Hill 22

I raced my race. The one I'd been training for this whole time. The race came and went. It was a wonderful experience. I beat all my goals. So why do I still feel broken?

I achieved and exceeded my expectations for myself, I did it! But I'm not doing well. Its silly of me to expect one race to change my heart. To strip away years of hurt, guilt and shame. The simple fact is a lot of veterans are like me. Trying to chase something that will erase the hurt. To be clear, I'm not done racing, but I'm done focusing on it as my sole therapy. PTSD can't be run away from, it must be run towards. My wife has run towards my PTSD and in all honesty, its why I'm still alive.

I've had to remind myself why I don't kill myself at least half the days in the last 9 years. I've managed to stay alive this long, but this battle has landed me in the hospital twice. I'm not proud of any of this and I don't say it here to attract sympathy. I say it because honesty could be the thing that saves me. Saves you.

When we get honest, we can move forward. People can rally around us and options become available. Maybe its a treatment center, maybe its a lifestyle change, maybe its getting into regular therapy, or maybe its simply talking regularly about how you're really doing with your spouse.

I promise you its not always fun or pretty when we get honest! I can think of a great many things I would have rather done than confirm my wife's greatest fear that I, her husband, was and have been suicidal for many years. I knew it was her worst fear because she knows how many brothers I've lost and how many other veterans have died in the same manner. Now she has to worry about me.

I didn't want her to know because I didn't want her to worry. So, in every fight, every time I was depressed, I could never fully share with her my truth. I was afraid if I told her I was reminding myself of the reasons why I needed to stay alive, I would destroy her.

I have stayed alive because I have a wife and two daughters. If I die, I know how horrible it will be on them. They need me around. What I've come to realize is thats not living. When you justify life based on the convenience and security of others, you're not living, you're existing.

Thats exactly what I've been doing, even at my highest moments, I've been existing. Those highs don't last long. My race lasted 1hr and 25mins. you can't base your happiness around 1hr and 25mins. I want to live. I mean really live!

At This Able Veteran you'll hear a quote from Mary Oliver several times.  "Someone I once loved gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this to, was a gift." I find it beautiful and it's been a motivator to find purpose for me.

When something terrible happens in our lives, we are handed a box full of darkness. But we have two options. We can let it destroy us (I've tried this route and it sucks) or we can let it drive us as an agent of change and hope.

What we go through in this life uniquely qualifies us to speak into another's. We get it, we've been there and we've come through it. So, someone who is just now opening their box needs us to be there with them.

Please understand I'm not honoring the darkness. I wish none of the bad things that have happened to you had happened. But they did and we can't change that. What we can change, what we do have power over is what we do on the other side of the trauma.

I thought being a film maker was the thing I was going to do to change the world. I thought thats how I would see the box as a gift. So far its none proven to be the case. I struggle with depression, rage and suicidal ideation regularly. Thank God for This Able Veteran and my family. Without them, I wouldn't be here. They have given me a foundation and have kept me from falling to far down. But now I need to take some steps.

Here are my next steps.

I've applied to a 45 day inpatient treatment program and should find out if I'll be admitted soon. I've applied to two other organizations as well. If these all fall through, I have a third place in Georgia that I will fight to get into. I can' no longer wait for someone or something to show up and get me better anymore, I have to take those steps.

Through this process, I've been really struggling with finding my purpose. As I mentioned, film making isn't my purpose. It doesn't help me live the quote from Mary Oliver.

The good news is I think I've figured out what my purpose is! Don't let anyone tell you the darkness has to stay dark. Light that candle and search the darkness because there is always an answer when you're down there. It is so hard to find, but its there.

I'm going to be taking steps towards two goals.

First, I want to continue to train and race. My hope is I can start to bring other veterans along and help teach them lessons I've learned along the way. I also want to equip them with resources. I am building relationships with other organizations that can offer programs I can't. But I can help give someone purpose, get them back into the physicality some of us miss from the Military and help them find their purpose. If I can't help them, I'll have a list of people who can. I do have long term goals for this project, but I'm not getting bogged down in the details. Right now I'm letting today be today.

