Have you seen that Thai film, Shutter? The story of my most unwelcome guest.

If not, let me try to illustrate the plot point that's key to this post. You are feeling fatigued all of the time; all of your tension and stress seems to accumulate around your collar bone and shoulders; whispers about the bleakness of life drift into your skull whenever you pause; and if you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror or in a photo - you can make out the nefarious creature that has attached itself to you. In the film, it's a ghost... in my reality, it's depression and anxiety.

Those whispers; they are probably the most wicked of tools used to destroy yourself. So many lies, and such hateful comments about you, and about the people who love you (do they?) Your mind would have you think that the boat you are in is built for one, and is on the most turbulent of water, and this boat is fuck-full of holes that you are constantly patching with self-sacrifice, ruinous acceptance, self-destruction, and isolation. In 30 years, you'd expect to somehow perfect the craft of depression - make it a slave instead of a master. The most clever of our depressed peers turned it into a muse, or drowned it out with external adoration, but if nothing else, depression is perhaps the most patient of diseases. Where most people accept that life is a series of days with varying degrees of wonderful to horrible, a depressed person struggles to get to acceptable every day while taking note of all of the hurdles to get there. It's very much like a filter exists around the brain, and everything passing through is scrutinized, torn apart, or rejected.

Who is that person for me? My oldest recollections are from childhood. Likely as a result of a very transient life, I had no friends, and if I did - they'd be gone from my life within a year or two. So, isolation and alienation were an attractive host for this disease. Quite inexplicably, I also developed a seething anger for social injustices, especially racially motivated ones. Where that came form, I simply don't know - but even at 5, I knew what the racially derogatory terms were and they made me angry enough to lash out. Having my face slapped as hard as an adult could do while driving a car, was clue enough that I was playing in a sandbox built for one.

I would have expected to grow up distrusting others, but instead, the opposite happened. Absolute blind faith and trust in strangers. The romantic notion of developing a bond with someone that was without words or conditions was a theme I didn't even question. And that blinding idiocy crafted a teenager with addiction issues, many shattered illusions, and anger fueled by a lifetime (all 15-18 years of it) of betrayal and isolation. Spoiler Alert: some things become old hat. I did start writing as a teen; plagiarized at first; but accolades from those works filled me with perhaps my first glimpse of being appreciated or recognized for something. Ninth grade, after our hundredth move, and sixth move to another state, I had my very first moment of positive reinforcement. I'll be honest, it's the one and only reason why it matters to me to be good at writing, or more specifically, to be TOLD I am good at writing. This too... becomes old hat. I go off to school - having loathed school, and expected the rest of my life was going to meet me there. It was a no-show, but in it's place, familiar friends arrived and we spent my early twenties setting fire to my future.

This is a period that encapsulates the worst of my capabilities and introduces new extensions to my amassing vices. Being unable to keep anything meaningful in my life, I recognize that idolatry can serve as proof of normalcy and so, keepsakes of a happy life supplement actual living of a happy life. Receipts, if you will, that something good happened today. It seems innocent enough, perhaps notable, until of course you only have those pieces of paper and everything else has long since been incinerated. Each memory as painful as a razor to the skin, serving the same purpose... to make you feel something... even if it's how much you hate yourself. With nothing else to appreciate about yourself, depression becomes your vanity.

Anyone worth their weight in salt in navigating depression learns and masters the most pernicious skill. Find someone who cares about you, and put all your energy, resources, and time into endless expressions of your affection and leave no avenues open for self-reflection, self-interest, or self-identity. Maybe you can be roommates with this person, or even marry them... because in your mind, this is what it's going to take to unlock happiness. If you can find someone wanting to spend their life with you, all of it will have been worth it and life will be meaningful and fulfilling and fuck, it's going to be awesome to be happy every day! While bleaching away your self-identity, and abandoning your self-interests, and eroding the reality for your partner that you are even a person anymore... you also manage to exhaust whatever energy your partner has in propping up the life crafted for two but you've built for one. More razor blades for the scrap-book no one is there to see or cares to see. More Old Hat. Wisdoms, like: "no one else can love you until you are able to love yourself", resonate like passages from Revelations... "this life is fucked. Scorched earth and an act of god are needed to set this path right, and I don't have enough respect for him to even address him with a capital G". We shrink and shrink into ever decreasing holes while navigating life to "survive". Many are too tired to navigate. Much too many choose not to.

