The War Within- My Battle With Mental Illness (Pt. 1 of 3)

After months (and maybe years if you want to get technical with it), I’ve finally decided to get serious about finally winning this battle I have had with depression and anxiety and finally sticking to the medication that will (hopefully) help me get right. It’s time for me to take my life back. My sincere apologies if this posting is all over the place or skips from one area to the next, but it’s just raw emotion I’m pouring out here and I’m going to leave it as is. My battle with depression and anxiety has been well documented and has been a neverending battle since my early teenage years. It wasn’t as bad when I was younger because I was always active, out and about, and around pretty much everyone. I actually thought it was just life as a typical teenager where I would experience mood swings, lack of motivation, lack of focus, feeling anxious about the smallest things, feeling alone sometimes even when around people, insomnia, and thoughts of hopelessness. It was an odd feeling at times, but I never figured there was anything wrong with it and assumed it would pass. As I got older though, the depression and anxiety followed me. At the time, I didn’t know what it was yet and started to think there was something wrong with me, but I kept it to myself because it wasn’t a constant thing and again, maybe it would go away eventually or maybe it was just the cause of some bad days. People would tell me to "get over it" and that I was stressing over nothing, I was exaggerating, "It's not that bad", and other things of that nature. Even today, I don’t fault them because they didn’t know and had no way of knowing. During those days, people weren’t equipped with the knowledge and information that is provided today to help people better understand now. Everyone knew me as the upbeat, outgoing joker who was always laughing or making fun of something so all that talk about stress, anxiety, and depression was just a flash in the pan to them. When I did realize that I was depressed, I still kept it to myself because I felt embarrassed. It felt like a weakness and I definitely didn’t want my friends (even though they were the most amazing friends a kid could have) to make fun of me so I would do what I did best and just write and record music. Music has always been my outlet when it came to expressing myself without feeling like I would be judged or criticized. Plus, making music always made me happy. I would write out what was bothering me, record it, and play it back whenever I felt down. No one ever understood how I was feeling or what I was going through emotionally so all I had was music to help me... to save me. I still have some of the songs I recorded as a teen and they are really scary to think about because some of them have thoughts of suicide and feeling like life was done. I felt like such a failure to my family in so many ways even though they were always loving and supportive, but in my mind I just didn’t feel it. I felt like deep down in their minds I wasn’t where they wanted me to be or where I should’ve been. I always felt like music was the therapy I needed to keep my depression and anxiety in check though and it did... Kind of. It kept me from self harm as best as it could, though as a Diabetic, I would spend plenty of mornings debating on whether I wanted to take my insulin or not and sometimes I would skip a morning, but would take it later on that day as I snapped out of my depression for a moment.

I was a pretty popular person around my way so no way could I let it leak that I was depressed and had anxiety no matter what. I was prescribed medication by my doctor for both and I didn’t even bother filling it because I didn’t want to take medication. No way did I want to be on something that was going to alter my mind or “control” me. It’s the reason I’ve never smoked or done any kind of drug. I never wanted to feel like I couldn’t control my own mind or be under the influence of something that took over me. I can do it myself. How hard can it be? Well, obviously, it was alot harder than I could ever imagine. I look back at certain points of my life and realize how different some things may have turned out had I actually stuck to the medication or got help earlier. I don’t regret anything because everything happens for a reason and there are a few things that I am thankful to have in my life as a result of how things turned out, but it’s just amazing how so many things had been affected as a result of not getting the necessary help I needed. Everything from relationships to the smallest decisions made both personal and career wise were affected in one way or another. Once I finally caved in and decided to start taking the medication, I would take it for a week or two, feel better and then stop taking it. I figured that The medication would give me that needed “push” and then I could take it from there. So it remained that way for a while before I finally realized that I have to stay on it even when I’m feeling better because I’m just not equipped and ready to take on the world (or myself) without help. And for the first time in my life. I’m perfectly fine with that and I accept it. Now I’m ready to embrace it and realize the potential that has been held back for so long. It’s going to be quite the journey and challenge, but I’m ready for it.

(Part 2 of 3 coming 4/23/18)