Making a Habit of It

I'm having a difficult time lately. It is difficult to admit, and I have been trying to hide it because I don't want people to worry. I am battling through with the skills I know I have and leaning on outside support more than I have in the past. I switched medications because I was recently diagnosed with having a mood disorder. That is that not only do I struggle with the chronic depression, I also have manic episodes mixed in. I've suspected this for a while, so it comes as no big surprise. I suspected that I have cyclothymia - think of it as a lesser form of bipolar disease. But you treat it differently than depression. In fact, the depression medication really just exacerbates the mood disorder. So I suspect that changing up the drugs plays a big part in how I've been feeling. I will say, though, that I am sleeping much better. I had horrible insomnia before, and was averaging three or four hours of sleep a night. Now I'm getting six or seven, so that makes a good deal of difference.

I just returned back from Florida, though. Back to Colorado and some frigid temperatures! I experienced going from eighty degrees to minus 10 in the matter of less than twelve hours! I was getting outside and getting sunshine in Florida. When I got breaks in my schedule, I'd take a short walk around the block. I am still recovering from bunion surgery, so had only worked up to about 5000 steps per day while in Cape Canaveral. Still, I was getting out. The sun is shining nice and bright here in Denver, but I have no inclination to get out in the cold and snow. That rat bastard Punxsutawney Phil did not improve my mood any on that front this morning! So, the weather along with the constant nose bleeds certainly has something to do with my mood.

It's more than that, though, being back in Colorado. In Florida the possessions that surround me are fairly sparse. We live in a small space, so there is not a lot of room for having extra "stuff" just lying around. There is less to distract my attention from what the ambitious side of me wants to be doing. My fat, lazy self is perfectly content with finding distractions here in Colorado, not to mention sitting and watching television or scrolling through social media. Those last two are in no short supply in Florida, so I have to think it is just not the "stuff" that distracts me. There is even more to it.

Some, I suspect, is Covid-related. Something about getting into bad habits at the outset of Covid that I haven't really broken. I didn't need to shower and get dressed if I didn't want to. I could go to the fridge and snack any time I wanted to. I could make my workspace as messy as I wanted without annoying any coworkers other than Buck who I annoy by not having a space on the futon in my office for him to lay down on.I suspect some of you had a similar experience.

Those bad habits have been tough to shake, but I made new habits in Florida. Healthier habits, like taking a little walk when I had a break in work. Or like sitting down with a book rather than flipping on the television. Our habits definitely have a contextual element to them. Our surroundings play a big part of the habits we create. I need to shake off some of those bad habits that I created here in Colorado. It's tough to do!

I have gotten very interested in habits in the past couple years. Habits are mental shortcuts we make. Without them, our brains would be overloaded with what action to take next. Can you imagine how your drive home from somewhere else would be without habit? Not only would you need to be thinking about which direction to go and which turns to make, but you would have to consciously think about turning the key to even start the car and think about buckling up. 

I was reminded of this being back down in Florida and driving the Ford Fusion again, a car we keep down there now, but one that I was driving to and from work every day pre-pandemic. To connect to my phone's bluetooth and start an audio book requires a series of button pushes on the audio system. I could literally do this in my sleep previously. Last week I had to remind myself of which menu items I needed to find in order to keep listening to American Dirt. We carve paths through the jungles of our minds with habit. It makes our drives home so simple that we often can't even remember details of the drive at all. It also makes it easier to scoop a bowl of ice cream or pour a glass of wine in order to make ourselves feel better as opposed to going to the gym or taking a run.

Anyway, I need to work on better habits here in Colorado. If you are interested in better habits, this is a great video on them. I also highly recommend the books that got me interested in them in the first place: The Power of Habit and Atomic Habits. Let me know if you have other recommendations!

A Thank You Note

It's that time of year where we take a moment and think on those things for which we are grateful. It has been a challenging year for me, but I realize especially in the past several weeks that I have so much to be thankful for. So I thought I'd get my gratefulness written out.'

First and foremost I am thankful for my family. My mother and brother Rob have been here through what has been the darkest time of my life. I really appreciate Rob giving me a place to stay through this as well as balancing that line of letting me rest and heal on one hand and getting my butt out of bed to work or go to the gym rather than wallowing all day on the other. Of course my whole family has been there for me and I feel the love and support from everyone including Jen's family. Our trip to Daytona with them has to be a highlight of this year. If there has been a silver lining to any of this, it has been that it helped me reconnect with my youngest brother Billy that I really needed.

