I wasn’t prepared to lose my step father last year.
Since my mother has severe health problems and has come close to dying on four separate occasions since 2005, we all expected something to happen to her first.
I talked with my step father about this on multiple occasions and he always assured me that he would be there for me at every step of the process in the event that anything happened to my mom. It was surreal hearing from her one morning that my step father had passed away from a brain aneurysm the night before. Although it wasn’t expected and happened out of the blue, the problem runs in his family. His own mother almost died from a brain aneurysm in 2012, but eventually passed away from old age a few years later. In the chaos around his death, I was looking for anything to help me cope. I was overeating and drinking more alcohol than ever before, and I could see myself falling apart physically in front of the mirror. A friend of mine invited me to go with him to the gym one day and it was the beginning of my new life. Working out with my friend for two hours straight was the first thing that actually took me out of my mental state of grief. I just knew that I would do anything to make this good feeling and state of content last. We’ve been going to the fitness center three to four times a week since and I finally feel like I’m starting to heal from the grief. Now I understand what people mean when they say that exercise can help with depression. It’s not a cure, but it helped me get my life back together following months of darkness.