Facebook Archives: I started Zoloft and So Can You.

This is a Facebook post from April 23, 2019. This was the beginning of my Anti-Depressants journey. I like a lot of what was written here and wanted to save it here for posterity as Facebook slowly smothers the life out of it’s platform. -Damian April 2023

A few months ago I posted on here asking for help with my mental health. I got over 100 responses and… Well. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t read any of it. I was too embarrassed and overwhelmed, but thank you all for your advice.

This is going to sound like I’m bragging or I’m looking for attention, but I just wanted to put this out there for those who struggle in silence, so that those can know they are not alone and if this buffoon here can work to make himself a better person, so can you.

As of Thursday I will be one month alcohol free. I haven’t “quit” drinking, but I’ve taken an extended sabbatical from booze. I gave myself a goal. I can not drink until I lose 25lbs. The first week was ROUGH, but once that detox was finished it has been smooth sailing. Best part, I don’t feel like I have an alcohol addiction. But I had been using alcohol in an unhealthy manner to deal with my temper, depression and really just turn off my fucking brain that never stops going 100 miles an hour. I do feel a lot better without it in my system, but god damn some days I just want that hoppy taste of an IPA in my mouth. Especially since the weather has turned for the better.

I’ve also switched to a mostly vegetarian diet. I’m working on eating about 1500 calories a day. It’s been almost a month and I’ve lost 10lbs already. It would probably be more, but while I don’t feel I’m addicted to alcohol, but sugar and EASTER CANDY are a real struggle to stay away from.

The weather has changed and it’s nice outside and I feel a thousand times better, most days. My temper is more under control and it’s easier to get out of bed, but I have to be careful because some days I feel super manic. And What goes up, most come down. I try to live my life on an even level. It’s hard work to keep yourself at a constant 5 out of 10, but that’s to help the manic fall, or to help keep me a float when I’m drowning, but lately I’ve had many people tell me how much better and happier I have been in these last few weeks.

Today I saw a doctor for the first time in 15 years. Blood pressure was good, and every test she ran looked normal and fairly healthy. Still waiting on that blood work.

We did sit and talk for a while about my mental health situation, which was the main reason for my appointment. As of today I’m going to be taking Zoloft. I always thought I was bigger, better and stronger and I didn’t need drugs. I could fight this on my own, but I can’t. I’m not going to make it without help. Easy words to type out to a computer screen, but hard to say out loud.

Things are okay now that the weather is better, but a few months back I was drowning in my head. My temper was out of control. I was like a live wire or raw nerve, on top of working in a very bad work situation, in a job that already takes a lot out of people.

It’s like being in an older video game, you reach the boss at the end of the level and you hit him over and over and over and then as the bad guys life bar hits a certain level they go berserk and bounce around and are harder to kill. I’m the monster at the end of the level and every day is a struggle to keep that life bar level high enough to not go berserk, to not lose control.

Recently someone I once was friends with killed themselves and that was it. I thought to myself, this is going to be me if I don’t get the help i need. The help I have been asking for. I’m going to die and I don’t want to die. I’m tired of drowning inside my head. I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of every single day being a fucking struggle.

There were only two real moves. Get busy living or get busy dying. So I just took my first hit of generic Zoloft. I have an appointment next week with a social worker who is going to work to find me the right therapist. I’ve been working to right the ship.

And I want to thank all of you who have stood by me or called me out on mys shit. I want to apologize for those who may have been on the receiving end of my temper these last few months. This isn’t going to be a quick and easy fix, and fix is the wrong word. I’m just putting more tools into my toolbox and learning how to use the tools I have.

And for those of you who feel like they are drowning, there are life lines. It’s hard to admit there is a problem, I didn’t want to for so long. It’s a scary thing. But I’m as hardheaded and as stubborn as they come, if I can finally look for help, so can you. There are non-profits that will help. South Logan family practice came highly recommended to me, but I chose to go another avenue.

Again thank you to all of my friends I don’t deserve you guys at all and thank you all for the well wishes. If any of you have any advice on Zoloft, please message me. I’m going to do my research on it as well. I wanted Wellbutrin, but we think the anger/temper competent of my stuff comes from anxiety and a light case of OCD so we’re giving the old Z a college try.