Depression is something unique for everyone. Yes there's commonalities, but the insidious thing about a disease like depression is that it has had your entire lifetime to study from, and knows every single thought, fear, act, desire you have ever had... and it's task is to simply use you and all your experiences as it's toolkit to destroy you. If you think about this in a religious context - it could very much seem like the devil or possession - only something so powerful could torture you so perfectly.

I've hesitated in writing about this, and I've tried to imagine what my teenage self would think reading this. With so many high-profile, respectable people having lost to depression, and having our families devastated by it, the effort to see a horizon seems unrealistic. So, it's important to not only discuss my fears of fighting depression, but also that I know there are solutions.

Medications do exist that help. And no - they don't turn you into a different person. You will not lose your uniqueness or bounce of walls in an exuberance of life, or become a zombie. There's different levels of depression, and only someone trained in diagnosing depression can prescribe the best course forward. For me, it was a low-dosage anxiety medication that simply quieted the self-doubt voices and allowed me to speak in front of groups of people at work... something I was never able to do prior. It had sexual side-effects, so I found something else that didn't and it worked extremely well for a lot of years, despite some very difficult times. This experience proved to me, it may take a little work, but medication can balance out your moods and help with the self-destructive characteristics of depression.

The one thing I haven't personally explored is therapy. I do know however, it has helped people I trust and love. The ability to freely express emotions and feelings to someone who doesn't have "a card in the game" can help clear a path to healing.

The art of defeating depression isn't one thing. The effort is to getting your mind to focus on constructive thoughts instead of destructive. You have to accept that depression is a disease, and it needs to be treated as any disease would. Do you think any less of Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain because we found out they struggled with depression? If their deaths have taught us anything, it's that the shame and stigma attached to admitting depression is a passe construct of a bygone era.

Not all depression leads to death. You, above anyone else, knows where your path is going. It's not my path, it's not Bourdain's path, it's not the path of the person you loved and lost while they traveled their path. Sometimes I have to fight to remind myself of my own values. I have no problem in looking at someone else and telling you what I admire about them. Looking inward is much harder, but much more important. I can do this:

• I'm reasonably intelligent despite being kicked out of college
• I know a little bit about a lot of things
• I have an obsessive amount of knowledge about Rozz Williams' career
• I'm on the right side of social equality
• I survive the worst days and sometimes find amazing days
• I have an aesthetic eye
• I've had 47 years of film, music and art to experience, and all of the emotions they've inspired
• I've shared joy with others
• I shared my life with a cat that lived for 21 years.

There's value in our moments on this Earth. If you've ever been to a wake, you know what I mean. Moments we take for granted become moments that mean the world to those left behind. Seeing the value of our lives, or the values in ourselves, isn't something were reminded to do. We often feel the pain of doing something wrong, sometimes the pain of doing something right, but much less are the moments where we are appreciated for doing something right.

Take stock in the values you find in yourself. Also know that your experiences carry as much value as anyone's. I'm writing this in recognition of my own struggles and my own values... and I am no more equipped to do that than you are. Recognize that depression is a disease that there are treatments for, and you deserve to be helped as much as anyone else. If you feel shame in admitting that, recognize that the shame was put upon you by someone or something else and you don't have to accept that. If it's a person doing that to you - remove yourself from that person.

Be well and I will be too...

• Suicide Prevention Lifeline -- 1-800-273-TALK
• Trevor HelpLine / Suicide Prevention for LGBTQ+ Teens -- 1-866-488-7386
• Crisis Text Line -- Text HOME to 741741
• Gay & Lesbian National Hotline -- 1-888-THE-GLNH (1-888-843-4564)
• IMAlive -- online crisis chat
• National Runaway Safeline -- 1-800-RUNAWAY (chat available on website)
• Teenline -- 310-855-4673 or text TEEN to 839863 (teens helping teens)

The Horizon Has Changed (Murderer Number Two)

Suddenly, there's a new a person at this party of killers. Someone add a Suspect Card for COVID-19, and an Item Card for Global Pandemic to my personal round of CLUE. Where will it happen?!

