MHA: Share Your Story

"I was 12 y/o, walking down the street and thought to myself, "If I jumped in front of a passing car, it would finally be over". I wouldn't have to fight anymore, wouldn't have to feel this pain anymore. After a lifetime (12 years) of abuse and neglect, I was ready to end it. My mom was BPD, depressed, and an addict. By the time I was 10, I was raising myself. I would get myself up and to school everyday. Every afternoon I would come home to my mom either asleep or drunk/high. She would tell me how I was a mistake and shouldn't be alive, how she didn't love me, threatened and sometimes tried to commit suicide. I would stay up with her making sure she didn't kill herself, finally going to sleep after she did. Then I would wake up the next day and do it again. Finally, some family friends intervened and I was able to live in a stable environment through my teens with people that loved me. But, when you've only ever know abuse and mistreatment, your brain is wired for it. Even though I had people in my life that loved me and I was out of that situation, the damage was done. I struggled with depression and anxiety as a teen, not even knowing that's what it was. I got into an abusive relationship at 14, further adding to my existing trauma. Once I was 19 and on my own, I buckled down to focus on my future and myself. I knew that if I didn't "heal", I would continue to be unhappy and get into bad relationships. But in my mid 20's, I got back into another abusive relationship, and this one took everything from me. All of the the self-esteem, confidence, and self worth I had built was gone. But most of all, I was ashamed that I let it happen again. I thought that I had worked through everything and that I was "healed". But I failed, I wasn't good enough I told myself. I had no more will to live, depression and anxiety were at an all time high. If life only lead to pain, then what's the point? I reached out to my loved ones and they were able to help me get back on track. I made some lifestyle changes that helped with the depression and anxiety, determined to not keep repeating the cycle. I met my current partner after having done a lot of work on myself. I was managing and doing well overall. But it didn't take long for the trauma to resurface. I didn't know how to be in a healthy relationship because I've only ever known chaos and abuse- the healthy relationship felt threatening. Things that I thought I had worked through were back. I was ashamed. Once again I failed, I wasn't good enough. The depression came to a breaking point. I would wake up crying, couldn't get out of bed, couldn't work, had no desire to do anything. I would rely on exercise to get me though each day, developing disordered relationships with exercise and food. I could see the toll this was taking on myself and my relationships. I finally asked for help at 28 y/o and was officially diagnosed with depression and PTSD. I felt seen for the first time in my life. I had an answer for what I was experiencing, and it wasn't just me not trying hard enough to be happy. I was put on medication, and my life changed. Before, my emotions were only black and white, and I was finally feeling in color for the first time. I've been in therapy since then. I've learned how to ask for help, and that I don't have to take on the world alone. I still have days that are a struggle, but that's not most days. At 30 y/o I'm feeling the sunshine for the first time, and am grateful that I chose to persist. I didn't know that life could feel this good. It's never too late to ask for help. It gets better, I promise." -Anonymous

"I suffered sexual abuse, off and on, from the time I was 5 until 12. There was a friend of the family that was living with us and I was just allowed to hang out in this guy’s van. I remember everything and how he told me he’d hurt me if I told anyone. So, I blamed it on my step dad, who was a violent, abusive man in hopes he would leave.  I was deemed a slut and instigator by my mother. When I was older, I tried to explain that her boyfriends were sexually abusing me, I was called a liar. I was date raped at 14 by an older guy, who I thought was cute, but also told him no. I was called “cheap and easy”. I’ve struggled with my mental health, feelings of inadequacy and being self-deprecating.  Now, at almost 45 I’ve done a lot of inward work. Although, I haven’t gone to therapy, though I should, I will always be working on this issue. My biggest lesson is having children and wanting to protect them from all of the things I went through. I’m not perfect and single mom life is so hard, but the growth I’ve done for them is immense. I love myself, because of them." -Anonymous

