25 year retrospective

By the way, if you want any respect from me at all, for goodness sake, read the entry before this one. You don’t have to like it, and I’m more likely to gain more respect for you if you’re honest about how you feel about it. Tell me it’s crap; that’s fine, just read it.
If you hadn’t noticed, it’s my party and I’ll be an asshole if I want to.

Twenty-five years ago today, at four-thirty in the afternoon, April 10th, I was born in a hospital by the beach here in my home town.
The first fifteen years of my life consisted of a multicultural upbringing, my father being Italian, my mother Filipino, in a young western country; the nation of Australia being a mere 150 or so years old. I was raised as a christian in a western styled pentecostal charismatic church and was heavily involved as a musician and youth leader.

At fifteen I began to show the first signs of dysthymia. Some of its root causes included, but were not restricted to; inconsistencies in experiences in church, pressures to perform at a peak level in regards to music, both formerly under tutelage involving formal music examination programs, and also in my involvement musically at church, and a sense of futility academically in an education that was too easy, unchallenging, immature and lacking in sufficient real dynamic intellectual stimulus. There were other causes which shall remain untold unless under the strictest of personal intimacies; for the moment, you will have to accept that these were some of the major contributors to my depression.

At the beginning of my final year in high-school and before my eighteenth birthday, I had the first of my psychotic fits which most likely shifted my direct diagnosis to more than the text-book definition of dysthymia; forgive me for not being able to analyse it accurately – at that point, I hardly cared. As the mental illness took its toll on my physical health, I became both physically and mentally unfit for school and exited on medical grounds. This was also the final contact I had with the church, and I no longer associate with any religious body of any description, with no desire to do so in the future.

From eighteen to twenty I experienced what has been thus far the two most difficult years of my life, much of which has been barred from my memory, and of those memories that have been successfully written to the brain, there are no words to express the horror and trauma of that time. In the midst of that time, and as a crucial part of my ongoing recovery process, I began working in a retail traineeship. In the years that followed, I studied for one year to successfully acquire a Certificate IV in Music Industry: Technical Production (Audio Engineering), and went on to work through two jobs, the second of which I am currently in now. I began one long-term relationship with a young woman roughly at the same time that I became ill which went for five years, and a second which went for two years, ending roughly ten or so months ago.

What is life like now that I’m twenty-five?
Right now, this is my reflection on life:
I’m more proud of myself than I’ve ever been.
I have achieved more in the last seven years which includes the terrible ones, than I ever did in the first eighteen.
The rate at which I’ve grown, matured, and travelled through intellectual ground has compounded in the last seven years in comparison to the first eighteen.
I am the most comfortable in my person, who I choose to be and the decisions I make on a daily basis than I ever have before.
I have become more isolated than I ever have before with the exception of when I was most ill and was totally cut-off, even from those immediately around me from whom I was cut-off by psychological barriers.
After a brief period of forbearance and several successful attempts to integrate into large social groups, being around many people has begun to have a detrimental effect on my health, and so I have stopped attending large social events, and have ceased such activities as Swing dancing.
I am beginning to examine, deal with and make plans for the fact that dysthymia may very well be something that will be with me for the rest of my life.
I am extremely confronted and often afraid of losing my grasp on reality as has once happened before in my history, and not being able to recover from it, and hence have begun to regularly put into practice processes, actions and exercises in an attempt to stave off any further mental decline.
Given the stresses I have been subject to over the last eight years, besides my trepidation at many of the symptoms of dysthymia still existing often on a daily basis in my life, I’m still proud of what I assume is a fairly solid grasp on reality, my ability to express it and share it, and my on-going travels in which I remain congruent and aware of my surroundings and reality.

I am feeling in me, more and more, a growing sense of desperation to share intimately the horrors of my past, and my daily struggles today, with at least one person with whom I can fully trust, and who can be supportive to me in the face of this illness. It is a demanding role and I can ask none of it. Nevertheless, as per the piece of fiction I wrote as a gift to myself, I want to deeply love, and be deeply loved, known, cherished and supported before I either lose my grasp on reality or die. I don’t know what kind of gifts depression and trauma make, but I’ve learnt a lot from them, I have developed my sense of communication and agility of thought because of them, and my sense of intimacy and affection have matured as I continue to learn from, and struggle with this illness. I want to release it without hesitation, to reveal all of my feelings of hope, despair, memories of anguish and trauma, feelings of affection and love to someone who wants to understand it, who matches my intensity, and who has equally as many things to say – perhaps not about experiences that mirror my own – indeed not, but at least as much to say about their own observations in life, their hopes and fears, expressions of intimacy and on-going inspirations brought about by the all-encompassing beauty of life.

The possibility of this not being possible on my journey is daunting, but at the same time I would be foolish to diminish the possibilities of life to these narrow ideals that I think I need, and know I want. Whatever happens, for so long as I’m able to take it in, understand it and have a rational experience of it, I’m truly grateful.

Perhaps not so many of you have ever been very close to losing the ability to be rational; it’s something that almost everyone takes for granted, and even if they don’t, their encounters with the idea are often academic or romantic musings over a reality that most likely will not ever be one they will have to face. Ignorance truly is bliss, I just wish that more people simply acknowledged that they’ve never had to have challenges to that degree in their life, and then simply acknowledged that life is much more of a gift than they might think when things don’t exactly go their way.

Make no mistake; life is a gift. It was proven to me in the most absolute way possible.
Squander it at your own risk.

What do I celebrate today? Nothing that I don’t celebrate every other day of my life. I celebrate my spiritual and mental achievements, I celebrate my sense of self and acceptance of beautiful imperfection, I celebrate the never-ending journey of experience, dynamic learning and living, and I celebrate my struggles.

I celebrate how much I love life, even when I feel that my grasp on it is as tenuous as the thinnest of threads. For as long as I’m aware of myself and my life, I will celebrate it and be thankful.

I heartily encourage you to do the same, be it your birthday or not.