Ted The Lion

There once was a lion named Ted. His actual name was Theodore, but being called Ted seemed to fit him better. Now Ted, was like any lion. He enjoyed running around, resting, wrestling other male lions, resting, flirting with the lady lions, resting and of course eating.

One day in the midst of his running, he felt a sharp pain in his back right paw. Falling to the ground, he looked at what could be causing such pain. In his paw, he saw a large thorn deeply wedged into it. Getting up, he tried to put weight on it, but the pain was too much. He reached back attempting to pull the thorn out, but it was too deep ... he figured he couldn't do it on his own. Embarrassed by the whole situation he walked back to his home only using three legs. He could only imagine how it looked to others, but there was no pain.

Days went by, where Ted just stayed home not wanting to deal with all the questions he would get about why he looked so funny when he walked. He would get frustrated and try to pull out the thorn on his own, but couldn't do it. Other lions came by asking why he hadn't been out and about. Ted was getting very good at coming up with clever answers.

After months had gone by, Ted was tired of hiding the thorn. He realized that there might be other lions out there with thorns as well that might be embarrassed. So, he made the announcement that he did have a thorn and was struggling with dealing with it. He got numerous responses of how proud the lions were of him sharing about his thorn. Ted felt good hoping he would be able to get his thorn out soon.

One afternoon, a friend of Ted's dropped by to see how he was doing. Ted showed him the thorn and how deep it was and how bad it hurt. The friend gave him a hug and told Ted that if he ever needed anything, to let him know and left.

Another day, a friend dropped by to see how Ted was doing. Ted showed him the thorn and how deep it was and how bad it hurt. The friend told him how much he cared about him, but didn't know anything about thorns. Ted never saw that friend again.

Ted had a close friend that would constantly come by checking up on him. That friend didn't have the best memory and would begin to wrestle with Ted hurting his paw. Ted liked his friend, but was growing tired of hearing his friend explain, "I don't know why I do that ... sorry." Ted liked the friendship so still hung out with his friend, but had to remind him every time about the thorn.

One friend would come by often and just spend time with Ted. They would fight the thorn together hoping to make some head way. After the attempts, the friend would stay with Ted and just hang out being a good friend recognizing how hard it was on Ted.

One morning, Ted looked at the thorn and saw all the progress he and his friend had made with getting it out. He was truly thankful for his friends strength. Ted looked at the thorn giving it one huge pull. Surprised, the thorn came out. He knew that he had to keep trying on his own, but he made no mistake of it realizing he couldn't have done it without the help of his friend.

It's All Up To Me

In my early twenties, which was not too long ago,  I had the pleasure of meeting a drop dead gorgeous lady at the church I was attending. Not only was she beautiful, she was an amazing person as well. There was a huge potential problem though. The church I was attending was made up of single folks. Yep, that meant there was far too many guys that were interested in this fine lady as well. I was able to do some digging and was able to get her phone number. I still remember to this day the phone number because I dialed 6 out of the 7 numbers hundreds of times not hitting that last digit because I was terrified! Now I had learned in my young life about the word "delegation" and even the word "favor." I had several good friends that would have called her for me, but how would that really look. Plus, even though they are friends, the looks of a gorgeous lady has incredible powers. I knew that I was on my own with this one. So, I dialed the 6 numbers and took a deep breath and hit the last digit. The ringing began and so did the fast beating of my heart. When she got on the phone I was literally out of breath. I must have sounded pretty ridiculous, but she did not hang up. I even got up the courage to ask her out but she said "no." I usually like to end the story there because it sounds so priceless, but she said "no" because she already had plans. She then proceeded to ask me out for another day but I had to say "no" because I had plans. Side note ~~ There you go sweet heart. It is in writing :) ~~ Needless to say we were able to iron plans out and we have been dating since ... yep, even after that marriage thing she will still go out with me and she still takes my breath away. So what did I tell her why I was out of breath on that first call? I told her I had been running around the house taking care of things ... yep, pretty lame.

