Nathaniel R.

I used to wonder if my story was compelling enough, if my problems were big enough to share. If I have money, a job, a relationship, and I'm not living paycheck to paycheck, what right do I have to complain? Yet I was depressed, anxious, hopeless at times. I turned to alcohol, my long time companion. What was fun and rebellious in high school was just a way to numb my feelings in my 30s. Beautiful summer day? Have a drink. Long day at work? Bored? Family stress? Have a drink. Like a fish in the ocean who doesn't know what water is, everyone around me seemed to turn to the same thing for answers, without question. The truth is I was ignoring my problems, not solving a thing. Was I an alcoholic? Probably. I never went to rehab. I never went to meetings. I never told myself I was.

My mother wasn't supportive of me choosing to spend the rest of my life with my partner. Crushed, I drank too much and got a hangover. Something snapped in me and I decided to quit drinking. I decided that I wanted to decide how I felt about my life. Not let others dictate how I should feel. That's when I was forced to confront how deep the avoidance of my problems had been.

48 hours after being self-separated from my favorite coping mechanism I fell asleep and had a seizure for the first time. My parter was the witness next to me. I had no family history. Doctors had no answer.

A week later same thing. Right after a fell asleep on the couch I had a seizure. While my partner, the witness again, was deciding if I should go to the hospital, I dozed off. Another seizure. I woke up to my living room full of first responders.

I was put on an anti-seizure medication that meant I couldn't have alcohol at all. In Massachusetts you can't drive until you are free from seizures for 6 months. After a lot of therapy and tests and neurology appointments, I am only certain of a few things. There was no apparent medical cause for my seizures. I have been sober and seizure free for over 4 years.

I now believe that avoiding my problems and self-medicating just allowed my demons to stack up. At some point they weren't going to fit in my closet anymore.

And so I'm here now, staring my negative emotions in the face, without blinking. They aren't so bad. They aren't fun, but ignoring them and turning away...is literally no longer an option.