And I love you all, but there is really no need to comment on this. Coming out with shit like this this already overwhelming enough. haha. But again, thank you all. I’m going to turn this off for the rest of the day. Go to the park or something or maybe I’ll just watch THE GOOD PLACE for the hundredth time again.

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Sean and Alee Go All The Way

June 16, 2024 No Comments

In 2023, I was invited to be the officiant of my dear old friends, Sean and Alee’s wedding. It was the invitation of a lifetime and I was honored to be the one to bring their lives together. Sean and I both were tearful in the moment, while Alee was ever the dude who made fun of us for being a “bunch of crybabies.” I share this here today for posterity, misspellings and all. Below is the Officiant’s speech (or whatever it’s called). ***YOU MAY BE SEATED.***** Dearly Beloved We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Sean and Alee! So many of us have traveled great distances to be here for this joyous celebration. There is nowhere else we would rather be than right here right now, celebrating this NEU family. Pun intended. Hold for chuckles. The love in this venue is powerful! Can you feel it? So many friends. family. both old, new and those friendships yet to be discovered. Of course Friendship is the cornerstone of any great relationship and that’s where today’s journey begins. Sean and Alee began their life first as friends. They met at College and became roommates. They lived together in a large house, each working towards their futures. Both of them were unaware that their futures were destined to be together. Sean and Alee would stay friends after college. They would go on to start their individual lives, but they stayed close. They were there for each other through thick and thin, growing slowly towards becoming the best friends they were always meant to be. Weddings are intended to be quiet affairs, but if we might break decorum real quick. Can we get some noise from those of us who knew long before they did that these two both were meant to be together? It was so obvious wasn’t it? Obvious to everyone but them! Every story I’d hear, the nicknames or inside jokes from these two said it all… These two were meant for each other. But isn’t that how the greatest relationships are formed? Time. Growth. Dedication. Love. All those qualities existed long before they found their romance. It was those years of friendship that they built the foundation of this love and their future life. Sean works in Security and in the days before I met alee, I would joke, “I wonder what it would take to get that Top Secret clearance to Sean’s heart?” I stopped joking the moment I met Alee. Immediately, I knew she was the key to his heart. They are each other’s Yin and Yang. They bring each other a sense of Balance. Who else experienced the absolute joy when they revealed that they had finally taken that obvious leap into romance? And it was in those early days of this adventure that Sean and Alee invited my love and I on a double date at the Botanical Gardens. We watched as these two danced around each other. Still so nervous of the relationship that was blossoming. These two had loved each other for so long, but what did it mean now? It was in those tender moments in the gardens.. watching as the two of them held hands.. watching them gently explored what this next chapter of their relationship would become… I knew these two would GO ALL THE WAY. Their love grew to the true place it was always meant to grow. Today we are here in celebration of what they have discovered since that afternoon in the gardens. The love in this room is powerful. Look around the room and You can see the love and joy that these two represent, reflected in each of your faces. Not just our love of Sean and Alee, but the love we have for each other. With this love in our hearts, we are helping to build the bond that will carry these two forward into their futures. That love is worth more than any of the wrapped boxes we brought with us today. Those are the real gifts that we bring to this couple by being here today in this joyous celebration. As we continue this ceremony, think of your love of Sean and Alee. Think of your favorite moments you may have of them and hold that love close in your hearts as we welcome these two to their next chapter and adventures unknown. OFF MIC: Shall we begin? Are you two ready? Marriage is a supreme sharing, perhaps the greatest and most challenging adventure in life. It is the joyful uniting of two individuals whose care and affection and understanding have flowered into a deep and powerful love. Those who take its vows have their lives blended together into one, as the waters of two rivers are joined when they come together to form an even greater one. The bride and groom have prepared their own vows: —- Alee: Do you take this man for your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this & day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live? Sean: Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live? You may kiss the bride! Ladies and Gentlemen.. I present to you… Sean And ALEE NEU!!!

