Content warning: Miscarriage, mental health, job loss.
Dear Journal,
Before my wife and I had our oldest, we went through two miscarriages, only five months apart. Those losses left scars that never faded, shaping the way we approached every pregnancy that followed. Joy became cautious, hope arrived with a tremor beneath it, and even good news felt delicate enough to break if we held it too tightly. Every milestone felt different after that. We celebrated, but softly. We planned, but carefully. We carried excitement and fear in the same breath because once you’ve lived through that kind of loss, innocence doesn’t return. You learn to move forward with gratitude, but also with an awareness that life can change without warning.
When my wife became pregnant with our third child, Rosie, last September, we were already carrying years of emotional weight. Then Hurricane Helene hit. Water in the backyard climbed six inches every ten to fifteen minutes as we approached the early morning high tide. I stood in the dark, water rising around my ankles as it pushed closer to the house until it finally stopped a few feet from the back door. That night felt like a test of endurance, and we emerged from it shaken but grateful. Two days later, while we were still without electricity, Boomi laid me off. I told them we had nearly lost our home, so they added two extra weeks of severance. It was an odd kind of mercy in a moment when everything already felt unstable. Then, two weeks after that, Hurricane Milton brought more flooding, and we once again came close to losing the house. I stayed unemployed for three months, and those months changed me in ways I didn’t expect.
I had always believed that I could push through anything if I just worked hard enough. I treated effort as the solution to every difficulty. But this time, something in me broke in a way that effort couldn’t repair. The part of me that used to carry everything simply stopped working. I felt scattered and fragile, as if I were watching myself from somewhere outside my own life. I tried to stay optimistic, but I was unraveling, and no matter how much determination I had, it couldn’t pull me back together. That period forced me to face limits I had ignored for years, and it revealed how much strain I had been carrying long before the storms arrived.
This year didn’t give us much room to breathe. Rosie was born in February, and while she has brought joy and warmth into our home, the newborn phase presents its own set of challenges. In May, we were hit with norovirus and spent a week in survival mode. In July, the dishwasher broke and flooded the house, leading to mold that required professional remediation. We stayed in a hotel for two weeks while contractors argued with each other, and every delay felt like another weight added to a load we were already struggling to lift. Whenever I thought life might finally steady itself, something else went wrong, and eventually I had to accept that I wasn’t coping the way I used to. I was exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed far more often than I wanted to admit.
That acknowledgment pushed me toward the help I should’ve sought sooner. A sleep doctor diagnosed me with sleep apnea, and I’ll be starting CPAP therapy soon. That same doctor recommended medication to support long-term weight loss. I returned to therapy with the counselor who helped me after the miscarriages, and I’m now meeting with a psychiatrist to reassess an ADHD diagnosis from twenty-five years ago and to get support for years of accumulated anxiety. These steps aren’t easy, but they’re overdue, and they’re necessary if I want to be healthy, present, and grounded for my family.
To the men reading this, I know how strong the pressure can be to take every hit, absorb every setback, and keep moving without letting anything show. Many of us were raised to believe that carrying the weight alone is part of the job and that asking for help signals weakness. That approach works until it breaks, and by the time it does, the damage often extends beyond you. You’re not built to bear everything without support. Reaching out isn’t failure. It’s a decision to protect your health, your relationships, and the future that depends on you. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, please don’t wait. Talk to someone. Get evaluated. Seek the help you deserve. It means you’re ready to heal, not that you’ve fallen short.
Sincerely,
Your Pal,
James