Today it’s raining.

And I am observing the rain.

It began lightly. A drop here. A drop there. A gust of West Texas wind that picked up the red dust in the parking lot, and threw it into the air.

My neighbors came in and out, one moving slowly, seemingly unaware of the occasional drops of rain on the sidewalk; the other, much more quickly, more eager to get inside before the downpour.

I went inside to grab my phone and boom — a thunderous roar. And then, the loud, steady beat of heavy rainfall.

In an instant, the whole parking lot is wet. Raindrops the size of my thumbnail come splashing down all at once, like a million paratroopers all landing in unison on foreign land.

The rain is loud, and the thunder is louder.

The sky is dark, and gray, and I can still feel the West Texas dust in the air.

My neighbor gets out of her car. She’s fifty feet from her apartment door. She’ll be soaked before she gets there.

The wind blows the rain sideways. It lands on my porch, barely an inch from my feet. It’s 96 degrees outside, and raining like it’s hurricane season, and we’re down on the Gulf.

The parking lot is nearly flooded. The rain is so loud it’s drowning out my thoughts. Thunder is hitting back to back.

I can still feel the West Texas dust in the air.

One year ago today, I was being admitted into the mental hospital for a nervous breakdown.

Well, officially, it was for suicidal ideation.

But unofficially, I had had a full-on breakdown. I’d been carrying a load far too long, and my nervous system refused to carry it anymore. I was going to have to put it down — or it was going to kill me.

Only, I didn’t know how to put it down. I’ve spent the last year, trying.

Fighting.

Learning.

Praying.

Crying.

Processing.

Journaling.

Confronting.

Tolerating.

Not-judging.

Grieving.

Forgiving.

Accepting.

Learning some more.

And, ultimately… observing.

One year ago today, I was hurting.

Avoiding.

Running.

Blaming.

Accusing.

Demanding.

Analyzing.

Expecting.

Refusing.

Rejecting.

Today, I’m observing.

Noticing what’s there.

What’s real.

What’s true.

And what feels true… but is in fact, a fantasy.

Today it’s raining.

The rain feels good. It doesn’t feel like it’s 96 degrees outside. It feels like I could step into the rain, and feel some relief.

I wish I could walk in it, and it could wash away the stink of the last year of suicidality, and restore me to somebody who always wants to live.

I wish mental illness could be washed away.

Wouldn’t it be something, if we could be baptized by one random, sudden rainstorm? And our minds and our hearts made clean, and life a simple, beautiful, easy, enjoyable thing?

I don’t know how to get rid of the stink of mental illness. How to be free of suicidal ideation. It’s lived inside me so long, I don’t think I ever will be free, completely.

Some days are better, after a full year of consistent treatment.

Some days, it still feels like I should’ve seen my attempt all the way through.

This life — this world — it’s not easy.

When I think about all the things that have happened to me… about all the things I have done to other people… about all the obstacles and challenges before me…

It’s easy to think that suicide would make it all go away.

I can’t think about the things I haven’t worked through yet.

I can’t plan for my future, without convincing myself that my future is going to be taken away from me, just like everything else.

I can’t make a five-year plan without my mind descending into utter chaos. I can’t picture me, living the life I’ve always dreamed of — and I can’t wrap my head around the idea that the life I’m living, is worth a damn.

But I don’t want to die.

I’m not ready to stop trying.

I just don’t know how to believe in tomorrow, when I feel like there are so many challenges in front of me, today.

But today, it’s raining.

And I am observing the rain.

She hurt me so deeply, I don’t know how to recover.

And still, I can’t stop wanting her.

Even though she told me to leave her alone… I can’t go on without her.

I can’t believe this is what God wants for me — for us.

It’s just not fair…

I know I’m supposed to move on. That’s what everybody’s been telling me since the day I called the Crisis Line. But I don’t want to.

It’s been almost a year since our fight made me try to commit suicide, and still I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t even wanna believe it really happened.

I still want Sara Noelle Jones to love me.

I want her to lie awake at night and wonder what I’m doing.

I want her to cry herself to sleep, wishing I was there to wipe away her tears, knowing that I would be, if she would ask.

I want her to call me and beg me to come back to her.

I wanna build my whole life around her — around us, deeply, madly, forever in love, facing the world together, lifting each other to such wonderful heights.

I want her to tell me I’m the only man she wants to grow old with; the only one she’ll tell her secrets to.

Maybe I’m stupid. (I probably am.)

Maybe I’m longing for something that doesn’t even exist.

Maybe she’s relieved that I’m finally leaving her alone.

But every day, I hope she’ll message me and ask me how I’m doing. I pray that she’ll tell me she pulled away because she got scared, and that she wants me to keep pursuing her.

I know; if she wanted to, she would have.

I just don’t understand why she doesn’t want to. What did I do, that was so wrong, she’s not talking to me at all?

How do I go on, when so much of what matters to me is gone? How do I live without Sara Jones in my life? How do I get through one day without her?

I wish I could go back, and stop myself from picking that fight. I wish I would’ve just told her I was hurting, and I needed someone to listen, and I didn’t know how to ask her for help, but help was all I really wanted… and I blew it, big time.

I made her push me away.

It’s my fault she won’t talk to me. I ruined everything. I love her so much, and now, I have to learn how to live without her.

It might be for the better, though. She is the reason I tried to kill myself, after all.

The weird part is I knew it was coming. Like, I could feel my mind deciding I had nothing left to live for. I knew I was on a course toward suicide, and I didn’t care.

I honestly felt relieved.

I felt like, finally, my pain was going to end. I would be gone, and nothing would be able to reach me anymore. No one would be able to hurt me, ever again.

I knew if I started in that direction, I wouldn’t stop. I knew if I went through with it, I would be dead.

And I didn’t care at all.

That feels so heavy now, seeing it in print in front of me. I’m stunned to think I was willing to end my life. But I still have the scars on my right arm to prove it.

I don’t know if I should keep going with this letter, or not.

I don’t wanna glamorize suicide. I don’t wanna upset my friends or my family. I don’t wanna give anybody the wrong impression — but I don’t see any way to talk about this openly, and honestly, and not frighten somebody. And above all, I want to be honest.

I still feel like I wish I had died in my shower — not because I wanna die now, but because I don’t wanna feel like this.

I’m frustrated that one of my friends texted me at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning to see how I’m doing… and that I allowed that text to pull me out of my suicide attempt, and call 911.

I’m… confused about why I didn’t die. Why I didn’t see it all the way through. Why I didn’t see my friend’s text and think, “Sorry, buddy, you’re too late.”

Suicide is a sin, ya know? It’s a sign of weakness. A moral failure. “The easy way out.” The act of a coward.

It’s easy to say all that when it’s not someone you know. And maybe it’s all true. Maybe I am a weak, sinful coward of a man.

Maybe I should be ashamed of the fact I actually tried to commit suicide in my own apartment, simply because I had a fight with the woman I wish was the woman of my dreams, but who now is probably never going to talk to me again — and it’s my own fault for being reckless and immature, and trying to start a fight with her just so I could get a reaction… but this was definitely not the reaction I was hoping for.

I honestly thought she would choose me.

I thought she would see how much I mean to her, and how much she needs me in her life, and how much she wants me to love her better than she’s ever been loved before…

And I ruined it all. And there’s not any way to bring our relationship back to life now. It’s over and done. And I don’t want to go on without her.

I feel dead inside, already.

I don’t believe anyone is ever going to want to be with me.

I don’t believe the VA is ever going to get me the help I really need.

I don’t believe I’ll ever have the future I dream of, one where I’m happy and successful, and I’ve found my purpose and I’m living a life of meaning, and love, and deep fulfillment and satisfaction…

I don’t even know how to live that kind of life.

I don’t have the right skills… the confidence… the trust… the charisma… the determination…

I’m already convinced that I’m destined to lose; that I fail in every relationship; that I ruin everything I touch. I know; I know: those are just “obtrusive thoughts,” and if I practice, I can make them go away — or at least, make them hold less power over me.

But you guys.

I’ve been trying to change those thoughts for thirty years. I don’t know how, and sometimes, I don’t believe I ever will.

I know in my soul that I’m going to have more rainy days ahead… and that it’s partly my own fault, because I don’t know any better…

But also, if I really wanna change, I’m gonna have to come face to face with a lot of the thoughts and feelings that drove me to suicide… and I’m gonna have to pick them apart, and learn to react differently when those heavy thoughts and feelings threaten to pull me under again.

I don’t want to face any more of my darkness. It hurts, in ways you cannot understand unless you’ve tasted darkness yourself.

I don’t want to live a life that’s destined to fail. I don’t want to believe that’s my destiny. But forty-nine years of personal history prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s my past. And I don’t know how to change my past behavior.

I only know one way to look at the world, and everywhere I look, all I see is pain, and loss, and emptiness.

I believe in God.

I know for a fact He saved me from this prison before.

And I don’t doubt His ability to perform miracles! I’ve seen too many of them in my own life.

But what if… just what if…

What if I’m not able to grow beyond this failure mindset? I mean what if I’ve just had it for so long, that it’s too late now to ever try and do anything differently from the only way I’ve ever known? What if I can’t hold any more of God’s miracles in my heart?

What if I’m too tired, and too old, and too overwhelmed, for God to be able to bless me any further, because I’m just worn out and I don’t have the capacity to receive any more?

Maybe that’s a foolish position to take… but honestly, that’s where I am today.

I’m tired. And I feel old, and overwhelmed. And I don’t wanna keep hurting.

And if I have to go through life without Sara Jones… it’s going to hurt.

Even if it’s good for me.

Even if it’s the right choice.

Even if it’s setting the stage for something better, down the road.

Today, it still hurts.

It still makes me think that suicide is a viable option.

Maybe I shouldn’t be reacting this way to a fight with a girl who probably was never going to choose me anyway — but it hurts so much… I never imagined it would hurt me this much… I don’t wanna ever feel like this, ever again.

I know this is heavy.

And I don’t wanna leave you with the feeling that I’m gonna kill myself before we get to speak again. (I’m not going to; I’m just in a lot of pain.)

But I also want you to know that I don’t have any answers when it comes to suicide. I don’t know why I stopped myself, and why other people don’t.

I kind of wish I hadn’t — but here I am, still alive, in spite of my efforts to the contrary.

And, I guess, if I peel it back just a little, I’m not actively suicidal, anymore. I want to be dead; I’m not gonna lie. But I don’t have the urge right now to act on that, and to take my own life into my hands.

I suppose I do want to get better. At least, that’s what I keep telling everybody. And it’s probably true. I mean, if I didn’t wanna get better, I probably wouldn’t still be here.

I feel like I owe you something, for reading this far. Some kind of promise, or message, or moral… I don’t know; just something.

But I don’t have anything for you this week.

I’m so deep in my own darkness, I don’t see the silver lining.

I don’t think it’s really there.

I think I’m going to be very unhappy, for a very, very long time.

I don’t think I’ll ever feel like taking a chance like this, ever again.

But if I really felt that hopeless, and overwhelmed, I think I would’ve gone through with my attempt.

So, maybe, somewhere, I’m still willing to believe that things can get better. Not perfect… just better.

I don’t know how to get there.

But I can’t keep going on the way that I was.

It’s just not worth it.

I think I found a clue.

For a few years now, I’ve been sitting with my feelings every morning, for an hour, allowing myself to express those feelings any way that felt appropriate, or necessary, in order to get my feelings out.

I started doing this sometime in 2023 — probably around the time I started this newsletter.

Though, not intentionally. I mean, the two events happened around the same time… but that doesn’t mean I planned it to happen that way.

Although… sitting with the emotions probably made it possible for me to be as vulnerable as I am in the newsletter… so, maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe I just didn’t know, at the time, what my subconscious was actually doing.

But, either way, that’s not the clue. That’s just an observation…

For as long as I can remember, and for more reasons than I can fit in one letter… I’ve spent the majority of my life avoiding my feelings.

Lying about them.

Ignoring them.

Pretending they don’t exist.

Trying to do anything at all, except “feel what’s there to be felt.”

And I had good reason to. My emotions are powerful… like, even today, at 49, they make me come undone. Every. Single. Day.

I’m not talking like, “I cry at Hallmark commercials.” (Though, I do…)

I’m talking like, cry like a four-year-old in Disneyland who wants to go on one more ride and just got told it’s time to go back to the hotel and take a nap.

Yeah… it’s ugly.

And it hurts like you wouldn’t believe.

I hate it. Most times, when I cry really hard, it feels like I’m physically being ripped apart…

Like something is stuck to my insides, and the crying is tearing it loose, and forcing it out of my abdomen, up through my chest cavity, into my throat, where it’s more likely to get caught for a minute, while I question whether I’m really ready to express the emotion — or if I’d rather swallow it back down, and see if I can leave it for another time.

And it’s been like that, since the first time I sat alone in my apartment, and allowed my emotions to come out and play. It’s not like a one-time thing; it’s not a rare occurrence; it’s every single morning that I’m alive.

It got more intense when I was in the mental hospital, and at first, that really scared me. I thought I’d gone there to get help with my mental health… and I thought that more crying meant I was somehow doing things more wrong.

And I hated myself for that, for a couple of weeks.

I thought I was getting worse, and I started to wonder if maybe I was justified in wanting to end my life… because… why would I want to stick around, just for more of that? If I was only going to descend deeper into the darkness…

Well, thankfully, I didn’t.

I mean, sure, I kept crying. And yeah, for a bit, it got louder… heavier… more intense… more frightening… more all-consuming…

But then one day, it got less, somehow. Like I still cried, hard, but I told the nurses I wanted to be alone and just let it all out, and not be interrupted, and they left me alone, and they let me cry it all out, and it was one of the worst crying episodes I’ve ever had in my life!

And then it was done, and within seconds, I knew it was done. I knew I’d cried out all that I had in me, in that moment… and the pain was gone… and all that was left, was relief.

I slept that night better than I’ve slept in 20 years.

But the next day, I was crying again. Something new had set me off, and I had a whole new box of ugly emotions inside, lining up for their chance to come out… and I hated it… and it hurt… and I cried hard but I didn’t cry all the way to the end… and I didn’t get the same relief.

I still got some relief — because even crying part of it out, still releases the pressure. But what I’ve learned is that until you cry all of it out, that same wound just continues to fester, and more emotion builds up, and has to be released, and if you cry a little bit, it helps a little bit… but if you want the wound to close, and heal… you have to get it all.

But that’s not the clue, either. That’s just something I’m glad I finally figured out.

The thing is: even in the hospital, I hated crying.

In fact, I probably still do.

And that’s a big problem for somebody who spends on average, one hour per day bawling my eyes out, loudly enough to wake Caesar’s ghost all the way in Italy (and I’m in Nowheresville, West Texas…)

But my body feels better once the tears are gone.

So, I kinda made a deal with myself:

I’ll allow the tears to come every morning, but I don’t wanna be personally involved. I’ll put on my headphones, set a timer, open Pandora, and listen to 80s rock ballads while my emotional mind does its thing.

I get distracted by music I grew up with — and my body gets to release decades-old trauma.

I don’t like it, but it works.

Somewhat.

Sort of.

Kind of.

Except:

I’m still avoiding the pain.

I’m just being sneaky about it.

I’m telling myself, “I’m allowing the emotion to move through me, and that’s a good thing!” But I’m putting on my headphones so I can escape the intensity of my emotions… so… it’s like, yeah, things are moving again… but nothing is getting integrated.

And I kinda knew that, but I guess I didn’t think it was hurting me… I just thought, “Emotions out = pain gone.” But some of the pain always remained.

Until one morning, when I randomly decided not to put on my headphones, but to simply sit, in silence, and let myself cry, and let my emotional mind and my logical mind meet, while I “descend into darkness.”

And I gotta tell you: it was weird………………………………………………………………………

All of a sudden, I was allowing myself to experience myself, feeling heavy emotions; emotions that I’ve made a habit of avoiding since probably seventh grade.

I wasn’t “confronting” the emotions.

I wasn’t “embracing” them.

I wasn’t trying to fix them, or even comprehend them.

I wasn’t trying to make everything come out so I could put it down and never pick it back up again.

I was just… sitting. In silence. Aware of my emotional pain. Allowing my emotional pain. Perhaps “living alongside” my emotional pain? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that it hit different than all the times before, when my attitude was basically, “Okay, I’ll let you do this, but make it fast, and please don’t involve me in the process.”

Because now it’s like, “Oh, it’s you. I remember feeling you once before. Is there anything you’d like to tell me, or do you just want me to sit with you for a while, until you’re ready for us to go our separate ways?”

I’m not trying to avoid my feelings.

I’m not trying to control them.

I’m not trying to escape them.

In fact, I’m not trying to do anything but just… sit… and wait… and notice what comes up.

And it still hurts.

But somehow, when I’m not fighting my own feelings, suddenly they’re not as intimidating as before.

They’re heavy, but they’re not overpowering.

They’re deep, but I’m not drowning.

They’re difficult — but no part of me is “wrong” anymore, for having them.

And to be frank, I’d still prefer not to have such heavy, deep, difficult emotions.

But they’re already there. They’re already inside me.

And from where I’m standing, I can only see two options: keep them bottled up, until the day I die; or sit down and have a powwow, and learn how to make peace with my own inner self.

Someday, I’m gonna die, regardless. And I suspect, when we die, our “ugly” emotions don’t go with us…but still… why carry it all around with me, everywhere I go, between now and the day I die?

When now, I know I can sit down, and let them come up, and we can start to make friends? It feels more painful, in the moment. But now, when my heavy emotions come up, and I allow them, and acknowledge that they’re trying to show me something…

Suddenly, the pain gets less. Sometimes, a little. And sometimes, a lot.

And from what I’ve experienced, that’s true whether I actively participate in the process, or throw on my headphones, and distract myself while I cry it all out.

