Let's talk about agriculture's least favorite topic, mental health. I recently put out a Rogue Agronomist podcast about my mental health journey talking about my issues I had in high school with suicidal thoughts and dealing with my acne and the medication I took for it that caused me to have these thoughts. I stated in that episode that I'm good now and I've been able to manage my mental health on my own for the past two decades but it took me working on some things I've put off for the past year or so to realize that my mental health wasn't great the past 16-18 months.
This started for me with 2018's harvest, we didn't start out great getting stuck the first day we tried combining and then having the rear axle of our combine break on the attempt to pull it out. In our defense the axle was already cracked and it took pulling on the combine to make it go the rest of the way so we got lucky it didn't happen on the road. The ups and downs of that fall along with other farmers calling with their own mental health issues made me have some issues but I didn't really think too much about them at the time. Then in 2019 prevent plant loomed daily as I ran around trying to find fields to plant, delivered and swapped out seed, and eventually returned a decent portion of my customers seed taking a financial hit to our business that came out of 2020's payments. This was my first year of working on my own and working on a farm. When I took the leap I never imagined I would deal with these issues and I doubt anyone would.
While all of this happened I was doing things I didn't realize I was doing. Normally, I like to work on our house and do projects around the house but in the fall of 2018 I stopped doing all of this. As things stacked up in my professional life I quit following up on projects I wanted to do. I had dead trees in our yard, a roof that leaked, a deck that is collapsing, and some remodeling to do before we could even consider potentially moving closer to my customers and the farm. When I was struggling with work these things made my anxiety worse and I just brushed them off, I got mad when my wife brought them up. I literally would look at my list of to do's and stare at them then do something else, and that's not me at all. It took a toll on my personal life and our home life.
The funny thing is I never noticed, I just put my head down and worked. I would avoid some social things and that affected my work but I realized that and it would upset me but I couldn't figure out why I was doing it. It took until today that I figured out I wasn't right up until now. I've got a roof going on the house Friday, tree guy coming today, I'm working on yard projects and getting a ton of new ideas for our business I am acting on. I started having some success with getting in doors with prospects and finally feeling like I am clicking again, I hit my groove. When I looked at my to do list tonight and saw things getting crossed off it for the first time in over a year it just hit me. I wasn't right, not even at all.
It would be easy to write off the past few months as a result of what was going on in the farming community. It wasn't that, it was me. I wasn't doing what I need to get done at home or in my business because I wasn't right. About three weeks ago I had an inkling that something was going on, to the point I told my wife I wanted to seek some counseling for myself. She asked why and I couldn't muster up anything more than I just want to and I think I needed it. I couldn't really tell her exactly why, I didn't even know, I just felt off. I knew I was having issues getting what I needed accomplished done but I didn't really know why that was, I just couldn't mentally get myself to do it.
With the onset of our national medical crisis I was even more nervous about the future but for some reason something clicked for me in the past couple weeks. We've all had to take a step back and look at what we are doing. Our lives have changed, but many of us are starting to get to the point that all the coverage and attention paid to COVID-19 has started to either be a normalcy or we are so fatigued by hearing about it that we are now moving past it and focusing on what is coming after this is over. I'm not sure what happened, maybe it is the time we are spending together and shutting down our brains from the world to focus on things beyond what is on social media or the news.
I still get questions about what we are planting this year or even if we are going to plant this year (today in fact). Looking back I don't feel well about what happened in my personal and professional life but there's nothing I can do about the past. The thing many people who've never had issues with mental health don't realize is that it can come on without you even realizing, you think you can control this if you just keep your head down and keep working. Asking for help or realizing you have a problem is the last thing you want to do, if I just keep doing what I do like always it'll just work out. There's a stigma associated with saying you have a problem or asking for help, and many are afraid to ask for help to the point that by the time they get there they can't handle it anymore. I saw a quote last year I should have paid more attention to "I'm only responsible for my own happiness not everyone else's". While your hapiness is your responsibility we still rely on others for support and help. Don't ever be afraid to ask for help or talk to those you trust about your issues. I've had this happen to me several times in my career, and each time it's during a busy time of the year but I stop what I'm doing and ignore everything else to just talk. Often just talking through issues can help but in one instance I've had to reach out to another person for help with someone who was having issues. There's always going to be someone willing to help, while others may depend on you it's ok to depend on others as well.
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