Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi there! My name is Kage Burton. I am a welder in Utah and I build conveyor systems for companies around the world. I have been welding for 7 years now and I’d like to say I am getting pretty good at it!

I am also a ski instructor during the winters. There is nothing I love more than watching people when they finally start to understand skiing. It’s like watching someone discover what fun is. It’s really a neat experience.

While I do live in Utah now, Wyoming will always be home as that is where I spent the first 20 years of my life. I have a lot of fond memories growing up in Wyoming.

Wyoming has the smallest population out of any state in the United States, so when you’re a kid growing up in Wyoming, you kinda have to make the fun.

This took many shapes whether it be building four-wheelers with my K’nex, planning your next fort to build with your friends, or even sweeping all of the hay up in the top of the barn so you can open up a restaurant. (Yes me and my cousins did this and no we never opened the restaurant, we were like 8.) 

I am very fortunate to have a loving family that I grew up around. My family is very religious yet, I am not. I realized this when I graduated high school and quit going to church.

Being very worried about how this would affect my relationship with my father and the rest of my family, I can now say that I am extremely grateful for them. They have all accepted my life choices and let me be who I want to be, judgment-free. I will forever love them.

I moved to Utah in 2019 at the end of the year to pursue my career in welding. As you all know, 2020 is when COVID-19 hit and many people’s lives were affected. I was extremely lucky in the way things played out.

When I showed up to Utah I had 6 grand in savings and I managed to blow that in 2 months! But, in March, the school I was going to was forced to move all their classes online.

The story is actually pretty funny. I remember my late 70’s welding instructor telling the class, “All these colleges are going to online classes and they expect us to, but you can’t teach welding online!”

And then about a week later we were told that our course had been moved online. But, this was fortunate for me. I ended up taking a leave of absence in order to find a job and rebuild my savings.

Up to this point, I had never been out on my own so going out and living on my own was a very daunting task and I was quite frankly frightened. My town didn’t even have stoplights. The closest one to where I lived was half an hour north so I never went through that thing.

I don’t even think I had driven through a stoplight at this point. So moving to a town with stoplights at every intersection, that was a city to me, and I was terrified.

But now I’ve been living in Utah for three years. I have had so many wonderful and terrible experiences that have happened since. I’ve made friends and lost friends. Some of which have been with me from the start. I’ve learned to accept it though.

I live with my aunt and uncle right now where rent is so high. It’s a good place for me. It’s helped me to get out of my cocoon of sadness, cheered me up, and gave me the space to find the help that I need. So yeah, I am at one of the happiest points in my life.

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What is your struggle and when did it start?

Well, I only really started taking my mental health seriously back in March. However, now looking back I can see that I have struggled with Anxiety and Depression my whole life.

As of one week ago, I can now add ADHD to the list of things I have always struggled with. Getting this ADHD diagnosis really adds depth to it all that I never could have seen. The lonely nights, the terrible performance, and the general lack of motivation.

As I said, I have been experiencing these things for as long as I can remember. When it comes to depression, I got very depressed when my first best friend replaced me with other more popular kids. This tore my poor little soul apart.

I remember crying many times, missing my dear friend and all the wonderful memories we had. Wanting so badly to be like the other kids so he would take me back. But he never did and I honestly can’t stand him anymore for what he did to me.

When I got into 5th grade, my teacher was not very nice to me due to me struggling with ADHD. This was extremely depressing and anxiety-inducing. I still don’t know how to longhand double digit divide because of this teacher. I genuinely did not understand the way she was teaching the concept.

But, after two or three attempts to ask for help, my teacher would yell at me and then send me into the hall crying. This destroyed my social reputation and self-esteem.

So the next year, in sixth grade, I was bullied relentlessly fueling the depression and anxiety I had already been experiencing. I wouldn’t participate with the class in games preferring to sit to the side and avoid all social interactions. Because I knew if I participated, I would just be subjecting myself to the put-downs of the popular girls.

Going into middle school, we see sadness arise from almost losing yet another best friend to the popular kids. This led me down the same road as before. Crying, fearing that my friend may move on and forget me and the relationship I had. So once again I tried to shift crowds with him.

This was almost my downfall. I started hanging out with a kid that happened to be a VERY BAD influence. Luckily this kid moved away after middle school and no longer played a part in my life after that. To give you an idea, this kid tried to rob a gun store after he moved. So yeah, glad I dodged that bullet.

Now I feel at this point, I should address ADHD and the effect it had upon me up to this point. In elementary school, my mother was always confused because I would read a book and then never test it. My reading grade was terrible because of this. She would take me in to take the test after school and I would score 100%. 

This eventually led to me losing my beloved dog in fifth grade. My dad says he told me if I didn’t get my reading grade up, he would get rid of Gage. I didn’t remember this probably due to ADHD and one day I came home after a long, depressing, anxiety-ridden day expecting to see my dog.

He was nowhere to be found. I asked my dad where he was and he just told me,” A snowmobiler from Montana came and picked him up.” I never got to say goodbye. Over the years we have had many dogs but Gage was my dog and I loved him.

I spent the rest of the night crying in my room missing my best friend. This wasn’t the only night that this had happened. In fact, I’ve been crying writing this because I still miss my friend.

ADHD continued to rule my life well into middle school and onwards. While teachers could keep my attention in class, the homework was about as boring as can be and it never got done. Thus, grades tanked and led to much disappointment.

A lot of teachers would see how smart I was when they were teaching something that I liked but they couldn’t figure out why I wouldn’t do the work. This is about the time when every teacher began feeding me the depressing mantra,” You would do so much better if you would just apply yourself.”

I heard this from almost every teacher from this point till the end of my schooling career. I didn’t even know what that meant and it hurt. Because when you don’t know you have ADHD, this becomes an attack on one’s personal character.

So this became me. Someone who didn’t apply themselves. Someone who was lazy. And not someone who couldn’t do the hard work but someone who just wouldn’t. As if I had a choice in all the procrastinating and forgetting. When you have ADHD you don’t choose these things. They just happen.

I didn’t want to be 32 assignments behind in math. I didn’t want to barely graduate with a 2.1 GPA. I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my parents and teachers. It all just happened and there was no way for me to control any of it. But after so long you believe it all was your fault.

Eventually, I did graduate, launching me into the many struggles of holding a steady job. My first job I actually thrived at. This was working at a little retail store in town. Every day presented something new to deal with. The ADHD mind loves this.

Always something new to keep the mind entertained. From making shopping cart trains with the electric cart, to watching people get arrested for shoplifting. Every day was an adventure and I loved it.

A year later that place closed down and I found a job at the local Radioshack. Yes, you read that right. 2019, in a small town, run by a nearly 80-year-old man, Radioshack. It was as boring as it sounds and the only entertainment I got at that job was the 70-year-old man who worked there with me.

Other than that, there was no motivation to get anything done. My boss was always disappointed with me whenever he came around. And I almost made the store close down because it was losing so much money. But now I realize, that’s not entirely my fault. It’s a Radioshack in Wyoming. It was destined to fail.

After that wonderful experience I started my welding career by heading off to school. This required a lot out of me and it promptly started off with a panic attack in my mother’s shower at 8 in the morning when I should’ve been packing my car. My grandparents were eventually able to help me calm down and I did get moved.

I started school and this is when I met my first real girlfriend. If you don’t think that ADHD affects relationships, well, it does. I was completely infatuated with this girl for the first little while. I loved her and everything about her.

However as time went on, we grew distant as I wouldn’t be as excited by her or her interests anymore, and from her perspective, it looked as though the relationship had become about me.

She’s not wrong in looking at it this way. I wanted to do what I wanted to do because what she wanted to do didn’t interest me. I wanted to play my video games and she wanted to ride her horses. And after living together for a year and a half, she ripped my heart to pieces and moved 13 hours away to New Mexico.

I only had a week with her after finding out that she was doing this and it hit me like a truck. The day she told me, I had to leave and process what she’d said.

So, I went out to a field, laid in some dirt, stared at the sky, and cried for the next hour. She broke up with me about a month later and you could see in her text message that I had made the relationship about me. And now I know why.

Since then I’ve had two more relationships that never went anywhere because I lost interest in them. I still miss my ex and I don’t know when I’ll have another relationship like I had with her. This is single-handedly the most depressing thing I deal with. It’s about once a month I go into a depressive episode missing her.

And here we are now! Working my welding job and loving life! ADHD is always at work forgetting where my tape measure is or where I set my gloves. I make silly mistakes sometimes because I’m not paying attention and so I measure the wrong length or forget to change settings on machines.

The other day I had to grab some wrenches about 10ft away and within that distance, I forgot what I was doing and began eating Cheese-Its. I’ll pull out my phone to check the time and forget to check the time, opting to check my notifications instead. Every day is a struggle but, at least I can now see it for what it is!

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

Having ADHD, depression, and anxiety is like having the dream team of “you’re gonna have a crappy day!” ADHD just makes the highs really high and the lows really low and the lows are just compounded by anxiety and depression.

When you’re in the highs it’s like hitting New Year’s all over again. You make all these wonderful resolutions/goals that you swear you are gonna follow through with.

Then a week to two weeks later, all that has gone to the wayside and you are right back to the habits you were so sure that you were going to conquer a few weeks before.

Once you slip back into those habits, the anxiety and depression hit like a truck. You’re anxious because you feel the need to stick to your goals but you can’t because your ADHD won’t let you. Then you get depressed because you feel like you will never be able to reach your goals.

The goals extend far and wide as well. It’s not as simple as I wanna lose 10 pounds. No, it’s more along the lines of I want to become a world-class bodybuilder.

As Peter Shankman says in his book Faster than Normal “When you have ADHD, there is no such thing as moderation.” So all the many hobbies that I have tried to start or thought would be fun. You find me thinking about what it would be like to be the best in the world.

Lately, my obsession has been singing. If you could look into my brain, you would not see someone starting a small YouTube channel to showcase new songs. Instead, I am thinking about who could be in my band and envision myself on big stages playing top songs.

A while back I really wanted to get into gem faceting (cutting gemstones). I have always had a fascination with rocks, so I thought it was right up my alley. Instantly I am thinking about cutting hundreds of thousand dollar stones and making beautiful works of art. However, this is an expensive hobby and the lack of funds eventually led to loss of interest.

Other hobbies I have dreamed about include Geology, Space Photography, Astrophysics, 3D Modeling, Mountain Biking, Freestyle Skiing, Park Skiing, War History, YouTube, Twitch, Video Game Development, Car Design, Vehicle Modding, Drawing, Music Production, Writing, Piano, Competitive Gaming, Videography, Social Media Marketing, Weight Lifting, Traveling, Self Help, Stoicism, Podcasting. I could list off so many more but I think you get the idea.

Eventually, you will try your hardest to stick to your newfound obsession but all the drive will be gone and it will actually feel sickening and depressing to even touch the hobby.

Then you start wondering, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you follow through with anything? Can I even achieve my goals? And it all gets so very depressing.

You literally go from mentally planning your whole future out in your head to hating the very thing you were so excited about in a matter of two weeks.

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Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

Anxiety and depression have both gone down drastically since I moved and switched jobs. From the people that I know who have experienced depression or anxiety, there is often something in one’s environment that is causing the problem.

In my case, it was the job I was at where my boss expected way too much out of me for way too little. I soon realized this when it became obvious that he was lying about how we were performing in hopes of making us work harder. Spoiler, it had the opposite effect.

The anxiety had actually gotten so bad that back in March I had the worst panic attack of my life. It was work-induced and I was scared because my body legitimately locked up and I couldn’t move. Spooky!

However, when I went to the ER they prescribed me medication. As crazy as this may sound, I had no idea that they had medication for that! This was an eye-opening realization to me that this thing that you have had your whole life… Yeah that’s not normal.

So after having this major panic attack, I decided something needed to change. I was super depressed and I had started taking anxiety meds almost every day at work to keep the panic attacks at bay. So I started therapy!

Oftentimes males are super hesitant to open up to strangers about their feelings and what they’ve got going on in their life. Yet, I took the approach of I need the help and this person is here to help me and this was one of the best things I could’ve done. It took me only about a month with my therapist’s help to connect the dots to my terrible job.

This got me daydreaming at work about quitting and moving closer to my friends and boy did that excite me. Eventually, my boss pushed me over the edge and I pulled the trigger. I wrote my boss a letter telling him I was going to search for a new job. Instantly I felt better.

No longer did I have the ever-present pressure to give another 100% after giving 110% I ended up finding a job and moving and WOW my life is so much better. I haven’t taken anxiety meds since I left and I honestly don’t even think about them anymore.

Now, throughout therapy, there were some other things, aside from work, that came up in our discussions that were depressing me. Lack of motivation, inability to complete tasks, lack of goals, jumping from hobby to hobby. And every time I brought one up, my therapist would say, “That could be a symptom of ADHD.”

Up to this point, ADHD wasn’t something that I thought about. No, ADHD up to this point had just been something that my mother mentioned getting me tested for when I was a kid. After which I proceeded to start crying.

After all, I thought that if I got diagnosed with ADHD that meant I was stupid and disabled (I do not think this anymore). Why wouldn’t a kid start crying if that’s what they thought their mother said. So she never got me tested.

So, when I finally quit my job and moved south I made it my goal to get tested for ADHD and finally get an answer to some of my life’s most pressing questions.

I moved in April and it took me some time to finally get around to it. The thing that finally pushed me over the edge was the weekend of September 30th of this year. That weekend I was going to my first ever concert!

‘Falling in Reverse’ was opening for Avenged Sevenfold and I couldn’t be more excited. Falling in Reverse is one of my FAVORITE bands. I worked that Friday and as it is coming home from work on a Friday, I was exhausted.

I came home and took a nap, no big deal. Well after I had my nap, my girlfriend was gonna come over and my room was trashed. Gotta clean!

The very first thing I did was some laundry. I had gotten into the habit of leaving my wallet and keys in my pants so I wouldn’t lose them. Well, I cleared out my pockets. BIG MISTAKE!

