This And That

I wonder sometimes what people's impression is of me especially those that come from a search engine or what have you and read only one post before taking off. The comment section gives me a pretty good idea sometimes as people send forth advice for that one small segment of my life and my battle. Normally the suggestions are pretty good and may actually help if that was the only situation but of course it is not.

When I started this blog some seven months ago part of the intention was to give a realistic view of what it is like living with a multitude of mental disorders and to hopefully show the complexity of the situation. I am not someone with major depressive disorder or borderline personality disorder or generalized anxiety disorder or even post traumatic stress disorder but my illness is a combination of all four. On their own each disorder has a somewhat standard treatment plan but when they are combined the answers become a lot more hidden. The depression aspect is complicated by the borderline diagnosis for at least in my doctors opinion stands in the way of any sort of talk therapy as I may be too busy looking for a personal attack then concentrating on the actual work needed to be done. The borderline diagnosis on its own is difficult enough but again it is shifted into a difficult monster by the post traumatic stress disorder as the negative self image can go through archives of old traumas to really put me into a hole that is difficult to get out of which then adds to a depression level that borderlines on danger. The generalized anxiety disorder is fueled by the borderline and post traumatic demons as it keeps me on my toes waiting for the next onslaught to hit. Spend all of your time waiting for something bad to happen and guess what something bad will happen.

Each disorder has its own stigma and the majority of them are completely off base. I would imagine when someone hears my diagnosis they can not decide which box to put me in and that is the point of this blog. Yep I have four concurrent mental disorders and they play a huge role in my life but if you can take the time to see past all of the fancy words and see me for who I am then you might be pleasantly surprised with what you find. For whatever the reason this situation has been put on me so I do what I do best which is fight and the decision to make this a public affair in the hopes that people will stop looking at the disorders and start to look at the human being behind the labels battling to get their life back on track. Take care.

Mental Health Journey

With my blog being featured over at The Experience Project I think this is a good time to reintroduce myself. Many of the major areas of my life have been detailed to a certain degree throughout the brief history of this blog but I will use this post as a way to summarize my journey so far.

I have been dealing with depression for as long as I can remember. My family history has mental illness on both sides going back for generations. Chances are I was depressed the day I came out of the womb and have been unable to get rid of this silent monster since.

Self harm started when I was seven or eight with the intention of punishing myself so I would be a "good" child and maybe people in my life would finally leave me alone. Needless to say this did not work. When I was twelve or so I tried to end my life and somewhere in the process I realized that as the blood left my body a sort of cleansing occurred which seemed to make me feel better. What I did not realize is this new monster would stick around for the next two decades.

To be honest I have no idea why I am still alive and there are pieces of my past that are a complete blur. Sometime in my mid twenties I seemed to have found the ambition to get my life back on track. I enrolled in college in Social Service Worker program with the intent of not only figuring out my own mind but also to be in a position to help those in need. The material of the course came very easy to me and I seemed to be flying through the program. In the last semester of college my father passed away and I did what I have always done which is completely ignore the emotional turmoil by throwing myself into another aspect of my life.

I graduated from college in May near the top of the class, in June I started to work at a group home for troubled teens and in July I married my long term girlfriend. For a while I thought my life was finally on track and everything seemed to be perfect. About a year and a half after we were married we were blessed with a beautiful baby boy.

Then things started to go wrong. I was constantly sick and had a lot of problems getting to sleep at night then when I did get to sleep the nightmares made Freddy Kruger look like Big Bird. When my son was about a year and a half I booked an appointment with my family doctor for at this point I knew I was in trouble and was very quickly losing control over all aspects of my life. After a brief meeting with the doctor I admitted that on the way there I was tempted to pull in front of every eighteen wheeler that passed on the opposite side of the road and the suicidal ideations were becoming a normal part of my life. The doctor immediately pulled me off of work, prescribed an antidepressant and made a referral to a mental health doctor. I honestly thought at this point that the med would kick in and I would be back to work in a matter of months but that was not the case.

I met with the mental health doctor a couple of months later and was diagnosed with severe Major Depression Disorder with psychotic features. He switched my medication and so began the experimentation of mental drugs that I have been on over the last few years. A couple of months later Paxil was tried and it effected me in a negative and dangerous way. Within a week of being on this med my self harm behavior went through the roof and it was impossible to tell which mood state I would be in from one moment to the next. With my wife basically threatening to leave if I did not enter a hospital setting plus the push from the doctor I agreed to be admitted into the hospital.

