What I did not foresee was how crippling and challenging being in such a state of mind constantly would be, nor did I realise that in order to overcome my predicament I would need to first fully hit rock bottom and rise back out of the ashes a new man, with a new perspective, new behaviours and a renewed soul so to speak.
This situation in turn caused even more depression, because my years of 16 hour work days, 7 days a week had created the trajectory I sought so I thought, anyway , and being quite literally unable to work at even half my usual capacity for most of the year at best was discouraging. Alas, I knew my only option was to proceed down a path of discovering myself, and understanding all of the variables that led me into such a position initially, so that I could reach a point of stability once again.
That is much of what this post will be about, the process undertaken to go from normal to suicidal and full circle back to happier days. Having experienced the immense suffering first hand, my hope is that others in a similar situation who might be reading this can turn things around.
If that is you, drop me a line any time if you find it hard to seek support from others: As a biohacker and quantified-self practitioner, I like to take charge of my health personally, outside the standard medical paradigm as much as possible because it has failed me countless times before and my path to salvation was the very discovery and practice of biohacking itself, hence my belief in it.
From there, I broke all of these factors down into a spreadsheet and filled it out, to determine what areas I had under control and what areas needed attention. The specifics are detailed in the linked post, but as you can see there were many areas in the red. It was this initial litmus test that gave me high level insight into the areas that I needed to sort out. Said areas made total sense, too, and highlighted my lack of balance.
I continued to log these datapoints daily using a combination of Typeform and Zapier , whereby I was reminded to fill out a simple form that spat the data out into a new Google Sheets row each time, and averaged out the values as a means of tracking my progress in a more quantifiable manner. I soon realised that all of the subcategories themselves were extensive and needed thorough researching just to understand all of the factors that they were made up of. This research set me up for the next step.
Although understanding all of the factors that constitute ones state of being in detail is a useful guide, the caveat is mapping each hypothetical factor with actual, specific factors in your life. The best way I can describe this is having a perfectly functioning compass without the magnetic force to guide you; useless alone, powerful together. This step seemed impossible to me for quite some time… I was thinking in circles, never able to gain deeper insight into the underlying causes that produced my symptoms. At the time this is exactly what I needed; not only an analytical tool to look within myself, but a tool that could teach me how to better self-reflect without having to ingest the medicine itself.
It was far too quick a pace to write anything down even with my diary at hand, so I opted to talk aloud and record it like some lunatic you would find speaking to themselves… on the end of a peer at midnight, haha. After a good few hours deep into the hyper-reflective state, I went back to where I was staying to playback my recording and write it all down.
To my surprise, it all amounted to half a dozen A4 pages, back-to-back, full of insights specific to my depressed state of mind, along with the factors and causes. I saw little point in posting the raw photos of all my scribble here—so I instead transformed a few key dotpoints into pseudo-mindmaps, categorised by physiological the body and psychological the mind. It ALL stems back to the basics of sleeping and eating well, exercising regularly and optimising ones environmental factors that influence your internal wellbeing, epigenetically and such. Another thing that became apparent rapidly was the fact I had far more psychological work to do, as my physical condition was far more optimised than any other time in my life, albeit there was and still is a world of tweaks that I am ticking off slowly, but surely.
As good as all the analysis was, a trap I began to get caught in was over-analysing everything. All I sought after was analysis upon analysis, psychedelic state upon psychedelic state, completely disregarding the wise advice of Alan Watts: It became more of an insight-addiction than it did a useful utility… and in my humble opinion, knowledge without action is knowledge wasted and amounts to nothing significant, so it was time to break the cycle and start applying all of this theory to the real world and my actual life. Then, as somebody very task-orientated, I create a project in Asana and detailed the actions I would need to take to improve each factor.
Even having ALL of the insight combined with a solid action plan is still quite worthless unless you actually take action. This is where I have a few pieces of advice that helped me massively: The video below by JP sums up their utility quite well. This is where a progress evaluation feedback loop is essential, whereby you simply review the following on a weekly basis:. To be able to go and talk to someone battling with the concept of a higher power and just let them know I battled too. To share a meal with them and normalize the struggle and take them to a meeting.