Of course my closest family is Jen and the boys, and they are key to me getting better as well. The boys have grown into fine men, and I really appreciate the way they've made time in the past year to be with us on vacation, but also the times they have even just dropped by the house. And what can I say about Jen? "In good times and bad.. In sickness and health," has really been pushed to the extreme this year. I'm looking forward to getting back home and starting the rest of my life with her.

I am grateful for all my wonderful friends. My social network collapsed with my promotion to manager and then the pandemic. The pandemic has been so difficult on the social networks for so many of us. I felt very lonely and isolated at times. I have had so many great friends reach out lately, some of which I haven't spoken to in so long. I want my friends to all know that I love them regardless of how frequently or infrequently we talk. I want them also to know that I am here for them as well. I want to promise to always be there, though I know I need to rebuild trust in my promises. 

Acquaintances. A special shout out of gratitude to everyone who reached out some of whom I barely know and many whom I've never met in "real life". I savor every note of encouragement. Seriously, even the smallest, "Hang in there," is so appreciated. A special note to the Firehouse community: I am so grateful I get to be associated with you all. When I say that I need to rebuild my social network I am looking straight at you and can't wait to attend some fun events in 2023. 

I am grateful for AA, especially the Lily Gulch group down here in Littleton. I think if you are an alcoholic trying to recover, you need a community. It is simply too much to rely on oneself or even one other person. It really helps to surround oneself with many people who will support one's sobriety. It also helps to know that at almost any time there is a room of people somewhere who will be there to support my sobriety without judgement.

Following on that, I am thankful that I have a Higher Power. Though I am merely human and do not understand my own purpose yet, I have faith that human life is purposeful because there is some greater Good. With a sober mind and mindful intent, I am optimistic that I will find my purpose. 

I am grateful I have a therapist who relates to me and offers sound advice. Whether I take that advice or not is totally on me! We're making progress. It may be ten steps forward before alcohol sends me nine back, but it's progress. (And I do realize it isn't alcohol that is the problem, but it is my choosing to drink the alcohol that is the problem!) I also appreciated my group therapy group. I am sure you have heard the saying "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." My IOP group epitomized that saying. There were folks from their early twenties to their late 70s. There were manual laborers, those of us tech professionals, and a heart-breaking number of nurses. I cannot over-emphasize the devastation on people's mental health that the pandemic policies that isolated us have had. I have so much appreciation for the mental health professionals out there working to repair us!

I have to give gratitude for my little dog, though he would probably prefer shredded chicken. I will never get to hold my own child, but when I think on how much I love Buck and how happy he can make me, I begin to understand how parents must love their children. He's just a dog. I can only imagine how a child who had the best parts of both Jen and I would capture my heart. How Buck anchors me in this world, though, is something I  cannot express without people realizing I am completely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I have to give a mention for William Butler Fish, who is doing great having me close by so much of the time, and to the chickens who made me breakfast over the past year, God rest their little chicken souls.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Mindfulness

I mentioned mindfulness in an earlier post. I truly believe that mindfulness is key to my mental health. Mindfulness is not just a key practice in my spirituality but also in the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) that I am working on.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is very simply the practice of being fully present in the present moment. You may have heard the saying that depression arises from worrying about the past and anxiety arises from worrying about the future. If you suffer from either or both of these then you probably know the relief you feel when you are so engaged in some activity that your mind must focus on the present, and for even a moment you are given a reprieve from thinking about your past or future. For me, when I play basketball, which I used to do a lot more than I currently do, I get so focused on the game and what I am doing that I forget about everything else. Nowadays a really good book can also give me that bit of escape from my own worries.

Most of the time, however, we do not usually have the sort of time to escape from life either through a good book or a basketball game. We have things we need to get done, life events and obligations that must be addressed. So how can we stay grounded in the present moment so that we do not become overwhelmed by thoughts about the past and future? I will put forth a few practices that I use and that you might try. 

The most basic mindfulness practice that is taught and is always available is paying attention to your own breath. Paying attention to your breath does not mean changing how you are breathing, but simply recognizing each breath that you take. Feeling each breath come into your body and then as it leaves your body. You might focus on a place in your body where you feel that breath, as it passes your nostrils or as it fills your chest. There is no need to count the breaths. Just take a moment to close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. Feel each one arise, feel it enter your body, and feel it leave your body. Do this for one minute.

