Disclaimer: This is long and I don’t really know how to go about describing my situation so I’ll just start rambling and hope it works out.

I’ve had crippling anxiety for about a decade now, prior to that it wasn’t as bad, but still pretty rough. I adore my parents, but they’re old school when it comes to this, they didn’t really believe in ADD/ADHD and just said I wasn’t trying enough in school. I was a pretty bad student, wasn’t getting in trouble or anything, but I couldn’t learn anything the traditional way. My mom spent hours nearly every night at our kitchen table helping me do my homework, teaching me stuff. 

 I first noticed I wasn’t right when I’d play basketball on my schools team, in my driveway without people watching I was great, was a great ball handler and shooter; but once I’d be put in during a game in front of people I’d crumble. I remember one specific time that I shot and completely missed the rim, hit the top of the backboard and was just a massive fail, shit was embarrassing.

I spent the better part of the last 20 years self-medicating with marijuana and Xanax. I’m not proud that I did that, but it is what it is, and for what it’s worth I haven’t done any drugs or anything in about 7 years. My parents moved after my senior year in high school and I definitely should’ve went with them, instead I decided to sell drugs. I eventually got in trouble in 2005 and had an extended stay being locked up. Fast forward to 2011 and I’d end up right back where I was prior to that, taking pills and getting high to be able to function to be able to go to work.

I never realized how bad my anxiety was until after I stopped smoking pot and taking Xanax back in 2014. Like I’ve hardly left the house since then, hell I can’t even answer the phone or doorbell when my parents aren’t around. Oh that’s another thing, I’m back living with my parents because I couldn’t work anymore and was going to move with my ex and our 2 month old son (until I found out she wasn’t going to let me come anyways and just left with me at my absolute lowest point where I was on the floor crying for her to not leave with him). She was a big part of the reason I stopped smoking weed/taking Xanax, but she also kinda fucked our family up by taking my car (technically hers that my parents bought for me, but eventually switched the ownership to her when it became apparent I couldn’t work). Just an all-around bad situation that was my fault because of my shit in my head, I don’t blame her for leaving, and I’m happy that she’s moved on and has a family of her own now.

Okay, now with that out of the way, I’ll get to my current situation. For the past few years I’ve had a few spouts of constipation (sorry if that’s gross), they happen about 2-3 times a year and completely wreck me for about 4 days at a time. They’d always go the same way, get sick, take a ton of meds to help, eventually get relief. Well this past October it happened again, but this time the debilitating pain in my stomach never left after my bowel movement (again, sorry). Fast forward to February and it’d get so bad that I’d end up in the ER, five times from February -&gt; April. Of course I have no insurance because I haven’t worked since 2012, so I racked up half a million in hospital stays, procedures, and eventually surgeries. 

If there is ONE positive thing that came from all of that, it’s that my parents finally saw how insane I am. First of all I don’t even remember anything from between the night I arrived at the ER until two weeks later when I woke up, like it never happened, zero recollection. I apparently had a bad reaction to something during my recovery from my surgeries because I was having horrible hallucinations, like seeing crowded rooms in the mirror staring at me laughing, making threatening gestures, little bugs flying around and eventually landing to form foot-long scorpions.. crazy shit like that. I even checked our Ring cameras in the middle of the night and saw about 10 people sitting on our back porch, so o of course called my mom at 2am to check.. I was a mess, but eventually I came back down to earth. Still no clue what caused that or what happened in the two weeks leading up to my surgeries, but what can you do. 

If you’re still reading my ramblings you’re amazing. I’m literally typing shit and then going back and erasing it worrying that it’s not relevant and what not. I suppose it just feels good to type my thoughts out (and hope they make sense). 

Anyways I’m having a hard time with my situation currently, I can’t really do a whole lot. I can’t work out at the moment due to the discomfort of the temporary ostomy bag I have and that’s killing me, that was my escape, that was pretty much the only peace I’d have and I can’t do it anymore. I’ve been playing video games, playing with my dog, watching a ton of movies. Just hoping that I can get rid of the bag in September when I see my surgeon again.

All that leads me to the entire point of my post, my doctor appointment on Thursday. A month ago he started me on Paxil (20mg daily), can’t say I feel any different today though. I’m always terrified to ask about getting back on certain drugs. Like I know for a fact that adderall and Xanax work for me. I fact, they both do the exact same thing to me, make me extremely focused. People think I’m crazy when I say that Xanax works like that on me, that it actually makes me hyper-focused, but I’m 100% serious. Back when I was insured I was prescribed to both at different times, but had to eventually stop because I moved states and lost my insurance from work. If I had to choose one of those since they both give me the same effect I’d choose adderall because my tolerance was getting pretty bad with Xanax (was needing way too much to work). 

So I guess what I’m asking is how can I bring this up without sounding like I’m trying to get high? Like my social anxiety is through the roof and I’m scared that once I start describing my situation I’ll start rambling on and stumbling all over my words. Unfortunately this is just a resident clinic, not a psychiatrist, so I’m trying to choose what I saw very carefully since I’m always scared how I’ll come off to people. It’s embarrassing enough that I’m 37 and my mom takes me to see him, I don’t really wanna worry that I’m looking like a junkie too. I know I could get medical marijuana for my Crohns but I’d honestly rather not, doubt my parents could accept that anyways. 

The thing I always tell people about Xanax was that when I take it I feel like I’m the person I was before I started doing drugs, that I felt “normal” for the first time in my life, I could read and speak without stumbling my words, I was focused on my tasks at hand, it was just great. I remember my first parole officer testing me and telling me that I failed for benzodiazepines, then after I explained everything she said I had a chemical imbalance and that’s why they worked like that for me. She as incredibly understanding and made me see a psychiatrist who actually prescribed them to me. Had peace in my life for the first time, held a job for 4 years, had a few relationships, had friends that I spent time with. That all changed when I had to move after getting off parole in 2011, started doing stupid shit again, all kinds of drugs, drank some, just bad decisions all around for the next few years. 

I’d be over the moon of the Paxil was enough to calm me down, but it’s not and I’m having a hard enough time right now with everything else going on. I mean prior to me getting sick in October I was finally starting to come out of my shell a bit more, was talking to neighbors, helping my parents shop, ya know, normal people stuff. Just seems like I’m back to square one since waking up in the hospital, like reverted 100% back to the person I’ve been for the past decade, lost all my progress. Spending hours laying in bed thinking about stuff that hurts, people I’ve lost, just everything depressing. Back when I could expend my energy with weights and just doing stuff throughout the day I could sleep a little at night, now though it’s pretty rough.

Sorry for the blog, hopefully it’s readable, I spent entirely too long going back and forth typing/erasing, just hard to concentrate unfortunately so I tend to ramble when I talk. I hope I made sense, I’m definitely not trying to sound negative or anything, I’m eternally blessed to have the parents that I have, most would’ve given up on a basket case like me years ago, but they never have. My dads health has been failing rapidly over the past few years and the only damn thing I want in life is to get mine back on track so they can be proud of me, not that unconditional love kinda pride, truly proud that I overcame everything and made something of my life. One day.

Thanks for reading my embarrassing life story