Hello, I'm Robert McLean. This is my first blog and I just want to get something off my chest. I thought the Odyssey, if not anything else, would be the best outlet for me to do so. For starters, a lot of people go through dark moments at least once in our life time. I've seen it even happen to celebrities. I'm digressing a bit, but I want to share with you one of my darkest moments. For those of you who don't know, I can sensitive, but don't always show it because I don't want to be portrayed as weak by anyone. I know some of you are like "What does that have to do with anything?" Well, I'm getting to that moment.

Yesterday, I took a 901 certification exam to get CompTIA certified. I thought that I was well prepared for the exam. I would attend this training session every morning , Monday thru Friday. If there were things I didn't understand, I would usually ask the instructor or review it again. Come to find out, when I took the test and got my results back and failed, I felt very discouraged, as if I did all the studying for nothing. I felt like I couldn't accomplish anything in life. When I showed the results to my mom, and she was furious with me, which by the way made things worse. After her rant and berating me, I started to feel even more discouraged even more. I started to think I didn't have a purpose in life. All these thoughts kept popping up in my head, that I let myself down, I let my family down, and that I would be better off dead. Believe me, there is normal sadness, but this was and advanced sadness. I felt like a burden to my mom. I think some parents can come off as too judgmental when trying to help their children.

The Psychologist definition of depression -A mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

The psychologist definition of situational depression- a short-term, stress-related type of depression. It can develop after you experience a traumatic event or series of events.

As you can see obviously, by these definitions, there is a big difference between regular depression and situational depression. However, there are some similarities, the big one being suicidal thoughts, having trouble concentrating, and lost interest in activities.

I say all of this to make the point that people do not understand mental health and how it is just as important to everyday life as having the necessary skills for a job or gaining knowledge or wisdom. We live in a society where mental health is disregarded by many. We keep these topics behind closed doors because if we address them, people will not take them seriously. Men are less likely to talk about mental health because they do not want to be portrayed as weak. They feel embarrassed and that no one will take them seriously.

I'm still alive today because I want to be an example for anyone else that is going through a struggle. I started to realize that I may be down, but I'm not out. I also today started to not care what anyone thinks of me or follow any "suggestions" from "experts". There may be times where people do not want to talk and be in solitude, and there are times when they want to talk to someone. People just have to give others some space sometimes. I also realized that the most successful people have once failed, or failed more than once, but eventually found their rhythm.