I have come to a point in my journey where I need to sort of open up about the road I have been traveling on. This submission probably will not have any funny quips or goofy ha ha’s, but it might… you never know. I am essentially ripping the band aid here and kind of baring it all.

Anyone who knows me, or should I say, anyone who REALLY knows me, knows that I build walls. I would say my castle is well fortified. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. I have longed for that someone that just clicks. That friend that you just kind of bud around with and you just get each other. I had that. Well, I have that still, but we are all grown up now. Then I had it again. I lost him to suicide. Mental illness is something I knew was a big deal, but I didn’t think it would be something I would ever face, but we will get into that later on. Anyway, I wanted that ride or die kind of friend. You know, the one that just does first and asks questions later. Outside of childhood and that one bud, I never really had that. So, I fortified more walls around myself.

All my life I have been a ” momma’s boy”. How many gay men out there can relate? Heck, how many guys in general who have been blessed to have their mothers in their lives can relate? To those of you who did not, I am so sorry you did not. I love my mother. More than anyone on this earth will ever know. I know that I have earned every grey hair on her head. She has been by my side through EVERY thick and thin. My fault, their fault, even the “no contest”… if you know what I mean… For those of you who don’t, I’ll get to that too… I know people get so tired of hearing “my mother” this and “my mother” that… I don’t care… I am proud of my momma. Like every good southern boy, she’s a staple… I couldn’t imagine life without her.

In 2017, I married Jon. Your spouse is supposed to be your partner in crime, your ride or die. Jon is not that for me. He is something different. We are polar opposites when it comes to things we like, backgrounds and heck, even friends. (That part leads to the mental illness break, we will get to that too) We are 10 years apart in age. I love him more than anything in the world and cannot imagine life with anyone else. We met by happenstance. I had just been broken up with on Valentine’s Day so I decreed that I would never date again and just bond myself to my job. I deleted all my dating apps and set out on my celibate journey. I forgot one. HE MESSAGED ME ON THAT ONE APP! We set up a time and date to meet. I picked the place, but I didn’t give it much attention. Afterall, He was going to be just like all the others. I was out with the fam about two miles down the road. I messaged him that I was running late… TWO hours later he was still waiting on me. I really didn’t care if he had left or not, but he actually waited. From that moment on, we have been inseparable. Together over 10 years, married almost 9 years.

So without the voice over of Sir Attenborough, you’ve got the cliff’s notes version of a small snippet of the gist of this entry. Now we are getting to the good stuff, the whole point of the entry. July of 2019, we were in Saugatuk, MI for an event and I had made an incredible ass of myself Infront of quite a few people. I do not think I fully recovered from that, but I feel like some of what I am getting to rooted long before that. You see, sometimes the life of the party suffers inside the hardest. What I mean by that is they may be the “best time” or the one with the “strongest sense of humor” or the one that makes everyone laugh, but inside their head, heart and gut, they are beating themselves up the hardest, or yelling the loudest, and just sometimes they are the ones that cry the hardest when they’re alone.

In February of 2021 I sat in a grocery store parking lot during a thunderstorm and started to cry. For those that know me well, know that I do not cry unless I am at the end of my rope or so overwhelmed that I have nothing left to do, but cry. They also know that I am so against suicide for many reasons, number one being losing my soul mate to suicide years ago and most recently my British Brother form across the pond. Anyway, I sat there crying… I was crying because I legitimately had no friends. I know that sounds so pathetic and attention grabbing when you type it out, but all of the people I talked to most were people from work. I work ALOT. Outside of that, it’s my mom and Jon. I absolutely love that I have them, but I want to be someone’s ride or die. I want to be someone’s phone call when they have some salacious gossip, I want to be that friend they call when they wanna grab a cup of coffee or send a stupid ,gif to . I don’t have that outside of work. All of that came crashing down on me that day… All of it… All of it at once…. Then there was this little, tiny voice that whispered, ever so lightly and sweet… it said “maybe it would all be easier if you weren’t here…”

WHAT THE LITTERAL F!!! I have been scared of a lot of things in my life and faced a lot of things in my life that have been scary, that is probably one, if not, the scariest moment of my life. Just for the simple fact that it came to me so simple, so sweet and so quiet. It would have been an easy decision to make had my will been just a little weaker or beaten down. I text Jon saying that I am NOT having a good day and that I am sitting in the car crying and that I am going in the house to do the same. My heart was racing. I knew I needed to find some sort of help, but I did not want to include anyone that knew me other than Jon because the shame started setting in almost immediately.

I went inside and sat on the couch and just ugly face cried for about 20 minutes. Then I grabbed my phone and started looking up psychiatrists. I bet I read through 15 profiles before landing on one that I felt matched well with what I was going through. I made the appointment for ASAP. After that, I put on a movie and just sat there, numb, all afternoon. When Jon got home, I didn’t say a word and just sat there crying. I ended up going to bed early because who wants to sit next to a blubbering idiot? He actually thought I was mad at him. He sent me a text the next day saying something along the lines of “we need to talk otherwise things aren’t going to be good between us”. He actually thought I was mad at him. I explained that it had nothing to do with him and that I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t know whether to be mad or glad… Either way, it wasn’t something I had the cognitive dissonance for at that moment. I was on my way to my first visit with a head shrinker for the first time in my life. That five-mile drive was the longest five miles I have ever driven in my life.

Once in and all the introductions were made, he asked me “So what’s been going on”. I started to talk, with all fortified walls intact of course. We talked about a number of things for a bit, and he asked why I chose him rather than a therapist… I said “well, I guess I would rather start at the top instead of telling my issues to several people only to find out that I need to come here. I decided to come here and then go where you tell me. My time is valuable, and I do not get a lot of it.” He told me my cognitive thinking skills were operating normally if not above normal, I thanked him. That day I started my Menal Health journey and upon his recommendation, found a therapist that challenges me. There has been A LOT of medication combinations that we have tried to get the right combinations. I can say now, I have the right combinations and I am not a fortified as I once was. And with the therapist, we have covered a lot of ground.

What I hope people may get most out of this entry is that even the strongest of people can go through what they may deem as the impossible and tackle it and come out WAY ahead of it. Mental Health is something that is a touchy subject with so many. It is a personal journey. You get to choose which volumes you take off the shelves and open. You get to choose what chapters you finish and what chapters are to be continued. Just like this entry… There will be other band aides and in tighter spots to rip off.