Choking...

You can't walk another step...

Lack of air...

You never know what can trigger you to go over the edge mentally or emotionally. Or what it's going to feel like. For me - it was a complete shutdown of being able to walk and breathe. And the tears came hard.

What's the one event, sentence, or action that makes you feel like you can't breathe? Have you had that moment? In all seriousness, I hope you haven't. It is unnerving and not something I ever want to repeat.

If you have, then I'm sorry. I feel your pain.

I know I couldn't have predicted when that would happen, but I do know I was unprepared for it when it did.

For me, it was the day after we brought my Mom to the hospice house. I hadn't slept well the night after because I kept reliving the drive from my sister's house to hospice. The slow drive was where I knew my Mom wouldn't leave this new home. The drive meant my Mom would be gone in a night, a week, months, who knew. And as I tried to walk to the shower, I kept seeing it all over again. The home was beautiful, but…… it meant something different. These thoughts caused me to start gasping for air and crying, and I couldn't move. I felt ready to collapse.

I took a hot shower, and I tried some calming breaths, and slowly, I was able to regain myself. I tried to continue using my affirmation of "I Got This." But honestly, it wasn't easy. My brain was very foggy. I couldn't stop crying. If my Mom was truly at the end, there was no way I could handle this on my own. I didn't know what I was going to do.

Over the next few weeks, watching my Mom decline at our in-person visits or when my sister would Facetime me, it became harder and harder to function at home. I knew my Mom was at peace and ready to go home to her family, and I didn't want to see her suffer any longer. Still, my heart was breaking to know I'd be saying goodbye.

Then, the fateful day came. I drove down to the hospice house after work - at the encouragement of a coworker. I planned to stay overnight and work from her room the next day. When Mom had first moved into the house, the nurses had told us we wouldn't be able to stay overnight until the end was near, and they would let us know when that time came. So the fact that I had called them and they said yes, I could stay, I knew was not a good sign.

The anxiety and depression didn't all start when my adoptive Mom died. There is history there. Growing up, I was my biological mother's world, and she was mine. We were not rich, but she treasured our time together. And thank God because I went to bed one night, never knowing that my life would change forever. Ten days before my ninth birthday, I woke up at my babysitter's house. I was told Mommy wasn't feeling well and had gone to the hospital, but she would be home when I got out of school.

But instead, I was called to my guidance counselor's office during school. The principal, my guidance counselor, and one of my Mom's closest friends sat there. They shared the news that my Mom was never coming home.

We walked back to my babysitter's house (my apartment was on the third floor of her building), and my mother's brother and sister-in-law were there. They all wanted to talk, so they put me in one of the bedrooms by myself.

There is not much more I remember about that time except after the funeral when I went to live with my now-deceased mother's brother and his wife. Their youngest child was in college, so I don't believe they were prepared to have a nine-year-old in their home. While my mother's brother would do my homework with me and take me to and from my babysitter's or school or my friend's house, I could always tell from the outside looking in that something wasn't right. His wife was quite firm and never really wanted to let me just be me after the loss of my mother.

That summer after school ended, I was told I would live with my friend and her mother. I was excited because it meant I would play with my closest friend and have fun, which is what any nine-year-old would want to do. Unfortunately, Rejeanne had to sit me down and tell me it wasn't just for the summer. It would be permanent, and I'd be changing school systems.

So I found my new family, and I'll never tell you she didn't love me. She did, but it's an adjustment for a child who comes from a single-family home and is her mother's only world, where it was just the two of them as partners in crime into a family with two children. I was never not loved, but it wasn't the same. Sometimes, that feeling of being someone's whole world was never found.

Now, I write this not to make people think I had a hard life but instead to understand how the mental struggles developed. I grew up feeling that I was never enough and couldn't do anything right.

I didn't look the right way.

I would say the wrong thing or no one would ever truly love me.

I was told I was only book-smart, not street-smart so that I wouldn't get far in life.

A college professor once told me I would never get anywhere in life because my learning style differed from what he expected (I learned more from the teacher than from reading a book).

Throughout high school, those who were my so-called friends always made me feel like it was easy enough to drop me like a hat when something they felt was better came along. After college, again, having someone who made you feel like you were a second-class citizen to their needs, wants, and wishes and only what was going on in their life was more important, and therefore, you were discarded.

All of this wears on a person. It wasn't until I met my husband that I realized someone out there could love me for who I am and not want to drop me at the first sign of something better. Working with a leadership coach took time, and now, through therapy, I realize I don't need other people to validate me. I am in control of how I see myself.

What other people see or think of me does not truly matter, but this is only one chapter in a book that took years to figure out. What I learned was most important, and I hope it helps you too: even when it feels like the world is crumbling, love and security can take new shapes. It doesn't replace what's lost, but that love and security can still sustain you. Recovery is never a straight line. There are days when I still feel the weight of my past, but there are more days now when I can stand taller, breathe easier, and see myself with kinder eyes. To anyone reading this, know that you're not alone and that healing is possible.