I’m from Los Angeles, CA, and for most, if not all, of my life, I have struggled with ADD/ADHD. I was prescribed medications from an early age, and as I grew older into my late adolescence, I didn’t want the help of medications. I wanted to embark on the adventures of the disorder on my own. I knew it would be hard, and I gave it a shot. It would not be apparent to me how hard it was to live with until I was 24.
I’ve been in and out of therapy my whole life. Most therapists I saw used the question “why” to retrieve an introspective answer that would spark hope. I would obsessively use “why” thinking, hoping that asking that question would eventually lead to some kind of freedom.
At 24, I thought I had failed at life. What I was dealing with was “failure to launch” syndrome. I didn’t know what to do in my life. I was doing what everyone wanted me to, living in a place of “shoulds” or expectations and being unscrupulously critical of myself. Until then, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I cried to my dad and told him I needed help. My stepmom found a program, and within six-ten months of obsessively using DBT/CBT skills, I found a sense of self-worth and respect. I became a version of myself I didn’t even know I could attain. It was a pretty great year and a half. It was arguably one of the greatest times in my life. I knew what I wanted, and nothing could stop me.
I would obsessively use “why” thinking, hoping that asking that question would eventually lead to some kind of freedom.
I got a job as a tour guide at a movie studio and did it for a little over two years. It was great. For ten months, it was the best job I’d ever had. My dad urged me to get a full-time job. I didn’t see its value or why I would want to do it. Every day, I would look and see about these jobs and/or go home after a day out in the sun and watch Netflix and YouTube. I mostly went home and watched Netflix and YouTube.
After some time, I became complacent with the job with no end of working it in sight. I could see resentment within myself building up. It got to a very dark point where I would say things that would make people not like me as much as I disliked or, more bluntly, hated myself.
Eventually, I left the job and went part-time at my retail job. At this point, I was in a fog and didn’t know what to do. I had turned into a milder version of myself before attending my IOP program. A short time later, I moved across the city to live in an apartment with a roommate. I thought this would be an amazing time because he loved movies, like me!
We were different people from the get-go. This caused me to feel isolated, in a sense. Because my previous resentments were still there, I wasn’t really trying to help myself either. I was living in a miserable cocoon—working and doing stand-up comedy.
After a few years of doing stand-up, I started equating much of my self-worth to doing it. I felt that I had hurt people in my past and deserved to be miserable. My story about stand-up became, “People that do stand-up are miserable. So, to do this, you have to be miserable.”
Stand-up, for me, was about focusing on my pain and anguish. I became absorbed in it. I was in pain and anguish, writing about, communicating, and breathing pain and anguish. It was a never-ending cycle.
Fast forward to 2019, living in this pain and anguish; as I’m writing this, it reminds me of when I first lived alone when I was 19. I was extremely hard on myself at that age because I thought that’s how you needed to parent yourself.
I also started remembering who I was when I left my IOP program, and I longed to be that version of myself again. I longed to know what I wanted in my life. I longed to empathize with people.
In the fall of 2021, I first discovered that I had an eating disorder. I went to therapy for it the first time. The next year would delve into that. About eight months into treatment, I went off my meds because I didn’t feel I needed them. The withdrawals were horrendous, and I was sent to a psych ward.
I did three intense weeks at another ED place, went to a residential program, returned to the psych ward, stayed in a residential center for mental health issues, lived in a sobriety house for two months, and finally ended up at Karis. The last six months (wait, it was two months, Mike. Well… it certainly felt like six.)
So fast forward to Karis, and I’m doing “well,” I guess. I struggle with perfectionism, so if I’m not doing perfect, I’m doing okay. I’m working on giving myself grace, which “Karis” means in Greek.
I just got a job with The Boys and Girls Club and working part-time on the weekends. My goal for the past three years—the one thing I’ve wanted the whole time—has been getting back to where I used to be. I’ve just now realized, along with my therapist’s advice (which has been hard to swallow), that returning to that place will never happen. In fact, I told my therapist today that trying to return to the best version of myself is like getting back with an ex and wanting to relive the relationship’s honeymoon phase. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t do that.
Anyway, life continues…
There are housemates that I’m still getting to know, and I have support once again. Karis has made it easier to ask for help since that’s what all my housemates and I are here to do.
Even though I’ve been here for five months, I feel like it’s been three. The Karis staff are incredible. The Healthy Relationships group has been helpful. For instance, I have learned about advocating for myself, which has been extremely helpful.
So, I guess that’s it. Thanks for reading.
By Mike
Community Member