Hello Tribe,

It\'s a strange time.

I\'ve had "anxiety" / "depression" for as long as I can remember. I\'ve gone through alcohol addiction, today I\'m grateful to say I haven\'t had a drink in over two and a half years.

It\'s a strange time because recently I\'ve almost started to romanticize mental illness. I\'ve been reading a book about personal experience, and although horrific, to me it almost sounds fun. This person describes being sick to a degree I have never personally experienced.

Only two days ago, someone very close to me, my girlfriend actually, banged on my door in the middle of the night. Soon she was having auditory hallucinations and it scared me. I didn\'t know what to do and I was so worried and I dropped her off at home. She called the cops on herself and had a seizure. I was in the hospital with her…. God, only last night. While there I realized this stuff is anything but romantic. It\'s horrible, and perhaps what I am attracted to by surrounding myself with like individuals is our incredible ability to cope one day at a time.

Her issues are her issues, and hers to deal with. I offer my support and my love as best I can. Last night, I made sure she was safe with a friend. She was ready to leave with me, but I just didn\'t feel like I could take care of her properly. I expressed this to her in a hospital cafeteria and she told me "Yeah, I\'d probably end up taking care of you, which isn\'t cool." A reference to my high anxiety. I smiled and shrugged it off.

But it stung. It stung because it was true. My own anxiety is through the roof right now… I can feel it in my finger tips. I need to take care of myself today. I need to get enough to eat and stay around sober people who care about me. I am at my mother\'s as I write this. I am going to go pay my rent, to the gym for a swim, and then to the local headquarters of alcoholics anonymous to volunteer. I am worried sick about my girlfriend. But last I knew she was in the care of a good friend and safe, so I need to keep that in the front on my mind and not spend the day miserable thinking about scenarios that have not happened yet.

I truly believe nothing can be put in my path in life that I cannot get through sober and not learn from. So whatever it is today, I pray that I may see it.

I don\'t know what this site is really about. I don\'t know if I\'ll right this and never post again or if I\'ll meet some true friends here. I do know the format and look gives me the same feeling I had when I used to write blogs as a teenager. Maybe I\'m trying to reconnect with that. But I\'m not a teenager anymore, I\'m a grown man. But I still have something to say. Life happens and me writing about it helps.

I\'m going to eat my soup and toast now.

-Ben