Back in Action

       In the last 6 months I have suffered the hardest depression of my sweet little life(I picture underprivileged children in 3rd world countries saying "buck the hell up whitie, how bad can it be queermo?").  It has been absolutely miserable!  The hardest thing about mental illness is that you need your mind to make the decision that you need help; but how are you supposed to go about that if your mind is fucked up????  In special cases family and friends can step in and help but being one the most stubborn and hard-headed individuals alive my family was only allowed gentle suggestions.  If my life was brought up casually in conversation and even the slightest amount of criticism entered any of their mouths I would fly off the handle.  I have always been an enthusiastic, passionate and dramatic individual but everything hit me so personally and I would react so irrationally that I was dubbed sensitive steve.  Clamming up was my only option because I literally felt the weight of my illness like a giant black blanket that suffocated me from the inside out.  Articulating feelings was next to impossible.  Being social or in crowds of people was painful.  I was not the Aaron that I know and love.
     Praise be to the Lord that is all behind me!  Hopefully for the last time...fingers crossed and then pulled into a fist and knocking on wood.  Any other dumb rituals I can do to avoid cursing myself by writing that out loud?  I am pretty sure I am bi-polar, suffering from wonderful highs for months at a time followed by depressive bouts for months at a time.  As I look back and study my life this is now the fourth consecutive year it has occurred, coincidentally the exact same time I decided to come out of the closet and leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Well its only taken me til 26 to realize that if you don't change up the action you take, a problem will never fix itself.  I have turned to alcohol, I tried bottling it up like pickles to save for a famine, promiscuous sex worked about as well as denial, and even sweet little Maryjane couldn't cloud my mind enough to make it better.  So now I will resort to the professionals and I am keeping them crossed again that the pro bono ones are still legit cause nannying does not include benefits.  I am hopeful.  Can't get any worse than waking up in a bed soaked like a sponge of urine infused with vomit and the worst hangover of your life and a stranger in bed and thinking no one will miss me if I were gone!!!(ok I added the stranger for effect but the rest is real)  I really am glad I am being full frontal honest for all my family/world to enjoy...
     So as I embark on this journey to mental stability and happiness, I plan to visit a lot of old memories to help heal those wounds.  I hope to open up forums to discuss mental illness and try to help those who might be in my same situation get help and be healthier.  I hope to "Live my life as an experiment," a quote from The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron, an excellent book given to me by a new and dear friend that I am only on the first chapter and already love.
That's my story...