I took my wallet along with a stack of papers and I put it all in my dresser drawer. My girlfriend comes over, we go to get snacks. No wallet. I begin ripping my bedroom apart! All that work I had done making my bedroom look nice, doesn’t even matter anymore.

Eventually, my girlfriend just said she’d buy the snacks and I calmed down. Besides, I’ll find it when I get back right? Wrong. Honestly, I forgot to look until about an hour before I was supposed to leave for the concert. I didn’t find it.

At this point, the anxious side of me is going nuts. Not only am I going to have to ask my friend to buy everything for me at the concert tonight, but I’m also going to have to cancel all my cards, get new ones, get a new driver’s license, get a new insurance card, and a whole host of other things. It’s worse when you have ADHD too because you never really know when you’ll get any of this done.

So Monday rolls around, but still no wallet. At this point, I am going through my head mentally drawing up everything that needs to be done to fix this. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I knew my wallet couldn’t be lost unless it was stolen or I dropped it somewhere. I finally called a mental health clinic and scheduled a test. Between the excessive fidgeting and the excessive loss of items at work, I was fed up and ready to find help. And me losing my wallet finally did it in.

Mind you, at this point, I had not found my wallet which means no insurance card. No insurance card means no coverage and thus yet another thing for me to worry about. I couldn’t care less at this point.

So after I had gotten home from work, my anxiety was running strong. Just that constant feeling that you are on edge and something bad’s coming your way. So later in the evening, I turned to my release, journaling.

But I haven’t been able to find my journal since well, Friday. Hmmm, maybe if I find my journal I’ll find my wallet. At that point, I remembered the stack of papers that I had and I thought maybe I had stuffed them into a drawer. I opened the drawer and sure enough, there’s my journal, and under my journal, THE EVASIVE WALLET!

Since then, I have been tested. I do have ADHD. I actually learned that just a few days ago and I couldn’t be happier. When you go 23 years with ADHD not knowing, the moment you start researching ADHD and the effects it has on people, your life changes. It really does!

I have always thought that I was normal. No different than everyone else. But I never questioned why I struggled so much more on the easy tasks than everyone else.

Through Middle School my grades were awful. Got called to the principal’s office so many times because of this. I was kicked off the middle school football team for poor grades. Never got to go on school ski trips which was really sad to me because my parents never took me skiing.

Going into High School. I was signed up for a jump start. I did fine in jump start. I actually quite enjoyed it but this was then followed by 4 years of disappointing my parents and teachers.

Failing in even the classes that I enjoyed, such as welding, robotics, engineering, and foods. I finished High School with a 2.1 GPA barely graduating.

My joke has always been,” I needed a D on that test in chemistry to graduate, and boy did I get that D!” But, now, I look back with sadness because, unlike most people who hated high school, I loved it!

Hanging out with friends all day, learning cool things about science, history, English, and participating in extracurricular activities. Why would I ever say I hated it or didn’t care? Because that’s just what I was told.

With ADHD there are always moments where it turns around for a while. My room was clean about a week ago. Now there is trash and clothes everywhere and it’s kinda just the way I am existing right now.

You’ll get these magical bursts of motivation that push you in the right direction but motivation is fleeting with ADHD and about a week or two later, it won’t matter how easy you’ve made it, you’ll stop doing whatever it was. This feeds into the depression.

However, I do feel like I am making progress as a diagnosis is a great step in the right direction. I am gathering the resources I need to help myself be more successful and it does feel good.

The diagnosis has most importantly helped me to realize what I am and what I am not. Because of this, the extreme self-degradation has gone down and I feel so much more free to embrace the silliness of it all.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

ASK FOR HELP! I cannot stress this enough. I would not be where I am now if it weren’t for the support group I have around me. I used to be so scared of asking for help, especially because of ADHD.

This is because when I was a kid, asking for help or asking questions was often met with degrading or hurtful comments. Couldn’t find something, Mother comes in finds it, and says “It would help if you open your eyes!”.

Didn’t understand what the teacher was teaching, “It’s super simple and you are just not paying attention!” Brain didn’t react to Dad’s question so I responded with,” What?” Dad responds,” Did I st st stutter?!”

All these things really add up and so you start to build a shell around you and think no one wants to help you. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized there are a lot of people out there whose only job is TO HELP YOU! 

I cannot tell you how excited I am that I can unabashedly ask for help. I am just plotting out all the help I can get all the time and it feels so awesome.

I’ve already got my therapist and I just recently added a psychiatrist to the roster. Imagine all the others I’ll add. ADHD Coaches… Career Consultants… All these wonderful people who are there to make my life more enjoyable are no longer behind this wall that I had put up.

I would also say, anyone who thinks they could be struggling with a mental illness, do some research. ADHD up until about a month ago was only a possibility in my head and I thought if I had it, it was probably only affecting me a little bit.

But as I listened to podcasts and browsed the ADHD subreddit, I slowly began to learn what it means to actually have ADHD. Eventually, I had the experience that most people with undiagnosed ADHD go through. The experience of understanding your whole life.

Mind you, this happened within a matter of two days, and from these two days, I actually came out scared that I wouldn’t get the diagnosis. So as you can see this shifted my entire worldview. I honestly think everyone should at least research mental disorders a little bit to at least understand what neurodivergent people go through.

Medication is also a big thing for me as well. By no means am I a professional but, data does suggest that medication is really beneficial to those with mental health disorders. The negative stipulation is something that has personally affected my family.

My sister actually has ADHD as well and we’ve known this from an early age. When she was diagnosed, she was put on Ritalin. This was around the time of the Columbine School Shooting where the assailant had been using a psychotropic drug leading up to the shooting.

Because of this, my mother had to listen to everyone questioning her for putting my sister on drugs. My mother had been trying to find the help she needed with my sister and up to this point doctors had told her that it was her just being a bad parent. Even going as far as to give her books on parenting.

She was eventually able to find a doctor who told her she wasn’t a bad parent and that her daughter had a 7-second attention span. After that, she was put on Ritalin and the doctor didn’t even believe it was the same child when she brought my sister back for a follow-up.

The medication was life-changing for my mother and from what I understand it’s the same with most people that struggle with ADHD.

Even when I got my anxiety medication I noticed a difference. Every time I knew it was going to be a rough day, I would take a pill, and everything would be ok.

Up to that point, my boss had to do any small thing to ruin my day and leave me anxious for the rest of the day. So the medication was a godsend.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

Yes I have actually! I haven’t quite decided if this is a good thing yet. My reasoning for sharing this information is that it takes a lot of the mistakes I make off of my character. These people can then understand why I do the things I do and they can either accept it or deny it.

It no longer becomes my problem and I can continue to try to implement the systems that will help with a sort of shield from all the scrutiny. If they question me for asking for help or doing things a different way then I can simply turn to them and say,” I am asking for help/doing it this way because it is easier for me.

If you’d prefer I do things your way then just understand it will take longer or may never get done. Are you ok with that?” At that point, I have laid it out for them and they choose where it goes from there.

However, this has proven tough in certain aspects because, as mentioned in previous sections, no one knows what ADHD actually is and what we actually struggle with.

So when I tell my supervisor that due to my ADHD, I can’t do the inspection phase of a build, he just responds with,” Oh this doesn’t mean you can start using that as an excuse.”

Or when it comes to not cashing checks, my mom says,” Well this is your finances so this needs to take a bit more priority.” Little do they know, I have always struggled with the inspection phase and I can’t simply choose to prioritize one section of my life. I am simply trying to make the inspection phase easier and I will never do it if I spend too much time on one thing.

I think I’ll stick to telling people that I have ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The biggest thing is just making sure to educate them as to why I’m doing what I do and making sure they understand.

At the end of the day, I am the one who is part of the 5% so, I can’t expect anyone to understand what it’s like to be me and it’s my job to make sure they understand.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

You are not alone. It is easy to get used to living with a disorder for so long and you think everything is ok and normal. But when you find out you are not normal by neurotypical means, it can be a depressing feeling like no one understands.

I am here to tell you that is not the case. There are millions of people struggling with the same things that you are. As dumb as it may sound I know a lot of us have sat at our computers in our underwear when we should be getting dressed for the day.

This isn’t just my experience, I heard it in the book Faster than Normal. I was at work when I heard it and remember just saying out loud, “THATS ME! Wait… that’s scarily super close to me.” Why is it so accurate? Because we are all sharing the same experience! Yeah, that’s how closely our experiences are connected.

So when you’re struggling and feel like no one understands, know that I understand. I lose my keys on the bed. I forget what I’m doing walking into another room. My room is trashed. I buy stuff I don’t need. We all do!

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain: Peter Shankman has really figured his ADHD out and he offers a lot of good advice in this book.
• Hacking your ADHD: William Curb finds so many great guests who share their struggles with ADHD and how they’ve managed it and used it to their advantage.
• How to ADHD: – This channel has a lot of great advice when it comes to focusing on specific problems that come with ADHD.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

All I really have is YouTube and Twitch but heh, my ADHD makes it hard to stay regular. Check them out if you’d like. They are mostly just gaming content.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

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Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post How an ADHD Diagnosis Helped Me Understand My Life and Turn It Around With Therapy appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Tiffany McGee, spirituality and relationship expert, and founder of Nomadrs — a popular site focused on spirituality, relationships, mental wellness, and lifestyle.

I consider myself a digital nomad and my website is completely inspired by my nomadic experiences around the world. Currently, I’m enjoying the beautiful landscapes and rich culture of Georgia, where I’m based for a few weeks.

Professionally, I run Nomadrs, write and edit articles, and communicate daily with my team of writers from all corners of the globe. Besides, I constantly engage with a global community that shares my enthusiasm for travel, spirituality, and wellness.

On the personal front, I’m in a long-distance relationship with my partner who lives in Austria. The distance can be challenging, but it’s also a testament to the strength and depth of our connection.

Back in Vienna, I’m the proud owner of three adorable poodles. They’re my fluffy bundles of joy, and although I miss them while traveling, they’re in the best hands with my partner.

Speaking of happiness, yes, I do consider myself a happy person. This lifestyle, the people I meet, the places I see, and the work I do—all of it contributes to a sense of fulfillment and joy in my life.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

Two years ago, I received a diagnosis that reshaped my understanding of myself: major depression. Alongside depression, I also struggled with anxiety, burnout, and panic attacks, so it was sort of comorbid. 

The symptoms were diverse: feelings of sadness and hopelessness, physical exhaustion that didn’t improve with rest, and moments of intense, overwhelming anxiety that culminated in panic attacks. The problem was not only psychological – my hormones were out of balance as well.

Back then, I had a traditional 9-5 job. The stress from this job, coupled with a feeling that my life was just an endless cycle of work with no real fulfillment or balance, played a significant role in the onset of my depression. 

As time went on, these issues started to affect me more and more. Some days were slightly better and initially, I tried to brush them off as just stress or a temporary bad phase.

But as the months passed, it became clear that my condition deeply impacted my daily life, my work performance, and my relationships.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

At my worst, the struggle with depression made me feel like I was stuck in a deep, dark place. Happiness seemed far away, and I was always in a bad mood. I wasn’t even trying to hide it — I just didn’t fully understand how bad it was. 

My friends and partner could tell something was wrong, especially with my constant moodiness and my health issues, like irregular periods. It was a tough time where I felt disconnected from everything, not really aware of how much I was actually struggling.

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Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

Now I realize that I had that moment. Back then, when I was dealing with depression, everything seemed so blurred, like I was looking at my life through a foggy window. 

But the moment of clarity came unexpectedly. It was during a particularly tough week when I hadn’t left my small apartment for days, and my living space was cluttered with unwashed dishes and unopened emails. 

I was sitting on the floor and aimlessly scrolling through podcasts that I hoped would lift my mood. It was one of those podcasts that made me realize my body was screaming for help.

If I remember correctly, it was one of the episodes from Christina The Channel on Spotify about amenorrhea (It’s a pity I stopped journaling and didn’t even make any kinds of notes. I felt at my worst so I couldn’t see how these reflections could affect me in the future). Anyway, it wasn’t as widely known, but something about an episode on dealing with stress and anxiety resonated deeply with me. 

I can’t say that listening to these podcasts actually improved my condition. But this process was indeed important to push me towards finally receiving professional help.

This podcast episode made me realize that my body and mind were more connected than I had ever thought. And it was a wake-up call to take my health more seriously.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I completely changed my daily routine and the way I understood the concepts of “health” and “well-being”. I’d like to discuss the main steps I took that may inspire others who deal with the same problem:

1) My first step was engaging in online therapy, as leaving home felt too overwhelming. My therapist played a crucial role in guiding me through this journey.

She encouraged me to undergo medical checkups, which led to getting my hormone levels checked and eventually starting on medication. This medical intervention, combined with therapy, laid the foundation for my healing process.

2) My therapist suggested me to join her mindfulness meditation practices. I joined her sessions, which were conducted in a small community setting.

This experience was more than just learning to meditate — it was about connecting with others who were on similar paths and finding hope in shared experiences. Being part of this group helped me to stay committed to the practice and provided a sense of belonging.

3) I tried to continue what was once my hobby — journaling. However, I found it to be rather challenging — focusing on writing was difficult. As a solution, I opted for video journaling.

I would record myself talking about my progress and feelings. Most of these videos are hard for me to watch now. They often involved tears and intense self-reflection. But these recordings were sort of like catharsis, they helped me process and release pent-up emotions.

4) I made a promise to myself to prioritize self-care. This meant resting when needed, indulging in simple pleasures like watching childhood movies, and easing up on previously strict rules around food and exercise.

I realized that being too restrictive wasn’t helping my recovery. Allowing myself these small liberties played a huge role in my overall well-being.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

I felt quite comfortable sharing my experiences with those close to me, particularly my partner and friends. They were aware of all the details of my struggle. I chose not to share anything about my mental health struggles with my parents, though.

They weren’t living in the same country as me, and I didn’t want to add to their worries or stress them out. At that time, it seemed like the right decision to keep them out of the loop to protect them. 

However, as time passed and I began to understand and manage my mental health better, I opened up to them. Now, they know everything about my experience. 

