Thankful always

Ive never been a fan of thanksgiving which is odd given the fact that I love football, beer and eating like a teenage girl who just got dumped (thanks JoeShea). I hate turkey, and the only thing I like stuffing is…..well some things are better left unsaid. I guess I just feel that we should be thankful every day. We shouldn’t set aside one day and be any more thankful than the next. However, in the spirit of the day I wanted to take a minute and formally recognize the thing(s) I am most thankful for in my life (besides Budweiser, Orange Crush, bacon, candy, cookies and slush puppies).

In one word, friends, that’s what I am most thankful for. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my family. I am the luckiest son of a bitch on earth having the family that I do, and I recognize that. we have been through a lot together; we have done a lot together; and god willing will make many more memories together. They are my family and I love them, in return the love me. That’s what family does, it is expected even if it is sometimes not deserved.

With friends it is different. These are people who are in your life bc they choose to be, not because they share a last name or deoxyribonucleic acid. And to me that is a big deal if for no other reason than I am admittedly a bit of an acquired taste. Frequently loud and offensive; never shy to share my opinion; confident if not arrogant. I am me. Flawed. Imperfect. Abrasive. These people who are my friends have made a conscious choice to be a part of my life and me a part of theirs. For reasons beyond my ability to understand. Many of these people have literally rescued me from the depths of hell. Stood by in times so dark, so challenging that these empty words could never quantify it; they quite literally saved me from myself (especially during the fall/winter of 1999, Angela, Sully, Wood , Sexton—hell all of 59 Eaton). While loyalty is certainly something I hold paramount above all else, blind loyalty is more destructive than it is supportive. A true friend comes to you and tells you to when you need to sort it out. It doesn’t come from a lack of compassion, sympathy or even true empathy…it comes from a genuine concern for you as a person and a friend.

My friends, my family have no equals. I say that not out of conceit or arrogance but out of pride and gratitude. Some days I hate myself for putting them through hard times that had absolutely nothing to do with them, but maybe that’s the wee bit of irish in me, after all no irish is whole without some self loathing. I try to remind myself frequently how thankful I am or should be for being surrounded by the people that I am, bc if you surround yourself with great people there is NOTHING you cannot overcome. Believe that; I know it to be true. So not just today, but every day, take some time to be thankful bc if not but for the grace of god any one of us could have been born into situations infinitely worse, our worst days are better than the best days for 99% of this world and we all need to do better recognizing that daily not just the 4th Thursday of November.

So from the bottom of my heart thank you

Sent from my iPhone

Tortured soul mate

There’s nothing like another soul that’s been cut up the same. True story, albeit a bit morose. What I mean is we find (odd) comfort in meeting someone who has struggled like we have, or has been through life challenges on the same level as us. I cannot speak for everyone, hell on most days I can barely speak for myself, but I truly believe people are just as happy finding a “tortured soul” mate as they are a “soul mate”. There’s an odd kindred spirit shared bw those who have faced a struggle together; and the harder the struggle the stronger the bond. People share a sort of cosmic kinship when they get to know someone who battles the same demons, has overcome some of the same obstacles, encountered the same heart ache, or meet someone who can actually empathize with our experience/journey and not just sympathize. But why is that? Is it true that misery loves company? Are we the fellowship of the miserable? I think not, and I can speak somewhat authoritatively on this subject. Pardon the arrogance. Having been down what might euphemistically be referred to as the road less travelled, I say this without equivocation….it is understanding “we” seek, not company in our misery. To that end, there may be no better example of this than Holocaust survivors. They do not seek each other out in an effort to feel sorry for themselves or host pity parties. Instead there are holocaust survivor groups all over America (and the world) because as one survivor put it “"Because of our tragic past, we understand each other," (http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-10/news/fl-jjbs-fridman-0111-20120110_1_holocaust-survivor-leon-schagrin-student-awareness-days). Certainly none of us have ever faced a time as dark or as challenging as that. God willing no one ever will again. I use it as an example not to minimalize or trivialize our own experience but rather to demonstrate the fact that there truly is nothing like another soul that’s been cut up the same. When we are able to relate with someone on that level we form an unbreakable bond, one formed through shared experience/suffering that someone who has not had that experience can possibly understand. Ask yourselves why so many people do GORUCK challenges, Tough Mudders etc… Is it just to test you? Or is part of it bc you bond with other people during that shared experience, that those who have not faced that test can relate to? Ask yourself if you would have done it alone. Shared suffering forges bonds; suffering alone suffocates the soul and can break the spirit. Trust me, nothing hurts more than that. There are countless stories of POW’s, who when removed from their fellow POWs and are isolated quickly deteriorate, some to the point of no return. We need understanding. We seek it out with every ounce of our being and when we cannot find it we feel, or at least I feel, like a caged animal, slowly suffocating with each passing breath feeling more labored. Understanding, true understanding, is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And we can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness. There are things or times so dark that others may never truly be able to understand about us, but those people who give a fuck enough to try, they are our sunrise, they are our miracle.

