To all my loved ones,
I really hope everyone is doing okay and having good days at whatever point you may be reading this.
I wanted to do this open letter to get a few things out and to clear somethings up as I know that I have not been my normal self over the last few months and there are reasons behind that.
Of late I have not totally been feeling like myself and have been very distant with friends and family. I have kept myself to myself and not reached out to anyone to talk about anything or release anything and this is how I have ended up in a situation where by I've not been around.
Some of you may or may not know that I suffer from depression, something that I did not fully realise until about 2015 and I only realised this because new years eve of that year I tried to take my own life. I knew that something wasn't right but after a while I just shrugged it off and carried on with life as normal. About year after that I was very down again and in a very depressed state of mind, I once again tried to kill myself not caring about what it would do to others and how it would possibly make everyone that knew me feel. I wanted to die as a way out as a quick fix from all the craziness that was happening around me and all of the things that I was going through at the time. I wasn't able to handle it anymore and my first instinct was to take myself away from this world and this pain I was feeling.
I tell you all this because I feel like sometimes I do things and act a certain way but I never explain myself and know one ever really knows why I am the way I am, so I'm hoping that opening up about these things will give the people I hold close to me a better understanding of who I am and what I've gone through and what I am going through. Trying to take my life was a cry out for help when I look back on it, I was never good at dealing with problems straight away and to a point I'm still not its something I'm working on but it got me to a point where I would rather lay in box than fight and try create a better life for myself.
Bringing it back to today and where I am at now, I'm slowly coming out of another slump of depression, for the last few months I have been over working myself and not giving myself enough individual attention. Working constantly, trying to do more at church , try to be a good father and partner but not be a good friend to myself. As a result I felt alone and trapped because I put so much pressure on myself to get certain things done and because I knew what was coming I knew what I had to do but it didn't help me mentally, spiritually or physically, I drove myself into the ground and ended feeling like shit and getting back to place where violence and suicide and pornography were things that were on my mind constantly. I can happily say that I'm no longer feeling that way and I am taking the proper steps to get myself sorted out, talking to therapist and putting plans together, I've even started writing in a journal just to get my thoughts out rather than always keeping them in.
I don't want anyone to worry about me after reading this because the fact that I am able to write this means that I'm doing so much better and I'm ready to be vulnerable about what I have been going through and how I have been feeling.
One thing I must admit though is that God is too great, when I look back at my life and the situations I have been in I know that God is real and that he loves me. I could easily not be here but he has given me the strength to keep pushing on, he has a place for me in this world but also in heaven and he wants me to do great things and without him I don't know what I would do. I fell off and lost contact with him just as I have done with pretty much all of you in the last few months but I know he is always by my side waiting for me to come back to him and I just wanted to take this moment to acknowledge him and his greatness.
Before I end this there is one more thing I wish to announce, but before I do I want to make something very clear to everyone because I know not everyone will understand why I am doing it this way and why it has taken me so long to say it. I'm doing it this way because this is how I feel comfortable doing it, for long periods of my life I always did things how others thought I should and never went with my own ways but I'm learning how to do things my way more and do the things that I actually rather do than thinking about what others may think or say, because as much as I love you all I have to love myself which means doing things my way even if some people become upset but if you know me well enough you know I would never intentionally do something to upset you. Its also taken me this long to announce just because I wasn't ready to share the news on a wide scale so I've kept it basically to myself its really that simple. Some people may get pissed and what not but you know what that's just life at times.
I'm going to be having another child at the end of this year, I'm happy and proud for this moment in my life, also scared as well but more happy and excited than anything else. This will come as shock to a lot of people, it shocked me a little too but this is the path I'm on and I choose to embrace it.
To those of you that have been trying to contact me lately and haven't responded please do not take it as Darnell does not care or Darnell is just rude, I had to take a break from the world as I knew it, I was going through a tough time and Isolated myself and even in the times of recovery I needed my distance from the world and the people in it even the ones closest to me. I know not everyone will understand because its not the way they would deal with it but I can only hope that as friend or family member you will try to accept me and my ways for who I am.
I want to say thank you to you all for taking the time to read this open letter and I hope this gives you a little bit of understanding of why I have not been myself and where I have kind of been mentally.
I love you all and I'm sure I will see you all at some point in the near future.
Love you and God bless you all.
