About Alex
When trying to explain my moods to a friend of mine last year, I couldn’t quite articulate what it felt like in my head. He called it “bad brain weather.” That was so blatantly accurate that it was like the wind was knocked out of me.
Beginning at age 12 in the early 90s and starting middle school, and fell into a 3-year long deep depression that accompanied disciplinary issues at school, acting out and rebelling, exploring my sexuality, trouble learning, sleep problems, and a fascination with all things related to death. Not death specifically, but sadness, simply put, I guess you could say. I wasn’t suicidal and didn’t have any kind of ideation, but the darkness was there. That’s the only way I know how to explain it.
At the time, I didn’t know that what I was living through were symptoms of mental illness. My family thought it was a phase (which later made my first psychologist angry because “phases” don’t last for 3 years). When I left elementary school, my 5th Grade teacher warned my mother that something like this would happen, she could see the signs. What she recognized at age 11, I don’t know.
I was reckless and didn’t really have a sense of safety within my own head. AOL was a popular thing back then, and I spent so much time in the AOL chat rooms. There was a chat room for everything. I met and became involved with so many strangers, one of them even became a true stalker, and I look back and think… What was I even thinking? I’m fairly certain that most of those people were pedophiles or some other type of predator. I put myself in so many odd and potentially dangerous situations, that I don’t know how things even turned out as well as they have for me all of these years later.
By the time I started high school, I hadn’t had a deep depressive episode since I was 15. In my Junior year of high school at age 17, I had an art teacher with who I had such a special connection that I can’t describe. Yes, I realize that sounds a bit creepy, but it wasn’t like that at all. We had very similar personalities, and when I would turn in my sketchbook on Fridays, he always understood what I had created, almost as if he could read my mind. During a parent-teacher conference, he told my mother that he saw the Sensory-Processing Sensitivity trait in me, otherwise known as SPS, which he also struggled with.
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When I started college at 19, I sought help on my own after having my first “real” meltdown, and I was diagnosed with Bipolar II, OCD, and ADD. At 21, I had another breakdown that did end up leading to suicidal ideation. At 23, I was also diagnosed with PTSD after having worked at an animal control facility for a long time. All of these things kept building and building and building.
My severe depressive episode that led to that breakdown at 21 lasted about 2 years on and off, overall. I had tried so many medications by them, just about everyone on the market with a few exceptions, and none of them worked until a mood stabilizer was added to it. Until then, I could barely function, really. I’m not sure how I made it through college like that.
The really touching thing for me in retrospect was what helped pull me out of it. I discovered Justin Furstenfeld. One particular night, the suicidal ideation turned into something more concerning. I was doing something on my laptop, I can’t remember what (probably on LiveJournal. God, I miss LiveJournal), and I found an old interview that Justin Furstenfeld gave regarding his lifelong struggle with Bipolar I and substance abuse, and how that was all deeply rooted in his music.
That night, I listened to all of his albums back to back non-stop, from The Answers to Foiled. Justin Furstenfeld, quite literally, saved my life. I told him that during a Meet & Greet in 2012, and he teared up and hugged me from across the table.
2 weeks later, a girl messaged me on Facebook. I’m not sure how she found me other than possibly seeing my name on the VIP tag that I was wearing.
I was the girl standing behind you in line and I remember that in that second it was as if everything stopped around you and Justin was giving you his full attention. He was very genuine (as were you) and I was happy to appreciate the moment between the two of you albeit as an observer. Hope your paths cross again and if not, know that what this outsider observed was mutual appreciation, support, and understanding and those are key elements to overcoming battles like this. Keep on keepin’ on, Girl. :)
I cried that night, printed out the message, and saved it in my sketchbook. That was almost 9 years ago now. It’s truly fascinating how, 6 albums since I discovered him, listening to each album in sequence tells a story, his own life’s story, and it’s so bittersweet and heart-warming to see how hard he’s worked on bettering himself, on finding healthier ways to live with your mental illness(s), coming to terms with the fact that these things are with you for life but has grown and flourished, and understood that it doesn’t need to be an omnipresent thing in your life. It may be a cloud over your head at times, but it takes hard work to realize that it doesn’t always need to rain.