That is hope right there; hope dawning out of darkness. To see that rising out of the desperation on the face of another human being when I know the kind of purgatory they have been living in is hard for me to describe.
- SoulUnraveled : Rising from the ashes!
- Deconstructing A voyage of self-discovery, from dark to light..
- ACCUSED (Hank Janson Crime Book 6).
- Personality and Organizations (Organization and Management Series).
- The Spice: A Saucy Tale?
- Et vous trouvez ça drôle ? (FICTION) (French Edition).
It is the stuff about which poetry and songs are written. I would not have guessed that these sorts of interactions would bring me such joy and comfort, but there it is. This is the connection that makes me whole and sees me healthy and right-sized. To watch another human being start on a journey of self-discovery that will lead them to accepting themselves for who they are and were meant to be all along; to stop fighting but loving their ownness.
This is what I wish for all my fellows, friend and foe. For people to feel a sense of inner peace. I get to be a part of that today. I get to watch that in others over and over and over again. It is the most wonderful re-birth to witness, a metamorphosis of the spirit that I will never tire of seeing and will never cease to be in awe of. Posted by Fiona Purcell at 3: Wednesday, July 18, Rainbows and Unicorn Farts. There was a speaker at my twelve-step meeting the other night sharing about his concept of a higher power. He spoke about how he had struggled to find a higher power initially and how he had been turned off by the twelve steps to begin with because they talk about God.
I could relate to much of what he was talking about because his story was so similar to my own. He explained his struggle so well and the parallels were spot on. He came to realize in the end that he sees God in other people and that is how I feel today. I think I had been able to see God or feel the presence of a universal connectedness among people throughout my life. I had caught glimpses of it here and there but I always managed to get in my own way of remaining connected to that presence.
I did the steps in a thorough and specific way that had me remove my ego from the picture and that connection was re-established and re-enforced. Now, I see God in other people every day. I feel God in the words people speak in kindness to one another. I see God in acts of forgiveness and self-sacrifice. I see God in redemption and good works. I see God nearly everywhere I turn these days when my eyes are open and I am spiritually fit. I laugh at my reputation for crying. Anyone even remotely close to me knows I cry a lot and daily. I cry for a myriad of reasons like sadness, frustration, anger, joy, but I have come to realize I also cry when I feel the presence of God in other people.
Sometimes I just get filled up with the vastness of it. I am tired at the moment. I reached the end of my accelerated summer semester for graduate school last night.
Phoenix Rising
Last class of the semester, with an epic take-home final that took a great effort to write and had me consumed with myself. I snapped at my kid this weekend in a fashion that had me filled with guilt and apologizing to them later. They were great about it and we laughed about the whole thing but it goes to show I was stretched and not at my best.
I was not as connected. So last night I was driving from work to school to turn in my take-home final masterpiece when I saw it. I saw the most incredible and most perfect rainbow. I was struck dumb by how magnificent it was and I found myself crying behind the wheel of my car. I sat in my car and was overwhelmed with gratitude because I felt the presence of God, my version of God, my higher power.
I felt gratitude for where my life is now. I marveled at how it looks nothing like I could have predicted it would but how marvelous it all is anyhow and how far we have all come to be where we are today. I sat in amazement at how I can be tired for such a good reason now.
See a Problem?
How I can be tired from doing too much rather than from being passed out in a chair having done nothing but disappoint the people I love and myself. That was a God moment for me. So sometimes maybe it IS all about rainbows and unicorn farts…. Posted by Fiona Purcell at 4: Wednesday, July 11, "They should have wine for us Both Dermot and Wren have started taking music lessons over the last year. Dermot is taking saxophone and this year Wren is taking guitar. The lessons are out of the store where we got their instruments and each week sees one of us accompanying them to them to sit and wait while they are instructed.
If I am with them I have no shortage of things to do either. I always have my book bag with me for school and I often take sponsee calls at that time of day or sometimes I allow myself to sit back and simply listen to them play. One Friday evening while Wren was strumming away with her teacher and Dermot was waxing poetic with adults at the front of the store I found myself sitting next to another mother. I ended a call and she put her magazine down and struck up a conversation with me.
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