Homestead resident Kevin Dees has been on a decades-long journey to beat that negative internal dialogue telling him there is something wrong with him.
“I wrestled with anxiety and depression and all the challenges that come along with that,” said Dees on Thursday. “It was debilitating for me. And during that period of time … I was not the person who would just roll over and be debilitated by it and not search for answers.”
Like so many other Americans, Dees’s introduction to mental health care was a prescription for antidepressants. In his new book, “What’s Wrong With You: A Cure for Anxiety, Depression, and ‘Mental Illness,’” he details his journey to uncover healthier ways to rewire his brain and address his anxiety and depression.
Dees said he tried everything from hyperbaric oxygen chambers to eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. He even dabbled in psychedelic guided therapy.
Dees tried “just about anything that was out there,” he explained. “I went on this journey because I was trying to figure out why I was debilitated by so much anxiety.”
Dees grew up in a comfortable home, so his level of anxiety never made sense to him. In questioning his own mind, he found answers from different groups that he worked with, which he details in his upcoming book.
This, his first and self-published book, isn’t sold as a fix-all, but rather an intimate exploration of what worked — and didn’t work — for him.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all-shoe. I mean, I’m not offering the answer to everyone,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a spiritual solution for sure for me.”
The solution to depression isn’t a light switch, said Dees. It’s a spectrum, and he’s found the most benefit from keeping a journal and finding small things to make small differences. In his case, that journal became this book.
He still journals. He uses a scale of one through 10 to monitor his own mental wellbeing.
“ If five is normal — where we want to be — the depressed person finds them[self] at a two. The best thing you can do might be taking a warm shower and see if that gets you to a 2.1.”
Twenty-one million Americans, or 8.3% of the population, have reported at least one major depressive episode in the last year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The prevalence of major depressive episode was higher among adult women, according to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.
Dees moved to Maricopa in 2014. A father of two and contractor by day who moonlights as a budding author, Dees said he wrote the book over the course of several years from his Thornberry Lane home office. Starting his local flooring business, Maricopa Home Flooring, was a fruit of his mental health journey, he said.
“What’s Wrong With You” releases Feb. 28. It will be available in print or as an e-book on Amazon.
