Tonight’s update music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrERtikdPus Tonight’s reflection: Angelica reminded me today that I was her pledge class namesake, and it helped me remember a time when I was volunteering with college students, advising them on community service functions, teaching them leadership skills, and generally helping others. This fits directly in to the topic I was thinking about last night, where I was helping others in an attempt to distract myself from my own downfalls. I developed some great friendships while performing that work. I was able to help a lot of students that I had direct contact with and could notice their anxiety or depression, or any myriad of other issues that they needed to be called out on so that they could know that they are not alone in this world. I know I’ve helped so many people, but I wonder what those relationships would have developed in to if I weren’t suffering in my own ways. One thing I can say is that it hurts whenever I think about someone that I used to talk to every single day and that I mentored so that they could rise above their own issues, and then they found happiness in other ways and they completely left me behind. There isn’t a single friend of mine that I don’t wish happiness and good health to, but I would love to be a part of that happiness after I’ve spent countless hours helping them to achieve it. So that everyone understands, there is NOT one specific person I am talking about. Tonight’s lesson: A former psychiatrist that I visited explained to me that mental illness is an interesting area of medicine, because you can take two children starting out on level playing fields and they will grow up tremendously different based on a single disturbance in their life if that event is never resolved. There is a great diagram to go along with it that I could draw and attach, but I don’t think it’s necessary to kill the Doogie Howser music in order to attach something that is pretty easily conveyed with words. Of course, mental health issues can also be genetic. I wonder how many of my relationships in general would be different if I had addressed my issues earlier in life. Tonight’s update: The first night taking a sedative antidepressant left me in bed until 4:00 PM, and I went to bed before midnight only taking half of a dose. I’ve felt groggy all day even though I took a shower to wake up and started out my day with a Dr. Pepper. While I don’t really love coffee, it may be time that I start that bad habit. I haven’t felt suicidal or depressed for the most part; I’ve just felt like a zombie. The doctor told me that my body should adjust to this feeling within a few days. I’m telling myself that chances are good I’ll still be sleeping in a few days if I take another dose. My mind only went dark one time today, almost resulting in tears. Generally speaking, I’ve just been too tired to have emotion today. I guess it’s a welcome break at this point. It has been decided that my bomb school training for next week will be rescheduled for November. While I have no doubt that I could have made it through training, I would rather do it when I can enjoy blowing stuff up in the middle of a New Mexico desert. Right now, it’s time to take care of me.