Anyway - the world is falling apart at the same time I am coming to terms with my life style choices, and my mortality. As stated, my horizon has changed. Both figuratively and literally. I've never been one that pondered old age, but I certainly never thought about being dead in my 50's either. A figurative shift in perspective has definitely taken place over the past year. Quite literally, when I look down at my feet, everything passed the stomach has disappeared. My perspective has shifted from nearly 6 feet, to about 2.5 feet to my stomach. It's depressing, demoralizing, and has contributed to the sinking of my self-worth.

In my life, I've always had very established plateaus regarding weight. For as long as I can remember, I always had what was referred to by most people as "baby fat". I just never could get a flat stomach even when I was in excellent shape. My work career, up until my current job, was generally, physical in nature. I remained for the most part, thin with a some stomach until my mid-20's. Then, I had perhaps my most physically-demanding job, and suddenly I had shoulders, and muscle tone, and jumped from 140 to ~180. I think most of that was muscle mass, because my stomach remained roundish but wasn't any larger. Then - I lost that job, and it took me some months to find another. In that time, my weight shifted from a healthy 180 to an unpleasant 180. It's in this period that the first suggestions that my sleep was abnormal were being uttered. I was 29. I don't know how long before this point I may have had abnormal sleep, this was simply the first time I was being included in the knowledge of it.

Additional Information: I just checked with my mum, and she told me that she doesn't remember me snoring ever. So... chicken (sleep apnea) likely came after egg (weight gain). So, in idiot's logic, if I lose all the eggs, so goes the chicken?!

So, in my 30s I established a new plateau, it was 229-238. Officially moving into the medically obese territory. I'm at the job that I am still with today (for now), and I had a lot of safeties in my life that resulted in a lot of complacency. Refusing to look at myself and instead I really refined my art of worrying about everyone else. If I treat everyone great, then they have to accept me in whatever condition I present myself. That's what I believed, it's a behavior I struggle with still. In my mid-30s,
I move to Orlando. The pace of my job went from completely manageable, to absolute madness. Everything around me became a source of stress: my job, my finances, my marriage, myself - I started drinking much more than I ever had before. What felt like 30 pounds of stress, had turned into 30 pounds of weight by the time I left Orlando. I'd also established a diagnosis of High-Blood Pressure, an Anxiety Disorder, and had Kidney Stones (twice). I was "off-the-rails" at this point... my body was in bad shape, my head was in worse shape, and I had developed an unreal-level of selfishness that was fed by years of worthlessness, betrayal, denial, and every bit of toxicity I could cling to.

Into lovely New Orleans... overweight (260), undiagnosed medical conditions on top of the known ones, depression, anxiety, utter fear - "I should start smoking!" My reasoning is at premium levels of stupid now. Our home is surrounded by cemeteries, but I don't see the irony of it. I again have other people to put all of my energy and focus on. There's so many new hurdles: new faces at work, new faces at home, wow, the school's are terrible and there seems to be a lot of crime, and wow - look at all these celebrations, and cemeteries. So many distractions... shuffle the cards, palm the one that has me on it. It's somewhere in this time frame that I lost my connection with memories of how it felt to be healthy, and to have clear thoughts.

Soon comes a series of cascading events... when I think about them now, it's hard to remember the good in-between. There has definitely been some magic... my marriage to Hannah, and the events surrounding it may be the best memories I will ever have; our adventures together; Ethan growing up and all of his successes and interests. All of that has kept me from complete darkness. For the past four-and-a-half years, I've been fighting a war against my body and my mind.

A broken ankle and knee during a business trip resulted in one of my most nightmarish and humiliating events and left me being stuck downstairs for over a month, and out of the office. My knee had given out hundreds of times, but I never managed to break an ankle and my kneecap. It was my weight that shattered my bones. Like I said, humiliating. Physical therapy was beneficial, followed by surgery, and more physical therapy. Motivated, oh so briefly to do better - and failed myself.

Having done absolute zero to correct my horrible diet, my weight reached it's next plateau, (~285), which navigated down and up until my gallbladder tried to kill me. I thought the kidney stones were excruciating, my experience with a gallbladder going haywire was days and days of misery that turned into weeks until I was admitted to the hospital and finally had it removed.

