Depression and Drugs

"Once you replace your negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

-Willie Nelson

Have you ever felt like your life was on repeat? The same boring shit keeps happening and it just feels like you aren't really progressing? Well if you've ever stopped for even a second and thought about this, thats the first step in fixing the problem.. Acknowledging you have a one.

Now I'm about to get real dark for a minute and tell you about my depression and what I did when I realized I had a problem. So back when I first started attending UF is when I noticed something was not right. I was so focused on getting everything I needed to get done for school that I didn't take a moment to think about how I was actually feeling about my life. I started noticing something was wrong with myself when crying every night would become a routine for me instead of sleeping. I'm talking like I wasn't sleeping for like 48 hours at a time because my mind refused to let me sleep no matter how much I wanted to. Talk about insomnia.. I was living a freaking nightmare! But there were periods before then that this happened so I didn't really think too much of it at first. It was normal for me. It was when I went nights with out sleeping and in the morning did not have the energy or even feel the need to get out of bed and started missing classes so much that I actually realized I had a problem. When I started to notice my grades were dropping and the crying would not stop I decided to schedule an triage appointment with a psychologist who I just wanted to prescribe me some sleep medication, but thats not really how it went down.

I walked into the the counseling center for my very first mental health check so freaking scared that I was shaking and kept running to the bathroom to make sure I wasn't going to pee myself. This was the first time I was actually reaching out for help and was super out of my element, so of course I was scared. When the psychologist called me back she asked me to follow her down this hallway with a thousand doors that just made me even more anxious until finally we stepped into her office and she invited me to sit. As soon as I sat down and she closed the door behind me, I burst out in tears. Literally just started crying and could not say a thing when she asked me what was wrong. And for about 20 minutes I just sat in this strangers office and cried without saying a thing as this lady just watched me. When I finally calmed down I told her what my name was and told her "I don't really know why I'm here." She asked me a series of questions but the only thing I could answer to any of them was "I don't know." I mean I had never done that before and really didn't know exactly why I was there, just knew my sleep was off and it was interfering with my academics. After attempting to get information out of me she said "You know what? I just want you to come back next week." LOL I was a mess. I went back and after a few visits and opening up to her about my deepest, darkest thoughts she referred me to a psychiatrist who would later diagnose me and prescribe the highest dosage of antidepressant and anxiety medication. I continued going back to see the psychologist to cry and let out all the feels to someone who would listen and took the medication for a while. I realized that the chemical changes the medication was doing to my brain was making me feel better but I did not feel like myself anymore. So I began to research other ways people with severe depression and anxiety would deal with their mental illness. This led me to research done on the curative powers of psychedelic drugs.

Now before all of this went down I was one of those people who was hella against illicit drugs. Like so against it that when friends would offer them I would totally judge them and think it was stupid. However, after researching a lotttttttt about depression patients who would do shrooms.. I decided to give it a chance to see if it would "fix," me. MANNNN... shit changed my thinking completely. Now listen I am by NO means telling you guys to go out there and try this because everyone is different. I'm just being very specific to what worked for me because there is no way to dance around such a huge topic without explaining what it was that did it for me. Anyways.. yeah I tried it. Against all my beliefs, against all my doubts, against everything I thought was "right," because the routine I had was just not cutting it. I went out on a limb and did it because I knew something had to change if i was ever going to feel better. Really all this did for me though is change the way I was looking at my life. See when you have depression you only think about all the negative aspects of your life. You think all the bad shit that happened in your life that led you to this point and just can't let it go. You just feel bad for yourself and feel like theres no possible way to look at your life any other way. But while tripping, my mind shifted.

I remember looking around an apartment full of friends with good music playing and thinking to myself "damn, so this is my life." As this thought ran through my head, more and more thoughts about my life shifted from "shit is bad," to "holy crap, look at all that I accomplished," "this is MY apartment," "Wow I have amazing friends," and "woah, this is the music I listen to everyday. It makes me feel soooooo good." And as these thoughts ran through my head.. life gave me hope. After that doors to a new perspective on my life opened and when I started reflecting on all these wonderful things life had blessed me with I began feeling grateful. Point of all this is not to encourage you to do drugs. I AM NOT ENCOURAGING THE USE OF ILLICIT DRUGS. Instead I encourage you all to go against your beliefs when you feel like you've reached a dead end in life. I encourage you to step out of your day to day routine and give things a chance. Who knows, something you do might just change your whole life. Point of all this is if you're willing to take a risk and ask for help and are willing to step out of your comfort zone.. things really can change.

So heres what I want you to take away from this in bullet points for those of you who didn't want to read everything I wrote in this long post:

• Take a risk! You're never going to progress if you're not willing to take risks. (P.S. this relates back to my last post on being vulnerable so go read that too)
• Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Odds are you'll surprise yourself with what you're capable of when you step out of routine.
• Change your mindset. Look at all the bad things and find the good. 

Now I know this post was long but I really hope that those of you who did read through the whole thing feel some type of way after reading it. Idc if it was the depression that got to you or the drugs but I really hope you guys take something away from reading this. Life has its bad moments, but that doesn't mean we can't change those to be positive experiences that we can learn and grow from.

peace and love,

Jaz