We’re All Fucked Up

Why am I writing this post? Because my life was fucked up for a while and no one could help me. No one knew how to help me, no even me.

At least that’s how it seemed at the time.

Now, today, life is great. Its a great time to be alive and I really believe every day has so many opportunities.

Before, I was depressed, I was down, in a rut, not thinking straight, was having brain fog (whatever that means anyway (…read on to learn more)), etc etc etc. And what’s the worst part? Or maybe the best part? It was all in MY head. Its all in YOUR head. No one else’s. Its literally impossible for anyone else to know what’s going on in your head if you’re going through something like what I described above.

Other people only see your body and hear your words. MAYBE they’ll pick up on your tone of voice, or personality changes over time…but in my experience, its not likely. Not even many trained therapists will be so acutely attentive to pick up on the subtle changes in your person that get expressed as part of some kind of mental tailspin.

You think I’m the only person with a story like this? You’re wrong. But, what I DID do was pull MYSELF out of this by the fucking roots. And THAT is something not everyone can say…

The Story

So what happened to me? I’ll detail it more in a future post (or posts)…here’s the short version. And a note on this story. Its in chronological order. NOT in the-order-I-realized-these-were-issues order. We all have our past defined as-is, and we can’t change it. But in analyzing our past, we can gain new insights into ourselvse and our behavior…and THAT is how we grow. So, only after years of self analysis, meditation, and reflection, did I realize that these experiences all lead up to my rock bottom.

• I’m the youngest child of three, and my oldest sister has autistm and ADHD. Growing up (and throughout her life even today) she often seeks attention. As toddlers, my middle sister realized this and developed a dominant I-want-attention-and-love-too attitude and personality. Then I came along, realized the chaos of the community to which I was born, and developed a I’ll-be-quiet-and-go-with-the-flow type attitude and personality.
• When I was 8, my family moved from LA to San Diego. All my friends were left behind. In trying to fit in in my new school, well, I didn’t. And I only had one real friend. Sitting at lunch one day with a group of guys, someone asked, “Who likes Andre?”…and my friend is the only one that said “Me.”
• Somewhere in all this time, my middle sister thought it would be a good idea to take after my father and be better at everyone at things and just generally be better than other people. Or maybe she was just jealous of me since I was the baby and my mom’s favorite (its a running “joke’ in the family). So she starts to put me down, call me stupid, and continues to do so even when my mom tells her she’s “lowering my self esteem”. I went along with it because I didn’t even know what self esteem meant.
• In middle school and some of high school, I worked in the lunch lines because my mom encouraged the “free lunch”. Needless to say, I didn’t have many close friends. Though I knew people from different cliques all over campus. Though often I ate alone. Even the band I was in, the four other guys were already their own group of friends. I was just the drummer and didn’t get invited to most other outings they planned with each other.
• Graduating high school…I didn’t know what I wanted to do. In choosing between playing drums and studying Computer Science, my mom convinced me to do CS since it would be easier to get a job.

The Girlfriends…

• My first girlfriend in high school broke up with me after two weeks to go blow some other guy…and so the heartbreaks began. Almost two years into community college I met an amazing girl. She was very open, very emotional…and she had had a very traumatic past. I was raised in a box more or less…so dating her opened the doors to emotions and other things I hadn’t really experienced before. We grew very close. There were times I wanted us to meld into one being. There were days I hated parts of her. But I wanted to keep the peace, not rock the boat…and maintain the status quo.
• She broke up with me to sleep with some dude and it WRECKED me. I couldn’t focus in university and the night it happened I lay awake in my dorm, eating raw almonds for comfort (the only food I had) and literally felling paralyzed in bed, my heart physically shattered to a thousand tiny, smashed pieces. Or so it felt. The next couple years were spent partying, drinking, and getting laid. I dated another girl in my last semester with similar events and outcome.
• Then I met “the one”. Well, she wasn’t really “the one”, but I thought she was. As much as I craved her, when we finally dated, I didn’t feel all the things I thought I would feel. I was somehow empty inside. You know the pattern now…it didn’t last. And i was devastated. For A YEAR AND A HALF I literally couldn’t stop thinking about her. My mind was addicted. And down I went…down the mental spiral of I’m not good enough and blah blah blah.

