Back Story

I spent the first half of my life mostly hiding.  I have been extremely insecure for as long as I can remember.  I hid from any sort of public attention.  Deathly terrified of being seen, much less speaking in a public setting.  My internal dialog consisted mostly of self-criticism, fear, shame, and judgement.  High standards, low self-esteem, and a constant worry of what other people think consumed me.  Nothing felt good enough, and the darkness I was wrestling with inside was not a socially acceptable discussion in the culture I was raised in.  I replayed tapes in my head of every mistake, mean word, criticism, and any time I was laughed at or ridiculed.  I tried to remain invisible, hiding in the shadows wherever I could find them.  I don’t know if I ever really gave myself completely to anything.  I always hedged my bets and tried to remain safe and likeable.  If enough people liked me, maybe I would finally feel whole.  In my teen years suicide became a very comforting thought.  It felt like that escape would allow me to rest and not feel like I had to keep switching masks all the time.  These thoughts only grew stronger as I grew up.  They took root, and in the back of my mind, there was always a voice gently beckoning me to put an end to all of this.  I began to believe that the people around me would be better off if I was just gone.  All of this brewed into a nasty cesspool in my soul and presented itself in a lot of ways.  Self-destructive behavior became normal, self-harm was comfort, and drinking was my escape.  At 16 I began an unhealthy relationship with Alcohol, and it became one of my best friends.  I remember the first time I got drunk, I wondered if that was how other people felt normally.  Free of worry, happy, and invincible.  I still believe that I was never an alcoholic, in the traditional definition of the word,  I was always able to put it down if I felt I needed to, but I loved it.  When I was drinking, a lot of the shyness and worrying about what people thought of me went away.  I found a voice, a little courage, and it allowed me to push the problems down deep and not deal with them.  Along with that came mental health issues, weight gain, lots of vomiting, more self-hatred, and some very poor decisions. As I got into my late twenties I saw so many people becoming old and stiff, and quite frankly… boring as hell.  I didn’t want any part of that.  My goal was to stay young and keep the party going.  This is when I felt the most ‘happy’.  I married young, we bought a 1905 house,  which we intended to be a ‘fixer-upper”, started a business, and had our first kid, all before I turned 30.  To say I was ill equipped to handle any one of these things would be a wild understatement.  The things I had buried got pushed deeper with the stresses of all of this, and my mental health declined.  Overwhelmed by debt, a house that was literally falling apart around me, and a failing business, I became a version of myself that I never thought possible.  Suicidal thoughts turned into suicidal plans, and I finally sought the help of a counselor.  I remember describing in detail how I was feeling.  The counselor literally took a huge text book off the shelf, and read me the clinical definition of severe depression, I might as well have been reciting it word for word, but I was not ready to be truly honest and let down my guard.  I was prescribed medication and sent on my way.  Temporary patches to hold off immediate destruction, not unlike the work I was doing on my house.  I had become so good at polishing things up and keeping up appearances, a lot of people close to me had no idea, some probably still don’t. 

Another decade passed, full of struggles, two more kids, a more accurate diagnosis of Bipolar 2 disorder, some self-harm, and so many different medications.  More patches, more pain, and lots more alcohol.  The diagnosis of Bipolar 2 gave me some hope, I had found what I thought was the source of the pain and my failures and was ready to face it.  I read books, listened to podcasts, and tried to get as much information as I could.  There were seasons of relief.  I found changing my diet could have a huge impact, but I lacked the discipline to stick to it, especially when the winters hit.  I turned 40 and was still fighting to keep my little house from crumbling in on us.  No matter how hard I worked, how many risks I took and hours I put in, I just couldn’t make ends meet.   Debt grew deeper, sleep was scarce, and the weight was nearly unbearable.  I was introduced to psilocybin as a treatment, both in micro and macro doses.  It was nothing short of a miracle.  That is a whole other subject, but an important part of my story.  As I write this, I cannot remember the last time I seriously thought of ending my life, and walking without that burden has been one of the most life-changing things I have ever experienced.  It didn’t fix me, but it gave me some new perspective and a chance to unwind some toxic threads woven through my mind.  The real work had not been done, but I was opening in ways I hadn’t before and looking at myself and the world around me with different eyes.  I was hopeful, but nothing on the outside was changing.  Same brick walls, over and over again.  Try, fail, rinse and repeat. 

7 months ago, my Dad passed away from an ugly battle with cancer.  In his last days, he asked only one thing of me, and that was to stop drinking.  I proceeded to make a promise that I would never drink again.  As I held his hand through the hardest thing my family has ever endured, I chose to stare it straight in the face… the pain, the suffering, the tears, and finally death itself, all sober.  There are no words that can begin to describe all that took place in those last few weeks.  Every emotion raw and every nerve exposed.  Feeling all things all at once.  And because my dad was a gentle badass, and confronted my shit right to my face, I got to be present through every second of it.  It is a gift I could never repay, and being there, really there, as his story on this earth ended, is something I will probably spend the rest of my life unpacking.  In these last months I have been more clear-minded, creative, and honest with myself than I have ever been.  His death brought me back to life, in a way I have never experienced.  That is a debt I cannot possibly repay, but you can be damn sure I will do everything in my power to use the gift he gave me. 

So here we are.  I am currently trying to plug the holes from another failed business partnership.  My house is in the worst shape it has ever been in.  My financial situation is not pretty.  I owe more than I am worth, and my credit is in the dumps.  I have been working hard to rebuild bridges with my sons.  I will spend the rest of my days trying to mend a marriage that I neglected and heal wounds that my wife has had to carry silently.  I guess this could be considered ‘rock bottom’.  Fortunately, this is only the first half of my story.  Part One was heavily weighted with character development.  I love good memoirs, autobiographies, and success stories.  Rags to riches, underdogs, triumph over adversity, I really can’t get enough.  But I have come to notice, like the first half of my story, they are told in retrospect.  Time has a way of washing away the gritty truth, and memories are unreliable at best.  We tend to wax nostalgically about struggles, and we lose touch with the raw reality that is the present.  I always wonder what it would have been like to actually walk with that person, to see their struggles while they are in them.  To sit at the bottom of the pit when there is no hope, no money, no happy ending in sight.  That’s where you find me.  In the mud, covered in blood, and eyes full of tears.  I’m tired, I’m knocked down, I’m broken.  But I am not defeated.  This is only the beginning of Part two.  Here, in the ashes of all my failures, I’m inviting you to walk with me.  Let’s see if I can make something beautiful from all the garbage I have created.  I have lived in the shadows, and I have been hiding for long enough.  It’s time to be brave.  It’s time to create something new.  Welcome to my BACK 40.