Random ramblings on recovery

Today marks a month since I was discharged from Regions. Time has flown by. But it also feels like the last 6 months of my life was 6 years ago. The start of my relapse feels like ages ago. It almost feels like a different time and a different person.  I decided to do a little introspection on my recovery thus far. It has been going fairly well - better than I thought that is for sure. Life is in full force now. My son is in Kindergarten, I am in my rigorous schedule of weekly therapy, my drumming schedule is back to being full, my support group is in full swing, my kids are in weekly swimming lessons, my daughter has weekly music classes with me, my wife is fully focused on her job etc. As the classic jam goes - back to life - back to reality. Still trying to carve out time for self care and ensuring I don't fall off. That is harder than I thought it would be. I am sticking to my strict bedtime of 9:30 while doing 30 minutes of meditation prior. After all that, there is hardly anytime to go outside and play. I have learned a lot over the past year. A lot about myself, my brain, people, priorities, life and recovery.  There have been 3 reoccurring lessons that I keep learning;

1) It takes a lifetime - No doubt about this. It isn't a quick fix or an easy battle - it is a lifelong war against depression. I feel it everyday. Some days are better than others. Some weeks are better than others.... some minutes are better than others. I just keep telling myself to keep fighting and it is worth it. I knew going into treatment that it was going to be a lifelong disease but coming to terms with it on the other side of treatment and not feeling 100% better is a real kick to the stones and a clash with reality. I thought my brain would be in a better place where I would be more accepting of the fact that I will struggle with this day in and day out but nope.... still my same brain that I have always had. I thought that I would be on the outside looking in and be prepared and on the lookout for a relapse when in reality - I feel that I am still in it. Granted I feel I am on the edges of it and not so much in the deep shit of it but still, regardless, I am still very much in it. I just don't know if I will ever be on the outside of it again...

2) DIY-  As much as it is hard to admit and come to terms with, I am in this alone and have to beat it myself. When I was going through it, there were a lot of people there to offer support and a hand but now, they have resumed their lives - which I do not blame them for and completely understand. I just have to understand that this is a part of MY life and I have to manage it. Yes I have a few friends who are close enough that I can confide in and have emotional conversations with but for the most part - that is on myself. I do have a very healthy and strong support system but that can only take you so far. I have noticed that my wife is getting a lot of support too. A lot of her friends are reaching out to her asking her how she is doing and how I am doing. I think that is good but in a way it feels weird that they aren't asking me themselves, it feels a little isolating. I am friends with them too. Are they too scared to ask? Do they think I have too many people asking me? It is just weird. A lot of people offering to be there if you need them but no one really just checking in which I think it an important part of recovery.  I appreciate people offering support and an ear. It is hard though to discern the difference between those who actually care or those who are just curious. But having regular check ins with myself and writing in this blog has been critical to getting my thoughts out there and acknowledging them.

3) You must look back to see forward - As much as I want to avoid looking back at the emotions I experienced, the feelings I had and the actions I did, it is vital to growing and overcoming and recovering. It feels like looking back is going back and not moving forward, but I am realizing just how important it is to understand those feelings and become familiar with them and try to understand the genesis of them. When I was 29 I was in a car accident. A Ford F350 read ended me going 30 MPH on 694. To that point I hardly ever looked in my rear view mirror when I was stopping. I was just assuming the vehicle behind me was stopping as well. Well on that day of the accident, I caught a glimpse of the truck barreling right into my back end and found myself bracing for impact. For a few months after the accident, I was scared shitless at every stop light. Every time I stopped, I was staring in my rear-view mirror to make sure the car behind me was stopping. To this day, I still consciously look back as a check to make sure they are stopping. I think that is very similar to this. I need to always look back to ensure that what is happening now, is not what happened then - that there isn't a truck about to barrel right at me.