So, I still meet with my psychologist twice a month and he still has his leather couch. He has stopped having free beverages in the fridge in the lobby ... perhaps it is because I always joked with him that if I was in the neighborhood I would always stop by and take one. My psychologist though is awesome. He has helped me get through the thickest walls and around the deepest holes in my life. I still suffer from depression and loneliness and of course the anxiety kicks in at the most inconvenient times. Lately, we have come across some "things" that I am working through. One of the toughest things for me is when all is said and done, it feels it is up to me to work on coping mechanics, it is up to me to be willing to share my deepest thoughts always, it is up to me to fight the beast of depression, it is up to me to keep taking meds and meeting with my psychologist ... it is up to me to fix my mental illness because in the end who can do that for me? With depression chasing the drive away to really do any thing at times, that "finish line" of getting through this appears farther away, even out of sight. When this happens, the roads of escape speak loudly. Yes, I suffer with this and is stinks badly. So does anything help? For me ... yes. For any others that may be fighting this battle let me just share what gives me a small glimpse to keep fighting. Not lose sight of my support: my sweet wife, awesome kids and few true friends. They can't do the "work" I strive to do to keep getting better but leaning on their strength when mine is gone is amazing. Not lose sight of the "I'm All Alone" danger zone. Yes, there are things that only I can do but it DOES NOT MEAN that I am all alone. Not lose sight of Divinity: I often look up and tell God that there is no way I can do this on my own. Simply recognizing his strength, mercy and love help me. Well these all sound pretty good, huh? They do, but for me are easily chased away as my depression kicks my tail. Yet, the thing I can control is keep trying every day ... like dialing six digits. I know that I will be able to dial that seventh digit someday and will totally be out of breath but making it will be worth it.

Trust, Forgiveness and Leo

Leo was a young man that lived in Noseville. Now Noseville was a village that had people with all kinds of shapes and sizes, from tall to short, skinny to ... um not skinny, big heads to small heads ... hopefully you get the picture. However, they all shared one perfect thing and that was they all had the perfect nose. What made it perfect? Great question. All of their noses looked the exact same. Well, as Leo started to approach making that change from boy to young man his nose slowly became deformed. It looked nothing like it was supposed to and even didn't work right. He was mortified and didn't know how to react. The good news was that Leo was a expert at disguise and created the perfect nose and was able to cover his deformed nose so hardly anyone knew. Only a few friends and his family were aware and even amongst them he still wore his disguise. Rarely would he take it off. One horrible day, Leo received news that a new law was passed in Noseville that anyone wearing a disguise would have to remove it. Leo was sick with worry. A close friend of his that new about Leo's deformed nose came to check on him. Leo was distraught taking of the disguise telling his friend that he couldn't do it. His friend proceeded to tell him that he was aware of the upcoming law. Leo was upset. He asked why his friend didn't let him know or fight for him. His friend got upset and punched him in the nose making it more deformed telling him his nose looked ugly. Leo ran to his family telling them what had happened. He felt comfortable around his family. Days passed and Leo wrote a letter to his friend telling him that he forgave him but he broke his trust and simply couldn't trust him right now. Leo was sad and missed his friend knowing it would take a while for the trust to be earned.

You may be wondering if I have gotten my hands on some bad meds and am writing this talking to pink elephants coming out of the walls. Know that is not the case but perhaps it gives a glimpse of all the crazy stories in my head at times. I share this because I have been thinking A LOT about Trust and Forgiveness. As I have fought the battle of mental illness I have had things said to me that have been pretty ugly and hurtful ... some that were clueless but others that were intentional. Now, I have a pretty thick wall of steel I keep up around me that I rarely take down but I have been burned by some after I have taken it down trusting them. I have watched movies when a person is in a tough situation and they laugh saying "I've got to go to my safe place" and mentally go there. Sure, I kind of chuckled at that. I have learned though that will depression I have to have a safe place. A place that I can breath and relax and not feel in harms way. I have been in situations where my "safe place" was impossible to get to and let me just say my mind doesn't hand it well. My brain will start looking for avenues of escape be it short term or permanent. Yes, I have had ugly things said to me and I do get to a point of forgiving them ... but the trust is gone. It is not like I am holding a grudge, it is me knowing that I can't trust being around them especially being away from my safe place because I have no idea what my brain will do and that scares the crap out of me. I work hard everyday hoping that someday I will be able to take off my disguise and be okay with it.