But it sure seems like the whole process runs smoother when I willingly participate, and allow myself to feel what I’m feeling.

So, like I said, I think I’ve found a clue.

It may not explain or justify any part of why I cry…

But it may help me understand, better, how to cry…

And as long as I’m already crying… anything that makes it easier or more accessible for me… is worthy of further investigation.

About ten years ago, I read Rich on Any Income.

I spent the next nine years thinking there was a secret way to outsmart what the book taught.

I spent the tenth year following the book’s advice.

Now I’m financially secure.

(Since becoming secure, I’ve also read these few books, and I think they can also be helpful.)

The Total Money Makeover (even though I’m not a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, this book can help if you’re in serious debt)

The Psychology of Money (I just started reading this one but it explains things in really simple terms and makes “understanding money” feel accessible)

You Need a Budget (they also have an app by the same name, which I use and absolutely love)

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing (this is a great place to begin — and possibly, to maintain — your investing journey, if and when)

That’s all I’ve got.

Five books on money that taught me everything I’ll ever need to know to go from living paycheck to paycheck, to having a six-month emergency fund, a rotating travel fund, and a total net worth almost equal to one year’s income…

And the desire (not discipline) to spend less money than I earn, and watch my savings grow each month, until I legitimately have more cash on hand than there are things I want to spend my cash on.

I don’t think financial security needs to be the central focus of my life — but I sure feel more optimistic about my plans, dreams, and goals for the future, when I know I’m at a stage where I’m not worried about money problems anymore.

Now I can spend my time on things I want to spend it on.

Like girls.

And ice cream.

And pretending to write a serious newsletter each week but really just sharing whatever catches my fancy. 😁

I wonder if I could set aside enough money each month to buy ice cream for all the girls I like…

That sounds like a worthwhile pursuit, if there ever was one.

“I need to be vulnerable, and I think I’m okay but I don’t know what’s going to happen, or if it’s going to make any sense.”

That was how I started my morning check-in at outpatient therapy.

My voice cracked as I said it, and I could feel myself glancing this way and that… which is probably why like four women all passed me the Kleenex all at the same time…

I’d been thinking about this for two days, and I knew I had to speak up, but I was really terrified I would upset her, and she’d be disappointed in me for not choosing the “growth” answer.

But I just had to say something!

I couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore…

So I took a slow, deep breath, made eye contact with my therapist, and said,

“Two days ago at the end of group, you suggested to me that ‘intentional’ might be a good choice for my word of the month; that I might benefit from being more intentional with the words I use with other people.”

Her eyes lit up, and I think she was expecting me to say I’ve chosen that word and thank you for her advice — but that is not what came out of my mouth next.

“I want to choose that word,” I said, “because I think if I do, it’ll make you happy… and I respect you and I want to make you happy.”

“But I’m not ready to be intentional yet, and if I did choose that word, I would be going against my own integrity…”

At this point, I started crying, and I broke eye contact with her and went back to scanning the room for the nearest exit.

I felt like I was floating in my chair, somehow — like there was no longer any floor beneath my feet — and I felt like I wanted to throw up. And the tears were rolling…

And I started to feel very childish, and not in a good way.

I felt afraid.

I felt weak, and exposed, and like any one of the members in IOP that morning could’ve easily reached out and eviscerated me, and it would’ve been more agreeable than continuing on with my monologue.

But I knew what I was truly afraid of, and I had to get it out.

I couldn’t keep pacifying every person who might have the capacity to judge me… to reject me… to abandon me because I didn’t agree with their opinion of how I should behave…

Even now, as I write those words, my stomach is churning.

I feel ashamed of how weak and malleable I am.

I should be able to stand my ground and to tell somebody, “I disagree.”

It shouldn’t matter if they’re my therapist, or my brother, or a friend on the Internet, or someone I’ve known for 30 years but just always agreed with because it’s safer to keep the peace.

I should be able to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

It shouldn’t be this difficult.

I had lost sleep over my therapist recommending the word “intentional,” and me leaving therapy that same day and realizing that wasn’t the right word for me, at this time.

And I understand why she made that recommendation! As I’ve become more comfortable in group, I’ve leaned more into my “weird” side, making occasional, random comments that are only intended to make everyone laugh or to get a reaction.

I’m not saying anything inappropriate, or harmful; I just get a kick out of saying things that are completely off the wall and have the potential to momentarily derail the conversation, and defuse the tension.

And something I’m just recently becoming aware of: nine times out of ten I just say stupid stuff that has no bearing on anything. And maybe, the group would be better served without my running commentary, when it is just me saying stupid things.

But the tenth time — somehow, when I’m in that mindset where I just don’t care what comes out of my mouth… one time out of ten, what comes out is actually very revealing… I actually end up inadvertently spilling my own secrets, sharing my weaknesses and insecurities, exposing my vulnerabilities…

And when they come out freely, and naturally, all of a sudden I have to take them seriously and understand what is driving the fear that makes me want to keep it all to myself.

And somewhere in that investigation, I tend to have my biggest breakthroughs.

And I don’t want to give up all the stupid stuff I say, if doing so means I also miss out on the occasional really important stuff that I’m never expecting, but always ready to examine once it’s out in the open.

So I’m not ready to be intentional, until I know that if I am, I’ll still have some way of letting the cat out of the bag on a somewhat regular basis.

Which, I kinda wanted to tell my therapist all that… but in the moment, I felt like the biggest issue wasn’t, “I don’t want to make this change and lose this secret ability I have to accidentally incriminate myself.”

The real issue was, “I don’t want to keep feeling like I can’t disagree with people I respect, or they’ll reject me, and abandon me, and I’ll lose the connection.”

Which, ironically, I don’t want that secret to ever come out… and now not only did I tell her and everyone else in IOP last week… I’ve also shared it now, with all of you.

So I don’t really know how I feel about that… hahaha…

But something that I really value is connection. And for me, part of that means the connection needs to be real. It needs to be honest, and authentic.

And if I’m disagreeing with somebody, on the inside, and going along with their suggestions, on the outside…

I can’t live like that anymore. I don’t like the person I become, when I don’t honor my own integrity.

So there’s a couple things going on here, that I’m aware of:

• I need authentic connection

• I want to make other people happy

• I value my own integrity and honesty

• I’m afraid to tell people when I disagree

• I value relationships probably more than anything in this life

• I haven’t had healthy relationships with anybody in decades

And I respect my therapist’s advice because I know she’s not just giving us textbook answers; she’s coming from a place of earned wisdom… of lived experience.

And I don’t want to admit it but as my therapist, I want her to validate my recovery. Which I don’t think is an “unhealthy” want, in this context. But I feel like “I shouldn’t depend on anybody else to tell me I’m doing it right.” But I mean, if anybody was gonna tell me I’m doing it right… it makes sense I’d want that person to be my therapist.

But the fear of disagreeing runs deeper than that.

It’s not just, “my therapist will think I made the wrong choice.”

It’s, “the whole room will think I purposely made the wrong choice, for the wrong reasons, and they’ll all disown me and I won’t belong anymore.”

And that theme has been running in my brain since probably seventh grade.

So when I caught myself worrying about all these things after my therapist said, “You might benefit from choosing to be more intentional,” I knew it was time to break the pattern. (Which ironically, is probably the most ‘intentional’ choice I could’ve made… but shhh I’m still talking…)

I let out a sob as I continued my check-in:

“I have a history,” I told her, “of doing what I think everyone else wants me to do… and I really do want you to be happy with me… but for my own benefit I can’t choose ‘intentionality’ at this time. I know I’m not ready to commit to that, and if I did, it would be for all the wrong reasons.”

And I think she understood, but not completely, because her first response was along the lines of, “Michael, I am happy with any choice you make, because I know you’re making it for yourself…”

Which was wonderful to hear.

But not quite getting to the real heart of the matter.

I pushed back, “I believe that you are, and I appreciate that. And I truly respect your advice and opinion; I just can’t allow myself to take on someone else’s point of view just for the sake of agreeing with them or pacifying them.”

And then I cried a bit more and said something like, “I’m just so afraid if I go against what you say, that I’ll be rejected.”

And she was like, “Who are you afraid will reject you?”

And my eyes scanned the room and I felt the blood drain out of my face and I said, “Everybody…”

And I didn’t feel ashamed, anymore, because at least I’d gotten it out now… but boy did I feel embarrassed, knowing I’d just shared all of that with the entire group! I was sure at least one group member would condemn me, or criticize me, for not being a strong manly man, but instead being afraid to just tell another person, “I disagree.”

I wanted to melt into my chair and stay invisible for the rest of the morning… and forget the look of compassion on everyone’s face as I cried my heart out…

It felt good to get all that off my chest, but I did not like feeling that level of vulnerable, in that small of a setting… it felt safe, sure — but it didn’t feel natural.

Maria (not her real name) looked me in the eye and said, “Nobody in this room is rejecting you. You’re one of us.”

To which my therapist added, “Nothing you can say in here is going to change the fact that we’re here for you and for each other. And we’re going to keep being here, no matter which version of you shows up every day.”

And I wanted to bawl my eyes out because it’s been so long since I’ve heard anything like that! But strangely, once I heard that, and I allowed myself to feel the sincerity in those words…

I was okay.

Not perfect.

Not “finished.” (Because I’m still crying again, now, as I relate the tale.)

Not “alright, I’ve slayed that dragon, now I’m never gonna be uncomfortable again!”

Just… okay.

But in that moment, “okay” was all I needed, to calm myself and to regulate my emotions, and get my head back into IOP and not come completely unglued and have to go scream outside for ten minutes, or be admitted to inpatient, or hide in the bathroom and finish crying…

I was done crying; I’d done what needed to be done; I’d received their feedback; and now it was time to move on and remain engaged in real time.

And I did.

And I must say — I’m pretty proud of myself for being able to regulate my emotions that quickly, and stay present in the group, and participate, and not be so helplessly overwhelmed that I couldn’t control my emotions at all.

That was a big step forward for me. I honestly feel like that might be bigger than me finding the courage to tell my therapist, “I need to disagree with you on this because I’m afraid to disagree with people, and I need to show myself that I can do and it doesn’t ruin the relationship.”

So I guess I earned two gold stars that morning:

One for telling the truth, when I was terrified that the truth would sever the therapeutic connection.

And one for staying in the moment, and learning that I don’t have to let myself always get overwhelmed by my own emotions.

And maybe a third one, for having the insight to tell my therapist, when we broke for lunch, “I need to make sure you know that had nothing to do with anything you said, but was strictly about me recognizing a pattern in my behavior that I want to change.”

And I’m not a mind reader… but I’m pretty sure when I said that to her… it did make her happy for me, for real.

I could’ve seen Jerry Seinfeld live at the Buddy Holly Hall for free, and instead, I let my anxiety talk me into staying home, and hating myself for not being courageous enough to go enjoy the show.

Which, if this was the only time this has happened to me, it might be easier to overlook. But this has become a pattern that I don’t want to repeat anymore.

It’s one of the ways I use secret self-sabotage to keep myself stuck in isolation, so I won’t have to explore what it could feel like to be free to do the thing I really want.

Because “doing the thing I really want” apparently still comes with a lot of qualifiers:

• Is it going to be safe?

• Am I going to be comfortable?

• Can I maintain control of myself?

• Can I possibly control the environment, or the other people?

• Will there be any unanticipated threats or consequences to doing the thing?

• Will I lose my mind? (This one HAS happened, though it’s extremely rare — and it’s never happened at the Buddy Holly Hall.)

• Will I like the people I encounter while doing the thing?

• Will the people I encounter like me?

• Will any part of doing the thing trigger painful memories I don’t think I’m ready to be reminded of? (This has happened at the Buddy Holly Hall, but I got through it, and lived to tell the tale.)

• Will I become so dysregulated I have to be hospitalized? (This happened once in outpatient therapy, and I didn’t like it at all! But it turned out to be exactly what I needed… so in the end, it was a positive. But it didn’t happen at the Buddy Holl Hall.)

The thing is, I’ve volunteered at the Buddy Holly Hall probably dozens of times.

I started volunteering the first week I was in Lubbock.

And, yes, every time, I get anxiety. And a lot of the time, my anxiety gets so high, I back out, cancel my sign-up, and stay home, and despise myself for not doing what I really want to do.

But sometimes I don’t give in.

Sometimes, I go to the show, and I enjoy volunteering, and I enjoy talking to patrons, and I enjoy interacting with the staff, and I enjoy the live entertainment…

And most of all, I enjoy being there, by myself, doing something I want to do, for no other reason than, “I just want to be here, enjoying this.”

So it’s not like I can’t make it to the show. I have multiple instances where I did! And, yeah, some of those experiences were frightening, at first. And some of them were draining.

And some of them were intensely emotional — sometimes during a play or a concert, I’ll burst into tears and weep silently in my seat, only a few chairs away from the nearest patron, afraid that people are going to see me but knowing that it’s just dark enough that no one can see me… and none of them are paying attention to me, anyway; they’re too busy enjoying the show.

But even in the times I bawl my eyes out…

I still have a positive experience.

I’m still glad I went.

I still enjoy the show, and I still come home with wonderful memories of the time I let myself do the thing I wanted to do.

But then another show comes through town, and I get excited and I sign up to volunteer, and then two days before the event, my anxiety kicks into overdrive, and my fibromyalgia acts up, and I start wondering if this is the show where I’m finally going to go and lose my mind in the middle of the performance, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of attendees… and I’ll have to be hospitalized and I’ll make such a dramatic scene I’ll never be allowed to volunteer at the Buddy Holly Hall, ever again.

Which… if I’m realistic about all this… if that scenario was going to happen… I’m more inclined to believe it already would have…

Because each time I do successfully volunteer, I’m more comfortable in the theater than the time before.

Even if I do burst into tears during the performance, I’m still more comfortable crying during the show than I was the last time it happened.

The first time I ever volunteered really was my trial by fire.

I had just moved here; I didn’t know where anything was; I didn’t know how I was going to spend my free time; I didn’t even know, on the day I moved to Lubbock, that there were volunteer opportunities at the performing arts center.

But the moment I found out, I wanted to be part of that crowd.

And the first show I went to, coincidentally turned out to be the first time in my life I ever took an Uber. I had to figure out how to Uber comfortably, just so I could get to the theater, to find out if the experience of volunteering would be good for me, and something I enjoy… or if it would trigger me, and send me into a tailspin.

And what’s interesting is I don’t even remember, now, what that first show was. I don’t know if it was a play, or a concert, or what. I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point.

What matters is that I showed up, and I did the thing I wanted to do — without knowing if I could even survive the thing, or not.

And now, three and a half years later, I’ve spent more time convincing myself to avoid the thing, than I have allowing myself to just go and enjoy an evening of live entertainment.

Literally, probably four out of five times, my anxiety wins, and I talk myself out of going to volunteer.

I’ve missed some shows I really wanted to see! (And, to be fair, some shows I really couldn’t care less about… but was more interested in just getting out of the apartment for a night, and being around other people.)

I missed the Beach Boys, for crying out loud!

And I missed The Book of Mormon. Which, I can live without ever seeing… but as a practicing Mormon myself, it would’ve been interesting to observe that particular show…

And now, I’ve missed Jerry Seinfeld. And I’m not a huge comedy fan. It’s not like I sit and watch all the comedians on Netflix and like, “Man wouldn’t it be cool to see them live?”

But, I mean… Jerry Seinfeld? He’s practically a national treasure.

Everybody I’ve ever known grew up watching Seinfeld.

And I could’ve seen him, in Lubbock, at the Buddy Holly Hall, for free… and my stupid self talked myself out of it because I was having “high anxiety.” Like the anxiety just creeped up on me, out of nowhere. “Gee willickers! I didn’t know that was going to happen! How ‘bout that, Wally?”

As if.

The truth is, I hate myself for not going to the show.

I know, no matter how thoroughly it can all be explained away by science and modern medicine…

I know it’s my fault I didn’t go.

I know I’m the reason I wouldn’t allow myself to do the thing I really wanted to do.

And I hate myself for it.

Not because “I missed seeing Jerry Seinfeld live and in person.”

But because I keep running the same program, over and over and over again.

I want to go to the show…

And I talk myself out of it for reasons that should have been anticipated and planned for… and not “I waited until the last moment and then pretended like it hit me out of nowhere and I don’t have any control over it now and the only option left is to stay home and suffer through the pain and the guilt of once again backing out and missing out on what I really want because it’s easier for me to keep being a little baby and give into the fear and the pressure and tell myself I can’t do it.”

And I know there’s more to it than that. I know that mental health is complicated, and there aren’t always easy solutions.

I know that even though I’m aware of the pattern, and I’m not taking steps — yet — to break the pattern… I know that the pattern that’s happening isn’t my fault. But that doesn’t stop it from happening, does it?

And I want it to stop happening. That’s the part that I hate. That’s the reason I tell myself, “I hate myself because of this.”

Because somewhere, I think I should be able to make it stop happening, simply by wishing it away. I “should” be able to just man up; just go face the fear one time and prove that I’m stronger and overcome it all in one glorious moment and then… never be bothered by this particular fear, ever again.

That should work, to resolve this pain — and it’s not.

The only solution I can think of, that I can point to and say, “This should solve the problem,” isn’t solving anything at all.

And that leaves me feeling helpless, and out of control, and incredibly small, and weak, and vulnerable.

So here’s what I think is actually behind all of this (and this is just a working hypothesis):

When I moved to Lubbock, I had just spent 14 years in Mom and Dad’s house, avoiding anything that made me uncomfortable. And I wanted to break out of that. I believed moving to Lubbock would break me out of that.

When I signed up that first time to volunteer at the Buddy Holly Hall, that was proof that I had broken out of it. Because if I was still terrified of doing anything uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have gone and volunteered, that first time.

But I did go. And I loved it. And it “proved” to my mind that I wasn’t afraid anymore, and I was ready for this new chapter of my life.