Once you are practiced at paying attention to your breath like this for a minute or more, you might look into meditation. A simple meditation is simply being in a comfortable position and paying attention to your breath as you just did. You need not worry about "emptying your mind" or "thinking about nothing". Thoughts will arise, but when your focus is on your next breath, they will quickly and quietly fade into the background.

There is another skill I use that does involve changing up how you are breathing. With this one I concentrate on inhaling for four counts and exhaling for six counts. It feels slightly uncomfortable to exhale for longer than I inhale and takes a bit of effort, that extra bit of focus that keeps me grounded in the present moment. A minute or two of this is usually enough for those negative thoughts that I had been thinking to fade into the background.

Another activity I like to use is to give my brain a challenging task. Perhaps it is multiplying two three-digit numbers in my head. I really like those mindfulness coloring books, the ones with mandalas or animals or scenery made up of little geometric shapes. I use my left hand, which is my off hand, to color in the shapes. It takes concentration. Another thing you might try if you do not have a coloring book in front of you but have some other printed material at hand is to fill in all the o's and g's and parts of other letters where a space is enclosed by the letter.

One final skill that helps me focus and is quite relaxing is to do muscle relaxation. Starting with my feet I tense up muscles for several counts and then allow them to relax. Once I have moved all the way up to my head I feel more grounded and relatively more relaxed. You begin this by scrunching up your toes and holding it for several seconds and then allow those muscles to relax. Then try and tense your calf muscles and allow those to relax. Then your thighs, your butt, your abdomen, your hands, biceps, shoulders, neck, mouth (smile really big and then relax!), and finally scrunch up your forehead and let that relax.

Each of these skills is usually readily available and can bring you back to the present moment when worry, either about the future or the past, begins to creep up.

Make Your Bed and Don't Ring the Bell

I am really, really sad, and no it doesn't have anything to do with election day. It is still 3pm local time as I'm writing this, and polls aren't closed on the east coast even yet. I'm mourning some things. I began reading, well, listening to, Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. I'm not too far in, but I'm assuming it recounts the year of her life after the death of her beloved husband. In it I recognize my own grief and that I too am in mourning.

I'm in mourning for a life that I never really had, though. I'm in mourning for the way things might have been. The best friend I might have had. The perfect marriage I might be enjoying. The purposeful job that would make me spring from my bed. Joan Didion had a husband she loved, a sort of shred career she loved, a child who lost her father. Lots to mourn. Ashes she could bury. Memories she would savor the rest of her life. I have memories I want to erase.

I will not be mourning for the person I was, though I would take a whole lot of joy in cremating and burying him. I hate that person. Maybe that is why I have so much shame. Because even as I loathed that person I continued to let him live inside of me. Why do I have this hatred of who I was only last week? I'm not sure I even came upon the realization until the past couple days, but I am finding out why now. That former me lived with no core values.

Core beliefs and core values. "Core" means they are at the heart of something; they are at the heart of our thoughts and behaviors. A video we watched in IOP described our core beliefs as the lens through which we see the world. If you see the world as a generally safe place, you will greet the stranger walking toward you on an empty street. If you see the world as a dangerous place, you may cross the street. Core beliefs aren't necessarily positive. I see myself as an intelligent and compassionate person. I also believe myself to be a lying, selfish, perfectionist imposter who has a ton of God-given talent and yet makes no positive impact on the world. Core beliefs can be pretty rough.

Then yesterday in IOP we began an examination of our core values. Now, core values are generally positive, but it doesn't mean we always live up to our own values. Our therapist played the following video for us. You may have seen it as it is from 2014 and made quite a stir for a bit. https://youtu.be/yaQZFhrW0fU I'd love for you to take the time now to watch it if you have the time. It's about twenty minutes long. Please check it out later if you haven't time now and haven't already seen it.

I had heard about the speech before and had always meant to go watch it just on the line "Make Your Bed". Jen always insists on making the bed. I hardly ever did it if left to my devices, though I understood the lesson. Take care of the little things. Then worry about the bigger things. Plus it being the first task of the day, it gets the ball rolling on the rest of the day. I feel like the author of Atomic Habits must have talked about the speech. I'll come back to Atomic Habits at some point. What I wasn't ready for were the other nine lessons in the speech.

The second lesson is to find someone to help you paddle. I guess it really shouldn't be summarized as find someONE to help you paddle. You need a team. This world is too much for just two people in a boat. You need a team. I hadn't put together a team to help me. 

