Looking for "Normal" - An Introduction

I’ve been putting off starting this blog for several months now, and I can only blame myself. I blame myself for letting my own anxiety control my decisions, or for allowing indecision in my life for as long as I can remember, but now is the time for change. It’s all well and good to admit that you have a problem, but what does it really mean if you don’t try to do anything to fix it? Are you really afflicted, or are you just hiding from your own responsibility?  Now, I’m not claiming that self-help is easy, nor am I claiming that everyone with anxiety and depression can better themselves without help. All that I aim to do with this blog is to connect with just a few of the thousands, perhaps millions, of people like me who struggle with considerable anxiety on a day to day basis. 

If I can accomplish that, then I may be on the way to better understanding my own fears and insecurities in some way.  Maybe if I can help myself, then perhaps I can somehow inspire others to take their lives back from the clutches of insecurity and irrational fear.  I won’t deny that I’m mainly partaking in this experiment for selfish reasons. This blog will help me to hold myself accountable for improving my own situation.  If anyone reads this blog, then you will be helping me to do the same. Hold me accountable for posting and for trying new things. Inspire me with your own stories of success in overcoming personal obstacles.

This won’t always be a positive blog. My intent is to post on the good days and on the bad ones. I’ll share my struggles, my defeats, and my successes. It will be important to maintain some of my own personal privacy, so certain details of my personal life may be omitted, but I will always share honestly.  My posts will be free of fluff, and you will never see me trying to push a personal agenda on my audience. This isn’t an attempt at gaining fame, and I’m not looking for anyone’s pity.  Even if I’m able to touch just a few other lives, then that will be enough. 

Now that these particulars are out of the way, how about an introduction? My name is Kalen, and I am a 35 year old man living in the Heartland of America with my wife, and my three young sons.  We have two dogs that I love nearly as much as my own children, and we recently purchased our first home. Being a father and a husband has probably been the most challenging thing I have ever done.  Caring for young children while struggling to manage my other personal responsibilities is a source of almost constant anxiety for me.  My wife also struggles with anxiety and depression, though she is currently on medication to help manage some of her own symptoms.  Between the two of us, things can get hairy quickly once we both start down the slippery slope of anxious thought. 

After living this way for the past twelve years, I’ve decided that I don’t want to continue on the path of self-loathing and bitter frustration anymore. I want to be empowered. I want to take reins back from my irrational fears so that I can begin building a better life for myself and for my family, and I’m going to try to do whatever I can to get there.  Now, I’m not a mental health professional by any stretch of the imagination, so I will ask anyone reading this to refrain from taking any of my advice over that of a qualified therapist.  If you, or anyone you know of love needs help, please seek whatever means you can to accomplish this on your own.  This blog is meant to be a connection point to let people know that they aren’t alone, and that anxiety shouldn’t be such an overwhelming force in our lives if we can defeat it.

My plan is to post to this blog at least twice per week for no less than one year. Throughout that year, I will add goals and milestones to track the “progress” of my personal journey in an effort to keep myself honest. I’ll even post simple physical statistics about myself (weight, diet trends, etc.) along the way to track what health effects might come from the methods that I try.  I’m also not going to be a stickler about my writing for this blog. I’ve always been very hard on myself for my lack of writing talent, and that has prevented me from sharing my stories sooner.  This is perhaps one of my most unfortunate insecurities because it has always been easiest for me to express my feelings through writing.

Nevertheless, if you have made it this far through the giant wall of text, then please feel free to continue following this blog. I hope that writing down what I’m feeling or what I’m going through will be cathartic, and that it won’t add to my stress.  Let’s hope that this is just one step toward changing my life for the better!