
I (21m) have got the professional help I need after being in denial for years; somehow thinking I could handle the constant trauma I was enduring by myself, since my brain stopped reacting years ago after my dad died suddenly in a car crash at 17. I firstly have to state that refuse to look at myself as any type of victim, choosing to consider myself lucky instead. The terrible things I’ve been through have given me more than the best things possibly could have; I have gained the ability to make the best out of any situation and the ability to truly make something out of nothing, as this is what I have been doing with my own brain this whole time. I was recently put on to Zoloft (25mg 5days then 50mg) because my emotions and reactivity became essentially nonexistent, and haven’t been for years. When I was younger I had all these dreams and aspirations and I didn’t know what an obstacle was. I found a way to get what I wanted even if it seemed impossible to most. I thought this emotional resilience was just because nothing could catch me off guard, as I always prepared for the worst in every situation after my dads passing. I learned very quickly that something was genuinely wrong about a month ago, when my best friend called me and forced me to watch as he killed himself with drugs while on FaceTime. There was nothing I could do because he was out of town in a random hotel and he refused to tell me where he was. He just wanted someone to be there for him, and while I’m grateful I could be there so he didn’t die alone; I am very ungrateful for the immense amount of trauma he inflicted on to me. Trauma that I’m going to be dealing with for the rest of my life, no matter how much help I get. His last words to me where “call me in the morning and if I don’t answer I’m dead”, and to add even more trauma to the event, I somehow even managed to miss his call later that night, and he never answered when I called him back. While this was finally something that caused me to have an emotional reaction; a couple mental breakdowns here and there, those reactions were short lived as i quickly reverted back to my baseline of nothingness. This nothingness isn’t something I really noticed because my depression has never held me back from living up to be what I thought was my fullest potential. Even though I was depressed I still had the charisma and ability to fake it till I made it; yet I never felt fulfilled and ended up filling that empty whole of emotions with drugs, settling for the feelings they give me to be the only feelings I felt. Ever. For years. My brain was in a constant state of shock. My psychiatrist described what I’ve went through to be the equivalent of “someone who jumped out of an airplane and having their parachute not open” after only briefly explaining the seemingly constant life altering events I have endured over the span of my short-but-very-long 21 years on this earth. Off the top of my head a couple examples of some bigger events are:

Growing up in Detroit but moving to the suburbs at age 8 and having all my siblings split up because my mom left my dad due to his drug addiction (took me and my sister who are the youngest but left 3 older brothers with dad)

Dad goes into rehab at 11, found god, and completely turned himself around. He was an amazing human who helped countless people and devoted his life to helping people. However, by this time I was a rebellious teen and I didn’t give him a chance to become a ‘father’ to me again until he earned it back. He resented me (but still loved me) and we essentially didn’t talk from when I was 15 until the day he died suddenly at 17. 

First best friend in suburbs who took me under his wing, eventually becoming like an older brother to me, moves to Detroit with his family and got murdered when I was 14 (he was 19 and tried to leave his gang to raise his daughter)

Transferred to 11 different grade schools and moved homes 4 times causing me to lose any sense of stability in every aspect of life, and to subconsciously destroy and recreate my life in every aspect every 3 months because when I sense stability it terrifies/bores me. This has caused me to leave a trail of burnt bridges and to destroy relationships with many good people who never did anything to me but be there for me , up until I subconsciously decide I’ve had enough and subsequently burn it all to the ground. (I call it the three month rule because it pretty much happens EVERY three months no matter what I do)

Get laced with fentanyl and end up rolling my moms car 5 times at 18 (somehow walking away without a scratch or a dui)

Moved out at 19 and went thru 5 different apartments within the span of 2 years due to financial instabilities, furthering my inability to achieve any taste of something stable.  (Somehow without receiving any evictions on my record)

Laced with fentanyl for the second time at 20. I died for a lil bit from cardiac arrest and woke up in an ambulance cold and confused what had happened. It’s a miracle I have no brain or hearth damage. (needed 3 narcan, defibrillator, and cpr to resuscitate me)

Deranged roommate gets mad about dishes and breaks a bong over my forehead, almost taking out my eye at 21

Move back home after this thinking my mental health is finally on track to recovery until about a month later when I watch my best friend kill himself on FaceTime.


This is just the tip of the iceberg and my life has constantly been as hepatic as a rockstars in the 80s since longer than I can remember. I essentially raised myself since I was in 5th grade because my mom was too depressed  and tired to be a mother (youngest of 5 so I got the short end of the stick, I hold no resentment to her) and my dad was in rehab; causing me to get into doing drugs at 12 and start selling them at 14. I essentially had unlimited access to the highest quality of any drug I could dream of at all times. Let’s just say I didn’t abide by “don’t get high on your own supply” rule, and I never faced any real repercussions, so I’m just now finally starting to get these habits under control. I realized that I have been self medicating myself for years causing my serotonin receptors to be less functional regardless, with depression as a nice little cherry on top to ensure that I was as unable to feel genuine happiness as possible. Through all of this I would walk away Scott free in every way except mentally. The thing was though, there was just so much constantly happening that it couldn’t even affect me mentally. Like I said, my brain stopped reacting to trauma at 17, so all of this was kind of just another day in the life for me. The closest thing I felt to happiness throughout all of this was when I helped the people around me, so maybe karma is real and I earned a guardian angel who worked overtime because my whole life I have been going down all of the wrong paths you could possibly imagine, yet I’ve never been to jail, seriously hurt and I’ve always made it back with nothing but lessons and experience that helped me further harness my ability to do anything I put my mind to regardless of the circumstances. The only problem was that I didn’t care about myself enough to do anything for me, so I didn’t, and the one thing that could motivate me to use the abilities I have was helping my friends achieve their dreams. Doing things for the people I care about was the driving force that allowed me to still live a somewhat normal life. I’ve sort of just went around where ever I found myself at the time, using my people skills and natural attraction people have for me for whatever reason to create communities and bring people together in a way where I could kind of just sit back and reap the benefits of these safe zones I was creating, even though I didn’t create them for myself. A combination of this and drugs was fulfilling enough for me to not worry about how I was really feeling or what I really wanted and I decided to finally change that last week by going to a psychiatrist and I am nervous, yet excited to see what my true full potential is; rather than the helpful emotionless zombie that I gaslit myself into believing was me at 100%. if I can do all the things I did with MDP and crippling anxiety, then the sky is the limit without it…? Right…? I’ve never done anything like this or shared the things I’ve been through publicly so hopefully this is a step in the right direction…?

(tl;dr, I didn’t realize I needed serious mental help for the trauma I’ve endured until my best friend killed himself on FaceTime with me and I barely bat an eye)