After the Break…

So first off, I would like to apologize for the huge space with not writing on such a newly created blog. Things have been rough as of late. While I was home from leave, I found out that my Grandfather had passed away while he was sleeping one morning. That has taken a major tole on me, and it’s a difficult rut to come out of. I was very close to this man, and was one of the very few people that I truly looked up to. Also, I found out that I may become medically retired from the military due to my Depression and Anxiety. They’ve spend so much time at throwing medication at me all the time, instead of trying to find the cause, which had made things worse and almost impossible to work with.

On another note, I’ve been working on a big project that I hope to be able to officially launch within the next few years. I want to eventually make a non-profit organization that focuses on way to better treat people with depression, anxiety, and PTSD other than just constantly filling them with medication. I can tell you first hand, and I’m sure most of you who read this can agree with me when I say that medicines like, Prozac, Paxil, or Valium are not as helpful as one would hope. Now don’t get me wrong, depending on the circumstances and if the doctor actually knows what the problem is, then medication could be the way to go,

What I want to do with this project is look for ways to have a better out reach to those of us who suffer from this illness. I want to find ways to help people not only cope with living with depression, anxiety, or ptsd but find a way to cure it once and for all. I’m working on a public speaking presentation to discuss with as many people as possible, no matter their job, economic status, where they live in the world, the signs of depression, and ways of overcoming it. I want to find a way to link people together who have similarities to one another so they have that support system that everyone truly needs. Because a doctor sometimes isn’t the best cure for something, but a good support buddy may be able to do the trick. A lot of the times that I’ve noticed with not only myself, but with other people I have spoken with, that we feel alone. Like no one understands what we’re going through, and feel like that they really don’t care.

The one thing that really stands out to me is the fact that people don’t really understand, and many people jump to conclusions and thing that we’re being dramatic, or our problems aren’t that bad when to that person, their problem could really be a big deal in their mind. I want to find a way to change this, I want people to better understand what depression and how they could help other people.

Something I would like from everyone who reads this, give me some things you would liked talked about in a public speaking situation? Different types of Depression? Statistics? Anything would be much appreciated, and nothing is off limits when it comes to this topic. I want to find ways to better help not only myself, but others as well.

Not doing what’s right.

Today has been one of the easier days thus far. Not too busy, not a lot of stress, about the ideal day for someone like me. Anxiety has been moderately high, but nothing I’m not used to feeling, just took my anxiety medicine in hopes it can make it somewhat tolerable to make it through the rest of the work day, or at least until i make it to my kickboxing class. Since today has been somewhat easy, it’s had me thinking somewhat about some things and what I should write about today.

How many many of you have done things you never thought you would do in desparation? Depression and anxiety is known to make you think irrational and do things you normally wouldn’t do. I know I’m guilty of it, and I’m sure a good majority of you reading this will admit to it as well. So allow me to share with you my story of the day.

Like I’ve shared in the past, I’m in the miltary. I’ve served for the last five years, active duty in the Army. I’ve deployed twice to Afghanistan. My first one I was single, not a care in the world, my second and most recent, I’m married with a kid. That’s the one we’re going to focus on today.

August last year, I was sent to Afghanistan. While I was there, I started to have a lot of issues with my depression. In fact they were far worse than what I was used to. It didn’t help though, that while deployed my wife and I were having issues, trying to decide if we were gonna work on things or go our separate ways. I was completely lost, and felt far more alone than I had ever felt. A mutual female friend between my wife and I became a good friend that I was able to confide in. Now I’m sure just hearing that, you can already smell trouble.

We would talk every night after I got off duty through skype, just talking about everything going on, how I was doing, and whatever else came up. Well over time, feelings started to get in the way. The girl I would confide in would shortly become the girl I was falling for.
After a while, it was determined that I would be leaving Afghanistan sooner than planned so I could be treated in a more stable environment. I jumped on the plane and began my journey, but it wasn’t my wife I was excited to see, it was our friend. After about a week of traveling, I had landed in the states. My wife was waiting on me with my son. We said our hellos, I held my son, but for some reason all I could think qbout was getting home and seeing the friend. After getting my gear off the plane, and doing everything I needed to do, we went home, put our son to bed and I left to see my friend. First thing I did once I got to her house was walk in and kiss her. Once thing led to another and we went to her bed. We did what any happy couple would do.

