Let’s Talk About Anxiety and Depression

Today, I’m doing something that’s been difficult for me and opening up to share my experience with anxiety and depression. Mental illness is something at least one in five Americans struggle with, at least 40 millions of Americans. Let’s talk about it.

I have anxiety. It’s not an I-get-nervous-or-anxious-before-something-big-happens kind of a feeling. It’s an all-consuming constant feeling that looms over everything I do every single day. Some days it’s more manageable and I even forget about it for a few hours. Other days I can barely get out of bed, think everyone’s mad at me, and think that nothing I do is good enough for anyone. That I don’t deserve the people and things I have in my life.

A lot of you know I lost my dad three years ago, almost three years to the day, but only a few people know why. After suffering from several strokes, even spending Father’s Day in the hospital three years ago, my dad eventually found out that he had small tumors on his brain that caused him to temporarily lose his balance and his vision or act out and get extremely angry for no apparent reason. These tumors would also eventually take his life, he was told. He always had a temper, so we didn’t think much of all the signs and didn’t know much about recovery from strokes. We thought the worst thing that would take him would be those tumors.

One night during one of those angry episodes, he shot and killed himself. It felt like the shot had hit me too when I got the call that night and learned of what had happened. I couldn’t breathe. I got sick. I sat in my pajamas at midnight on a Monday night in the car with my roommate Marie as she drove me to my family in suburbs so we could go be with him in the hospital.

We had to say goodbye to my Dad today, my biggest fan, the guy who knows something about everything, has a joke for every occasion, and who would’ve done anything for his daughters. Words can’t say how much I’m missing you.

A post shared by Lindsay Roseman (@lindsayroseman) on Sep 29, 2015 at 8:45pm PDT

Life wasn’t the same for so many reasons after that, and it took me almost a full year to wake up and feel neutral again. It also took a year for me to start seeing a therapist. It took several months even after that until I could talk about what had happened with her. At some point during our sessions she told me that anxiety was an emotion, not a state of being, which I think was supposed to be helpful, but in reality only diminished what I was struggling with in the aftermath of his death.

I tried everything. Meditate, they said. Go to yoga, they said. Start running again. Sign up for a marathon, they said. (Actually that last one was my idea, but it still didn’t lift my anxiety, just gave me something else to worry about.) I did all of those things, and nothing lessened the anxiety that I felt every single day. That I’d be in meetings at work and all I could think about was people dying. What if they walked out of the office and got hit by a car? How could I ever expect to get married? What if once you finally find the love of your life they just die on you?

Eventually I started thinking about taking something to help me focus on the things I was actually doing instead of worrying about all of the things that could happen instead.

The conversation about anxiety and depression and self-care and medication is louder now than ever, but it obviously wasn’t always like that. Even a year ago, it wasn’t like that. People would talk about being medicated like it was an insult. It wasn’t actually until I talked to a few friends of mine and learned that they were taking medication to help cope with anxiety and depression that I went to my doctor and asked her about it.

I currently take a pill for my anxiety every single day, with other pills that I can take when I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack and can’t calm myself down.

Seeking out help, coming to terms with the fact that how I feel is valid and something I can work on healing and that it’s not “temporary” or “in my head” has helped me begin to reach a place of a sort of peace that for a long time didn’t feel possible.

I still have bad days, bad weeks even. Moving to Nashville and leaving my home, my family, my job and all of my friends really tested what I’ve been working toward the last few years. And I know it’s something I’ll probably have to work toward every single day of the rest of my life. But now I feel like I can talk about. I can share my feelings, my pain and my growth with the people I love. And I can ask for the support that I need. Because even though it took me a while to learn this, the good people in your life WANT to help you. They WANT to support you and be there for you and lift you up to ease your pain. But you have to let them. And you have to ask for it, as hard as that can be, because even the people closest to you don’t always know what you need or how they can help you.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I want to share my story and struggle with anxiety to help anyone else learn that it’s OK to ask for help. In fact, you have to to survive. And you have to ask several people.

Probably a week before my dad committed suicide, he sent a text to a therapist someone had recommended to him asking to meet with her. And you know what she said back? She was busy. She didn’t have any time on her calendar. But he didn’t reach out to anyone else to tell them how bad he was actually struggling.

I hope my story helps you reach out and tell your loved ones how you can be best supported. Better yet, ask your family and friends, how can I best support and love you? What do you need from me? And know that it’s OK to struggle with anxiety or depression and there is light on the other side. In fact, I feel like it’s almost “normal” these days. But no matter what we’re going through, we are strong. And we need to be there for each other.

I always loved how my friend Claire ends each of her yoga classes, so I’ll leave you with this:

Kind thoughts to yourself and others.
Kind words to yourself and others.
Love to yourself and others.

Suicide prevention resources: 

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• Crisis Text Line