Today, I don’t have any reservations about sharing my experiences. In fact, I believe it’s important to be open about mental health struggles. Working in the wellness niche, I feel it’s part of my responsibility to set an example for my readers. 

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

If someone finds themselves in a situation similar to what I experienced, my advice would be to listen to your body, not just your mind. Often, our bodies give us the first signals that something isn’t right.

It can be symptoms like exhaustion, changes in appetite, or sleep disturbances. Just don’t ignore them — they are often the key to understanding and starting to address deeper issues.

There were times when I was hard on myself, thinking I should be able to ‘snap out of it.’ But mental health doesn’t work that way. It’s a journey that requires time, care, and often, professional support. That’s why you need to be gentle with yourself.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• Masterclass “Developing Your Personal Power” from Ideapod’s co-founder Justin Brown — I took this masterclass in the middle of my headline process. The main idea of it is to understand the subconscious patterns that often hold us back.
  It helped me identify and break free from limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns that were deeply ingrained in my psyche. I think this resource might be one of the reasons why my perspective toward mental wellness changed for good.
• Rudá Iandê’s shamanic Breathwork exercise — In the beginning, I was pretty skeptical about relaxation techniques and exercises widely available on the internet. But somehow, this one did make a difference.
  The instructor of this course is a shaman, Rudá Iandê, whose methods are deeply rooted in ancient wisdom yet perfectly applicable to modern life challenges. The breathwork sessions were therapeutic to me. I have to admit that he has multiple other resources (I tried 3-4 of them) and they still inspire and guide me.
• Huberman Lab’s Podcast — I’m sure it’s a familiar podcast to anyone who’s into mental health podcasts on Spotify. Listening to this podcast helped me gain a scientific perspective on mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.
  The episodes provided me with insights into how our brains work, the impact of stress and hormones on our mental state, and practical, science-backed strategies for improving mental health. This knowledge still inspires my content and advice on Nomadrs.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You’re welcome to explore my website, Nomadrs, where you’ll find a range of blog posts focusing on mental wellness, spirituality, and the digital nomad lifestyle.

You can also connect with me on social media for more personal updates and daily inspirations. Here’s the Facebook page of Nomadrs.

Is there anything else you think we should have asked you?

I’d like to point out the importance of building a support network throughout my journey.

I believe that the role of a strong, understanding support system is invaluable, especially when you’re struggling with mental health issues. When you know that you have people who listen and provide encouragement, it can make a significant difference. 

My heartfelt advice to anyone feeling down or struggling is to reach out to someone. It could be a friend, a family member, a therapist, or even a support group.

Go ahead and simply share what you’re going through. Sometimes, just knowing that there is someone who listens and understands can bring immense relief and perspective.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post Therapy and Medication Helped Me Overcome Depression, Anxiety and Burnout From Work appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi, I’m Melissa. I live in Germany in an old farmhouse complex with 4 generations of my family. There’s me with my boyfriend and baby daughter. My parents and 94-year-old grandmother live in separate apartments next door.

I’m a passionate yoga teacher & used to be a full-time retail manager, but gave that up earlier this year (Aug 23) on my quest for further self-discovery, finding more work-life happiness, and fulfillment in life.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

Burnout and adaptation disorder.

After being told I can’t have children I felt like I had failed in my natural life purpose. I didn’t really want children, I was more career-focused, but I would have at least liked to have had the choice.

I was a frustrated workaholic not knowing what I wanted in life so I clung to my job because that was always going forward. I was diagnosed with burnout for the first time in 2016. 

I ignored the symptoms. I was constantly questioning life, found it hard to find excitement in getting up and ready for the day, and constantly led fictive aggressive conversations in my head with my boyfriend, colleagues, family, and friends.

I thought it was normal, as we live in an overstimulated world where you never seem satisfied. I thought I was a spoiled brat, not being appreciative of life. I had everything: a relationship, a roof over my head, and a great job that just kept getting ‘better’, which made my inner conflict even worse. Why was I unhappy? 

After struggling with several miscarriages I started doing yoga, and little by little I started to gain clarity over my desires and feelings. Realizing my life was out of place, led to even more frustration.

I dug deeper into yoga only to find more clarity, but with the clarity also came anger and resentment. I didn’t feel respected in my relationship, making me cling to my workplace even more, because there I was a manager and people respected me.

But I was a people-pleasing manager, always putting myself last which was also a stressor, but I didn’t realize this until later. Sometimes you need to get rid of one blockage in order to reveal and become clear on the others. 

So one day I had the guts to dump my boyfriend after 17 years of manipulative belittling and dove into the arms of my now-boyfriend the very next day. I thought all my problems would be solved, but then my dissatisfaction with my job started to rise and got extreme over the years.

Thank goodness I became pregnant and stayed so this time, I stopped working as my pregnancy was at high risk, this gave me the chance to gain distance from my anger towards work. 

Knowing the old job was not at all family friendly nor was I feeling fulfilled by it. I began to take my yoga career more seriously (2021), helping people gain clarity as I did. It was not paying the bills, but I loved it and still do.

But the day I had to go back to work kept creeping closer, and so did my cortisol levels and anxiety attacks. So I decided to quit, become jobless, and be ashamed of failure once more.

The psychologist diagnosed me with an ‘adaptation disorder’ (2023) meaning that I can’t/or don’t want to adapt to my situation in the outside world.

This diagnosis was a slap in the face and simultaneously woke me up from living in denial. The constant urge to adapt myself to things that no longer suited me.

I still suffer from the old relationship and job I quit, as they accompanied me for such a long time in life leaving deep imprints in my behavior and thoughts. This mess is still slowly unraveling day by day.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

I was struggling with panic attacks, eating unhealthy, and sleeping all day (so it would be over sooner) I’d cry myself to sleep at night and when I wanted to feel better I’d drown myself with alcohol until I passed out.

I spoke openly about all my problems to family and friends (but I tried to hide the alcohol problem). I was so often told to leave my relationship and my job, and indeed that was what I was longing to hear deep inside, but I was somehow attached to the toxic relationships. They had become my ‘safe zone’ – the unknown was more scary than staying with the pain.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

When I became pregnant and it stayed, It was a shock as I was told I’d never be able to have children due to chemotherapy I had at the age of 16. Suddenly I felt this urge to take action and get my life sorted out.

My life was no longer only about me. I realized clearer than ever that my workplace wasn’t going to work with a family. I started to feel lost and needed a plan.

At the same time, I was afraid to lose the child, and looking for an online course (Corona Limits at the time, 2021), a guide through pregnancy with yoga included. I couldn’t find one to suit my needs so I decided to become a prenatal yoga teacher myself. 

This was when the idea was born to teach other pregnant women. And there was nothing more rewarding. I created my own online course.

This was the first step I took to my NOW-life, the main turning point in realizing my job was toxic. I realized that teaching yoga and helping students get unstuck lit me up.

I decided I wanted more, and have been moving in this direction ever since. The more people I can help the more the happiness floods into my days. This reflects on my health, the way I treat others, and myself.

If I would have taken more time to tune into myself in the first place, I would have realized this much sooner. But I never gave myself the time to think a thought to an end.

100% of my improvement was a result of doing yoga and learning to pay attention to things that no longer served me. Leading to better circumstances: healthy relationships and pregnancy. 

And then 50% of my improvement was due to my circumstances of being a mother with a new perspective, and 50% of the actions I took out of these new circumstances: the ambition to sort out my life, leave my job, and get help.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I went to a psychiatrist to have my sanity approved for ‘myself’. I wanted to do it because at one point I thought I was going crazy. Family and friends were at one point no longer an objective source of advice, so I trusted my gut and got help.  

Sometimes it can help to get the opinion of a ‘professional stranger’ free of any emotional connection to you. This helped me gain so much simplicity in my complex problems.

The thing I didn’t like was that he immediately wanted to put me on medication, although I had just had a mental breakthrough. A total shift of thought patterns that needed to be digested. I refused to take them and asked for a second appointment in the near future instead. He decided to give it a shot and it worked.

Before deciding to take any antidepressants, sleep over it. Numbing things out won’t necessarily make them go away. But working with and through your problems will.

It doesn’t mean that you’ll feel like the pain never existed, but you learn to live with it. It’s part of your life experience which makes you who you are. 

Furthermore, don’t underestimate the power of yoga. With the relief of bodily tension, trapped emotions are set free. Hidden blockages coming from self-limiting beliefs, trauma, and more. Untangling these can be both confusing and liberating.

Bringing things up to work with from your subconscious. For me, it brought up unexplainable feelings that eventually led to realizations that helped me take action and move toward a better life. That’s why I became a teacher.

I still haven’t healed from my situation fully. I have days where my thoughts spiral around the thought that I wasted half of my life putting up with things that broke my own values. But I know it’s most likely never going to happen again.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

Yes, I share my story openly hoping to help others gain clarity faster, helping them on their path to self-reflection and eventually enlightenment.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

Take more time for yourself, and learn to trust your gut. It’s crucial to stay in touch with your true needs and values, maintaining a healthy mindset and a balanced life.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of responsibilities, endless opportunities, and distractions and forget about ourselves.

Taking a few moments every day to focus on ourselves, journal our thoughts and feelings, and disconnect from screens can help us reconnect with our true inner selves.

This sounds simple but it’s hard work and can be very confusing and frustrating. But I strongly believe that numbing out your feelings with medication won’t get you anywhere. The problems will remain when you drop the meds, and you’ll be in the same place you were before.

I like to compare it with a plant starting as a seed: It keeps on growing non stop pushing its way through all the soil (your inner resistance and struggles)

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

Burnt Toast by Terry Hatcher was my first inspiration for self-care.

George Kelly – Personal Construct Theory: This book helped me understand the complexity of each individual and how they perceive the world from a completely different view even if they are seeing exactly what you’re seeing – sounds simple but it’s an eye-opener.

Ina May – Guide to Childbirth: Not only for pregnant women! This book helped me understand that you need to let go, heal, and process your subconscious blockages in order to give birth to something. I know this book is about how women have trouble giving birth when they are emotionally blocked, and in my opinion, it transfers to most things in life. Not only a baby but also art, music, creativity, being yourself, etc.

(Not a book.. but) Do Yoga! I encourage anyone who feels in any way stuck to practice any type of yoga. Because during yoga practice, you are fully indulged with your thoughts in the body and not in the mind. This pause is essential for breakthroughs and deep connections to your own inner self – which is not comparable to anyone else.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can read more about me here, or find me on Yoga Alliance, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post My Struggle With Burnout and Adaptation Disorder and How Yoga Helped Me Find Clarity appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Sharanya Ramakrishnan, a 31-year-old woman living in Seattle, USA with my wonderful fiance and our 3-year-old Siberian Husky boy, Archer.

I work for Amazon Web Services as a Senior Tech Product Manager. I moved to the United States in 2016, to pursue my Master’s degree and have lived here since, building my career in tech, like so many others.

I grew up thousands of miles away in Bangalore, India, with doting parents whose lives revolved (and still do, to be honest) around my younger sister and me. They both worked very hard to provide us with all the opportunities we could ask for.

My dad has always been my biggest cheerleader. In his mind – there’s nothing his daughter can’t achieve if she wants to. My mother has been an absolute inspiration – though her education was cut shorter than she’d have liked, she used her thirst for knowledge to build a career she absolutely loved. Growing up, my sister and I had our love-hate phases but now, she is my person. I can’t imagine life without her. 

I feel grateful to live in the Pacific Northwest because I get to enjoy the great outdoors. I spend my weekends hiking, reading, volunteering, and exploring Seattle neighborhoods on long walks with my dog.

Archer and I welcomed my fiance into our lives about 2 years ago. I treasure the little moments we spend together as a family. They’re the ones who keep me going through life’s good and bad days.

When someone asks me, “Are you happy?”, I often say that I definitely am, based on my definition of happiness. I’ve realized that for me, happiness is being at peace mentally.

Having gone from a cheerful, easy-going yet ambitious young woman in her early 20s to an anxious, self-critical adult with low self-confidence in her late 20s to my present self now, I can say that I am grateful, therefore I am happy. 

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

My struggle with Anxiety and Depression started with a mini-panic attack in early 2017. While it continued with minor instances, I hit my worst phase in late 2020 and struggled through most of 2021.

I was officially diagnosed with Clinical Depression in early 2022 and have been on antidepressants since October 2022. Yes, it sounds like a calendar of events, Depression milestones of sorts.

But what most people may not understand is that you never know when you’re going to have a panic attack. You never know when you’re going to wake up next with a horrible knot in your stomach, not wanting to leave your bed because that means your day has begun.

You, like me, may not even realize you’re HAVING a panic attack the first time. I still have the image etched in my mind. It was during my Masters and I had an assignment due in 6 hours. Simple, easy one which would probably take me an hour to complete.

But, for whatever reason, I sat there on my chair, feeling my hands and feet get very cold. I was scared but couldn’t logically explain why. It felt like I froze, mentally. I was numb.

Since then, I’ve had panic attacks ranging from cold hands and feet to lying on the floor crying my eyes out as a knot in my chest grew bigger and left me gasping, unable to breathe. But these are instances.

The part that was hardest to deal with was waking up every day, for months, going through your day, and doing the bare minimum. Because I just could not find a reason to do anything. I did not have the energy to live my life and that crushed me the most. 

Until I planned to leave home and move to the United States, life was a very balanced game of effort and reward. I worked hard in school, was consistently among the top students, and reaped my rewards in terms of appreciation and awards, job offers, etc.

The first blow was when I walked up confidently for my F1 student visa interview, with stellar grades and an admission to a University ranked among the top 5 in the US for my course, only to be rejected without any explanation.

This hit me hard. I’d done everything academically to stay on the path I’d dreamed of and convinced my parents, who had second thoughts about me living all alone in a new country so I was mentally preparing myself for the upcoming new chapter in life.

I managed to re-apply for my Visa and make it the same year to grad school. But, this was the first time in my life when I learned that it isn’t always an effort = reward game. 

