From One BaD Man to Another

“Look! You see?” The voice in my head asked, as I reached for the door to leave my bedroom. 

I had been working non-stop for months and self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana. One night, I was especially stressed and especially high. So much so that I became intensely paranoid. I thought nothing was real and I was schizophrenic. In that moment, I called my parents and asked to come over. That’s when I heard it; the voice of God. Or so I thought. 

The truth was less exciting. It was the culmination of years of untreated mental illness that had reached a fever pitch. Looking back, the signs were obvious. 

If I were to pinpoint my first episode, it would be February of my Junior year of high school. I was dating my high school sweetheart when out of nowhere, I decided to break up with her. I remember the feeling to this day. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel much sorrow. I felt like I was destined for bigger and better things, including a better woman. And I was on a mission to make it happen.

After we broke up, I hit the gym; hard! In one summer, I went from 220 pounds to 165 pounds. I was shredded. I felt great about myself. I felt I could do no wrong. Then, came winter.

On my 18th birthday, I received a $10,000 life insurance payout from my mother’s estate. She’d died from a six-year battle with stage 4 melanoma five years prior. At the time I received the money, I’d been fascinated by the stock market and decided I was going to use the money to trade weekly options contracts – a type of financial derivative that expires with $0 value if the trade doesn’t go one’s way. I lost the $10,000.

The embarrassment, guilt, and shame I felt led me to alcohol. By my 19th birthday, I had started attending AA meetings. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson and woudn’t completely quit the sauce until the night I heard God’s voice, seven years later.

Those seven years followed similar cyclical patterns. I experienced euphoria that gave way to ambition and reinvention into summer. Then, I made desperate decisions to fend off depression in late fall and winter. I started and stopped school. I started and stopped jobs. I started and stopped relationships. All the while, I continued drinking and taking worse and worse care of myself. By the time I was 26, I weighed 320 pounds.

And yet, despite the hazard to my personal well-being, I became what I thought was successful. Through years of entrepreneurial endeavors and networking, I was the Chief Marketing Officer of a promising software startup that had just raised $2.5 million. I had an impressive network of advisors and investors. I had found my bigger and better.

But the cost was too great. Obese, alcoholic, lonely, and depressed, it was only a matter of time before the demons in my closet would no longer stay hidden. They came out that night I heard God’s voice. 

In that moment, I saw my life flash before my eyes. It felt as though everything I’d ever experienced – from my parents’ divorce, to my mother’s death, and even my adolescent epilepsy – had been necessary preparation for this special mission God was now calling me to undertake. It involved quitting my job (again) and losing the weight I’d gained.

I did! I quit my job. It came as a shock to everyone. Many people tried to talk me out of it. The more they did, the more resolute I became. Eventually, I became combative and burned numerous bridges in embarrassing and shameful ways I now deeply regret. 

However, it wasn’t all bad. I also lost the weight. In 5 months I went from 320 pounds to 205 pounds through diet, exercise, and sheer force of will. In the 10 years from 2010 to 2020, I’d come full circle. Over the course of the following year, I finally finished my Computer Science degree and landed a job I’ve since held.

Healing my mental health has taken far longer and proven more difficult than healing my physical health. When I shared with my father the impressions I received from God and the mission I was being called to do, he commented I sounded like Joseph Smith or David Koresh. 

It took over a year and a tremendous amount of self-study to accept the fact that what I experienced was not divine intervention but a religious delusion as part of marijuana-induced psychosis. It took an additional three years to identify my predisposition to that was due to being Bipolar with Borderline Personality traits.

Today, I take medication for my conditions. I’ve maintained a healthy lifestyle and more weight. I ran my first half-marathon with my older brother last year. I’ve saved my first hundred thousand and then some. I haven’t touched alcohol or marijuana in four years. Most importantly, I’ve cultivated loving relationships with friends and family that I neglected for a long time while I went undiagnosed and untreated.