Coming to terms with Bullshit Mountain

While living in Los Angeles, I've made a few friends here and there in the midst of my "new-city-new-life-hustle-shuffle". One of whom is a guy that is as nice as he is talented - Jon Sams. Jon is a brilliant portrait photographer living here in LA that took some photos of me when I visited LA for the first time this past July for my birthday (Treat Yo Self 2017), and since then we've hit it off pretty well. ANYWAY, he and his roommates, Margie and Kirstin, do a brilliant podcast called "Why Am I Like This", wherein they talk about "three millennials trying to navigate adulthood, mental health, relationships, kinks, and everything in between".

In addition to being a great name for a great podcast about mental health, it is the perfect turn of phrase to sum up the majority of my life with CLD when I didn't even know I had CLD. "Why Am I Like This" is a question I would ask myself on a nearly constant basis at least half a dozen times a day. Why am I depressed - I have nothing to be upset about? Why am I so anxious and scared about going to this party - I'm sociable, and this didn't used to happen? Why am I unable to remember left from right anymore? Why can't I memorize or remember basic facts about anything? Why can't I think straight whenever I look at a computer screen? Why am I exhausted after little to no physical exertion? Why can I never fall asleep, and then when I do manage to sleep I wake up with bizarre pains in odd places on my body? Etc, etc, etc, etc

WHY AM I LIKE THIS???

Well, for years - through middle school, high school, college, and beyond - I was left wondering, with no explanation whatsoever, as to why my symptoms and ailments were getting worse and worse with each passing year. And at last, after an immense amount of confusion and self loathing, I finally managed to get to a point in my life about a year ago where I'd made peace with what I was calling "my lot in life". I would think, "It's simply my lot in life to be depressed in up-and-down waves for the rest of my life, to be in pain in my joints and muscles, to never be able to build muscle or loose fat, to suffer from insomnia, to be "stupid" and unable to comprehend basic concepts anymore, etc."

WELL GUESS WHAT HAPPENED RIGHT RIGHT THE DUCK AFTER I CAME TO THIS SENSE OF BALANCE AND ACCEPTANCE, MY BEAUTIFUL READERS????

Yup. My diagnosis. 

When I finally was told "THIS is why you're like this:...", and had my doctors and functional nutritionist and chiropractor and acupuncturist all explaining Chronic Lyme Disease, and how EVERYTHING I'd suffered from physically/mentally/emotionally/psychologically in my life was related or made worse by CLD, I was initially ecstatic. I finally had an answer after years (can't stress this enough: YEARS) of searching. But then I began to think it over, and I became FURIOUS. To be told "the 'Grayson' you've known for the last 10+ years, the 'Grayson' you think you are, this 'Grayson' you've made peace with and are ready to be for the rest of your life... well, that's actually not you. 'Grayson' - the TRUE 'Grayson' hasn't existed for over 10 years. That whole time, the man you've come to believe to be 'Grayson' is actually 'Grayson minus CLD..."

Y'all, I can't even begin to tell you how much this enraged me. I literally sat at my desk FUMING in downtown Chicago the day after I got the news. Hell, my coworkers were practically roasting marshmallows over my blonde bonfire of a head as I burned quietly in our shared office. I called my functional nutritionist and demanded a meeting for later that day. I needed answers. I needed something. For that entire day, June 21st 2017, I felt myself go through the entire grieving process for a version of myself that was never given a chance to exist. A version of myself who had the energy, stamina, and physical coordination to go out for and enjoy sports without pain or ridicule. A version of myself who could remember facts and figures, memorize theories and formulas, comprehend complicated analysis, and pursue an education in the sciences rather than be a bystander wishing he could meet the intellectual challenge. A version of myself who wasn't wracked with random, relentless pains and tension across his body for no apparent reason. A version of myself that wasn't plagued with depression and anxiety and ever increasing social anxiety, which in turn made making and keeping friendships next to impossible both as a child and young adult. A version of myself who wasn't berated by his parents and other adults for being lazy or weak for not having the energy, concentration, focus, or mental stamina to complete basic tasks. A version of myself who was happy, energetic, friendly, etc. - all of the things I had been as a little kid.

A version of myself who hadn't been derailed completely, and whose life hadn't been (seemingly) ruined silently by Chronic Lyme Disease.

