What I am about to share with you, like many of my writings, is very personal and real. There can be no holding back, only truth from a place of deep reflection, and the hope of helping others. It could save a life, yours or a loved one.
I was thinking back to some of the suicides that have taken place in recent years, Chris Cornell was one of them, where his wife said she believes that the medication he was on had a lot to do with his death. Now, there are many opinions on his story and others, and frankly, I am not concerned about any of that for this piece of writing. I am here to provide you with an experience, one of a dark place, where I thought about Chris and the pain he must have been going through to end his life. Before I start, on a side note, never make people fill guilty for having suicidal ideation. Don’t say things like, “You would be so missed,” or “You're being selfish,” or worse yet, “That would be terrible for you to do because look at how many people you are leaving behind that care about you.” Part of the issue with depression is that you are in an extremely lonely place in your mind, even if the person that loves you most has their head on your shoulder, holding your hand, telling you they love you. That’s the cruel part of depression.
First, a story to help with understanding.
Almost three weeks ago I had one of the worst panic attacks I have ever had. I described it in a blog post recently and many have reached out and said they resonated with my words and experience. This is why I open a part of myself to tell you, scream to you, that you are not alone!
After meeting with my therapists and doctors, describing to them what happened, and what my wife witnessed as my entire body strenuously flexing while breaking down, losing my breath and control, I had no choice than to take a couple of days off of work. The issue with this is being fairly new at a job, and then taking off for three days in a row, made my anxiety go up tenfold. The overwhelming guilt of letting my new school down, especially kids and already stressed out teachers, felt awful. I tried to communicate this to them because I am an open book for anyone to read if they want. I lay my heart down and tell them exactly how I felt I was “abandoning” them. I heard from a few people, just a few, so my schemas kicked in hard, telling me they were all angry, regretting their decision to hire me. That’s what anxiety does, spins you around and tells you that your world is falling apart.
What this also did is prompt me to reflect on what was causing my panic, which according to my doctor, therapist, wife, mother, brother, and a couple of good friends, was stress. I’m burnt out! I have been a special education teacher for twelve years and a dean of students for three. That’s fifteen years of being in the pressure cooker and I am boiling over. I’m not sure anyone cares or realizes this is happening besides the folks I mentioned. We are all just bodies filling a void, or often made to feel that way. This has been one of the toughest years I have experienced in education and in life. I do try to keep things in perspective, being mindful of the good times, but I do believe I am being tested for a reason, or at least being told, “Wake the hell up!”
I then regrouped, started to think of a few things that would be proactive and help me push forward. Resilience! Yes, that word I preach came rushing out of me and I made a plan. I even spoke to my district and told them my truth. Side note, I was told I “Had a lot of balls” for doing so, but to me, when we speak our truth, and do so in a compassionate, empathetic way, we cannot go wrong. A few other things came up as well during this short amount of time, which was the first day back to work, and I repeated what I always have, “Well, I am about to find out a lot about people. I am about to find out if they have compassion and empathy and what they value.” I won’t get into that. It’s not important with my message today, but it added to my stress.
I had a couple of days where I felt okay, breathing easy, no anxiety or panic. I was exhausted because when one has multiple, severe, panic attacks, it drains you. It steals, actually rips, at pieces of your soul little by little. It leaves you depleted but not defeated. That last part is important.
I went to work one more day with the mantra of kindness soaring through my brain and heart. After the extreme panic and dark thoughts I had a few days prior, and then the realization, and some guilt, of wanting to leave a position I have done for years, I strived to lead my day with kindness. It’s so simple, yet, so hard for many. I went in with renewed energy and did what I believe as an educator, which is creating strong relationships with students. Some of my student’s personal stories would have you in tears, gut wrenching, sobbing tears. So what can I offer when I am at my lowest, darkest place? Empathy, kindness, and compassion. It is healing for all of us.
As part of my plan moving forward, I came home, took my dogs for a walk, did some yoga, spinning on my bike, and strength work. Nothing too major but I felt good and feeling good is good enough. Then, about 2am I woke up to extreme pain. My right quad and hip was killing me. It felt like the worst charlie horse of my life but it wouldn’t go away. My hip was constantly aching and it ran down the side of my leg to my knee. I massaged it, rolled, stretched, everything, but it got worse and worse. The pain became unbearable and you are reading words from a guy who once ran a tough mudder in a sling after tearing his pectoral muscle on obstacle number three with eight more to go. I can handle pain, but this was bad. I hobbled to my wife while she slept and woke her to take me to the emergency room.