For the next two months I went through talk therapy numerous times per week, a variety of medication was tried and I went through five sessions of ECT. ECT is Electro Convulsive Therapy or what use to be known as shock therapy. After the fifth session it was stopped as I was taking a very long time for me to regain consciousness plus there did not appear to be any real positive changes. At the end of the two months I convinced a floater doctor that I was perfectly healthy and he signed my release papers which pissed off both my doctor and my wife.

A few months after the hospitalization all of the negative behavior had reappeared and the medication that I left the hospital on was beginning to lose its effectiveness. My wife took our child and left as my behavior was to unpredictable. My now ex wife did not make this decision hastily and in a lot of ways I basically pushed her out the door (thats another post).

I went through a number of mental health "professionals" in this period with the first one being arranged by the therapist in the hospital. This is going to sound terrible but it is the way it was and is, I admitted in the third appointment that during a rough period I resorted to self harm to get through the situation. Once I told the therapist this she basically ended the session as she felt I was not stable enough to treat. The next few therapists would reach the same conclusion and stopped treating me.

Fast forward a couple of years and another bad self harm session that through the doctors eyes looked like I tried to take my life again. So back on the psych ward I went but this time it was located in the city's main hospital that did not have a full time therapist on duty because of budget cuts and it makes too much sense. Some time during this admission I decided to tell my mental health doctor absolutely everything that I have been though during the course of my life. The first version was basically just the facts with little to no detail and due to his positive reaction stating he learned more about me in those few pages then he had in the two and a half years prior. I wrote out the second edition which gave details to the facts but still not disclosing everything. Again the doctor encouraged me to keep writing so I started the final version. This last version was pretty intense to say the least and an example would be I talked about my grandfather which is one of the best relationships in my life and a couple of pages took hours to write for every single detail I tried to include in the section. Each day I would submit a new section to my doctor who would read it carefully then gave his take on it. When I finally finished this last book on my life he advised me to give it to every mental health professional that was trying to help me so they would be able to treat me more effectively.

So I figured that no one knew my brain like I do I decided to create a treatment plan that would lead to recovery. I wrote out all of my issues and what would be the best way of treating them. I handed the paper over to my doctor who completely agreed about my plan but then stated that this city's mental health system would be unable to provide the specialized help that I needed. Another part of the treatment plan was to list out the diagnosis that I felt fit me and to this day I wonder if this was a mistake for everything was about to change.

The diagnosis that I listed were Severe Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic features which had already been diagnosed a couple of years earlier. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which was rather obvious if you look at the amount of abuse I have been through plus the flashbacks and nightmares. Generalized Anxiety disorder which tends to go with PTSD. The last diagnosis I listed was Borderline Personality Disorder and the second my doctor saw it his face lit up like a light bulb and declared it a perfect fit.

Due to the hospital not being able to provide the type of treatment that I needed I decided I would be better off back at home and seeking more specialized help in the community which my doctor agreed to. After a month of trying to contact every therapist around plus using a variety of mental health agencies for assistance I returned to my doctors office very frustrated. I told him about my problems finding help and he replied "Your too Borderline for treatment to be effective". Over the next couple of months he would add "Your going to have good periods, then your going to have bad periods which will cause you to crash and a hospitalization will be needed to stabilize you and then the cycle will repeat". Basically the goal is not to "cure my problems" but to avoid the hospital as long as possible. In my doctors eyes I am untreatable.

Do I believe the "untreatable" label? It really depends on the day. Over the last six months I have worked through various aspects of my life and I do see a light at the end of the tunnel but at the same time there are times when all of the movement I make seems to be backwards.

This blog was created so I would have a place to empty out my brain instead of trying to swallow the emotions/turmoil, a place where I can write everything down so I could analyze and try to correct any faulty thinking patterns. This blog is my therapy and for whatever the reason a lot of people seem to relate to it so at the very least I know the last three years has not been a complete failure.

Sorry for all the jumping around and like I mentioned earlier most of the above has been broken down in other posts that I have written. Any comments or questions do not hesitate to ask and I wish you all the best in your own journey. Take care

Three Different Posts Same Story

On Healthboards.com part of the depression board is an area to tell your story so I guess others can see similar cases to their own and in some cases stories of success. This post I am going to repost three posts from that thread that I wrote at different times for I think it shows the frustration that goes with living with a mental illness. I am going to warn you they are a bit intense in some areas so if your not in a great place mentally then you should probably skip this post.

