Beyond This

The situation with the homeless is a frustrating one but as my friend Gar Mickelson explains, a much more complicated problem than we think. I often wondered when I was in the thick of dealing with my PTSD, when will I be the one out on the streets? How far will my friends and family support me before they decide they really can't help me. There were times I felt it wasn't out of the question for me to be there, and if that day came, what would that look like? Yes, there are some people that choose to be homeless, there are some that got hooked on drugs and ended up there, but a lot of people that are homeless were stricken with a mental illness from birth, or an accident, or from incredible amounts of trauma that they went through in their life.  The real question isn't how should we treat the drug-addicted homeless, the real question is, how should we treat our mentally ill that are living on the streets? What will they say about us in 20, 30 or 40 years when looking at the way we dealt with mental illness. We shut down a majority of the mental hospitals between the '50s and '90s because our parents and grandparents said it was too cruel to treat the mentally ill that way. How is our conscience so callus compared to theirs? What story are we telling ourselves when seeing a fellow human being covered in filth and feces manically repeating aloud what is ringing incessantly in their heads. "You will be judged by how you treat the least among you."                                                          -Jesus

In this episode, I share a personal entry from my journal describing some of the realizations I was having back in 2013 while struggling with severe anxiety and depression. Along with that, I discuss the importance of journaling, and how it can act as a map to figure out how severe your mental health issues have gotten and how it can help you find your way through. We discuss the power of the Wim Hof breathing technique in resetting your being, and the importance of taking personal ownership over your life, no matter how difficult. My younger brother Jon is my guest to offer his perspective on what he saw me going through. Our conversation does waver slightly towards the end but I hope you get something from this and find value in hearing my story. #mentalhealthawareness #PTSD #LifeAfterSuicide #Anxiety #Depression