It's been post surgery that it feels like the terrible choices I make, result in terrible, cannot ignore, types of consequences. And here I am, just shy of 300 pounds. Every day, I am checking the scale - "is today the day?" So far, not yet. But I'm hovering right at that point. My body gave me signals one morning while standing in line at a Lowes - and it scared me. A bizarre shooting pain across my chest, and I was convinced that was the moment. Contemplating whether or not to alert this poor clerk in the garden center, and flashes of my wife and my son finding out...the ambulance ride, and memories of the humiliating moment when I broke my ankle. I went to the car and the sensation came 2 or 3 more times. I got home, maybe going in shock, and frantically searched YouTube and Google for the symptoms of a heart attack. I didn't have one, at least as far as I know. It was enough to convince me to put the cigarettes to bed. It took a couple of months, but I did finally quit in October 2019. Nearly five months ago as of this writing. Success at that convinced me I can take care of myself.

This past weekend, I made it through Saturday and Sunday without soda. In some regards - that's a miracle. I wanted to see what would happen. The scale seemed favorable to the idea. I'm also playing with a low-carb diet. I know you have to go all in until ketosis, so I am failing at that. But, I am eating much less fast food, fewer carbs, soda only til 12, and making a low-carb dinner for myself. My plan, as ill-conceived as it is, is to continue on this path until habits form, upon which I can build more discipline.

I want to lose 100 pounds. Can I do this? Is surgery my best or only option? Reality is, like the sleep apnea - my poor diet is going to kill me. Diabetes, stroke, heart attack - any number of ways. I want to be clear, I am not equating weight with health. I have acquired my weight through making unhealthy dietary choices, but even if I hadn't - it's my diet, the smoking, the low self-esteem, and complacency that are at the core of my poor health. If I didn't have high blood pressure, or sleep apnea, or paper maché knees, or a lack of energy - I wouldn't be talking about my weight. As I've added weight, and maintained an unhealthy diet, I've added a detrimental effect. I can exercise (yes I should), and maybe if I fell, I wouldn't break a bone... or I can lose the weight that will break the bone. For me, it's a path of least resistance. Maybe on the other end, is more energy and fewer things that will kill me?

My rationale is that every pound after 180 came with an added ill-effect. I know it's nonsense to think that going in reverse will make those ailments fall away. Again - it's not the weight, it's the diet. So - I am going to do everything I can to change my diet and hopefully lose a lot of weight.

I hope that anyone reading this doesn't take offense to my words. My experience is my own, and I don't assume that what is true for me is true for everyone. I don't believe weight and quality of health are connected. I also don't believe that what I consider to be unhealthy choices, are true for everyone.

With that said - on to the next...

How it is I'm Dying - in Much Too Many Words

Four-and-a-half years later. Here I am, what's left of me. 2015, that year that uplifted me and brought the greatest gifts, and then betrayed and broke me. These years since have set me on a path of illness, depression, and physical dependence, while also unraveling mysteries that have chased me since childhood. The milestone list is so long, that I don't know yet how to jump back in to consistent writing while expanding on all of the events, learning, and tragedies that fill the narrative. I don't even think I can remember everything, and I am only documenting this now because I am afraid it's going to be lost. My reality is, in this moment, I am very close to death... teasing with it nightly. Why it's come this far is solely by my own creation and negligence of self-worth. I'll explain all of that - and I will attempt to do so as quickly as I am able. I'm past the embarrassment of what I've become, and it's important to me to leave a record of how I got here so even in my absence, MY words fill the gaps. I'm not pretending to understand everything, I may not even have time to figure it all out, but I do have the experiences to share, so I shall.

Probably the best place to start is with the grim reaper that waits for me nightly. I don't believe it to be alone, it has several friends that I gladly invited to the party that is my life, but it's the one that, if left unchecked, WILL definitely kill me. Someone I work with, a little older than I am, told me a personal story that unlocked for me the answer to a mystery that I wasn't even aware I had written. Suddenly, I had clues/puzzle pieces fitting together in a flash of thought:

• Depression/Lack of Clear Thought
• Years of Complaints About How Loud I Snored
• Anecdotal Stories About How I Stop Breathing When I Sleep
• A Sense Of Levitating When I Sleep
• High Blood Pressure
• Difficulty Rationalizing
• Frightening Level of Anger at Tremendously Stupid Things
• A Level of Fatigue that has Reached a Point of being Unable to Stay Awake at Work.
• Weight Gain Despite No Change in Diet
• My New Fitbit Telling me I Slept for 1.5 Hours, When I Slept for 7 or More Hours.
• Paranoia
• Organs Failing
• Unexplained Skin Irritations/Chronic Hives
• Allergies Cropping Up Seemingly Overnight