The Short Version Of My Story part one - Sept 13, 2007

What I thought this section was for I guess is wrong. I am diagnosed with severe Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic features, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. Right now I take Effexor, Wellbutrin, Remeron, Lithium and Temazapam. I deal with high levels of paranoia and will self harm when everything becomes to much. I had a rough childhood. All of the stresses, emotion, feelings and whatever I pushed down way inside. About five years ago my father died, my grandfather died, I graduated from college, moved to a new town, got married and started a stressfull career and I continued to push everything down and not deal with what was happening around me. I started to get sick a lot from stress and then my wife and I had a baby. About two years ago for whatever the reason my lid came off and everything came flying out. I spent two months in a mental hospital where they tried to get my meds regulated and I underwent ECT. I got out of the hospital and a few months later my wife left with our child. Its been about a year since that happen. My risk factor for suicide is way up there, I deal with suicidal ideation's on a daily basis, it is a constant battle to get up to do anything. On a emotion basis I don't feel anything which ends up leading to self harm. I have tried therapy but for whatever the reason they are not equipped to deal with someone like me so I stopped looking. Right now the goal is to get to tomorrow. With depression especially severe depression you have to force yourself to do everything and if you don't the depression gets worse. I am 33 and I need to tell myself what to do like I am a child or else I will not do it. I have to tell myself to eat, to go to bed, to shower and to leave the house for part of me would never get out of the bed unless I was forced too. I am going on two years dealing with this outbreak if you will and to be honest not much has changed from the beginning. The pills make it possible to get out of bed and to fall asleep at night they are useless for everything else.

The Short Version Of My Story part two - November 5, 2007

as my nightmare continues...

I checked back into the hospital as I was in a world of hell, loss control over self harm and was just tired of it all. They try ECT again but this time I stop breathing so that option is right gone, I came off of Wellbutrin, Remeron, Effexor within a five day to week period to get ready for a new class of drug MAOI. I am also borderline which according to the doctor hinders any progress I make with the depression as my so called personality guards the gates too tightly. I want to get better and I need to get better but the system and my brain are making it very difficult. So now I am back home because I feel safer and hoping my anxiety rates will drop down as they were going through the roof. Now I am on a high dose of Seroquel a couple of times a day to slow down the voice in my head, my thought patterns and what have you until Nardil has a chance to jump in to make an effect. The nightmares are brutal, the flashbacks are intense and it seems every time I turn around a new idea of suicide jumps into my head. Who the hell did I piss off in a past life to deserve this? It has to get better because I am way beyond as low as I can go. Every time I think I am taking the right positive step it blows up in my face

The Short Version Of My Story part three - Feb 11, 2008

I guess I should update this as it has been awhile. I am approaching my third year anniversary of the time I had my nervous breakdown which led to the situation I am currently occupying. Not much has changed in the last few months Nardil I guess was working to a certain level but no where near what I had hoped for. It was stopped due to the drug interactions and my need to get some dental work done and like usual I paid dearly for that decision. I am trying to figure out whether I am actually still fighting the depression or I have resigned to the fact this is how my life will be from now on so I might as well get used to it. I still keep track of my moods to discover any patters but I am really not sure why I continue to do this. Therapy has hit a dead end as the Borderline aspect has kept all of the so called mental health professionals away as I am deemed to difficult to treat so apparently there is different levels of being mentally unwell and if you pass a certain line your pretty much outcast. I still put effort forward trying to figure out my own head and to see if I can make sense out of it as I guess from a professional standpoint I am alone in this fight. When I first became ill I thought with enough work by me and the help of local community resources it would not take long to get back to where I thought I wanted to be but close to three years later I understand my illness to a much higher degree but I am no closer to that original goal. My favorite saying as of late is severe depression is like walking on water either you force yourself to move forward or else your going to drown. Well I am moving the problem though is its in circles.

- All of the above post needless to say I was not in a happy place when I wrote them but I think they show the volume of fight I am currently in. take care

Not A Good Memory

I was twelve the first time my father died. Earlier that day we had the usual argument with me saying that I wish he was dead. On a good day the relationship with my Dad was a volatile one and heated discussions were common place. That night I went to bed thinking how my world would be a better place if my father was not in it.

I woke up to a noise a little after midnight. Carefully I crossed my room and cracked open the door to see what was going on. My parents bedroom light was on and there was a man pushing down on my fathers chest. My Mom woke up for some reason and realized my father was not only not snoring but he was not breathing so she quickly dialed 911. The ambulance arrived very quickly and I am guessing the noise I woke up to were the attendants rushing up the stairs. A miracle took place that night and my fathers heart was restarted.

I know now that my wish of him being dead then him dying was just a coincident but it haunted me for a very long time and probably did not help that my father blamed his poor health on "his kids who were trying to kill him". A couple of years later my Dads heart would stop twice on the operating table and there were numerous strokes through out my teenage years. I remember every time that an ambulance siren would sound off in the distance that my thoughts would immediately turn to fear that my father was in trouble and this sequence would happen until the day his heart stopped beating for good.

In the article that I wrote "Where my distrust of doctors comes from ... maybe" I am not overly nice to the medical profession but if I was really honest with myself I would realize if it was not for them I would have lost my father at twelve and not twenty eight. Sometimes its hard to see the forest because of the trees. take care.

Loss Of Contact With Reality

When people have a sudden loss of contact with reality it is deemed that they are psychotic or experiencing a psychotic episode. Most people will experience a psychosis at some part of their life but like everything else in mental health there is a scale that measures severity.

When the question appeared about psychotic behavior in the comment section of another post I really did not think that psychoses effected my life but after a quick trip to a bunch of sites I realized the impact was much larger then I thought. Psychosis is a symptom of a high number of mental disorders as well as some physical ailments.

Delusions - Paranoia is a big one here. Remember the story of me searching an empty house with a golf club in hand looking for something that was not there. The majority of this situation can be linked to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Anxiety at the base level but it was a mental delusion that somehow someone entered my home without my knowing that had me searching the house ready to brain the intruder which turned out to be a creaking floor board. Another blog that has dealt with a delusion on the high end is when I thought that I was already dead so I had to hide to make sure death could not find me. Two hours under blankets before my brain could sort that one out.

Hallucinations - This category can effect any one of our senses taste, smell, sight, sound and touch. One of my diagnosis is severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features which means I am depressed and use to hear a voice that was not my own. This lovely little voice never told me what to do rather it encouraged negative behavior. Small things such as "You seem to be awfully stressed so why don't you grab a razor and make yourself feel better" or "Wouldn't it be nice to just lie down and all of your problems go away for good. The pill bottle in front of you can accomplish that" or "Remember when you were seven and..." this one leads to flashbacks which also can be found in the psychotic handbook. As far as visual hallucinations there have been occasions when I think I see something that is not there for example a couple of times I have destroyed my forearm trying to get rid of the bugs under my skin.

Thoughts - This differs from delusions as the thoughts themselves can be fine but what differs is the speed. My most problematic area is that my brain races to a point where I am completely overwhelmed and I will go to extreme lengths to make it stop which is more then not self harm. When I am communicating with others in this state nothing makes sense as I can not focus on one train of thought as there are what seems like millions of disconnected thoughts rushing through my mind. Sometimes I am able to catch it in times but there have been points where my brain just blanks and I have no clue what happened. My last admission can be tied into a psychotic break for I was having a bad day as my brain was spiraling out of control so I grabbed my razor then next thing I knew it I was in the bathroom cleaning cuts that could have ended my life. The next day I walked into my doctors office then pulled up my sleeve and two hours later I was in a hospital bed.

Black Outs - They are unbelievably terrifying and trying to deal with the consequences of them afterwards is difficult. How do you explain to someone your behavior when you have no recollection of the event happening. Not a nice feeling when your brain clicks back on and you can not account for a missing time period. My brain is wired in such a way that the person I will thrust my anger on first is always me and I have a lot of scars to show for it.

It is very difficult to admit to a mental health professional that you need help for depression, PTSD, anxiety or what have you but trying to find the courage to tell my doctor that I was hearing voices and blacking out took a long time because I figured that they would lock me up and throw away the key. Now I take Seroquel three times a day and it has helped in many areas as the inner voice is gone, flashbacks have been reduced and most importantly my brain is not spinning out of control. I have come to the realization that the med class of anti psychotics will always be a part of my life and right now I am fine with that as I can still remember what happens when psychosis runs the show.

Reading People

I have been reading people for as long as I can remember. It started when I was very small watching my parents and the other adults in my life for signs that the situation was about to get out of control. Every little gesture, change of volume in their voices and the look in their eyes told me a story that it was time to make myself scarce quickly. Now I am the person who sits in the corner with his back against wall watching other people and how they react for basically the same reason I am trying to keep myself safe. In the world of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder this is called being hyper vigilant and it is as common as air.