I love health care workers. Like educators, they deserve more respect than they are getting these days, and the hospital where I live has always been incredible. However, my experience at the ER on this particular night was sub par. I was telling the nurse what was happening, and I thought they should also know about my severe panic the week before, and she said to me, “You really have a bad life.” Listen, this is an insult to anyone, but when you say this to someone that just told you about their panic and depression, it’s downright cruel and unethical. I bit my lip because I didn’t want to say anything bad, and then I worked on my breathing. The doctor came in, looked at my ankles, sat in a chair, asked me the location of the pain, said it was probably a pinched nerve, gave me a shot and some meds and told me to go home.
I left in agony, nothing worked to ease the pain. I meditated as much as I could, and had to once again call into work because I could barely walk. The schemas of failing my students and the staff were brutal. It crept into my head what the nurse had said, “You have a bad life.” No! I have a great life! I’m just going through some shit and I will take it. I’ll take it all. Well, someone was listening when I proclaimed that because they gave me more. More pain! The devil was riding my back again.
I went to see my regular doctor and he told me the pain was muscle strain and spasms. It was overuse and stress. Stress! There it is again, that word people keep saying to me. Fucking stress will tear up your body and mind. I know this and I said to him, “I let myself get too far into the melting pot again. I’m fried. I know. I need a change.” I’ve said those words before, a few years earlier. He gave me some muscle relaxers and sent me home.
So, at this point, I am on muscle relaxers, Gabapentin, Tylenol, and Ibuprofen. I hate pills! I feel like they are causing havoc on my body. This was on a Wednesday. There was a battle going on in my mind and a war in my body. The pain was brutal and unrelenting. I had to take off work the remainder of the week. Schemas, yes, fucking schemas telling me I am a failure, loser, letting everyone down and that I am a lousy teacher. I’ve ruined my career. I feel a burden to my wife. God bless her. Actually, God once blessed me for sending her to me. My love, my life, my everything, her gentle nature, empathy, and love for me rang loud. She would sit with her head against my shoulder, her presence being more healing than any medicine the doctors offered. I made sure that I still told her how pretty she looked before she left for work. I needed to make our life somewhat normal because this tidal wave of desperation came to us and interrupted our lives, but it did not interrupt love. If love is true, passionate, real, it stays no matter what comes for you. Protect it! Yes, protect your love if you have it like I do.
I followed the doctor's orders, stretched, took pills (a lot of pills), and tried to rest. It’s hard to rest when your hip and quad are in a constant, deep pain, and then just for the devil’s amusement, shoots up ten times as bad every few minutes, making you feel like you are about to blow your lungs up by the deep breaths you are taking in a feeble attempt to control the pain.
I also talked to my therapist and told him about my past couple of weeks and he recognized it was a lot. I can handle a lot though, right? I also went to my acupuncturist. Her calm demeanor gave me hope. Hope is a work I have tattooed on my brain, bringing it up in hard times. Hope keeps us going, alive, and willing to climb the thorny paths.
Friday night came, we tried to watch a movie. I laid on the floor because the hard ground eased the pain. I used my breathwork and did my best to control the storm in my body and mind. My love was sleeping on the couch. I love to watch her sleep, except for one thing, when her eyes are shut I cannot see the magnificent blue that has mesmerized me for thirty-five years. I hobbled upstairs so as not to wake her, placed my head in my hands, went to my knees and prayed. I called for my sister, Charlotte, to come down from heaven and help me. It became too much. I was in agony. My love approached, saw my pain, tried to give me more Tylenol but I refused. “Nothing is working. Why even bother anymore.” The pain increased. My breathing increased. It was becoming an emergency.
We arrived once again at the ER. Karen said, “It better not be the same nurse.” I replied, “Kindness. That is all we need, kindness. We will be kind.” My love nodded her head but her eyes showed worry. They also showed determination because she has had to watch her husband suffer for two weeks straight in his mind and body. One thing about Karen, she is ferocious in her love for her husband. She is strong, patient, intelligent, practical, rational, a dangerous combination in any situation, but especially one where she is about to advocate for her love. I repeated, “kindness.” Then, because they were not coming to get me I did the only thing I could. I put myself into a meditative state that any Buddhist would have been proud of. I did not ignore my pain but went towards it, accepted it, and breathed into it. I was determined to calm my mind. Karen knew what I was doing and remained silent while I went to another place, one more calm and beautiful than I was in.
It was a different nurse and different doctor. My blood pressure was 190/100, which showed the pain. The doctor was in shortly after that was reported. They gave me a shot of something in the opposite leg that hurt like hell, but pain did not matter anymore. It was all relative. Perspective. He then said he agreed with both doctors that had seen me a couple of days prior, that it was both nerve and muscle strain. The x-ray showed no issues in my hips or back. I was given Hydrocodone to add to my pill box. Then, I was sent home and told to see my doctor again.
