Waking up from a three-year nightmare

I thought I would dust off this blog and finally share my story of the last three years. I am certainly not the best writer in the world, but I decided it was finally time to air this all out and post a link to this on my facebook to some of my friends who I may have lost contact with or generally have been distant with for the past three years. I know a couple of you are well aware of my situation and have been very supportive, but I have not told a lot of people due to being embarrassed about it. So here we go..

I am 30 years old and grew up in the Bible belt. I was enrolled in private Christian schools and always went to church. I pretty much know the Bible in and out, but I've always known I was attracted to men and didn't really feel any attraction to women. So yeah pretty much years of denial, hating myself, and feeling guilty. I grew up a homophobe in a homophobic household.

Three years ago, I was back in College after working in the real world for a few years and getting no where. I was happy to be back in college, made new friends and my life seemed to be on the right track, but I was still not comfortable with who I was even though I had already fooled around with a guy a couple times at this point. I was a year away from graduating when things started to turn sour. I got sick with a bad sinus infection and started to have debilitating dizzy spells. After several doctor visits and being unable to make it to classes I eventually had to drop out of that semester and since I was unable to work I moved in with my sister and continued to see doctors. After many different doctors and tests it was determined that I had nasty allergies and was put on a corticosteroid named Verimist. I took it for weeks and started the allergy shots but I was still miserable and felt weak. Then it happened...out of the blue my heart started racing, I had a sudden unbridled fear filling up my whole body and my breathing became shallow. I felt like I was dying. I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but I was not dying....I just had my first panic attack and unfortunately for me it was the first of many.

Over the next few months I sank into a deep depression while still taking the corticosteroid prescribed to me. I had numerous panic attacks over those few months and every day I woke up in fear of another attack. I was miserable and unable to go out...I became a recluse. One of my biggest anxieties was having an attack in public or while driving my car. I had tried to go see a therapist over my new condition but I could not sit in the waiting room or even wait in the car even though the clinic was right down the road. I became agoraphobic.

One day I noticed part of my forearm and part of my right foot had a strange tint of blue to it. It frightened me because it looked like I seriously bruised myself even though there was no sign of soreness and I definitely didn't remember injuring myself since most of my days were spent laying in bed feeling miserable unable to go out and do anything. I decided to stop taking all of my medicines. At that time I was on a low dose of Xanax (that did nothing), an antihistamine, and that corticostoroid Verimist. Within days the panic attacks stopped. I now believe that somehow the Verimist was the cause panic attacks and my skin turning blue (it cleared up afterwards as well)

A few weeks later I decided to move back home with my parents since my sister was adopting kids and I did not want to be in the way. With the panic attacks gone I was feeling a little better, but I still had a lot of residual leftover depression and anxiety. Since I still feared (and still do) of having another attack I sank deeper in my anxiety, depression, and agoraphobia. Almost two years passed. Two years without being able to venture into the outside world out of anxiety. Two years of being unable to work and feeling generally worthless due to my condition. I lost touch with many friends in that time mainly because I was too embarrassed to explain to them why I could not come visit them or go out with them. It was after two years that I hit the bottom. My anxiety peaked one week and I developed a bladder issue. I was so nervous and anxious that I made my bladder go into overdrive. I was deathly afraid that I had kidney stones. I was rushed to the hospital via ambulance again...it had been two years since I left the confines of my house. The shitty doctor shrugged me off gave me antibiotics for my bladder and I went home. I was a nervous wreck on the way back, but it felt good to be out riding in a car for a change.

It was a few days after that I finally had had enough. I had lost everything..my job..school...friends..a normal life. Having nothing left to lose I came out to my parents, family and remaining friends. I was always terrified of coming out to my parents since they were so conservative and I needed them especially now since I relied on them for food and shelter. My family and friends took it well but of course some of them had issues with it, but seem to be over it now. I immediately started to feel better about myself after getting over the initial shock of taking that major step and thankfully it was the first step of many. Within a few days I stepped outside and went to see a doctor to finally get on medication for my growing anxiety and agoraphobia. It was grueling but I stuck through it. The anxiety and irrational fear gripped at me tightly but I had nothing left to lose. I was determined to claw my way back out of the pit I had fallen in.

The doctor was compassionate and caring about my situation and put me on a medication (paxil) that worked well for me. For the first time in almost 3 years of dealing with this nightmare I had a glimmer of happiness. I could envision a possibility of being happy and healthy again. Within a month of being on the new medication I had energy back and the anxiety was starting to melt away. Within this time I met someone (online of course) and hit things off immediately, but I was still hesitant about explaining my situation with him. I was slowly starting to get out more, not far but it was progress and I decided to explain my situation to him. To my amazement he didn't care and has been a great shoulder of strength in the last few months. So here I am now, not 100% well but slowly taking my steps to being happy and somewhat normal again. I have lost everything, but I believe this trial was put before me to only make me stronger. I have let out all my demons, came out to my family and I have someone who deeply cares for me and wants me to get well. Every day I venture out a little more slowly desensitizing my brain into not reacting the way it has these past 3 years and I am starting therapy soon. It has been a long nightmare from which I thought I would never wake, but I think I have seen the light at the end of the dark tunnel and I am slowly trudging toward it now step by step.

I don't even know...what I'm doing here.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this. I thought that it might be a good idea to start a journal to sort of air out the past three years. I hate writing...I mean I have no problem with typing but my handwriting is horrible so I decided to start this blog and sort of air out my thoughts on the internet...yeah it's kinda lame and I'll most likely get bored with it soon enough...sort attention span and all. This will also sort of act like a dream journal as well. Since my dreams have been mostly hilarious as of late I want to write them all down and share with whomever might actually read this.