Thank you for your support. It's not easy but it's worth it. I never felt comfortable sharing like this on reddit. This place just already feels warm and safe. I think I found a new home here. I wish you all the best
i've told my story a few times, and I'll share it here too. It's a long one, so I'm sorry. But it's a hell of a ride.
Back in the early 2000s, I was barely 20 years old and, already, a respected songwriter where I am from. I was getting opening spots for Maroon 5. It was looking really good.
At this point, it was time to record my debut album. We spent a ton of time over the next year putting all the instruments down. I had to play everything but the drums, so it was arduous, but we did it. Then, when we were getting ready to do vocals my dad and uncle got sick.
Unfortunately, the cancer moved quickly in both of them and, before we could finish anything, they both died a couple weeks from one another. They were the only two people who were at every show I played. Literally, my biggest fans. The two people I would come back from the studio, eager to share everything with. And now they were gone forever. And then a week later my aunt died.
And then I fell apart.
Recording was put on hold until I got over the trauma. I wrote a song for my dad the day after he died. Since then, I couldn't pick up a guitar or sit at the piano without a massive anxiety attack.
That lasted for about 8 years.
Eight years later, My wife and I were trying to get pregnant and, unfortunately, it was going really badly. The doctor told us that we would probably have to try in vitro fertilization - something that costs tens of thousands of dollars, something we couldn't afford, and carried no promise of success. So we kept trying.
and one day the miracle happened. and it helped snap me out of it all.
so I called my drummer and we decided to get back to it. We may have lost the original album to time, but we could form a new band and record a new debut album.
of course, the universe had other plans. I was in an accident. A seemingly innocuous one that, somehow, destroyed me and my life. I developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, aka the Suicide Disease. The Worst pain condition known to humanity. And it gets progressively worse over time. it is, quite literally, hell on earth.
so, again, the debut album was put on hold as I spiraled. Soon I was unable to walk. If a blanket or my hand touched my leg, the pain would be so intense I felt like I was going to pass out.
I tried everything to just take my mind off of it and, eventually, found writing. I would mostly focus on fantasy sports advice, but I would sprinkle in serious writing like this. Life lessons. Updates on my condition. Regrets. Very, deeply personal.
Then, one morning at 1am, I was watching a postgame show. I saw a commercial - a small neurosurgery practice in my town was advertising that a new doctor had come to their practice.
Here is where my life changed forever - and why I always tell people to never give up hope.
I looked the doctor up. He was, indeed a specialist. A specialist in CRPS. Not only that, he was a surgeon who went around the country, teaching other doctors how to do a very specialized surgery that could help ease the pain. He wasn't just a new doctor in town, he was the answer.
In the span of a year, I went from having an undiagnosed pain condition that had rendered me nonfunctional, to having a surgery where they put a device on my spinal cord that helps regulate the pain levels.
I spent about 8 months doing intense physical therapy to be able to get the strength back in my leg and hip. It was grueling, but, compared to the pain I had been in for years, it was nothing. And, when I was finally able to stand and walk around again, who was there? My drummer. Asking me if I was finally ready to make our dreams come true. Sure, now I was a 40 year old father one one (with one more on the way, somehow, despite the small odds) who was still using a walker to get around.
But I committed.
I did 2-3 hours of PT, 5-6 days a week. Mostly on my own. A lot of it with my physical therapists.
The album came out a month ago now. I hate doing promotion, so I am bad at it. But this is going to be the best year of my life.
I can walk. I have a wonderful wife who was with me, trudging through hell. Two amazing sons who love me, and who I get to see grow and mature. And an album I never thought I would make, along with the lesson for them about perseverance. About dedication. About knowing that, no matter how bleak, there is always something to reach for.
Feeling the Pain is the name of the song I wrote the day after my dad died. 16 years later I finished it up and, now, it's track 6 on the album. An album I know he would have been so unbelievably proud of. It's for him, after all. Him and the little boy that has his name.
(in case anyone cares, here is a link to the album. all i want is for people listen to it and for it to mean something to them, or help them through something: https://open.spotify.com/album/5sJ3QM6tuOz9G8qPvjTArk)
Oh thank you. Yeah that’s me singing and doing guitar and bass and I wrote it all.
I really hope you enjoy it. It means the world to me to be able to do this. I didn’t think I’d be able to do anything ever again. So I really can’t express how grateful I am to you and for all this.
My continued transition. I started feminizing HRT in March of last year. The first year was amazing and I'm really hoping for continued amazing changes from it. <3
You'll have to forgive a lot of my ignorance around this topic, but I hope it all goes well for you and you find your happiness at the end of that road.
I think and ideal world would be like a video game character creation menu that you could just access and make changes at will. But I guess that would also take the fun out of the randomness of life. Good luck on your journey!
Hell yeah! Stick with it, it gets easier as it becomes more routine. And don't get disheartened if you slip, just keep on truckin.
One of the things that helped me in the past was telling myself that the junk foods will still be there when I reach my goals. I don't need to eat them now just because they are there.