"I have struggled with chonic endometrious psin since the age of 10. In 2012 I could not take the pain anymore and I waned to die so I swallowed a ounce of blow and my husband found me having a seizure. I had to be air flighted to a hospital and died in the ambulance from a heart attack and was then bought back to life. My lung was collapsed and I had brain damage and spent a month in a coma very sick. Once I got out of the hospital I did years of therapy and also got back on my prescription adhd meds and got on anti anxiety meds. Today I still struggle with wanting to kill my self from my endometriosis pain and I have had 5 surgeries in the past 5 year and also a hysterectomy for my endometriosis. I am trying my best to find the positive in all of this but I am tired of being in pain and sad that I can not have anymore kids. I am trying my best to stay alive because of my son husband and cats. Right now the only thing keeping happy is weightlifting and my amazing coach. I am thankful for my family, my job as a dancer and my job at the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant I work at hung him self in the building recently and today is his celebration of life. I wish Zak was still here with us and I feel bad he was struggling emotionally."  -Christina Fosnock

"I’ve always struggled with anxiety and depression. But around the end of last year- sometime in November 2024- I went so deep into depression. I felt totally worthless, what was the point, life was repetitive and boring and never ending bills and groundhog days. I had no interest in any of the things I normally love. I came home from work and just wanted to sleep. I was deeply sad and numb. I constantly thought it would be better if I just didn’t wake up. I wanted bad things to happen to me. I didn’t have my usual strength or positive attitude or grateful spirit to save me. I went on like this for a few months. Until one day I decided that I was not dead and that it was up to me to do something because I wasn’t going to talk to anyone about it. I went for a run. I forced myself outside. I slowly started to feel better. It would be only a month or so later that my step dad would take his life. I had no idea he was struggling. Those dark feelings crept in again. Why him? Why not me? He was feeling all those same sad feelings and he felt so alone. I know that feeling. And he didn’t have the strength to come out of it and it broke me. The grief of knowing how he felt and not being able to help because I had no idea he was going through it has wrecked me with guilt. With a deep sadness and pain. I never want anyone around me to feel that loss or that guilt. I miss him so much and I wish he could have borrowed strength to climb out so bad. 😭 It’s so important to reach out to someone and tell them. Because missing you will be so much to endure. You ARE so loved even if you don’t feel that way sometimes. Please stay. It does get better." -Push Through

"The idea of suicide always seemed to be familiar to me. I remember the first clear thought of the option in fifth grade. I wouldn’t come close to an attempt until college. I remember the anger and shame I felt that night. Instead of taking the pills I took off running and sobbing. What am I doing? I remember asking myself. I don’t really care what anyone wants from me besides Snoopy (my dog, Miss u buddy). I called the suicide hot line as I was running away and was put on hold. For better or worse the stupid fucking hold music, and being put on hold in crisis, made me laugh. The thought “what am I doing?” Came back again but much softer. What went wrong? What do I need that isn’t happening? Now a few years have passed and the thoughts ebb and flow. Instead of them sending me into crisis they are strong messages that I need to stop and re evaluate. They are still extremely angering and shameful but are less scary. I live for myself now instead of to please others. I am honest of where I am at with everyone and take the help I am offered and ask for more if need be. My life is not worth a job, any amount of money, any relationship, etc. this life of mine is priceless and I fight to keep my head above water. I am certain there will be peace again even with the background noise. I am so incredibly proud to say I will be graduating with my Master’s in Counseling Psychology in a month and will be able to care for people in places such as myself and so much heavier. It’s an honor to be able to do this work all the while healing something inside myself." -Anonymous

"As a very young child I was molested. This happened for more years than I can remember. Then after finally getting distance from my abuser my mother allowed a 21 year old drunk to move into our home and he and his friends raped me. I became so depressed that I could no longer trust anyone around me to protect me. I started partying and using alcohol to numb the pain. It got worse when I became legal drinking age. I drank 7 days a week to black out. Wanted to die from alcohol poisoning and tried too many times to count. It never happened for me despite my efforts. Then I discovered at 24 that I was 15 weeks pregnant and that little person growing inside me made me realize I now had a reason to try to live. I got sober. Went to counseling. Spent 10 years working with a trauma therapist, and underwent hypnotherapy to safely deal with a manage the bad parts of the traumas I went through. I haven’t always made good life choices but seeking help and talking to someone I had to learn to trust taught me that my life was worth living. I do still have bad days but I do now have the tools to make it through those days without attempting to kill myself and I am proud to say am 15 years sober." -Anonymous