And then one time, I signed up to volunteer, and I had a panic attack, or a fibromyalgia flare-up (or maybe both; who really knows at this point?) and I didn’t go to the show.

And suddenly this new thing in my life (volunteering at the performing arts center) stopped giving me proof that I had broken out of my old routine. And somehow, that made me afraid.

And then I started feeling afraid every time I volunteered, because, “What if I’m not out of the woods, and what if this time becomes the time I lose my mind in public and everybody judges me?”

And the Buddy Holly Hall was supposed to be the place where I could go and not be afraid of losing my mind — because I’d already proven to myself that I’m safe there.

And then… any time I signed up for a show, and had to cancel due to anxiety, or chronic pain… I told my mind, “See, I’m avoiding doing the thing that makes me uncomfortable, because I know I’m not safe if I go there…” and my mind started to believe that story.

And the Buddy Holly Hall became:

Every time I go, I feel less anxious and less afraid, and experience more comfort and more pleasure. But every time I volunteer, I’m afraid to go because I expect I’m going to lose my mind, once I get there.

And from there:

I HAVE TO GO, because I have to prove to myself that I’m not a little baby who keeps giving into my pain and my anxiety! Only to cancel my sign-up, the day of the show, due to elevated pain and anxiety.

I tried to make the Buddy Holly Hall a much bigger ordeal than it was ever intended to be.

I tried to take something that I sometimes enjoy… and make it part of my therapy, and my “healing journey,” and the place where I could make myself go and learn to push through discomfort, until I’m capable of enjoying myself, enjoying being around other people, and occasionally even enjoying the live entertainment.

But get this:

I already enjoy myself, and the other people, and the live entertainment, every time I do allow myself to go.

Even if I’m in pain, or facing extreme anxiety, before I go.

So what in the world is making me so crazy when I do get so anxious, or have so much fibromyalgia pain, that I legitimately do need to cancel my sign-up, and just stay home?

I’m not sure I really know, anymore… but I think it’s from trying to expect the Buddy Holly Hall to be part of my therapy, rather than just, “I wanna get out of the apartment for a few hours, be around other people, and take in a show.”

Because whenever that’s all that I want out of the Buddy Holly Hall… nine times out of ten, I make the show… and I enjoy every minute of it! Okay sometimes I don’t enjoy having to take an Uber there and back… but that’s hardly the same as not enjoying the Buddy Holly Hall…

Every time I do make it to the show, I’m glad I went. I’m glad when I’m there, and I’m glad when I go home.

But the times I don’t go… man it’s like something just takes over in my brain, and I start telling myself what a disappointment I am… and I hate myself for not being tough enough to just power through, and make myself go see the show anyway.

(Because I know, deep down inside, that if I do, I’ll enjoy it. And still, I’m choosing to not… and I hate when I do that.)

And I guess, I’d rather talk myself out of going to see a show I’d probably really enjoy… than sit with myself and examine why it makes me feel so weak and vulnerable… and what I might be able to do about it, so that the next time I do want to do the thing… I can just relax and give myself permission to go and do it, and not worry about what “might” happen… but just accept and appreciate, what is.

I wish I would’ve done that before I missed seeing Jerry Seinfeld. I’m really not happy with that outcome.

Well, this is unexpected.

Sara Jones messaged me. And I read her message and gave it a thumbs-up, and went on with my day.

And I’m happy leaving it at that.

I don’t want to respond, beyond a thumbs-up.

I don’t care to engage her anymore.

It’s not that I don’t like her.

It’s not that she doesn’t matter to me.

I almost killed myself when I thought I was losing her — so, yeah, she clearly matters to me.

I’m just not interested in going back to that particular roadside attraction.

I got everything I needed out of our acquaintance-ship… and there’s nothing left for me to see.

Which feels really strange, if I’m completely honest…

I mean, for two years, I thought this girl was The Answer. And now…

Now, I feel like talking to her would just be a distraction.

It’s her fault. (j/k j/k)

But for real, hear me out:

I tried to love her. I tried to make her the center of my universe. I tried to make her want me, the same way I wanted her. And she wouldn’t.

She refused to reciprocate on that level.

And I took it as rejection, and it drove me to suicide.

And I had to spend 49 days in a mental hospital, and 59 days in residential treatment (and lots of days in between!), trying to figure out, “How do I make life worth living, if I have to live without Sara Jones?”

And trying to figure that out — something inside of me broke, somewhere in this last year. I’ve cried over Sara Jones, so intensely, that I didn’t even notice that my shower was flooding the bathroom floor, and spilling out into the bedroom…

I spent days in the hospital, and in treatment, avoiding everybody, because I was so hung up on losing Sara Jones I didn’t think I deserved to feel good around anybody else.

I journaled about her, enough to fill the Library of Congress.

I talked about her at length in therapy.

I prayed every day for a year, for God to show her how much I love her… and for Him to show me how I can live without her.

And somehow, slowly, through all the pain… I learned that I can live without her.

I hated it, at first. Because I still wanted her to be The Answer.

But I knew she didn’t want to be.

Reality kept throwing that fact in my face, every day of my recovery journey.

“Hey, Reality, do you think Sara Jones loves me today?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, but what if I do this?”

“No.”

“Hear me out, though.”

“Still no.”

“But I mean-”

“Stop, Michael. Just stop.”

I still get emotional, today, thinking back on how much I struggled with all those feelings and desires. Not because I want Sara Jones, anymore. But because I put so much effort into trying to live a fantasy…

And the whole time, I absolutely believed it was the truth.

Part of me still doesn’t understand why it can’t be the truth.

Because how beautiful would it be, if another human being could be the answer to all my problems? If she could just waltz into my life, and take away all my pain, and plant me in front of the mirror and I could finally see the man I really am, and have been wanting to be all along?

It would be such an easy answer to everything that’s ever gone wrong.

“Oh… I wasn’t broken… I just needed someone to love me.”

It sounds so promising…

And for so many years — even before Sara Jones — I wanted it to be the answer.

I thought I was so ugly, and so irredeemable, I needed it to be the answer. And Sara kept showing me, over and over again, that it never can be the answer.

Because the question I’ve actually spent my whole life trying to answer wasn’t, “Can this woman love me?”

The question has been, “Can I love myself?” (Sometimes it’s more like, “Can I even like myself in this moment?”)

And so, whether a woman loves me or not, is kind of irrelevant. I mean, in the long run, yeah… I want a woman to love me…

But her love can never be sufficient, to fill the hole in my heart that stems from me not wanting to love myself.

Which — side note — but I feel like this needs to be said. The whole, “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself” nonsense, really gets under my skin. Not because it’s fundamentally not true… but because it confuses two separate kinds of love and tries to make them all the same thing.

And learning to love yourself, and learning to love somebody else… are not the same thing.

It might be harder to love someone else, if you don’t first love yourself. But it’s not impossible. You just might make more mistakes, if you’re trying to use their love to make you feel good about who you are (or aren’t).

Anyway.

I really believed Sara was going to be the answer.

I didn’t know I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

I was trying to figure out, “How do I keep from ever losing her?” When the better question, the whole time, was, “How do I build a life that doesn’t need her?”

But I didn’t think I could “not need her in my life.” I thought she was what was making me want to live again. I thought she was making me happy, making me safe, making me want to finally heal from all my past wounds…

And I thought if she ever left me… I could never do that work alone.

And then, I lost her. And I almost died.

It almost became one more thing I could never recover from.

Then I started asking other people for help.

I told the doctors in the mental hospital that I wanted to die. I told the nurses I couldn’t figure out how to live without Sara Jones in my life.

I told them it was my fault she stopped talking to me, and I knew I’d ruined everything, and I didn’t know if I could live with the results…

But I had to try.

And I started talking to other patients.

I started opening up, and listening to other people.

I started making room in my life, for more than just the emptiness I felt, in the absense of Sara Jones.

It was horrible, at first. Every interaction brought me to tears. I spent more time hiding in my room, or writing in my journal, than interacting with the other people right in front of me.

I thought each one of them would despise me if they knew the way I’d treated Sara Jones.

I knew I was a horrible human being — and I was afraid of how they would treat me, if they found out.

But I talked to them, anyway. And I found out that some of them didn’t think I was horrible, at all. They understood how my mind could’ve interpreted everything the way it did… and why I would’ve believed I needed Sara to save me.

They didn’t say I was right to want her to save me… they just understood how a person could end up feeling that way.

That was the beginning of my recovery.

That was when I began to question just how much I really needed Sara Jones, after all.

But I still hated myself for the things I’d put her through, and for that, I needed more than what the mental hospital could give me. I needed therapy. I needed coping skills. I needed perspective.

I needed residential treatment.

The day I checked into treatment… roughly six months ago, now… I told the therapist, “I need this to work, or I probably will go home and kill myself.” And I carried that feeling with me for probably the first 40 days or so, out of my 59-day stay.

But eventually, I started to have days where suicide wasn’t the first thing I thought about when I woke up.

I started to enjoy spending time around other people.

I dare say, I started to make friends again. Not the kind you keep in touch with, after treatment is done — but the friends I made in residential treatment, made my recovery journey easier… because for once, I didn’t have to walk it all alone.

Since coming home, and starting outpatient therapy, I’ve still struggled. Sometimes I still have really dark thoughts. And I probably always will; not because I want to commit suicide, just because it’s where my mind has gone for so many years, it feels like a comfortable place to land when I get too overwhelmed.

But I went into treatment because I was afraid if I ever cut Sara Jones out of my life completely, I could never survive.

And now… she messaged me, and I gave it a thumbs-up and went on with my day.

And I’m not mad at her, today. It’s not like, “I hate you and never wanna talk to you again!” I just, legitimately don’t care if I ever talk to her again.

I was hurting so badly, before… I needed to build a life in which I wouldn’t need Sara Jones.

And now, almost one year later… I’ve built a life where I don’t need Sara Jones.

I wasn’t expecting this to ever happen.

Now that it has…

I’m kinda wondering what else I might not need.

Idealized love may be the thing that could one day destroy me.

Not because love is dangerous, but because I keep asking it to do things it was never designed to do.

Every time I meet a girl who I think has the potential to someday, possibly be mine, I become a different person. I pour all of my efforts into pursuing the girl, wooing her, impressing her, hoping to make her love me.

Because if I can convince just one girl to love me… maybe I can learn to love myself.

Maybe I can stop questioning my worth as a human being.

I pin all my hopes and expectations on finding the girl. I think that her love, her attention, her approval, is the only thing that can fix me. I need her to fix me. I don’t know how to fix myself.

I know at my core, I am broken. I’m fundamentally flawed. I always have been.

I don’t believe I deserve to get better. I believe I’m rotten to the core, and the world would be a better place without me in it.

The best thing I can do for myself is to just withdraw from everyone, and go to my hole, and wait to die.

I don’t deserve to be alive. I know I don’t deserve to be alive.

But somewhere, there’s a girl with the ability to believe otherwise. Somewhere is a girl who can keep me alive. And maybe, if she really loves me — maybe she can convince me to stay.

I don’t want to stay. I’ve given up on myself so many times, I don’t deserve to stay. But she doesn’t know that about me.

She doesn’t see me that way.

She doesn’t want me to suffer.

She doesn’t want me to be alone.

I want to be strong for her. I want to get better for her. I want to find safety in her. I know I’m not good enough — not brave enough — to save myself. If I’m alone, I’m not even worth saving.

The fact that I’m alone only proves that I’m not worth saving.

But she doesn’t know that. She won’t treat me that way. She will be the thing that saves me. She will be the reason I stay.

She will be the one who makes me happy. She will wash away all my pain.

She will determine my worth. She will give me what I need to be happy. She will give my life meaning and direction. I will exist to make her happy — and she will devote her life to making me whole.

She will understand me. She will support me. She will encourage me to live the life I always wanted, but never believed I deserve.

I don’t know how to do any of these things on my own. But I know she can do it for me.

Without her, I can’t go on. My heart won’t let me. My tears won’t run out. These wounds won’t close, until she is here to heal them.

I can’t do it on my own. I know I’m not able to. I know I don’t deserve to. But she can change me. She can convince me that things are okay. She can pull me out of the mire.

She will see me, and automatically, she will love me. Instinctively, she will know what to do. Effortlessly, she will change me. She will walk into my life and everything will be better.

I’ll be able to smile again. I’ll be free to dream. I will learn how to become the man I’ve always wanted to be! The man God made me to be.

She will fix me. She will understand me.

She will make me want to be alive.

I can’t survive without her. I’m unwilling to try. If it’s just me, I know I’m not worth the effort. I hate myself so much, I don’t want to hear my own name.

Why can’t she be the answer? I need her to be the answer. I can’t live in a world that doesn’t include her.

I’m not good enough. Not strong enough. Not brave enough to try to work on myself, unless she’s there, cheering me on from the sidelines, waiting for me at the finish, willing to be my everything…

Because at my core, I know I am nothing. I am nobody. I’m a problem, a nuisance, a distraction to be avoided on her path to recovery. I don’t deserve her, even if I could have her. I would hurt her.

I would want her to be my everything. I would expect her to solve all my problems. I would make it her job to make me happy; to give me reason to want to stay.

I wouldn’t understand why she couldn’t make me happy. I would blame her for problems I was creating.

I would demand that she make space for me; that she sacrifice her needs for me; that she give me everything I need, when I need it, the way I need it, without me having to tell her what I need, because I will expect her to intuitively know all my needs, without fail, without question, without hesitation.

I would hold her to a standard she can never meet. She would break my heart every time she couldn’t deliver. I would resent her, but I would never tell her.

How could I? I need her to save me, and if I don’t appease her, she will leave.

I’m already losing her – and I haven’t even found her.

She’s an impossible dream but she’s one I cannot shake!

I know I can’t survive without her.

I will spend my life waiting for her to arrive, hoping, searching, praying that someday I will find her. I will try to turn every woman I’m attracted to into her. I will cry tears of anguish, and agony, and self-loathing, and loneliness, and deep, deep sorrow. I will sabotage every area of my life.

I will lose every friendship.

I will sacrifice my happiness.

I will destroy my mental health.

I will throw away every opportunity for real connection.

I will wound her so deeply I can never be forgiven. She’ll never forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself. I will carry the burden of shame and regret everywhere I go.

It will color every decision I ever make.

I will beg for salvation.

It will never come.

She will despise me. I will despise her, but I will never let myself know. I will tell myself that I love her; that I need her; that she makes me complete and she gives my life meaning, and joy.

But I will be so angry with her for all the ways she disappoints me. I won’t know how to tell her I’m angry. I’ll despise myself for thinking she’s a disappointment.

I’ll tell myself if I truly loved her, I’d never get mad.

I won’t understand why we keep fighting. If she truly loved me, she would know I’m not trying to hurt her. I just don’t know any other way.

She would forgive me for everything.

She would know I can’t help myself, and that I’m not responsible for the things my trauma tells me to do.

She would never get upset, no matter how many times I hurt her. She would know that I’m just afraid, and I don’t have any self-control.

She would know how much I love her, and that I can’t survive without her, and she would soften her heart, and give me as many chances as I need to get it right.

But she won’t do any of that.

She’ll never love me.

She’ll never give me what I need.

I’ll never find her.

She’ll never be able to fix me. It’s impossible.

She’ll never be the one.

How can she?

She’s not real.

She doesn’t exist.

For years, I’ve been looking for something else to be the thing that saves me:

• an online romance

• a respectable career

• a peer support network for myself and other disabled veterans

• church (although, technically…)

• therapy

• friends

• a mental hospital

• journaling

• crying every day like a 4-year-old in Disneyland who’s just been told it’s time to go back to the hotel and take a nap

• learning to be comfortable eating alone in a restaurant

• practicing exposure therapy by volunteering at the Buddy Holly Hall

• and now — apparently — wanting a weekend getaway with the group therapist in outpatient therapy (ooh la la)

She is gorgeous with a capital O-M-G!!!!!

And she has the biggest, most beautiful nose I’ve ever laid eyes on. (I don’t know what it is with me, and women with big noses… but Lord have mercy…)

She inspires me.

I know I’m not in love with her — and I don’t actually want to be.

But don’t try to tell me I can’t desire her! I’m not tryin’ to hear that, see. 😍

I absolutely adore her. I make it a point to always be on time for her groups. And I sit close enough that I can bask in her glory… without being so close that it would be creepy for me to look at her the way I do.

And I don’t care what that makes me look like, anymore.

(And shhh…. don’t say anything to Michael but that not caring may turn out to be the actual thing that is saving me… because I’m finally feeling what’s there for me to feel… and not feeling ashamed because of it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

A small part of me wants to imagine that her love, pointed in my direction, could set me free.

On top of being drop-dead gorgeous, she’s also well-trained, highly educated, wicked smart, compassionate, socially aware, emotionally intelligent, a grandmother, (a single grandmother, nudge nudge, wink wink), and still as wild as a West Texas Rose.

She’s basically Lubbock’s version of Nora from the original ‘Pete’s Dragon.’

No wonder I’m infatuated.

But I know she’s not the thing that’ll save me. And honestly… I don’t want her to be.

I don’t mind dreaming about her, though… le sigh…

When I first moved to Lubbock, I needed something to save me.

I wasn’t aware, yet, that I have everything I already need, to save myself (with outside help, of course… but not with outside answers… and I spent years searching for outside answers).

The first time I volunteered at the Buddy Holly Hall, the experience was profound.

I’d just moved from Seattle, and had spent 14 years prior locking myself in my room and avoiding all contact with the outside world! So just showing up at the theater was huge. But then, I also interacted with other staff, and volunteers, and with the general public.

And I enjoyed it! Even though it also made me really, really scared.

I tried to make the Buddy Holly Hall The Thing That Will Save Me. I told myself that every time I volunteer, I become more comfortable being in crowds, and being around other people (which is absolutely true!)

