22 and Sober-ish

As of March 22, 2025 at around 3 p.m. I hadn’t had any alcohol in 41 days — which for the stereotypical 22-year-old ASU student is kind of a lot — but in reality, it didn’t feel like any time at all.

I was hospitalized with a stomach ulcer at the beginning of February after an eventfully embarrassing moment outside of a bar on Mill Avenue that involved me passing out and throwing up a considerable amount of blood — more than once. If you’re unfamiliar with how to heal an ulcer, it involves weeks of a restrictive diet, cutting out caffeine, alcohol, spices, citrus, anything acidic and so on and so forth. If you luck out like me, you also get put on a low-fiber diet, and get to enjoy the taste of overcooked carrots and skinless potatoes for weeks on end.

I am coming up on the two-month anniversary of what I have deemed “ulcer-gate” and I’ve been sober for it all — except for March 22. This past Saturday was my sorority formal and a part of me just wanted to kick back, drink with my friends and finally have a vice again, but if I’m being totally honest, I didn’t really miss it that much.

Over the past 6 weeks I’ve gone out to bars and clubs and dinners still, trading in AMFs and tequila shots for glasses of water and the occasional cranberry juice, and I’ve still had fun. Maybe even more.

The only thing that’s been holding me back is the lack of caffeine in my veins (the withdrawal process from that took a toll but that’s a story for another day).

I had a bit of tequila on Saturday, as it turns out it’s one of the least acidic liquors, and felt a moderate level of tipsy as the night went on. My tolerance hadn’t gone down that much — to my surprise — so I enjoyed my night riding the wave of slightly heightened extrovertedness. At the bars afterward, I got another drink and had a brief moment of “oh shit this was a bad idea” as I felt my stomach get queasier and then it hit me.

I was already having a good time, why did I need the next drink?

My time being sober has really forced me to be okay with who I am at face value and rely on who I am instead of who I am after a few shots. As an introvert at heart, I love the concept of liquid courage and its ability to melt away any insecurity and coat me in a veil of confidence. However, I’ve been going out and have been having the same amount of fun and still doing my shit.

I guess what I’m saying is that the drink is a placebo for being a “fun time.” I’m not saying that once I’m all healed and all is well, I’m going to stay sober — I yearn for the brine of a dirty vodka martini in a chilled class — but I am the same “fun Morgan” whether I’m sober or not. I don’t need something to make me enjoyable to be around, I am enjoyable to be around.

I don’t know how much of a breakthrough this is yet as I still have some time on the clock before I get back into it all. But a part of me can see my fear of being known as I am shrinking. It may have only gone down 0.000000001%, but that is more than it has gone down the previous 21 years.

Uncomfortable in Community

“Be careful what you wish for.”

I’ve always thought of this cautionary phrase as a way to encourage people to be content and appreciate what they have. We see someone’s wishes play out in a movie, and everything is somehow worse, and they gain gratitude for their reality when things go back to normal. It’s a warning that supposedly emboldens being thankful.

However, another side to this precaution I never considered until recently is that when you get what you wish for, you realize that you may have been the faulty common denominator.

What do I mean?

I have always wanted to feel loved and accepted by others. Despite being an introvert at heart and incredibly independent, I have never stopped craving the feeling of having a plethora of people that I can connect with and love. But as I have become surrounded by these people and have collected a community, I still have a hole inside of me that feels unfulfilled.

It could be my hypomania creeping in that is making me more irritable, but even so, I can’t help but try and push away the thing I have spent so much time chasing.

The reality is that I have spent so much time getting acquainted with myself and enjoying the presence of my own company that I never factored in what it would be like for others to enter my space, to know me. There are feelings of unworthiness within me, and I feel undeserving of the love and care that surrounds me now.

And the shittiest thing is that I can feel myself excreting an air of coldness around me and I can’t help it. I don’t want to feel animosity as the people around me know me, and yet here I am. There’s a fear that I do not know myself enough to allow others to get a sample of who I am.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, that the reason I can;t enjoy my own wishes is myself, but it’s a necessary realization on the path to true communtiy.

I am Fine

A week ago I was discharged from the hospital for a stomach ulcer. Technically it’s two but only one bleeding one that resulted in me yakking approximately a third of my blood all over the entrance of a bar (that had only been open for a week I might add). I am fine now, minus an annoyingly bland and restricted diet that requires me to fight against 6 years of eating disorder recovery, but at the same time I’m frustrated.