The other goal is an art project. I'll always be an artist, just maybe not in the way I have been. I want to start working with wood from whiskey barrels and transform them into something else. I'm not doing this with the goal of turning a huge profit, I'm doing it for creation, focus, peace, and sanity.

So where do we go from here? This will be the last post on this blog. I'm starting a new chapter in my life. That new chapter in my life has a name, its "Hill 22".

22 veterans a day commit suicide. Even if that number is 1 a day, its still to many. As I've trained, I've found so many life lesson running up, down, and between hills. We all have our own "Hill 22", the thing that threatens to break us. My hope is to show others it doesn't have to be that way. Sometimes we need to push through it, sometimes we need to slow down, and sometimes we need to not go it alone.

The new blog will be found at Hill 22. Please follow me and my journey there.

For those of you who have stuck by my side, thank you. Your support is needed. We all need community and you've been that for me. This isn't goodbye, this is a come with me to the next chapter!

Remember, seasons end. Some seem harder than others, some seem longer than others, but seasons always end.

Remember, when the going gets tough the tough get help...

Enter a Cave, Find a Bear

If you go into a cave, you're going to find a bear...

It's a theory I learned from a psychologist years ago and a principle I've applied to many of my life choices. I've applied it to overcoming my drug addiction and alcohol abuse. It's also something I've often used to help others understand what it takes to overcome addiction.

Basically, it means if you go to the places your addiction lived, if you hangout with the people you drank with etc... You'll find your cravings come rushing back, even if you've been clean for awhile. For some, they won't even THINK about wanting a cigarette until they are driving the stretch of road where they'd have their pre-work smoke.

For me, I had to leave, move out of the city where my drug networks existed! It was a huge change, but my life is better for it. Had I stayed, I'd be dead.

It hurt to leave, it hurt to go away from all that I had come to know, it physically hurt to become sober. Cocaine withdrawal made for a rough month. But after that month, the clouds parted. The chemicals were out of my system and my eyes adjusted to the light outside of the cave. But the adjustment hurt.

On this journey I'm on, pain is always present on some level! Progress is never without pain. My most recent pain is something called saddle sore...

Every time I ride, I get sore and swollen on my right Ischial Tuberosity... I say Ischial Tuberosity because it sound a whole lot better than "My butt hurts."

It happens because of several factors. Some, in my case, include friction with the seat, bike seat position (bike fit) and having a big butt...

I ride and it hurts. I adjust how I sit trying to find comfort. I don't quit. In any change we make, we adjust whats not working to find comfort, or a better way of doing things.

You don't throw away the marriage because it's not as comfortable as it once was. You talk. You work together to heal the broken thing.

You don't quit training because your butt hurts. You adjust until it stops hurting. You try new things because if you keep things the same, you enter the cave and find a bear.

Today, I found comfort on my bike seat! I don't know if it's permanent, but theres hope. Hope includes setbacks, but no matter what change we are making, no matter the goal, when we get a glimpse of hope, we should rejoice.

It means we aren't struggling in vain! It re-introduces purpose. It reminds us someday, our butts will stop hurting!!

We must give ourselves credit for the victories, even the small ones. We must do so with such vigor that when the failures come and they will come, we can laugh them off, learn from them and try again... and again.

Welcome Home

Sooooo last post I mentioned I was about to enter into my first post Flat Lands workout, where I saw my mile time shrink by 35 seconds! The thought of giving up that kind of progress was very hard to get over! Hard to get excited and get out and run the hills again! But I did it!

Appropriately, this day was a day of severe weather... There I stood, gazing out the window waiting for a break in the clouds, waiting for the tornado watch to be lifted, waiting to seize my moment to claim victory over the odds and maintain my flat lands mile pace!

The moment came between storms and I ran. A quarter of the way into the run it rained again, which was nice. It both cooled my temperature and served as a metaphor for what was happening in my mind as I struggled through the realization that my time, gonna be not so good!

During the run I told myself, just finish with split times in the 9 minute range. Sub 10 minute miles and we'll call it a win! So I kept on my course.

In an earlier post I mentioned how we fail to enjoy and rest in the down side of the hill. I want to amend that concept with a  new realization I had today. I was running down the same hill, telling myself to catch my breath and get ready for the next hill. I found myself forgetting to keep running.