"My psychiatrist, who I love dearly and has helped me so much, reminds me that she's most worried about me when I feel hopeless. When I feel like there's no way out. There are so many days when I don't understand the point of anything. My life is a mess. I'm not doing what I want, living where I want, and surrounding myself with the people I want to be around. "Person, place, thing." Well, I have none of those. Based on my individual circumstances, I have a lot of hurdles to get over until I can make changes (affordable housing as a single person, a job that pays enough but that doesn't make me feel like I am selling my soul). I really am trying; as much as I want to stay in bed all day, I have high functioning depression. I go through motions. Sometimes they help (fake it til you make it), but the scary part is this feeling always comes back. I've felt it since I was a kid. I am so lonely all the time. Everyone else has someone who comes before me. I'm not anyone's first choice, and I never have been. I truly believe no one loves me, no one ever will, and if I died, no one would care. I think people might be sad in theory, but 99% of people in my life would just move on and barely anything would be different for them. Then there are days when I catch up with an old friend or I watch the sunrise at work or I feel like I made someone's day a little bit brighter by saying hi or smiling. Or I marvel at the magnificence of nature and the beauty of the earth. Or I am stunned by a piece of art or music. "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?", writes Mary Oliver. There ARE days when that is enough. But they are fleeting and I'm mostly overwhelmed by sadness and loneliness. And I know "we're not alone," but when I want someone to run errands with me or someone to hug me when I've had a hard day and tell me they love me or someone to help me pick out a paint color for a wall-- everyone is busy, so I have to do those things alone. And no one wraps their arms around me and squeezes me like they never want to let me go. Humans are social and are wired for deep connection. And yet I'm never chosen. I try to stay positive, and I'm working so hard to break old patterns and be grateful and see the good. And I know I'm lucky in so many ways.  But this feeling is so awful, and so frequent. Even the best moments of my life barely even out the negative. And who wants to keep feeling like this? I don't.  But I don't know how to make it stop." -Anonymous

