Please continue to keep sharing this website with your friends and family and help me share this story with people that could benefit from knowing they aren’t alone. Please consider helping aclottedjourney.com also, see below for details on that! Enjoy Part 19 of my story, Hormone Circus!

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for all of your support!

There are certain things in this world that are just so hard to come to terms with. Honestly admitting that you are having a hard time being strong is one of the most difficult things that I have encountered thus far in life. Coming to terms with the fact that you may not be as strong as how you’ve hyped yourself up to be to the world is very difficult. The funny thing about this scenario in my eyes, is that we are far from alone when feeling not good enough. Not feeling good enough seems to be almost as common as breathing within this world, so I have discovered.

We are thrust into a world of stress the instant we take that ride from the womb. Breathing is stress on the human body and it is just the first introduction that we have into the madness to come. The more that a person knows and understands, adds more and more depth to the complexity of emotion. Emotions drive stress, even happy ones. It is something that I think of often, life is hard. Living is harder. But that is the journey that makes this life worth it, knowing that it is difficult and still deciding to do it.

Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway… Stupidity is the same. And that’s why life is so hard.

Jeremy Goldberg

So here I am at this portion of my journey, waiting to see my doctor in his office at the clinic. I’ve never been more nervous in my life to be honest with you all. I sat in my usual place that the nurse leaves me in after checking my vitals before the appointment. The only difference between this appointment and all of my other appointments in the past was a long questionnaire about how my mental state was. Although this was similar to the questionnaires that I was acquainted to before with my pre-death counseling after my blood cancer diagnosis, it was still a shock to me. I don’t know why it was a shock, I requested the appointment, but it still hit me in a different way. Questions that come to mind were ones like, “In the past several weeks have you felt zero to little happiness/fulfillment in your day?” Or “Have you had a difficult time performing your normal tasks at work with your anxious feelings?”. Lots of those types of questions. This portion of my journey I am extremely proud about because of the opportunity it presented for me to learn more about mental health and make it less of a taboo subject in my brain. I find myself in a very fortunate and humbling place to be able to tell the tale and share my experiences with mental health. I find myself in a very fortunate and humbling place to be able to try and spread this word through my writing about the importance of making this stigma that should have never existed go away.

My doctor came in and asked how I was doing that day, of course my “Alex response” was “Living the dream”! That was the epiphany moment for me, covering up that deep sadness in my skull to the highly educated doctor sitting in front of me. I broke down after that. With every question that he asked me, he could see the building tear pool behind the dam that was my ego and pride. Throughout his thorough investigation, he uncovered my anxiety that I had been holding on to. He uncovered the anxiety that had been destroying my world every single day. He uncovered the depression that had flooded my way of life. He uncovered the Alex that I had to work on now. But this time, I had the brain of one of the doctors that has rooted for me for the majority of my story at this clinic. I trusted this doctor, and I definitely confided in him the most that I ever had in my life at this appointment.

He told me that what I was feeling is normal even for high functioning people within society. My anxiety caused me to be in this vicious circle of repeat that was never good for my vivacious attitude towards life. My depression came in waves. These waves were coming in a tsunami levels for a while at this point in life. The vicious circles mixed with the tsunami depression cycles, was enough to seek medical attention. I have never known of how many people in my life suffer from things like this until I was put on this new medication that he told me was an option for me.

The doctor gave me two drugs for the temporary, I assured him. He gave me one that he warned was highly addictive but would take care of the intense moments of anxiousness. I think I can almost write an entire post about this drug someday. I would say that I liked it, but to be honest with you it just takes the person out of the soul. The first time I tried it which was later that same day, I just remember feeling like I had receded into a blank canvas. Numb was all I felt, anxiety had never been invented in the space I was inhabiting. I can understand why it is so addictive, sometimes feeling nothing sounds more appealing than feeling the drowning of the world. It is important though that, one, I don’t like the feeling of not being in control. And two, I had an excellent medical team that only allowed enough medication to get me through the worst of the anxiety. These meds have there place, but I was determined not to need anymore of these. I wanted to remember and feel awake.

The second medication was one that truly didn’t have an effect on me at all for nearly a month. This one was supposed to encourage my brain to take in all of the happy hormones and keep them as long as possible, an anti depressant. How these drugs work are truly something else, and if you don’t know how they work please search on YouTube some of the science behind the drugs. “Wow”, is all that you will be able to say. Since this pill that I took once a day along with my Eliquis (which I take twice a day), took so long to take effect within my body I will leave you at this point until next time. I spent that next month thinking that I was even more hopeless than before that appointment. Were these medications not able to help me? Was I an exception to medical thoughts on being “happy”? I had hoped not and I can’t wait to tell you more.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

I hope no one will read this and think any differently of me someday. I love you all so very much and I hope to keep making a difference for as long as I can on this earth.

Until next time… Peace, love, all the above! Your clotted friend,

Alex

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for all of your support!

Please consider helping A Clotted Journey keep moving forward!

I have loved writing on here so much that I can foresee myself doing this for a long time, I hope you will all continue to support me and help me spread my message! You can do this by first, subscribing below and to all of the social media accounts for brand new content right away. And then second, if you can, help the website in other ways! If you choose to donate to the page, I will donate a portion of the contribution (you tell me how much you’d like to be donated or I will just do 50%) to the American Society of Hematology and the remainder I will put towards helping the website. I have many plans coming up for aclottedjourney.com and I need your help to keep spreading my story and expanding the type of content I can bring to you. If you want to see if I need anything specific the link to my WISH LIST is here. Click HERE to make a difference!