And then I told myself, “Therefore, all I need to do to heal is to keep volunteering at the Buddy Holly Hall, as much and as often as possible!”

And that put a lot of pressure on something that’s supposed to be an easy, low-key way for me to get out of the apartment, get around other people, and hopefully enjoy an evening of live entertainment.

And I felt that pressure, every time I signed up to volunteer.

It was never enough that I wanted to go see a show… just because I wanna go see that show.

It had to break me out of my shell. Force me into uncomfortable situations, so that I could learn to make them comfortable. Teach me once and for all that, “I’m no longer in a danger zone, and it’s allowed for me to relax now, and have fun, gosh darnit!” And if I couldn’t have fun, I was going to die trying…

For real. That was how I started to view volunteering at the local performing arts center.

It wasn’t enough that I just wanted to do something fun. It had to be an event; an experience that would change my entire future! And if it couldn’t do that… it wasn’t worth going.

I missed a lot of really good shows after that became my motivation. I got so worked up before every show — worrying that I would either lose my mind, because of all the trauma I still haven’t let go… or worse, I would go enjoy the show, and I wouldn’t have any breakthrough moments at all.

And if I couldn’t break through… why was I even going?

I’d start catastrophizing a day or two before the show. And then, on the day of, I’d be so sick with worry, I’d cancel my sign-up just a few hours before the show started… and then I’d stay home and hate myself for “not being able to push through the panic,” and I’d tell myself it was all my fault.

It was all evidence that I really wasn’t growing, at all, because every time I canceled a show, I went through the exact same ordeal — and every time, my brain acted as if it was the first time I’ve ever panicked, like, “Gee, where did this come from? I wasn’t expecting anxiety to show up today.”

But I knew.

When I signed up for a show, I knew.

I could always see it coming… and I never wanted to acknowledge it was there.

Same thing happened with Sara Jones.

I really, really thought I loved her.

And I thought her love was going to pull me out of the darkness, and set me back on track to The Life I Really Should Be Living.

I thought if I loved her enough… I’d convince her to love me back.

I tried. So hard.

I still don’t think it’s fair, the way things ended with me and her.

But I’m able to acknowledge that the ending was true. I don’t like it — but at least I’m not trying to fight it, anymore.

I almost lost my life, in that battle.

I really expected her to pull me through.

When I started working for AWAI in 2024, I thought I was on The Precipice of the Career That Would Finally Validate Me.

I needed a win! And I had one — but I didn’t know when to acknowledge that I had succeeded… so I kept pushing myself all the way into a hard, devastating burnout.

I convinced myself that everybody in the AWAI Facebook groups loved me — which, honestly, they probably did — and I convinced myself that everybody in the AWAI Facebook groups needed me to help them win — which, honestly, they probably didn’t.

But I told myself that, because of my job title, I had become Responsible For Everyone Else’s Success, or Failure, and I wasn’t about to let anybody fail. Not on my watch.

I know, now, that nobody’s success or failure is ever dependent on “Michael Glenn being their online cheerleader.” But nobody could’ve told that to 2024 Michael Glenn, in any way that he would’ve believed.

I needed an impossible mission to solve, to keep me focused on problem-solving, without yet realizing that all I was actually doing, was making my own problems worse.

(That sentence sounded a lot different in my head… but I’m leaving it, because it’s an accurate portrayal of where I was in 2024.)

I thought the mental hospital in 2025 was The Only Safe Environment in Which I Could Come Face to Face With My True Identity.

At the time, it was. I’ve never in my life been as physically and emotionally safe as I was, inside the mental hospital. I was there for six weeks, because I needed to get in touch with my own thoughts and feelings, and I knew if I tried to do that work on the outside, I would attempt to end my life.

It wasn’t a question of, “Could things go south?” It was a deep, internal, knowing, that, “If I leave here before I’m ready, things will go south.”

And I did leave before I was ready — and things did go south.

I was back in the mental hospital within 36 hours or so of being released. They’d forced me out, and I went home and spiraled, and tried to end my life.

Thank God they let me back in.

I thought if I could learn to journal, and to cry, and to just “Make Space to Sit With My Emotions,” (uggghhhh… somebody gag me with a spoon…)

I thought simply allowing my emotions, would somehow set me free.

It didn’t. It just made me need 59 days of residential treatment.

During which, I cried so hard in the shower — on two separate occasions! — I dissociated and never noticed that the water from the shower was flooding my bedroom, on the other side of the bathroom door!

It was good to cry all that out, though! Don’t get me wrong.

It just wasn’t The Thing To Save Me.

(Learning to make space for my emotions, and feel them long enough to understand what they’re trying to tell me… that has been life-changing. But that’s not what I was doing for all the years that I didn’t know it wasn’t what I thought it was.)

Showing up at church, taking the Sacrament, going to Elder’s Quorum, bearing my testimony on Fast Sunday…

“Going to Church” isn’t even going to save me.

Although, Salvation does lie within…

But the way I was doing it, before…

Look, since I came back to church in my early 30s… it’s definitely played a huge role in my journey. And I’m not going to stop attending church. I’m not going to stop believing in God.

But I am redefining what God, and church, and faith, and worship, mean to Michael Glenn. Because the way I was doing it before, left something lacking.

And the way I view my relationship to God, and church, and worship, today…

It’s my guiding star.

I don’t believe I could be Michael Glenn, and not believe in God anymore.

But not even God can save me, if I’m not willing to take an active role in my own salvation.

And I think that’s the part I’ve been missing, in all these attempts to Make The Thing I Need In Order To Feel Good About Myself, Anything Other Than Sitting Down and Get To Know My Actual Self.

And that’s why everything up to this point has failed.

And why — as much as I want a weekend getaway with the gorgeous therapist in the front row with the big, bold, beautiful nose (I really do brake for big noses…) — and if I forget all society’s rules and regulations, and all the boundaries that need to be in place to protect the sanctity of the therapist-patient relationship (and besides, she’s the group therapist, not my own individual therapist… hello…)

I want my therapist’s love, desire, attraction, attention, and approval… to tell me that maybe I am worth something, after all.

I mean… what good would it do me to lie, at this point?

I’m not trying to make anything happen.

(I’m not not trying, either…) 😜

But for real.

What hurts me more, in this chapter of my journey?

• Wanting something I know is impossible for me to have?

• Or not admitting to myself that it’s okay to want it — even when I know it’ll never happen?

Because from the Buddy Holly Hall, to Sara Jones, to journaling, to Waiting For God to Part The Heavens and Personally Deliver Me From My Trauma…

The part that’s consistently done the most harm is me not letting myself admit that I’m using this vehicle to try and accomplish things this vehicle is not designed, or intended, to ever achieve.

And somehow, every one of these insights folds into two simple rules for living:

1. Notice what’s there to be noticed (aka, “What am I observing?”)

2. Choose from the readily available choices (aka, “With what’s available to me in this moment… how would I like to respond?”)

And just like that, I’m learning:

I started this newsletter to observe humanity.

I’m discovering I’m one of them.

And all it took to drive the message home, was acknowledging that I have an innocent, harmless, understandable crush, on an amazing, talented, compassionate, gorgeous woman with a fabulous honker… who just happens to be permanently off-limits to me because of her role as a therapist.

And I’m okay with that.

Because, really, I’m not trying to make anything happen.

I’m just finally learning to appreciate what’s there, what’s real, what is (and is not) possible…

And what I’m willing to do, and acknowledge, based on the reality of what I’m actually looking at.

And halfway through 90 hours of intensive outpatient therapy?

That’s probably an incredible lesson for me to have learned.

Now, back to that veranda…

I have a difficult decision to make, and I don’t think I’m equipped to make it.

My lease runs out in about six weeks, and I need to decide if I want to stay in Lubbock, in my current apartment, where I’m lonely all the time, but where I feel relatively safe and secure…

Or move to San Antonio, and live I-don’t-know-where, and be part of the nation’s largest veteran community, and — hopefully — break out of this self-isolation, and make new friends, and new memories, but risk being scared out of my mind for however long it takes me to adjust to a new reality.

I want to move to San Antonio… so, so badly…

But I’m afraid if I do, it’ll be for all the wrong reasons.

I know, I know… I just got out of treatment a few months ago. And the reason I had to go to treatment in the first place, is because I got so lonely, and felt so helpless, that I tried to kill myself.

That seems like it should be all the reason I need to choose San Antonio, where I can easily connect with so many other veterans, I’ll never feel lonely or helpless again…

But is it really as easy as just picking up and moving to a new city?

Because there are veterans here in Lubbock.

And I’ve never tried to connect with any of them.

Well, I guess I kind of tried to… back when I went to the Vet Center… before they told me they can’t help me because they only work with combat veterans…

But aside from that, I’ve made zero attempt to meet other veterans. I haven’t even searched for Facebook groups, or Googled Lubbock veteran organizations, or anything.

I know a handful of veterans in my church, and I’m not even trying to make friends with them. So why should I think that just moving to San Antonio will suddenly inspire me to break out of my shell, and start making the connections I truly desire?

But I don’t really want to stay in Lubbock, anymore, either.

Lubbock was good for me in a lot of ways. But I don’t think I belong here anymore. But is the problem Lubbock? Or is it the way I’ve conducted myself, since I moved to Lubbock?

Am I lonely because there’s no one to meet here — or am I lonely because I’m not taking steps to try and meet new people, and build connections? I honestly don’t know.

Besides, I moved to Lubbock so I could grow closer to God.

What happens if moving to San Antonio draws me away from Him?

I don’t want to be alone anymore. And I’m afraid if I don’t move, I’ll remain alone for the rest of my life. I’m afraid I’ll stagnate, and I’ll slowly let go of my dreams and settle into a smaller life than the one I really want.

But if I do move…

What happens if I start making friends, and I’m so hungry for connection, I compromise my own values and identity to make other people like me…

And I forget who I even am?

What if I forget to rely on God?

What if I’m so happy to not be alone anymore, that I start following the crowd, and I wind up living a lifestyle I never wanted, but don’t know how to give up, because I become too afraid that if I don’t do what everyone else is doing, no one will want me around?

What if I move into an apartment in San Antonio, and am still too scared to even leave the apartment, in order to make all these new friends? Then I’d have moved for nothing. I’d be in a new town… but still practicing the same isolating behavior I want so desperately to be free of.

Then I would really hate myself.

If I did move, though, I would have access to better healthcare, since there’s a much larger VA presence in San Antonio. And there would be a bigger community of veterans for me to consider becoming part of… and maybe that would be enough incentive to at least start to break out of my isolation…

But there are other veterans — and a halfway decent VA facility — right here in Lubbock. But I’m pretty certain that even if I avail myself of all that Lubbock has to offer, it will never be enough to keep me here permanently.

I think I’m too big of a personality to be satisfied spending the rest of my life in a small town environment.

But Lubbock is growing! It’s expected to double in size within the next 5-7 years, I think… but that’s a long time for me to wait, for Lubbock to still be too small to keep me satisfied.

Perhaps most importantly, though, and for reasons I cannot explain… I feel like God wants me to stay in Lubbock just a wee bit longer. And I don’t know if that’s really coming from God, or if I’m just scared to pick up and move.

But when I moved from my parent’s house in Seattle, to Lubbock, back in 2023, I knew it was what God wanted me to do. And I don’t know God wants me to move to San Antonio. I just think it would be an easier way for me to meet people.

But if I’m not leaving my apartment, in Lubbock, and going out and making friends and learning how to build relationships again… why would I magically start doing that just because I move to San Antonio?

Wouldn’t it be smarter to practice all that stuff here, and find out if I can make friends in Lubbock and maybe that’s all I need in order to stop feeling lonely?

Isn’t that at least worth exploring, before I move six hours away, into a larger city where I still don’t know anybody and where, yes, there’s more opportunities to go out and do stuff — but also, more opportunities to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear, because there are too many choices and I don’t trust myself to make any of them?

So I think I’m going to compromise:

I’m going to stay in Lubbock for now. (Which my outpatient therapist absolutely recommends as the safest choice while still learning to manage my mental health.)

But I’m going to move into a smaller, one-bedroom apartment, in my current apartment complex. That way, I still get the experience of “I’m moving to a different place to see how that affects my recovery,” but I’m still in my current neighborhood, where I know I’m safe, I know what my routine is, I know where all the stores and restaurants are, I’m close to church, all that good stuff…

At first, I thought this was copping out. Like, “If I was really brave I’d just move to San Antonio and then figure everything out after I got there!” But when I step back from that idea, it doesn’t sound brave; it sounds reckless and impulsive.

And I don’t think I am reckless and impulsive, anymore. I don’t think I need to be.

I think I can grow and heal faster by being methodical, and calculated. And I think as long as I am still growing, it’s probably better to do it in ways that I know are keeping me safe, and that are not introducing incredibly more variables than my nervous system is ready to handle.

So I think moving into a one-bedroom is going to be good for me. And I don’t even think of it as a “compromise,” really; I think of it as a smart choice, given all the available data.

Moving from Seattle to Lubbock was throwing myself into the deep end, and at that time, was exactly what I needed in order to get moving again. Today, the better move for me is to dip my toes into the water, and see, “What does happen to my sense of security if I change apartments within the same complex where I already know I’m safe?”

I think it’s the perfect way for me to show myself that my safety, my peace, my security, my comfort, don’t come from my current two-bedroom apartment…

They come from the work I put into creating a two-bedroom apartment where safety, peace, security, and comfort, can exist…

And if I can create those conditions in this apartment, I can create them in a different apartment, too.

And I think it would be worth postponing a move to another city, until I’ve demonstrated to myself that I am the source of my peace and safety, not my apartment.

Doing so may or may not have any impact on my feelings of loneliness…

But I suspect if I can teach myself that I have it within me to create a safe and stable home environment… that can probably lend itself easily to, “I have it within me to create feelings of safety and ease when meeting new people and making new friends.”

And anyway, if all else fails and this experiment truly does backfire… I do have the option of breaking my lease and moving to San Antonio — or back to Seattle to live with Mom and Dad — at any time, if I really need to. Yes, I would have to pay a penalty, but if it came down to life or death, paying a fine to break my lease is not that big a deal, is it?

So why not take this opportunity to take things slow, and just see what happens?

Like I’ve been saying lately, I don’t have to kill myself, to try and save myself.

If San Antonio is too big and scary for me today… there’s no reason why I can’t put it off until some future tomorrow. San Antonio will still be there — and God willing, so will I.

I keep getting dysregulated and I don’t like it.

It started in 2024 when I decided to start sitting with my feelings.

Actually, it probably started around 2019, when I applied for VA disability.

Or maybe it was 2016, when I left the house and flew to another state so I could go to my niece’s wedding.

Or 2008, when I started getting restless at work, before I got fired and my entire world came crashing down.

Or maybe 2003, when I got PTSD when my ship deployed to the Gulf in war time.

Or maybe when I was 15 years old, and would randomly burst into tears, hanging out with my friends and suddenly feeling very frightened, and overwhelmed, for absolutely no good reason…

But I don’t think it started happening this often until sometime around 2024 or so.

It got worse during the second half of 2024, as I started reaching for more growth, more success, more achievement — more “me-ness.”

For most of the 15 years from 2009 to 2024, I kept myself too numb to be able to feel dysregulated…

But then I started wanting more out of life…

And I couldn’t just keep shutting down anymore, every time things got uncomfortable.

I wanted better results — and I was just starting to believe I could have better results! And I was journaling daily, crying daily, getting out of the apartment daily, trying so hard to connect with other people!

But I didn’t know what I was doing.

I didn’t know how to make the changes I wanted, and do it in healthy ways that would support the new lifestyle I was trying so desperately to step into…

So I got dysregulated, and I stayed there.

A lot.

A lot a lot.

I was confronting a lot of the things I’ve tried to run from, my whole life… so that was good. Or at least, I thought it was good. But the way I was going about it was messing me up… and I feel like I should’ve known I wasn’t doing it right.

But how could I?

I didn’t have a fraction of the coping skills I’m learning today.

By my own estimation, I quit engaging with life when I was around 15 years old. I just checked out. I stopped learning. Stopped trying. Stopped wanting to fight back against all the problems life kept throwing at me.

So for 34 years, I’ve been moving through life with the emotional awareness of a scared, frustrated, confused 15-year-old boy. That was the place from where I faced all of life’s problems.

So of course I messed things up sometimes…

(Actually, I still think I messed things up all the time… but that’s kind of a moot point.)

2024 was the first time I consciously chose to stop running… to stop avoiding… and try to learn to start accepting what has happened to me, and what I haven’t done about it…

And try to start learning a better way.

Because I knew, all along, the way I was facing the world wasn’t working for me.

But I never knew I could face the world, any other way than the way I’d been taught at 15 years old.

True story.

I believed that was who I am… and you can’t change who you are…

What you think, what you feel, how you behave — maybe even what kind of music you listen to (although as I write this I’m grooving to Guns N Roses, so…)

Those things, you can change.

But I think who you are, underneath the thoughts, the feelings, the behavior, attitudes, beliefs, insecurities, music choices (they will always be my favorite band and I will fight people on this…)

Who you are is eternal, and unchanging.

And I went through life, for 34 years, mistakenly believing I am the 15-year-old version of me who’s afraid of everything and resents everyone and life is never going to give me what I want because I’m a coward and a pretender and I’ve cut myself off from my own values and identity and there is no coming back from the horrible choices I’ve made and the terrible things I’ve done…

When the truth is, none of that is who I am.

It’s just things I believe about myself, that aren’t true.

But I believed it so strongly, for so long… I feel like it became my identity.

Or, at least, it became how I viewed the world, and my own place in it.

And 2024 is about when I really started to challenge that, and try to change it, and overcome it.

I say try because I legitimately did not know what I was doing, in 2024.

I’d spent so many years keeping myself numb, I thought if I just made myself feel everything… that alone would fix me.

