My Life Fighting Mental Illness and The Stigma

       This time a year sucks for me. See, my boss lost his battle with depression on Nov. 11th. Right before Thanksgiving. My uncle took his own life December 28th. So within the last few months of those years, I had a great loss that shook my world. I had just seen both of them a few days before. Oddly both the last words they said to me were “I love you.”    They say when someone has been thinking about ending their life and has finally decided to go through with it, they have a out pouring of love. Meaning, they may give you something that is really special to them or they will tell you that they love you. As a kinda way to say goodbye, but hiding it so you don’t worry. I guess I am thankful that those were the last things said to me by both of them, but at the same time, it doesn’t help the “what if’s”.    Besides me being sick yesterday, I kept having flashbacks. The memories that I see and feel so intensely that they are almost real. The...

   Some of you might think I’m sharing this blog because of two reason: 1. I want you to feel sorry for me. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t want you sympathy or attention from this. I want to bring awareness and maybe show someone far away or close by that they aren’t alone in their fight.      2. I’m jumping on the bandwagon since all these celebrities have came out with their stories. Well thats not really true either. In 2013 I had already decided that I was going to be open about my mental health and the medication I was on. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. ( I WAS SOOOO WRONG) I knew at some point someone would see me taking my pills. Instead of them thinking I was a drug addicted, I made jokes about it and tried to ease the tension that was bulit up around me taking pills for my depression and anxiety. For the longest time my alarm to take them was set as “Take Crazy Pills”. I thought it was funny and so did most o...

  Many of you may read this and relate to me. Maybe you understand where I am coming from. I know some of you have to live with depression and may other mental illnesses everyday. Sometimes we can be open with them. In my experience, a lot of the time you can’t. I have been told I shouldn’t be working in the medical field. I shouldn’t be a paramedic. Most of the time I usually run across people thinking that I shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. ( Never been suicidal or committed to a psych ward and have all legal rights to own guns in my state) They think just because I have depresssion, anxiety and PTSD I will loose my mind and shot up everyone. I have ran in to so many peopel that don’t understand the differences between the types of mental illness. They automatically think I should be locked up. They wont even bother to ask. They just think I should think I am a lesser person than the, because I take medication.     There really isn’t any difference between me taking a...

       I sit here at 04:35am CST starting to really think about the things I face everyday. The thing many people around the world face everyday in silence. No one that is my parents generation or any father back, dare even speak its name. Mental Illness. The thing is, it is everywhere, but no one is trying to fight it until my generation. I guess that may not be a fact, but more the way I feel and how I see the world from my little corner.      I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at the age of 22. I had just got married and I worked as an EMT at the time, so I saw a lot of things that everyday people don’t see. It started to get to me. I felt on edge all the time. The simplest things would scare me half way to death. Something was right. Something hadn’t been right for many years by then.     See all my life I have been around death. No I don’t live in a funeral home or anything like that. It was just people were always dying aroun...