The Truth Behind The Smile

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life and I’m not talking about the things from the mouth of a bully and I’m not only talking diagnoses, from the careful transcripts of doctors and mental health professionals. I’m talking about the names that cause the most havoc on self. I’m talking about the names of which there is no walking away from. There is no denying. The name calling no one is immune to. It starts young, in innocent youth and gains momentum, force and penetrability. As we age the definitions take on new meaning. They become insidious monsters of the mental closet reeking havoc on the dawn of the spirit. The names I have learned to call myself through trauma, regrettable behaviors, and historical patterns can turn any otherwise good day into a nightmarish storm.

Before reading this post there is something you need to understand. The following words are feelings more common that some may think. If there is one thing I have learned from this blog it is this: I’m not alone. I’ve had plethora comments confirming I’m not the only one who turns over in the middle of the night dreading the next day, even if I went to bed with peace and serenity and everything in life is riding smooth as a still lake at dawn. With that said, some of you readers may understand through personal experience while others may feel this helps you understand individuals in your life who you have curiously questioned, “his/her life seems to be going so well…why does he/she drink it away or why does he/she say they are depressed.” Some of you may judge and join the devilish hordes that already exist between my eyes. Whatever you do with the following story, God be with you.

If there is one thing I have learned from this blog it is this: I’m not alone.

I’m just another manic-depressive with personality disorders that make me feel like the entire world’s judgement is inside my brain pointing fingers at me. I can be sitting with perfectly happy thoughts and conversation all around me and drift off into a perilous dark stream of consciousness not fit for the most obscure forms of entertainment. I can be in the middle of a crowd of thousands watching a spectacle such as a concert or football game and all of a sudden with one pin dropped on the wrong stroke of a neuron can then droop into a pale spot of disconnect where I feel nothing, hear no one and think very little. Unfortunately, for the people I love this sometimes comes off as me not caring about them. It can come off as me being self-absorbed. It can come off as me being detached and distracted. But, in reality, it’s some sort of coping mechanism I have used to deal with trauma- but thats for another article for another time. When I have a better grasp on it myself. For now though, understand that these disjunct spots I find myself in come from a deep, harrowing self loathing based off of words I have called myself for years. For now, lets just preface the upcoming paragraphs with these simple truths: My name is Mark Adams Turnipseed. I’m an alcoholic, drug addict, sexaholic, shopaholic, TV and Junk food lover, hedonist. These are the things I did in the past, confirming the names I call myself and I’m only just learning to see things differently. The tendencies still run deep.

But I still know how to smile… sometimes enough for a decent photograph, unfortunately that smile can often times be a lie.

When it comes to social-media, and social-life in general, I wonder how many of you are just like myself. When someone asks, “how goes it?” I nearly always quickly reply with a smiling “Good!” or “Great!” When posting an instagram picture I sift through countless photos until I find the one where I have the brightest smile and everything appears groovy and kind. Sometimes, I look through a days worth of photographs seeing 10 pictures where my smile is non-existent. My face looks more like that of a downcast sailor ten days deep on a journey to nowhere. These pictures, I know, have captured exactly how I feel inside. But then, upon scrolling a little further I find that one picture where I look like I just won American Idol. I choose the winner, why? Because I want people to see the victories, the happiness, the bright sky day dream life that I’ve visioned for myself since I started getting sand in my shoes on the playground. I don’t only do it for others, I also do it for myself. Because, not only do I want people to see that I’m happy, strong, and on my way to greatness; I want to feel that way. I long to feel that way. Knowing that these feelings are a possibility each day keeps me going, but continue to illude.

I used to not believe happiness, strength or greatness were possible. I was once so far out of touch with these things I orbited around the planet of negativity stuck by all the forces of the universe. In my earlier blog posts where I talk about my struggles in deep addiction and depression this is apparent. But now, now I know that each day when I wake up happiness, strength and greatness is a possibility. I know it because I have seen it, in myself and in others. I know it because now that I’m sober, occasionally I get a taste of it. But, a taste only goes so far. It satisfies the tongue but leaves the stomach yearning.

Then, there are times that everything I taste is sour. My belly spasms and rejects anything I try to put into it. To be honest, the past few weeks have been just like that. I’ve dropped off the face of the good life and dipped down into the dismal, dark grave I loathe with every piece of me. Over the past two weeks, I have cried more than laughed, feared more than felt confidence and yelled more than hugged. Recently, I’ve felt anxiety that made my head swell and anger that made my face feel flush and my shoulders heated. I’ve rolled out of bed reluctantly and had great difficulty getting through daily routines.

“…there are times that everything I taste is sour.