At some time in the persons life something really bad was either experienced or witnessed so now the brain is on high alert to make sure it doesn't happen again. So you constantly take mental notes of the enviroment that your are in, watching people for any sudden changes and your body stays rock hard getting ready to either react or to run. Day in and day out your preparing for the worst but instead of getting better with time it continues to get more and more out of control. Too many people turn to alcohol or street drugs just to be able to relax by sending their brain into a different direction. A portion of the PTSD population deal with flashbacks and nightmares so severe that they will not leave their homes as they are terrified of the possibilities that might exist outside their locked doors. Unfortunately some people with severe demons from the past will end up taking their own lives just to escape the live nightmare. The majority of people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder also carry the diagnoses of a form of Anxiety Disorder and Depression as they tend to go hand in hand.

I use to check the obituary's in the paper where I grew up on a very regular basis waiting for a certain name to appear as I believed when the person was no longer on this planet then my PTSD would simply disappear. The day finally came and there she was in the obituaries but instead of my flashbacks and nightmares surrounding this person disappearing they actually became a lot worse for a time. I use to think if the person was gone then I was safe but the reality of the situation is I am a thirty something year old man who weighs in at a solid two hundred pounds so this person seized to be a physical threat a long time ago. The part that causes so much anguish in my head is not the actual event but what the event represented which is a total loss of control where I was completely vulnerable. So now I constantly read people to ensure that I am never caught off guard and always ready to respond to make sure a similar emotional event does not repeat. A number of people have told me that I need to trust other people more easily but the problem is the adults in my life who were responsible for my welfare as a child failed to do so. At a very young age I learned how to read others and blend into the enviroment without attracting the wrong kind of attention and this limited the number of really bad confrontations but it also set the groundwork for Borderline Personality Disorder.

I have gone to work on my head over the last couple of years trying to pick up items that have fallen off the shelf and organize everything else. When it comes to the area where the PTSD originates I can not go near it on my own for every time I try I end up in a place mentally that is responsible for more then one suicide attempt. I hope one day I will meet a therapist who will help me justify this area and make sure I do not get lost in the past.

Mountains From Mole Hils

It seems every time I turn around there is a new website promoting the cure for anxiety. For only $19.95 this self proclaimed expert will teach you the various methods where anxiety will no longer be an issue in your life. So why are there so many sites? Anxiety disorder is the top mental health problem in the USA with forty million people effected every year so the consumer base is pretty high.

Anxiety is normal to a certain point. It is what fuels the fight or flight button in or brain that is designed to keep us safe or at least safer. Of course to me Anxiety is like Depression in one word does not do a very good job of covering an entire disorder spectrum. This one word somehow covers the jitters you get before an important meeting or a first date or trying to explain to your parents how you just wrapped Dad's prized possession around a tree. Anxiety also includes being so afraid of the outside world that you never leave your house or anxiety attacks that are so severe you swear your going to die or flashbacks that are tied into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that will send you back into your person hell in a heartbeat or a phobia so strong that there is no way in hell are you going to confront it. One heck of a spectrum for one word.

How do you get over anxiety or at least lessen the impact it has on your life? Well first you send me a check for $29.99 and I will tell you, just kidding. The key to plain old anxiety is figuring out where it came from which is a lot harder then it sounds. Joe Blow is scared to leave his house because the one time he did a pack of rabid squirrels bit him on the ass so he now believes this event will repeat so he sentences himself to house arrest. This may be a extreme example but I can guarantee the situation, well maybe not the part of the squirrels, applies to a group of people. The key to therapy for this situation is for Joe to be able to understand what happened to him was a freak occurrence and it is not what is to be expected when he steps outside his home. The longer the anxiety has been present the harder it is to treat for over time the mind tends to make mountains out of mole hills.

Here is another group example and that is people who are terrified of the dark which is a pretty large group. Is it the fact that there is no light in the room that scares this group? Yes and no. The dark scares them but it is not the cause as chances are something happened a long time ago in a dark room that set this particular anxiety off. They are not afraid of the dark but they are afraid that something that took place in the dark will happen again a lot of people who were sexually or physically abused as children are terrified of the dark. Understanding the root of the anxiety is the key to overcoming it.

