It’s 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and I’m sitting at my kitchen table, mindlessly glancing at the television in the living room, flipping through the Buzzfeed website, for any sense of writing inspiration while watching the time because I have a half hour to write, format and submit an article. While this should be somewhat easy for the normal person, I guess you can say I’m not so normal. I tend to not work or function well under pressure yet still manage to get my articles in on time (sometimes with even a minute to spare, literally). While others can manage to come up with a great article about anything, that’s not the case with me and I just usually write about what I know; and what I know is the life I live on a daily basis.

Since I became a writer for Odyssey in April, I’ve written countless articles on many subjects, mostly pertaining to mental health. Well, I guess we can add another one to that list. I won’t lie, for most of the time that I’ve been writing, I’ve been well off my antidepressants, just trying to go through the motions of my depression. Canceling doctor’s appointments became normal, fighting with my family was a daily occurrence in my house. I’d come home straight from work only to lock myself in my room to wallow in my misery and be left alone. I’d snap left and right over everything from the cat bothering me down to a napkin being out of place. Well, something has to give, right? In my case, something did. When you have a mental illness, you know when you hit your own personal rock bottom, and in my case, that happened. While getting into yet another countless screaming match with my mother, I hid in my room, angry at the world. I laid up in my bed, flipping through my phone while twisting and turning in bed to try to get comfortable. Once I found a temporary spot to get comfortable, my cat sauntered over to me while I just lay there. While headbutting me would do the trick, I didn’t budge and I’m sure my cat wondered why, or just in a way knew something was up. He plopped down next to me, rested his head on my arm while purring loudly and I just cried. I cried because I knew something was wrong with me and I hit my bottom again. I cried because I know for me to take care of this, I had to go to the doctor and get my proper medication. For once, I felt defeated.

I’m notorious for letting my family know that I’ll “get help” and just forget to go about doing it. This time, I really didn’t have a choice because the only choices I had were either for me to: a. get the help I need, b. end up back in the hospital like I did only two years before, or c. remove myself from my home and find another place to live. Well, options B and C weren’t an option for me, so I forced myself to go back to my doctors and get back on the right track.

Well it’s been a month since I’ve been back to the proper doctors to get the help that I need. I’ve been put back on my medication, starting at a lower dosage and put myself back into therapy. I’ve religiously been taking my medication and a big difference has been seen from what I was to what I am. But nothing has been all rainbows and butterflies. For one, I’ve been off my meds again for three days and trust me, I’m no where near having another breakdown. What’s the purpose of this article? I’m not entirely sure, but if I can sum it up for someone, it might be that don’t be afraid to ask for help when you really need it. It took me having an almost severe breakdown to get back on track. We fall off the wagon time and time again, but we have to have enough of a will to hop back on it and right our wrongs and do everything in our power to make it right again. While having depression is hard because of all the fighting that we have to do, in the end, it’s worth it. This battle is never over and it will never be over. We will be fighting until we cannot fight anymore and even then we’ll still be fighting. In the end, things do get better.