I have my appointment with my psychologist in a few hours. I am strangely looking forward to it. I really like her. She is down to earth and real. I think it is pretty obvious I like talking about this stuff and I don't know why but I think it is probably good right? Maybe I talk too much about it but I haven't learned to shut up yet so why start.

Song of the day - Until We Surrender - Heartsounds

"Sometimes I wonder if things really get better or does the hand of time just beat us down until we surrender?"

Is recovery even possible?

So here I am, approaching 4 weeks out of treatment and into my recovery. Things are going better than I thought they would be. I am having some short relapse moments every now and then. I guess that is to be expected. I knew it would happen but it still scares the shit of out me when it does and I let it bring me down and I start to feel like recovery isn't possible so then why even fucking try? Then I think about my progress - I was having suicidal thoughts daily if not hourly and now they are maybe 1-2 times a week so that is progress but I still feel it is a setback. I picture it like an alcoholic. I feel like having a suicidal thought is equivalent to falling off the wagon and having a drink. My wife helped me readjust my thinking regarding that but I can't help but feel like I am not making progress. You also hear about so many people that are in recovery for a long time and then just fall off and end their life after years of recovery. Is that going to be me? That scares the piss out of me! Is all this recovery work for nothing but just delaying death?

To put it into some perspective I see it this way - the only way this disease will end is by death. Either by my own hands or by natures way. So we are delaying the inevitable to try and live a positive life for what? To try and forget about the fact that I am depressed and to force myself to go on living a life that for the majority of the time I don't want to be in? It feels very counter-intuitive. I know suicide would be an easy way out and basically giving up and letting depression win, I get that and I know I don't want it to win BUT I will never ever be cured. Ever. So it is either learn to live with it or let it kill me. These are the thoughts that ruminate in my head. Even when I am not in a depressed state. Like right now - I am feeling just fine, actually kind of happy today. I guess you have to find your reasons for living on and fighting through another day. Of course the easy answer to that is my kids. Yes I don't want them to grow up without a father figure or resent me or have a lifetime of depression. It is my hope and my promise to them that I will do whatever I can to prevent them from having the same pain and issues I have/had and I know that if I were to kill myself that it would guarantee a lifetime of pain and depression for them as well as my wife. But that doesn't make my life happy? It is kind of like that line in Office Space "work hard enough so you don't get fired." So I live just enough to keep my promise to my kids but that surely doesn't bring me happiness. So in essence I am telling myself to live a depressed life for someone else? Live for someone else? That is antithetical to everything I believe. Live for yourself. But I guess a suicidal person can't afford to have morals and strong held beliefs when their mind doesn't function correctly. 

I plan to go on living and doing everything I can to beat this disease but that is easy to say when my mind isn't filled with darkness and distortions. The best I can do is prepare myself for those relapses and ensure that I feel I am equipped enough to weather the storm. Here is to hoping I have packed enough!

Song of the day - Change - Blind Melon

"When your deepest thoughts are broken, you keep on dreamin' boy 'cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die."

