Fighting The Darkness.

Dealing with the stigma of mental illness and finding the strength to seek treatment.

Depression is a devastating mental illness that affects roughly 3 million people a year in the US alone. Even more suffer in silence without getting the treatment they need.

Why is this? Because in many cultures, especially African American ones, you’re considered weak if you need to seek outside help to deal with your problems.

So for years, I struggled to hide the overwhelming sadness and feelings of worthlessness I was drowning in.

I cruised through those years of my life with negative nancy’s mouth duct taped shut and those feelings of grief, sadness, hurt, guilt, and all the other baggage I carry tightly tucked away in a padlocked strongbox buried in the depths of my drug-hazed mind.

But my son made me realize I wasn’t helping myself, I only traded one dark place for another. He helped me understand that feeling your emotions and dealing with the fall out is par for the course for normal people. So for the sake of my son, I stopped self-medicating. But I wasn’t prepared for the bombardment of emotions that dropped down on me like an anvil.

All the shame and guilt, the grief of an almost unbearable loss, all the anxiety had me…