A Queer in Recovery: Worthy of Mental Health

I can remember the very last day I felt OK in my own skin, free from self-judgment and not burdened by the fear of what others thought of me. I was age 11, and I lived in a small town in the middle of California’s coastline. If I’m honest, I was crushing it at life. I had few but true friends; I was devoted to tap dance, and I was exuding confidence. I even recall for fifth grade graduation, picking out an outfit that closest resembled what Cher from Clueless would have worn, and I strutted down that grassy catwalk as though I were on the runway at Paris Fashion Week.

Shortly thereafter, my parents moved my big brother and myself to this whitewashed suburb called Highlands Ranch, where the houses were tall; the movies at Blockbuster would all be rented before a big snowstorm, and I lost every ounce of self-confidence I had possessed. Hiding my puberty-ridden body in baggy jeans and loose flannels, I had to quickly choose between being sporty or alternative, and so the latter I became. Before emo was cool, I was surrounding my eyes with the blackest black eyeliner that would inevitably become streaks down my face as crying fits and daily panic attacks became my new normal. I had lost my childhood in an instant, and there was no going back.

Issues with mental health can be a tricky space to navigate, especially during adolescence, and especially in the 90s. The stigmas surrounding depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder were unavoidable and made it impossible for me to express what I was going through and even more impossible for my parents to hear me. Distorted body image and disordered eating behavior went under the radar, and the need to escape became greater with each passing, agonizing day. It wasn’t until I started to self-medicate with cannabis and alcohol at age 15 that I finally found something that made the tears stop flowing, for but a brief moment in time.

The first time I considered taking my own life, I was age 16.

The highs and lows of life felt insurmountable, and no one understood what I was going through. I changed schools; I partied on the weekends, and I didn’t have any real friends. I barely scraped by with a C average in high school and quickly left upper-middle-class, white suburbia, but even changing my location didn’t prove the cure to my ailments. I was given the diagnosis of depression, borderline personality disorder, and narcolepsy all by the age of 19, and was put on my first cocktail of medications. 

Nothing worked to numb the pain quite as well as alcohol, though, and I found myself as a daily drinker and off all meds by the age of 21. After a terrifying night involving a fist fight in the parking lot of my regular bar and a drive home that should have landed me in jail, I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with my tail between my legs and a feeling of hopelessness. 

While I again felt like that awkward preteen sitting in those first meetings, I also found a place that accepted my failure and helped me rewrite my story as strength. I met some amazing people; I felt more and more OK with each day passing, but there was still something not right in me. I didn’t quite relate to the stories I heard in meetings; my life hadn’t become unmanageable, and I hadn’t lost everything. I was just young and lonely, I told myself; I didn’t truly believe I was an alcoholic. At age 24, I started drinking again, and by age 25 I was, again, a daily drinker. However, this time, I had an excuse. I was coming out to myself.

One of the benefits of alcohol is a lowering of inhibitions, and for someone who felt like an outsider with social anxiety, an “other,” alcohol worked really well. This time, though, I needed to lower my inhibitions so I could get out of my own way and ask the difficult question: was I queer? For the entirety of my 25th year, I drank every night and start Googling. I watched queer TV shows; I listened to podcasts hosted by queer people, and I researched coming-out stories. I needed alcohol to remove self-judgment, relinquish myself from guilt, and become OK with a part of myself I had repressed my entire life.

My coming out story is a bit of a mess, involving alcohol, my first same-gender sexual experience, and a DUI, but I thank alcohol in many ways for being the conduit to my queer proclamation. I drank in rare instances after that event, I met my first queer love, we married, and we relocated to Denver. I hadn’t felt the need to seek the assistance of medication until after my divorce finalized seven months after we said, “I do.” I felt like a failure, I felt unlovable, and I felt as depressed as I had as a young person.

The second time I considered taking my own life, I was age 28. 

As I learned, antidepressants now cause in me an increase in suicidal thinking, and while I wasn’t a happy person, I knew these foreign thoughts of self-harm were not my own. I immediately stopped the medication, took myself to a safe place, and after a short while, my life was back on track. Over the course of the next four years, I teetered in and out of sobriety, and I remained steadfast in keeping my distance from medication. I knew it worked for some folks, but it just didn’t seem to work for me, and I wasn’t willing to risk a bad experience again like I did when I was 28. 

The third time I considered taking my own life, I was age 34. 

My drinking had skyrocketed to not just daily, but all day, every day. I was hopeless, yet again, felt like a failure, yet again, and I had everything to lose and no willpower to stop it from happening. By the grace of a power greater than me and with the help of a family intervention, I was finally ready to admit I was an alcoholic and went to inpatient treatment. It was in that place that I became honest about everything, found the benefit of trauma therapy, and stabilized with medication. Since leaving treatment, I have been diagnosed as bipolar II and have been working closely with a psychiatrist who listens and understands, takes my addiction seriously, and has “zero tolerance for side effects.” 

While my recovery isn’t easy, and my journey with medications hasn’t been perfect, I now understand that I have a disease of the mind, and all of these pieces either work for me, or against me. The one thing that is the common thread is they are deeply rooted and are revealed in my mental health. It may have been changing schools at age 11; it may have been teenage angst at age 16; it may have been my divorce at age 28; and it may have been the large amounts of alcohol I was consuming at age 34. Or, my problems at all of those stages of my life may have been a symptom of a greater issue of mental health issues that went severely un/misdiagnosed. 

We are complex beings, and adaptation and resilience is a strength that is within each and every individual. It’s work, more days than not, existing in this world; however, combining the perfect cocktail of physical wellness, mental health, and substance use (or abstinence) can make us better humans. 

For me, I can now embrace that I am imperfect, and I often make mistakes, but I am learning through friends and family members who love me, the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and therapy in tandem with medication, that I am worth the work. My hope for you is that you, too, know you’re worthy of a beautiful life and that you feel empowered enough to seek the help you need and do the hard work that will save and give you back your life.  

-An anonymous queer in recovery

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