Fast forward a few years, a few more life lessons but mostly a good life overall, and then came the time when all our lives came to a standstill. The Pandemic of 2020.

What started off as a week of working from home, while visiting my then (now ex) fiance was the beginning of the darkest phase of my depression. In 2020, I got stuck in Seattle for months, away from my home in the Bay Area where I was working then.

Coincidentally, I ended up interviewing and landing an offer with AWS and decided to move cities in mid-2020. So, I left behind the place that felt closest to home since my time in the US, the Bay Area, and all my friends.

I moved to Seattle, a city where I barely knew anyone, thinking it might be a good time to live with my fiance before getting married in November 2020. 

So, we started living together and I began my journey at AWS with an overdose of anxiety and imposter syndrome in July 2020. I let my love for dogs overrule my practicality and we got a puppy together, my first dog ever, Archer, in August 2020.

And somewhere between juggling a highly competitive tech job, raising a pup for the first time (a high-energy husky at that), struggling to communicate with my partner, and feeling isolated without my support system of friends during the pandemic, I slipped into what felt like a hopeless abyss.

Externally, people saw someone with a successful career, a relationship inching towards the wedding, and a beautiful pup to add to the joy. Internally, it was anxious days with constant self-doubt at work and a  relationship that was crumbling under the weight of the pandemic. 

We pushed out the wedding, eventually ending the engagement and I moved out, to live alone for the first time with an almost 1-year-old pup to take care of. My parents, like most Indian parents, viewed their daughter getting married as the mark of successfully raising their child.

It broke their heart when they learned about the break-up. It was the hardest few months of my life. But, this phase also pushed me on a journey of self-discovery, reflection, growth, and healing. 

I’ve been in therapy for almost 2 years now, with weekly therapy sessions and daily medication. I can now confidently say that I have the ability to tackle whatever life throws at me and hope that I don’t experience a drawn-out phase of struggle like before.

I still have days every couple of weeks when I feel empty inside but know how to help myself out of it. Panic attacks are still slightly more difficult to handle but having my anxiety medication handy has helped immensely.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

My struggle with Anxiety and Depression impacted every facet of my life. There have been days when I felt so unlike the “me” I knew my whole life that I stopped and questioned when I changed so much.

I went from seeing myself as a carefree and confident optimist to a paranoid, underconfident person. I questioned everything from my job offers to my promotion and felt like I didn’t deserve them.

My anxious-avoidant attachment style coupled with depression during the pandemic had a drastic impact on my relationship choices. I didn’t stand up for myself and willingly gave up my time and energy, seeking validation.

Ultimately, I was in a place where nothing really excited me or made me happy anymore, I felt like I had no purpose in life. My only reason to get out of bed in the morning was my dog.

Even this came with a sense of extreme guilt, that he might have a happier life with a loving family rather than someone struggling to juggle work, health issues, and taking care of himself. 

After my broken engagement, I leaned on my friends and family for support. In my personal life, I’ve always been open about my emotions with close friends but never really spoke out about the bad days and struggles with depression.

My sister was my only confidant for the longest time. I gradually started being more vocal about it with a few people after starting therapy and spending time on my personal growth.

However, I’ve never spoken openly with friends or colleagues about how I’ve struggled at work as a result of my anxiety or depression. I’m now slightly more open to talking about it but was always scared that talking about it while going through the struggle would affect my career growth. 

I’ve never thought about self-harm, having seen firsthand how it affects family when someone chooses to end their life. However, there have been many times when I wished I just disappeared, erased. No one would remember my existence and nobody would be in pain.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

There were a few moments in 2022 when I felt…light. It felt like I was carrying something heavy in my head for a long time and finally, someone removed it. My mind was constantly racing with pessimistic thoughts, overthinking past situations, future fears, what I could have done differently, etc.

I tried to fill every spare second with self-help audio books, YouTube videos, and mental health blogs to help me navigate the overthinking that was taking over my life.

And then slowly, gradually, without me consciously realizing it, I had a shift in perspective. I felt more gratitude for the growth and learning that came out of my difficult experiences, than the pain they’d caused.

I started cherishing my time alone in thought and the peace that came along. I started waking up looking forward to experiences again. But the biggest difference I remember is after I started my medication in October 2022 and waking up one morning in January 2023, feeling like my old, cheerful self. That was a beautiful day.

I would say that 50% of my mindset shift came from self-reflection during therapy and personal growth-focused learning. The rest I would attribute to actions – everything from walking my dog several times a day, which meant stepping out and moving my body even on the worst days, to including exercise as part of my lifestyle and building a support system of close friends. 

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I had tried therapy once, way back in early 2019, but didn’t find it helpful. I tried it again in 2020 and early 2021 but did not find it very helpful. I felt like I was summarizing what was happening in my life to someone, that’s it.

I kept at it and connected enough with one therapist to take about 4 sessions. Her approach was different and I found the sessions to be slightly helpful.

However, we couldn’t connect enough to continue further. And then in March 2022, I found my current therapist who I’ve met almost every week, for more than a year now. I cannot quantify the immense impact she has had on my life, I just know I’ll be grateful to her for the rest of my life.

Now, I often tell friends that finding a therapist can be very similar to dating. It is important to find the right person! The key difference I now realize was all the other therapists approached the sessions as a one-time visit rather than something more.

My therapist started our first session by discussing my goals from therapy. What aspect of my life did I want to improve and how? This by itself was a great reflective exercise. 

She took the time to listen to my life map or a timeline of every year of my life and whatever I remember, until now. I believe those sessions set the foundation to help her understand who I am, my interactions with family, how I view myself in the world, etc.

She helped me uncover my relationship attachment style and how I can work on moving towards a secure, healthy relationship. She helped me realize that I was functioning from a place of depleted energy, without putting in the effort into self-care to replenish lost energy.

For example, she uncovered my people-pleasing tendency, which meant saying yes to all social commitments and then overpacking my days with them, at the expense of any time that I could get for myself.

This meant I could not recharge and replenish my energy but ended up losing more trying to keep everyone else happy. Fatigue, low energy, and lack of interest stemmed from here for me.

She helped me understand the true meaning of self-care – daily routines focused on good food, sufficient sleep, regular exercise, and mindfulness. She provided me with tools to manage my anxiety, from grounding techniques to breathwork and clay work.

She’s had a great impact on helping me heal and when I say that the rewards from the right therapist are priceless, I truly hope everyone in need of therapy works to find the right therapist for them and not give up.

I now realize that cognitive understanding is very important for me to navigate life. I spent a lot of time trying to work on and resolve relationship issues for the first time in my life, rather than ignoring them.

I felt like I needed answers to the “Why did this happen to me?” question that comes up in our minds so often during bitter life experiences. So, I sought to understand more about relationships, mental health, what makes us react to situations and why everyone reacts differently, etc.

I read self-help books, listened to podcasts, and watched videos on these topics. I did this every day, to fill any spare time I had because it seemed to feel “productive” at the time. I also spent time discussing this topic with a few close friends who could relate to my experiences. I didn’t know that consuming this type of content was slowly shifting my perspective.

For example, I remember dealing with bouts of anger and irritability as a side-effect of depression. It was often directed at family and I always regretted it later. I learned about the concept of “responding” and not “reacting” to situations and tried to consciously implement this every time I felt myself on the verge of losing my temper. 

Another aspect that I cannot stress enough is exercise. Throughout this time, I’ve had months where I exercised regularly at least 3-4 times a week, and a few weeks without exercising.

I’ve noticed a significant difference in my mood and energy levels during weeks when I’m not exercising. I have more bad days or low-energy days during such weeks and feel physically weak, even if it is a week of regular routine without any exercise.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

Yes, I’ve shared all of it with my sister, I consider her my pillar of strength. My fiance is also familiar with my journey and is very supportive. I’ve also shared parts of it with a few close friends, though most aren’t aware of my medications. 

I did not feel comfortable talking to my colleagues about this. As mentioned before, I had (and probably still do) hesitations about how they may respond to it and the impact it can have on my career growth.  

By nature, I’m someone who has been comfortable discussing struggles with close friends – more of an open-book kinda person. I wouldn’t say I find it hard to share most things, but a handful of topics are harder.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

Always remember that there will be happier days and you deserve to experience and enjoy them. It may take weeks, months, or even years, but all the work you put into improving your mental health is the best gift you can give yourself.

Most of all, your happiness depends only on one person in your entire life, the only one who will be with you forever – yourself. Any happiness you receive from other sources – be it parents, partners, or friends, is adding to the core. It is NOT the core.

This is why it is so important to learn to spend time enjoying your company, being your #1 support system, and treating yourself with love and self-compassion. 

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• YouTube channel: Psych2Go – This was a valuable channel to help me dive into my symptoms and get a better handle through useful, practical tips to manage depression. The short format videos make it easy to consume. 
• YouTube channel: Sadhguru – I’ve never been religious or a very spiritual person, all my life. However, when things were falling apart and I sought answers, this channel seemed to provide them. 
• YouTube channel: Better Than Yesterday – I found tips in this channel helpful on days when I had to motivate myself to get the bare minimum done. 
• Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything is F*cked by Mark Manson – I found both the books easy to grasp, straightforward, practical and they approach life from a “how to embrace change” and be selective about the problems we want in our lives, which is helpful. Focusing on the “good problems” mindset is helpful when you’re feeling like the victim. 
• Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle – At a time when I had so many questions about how life worked, how people changed, and what I did wrong, this book was a guiding light for self-reflection. It has powerful information that if you choose to read and absorb, it will definitely help you become a calmer and more balanced person
• Book: Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty – Great book for when you feel like you don’t have a purpose in life and feel restless constantly or are in limbo, going with the wind through life. 

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post How I Navigated Anxiety, Depression and Panic Attacks As I Settled Abroad in a New World appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hello, my name is Dr. Kyle Elliott, and I currently live in Santa Barbara, California with my partner, J.V. We’re both Disney Magic Key Holders and moved to Southern California from the San Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of the pandemic to be closer to Disneyland!

When not at Disneyland, I’m a career coach, and I specialize in senior managers and executives in the tech industry. In other words, I help leaders find jobs at companies like Meta, Amazon, and Google, as well as private equity and VC-backed companies and hyper-growth startups.

I’m also a writer and love using my words to help educate others, whether it’s about navigating the nuances of a modern-day job search, growing in their careers, or managing stress and anxiety.

I’m a proud mental health advocate and manage my mental health through lots of therapy, self-care, and, of course, trips to Disneyland.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

One of the biggest challenges in my life has been learning how to effectively cope with anxiety on a daily basis. In my undergraduate studies, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, following five years of daily migraines that seemed to have no cause.

While it was helpful to finally uncover the root cause of the chronic migraines and see them quickly dissipate as I began managing the anxiety, it’s an ongoing journey that has required consistent attention, ongoing tweaks, and the help of my community.

Looking back, I’ve had anxiety and OCD for as long as I can remember. As a child, I had interesting quirks such as the constant urge to straighten picture frames, ensure hangers were spaced the same distance apart, and check that the lights were turned off. As an adult, my anxiety manifested as a work addiction with perfectionist tendencies and people-pleasing behavior.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

I’ve always been a high performer, and my anxiety has fueled my success, though it has also resulted in fatigue and burnout at times. Anxiety has been both my superpower and my kryptonite.

My anxiety was at its worst while in graduate school. I was sexually assaulted and subsequently developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of the most frightening PTSD symptoms was panic attacks that felt like déjà vu but would last for hours on end.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

While I started therapy during my sophomore year of college, it really made the most impact when I met my current therapist, Stephanie, and she challenged me to stop waiting to live the life I wanted.

Before meeting Stephanie, I said I would relax once I got to college… And then once I got to graduate school… And then once I landed my first professional job… And then once I launched my business… And then once my business hit six figures…

During our very first session, Stephanie “caught on” to the fact that I perpetually pushed off my goal of relaxing. Since then, I’ve strived to live a more balanced, mindful, and meaningful life.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

Therapy has been a game changer, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without therapy.

However, it wasn’t simply attending sessions that made the difference. Instead, it was reviewing my goals and deciding which ones I wanted to work toward, figuring out how to turn them into a reality, and asking for help as soon as I got stuck.

As a recovering workaholic, learning to rest and relax has also been a game-changer. I used to skip family functions and time with friends to work. Now, I schedule my work around my travels and am constantly planning my next trip with my family.

Speaking of which, I wouldn’t be where I am today without my community, which includes my family, my friends, and my professional network of peers. You cannot and should not go through this life alone. Find people who have been in your shoes and learn from them.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

I am proud to share my lived experiences with others to inspire change, and I am thankful to be surrounded by people who have been supportive and uplifting when I share my mental health experiences.

That said, I do recall a hurtful experience I had in college shortly after being diagnosed with anxiety and OCD. After finishing a therapy session, I met a then-friend for lunch. She asked where I was coming from, and I nonchalantly mentioned therapy. She proceeded to ask if I was “crazy” and whether it was safe to be around me.

While I had the courage and knowledge to educate her about mental health, the words still stung and have stuck with me to this day. They motivated me to write my dissertation on the mental health experiences of college students.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

I know it’s easier said than done, but please don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are struggling. You are not alone, and it gets better. There are people out there who have been where you are and who want to help you.

When you’re going through a difficult time, it can be difficult to remain hopeful. However, please know that recovery is possible, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You’ve got this!

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist: This book required me to face my perfectionist tendencies head-on, sit with the discomfort, and begin to work through the difficult feelings.
• On Being with Krista Tippet: This podcast series has tons of timely topics that give me a greater sense of meaning and make me feel more grounded in life.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can learn more about me at CaffeinatedKyle.com or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post Navigating Anxiety and OCD With Therapy, Social Support, and Trips to Disneyland! appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! My name is Karina and I’m from the Philippines in Southeast Asia. I’m 59 and have been a widow for almost three years. I live with my two grown children (they’re both single still!) and two lovely fur babies–a spunky Russell terrier named Gigi and an adorable pug named Mosey.

