I'm not going to tell you this post will be a quick read or a cure for all your problems. This post is going to be a story of how I went from depressed, anxious, and basically acting like a crazy person to being calm, rational, and stable.

Let me start at the beginning.

The first time I remember being depressed was fourteen. I can't say I really know why. My family life, not to brag, is great. My life is great. I am blessed.

But, I remember my emotions being like a rollercoaster, and sometimes I'd be fine. As I got older (16-17) things were a bit tough concerning my mental health. I was depressed, my anxiety was at an all-time high, panic attacks would rob me from sleep at 3 A.M... it wasn't good.

At 17, I told God to take this depression and anxiety away. I told Him He can have it, I don't want to be this way anymore. I feel like that is the moment I truly experienced a miracle from Jesus. He is the reason I am here today.

I wish I could say my story with my mental health ends there, but... it doesn't. In fact, in some ways, it gets worse.

I am now 20. And I am just now finally pulling my mental health together. My depression came back, haunting me. Anxiety found new ways to torment me. And my mood went from calm to raging in not even a second.

September 28th, 2019 was the low point of all of this. I was at my worst. I was raging, crying, yelling, then I'd be fine. Then it would start over, like a cycle that kept repeating itself, a broken record that could only repeat over, and over, and over.

In these times, I didn't treat my family with the kindness or patience they deserve. For that, I'm sorry.

It has never been my parents who didn't want to take me to a therapist. In fact, my mom's suggested it many times. I've turned it down every time. I'm one of those people who don't really trust doctors. Yes I know, you're going to say, "Brooke, doctors know what they're doing. How could you know more than a doctor?"

I'm not saying I do. I'm saying I know my body and I would rather try natural methods of healing rather than putting some chemical medicine in my body. This is why I'm coming here today, over a week later, to tell you what has worked for me to stabilize my mood and hormones.

So, after that Saturday, my mom began research on everything I have been experiencing. Besides mental health, I've been dealing with hormonal cystic acne.

Hormonal cystic acne is different in that cystic acne forms giant, painful pimples that usually don't have heads or they do, but they're deep and red and painful. Hormonal acne comes on your chin and cheeks. Mine was all the above.

Besides that obvious sigh, I was depressed, anxious, and as I said, raging and crying, then I'd be fine.

This is not okay.

My mom felt like there were things going on in my gut. Your gut controls a LOT of your body, including your hormones and the release of the happy hormone. As she did more research, we decided to clean up our diets and begin taking a probiotic.

In less than a week, my whole life has been transformed. I feel so content and joyful. I still have bad days, but they're normal bad days. They don't involve me raging. I was even getting to the point of nearly breaking down at work. Now I can brush things off and move on with my life.

Customers still get me mad sometimes, but in five minutes, I'm fine. Before, I would hold on to that anger the entire day and even into the entire week!

This is not normal. I was not okay.

But I'm getting better every day and it's amazing!

So I want to encourage you to get the help you need. I'm not saying stop taking medicines that help you. NOPE, don't do that okay? I'm saying if you feel something is wrong, never be afraid to research the crap out of it. And I'm not a doctor, so if you feel like you need to see a doctor, go for it. I'm not saying doctors are bad. I've had bad experiences, so that's just a personal thing for me.

In case anyone is curious about the probiotic I use right now, it's from a brand called Spring Valley.