Me: Newer Outlook

Some people wait until the start of the new year to make some changes to their lives. I'm going to try to start now.

A while back, I battled with what I thought was anxiety. I would get so tense about things that I would give myself headaches. Driving was miserable because I would stay so wound up during the drive that by the time I got to my destination, my back was sore, my head throbbing, and it just made for a general bad time. My disposition was less than sunny and I began to feel myself sliding into a place that I didn't want to be: despair. As I got more stressed out, I began to break out and sleep worse and take a general disinterest in things.

So I was proactive. I sought out my doctor who placed me on Prozac. I took it for three months, but I stopped right before I started summer camps. During the summer, I learned that I didn't need the medication because the simple playful surroundings were more than enough to keep my mind from ruminating on the unpleasantries of the rat race.

But no sooner than I get back out of the doldrums of medicine did the neck tension and irritability begin to creep back. I began to get intensely frustrated with the strange position I've put myself into. I want to be a proud gay man but I haven't built my safety net as such. As a consequence, I'm having to hold back the very fundamental and human desires that everyone else around me can flaunt. If there's any testament to it, it's my classmates: now about 8 of them are currently engaged!

Though my skin is clearer (thanks Proactive!) and my physique more substantial (I'm "working out" when I can,) I've found that there's a small piece missing from the puzzle. Nah, I don't think of myself as a medically bound individual; rather a socially bound intellectual that will only be free when he frees himself from the constraints he places on himself...but that's not to say that SSRI's don't have a place in treatment...(hee! that's the psychiatrist in me talking.)

Methinks I won't be free until I get out of Texas and move on with my life and 2006 is coming up fast...