Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: mental-health

  • We Grew Apart

    We Grew Apart

    In early 2020 I applied for a job as an “appointment specialist” not knowing exactly what that meant, just wanting a job that would provide me with health insurance and a paycheck.

    I was fortunate enough to be granted an interview and I remember wondering how an interview was going to go as I wanted to wear a mask during what was the height of Covid. When I arrived at my interview I remember thinking it was odd because I didn’t see many masks. I asked about that during the interview and the manager, Daren, said they took proper precautions.

    I heard I got the job a few days later and started within two weeks. The first few days were like an intro to the company, everything they could tell us about what they did, how they did it and what was expected of me. I soon found myself working in the call center scheduling appointments for homeowners. I did pretty well and was among the top callers each day. But I was bored. I did give it about 7 months of effort.

    A job with a company my friend owned suddenly opened up and I was set to leave. I put in my two weeks notice and was set. But the company wasn’t done with me yet, the director of call center talked to my manager(heard this all afterwards) and said “How do we keep the good ones”.

    Soon I was contacted by the director of Inside Sales, he said “We think you’d do well in Inside Sales, please consider giving it a chance. SALES?!?! ick. I flat out told the guy “I don’t like lying and don’t think sales is for me”. He said that it’s not about lying and that he thought I would like it. After discussing with my friend I thought, what the hell, let’s give it a month.

    One month went well, It was easy, just making calls talking to customers and getting them to want to buy what we were selling. I soon bought myself 10 or so sales books learning how to sell better and reading as much as I could. Before I knew it, It was December and I had sold over one million in less than a year. And I liked it. I was happy, busy and helping people.

    We started with about 7 people in the department, but as the company grew so did the department and before you knew it we had 20, then 30 and finally about 40 reps in our department. We also had a couple of great department heads that helped us grow, instilled in us pride and the departments’ sales also kept growing.

    I eventually started to take actions to improve the department, helping the directors and manager with little things. One of my colleagues called me the team cheerleader as I was always trying to keep spirits up and encourage those who were struggling. My manager approached me about becoming a team lead around year 4 and it was about a year later that that came to fruition.

    I liked being a lead; helping people, learning more about the business and tracking goals. I listened to my team’s calls, coached them on this or that and was available to help with our boss, who wasn’t available. I liked it quite a lot.

    I saw a lot of changes in the company, a lot of people come and go. I made friendships that will likely last a lifetime. I learned valuable skills in the last six years and will take them with me when I go.

    This year brought more changes, including my decision to step down from the lead position. The company made changes too and continues to grow and adapt to what it’s going to become.

    I had been thinking about leaving for a while, but got serious about it a few months back and started tossing my resume out there to jobs that looked appealing. Soon I had 5 interviews lined up and all of them were jobs I was more than capable of doing. I took evaluations, had virtual interviews, modified my resume and soon I had three offers.

    I took my time deciding which direction to go and thought really hard about leaving before making the ultimate decision. I even considered another position within my current company, but it didn’t seem to be for me.

    It’s been a good six and a half years. I grew along with the company and I guess we grew apart.

    Six and a half years ago, I was just looking for a paycheck and health insurance. I ended up finding a career, making lifelong friends, and learning a few things about myself along the way. Not bad for a job I didn’t even know I wanted.

  • Sometimes Depression Has Me

    Sometimes Depression Has Me

    I have depression. Or sometimes I think depression has me.

    There was a snafu with my medications getting refilled and I’m now on day four of no medications that treat my depression. Boy oh boy a rollercoaster ride for sure.

    The good news is my medications are on their way and I might be what I consider normal within a few days. My doctor for this is, of course, on vacation so another doctor stepped in to help get my stuff filled.

    I can’t sleep, super tired, can’t manage to get to sleep. One of my medications helped me sleep actually and now without it I’m struggling. When you don’t sleep there are direct results that include mind fog, irritability and of course exhaustion.

    Yesterday afterwork I just started crying for no reason, bawling like a baby. Couldn’t stop, nor focus on what was making me cry just was crying. I hate crying.

    I’m also in general irritable, grumpy and sad.

