The Battle of the Mind

The struggle with depression is rough. You can have the wheels on and feel like everything is going well and the smallest thing throws you off. It can be something inconsequential but it triggers feelings, that triggers other feelings and quickly you fall off the rails.

If I am being 100% transparent there are a lot of things about my life, I’m not happy about. I would say there are more things that I am unhappy about than I am happy about. Over the last couple of years, I’ve worked hard to not focus on that. I have worked hard to focus on being more accepting of things and appreciating the things that I do have.

As hard as I work, setbacks seem impossible for me to avoid. I have a good few months and then something happens that causes a setback.

Recently I was hanging out with someone for a couple of weeks, and I thought it was going well. After years and years of terrible luck with women I thought maybe I had finally found something that had a chance. Who knows what that chance was, could have been six more weeks, six more months or six more years? It was way too early to think about anything like that. Then what felt like a random 180 degree turn happened. We went from thinking this had a chance to being told “I don’t see this going anywhere.”

Now here is why I say depression is rough. I can sit here and honestly tell you that the logical side of my brain was fine with this. I thought it sucked because I thought maybe it had a chance and I finally met someone who seemed normal (lol) but I was fine. I had only known her for a few weeks. I was still getting to know her. There were no deep feelings. There were hardly any feelings at all.

The scary part is what happens after. The other part of my brain takes over. The thoughts start.

“Is something ever going to workout for me dating wise ever again?”

“Am I always going to be alone?”

“Why does nothing ever workout for me?”

Those thoughts start running through your brain and then they trigger more thoughts. Thoughts about other aspects of my life start. “Other people make more money than me.” “Other people can afford to have a better life than me.” “Why do other people get to be happy, and I don’t?” It ends with the feeling of my lot in life is not to be happy. It is just to exist. I just must get through each day and then do it again. That is all there ever is for me. Existence. You are left desperately wanting the feeling of something good. It is an extraordinarily heavy feeling. When you combined that with the guilt that comes with the realization that some of the issues that plague me are my own fault, it can be crippling.

As you read this, I want to be clear about something. I am lucky. As dark as that may seem when you read it other people have it much worse than I do. There are many others that struggle with depression and other mental health disorders and think there is no way out other than to harm themselves. That’s not me. When I’m in the throws of it and at my darkest I definitely question what the point of going on is but I have never once had the urge or temptation to harm myself. 

I also want to be clear about something else. As dark as some of this reads, I fully acknowledge that there are those out there that have it much worse than I do. My life in all reality is not near as bad as it feels at times. There again is why I say it is truly a battle of the mind. I can sit here and type this out and believe this here today. When it takes hold of me and I am at my darkest and emptiest I feel the opposite.

I mentioned setbacks earlier. What I have learned over the years trying to fight this is you cannot give into those setbacks. You must do what you can to get going back in the right direction. Even if that means doing it multiple times. Find something that helps you battle these feelings and throw yourself into it.

For me that is the gym. For other people it could be something different. If I start my day in the gym getting my body going and my mind working on something positive, it helps. I had a rough week mentally. The last two days I have got myself back to starting my day in the gym and can honestly say I am in a better place than I was. Does this mean this setback is completely over? I am not sure. I am not going to brazenly sit here and say yes right now. It does mean I am doing what I can do to get back on track. To get back to where I want to be mentally.

Mental Health is a battle. It is the battle of the logical part of your brain versus the emotional part of your brain. Typically, the brain is a balance between the logical and emotional. When the emotional takes over you lose that balance. Sometimes you win the fight for balance. Sometimes you lose. What you must do is quit. You must be willing to battle to get that balance back.  Find the thing that helps you be willing to battle and use it.

If you know someone that truly struggles with mental health whether that’s depression, anxiety or something else do not tell them how to fix it. If you do not understand what they are going through that’s perfectly ok. Just show them empathy.  Support their battle. Encourage them to do what they need to do to keep fighting.

