven’t already tried? What negative consequence could come from burying anger and using it to form my only reason for trying? If I could stay angry, then those other feelings couldn’t creep into my mind.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Growing up I was always considered to be this wunderkind of sorts. I grew up in North Minneapolis in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, and then I moved to Northeast Minneapolis to attend a middle school that was shuttered two years after I graduated (by then, though, I had started attending Edison High School as my school (the recently re-opened Webster Open School) didn’t have geometry or algebra trigonometry).
I was a lazy but great student, athlete, had loads of friends and also won homecoming/snow daze and prom king as well. Things seemed to be going great and I was incredibly happy. I was also very, not straight edge, but I took hockey very seriously and as I was born pretty premature and thus had chronic bronchitis, I stayed away from smoking anything or even drinking alcohol until after my last hockey game as a senior.
Despite feeling like everything was going my way, with a girlfriend I really liked and after being automatically accepted to every college I applied to I vividly remember the thought that went through my mind the first time I got drunk. A few friends of mine and I were aimlessly wandering the side streets of South Minneapolis drinking an unholy concoction of Captain Morgan and Dr. Pepper. I had attempted to get drunk the previous weekend on left over Tequila Rose and Wine Coolers, to no avail.
The second time though, there was no doubt, I was DRUNK and the thought that kept crossing my mind was WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE!
It wasn’t long until both the nature (my genetic predisposition to addiction) and nurture (see above AND below) caught up to me and things got dark. It became the only time I felt like “me” again, at least the parts I remembered. The thing was, it got to the point that I wouldn’t bother drinking unless I could black out. So, at first I felt “normal” because I was without anxiety or abstract sadness, I was even confident again. Then, I’d time travel to the next morning and realize that I’d caused all sorts of problems with the few people that hadn’t blocked me on Facebook.
After the traumatic event that shaped my early ‘20’s happened, though, drinking went from a fun, weekend thing to a very dark sad mix of problem drinking and the combination of PTSD/anger/depression and the beginnings of hardcore social and generalized anxiety.
The more I did the former the worse the latter became. The worse the latter became, the worse the former got. Despite that, though, I graduated from the University of Minnesota with two degrees in four years and landed a great corporate sales job for an internet start-up that taught me everything I needed to launch this network.
I was the first person that that company had ever hired straight out of college and I quickly became the number one salesperson in a company with eight offices nationally and 75 salespeople. That job allowed me to buy the house I grew up in at the age of 22.
On the outside I was living the dream. On the inside, though, I was a complete mess. I attempted get sober from alcohol after oversleeping for work, getting drunk at work and slowly burning every remaining bridge in my personal life one confrontation after another.
I was self medicating with alcohol, mostly to handle my nightmares (if you black out you don’t remember your night let alone your dreams) and anxiety. Sure, both were way worse the next day, but any respite from my own head was too alluring to pass up.
So, I found what I thought was the perfect solution. I could take vicodin instead of drinking! You could do it at work, there’s no hangover and I wouldn’t forget what I did and wake up to 500 Facebook messages that I’d be too anxious to check until I was drunk again?
Where has THIS been all my life?
I’m sure you’ll know where this is headed. I lost my job after the 2008 economic crisis, then slowly everything I’d worked for in the eight years after college. The house I grew up in, my car, then my girlfriend of seven years and my dog.
Cue a full blown nervous breakdown.
After a year of feeling bad for myself, I got sober for three years and then relapsed in 2013. I ended up agreeing to a 30-day intensive inpatient treatment stay after my family finally got through to me. I didn’t think I was that bad, but then again there are two withdrawals that can kill you and I was going to have to deal with both at the same time, plus another and also not smoke?
Yikes.
As angry as I was, I can genuinely say that that experience saved my life and was one of the most revelatory, profound and positive experiences of my life. I was forced to get over my unwillingness and inability to speak about my mental health, and while it was hard and embarrassing at first, it felt damn good to talk about things I had kept inside for so long and also finally feel like I had a real plan to tackle things I’d ling thought I was just going to have to deal with alone for the rest of my life.
That’s why I wrote this article and teamed up with BetterHelp, the world’s leading counseling service that is 100% online. I know how daunting some of these feelings can seem but the reason I’m so open about my mental health issues is that I hope to show people that there’s no shame in admitting things that we can’t control or for asking for help.
If you or anyone you know wants or needs more information, click here: