I grew up on a corn and soybean farm near Dixon, IL – the hometown of Ronald Reagan. As young as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to help people. Yet somewhere along the way, I forgot to help myself. It’s like the analogy goes: if you’re on a plane that’s going down, you’re advised to put your oxygen mask on before helping anyone else put theirs on. Otherwise, you’ll eventually pass out and most likely won’t survive the accident.
Well, apparently I thought I would be the exception to the rule, and I would be the first person to save everyone on the plane before ever putting my mask on for oxygen. And that didn’t work out too well. For a long, long time. In fact, for approximately half my life, I was not really helping myself. Wasn’t really doing what it took to create a better future for myself. I was going through the motions., I had dreams of helping so many people. Yet I truly was unable to help myself.
Until the anxiety and depression I had been experiencing for over a decade came to a head. I had been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in college, but it had gotten so bad the fall after I turned 30 that I knew something had to change. I was driving for Lyft and Uber at the time in Chicago and the pain in my abdomen had gotten to the point that when I was driving, I would steer the car with one hand while my other hand held the seat belt off my stomach, because it hurt that bad.
I ended up in the hospital where they ran several tests to see what exactly was happening. After the MRI, I told them the pain was getting pretty bad. They realized that my intestine had actually ruptured and thankfully my white blood cells had contained the infection long enough for them to perform an emergency Ileostomy. I will never forget the way it felt when the beautiful surgeon from Eastern Europe came in my room and informed me of my diagnosis and the fact that they had to remove part of my intestine. Holy shit.
For 10 days, I barely ate anything. I remember waking up after the surgery and wondering how in the F I got here. Feeling sorry for myself. Being angry at the situation. And then something clicked while in the hospital. I realized that it was my life choices that had led to that current moment of despair and helplessness at age 30. I began to reflect back on the fact that I had left all my friends back home and moved to Chicago. I was living in Chicago thinking I would somehow lead the way in “defeating the Illuminati.” But all I got out of that misguided attempt to control others was a bag of shit hanging off my side for the next 60 days.
Leaving the hospital, I knew that something had to change. And it was me. Check in for the next post as. I explain how that process was not as simple as flipping a switch and changing my life for the better. And thank you for reading this blog post! It will all make sense as we go along here…
Trev Mike 