My peer told a story that involved degenerating health in a whole host of ways brought on by a lack of sleep. A lack of sleep that was the direct result of having sleep apnea. This light bulb of knowledge was quickly followed by the light bulb of reality. If, I do indeed have sleep apnea - I've had it for a very long time, decades, and it's gone unchecked, and untreated. I was fully aware then and now that people die from sleep apnea-related problems regularly. Maybe even if they are being treated. I don't know, because I've yet to schedule a sleep study or get the ball rolling in any fashion despite the danger to myself and what my sudden death would do to my loved ones. Again - this is only one of several things lurking about that wishes me harm. I've carried this knowledge around for about three years now, and it's only been in the last year that my concerns have grown. Learning about what a real lack of sleep does to the body and mind over time is terrifying... and this is a sad reality for untreated sufferers of sleep apnea. You are getting about one-fifth or less of the sleep you think you are getting. It will slowly start to destroy you.

Here is some information from Healthline:

I've experienced everything on the chart except Adult Asthma. If I check that box - is the next one Death? What generally happens to sufferers, is that they stop breathing, they go into cardiac arrests, and they expire. It's pretty insidious in this fashion. The loud snoring usually means that you are sleeping alone; on the couch or in a spare bedroom, or you are simply just alone. No one is around when you stop breathing, or if they are, they are accustomed to it - and no one is aware you've gone into cardiac arrest. Frankly it's terrifying. It alienates you and then kills you - only there isn't a priest that can exorcise this demon. A lot of sufferers die in car accidents because of the sudden onset of the mind forcing you to sleep. It's this exactly that has been most alarming to me - at least once a day - my mind tries to force me to sleep. It's almost like what I've seen from people who suffer from Narcolepsy. It's sudden, it's hardly preventable, and it's fucking embarrassing. If I'm able to get to my feet and move around, I can defer the onset, but that's not always a reality.I am somebody that has a strong work-ethic, I believe in being at work, doing what's expected of you and I expect that of my team. The fact that I am having to deal with this is soul-crushing... and as fucked up as my logic is, it's embarrassment, not death that has motivated me to write about this and seek help.

I have a staff member out on medical leave right now, when he returns, I am going to start on the path to correct this. The friend that unlocked this mystery to me has told me what a world of difference it has been for him in getting treated. When you've gone so long without a full night of sleep (YEARS) - you don't even remember what it feels like to be rested. He's had clarity of thought, he wasn't even aware how lacking it was. He can drive a long distance without fear of nodding off. I don't know what other symptoms he had - but if I could erase the check marks out of half of my boxes, that would give me hope.

I have a lot of things to work on, this one is probably the most serious. It's probably at the root of a lot of the paths I find myself on, but I know with certainty, where this particular path ends if I don't turn around. I've always put the needs of others before my own, especially in health matters, and if I choose to keep that mindset, I am going to die. I may as well admit to killing myself. I obviously can't wait for Universal Healthcare - thank you store-bought Democrats.

It's important to state: I am not diagnosed by a sleep specialist, but I feel with 100% certainty this is what I have. At the very least, I need to know. If you are someone that is experiencing some of the same things that I listed above, please seek to have a sleep study done. Insurance companies in the U.S. tend to be skeptical because the equipment in treating sleep apnea can be costly, so they require a sleep study be done. Get the ball rolling. If you have been told your snoring is ridiculously loud, if you've been told you stop breathing at night, if you think your fitbit has lost it's fucking mind because you know you are getting more sleep than 1.5 hours a night - these are some of the red flags that you might have sleep apnea. I wish I would have had the tools to piece all this together years ago, but I ignored them as one-off situations from someone bitter because I disrupted their sleep.

I am the most procrastinating person you'll ever meet when it comes to self-worth. I am going to do this, you can do this too. I'm going to write about it here, and I'd love to hear that someone out there read this and is going to do the same. Take care and sleep well... I've said that so often to others with no idea how little sleep I was getting myself.