So every day, I’d sit and I’d journal about things that were upsetting me, whether past events, or present. And every day, I’d get so worked up, I’d cry hard enough to sweat through my clothes… and loud enough that I’m still surprised no one in my apartment complex ever called in a welfare check on me.

(If you haven’t noticed, I am a bit of a loud personality. Usually, I like that about myself… but not so much when it comes to crying. I feel like I’d rather be the type who cries quietly, in secret, and nobody ever has any idea I’m doing it… but for better or worse, that’s just not who I am.)

I kept purposely making myself upset, believing if I could just bring everything up to the surface, I’d get better.

But the way I was going about it, everything just kept getting worse.

I knew how to dig stuff up — and I got better at it every time I’d journal and sit with those ugly emotions! But I didn’t know, yet, what to do with it all, after digging it up. So every day, I brought up more and more pain, and every day, it just accumulated.

I wasn’t numb anymore, but I still wasn’t getting anything out.

It went on like that until August of 2025, when I went to the mental hospital.

Looking back, I can see that I was doing something wrong, to end up in that mental-emotional state. But when I was admitted to the hospital, I believed there was something wrong with me, as a human being. And that was hard to deal with.

I got dysregulated on a daily basis during the 6 or 7 weeks I spent in the hospital. Once a day, I would go to my room, and sit in bed and sob, for hours on end. I’d tremble, and scream, and sweat through my hospital scrubs…

And at first, I thought I was going out of my mind.

But eventually… I started to realize that the more I cried in the hospital, the better I felt.

I was becoming more calm; more clear-headed; more centered. I was starting to look at my problems through a different lens. The way I interacted with the other patients, and with the hospital staff, started to change.

I started to believe I was worth saving — that I was worth fighting for.

I continued to cry every day when I left the hospital, but outside of the safety and security of a hospital setting, it wasn’t the same. I got overwhelmed again, and questioned my worth and my identity, and told myself I was doing everything wrong…

Until I went to residential treatment in San Antonio. There, I felt safe to cry everything out again, and I got to learn real coping skills, to help me move through all the things that were making me cry all the time, and making me think that suicide was a viable option.

I spent a lot of my time in San Antonio feeling dysregulated, and out of control.

But I also spent a lot of time allowing myself to feel dysregulated, and out of control. And I started to notice something remarkable:

Sometimes, when I cry, I am dysregulated. I am overwhelmed to the point that I don’t have any control over my emotions. And I need to drop everything, and cry it all out — all the way down to the roots, if necessary — in order to restore balance.

But sometimes… sometimes when I cry, I’m allowing myself to feel the emotion, and let it run its course, and it’s still painful and still feels overwhelming — but I’m actually in control of the process.

And I don’t think it’s fair to me, to label those moments as being dysregulated. Because when I’m in control, and I choose to let myself cry, I’m not dysregulated in that moment. In fact, I’m doing something very healthy by getting those emotions out, and giving myself freedom to feel what I need to feel.

But there’s still a lot of moments when I know I’m not in control; when I’m so overwhelmed my body just takes over and forces me to cry it all out, whether I want to or not.

And those are the times I don’t like, even though I can admit that they’re also necessary.

Because those painful emotions I’ve been avoiding my whole life? They do need to come out, in order for me to start moving forward. I can’t confront something I’m not even willing to let happen.

But I don’t like it, at all. And I wish there was an easier way.

Last Thursday, I had plans to go to dinner with some friends I made in outpatient therapy.

I backed out at the last minute, because the idea of being in a restaurant with other people at my table is still too scary to think about…

But I have to give myself credit where credit is due:

I’m in outpatient therapy.

I attend — and participate in — every session.

I’m making friends in outpatient.

I want those friendships to continue, and to extend into other areas of my life.

I’m willing to make plans to meet up with friends in person (even if I did eventually back out of those plans… I still made the plans and texted the invites…)

I was able, for a brief window of time, to picture myself in a restaurant, with friends, sharing a meal and a conversation, building memories, feeling connected… and in my mind, that picture felt good.

It felt like the kind of activity I want to be a part of.

From the time I sent the invites… until the time I texted everyone and said I’m not quite ready yet… for that brief period of time, I wanted connection more than I wanted the “safety” of always doing everything alone.

And, yeah, the thought of that connection scares the daylights out of me.

But even though it scares me so much that I had to back out of last week’s plans…

I still want the connection.

I want to have friends again.

I don’t know what that’s going to look like.

It’s scary to put myself back out there.

I could make friends with the wrong people, and they could hurt me, take advantage of me, and convince me to compromise my integrity in return for their approval.

I could make friends with the right people, and they could get to know me, and discover they don’t like me or they don’t want me in their life.

I could make really great friends, and for reasons nobody can explain or foresee, we could still drift apart and ultimately go our separate ways.

I could wind up alone again, after all is said and done.

I could be even more lonely than I already am, if I make new friends, and lose them…

But also…

I could make new friends, and they could add so much depth, meaning, and beauty to my life. They could give me feelings, experiences, and moments that I don’t even know how much I’m missing.

They could give me incentive to stay alive, on the days when I feel really down on myself and wonder if it’s all still worth it or not.

They could give me a reason to get out of the apartment and explore more of West Texas, and engage in some of the social activities I secretly want to be part of… but am too afraid to open up just yet, and admit how badly I want it…

They could bring my life a whole new level of meaning, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

They could help me finally know that I don’t have to carry all my burdens alone, anymore.

But I’m scared. Not just like, “Ugh, I don’t know if they’ll like me…”

But, “I’m terrified they’ll think I have too much drama and too many problems and they won’t wait to get rid of me so they don’t get sucked into it all… I’m convinced they’ll spend five minutes with me and then never wanna talk to me again… I’m afraid I’ll reach out for a hand to hold, and every one of them will only kick me when I’m already down.”

I have myself so thoroughly convinced that I’m nothing and nobody… and that no one would ever want to be my friend… the thought of putting myself out there isn’t, “Let’s take a chance and maybe they’ll prove me wrong!”

It’s, “I know for a fact this is what’s going to happen, and it’s safer for me to avoid it and always wonder, than it is to go out there and find out that it’s true that nobody wants me.”

But I’m tired of living alone…

I won’t do it anymore.

If I had to be alone for the rest of my life…

I would rather die.

That’s not an exaggeration. And it’s not a colloquialism.

It’s a statement of fact.

I will die before I will spend the next 50 years or more, living alone, having nobody to talk to, nobody to share things with, nobody to go out to dinner with…

And I’m not ready to die yet. I tried it; it didn’t work. (Sorry, is that too dark? It’s true, though — I know killing myself is not the answer I’m looking for…)

The only other option, then, is to stop being alone.

No matter how much that terrifies me.

And.

I.

Am.

Terrified.

But I know I’ve had friends, before.

And I know I’ve eaten in restaurants, with other people at my table, before.

And if I’ve done it before…

I have to believe I can do it again.

I have to show myself that I can do it again. Future me is counting on it.

But I’m too afraid, today, to go to dinner with friends, tomorrow.

* * * * * * * * * *

A year ago, my story would’ve stopped, right there.

“I’m too afraid today, so there’s no point in even hoping for tomorrow.”

But a year ago, I was still looking for reasons to die. And today, I want to find reasons to stay alive.

And dinner with friends feels like a fabulous reason to live!

So I have to figure out how to make it happen; how to work through the fear that’s holding me back.

Because my goal isn’t just “go to dinner with friends one time.”

My goal is “become someone who enjoys dinner with friends on a consistent basis.”

So it’s not just a fear I have to put up with one time, to get through one dinner so I can say, “See, I did it.” And then tell myself I never have to do it again.

No, no, no. This is a fear I have to sit with, and acknowledge, and allow to be present as I sit down at the table with my friends, and tell myself, “Dinners like this one are important to me — important enough to push through this paralyzing, overwhelming feeling inside, that tells me to turn and run the other direction.”

Old me would’ve given up, the moment I texted everyone and told them, “Hey, I’m not quite ready yet.”

I would’ve seen that as a failure. And I would’ve convinced myself I couldn’t recover from it.

And honestly… new me still feels that way, somewhat. I do feel like I failed to achieve my goal. Objectively speaking, I suppose I did fail.

I mean, I was going to go to dinner, and then, I didn’t.

But it’s not a failure that I can’t recover from. And that’s what’s different about me, today: a year ago, I would’ve quit trying, after the first failure. Today, I refuse to let go of the goal.

And that refusal is still progress. It’s still forward momentum.

It’s still one step closer to my ultimate goal, than if I’d given up, and stayed home, and isolated myself, and told myself I was a failure for not being ready to take the big step yet and go out with my friends.

Anything that cracks open the belief that “I can’t do this,” or “I’m failing,” or “There’s no point,” has to be worth holding onto.

Refusing to let go is helping me to destroy the belief that I can’t do it.

I couldn’t face going to dinner with friends last week, but instead of giving up completely, I did the next best thing: I took myself out.

And that’s not my ultimate goal…

But compared to telling myself I can never do it, and there’s no point in even trying…

Taking myself to dinner is huge.

Like, I probably can’t even appreciate yet, how powerful it is.

Last week, I took myself to dinner, alone.

Not because I want to be by myself.

But because I’m trying to learn how not to be… and this is the only step right now, that feels safe for me to take.

Someday, though, there’s going to be other people at my table.

I am going to have dinner with my friends.

Not because the fear went away.

But because I learned to stop letting the fear make my decisions.

That starts with me, sitting in a restaurant alone, learning to be comfortable in public, instead of isolating in my apartment and just ordering DoorDash.

And that’s not my ultimate goal.

But for today, I think it’s enough.

I already have enough.

I slept for three days.

I missed meals.

I hardly got out of bed to use the bathroom.

I couldn’t think about anything at all.

My emotions were — not numb, but something even deeper than that… detached, maybe?

Indifferent?

Empty?

Wiped out?

I don’t know; they were just… gone.

I was so tired of everything.

I didn’t wanna go to sleep and never wake up — but I wouldn’t have minded if I could just sleep for a month or two, and let everything quiet down.

My second week of outpatient therapy had not ended well.

After a month and a half of waiting for the VA to approve me for IOP… and spending all that time alone, trying to just keep my emotions under control, to stop myself from getting overwhelmed every day, and having meltdown, after endless meltdown…

Once I started outpatient, I decided it was time to confront all the emotions, and the memories I still haven’t let go of; the anxiety that’s always there, eating at my soul, pulling me in a thousand different directions all at once, until I don’t even know what’s up, and what’s down…

I wanted to get everything out, once and for all, and finally start living for my future.

I’d worked hard to get to this point — and I deserved to start feeling better.

But I did too much.

I took on too many challenges all at once.

I allowed myself to get caught up in my own drama…

And I spiraled, out of control.

I failed at outpatient therapy.

I failed to apply all the coping skills I’d already learned, in the mental hospital, and in residential treatment.

I failed to assert myself with my family and friends, and to tell them I want to do what I want to do with my life… and that I appreciate their input, but I don’t want to feel pressured to conform to their expectations of what success should look like to me.

I failed to step back, once I knew I was spinning out of control. I failed to let go of things that don’t matter yet… things that I don’t even have to worry about until after I’m done with IOP, in another 10 or 11 weeks.

Which, doesn’t sound like a lot of time, really. But after 49 days in the mental hospital, and 59 in treatment… 70 plus days of IOP is going to change me a lot. Some of the goals I think are important to me today, might not even matter 60 or 70 days from now.

And I know that, inside.

But I still wanna find the answer for, “What am I going to do now with the rest of my life?”

I have to know things are going to start getting good now… or else, what’s the point of all this therapy?

But even when I’m healthy in body and mind, I know life doesn’t work that way.

I can’t know, today, what my life will look like tomorrow.

I mean, tomorrow tomorrow… maybe.

But a month from now? A year from now? A decade from now?

Thirty years from now?

Nobody can predict anything that far out.

But I came home from San Antonio in March, and I believed that was my next step: to plot out every major detail for the rest of my life; from now until the day I die.

And I couldn’t do it.

I failed, horribly.

On the second-to-last day of my second week of IOP — in group, no less! — I had a total breakdown.

I started sobbing. I told the therapist, and everyone there, all the things I’d been struggling with since I left treatment.

I told them about the daily panic attacks, and crying episodes. I told them how I wanted to move to San Antonio, but every time I thought about it, I felt paralyzed by fear and uncertainty.

I told them I was trying to explain these fears to my family, and I felt like nobody understood me.

I told them I’d started cutting myself again, and I was trying to convince myself it was no big deal, and something I’d naturally grow out of… but dangerous self-harm is a big deal… and I just didn’t wanna see it.

I’d been trying so hard to push through all the fear, panic, overwhelm, helplessness… and I wasn’t able to.

It was all too much for me.

I was supposed to be healthy, now. I was supposed to be able to figure these things out on my own.

I was supposed to show everybody how good I was doing, and how incredible God is, and how grateful I am for this second chance He’s giving me.

I failed at it all.

When I’d gotten all that out, and I told the group I was so tired I didn’t know what to do, we broke for 15 minutes, and the therapist walked me down the hall and got me admitted for inpatient treatment.

I’d really messed things up, and I couldn’t believe I was about to go into another mental hospital.

I hated myself so much in that moment.

But the moment passed, and I recognized that whether I really was failing or not, I was tired. And I needed inpatient, very badly.

A nurse took me through the admitting process and showed me to my room, where I promptly lay down in bed and went right to sleep. For three days, all I did was sleep.

I remember doctors and nurses coming in to take my vitals, and ask me how I was doing. Every time, I told them, “I’m just so tired.” Every time, they answered, “I understand.”

I kept anticipating another meltdown. I’d been having so many them, so often at home, I knew something was bound to happen now that I was back in the safety of a hospital.

But the meltdown never came.

Even though I knew I had failed again — and I knew what that feeling always looked like, when I was alone.

I wanted to have another meltdown, so I could unload more pent-up emotion.

But still, the meltdown never came.

What did come… finally… was quiet.

My mind wasn’t racing.

My heart wasn’t breaking.

My body wasn’t anxious — or afraid.

I was just… calm… in ways I’ve never been, before.

On day four, and every day in the hospital after, my mind was quiet, my heart didn’t hurt, and physically, I felt rested and relaxed.

I didn’t know what to do with all that. I haven’t felt calm like that since I was probably 12 years old.

I didn’t know I could feel like that anymore. I thought my trauma, and my emotions, and my racing, anxious thoughts, were going to keep me prisoner for the rest of my life.

And now, here in the hospital, instead of my heart, mind, and body working against me, we were all learning how to cooperate, and how to feel, think, and act in ways that align with my values, and my identity…

And bring me peace, purpose, satisfaction, and meaning.

I didn’t feel anxious even one time when I was in inpatient treatment. I never felt afraid. I didn’t want to shut down, or hide from anybody, or withdraw from any “uncomfortable” feelings.

I wanted to relax… and let my mind quiet down… and let my heart just… breathe.

I wanted to be myself.

I was tired of trying to impress other people. Tired of feeling like it’s not safe, or appropriate, for me to just live my life, and make my own decisions, and be satisfied with the results.

I entered inpatient, thinking I had failed… and yet somehow, the experience of failing at something, and then not punishing myself for the failure; not judging myself; not complaining; not condemning; not criticizing…

Somehow, that opened up space in my mind and heart to finally accept that, yes, I do fail sometimes…

And that failure is not the end of the world.

It’s not a life sentence.

It’s not a moral failure.

It’s not weakness.

It’s not a reflection of who I am, or what I believe, or how I live my life.

It’s not something I need to hide from, or be ashamed of.

It’s not something to gloss over when I’m with other people, only to go home and continue to ruminate on, until it drives me back into another hospital.

It’s an event.

A moment.

An unexpected outcome.

A sudden turn of events.

And, if I’m totally honest, it’s not even in my control.

It’s not something any of us can control.

It’s just part of life. It’s just something that happens.

It’s a natural result of making choices, and taking action, based on our own limited understanding, as mortal beings who do not have access to the full purpose of life.

And it’s the only way we learn life’s most valuable lessons.

I’ve been failing my whole life, and I’ve been trying to cover it up because I never knew how to deal with failure.

It’s not that I’m inherently bad, or wrong, or that I want things in life that I’m not supposed to…

It’s just that, like all the rest of humanity, I don’t actually know what I’m doing most of the time. I don’t actually know things are going to backfire, until they do. (Or, if I do know, I don’t know how to prevent myself from making things backfire, over and over again.)

But somewhere in my upbringing, I internalized the belief that failure is unacceptable…

And that if I ever do fail, at anything… I will be judged, criticized, and condemned… and I’ll never be allowed to form any connections, or belong to any kind of group, anywhere.

Failure equals loss.

And I’ve already lost so much…

When I went into inpatient, I expected myself to come completely undone.

I thought I’d failed so horribly, I was gonna spiral out of control, and become so dysregulated I’d have to be restrained, or possibly even transferred to a different facility, where they’d be able to monitor me more closely and ensure my safety, and the safety of those around me.

But the spiral never came.

The meltdown never happened.

The panic attack I was so afraid of… just wasn’t there.

I’m convinced this is because I accepted the failures that led me to being hospitalized, instead of avoiding the pain of telling myself I either couldn’t face it… or didn’t deserve it…

And I refused to sit and worry over what that failure said about me as a person.

I simply acknowledged that I had a goal to handle everything on my own… and I tried… and I just couldn’t.

And there’s nothing wrong in the fact that I couldn’t.

The reality is I’m not supposed to do everything on my own. None of us are. But until I finally accepted that, I believed I was doing everything wrong, and it was my lot in life to suffer, and always feel worried, anxious, and afraid.