The Other Side of Corona Virus

There is one thing I’ve very thankful for during this pandemic. To date I don’t know anyone personally be it friend or family who has contracted the Corona virus. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had a major affect on my life.

On March 27th, my world was rocked when I was laid off by employer due to the virus. Six months prior I had moved to Oklahoma away from all my friends and now I was in Oklahoma and I was unemployed. I was unemployed and forced to isolate away from everyone due to the Stay at Home order. My immediate feelings after being laid off was fear. Fear of what I was going to do. Fear of how long I’d be able to pay my bills. Fear how long I’d be able to keep a roof over my head. Fear of when I’d have the opportunity of going back to work. Fear of how much I’d be in debt when I did.

After a little bit of time I settled down and started to plot out what I needed to do in the short term to keep my head above water during this time. The first step was filing for unemployment. At that moment maybe the only bright spot about my situation was that unemployment was paying more at this time than it ever had before. I was also quickly reminded that I had a network of family and friends that were there for me and would help me through this if I needed them too. That doesn’t mean my situation isn’t stressful and I don’t have worries, but it does give me comfort that eventually I will get through this and get back on track with my life. Some people may not have that comfort.

Every day I read stories online or hear stories on the news about the health risks of the corona virus. I hear numbers of how many new cases there are. I hear numbers of how many cases they expect. What I don’t read or hear much about is the mental effects this pandemic is likely having on many people. As of last week, there are 30 million people who are currently unemployed in the United States. That is roughly 1/10 of the population. There are others who may not technically be unemployed but may have the stress of borrowing money and worrying about whether they’ll be able to keep their businesses afloat during this time.  That’s millions of people who are living with the daily stress of wondering how they are going to pay their bills. Millions worrying about how they are going to feed their selves, or many cases feed their families. The daily stress of that can-do unthinkable damage to a person’s mental state.

According to the National Association of Mental Illness 1 in 5 American’s experience mental illness each year. 1 In 25 American’s experience serious mental illness each year. If that’s the case that means roughly 6 million of the 30 million who are currently unemployed experience mental illness. Over 1 million of those suffer from serious mental illness.  Of that 6 million how many are struggling right now with everything going on to fight their mental illness problems? Of that 1 million who may be suffering through serious mental illness issues how many of them are struggling right now? How many of those may be thinking about hurting themselves to get rid of the pain and stress they feel due to this situation?

I haven’t been able to receive any unemployment benefits to date. I filed 36 days ago. I have been waiting for 16 days for what the state of Oklahoma calls a Level 2 Agent to call me back to help me. There is an issue with my claim, and you can only deal with that by talking to an agent. I have called in numerous times and the same thing happens. My information is taken, and I’m told someone will call me back and they never do. I was lucky, I was given a small severance and that combined with the stimulus check that was sent out I’m ok for now. My question is how many others aren’t?  How many others are stressing daily about keeping a roof over their head? How many others are stressing daily about what they are going to do for food for themselves and in a lot of cases their children? How many of that struggle with the mental health issues I just spoke about?

I understand the fact that 30 million people have filed for unemployment and that the government is overwhelmed dealing with it. I have a hard time believing they are doing their best to help the Americans that truly need it. On one of the occasions I called in I was told they are currently hiring as many as 200 people a day to handle the call volume. If that’s the case I have a hard time believing it should take them two weeks or more to call people back. In recent days I’ve taken to social media and reaching out to the OESC and Governor Stitt in Oklahoma to try to get help with this problem. To date my situation hasn’t changed.

One thing that did happen was a reporter from Bloomberg News contacted me to take part in a story they were doing. I was taken back by it at first. I mean who am I? I agreed and had an interview regarding my situation how the affects being laid off has had on me personally. During the interview I tried to stress multiple times that I was fully aware that many people were in a much worse situation than I was. For the last couple of days since we talked, I’ve really started thinking about how this situation could affect people from a mental health standpoint. Today I called him back and asked if we could continue our conversation and if he could possibly include this subject in the article.

