Finding My Euphoria – Introduction

I have been searching for something for so long. This is an answer and a solution. But also, I have been searching for a remedy. I have been looking for a response to an otherwise sense of being.
I want something “more.”
I want something better.
I want to feel . . .
This is more than a great escape, by the way. This is more than a feeling of momentary bliss or an answer to an unbalanced life or imperfect chemistry.
I mention both the imbalance and imperfection of our chemistry with a great purpose. However, as a person who identifies with different challenges that range from depression to anxiety, I realize that I am no different nor am I as challenged as certain diagnosis or professional labels have led me to believe.

Like you or like anyone else, I want to feel good. I want to feel high or elated. I want to be able to enjoy the moment and not fear the ending of something perfect or beautiful.
I want to experience joy. I want to feel the inertia of excitement. When this takes off or when the moment is at its height or pinnacle, I want to be able to place these moments where they belong. Also, I want to do this without worry or the fear that nothing this good can ever take place again.

I want to experience the truth of something so perfect, like love, or the gesture of love, and I want to believe in this wholeheartedly, instead of believing that someday, this is all going to backfire on me.
And this is why people keep running.

For example, I recall a time when I was young and I had to hold the flashlight for my Father, The Old Man, as he worked on the oil burner to heat the house.
I’m not sure why or what The Old Man was doing, but I remember him using a hammer and a chisel to break something away. I remember holding the light and watching him bash down with the hammer. Each swing was hit with an intent to break or peel away a metal object from the face of the burner.
I also remember The Old Man missed the chisel a few times. He bashed the hammer across the top of his hand to the point where he was bleeding.
I watched this, wishing that he would stop, but The Old Man kept swinging. Finally, he broke through and he stopped swinging the hammer.
I asked him if he was okay. I asked him why didn’t he stop.
It looked like this hurt him.
“Why didn’t you stop,” I asked.
The Old Man told me, “it’s because it starts to hurt once you stop.”
I see this as a helpful analogy when it comes to real life. No one wants to feel the pain or the sting of truth. So, we run and we run and we look to escape the pain.
However, there comes a point where there’s nowhere left to run or hide. Hence, pain is inevitable.

Embrace the pain and heal or hide and run.
But either way, this is part of life and as we all know, there is no way to avoid real life or real pain.

My pain is my truth. Therefore, I am here to address this before losing more or losing more of what I value most (namely you).

I know that the mind is full of tricks. Some of these tricks lead us to the deception of our perception. Some of the tricks can allow us to compartmentalize a time, or a place, a person, or a thing that leaves us otherwise breathless or overjoyed.
We all have both good and troubled memories.
The question is which memories do we feed or keep alive.
The good ones?
Or do we preserve that bad ones so we don’t forget?
The problem I see is we create a bias and suspect that all will be as it was and that the past will boldly and inevitably repeat itself.
This isn’t enjoying life. This isn’t experiencing the highs of a good time.
No, this is how we keep ourselves sick.

I want to define this thing we call euphoria. I want to find out how this works.
I want to know how this triggers the receptors in our mind. More than anything, I want to learn and understand how to differentiate thoughts which can either serve me well, or betray me, and leave me devastated.

There is the idea of being high. And sure, I know what it means to be high.
I know what it means to smoke something and find myself in a different state of mind. I know what drugs do.  Better yet, I also know what drugs can and cannot do.
I know what drugs do not do at all, which is important.

I understand that drugs, like pills, or a drink, or how an administered powder can alter our perception or remove us from the heaviness of life as it happens. However, I also attest to the short-lived and diminishing returns that come with quick and temporary fixes.

I admit that my use of chemicals or the use of drugs I chose was a means to cheat or find an edge. I admit to this because I thought that I could never reach a certain high or find a sense of true elation, at least not on my own.
I can relate to the saying “Too good to be true,” and believing that everything is automatically going to fall apart.
I admit to the flaws or to the imbalances in my chemistry. More to my point, I remember hearing a line from an old friend. By the way, I have heard this line since I was a young boy. However, there are times when our ears are able to hear and there are times when our mind is ready to listen.

The line is simple, yet riddled with stigmas. However, the line is both poignant and true.
I was told that “depression is not a problem with our personality. This is a problem with our chemistry.” Like you or like anyone else in this world, I want to feel good too. At the same time, I believed too deeply in my limitations over my ability to surpass them.

I want to hear someone love me and not fear that this is only momentary or that none of this is true. I want say goodbye to someone I love or hear the words, “I’ll talk to you later,” and not fear the repercussions that I am alone. I want to say goodnight to someone and not believe that otherwise, I will always be alone—no matter what and no matter what anyone tells me, love is as fleeting as a quick flash from an unexpected comet that brightens the sky.

I want to be fine to stand on my own and live in my own skin and not find myself worrying about the emotional or the fictional reflection, which I see in the so-called imaginative mirrors. Thus, I call this insecurity or in other words, I call this me.