The World of Wants, Needs and Shoulds

I remember as a young one my sweet mom taking on the daunting task of teaching me the difference between "wants" and "needs." I found that the basics was pretty clear about food, water, oxygen, roof over the head, love etc. Things became quite blurry to me though when it came to toys. I remember seeing a yellow Tonka dump truck that my other friends had and I was positive that I needed it. In my mind I was 100% certain that if I had that dump truck that my happiness would increase immensely and having happiness had to be a need right? In fact, this was around the time my mom was teaching me how to pray. I remember kneeling down by my mom saying my prayers and at the end asking for the yellow Tonka dump truck. Well, let me just say I learned a couple of lessons from my mom. My mom helped me see that I would actually live without having the truck and that giving thanks during prayer and praying for others rather than a dump truck was always a good thing to do.  Well, I can say that over the years the line has been pretty clear between "wants" and "needs" with only a handful of blurry occurrences. About six years ago I went out to get some milk and came back with a computer. There has been only one time in my marriage where I thought I was going to have to sleep on the couch and that was it. I tried to find a positive side to it thinking maybe she won't send me out for milk again. Needless to say that didn't happen ... I just have to promise now that I will only get milk or any other things we need.

The first time I met with my Psychiatrist she asked me "what do you want to do today?" I thought the question was a little odd since she was the one with the "Dr." in front of her name. She could read my perplexed look on my face and asked it a different way, "before this day is through, what do you WANT to do?" I was perplexed again. I thought about certain foods that sounded good, kissing my wife and playing with my kids. She then asked if I liked movies and when was the last time I had seen one. I like movies but the last one I had seen had to be one of those animated kid movies. We talked a lot about a variety of things that day but she gave me the assignment to go see a movie. Sad to say that cool Psychiatrist retired and I met with another one who ended up having one of the coolest sayings on her wall ... it reads "Today I Will Not Should Myself!" One thing I found out very fast meeting with my Psychiatrist and Psychologist was that I wasn't allowed to use the word "should." This made answering questions or having any conversation quite interesting. I have learned that being a people pleaser I live in the world of "I should" so there is no balance when it comes to I want, I need and I should. Living in the world of "I should" brings no happiness at all because whatever you do it wasn't the "correct thing" because you should have been doing something else. That is quite the tornado to be caught in. Every morning I think about the things I want to do and the things I need to do and strive to keep the balance. Most of all I listen to what my body is saying during the day and work on making the right adjustments. I actually get a kick when a person tells me that I should have done this or shouldn't have done that. I usually tell them either I didn't want to or I didn't need to and watch their reactions. I will say that helping people in need for me is in the "want" category and who knows maybe someday I will buy two Tonka dump trucks ... one for a person that's down and one for me.

Dear Ken,

Below is a letter I wish I would have had as I started my journey with depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD. Yep, I am going to be quite open ... my hope is that it will offer any help to those that may be suffering from these, which is often done in silence. If I am able to at least help one, then this was well worth it.

Dear Ken,

First and foremost let me tell you how ruggedly handsome you are even with that patch of hair that is missing on top of your head and that salt and pepper look you have going. Nice job with the belly as well ... maybe you will be able to be Santa Claus some day.

Let me begin with shedding some light on some feelings you have been having lately that you haven't told anyone about. You know the ones I am talking about ... while you've been driving to work lately the temptation has really grown to drive your car into any cement post you can find preferably at a good rate of speed. Then there are those times when you are at work that you just want to stand up and run as fast as you can into the cement wall. Lets not forget the part of the day that you actually hate the worst and that is the end of the day. You have been staying late triple checking all the accounts you worked on to make sure they were done properly and yes you have repeated numbers over and over and over out loud to make sure they look right. You will actually get to a point when you have to say them 20 times in order to give you any sort of comfort. When the day is done and you have finally got to a point when you can lock up your desk you will check it at least five to ten times. You will even get out to the car and turn around and come back and check your desk again. These actions are not normal Ken. Something in your brain is trying to tell you something!!