Hi! I am Justin

Hi! My name is Justin. I am just an average guy. Mid 30's. I have been married for 11 years, I have 2 kids, I have a good job at a bank, I am a avid dog lover and have 2 of the best dogs in the world, I enjoy playing music in my spare time. I can sorta play the drums, I am even worse on piano and shouldn't even be allowed to play the guitar but yet I still try. I have a pretty good life. Own a house in suburban Minnesota. I really can't or shouldn't complain about much....Here is the deal though - I have a disease. I am sick. Don't worry it is not contagious. You can't catch it from me if I sneeze on you. You won't get it if you touch me or get too close. It isn't sexually transmitted either. You probably can't even notice it by looking at me. If I went to my family physician, they could run a million tests on my blood, check every part of my body and they wouldn't be able to find it either. So... what the hell is it? Is it some invisible made up illness? Does it even exist? How the hell do I know I even have it? My disease affects pretty much the central command center of my body. My brain. I have a mental illness. Well what the fuck is that right? I wish I could tell you. My brain doesn't fire correctly and something in there is not wired correctly. How do I know I have it? I live in a depressed state of mind along with 7+ million other Americans.  Now - you need to understand that there is a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is an emotion that comes and goes. Depression is a state of mind that does not move forward. I lack motivation to live life. I feel like I am constantly looking up from a hole and can't see any light. It isn't the inability of feeling happiness, I can be happy and from the outside, I probably appear happy most days. I try to live a positive life. This depression in my brain makes me think very inappropriate things. Sure I can have good and bad days but when depression hits, I find myself secluded and isolated and only wanting one thing and that is to remove myself from this world. When I am at my worst, I can't think of others and the impact that I have on them. They are irrelevant. All I can see or feel is my own desire to not exist anymore. That smile my daughter shot me, my son telling me he loves me, that amazing sex I had last night, none of it matters and none of it proves to work as a reason to stay. Most people cannot comprehend that and I really wish that they could. It is super important for others to realize that it isn't just a mood thing that can just be changed. It is a medical condition that requires medication and therapy to fix. Suicide accounts for 35,000 deaths a year (homicides account for around 16K a year). Think about that for a moment. We hear about murders and homicides on a daily basis yet they refuse to ever mention someone dying of suicide unless it is a famous person. They do this to prevent copy cats and giving people the idea of suicide. Well I will tell you this - if a person is contemplating suicide, it isnt because they heard someone did it on the news. They have been thinking about it before. And MAYBE just maybe we want to use that same tactic for homicides? Do you think if we didn't mention them on the news they just magically wouldn't happen? Of course not. Depression and suicide are such taboo subjects. No one wants to talk about them or acknowledge them. We just hide it in the headlines under the guise of "died unexpectedly" Fuck that. They died of suicide. They had a disease/illness. If you want to compare it to cancer, we can say that they lost their long courageous battle with depression. Let's get people to talk about this openly and honestly.  I think we need to be real about this if we ever expect to see change.

Dark Side of Me

Today was a bad day and a good day all in one. Maybe I am bipolar.... who knows. I have been having these awful headaches lately and neck pain that wont go away with pain killers. It has been 3 weeks and it s becoming debilitating. I am starting Physical Therapy in a few weeks to help so we will see how that goes. As I was driving home, I was overcome with darkness. It just hit me like a fucking brick. Driving, listening to Rise Against and BAM. I could just feel it overcome my body and felt my mood completely shift. It was like a warm feeling that just pours over my body from head to toe. Hard to describe but it is a real physical feeling that overcomes me mentally. I was in the car and   I was approaching a big dump truck and for a moment I had the vision of flooring the gas pedal and rear ending right into him and my car would be under the truck and the potential for killing me would be high as I would probably get decapitated and it would most likely be instantaneous.Fortunately I wasn't fully in the shit and I snapped out of it and started to cry a little bit. Why the fuck is this happening? Why can't I get this to stop? Where did this come from? I thought things were getting better! Why? It just keeps coming back. I keep telling myself that it is never going to go away and I just have to continue to battle it. But god dammit - I can't keep doing this. I can't keep having this. It scares the shit out of me that these are going to keep coming at me. I don't know how long I can keep fending these off....

Milestones, MIA, and Mindfulness

Living with depression is a very quirky and interesting thing. No one knows your sick. The majority of people would probably freak out if they knew what you were thinking. It comes and goes as quickly as the breeze blows some days. There are days you can't imagine going on living and there are days you can't remember why you need help - at least for me. But I would say about 5/7 days a week I feel myself slip into the darkness at some point. It is hard to get around your head at times. However, the other day I reached a milestone. I have gone 5 days without suicidal thoughts. It was pretty awesome to know that things are improving. I remember just thinking "huh... I haven't thought about anything like that in a long time! Whats going on?" Usually thinking about suicide is a sign that something is wrong, but for me, NOT thinking about it made me think something is wrong. I guess that is just a part of this recovery thing I am doing. It isn't a bad thing by any means. It does feel strange. I am starting to feel better and happier.