I laid back, slowed down and began to forget I still needed to run. When we get in an easy seasons in our lives, we can tend to stop running. We enjoy the rest TO much and stop strengthening ourselves, improving ourselves for the next rough season.

If I'm not getting stronger when I'm not being tested, how could I ever expect to have strength for when I am?

So I RAN down the hill. I ran up the hill and I didn't stop running until the end of my race. I felt so slow at times, I felt so tired at times, but I told myself no matter what I feel, I'm going to keep trying, keep pushing! I made it!

When I was finished, I pulled out my phone, where I keep track of my workouts and prepared myself. I reminded myself to celebrate any number but to be elated if I was in the 9's for my split times. In Wisconsin, I improved my time to 9 minute 16 second miles. On my first run back in Kentucky, My average mile was 8 minutes and 37 seconds! My splits kept getting faster as I ran! my last half mile I ran at a pace of an 8 minute 14 second mile. I was blown away. I was knocking on the door of the 7's!

consistant 7 minute miles for my run is my goal. For the first time since I started, I believe that goal is within reach before September.

We can't give up. It may be hard, but that break through is around the corner. Who knows how long the tunnel will last, but the only way it will never end is if we stop walking.

I felt like quitting my run because it hurt and made me feel weak. It was because I didn't think I could run as fast as I did on vacation. If I would have quit, I would have never known I was actively putting down my best run time since I started! I wouldn't have known! That blows my mind!

I remembered to run down the hill. I remembered to push myself when it was easy and because I didn't coast, the hill didn't break me. The run was hard, but it didn't break me. It turned out the run was hard because I was pushing myself harder than ever before!

Sometimes we don't have the benefit of perspective. All we can do is push.

Vacation

We just got back from vacation in Wisconsin. Going into the vacation we were so excited! The only thing I was concerned about was wether or not I could keep up with my training. See, since family members live in Wisconsin, Arkansas and Kentucky, it makes getting together for EVERY holiday hard. So this was our Thanksgiving trip!

I've never been one to continue anything except gluttony on vacation. I give myself the 5 pound weight gain pass. Its ok! Its a vacation right?!? Well this time was the first time I entered into a vacation with long term goals. Goals which even a short term lapse would interfere with.

We shopped before leaving and packed all the food into a cooler and brought it with. When we were in Wisconsin, my mom was gracious enough to pick up the tab on the next grocery trip, provide we cooked and she could have some :) Side note... She is so funny. She buys us food and asks if she can have some. As if we'd have any reason to deny her... Her food! I love her!

So we have the diet figured out. Eating good, eating small portions and drinking a lot of water. Lets workout.

I'm so lucky to have a supportive wife. She gives me the time to get out and train. She understands the greater implication of this journey. She realizes its more than simply physical. Change is happening. Also, she's not opposed to me getting super fit with six-pack abs!

I got out and ran a few times to start and on one day while we were home I ran 3.1 miles (a 5K) to the park, then went to the pool for a swim. I don't know how far I swam, I just kept going back a forth until I felt like I didn't have anymore to give.

The pool was a public pool with no lap lanes and a bunch of people. Admittedly I was frustrated because I had to stop every so often to get through traffic. In reality I was glad I had to... I could tell myself things like, "Geez! Can't a guy swim some laps without stopping! Trying to workout here!" But in reality I was thinking, "Oh thank God, I can take a break!"

So running... Check. Swimming... Check. But I haven't mentioned biking up until this point. Simple reason being I didn't have one... So one of the first things we did on this trip was stop at the local bike shop The Sports Den and buy a bike! After test riding several, I found my ride!

I love riding it! I almost wanted to stop training for the other events and just focus on cycling, but that wouldn't do me any favors come September! Plus I got saddle sore so I had to take a few days off the bike anyways...

The greatest thing is I am now able to actually train for my triathlon! While on vacation, I started thinking about ways I could fit training into my everyday life in ways other than just getting up earlier. Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping and need that extra time in the morning.

So I thought, I could start running/biking to wherever we were planning to drive. Instead of driving to my in-laws house, I could bike the 11 miles, put my bike in the van and drive the family home when the visit was over. 

