I'm grateful that mental
health is more of an "open and talked about" issue these days. When I was a young adult it wasn't. No one talked about being
depressed or anxious. Not many people had heard about Prozac yet. I'm not sure what year that drug came out, but they thought
it was a miracle drug when it did come out. Soon after they realized that it caused some people to want to kill people. I
guess you could call that a "side effect!"
I did know somewhere in my head that my grandmother was
taking some kind of "nerve pills." (It was Valium.) I also knew somewhere
in my pea brain that my aunt had a mental illness. I thought it was schizophrenia. But for the most part, I never thought
about mental health when I was eighteen or nineteen or in my twenties. Stuff was happening around me - dysfunctional kind
of stuff - but I just went on with my life. I tried to ignore what was hurting me. If it was too painful to deal with; I'd
just bury it in that deep pit of hurt that was already somewhere inside me.
I got drunk, too. Just like tons of young adults - hey...
I got wasted sometimes. Sometimes I got drunk habitually. I think that getting drunk habitually is called being an alcoholic.
Somewhere inside that brain of mine which is very smart really - I knew that I was an alcoholic, but I wouldn't say it out
loud or even to myself. I'd just go buy some more wine!
Lots of important things were going on but I wasn't aware of it all. I was naive, unfocused with
no life skills. I was floundering in my life. I was a mother and a wife, but I had no healthy relationships. I was depressed
and probably experiencing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. I was being traumatized sometimes within the situations
that I found myself in when I was drinking. I'll tell you some of my stories if you promise to think about your own little
world of goof ups!