"I’ve written this same sentence about ten times at this point, trying to figure out how to start and tell my story, or even if my story is worth telling. I work in an environment where outwardly the message is mental health is critical and it is important to be open and seek help, but the reality is very different. The message is performative only and the reality for the longest time has been that mental health issues have a stigma, that is changing, but as the saying goes “the axe forgets, but the tree remembers”. My mental health struggle goes back at least 15 years, to my first Afghanistan deployment, I’ve had other deployments since that time, but that I’ve always kept myself busy enough that I’ve never had to deal with my own issues, always someone else’s, but never my own. Not to long after my first tour, my wife had a bad case of Post Partum, couple that with an already diagnosed anxiety issue, it was difficult times. She’s from Eastern Europe, and culturally mental health is weakness, not a medical issue that needs treatment. I watched her as she refused to get help, there would be periods of calmness, but then the issues would come back, and often worse. There were episodes of extreme anger, self harm, suicide attempts, and a despair that you never want to see in someone you love. Eventually she got help, both for herself and our family, and she has been doing much better, I don’t think it’s anything you’re ever cured from, but something she is aware of, and we work together on every day. Then there’s me, as I sit here writing, I realize I’m doing everything to avoid writing about myself. That’s the funny thing about my career, you’re taught to look out for everyone around you, recognize the signs of when help is required, when to be proactive and get help. I’ve recognized it in my wife, in people who have worked for me that were in crisis, but never in myself, possibly because I didn’t want to admit to myself there was a problem, or I just wasn’t being honest with myself. It all came to ahead after my last deployment, I don’t know if I hit rock bottom, but I came close. I remember when my wife was going through her issues, she had described depression in that it wasn’t that she was sad, it was numbness mixed with feelings of rage. Looking back, I had been living like that for almost two decades, and it was just getting worse. For almost 15 years I had been self medicating, the only times I had gotten a full night’s sleep was because I was under the influence of one chemical or another. That numbness my wife had explained, I was feeling to, first just a little, but then more and more. It eventually felt like I was in a fog, and only experiencing the shadows of life, no enjoyment, no happiness, just outlines of existence. It had gotten to the point that I would self harm just to feel something, to have scars to remind me of feeling just something. I was detached from my family, and at several times was at the point where I wanted to end the struggle. I’ve fought my whole life, in sports, work, it was something that defined my life and I was tired, I didn’t want to fight anymore, I wanted to just go to sleep and never wake up. As my behaviour was becoming more self destructive, my dependencies becoming more consuming, and worse of all I was pulling away more and more from my wife and kids, it came to ahead. I started having more breakdowns or anxiety attacks, and eventually my wife made the same pleas to me that I made to her years earlier. I don’t know why, but I remember having another crisis moment one day in my office and it was that point that I was either going to drive head-on into an 18 wheeler, or finally get help…..from the outside the decision should have been easy, but I was paralyzed staring between my phone and my car keys. After an hour I called help. Since then, things are better. Most people wouldn’t have guessed I was suffering, outwardly I was happy, always helping others, seemed like everything was going right, obviously it wasn’t. I’m in regular therapy and some medications, but it’s going better. Am I cured? like my wife, I don’t think I ever will be. I have memories that I still need to confront and I’m not always happy, but at least I’m feeling a full range of emotions. I’m reconnected, and in a lot of ways, more strongly connected with my family. I’ve re-prioritized a lot of things in life, and although I’m not always happy, I’m content and according to my therapist, wiser. Most of all, I’ve learned this is a fight I don’t have to face alone, and I have a lot to live for. To think I’d miss my kids growing up, or growing old with my wife (even if she does mess with my workout music playlist at times) is scary, but I think it shows how far down the rabbit hole I was and how far I’ve come. I don’t know if there is any lesson in my story, or if it is just for my own therapeutic purposes to get more comfortable sharing (my therapist is impressed with my avoidance skills, I’m trying to work on that), but I hope it can help someone. You may not recognize symptoms in yourself, but if your loved ones are giving you warnings, take those warnings seriously before they are no longer your loved ones. Life may be hard because you have a big load to carry, but you don’t always have to carry it by yourself, and there is always someone there ready to help, so please take that help, because the longer you wait, the harder it is to accept it." -Mike

"My story starts after the birth of my first child. I experienced postpartum depression on what I would consider a moderate level. I started medication, but because it was brief I was then off medication in a matter of months and as with anything birth-related my brain conveniently forgot that it even occurred. In my second pregnancy a few years later, the unimaginable happened and I was faced with the impossible task of needing to terminate the pregnancy at 20 weeks (a medical problem with the baby). The loss of the baby and the resurgence of postpartum made me suicidal. I think the only thing that kept me from it was not wanting my son to lose his mother. I again went on medication, which didn’t seem to help this time around. I was able to hang on for 6 months though and got pregnant again. The hormones of pregnancy provided the break I needed mentally, but 3 months in my partner confessed to habitual infidelity and was planning to leave me for his current side piece. He ended up staying and I won’t get into why I didn’t have the courage to leave at that point. The remaining pregnancy was a nightmare. I was a robot focused on survival. I was unhealthy, could barely eat, and constantly afraid of being abandoned. I didn’t feel comfortable using medication while being pregnant, but I did start talk therapy (finally!). I used my kids to keep me from considering self harm again but it took 4 more years of therapy, and my discovery of weightlifting to get mentally well. I got a divorce, cut off a toxic friendship and felt like my true authentic self for the first time in over a decade. I often think back on that period with gratitude despite the suffering. I would not have the amazing life I have now, nor know how resilient I am without that." -Anonymous