By Michael Jones, Dean of Students, Madison West High School

I’m 24 and I’m sitting in a therapist’s office for the first time in my life. He's doing the intake and asked if I’ve ever felt anxious or depressed. I tell him that I can’t recall being anxious or depressed, but I have had “moments”.

The time I cried in 4th grade because I got a 7 out of 9 on a spelling test and I broke down crying in class.

The time I left a high school event and began screaming into the sky to the point that the Dean of Students walked outside and asked if I was okay.

Excusing myself from studying for the AP Government test with my buddies in the library to go to the bathroom because I couldn’t stop shaking and hyperventilating and had to lie down on the floor in the fetal position.

And a couple weeks beforehand, shaking uncontrollably at work, after a negative interaction with a bank customer over the phone.

Each of those moments, I attributed to just being nervous or hypersensitive. “Plenty of people have these “moments”, but that doesn’t mean they need to see a shrink,” I thought.

So what brought me to this guy’s office? I was in my first long-term relationship, I had a stable job that paid the bills and another job (freelance writing) that I was hoping to parlay into a career. I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I thought I was heading in the right direction.

But something was blocking me. Or more specifically, something inside of me was blocking myself. I couldn’t meet deadlines with freelance work. In fact, I was given an opportunity to advance at Capital Newspapers, but I couldn’t bring myself to generate any good ideas or respond to my patient editor’s numerous emails and calls. I promised I’d write something for my fraternity’s national magazine and couldn’t even open the Word doc to start. I began missing deadlines at my day job and my fuse was growing shorter and shorter with my girlfriend and friends. I couldn’t have a conversation with people without inserting a sarcastic putdown or negative comment that would shut the conversation down. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t having fun hanging out with other people. I didn't even want to hang out with myself. I began wishing that it would all end. I didn’t have a plan, just a wish.

I finally said something to Jess (my girlfriend) and she asked me to talk to a professional about it. My understanding of mental health was not the most evolved. I grew up Catholic. I gravitated to all-male environments (military school, fraternity, etc.) where discussing feelings and processing emotions wasn’t the highest of priorities. I mean, you could talk about it, and that was okay. But it was better to brush it off, not be beholden to it, and move forward at all costs. But after a couple decades of trying to pretend these moments were just isolated incidents in an otherwise healthy life, she helped me realize I couldn’t just rely on pretending that this pain wasn’t inside of me and it wasn’t going away.

The way I describe therapy to people is that we all have these dots in our lives. A good counselor can help you connect them and see how they all form the work of art that is you. Those isolated incidents? They’re connected to each other. They also were connected to the fact that I hadn’t graduated from UW-Madison in 2004.

Beginning around sophomore year, I began skipping classes. Not a big deal, I thought. Lots of students skipped lectures here and there and did just fine on the midterm or final. I could usually write a good enough paper with enough political science jargon to pretend like I knew what I was talking about. But something changed around Junior year. I began skipping the discussions too. I didn’t hand in anything. I told myself it was because being at my fraternity or hanging out with my college newspaper buddies was more fun than a power lecture or a paper. Typical college stuff. And when even the hardest-partying friends and brothers would trudge over to the library to hunker down on Sunday or weekday evenings, I couldn’t bring myself to crack open the book or start the computer. Because of UW bureaucracy, I was still able to walk across the stage (one credit short of graduating), lie to my family who travelled to see me hold that empty certificate holder, and not deal with the lie until months afterwards.

It took me a while in therapy to connect my dropping out of college with my panic attacks and crying fits of my adolescence and to the dark thoughts that brought me to my therapist’s office. It took me longer to accept that it wasn't some sort of weakness or deficiency of character on my part. Rather it was a combination of my brain chemistry, past traumas I never processed, and harmful external messages (toxic masculinity, internalized racism, etc.) that I didn’t have the tools to recognize.

I’m 38 now and have committed to over a decade of therapy and medication to address my mental health needs. Initially, therapy helped me confront my pain instead of running away from it. It helped me return to school at 25 to finish my bachelor’s. It helped me communicate more with my girlfriend, who eventually became my spouse and partner. It helped me mend past relationships with family and friends. And it helped me realize that my path was in education, specifically Special Education, to help young people the same way my family, friends, and therapist helped me. Therapy didn’t just help me process my pain, but also the advantages, joys, and privileges I was afforded. I have a family that, while disappointed, never withheld their love and support for me when I was vulnerable. I have a partner who supported me when I was not reciprocating that same love and support. I had friends who encouraged me when I was in pain and didn’t abandon me.

It hasn’t been easy or simple. I stopped going for a few years because I naively thought I was “cured” but came to realize how much consistent therapy (and eventually medication) helped me navigate the complexities of life. My grief after my father passed away and piling work stressors caused me to relapse into a sustained depression that almost caused me to lose my job. I still cycle into bouts of anxiety and depression, even with the medication and therapy. I miss deadlines. I don’t respond to emails or calls because I get stuck in my head and shut down. But I’ve become more forgiving of myself, more understanding that it’s one aspect of my life and not the whole story.

Honestly, one of the most helpful parts of seeking mental health support is how freeing it is in my life and work. I don’t hesitate to share my story with students, colleagues, and friends, whether the struggles are past or present. It’s made me the educator that I am because when a student (whether they’re an academically successful student having a panic attack before an AP exam or a student who’s skipped school for the past three months) comes to me, I can honestly share that I have been there. And hopefully, by sharing my journey, it helps the person in front of me feel less afraid or ashamed of where they are in their mental health journey.

My Mental Health Journey