Vintage Film Reviews: A Wrinkle In Time (2018)

March 15, 2024 No Comments

This is a review I wrote about the film, A WRINKLE IN TIME, directed by Ava Duvernay that was posted on Facebook on March 15th, 2018. I wanted to post it here to keep for posterity. Thanks to MoviePass, I went and checked out A Wrinkle In Time tonight at the movies. The books were my favorites as a young boy. I remember actually getting detention in the 7th grade for getting caught reading one of them in Science class, a class I tried to purposely fail for some 7th Grade reason. Watching the movie, I remembered being that awkward shy fat kid who didn’t really have any friends, who was picked on and beat up in school every day. Watching this movie, I remembered that boy and tapped into him and I could see what this movie was reaching for and I think that’s why it held so much over me. I remembered getting the shit kicked out of me for wearing Rustlers or having a lunch box instead of a brown paper bag… I remember what it was like to be an outsider, yearning for something more and I remembered what brought me to those books in the first place. Because of my love of the source material, I didn’t hate the movie. I actually rather enjoyed it for the most part. The end was clunky and I felt like somewhere down the road they took a machete to the source materials and cut massive amounts of the heart and story from the books. I like some of the ideas of what they have left, and some of the new things they made up, but It felt like they cut oh so much meat off the bone that all you were left with was the scraps of a much better meal and I know what that meal tastes like so I can imagine it why I’m eating the scraps of how good it could have been and I think I just answered why I liked it. What I remember from the books, which is a little bit foggy. I own them, but probably have not read the first on in about 8 years… The original novel is about the inter connectivity between ourselves and the universe. How we and the Universe and everything in it are all a part of each other. These children are on a mission to save their missing father and save the universe. The book had a message that was much more about how only the power of LOVE could defeat the darkness that is advancing on our universe. Whereas in the newest film, it’s lessons are to LOVE YOURSELF and find your strength from within to defeat the darkness. I like the idea and I like the lessons of that idea, but by making that the core concept of the film, it took away a lot from other ideas from the book left in the film. So characters like Calvin had much less to do in the new film and much less a role to play in the new story than the old. PLUS WHERE WERE THE BROTHERS? You left in boring old Calvin, but got rid of the brothers?!?!? What the hell. The bad guy at the end of the universe. The darkness coming to over take us all was much more scarier in the book. Oh and Charles Wallace is a psychic child who knows things and is “creepy” and the kid who played him in the film was OKAY, but more annoying and less Creepy. I kept wanting, this character, which is suppose to be one of the most impressive minds in the universe to be a little more otherworldly like he is in the books. I kept thinking I wanted him to be more GAGE from Pet Semetery. haha Also, and why make this extraordinary mind adopted in the film?! In the book he’s the son of two of the most brilliant minds on earth, so it makes sense he’s so…. Otherworldly, but in the book he’s just a psychic adopted kid. But seriously, we felt no menace at the end of the film towards this Ultimate big bad…. So it felt flat. Okay. I’m nitpicking and I’m probably still buzzing off that edible… OH AND WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE CREATURE MRS WHATSIT CHANGED INTO FROM THE CENTAR THAT WAS ON EVERY COVER OF EVERY BOOK THE THE LEAF CREATURE!?!?! What the hell! But still. With all that said, I enjoyed the film. I think it will be great for young children and I really hope it opens them up to the book series. The books gave me strength and hopefully it will continue to do so for generations. Adults who are not fond of the source materials… Stay away. I don’t think there will be much for you here beyond some cool looking popcorn scenes. And the movie right now has an IMDB score of 4.2, but I would give this something like a 6.2. Not horrible and worth to watch on Netflix on a dark and stormy night…. (As I get down here to the end of this I realize I’m probably definitely still buzzing on this edible and probably shouldn’t post this. Did I even say anything worth a damn at all? Oh well. I spent all this time on it, so why let it go to waste.)

Corn Chips & Exit Interviews

February 6, 2024 No Comments

A favorite Facebook post from February 6, 2016: I really wish there were exit interviews for relationships. You start each relationship with a hundred questions, why not end them with a couple? Most end in silence. How great would it be to hear, “There was someone who was just a little better than you,” “I’m not ready for anything too serious,” “That one time you came over to my apartment you smelt like corn chips.” You know, anything to help you be a better partner in the next relationship. I’m going to go take a shower and scrub this handsome body down.