I’m a writer by profession. I’ve been doing freelance writing for clients from various industries after leaving my office job in 2009. Currently, I’m a Content Administrator for RentPost, a property management software company based in Tampa, Florida. 

I work from home (yes, everything I do is on a remote work arrangement long before it became the “in-thing” during the Coronavirus pandemic). Best decision I ever made since it allows me to travel whenever I want to, go on weekly lunches with my besties, and do training sessions or take long walks with my dogs (who have become my life these days!).

I have a passion for the outdoors and used to trek a lot pre-pandemic. These days, I go on regular early morning walks with my Jack Russell to get those happy hormones working. This particular dog breed needs lots of exercise so it’s a win-win situation for both of us. Mosey, my Pug, is a couch potato and gets my undivided attention during Netflix sessions in the evening. Dogs really work magic when it comes to dealing with loneliness and depression. No wonder they own the top spot for animal assisted therapy!

Yes, I am definitely happy. But it almost took me a lifetime to realize that. It must have been because of my unique life circumstances. I lost my Mom and two sisters in a sea tragedy over forty years ago. I was only 15 then. and growing up without a mom during your teenage years was plain difficult. 

Although I come from a large family of seven siblings, there was no one around to walk me through the awkward phase of adolescence or offer some relationship advice (which, looking back, is really crucial!).

At 25, I got married to a loving husband and father to my two kids. However, he did have a major struggle with substance abuse. And I was the co-dependent who saw him through it all.

Late night outs or even a few days of not coming home was the norm for my husband. We also had our share of vehicular accidents and occasional brushes with the law. It came to a point when our motor insurer was already thinking twice about renewing our annual policy. They were losing money on our claims.

The clincher was a criminal case filed against my husband for possession of illegal substances. Good thing the offense was bailable. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think of being in a courtroom, not with the plaintiff, but with the accused. You see, I come from a mildly influential family in our city, my dad having served as its congressman and mayor in the past.

The court hearings stretched through the years due to the pandemic and it was slowly eating up the both of us. Then, in December 2020, just a few months before judgment could be passed, my husband died in his sleep. It was a painless death that I, and the rest of the family, saw as divine intervention.

My husband had always said that he would rather take his own life than spend the rest of it in jail if he was found guilty. On the other hand, there was this huge possibility that he would go back to his vices if he got acquitted. So God decided to step in and save him from all that.

From my end, that was a huge revelation regarding the principle of fate, destiny, or karma. How we exit from this earthly existence isn’t really determined by how we live–it is wholly dependent on God’s mercies.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) when I sought professional help in 2021. I was struggling with anxiety and depression after my husband and brother passed away eight months apart the year before. 

I couldn’t perform simple tasks like cleaning the bathroom or planning the weekly menu. Thinking of what to cook for the next meal was overwhelming. Little things like the water pump conking out, the dogs missing a feeding, or my household helper going on her weekend off seemed like the end of the world. I had to stop driving because I would have a panic attack at the most unexpected moments.

Funny, but those who knew what I went through during married life were saying I should be relieved now that all the stress was over. True, but my body must have been so accustomed to stress that my system went haywire with the abrupt change. I thrived on stress and was so used to finding solutions to problems and issues that the lack of it was sort of boring.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

While the physical symptoms were typical–nausea, breathlessness, and elevated heart rate–depression numbed me on the inside. I was constantly staring into space, forcing myself to laugh at supposedly funny moments but finding it extremely difficult to cry. Looking back, I never shed a tear during my 36-month battle with depression.

My struggle with anxiety and depression also took its toll on my writing. I experienced brain fog and writer’s block, and what normally took me a couple of hours to write took several days to complete. 

I also lost a lot of weight–which was very welcome at the start since I’m on the curvy end. But I did panic when my weight fell below 120 lbs (from a normal of 135-140 lbs.) I was only eating about 2-3 spoonfuls per meal.

My sister and a few close friends knew what I was going through and they were a BIG help. They were very supportive and communicated with each other, making sure someone took me out to an occasional lunch or out-of-town trip just to ‘get away from it all”.

I also informed both of my children about what I was going through so they would understand my actions. I was so blessed they offered to fill in for what I couldn’t get done.

Throughout this time, I continued going out with friends. I would even drop work in the middle of the week to go for a short overnight out-of-town trip. But coming home even made things worse.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

Things started to turn around when I saw a psychiatrist. She was simply brilliant. I’ve been to other shrinks in the past but they were kind of patronizing, which doesn’t work for bullheaded individuals like me. But this one quickly zeroed in on the real issue I was facing, which was probably the cause of my depression.

My shrink told me I was at a point in life when ideally, I could have comfortably saved up for retirement (which I have not) and had the fear of facing the future alone. After a short assessment, she gave me the GAD diagnosis and recommended I go on medication.

One thing I learned about seeing a shrink–they’re simply there to walk you through your struggles; everything else depends on YOU. Even the decision to opt for simple counseling or go on medication.

I opted for the latter and first went on sertraline (brand name Zoloft, which I struggled with), then with escitalopram (Lexapro), which worked wonders for me. I took it for a year, resumed writing and traveling during that period, and then weaned off, thinking I was feeling okay. 

I was good for a couple of months until the anxiety started creeping in again for no reason. I resumed medication for another four months and am now off it for the past six months.

Anxiety and depression can be cyclical, I was told. One just needs to be aware of their unique triggers. For instance, some may start feeling lonely after the holidays or following a momentous event. Others may be triggered by memories associated with certain places, people, or even things.

I must say things will turn around when you choose to, so I think it was 100% the result of my own actions in my case. We cannot control life circumstances, but we can control our actions.

It was I who decided to see a shrink. It was I who decided to go on medication. There were no notable circumstances that affected my struggle to overcome depression–everything was normal and typical.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

For starters, I think the first and only essential step you need to take is to accept that you need help. What really helped me was having family and friends around (but be sure not to wear them out to the point that you become a burden).

To a depressed person, everything is impossible. Even making that initial appointment with a shrink seems impossible. The depressed person will continually procrastinate and put things off.

In my case, my sister set up the appointment for me and even offered to drive me to the clinic. She also had her assistant purchase my initial round of medication.

I have this small group of childhood friends I regularly hang out with and they were a big help as well. Even though it was difficult, I forced myself to socialize with them so I could leave the confines of home. There’s a bigger world out there and anyone suffering from depression has to know that. 

I also carefully chose the people I shared my struggles with. I found comfort in those who simply listened and did nothing much except to be with me at that moment. My advice to anyone living or associating with someone who is depressed: Listen well and listen with compassion.

Never say they’re facing such a small issue. Never cut a conversation short to offer a piece of advice or give an example of your own struggles that could have been worse. It sucks!

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

As mentioned earlier, my sister was instrumental in my recovery. My “girl gang” also did their share by taking me out to lunches, bringing me along on their travels, or simply sending my favorite food on no occasion.

I felt most comfortable sharing my struggles with friends who’ve been through tough times themselves. Scarred people make the most compassionate friends.

In contrast, I was most uncomfortable talking about my struggles with arrogant or condescending personalities who make you think their horror stories are worse than yours. Or their successes better than yours. So be very careful in choosing the people to whom you bare your heart and soul, warts and all.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

The moment loneliness or despair sets in, see the glass as half full rather than half empty. We are blessed beyond what we think.

It’s all a matter of perspective. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. Tend your own garden, no matter how small it may be. That way, you can bloom where you are planted and send out the flowers when all is well.

There’s really nothing I wished I knew earlier – every circumstance and event in my life happened for a reason and a purpose. I believe I wouldn’t be the best version of myself if things happened in a different way.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

I’ve read these books at different stages of my life and continue to re-read them whenever I need some inspiration.

• The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren has helped me zero in on why am I here on earth and how I can find meaning in all that life has to offer.
• Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life is every woman’s bible which helps you develop a keen perception of the little blessings in your daily life.
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu is my all-time favorite book on survival and how to address conflicts and struggles.
• Good Morning God by Pamela Steinke is a must-read for anyone suffering from anxiety or depression.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can learn more about me on LinkedIn.

Is there anything else you think we should have asked you?

I’d just like to emphasize this more:

Depression isn’t a weakness of character; rather it stems from a chemical imbalance in the brain resulting from sustained stress or sudden emotional losses. It can even be genetic.

Depression is a complex and serious condition so never be afraid to seek help from a therapist, psychiatrist, or counselor. And if you can’t get yourself to set an appointment, reach out to someone who can do it for you.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post My Experience With Grief and Depression and Why Social Support is so Important appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Lacey Cottingham, and I live in Durham, North Carolina. (Which itself is in the United States of America.)

I am an outpatient (psycho)therapist. In my free time, I proofread sci-fi and fantasy books. If I don’t feel like reading, I crochet hats, scarves, and blankets.

Compared to before, my life is practically blissful. There are so many things I simply don’t think about or need to account for anymore. That freed-up mental space has given me room to grow a connection to my inner self, my environment, and the world around me. I actually feel safe.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

Technically, the struggle started when I was born. But it didn’t become a problem until an unfortunate series of events in 3^rd grade. When I hear noises, they are just louder than most other people hear them.

When I was really young, my mom noticed that toilets flushing scared me, and the sound of the vacuum cleaner was panic-inducing. For unrelated reasons, my parents homeschooled me for a few years.

When I went to a charter school in 3^rd grade, my mom decided to take me and help out the teacher with normal classroom prep. (Write the names on the desks, sort the supplies, decorate.)

All of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off. It hurt. After a couple of minutes, it stops again, and the overhead PA announces that the fire marshall is testing all the alarm boxes.

My mom asked if I was okay to stay, I didn’t want to make her feel bad by leaving, so I decided to push through it. I’m not exaggerating when I say the alarms went on for 3 hours. We finished up our work, and I thought I’d never have to deal with anything like that again.

Well, two-ish weeks later I headed into school one day, and they announced there would be a fire drill. It hurt, I got through it and told myself it would only be a once-every-three-month thing. I hated them, but I dealt with it.

Fast forward to 4^th grade, and I’m thinking they won’t be doing them. They always used a secret code over the PA system. “Teachers, there will be a teacher-faculty staff meeting at 9. Please take your grade books with you.”

The first time I heard that phrase in my 4^th grade year, I felt this roaming dizziness start in my stomach and wrap itself around my chest. It was so bad that my classroom bully looked legitimately concerned for me. It was so bad, that I thought I could hear the fire alarms echo down the hall in micro-second increments.

But what made it really bad, was I leaped out of my chair, ran to the classroom door, and froze. I was legitimately stuck, locked in place. After what felt like 5 minutes, one of my classmates pushed me out of the doorway and popped my hand off the door frame. We got outside, and after a head count, were told to go back inside.

The principal came over to the PA and lectured the entire school about the importance of taking fire drills seriously and exiting the building in a timely manner. I was mortified. But the worst part was he said they had to repeat the drill. This time I flew just as fast out of my seat, but someone got to the door before me, so there was someone to follow and someone to guide me out the door.

For unrelated reasons, my family moved states, and I was homeschooled for a few years after that. In 8^th grade, I went back to public school. I remember being excited to have new friends until I heard someone in the main office whisper to another about whether they’d had the monthly fire drill or not. My skin went clammy and I told my mom I’d made a mistake. I wanted to go home and go back to homeschooling. She told me it was too late and I had to go back to school.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

The worst part was how teachers would look at me, but do absolutely nothing. As an adult I can empathize with them, but it still hurt. Three memories really stand out though.

A 4th-grade teacher looked at me with extreme concern as I asked really forcefully if we could go to recess early since I knew a fire drill would happen 5 minutes before recess started. She wasn’t scared of how I knew, she was scared of how scared I was. She knew something was up, but never actually asked me, never actually asked my parents (that I know of), and nobody, did anything.

The second and most worst moments did not happen until high school. In high school, I eventually got fed up with having hair-trigger panic attacks. I got tired of being tense during class, unable to really focus until 10 minutes into class, and not really feeling relief until I was on the side of the campus that had the “quiet” fire alarms.

I went to the guidance office, worked up the courage, and asked if I could leave the building early during fire drills. The guidance counselor said, rather quickly, absolutely not. I had an immediate panic attack and bolted out of his office.

I went to the stairwell and just sobbed. I texted my mom that he had said no. She ended up calling and then texted me to go back in. After getting the accommodations, things didn’t get as better as I’d hoped. My ears were safe, but the social aspect was still a problem. This led to the actual worst moment.

My high school was and still is directly across the street from a gas station. A girl was texting while driving back from lunch and crashed into a gas pump. (She survived. We saw her the next day at school.) This created a huge plume of smoke that blew onto campus.

The principal came over to the PA and announced there’d been a minor accident, and if the fire alarms went off to stay in class. I immediately bolted out of the classroom and flew down the 6 flights of stairs. I ran out of the building and began pacing around the courtyard, completely incoherent.

I glanced up and saw 6 or so classmates standing in the window, staring down at me. I kept pacing until my heart rate slowed down. Not a single person came down to see if I was ok. After 15 minutes and no fire alarms, I went back upstairs and back to my seat. No one said anything.

I felt so. Very. Invisible.

As weird as it sounds, I developed this skill. I could look at a teacher, or an assistant principal, and just know if we would have a fire drill that period. There would always be this tension in their eyes and their shoulders. While it was very helpful, it put my happiness and peace in the hands of others.

In college, it wasn’t better, per se. But having more control was better. My final internship for my undergraduate degree was at an adult care facility. I loved it. We did chair yoga, played (seated) balloon volleyball, had lunch, and played games with the participants.

However because there was a daycare onsite that received federal funding, monthly fire drills were required. After a very embarrassing series of begging and panic-induced moments, the director sat me down during monthly supervision and told me I had to get “it” under control.

He didn’t know what it was, and I was just barely coming to discover what it was. I never had “flashbacks” until that month, so I had escaped a formal PTSD diagnosis until then.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

When I graduated, I very promptly put the whole thing on the backburner and just lived for a while. For about 2 years I worked at a private group home, taught English to UNHCR refugees, and just played housewife.

