So, May is mental health awareness month and I’ve been wanting to open up about some of my inner struggles.
These are things I’ve been dealing with for years, since I was in High School, and I have pretty much kept to myself. Let me preface this by saying that currently, I’m in a pretty good place. I’m doing well, I have a good job, opportunities are constantly present for me, I feel like my consistent, hard work is paying off in a lot of ways. But every now and then I slip into that mode where I focus on the bad and ignore the good.
For years I have dealt with depression, suicidal thoughts, and a general sense of loneliness. I’ve always, in my head, felt like I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t deserve what I have, and that nobody cares about me. I have always tried make good choices in life and I would tend to focus on negative things that would happen, instead of the positives. This mindset has led to me ruining most chances at relationships because I’m always looking at everything as a sign that someone doesn’t want to be with me, and viewing myself as someone who doesn’t deserve to be happy.
I’m incredibly lucky that I have music as an outlet, and I know there are a lot of people for which that outlet was not enough for them to keep going. Most of my pain has gone into my songs, and I have learned to live with myself and who I am in a lot of ways. I still struggle a lot. I still feel like there’s a hole in me that I can’t seem to fill. I tend, despite being a singer/performer/frontman, to not want to interact with people in a lot instances, I overeat pretty regularly despite knowing I need to make better choices, and I’m exhausted a lot of the time, choosing not to be active, or exercise, or practice music, in favor of just crashing.
The world we live in today tends to try and capture peoples attention and drive it towards creating animosity towards each other, or to focus on things that are not important. I’m lucky that I think I have a decent amount of time ahead of me, but some people out there might be struggling in silence and don’t want to burden us with their struggles. I hope you’ll read this and maybe reach out to someone you think might be struggling mentally and check in on them. I’ll keep doing what I do, which is try to make music that captivates, or heals, or is some sort of catalyst in you to be stronger.