I’m Not Okay

Learning to Breathe Again After Leaving Everything

Imagine a world without oxygen. The human body longs to breathe, but what if there is no air — no relief? Oxygen, such a simple molecule, is essential for life, yet most people move through their days unaware of their own steady rhythm: inhale, exhale. But when that breath suddenly disappears, the body panics. The chest tightens. The throat swallows unpredictably. The heart races — pounding louder, faster, harder.

Now, imagine this was your normal. That physiological panic wasn’t a sign of emergency — it was sacred. You were told you didn’t need to breathe. Holding your breath was holy. Breathing was for outsiders. And anxiety? It wasn’t a warning sign. It was love — an intimate expression of faith. It was your closest companion.

I didn’t know I was suffocating. I thought I was being faithful. The fear in my chest? I was told it was reverence. Dedication. Admirable. The unease in my gut? I called it conviction. For years, I lived like this — afraid, confused, breathless. And I believed it was love.

When you finally realize you need to breathe — but the atmosphere you grew up in has no oxygen — what are you supposed to do? Do you keep holding your breath to appease the powers that be? Or do you fight like hell to swim to the surface and gasp for air?

Last June, I realized I was dying. So, I began to swim up.

Was there a defining moment for me? No. The breaking point came slowly — the result of a long, quiet crack in the dam of my soul. Over time, that crack eroded every protective mechanism I had built to keep myself in line and the depression at bay.

What was that dam? A high-control Christian community. As the son of a prominent leader, I lived in a glass house, watched and measured. But the expectations were not just about appearance — they demanded more than survival. They required evolution: thriving without air.

I became an expert in appearances while the corrosion grew. I mastered the art of confidence. I learned how to betray my core needs just to make space for the rising tide of anxiety and depression. The voice of self-doubt? I interpreted it as the voice of God, and I followed it faithfully.

If you spend a lifetime calling the weeds in your soul “flowers,” eventually you believe it. But weeds are weeds. And depression is depression. The illusion only holds for so long. Eventually, the weeds overtake everything — choking out the beauty and the aroma of life. What’s left is a post-apocalyptic garden. A soul stripped bare. A wasteland.

Welcome to June 2024 — the moment I looked at the wasteland and could no longer pretend it was Eden. The moment I admitted, “I’m not okay” — and hadn’t been for a very long time.

Realization is the first step toward reclaiming your life — toward healing. But how do you move forward when your entire identity has been shaped by someone else’s vision? Your family’s. Your community’s. Your God’s.

How do you begin to reseed a soul that was cultivated only to produce barrenness?

From childhood, I was trained not to need breath — trained to let go of myself. I went to Bible school to become something more: someone perfectly suited to be wielded by God. A “friend of the Bridegroom.” I went to graduate school to deepen that formation. And, unfortunately, I became the very kind of leader I now recognize as part of the system that suffocated me.

Swimming up, for me, has looked like leaving:

Leaving my job.

My career.

My community.

My city.

My faith.

No one tells you how to unravel — especially when you’ve been wound so tightly for so long. It just happens. And it happens fast. I thought that by leaving — by finally taking a breath — my lungs would expand with relief. That the anxiety and depression would dissipate. I was wrong.

Like breathing deeply after a run in the cold, it hurt. My lungs burned. And the anxiety and depression didn’t vanish. They stayed — and formally introduced themselves to me.

This is where I am. No breakthrough moment. No redemptive bow to tie on my story. I’m still in the trenches. Everything feels disorienting. There’s so much pain.

I’m confused daily — and more often than I’d like to admit, I wonder if I made my life worse by leaving. By taking a breath. But sometimes — very briefly — the cloud of despair parts, and I catch a glimpse. Just a flicker. Of something like freedom. Of something that resembles me.

I’m not writing this because I’ve arrived. I’m writing this because I’m still here. Because I’m finally breathing, even if it hurts — and that means something. Maybe it means everything.

This space isn’t about answers. It’s about honesty. About authenticity. I created it to tell the truth — as I am discovering it — and to maybe, just maybe, find others who are learning how to breathe again, too.

If that’s you, welcome. Let’s reclaim our lives, one breath at a time.

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