I’m not frustrated with the fact that I have an ulcer or have to cut out all of my comfort foods and caffeine and alcohol, but more so the fact that everyone else is making this a bigger deal than I am.

When I was a kid (and I’m sure many kids with mental illnesses can relate) I wanted a physical ailment to get people to care. I was popping 13 pills a day in eighth grade trying to lower my daily panic attack average to <15 and no one understood that. I didn’t parade my diagnoses around at all, but to the friends I had mustered up the courage to be vulnerable to and explain what was happening, they didn’t fucking get it.

Sure, I get it, preteens aren’t the most intellectually advanced when it comes to explaining the complexities and realties of OCD and panic disorder and depression. But still, it was something that was important to me and I just wanted to feel seen and heard.

I didn’t want and I certainly now do not want any kind of pity or sympathy, just to feel like my openness wasn’t going to waste.

As I’ve grown older and obtained a bipolar diagnosis and gone through plenty of supplements and meds and doctors for an almost 22-year-old, I’ve realized that I don’t crave being seen as much anymore — at least not in more intimate settings.

And this goddamn ulcer has solidified that to me even more.

I have opened up here and there about some “scary” symptoms of bipolar that have arisen in the past year or so and while in the moment people have been receptive, that moment is fleeting. That is not meant to bash on any of my friends because a lot of what I am going through is hard to wrap your head around when you’re not going through it. I also don’t talk about it a whole bunch so it’s not something I can or would be upset about because I get it.

But at the exact same time, after I have repeatedly said over and over again that I am fine and I want to move on from the big hullabaloo and just heal and get on with my life, everyone seems to think that this is the time for them to cash in on their sympathy cards.

One of the reasons I don’t feel the need to talk about every little nitty gritty detail of how my mind is fucking me up, is because I don’t need every other conversation I have to be about it.

I get that everyone means well but it's frustrating to know that one of the only reasons they are checking in for this is because it’s tangible and scary for them — and they don’t even consciously recognize that. It’s not their fault but I’m also not going to spend my time trying to explain that to every fucking person.

The only positive I can see from this is that at least 13 year old me was proven right. People do care more about the physical than the mental no matter how hard you try.

Shopping with Your Mom

I went clothes shopping today by myself for the first time in a while.

Going to a mall is not an easy feat and I’m sure many girls in their teens and twenties can agree. It’s daunting knowing you’re about to enter poor lighting and ill fitting outfits that bring out every insecurity that has ever crossed your mind. Often times you leave each dressing room with a sense of defeat and disappointment.

That’s why I used to hate shopping with my mom. She would be a mom and pick out articles of clothing she deemed more appropriate for a 16-year-old and make comments about how each piece looked on me. When I was younger all I could think of was that she thought I looked bad in them and that she thought I wasn’t pretty enough to wear the things I so desperately wanted to. I had convinced myself that she only saw everything that I hated about myself.

It’s homecoming season for high schools — at least I’m fairly certain of it — because as I tried on a variety of skirts for a Halloween costume, I overheard overlapping conversations between mothers and daughters that felt all too familiar.

“I just don’t think that a skirt this short is the best option.”

“Why don’t you think this looks good on me?”

“Try on the dress I picked out for you please.”

“It’s going to look horrible.”

Growing older and having had time to become the woman I am now apart from my mother, I can understand her more. I can see the good intentions behind her poorly phrased suggestions and critiques. She never saw me as the reflection I saw in the mirror, but she saw the way that world would perceive me and wanted to protect me from that — as shitty as that reality is, it’s the truth.

I wish I could go back and tell my teenage-self to not be so mean and defensive, to not take everything as a personal attack on who I was. I wish I could go back and stop myself from instigating every screaming argument we had in the car on the way home from the mall. I wish I could hug my mother tighter instead of locking myself in my room for hours. I wish I could go back and be more appreciative of what I can see now.

I love my mother with everything in me. She is my inspiration and role model. She is the reason that when I went into each dressing room today, I did everything I could to focus on the beauty that I saw in the mirror instead of the faults and imperfections.

I Miss Art

I don’t know when it happened or really how but I lost my ability to create art.

I have always been an artist at heart. To create and curate is liberating and livening. I love to see the way simple strokes of paint and words and phrases and photographs and frames come together to convey something so meaningful it makes you stop and think. But somewhere in my timeline I lost the ability to connect the dots and produce a manifestation of my inner thoughts.

