Relevance evolves, it doesn’t get established and then left unchallenged. Even the stalwarts evolve a little over time. It’s impossible not to. So why does mental illness lead to the pursuit of exactly the opposite of that? I have shed many tears over not being able to put everything back the way it was. That was after all how one fixes something, by putting it back together. I could fix this, I just needed some time. It was all in my head anyway. It’s hard to explain the feeling of humiliation that came with finally admitting I needed help. It’s not that I thought less of someone with a mental illness, rather I developed this idea that I should have been able to deal with my own myself. I should have been strong enough to not need help. Even worse I was afraid of the system. I saw what it did to people complaining of the things I was going through. You have to be careful what you divulge to whom lest it lead to later consequences.

No matter how much I loathe myself I’m still in this situation. I remember looking at myself in the bathroom mirror one night a couple years ago and I started crying because I was disappointed and disgusted with who I had become. I went back to the couch and told my wife I didn’t want to look at myself anymore. I didn’t know what else to do but cry because I was me. I didn’t want to be me anymore. Humiliated and ashamed. I saw a weak failure in the mirror who was once again crying like a little bitch, just like he used to hiding in the truck at work between calls. Fuckin’ pussy that stopped going to work because of his feelings. He just couldn’t hack it. Loser. Coward. Freak. Piece of shit. Crazy. Pathetic. Worthless alcoholic. Disappointment. Embarrassment to the uniform.

A few days before christmas in 2016 I was on a VSA at the end of the shift. A contractor had died while working in the basement of a gutted house. He was in the back corner of the basement, large fellow, and there was a 30″ or so drop from one level of the floor to the one he was on, no stairs. It would have been an extremely difficult extrication from a cramped hot space. I found myself hoping he would stay dead, and I was relieved when the pronouncement was obtained. We wouldn’t have to carry him out, and I could get home sooner and drink.

What kind of paramedic thinks like that? That simple but profound moment brought about a new low. I was picking fights with the drunks. I would storm into potentially dangerous calls ahead of the police. I held contempt for the ‘minor’ grievances of the average caller. Now I didn’t even care about life.

About 3 months later I would find myself in a motel room with a suicidal retired firefighter. He didn’t have a plan. He was an alcoholic and had alienated his wife and adult kids with his drinking and depression. For some reason I sat down on the bed with him while he cried, listening to his story. It stirred something in me that I thought long dead. The police showed up, and they ended up transporting. I hugged him before he left, something I would never normally do with a patient but I knew deep down that was what he needed most. My partner thought it weird that I did, letting me know afterword that she wouldn’t have. Over the next two months the thought that that was my future ate away at me. When the panic attacks began quite a few of them were over fearing I was going to turn into that firefighter, drinking alone, crying and wishing I was dead in some shitty motel room.

I do my best not to talk to myself poorly anymore. I have an injury and it’s not due to weakness or failure. I take medication, not “crazy pills”. Needing help with mental health problems and addiction is not pathetic. Coping with anxiety is not cowardice. I am deserving of my own forgiveness. I am worth giving love and valuable enough to be loved. I am not a worthless drunk. Anxiety does not make me a freak. Depression does not make me useless. Just stand back up and keep trying. They all deserve that from me.