Not gonna lie, folks. After venting all of this to my functional nutritionist, the doctor who made the diagnosis to me barely 24 hours earlier, I broke down and had a good cry. Right there, in front of a woman I barely knew, in a cold little office in the middle of a city I'd barely spent 4 months living in. I'm not sure if I can communicate to you, my readers, just how much pain I was in that day. Just how much grief I was feeling for a life I'd been robbed of. The pain in the sudden realization that the 'me' that people had known there whole lives wasn't me at all, and that so much hurt and confusion could have been spared between myself and my friends. Grief for the happiness, joy, friendships, memories, and potential that was snuffed out in the instant a tick bearing Lyme decided to take a bite out of me. And that was the most painful part of all, folks. The fact that none of this should have happened. ALL of this misery and pain and depression and darkness was COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE, had my pediatricians and doctors while I was growing up been trained properly by their respective medical schools on how to diagnose and treat CLD as a legitimate disease/illness that is life-threatening. (This, by the way, is because the CDC to this day does not recognize Chronic Lyme Disease to be a real disease, despite 300,000+ new cases annually, and that professional negligence in turn filters down to our med school students and doctors.)

Well, after getting all of this out, Dr. Gemelas cracked the perfect witticism, which managed to calm me down and snap me back into perspective: "...well, Grayson, I understand your frustration, but think of it this way: maybe that other version of you would've been an overly-confident, jock-asshole!" Good ole Dr. Gemelas. And you know what? She was right. I can't even begin to fathom what the perfect version of my life COULD have been like. I'm sure, at it's absolute best, it would have been amazing - a super smart me that could comprehend complex theories and soar within the world of academia to the admiration of all my peers. But you know what? It also could have been absolute pig swill. I truly could have been some uppity, jock douche-bag on the high school football team who was so prideful and self assured and toxicly masculine that I would end up dating some hot cheerleader to convince myself I wasn't gay, and then maybe I'd knock her up on accident one night in an attempt to assure myself of my big muscles and masculinity and definite-not-gay-ness. And then what the duck is the point of intellect when you have to get a piece of crap 9-to-5 in order to support your 18 and Pregnant wife, and eventual kid? Both of whom's lives I'd have probably destroyed after getting caught having an affair with some guy blah blah blah...

In other words: yeah, CLD sucks. The fact that I went through years, and years, and years of misery SUCKS. BUT, it has made me who I am today, and who I am today is really, REALLY ducking fortunate, all things considered. Those football practices I could've been at in high school, scoring the winning touchdown? Instead I was at home, getting lost in my love for black & white movies, and the literary worlds and works of authors like J.K. Rowling, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Those after school play-dates and hang-out things that other kids were doing from elementary through high school, when they would sit around playing video games, or hanging out at the malt shop (god, my comprehension of hanging out is dated...)? I was busy building cities at home with Lego sets bought with allowance money from my dad, and later building entire worlds on my computer when I was older - sparking a love of design and the act of artistic creation. Those super smart and challenging collegiate classes I could have been excelling in at William & Mary? Well, since I couldn't get a grasp on the 101 level courses, I devoted myself instead to my love of the arts: theater, music, singing, language, fashion, architecture, photography, the fine arts, and (when I could handle it) art history, setting the first bricks of my yellow brick road to Los Angeles, where I am now a graphic designer making art and doing what I love FOR. A. LIVING.

You see? It all works out.

Here's the brass tacks, my gentle readers and choir. In order to come to terms with the fact that - yes - I had been robbed of an infinite number of realities that were sure to have been filled with happy, happy days, I had to suck it the duck up, slap myself in the face, and say HEY YOU LITTLE SHIT: look at ALL YOU HAVE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR!!! And that's the key to leaping the hurdle of envy, ladies and gents - especially when you're envious of yourself and what you COULD have been. GRATITUDE. Gratitude is the key. I am Lot, the chosen sufferer. Who am I to deserve this hardship? Well, quite frankly, who am I to think I DON'T deserve to have some hardship, hmm?

Am I going to be that washed up middle aged guy at a bar on a Tuesday afternoon, drowning myself in the whiskey and woes of who I could have been? No. It's got to be onward and upwards. I hope for the best, because I HAVE to. There is no other way to live life. We all have our mountain of bullshit, we all have our baggage, and quite a lot of our lives is hell. We don't get what we want, dreams don't work out, opportunity passes us by, our lives take turns for the worse far more often it seems than they take a turn for the better. And the happy moments we have seem far too fleeting and few. But we'll never get to that next great moment, that next happy memory, if we don't keep going. So that's what I'm resolved to do. Keep going.

Why am I like this? Because I suffer from Chronic Lyme Disease. Did CLD control my childhood and early adulthood? In a way, yes. Am I going to let CLD control my life any longer? Hell. No.

I am Lot, and this is my lot. Resilience, and gratitude. Onward, and upward.