After it was all set and done, did I feel bad? At first I would have told you no, of course not. But after a while it began eating at me, her and I after that not began to drift apart, she started seeing other guys, and my wife and I were trying to fix our marriage. Jealousy started taking a toll on me, and making my depression worse because I knew I was wrong. After taking some time to think things through, I did what I needed to do and cut that friend out of my life. I needed to get the negativity out of my life. And ever since then, I’ve gotten myself on the right track on fixing not only my marriage, but myself as well. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do by any means, but sometimes you have to go through things in life to set you on the path to getting better.

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Drug Induced Dreams

One thing that will never cease to amaze me, is one of the first things doctors want to do for someone with depression is to start throwing medcines of all sorts. Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, and Prozac just to name a few. And all of them are meant to treat and do the same things, change the chemicals in your brain that could possibly cause depression and anxiety. The main thing I feel from these medcines though, are the side effects. And the one that bothers me, are the dreams associated.

On a normal basis before the medication, I already had a issue with sleeping. It was the normal having trouble staying asleep. As time went on, and I became more aware of the depression and anxiety disorder, and started getting help they decided to start finding way to help me sleep. Well like any normal person, I began taking the medicine in hopes that is would help, but had no luck.

I would go to all my appointments and it would be the same thing. Go in, talk with the doctor, explain I’m not feeling any better, and without hesitation they would try a new medication. After a while, my condidition began getting worse. I was getting less sleep, more depressed, and far more anxious. This time, I wasnt waking up for no reason. I was having nightmares.

These nightmares that would have me throwing myself up out of bed, screaming, looking around trying to figure out where I was. I would begin seeing things at night, freaking out not wanting to fall asleep in fear of what I would see. These dreams were like they were out of a Steven King novel, yet they were so life like. I had never experienced anything like it before. Sometimes I would wake up and remember every little detail, and other night I couldn’t remember the smallest detail.

Let me give you an example, this was a dream that I had recently, yet it’s the one that has bothered me the most. When the dream began, I was being escorted into a huge concrete building. It resembled a prison on the outside. When I made it inside, thats where I could tell it was some sort of mental institution. People we’re walking around in straight jackets, yelling and screaming, talking words I could hardly understand. Others were off alone, quiet, sitting in a corner just staring off, as if they were frozen. When I made it past the lobby, I was brought into an open bay, full of beds all against the walls. In the middle of the room was what appeared to be a pool, but there were guard rails all around it, and a crane hanging above it.

Speaking of the pool, the dream went to myself being taken onto the walkway, or deck of this pool. A operator had the crane lowered down, and they had it latched onto my back and lifted me high above the pool. I had no idea why this was happening or what they were trying to accomplish, I tried to yell but nothing would come out. It was almost as if my vocal cords were ripped from my throat. Then out of nowhere without warning, my body fell from the sky and slammed into the water of the pool. The water was scalding hot, and miserable. After about a minute of fighting I was lifted from the pool, only to be dropped over and over again.

Finally, we get to another part of the dream. This time I was trying to escape. Somehow i had made it to the morgue of the building. Bodies were everywhere, on beds covered in blankets. I heard someone coming so I lifted up on of the blankets, jumped under it, laying next to a dead body. They begin moving the bed I was on, and wheeled it outside. I could hear the people talking, but none of it was audible. As soon as they got the bed in the back of the van, I heard a door slam open and a man yelling. The bed was quickly removed off of the van and the sheet ripped off. There were security guards and doctors, surrounding the bed, angry. Finally, one of the guards lifted his gun and shot me. No warning no reason. The minute the gun fired, I woke up, lifting myself out of bed. After realizing I was safe and in my own home, all I could do was sit there, watch tv, and wait for my alarm to get up for work to go off.

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Awareness

So like I’ve said in my last post, I’m currently serving in the Army, and have been for going on five years. What I failed to mention though, is my rank is Sergeant.

Now normally, people think once you become a supervisor, or in a leadership role, your stress level is usually lower. I used to think the same exact way, and I have never been so wrong. I didn’t realize that the days when i was a young private, having to clean, and do little task here and there were nothing compared to what I go through now. Now that I’m in charge, and have Soldiers of my own, things have become a lot more challenging. Because not only am I watching out and concerned for my own well being, but of the others who look up to me as thier leader. Never once did I think I was going to have to think and decide for someone else, especially in a combat scenario.

This past August of 2014, I was sent on my second deployment to Afghanistan, but this time I wasn’t a brand new private, I was a sergeant. This time I had brand new privates looking at me for all the right answers. Of course, I had gone over with my head held high, and confident, but little did anyone know that it was all just a front and for show. I was afraid and scared. That was my first taste of how my anxiety would truly effect my life.