There are a couple lessons in there about overcoming failure with determination that reminded me of No Mud, No Lotus and embracing suffering. I wonder if Buddhists make it through SEAL training at a greater rate than other religions. I wonder if any Buddhists actually go to SEAL training. Thought: Do Buddhists make the best warriors? I can still make myself laugh even now.

The sixth lesson is about taking risks to achieve something meaningful. I am not generally a risk-taker. Sober me isn't anyway. Like I said, I believe I need to be perfect; therefore, I don't extend myself like I believe I should. I don't put my neck too much on the line. I try to avoid getting anyone upset with me. So I hide. I do not let people get in touch with the real me in case they do not like the real me too much. I hide my thoughts and actions that others might get upset about. Thus a perfectionist, lying, phony. And at this point watching the video I feel like this speaker is taking dead aim at me.

Seventh lesson - deal with the sharks and don't run away from them. (By the way, my brother and I just watched a segment on sharks. They don't circle you. You won't know a shark is there until you are being attacked. Then punch it in the nose!) If you all only knew how much the shark imagery reverberated with me. "He is speaking to me!" I might have been wearing my shark socks or boxers! (I was wearing duck boxers, but still...) I wish I had dealt with the sharks at Nordstrom better. I let them run me off. Would it have been worth being fired over rather than laid off? I don't know. I feel bad for the good people left though out there swimming as the sharks circle...

Eighth lesson - Be your best at the darkest moments. At this point in group therapy I have tears starting. Also realize I am in a room of 20 and 30 - somethings. Men my age with my problems don't go to group therapy unless it is court-ordered. (Btw, mine is NOT. I'm just weird.) Many, many men with my problems don't make it to be my age or just give in to the bottle and divorce and drugs. Anyway, so now this naval officer is admonishing me that I need to be my best at the darkest times, and all I can think of is how when things got bad I gave up. That old me did not have any sort of personal values that kept him going for him.

Ninth - the power of hope and singing when you are up to your neck in mud. I have to admit that even now I have very, very little hope of anything. I honestly cannot let myself look too far ahead. I am trying to deal with the right here and now. If I were looking ahead I would not be publishing these thoughts to a public forum. I do not have a job yet and who wants a perfectionist, lying phony? My only choice is going to be to run for public office at some point. I am right up to my fucking neck in mud and it is hours and hours before dawn. And the only songs that come to my mind are the horribly sad songs.

And when he got to the last lesson: Never, ever ring the bell, I fucking lost it and left the room. We talk today about being triggered and on one side of society's ideological fence it gets a ton of importance and on the other side talk of people being triggered is dismissed with words like "snowflake". I understand now being triggered. I don't remember much about my suicide attempt, but the images I do have in my head are horrifying. Like being in an actual horror movie that you cannot escape from. At the same time, I have learned some skills to cope with emotional distress. Go to the rest room, do some deep breathing, throw some cold water on your face. We don't need "safe spaces for snowflakes"; we need to teach our young people coping skills. But still today I have had that line in my head all day, "Never, ever ring the bell." 

Never, ever ring that fucking bell. Stick to your values, and Do Not Give Up! I am begging you: Whatever it is that you are thinking about, if it is important to you, do not give up on it.

Trying to Sleep in a Muddy Foxhole

I went to bed last night wishing I could just get in a time machine and go back several weeks. That's progress. For the preceding three weeks I either didn't sleep or went to sleep hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning. Right now I know it will be difficult for me to sleep tonight. I am feeling an awful lot like I hope I don't wake up in the morning right now. I am also trying to remain mindful, though, to focus on this very moment and each successive moment and not worry about either the future or the past.

I am reading No Mud, No Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh. He was a Buddhist monk. I highly recommend reading anything by him. The premise of this book is embracing suffering, as that leads to happiness. Just as a lotus cannot grow on a marble slab, we need mud in our lives, ie. suffering, in order to experience happiness. The key is mindfulness, being in touch with this very moment and examining it without judgement. What we are learning in my Intensive Outpaitent program is very similar - being mindful, examining how we feel without judgement. I plan on writing more about mindfulness in the next few days.

I had told my therapist before that Alcoholics Anonymous is not my kind of religion, but as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes. And, brother, there are bullets whizzing by me in the form of cravings for alcohol. So tonight was my second night in a row of AA. If you want to stop drinking, it's a great place to start. For my alcoholic friends who kicked it without the help of AA, I would also encourage you to attend at least one meeting. You may find there is someone there like me who really could be inspired by you and your story. It helped me yesterday and tonight to hear people's stories, to see people, young and old, a lot like me, relatively normal folk who just have no mastery over alcohol. It also hurts me a bit to see people getting their six-month chips knowing I had done almost seven months before I blew it all up. Those people were all on day 5 at one time though too. I have been on day five Lord knows how many times! One day at a time. One moment at a time.

