My name is Joshua Adam Jones, I go by Josh.  Joshing is joking and having fun, Jonesing is having a fixation or being addicted.  My nickname growing up was Juice.  I am a bipolar addict, and always have been for as long as I can remember back to my early adolescent years. But now my north star flashes the message of getting it all out, processing my being and past, killing the disorder I’ve held inside and wouldn’t face for so long.  For 30 years.  Time to face the facts, to reflect and inflect.

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I will start with why, as that’s the most important question in life.  A simple one, but one we are often scared to ask, even more frightened to answer truthfully and fully, and one that can hold us back in so many ways if left unanswered.

 

Why do all of this, what is this, and what’s the point? The answer here comes in two parts.  First, for myself, the why is to ensure that I step out of my lifelong shadow and put my process to grow and change out in the open.  No more hiding.

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Secondarily, but perhaps primarily in the grand scheme of things, I am hopeful when I answer this question with the perspective of others in mind, something positive and meaningful blooms, a lesson that can be learned and its applicability spread to help someone else. We all struggle the same, all of our pain is maximum to ourselves.

The story of me and my mental health journey is one that I want to use as a way to highlight one of the biggest challenges we have as a society. Mental health is a black hole, which can swallow up bright stars without flinching, engulfing everything until there is nothing but darkness. Mental health issues may feel inescapable and inevitable, but that is not the case. The greatest threats will always come from within, and the greatest victories will take all of us, working together. The toughest roads are not walked alone.

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This story comes with insights, connections and parallels, extraordinary timing from my life to external events and relationships that are beyond coincidental and in a manner that I couldn’t make up in a lifetime if I had to - which leads me to conclude the story is of purpose and value, that all this didn’t happen by chance. The only way I will continue to have regret, is if I don’t speak up, I don’t share, I don’t seize the moment where I can help myself and more importantly, someone else with my story. I will only be ashamed if I keep it to myself in the same way I have kept so many other secrets and lies over the years. I am also grateful for the destruction that put me here, in this moment. It was a small price to pay for what I see so clearly now.

 

Beyond being a bipolar high-functioning addict with a compulsive, addictive personality (all of which are nothing unique or special), stumbling through reality with a cloud and headwinds that only I created, one that nearly killed me, who and what else am I?

 

Very simply, I am not unique or special, but I am me and I am not one thing or place, and tomorrow I will be something different than I was today or yesterday.  I am happy to be alive, very thankful.  I have a lot of ups and downs and back arounds.  I am a 42-year-old married white man (he, him, his) living in a regular home, working a regular job, albeit a pretty well-compensated and meaningful one, and I come from a very regular upbringing that provided more than everything I would ever need. I am 5’6”, shrinking vertically and growing horizontally every day.  I am a creative, free-spirited and analytical engineer, I work in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.  Today, I am by all measures upper middle class, barely as I almost changed that too, but I didn’t grow up that way. I grew up in Hampton, VA which is in southeastern Virginia near Virginia Beach and Williamsburg, part of the Hampton Roads or Tidewater area on the Chesapeake Bay.  The 757, Hampton and Newport ‘Bad’ News.  A very diverse area, one that produced Mike Vick the prodigious quarterback and dog-fighter, the mercurial Allen Iverson who made the persona of today’s NBA baller, and countless other athletes: Lawrence Taylor, Bruce Smith, Tyrod Taylor, Aaron Brooks, David Macklin, Dre’ Bly, Plaxico Burress, Mike Tomlin, Pernell “SweatPea” Whitaker, Alonzo Mourning, BJ Upton, LaShawn Merritt, Gabby Douglas,  it’s an endless list. And not just athletes are known to be from or call Tidewater home, Larry Sabato, Missy Elliott, Pharrell Williams, Perry Ellis, Pat Robertson, again the list is expansive. Tidewater is a large military area where nearly every branch of the armed forces there (NASA, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, National Guard, Naval Shipbuilding, etc.).  