After I posted my Depression story on Facebook, the response was pretty overwhelming. A lot of people messaged, texted, posted their support and accolades for saying something. That all felt incredible! It was great to get the word out and maybe, just maybe, get one person to realize it is OK to have a mental illness and that it is ok to ask for help. This blog is mine to just let my thoughts and feelings out so thats what I am going to do. It really confuses me on who the people that reached out and offered support vs. those that didn't. I am very involved in a few churches and have a lot of church connections on Facebook. Hardly ANY of them said anything or even acknowledged it when I saw them Not that I was expecting them to but you would just think that they would be the first to mention something. It was a little weird. They talk about being a community and praying for people but not a word was mentioned.... and maybe it didnt need to be - maybe they are doing it silently who knows. But it was just odd. Also - I had a re-connection with my best friend from High School who is going through some of the same things. We hadn't talked face to face in probably 5 years. I was scared and nervous but it was wonderful to see him and catch up and hear that he is going though a lot of the same struggle. Throughout everyone there were those that were inconspicuously missing..... my brother. We haven't ever really been that close but ever since I told him what I was going though, he hasn't reached out once to see how I am doing or anything. Not that I was really expecting him to but, Jesus man, I am your brother. As much as I wish it didn't it does kind of hurt. I wish he gave a shit enough to call, or text. Something. You always kind of hope people are going to come through when you need them, but not a fucking thing from him. I really wish it didn't hurt like it did. I only have 1 brother - I guess I can't force him to care. Does he not know how to talk about it? Does he not care? Does he not have any interest? Does he only give a shit about hockey? It is the response I was expecting but somehow, somewhere, I thought this might be different. Probably too busy with work and the kids and whatever the fuck else he does which I don't know since we don't talk.

Along with journaling my journey through this, I have took on meditation. I only do it for a few minutes a day. Just to help me center and ground myself. There are a lot of cool apps out there that help. I am really trying to focus on mindfulness. Being mindful of myself, surroundings, feelings, emotions and being. It may sound cheesy but I have noticed it helping. Getting a better understanding of oneself can only benefit you. I feel more in touch with myself (insert masturbation joke) and I feel I am understanding myself more - what my triggers are etc. I feel that I am able to create a blocking mechanism for my negative thoughts. Sometimes it feels like I am waging a war inside my head. I have these negative thoughts that appear and I am trying to build an army to attack them and prevent them from taking control... but this is all in MY head. It kind of feels like a multiple personality/split universe type scenario. I control my negative thoughts but yet I also control the means to destroy them? Does that make sense? It isI just weird to have to build up something to combat yourself. I guess that is what makes this disease all the more interesting and difficult to fix. You are the enemy but you are also the hero.

Song of the day - Begin Again - Ignite

"This is your chance to being again. A brand new start to a different end. This is your life to look forward to, and now it's all on you!"

Oreos and Isbell

I am a few weeks into my recovery and so far things are going ok. I am slowly integrating myself back into life and bringing things back into my life. I feel I might be losing a little touch with what I got from the PHP program but I think it is bound to happen when you integrate back with life. I am thinking I am going to go through all my stuff again this weekend just to keep it top of mind. I have been completely astounded by the reactions and messages of support I have received from others since I outted my depression on Facebook. A lot of people have the same issue and I really feel that in a small way I helped the cause of depression and Stigma fighting. I fear that a lot of people misinterpreted my intentions as looking for attention and sympathy but that was not it at all. I was reluctant to do so just because of that reason. But after knowing that recovery is possible and that there is such good help available, I wanted to get a face to the disease and perhaps encourage others to think differently about it.