Seen Better Days

**** Trigger Warning for Suicidal Ideation ****

I'm back. It's been a bit of a long layoff for me from writing. I want to dive right back in, and I really want to make better use of my blogs and hopefully get to some interesting things, but for the moment, I need to get this out of the way so that you all have some context of where I am.

When we last talked I was probably still gainfully employed by Nordstrom. Apparently more for my gain than for theirs because I was let go the day after Florida got clobbered with Hurricane Ian. I think that maybe I will expand on that a bit further later. In fact, I believe I already have something written out that I was waiting to post. Technically, my last day is November first, and I would rather not jeopardize the last few days I have on the payroll.

So, being in a hurricane (okay, technically it was just a tropical storm at that point when it passed directly over Cape Canaveral with its 60mph+ sustained winds) was one of the least exciting things to happen in the past month. I created a little tempest of my very own. Looking back now I can say that I lost track of the things that are really important and forgot a lot of the therapy that had helped me so much over the previous two years. I only saw myself.

I would love to apologize to each and every person that I know and especially the ones I have hurt. Having a major depressive disorder and being an alcoholic are not things that people should need to apologize for any more than people getting cancer. However, even people with cancer can, and do, make hurtful decisions to others and for those decisions I consciously and willfully made that hurt others, I will apologize for and make amends.

First of all, I am safe now. As safe as anyone else who needs to drive the streets and highways of the Denver metro area. Secondly, I had another suicide attempt. I won't go into details now. Was it serious? I didn't hurl myself in front of a train, but I wanted to die. I was frustrated at just how difficult it was. I was also very, very drunk.

There was a jug of wine in our outside refrigerator that had been there for a very long time. Several years I think. I had been eyeing it. I knew, I knew, I knew, that if I tapped into that in the time that I did with Jen out of town and feeling the way that I did about my life, there would be a very good chance that I would not come out of it alive. And then I poured myself a drink from it.

To be frank, I wanted people at Nordstrom who had made the decision to let me go to hurt. That's why I did what I did. There are other factors that made me not happy with life, primarily generalized depression. I want to apologize to those people at Nordstrom, but again, I'm not going to apologize for being sick. There were things before that I wish had gone different and I apologize for not speaking up about that. I hope, though, that there is some sort of impression that I left with them and with my friends in the Thrive ERG that can help make a difference in the lives of Nordstrom employees who suffer from mental health issues. Erik Nordstrom, if you are reading (because that's what CEO's do. They read personal blogs all day.), please help lead the charge on improving the mental health of your employees!

I'm not living at home. Jen needs her space to sort through being hurt by me, by those conscious decisions I made as well as those depression made for me, as do I for myself to get better. My brother has been awesome in hosting me and in balancing my need to get out and be engaged in life and work as well as letting me convalesce.

I'm in an outpatient treatment for mental/behavioral health now. I've been through this three times already, and my very first night of this go-round I was just amazed at all the stuff that I had learned previously but had neglected to continue practicing. Like going to the gym for our physical health (something I need to start doing again!), we need to be practicing and exercising our mental health on a regular basis.

I'm writing this on Wednesday 10/26, and I am probably going to save publishing it until Monday 10/31 or Tuesday 11/1. I have an interview that I did with Amazon Web Services and the decision is set to be made next Monday. I would not want this post to affect that either way. And I suppose if I wait until 11/1 then Nordstrom can't let me go for cause either. It's sort of shitty that I have to hold my tongue on the internet for those reasons, but this is the age we live in.

--- Writing again later ---

I got too close to a good friend and ended up ruining that friendship and endangering my marriage. People have asked why. The truth is I don't know. I don't have a good answer for Jen nor anyone else. The only other thing that I want to say on the subject is that I miss my friend, very much, but I know she wants the best for me. What is best for me right now is to concentrate on my marriage. I also want to apologize for breaking my promise to her that I wouldn't hurt myself while she was out of the country. What can I say? I'm a liar.

I've hurt Jen too many times. She deserves better. She deserves someone who always puts her first and then her boys. I haven't done that. Of course I want the best for her, and I thought I could give that. But I have been selfish. I put myself ahead of her and at times put my job ahead of her. And I am so, so sorry for that. I hope she will want to keep me in her life forever. 