I had some relief the next day. I had hope that some sense of normalcy would be coming my way. My pain level went from an unbearable ten Friday night to a manageable four or five by Saturday morning. My love took care of me. With the way her mind works, she mapped out the sequence and times for all the drugs I had in my body and when to take them. It made me giggle and for some reason brought me back to our school days when I copied her homework.
Sunday came and I woke up unenthused with life. I was tired. I went from sleeping in the recliner to the bed. This is when the flood started and the bad thoughts started tempting me. This is the part I want you to pay attention to and learn from if you already don’t know. Maybe I should have just shut up with the rest of the story and just told you this, but I had to give some background on what led up to this part of my tale. This is where everything starts to get stormy.
I laid in bed and started having suicidal ideation. I cried. I emailed something to my work because I found out I was not getting paid for my time off and I immediately thought, “I’m ruining our lives. I am costing us too much by being alive. I made a mistake!” For you employers out there, I know you have policies and procedures, but it might be time to rethink the human side of things and look at what is happening in someone’s life. I sank deep and started thinking, “All I need to do is take all the pills and just go to sleep.” I hung on. It took everything to hang on. Again, between the panic, moving into the realization that I need a change because I am overly stressed, to the pain and ER visits, and now losing money, I was at the end. However, I recognized something was different, much different than the “normal” depression that I have managed most of my life. This felt more desperate and more out of my control, like I couldn’t even think of how to cope. My strategies weren’t coming to me.
Something happened to me when I fell asleep that Sunday afternoon. My sister, Charlotte, did come to me in my dreams. Though, I thought she was coming to take me. I thought I was dead. The reality of her presence was so real that I was surprised to be in my room when I awoke to a dog licking my face. I now believe Charlotte came to tell me to live.
During this time, I had friends and family reach out. Each time I saw their messages I realized that people cared. I saw it in front of me, within their texts the words told me they loved me, but my mind said it didn't matter, and that they would all be better off without me. My mother, oh my dear mother, who is fighting her own battle with cancer, consoled me. She tried to tell me that I had so much to offer the world and that I have helped so many people, and this would pass. She tried. My first teacher, my mother, was giving her youngest her strength, and I desperately tried to hang on to her words, knowing that she could not handle losing another child. My love, my wife, stayed with me, showing me love, but I was slipping. Again, this darkness was different.
Monday morning I had to stay home again from work. The worthless feeling hung on, like I was letting everyone down. I really wanted them to understand what I was going through but they had a school to run. I figured I was insignificant. The depressed brain does that to you. It convinces you of your worthlessness. Again, this was more brutal. The fangs of severe depression were sinking into me. My beauty, my love came before me as she had to leave for work. I gave her hope for me by setting up a chiropractor appointment and sent her off by saying, “Hey baby, you are the love of my life.” I needed to give her hope because I was unsure at that point if I would see her again.
She called as she approached work and I was in tears. I felt like I was ruining us, ruining my career, and I was pleading to her on the phone. To the point where I knew I was vanishing but told her I was okay, just emotional. Yet, I didn’t feel right. The hope I offered her slipped fast. Even with depression having a lifetime of depression, this one didn’t feel right. I thought more and more about ending my life. It kept creeping up. Nothing was working to stop the thoughts. I wanted my work to know how I was feeling and I felt like I already ruined it. I wanted my mom to know I was sorry. I kept thinking about the pain I would cause Karen by killing myself, but I also had this thought that smashed against my brain over and over, “She is strong and eventually her life will be better without me.” Fuck you depression! Again, I keep saying this, and maybe you figured it out already, but this was a different monster coming for me. One I struggled to fight.
I went to the chiropractor, he helped a lot. I felt some relief. I read some work emails as I sat in the grocery store parking lot. Some of them sank me deeper and made me feel like I was letting people down at work. I called my mom. She could hear it in my voice. I talked to my brother and asked him some questions, and then I broke down while talking to him. His voice got to me because I thought I would never hear it again. I got off the phone and drove home. I was in a daze at this point. Numb!
A quick note, numbness is one of the worst feelings depression brings. It is feeling nothing, and this is when depression becomes dangerous. Remember this if you are ever talking to someone who is depressed and they tell you, “I am numb.”
I pulled into my garage, left my truck running, and tried to turn the key off before I shut the garage door. Numb.
