When 2020 hit, the world went into a tailspin over the new COVID pandemic. Businesses were forced to closed. Families were forced to isolate themselves. Introverts began to question just how introverted they really were. (Choosing not to go out and being on house arrest are two completely different things!)
Despite the worldwide shutdown, I was living my best life.
I had 3 part-time jobs, I was building a VA business, and I was killing it at life. I had my third baby in October of that year and was back to work in two weeks. What was depression to a firecracker like me???
The beginning of 2021 was just as good. I reduced my part-time jobs and quickly hit a 9-client workload and I was on cloud 9! I even was building content for my very own course to help new and budding entrepreneurs start their businesses with the knowledge they didn’t have to wait to gain.
I was the only runner in the race and the finish line was just around the bend!
Unfortunately, I would later learn that the superhuman high and limitless energy was not a lifelong personality trait.
It was a manic episode and I would also learn that after every manic high is a hard, painful low.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I ran head-first into my first life-changing depression. But what was depression to a firecracker like me??
It was a wrecking ball.
For months, I had no energy, no motivation, no will to do anything. Half of my 9 clients, rightfully, dropped me.
The other half of my clients that did not give up on me got to see me get back up again and I appreciated the second chance and ran full steam ahead. . . And ran right into the second round of depression that September – and this one felt strong. A couple weeks in, I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get help.
A few more of my clients, as expected, dropped me during this second depressive episode and I was down to 4. I called around to find a mental health doctor and was surprised anybody could understand me because I was BAWLING. Although I really felt like giving up on life, I👏DID👏NOT👏WANT👏TO👏
I wanted to get better. I wanted to thrive. I wanted to be consistently great.
I was prescribed something that kept me leveled through depression and mania but before it had a chance to prove itself, I caught COVID in January of this year, 2022. It had me out like a light for weeks. But to my last few clients, it was the same old, same old and it was my third strike.
I was out.
Mental Health is not a common topic in the entrepreneur world, but it should be. How many other small business owners were wiped out by the same invisible plague that I was?
Yeah, there are conversations around neurodivergence and around stress relief and around self-care in entrepreneurship circles. . . But I didn’t need to be told to try a new app or drink water or take bubble baths. I needed to be told to GET HELP.
I am not a psychiatrist, I am not a psychologist, I am not a doctor in ANY field. But what I AM, is the person who will tell you to GET HELP when your mood is a little more severe or lasts a little longer than a day-to-day lack of motivation.
We commonly hear that we need to make pillars for our content. What do we want to share with our audience?
Well, my first pillar, and my most important pillar, is MENTAL HEALTH.
Because if I had seen a post or a course or a workbook about depression or bipolar disorder during my first crash, my COVID case would have only been my second strike – because I would have been encouraged to seek out professional help.
If I can help even one person feel heard about their experience and help them see the value in talking to a professional and either get the medicinal help or the therapy that they need, I will have made my life worth something.
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