i graduated!

And I feel like my­self again.

In Feb­ru­ary, I had a trau­mat­ic men­tal health episode that al­most cost me a whole lot that I care about. Thank­ful­ly, I have some re­al­ly good friends that helped me re­al­ize how okay I tru­ly wasn’t. I de­cid­ed to check my­self into a men­tal health pro­gram through Kaiser be­cause I couldn’t fig­ure out how to pull my­self out.

With­in the first few min­utes of the on­board­ing the men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al said, “It sounds like you have Gen­er­al Anx­i­ety Dis­or­der.”

As we talked more she ex­plained that it sound­ed like it was prob­a­bly trig­gered by trau­ma in my pre-teens which tracks if you know my sto­ry.

My first day of ther­a­py, I was of­fi­cial­ly di­ag­nosed, and when we start­ed talk­ing and I told my ther­a­pist I quit smok­ing herb he said, “So you’ve been deal­ing with your Gen­er­al Anx­i­ety Dis­or­der un­med­icat­ed for the last few months.”

I sat down with a men­tor and talked to him about it. He told me he was proud I’d got­ten into ther­a­py and gave me this gem. “You need a tool­box, not a ham­mer,” mean­ing I had only been us­ing herb to treat the grief, anx­i­ety, and de­pres­sion I was deal­ing with and I need­ed more tools.

As my ther­a­pist and I start­ed un­rav­el­ing the trau­ma, grief, and my detri­men­tal core be­liefs, I was able to no­tice, la­bel, and ob­serve my think­ing pat­terns. This gave me the abil­i­ty to ad­dress and al­ter my think­ing pat­terns.

I’m just now start­ing to feel like me again.

I’m writ­ing this for a few rea­sons.

1.
We all strug­gle. I know a lot of you see The Great Joy Hunt guy or some ver­sion of that. A friend of mine was asked once if I ever have bad days be­cause when this per­son saw me I was al­ways “such a good en­er­gy.” The truth is that I car­ry a lot of heavy grief and trau­ma in my spir­it and I’m an ex­pert at mask­ing and iso­lat­ing. So­cial me­dia is a high­light reel and I don’t post when I’m strug­gling be­cause en­er­gy vam­pires and vul­tures ex­ist. You nev­er tru­ly know what any­one is go­ing through. But if you’re strug­gling you’re not alone.

2.
If you have Kaiser, the route into these 8‑session pro­grams is pret­ty quick, clear, and con­cise. I hear hor­ror sto­ries about try­ing to get a ther­a­pist, and that wasn’t my sto­ry. You can get there from the web­site di­rect­ly, and once that time is up there are con­tin­ued care op­tions.

3.
Ther­a­py was re­al­ly a god­send for me. And it might be for you too. If you’ve been think­ing about it, this is your sign to go for it. It’s helped me un­earth some things that I didn’t re­al­ize were af­fect­ing every­thing I was do­ing, giv­en me some tools I didn’t have and des­per­ate­ly need­ed, and helped me put grief and trau­ma into com­part­ments with lids so they don’t spill all over every­thing else in my life.

More of us should go to ther­a­py. Es­pe­cial­ly us guys.
::looks lov­ing­ly at my broth­ers::
This life can be a lot. Hav­ing some­one trained in how our brains work to help you nav­i­gate how yours is work­ing doesn’t make you weak. It makes you smart. You wouldn’t wan­der into an un­fa­mil­iar wilder­ness with­out a guide would you?

Eh em.
::Cue Jay‑Z::
“Al­low me to rein­tro­duce my­self……”

I love you and you can’t do $&!? about it.

 

—an­dru de­f­eye

Flom­mist An­dru De­f­eye is the Guer­ril­la Poet Lau­re­ate of Sacra­men­to. Copy­right © 2023 An­dru De­f­eye. 📸 Katy Karns.

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