I still did not recognize that drugs and alcohol worsened my depression, anxiety, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and disordered personality. It was the 1970s, and addiction treatment and trauma-informed mental health practices were in their infancy. I continued to drink and use drugs, and the desire to somehow cancel my being never left me. A friend and I got drunk one night at the clubs in Chicago and came to a decision. We impulsively threw our few belongings in the car and moved to San Francisco. We naively thought our lives would be different simply by moving. We drove across the country and landed in the San Francisco Tenderloin district with little money. The Tenderloin was an area of sleazy hotels, prostitution, drug deals, and generally sketchy people. I found my people, and I fit right in.
While I had made the geographic, my mental health deteriorated, and my alcoholism continued to progress. Morning shakes, debilitating anxiety, and depression became the norm, and only alcohol could stop the symptoms. The image of a gun grew more significant in my drunken mind, and I started to plan my next suicide attempt. But I did not know where to find a gun.
The physical and mental agony controlled and terrorized my life, and I had no money left and nowhere to go. I checked myself into a St. Vincent de Paul detoxification unit to safely come off the alcohol and drugs under medical supervision. I knew that I needed medical help to stop drinking and using drugs, and I could not do it on my own and, to do so, could risk severe withdrawal and possible death. After a couple of days in detox, they transferred me to a Salvation Army facility for a few more days of stabilization.
Over and over again, I repeated this cycle of suicidal ideation, extreme depression, and anxiety, then a trip to a detox facility. Then something changed for me. It was July 18th, 1984, and a voice within told me I could not run away anymore. And in the core of my being, I knew it was true, that I was down to my final choice – life or death. Thankfully, though the depression and anxiety persisted, I had a reprieve from self-destructive behaviors. I started attending AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings, if only to be in a room with others who understood where I had been. But my mental health was still at grave risk.
At the time, there was little understanding between substance abuse approaches and mental health therapies. Substance abuse treatment was a separate field from mental health. And mental health professionals gave little credence to the impact of substance abuse on mental health. AA provided terrific support but discouraged the use of medications to treat mental health issues. There was a prevailing belief that if one was not getting better mentally, one was in denial about some aspect of their recovery.
I did sober up, which amazed me, but the mental demons still tortured me. I put on a good face in recovery meetings, but I was still terrified of the voices within. I had debilitating bouts of depression and developed severe agoraphobia, which prevented me from reaching out. I believed that everyone "knew" that I was somehow flawed and God's mistake. This struggle persisted, on and off, for the first five years of my sobriety. There was medicine available that could help me. Still, I remained under the false belief that I was a failure as a human being, which held me hostage and prevented me from seeking medical solutions. And thoughts of suicide still loomed.
A concept of spirituality began to develop within me, and I experienced it in different ways. While I believed in God, I felt that God didn't believe in me. Until the day that changed everything. I had driven over the Sierra Nevada mountain range through Yosemite National Park to Owen's Valley along the California/Nevada State border. I tried to head back to San Francisco when a freak snowstorm closed all the roads through the mountain passes. I turned around, driving down a mountainside. The storm was behind me, and I saw a breathtaking sunset over Mono Lake. It was then I had a complete out-of-body experience. For a fleeting moment, I realized, just like in childhood, that I was indeed part of something much bigger than myself. There was not a division between myself and the power of the universe. Just as Carl Jung and Annie Dillard described, the hounds that chased the hare of my innocence finally caught up.
It was enough to sustain me, to carry on. I started to get better. While there remained many hurdles to overcome, it was the moment that changed the trajectory of my mental health.
Have you ever had a similar experience, that loss of self-isolation that separates you from what is true and good? What meaningful experiences that sometimes come without warning changed the trajectory of your life?
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