The Shift

• So I decided to leave and become a digital nomad. Just to remind myself how much I was addicted, she and I dated again before I left and I literally sobbed in her arms they morning she drove away for the last time. I haven’t seen her since. Then, I joined WiFi Tribe in Bolivia and everything changed. After three months with them, meeting new types of people, I decided I was never going back to my old way of life…now, I am going to be an entrepreneur.
• So I read the books and start to decide what I’m going to do for business. Then, my dad got brain cancer, I moved back to my parents house for a few months, and in all of THAT chaos, I was trying to figure out how to change my life for the future I wanted. That chaos was the most stressed I had ever been ever in my life ever. And, that aside, one day when thinking about what I’d need to do to be successful in business…it happened. I broke down. I realized I’d have to put myself out there. I’d have to create something, stand for something, ask people for MONEY, be a leader…and I thought…I can’t….I’m defeated. So I stood up from my chair, slumped to the floor, leaned against the wall, and just sat there. Defeated. Down. A heavy, HEAVY lump in chest. I didn’t even cry. That’s how sad this really was.
• Rock. Bottom.

Rock Bottom

• OH, and its not over.
• When I was in college, I had decided to change my keyboard layout from QWERTY to Dvorak. (Look it up). After 4 years of typing like that and not getting nearly as fast as I had been in qwerty, I said fuck it I’m going back to qwerty…but my typing speed and fluidity didn’t come back to even half of what I had been before. (I was damn good as typing.)
• Speeding up the story now…looking back…my brain was fucked. Some how, in some very subtle way, some wires that had used to be crossed has been uncrossed. And the stress from the CHAOS period of my life was stored in my body. And all the emotions I never expressed because I went-with-the-flow were still pushed deep deep deep down and stored in there somewhere. Then add to that that somehow all this “depression” had somehow reduced circulation in my brain, I had some mild form of brain damage. (Or maybe not so mild….its TBD…keep reading to find out how I found out).
• I’ve been single for five years, wasn’t happy even as I was traveling the world as a digital nomad for two years with some of the best people I had ever met, I felt alone, not-valuable, and….well…after a while, I just didn’t feel. My emotions were gone. Apathetic, I trudged through life because I just knew I had to. I didnt’ feel anything. I didnt’ want anything. I wanted to want. How wacky is that.
• So I quit my perfect remote job. I stopped traveling. I moved to a country where I didn’t know anyone with two guys I barely knew….to start anew. To figure out what the hell was going on with me.
• That was just over a year ago. And today….oh ho ho, today…life is VERY different. And I’d love to share it with you. And I’d love to share with you what has changed, and HOW I changed it. What I realized, what I learned, how I learned it. what I healed and how I healed it. There’s no way it’ll all fit in one blog post. Maybe it’ll fit in a book…maybe.
• We’re all fucked up. We just don’t know it.

The Good

• But you want to know the best part? In all this time…I had changed my life for the better. I left the office 9-5 for a 100% remote “9-5” that let me travel the world. I met amazing people who I WANTED to spend time with and learned about entrepreneurship and business. I spent weekends in Venice, Italy and the mountains of Costa Rica. I then left the 9-5 job, started contracting and now make more than I did before while working less, AND have started a profitable business on the side. I have new friends that I would consider close friends and we have very deep and meaningful conversations I wouldn’t trade for the world. None of these things existed for me a year ago…

That’s not even all of it. No doubt there are parts I missed, skipped, or just didnt’ come to mind as I typed this. Oh well…I guess you’ll just have to come back for the rest of it.

I haven’t even gotten into HOW I pulled myself out of the slump, what’s changed, and all the other positive “happily ever after” details. Its been amazing.
Life changing. Its been nothing less than life changing. And I’m still going.

To be continued…