It was great. I had peace. But I knew I needed to go back to graduate school to get my therapy license. The morning after my celebration of getting accepted into an MSW program, I woke up with a feeling of dread. Going back to school meant going back to fire drills.

I went online and decided to find a therapist. During high school, I had seen one briefly to set up accommodations, but I wasn’t ready to talk about the trauma. Now, I was.

I found a lovely therapist named Dawn. She took my insurance and her office was about 20 minutes from my house. I made a plan with myself that I’d let myself buy fancy coffee on the way to her sessions, something to hold and sip while going scary places mentally.

She introduced me to a therapy method called EMDR. It worked like a charm. My fear of loud noises evaporated, and part of the PTSD was cured. I ended up leaving very happy with her services.

After graduate school I realized the feeling of never being seen, never having someone at school ask or mention how not okay I was, and the sheer invisibility I felt had to be addressed.

I went back for more EMDR and was able to resolve that pretty quickly as well. Because that was a more complex and subtle trauma, it took a few months longer, but definitely less than a year.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

It was scary to know I had the same disorder that military veterans had, but it was also so immensely validating to have a name for what was happening.

There was a trial and error in finding the right people to tell. I didn’t have to find people who went through the exact same thing, but more people who struggled in the same area.

For me, that was people who struggled in school and people who didn’t like being in noisy environments. I never had someone with the same struggle, but people with similar struggles gave me the validation I needed in my healing journey.

One activity I enjoy doing is imagining I’m standing next to myself, thanking her for her strength, and when possible reminding her of how I have more power now than I did as a child.

In therapy, I was encouraged to thank my younger self for her strength, while also pointing out that the skills she learned (running, overanalyzing people) weren’t helpful anymore. I learned to let her drop some of the need to be on alert.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

At first, I didn’t share my diagnosis with people. The very first time I told someone outside of my parents, I saw this bit of life die in their eyes. I kept it to myself unless I absolutely had to, and even then, I usually only said “Oh I have sensitive ears, I’ve been to a doctor about it. They said….”.

I had one high school and one college professor I told, and I absolutely loved how they reacted.

The high school teacher reacted with such warmth and love that I just melted. It was so nice. She never told anyone, but she apologized for not seeing it sooner. I really feel like my 4th-grade self got her healing from that teacher.

My college professor, I told him after people kept using the emergency escape door to leave class. It would produce this loud sharp whine. I told him about it, and he started the next class by loudly announcing the door was off-limits.

The first time a student tried to use it, he very firmly chewed them out over it. (And he did so, without saying who or what the medical disorder was. Only that the person was harming someone’s medical disorder!)

Once I was fully healed of PTSD, I did start sharing my journey a little more openly with friends and family. In my day job, I very rarely share it with my clients. I have to judge if the disclosure would be helpful to them, or if they’d perceive it as a “pain olympics”. But I’m not ashamed of it.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

Go to therapy. While EMDR is great, nowadays I recommend Internal Family Systems or Ego State Therapy. They won’t get rid of you not liking loud noises, or having sensory issues, but the removal of the panic makes it so much easier to get back to your life after something startles you. It makes you less alert and hypervigilant for threats.

I want anyone reading this to know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the USA that had big scary events happen, that created PTSD, and hundreds of thousands that had big scary events that didn’t. The same thing can happen to two people, but the one who came away hurt isn’t less of a person/adult/strong simply for getting injured.

There’s a really old saying, “The same water that softens the potato, hardens the egg.”

And if you’re still struggling, or not able to access help yet, I’m proud of how well you’ve made it so far.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• Tapping my hands back and forth on my chest (“Butterfly tapping”) or going on a short sprint. You can look up the effects of Butterfly tapping. Going on a run is especially nice because it tricks my body into thinking I’ve outrun the threat.
• For anyone who has PTSD in 2023, this is the therapy method I would use. This YouTube video does a great job of explaining it.
• EMDR is still a great and well-researched therapy method, you can learn more about it here. You can use eye motion like I did, or you can use pulsing vibrators that you hold in your hands.
• When out in a loud noisy social situation, set a timer and give yourself permission to leave when the timer goes off. Mine was usually an hour and a half. That was long enough for the house party host to feel you care but short enough to not drain me the next day.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

I’m trying out the idea of writing more professionally about the intersections of neurodivergence and PTSD. If you’ve resonated with my experience, you’re welcome to follow me on LinkedIn.

If you live in North Carolina and want to start your therapy journey, you can find me here. 

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post My Story of Navigating Noise-Induced PTSD and Recovering With EMDR Therapy appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! My name is Mary Addison Yates and I like to be addressed by my first and middle name, MaryAddison. I’m a South Carolina native and have lived there most of my life, with the exception of three years in TN from the ages of 13-16.

I’m the second to oldest of five siblings, soon-to-be ex-wife, and co-parent with the father of our amazing 11-year-old boy/girl twins. I was a dental assistant for 20 years until 2020 when I had the courage to discover my passion and became an ICF certified life coach.

I’m extremely passionate about sharing my experience, strength, and hope to help people feel connected, seen, and heard. It is my belief that each and every human that is brought into existence is beautifully and uniquely created on purpose, for a purpose. Our life is evidence of our inherent worthiness; we do NOT have to earn it.

Feeling happy ebbs and flows for me depending on my inner state of being, outer circumstances, and attitude, but I can always find something to be grateful for. I feel the happiest when I have taken care of myself first, am fully present in the moment, and am focused on serving others.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I believe my struggles are a conglomeration of my DNA, my life experiences, how they affect me, and whether I have the awareness to address them. My greatest challenge was not knowing I was worthy of love due to experiencing emotional neglect as a child.

I experienced anxiety, panic attacks, and addiction for 16 years. I experience chronic musculoskeletal pain due to scoliosis, mood swings, brain fog, and fatigue due to perimenopause, poor working memory, time blindness, inattention, and hyperfocus due to ADHD. I am currently experiencing a cycle of depression due to having a major depressive disorder.

My earliest memory is of me desperately seeking evidence that my existence mattered. I felt unseen and unheard; invisible. The emotional pain was so intense I found a way to store all my feelings in my gut and disassociate from my body.

I had a constant stream of thoughts running through my mind. I used people-pleasing and strove for an undefined version of perfectionism in an attempt to feel useful and worthy of love.

I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation around age 14, started taking anti-depressants, and began therapy. I was also introduced to drugs and alcohol around that time, and it was a way to quiet the constant noise in my head.

At some point I crossed an invisible line that took me from recreational use to not having a choice whether I was going to drink and do drugs, it was only a matter of when I would again; no matter how many times I swore to myself that I was going to stop.

When I was younger, I worked extremely hard in school to make good grades but it was extremely challenging for me. Either I was undiagnosed with ADHD or I was unaware of it. Either way, I didn’t think I was as smart as everyone else because schoolwork seemed so much more difficult for me.

As I got older, I thought I was lazy, unmotivated, and irresponsible. I would start many projects but had a hard time finishing them. Trying to manage a job, household, and motherhood seemed so overwhelming and I judged myself extremely harshly. 

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

I was so used to people-pleasing and masking my pain, that most people didn’t seem to notice that I was extremely depressed. Eventually, I barely went around people who cared about me.

In my darkest moments, I wanted my life to end. I was drinking so heavily on a daily basis, I would black out (be awake and functioning but have no memory of what I did) and behave in demoralizing and dangerous ways.

When I would wake up and learn about what I had done the night before from someone else, I was so ashamed of myself. I hated who I had become, it was a vicious cycle and a living hell.

Yet, somehow I was able to become a dental assistant when I was 20 years old. I could only keep a job for 1-3 years before I let my anger and resentment slip out and get fired for being disrespectful to my bosses.

I was a really hard worker and could hide my feelings for a while so I was always able to get a new job. I wasn’t able to recognize that I needed help because I didn’t see myself as the stereotypical addict begging for money, living in an abandoned house or under a bridge somewhere.

I met my future husband when I was 26 but I never felt truly connected to him. I felt just as invisible to him as I did to everyone else. When we decided we wanted to have children, by some miracle, I was able to abstain from drinking just before and during my pregnancy.

I coped by being very controlling, a shopaholic, and a workaholic. The twins were born when I was 31 and postpartum depression led me back to the only solution I thought I had: drinking. 

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

The moment I recognized that I’d rather be drinking than taking care of my babies was simultaneously the most horrifying and most wonderful moment of my life.

It was at that point that I was given the gift of desperation, to do something different. I met with my therapist and she recommended that I attend a 12-step recovery meeting.

I was terrified but I was determined to figure out how to overcome my pain and addiction. For 32 years I felt lost and broken. Twelve-step recovery was the beginning of a life I never even dreamed could be possible.

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

After I was aware that I had a problem, that I needed help, and became willing to seek it. Being a part of a 12-step program gave me a group of people who could relate to my experiences and feelings. It gave me hope and showed me that it was possible to get better.

Having a mentor help me through the process of the 12 steps taught me how to become aware of my thoughts and actions, to understand what I could and couldn’t control, how to be responsible and accountable, and how to connect with and rely on a Higher Power- who loves me unconditionally.

Treating my disease of addiction is something I focus on, daily. It has been one of the key elements that have allowed me to practice acceptance and experience moments of happiness and joy every single day.

Understanding how ADHD affects the way my brain works has been a huge part of learning to love and accept myself. I now understand that ADHD is a superpower that I can work with vs. trying to do things in a neurotypical way and feeling like a failure.

One of the things I learned was that I am not necessarily motivated by what is important, I’m motivated by what is either urgent or interesting to me. I can use this information to ensure I have a specific deadline to complete a task and/or gamify anything that’s boring or mundane to me.

For example, grocery shopping is a monotonous task that I would avoid, but I can gamify it by setting a time limit for how long it can take for me to get everything I need and check out.

Before I go, I can write the list in order of the way the store is laid out and when I’m there I get to find the quickest ways around other people to try and beat the time I set for myself.

I continue seeing a therapist to help me process past events and emotions. Currently, I am seeing a therapist that uses a technique that allows me to express and process my emotions.

I have also learned to use EFT Tapping (emotional freedom technique), a mind-body therapy that involves tapping key acupressure points on the hands, face, and body with your fingertips while focusing on uncomfortable feelings or concerns, and using positive affirmations to neutralize those feelings.

It’s critical to utilize my psychiatrist to manage my medication for depression. It’s been my experience that depression is a process of gradual decline and oftentimes it is hard to notice until I’ve gotten to the point of hopelessness.

I just recently recognized that I was suffering from depression again. Having someone who knows my history and is able to ask the right questions to assess my levels of depression is vital for me.

To support my physical body, I see an integrative medical practitioner to help monitor and treat any nutritional and hormonal abnormalities. I also see a chiropractor and massage therapist on a regular basis to manage my chronic pain.

I also have daily self-care practices that ensure I make time to nurture my mind, body, and spirit. Sleep, hydration, movement, Epsom salt baths, meditation, mindfulness, time in nature, feeling my feelings, giving myself compassion, reaching out to others, and making time for creativity are some ways I increase my ability to experience happiness.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

I am an open book. I truly believe my darkest experiences as well as my moments of joy and happiness are equally important and necessary to experience life fully in its entirety.

If I can help one person feel that their experience is relatable and recognize that they are not alone, and that there’s hope that they, too can experience happiness, I will feel fulfilled. We all want to feel like we matter, want to be seen, heard, and in connection with our humanity.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

Find something to be grateful for. One of the most powerful tools I have is gratitude. I am NOT advocating for you to ignore your struggles or to try to be positive all the time, this can be very damaging. Instead, I like to acknowledge, validate and express my feelings to myself and then I search for something to be grateful for.

When I first started my gratitude practice, I would write down three things I was grateful for each day. It wasn’t easy, but before long the list would fill my entire page and now it’s almost automatic. I can honestly say that even through challenging times, I am extremely grateful that I now understand I am worthy of love, and have the ability to advocate for my well-being.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• The book Codependent No More by Melody Beattie was an incredibly eye-opening and useful resource that helped me understand what codependency was, losing oneself in the name of helping another, understanding that I am powerless to change anyone but myself and that caring for myself is where healing begins.
• The book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown revolutionized my understanding of worthiness. It was the catalyst that began my journey to practice courage, compassion, and connection with others. It is a book I will read over and over again because I always learn something new depending on how I’ve processed the concepts since the last time I read it. 
• The podcast ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka is the number one tool I recommend to women who have been diagnosed with ADHD and women that I suspect have ADHD but are undiagnosed or unaware. It is the most empowering show I have found that focuses on the strengths of ADHD and shares other women’s relatable experiences. It helped me understand the signs and symptoms that women with ADHD experience and I stopped shaming myself for the brain I was gifted with!
• The app Insight Timer is my go-to app for thousands of guided meditations, sound healing music, courses, and more. The free version is packed with value. You can search by any topic and filter by rating score or length of time. I especially love it for my afternoon naps!

Where can we go to learn more about you?

Learn about my coaching practice, speaking events, podcast interviews, and more on my website.

Find my story in the Amazon best-selling book Magnetic Abundance: Stories of those who have tuned to their heart’s mission.

Feel free to reach out via email, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn!

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post How the 12-Step Program and Therapy Helped Me Deal With Addiction, Depression & ADHD appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Andrea Blindt. I’m a wife, mom to six kiddos, two who died five days after they were born, and four who are alive and full of energy earth-side. A registered nurse, holistic health practitioner, Rapid Transformational Therapist, author, and speaker. I wear many hats and I love each one!

I live in sunny Southern California with my family and our golden retriever Enzo. In my spare time I enjoy reading, working with my hands, dating my husband, playing with my kids, and traveling.

I am honestly living my dream life and I can’t even believe that’s a true statement! My life wasn’t always happy, so to be where I am today, surrounded by people I love doing what I love to do feels surreal.

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

What is your struggle and when did it start?

I struggled with debilitating anxiety, panic attacks, and depression for as long as I can remember.

I grew up in a home where abuse was all I knew. This caused me to believe that I was unworthy, unlovable, and flawed at my core. As a child, I thought, “If I just fix myself I will be lovable.” I watched my mom’s behavior and anticipated all of her needs.