The time will come when one day, with the help of your wife, that you realize you are not yourself and that you need to get some help. THIS IS OKAY!! I do want to be upfront with you though and tell you that the lovely ten year career you have worked on so hard will end up coming to an end. I know this will be hard for you to hear but its best you know right up front. You will end up seeing a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist. You'll end up giving the Psychiatrist the nick name of the drug dude and the Psychologist the talking dude. You will meet with the Psychologist first for about a month or so and then the drug dude. Certain meds will be offered by the drug dude but you really struggle with taking meds because you have no idea what they may do to you  ... you know all those kind "side effects". You think they would use a smaller font to make the list smaller. You decide to go with the meds route with the hope that it will add some stability to all the ups and downs you are feeling. You will end up trying several different types trying to find the right mix for you. BE PATIENT and pay attention to some of those side effects. One will happen which I won't mention keeping this letter rated PG but the other will take you lower than you were before. Now I know that is why you didn't want to try at first but you will find the mix that works the best for you. Little advice, you will get asked A LOT about how you feel from the drug dude as you take the meds. You'll kind of get tired of it because you really don't notice a difference except for those two side effects. The advice ... ask your wife is she notices a difference of behavior as you do the meds. She will notice a difference! Stay with your talking dude too ... he will end up helping you a lot!

Let me be very bold with this next statement ... you are going to feel a HUGE amount of guilt as you fight depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD; GUILT ONLY COMES AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG AND YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG HAVING THESE FOUR THINGS!!!! You're going to feel foolish for having PTSD because you didn't go to war or anything but believe me when the episodes hit they are ugly but you will make it through and they will eventually subside.

Ken, depression has a powerful way of making your very insecure! You will doubt everything in your life from your faith, friends, the future, the love of your family and even loving yourself.  As these doubts continuously attack you loneliness will consume you. You will fight feeling like a failure as you think about the future hoping to support your family again. You will see "friends" conveniently disappear. You will be left alone. You will base your self worth and how much you are loved by how many people reach out to you and visit you. Logically you will know better but you will fight the demons of loneliness. Some of your family simply won't understand ... one will even tell you to become a PE teacher because they don't do much trying to help. Some will even say they don't know how to show love. There will even be times when you go visit family that you simply disappear and almost disappear for good. There will be times when you support your wife and kids to go visit family and you are left alone. You will long for visits but only one will show. You will see that you have a voicemail all excited but it's a message about your meds being ready. The loneliness will become so dark that you hear the demons telling you to end it all and your strength to resist is so low. Yes, dude ... the times get dark and I wish I could tell you when it will be over but I don't but DON'T QUIT!

I will say this though ... I am convinced that you will be a better man for this. I know that's like saying getting a colonoscopy everyday will make you a better man not knowing when it will end. I can tell you that as you open up attempting to stick it to the man of depression that many will approach you telling you they have suffered in silence for so long and that you have helped them. As you experience the folks that just tell you to lighten up or really don't believe you or care just think about the effect you are having on others in your same shoes. 

Lastly, you will doubt God a lot but you will learn that He and The Savior love you unconditionally. You can't earn their love because they already love you!! There are a few that will stay by your side and show the love. Your kids and your wife love you and when you feel the darkness approaching spend time with them and give them hugs it will help.

Stay strong good man. You are worth loving and even though kind of goofy you are a pretty funny dude! Take it minute by minute if you have to but know that I care!

Love you dude!

