Praktikos
They certainly don't make it easy to get help when you're in psychiatric distress, and this is coming from a privileged white man. Back in Baltimore now and trying to get an appointment. I called a psych testing center my wife recommended and the automated voice message told me I need to fax over a referral from my doctor in order to schedule an appointment. I haven't even seen, let alone used, a fax machine in decades. Why not just have me fucking send my DSM-V diagnosis over to them in smoke signals? Have a carrier pigeon fly a piece of paper that says I'm fucking nuts over to the hospital.
The good news is I made it back to the US successfully. Did not lose my shit at the hotel again or at Montego Bay Airport. Did not get arrested or 5150'd or put on the No-Fly List. So now I need to just keep my shit together long enough to get professional help. Easier said than done maybe.
So: what to do in the interim. I keep thinking that ascetism will fix me or at least fix some of me. Addition by subtraction. Sometimes it's easy to think that porn is the problem, or social media is the problem, or booze is the problem, or cannabis is the problem. While I think all of these are contributing factors, I also think there's a fallacy in the way I might centralize these things as the main issue or catalyst for my mental illness as opposed to these things being symptoms or coping mechanisms, or compounding but adjacent problems. In other words, I can so often start thinking that if I just stop looking at porn my anxiety will go away. If I just stop looking at social media, I'll be whole again. It's a nice thought, which is probably why I cling to it. Wouldn't it be easier if I didn't have a chronic disability.
I don't think these aforementioned things are the fundamental problem, but they certainly don't help. Compulsive use of social media, porn, and substances has never helped ameliorate anyone's mental anguish.
My shit comes in cycles. I had a nervous breakdown a few days ago, now I'll pivot towards ascetism and severe self-discipline until I probably get tired of this and go on some sort of substance-filled binge again or have another breakdown. The middle path is really the objective, but that shit's not easy for someone like me. Especially because I enjoy the extremes. Having a nervous breakdown is scary, but it's also thrilling. Better than the mundanity of quotidian life. Better than the day-to-day madness of capitalism. At least give your life some drama, you know.
While I know that giving up porn or booze or weed or social media is not a panacea for my mental illness, I also don't think it hurts to get your shit together a bit. It's all cumulative. It's all holistic. Even writing the shit out makes me feel a bit better because at least I can name it, at least I can exercise some agency over my wayward brain by writing about what I'm going through.
If I can't get into a clinic or psych center for an evaluation, I might need to just pull up to the ER. Sit there until I'm admitted. That's what one of my wife's friends suggested.
In the meantime, I'll try my best to be a desert monk. Ok fine: at least I'll try giving up porn and social media (specifically Instagram) and see if that helps at all. I think I'm going to need a bit of weed and booze ("a bit" being the operative word here) to get through this life.