Hey everyone,

I’m new here but have saw a lot of helpful posts so I thought I would share my story and maybe gets some advice from all you wonderful people. Basically, I’ve been suffering from anxiety and even bouts of depression since I could remember. And I even think it could be a bit from genetics since many members on both side of my parents dealt with some serious mental health illnesses. Anyways, I always thought anxiety or always being on “edge” was normal as a kid and teenager. I always noticed I clenched my teeth a lot, being anti-social around others (which evidently I still don’t like to be very social lol), and while seated I always shake my leg. With that, one of my biggest ways to combat this was playing team sports; I played basketball, football, and baseball the majority of my life. This was/and still is my getaway. Around the time I turned 17, is when my anxiety and mental issues gots really bad. One day I was playing pickup ball with my friends and one slip later I was in the emergency with a torn ACL and meniscus. This was the “end” for me. I started to develop many bad habits, like: eating to cope with the mental pains, being on edge/nervous all the time, not wanting to see anyone, lay in bed all day, etc. Fast forward two years (after having surgery, being cleared to play, gaining. 50 pounds), I developed a mental block to where I felt to stay at home as it was my “safe space.” So one day I got fed up with it all and a good friend of mine convinced me to go to gym and play basketball. Guess what happened? I TORE my ACL, Meniscus, and MCL in my OTHER knee…by this time I was really done with life. Dr said my knee was in bad condition and since the injury was bad I needed two surgeries. At this point, I just went thru with all the rehab/surgeries again but all my mental issues were left untreated and actually worsened. I gained an additional 50 pounds and went from being in the gym 6-12 hours a day to now being in my bed 12-17 hours a day. It’s been six years from my initial injury. I went from being an active college prospect to an obese mentally drained person. During this time I developed health anxiety from bad back/chest pains and heart palpitations (condition called costochondritis). I’ve been exercising to combat this and have lost about 30 pounds. However, I’m still very lazy, wanna stay home/in bed all day, unmotivated, stress all day, can’t sleep until 2 am or sometimes even 7 am and wake up past noon. I somehow graduated college during this time and took a year off to somehow fix my issues before starting law school. The only thing that’s has changed for the better is my diet however I’ve battled with losing weight slowly due to the stress. Can anyone relate to this and give me some points/advice to help make life back to how it was? I just seem very hopeless and lost. Sorry for this entire novel but it feels good sharing.

Thanks.