Let's Talk About Mental Health.

October 10th is World Mental Health Day. I'm a fierce advocate for breaking the stigma surrounding mental illness, so I volunteered to share my story in our company newsletter for October. We’ve got a lot of work to do to break the stigma surrounding mental illness—and that all starts with having open, candid conversations about it. My door is always open.

---

I still remember the night I decided to get help. 

My girlfriend (now wife) Allison and I had just gotten home from the gym, and I was laying on the couch, relaxing. I started thinking about all of the things that were stressing me out: work (I had a full-time job as a full-time college student, woo!), school (I was taking 18 credits that semester), and family issues (my parents were in the middle of a messy divorce). My mind wandered through all of these topics, stopping only to rest on the things that filled me with dread or rage. This is called catastrophic thinking. Each worry is compounded with an even worse “what if?” and it’s really hard not to get sucked into it. Unfortunately, this was a regular occurrence for me at this point in my life.

I could feel my heart racing as I felt the weight of all of these worries building up in my head. Was I having a heart attack? 

Surely I'm too young, but it's not unheard of. Statistically speaking, it's possible… 

Then I became nauseated. The nausea was becoming unbearable, and I hate throwing up. Was it something I ate? 

Great, I can't get sick now. I have to work all weekend, and I have projects due before the end of the week... 

The room started spinning; I felt weak. I stumbled over to the toilet to attempt to vomit, because that seemed to be the only thing that would solve this uncontrolled spiral. I don’t really remember making it to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to black out.

Allison walked into the bathroom and saw me hunched over the toilet, panting heavily, covered in sweat, with my head buried in my shirt. "Hey hon… Are you okay?" she asked, clearly concerned. 

I wasn't. I just had the worst panic attack I'd ever experienced.

“I... I think it’s time for you to get help,” she said softly.

The fact of the matter was that I had been living with undiagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression for years. I had no idea what anxiety was—I always thought it was a temporary feeling, kind of like nervousness. Depression? Just suck it up and get over it. Frankly, I had no idea the toll it was taking on my life.

At that point in my life, I was having several panic attacks a month—sometimes weekly. They were usually triggered by something innocuous: an upset stomach, an innocent comment that I misconstrued as disapproval or disappointment, or even a moment of relaxation. It felt like anxiety was chasing me, and the only thing I could do to keep it at bay was to keep moving. Keep running, stay busy, keep your mind occupied, and you'll never have to deal with it—that's the advice I gave myself, and it quickly caught up with me.

I didn’t know how badly I needed help until I reached out.

After that evening, I was convinced that I could no longer live like this—that experience legitimately scared me. I decided to go get help. I broke down at the doctor's office as she wrote me a prescription for an SSRI, a medication used to correct chemical imbalances in the brain. She explained to me that the multitude of symptoms I was experiencing (waking up with nausea, depression, hypervigilance) were most likely tied to anxiety. That’s when it started to click. Every symptom I experienced was also a trigger for my anxiety. It was a vicious, self-defeating cycle that I had to break out of.

She also recommended that I start seeing a therapist. I was extremely hesitant as I wasn't comfortable talking about my life at the time. My family never talked about feelings, let alone taboo topics like mental health. In fact, the first thing my mom said to me when I told her I was getting help was, “Oh, I hope you don’t have to take that medication for too long. I’ve heard it really messes with your head.” I didn’t grow up in a household that was supportive of healthy expression of emotion: good or bad. 

Knowing what I know now, I can say that mental illness hung like a dark cloud over my extended family for generations—it just never had a name. And here I was, the product of a traumatic childhood—much like the generations before me—dealing with crippling anxiety and occasional bouts of deep depression.

The combination of medication and therapy got me through a very challenging period of my life. CBT (or cognitive behavioral therapy) was a godsend; while the first few sessions with my therapist were heavy and challenging to get through, I could sense a feeling of lightness that increased every time I left her office. The goal of this form of spoken therapy is to identify and respond to negative stimuli in a more effective manner. Through CBT, she gave me a lot of practical advice that, frankly, I still use today.

Was I cured after all of this? Absolutely not. 

There’s no magical cure for mental illness.

There’s an important distinction to make here—mental illness is not something you can cure. The goal with most common mental illnesses (I’m talking specifically about anxiety and depression here) is remission and management of ongoing symptoms. The episode I shared above happened about a decade ago. Candidly, I still regularly deal with symptoms (especially as an extrovert who’s living through COVID-19). The important thing now, though, is that I’m able to identify the cause of what I’m feeling, explore why I’m feeling that way, and take steps to address it. 

For example, now that I know that catastrophic thinking is a big trigger for me, I can effectively de-escalate it by challenging every assumption or negative outcome I arrived at. You have to call it what it is: a series of irrational worst-case scenarios. Thankfully, I’m a data guy, so reviewing statistical probability is also a good way to counter these thoughts. Today, I find myself much calmer in high-stress situations, and that’s thanks in large part to the tools I gained through therapy.

We need to talk more openly about mental health.

Mental illness is incredibly common. In fact, experts estimate that more than one in ten people in the global population have a mental illness. Those same estimates indicate that roughly 548 million people in the world deal with anxiety or depression.

This leads me to an important point. We need to do more to normalize discussion about mental health. Mental illness is one of the most challenging things to rationalize: someone who seems completely content on the surface may be teetering on the edge of a breakdown. If you’ve never felt it, it can be really hard to make sense of it. And that’s why I’m sharing my story—to show people who are struggling that it's okay to talk openly about your mental health, and also to educate people about it. 

I've heard this phrase a lot during private conversations: "I would've never guessed that you deal with all of this." It’s usually followed by some version of "You seem so happy" or "How do you manage a career and being a father?"

While that statement is innocent and well-meaning, it highlights an important gap in our collective understanding of mental illness. It implies that it should be obvious if someone is dealing with anxiety or depression. In reality, what you see is not what they feel. And that’s hard to reconcile.

The more common stories like mine become, the more mental illness and the discussion around it is normalized. The more approachable the topic, the easier it is for people to reach out when they're struggling. And, just as importantly, there are more people to reach out to. 

So, with all of that said, I want to end on two important notes:

• If you are struggling with a mental illness, please reach out when you are ready—to me, a friend, a loved one, a professional therapist, or anyone you feel comfortable opening up to. Taking action is one of the best things you can do to find relief. That first step is hard, but it’s so important.

• If you do not struggle with mental illness, listen and observe. Check in with people who you notice to be more withdrawn or scattered than usual, and listen with an empathetic ear. The more educated you about on this topic, the more you can help break its stigma. If you’re not sure where to start, I highly recommend giving The Depression Project (@realdepressionproject) a follow on Instagram.

It’s okay to not be okay. As we work to break the stigma around mental illness, we need frank, open discussion more than anything. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Let’s talk about mental health.

❤️