Mental Health Support

I began experiencing depressive symptoms at age 12, and they became progressively worse as I got older. When I was in my mid 30s I hit what I refer to today as my "rock bottom". I was experiencing nearly every symptom described in the blog post along with almost daily suicidal ideation. While counseling and antidepressants helped to pull me back from the edge, they were not addressing the root cause.

In 2004, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. Mrs Best and I had just started dating several months earlier and we had never slept one night together because I snored like Godzilla. She watched me one night and said that I stopped breathing in my sleep several times. I went to see an ENT specialist, who put me through a sleep study which diagnosed me with severe sleep apnea. I elected to have the UP3 surgery as I still had my tonsils and wanted those gone as those had given me issues since childhood. Following the surgery, my therapy became much more effective and I was able to get off the anti-depressants over time. Since then I have gone on to CPAP therapy for the sleep apnea, but I do not experience anything near the dark lows that I went through in my 20s and 30s.

I am always on guard for what I refer to as "my blue demon" (return of any depressive symptoms).