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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Notes on Depression: The Great Fondness of Now

September 16, 2021 No Comments

The Great Fondness of NowBy Damian Burford I’ve had half a pot of coffee and I keep writing way to much nonsense on this here idiot box and then not posting it. I apologize for the humble/brag post, but this is meant to be an inspirational post after this last weekend’s “World Suicide Awareness Day” & Trve Brewing’s event for Brandon Gay, who took his life last year. I was talking to my friend Kelley the other night and she asked me how I was doing, and I told her about the new restaurant and how I wish it was a little busier, but then she looked me dead in my eyes and asked me, “No, HOW ARE YOU DOING?” She made sure to enunciate every single word, so I would know she was serious. She wanted to know how I was doing. Not some bullshit catch up answer. She wanted the honest to goodness truth. I sat there and thought for a moment before answering with a thought that pops into my head late at night when I’m sitting on the balcony, watching the world turn by me. I sit out there and I think to myself: “When I look back on these days I will look back on them with great fondness.” Sounds cold and heartless, but these are my halcyon days. These days are great and amazing and I’m trying my hardest to take the advice that was given to Kurt Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” I feel the happiest, healthiest and best I have ever felt in my entire god damned life of misery. I didn’t know how much of a sad sack piece of shit I had been for years, wallowing in my self-made misery. I look back at these Facebook on this Day posts, and I want to tell that angry, shy, scared little boy that things will be alright. You’re only acting out because you don’t actually understand that you are the architect for your own misery. I spent so much time wanting and needing to be a part of something to be excepted that I didn’t realize I had to work to except myself first. In the immortal words of RuPaul Charles: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? “ I want to tell that stupid little brat of a man, “One day you’ll add those tools to the toolbox you need to not only get by in the world with more ease, but will allow you to share and help others find their ease.” Actually, I think I did this the other night while staring into the mirror after too much nighttime sleep aid. I want to tell that whiny fool, “One day you’ll start working on yourself and you’ll meet the most wonderful and supportive partner who wants to be with you because she sees how hard you work on growing and changing into the best person you can be.” I don’t think that younger boy would have listened. I just have to learn things the hard way, but you don’t have to. The point of this is, If my dumbass can get here, so can you. And If I can get here once, I can get here again. I can do it. You can do it. We can do it. I want to keep ranting and raving and telling you how I did it, but we’re all different beasts. What worked for me, might not work for you, but you have to be open to making yourself a better person. And each and every day I feel like I’m a better person than I was before and I’m just going to keep going in that direction. I get it why people are so annoying when they discovered the Gym, diets, religion, philosophy, crystals, astrology, ect… It’s because it’s a secret Pyramid Scheme. Let me explain, when we start to work on ourselves, when things start to really change for the better… you feel great. But you know what feels even better? What makes that dopamine hit even harder? Is getting other people to join up and feel great as well. You’ve opened their world and you get even more hits of dope. So you become the friend of your group selling lifestyles like it’s Mary Kay. So the point of this is that I I wanted to share a few things that have helped me feel this way. It might not work for you. We’re all super different and have different needs/programming/experiences. I’m not trying to sell you supplements here… *Honesty with yourself. (I’m Damian. I have limitations and I have different strengths and weaknesses. Stop comparing yourself to others. Be you.)*Prozac (I get the shakes and stutters sometimes and terrible leg cramps, but it beats feeling like I’m drowning in my own head.Meditation. (It helps quiet all the damned noise and helps me understand that thoughts are more like annoying little pop ups you get on your phone when you haven’t used an app for a while.)*Empathy. (Maybe if I understand people better, I won’t hate them as much.)*Philosophy (Changes the way you look at the world.)*Reading (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoirs: Changes the way you look at the world.)*Drag Race (helped me understand just how different we all are, and how we’re still so much the same.)*Too much Weed. (Helps me relaxxxxxxxxxxx, man. Helps me open my mind! Helps me sleep! Just helps me not take the world so god damned seriously!)*Writing (It helps me find my true voice and it just feels good.)*Service (Helping people who need help. Or writing self congratulatory Facebook posts and hope people gleam something from them.)*Being true to yourself and just how fucking weird you are and then embrace it, cause the only people worth knowing are the weirdos. This is

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