But inpatient allowed me to experience life through a totally different lens… one of safety, security, and quiet, peaceful harmony with my own thoughts, feelings, and attitudes… one where everyone around me was either a friend, an ally, a helper, or at the very least, a real-life NPC who simply lived in the background, and who didn’t mean me any harm, or ill will, at all…

For the first time in my adult life, I felt calm and collected.

I felt comfortable joining other patients in the dayroom; sitting next to them at meal time; speaking up in group; talking about my needs and wants; listening to others, allowing them the freedom to say everything they needed to say in that moment, without judgment or criticism, and without the need to control anything about myself, or the people around me.

It’s like I found enlightenment.

Nothing bothered me. Not even my own uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Not the words or actions of the people around me.

I was at peace with my surroundings.

I knew I had failed at my stated goal of being able to handle everything on my own…

And I accepted failure as the appropriate outcome.

And now I wanna fail at all kinds of things, so I can learn that failure is not something to be ashamed of or hide from.

I want to fail so fantastically, that I have no choice but to accept the outcome, learn from it, get up, and try again!

And again!

And again!

For as many times as it takes, for me to get close to the successful outcome I long for… and finally believe I may yet realize…

If I’m only willing to fail a whole bunch of times, first.

Call it fear. Call it anxiety. Call it overwhelm.

It doesn’t matter what label you give it; it’s pulling me down, and it has been since the day I got home from treatment.

It hit me as soon as I stepped into my apartment.

I was home…

And my safety net was gone.

There was no one to run all my ideas by. No one to go to when I get overwhelmed. No one to teach me the coping skills I didn’t have time to learn while I was busy tearing down all my walls and learning how to let things go.

Suddenly, it was all up to me.

And, without the safety and comfort of residential treatment… I felt completely, utterly alone.

I wasn’t ready for the sheer panic that hit me in wave after wave.

I thought I’d conquered all my demons in treatment, and now, everything was supposed to turn up roses, all the time, every day, around every corner, and with every wise decision I knew I was going to make, now that I was finally free of my past guilt, shame, and regret.

I didn’t know that future decisions would still feel just as painful, frightening, and overpowering. I wasn’t ready to come home and have my fear consume me…

And boy… did it consume me.

= = = = = = =

I’m sitting on the floor, my back to the wall, listening to my “All For Love” playlist on Pandora, sobbing uncontrollably.

I’ve been having these meltdowns almost every day. I can feel the pressure building up, beforehand, so I usually know when they’re coming.

Sometimes, I can keep the panic at bay if I put on my headphones, take a CBD gummy, and start singing all my favorite songs, with all the power I can muster.

Singing is the only thing that can keep me from crying. The crying still comes, though, eventually — so singing isn’t a cure, it’s more a way to buy me time, I guess, until I feel safe enough to cry, and just keep crying, and let it all come out.

It’s scary to cry like this.

Last summer, this kind of crying was what finally pushed me over the edge, and landed me in the mental hospital. Back then, I thought these meltdowns were a sure sign that I was out of control.

I would sob in the same spot on the floor that I’m sitting in today, and I would let the fear, and the panic and the overwhelm, just completely overpower me.

I would be afraid to cry. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Worried. Convinced that something must be wrong with me, for me to be having such deep, intense emotions.

I would try to resist it. I would fight against it, and try to make the crying stop as quickly as possible.

The more I fought, the harder I cried.

It got to where all I knew anymore was panic and overwhelm.

The thing is… as much as it was hurting me, I knew I had to get all those tears out.

Even last summer, I knew it was the pain I’m holding onto, that’s holding me back — that’s preventing me from living the lifestyle I want.

I knew all those old memories, all the pain, all the shame, the judgment, the fear… all of it… they’re all mental or emotional blocks that stand in the way of me being able to think clearly, to see what’s really in front of me, and to make choices that will move me forward, in full alignment with my values and my identity.

They were like barnacles, sucking the life out of me until nothing but darkness and confusion remained.

I knew those painful old memories had to go.

But I didn’t know how to get them out.

I only knew how to sit in the corner and cry.

And, actually, that’s what I did for probably a whole year before I went to the mental hospital: I sat, every morning, with pen and paper in my hand, my back against that same wall, and journaled, and cried.

I tried to dig up as many memories as I could, thinking if I could just cry about it all, I could finally be free. And I spent 365 days — at least — crying every morning, over every painful memory that ever came up.

But just crying wasn’t enough. (That’s how I wound up in the mental hospital, after all… so, for real: don’t try this at home. You won’t like the outcome.)

Every day, I cried, more and more, trying to get all those memories and all the pain and everything out of my body. And every time I cried, it was like walking in quicksand. With each tear, my heart sank deeper and deeper into the abyss.

In time, I came to believe I could never be free of my past, and the only way to escape the pain was suicide. (I’ll write more about that later… much later… I’m not ready for that deep dive just yet.)

Suffice it to say, in the mental hospital, I learned a safer way to cry.

Or, rather, I learned that it is safe to cry — but to get the full effect, you have to get everything out. Not just bits and pieces, here and there.

You have to cry all of it out, all the way down to the roots, or else it’ll just build back up again and you’ll get stuck in a perpetual cycle of crying enough to relieve the immediate pressure, but never enough to find real and lasting peace.

Mind you, I am not a doctor, and this is not psychiatric advice. This is just my experience.

But my experience in the mental hospital — after days and days of crying just enough to relieve the immediate pressure…

My experience in the mental hospital was if everyone would just leave me be… and I could go sit and sob in the quiet of my room… away from all the other patients…

If I could just cry and cry until I finally cried every bit of it out…

Eventually… the crying would subside.

Not once, but every time I cried.

Now, in the mental hospital, I felt safe to cry everything out.

In my apartment, before going to the mental hospital, that hadn’t been the case.

I was afraid to cry. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Convinced it meant there was something wrong with me.

But in the mental hospital, somehow, I intuitively knew that I was in a safe, controlled environment, where if my crying ever did get out of hand, somebody could step in and help me through it, and help me get back in control.

And somehow, just knowing I was safe to fully let loose… that gave me the freedom I needed to finally cry things out all the way down to the roots… and to cry out all the pain, fear, embarrassment, shame, guilt, judgment, all of it, every heavy emotion attached to every painful memory…

And leave it all on my pillow, and never have to pick it back up again.

I learned that skill while in the mental hospital — but then they sent me home, long before I had time to master the skill (let alone time to cry out a whole lifetime of pent-up emotions).

After the mental hospital, I knew I could cry everything out, any time, all the way down to the roots, and I could be completely free from all that pain — but only in the safety of a hospital setting.

And, admittedly, that’s more than half the reason I sought residential treatment, after leaving the mental hospital. I knew I still had more tears to cry, and I knew my shame and my guilt was still enough to pose a real risk… so I had to go back in, to finish what the mental hospital had started.

In residential treatment, I found the safety and comfort I was looking for. It took about a week or ten days for my mind to fully realize that I was safe, once again, to let everything out. But once I was safe, it all came spilling out of me.

I cried uncontrollably in group therapy, alone in my shower, lying in bed, early in the morning, late at night — once, I cried through lunch, sitting in the cafeteria, watching other patients walk by, not sure if they should approach me, or leave me be.

My walls were down, and I was determined to keep it that way! So as painful and frightening as it was to cry in front of other people, I made myself do it, until it was no longer frightening, and no longer something I had to force myself to do, but rather, something that just happened organically, in the middle of group, or in small circles during our down time.

It took weeks, but I finally learned that I was safe to cry, in residential treatment, in individual therapy, in group therapy, and in other social settings in the hospital, with other patients or staff.

And once I knew I was safe, it became easy to let the tears flow, and to show fear, pain, shame, remorse, sorrow, all of it. I could safely express any emotion and know I was fully supported in doing so.

And that was amazing. I’ve never felt that safe, or that free, in my entire life.

Then I came home and didn’t have any support.

I still “know” I’m safe to cry, even in the solitude of my apartment. Actually, now that I’m back in the real world, I think I feel safer and more comfortable crying in my apartment than I would feel crying in front of other people, out and about.

But it doesn’t feel the same as when I was in the hospital. That extra layer of safety and support is missing. I’m all on my own now… and if I start to cry and get in over my head, I have to rely on myself to guide me through it…

And I don’t know if I know how to do it all by myself.

But I am.

Because I came home, and immediately got overwhelmed, and felt myself freeze, and panic, and feel like everything is wrong and there’s no hope for me at all…

And I can’t go through one more day feeling that way.

I won’t.

It’s a horrible way to feel.

I’ve already served my sentence feeling that way about life. I will not allow that feeling to become my guiding force, now that I’ve had success in treatment, and in the mental hospital, and know that, as painful as my emotions can be, they are temporary, and eventually, they will go away.

But they don’t go away on their own. Maybe someone else knows more about this than I do, but in my experience, emotions tend to linger until I allow myself to feel them, to process them, and then let them go.

So…

I don’t have to be a slave to the fear, and the panic, and the overwhelm.

But I still have to swim through it all to reach the shore of happiness, and possibility, and hope.

There’s no other way around it.

I have to let myself cry this all out. It hurts, but in the end, it’s the only way I can free myself from all the feelings I don’t want to feel.

I had to learn that I was safe in the mental hospital — and then I had to learn to become comfortable crying the way I do.

Then I left the mental hospital, and I had to learn to be safe and comfortable in residential treatment.

Now, today, I suppose I already know it is “safe” for me to cry… and plus, if I did get out of hand in my apartment, I can always call and go back to the hospital, if I really need to.

So I guess now, the only thing to do is to allow myself to cry in my apartment, as much and as often as I need to…

And learn to become comfortable with crying when I’m alone, when there’s not anyone within arm’s reach for me to go to and ask for help.

Cyring today is easier than it was a week ago… so I’m moving in the right direction.

But man, does it hurt.

I suppose it always will, no matter how good I get at it.

But I can tell you this: crying everything out hurts a lot less than holding everything in.

Holding everything in led me to suicide.

Crying it out is leading me to emotional health — and relative happiness.

When I was afraid to let myself cry, last year, I always thought I was doing something wrong.

Now that I’m getting comfortable with letting it out, I finally feel like I’m getting something right.

Maybe if I can make friends with all my heavy emotions, and release the shame and the guilt and the judgment…

Maybe I can learn to like myself, after all.

And if I can do that, that’s worth all the tears I will ever cry in my life.

Intensive outpatient treatment might be more challenging than straight-out hospitalization.

Certainly, it presents its own, unique challenges, separate from the ones I already went through when I was in the hospital.

Like, what to do with all the time throughout the week when I’m not in the hospital… and not surrounded by other patients and staff, whose mere presence is enough to remind me that I’m not actually alone.

When I’m done with outpatient each day, I go home, to my empty apartment, and I am alone… every minute, every hour, every day, that I’m not in treatment.

And somehow, being alone now hits harder than it did before I was hospitalized.

I think it’s because I know, now, that I don’t have to be alone, if I don’t want to. In the hospital, I made friends. Both times. I barely even had to try. As soon as I knew I was safe, and comfortable, in the hospital setting, making friends was almost effortless.

But I haven’t figured out, yet, that I’m just as safe in outpatient treatment — or that I’m safe in my apartment.

I don’t feel safe when I’m alone; not the way I felt safe in the hospital. In the hospital, I knew that if I ever got overwhelmed, or if things started to spiral out of control, there was always somebody I could turn to who could help me through.

Now that I’m home, I feel like I’m on my own again, to sort all that out and to keep myself safe from my own dark thoughts and overpowering emotions. Although, I’m getting pretty good at just allowing the dark thoughts to come and go, without getting too hung up.

But my emotions are still killing me.

The pain and the intensity makes every emotion feel like it’s the end of the world.

Even happy feelings are overwhelming, right now.

The part of my brain that processes feelings can’t tell the difference between good and bad, positive and negative, helpful and harmful. It only knows that the feelings are too much for me to handle on my own.

Which makes it really hard to be alone, in my apartment…

But even harder to think about what if I go somewhere new, and meet people and start to have a good time, and then feel overwhelmed and have an emotional meltdown, in public, in front of people I barely know?

That thought keeps me from even trying to go outside, and try something new.

I still go on my walk every day, but that’s totally different. That’s me, walking alone, around my own neighborhood, on the same route I walk every day, where I know I’m safe and no one is going to bother me because I’ve got my headphones on and I’m singing along to all my favorite songs, so…

Yeah…

No one can touch me while I’m walking.

But going somewhere new? Somewhere outside my established routine?

No, thank you. I’ll pass.

I like the people in outpatient, though. I like seeing them three days a week, for three hours each day, and hearing their stories, and sharing mine, and feeling connected.

I’m terrified of what’s going to happen in another nine or ten weeks, when the staff decides I’m done with outpatient, and I’ve gotten all I can out of it, and it’s time for me to move on.

What happens when I’m done with IOP, and back to spending all of my time alone in my apartment, with nobody to ever talk to and no friends to go hang out with?

I don’t have a job.

I’m not in school.

I don’t have any hobbies that require hanging out with other people. I mean, I do love to sing, and play my harmonica, and yeah, it might be nice to do that with other people… but then again, other people might just tell me I’m no good, and to go home and not come back until I have skills worth putting on display.

And maybe other people wouldn’t even do that. Maybe I’m just imagining scenarios that make it easier for me to justify my self-isolation…

But if there are people who would treat me that way… I don’t know if I can handle that.

I think it’s safer not to take any chances.

I tried to share all that in group last Friday, in ways that are relevant to outpatient treatment and the group setting. I told everyone I’m enjoying the groups, and that, even though I’m just in my first week, I’m already afraid of what will happen when my 10-12 weeks is over, and I’m back to being alone all the time.

I explained how I was able to feel safe in the hospital, and so I know now, that once I feel safe, it’s easy for me to make new friends… and that I don’t feel that safe in my apartment, or out and about in Lubbock, and I don’t know, yet, how to feel safe…

And I started to cry.

It was uncomfortable, crying for the first time, in front of some people I’d just met that day.

So I didn’t let it go on for very long; just a minute or two, then I reeled it in, and once I was calm I got up and went outside to do some deep breathing and try and refocus.

I was terrified at the thought of being alone again, after IOP ends. I still am terrified of always being alone.

Alone is the scariest word in the English language, as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t know, yet, that I won’t be alone anymore. All I can see right now is all the past evidence that proves, over and over again, that even when I have the opportunity to really connect with someone, I’d still rather choose to remain alone. So, I’d say this is a pretty big fear I’m facing.

Here’s the ugly, awkward plot twist:

When I came back inside, the woman sitting next to me had left me a sticky note, on top of my papers, that read, simply, “You’re not alone.”

In that initial moment when I read her note, I was grateful. I felt like that was validation that I am on the right track, and that I’m making choices that ultimately will lead to me not being alone.

But in the moment after the initial moment — and in every moment since — I’ve been obsessed with thoughts of wanting to make this woman fall for me, and make me happy.

I hardly know her name, and I already think she holds the key to my happiness, to my healing. In my mind, I’m ready to turn my whole life upside down so I can be with her.

I’m not even attracted to her. Not really.

And yet, I’m ready to hand her all of my power.

I’ve spent all weekend thinking about her. Daydreaming. Fantasizing. Imagining what it would be like to get to know her… to go on dates with her… to hold her… to kiss her… to feel her love and to make room in my life — and my heart — for somebody new…

I don’t want her. Well, I don’t know her well enough, to have any idea whether I want her, or not. But I can’t stop obsessing over how badly I need her to want me.

I want to change groups so I can permanently be in her group.

I want to show her my wounds and feel her loving me in spite of all the reasons I can give why she shouldn’t — why I don’t deserve to be loved, by her, or by anyone.

I want her to be my girlfriend, and I want to get lost in our relationship, and make that my identity, so I don’t have to spend another moment trapped inside the identity I already have, and despise.

I regret that I didn’t ask for her phone number… or at least, give her mine.

We could probably be together right now, kissing, talking, holding hands, falling in love… fixing each other… saving each other from a lifetime of loneliness.

We could be laughing together. I could be looking into her eyes, and seeing my future.

I don’t want her, though. I’m not interested in her. I don’t feel an attraction to her.

But even so… even temporary togetherness… even if it’s with the wrong woman… or maybe it’s just the wrong time… either way… it would still have to be better than no togetherness… and no woman.

But these are the exact thoughts, feelings, and desires, that I had for Sara Jones, before I went into the hospital. And they weren’t healthy thoughts, feelings, or desires, with her.

And I know they’re not healthy thoughts, feelings, and desires, with this new woman.

Yet, I feel them all so intensely.

It feels like she could be the answer to all of my life’s greatest problems!

The only difference is this time, I know I only want a temporary girlfriend. I thought I had to make Sara Jones love me forever… and this new woman… I just wanna love for a little while… just long enough to show me that I don’t have to be alone… but nowhere near long enough to where I’d be expected to commit to her.

I want her to love me to the point I can know I’m still lovable — and then I want to move on, in search of the woman who I will love for the rest of my life.

As if I know how to truly love a woman…

I mean, maybe I can learn, someday. But today? Not a chance.

Any woman I would fall in love with today, is only going to get her heart broke in two when I ruin the relationship with all my codependent behavior. And I know, now, that’s what this is.

I know because I’ve been codependent ever since I met Carrie, when I was 16 years old. I think a lot of people probably run into codependent love, at least once in their life. But I feel like most other people probably outgrow that behavior once they reach adulthood.

I feel like I should have outgrown it, 33 years ago. But I didn’t. I haven’t. And sometimes, I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in — I might even be the main reason Carrie left me; I don’t really know, anymore. It doesn’t matter all that much, after a whole lifetime of not being together.

Except that, until now I’ve never felt safe enough to emotionally let her go, and to examine what’s left of our love, and see if there are any lessons in it that I’m finally ready to learn. But that’s for another letter.