Doubting Thomas

Four benadryl, 3 melatonin, a shot of nyquil and hours later I lay here listening to every heart beat while engaging in a staring contest with the ceiling. There are too many questions, more than there are stones in the Great Wall of China, the bigger problem being is that there is only one answer that plays like a broken record over and over again inside my head....it's you. The most powerful adversary on earth is the doubting Thomas within. It has the ability to cripple me. I question everything. Each decision, every choice is put under more microscopes than Magic Johnson's blood work and it always brings me back to that answer "it's you, you're fault". The DT within makes me feel rudderless, lost in the vast expanse of the ocean, not knowing how it happened or how to right the ship. There are times its voice drowns out everything else. It relentlessly mocks me. Who do you think you are? You're not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, intelligent enough. Why are you surprised? I have no answers, which only makes it worse. I try to combat it with empirical evidence to the contrary, diplomas, degrees, achievements, friendships, but to no avail. It's 3AM, I pick up the phone and it's LED screen shines in the darkness like the lighthouse at Alexandria, hurting my eyes and only waking me up more. Besides who was I gonna call at this hour? No one wants to hear from me. Wait was that the Doubting Thomas talking or was it me? Confusion sets in, the questions continue like a relentless siege on my sanity and self worth. We all have self doubt, no matter how confident we may outwardly appear. Any one that tells you differently is either lying or has never cared enough about anything or anyone. The doubting Thomas within us is like the force in Star Wars; it can be used for good or evil. It can either push us harder or cripple us. We can use it as motivation or as an excuse to give up. It is a million times easier to do the latter of the two, but that is a disservice to ourselves and those around us. I am reminded of what Marianne Williamson once said: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? That’s the real question we must be asking ourselves. Rather than dwell on self doubt, perceived failures and short comings (or even the very real ones of which admittedly I have many) we must embrace who we are, what is we do well, what we bring to the table as friends, brothers, sons/daughters, wives and husbands. You get the point. Playing small does not serve the world around you. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. There is a fine line bw that and arrogance however, and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. In fact to a large degree we not only give them permission but we inspire them to do so. And as we are liberated from our own fear, we automatically liberate others as well. There is probably no greater gift you can give someone than that liberation. There is no more powerful adversary I face than me , and as I struggle to liberate myself from the doubting Thomas within, or at least redirect the self doubt into motivation, I hope that others around me are doing the same bc I am surrounded by some of the best and most uniquely talented people in this world. It would be a shame for anything to stop those lights from shining.

