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Journaling My Way Out of Depression and Anxiety
My journey to mental health
I’ve lived with depression and anxiety all of my life. Primarily, dad’s anxiety. My mother was stoic as they came, but dad’s anxiety made up for her lack of emotion. I learned later that depression and anxiety are two sides of the same coin. I guess that may explain the reason why when I was in hospital corpsman school in the US Navy, my cousin had just committed suicide.
Because I wanted to know why someone would do that, I became an 8485 corpsman. In other words, I became a neuropsychiatric technician. In the Navy terms, that was a fancy term that meant that I would work on a psychiatric ward in a naval hospital. Most of our patients were recruits that had their first psychotic breaks in boot camp. I thought I was there to help others. What I didn’t realize was that I was there to help myself with my own issues.
I worked hard and did well for a while. I did well until I was pregnant, and my son’s father decided that our relationship wasn’t good enough for him and he decided he wanted someone else. I became depressed, and I was also anxious about having a child all by myself. Plus there was the guilt. I felt a lot of guilt related to becoming his parent.
Because I wanted my son to have a father, I ended up married to a friend. He was a good…