I am obsessed with trying to figure out how I can get this new woman to want me… to pursue me… to choose me… to finally be the one who will heal my heartache, and show me how to live again…

And I’m ready to ask myself why? Why am I obsessed? Why do I want her to save me? Why do I think she can save me?

(Do I really think she can save me? Or do I just want something to distract me from having to take a long look at myself?)

Part of me — the same part of me that wanted Sara Jones so badly — wishes I could let this new woman be the answer.

I guess, a bigger part of me knows she never will be.

But I’m still hurting so much from all my past relationships, I’m not ready — yet — to take that look within, and to ask myself what I really need… and who I need it from.

I know the answer is “me.” I know I am the only one who can heal what’s broken inside me. But in this moment… possibly for the last time… I wish the answer could be somebody else.

Because in this moment… I’m still afraid to be alone with myself.

I’m afraid I’ll find out that I’m not as strong as I want to be.

I’m afraid I won’t know how to take care of myself, after spending so many years longing for somebody else to take care of me.

But I know she won’t fix me. I know she can’t.

I don’t know if I can — but I know I can’t put it on anyone else to do it for me. It wouldn’t be fair… and besides that, it just wouldn’t work.

She didn’t put me in this mindset in the first place.

I did.

And I’m the only one who can get myself out.

I don’t know but I guess it’s finally time for me to face the pain I’ve been hiding from? That might be the only way it ever really goes away, after all.

I wish this woman could be the answer. But I know I’ll be better off leaving her alone, and looking within. It’s all I can do.

I sincerely hope it’s all it takes, for me to finally give myself the love that can only come from within. The love that I really need. The love that will set me free, to someday give my heart to somebody new.

After I’ve learned to take care of myself, the way that I need to.

Until then, it’s probably best that I avoid romance altogether. I really don’t want to be codependent anymore.

I just never knew, before, that I could be any other way.

I’m watching Cameo sing “Candy” on YouTube, and it’s making me cry.

I need the release; I’ve been holding onto some of these emotions for far too long, and I need to get it out so I can start to move forward with my life.

“Candy” is one of the songs I put on when my mind is out of sorts, and I wanna get pumped up. Something about the song, the lyrics, the music, the outfits, the beat, the expressions on everyone’s faces… somehow it manages to pull me out of my funk every time I watch it.

I wanna call it magic — because that’s what it feels like when my mood shifts so suddenly! — but sadly, I’m pretty sure it can all be explained in very dry, clinical terms, in modern science.

I’m still gonna act like it’s magic, though, because magic is way more fun…

I’ve been home for over a month now, and today is the first day I finally feel like doing something productive.

I wish I could gloss over the difficult parts.

The fear.

The anxiety.

The way I’ve been avoiding my responsibilities.

The fact that I came home from treatment, and temporarily fell apart.

The fact that I came home from treatment… and started drinking every day.

I’m tempted to hide that part from everybody, because why embarrass myself if I don’t have to?

But I am embarrassed.

And if I continue to hide it, it only increases the odds that I’ll go back to some kind of irresponsible, fearful, avoidant behavior… that may not be drinking… but will still interfere with my plans, goals, and dreams for my life, now that I’m (more or less) mentally stable.

I spent 59 days in a treatment center in San Antonio, learning how to get my mind right. And the day I got home from treatment, I started drinking.

I also started popping CBD gummies a couple times a day… and occasionally, taking an extra Trazadone in hopes that it would help me sleep longer.

(Occasionally, hoping I would fall asleep and not wake up, if I’m being completely honest.)

I don’t understand it. Treatment was a huge success! But I came home to more problems than I was anticipating, and I got overwhelmed, and I didn’t know what to do.

I crumbled on day one.

You see, I’m not a drinker. I used to be, back in the Navy, twenty-five years ago. But I gave it up when I got out, because I was afraid of what might happen if I didn’t. A couple of times here and there, I’ve had a few drinks, but the last time I did, I didn’t like it at all.

And yet, last month when I left treatment, it was the first thing I did as soon as I was safely back home in my apartment.

The second thing I did was to cut my arm. Fortunately, I only did that the one time, and then decided it’s too risky, and not something I want to continue.

The third thing I did was to lie down in bed, and cry myself to sleep.

I came home feeling like I was finally free from all my past trauma, and all the pent-up emotion I’d been holding inside since I was fifteen years old — and now I was afraid again, and I didn’t know what to do.

I spent the first three weeks home, getting drunk, getting stoned, or trying to sleep as many hours as I can in a day, or all three.

I finally quit drinking, and quit sleeping all day. I’m still getting stoned a couple times a week though, off CBD gummies. And I don’t like that… but I guess I like it better than being alone with all my fears.

See, even though I’m better, mentally, I still want to avoid pain.

And living life, in today’s society, is painful. It is frightening. It is overwhelming, and risky, and uncertain.

And I despise uncertainty.

I need to know that I’m going to get the outcome I want, or I will freeze up and get stuck in indecision… and I’ll stay in that place where avoiding responsibility for my decisions seems more appealing than making a choice… and finding out I chose wrong.

Even though I honestly am better than when I went into treatment — even though suicide is no longer the only thing I think about every day — I still don’t know how to handle painful emotions or events on my own.

And maybe I never will.

I can’t even watch “Candy” on YouTube, without getting emotionally overwhelmed.

And maybe, that’s the point.

Maybe I’m not supposed to handle it all on my own. I don’t know. I mean, that is the reason I sought treatment: because I knew I couldn’t stop myself from making another suicide attempt, without professional intervention.

I knew I needed help, in order to turn my mind around, and want to live…

And yet, I came home, and on day one, I thought I had to figure everything out now on my own… and I don’t know how to do that.

So, yeah, I crumbled. I got paralyzed. I felt crushed under the weight of not-knowing-ness… I felt like I know what I need to do to move forward… and yet… I’m powerless to actually take the next step.

I felt like if I made one wrong move, all the progress I’ve just made would collapse... and going to treatment will have been for nothing.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily true; but it is how I felt, in that moment when I decided what I really need to do is just drink, and not worry about my life at all.

I don’t really want to drink though. And, I don’t really want to avoid responsibility, either.

But I don’t want people to be disappointed in me, and if I make the wrong choice, they will be.

I don’t want to feel like a failure, and if I make the wrong choice, I will.

I don’t want to be ashamed of what happened — or how I chose to respond. But I came home, and I made the wrong choice.

I should know better than to drink, but in the face of this overwhelming helplessness… it seemed safer to drink, than not. (Believe me, I know what that sounds like.)

I think what’s really keeping me stuck here is shame.

I “should” know what three weeks of day drinking typically leads to.

I “should” have reached out before I took the second drink.

(I was gonna have that first one, regardless… but I really didn’t expect to keep drinking, day after day, and to want to keep drinking, day after day… I really believed it was going to be one and done.)

I “should” be smart enough not to start drinking in the first place.

Especially right after leaving a treatment center that deals with both mental health, and substance abuse.

I “should” know enough real alcoholics already, to know I don’t ever want to be one!

But the drinking isn’t the real problem.

The real problem is the challenges ahead of me, that I still don’t know if I’m equipped to handle.

You see, since coming home from treatment, I’ve known that I can’t go back to my old way of life. The old patterns of negative self-talk, doubt, withdrawal, isolation, self-harm…

No matter how much past trauma I’ve worked through… if I go back to those old negative patterns, it’s only a matter of time before I’m overwhelmed again, and facing the reality of another suicide attempt.

And I don’t want to die, anymore.

I want to live.

But living is scary.

Like… drive me to drink, scary.

I’m still terrified of my future! Even if I now believe it’s possible for me to have a good one.

I’m convinced that, now that I’m better… I somehow only get one chance to make the next right choice, and the next one after that, and so on and so on… and if I make one wrong choice, it’ll take away every chance for future success and happiness.

Not just the one chance that choice represents, but every chance, every day, for the rest of my life.

I’m convinced that once I make one wrong decision, it’s game over, and there’s no coming back now from the shame of it all.

And I don’t want to live in shame anymore.

I want to thrive. I want to build a lifestyle and a future that will give my life meaning, and give me purpose and direction (and hopefully, some happiness mixed in here and there).

I want to be alive.

But I still don’t want to be wrong. I’m terrified that other people are going to know I’m doing everything wrong.

I know I need help. But society tells me if I ask for help, I’ll bring shame on me and my family… and shame makes me want to be dead. To be invisible.

To disappear.

Shame has always kept me stuck in past moments and memories, torturing me for all the things I know I’ve done wrong, and that I know other people will judge me for. Shame haunted my thoughts for years… until the only way I could see out of it was suicide.

Shame tells me you’re not going to read my newsletter now, because I’ve just told you about things I’m doing wrong, and now you know that I make mistakes. And some of those mistakes feel downright catastrophic…

But some things help me to shake shame loose!

Like “Candy.” Even if it’s a temporary fix, at least today, I got 4 minutes and 21 seconds of not having to feel shame. Actually, I left YouTube on autoplay so I’ve been listening to 80s funk and R&B in the background for nearly 45 minutes now…

And it’s such a mood stabilizer for me. I’ve been unable to feel shame that whole time. The music magically makes my shame disappear!

It will come back, though.

I know it will come back.

It always does.

I feel like I don’t know how to handle shame, and fear, and anxiety.

And maybe I don’t.

Or maybe I learned, while I was in treatment, and my mind just hasn’t caught up yet.

Because if I was still a slave to my shame…

I wouldn’t be writing about it.

I wouldn’t be looking for ways to get out from under it.

I would be telling myself that, yes, of course, I deserve it… and if you only knew all the things I’ve done wrong in my life, you’d know I deserve it, too.

And I don’t deserve it.

I just don’t know — yet — how to address it head-on.

I don’t like feeling emotionally overwhelmed, frightened, confused, embarrassed, ashamed, uncertain… exposed…

But really, once I face those feelings, and allow them to just happen… without shame… without guilt… without judgment…

They actually don’t last that long.

I just don’t like going through it all.

But I don’t think there’s any other way for me to get the lifestyle I want.

I think when a person wants more out of life, I think they have to make new choices… and I think, by default, most of those choices are probably going to be wrong.

The worst thing I can do — if I want to get out of this mess, and live a life that’s worth living — is to avoid making choices because I’m afraid of doing it wrong.

If life has taught me anything, it’s that of course I’m going to do it wrong, at first.

I always do.

And that’s not anything to be ashamed of. It’s just something to recognize, and to learn how to deal with.

I am going to do things wrong — and that’s okay. That’s how I learn.

As long as I can learn from my wrong choices, I can, someday, make better ones… ones that are more in line with my values… my identity… my goals and dreams.

And someday… I can stop being ashamed, and just do whatever it is that I want to do… for no other reason than I want to do it.

And I don’t know about you…

But for me…

That is the definition of success: to do what I want to do, simply because I want to do it… and to be able to do it without shame, guilt, or judgment, from myself.

I feel like that would be worth living for.

I feel like that would be a real accomplishment.

And I feel like, as long as I’m willing to remain open and honest…

That kind of lifestyle is finally within my reach.

My life is a mess.

It has been, for a long time. I just haven’t been healthy enough to see it.

I don’t know why anybody would want to listen to me — I don’t know anything. That’s not me being down on myself; it’s just facts.

I have an Associate of Arts degree that took me seven years to complete, and really was just an excuse for me to take a bunch of music classes that I’ve done nothing with… and spend a bunch of years hanging around cute college girls that, I also did nothing with.

My memory is horrible.

Reading comprehension is virtually nil.

I have to read the same page over and over again, only to realize I still don’t know what it’s talking about. I try to rewrite what I’m reading into my own words, and sometimes it helps… but I almost never apply what I’m reading to real life… so…

I’ve been hospitalized twice in the last year for suicidal ideation. That’s two times in the span of 12 months that I’ve needed the highest-level professional help available, in order to keep myself from taking my own life. (Actually the two hospital stays were only about six months apart, but still.)

I’ve officially attempted suicide once. I don’t think I intend to ever try it again. I think the hospitalization helped.

But I still go into a panic attack just sending a text to make an appointment to see my bishop.

I still order DoorDash multiple times a week because the thought of cooking my own meals every day sends me into a spiral.

I’m still too afraid to step outside of my routine and take chances, and maybe try something new.

I’m convinced I’m going to do everything, catastrophically wrong.

And, the truth is…

I probably will. At first, at least.

But, knowing me, I’ll probably still be doing it wrong, the second, third, and fourth time around. Heck, there are probably some things I’ve been doing for 20 or 30 years, that I’m still doing wrong.

It’s kind of how I roll.

I’m probably doing this whole newsletter thing wrong… but I’m doing it, regardless.

And maybe that’s the point of this letter today:

It doesn’t matter how many times you get something wrong. What matters is whether or not you’re brave enough to do what you really want to do.

For a long time, I wasn’t brave enough. I see that now, so, so clearly.

(To my credit, mismanaged mental health can turn anybody into a full-fledged coward, for a time. My hospital stays seem to have helped with that, too… just not as much as the suicidal ideation. I guess that’s alright, though; of the two, suicide is the bigger immediate threat.)

I’m realizing, though, now that I’m home: my struggle has never been, “Am I smart enough?” Or am I strong enough; determined enough; kind enough; popular enough; generous enough; disciplined enough. I’ve got all that stuff inside.

But for decades, what I didn’t have enough of, was bravery.

Real, raw, unwavering, unflinching courage.

The pure willingness to live the lifestyle I really want to live… to be vulnerable… to be open to new experiences… to be able to admit when I’m doing something wrong, or when I’m afraid, or nervous, or anxious, or shy.

There have been moments, in recent years, that I have been very brave.

Moving to Lubbock. Going to Florida for a copywriter’s convention. Volunteering at the Buddy Holly Hall. Starting this newsletter. Taking solo road trips across the great state of Texas, never knowing where the day will take me, and having more fun than a person should be capable of having in such a short smount of time.

Calling the National Suicide Hotline, and allowing myself to receive the help I need.

But now, after two hospital stays… after working through decades of trauma, and pent-up emotion… after releasing a lifetime of shame, guilt, fear, judgment, and regret…

After finding the right combination of medications, therapies, and coping skills, for where I’m at in this phase of my life…

I come home and on Day One, I’m overwhelmed, and back to my old habits and routines.

I’m so afraid of the next step, all I wanna do is stay locked in my apartment, binging Netflix, ordering DoorDash, avoiding people, avoiding reality, avoiding taking responsibility for my future because I am one hundred percent convinced I’m going to do my future wrong, and I won’t know how to recover from the wrongness of it all.

My mind is clearer than it’s been since I was probably 16 years old.

I’ve unloaded more than 30 years’ worth of pent-up emotion: guilt, anger, shame, rejection, loneliness, fear, regret.

I’ve separated my identity from my mental illness — and I finally believe that I am greater than the sum of my parts, and that my life can have purpose and meaning.

And still, I’m afraid to take the next step.

Like, overwhelmingly, lock myself in my room, cry in the shower, hours long panic attacks, don’t let anybody see me in this mental state, afraid.

And I still have no idea why.

I’m not willing to move forward — but I’m not satisfied with giving up.

I’m stuck.

Paralyzed by fear of the unknown.

For thirty years, at least, the unknown has been dangerous and frightening to me. Especially since I got PTSD, twenty-three years ago.

The only time in my adult life I have felt safe and comfortable, has been in mental hospitals. I’m relatively safe in my apartment — but even here, my own dark thoughts still tend to consume me. Only in the security of a hospital setting, have I felt safe enough to peel back all the layers and get honest with myself and with others.

And I can’t spend the rest of my life, living in mental hospitals. I don’t think they even do that anymore. And, honestly, even if they did, I don’t think I’d be satisfied to spend the rest of my life in that setting. It clearly is what I needed, to get out from under my suicidal thoughts and my deep, dark depression.

But now that my mind is clear, I want more out of life than “just” a mental patient, or “just” a suicide survivor, or “just” a guy living a quiet life in Lubbock, Texas, just trying to escape the pain of living with such strong, overwhelming emotions, day after day after day.

I’m tired of feeling like I’m a slave to my own fear… my own anxiety… my own inability to cope with my emotions.

But it’s true.

Even after two hospital stays — even after learning to understand my suicidal tendencies, and hopefully rise above the desire to make another attempt — I still don’t know how to manage my emotions and my fear and anxiety in real time.

I’m no longer haunted by my past — but I’m still deathly afraid I’m going to ruin my future.

And I don’t know if there will ever be a time that I won’t feel the fear this intensely.

So, fear in and of itself, is not a sufficient reason for me not to pursue the life of my dreams… but I still don’t know how to navigate these fearful moments, in ways that lead to me making the right choice, and acting on that choice, to move closer to the lifestyle I really desire.

I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never learned. Nobody has ever taught me. That’s not an excuse, but maybe it can be an explanation?

Like… I legitimately don’t know any other way but the one way I’ve always known… and maybe that’s why, even after two hospital stays, I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing? Maybe that’s why the fear is still so powerful, and so overwhelming, because even though I’ve released a lifetime of guilt, and shame, and jealousy, and anger, and regret, and remorse… maybe fear is not something that you can just let go of.

Maybe fear is something you have to go through… every time it rears its head.

Maybe there is no wishing away, or outgrowing, outsmarting, outmaneuvering, out-thinking, out-feeling, outplanning… avoiding… fear.

Maybe facing our fears is how we prove we’re willing to do what it takes to have the life we really want.

Maybe it’s not about smarts, or money, or skills, or discipline, or popularity, or any of it.

Maybe it all boils down to our willingness to confront our own fears.

And maybe that’s what I’m failing at.

Not the ability to face my fears — because the hospital has shown me that once I’m willing, I typically am able.

But maybe it all begins and ends, not with what we’re able to do… but with what we’re willing to do.

I’m not willing, in this moment, to make a phone call (or text, or email) to let the right people know that I’m really struggling and I need more help.