My belly spasms and rejects anything I try to put into it”

But, on my instagram it’s all seemed quite lovely… See:

Sunset, mountain peaks… smiles. That’s what you get to see. But let me tell you the truth. On the drive up to this spot I cried. My son was in the back seat trying to talk to me, and when I was too choked up to chat I turned the music up. We went on a hike and I peered at a 13,000 foot mountain summit. Usually, I’d be thinking about standing on top of it with triumph, but not today. Instead, I imagined falling off. The thoughts tore my stomach up and made me nauseous. I was listening to the names I had called myself for years. I had let them take me down a dark corridor of reckless decision. These are the types of thoughts that make me want to stay in bed and hide. If I don’t go anywhere I’m safe, I won’t hurt anyone, or so it seems… I’m actually more trapped than anywhere.

This trip ended up providing quite a bit of healing. I taught my son how to carve backcountry spoons. I was able to show him how to set up camp in a place with minimal coverage and high alpine winds. I taught him how to stay warm in a sleeping bag when it’s not fit for the environment. He put me to sleep while he recited about 10 billion knock knock jokes that weren’t funny but I laughed anyway. The experience was as a father son trip is supposed to be, except for on the inside.

The healing didn’t really come immediately. It came a day or two later as I reminisced over the trip. While I was out there I was largely dissociative, distant and disconnected. For me this wasn’t an unfamiliar spot. A lot of my life has been spent just like that. There have been many good times, I put on a good smile, but in my head I’m lost, like I’m grieving the death of no one. It’s weird. It sucks. But at least I don’t have to drink over it today.

“The healing didn’t really come immediately.”

Here is another one, jogging through a beautiful blue ski day. What you don’t know is that this was one of the hardest runs of my life. The wind was howling with 30-mph gusts, but it wasn’t mother nature that made this run difficult. On this run I didn’t honestly know wether or not I was going to go home. On this run, I started out thinking I would drive my truck north till it gave out and strap my back pack and hiking boots on and walk till my boots gave out. I had the grisely thought of walking until my food ran out and walking until I couldn’t walk any more and falling asleep in the cold woods while starvation took me home. On this run I cursed myself, my sobriety, triathlon, my family and my job… Gross huh? Well, I know I’m not alone and for all of you out there I pray.

“I had the grisely thought of walking until my food ran out and walking until I couldn’t walk any more and falling asleep in the cold woods while starvation took me home”

Life simply is not all that pretty. It’s hard, its nitty and gritty and sometimes I just want to throw my hands up, give it all away and slink into a shallow grave. Sometimes I honestly don’t think I can go on. I’ve talked about feeling like this in the past, before sobriety, but these feelings still happen. I’m still the same old extremist with emotions and feelings saying I’m worthless, incapable, hopeless, and worst one in my life: filthy.

These words come from myself and others. I’m not all to blame here. It’s not all poor wiring. Some of the thoughts arise out of a few social stigma’s I have dealt with my whole life like ADHD kids like yourself can’t make it in normal classroom settings. Some thoughts arise from gay jokes making me feel like I was filthy for something done to me before I had an ability to choose or even know what was going on. Some arise from abilities while other arise from the absence of ability.

“Some of the thoughts arise out of a few social stigma’s I have dealt with my whole life”

That’s why God’s in my life now. I can’t do this without him. He always calls me the same thing. Over and over. Luckily, for me the choice to give in to God was easy. Well, okay, it took 30 years, but now his voice is finally becoming the loudest. It has to, all the others drop me into despair. His definition of me allows for me to rebound from any dark, lonely, harrowing corner of my mind and he uses these rebounds to make me stronger against my greatest ineptitudes.

The aches and pains, fears, lusts, and anger behind the smile is where he works. In long distance triathlon I’ve learned that when I’m feeling weakest, I’m forced to start working the hardest, or give up. Since I’m done with giving up, I give in to the names God calls me and work through it all. During this time I become stronger, I find the hidden truths about myself that help enable me to rise above. I don’t know why it’s so intense for me, the feelings are so dark and grim that I think about things like starvation or falling off a mountainside. Maybe these thoughts have been so exaggerated in my life for the purpose of sharing them with you. To spread hope.

“In long distance triathlon I’ve learned that when I’m feeling weakest, I’m forced to start working the hardest”

I firmly believe that this message is for everyone. Not only an endurance athlete can understand the dark corners of the mind when it comes to running a race. We are all in a race, like it or not. Sometimes it gets ugly. Sometimes thoughts fill our heads that hurt us, or others. Sometimes we think we can’t keep going. Sometimes we quit. Sometimes we call ourselves by the names we work so hard to get away from. Well, I’m not the only living proof that you don’t have to live behind the shame, fear, or belittling names and feelings. You are your own testimony and so is the man next to you on the metro who picks up a piece of trash. The girl opening the door for a man in a wheelchair, the person in the car stopped for the lady crossing the street. People cross tremendous finish lines left and right showing human potential- may it be a race or an expression of kindness and the treasure to do so lies inside, and my God showed that to me. Now I can see that gold in everyone and everything, even when the world is crashing down.