Ken

A Bagel is Not a Donut

I love donuts! I can't think of anytime in my life when I didn't like donuts. Do I have a favorite? Well, yes I do ... thanks for asking. Growing up I was introduced to the Hostess raspberry filled donut. You know, the one with the sugary coating. The one that comes in a pack of six, which made it fun growing up in a family of five. Well you would think my mom being the adult should get it but she was always so giving. So, it usually went to one of the four kids. Of course, we would always "try" to remember who got it last time but there was always a purposely fuzzy line. I will admit that I liked that donut so much that if there were times the last donut was still remaining I would enjoy every last bite knowing I was going to take a bullet for it and not get another one for a while but it was so worth it ... at least that's how it seemed until mom bought another pack and I was not allowed to have any because of my recent action. Anyway, I digress. As I got older I was introduced to other donuts and they were awesome but not as awesome as the raspberry filled slice of heaven. I really can't recall where I was or the circumstances that lead to the position I was in but I remember having to pick my breakfast on one occasion. I remember seeing what looked like a donut and was rather happy with not only picking one but picking two. As I put them on my plate they seemed a bit hard but I thought perhaps it was a different style of donut I hadn't been introduced to. I sat down ready for my two donuts and took a big bite. Let me just step aside here for a moment and say that my family never had bagels growing up, it was just one of those things we never had so I had no idea what one was. So, you can imagine my pure disappointment when I took a bite of a bagel for the first time thinking it was a donut. I remember thinking how dry it was and how bland it tasted. I missed my raspberry filled delight. With a smile I was educated on the fine arts of a bagel and how with butter, jam or cream cheese as it's friends it actually wasn't that bad. I personally like the strawberry cream cheese. Years down the road my incredible wife and beautiful girls moved to the East Coast. One of the first things I did was check to see if Hostess items were sold here, which they are but for whatever reason they didn't and still don't sell raspberry filled donuts. I was introduced to krispy kreme though before they ventured back west so that's how I justified it was okay. Every time I made it back west though I looked for those Hostess donut treats.  Imagine my luck though ... last trip back west was when Hostess closed it down for a while so I didn't have any raspberry filled moments of peace.

I often wonder what things would feel like to experience ... like being able to fly or swim to the bottom of the ocean. What it would be like to play a gig in front of thousands of people or make that last second shot in an NBA game. My imagination takes me all sorts of different places and I absolutely love it but it can only take me so far. I can close my eyes and play the meanest guitar rif pretending I am in Wembley but it doesn't give me the fullest experience. In fact, I never have played on any stage like that nor am I close enough to playing like McCready so do I really know what it would be like? What about other situations in life that I haven't experienced. Can I understand or feel what they are like? It would be interesting to have two folks give their feelings what it would feel like to get pulled over by the cops ... one that actually had and one that hadn't. What do you think their answers would be like? I can tell you for sure what it feels like on more than one occasion due to the heaviness of my right shoe. Some may say that the "Nurture vs. Nature" debate would help with this and I would agree. So why share this? Let me chat with my friends that are fighting depression. For me, I have found that there are different kinds of folks when they learn that you have depression. There are folks that don't know what to say but have the courage to put their arms around you and tell you how much they love you. There are the folks that don't know what to say and keep their distance relying on time to pass for you to "get better." There are the folks out there that think you are weak and should just be able to build up your self-esteem with positive thoughts and don't give credence to any mental illness. There are those that have depression and give as much love as they are able to give. Sad to say that I have found that you are mostly left alone with a few that share as much love as they are able to. This consumed me and still does at times but I think back to taking that bite of the bagel. I had no idea what it was and really didn't want to until someone helped me see how to eat it. There are A LOT of folks that don't know how to deal with depression and are kind of freaked out about it. I am slowly coming to grips that there are those bagel people out there that just don't know how to deal with friends or even family with depression and that is okay. Depression is weird ... having so much love and support helps bring happiness yet relying on people eventually brings disappointment and sadness as the lonely hours pass on. So where do you find that line? To be honest, that is what I am personally working on. My friends with depression. There are days when I know the only thing I can count on is the sun coming up the next morning. I thank God for sunrises! Eating a donut watching a sunrise makes it that much more peaceful too.