I understand the need to find my way out of this world. I know why I chose to be high or to feel numb, and in the perfection of weightless happenstance, or to be disconnected, as if to be detached from life, or protected in the form of some lofty cocoon, I was fine to be absent.
I was fine to be mentally elsewhere—despite the consequences or the short-lived benefits of something synthetic or something manmade, I was fine to surrender to a powder or pill. I was fine to find something I could use, albeit briefly, but by any means, I was fine to use what I could to create a false perception of temporary bliss.

I have heard the saying, “No matter where you go, there you are.”
And I agree. No matter how we try to escape or how we try to outrun ourselves, there is no escape from who we are.
There is no getting away from what we want or where we want to be. And worse, there is no hiding from the truth or the facts of when we trade ourselves for a lower value or settle for something less than what we want.

We cannot settle for less.
If I am what you want or if you are what I want, no one else will fit in the mix of this or “us.”
Sometimes, there really is no substitute and settling only leads to unlived aroma of an unwanted life.

This journal is important to me. But I must confess that, of course, this is all subjective. However, this is all written with the intent of proving that while there are chemical solutions, there are other joys that are natural to our better health and there are remedies that come without side-effects. Sometimes, this is as true as following our hearts.

Either way, the mind is our master control station. I am not writing this as a mental health professional. No, this is not my goal nor am I pretending to be anyone other than who I am.
I admit that some of the details and the upcoming stories may be intense to some people or horrific and unfortunate to others.
I would like to offer the idea that there is a relatable notion at the core of us. And this is where I’d like to begin.

I am not writing this to brag nor is this a means to receive a pat on the back or to serve as an acknowledgement for any of my right or wrongdoings.

I am more interested in normalizing and humanizing the ideas that there are times and people (like me for example) who look to feel better, but they can’t — and there are people who use certain avenues or remedies to feel better, even if their remedy makes them feel worse in the end. Either way, we are all searching for a remedy to feel better.
I know I am.

It has been brought to my attention that many of my actions are in response to both past traumas and unresolved tensions. And I agree. I have this the same as most people have trauma in their life or an unresolved history that causes them to move down an unfortunate path. I admit to my projections, which have caused me to self-destruct or led me to unhelpful patterns of self-fulfilled prophecies.
By the way, I am sure that I am not alone with this.

I want to go over the best highs of my life and by doing this, I will expose my deepest lows. I will uncover the belief system that caused me to react systemically. Further, I will talk about the actions that led me to a historic response and resulted in unwanted outcomes.

I want to be high too. I want to feel good. I want to be able to function and not worry or feel that I am somehow too flawed to be wanted or too imperfect to find my way to an improved level of awareness.

I want to find my euphoria and make this everlasting.
This is not to say that life will always be like Shangri La or that life will not find us with bouts of hardship or sadness.
Life will always be life. At the same time, I understand the need to keep myself beyond the regular plateau. I understand the need to keep from feeling below the surface. I want to find the need to deviate from the assumption that I can never feel good on my own. At the same time, I want to arrive safely at the awareness that I have always had everything I needed to feel good on my own, and that I am good enough. Of course, I want to learn and realize that, by all means, I am enough (for you).
I want to know that I have always been “enough” which is a lie that we learned or picked up along the way.

I need to remove my worries of trust in other people, or the belief that even the so-called “good ones” can or will let you down. I want to unhinge myself and disconnect from the belief that rapture and joy are only temporary.

I don’t want to assume that all people, including the most important ones, or the ones who I love the most can and will leave me, or that despite the displays of kindness, I want to remove the fears that people will only love you until they really get to know you.
And after that, they either split or regret the day they chose you.

I want to improve my mindset. I want to believe that I am enough. More than anything, I want to experience pure joy and the elation of love.
I want to be mindful of my assumptions about the worst case scenarios and learn how to redirect my thinking. I want to transition my thinking to believe that the best is not only yet to come, but happiness is a guarantee.

Sure, bad things happen.
But good things happen more often.
The problem or the challenge we have is our perception and our viewpoint allows us to see more of the harm than the good.

I once heard someone say, the bad outweighs the good.
And this is true.
But only if we allow ourselves to have this mindset, otherwise, we go back to the lie that good things are only temporary.

That’s not true though.
Love is real. Happiness is real.
But I agree.
We have to weave through our trauma and remove the addiction we have to our past disturbances.
We can’t live in the past or talk about this every minute of the day.

Nothing heals the heart like laughter.
I know this is true.
At the same time, nothing hurts the heart more than living in problems instead of working for the solution.

I’ve lived “in” my problems long enough.
This journal is about finding solutions.
One day at a time.  
From now until the end
or until death do us part.

(Amen)

Welcome to my journal . . .
Finding My Euphoria