“Being open and going through mental health treatment as a child helped set the stage for the battles I would face later in my life.”
This year I became a board member for Karis Community, and it has been a pleasure getting to learn more about the amazing work of the Community. A big reason for my wanting to contribute to the board was the impact that mental health services have had on my life. I have been able to work through a lot throughout my life, including depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, family death, terminal diseases, and growing up as a teenager in a major city determining which path to take. I started mental health counseling at the age of 7 after my father passed. It helped me understand what was happening, work through having low self-esteem because of stuttering, and being called ugly because of my darker skin complexion. I am the oldest of my mother’s three sons, so I have always helped and cared for others. Being open and going through mental health treatment as a child helped set the stage for the battles I would face later in my life.
The importance of mental health has always been on my mind, but reaching out for resources and support became more important over the past year and a half. I became really sick at the beginning of 2020 and was unsure what was going on. At this time, I weighed 225 lbs., but by April, I was down to 200. While I was actively trying to lose weight, something wasn’t right. I was also losing my appetite and occasionally throwing up. In April, I went to the emergency room and had very low kidney function numbers. The doctor diagnosed me with kidney stones and scheduled a procedure for stone removal, but the stones passed before the procedure. Meanwhile, I had tried to schedule a new patient visit since January but could not get an appointment until July. After my kidney stones passed, I continued to feel sick. I was throwing up more frequently, losing my appetite, and I was barely able to do much more than needed to get through 8 hours of work. One day I got on the scale at home and saw a weight of 175 and sat on the floor next to my dog, Bailey, and cried. I cried because just four years ago, the doctor in North Carolina told me that my kidney function may become low over time, and I may have kidney failure someday. What I did not know was that my stabilized numbers would go from decent to failure so quickly. I went from 225 to 175 in about 5 months without understanding why. In reality, I knew what was coming.
Fast forward to November 2020. I moved to Colorado – a place where I indirectly came to look for better healthcare for my kidney issues and what created them in the first place, my uncontrolled high blood pressure. My insurance started on November 1, and that afternoon I went to the emergency room. Sadly, but expectedly, I found out that my kidneys were indeed failing, and I had to start dialysis. All of this happened amid this very scary pandemic that left me more physically disconnected from my friends and family than I had ever been. I love to travel, and it is very important to me to spend quality time with my friends and family, so it was hard. Dialysis also consumed a large part of my time and is physically and emotionally draining. It was definitely a huge adjustment for me. Thankfully, I had the experience and common sense to reach out to a mental health counselor to help just days after returning from an 11-day hospital stay.
According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “Individuals who say they have family and friends they can count on to help them in times of trouble are consistently more likely to be satisfied with their personal health, and research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.”
One of the first and most pivotal things that my counselor suggested was to be intentional! She did not have to tell me that twice, as I created several what-if plans, including extreme thoughts like my will, should I try to have kids now, who will take care of my dog, etc. After going through my entire life in my head and talking to my counselor, I decided to first do something that was unlike me, but I learned as a kid – to ask for help. I created a “kidney” support group that consisted of family, friends, co-workers, and fraternity brothers. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “Individuals who say they have family and friends they can count on to help them in times of trouble are consistently more likely to be satisfied with their personal health, and research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.”
This support group was everything to me. It consisted of individuals who cared for me when I got my kidney transplant from my uncle (a member of my support group) just eight months after I started dialysis. This group helped me work through challenges in school, work, medicine, dialysis, and many, many, many other challenges. This Community, Karis Community, and the stories that I have heard a board member have helped me understand that mental and overall health isn’t singularly focused. It has many layers, and you must embrace the layers that work for you. For me, it was the support group and the greater community built from it. I communicated with the ten people in the group, and they communicated my message to my co-workers, friends, and family around the country, along with many others. I could not imagine having to do that all on my own. The next layer for me was my counselor, being able to catch my blind spots, help me focus on more than just my sickness, and be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel … however far that is. I am excited to share my journey with Karis Community and be able to be open and honest with my new family at Karis.
Ron Reeves
Board Member