Anxiety related to health problems is so unbelievably common it keeps doctors and emergency rooms busy. The drawback to the internet is that there is too much information available which just makes a bad situation even worse. Across the forums that I participate on I see it constantly. People taking one thing such as a worry that their friends do not like them and before you know it they believe that they are now the proud owner of a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. My response is always the same thing go see a doctor to get a real evaluation done then start to research the problematic behavior and not the other way around. The part that always get me is I see people post about a specific condition for awhile then when you ask if they have seen a medical professional the answer is no. To me the doctor is always the first step and then I go from there. Ever been tested for HIV? What is the worst part? The wait for by the time the results have come back you have completely convinced yourself that you have this terrible condition but when the test comes back negative you feel on top of the world and a little bit stupid for allowing yourself to think the way you did. The majority of health concerns can be ruled out with a visit to the doctors and waiting a week for the test results is a lot easier on the body then a self diagnosis which is just asking for trouble. As soon as a question appears in your mind find a doctor to answer it for you and stay away from medical sites until you have a firm diagnosis.

My worst anxiety attack occurred before I had my breakdown. I was recovering from shingles and my throat was sore so I did what most people do and looked in the mirror. My throat was a different color then normal and for whatever the reason I thought it was swelling. I tried to ignore it but my brain would not let it go and for some weird mental reason I believed that I could no longer swallow so now I was breathing heavily through my nose. A quick trip back to the mirror and now I was convinced that my throat was swollen shut. Mentally I was long gone by this point and started to hyper ventilate to the point where my ex drove me to the hospital. On the way there I was struggling to breathe and at one point she wanted to stop at her work to call an ambulance. We get to the hospital and my ex convinced a nurse I was a couple of steps away from dying so I was immediately rushed through. I was in one of the little rooms still struggling to breathe when the doctor came in and he examined my throat then said yes it was red but there was no signs of it swelling shut and no logical reason why I could not breathe normally and do you know what all of a sudden I could breathe again. The mind is a powerful device that can convince you that your dying when your perfectly fine. Save yourself the anguish and stress and go see your doctor to answer that question that will not go away on its own.

There are many forms of anxiety disorders from Generalized Anxiety Disorder to Social Anxiety Disorder to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to Panic Disorder to Phobias to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to Agoraphobia and a bunch more. The best thing to do is get a firm diagnosis, develop a treatment plan and then go to work on it at least this way you know exactly what your dealing with instead of wandering around in circles. My anxiety is in check at the moment due to a whole hell of a lot of meds but I know the only way to lessen it on a permanent basis is to get to the route of the issue but being Borderline means no therapist is willing to come near me so I am relying on the band aid that is medication to keep the bugger at bay.

The Ghost In The Ceiling Fan

Well today is Church day .... for those who actually go to church so the timing seems right to tell you about a ghost story.

When my father died it literally destroyed me and I spent the first few days like a small child who was in a place alone where he had never been before. This was the first funeral I had ever been to and boy did I not handle it very well. The flashback/nightmare of when I first walked into the hall where my father laid in a casket is as powerful as any other memory in my brain including the ones associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it sends me back to an event I have spent the last six years trying to forget, it was not pretty. Anyway somewhere in the process I told my mother I wanted to say something at the funeral ceremony as I thought it was important for me to do so and as the only son kind of a birthright responsibility. I spent a couple of hours being very careful of the words I put down as paper as I wanted people to see my father who he really was and by the time he died he had become my best friend. Unfortunately I don't do well in crowds and the thought of speaking out loud had me shaken to the core.

My ex wife and I were in an upstairs room about twenty minutes or so before the ceremony was going to take place. Every mental trick I knew I tried to do it on myself to reach a place where I would be able to read out my words, my ex was very supportive and even offered to read my speech for me but I refused as I wanted ... needed to do this. Five minutes before we had to head down to get ready I lost it completely and started to stare at the ceiling begging out loud for my father to give me his strength so I could get through this task. There was a ceiling fan hanging in the room that was barely on as the lights were dim and it was moving so slow it was not worth the effort but the thing is the more I talked to my Dad the faster the fans moved and the lights shined brighter and brighter. A great sense of peace and clarity went through my body removing any doubt I had about the upcoming speech. My ex was completely taken back by the experience but to me it was the most natural event as I asked my father to help me and that is what he did. I made it through the speech with great ease and I hoped it left the people there with a better idea of who my dad was at his core.

I currently live in my parents house as I took over responsibilities when my Mom moved down south five years ago. For the first couple of years when I was down I would look up at the ceiling in my bedroom and sure enough it would begin to pick up speed and shined a lot more bright. Since my ex wife moved out with our child this experience does not happen anymore but if I had to tell you why I would say my Dad is watching over my son as I battle to become the type of father and person I want to be.