Dear Faithful Readers,

Some of you may have noticed I’ve been absent from blogging for the past… oh… two and a half months. For someone who wrote pretty much every day to not writing a lick, I’m sure it was a bit perplexing for the lot of you.

Well, here’s the scoop:

Since the end of July I’ve been struggling with a serious bout of depression. As in, depression so severe it’s mind-numbing, debilitating, curled up in a fetal position in bed kind of down. As in, I spent a week at Laureate Psychiatric Hospital in Tulsa because I had reached a point where I was suicidal.

So I haven’t exactly been myself lately. Thus, the lack of writing and entertaining and doing the typical dance of life that Kevin’s used to doing. As of now, I’m doing quite a bit better. I’m on a decent anti-depressant and am having a decent day today, but there are other times I’m once again socked in the gut, down on my knees crying my eyes out.

Some of you are reading this with jaws dropped. Kevin? Depressed? No way! While it’s true that I’m usually up and positive, there was always a day or two out of every other month that I was a bit down. Nothing like this, mind you, but once in a while I’d be sad. This is something else. I’ve NEVER felt like this in my life before.

Is it spiritual? I’m sure some of it is, but I’m equally sure that the majority of it is psychological, emotional and situational. Bottom line: life dished out more than I could handle, and my mind kind went on a vacation until it could return when the world was safe again. Even now, I’m maybe 70-80% of who I used to be, with the other 20% rearing it’s ugly head every so often.

It really kind of stinks. But I want to start writing about it, not only because I find if therapeutic, but because this is a large part of who I am. I write. I live, I feel emotions, I experience things, and I write about ‘em. I also believe strongly in having a transparent lifestyle, where my pain and my failures are there for the world to see and learn from, if they can glean anything from it all. I don’t want to hide things just for the sake of my pride.

So here I am. Arms open wide, telling the world, now. My name is Kevin Mills, and I’m suffering from depression. I look forward to the day I’ll be back to normal again (as normal as Kevin Mills could be, har har har…). In the meantime, all I can do is lift my pain up to God and ask Him to hold it together for me when my world comes apart.

Kevin