I did not get the AWS job. I am okay with that. It was not the right job for me, though I did all I could given the circumstances to come away with that job offer. I have several better things in the works. One of them is going to find out that I am the perfect fit for them.  

There are better days ahead. 

You, Super Hero

 A couple weeks ago, I had the thought that I hadn't really followed up with just how I was doing after my last blog post. I had heard from a good number of people, particularly co-workers expressing sympathy, empathy, and a surprising amount of gratitude for having spoke out about my troubles with depression and alcohol. I thought then that I should give an update saying I am doing well and that everything was going marvelously. It seemingly was, but after 78 days sober I fell off the wagon. Fell off the wagon and hit every branch on the way down, if I may mix metaphors.

Humbling. "That isn't going to be me! I've got this thing licked! I'm not like other people who inevitably go back to drinking." I'm sure all those people tell themselves the same thing. There is a lot of shame, A LOT, not only when you can't keep a promise to yourself, but can't keep one to people who love you and people who believe in you. And you wake up the next morning with your head pounding and sweating out whatever water still remains in your body and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

So you start a new streak. 

Every day we are afforded new opportunities. We can wake up with that hangover and we can choose to pour ourselves a screwdriver, a little hair of the dog, to make it through, or we can steel ourselves, make ourselves better and fight on. We can choose to procrastinate that task we just don't want to do one more day, or we can roll up our sleeves, get up on that ladder, and finally get those Christmas lights put away. (Am I getting too specific here?) 

They called my grandparents' generation the Greatest Generation. Why was that? They lived through one if not two world wars, a Great Depression, a bunch of other depressions or recessions that weren't so great, and a Cold War. They weren't great for not making mistakes, but man, they sure owned up to them. (As a generation, I mean. Individual results may vary.)

There are still a lot of people hurting from this pandemic. A lot of people I know feel pretty isolated. A lot of people who are angry and a lot of people who are sad. Keep reaching out to people. Your super power might be as simple as texting someone that you are thinking about them. Something so simple can save a life.

Man's Search for Meaning

 I spent last weekend in the hospital, a psychiatric center to be more precise, for "suicidal ideation". First of all, I'm okay, am back home, and am in an intensive outpatient program getting the help I need. In the words of Robin Williams playing the role of John Keating in "Dead Poets Society", let me dispel a few rumors so they don't fester into facts. (Not that I think there are rumors flying about, but I just like the opportunity to quote that movie.) I did not hurt myself nor anyone else. I did not attempt to hurt myself nor anyone else. I was severely depressed exacerbated by drinking too much the night before. I did not know what to do and Jen did not know what to do, so I asked her to take me to the Emergency Room. No psychotic break, no craziness per se, just overwhelming depression, and I knew I needed professional help.

I'm afraid to post this anywhere. I am afraid of what my family will think. This isn't the first time my close family has witnessed this struggle with me, but mostly they are much further away now. I am afraid of what friends and acquaintances will think. I've burned or singed a number of friendships in the past by throwing alcohol on smoldering depression. I'm afraid of what of what my coworkers will think, particularly those I support as a manager. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, last Thursday I attended a meeting through Nordstrom keynoted by the CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Dan Gillison. The idea was that though there is still a strong stigma with mental health, we need to provide a work environment where it is safe to admit you live with a mental illness, whether it is the employee themselves or someone they care for. I'm also looking at the "Nordstrom Competencies" and smack in the middle are two: "Has Courage" and "Develops People". So I think it is important to admit that I live with chronic depression.

While I am not ready to discuss details of my own experiences, including those of the last week, I want to turn this into something ultimately positive. I know people are struggling with working at home, maybe with a job change, maybe just not being able to see friends and family, maybe with this upcoming election that seems to have everyone depressed. Looking back now I realize what a dark place I was in, but it was as if someone just gradually dimmed the lights over the past six or seven months since the Covid lockdowns began. If you are in a similar place I encourage you to reach out to family, friends, or a crisis hotline. I have to admit I've used those in the past, and the people on the other side of the line are very good at just listening.

I'm sorry. I am not apologizing that I have this disease or that I ended up in the hospital because of it. I am sorry because I knew I had a problem, and I thought I could deal with it on my own. I thought I was better than every other person that has had to deal with depression and alcoholism, and that wasn't fair to my wife, to my family, to the friends I lost, to the friends that stuck by me, and to my work. I am fortunate and glad I have people who do stick by me and glad I have the means to fight to get better. There are people out there who don't. Send up a prayer for them.