A few days ago I wrote about how one can make irrational decisions and actions while being affected by depression and there was more to it then just making stupid mistakes. I can say that, in the past few months, I have made some choices that have affected how the rest of my high school experience (and even my life) will play out. It’s gotten to the point that in order to get better, I’m pretty sure I have to stop trying to fix what I have done when I was not in the right mindset and instead… just move on. Actually, I should start completely over, forgetting about the events that have transpired. I’m being held back by hopes that everything can be the way they were when I first started off this year. In the beginning of the year, I was optimistic and naive, hoping that my anxieties would go away or I could work to overcome them. That’s when I had the “bright” idea of going to a doctor who will prescribe me medication. This is the biggest mistake I made this year, because it was the cause. I wasn’t broken and didn’t need medicine to fix me. Instead, the medication made me broken and unstable, brought upon mood swings and depression. The medication has clouded up my rational thinking and I wish now that I could go back and stop me from initially taking them. When I started feeling worse, I was only prescribed more and more because I continued to get worse and worse. It was only until recently did it occur to me that the reason I got worse was because of the dose increases. Sure, it would seem like a poor cop out to blame the events and choices all on the medication, but I’m not only blaming it on the medication. I’m smart enough to understand that I still made the choices despite having a cloudy mind, and to those I may have hurt or abandoned I sincerely apologize and will try my hardest not to continue making stupid mistakes.

To my old friends that I have forsaken, I thought for quite some time about what my next move would be to resolving this issue. I thought of apologizing to everyone about leaving without notice, but I couldn’t. I’m not sorry, because it’s not entirely my fault. That might just be my convoluted and cloudy mind, but there were other factors of which I can’t apologize for. I made the decision to leave and stay by myself, but it was for a good reason. I didn’t trust how I might have acted or what I would have done if I was near the source of my emotional pain. Before, I tried to resolve it but I knew what had happened changed the way everyone looked at me, the awkwardness when I’m near and simply being ignored by a few and no longer being invited to events that I found were once my only excuse of getting out of the house. I was upset when first realizing what isolating myself had done on the opinions my peers had of me, but now I just want to get on with my life. So, I’m starting anew and will hopefully make a new set of friends or I’ll finish my high school year with the few group of people who have been important in this process I have been going through. I’ll have the chance to start completely new when I go to college and am no longer surrounded by those who are aware of the past me, so that way I can truly reinvent myself. For now I will have to settle with reinventing myself in my mind, which I have already.

This isn’t the first time I’ve decided to start new and change who I was. I have on a few occasions before, preventing myself from worrying about the mistakes of the past. The biggest example I can think of is my transition from middle school to high school. In middle school, I faintly remember being more talkative and kind of annoying at times. I stood out, unlike how I do now, but because of that I got bullied. I changed who I was completely to defend myself. Unfortunately, that didn’t have the best results because I’d rather get made fun of and/or beat up then to live feeling invisible. I still find it surprising when someone knows my name. Despite the past negative outcomes of starting fresh had brought, I still want to start new. I can only hope this time won’t have the same result, and I won’t block the past few months from my memory like I have for most of my middle school experience. The blocked memory makes it seem like the me now and in middle school were two entirely different people, but I’m starting to realize I’m just trying to not take responsibility for the mistakes and stupidity of those years. I will try not to forget these past few months and will try to learn from them.

Lastly, this blog has become very personal and maybe not as related to everyone as it was when I initially started it, but honestly I just started writing this so I could write in a “diary” that everybody had access to, because I wanted to be completely open for once. Although, I do like the fact that some of my words can change the way people are feeling and the most important thing right now for me is helping other people. Helping myself comes a close second. So, I will continue writing my heart out about my problems, but I’d like to be able to write about problems and worries that are equally shared or are common or even personal to someone else. In fact, I don’t even care about writing it on the blog. I just want to be able to help people, offering a fresh new perspective on tricky situations, give advice and sharing my personal experiences, and just offer an ear to those who want to get something off their chest. You can trust me, I won’t tell anyone anything if you don’t want to, and I certainly won’t judge. I can’t judge, because I wouldn’t want others to judge me for something I might have opened up about. I wouldn’t want to open up if it was used against me. I’ve actually been dealing with that a bit lately, so I can understand the feeling of betrayal that comes from it. My personal email is trisjimenez@gmail.com. Feel free to ask for a topic for me to write about with my opinion or ask for help on any situation you might be needing help with.

From,

Tristan

Daniel T. Riggs