My motivation for joining Movember is to help everyone realize they are not alone if they are struggling with their mental health. I once was in a dark place and felt like I had no one to talk to about my anxiety and depression, which lead to me not eating and it ended up putting me into the hospital for a few days. But I realized after this situation I had plenty of people that I could’ve reached out to and people that really cared for me. But I was scared they would’ve judged me or thought I was weak. The support I got after coming out about my anxiety and depression just shows no one will judge or think you are weak, and it really opened my eyes and made me realize I should’ve reached out to someone sooner. So I am doing this so hopefully I can help others reach out to someone before they get to the point I did. No matter your situation, please reach out because someone out there cares and wants the best for you and wants you here.
- Blaze Jordan

Here’s more details about the situation that I ended up sharing on Twitter to come out about my anxiety and depression.

“This isn’t normal for me to come on and say these things. But I’ve seen a lot of stories and have heard people dealing with different things such as depression and anxiety. Just wanted to come out and say you’re not alone if you feel any of those two things, and my best advice is to please just reach out to someone. I promise you, whether it’s a family member, friend, coach or even therapists, they would much rather you talk to them about anything than for you to deal with it on your own. I myself dealt with anxiety and depression for a couple of years before I finally hit a breaking point that ended up putting me in the hospital for 4-5 days and caused me to missed the last two weeks of my first professional season in 2021. I remember it all started around my senior year in high school, and I just could never seem to find happiness. And not one person could see that whatsoever even my parents because I was hiding it so well and made myself seem like I was the happiest person in the room always. I ended up getting drafted that summer which was one of the happiest days of my life and I just remember the joy I felt for those first few days of being a professional baseball player and signing with the Red Sox and i am truly grateful for this opportunity they have given me and I’m loving it to this day. But I remember after those couple of days past, the anxiety and depression came back even harder. And it was so confusing to me because I had just made one of my dreams come true and accomplished a goal I had in my life, and i was a 17 year old kid who had just bought one of his dream cars and had all of these other things going for me and I just still couldn’t seem to find happiness with anything. I still just was keeping everything inside and wouldn’t let anyone know what I was dealing with, so the year went on and I played my first professional season and towards the end of that season I got called up to go play in Virginia. And this whole time I was dealing with the anxiety and depression all season long, but I’ll never forget I get up there and I miss the first week or so because I had gotten to a point to where I couldn’t eat anything or drink anything without throwing up because the anxiety had gotten so bad i couldn’t keep anything down. I then go on to try and play for a couple of weeks and do pretty good, but then one day I wake up and I couldn’t even hardly walk and I started to hyperventilate and everything just started to unravel. Luckily my family was in town and the training staff there took care of me and got me an ambulance and sent me to go to the hospital to get all of these test done. I am then in the hospital for around 4-5 days and at this point I’ve lost around 25 pounds and can eat nothing but a couple of crackers each day. And I just remember being in the hospital bed beside my mom begging the nurses to please help me because i kept hyperventilating and couldn’t control my breathing whatsoever and basically telling the doctors I wanted to give up and that I just wanted to be put to sleep for good. And with my mother being right there I just remember seeing the tears on her face from hearing me say that. After doing all of the test and everything and checking to make sure nothing was physically wrong with me, it was concluded that it was basically just severe anxiety and depression that had caused all of this. I had it built up in me for so long, I basically just hit a breaking point and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and that’s where I ended up. I then went on to talk to a therapist and got some help through the team which really helped me. And it made me realize I needed to be more open about it and talk through it with the people around me. I’m definitely doing better today but still definitely have my ups and downs day to day.” Twitter @blaze_j24