I want anyone to know that reads that I know the Government is working hard to get us past this situation. As we start to re-open the country, I do think they need to focus on the unemployment situation and work on the process to help more of us who are in need as we try to seek employment. Jobs will open, but they are going to open slowly. Hopefully, we won’t have to go back into lockdown and the job market will continue an upward trend even if it’s a slow go. People are going to need help. They are going to need help keeping their homes. They are going to need help feeding their families. If they can’t get the help, they need they may eventually feel like they have nowhere to turn. The pressure may get to much and their mental health may start to deteriorate rapidly and eventually cause them to make an awfully bad decision. Knowing that they can at least get buy and take care of their families even will make a drastic difference in their mental state and help them stay in a positive place mentally.

I want people reading this to know that I am not trying to downgrade or act like the health risks of the Corona Virus pandemic aren’t serious. I have read stories about people having Mental Health problems because of that also. They are serious. They shouldn’t be ignored. This shouldn’t be ignored either. The financial ramifications of this situation are just as serious. They need to be talked about more. They need to take seriously. If they aren’t Corona Virus may not only be a direct cause of deaths of Americans it may be an in-direct cause of deaths as well. People who can’t take the pain and the stress of everything they must deal with.

Choosing Positivity

As usual for me this morning after doing some work I checked my social media accounts. After scrolling through a little bit of the usual negativity you find on a daily basis I found this video. I’ve got it posted at the bottom of this blog.

I don’t know if I can really articulate in words how awesome I think this video is. The little boy in the video fails. He gets upset but he never quits. Not only that but everyone around him keeps being positive they keep encouraging him to keep trying.

He keeps trying and keeps failing but in the end he wipes away the tears and finds success.

We need more of this in our society so badly right now. Every single day I see constant negativity. People complaining about all the bad in their life and all the things they don’t like. Instead of building people up we tear them down.

You expect the adults to be supportive and root the little boy on. Especially when he gets emotional. Not the kids. Most kids today would start laughing and making fun of him. They’d make fun of him when he fails. They’d continue to make fun of him when he gets emotional. Not in this video. These kids are positive. They are supportive. Without that he wouldn’t keep trying. He would have given up. Instead he kept trying and eventually he accomplished his goal.

I hope people will watch this video and see the impact that positivity and support can have on a person. Instead of tearing them down with negativity and making them think they aren’t capable of something help them realize they are. If you do that this world would be a better place. It wouldn’t be so negative. People would believe in themselves more. People would believe they could achieve the things they want in life.

I’m not the most positive person by nature. People that know me will read that and probably laugh at how much of an understatement that is. Lately though I’ve been realizing the effect that negativity has in my life. It brings me down. When I’m in a positive frame of mind I am a much better person. I’m better in my job. I’m happier. 

Moving forward I want to be like the people in this video with others in my life. I want people to see me as a positive influence in their life. Someone who will believe in them and support them as they try to achieve things.

If more people were like that this world would be a better place.

Failure + Perseverance = Success pic.twitter.com/Nv7Lr2ifzR

— Michael Loftman (@michael_loftman) May 13, 2019

Constantly Evolving

Welcome to my new and improved blog! Over the years since I discovered a passion for writing I’ve blogged about many things.

My love for blogging started with my ongoing personal journey of wellness and health. I love sharing my success and my struggles . I truly believe that sometimes we just need to know someone else out there struggles with the same things we do. Knowing that can be the spark we need to make a positive change in our own lives.

I’ve also spent time blogging about many of my different interests in life. Whether that’s sports, entertainment or even aspect of my own career.

I want this blog to be a home for all of that. I want it to be a creative outlet for me to share my thoughts and feelings on many things.

Life is a journey filled with many ups and downs. You have to ride the wave and appreciate it all.