A beautiful disaster

Never thought I would post this, but want a friend, or friends, to know they aren't alone.... There are certain things we hide from the world, even from ourselves, because often labels are hard to understand, and even harder to shake once it is “put” on you. To those who know me best, it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to find out that I am bi-polar. I suppose my motivation for putting this ‘out there’ is b/c I want people to know that if they struggle like I did/do that they are not alone, someone, somewhere is always willing to listen. Secondly, it is my sincerest hope that , at least in the eyes of those who come across this (so like one person), that the stigma associated with the bi polar (or any other) label will change. It is an undesirable label to say the least, and certainly one of things most people try to hide from the world. But hiding from that label only makes it worse. It took me a VERY long time to admit that to the man in the mirror , even longer to the others around me. I went through shrinks faster than a cheeseburger goes through a dedicated paleo dieter. Each time I told myself it was them who had been wrong, who was Martin Kafka, a PhD, MD from Harvard known the world over, to tell me anything? Surely I could beat this guy at trivial pursuit, so that most mean I know better. How easy it is to convince yourself of something you want/need to believe. I could only hide for so long. In my writing, in my addiction to exercise, in my addictions in general (cookies, beer, sports, reading). I am an extreme extremist, and only when I could face my problem could I begin to understand it. You see , for me, understanding it meant getting better bc there is no magical pill, or therapy to cure bi polar disorder. Trust me I know, bc after finally acknowledging the problem, I tried everything over the course of several years to fix it….and none worked. In a way it’s a lot like CrossFit, there are varied degrees of suck, mixed in with feelings of invincibility. That’s the real problem with the illness, is that at times it can make you feel better than I could ever possibly convey to you with these hollow words. A different psychologist once asked me to explain it to her, as if she hadn’t heard it before. I hesitated, b/c I didn’t want to describe it to her b/c I felt like in so doing I would be accepting that label. A few weeks went by and finally I caved. Bi polar is a tricky thing I told her, b/c of how good it can make you feel sometimes.The best way I could describe it is that if we measured life on an emotional scale of 0-10, then "normal" people only feel the emotion range 3-7, whereas people with bi polar feel the emotional range 0-10. Mainly it is only lived in the 0-3 or the 8-10 range. The dizzying highs and terrifying lows are something no one else could possibly identify with. At times that feeling of invincibility, makes you feel like you could take over the world, that you can act without repercussion and make both Superman and Ironman your bitch at the same time; while the lows are so low, well I’ve written about that before. Then inexplicably that feeling is gone, and I am on top of the world again, no rhyme or reason for it at all. The swings are intense, unpredictable, but they are my "cross to bear" if you will. I would rather live with them, then feel like some doped up zombie who is emotionally empty, who is never up or down. After so many counseling sessions, I got sick of dealing with people who thought they understood simply b/c of the alphabet soup after their name (PhD, MD, LMHC etc etc).They didn't know how I felt, they only thought they knew. Their trite advice was of little to no help, and I felt all they wanted to do was diagnose, prescribe and move on to the next patient. So I stopped going altogether. In many ways I felt like, or continue to feel like, John Nash from A Beautiful Mind. I am not schizophrenic, or brilliant by any means, but I am reminded by the line in which the doctor tells Nash he can not reason his way out of it, and he says "why? Why can't I". That is how I try to deal with it. When I am low, I try to remind myself that I am "just being bi polar" and I go for a run, hit the gym, do some double unders (ok that never happens) but I do what I can to try and feel better. Exercise certainly helps alot, oddly enough I found fish oil to be extremely beneficial as well. I had never even tried fish oil until a friend bought me a bottle bc I tend to overdo it at the gym and she said it would help with joint pain, and overall health. After taking it for about 6 weeks I definitely noticed a difference in my shoulder and elbow feeling better, but also couldn’t help but notice that the man in the mirror was smiling back at me more than he had in quite awhile. My mood was more level that it normally was. However, nothing helps as much as having the single most valuable commodity on earth—great family and friends (to me they are the same. I’m fortunate my family are my friends and my friends are also my family). To that end it's more important to let friends who also struggle know that they are not alone, than it is to "protect" myself. I have heard numerous times someone say they feel like taking drugs is a sign of weakness and they don't want to be dependent on a bottle. Not only it is not a sign of weakness, it is quite the opposite. What would be weak would be choosing to continue to suffer rather than address it; what would be weak would be to worry about others perceptions of you; what is weak is writing something like this and not putting it out there sooner to offer support and as a friend and I am sorry for having let you down. What takes courage is staring down your demons and saying they will not win anymore. Moreover, if anyone ever said it was a sign of weakness I would be the first one to walk with you, side by side, heads held high, and come to your defense. Here I am. A beautiful disaster. At different times I am each in my eyes. But I am luckiest son of a bitch on earth that those close me choose to only see the first half. A debt which I cannot possibly repay. They know who they are, and I am eternally grateful for their rose colored lenses, b/c without them I would most certainly only be a disaster. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.