So, glad you could join me on this post. I figured since most of you don’t remember my first blog, that doesn’t even exist anymore, I’d give you all a little insight into my past. I don’t usually talk about the past since there is no reason to, I mean I can’t do anything about it, so no reason to concern myself with it. Anyways, let’s start at the beginning.

I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety for almost my entire life. My memory has always been a little bit off, so I’ll see what I can do. The first time I remember being depressed, I must have been around 7ish, at a classmates birthday party. I didn’t know the family very well, but it was just something you did back in the day, invite the whole class to the birthday party. This family was pretty well off financially too, so they could throw a huge party for their kid. Unbeknownst to me, anxiety had already set in, since I always have been a chronic over thinker. So I probably didn’t even want to go to this party in the first place. I was already the weird kid in class, with no real friends, the whole thing was just a mess. I ended up spending the entire party, by myself, lying on the trampoline, in the middle of summer, bawling my eyes out. That is the first time that I felt depression begin to creep it’s way into my mind.

My life at home wasn’t great either, I’ve told my mother that my childhood is something I’d rather forget. She takes it as a personal offense, but it’s mostly my fathers fault anyways. So first, my mother worked at home for as long as I can remember. Which generally meant that she was there, but not available. This caused a rift between us during my childhood, or at least until I got into full day school. So I didn’t really have a relationship with my mother when I was young. Now my father, he is about a decade older than my mother, and is a very old fashioned man. He believed that children should be seen and not heard. He was also the disciplinarian of our family. So being old fashioned he believed in physical discipline. I remember one time it got so bad, I ran to my mother on the stairs, sobbing, and she had to shield me from him, begging him not to hit me again. I wouldn’t say it was abuse, but it was pretty darn close. I’ve also never told anyone this, but there is also a chance that I was molested. A step-uncle of mine was a pedophile (we didn’t know at the time) but he had stayed with us in our home for about 6 months. I can’t really remember anything, probably for the best, but there is that chance. I do remember one thing, I was laying on a bed in the corner of the room, and I wrote “help” on the heater in nail polish, then scribbled it out. This might be my brain making things up, but I seem to remember that clearly. So yeah, childhood wasn’t great, by a long shot, but I’ve moved past that. Fast forward into middle school, I was the outcast kid, didn’t have many friends, and was generally socially awkward. I remember my first girlfriend was during those years, how that happened, no clue. However, kids that age don’t really know how to date, and I was very withdrawn, and as it turns out, she was very aggressive. I remember that cell phones became popular around that time, and I had received one for Christmas that year. It goes without saying, my girlfriend had my phone number, and we would text nonstop. However, if I would forget to respond, as I do, she would go ballistic. After a while of this aggressive behavior, I ended things when we got into high school. It wasn’t pretty at all, and I was already deep in the bowels of depression by then. See, I was a very bright kid, and got great grades on tests, but I wouldn’t do my homework to save my life. So naturally my grades began to sink as homework became a larger part of them. My 3rd grade teacher believed that I had ADD, and she probably wasn’t wrong, but my father didn’t believe in it, so I just went along my merry way. Back to high school, I had joined the football team, because I thought it would increase my popularity, boy was I wrong. Not only was I still the outcast kid, but I was endlessly bullied by my “teammates” on the football team. Needless to say, high school was very unpleasant for me. I was also single, which was a large source of my depression when I was that age. Fast forward to 2011, I had been taking sleeping pills to help sleep, because as you know depression and anxiety harm your sleep. One day, I couldn’t take it anymore, scribbled out a suicide note, and took about 150 sleeping pills to end my life. This was actually my third attempt to kill myself, but was the only one that had a chance of success. I posted my suicide note on Facebook, so that all the people I named could see it. Luckily for me, someone called the police, and they showed up at my door. I was promptly taken to the hospital, and treated for my “overdose”. I was then sent to a local inpatient facility, where my journey with mental health began. Now, the doctors at this facility recommended that I be put on meds, but my father was very anti-meds, and as I was very close with him at the time, so was I. I then was kicked out of school for naming so many other students in my suicide note, and spent the next several months jumping from one partial hospitalization center to another.

I probably left a decent amount of things out, but you can use your imagination. I think that’s where I’ll end it for now, if you’re interested in hearing more of my story, let me know in the comments. From my mind to yours, Alan Wolfgang, signing off.