TOUGH TOPICS | This is My Story - Part 2

 I have struggled with depression and anxiety for a huge portion of my life. I can remember being in high school and having ‘off’ days and/or weeks. There was something that just affected me and as hard as I tried to snap myself out of the foggy cloud I was in, I just couldn’t. It had to happen on its own and I knew it would. I never could pin-point a problem or tell you what was really affecting me that would send me into this spiral of emotions and the heavy cloud that weighed over my head. 

I believe it was during the summer of 2006, when I had noticed a huge difference in way things had began to affect me. My mom had just undergone a surgery that turn out the way it wasn’t intended too; leaving our entire family in a different state. I had felt as if overnight I had to grow up and take care of my family. I felt as if I now needed to do everything that my mother had previously done, because in her current state she wasn’t able to be home with us. It was more important for to stay in the hospital and have the help of doctors and nurses 24/7. 

The amount of pressure on my shoulders was crazy at times. I had to make sure that my brother was taken care of; keeping his day to day life as normal as possible. I would help my dad as much as I could with anything he needed. I managed to do all the grocery shopping, made dinner, and cleaned the house. I felt as if I pretty much had to keep my family glued together and going. I can’t tell you the exact day and time I had my very first anxiety/panic attack, but I can remember sitting in my car looking over the long list of school supplies and groceries I needed to walk into Wal-Mart and buy. It was in the moment that I started to feel as if I couldn’t breathe. I started to shake and tears just started rolling down my cheeks. Here I was, 17 years old, in the Wal-Mart parking lot, by myself and having no understanding as to what was happening. It took me a while to finally slow my breathing down to where I felt normal again. I cleaned up myself with some napkins and walked into Wal-Mart. 

High School days continued to come and go, nothing really changed. My emotions were like a roller coaster. I would have days as if nothing was ever wrong, then the days would come where I was just different, things were different and I couldn’t bring myself out of the funk I was in. I held a lot of things in and bottle up so many of my emotions, than when something would trigger me, I would explode. When I came unglued, it was bad. I could be a full on anger fit or I would just be an emotional wreck, to the point where I couldn’t contain my tears. A lot of my emotional outbursts would cause me to go into a full on anxiety attack, it was hard for me to control my breathing and my body from shaking like a leaf. If my explosions were more anger driven, it usually would be taken out on either a family member or a friend. It caused so many of my friendships to diminish; it was a never ending cycle through high school. In the end, I had people walk in and out of my life; it became a regular thing to me. 

Although, there were multiple times in High School where my depression and anxiety where very apparent, it never was enough for me to realize that I lived with the disease. I thought it was normal to have the ‘off’ days/weeks I would have, the figured the outburst of emotions were usually caused from stress. It never was enough for me to come to terms and realize that I actually lived with this disease called depression and the affects of anxiety. Look back now, after I have received help, it was apparent and I just over looked all the many signs that I had. 

It is sad to look back on the people that have been affected in my life, because of something that I had no courage to admit and/or see that I was dealing it. Because I couldn’t come out and get the help that I so desperately needed, I found myself in a life of constant up and downs. I hurt multiple friends and family members that I never wanted too. It was a cycle that was sadly, regular to me and because I couldn’t admit to myself what I was dealing with, it got swept underneath the rug and polished over as if nothing was ever wrong. It was normal. But, in the end, there is absolutely nothing normal about living a life like that.

PART 1 | PART 2 

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I do encourage anyone, to reach out and email me, if you would like to join. I would love to be able to share your voice. This series is about anything that you find as a Tough Topic to talk about. It could be something you deal with daily (mental, physical, or emotional), something that happened to you and you no longer deal with, a relationship (family, friend, or partner), a story about your child, children and/or pregnancy, this series is really meant for anything that you find hardships with. 

Please withhold and refrain from writing/commenting any harsh or unkind words. Any comments that I feel are unwelcoming and not supportive, will be deleted from the post and series. Thank you in advance.