    Looking at it I wasn’t aware that the depression, like alcoholism, still stays where you left it. It is in the same powerful state it was when I started my medication journey some twelve years ago. Without the drugs to keep it at bay it will rear its ugly head and take over my brain.

    My depression comes with dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts and wanting to surrender to whatever it is. It’s very uncomfortable and I don’t like it, but then I start to relate to it and want to get comfortable there. It’s wild. I’m not at my darkest yet, I fear that’s coming.

    I have taken action and reached out not just to my doctors and the medical team that take care of my mental needs but also to friends. I’m trying to stay positive and keep reminding myself that this is temporary, even if it seems like a long time.

    At the suggestion of ChatGPT I texted 988, the depression/suicidal hotline number available to anyone. Chatted with a rep for a good while and found it was beneficial.

    Depression is a trap and it can grow comfortable and make you not want to leave. I have been in much worse spots than this and can get out of this one too. I just need to keep reminding myself it’s just a little longer.

    Today, I will do my best, which includes helping other people in an attempt to stay out of my own head, similar to what I’d do in Alcoholics Anonymous if I were close to a drink. Tomorrow is a new day with new possibilities and hopefully medications.

  • Dead Pets and Doorknobs

    “We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. For them, we hope these pages will provide so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all.” Alcoholics Anonymous, xiii Forward to the First Edition

    The above paragraph was written in 1939. Since that time over 39 other 12 Step Groups (I recall back in the late 90s seeing somewhere that there are well over 200 different 12 step groups, but I can’t find a source that says something different from Wiki) have been formed based on the principles of the original 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (according to Wiki there are and additional 10 groups that only partially base their programs on the 12 steps). According to A.A. estimates from January 1, 2012 there are approximately 2,133,842 members of Alcoholics Anonymous world-wide and 114,070 Groups – I have no estimates for how many people attend 12 Step groups outside of AA. The last sentence of the quote above indeed came true for all these other people and groups with problems outside of alcohol.

    There is a circuit speaker I’ve heard a few times who says “Got a gambling problem? catch alcoholism. Got a drug problem? catch alcoholism” He’s referring to the great success rate of the program of alcoholics anonymous and how we can change the lives of alcoholics for the better. I’ve actually met people in the rooms of AA that state they don’t have a drinking problem but really got better following the directions of AA from our book and 12 Steps – I don’t have a big problem with that, I do when they want to speak at our meetings because I believe only alcoholics should participate in our meetings.

    I was sent to treatment via the court system, I didn’t know what my problem was I just didn’t want to live anymore. A lot of people come into AA that way, the court sentences them to go to a certain amount of meetings and they show up and put their paper to be signed in the basket and typically don’t stick around – it’s rare I see these people still coming to meetings after they’ve done what was ordered of them (I do know a guy that kept getting his paper signed a year or more after he had met his legal obligation, it was a part of his recovery program; like shaking hands or making coffee). At today’s meeting I saw papers to be signed for Crack Addicts, Cocaine Addicts as well as the drinking problem forms.

    Not just alcoholics come to AA, we also get hard drinkers, heavy drinkers “.. though drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time, are able to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been damaged as our were.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 39 come to, and people who might have gotten into a little bit of trouble and looking for a quick way out.

    So these people come to AA meetings and we’ll hear the leader say “the topic is Step 3, but talk about whatever you might need to talk about” and we’ll hear attenders just come “to check in”.

    As a result over the years AA has changed, I think partially due to treatment centers and court systems sending almost everyone to the rooms. This is overall good for the mental health well-being of the nation and or the world – really having group therapy available to anyone in so many parts of the world is amazing.

    This is however, not good for the well-being of A.A. Contrary to popular belief, A.A. is NOT group therapy. It’s not the place you get to come and talk about your dead pets or (as I heard in a meeting today) how your co-worker is not being helpful on a project you share with her.