I came to this realization on a recent visit to the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. I was there to film a project for my job and it was the first time in a long time that I was able to focus on a piece of work. The exhibit was a wall art installation of three artists coming together on the impact of humans on the world. As I took in the piece and looked at each carefully thought out paint stroke and pencil sketch, I was reminded that I used to have a dream of creating something just like it. I used to dream of being a renowned artist whose work was displayed in museums and galleries.

And I had forgotten about that dream. It wasn't like I had given up on it but more so let it fade away as my creative side dwindled down. When I came to this realization I was confused because it wasn't like I had lost love for it or my passion slipped away, it was something else.

Then it hit me. As my fear of vulnerability has grown, it has prevented me from creating those meaningful pieces. I can’t dig deep to produce a work that reveals something of myself if I am incapable of admitting it to myself.

As my therapy sessions have unearthed truths about who I am, I think I am regaining my ability to dig deep within. Or better said, I am learning how to express myself in a way I never thought I could.

Maybe I’m trying to find a pathway in the mess of my life but I think for the first time in the last three years, I actually can see myself living past my expectation of what I thought my life was going to be.

I never really thought about where I would end up after Yale so when I didn’t get in, I lost sight of life at all.

It’s 1 a.m. right now and all of these thoughts are sporadic and nonlinear but they are all just my way of saying that I think I’m having another breakthrough and healing to the point of invorgation and motivation.

The Line Between Meaningful & Meaningless

We’ve all been there before. Looking out a car window on a rainy night while your parents talk about something in the front seats while your mind drifts off thinking about the profoundness of the moment you’re in.

You imagine yourself in a movie, a period-piece drama where something so fantastic has just happened that it creates a tiny pit in your stomach because you’ll never leave an impact on the world as incredible as the imaginary scenario you have just created.

I think there’s a beauty in that shared experience. The details may vary across people but the premise is the same: searching for meaning. You trying to escape the supposed mundaneness of your own life. It’s hard to imagine being sick of routine at 11 years old but the fear of “unexcitement” is petrifying.

We spend a lot of wasted time trying to figure out how to make ourselves more impressive and more meaning as if life is not worth living without a profound and exhilarating meaning. I’ve spent almost 20 years with that little voice in the back of my head screaming at me to “make something more of my life.”

Who even measures that?

In the past year I’ve come to the conclusion that the time I spend wishing I was more impressive could have been spent being impressive. Being myself.

I know, it’s kind of a stupid and simple observation that borders a cliche but at the same time it’s so true. I am sick of feeling like I can’t enjoy my youth and my life because I’m not constantly striving to be exceptional.

A few months ago I was at a friend’s birthday party and caught up with an old friend I hadn’t seen since high school. They lived in the house and had always been an honest person. They looked me in the eyes that night and told me that a lot of people in our grade were afraid that I was going to burnout. Not just burnout but essentially be dead from exhaustion at 30.

That conversation probably passed by them in an instant and was forgotten almost as soon as it was said. But it’s stuck with me. I was always on, always at 110% because I was afraid that if I stopped for even a second, I would just be wasting space.

Wasting life. I was a full believer in the idea of Newton’s First Law: an object in motion stays in motion—probably the only physics thing I know. But I refused to believe that I was capable of being worth something if I took a break.

Flashforward to now and I am coming out of winter break, the first winter break, the first break I’ve had in years where I did nothing. For a full month, I slept and partied and that was it. If I was to stereotype myself I’d say I was a degenerate with no aspirations.

But the thing is, I do have goals and things I want to achieve. Just because I’m not “on the grind” 24/7 doesn't mean I don’t want it. The idea that has consumed me for the majority of my life is idiotic. You shouldn't have to kill yourself in order to reach your goals. Instead of burning out every few months and needing something to shock you back to life, you can find balance.

I’m far from being there yet, sometimes I feel like I’m compensating a little too much for the time I spent working and working and working. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, because I am working towards balance.

I want to be able to achieve my dreams but be alive enough to enjoy them. I want to look back on my life and have memories of actual joy and happiness where I was only focused on what I was doing and not what I wasn’t.

I hate the idea that your life needs to be this huge prolific thing that exists to leave an impact. Sure there’s some benefit to the idea you can make a change, but there’s a much better way to think about it. A way that doesn't make you feel like a piece of shit whenever you sit down to watch a movie, or stay out past 3am, or eat your weight in ice cream. There’s a way to hold yourself accountable and lead a meaningful life without hating every second of it.

Whenever I look out a car window now, I think about the story being written at that moment. The little thoughts that float through my head and the little raindrops that glitter off the glass. My moments have meaning because they mean something to me, and for now, that’s enough.