Throughout my recovery there has been 2 constants that have aided me and been instrumental to my recovery.... Oreo's and Jason Isbell. I am consuming more Oreo's than I ever have in my life. I could put down an entire bag of them a day and still want more. It has become almost an addiction. I can't describe the draw to them but Jesus - Oreos fucking rock my world right now. For the record - just the regular OG Oreos. None of that newfangled Thins or double stuff or different flavors. The intentions behind those are good and I am sure they are just as delicious, if not more, but right now - just a sleeve of regular Oreo's and a glass of milk and I am a happy man.

Another thing that has been hugely instrumental is the music of Jason Isbell. I have always been familiar with him and his music but never really took the time to dive into it and appreciate it. I took a liking to a few of his new tunes and started to dig in. The more I listened, the more I fell in love. Every album has a different feel, vibe and sound. His songwriting is matchless. His way with words is simply a gift from God. He sings so passionately and heartfelt that when I was in my shit, it just resonated so well with me. Or as my wife put it "his music spoke to you when you needed to be spoken to." Ain't that the truth. I seriously haven't gone a day in the past 3 months without listening to him in some way. Be in the shower, doing dishes, driving, walking the dogs etc. It is constant. I have a DVD of him at Austin City Limits and I swear I have played it 100 times so far. I am surprised my wife hasn't gone insane yet. But it is giving me something to relate to and makes me happy. I have seen him live twice in the past 3 months and both shows I was giddy and smiling the entire time. I haven't felt this way for a band since.... I dont know... maybe the first Coheed and Cambria album? Either way - his music, voice, songs and lyrics are speaking to my soul and when I meet him someday, I will tell him the profound impact that he had on my life and my recovery. 

Song of the day - Across Five Years - Boysetsfire

"I lose my life and take it back. Crashed this side of happiness."

Suicide Prevention Day

This is the post that I just posted on Facebook. Pretty much outing myself and disease. 

Today is Suicide Prevention day. As much as I want to keep this to myself - I think it is important to come out and let my story be heard. I have battled major depression for the past 20 years. Last month, I had a very difficult and serious relapse that ended with me being admitted into a Partial Hospitalization Recovery Program for 3 weeks. I am not posting this for sympathy or attention as that is NOT my intent. I am posting this to help bring awareness that depression crosses all races, ages, income brackets and generations. Depression is a very real disease. It completely messes up your mind making you feel a darkness that is incredibly difficult to describe. It is nearly impossible to try and explain it to someone who never has experienced it. It is more than just sadness. It is something wrong with your brain. Either a chemical imbalances or a misfiring in your brain. You can get past the darkness. You are NOT alone and there are people who DO understand and can help. Just like any other illness or disease, it can be treated.

There are a lot of messages out there to reach out to someone when you are suicidal and depressed which is one of the best pieces of advice that can be given. However, when I was at my lowest, I found out that some of the friends I reached out to didn't know how to respond or react and, honestly, I felt like I scared them off. This feeling of rejection and alienation breeds a deeper level of depression. I know it isn't feasible for everyone to have a PsyD and be professionally trained BUT I think it is realistic to believe that everyone would have a basic understanding of what to say, and more importantly, what NOT to say. Thankfully there is a plethora of informative sites that can help with that part. I implore you to take 2 minutes and check out this site. You never know when someone you love will reach out to you needing to talk.https://makeitok.org

I have found myself at the edge of the darkness before and it is not pleasant. You can't see any light or feel any hope and can't fathom yet another day or let alone hour. You aren't thinking of others and the impact on them, you can only feel your own darkness and have a desire to end the pain. So please, don't call them cowards or selfish. It is the devastating ending of trying to fight the disease. Personally - I have gotten help and through medication, therapy and support groups - I am able to maintain a pretty functional and normal life. It still is a daily struggle and it comes and goes but I am in a better place than I have been. I know that it will be a lifetime battle but I am armed to the teeth with an arsenal of tools to combat the darkness. There is a reason to have hope.

If you need help or need to talk - make the call - 1-800-273-8255 or call/text me - 612-386-3578. Don't let the disease win. You can survive this.
"How we survive is what makes us who we are."