Something that I haven’t been keen on talking about in a broad and open way has been my battle with mental health issues. So often it’s been after the smoke has cleared and I’m back in motion of building and rebuilding things that I begin to talk about it. Things get torn down in the middle of whatever mental crisis I had going on and shame stays over way too long of a visit, so I prolong talking about it. I then would sprinkle it with ‘Jesus-talk’ and then also sanitize it so it wouldn’t be so much of the negative emotions attached to it when I spoke it up. I’ve done it so much to the point that this last time when I went through a deep depression…I couldn’t even be honest with myself about how bad it was actually getting.
At the time of when things began to onset, I was employed at a franchise restaurant and was working directly with people coming in and out every day. It was easy to smile and just pretend that everything was okay. On my breaks, I would cry and while I was in between customers, sometimes I would cry too, hoping that no one would notice that my eyes were a little wet. No one seemed to care, and some days I did hope someone would notice and say something. Some days the best came from noticing someone else who seemed to be in a similar distress as me and taking the time to truly see them and speak.
During the middle of an evaluation with one of my trainers at work, they asked me if there was any area that I would like to learn more about or anything that I would like to try and get more hands on with. I told them that initially when I applied for the job, I had applied to work in the back, which was true. I knew before I started that I wasn’t cut out for being social long-term. I knew how things tended to get and maybe it has always just been a self-fulfilling prophecy all these years’. They let me know that they would speak to management higher up and see what they could do about getting me trained in the back. Things started to look up as I was in a new place and wasn’t in a position to pay too much attention to the depression that I had been dealing with. Within about a month of working in the back, the demand plus the pressure from leads was enough to make me break. One day I found myself crying while I washed the dishes…them piling up minute by minute, knowing the next person coming in behind me was going to have a lot to catch up on.
On occasion, the owner and the managers would come around to each person every shift and see how everybody had been doing that day. Multiple times I would be asked and I wouldn’t have anything to say, because I didn’t want to say anything negative. Sometimes I would just flat-out lie. The saying does go, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”. So I chose to keep silent most times. The tears in my eyes building up as I looked at management without having a word to say some days. One of them responding with “alright… I get it. I get it.” and moving along. After a few times of being yelled at by a lead for a mistake I made and being called to help catch up on some orders that were going out, I knew I needed to speak up to management and find out what way I could get some help. My mental health was effecting everything that I was doing and saying. So I asked if it were possible for me to be able to take leave from work even though I had only been there a few months at that point. Management was nice about it and allowed me to be off of the schedule for the two weeks that I had requested. I thought it would be enough time to get myself together but I ended up quitting instead before the full two weeks were over.
I knew going back was not going to be the best thing for me mentally while constantly being under the amount of stress that I had been under during heavy work days. When you go to a restaurant, regardless of whether it is a sit-down style or a fast food place, tip if you can. It’s so much work for the amount of pay. But back to the story at hand. In hindsight, I realized that there was also an opportunity to be transparent with management and with the team that I was working with about what it was that I was going through before just deciding to up and quit. There were people there who seemed to care about my well-being and some that perhaps, I could go without saying what was going on. But the sheer fact that I have seen this type of behavior trail out over and over again in my life; I have been afraid and also ashamed of letting people know when I’m going through something that weighty. Afraid of retaliation or someone making light of it before me and making it worse. Fear that I would look weak to others. Ashamed that I deal with something that I don’t know how to control, and barely know how to manage.
I’ve gone through so many jobs due to mental health issues and many gaps in my resume. I think the longest-paying job I’ve had has been a few years in length and even then, the work was spread out. In all the jobs that I’ve had and quit due to depression, I still haven’t known what would truly help other than leaving. In college, I chose to resign from my job during my Junior year and my reason to my parent was so I could focus on my senior year of school and projects. The truth was, I didn’t know how to manage, work, school, and other extracurricular activities while under the pressure of depression. I simply didn’t know how to function that way anymore. It was like the moment I got diagnosed I realized that living like that wasn’t normal and that I had been living that way since a young child. Now as an adult, I feel as though I’ve been coasting on the help that I can get from others while trying to find a vision for life and a blueprint to go by but somehow it feels as though knowing where to go before I do and knowing that it’s God leading me evades me. And sometimes I wonder if I’m just one of those people predisposed to habitually going the wrong way because that’s just what they seem to be wired to do at their core.
Regardless of whether that is true or not, the day is going to keep going by, a long with the weeks and months and sitting on my hands won’t increase my chances of getting out of the mental tailspins that I tend to find myself in at different points in life. I must simply keep going. I don’t think life really provides another option that I desire to try. I can slow down, I can take breaks here and there, but I have not given myself the option to quit though I’ve cried to God about it and His response was ‘No.’ so my only other option is to rely on what strength that He gives me to be able to endure until the time when it all passes and I have the opportunity to enjoy a bit more sunshine in my life. And for right now, I’m okay with that type of expression of hope.
Warrior Letters 