Two Inventories
“Your depression is not a malfunction, it’s a signal telling you something”- Johann Hari.
What is mine telling me?
I have had plenty of times when I have been low, and have experience plenty of trauma to last a lifetime. Sexual abuse, death, loss, failure, etc. etc… same ol’ same that everyone else goes through. But for whatever reason, this whole chapter had me feeling the lowest I could ever possibly go.
It’s true, I am no stranger to bouts of depression, a fact I am absolutely not ashamed of at all, but this was excruciating. I believe that once you’ve experienced massive depression you’re more likely to experience it again because the body and the brain remembers. It changes you chemically… but at the same time your values and coping strategies ultimately help you through. Think of it a dislocated shoulder. One event caused it to go out of place, but now the ligaments are stretched and it will always be easy for it to slip out again. You strengthen it… train it… but it’s never the EXACT same as it was before you fell while snowboarding. You can avoid those activities that could cause it to pop out again, but that would keep you from living life. I find my depression to be the same thing. Yeah I’ll be more prone to it due to trauma, but that’s not going to keep me from living my life. I just have a bag of tools to pop it back into place.
This time though, I fractured it. It’s healing again, but this definitely hurt.
My biggest insecurity and fear is that people secretly don't like me. I know people don't like me in general, which I don't give a fuck about, but the ones that pretend to care and secretly hate me are the ones I struggle with.
This stems from my former best friend’s wife who secretly disliked me. For reasons I’d rather not discuss (because it’s their personal business) she took her own issues and projected her problem onto me. I had no idea she secretly didn’t like me this entire time. She planned my bridal shower and was in my wedding, so you can see how that has fucked with me. I don’t hate her for it though, now at least… but immediately after I absolutely fucking hated her guts. I've done plenty of therapy on it, but it's still a struggle I have. I know that this kind of behavior is a reflection on them and not me, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
The second is the girl I was fond of years ago. She was a great friend and I wrestled with constantly being unsure if I wanted more out of it or not. I know to this day that her and my friendship was kept a secret from our mutual friends. It started to get to me as if I were some kind of joke that people talk about behind my back. It ate deeply into my insecurities. Like, why not be proud to call me your friend?
The worst betrayal, though, was from my ex, when I found out the extent of what she was planning to do (i.e. leave and go back to her ex-husband who is an absolute turd of a human being). It's because she gave conflicting signals and very few warning signs that I started to catch up on in January, and because I felt like she abandoned me when I was at my most vulnerable, when I was there for her throughout her hard times. It was mostly because there was no cataclysmic event in our own relationship that caused her to think differently of me… we would bicker, but it was minor. We had a fantastic holiday together as a family. I never called her names, or threatened her, or intimidated her. I treated her exceptionally well. About 50 times better than her dirtbag ex-husband did.
The worst thing I ever did was post-breakup, I burned the little note she gave me with my flowers I got that said "Get well soon, Sweet Girl," then told her I didn't want her to touch me anymore as she had been doing for weeks after we broke up (because it was manipulative, intentional or not). That little spat was triggered by her posting a picture about how she was leaving California and made zero mention of the woman with whom she was so in love with. The woman she repeatedly told me was the most important person in her life.
If you aren’t catching on to the story, I’m referring to me. It was like I didn’t exist, even though we were inseparable for the longest time. Not only was it soul-crushing to not be “seen” by her through my struggles, but it was even worse to be invisible to everyone else. Like, what was I to you? Why hide my existence?
There just is no rational explanation for any of it, really. This isn’t the woman I thought I knew. It sent me into a tailspin when I saw she backed out of her divorce, mostly because of the date. It was marked a month before she broke up with me, all the while she was telling me she loved me. She had also told me that “she wasn’t going anywhere” days after she secretly backed out of everything. Any logical person would be just as distraught as I was.
She destroyed me, mentally. All of this… I didn’t deserve it, and I’m not saying that in some self-centered way… nobody deserves this. It was hard to fathom being hurt by someone whom I would never hurt in this manner; someone I would have bet my whole life on that they would never hurt me.
It was the mix of realizing I was living a false life, compounded with the lack of a reason behind all of this, that caused me to just snap. The way I explain it to people is to imagine you are sailing through the sky on a parachute without a worry or a care, then suddenly a flying horse with spaghetti for hair comes up and cuts your parachute lines with a ninja sword. Yeah, makes zero sense, and it's random as fuck, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are now plummeting out of the sky.
I felt like everything I thought I knew for the entire year, the whole foundation of my heart and the purest parts of me, was based on a complete and utter lie. Like you’re not in on some big secret… everyone else knows but you. Can you imagine that? That everything you ever knew or everything you were ever sure of turned out not to be true? That the very core of your soul has corrupted coding… and you don't know where the corruption starts or where it ends. Can you imagine waking up one day and realizing the person you love is someone completely different? That the intrinsic motivations you have are based on falsehood?
