SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO MAKE A BIG CHANGE
By A Man With An Open Mind
I was the one who always thought people were crazy for breathing into a paper bag…until it was me.
On April 20, 2015, I received a call that would turn my world upside down. It wasn’t the type of call one might expect to warrant such a dramatic feeling; nor, at the time, did I realize how life-changing it would be. That call ended up affecting the next several weeks, months, and years more than I ever could have imagined.
My wife was entering her eighth month of pregnancy, while I was battling a public relations storm at work that included countless death threats against me and those I care about. As a Jew, I was being sent graphic emails and images calling for a second Holocaust. Some people threatened to protest at my home, my work, and other areas that would affect many people. Others threatened to harm my family.
Until this point, I had never been an emotional person. I was the type who kept my feelings bottled up, because I never wanted to feel like I was burdening someone with my issues. I needed to be the person to keep those around me safe, motivated, and focused. This case was no different. I needed to be the glue to keep our team from being torn apart by accusations that later would be found to be mostly false and largely mischaracterized. I did the best job I could, holding it together—until it all started to fall apart on April 27.
I was home alone, trying to turn the television on so I could watch an interview a reporter was doing about this issue, when I finally broke. I found myself throwing the remote control across the room and crying hysterically on my couch. I called my wife, who could hear the fear and anxiety in my voice. She came home immediately, only to find me sitting with a paper bag in my hand. I can’t remember if breathing into that bag worked. It was all a blur. I eventually got past that moment, because I had to. We were about to welcome our daughter into the world. I was embarrassed. I felt like I had lost control of my life.
Several months later, I was sitting in my living room, angry about a phone conversation I had just had, and everything felt like it was resurfacing. I could feel my blood boiling. I was shaking. I don’t know how or why this next episode occurred, but I found myself looking for the phone I had thrown at a wall across the room. My wife came downstairs to see what had happened, and I couldn’t even speak. It was like I blacked out with my eyes open. I was shaking, scared, and anxious. I felt completely lost. I didn’t see a need for tomorrow. That was my true breaking point and a sign I couldn’t get through this alone. I needed help.
I started to ask around for suggestions for therapists. What really shocked me was that everyone I asked had a recommendation, because they all had seen one. It immediately made me realize this feeling of helplessness wasn’t as “weird” or “unusual” as I had convinced myself it was. I began seeing someone and taking medication to help with my depression and anxiety that fall.
The initial therapy sessions weren’t great. In fact, I found the therapist to be relatively uninterested, robotic, and disengaged in what I had to say. But he gave me medicine—medicine that eventually would make me feel human again. Although it didn’t start that way.
To get me back to a better place, I am pretty sure this therapist prescribed too much medicine. I felt numb, overly stoic, and indifferent to anything and everything that came my way. I was calm—too calm. While I wasn’t feeling the same anger and sadness I once felt, I am not sure I felt happy. I just felt “blah.” But I was hesitant to make any changes, because those terribly bad feelings were gone.
Not too long after that, my wife, our daughter, and I moved to a new city, and I began working remotely in the same position I had been in. I began seeing a new therapist, and I will never forget what she said after I described what I had been going through. She looked me right in the eyes and told me things would never change while I remained in my job. I thought that was ridiculous! There was no way I was leaving a job I loved with people who supported me, had my back, were good to me, and taught me many valuable life lessons. So, I found another way to stay happy—or, at least, what I thought was happy.
Over the course of my adulthood, I would start and stop exercising more often than I care to admit. We moved to a new neighborhood that had an Orange Theory Fitness studio, and I thought I would check it out, mostly because my wife had joined and told me I should.
March 19, 2017, would prove to be the first day of the rest of my life. I found happiness in the method of exercise that OTF offers its members. I found enjoyment in sweating out my stress. I felt motivated by the coaches to become a better version of myself. Shortly after I joined, I began supplementing those workouts with personal training sessions. Exercise turned out to be part of the answer I had been looking for. I emphasize the word “part.”
While I began to feel better, mentally and physically, I could never get out of my mind what my new therapist said in our first meeting. Was it possible that I could never find balance or sanity in the job I was in? I had felt so happy there for so long. Surely this instance two years earlier was an exception and not the rule. I knew how to do my job. I was pretty good at it. I had autonomy with the right balance of support. I loved most of the people I interacted with. They were my family, and I couldn’t imagine leaving them.
And then one day, the phone rang. Sometimes opportunity knocks, and you don’t answer the door. This time I did, and it was someone from an organization I did not know well. She said all the right things, focused on all the right areas, and offered me the chance to see if a new beginning was really what I needed. I had been offered these opportunities before, but never thought twice about them. This time, I took the leap (and the advice from the therapist) and decided to leave my home away from home. I had been thinking about what my therapist said regarding what needed to change, thinking about new challenges I may need, and also reflecting on everything I had missed out in my family from the travel associated with my job.
I knew I was making the right move toward happiness, but I was reluctant to give up the meds I had depended on for three years. They made me feel like I had control over my life. They made my wife happier, because I was happier. They let me enjoy the precious moments with my daughter. I desperately wanted to let them go, but was terrified of how I might feel if I did. Until I tried.
My therapist was impressed with my progress and wanted to lower the dose of the medicine targeting my depression. We lowered it, and it worked. We lowered it again, and it worked again. She then recommended we lower the medicine treating my anxiety, so we did, and it worked. I began using it only on an “as-needed” basis. Then we removed the antidepressants and the antianxiety medicine completely.
So, here I am trying to navigate happiness in a new way, in a new city, in a new job, with a new lust for life. I have already encountered some hiccups through the realization that, in some ways, life was easier on the meds. Everyone’s journey is different, and this feels like the right path for me.
If I had to summarize this experience into bullet points, it would look like this:
• It’s okay to feel defeated. Everyone does at some point. • Help won’t seek you out. You must find it and embrace it. • Let the baggage go. It’s okay to acknowledge you’ve got issues. We all do.
• Be open to possibilities that take you off the path you thought you were supposed to be on.
• Be open to finding happiness in places you weren’t expecting. • Let others in.
• Look for ways to be better, and remember perfection isn’t attainable by anyone.
The future can be only as bright as we choose it to be.