I learned her triggers and avoided them at all costs. Living in that constant state of panic caused anxiety to course through my veins, and after years of working to earn my mother’s love to no avail, I became deeply depressed.

I began looking for love outside of my mother and found it caring for others. I pulled weeds for neighbors, cleaned their homes, and babysat their children. The praise I received began to fill my cup up and I formed a new belief, one that told me I was worthy of love and that it came from my behavior and acts of service.

This led me to a career in nursing where I was loved by my patients and colleagues. Not only was I loved, but I was praised for my wisdom, excellence, and skill. Patients requested me by name and trusted me to care for their loved ones. I felt on top of the world and began to believe that my life was massively improving.

I didn’t carry my past with me like a badge of honor, rather I avoided it at all cost and fully leaned into my new life.

I met a man who seemed nice and I accepted his proposal when it came a few months into our courtship. I was really beginning to believe that I was lovable, worthy, and capable of living an amazing life.

I was determined to live a great life. To have kids and to show them love, stability, and worth. I was so excited to become a mother, but instead, I struggled to conceive. I worked with multiple fertility specialists, underwent numerous surgeries, and experienced two miscarriages.

The joy and hope I had once felt began to fade quickly and the old beliefs I’d hidden at my core began to crop up again. I started to believe that I wasn’t worthy of becoming a mother. I told myself that God loved everyone but me when I saw women who didn’t want children conceiving. And before I knew it the depression was back.

I continued to pursue motherhood and was anxious each time I received a not pregnant message, and then after another complicated round of fertility treatments, I became pregnant with twins.

I was so afraid I would have a miscarriage that I wanted to crawl into my bed and hide for the duration of the pregnancy. I was so nervous about the pregnancy ending that I forgot to celebrate its beginning.

As the weeks passed and my babies continued to grow safely in my womb I began to exhale. Hope grew within me and I started to believe that I was really going to become a mom.

I started celebrating the big milestones and captured my growing belly with weekly bump photos. I registered for baby gifts and soaked in my family and friends’ love as they showered me and my babies with goodies. I decorated their nursery. Life felt good again and I was grateful until I was forced to deliver my twins prematurely and they died five days later.

My heart was broken but continued to beat. My lungs were deflated but continued to fill with air. Memories flooded my mind but couldn’t be rescued. The world continued to spin, but for me, it stopped when their hearts did.

I watched as two nurses carried my still-warm babies down to the dark cold morgue, and I wept. Pain seeped from my marrow and evaporated off my skin.

The depression returned stronger than ever and I craved death like an addict craves its next hit.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

I had panic attacks anytime I saw a pregnant woman. I imagined her baby dying and it caused my heart to ache for her, so I began spending my days isolated from the world around me, too afraid to go outside.

I stopped working as a nurse because I didn’t even have the ability to care for myself.

I stopped talking to my family and friends because I felt like they didn’t understand me and couldn’t relate to my pain.

I lost the career I loved, my babies, and the future I had envisioned. It was a very dark place to exist, and after a failed suicide attempt I found myself in therapy working through the past I’d done my best to escape.

My desire to become a mother was still there, and as I began to heal I allowed myself to envision bringing a living baby home. I didn’t know how or when that would happen, but the hope of holding a baby in my arms was enough to keep me moving forward.

Unfortunately, my medical providers told me that my body was too weak to carry a future pregnancy, so I looked into adoption and surrogacy. When those routes left me empty handed I searched for a care team that was willing to believe in me.

After another round of fertility treatments, I was pregnant. During my 6-week ultrasound, I saw the beautiful flicker of my baby’s heart beating within my womb and I hoped it would continue. I was placed on bedrest immediately due to a subchorionic hemorrhage which is a really scary way to describe a pool of blood surrounding the baby, and I prayed my baby would survive.

At 13 weeks I underwent major abdominal surgery to place a band beneath my uterus that would strengthen my body’s ability to safely carry my baby to full term.

I was in and out of the hospital with preterm labor and my doctors prepared me for another early delivery. I was scared out of my mind and felt all alone.

I did my best to release the fear and anxiety I had so that I could embrace the gift that this baby was, but it was a daily struggle for me.

When I rolled into the OR for my scheduled delivery I prayed that my baby would live. My body vibrated on the operating table as fear shook me. I smelt my flesh burning and could feel the doctors tugging at my skin as they worked to get my baby safely out, and then when she was removed I held my breath and waited for her to cry. The room was quiet and I began to cry.

I heard the doctors talking about my baby being much smaller than she should have been, and then they began discussing her umbilical cord. Despite all the ultrasounds and close monitoring I had during my pregnancy, my doctors failed to notice that my baby had a velamentous cord.

This is where the umbilical cord doesn’t connect to the placenta correctly. It can lead to issues with growth, bleeding, and even contribute to a baby not surviving delivery.

The doctors told me that she was small but that she was lucky to have survived. I was beside myself with emotion as I took everything in. After waiting for what felt like an eternity I was able to hold her, and when I did it was the best feeling I’d ever experienced in my life.

I never wanted to put her down. I was elated to have a living baby, but I was also anxious about everything that could go wrong. I knew firsthand what it felt like to have a child die and I never wanted to feel that pain again.

I was full of joy and awe as I watched her grow, but I also struggled with feelings of sadness as I acknowledged all the firsts I’d missed out on with my twins. It was such an odd experience. I felt like I was living in two worlds, with alternate realities and I did my best to navigate the two.

Life felt brighter with my daughter in it and I began to feel happy again. My husband and I purchased our first home, and we decided to add another baby to our family.

The pregnancy ended up being even more high risk than my prior ones and I was placed in the hospital for six weeks. Depression and anxiety returned as my young daughter bounced between family and friends during my absence. I missed her terribly and my body ached without her presence, but I pushed forward knowing that each day I stayed pregnant brought us one day closer to our baby.

My husband and I grew apart during this time as he managed his emotions in ways that negatively impacted our family, and before I knew it I found myself afraid, sad, and all alone again.

When I was 34 weeks pregnant my uterus ripped. I was rushed into an emergency c-section where my baby and I almost died. The entire experience was traumatic, but for the first time in my life instead of feeling sad or scared, I felt hope, happiness, and excitement.

My husband and I divorced and I thrived as a single mother. I gave thanks daily for the beautiful gift of my children in my life, and I began to dig deeper into healing my mind and body.

I let myself off the hook for selecting and marrying my ex-husband, and I acknowledged the reason for doing so. Understanding this was a pivotal point in my healing journey. I realized that he fulfilled the need I had to feel lovable, and I vowed never to make that mistake again.

I started to feel amazing, like an anchor had been removed and everything was smooth sailing. I met my now husband and began to believe in happy endings. Things felt safe, secure, and solid until suddenly they didn’t.

Fear, anxiety, and panic returned as I discovered I was pregnant. My fallopian tubes were blocked so my doctor prepared me for emergency surgery. I was sad to be away from my children again, but also in awe that I had been able to conceive at all.

Before heading into surgery the doctor placed the ultrasound probe on my abdomen. The room became quiet as a grainy black-and-white image appeared on the computer monitor beside me. Two black blobs stood out to me. I gasped as the doctor pulled the ultrasound wand off my stomach. “I saw two sacs!” I yelled as hot tears slid down my cheeks.

My poor husband shifted in his seat clueless as to what was happening while the doctor’s face grew pale, and his mouth draped open.

“There appear to be two sacs, and they are both in your uterus, not your fallopian tubes.” The shock was palpable as the doctor went on to discuss all the things that could go wrong. Since the pregnancy was still very early it was highly likely that one or both babies would miscarry. The doctor told us to go home and return in a week to see if there was proof of life.

My husband and I practically floated out of the office on autopilot. Everything changed at that moment. We went from preparing for surgery to possibly preparing for a pregnancy. A pregnancy that we didn’t even know was possible. Two lives that may or may not exist.

It was a whirlwind as we awaited our next scan for more information. On the day of our appointment hope pumped through my body as the doctor placed the ultrasound wand on my abdomen and two heartbeats flashed across the screen.

I couldn’t believe my body had naturally conceived twins. It felt purposeful, especially after losing my first set of twins. I was hopeful but I also understood that miscarriage was still a very real possibility. I knew that if the pregnancy progressed I would be on bed rest, and I knew it would be hard, but I was excited at the miracles growing inside my body.

My euphoria faded as my doctor encouraged me to end the pregnancy. “It’s too high risk, you almost died carrying your son. Your body isn’t strong enough to carry two babies, it’s not even strong enough to carry one!” He handed my husband and me a card and urged us to act quickly, referring to my uterus as a ticking time bomb that could explode at any time causing me to bleed to death within minutes.

Instead of leaving the doctor’s office feeling excited, we left carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. Dread sucked all the joy from us and we drove home in silence.

By the time we arrived home, my mind was decided. I would carry the pregnancy as long as I could, and I would trust that whatever time these babies were with me was meant to be.

My husband on the other hand didn’t like that idea. He wanted to have biological children desperately, but he wanted to have a living wife more than that. He struggled as fear polluted his mind, and he contemplated terminating one of the babies.

I refused. “I spent years trying to conceive, praying for a baby, and now that I have been gifted two you want me to say thanks for the gift but I don’t want it anymore. Or thanks for the gift I only want part of it?! There is no way I’m going to do that! I am going to carry this pregnancy as long as I can with your support or without it, although I would prefer to have you by my side”, I said with heat.

Of course, my husband put me first and stood beside me every step of the way. “I am lovable. I am worthy. I am capable of living a life I love”, I thought.

I ended up on bed rest and was placed in the hospital for weeks. I listened to meditations on my phone in order to combat the anxious thoughts in my head. My husband brought my two older children to the hospital daily to visit me and my sadness went away while they were there. I felt like I was capable of carrying these babies.

I experienced excruciating pain as my uterus stretched and threatened to tear open as my babies grew bigger each day, and then when I was 31 weeks pregnant my twins were born.

They endured daily blood draws, multiple surgeries, blood transfusions, and extensive therapy before being discharged home from the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) 106 days later.

They came home with feeding tubes in their stomachs, IV poles, feeding pumps, multiple medications, and complex medical challenges. Life felt chaotic but also peaceful. We were finally all home together, and while we were still finding our footing we were happy and confident that we could do anything as long as we did it together.

We bought and moved into a new home and finished remodeling it a few months later. We started actively creating the life we longed to live and we had so many joyful moments. Happiness surrounded us and then as it had in the past, darkness rolled in and threatened to take over.

My husband and I had just taken our places on the sofa after getting the twins down for their afternoon naps when my phone rang. It was my ex-mother-in-law. My heart lurched knowing that my two oldest children were spending the day with their dad. Dread filled my body instinctively as I scrambled to answer the phone. It was like my DNA knew something awful had happened before I did.

“There’s been an accident,” she said as I pressed the phone into my ear. “Found him in the pool.. no pulse.. we don’t know for how long..ambulance took him..” my heart beat like a caged animal against my chest and I fell to my knees as despair set in.

After gathering a few of my son’s belongings I ran out the door, my confused husband trailing behind me trying to make sense of what was happening. I felt angry, enraged if I’m being completely honest.

My ex-husband is a firefighter paramedic, he knows firsthand how critical pool safety is but he refused to protect our son. For years I begged him to install a pool gate but he refused. He laughed at me and said that I was too protective of our kids, but now our innocent son was the victim.

As I drove to the hospital not knowing if my son was alive or dead I prayed for peace. I wanted to storm into the hospital and throw my angry fists into my ex-husband’s chest, but I knew that wasn’t the energy I wanted my son to be around. I knew that in order to hope for a miracle I needed to focus on gratitude, so that’s exactly what I did. I walked into the hospital and gave thanks for the gift that my son was to me in my life.

I entered his hospital room and fell to my knees as I saw his frail body lying lifeless beneath the tubes and wires that connected him to machines. The sounds in the room became fuzzy and my only thought was that I needed to touch him. I moved towards his bed and gently scooped him into my arms. “Please be ok my Angel”, I said as tears fell from my eyes and landed on his small cheek.

I stayed that way holding his fragile body in my arms as doctors came and went, as a Chaplain prayed over him, and as God granted me another miracle before I even had the opportunity to pray for one. 

After a few days, our son came home. He had pneumonia, collapsed lungs, and was extremely weak, but he was alive. 

Gratitude poured out of me and I gave thanks for him and his life. But as the days passed the darkness and anxiety returned. I started thinking about how precious his life was, how precious all of my children’s lives were, and that eerie realization that they could die at any moment saturated my mind, drowning out the peace I once felt.

My heart raced each time a firetruck passed by our house and I would burst into tears. I began having severe panic attacks anytime my kids weren’t near me. My mind would race as worst-case scenarios flashed through it. Eventually, I stopped sleeping and hardly ate. I was struggling but didn’t know how to stop the spin cycle.

The trauma of my son’s near-death experience combined with the death of my twins, multiple high-risk pregnancies, infant twins with medical challenges, and the childhood abuse I’d survived caused me to dissociate.

Terror consumed me as I pulled my car into our driveway after returning home from a doctor’s visit and realized that I had no recollection of driving. One minute I was at the hospital, and the next I was pulling into our driveway. I did my best to recall what streets I’d taken, the freeway, the exit, red lights, anything but I couldn’t and at that moment I knew I needed help.

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Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

I began seeing a therapist again three days a week. It was painful. Some days the fear and anxiety were so debilitating I didn’t think I could go on. Depression smothered me and my thinking became distorted.

I believed that if I were dead my kids would be better off, safer, happier, and less at risk. I blamed myself for divorcing my ex-husband believing if I had remained married to him that I would have been there to protect my children. I blamed myself for my twins’ medical challenges. I blamed myself for everything, and in that space, I hated myself so much.

I fell so far into darkness that I tried to end my life. I craved the peace and finality I believed death would offer, but as I sat there imagining my children’s lives without me in it, I had an epiphany.

