Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.
I'm Zachary Phillips.
So,
Over the last few days,
I've been struggling with my mental health.
Feeling quite flat.
Just not in a good way.
I'm not 100% sure of why,
But I have a feeling that it's related to being triggered by my past.
Past trauma,
Past abuse,
Past neglect.
For a collection of reasons.
Repeatedly.
And perhaps I've been exposed to those things for a bit too many times to be able to just sort of ride it out and deal with it in a happy way.
So yesterday into day,
The last few days I've been quite down and struggling.
Now,
It's interesting to look at my mental state in this moment and consider how I'm feeling and what my impulses are.
And the overwhelming impulse that I have is to just knee-breathe myself.
Get high,
Get drunk,
And just get my brain to just disappear for a while.
And up until very recently,
Up until this time,
I have followed that impulse.
I've justified it.
You need it.
You don't want to feel bad.
It's a sort of pseudo-form of self-care in the sense that it stops you doing something worse.
All of these sort of things.
I can see the justifications occurring in my mind.
And staying a step beyond that,
I can see what my future state will be.
I can see the patterns.
I can see the past repeating itself.
Because I know every time that when I'm in this mental state,
If I do knee-breathe myself,
I end up going into a little bit of a manic mental state.
A little bit of a sort of psychosis.
I start thinking kind of crazy.
I will either go down this path of everything is amazing and perfect and I should do all of the things way too high.
As in like a manic high.
Or I'll start feeling quite crazy.
As in like the world's against me.
Or they know.
Or hyper levels of anxiety over things that simply won't happen.
And just sort of going down that mental state thinking process that just is not healthy.
So what I recognised would happen last night is that,
Let's say I came back from work and I decided to knee-breathe myself.
I recognised that it would feel good for half an hour.
But then I'm left in that inebriated state.
And I would hate it.
Why would I hate it?
I would hate it because I've hated it every other time.
It feels good for a little bit and then it feels way worse.
And then I would recognise that in that way worse state,
I would probably message people or talk to people and say or do things that I later regret.
So recognising all of that,
I made the choice not to inebriate myself.
But then I'm left with the idea of sitting in that pain.
Sitting with that depressed down flat mental state.
Just feeling it.
So it's a pretty crap choice.
However,
I can also sit with the idea of recognising that it will pass,
That it's not permanent.
So that's good.
I can find that small one percent that looks at those symptoms and sees that I'm over here and there,
Over there.
That's good.
I can use that same detached perspective to recognise the good in my life.
My family,
My kids,
The things that are going well.
So that's good.
The point is that it's finding that sort of balance between the pain that I'm feeling and the actions that I can take.
I can take good actions.
I could and I did put myself to bed early.
I did self-care.
I'm going to continue to do that self-care.
And I can sit with the idea or the feeling of being proud that I made a better choice.
That better choice,
You know,
Quote unquote,
Hurts more in the short term.
But,
Over the long term,
It will be a better choice to make.
So with that in mind,
I can't help but suggest that,
I don't know,
I think the meditation's working.
I think that the detached observation of my thinking processes is helping me to see them in real time and giving me a little bit of a better choice to make,
Better choices.
I could have chosen to inebriate myself,
But then I would have went down the same path as inebriation always takes me.
And that's not a fun path.
It's not good.
It feels good in the moment,
But it costs more later on.
And I'm not convinced that,
You know,
Taking away my future,
Joy and happiness,
Taking more of that away than it gives me in the moment is worth it.
It seems like a very silly idea,
But it's just been so hard to detach and recognize and see that process in myself.
Monfulness does help.
And I also sort of further recognize the potential sort of causes of that.
The role models in my life,
Male role models in my life,
All of them were addicts of some description,
Drugs,
Alcohol,
All of that sort of stuff growing up.
So I recognize that that's in me in the sense that when I see them using those coping strategies,
I'm more inclined or predestined or there's a lot more weight on that side of the scale.
And perhaps now that I can see that I can make better choices.
So I'll just suggest that if you're struggling,
It's okay to struggle.
It's okay to feel a little bit of pain.
It's going to hurt.
It's going to suck.
But is inebriating yourself the best choice?
What has it caused you to do in the past?
Does it feel good after the fact?
Does it feel good during even?
Do you feel regret?
Perhaps you could take some steps to make better choices moving forward.
Perhaps you could see with a detached perspective where it's leading you and where it has led you.
That's what I'm going for.
That's where I'm moving towards.
And I just,
I don't know.
We'll see where it goes.
Anyway,
Have a great one.
