You're Playin' Yourself- My Battle With Mental Illness (Pt. 2 of 3)

One of the things about depression is, when it hits, it HITS! It’s like being hit with a ton of bricks out of nowhere. You feel defeated, deflated, uninspired, lost, and at your breaking point. I don’t know if others attempted to handle theirs the same way, but some of the things I had always done outside of music to attempt to conquer my depression was to either buy myself something, find happiness in a relationship, or go out at night.

I always felt like if I went out and bought myself something when I was depressed, it would make me happy.... and it did... temporarily. One thing I learned is that you can’t buy your way out of depression. No matter how hard you try or how much you get, at the end of the day, that depressed feeling is going to creep up on you someway, somehow and it always did with me so what did I do? Buy more of course. I swear, some of the things I would buy I would either return or sell later on. Nothing I would “need”, but just things that I thought would make me happy from jewelry to shoes to video games. Yea, it’s typical things people would buy on any given day and one would figure “hey, there is nothing wrong with that.” But it is when you buy that stuff to try to get rid of whatever depressed feeling you have at that time. That temporary happiness only gets you so far before you have to slap yourself in the face and go “ok, this is not getting me anywhere.”

Some of my failed relationships came from poor judgement. The fear of being alone was always in the back of my mind and when I was alone would be when the depression would hit the hardest. Well, if I have someone by my side who cares for me and loves me, that will fix everything, right? Wrong! It doesn’t work like that and all that does is lead you into something toxic because now you become dependent on that person. No, not dependent on them financially or for them to take care of you, but you become dependent on them emotionally. I always tried to convince myself that “this girl was amazing” or “that girl was perfect for me” or whatever other hollow excuse I could come up with other than the real reason which was that I just didn’t want to be alone and being with someone was going to make me happy again so I sought out relationships. I dated some really pretty women and I would get the “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” from people who would see who I had and they would see this big smile on my face like I was on top of the world. But I wasn’t. I was still miserable and depressed and because I was so dependent on them emotionally to keep me happy and because I wasn’t with them for the right reasons, some would either take advantage of it and use it against me, not care, ignore me when I was at a low point, or not understand what I was going through and get frustrated with me which would result in arguments and tons of miscommunication. I was with my youngest daughter’s mom for 6 years and one thing I will tell you is that she is probably the most amazing mom a child could have. My daughter really lucked out. But as far as relationships go, it was not a good fit. We tried. And we were happy three of those years while the other three were spent trying to figure each other out and attempting to make one another happy to keep from conflict or argument. It wasn’t until me and Amanda got together when I finally felt “happy” without feeling like I was dependent on her emotionally or due to being depressed... until she crushed me in a way that scarred me (that will be another blog posting to come later on because that played an important role in why I came back to do music).

Going out at night was always an adventure for me. The infamous StatTV footage that I used to record would show me and my crew having the time of our lives. Clubs, strip clubs, lots of alcohol (no drugs or smoke obviously because we stayed as far away from that as possible), and just being out on the scene. Most of the time, it really was as amazing as the footage would show and other times, buried beneath my smile would be a man who felt all alone in a packed club full of people. As super social as I am, sometimes you would just catch me leaning up against a wall or sitting at the table quiet and just observing the scene. Feeling alone and hopeless. Friends would come up “Yo Stat, you good?!?” And me not skipping a beat, would flash my smile and respond confidently “of course!” I would have so much on my mind and my soul was everywhere but where my body was. But I kept going out. Every single weekend. Sometimes more than that because I need to escape my depression. I needed to escape my emotions. It eventually got to a point to where I just became “numb” to the scene.

I always prided myself on never doing drugs or being an alcoholic or developing any kind of addiction, but when I took a hard look at myself and reflected on those three things I used to do, they really could’ve been just as bad had I not gained enough control. The biggest lesson you can take from this is if you suffer from depression, you need to get REAL help. Avoid trying to use things as a crutch because it’s only going to hurt you in the long run. Depression will have you doing things for the wrong reasons... and no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that they are the right reasons and that you know what you are doing, you’re only lying to yourself and without that proper help, you’re going to continue lying to yourself and eventually hurting yourself more than anything or anyone else. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help. There is nothing at all to be ashamed of or looked down on. You only have one life to live. There are no second chances so you have to do it right.

(Part 3 of 3 coming 4/30/18)