Yeah, I would have the occasional panic attack, or depressive episode, but never like I did on this deployment. I was far more timid, short tempered, and not so much myself. I lost focus and concentration a lot faster than normal, and would forget things I should never forget. It was so bad that it was putting other lives in danger, including my own. Things got so bad, it was affecting my marriage with my wife and I was pulled from duty, and required to seek help.

After seeking help from one of the doctors, it was determined that I would be sent home early to be treated in a more stable environment. Once I made it home, it was complete hell trying to be seen by a doctor. When I called to make an appointment its was a month and a half wait just to be seen. On top of that, people and work with and my supervisors were treating me like I was making things up and acting the way I was for attention. In fact, my supervisor even told me that there was nothing wrong with me physically, nothing wrong mentally, that I was only having trouble sleeping and needed to fix it.

That’s what brings me to me main focus of this writing, is no one really understands what is really going on with someone with depression or an anxiety disorder. The main question I’m asked when I bring up that I have depression is, “What do you have to be depressed about?” or “Why are you depressed?” Why does that alwayd have to be the question, majority of the time someone who is clinically depressed, doesn’t even know the reason why. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes it, but when you tell someone that you don’t know they immediately assume you’re doing it for attention.

I want to bring awareness to depression and anxiety. Some make not think so, but these two things are just as severe as any type of disease, illness, or cancer. Why isn’t there more awareness, or research being done to help this? Instead it’s pushed to the side, and treated like something that doesn’t really exist except to people who live and suffer from it.

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Welcome to My World

Hello everyone, and welcome to what I like to call “My World.” Now I only call it that, because this is a way to let others see what goes on in my head, my own little world. I’m not only using this as a way to help myself, but a way to reach out, and help others going through the same thing thing I am. To let you know that you’re not alone.

Now a little about myself. I’m a 25 year old male, from the United States. I’m living life with depression, and severe anxiety. Two things that have made my life a living hell for a good majority of my life. Growing up was especially hard for me, I never really got a chance to live a normal childhood life. Watched my grandmother pass at the young age of four. Not long after my grandmother’s passing, my mother went through a nervous breakdown, which lead to my sister and I living with my aunt and uncle.

Living with my aunt and uncle, was tough on me, especually at a young age. Being with them kept me away from my father, which I didnt fully understand at the time, but it confused me on who my parents really were. After a while, my mother came back into my life, and had a man in her life who would eventually become my step father. I didn’t realize it then, but i would eventually really respect this man. As time went on, I would be reunited with my father, grandfather, and step mother. Years went by, and I lost my step mother to a car accident. It was a very tragic time in my life, and the first time I fully understood death, unlike when my grandmother passed. I was in eighth grade when I lost my step mother.

Not long after, my grandfather had a stroke a was hospitalized, and I was falsely accused of something that I had never done and didn’t even understand fully as an eighth grader. While i was in middle school, I was accused of molesting my two younger female cousins by my aunt and uncle, the same two who took me in as their own when I needed them most. When it all happened, I had no idea what was going on. I had people constantly asking about touching in certain places, ways I felt and had never felt at that time. I was a young normal kid, I didn’t really know what sex was. After many months of talking to tons of people, and my parents constantly fighting, it was decided I was innocent. I would never do such a disgusting act.

A couple years my step father who serves in the reserves received orders that he was going to deploy. This hit our family hard, we never went without him around as a family. And now at this time we had my new, little brother added in. He left, and once again my mother had a nervous breakdown, but worse than when her mother had passed. She mentally checked out, but this time it was more drug induced. At that time, I was a teenager having to grow up way to early and be the adult of the house.

My whole teenage life, my step father deployed off and on, leaving me to care for the family. My mother would check out, and I would have to fight with her constantly making sure bills were paid and their was food in the house so my siblings could eat. I would eventually get a job just to help support everyone, and continued to go to school, play sports, and participate in band in theatre.

After a rough high school life, and a couple failed suicide attempts, I would graduate high school and join the army. Which brings me to where I am now. Im now five years in the Army, married with one kid. I’ve been to Afghanistan, did and seen things I never thought I would. It took me until now to find help for everything I’ve been through and to stop trying to take it on alone. Now I’ve set out to reach out to others going through life as I have. 

I’ve always felt like I was alone, and there was never anyone there for me. Now that I’ve grown older, I’ve come to know my calling. I want to help other going through life with depression, and anxiety. It’s tough and almost impossible to take on alone. The purpose of this blog is to take on my day to day life trying to battle and cope with my life. And to show others that they’re not alone and shouldn’t be ashamed to be who they are. I hope I can make a change not only in my life, but help change the lives of others for the better.