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My mom was a single mother, surely she had me far too young while still in high school, but was able to manage things very well, with some tremendous resiliency and of course crucial help and belief. She deserves a tremendous amount of credit, that is an understatement. I was born at home, a midnight miracle or nightmare that became reality, whichever you want to call it. A surprise that appeared under a waxing gibbous moon – for nobody even knew my mother was pregnant at the time of my birth. I first lived with my grandmother until the third grade, then my godparents after that and by the time I was in 6th or 7th grade my mom had a place of her own for us, again with a tremendous amount of help, luck and determination, focus to get there. My godparents saved me from even greater disaster.  I was an only child, my mom was also an only child, and her father died when she was a teenager. My grandmother is Japanese and came to the US after meeting my grandfather who was serving overseas in the Air Force.  In my family we never talked about the things we should have.  My mom, just as I am today, was fortunate to have a successful job, with some timely help, and worked at NASA as a wind tunnel technician for 30 years. My father, that is a complicated chapter of its own, but this one is about me.

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I grew up with the confidence that I could do or be anything, yet at the same time knew I was destined for tragedy and failure.  I can’t explain it any better than that.  Growing up I played sports, lots of soccer, tennis, ping pong, basketball and then football and golf.  When I was not with my sports teammates, I was alone. In that time, I loved to draw and paint, write and create. I got into and generally caused trouble a lot, wiggled my way out of trouble even more and school was always easy for me. I wanted to test the system, show how clever I could be.  I hate running but finished two marathons, slowly, and am running one now that I may not see the finish line of.  I always had something to prove, felt there was somewhere else to be, and was always searching for the edge. Find the limits to either look over the edge and recoil or just jump right into a new world.  Most of my teen years I was a punk, very rebellious and experimented with and then deeply studied drugs and alcohol from the time I was 13. I lost a few close friends to drugs and escapes.  I worked on a fishing boat, I mowed lawns, I barcoded books for the school system, had a bunch of odd jobs growing up and enjoyed the outside, the ocean and physical labor. I’ve always loved math and science, from the perspective of certainty and explanation. I wish I appreciated psychology and that emotional intelligence, mental health were part of my curriculum instead of wood shop and home economics.  I always made straight As, even when I was super stoned.  I went away to college and majored in chemical engineering and also was a kicker on the football team (as a clipboard-toting backup only), worked in a research lab and I attended two colleges – Penn State my first year, and then the University of Virginia for the next three until I got my BS (and I got plenty of BS, loads). I have worked in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry for the last 21 years in engineering and operations - manufacturing and quality for a few really great companies and on some of the biggest products of our generation. I lived in Boston/Rhode Island (2 years), Pennsylvania outside of Philly (3 years), southern California (6 years) and Puerto Rico (multiple stints, 12 years). We live in Puerto Rico currently but are on the move back to Boston. I met the love of my life in college and we were married soon after, we have no kids. I say that thankfully, relieved and tragically disappointed all at the same time.  We have adopted 3 dogs and 2 cats over the years, we have 1 of each currently.  Luna Mar our current dog has surely saved my life.  Jimmy our cat, not so much.  My wife is beautiful in every light and from every angle, inside and out.  She is beyond beautiful and more than enough, more than spectacular, she is committed, bright, smart, warm, and so many other things (confident she is not, but she should be).  She is the most loyal, caring and supportive angel I have ever met. She is my rock and savior.  I don’t know how I still get to say she is my wife (but I have always been beyond lucky). 

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My favorite color is blue, the variations of blue from Carolina blue, so light and vibrant as the sky, to deep blue almost black, dark and deep.  Looking out at the hues of the Caribbean waters and sky, that is truly my favorite color or spectrum – all those mesmerizing shades of blue and what they represent.  I have struggled with depression, escape, running away, chasing, loneliness and internalization, compulsion, addiction for my entire life. I know that I have always been unequivocally bipolar, except that I might say I am really more tripolar.  Internally I bounce between high highs and low lows, but externally I’m usually right in the middle.  I am an addict of all things, from the harmless to the fatal, from making candles out of wine bottles, to all forms of gambling and to see how quickly or how long it takes to fully lose everything.  I have thought of ending my life countless times, always had a dark mental gravitational pull.  I have come close but cowardly I thought for so long in the sense that I never executed.  Outwardly you would never know any of this, I’m highly functional and extraverted, everyone’s friend with a great sense of humor, so smart, clever, able to relate to everyone and bring people together.  I have also tried every way to see how dark things could be for myself, how deep the hole truly is, all with a smile on my face.