    At Alcoholics Anonymous we come to talk about our common problem – the spiritual sickness of alcoholism. This is not a drinking problem, it’s a living problem. At A.A. we share a common solution that shows precisely how we have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

    The message of A.A. has been watered down to help everyone that needs help getting over every problem from people who just need somewhere to go talk about their problems, gay people struggling to come to terms with being gay*, people with drug addictions claiming that it’s just dry booze. A few weeks ago at a group conscience that was called to address the lack of focus on recovery at a particular meeting it was argued that the idea of having to work the program was contrary to what AA is all about and they just like to come and talk about how their life is going – that argument got lots of nods and acceptance and I think swayed the vote.

    Alcoholics Anonymous is only 78 years old and the longer we go on the farther and farther from our common solution it seems we go. Bill W. wrote the traditions to … well here’s what our book says on page 561 of the 4th edition:

    “The “12 Traditions” of Alcoholics Anonymous are, we A.A.’s believe, the best answer that our experience has yet given to those ever-urgent questions, “How can A.A. best function?” and, “How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive?”

    And everywhere was have a lack of traditions we have weak, watered-down, just come and talk about whatever you need to talk about – group therapy. I say again, A.A. is not group therapy or bad day meetings or any other kind of meeting – it’s a life solution for people who really need it and I fear the message will not be heard by those who need to hear it most.

    *I call Gay AA Meetings Gay A, they come to talk about how hard their life has been being gay and that the reason they drank they way they did was because they are gay – I drank the way I did because I’m an alcoholic and I drink alcoholicly. (I’ve written about this before here) It should be noted there is a group that semi-basis its program on the 12 steps called Homosexuals Anonymous, who knew.

    **The Title of this blog piece was chosen by Cynthia P, Laura W and Jason S – the story was in my head already, I hope they like what I’ve done here.

  • Addiction

    I spent five hours this afternoon and early evening watching the results of a friend relapsing on prescription drugs – it wasn’t pretty. I was called to his house by his partner and got there as soon as I could. The friend having the relapse looked very little like the person I have known for years, he was pale, shaking, slurring his words, eyes hooded – it was frightening to see him this way. Typical of someone stoned or drunk he wasn’t every helpful when we asked him questions about what he had taken or where he had hidden stash and the more we asked the more the story seemed to change. At one point he got up walked into the kitchen put three pills in his hand and would have taken them if we hadn’t stopped him in time.

    His partner, his friends were all worried about him and worried about his partner too. Addiction is a serious disease that can fuck you up pretty quickly if you don’t have a solution. At the end of the evening we had checked him into the hospital for the night with plans for him entering an evaluation center the next morning. It’s a step in the right direction – maybe.

    I say maybe because it really has to be something he wants to have happen – he has to want to get better, he has to want it more than anything else or at least be able to fake that want until it becomes an honest desire in his own heart. I don’t know of an easy way to get to that place – for me and countless others it was a painful journey to a dark place where we had no hope left at all, no hope of a future a change or a friend. “a self-imposed crisis he couldn’t postpone nor evade” That’s the key really – the way out is hitting the bottom so hard that your soul has the breath knocked out of it. A place so desperate you’ll try anything, anything to get out of it – but the scary part is when you’re down in that hole you sometimes think the way to get out of it is the way you got down there to begin with and you have another drink or another drug or another whatever you happen to be addicted to and you find yourself sinking deeper and deeper into the self pity that feeds on itself.

    I asked him a few times “what are you going to do different this time?” “why will this time matter?” he didn’t have an answer, I don’t have an answer – but I know that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity – so it’s time to go to any lengths now, it’s time to get out of your comfort zone and find someone with a solution that might be able to help you IF you’re willing to listen and IF you’re willing to ACT.

    When I was at meetings in WI we’d ask each week if there was anyone “counting days” or “under thirty days” and the same guy kept raising his hand each week and I just knew he was a lost cause, I knew that he’d never “get it” and get better. But less than a year later that guy quit raising his hand, and he started putting together days of sobriety and soon he had a few weeks and before I knew it he had a few months and today he has a few years. It’s never too late to find the solution, it’s never to late IF you’re willing to go to any lengths to find what many of us have discovered to be a common solution.

    Tonight as I hit the sack I’ll think about all I have to be grateful for, including being there for this friend tonight – it reminded me of who I used to be and how far I’ve come and that if I want to continue on my journey, I need to continue to help other people still struggling to find the path.