Walk with me for a moment

a few weeks ago in a post i had written that the holiday season is notoriously tough for those with mental illness. i think i had bitten off more than i could chew coming into this holiday week. i was quite confident last week, full of happiness, and positive energy. my therapist and i were talking about how working on small tasks even though depression tries to get us not to can help us accomplish tougher tasks. i thought i was ready for one of those tougher tasks.

in 2020 i started vaping. the reason for picking it up makes sense to me, and i'm not ashamed that i picked up this habit. it was the middle of lockdown, my ex was battling cancer, and a surprise jaw infection had nearly killed them a few weeks earlier. we scrambled to find somewhere that could give them the antibiotics they needed, and were so lucky to find a place that littler saved their life. and so on top of all of this, i was in therapy and on medication. my therapist was homophobic, but i was too beat down to speak up. my psychiatrist was as helpful as they could be. on top of all of this, the neighbor above us liked to take women home and beat them, nearly every night. we knew what was going on, we weren't stupid. no one would do anything about it, no matter how many times we called the cops no one would listen.

i started to question if the things i was experiencing were real. was this all a bad dream? would i just wake up at my mom's house and it would all be okay? sometimes i really hoped that was the answer, but nothing was helping. i knew one thing, i came from a family of alcoholics, and reaching for the bottle would do no good. nothing good would come from that. so i reached for nicotine, even though i watched my grandmother die from lung cancer when i was 15 from a lifelong smoking habit. there was nothing else left to help me, no resource that i could get my brain to think about to reach out to. i was at the end of the line, and something had to give. so one night, on my way to work at the webhost. i stopped at a gas station and picked up a vape. i sat outside work in the parking lot and inhaled. the battery was charged, i coughed my ass off cause vapes kind of burn when you aren't used to them. i took another inhale. it happened, for 15 minutes, the world was okay. i felt alright. i looked forward to work, i was at peace. i wasn't worried. it is about as simple as that, it gave me 15 minutes of peace every so often, that medication, my therapist, nor my partner could give me.

four years later i've kept the habit. my partner left me, i have a different much nicer therapist, the guy that once lived above me in that apartment building finally got jail time for what he did. but i still vape. it doesn't give me those 15 minutes any more. it is just something i do. i tried quitting for the first time yesterday. it started well, but i stumbled. my mind began racing as i entered withdraw. my heart was racing like a panic attack, and my anxiety medication couldn't help me. so i dug through my trash like an animal to find a half used old tank of juice for my vape. and i inhaled, and i cried. because i failed myself. i let myself down. no one suffers for this but myself

maybe this is too much to ask of myself to do right now. it has been quite the end of the year. i'm not exactly mentally strong. resilient yes, but perhaps not ready to face a demon like a nicotine dependency. maybe this is something i can visit when i am stronger, and better off over all. still, i'm a little mad i couldn't do it. i really wanted it to work