Many of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers will probably like or retweet this based on the title alone but never read it. Which is fine, I don’t care. I hope but don’t expect people to read every article that I write. Depression and anxiety are something that effects millions of individuals worldwide. We all handle it different ways, some of us self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol, some of us take Zoloft, Prozac or other types of medications and others use art, music, exercise and maybe religion to cope with the issues in our lives.

I’m not really one to talk about my personal life or my past too often. I don’t spill my beans to my girlfriends like some do and I really don’t talk about my feelings. When I’m feeling down I’ll play Backstreet Boys music, which is something I do frequently at work. And to handle my anxiety and stress I’ll color. I didn’t have the greatest childhood growing up. No one outside my family really knows this but when I was in the second grade my mom pretty much walked out on me. She was dating someone who probably wasn’t the nicest person and I didn’t see or hear from her again until I was in the sixth grade. During that time, I stayed with my grandparents and everything wasn’t sunflowers and sunshine.

I don’t know what was wrong with my grandfather but one day he just kind of snapped. I’ve heard stories of him not being the ideal husband when my mom and aunts were growing up. But I feel that living with them I got to experience the worst of it. I’ve always been an emotional and sensitive person. I absolutely hated living with him and in the house that I lived in since I came home from the hospital.

It basically started with him cutting off ties with his friend across the street. Then accusing my grandmother of cheating on him with the neighbor. Which was crazy because she didn’t work and was home taking care of him all day. There were death threats, putting chains on doors, screws in windows, and even a chain link fence that he wanted locked every night. We even had to stay at one of my aunt’s house a few times because it got so bad. So, all of that made me a very stressed, scared, withdrawn child.

It even made me do crazy things like sleeping all day on Saturday to try and stay up on Sunday to make sure my grandmother was OK. But at 8 or 9 what was I really going to do. Anytime something crazy happened, I would think it was because I did this. Or I ate that. Then I wouldn’t do that particular thing on that day again. That’s no way for a child to grow up and to this day I still feel that way sometimes when something goes wrong in my life.

I was also afraid to go to school, afraid that my grandmother would be dead when I came home. But I also hated being at home because all of us yelling and threats were too much to bear. I even thought that death was a better alternative then living a life I so desperately hated. I think that the only thing that got me through (believe it or not) were the Backstreet Boys. Their music took me to a happy place (and it still does) they made everything seem OK.

But school wasn’t a fairy tale either. I was bullied for my appearance and if I didn’t like being home or at school where was my safe place? There are still times when I think that not being here is better than living. The events that took place in my childhood made it hard for me to open up to people, share my feelings and having a good self-image. And because of that I feel like many people don’t get to know the real me. I consider myself to be an ambivert, if I know you well I lean more towards introvert and if I don’t then I’ll lean towards introvert.

I don’t think that I would ever hurt myself, but it’s scary when you have those thoughts. I’ve never really been formally diagnosed as having depression and anxiety. And I don’t want to offend those that do by putting myself in that category. But, I can definitely relate to those who have moments where they feel sad for no reason, panic that something will go wrong for no particular reason or feel that they’re not good enough for anything or anyone.