When we went to the pool I thought, I can leave a little early and run the 3 miles to the pool and meet my family there. I thought, I'd like to surprise visit my sister so instead of trying to get the family out from their routine, I'll just bike there and back! It worked perfect and I plan to keep going in that manner here in Kentucky.

Now that I'm back in Kentucky, I'm a bit nervous. Wisconsin spoiled me with its flatness! My mile time dropped and I was afraid to go back home and watch it climb as I climbed the hills! But I know its not a reason to quit. 

Seeing your event times fluctuate is a part of the sport. If we quit at each fluctuation, we don't get better, character isn't formed there is no progress.  So tomorrow, I'm hitting the road for my first run back home! We'll see how it goes!

PTS-Me

I said it wouldn't always be pretty... Today... Yesterday... They weren't pretty.

Part of this journey I'm taking you on, a huge part, is a healing journey. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It comes in many forms, from many different points of origin. In my case its from my time over seas in combat in Iraq 2003.

It rears its head at random sometimes. The last couple of days have seemed random. I've scratched my head trying to figure out why I've had intense depression and rage. We're on vacation and I've been so angry, at times to the point I don't feel safe. I don't feel I'll be able to keep my emotions in check. I've secretly been hoping to get into a fight so I could give this rage purpose.

I was at the mechanic and saw a guy staring at me for what seemed like 5 minutes. I wanted to scream at him "Can I help you?" "Is there a problem?" But I held back. PTSD can make you look for fights that aren't there. Everyone becomes the enemy to include my children and my wife. The baby cries, my 4 year old doesn't listen at times and my wife isn't perfect... How dare they be human... But, in these moments it's all I see. There humanity becomes a negative.

I've made great progress with my PTSD and so have many others, but we still have our days. They have become fewer in number, but it wasn't that long ago I had at least 3 days a week like this. Horrible way to live. Its one of the reasons the veteran suicide rate is so high. 22 a day. ABSOLUTELY HEART BREAKING. I won't be part of that number. I hope to eradicate that number.

So what to do in my state... It was getting late and there was about 30 minutes before sunset. I decided I needed to get out and run. Burn off this adrenaline that had been dumping into my system the past 2 days. I ended up running 3.84 miles at a 9 minute mile pace. Its a good pace for me at this point. In the last .5 miles I started to have a conversation with myself.

I was heading home and decided to keep a faster pace and not quit if it got tough. It got tough... Life always gets tough. Before it got tough I realized how bad a father, husband, son and friend I am when I get like this. My mantra became my wife deserves better, my daughter deserves better etc... I said it over and over. I asked myself is my body in charge or am I in charge? If my body says I'm tired, I can't do this, do I listen or do I tell it the race isn't over?

I deserve better.

I realized in that moment I deserve a better quality of life. It's not just for everybody else. Do I let the relationships in my life, as important as they may be, determine if I'm doing a good enough job or do I tell myself how I'm doing?

I deserve better because when I'm a better man I feel better and my family gets better from me as well. When I tell my body I know its tough, I know you're tired, I know you want to quit but we're not going to, I fight forward. I get stronger.

On this race there are setbacks. Our days won't always be something we want to write about or share with others. Its not a success only journey. I'm not always going to be the best family man, my event times won't always get faster but I'm not going to quit. On any of it. When set backs come I'll take a deep breath, really think about things and when I get that moment of clarity, I'll tell myself your're done quiting. If we don't quit, theres still a chance we'll get better.

Its not a success only life. We aren't perfect. We never will be. Obstacles will come... a lot. It will get difficult. We will fall short. There will be tears. There will be anger. We'll feel like we suck. But if we don't give up and we work, the bad times become the exceptions.

I have been in therapy, I have a service dog and the teachings from the trauma resiliency program, writing, Film making and now I have swimming, biking, running and a literal race to run. If we can find outlets, we can workout our demons. We can learn a lot about ourselves in those moments when it gets hard instead of giving up. Many call it the pain cave. Its a place we put ourselves on purpose in a healthy way (like exercise) where we must give it our all even when it gets hard.