It broke me. Completely. It was humiliating. The absolute most humiliating experience of my life.
This was when I wrote the chapter about hitting rock bottom. The next day, I found myself sitting in my truck in the driveway and I took two inventories.
The first one, I am almost ashamed to say, was a list of all of my possessions and properties and who they should go to.
The second one, I am happy to say, was a list of all the reasons I should live.
When I first started selling my stuff off, my friend Dicarie called me up to see if I was ok. I was at the time, but I didn't realize that selling all my possessions could ring alarm bells. I promised him that I was ok, and that if I ever got to the point where I was tanking, I'd let him know. I had a lot of friends reach out to me, actually, which made me realize I had a tribe of people who had my back. I’m so grateful for that… they have no idea how much that moved me.
As I sat in that driveway, trying to figure out if life was worth living anymore, I found help in the unlikeliest place from my brother's old Army Ranger buddy, Adam. He was the one who told me about the second inventory. “Let’s take an inventory of all the good things you got going for you…” So I did, and it helped pull me out of the tight grip of anguish that slowly crushed my spirit into submission.
I ended up calling my friend Dicarie, as promised, and told him that it had gotten very bad but that I worked through it. He assured me that it isn’t a weakness. We must honor and respect when our signals are telling us something is off, and that’s exactly what I did. I took my second inventory, and I listened.
"I'm really happy you didn't go through with it," he told me.
"I am too…"
I think about what would have happened if I had caved into those thoughts and followed through with my first inventory. My nieces would be without their Aunt. My parents would be without their only daughter. My brothers would lose their only sister. My jiu-jitsu friends would lose their partner. My coworkers would lose their friend. A voice with so much to say still would be snuffed out.
I would never experience a sunrise again.
I would never watch a meteor shower again.
I would never experience the thrill of flying again.
I would never sit next to a fire and sip whiskey with my best friend Mike.
I would never have another intellectual conversation with Dan.
I would never pet my dogs again.
I would leave my two beloved babies, Blitzkrieg and Mishka, alone in this world. I think about them never seeing me again, and a lump grows in the back of my throat.
I would never kiss someone again, or bury myself in their embrace.
I would never laugh until I cried again.
I would never hear the wind through the pine trees again.
I would never impart my legacy into this world.
I would never raise a child.
I would never hug my friends again.
I would never experience the thrill of victory again.
I would never experience the bitter sweetness of heartbreak again.
These are all way too high a price to pay for my depression. Nobody is worth your life. It doesn’t matter how much you loved them… nobody is worth that… and today, as I write this, I KNOW that. She is not worth my life. Nobody is worth your life guys…
I want to stress that it wasn’t the lack of having her around that broke me, but realizing my happiness was an illusion, as it was based on lies. But maybe it’s time I base my happiness on what I know to be true?
What did I base my happiness on? I always said I had an abundance of happiness, and I was so happy to pour it into someone… a family. But I felt like I bet it all on black and am now broke.
What did I base my happiness on? I based it on helping others because it’s the right thing to do. I did treat her extremely well… so is it really based on a lie? What I did was sincere and genuine; it came from the purest places of my soul… I SLEEP AT PEACE AT NIGHT KNOWING I WAS HONEST, CARING, COMPASSIONATE, AND GIVING. So, is my happiness really corrupted? I’m starting to not think so. Maybe I based it on the wrong things.
I know you guys would probably want to villainize her, or think what she did was malicious or evil, but it’s not. At first I did, and I REALLY struggle not to label that of her, too. I toe the line often because I love her kids, her friends, and her family, and I don’t want them to hate me, but… I have to speak my truth so people know the depth of my pain. The wisest thing I’ve ever heard came from my friend Sarah: “hurt people hurt people.”
I get asked a lot, “do you forgive her?” and the answer to that is unequivocally “yes.” It’s a yes, but with several layers of boundaries in place. Yes, I forgive her, but the cost to sit at my table is very high. That seat may never be open again. Forgiveness is for my peace of mind… because I deserve to live in peace.
I've gotten a lot of messages about this blog and the honesty I've brought to it. I've had people cry with me, laugh with me, get angry with me, and show general support for me. It's kind of bizarre… I didn't realize that my words had that much weight to them. I guess it means I have to ensure I choose them carefully.
When I talked to Ana and Dicarie, they told me pretty much the same thing. That I have a chance to reach people and I speak to their hearts. I have a chance to show someone else who is questioning their sexuality, their faith, their life choices, or whether to succumb to the demons they carry to hold on tightly.
I have a duty to keep writing this story… so I guess I'll stick around for a while. This blog and the adventures I'm going on give me hope.
We always have a choice. We are DEFINED by our choices.
I choose life.
I choose happiness.
