My Story

25 years old. Single mom to two amazing children. Trying to figure out life and feeling like a failure. That’s where I’m at with my life; wondering where all my dreams and plans that I had in high school went, wondering where the happy-go-lucky 17-year-old about to start college, majoring in teaching, went and where this 25-year-old adult struggling with depression and anxiety came from. Somewhere along the way, life had other plans for me, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what those plans are.

I became pregnant with my firstborn son when I was 18 years old. I had an on again-off again relationship with his father until our son was almost a year old. I then realized that I deserved better and ended things for good with him. Now here I am, 18—a single mom with absolutely no clue as to what I’m doing. I had supportive parents, which was great, but they also had their own issues to deal with, so I felt like they weren’t there in the ways that I needed them to be the most. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love them and appreciate all they’ve done for me, but I sometimes feel that they weren’t able to notice that I was slowly losing my mind. So then it was me and my little man against the world and we were doing great. I found a great job that allowed me to move out of my dad's house and into a cozy two bedroom apartment. Then, a year and a half later, I find myself packing my things and moving back in with my dad. I put my faith in someone who I thought was a close friend, but when I called her out on some things that I thought were wrong, she turned around and cost me my job.

Fast forward a little and my dad and I had found a house for me to rent from him. It was perfect. I was working again, my boy had started kindergarten and was loving it. My job worked with his schedule and I was able to have the weekends off. I found a few people who I have come to count on. Then it happened. A friend introduced me to someone. After five years of being single, I decided to try dating again. I was up front about everything; about my depression and anxiety and how bad it can get, about how my son’s dad wasn’t a deadbeat but wasn’t exactly dad of the year, either, and with how things would be with me being a single mom and how, no matter what, my son was going to come first.

“I know what comes with dating a single mom. And as far as the other stuff, I can handle it. I won’t leave when it gets tough.”

These were the things he said to me, so I went for it. I thought I finally found someone who was worth my time and I could count on.

I let my walls down. I was able to be myself and not worry about anything. He moved in with us and, not long after that, we found out I was pregnant. He seemed excited and reassured me that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he wasn’t going to leave us. This pregnancy was way different than my first. Sickness was no joke. Some days it was so bad that I couldn’t go to work or, if I did go, they would send me home. Not being able to do anything caused my depression and anxiety to worsen. I shut down. I would hardly even talk to my mom, who I am very close to. Then life had other plans again. The exact thing he promised he wouldn’t do, he did. The person I thought I was going to spend my life with left. He said that what I had wasn’t depression, that depression does not cause people to shut others out the way I did.

So now, here I am, a 25-year-old single mom with a six-year-old and a one-month-old, feeling lost, trying to stay strong for my kids because they need me; trying to figure life out, hoping that, one day, I will be able to look back on it all and see how far I’ve come and how strong everything made me.