Maybe your pain cave is getting out in public for a while because your afraid of crowds. Maybe its going to the fireworks wearing headphones and during the show, taking them off a listening to the booms. Maybe its picking up the phone and talking to that broken relationship you've been avoiding for years. Maybe it's telling your spouse you love them. Maybe it's planning a date. Maybe its playing with your kids. It takes effort. It takes love and dedication. But when the thing you try gets tough and you enter the pain cave will you quit? or will you address the reality of your situation and really think about it. Will you push forward?

I'm not perfect, but I'm pushing forward. It may take a day or two or longer to get back on track but I'm always working to find the trail.

What trail do you need to get back on?

Perfectionism Mixed With Impatience

Have you ever started something new, or been doing something for a long time and still felt like you were nothing? Felt you aren't good enough and never will be? So much so you get angry. Anger followed by resentment and doubt? If so, welcome to the club.

This has been a pattern of mine and over the years, it's something I've been working on. Why do I feel this way? My response to an emotion may be severe or irrational, but the emotion is trying to tell me, tell us something.

It's telling ME, comparison is the robber of joy. A good friend of mine shared that pearl with me and its become a life changing reality.

More often than not, we don't begin something and compare ourselves against the beginners. We compare ourselves to the best of the best. How do we stack up?

I start making short films and immediately compare my work to that of the greatest hollywood directors! When I do that, I don't stack up very well... I don't think I ever will and I lose the drive to try. The drive to get better.

I train for a triathlon and look up times from last years racers to see the averages. I find the average time for each event is far faster than I am currently capable of completing individually, let alone back to back! So do I quit because I most likely won't place well in the race? Who's holding me to these unrealistic standards on which my success is determined?

Me.

Why do we, or at least I, compare myself to top level industry professionals and elite athletes who have been working, improving, getting better for years?

Perfectionism mixed with impatience.

I want to be the best. Now. I don't want to work for it. I want to be great without doing the work because doing the work is hard and involves failure. It involves adversity and I just want to fly.

I can't fly and its unreasonable to think I can. I can't run an Iron Man race so it's unreasonable to compare myself to someone who can. But, it is reasonable to aspire to that end. To learn from the established and work towards a goal... Over time...

It's not always reaching the goal thats important. Sometimes its what we learn on the journey thats the real victory. Thats the real goal.

To what end do you strive?

Hills Make Me Mad

I made a huge realization today.

I was on a 2 mile run preparing for my sprint triathlon in September. For those of you who may not know, a sprint triathlon is a short distance triathlon designed for an elite athlete to be able to complete in under an hour. I have no such expectations for myself this go round! My race will be comprised of a 400 meter swim, 13.1 mile bike ride and a 3.1 mile (5K) run.

Ok... Back to the realization... So I'm training and hills make me mad. I see a hill and I'm mad that God didn't make the world flat... In my frustration I realized I was running down a hill consumed with dread for the next hill that was fast approaching. I wasn't even enjoying the decline! I didn't notice I was given a chance to catch my breath to ready myself for the next hill!

I think we do that a lot in life. We have a lot of crazy. Maybe its family, work or any number of other things, but we find ourselves in a grind, another season of busy. In those seasons we may find the hill impossibly long and steep. Sometimes the hill requires us to slow down and walk! But every hill has a decline.

I wonder if you're like me and realize once the top has been reached and you've survived it, you forget to rest. You forget to catch your breath on the way down because another hill is coming once you reach the bottom.

I finish a film project and am still not present with my family because my mind is already worrying about and fixating on my next project, the next climb.

There will always be a hill to climb. God didn't make our lives or this world flat. Because of it, we will always need to push ourselves up the hill. But, its vital we remember to catch our breath once the hill has been climbed.

On the way down the hill, I had already decided I would fail because the next hill was too long and to steep.

I enter into project already confident I'll fail because the project is bigger than me.

In this moment, I remember, I'm running down the hill and if I failed to appreciate that, the next hill would break me. If I enter into the project resigned to failure, I will be miserable, do sub-standard work and maybe, just maybe, be ok.

But, if I rest in the downtime and climb the hill knowing it won't last forever, I can finish strong and be stronger for the next hill.

Success isn't how fast you climbed. It's that you climbed and you're not afraid to do it again. It's not finishing the climb and hiding so you don't have to try it again. It's celebrating the success knowing you GET to go out and try again!

What hills are you afraid to climb?