Brain Battles
The rational and logical mind often conflict with the emotional. When matters of the heart are concerned, there seems to always be a losing battle.
The battle in my brain was ever pervasive, constantly waging war within itself. Battles, whether figurative or literal, should never be done alone. The more help you can get, the easier to slay the beast.

You know, I really used to hate myself. Funny, because I’m typically the kind of girl who loves too much. Entirely too much. My heart is so full of love that I can forgive people who have committed the most atrocious, heinous unimaginable things to me.
But this story isn’t about my heart. It’s about my brain. A perfectly imperfect mind, who in all its complexity, learned how to better cope with all the self hatred and anguish.
When I say I hate myself, I mean pure, unbridled murderous disdain. Like a lot. Hate so intense and blinding I’ve attempted suicide far too many times to count, ran away from the people I loved the most because I truly believed that they were better off without me, and did stupid shit on the daily because I didn’t give a flying fuck whether I lived or died.
Needless to say, my crippling depression didn’t do me any favors. Bad brain chemicals and apparently genetics had dulled my otherwise sunny disposition. Yet, it has always been there, lying beneath what people assume is a happy girl.
In the past, when my mental illness(es) would begin to become more prominent, my first pattern of behavior was to isolate myself.My logic was that if I don’t want to deal with my “crazy” then nobody else wants that crap either. After that initial isolation, an ugly cycle would complete itself, involving an ending that would leave me suicidal and nearly non-functional and usually with a nice little stay in a hospital.
I would intentionally had to cut ties with those I loved the most, because I honestly believed they were better off without my so-called crazy. My mother had done the same thing when she became terminally ill with cancer when I was a child, pushing those who cared the most away, including myself and my father.
The first suicide attempt I had ever had was when I was only eight years old. I had tried to hang myself in my bedroom closet. Luckily, the rod had broken under the weight of my meager 60–70 pound frame. However, I don’t think the weight of the situation was lost on my father, who came rushing into my room, shocked by his discovery of me on the floor. Shortly thereafter, I was promptly enrolled in counseling, beginning my journey through the mental health care system that is so utterly flawed.
In addition to severe depression, I also have anxiety issues, obsessive compulsive behaviors, and eventually developed post traumatic stress disorder. I also have synesthesia, in which I “see” music and numbers have personalities and colors. Honestly, even though I have never been diagnosed as such, I’m pretty sure that the depression, anxiety and synesthesia are actually components of being somewhere on the autism spectrum, but I digress.
The most prominent of my “issues” has always been the depression. There have been times in my life where I didn’t leave the bed for months at a time, except to urinate. It was almost as if I was in a trance like state, awaiting for death to hasten.
The most recent, legitimate, suicide attempt I had was very recent, in December 2016, occurring just a few days after I was sexually assaulted at my place of employment, I attempted to end my life with a copious amount of drugs: enough to euthanize a horse. Literally. Yet, somehow, I lived, be it a miracle or whatever you want to call it.
Add to that equation a slew of one traumatic life circumstances that occurred to me, one after another in rapid succession, most of which were truly out of my control. This is why I probably get along so well with war veterans who also have post traumatic stress disorder, because they can just see within my eyes that I have seen some serious shit. I’ve bared witness to some of the ugliest things humanity has to offer, yet I still am here to tell the tale.
I think back to how much it truly is a wonder I am still alive.
Dozens of medications, failed cognitive behavioral therapy and even old fashioned wishing and hoping and praying didn’t cure the sadness within my soul. It had seemed as if the mental health system, my friends, and society as a whole had left me to fight alone, though I know it was just the skewed perception of the depression now.
In a way to curb my anxieties, my obsessive compulsive nature developed. It hadn’t gotten to a point where it was necessarily a detriment, ala Howard Hughs, but it did dictate much of my daily life. When my brain was trying to reconstitute its pathways, I inadvertently began doing things for which I was averse, in a desperate attempt to increase my brain’s healing process. I jokingly say that when I lost control, I found order within the chaos, which I find very true, even to this day.
The depression and the mental road blocks I had imposed upon myself didn’t start to abate until shortly after I sustained multiple consecutive concussions, in what I like to dub as the “School of Hard Knocks”, in which I had finally had some common sense “knocked” right into me. Between the first major concussion I sustained while on a hike and the one I received at work, I was literally trying to rig up a homemade electroconvulsive therapy machine in my storage building, because I knew if I didn’t, eventually I would die find a way to die, despite all my previous attempts that had been futile.
Something, which I still can’t comprehend, happened to me when my brain was healing itself and forming new synaptic connections. In a way, it was very much akin to a spiritual awakening, and had progressed over a period of months. During that time, I learned skills and picked up the tools which I believe saved my life. For lack of a better analogy, it was as if I learned how to lockpick my own brain to heal itself. And all those years of therapy that never seemed to have clicked, finally did in some strange way, allowing me to find the answers I had been so desperately seeking — just within myself.
During this process of self reflection and discovery, I also learned that I’m not the only dumbass on the planet. As I went on my spiritual and mental walkabout, I saw that the people I loved or admired the most were just as flawed as myself. This allowed me to be less of my own worst critic and alleviate some of the self hate that had been so dominant in my psyche.
Once I began to accept my flaws, despite my perfectionist nature, you know what? I learned to love the little things about myself, instead of hating absolutely everything. And that makes life a lot easier.
Additionally, I acknowledged the fact those same friends and family who really do love me in some form or fashion. Despite all the bullshit I put them through, they love me without condition, even during those time I still find it difficult to love myself.
I’m not going to say I am cured from the crazy. Nothing will ever completely cure me of the long list of acrimonious acronyms that, when compiled, end up being my multiple diagnoses.With some age and wisdom… and trying to gain better coping mechanisms, I am slowly beginning to learn that my old thought patterns weren’t healthy. While it should have been obvious from the start, my brain has never been wired that way until recently.
I hope that maybe, somehow, through the breakdown that lead to a breakthrough, I am finally moving in the right direction. since this time around, I am choosing to embrace my friendships and utilize the their support instead of pushing them away.Of course, exercise and sunlight have also helped tremendously also.
I guess only time will tell whether I can really fight the battle of the war within my head and become triumphant enough to slay my demons.
