HELP ME! I can’t breathe!

Mental illness–to me–is like air that never enters the lungs. You can’t breathe; feels like you’re drowning–then again, you are drowning. Silently sinking deeper into a dreadful peril that no one can hear or even see. On top of the surface, everything is calm, still, might even look peaceful–untroubled water with no worries. Yet the still waters run deep and beneath it you are in the fight of your life. You want to scream for help, but you can’t breathe to do so.

You fight, trying to bring yourself back up for even a short gasp, but you struggle at every attempt. Every stroke, every push, you grow more tired and  weary. You know if you make it to the surface that there are people up there that might pull you up, but then you’re reminded instantly of those that’ll keep you back down: dismissing your pain as if it’s non-existential, trivializing your traumas as if they shouldn’t have affected you and making a mockery of your affliction as if it’s a joke.

So you sit, no longer filled with ambition to fight for yourself, holding your breathe, languishing in helpless isolation deserting the ability for rational thought. You think to yourself: Do I stay? Do I keep fighting? Or do I simply just leave it all behind finding eternal peace elsewhere?

May is National Mental Illness Awareness Month– I wanted to use this platform to give my experience with it. No matter how taboo it may be, I believe wholeheartedly, it needs to be talked about.

I encourage those who are on the fence to ask for help. There are people who will listen. I’m a witness that if you keep fighting: you’ll find your circle, you’ll find your happiness, you’ll find that the love you searched for elsewhere should come from you and to you and eventually you’ll be able to live a life that you don’t regret waking up to. Some days will be tougher than others, but you will make it. Step by step, day by day, mile by mile. You don’t have to do this alone. Don’t give up. I thank God that I didn’t.

CAM ❤ ❤ ❤