My Struggle with Mental Health, or Why I've Been Weird

          To be perfectly blunt, for more than two years I have been receiving treatment for severe depression and anxiety. This means, of course, that I have been suffering from severe depression and anxiety for much longer than that. I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been like this. The suffering just became part of who I am.

            When I say I have severe depression I don’t mean that sometimes I get sad. I mean that the voice in my head that should represents “me” is constantly telling me that I’m not good enough, that no one likes me, that no one loves me and that the my world, my life, is never going to get any better.

            Constantly.

            Other times its worse. Other times I think I should kill myself. I think that my family and friends would be better off without me. That no one would really miss me if I was gone. That I should just end it.

            I haven’t.

Obviously.

            Somehow I have always stepped back from the edge both literally and figuratively. Although I hate the sensation of falling so jumping was never high on my list of how I would do it. I’ve always felt this sense of guilt that I might be hurting people I care about and that I might be leaving behind responsibilities and unread books. There also this thing my Dad once said to me. He said “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” It’s probably the most profound thing he ever said to me which is saying something for a man whose words are usually carefully measured and impactful. Somehow those words have always kept me here even in the blackest moments.

            As for the anxiety it’s a bit like the depression, and the two do certainly feed into and from each other. It’s not just being nervous. It’s not butterflies in my stomach. It’s the certainty that things are going to go wrong. I don’t just see the worst case scenario I see the worst thousand scenarios all at once. And knowing that they will happen. My heart races like I’m trying to exercise. My head and my back sweat. Sometimes I become so agitated that I can’t sit still. My body twitches and I need to move. I feel like the anxiety is coming out of my skin. Like bugs. I have to move.

If I’m stuck in one place for whatever reason it’s usually one of my legs that shakes. If you’ve ever been in a room with me and felt it shake that’s probably just my leg. If I can, I’ll pace. One day at work I paced seven miles in the hall in front of my office. Fourteen steps one way, fourteen steps the other. For seven miles. And then there’s the fitted sheets I’ve ruined. You see the anxiety follows me into my sleep and into my dreams. My feet twitch at night. I can’t count the number of sheets that I’ve worn holes in. Unusually over the course of one night. I lay down on a nice set of sheets and wake up usually with one leg trapped in the whole I made in the sheet.

But here I am two years into treatment and I think I’ve finally reached a point with mental exercises and medications that I can talk to people about this. The medications don’t make me happy all the time and usually don’t make me zombie like, which I know a lot of people are scared of. They certainly take the edge off the symptoms though and allow me to regain my composure with the mental exercises. Usually in the form of some kind of meditation or breathing exercise. Sometimes I just sneak away, close myself in my office or another space breathe deeply to lower my heart rate and center myself with thoughts of the people I love, my family.

It’s really them to whom I owe my life. If they hadn’t pushed me to get help when I reached my lowest point a couple years ago I really don’t know where I would be now. I can never thank the people that helped me enough.

So why am I writing this?

            I guess for me things aren’t real and set until I can put them in writing. It’s just how I process things. Shelves of half-filled journals and notebooks attest to this.

Its also a mea culpa to my friends and family for all the times that I have flaked on you, ghosted you or just not responded. It’s not anything personal against you but sometimes the thought of doing anything with anyone, even just talking would send me spiraling into a fit. It was just easier to not.

Finally it’s an offer of help and support. I know I’m not the only one who deals with these issues. If you need help you are not alone. I can listen to you. I’ll give you the numbers of any of the professionals I see. No one needs to suffer like I did.