I just came home from the hospital a month ago! And I want everyone to think I’m doing well, now.

I want everyone to think I’m doing better.

I don’t want them to think I’m still not strong enough (or, in this case, brave enough) to handle life’s problems.

If people knew that I came home from the hospital and fell apart… I’d be so embarrassed.

I’d rather stay locked in my apartment, avoiding people, avoiding reality, avoiding my responsibilities, than let people know I don’t think I’m handling things correctly.

I don’t want other people to judge me. (And here I thought I’d released all of that, too.)

So…

I’m probably doing this all wrong.

And I’ll probably continue to do it all wrong — maybe for as long as I live. (Hopefully I’ll learn some things, at least, and maybe someday I’ll only get parts of it wrong.)

But I’m still doing it.

I’m not satisfied with the life I have… and I’m not willing to remain in a life that’s not satisfying… that’s not fulfilling… that’s not giving me meaning, purpose, and direction.

So I have to change. I have to try.

I have to be willing to really do something different.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know where to begin.

I don’t know who to talk to, to get me to that next step.

But, maybe, somewhere, hopefully, buried underneath the fear, and the anxiety, and the self-isolating behavior, and the daily panic attacks…

Maybe…

Just maybe…

If I dig really deep into my soul…

I’m finally willing to try.

In two days, I’m going back into inpatient treatment.

I’m afraid. Very afraid.

I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be walking into. I know I’m going to a facility in San Antonio… so… road trip. 😎 I know it’s a 30 to 45-day residential program… so… from the get-go, I can plan on being hospitalized for at least a month. (Last time, I expected to be in the hospital just a few days, maybe a week at the most… and I was there for seven weeks, so, at least this time I know I’ll be there for a while…)

I know the facility I’m going to works with veterans and civilians — and that appeals to me, because my goal is to reintegrate into society, and in order to do that I’m gonna have to learn how to get along with both types. (I don’t know but I have this idea that veteran-only hospitals might have a bit of an echo chamber effect, and if they do, that’s something I personally want to avoid…)

I know that it’s going to be intense… and that I’m going to come out with a different worldview — and hopefully, some better coping skills.

But also, I know that in order to gain that new worldview, and the coping skills I’m after, I’m going to have to face a lot of things I don’t want to look at… things that I would rather die than ever have to explore.

Things that have kept me afraid, in some cases, for more than thirty years.

Things I’ve never talked about, save for a few really frightening therapy sessions.

Things I’ve maybe only told one or two people, ever… that now, I’m going to have to talk about openly, candidly, objectively…

And I don’t know if I’m ready to do it.

I’m so afraid of what I’ll have to uncover.

My mind is urging me to avoid it at all costs.

Which is not a surprise, really; my mind has been avoiding it all this whole time, certain that if I ever do look at these moments from my past, the pain and the fear will be so strong — so all-consuming — it’ll send me into a tailspin I can never recover from.

These moments are why I’ve been running my whole life… so, yeah, I’m terrified.

I know the staff at the facility will tell me (I know any mental health professional will tell me) it’s normal for me to be afraid. And that the treatment plan they’re developing for me is designed to help me navigate all of this safely and securely. And that once we’re done, I will be mentally and emotionally better.

I know it’s what has to be done, if I ever want to escape the pain and the anguish I already live with, every day.

I know these moments still have power over me because I have yet to deal with them.

I want to believe that once I have dealt with them, the power they hold will be less… like, significantly less…

I want to believe that.

But right now, I really don’t.

I’m still convinced that walking into this facility is the most dangerous thing I could ever do. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. My whole body aches, actually. Typing these words is making me tense up. My eyes hurt, and I’m starting to get a headache.

My mind is in full-on panic mode.

I’ve kept every mistake, every heartache, every failure, every disappointment, every wrong choice I’ve ever made — I’ve kept them all secret this whole time. Some of my secrets go all the way back to middle school, to my first clumsy attempts to “get with girls” to the first time I ever truly felt so depressed and insecure that I actually contemplated suicide.

My mind is a prison, filled with all the things I never want anybody to find out about me… and it’s so full, so cluttered, so devoid of meaning… so dark and lonely…

I don’t believe I can ever find my way out.

Suicide looks safer than trying to untangle the mess inside — the mess that is me.

I don’t know any other way to say it. I feel like I would rather die than face the things I’m afraid of. Because some of those things feel so heavy… and because I still feel so alone…

I don’t want people to know I even have secrets.

I don’t want to think about what people will do when they find out.

I’m afraid even my closest friends and family will disown me. I’m afraid strangers will laugh at me, and use my pain and my insecurities to take advantage of me. I’m afraid I will allow people to take advantage of me, because I’m not strong enough to stand up to them — and because even if they’re using me… at least they’re finally paying attention to me.

And I need attention right now the same way I need water.

Probably the biggest reason I have for wanting to commit suicide is that I still feel alone, all of the time, and I don’t know yet how to change this feeling… how to build real friendships, real connections, how to engage with other people and feel like I finally belong.

I hate who I am… and at the end of the day, I’m convinced everybody else must hate me, too. Why else does everybody leave me all the time? Why else do I not get texts, and phone calls, and emails, asking me how I’m doing, or if I need help with anything… or if I’d like anybody to come check on me… spend time with me… take me to the mall, or to lunch, or a movie…

But nobody calls. Nobody visits. Nobody thinks about me enough to think I’m worth reaching out to.

And it’s most likely my fault.

I’ve spent decades shutting everyone out. Withdrawing even from my friends and family. Self-isolating because I’m too afraid of what people will say if they know what a mess I truly am. Hiding behind humor and sarcasm. Learning to make people see the side of me that I want them to see — and pushing away anybody who starts to see through the facade, to the person I actually am underneath it all.

I came home from the war, and I shut people out. I learned to run from everything. I made it my mission to stay numb. To avoid conflict. Avoid pain. Avoid anything that reminded me of how cold, and uncaring, and unfair, this life really is. Because it’s not fair that I survived my deployment, and now have to live with the aftereffects.

I don’t know how to face this all.

I don’t know how to talk about it.

I don’t even know if I’m supposed to talk about it — or if I’m expected to just suck it all up and get on with life, the way everyone else does. (But spoiler: not everyone does get on with life. Some of us live with these challenges every day, and sometimes it just gets to be so exhausting.)

I want connection.

But I want to be able to control the connection.

I want it to go the way I want it to — the way that will make me feel accepted, but still keep me from having to deal with conflict or with people or circumstances that I know won’t always go my way.

I want freedom for me, but compliance from everyone around me. I don’t want people to be able to choose not to be around me… because then who will ever choose me? Who will ever want to be my friend, if they’re allowed to actually see me for who I really am? I’ve ruined far too many relationships to believe that anyone would choose to inject themselves into my life… to subject themselves to the nightmare that is “being friends with Michael Glenn.”

I don’t know how I got here. I wasn’t like this growing up. I mean, yeah, I’ve always wanted other people to adore me… but it wasn’t the end of the world if they didn’t.

I wasn’t afraid of always being alone, unloved, and unwanted. I was hardly even insecure, up until high school… and even then, I didn’t go around pushing people away, isolating and withdrawing from everyone. I had friends — I had a lot of friends! And I enjoyed having them around.

But now, I don’t even trust my friends (the few that I still have…).

I don’t trust anybody with my pain.

I don’t believe these feelings are ever going to go away. It doesn’t matter how much therapy I receive, how many hospital stays I’m approved for, or how many weeks I pour my heart out into this newsletter — I don’t believe I can get rid of the thoughts and feelings that make me think suicide is safer than opening up.

And yet… I’m going into treatment.

I’m committed to at least showing up at the facility. (Which, that in itself is honestly a huge step for me to commit to, considering I’ve been running from everything for literally as long as I can remember!)

And I’m still scared. My mind is still telling me that opening up is dangerous… that it could in fact make things worse for me.

Because right now, and ever since I came home from my last hospital stay… all these moments from my past are already coming back into my awareness. And I can’t just bury them again, and hope they never resurface.

One way or another, I have to face my past. I have to spill my secrets. I have to bring every insecurity out into the light of day.

Because the only thing that scares me more right now than dealing with my mental health… is refusing to deal with my mental health.

I’m terrified of what I’ll be asked to endure, once I enter this facility. I’m terrified that I won’t be strong enough to do my part… that I’ll come out the other end and still feel lost and alone… that my mental health is already so bad, that I’ll never find peace or happiness in this life.

I don’t think I can do the work they’re going to ask me to do.

But I have to find out.

I have to go in.

I’ll never live with myself if I don’t stop running.

I have to try.

The breakdown

I spent 49 days in a mental hospital this summer.

In August, my whole world came tumbling down.

I was fighting with Sara Jones (not her real name by the way, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because I’m pretty sure she’s gone for good).

I wasn’t getting the help I needed from the VA – and the help I was receiving, wasn’t helping.

I reached out to the Lubbock Vet Center (a separate branch of the VA dedicated to helping combat veterans with their mental health), only to find out that they won’t help me because even though I deployed to the Arabian Gulf for the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m not technically a combat veteran – which I told them when I called!

But they said they’d see what they can do… only to call me back two weeks later and tell me they can do nothing.

Never mind the fact that deploying in Operation Iraqi Freedom is what caused me the mental and emotional anguish that ultimately led to the VA awarding me disability for life. I wasn’t “in the war” like the men and women on the front lines… and they only work with veterans who were…

Which is fine, but I mean… I was in the Arabian Gulf… and I still don’t qualify for their support?

Cool. Thanks for absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing this newsletter for almost two years now… with the explicit goal of reaching 100,000 subscribers and converting 1% to paid… at $8/month per subscriber… or $8,000/month total.

And after two years of pouring my heart into this, I have two paying subscribers, and after processing fees, they bring in about $12.50 each month.

I love writing this newsletter though!

And I’m happy if each issue gets read by one person, honestly. So the fact that there are two people who like it enough that they’re willing to pay me for it – that really is pretty exciting. It’s just… my goal was $8,000, not $12.50… and I guess I was just naive enough to believe that $8,000 really was possible.

So of course, now I hate myself for not reaching an impossible goal (and for not even recognizing that it was an impossible goal, in the first place).

And if that’s not enough to drive a man mad…

I also launched my own veterans support group back in March, and got to about 24 members… and then completely stalled because I don’t know how to build that kind of community in the first place!

And now I’m beating myself up for losing my nerve and basically walking away from the whole project… after spending in total, probably five or six thousand dollars on it…

Oh, and I spent 49 days in a psychiatric hospital, crying every day, journaling, writing down all the events from my entire life that led up to the night I called the Crisis Line, ready to commit suicide. (I probably should’ve led with that…)

The hospital stay that changed everything

The night I called the Crisis Line, I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital for the first time in my life.

I was there for forty-four days. It was frightening, and difficult, and overwhelming… but it was also safe, and comfortable, and secure. I felt like I was finally free to let my guard down, and to start dealing with things I’ve been running from for thirty years.

I started to write about all the things I’ve kept bottled up since I was fifteen. I cried a lot. I wrote about things that I didn’t even know were still bothering me. I worked through years of pent-up emotion.

Every day I was in the hospital, I felt more alive than the day before. I knew I was finally making progress – finally facing my problems, instead of just running away.

Then they sent me home before I was ready… and I spiraled so badly, I started cutting my arm. I didn’t sleep for two days. I felt hopeless… abandoned… lost… I didn’t feel safe in my apartment – and I did feel safe in the hospital. So I did what I had to do, to be let back in.

And I realized pretty quickly, once I was back inside, that they’d already given me everything they could. What I really needed now was therapy – and that’s the one thing that this hospital didn’t have to offer.

So I left, after only about five additional days. I enrolled in outpatient treatment at a private hospital in Lubbock, only to have the VA deny my treatment because they “didn’t get the right referral letter from the hospital.”

Which, kind of put me all the way back at square one, because I mean… my hospital stay opened up a lot of emotional wounds… but I was really counting on outpatient to show me how to heal those wounds, and now that’s been taken away from me… just like everything else.

Two and a half months after the fact…

I still haven’t got the VA to approve me for outpatient treatment. So, I’m in Seattle for the holidays, visiting Mom and Dad, and waiting instead to get approved for more inpatient treatment, only this time at a long-term facility that includes therapy.

Which no doubt will cost them more than sending me to outpatient…

But which, honestly, might be the better option anyway…

Because even today, when I’m alone for too long, I still feel suicidal.

Not enough to act on those thoughts — not while I’m safe at Mom and Dad’s. But enough to remind me that I’m probably not safe to just go back to my apartment and carry on as if nothing bad ever happened.

Which is pretty much all I’ve ever known how to do, when it comes to mental health. Well, really, when it comes to any problem at all. I just… ignore it… and hope it goes away… and if it doesn’t, then I just try to bury it deep inside, and put as much distance between me and the situation as I can.

Which probably has something to do with why it’s so hard for me to leave my apartment, explore Lubbock, meet new people and make new friends. I want those things – I really, truly do – but I also want to stay safe and in control.

A life I want but can’t reach

The truth is… I want an active lifestyle, filled with friends, and fun, and laughter.

I want new experiences.

I want to feel comfortable getting in the back of an Uber, going to see a play or a concert, or going to dinner, or to a friend’s house.

I am comfortable renting a car for three days, and taking a road trip by myself, and driving through miles of open countryside in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico (or spending three days driving from Austin to Lubbock and stopping to see all the wacky roadside attractions along the way, and eating a cheeseburger at a cafe on the Route 66 midpoint, also all by myself).

But I’m terrified of having genuine, shared experiences, with other people.

I’m afraid if I open up, no one will want to be around me.

I’m afraid I’ll chase everyone away, and I’ll end up alone again, only this time I’ll be alone alone… and I’ll know that people really don’t want me around, and there really is no hope, and I’ll never fit in anywhere and there’s no reason to keep trying because if I do chase everyone away, even one time, then I have real empirical evidence that the only safe place for me in this world is for me to be alone…

And alone is the worst word in the English language.

Alone is why I kept chasing Sara Jones, even when I knew it would never lead anywhere.

Alone is why I kept going back to the VA, asking for help, even when they kept denying me the help I need.

Alone is why I reached out to the Vet Center, even though I knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t take me since I’m not a combat veteran.

Which, by the way, I just want to be clear: I’m glad I’m not a combat veteran… I’m proud of my service and for the most part I loved being in the Navy… but no way could I handle combat. If I’d been foolish enough to try and go that route, I probably would’ve got somebody killed. Just saying.

Alone is why I moved to Lubbock in the first place: so I could overcome the challenges in my path, put the past behind me, learn new skills, make new friends, and build the kind of life that I think would finally be worth sticking around for.

And I’ve overcome a lot of challenges in the last three years — on purpose.

I intentionally put myself in an environment when I moved to Lubbock where I would be alone, at first, so that I could learn how to not be alone, ever again.

And I failed.

I failed to the point that I called the Crisis Line because I couldn’t stop my suicidal thoughts… and then after 44 days in the hospital… thinking I was getting better… I came home and tried to kill myself and wound up back in the hospital for a few more days…

And then I came home on Day 49, and really believed I was on a path towards finally getting the lifestyle I want…

And the VA took it away from me, after only one day of outpatient treatment…

And now I’m alone, again… and feeling like this is just going to be the rest of my life…

The fear that follows me everywhere

No matter what I do, I’m terrified that I’m always going to feel alone, afraid, and abandoned.

I’m never gonna get married, never gonna have my own family, never gonna have a career, never be brave enough to step outside my front door and face the outside world…

And I honestly don’t know; I might feel this way for the rest of my life. And at some point in the future, I might give in to the darkness, once and for all.

I. Don’t. Know.

And that’s the scary part of mental illness.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

I don’t know if I’ll ever overcome these thoughts.

I don’t know if I can change my lifestyle.

I don’t know if I’ll eat the bear, or if the bear will eat me.

But I do know that I’m not going to give up, today.

The part I hate admitting

I honestly don’t know how to change.

It’s not just a matter of “you need to try harder!”

My mind honestly won’t allow me to do anything other than what it knows… and all it knows, after all these years, is desperate, anxious, fearful self-preservation.

All I know how to do is run and hide.

I don’t know how to face reality. Like, for real; I just don’t.

I don’t know if that makes me sound immature, or irresponsible, or possibly just lazy? I don’t know. And, at this stage, I really don’t care anymore.

I’m forty-nine years old, and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

I legit feel like the biggest impostor on planet Earth. I feel like I’ve been lying to everyone, my whole life, trying to impress people with how brave and smart I am…

I feel like it’s all been one big show, and everyone can see right through me but no one knows how to get through to me and tell me that it’s okay to stop trying to impress everybody, and it’s okay to just be me, and nothing more.

I feel like the only person that ever did get through to me… is now gone… and it’s my own fault for pushing her away and then blaming her for abandoning me.

I feel like I’m buried under a mountain of problems that I’ll never dig myself out from… and like the easy solution is to give up… and to end my life now, before it has a chance to get any worse…

But I’m not ready to give up

Not today.

Not even if I know I’m going to lose.

I still want to give it at least one more try.

I know: there’s no promises. Nothing that says I’m going to succeed this time.

In fact, I’ll probably continue to fail, for awhile, just because my mind is used to going in that direction, and it’ll take time to rewire my neural pathways.

Which, probably means, that the fight ahead of me is about to be harder than the fight that’s already behind me… and I honestly don’t even know if I have that much fight in me…

But I know what happens when I stop fighting. I’ve got the scars on my right arm to prove it.

And besides, even if I am meant to spend the rest of this life alone (which, I’m still not sure that’s my destiny, but we’ll see…), there are still things in this world I want to see… experiences I want to have… dreams I want to try and make come true…

I don’t know how I’m going to do the things I want to, while living with this mental illness that quite literally threatens to take my life away…

But I know I have to try.

I just don’t know where to begin.