I decided it was time. I was a burden to the world. No one wanted to read my novels, no one cared to hear my bullshit anymore. They didn’t care about my stories or trying to advocate for those that struggle in their mind. They didn’t give a fuck about my attemtps to bring awareness to tough subjects. I was a bad teacher, husband, friend, brother, uncle, and everything. It was all over. All I had to do was shut the garage door. It would be that simple. It shut!
My playlist was jamming loud out of the speakers and then the song changed to “I Am The Highway,” by Audioslave. I’m not making this shit up, it happened. Chris Cornell’s voice surrounded me. Oh that voice, one that he graced us with for so long, and then it all went away because he took his life. Remember what I said at the start of this rambling journey I am taking you on? Chris Cornell’s wife has been saying it was his medications that pushed him over. So as he sang to me, I remembered his death and what his wife said, and for whatever reason it hit me. The depression I was immersed in, the deeper darkness that just, well, felt different, was from the Hydrocodone. My forehead came to the steering wheel and then instead of Chris’s death, I thought about his life and the gifts he brought to everyone and he did it his way, living a full life while here, and then I realized I do have something to offer. I wasn’t going to let these meds kill me. No, I couldn’t let them kill me, not a little white pill, so I turned the key.
In a breath, the engine shut down and I lifted my head from the steering wheel, broke down crying, and said, “Not today. You can’t have me today.” I walked slowly into the house to two dogs wagging their tails at me. Two dogs that have hardly left my side, placing their heads against me, for the past two weeks while I struggled with panic and pain. I sat on the couch, still numb, and shook my head and repeated, “You can’t have me yet. Not today.”
I had another appointment with my doctor the next day and I told him about what the Hydrocodone did to me and how I had suicidal ideation. He said, “I would have never put you on that. It’s an awful medicine, especially for people with depression.” I do not blame the ER doctors but I will say I wish they would have looked more into my history before giving me this medication. My doctor’s face said it all, “That is a bad medicine for you.”
I did tell my wife and mother about my thoughts, but not the entire story until now. Why tell you? Well, first of all, it certainly isn’t what the stigmas may say, which is, “Quit feeling sorry for yourself.” No, it’s about awareness and saving lives. As I always have said, if my stories, transparency, and vulnerability help even one person, then it was all worth it. I just hope I have given the seriousness of this story justice. I am not anti-medication, and again, I certainly don’t blame the ER staff. They were trying to help me. I just want to make you all aware that a medication clearly made my depression blow up to a point where I wanted to self-destruct, and I knew it was a different feeling but I became numb to it all. I was just sinking deeper and deeper until I almost perished, losing all feeling for everything.
A couple of days later, as I sat looking at her beautiful blue eyes, I told my wife that I was exhausted. I asked her a question, “You’re one of the toughest people I know. It feels like a lot lately. Do you agree? I want to make sure I am not being a wimp, but it seems like a lot.” She agreed it has.
Later that night she laid on my chest and said, “Thank you for turning the key.”
Life is turning the key, on and off, and then switching gears. My gears will be shifting soon. It’s in the making. I want to live a life of exhaustive laughter.
That same day, I was helping a student de escalate and we were playing frisbee. It bounced off the floor and hit me square in the eyes. I had to get stitches at the ER. When I came into the room, the physician assistant said, we need to get you a sweet here with your name on it. I thought that was funny. The kid I was playing with felt bad. He’s been having a lot of struggles lately but he was able to stop for a moment and make sure I was okay. Before I left school, another student who has been struggling, came to me and shook my hand and wished me well. Kids need us to model kindness and they will model it back.
To the ER nurse who said, “You have a bad life.” No hard feelings. I’m not sure what you define as a bad life. To me, my life has been extraordinary. I have gotten to spend thirty five years with the love of my life. I have also gotten to watch my mother grow old, into her eighties, and I feel fortunate to be a teacher. It’s one of the best things I have done with my life. My brother and I are becoming closer as we age, and I have a couple of good friends that are loyal and love me. I have experienced the unconditional love of dogs and cats over the years. My belly has been full. I have seen views from the tops of mountains and swam in the oceans. Most of all, to wrap this all up, I get to hold hands with someone whose touch still makes me mad with love. I would say I have lived a damn good life…so far. More is to come, I guarantee it and it will be full of joy with a dash of suffering because that is life.
I will end with this, my asking of all of you, be kind. Show compassion and empathy to everyone. It seems like the only way we can help our world heal, whether someone is struggling with depression or not, because everyone is struggling with something. Even stopping to ask someone, “How are you?” and meaning it, taking the time to pause and listen, may save a life.
The journey is the destination. Peace!