I realized that I was ending my life in order to help them live better lives. I loved them with every fiber of my being and I wanted them to know that I loved them, wanted them, cherished them, and absolutely adored them.

I wanted them to live full happy lives knowing that they were loved and worthy of love. I wanted them to feel joy, and experience peace. I didn’t want them to experience the same type of life I had. I wanted to shield them from pain and suffering.

I contemplated how they might feel in the aftermath of my death, and I realized that if I killed myself I would be serving them pain and suffering on a silver platter!

Instead of showing them daily that they were loved and worthy, they would be left to live their lives believing their mother chose to die because she didn’t love them enough to live. They would believe they weren’t worthy of me staying in their lives. They might even blame themselves for not being enough to save me. I realized if I died they would carry the weight of my actions with them forever.

With that realization, I felt even sadder. Stuck again between two worlds. One where peace existed after I ceased to, and one where suffering and pain were a guarantee, but that I had the ability to positively coauthor for my children. 

Death would have been easier, lighter, freer, and faster for me. But for them, it would have changed their world. Knowing that, I chose to live so that their lives would have the opportunity to be fuller. I decided to love them fiercely and to show them daily through my actions and words that they were masterpieces, loved, and worthy.

And then I realized that I couldn’t teach them something I didn’t know or believe to be true myself, so I slowly learned how to love and cherish myself. 

And that’s where the real work began. When I set my sword down and stopped fighting battles and instead cultivated beauty. 

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

I changed everything I was doing, and I mean everything. I continued going to therapy and worked with a cognitive behavioral therapist. I did EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), EFT (emotional freedom technique), RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapy), hypnotherapy, and nutritional and dietary support.

I worked with a body code and emotion code practitioner. I learned transcendental meditation and utilized the gift of visualization to build the vision of the world I wished to one day live in, and I believed it was possible. I changed everything I was doing, and in doing so I found ME.

I found the little girl version of me who was all alone and instead of hating her and bullying her for not being enough I loved her for being ah-freaking-mazing. I praised her for surviving all the awful things she did, because she survived a lot of crazy hard shit, and I praised her for showing up and doing the hard work when giving up would have been understandable. 

I revised, modified, tweaked, and adjusted the things I did, the thoughts I thought, and the environment I allowed myself to grow in. I mindfully pruned away family, friends, thoughts, and behaviors that were contributing to my soul’s decay, and in doing so I witnessed new life begin to bloom.

I pruned again and again and again, and to be honest I still prune today. And my life is flourishing. I see new growth, new life, and an even bigger harvest than I ever imagined possible. And I am so freaking proud of myself.

Of course, challenges still come into my life. I’ve struggled with losing loved ones, protecting my children from toxic people and unsafe situations, and so much more. Life is painful at times, but I have chosen to continue pursuing peace instead of remaining a victim of circumstances.

I am on the lookout daily for sneaky thoughts that creep into my head, and I catch them with excitement. I don’t allow them to take root and grow. I pull them out as soon as I discover them, and then I kick them to the curb and fill the space they occupied with better-feeling thoughts and beliefs. I base my decisions off of how I want to feel and whether or not they align with my life goal. If they don’t, I don’t participate in them.

Doing this shifted my happiness so much. I do it all the time. If I am sad or feeling in a funk I get curious about what’s going on around me that might be contributing to my mood. I change the things I can, like sleep quality, nutritional intake, and environmental exposures, and I surrender the things I can’t.

I know that if I want to live in peace and experience joy in my life, I cannot sulk or be moody all day and still expect to reach my goal. So I sulk for a moment and then move towards the things that will bring me closer to my goal of peace and joy. 

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

You can do the same thing in your life anytime you want, a million times a day if you want to until eventually you find yourself experiencing exactly what you desire. If you are struggling please know that you are not alone and that healing and hope are available.

You are loved, worthy, and capable of creating a life you love. I am living proof of that truth. No diagnosis is too final, past too messy, or future uncertain to fully live a life you love, and it can start today. There are people ready to hold a light for you until you make it through the darkness. Reach out to a friend, family member, therapist, or trusted provider for support today!

It was through this healing journey that I cultivated my current business. It’s a one-stop shop in a sense that supports medical, emotional, and spiritual healing from the inside out. It gives people their power back while instilling hope in their lives.

I created this practice because I didn’t find healing in one thing, but rather through a million little things, and I wanted to share those same resources with others so that they too could create a life they love. 

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• I loved Marisa Peer’s book, Tell Yourself a Better Lie: Use the Power of Rapid Transformational Therapy to edit your story and rewrite your life. 
• You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay showed me that I was capable of healing my life.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

To learn more about me you can go to my website: my website, follow me on Instagram @andreablindt or connect with me through email.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

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Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post Successfully Battling Depression and Tragedy Upon Tragedy to Find Happiness appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Contents

• Who are you?
• What is your struggle?
• How did you feel at your worst moment
• When did you turn it around?
• What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?
• Who did you share your struggle with?
• Your best piece of advice?
• Books and resources
• Learn more

Hello! Who are you?

Hi, my name is Krystal Alexander. I currently reside in Frisco, TX. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, with a specialty in grief and loss. I also work as an Assessment Specialist helping individuals in crisis or with severe persistent mental illnesses into acute psychiatric care. 

I am a single woman who enjoys singing, spending time near bodies of water, spending time with friends and family, and following the teachings of Jesus Christ. I consider myself to be more than happy. I have fullness of joy!

By the way: Do you find it hard to be happy and in control of your life? It may not be your fault. To help you feel better, we’ve condensed the information of 100’s of articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet to help you be more in control.

Don’t Miss Out On Happiness

Find happiness with this 10-step mental health cheat sheet.

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What is your struggle and when did it start?

In 2018 I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. However, since the age of 10 yrs old, I struggle with symptoms of anxiety and feelings of persistent fears.

I would experience rapid heart rate, persistent feelings of fear, migraines, dissociation, difficulty sleeping, irritability, what felt like a constant trembling within my nervous system, and panic attacks. After that first panic attack, I knew how bad this issue had gotten and I was determined not to have another one again. 

I now know that past traumas, feelings of abandonment, rejection, and a lack of identity contributed to increased symptoms of anxiety and fear. Years later after EMDR therapy and growing my relationship with Christ, I learned that it actually started for me as early as the age of 3 years old.

It developed over time through a constant need of me always wanting to be accepted or liked by others. I had thoughts and beliefs about myself that I was never good enough and that I was a failure.

No matter how much I’d accomplished, because my life wasn’t excelling at the rate that I desired it to, I believed something was wrong with me. I would compare myself to others, and participate in things I had no interest in, only to be accepted by others. In doing so, I lost my identity and ability to be my true authentic self.

However, this struggle no longer impacts me, because I’ve been set free. My first time meeting with a school counselor was in the 5^th grade. And no, I was not consistent with therapy between the age of ten up to my thirties. It wasn’t until my 30s that I made the decision to be completely consistent in therapy and really get to the root of the anxiety and fears I was experiencing.

How did this struggle make you feel at your worst moments?

At my worst moments, I would feel disconnected, and embarrassed. Earlier I mentioned dissociating as a symptom I experienced with anxiety. Dissociating means that you feel detached/disconnected from your body, environment, or the people around you. I like to call it “checking out”.

Having many moments of “checking out” brought on those feelings of embarrassment, simply because it would happen during important meetings while teaching, or even sometimes in sessions with clients. I would often need to ask others to repeat themselves or act like I heard them and kept moving forward. Although sometimes it wasn’t as easy to hide. 

There were moments when I would weep and feel helpless. I can remember one night my heart rate and body temp increased rapidly while I was resting, I was having a silent panic attack. At that moment I began to cry and had passive suicidal thoughts.

Saying things like “God I wouldn’t be mad if you take me now. God, I’m so tired of feeling this way and dealing with this anxiety. I just want it all to end.” I knew at that moment, I was at my worst, the lowest I had ever experienced.

No one close to me knew the severity of how I was feeling. I wore a mask for many years. Pretending to be happy, when deep down inside I felt shame and helplessness because I couldn’t control these bouts of anxious feelings and fearful moments.

Share your story: Help thousands of people around the world by sharing your own story. We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Was there a moment when you started to turn things around?

The most defining moment of change for me, was when I attended a women’s conference, and within that conference the Prophet speaking prayed for many of us that had fear of the future.

I remember the next morning waking up to no rapid heartbeat, or trembling from the inside out. It was as if my nervous system had been restored. I thought to myself oh my goodness, I’m free! I felt calm, safe, and free. I knew then, Jesus had met me there and I was set free.

I also believe the change was both a result of my circumstances and my own actions. Prior to attending the conference I had just started a new job, started EMDR therapy, and had begun implementing changes in my daily routine, as well as reframing negative thinking patterns. I believe the conference was just the icing on the cake!

What steps did you take to overcome your struggle?

There was one thing that my therapist asked me to create and she called it the “perfect cocktail”. This indicated that she wanted me to create a list of things that I could do routinely that made me feel safe, relaxed, and reminded me of my identity. It needed to be something that would be the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning and the last thing I saw when I went to bed at night.

At that time, the “cocktail” I created was daily body movement, prayer, and aligning my life with my Christian beliefs. I purchased a chalkboard to place on the wall in my bedroom and wrote affirmations from the Bible about my identity in Christ.

I also recorded myself reciting scriptures from the Bible and would play them over and over again until I fell asleep. That was my meditation for the day; meditating on the word of God.

I later started taking vitamins daily and surrounded myself with a community of people in my faith, that could help keep me accountable in shifting my mindset. I knew how important it was for my life to align with the principles of my Christian faith. And to be honest I wasn’t living a life that was completely aligned with my faith.

I was already an advocate for self-care, but it became essential in my life. The ability to be aware of what my body needed and give myself what I needed became my priority. I needed to show up for myself in the same way I was showing up for others. 

I had to replace the negative thoughts I had about myself with my faith and what I believed. The thoughts that I wasn’t really liked or accepted by others, were replaced with Romans 8:15 NKJV – For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father”.

I was loved and accepted by God and I had an identity through Christ. Holding on to this scripture and many others helped to rewire my belief system and thinking patterns.

So if you want to know how to overcome this, here are a few helpful tips. 

• Seek professional help from a therapist or coach: There are many therapists and mental health/life coaches out there who are equipped with helping you navigate through distressing symptoms. You are never too old to seek help when needed.
• Schedule regular wellness visits with your doctor/PCP: It’s important when struggling with any type of mental health symptoms to rule out any medical issues first. Sometimes it may be a physical health issue that is presenting distressing symptoms than mental health. 
• Change negative thought patterns and negative belief systems: Negative thoughts and beliefs can come from a number of things such as things we were taught in our family dynamics, past traumas, or things you may have heard people say to or about you. Modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) are extremely impactful when getting unstuck from negative thought patterns, and creating new belief systems. 
• Daily Exercise: Research has shown how daily body movement significantly reduces symptoms of stress/anxiety/depression.
• Surround yourself with a community of like-minded people for support: This could be within your church or social groups. A safe place with safe people where you can be vulnerable and your true authentic self. 
• And lastly practicing more than enough self-care.

Have you shared any of this with people around you in real life?

My immediate family knew that anxiety was a struggle for me, but I don’t think they knew the severity of my symptoms. My mother was the only person I felt comfortable enough to know the depths of the struggle I had with anxiety. I hid it from friends and other family members and within the church due to an immense amount of shame I felt.

I thought to myself how can I, a therapist, whose work is to help navigate others through their fears and anxiety, attempt to help other people through something that I had not conquered yet myself.

But I remembered something someone once said to me which was “You don’t have to have it all together in order to help someone else. You can be in the process of overcoming something and still help someone else.” That was enough for me to keep going. 

Before overcoming fear and anxiety, it was difficult for me to share. But now it doesn’t feel as daunting of a task to do openly, because I’m free and I know that other people’s thoughts or opinions of me do not define my identity.

If you could give a single piece of advice to someone else that struggles, what would that be?

You can never go wrong with seeking professional help. A therapist or coach that specializes in your specific struggle will be essential to your mental and overall health. 

When we experience trauma, it changes the way we view the world. When you dont have a solid identity, people’s words will have a powerful impact on your life that can cause hurt and trauma.

I think oftentimes we brush off hurtful words someone may have spoken to or about us, and yet we don’t deal with the impact of the emotional wound that their words may have created. Dont brush it off when it hurts, address the pain, heal the wound.

Don’t be afraid of your emotions. Our emotions provide information about what we need. Processing through your emotions can be a game changer in your ability to have a healthy and stable life.

In doing this we allow ourselves to let the process of healing take place, get an understanding of what we need, and make sure that those needs are being met. This, amongst other things, can lead to living a happier life.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, YouTube channels, or other resources for you?

• The Amanda Ferguson Show: This podcast helped me because she does an amazing job of providing practical tips to overcome fear, depression, and anxiety as well as spiritual practices with a touch of femininity to reinforce your identity in Christ. 
• Therapy as a Christian Podcast: This podcast helped me realize the importance of normalizing therapy in the Christian community as well as mental health challenges within the church. This podcast helped me feel seen, heard, and let go of the shame of mental health diagnoses. 
• Boundaries: This book helped me realize how much I lacked healthy boundaries. I had to understand that a lack of boundaries also contributed to increased symptoms of anxiety for me. Learning the importance of implementing boundaries in my life also helped to resolve my struggle with anxiety. 
• The Battlefield of the Mind: This book gives a deep dive into biblical principles and the importance of guarding how you think as a believer in Christ. It helped me to understand how I can take authority over my thoughts and reminded me to think more positively in order to have a better life.
• And lastly, the Bible was my greatest resource for learning about my identity in Christ and realizing how much I was accepted and loved by God.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

You can read more about me on my website or Instagram and TikTok.

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

Want more interviews?

Continue reading our inspiring case studies and learn how to overcome mental health struggles in a positive way!

Want to help others with your story? We would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post How I Overcame Persistent Fears & Anxiety With EMDR Therapy and Closeness to Christ appeared first on Tracking Happiness.