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I want everyone around me to feel good, to be cared for, to be provided for and included.  Most people would say there is zero chance any of this stuff is real. But every bit of my story is real, like it or not. That is a big part of the significance, or at least I believe it to be. 

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I love to cook and eat, I am a stress / anxiety eater and I love to eat just about anything, at room temp not too hot or cold which is a bit ironic.  I love wine (and rum) and weed, I hate beer, I love the process behind their creation just as much as the satisfaction of the product.  And music, its power is undeniable, and music has been a part of me through it all, more than I knew, and now the divine medicine of music is a key part of my therapy and journey.  I am truly grateful for what the Avett Brothers music has done for me. Just as you can imagine, my taste in music is a bipolar spectrum as well – rap, classical, rock, opera, folk, they all have a place and speak to me in different ways.

 

I see two therapists about every week, I take medication daily, I try to be mindful and control my thoughts in order to be productive and balanced moving forward.  I need help to control the chemicals inside me and engineer a way out of my self-created darkness.  I need to talk and process more and overthink less.  I think it’s all working tremendously in some moments, know that I am destined to fail harder than ever in others.  But we shall see.  I am on a mission to find complete wellness and do something good for once.

 

The only challenge I ever faced in life was myself.  I am the only thing I’ve ever truly hated.  I created a warzone in my head for no good reason and it nearly destroyed me.  Extremes are routine for me. I am only uncomfortable in the comfortable middle, with balance in my life, I wobble and fall down.

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What am I good at? Pretty much everything that I put my mind to, but at the same time I’m really bad at the most important things.  I can lie like a king, like the day is long. 

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The Me I Didn’t Want to See

 

My enemy is something (and someone) that nobody can see

My enemy resides inside me

My enemy is in my head, my mind full of entropy

My enemy consumes me quietly, relentlessly

My enemy was created nonsensically, by only me

 

My enemy is defeating me, winning clearly

Suffocating my will to do and be anything

Pulling me lower into darkness, spiraling like entropy increasing its grip with certainty

My enemy nearly ended me, but that won’t be how I lose or leave

 

My enemy won’t go quietly

My enemy needs therapy, love, to be managed medically, daily

My enemy fights dirty, twisting thoughts and visions so menacing connivingly

My enemy is a magician with lies, truths and hormonal chemistry - taking me places I should never be My manipulative, slippery and resilient enemy Is destroying me minute by minute, piece by piece

 

My only enemy is me, the entropy inside my head

 

My enemy is finally afraid of the true me and what I can be.  You must first truly surrender to never surrender again. I don’t know if I’m scared or afraid, but I’m here. My head and ears are constantly ringing and I only ask myself why when I don’t have a migraine.

 

Don’t allow yourself to become your greatest enemy, and don’t allow those around you to either. You are enough and you are loved and needed in this world.  Take care of yourself first, but know that in a moment you will be asked for help and must be up to the task.  At other times you will need to recognize the moment where someone needs help, but falters, and you must step up and in. Be an active participant in changing someone else’s life, you really can be that.  Don’t just keep getting up yourself, put your hand out and pick someone else up.

 

Mental health illness is long referred to as a Cinderella disease – a strong man doesn’t ask for help is our past generation speaking, they say pull up your bootstraps and march on. But today we have to think differently to act differently and reap different outcomes – consider that not everyone has the flexibility to touch their toes, or maybe their hands are already full from carrying a heavy load.  Just marching on may mean marching off the cliff.  No matter the reason, we should work to recognize and then take action to pull each other’s bootstraps up and lock arms before we think of moving or marching on. And move forward together.