Blogging for a Year

                 I missed it, but last week marked a year since I started this depression blog. My first post was June 16, 2023. I thought today I would glance back on the previous year and look forward to the coming year.  

                  This year has been nothing like I expected. When I started the blog, I was just coming out of a difficult period with my depression. In the months prior to starting my blog I had been through both esketamine and TMS treatment. They worked for me, and I was feeling better. In early June I transferred out of a job that was not good for my mental health. My amazing mental health care team helped me secure that transfer. It wasn’t easy but being away from that job had things looking up. I started interviewing for new positions. After a couple weeks I landed a position as a special education coordinator at a high school. I was excited about work for the first time in a long while. 

                  My blog had started off well. I had a new job. My depression and anxiety seemed under control. I was ready for a good year. Two days after being hired for the new position, I found myself in the emergency room. This emergency visit started a year I could never have expected. Within a couple weeks I was hospitalized and underwent a liver biopsy.  A week later my primary care provider said the word that would change everything. Cancer. I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Chemotherapy would start quickly. The people that surrounded me would change my life. From my aunt to my dancing nurse to my oncologist, I was supported and cared for. My mental health team and primary care provider remained by my side, lifting me up. Somehow, I managed to keep writing this blog. I missed a few posts, but for the most part I posted twice a week. This blog gave me purpose. It provided a distraction to my treatment and the illness that was trying to take my life. 

                  Writing emerged as my healing tool, the same way it has as I have battled depression and anxiety. Those two “buddies” made noise during this past year. They joined cancer in trying to take me down. I fought. Some days were bad. Other days were really bad. Still, I kept writing. Taking pen to paper saved me. It gave my thoughts somewhere to go. I filled a few journals in addition to the posts I was writing. This blog and my journal were lifelines for me. 

                  As for the blog, my audience has varied. Some posts garner a lot of readers. Others only manage to attract few. The two most read posts were “A Safe Place for Healing” and “A Funeral for My Hair”.  The post “Cancer Hasn’t Won” had a lot of readers, too. As did the posts on esketamine treatment and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), which were a series written from my psychiatric nurse practitioner’s perspective with follow-ups from my perspective as a patient. 

I continue to share my thoughts on depression and living with mental illness. I haven’t had the consistent readership that I was hoping for, but I’m not giving up. If you are reading this, I ask that you share the blog with someone or go back and read some of my older posts that you might have missed. I truly believe that we need to openly discuss depression and other mental illnesses. We need to bring acceptance and understanding to these illnesses. I have lived most of my life with depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, a large portion of that time, support was minimal if it was there at all. Times are changing. Mental illness is more accepted and understood now. Unfortunately, we are not where we need to be. We need to bring more light into the discussion. It is my hope that this blog be a part of that light. I want to bring hope and understanding. If my experience can bring help to others than it has served a purpose. I will continue to post twice a week. Writing is a larger part of my life now that I am unable to work. I hope to build this blog and in doing so help others. It helps me to write, and I hope that others are helped by my words. When I started this blog a year ago, I didn’t know how much it would help me. This blog has been a lifeline for me. I hope you will continue to read it and share it with others.