For most of my life, I’ve carried something I couldn’t name.
I’m 38 now. I’m sober. I’m a husband. A father. An engineer. From the outside, it might look like I’ve got a life that’s steady, stable—even successful. But the truth is, the life I have today only exists because, one day, I made a decision not to die.
I was 33. Still drinking. Still spiraling. And I had reached a place I can barely describe. I didn’t know what my future was—but I knew I didn’t want to end it. That morning, I left my apartment for the hospital. But before I walked out the door, I looked at the weapons I had laid out on my coffee table. Loaded. Waiting. And I walked past them. I made a choice.
I chose to live.
But that choice didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the breaking point in a long and painful story.
It started when I was 22. I had gotten a girl pregnant. We weren’t in a committed relationship, but I was ready to take responsibility. Before we had a chance to talk, she had an abortion—without telling me. I found out after the fact. The grief was complicated and wordless. I didn’t know how to process it. So I didn’t. I shut down.
I stopped going to class. I started drinking. Not to unwind—but to disappear.
Then, one night, drunk and desperate, I emptied my bank account—$3,000 in cash—and bought a one-way bus ticket to Los Angeles. I never made it. I was robbed at the terminal. Then arrested. The police took me to a psych ward instead of jail. I didn’t see it as help at the time. But it was.
I made it home. Finished school. In 2011, I took a job in Afghanistan working with the military. We endured regular rocket attacks. Others panicked. I didn’t. Not because I was brave—because I was already numb. The outside chaos felt normal.
At 27, the depression came again. I lost my job. I was hospitalized. And every time, before I ended up in a hospital bed, the pattern was the same: a slow build of suicidal thoughts. Images of self-harm. The kind of ideation you learn to hide because you’re scared of what people will do with the truth.
I didn’t get sober until 2018. After that morning. After the choice. A doctor told me I had cirrhosis. I thought I’d destroyed my body the same way I’d been destroying my mind. A year later, a liver specialist gave me a second opinion: alcoholic hepatitis. And somehow, I had recovered.
That second chance changed everything. But it didn’t fix everything.
Even without alcohol, my brain didn’t quiet down. I was eventually diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. Some medications helped. Some didn’t. The picture never felt fully clear.
When my son was born, something inside me lit up again—and not in a good way. My thoughts raced. I barely slept. One medication triggered what felt like months of euphoria. I spent thousands of dollars on Pokémon cards, convinced I was making brilliant investments. I made mistakes at work. I crashed hard. And I ended up in the hospital again.
That’s when the questions started. Was it more than depression? Bipolar disorder has been mentioned, but I haven’t been officially diagnosed. I just know that the highs are too high, and the lows go darker than they should.
Lately, I’ve noticed something new—outbursts of rage. Moments where the smallest criticism sends me into a tailspin. It feels primal. Uncontrollable. And afterward, it feels hollow and shameful. I hate that part of me. But I’m trying to understand it.
I’m still here. I’m still sober. I’m still showing up for my wife and son, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
There’s no clean ending here. No bow. Just a truth I’m still learning how to carry:
I didn’t get better overnight. But I didn’t die. And that choice—the one I made walking past a loaded table—is still the most important one I’ve ever made.
#Depression #addictio n #MentalHealth #Parenting #Medication #Therapy #Medication
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