Looking Through Broken Eggs

In my late teens I had the privilege of working at a locally owned grocery store. As I mentioned in a previous post one of my responsibilities was to drive the milk truck. I also stocked the dairy and was the freight "receiver" in the morning. If I remember correctly, I would start the day around 5a or 6a, work until about 1p as the receiver and then come back around 3p to stock the dairy. The shifts weren't that great but overall I enjoyed my job and was earning money. Looking back I learned a lot of things at that lovely store. I learned that I really am not a big fan of getting up early on winter mornings especially as a receiver because that usually meant I had to dethaw the frozen locks on the gates for the trucks. Yep, just me standing in the dark in the early morning with a lighter by a frozen lock ... good times. I also found that if a pallet or cart of freight fell over as a trucker was unloading it off his truck that I preferred that freight to be things soft like toilet paper or paper towels. However, I never fully got what I preferred. I saw a large pallet full of soda fall over with soda going everywhere and cans flying in the air if they hit the ground just right ... had to take cover on that one. My least favorite spill was that of the rack of eggs that tipped over while it was being unloaded. Everything went into slow motion but nothing could be done. The rack hit the floor hard causing all sorts of damage to the eggs. I was convinced that by the looks of things all eggs had been broken and it was a lost cause. Now let me step back here for second and tell you about the rack the eggs were in. Each rack had around five shelves. Each shelf held about 120 or so carton of eggs. Do your math there and that's just a hot mess. Well, I did my least favorite thing and told my boss what had happened. I knew the fault was not mine but my boss would not be happy about the loss. I informed him I was sure it was a total loss. He paused for a moment and instructed me that another employee and I would need to go through every carton of eggs looking for ones that survived, wash them off and place them in a new container. Of course, I knew how long that would take and really wanted to ask him if he had been smoking something funny but I smiled and told him I would get right on it. I asked a dear friend of mine to help me, which at first I'm not sure how thrilled she was but we got to it. As we started we looked at the whole mess and knew that we would be there forever. Looking through the mess we found damaged egg after damaged egg and I felt that it was pretty much a waist of time but then we started to find eggs that had made it. We focused on conquering shelf by shelf and even began to laugh. When it was all said and done we were covered in egg goop, a lot of time had come and gone but we saved a good number of eggs. Plus, we ended up having the time of our life. I look back at that memory often and think of things I learned. To this day I can't crack an egg without thinking of the great crash of eggs.

I have had some time to think about "hope". I have reflected back in my life when I have felt it. I have looked at my life recently and have thought how hope and depression interact in the field of life. To me, hope is more than just an interesting idea to bring flashes of optimism to folks. Hope is a principle or a fundamental truth. As I looked back on my younger years in life I feel like I had limited hope because my outlook was on specific ending events. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. When I called a girl to ask her out on a date I would hope with all my might that she would say "yes" or "I was hoping you would call you handsome man." No matter how the call went, when it was over my "hope" for that event was over. I certainly feel this type of hope is okay but can be rather roller coaster like if it's all based on life events. It either makes you happy or sad in that moment or event. So, to me there has got to be more. Something that brings hope, peace, happiness. My belief is that stems from and grows with one's view and relationship with the Divine and that He loves me. When I have had disappointments in my life I have been able to have the perspective of what matters in life and find hope and peace. Now, throw in depression. For those that view depression as just being down or sad let me shed some light on that. For me, depression puts a choke hold on hope and does not like to let go. I try to look at life with the Divine perspective yearning for hope yet the choke hold continues. Is all hope lost then? Depression strives to make you think so. Life is pretty ugly when you feel that all hope is gone. Why try? Try because there is hope out there!! Via my psychologist, via my psychiatrist, via family, via loved ones, via Divine thoughts I am learning to work with the hairy beast depression. I have come to grips that for now he will be with me but that doesn't mean that I will give up and be a tumble weed to him. Sure there are times he will kick my tail but I am fighting back. Why? Because in the moments of fighting back I have felt glimpses of hope and it was awesome!! I have come to learn that just with the eggs of hot mess I have to go through carton after carton. There may be times when all the eggs are broken but I keep fighting because I know that I will find those eggs that weren't ruined. I keep fighting because I have felt hope in the midst of battle with depression so I know that I can feel it again. Yes, I know that dark and lonely times may be ahead but I also know that hope is out there too. I fight that someday I will be able to shift the balance of feeling more hope than darkness. No matter of what hot mess we may feel like we need not quit on ourselves. Yep, we have a sucky illness that can rob of us hope but he can not rob us of keep trying!