Ty for the encouragement! I do feel like in the past, I've allowed my slip ups to totally derail my diet. This time I'm trying the relax the reigns on myself. What I've learned over time is if I'm too much of a perfectionist, I'll most certainly fail. What's the saying? Don't let the pursuit of perfection ruin progress?
Yeah absolutely. I think it's just human nature to focus so wholly on the goal, that we disregard the journey. Diets can be extremely challenging because you can't just quit cold turkey. It's a journey of learning new eating habits and shopping habits, learning to cook better, understanding ingredients and how nutrition effects your body.
I'm really good about exercising and working out. Starting to get kinda jacked again even. But my diet has just never been there. I eat more junk food than I should, but I also eat a lot of healthy stuff. Not a picky eater at all. I just really like cheetos lol.
I did have a six pack at one point, I was quite happy with my body. But it just wasn't sustainable because I like cheeseburgers too much. I had to find the balance of looking how I want, having a positive opinion of my self, and enjoying the food that I like without over eating, but not cutting out those easy serotonin booster snacks. I envy those that can do it without having to put that much thought into it.
I'm 6"2' and about 220 now, slowly working my gut down and pretty happy with myself overall, but I did consume a lot of doritos about an hour ago. Oh well, I'll go the gym tomorrow morning and try to stay on track after.
I imagine reddit won't fall. But honestly, Kbin reminds me of the early days of reddit. I stopped posting all together years ago because the reddit climate just changed so much. I hope Kbin does well. I requested a reg code for Tildes too, but I don't think it has the right environment.
My oldest just graduated from high school and got accepted to a school that is 5 hours away so he can have his independence but hop on a train and come back and visit (California, so 5 hours is nothing).
That's awesome, and I imagine a very scary time as well. Mine is 13 now and experiencing so many things, but she's getting to the point where I have to let her start making her own choices and learning her own consequences.
Hope he does well wherever he is going. Try not to worry too much :)
I am really hoping I will be able to adopt a cat next year, I have had to move around so much and be in pet-unfriendly places for many years now and really missed having a little friend. Now I just want to be sure I am in a good position to look after them first and part of that job is looking after myself enough, lol. But it is a really good motivation!
Next year I will finally finish my bachelor's degree. Thanks to Covid I've lost a lot of time, but now that I have taken all of my modules I can finally focus on finishing this thing. I'm only two oral exams and a thesis away from being the first one in my family to graduate.
I'm almost 36 and finally got tired of waiting to start, so I am starting a masters program in cyber security hopefully in October. Currently still a high school drop out.
Yeah I really like the environment so far. It's growing quite fast and it has me a little nervous. But reddit has just lost all that made it so great before. I just find myself mindlessly scrolling through shit posts trying to find something that interests me, only to see the comment section full of elementary humor and repetitive dead horse jokes. They have their place, I guess, but not in every single comment section.
Pretty much set to get my PhD early next year and will finally make an actual income (instead of what they pay PhD students...) so I guess that's something to look forward to?
Congrats on nearing the end of school! I ended up changing careers a few years ago and doing a web development "bootcamp" for 12 weeks. Now I've been a web dev for almost 5 years. Although I'm about to make another career change, I have really enjoyed the development work I've gotten to do.
I don't know specifically what I want to do in IT, but networking or system administration are kind of what I'm mostly interested in. I can do some programming but I don't have much experience with it. I really want to work in the non-profit or public service space, because the idea of using my skills to further enrich wealthy corporations doesn't really appeal to me.
I'm hoping to get to a 'functional' prototype for at least one of my projects. I'm planning out a visual novel but I really dislike the stuff already out there (I'm terrible at memory management and python has never been my thing), so I started making a little program for it in rust, and then I got way into UI design and I keep getting side tracked with other little things.
There's a little more hope for this one cause I actually started world building and writing, as well as planning out how the game will function.
It's a long ways away, but I'll keep chipping at it until something recognizable comes out. Balancing my work life, these projects, and all the other stuff is definitely a feat, I should get more sleep though -.-
Yeah never underestimate a good night's sleep. Good luck with it all. My brother just self published his first novel after mildly pursuing a writing career for years. It's been on amazon now for a month or so and is already gaining quite a bit of traction.
Don't ever give up on it
I'm stuck in a city I don't particularly like, for necessity. My husband and I will be moving back to our Dream City next year! Hopefully it's smooth sailing and we'll be re-joining our old TTRPG groups again!
I very rarely post on social media, but these kinds of sincere topics can usually get me to open up a bit.
A couple of months ago I finally got myself to give streaming another shot. I've always wanted to see where it leads, but was unable to enjoy it properly due to social anxiety and the fact that up till now I had an unhealthy relationship with the Internet. A couple of years ago I went through therapy, which helped me with these issues, so when an opportunity arrived, I just jumped in without a second thought.
So far it's been a rollercoaster, I'm still struggling to figure out my style, as well as get more comfortable with streaming by myself (I am quite introverted myself, and I usually do it with my guild members which makes it easier for me to not have to constantly "be on"). I'm also struggling to find a consistent audience, but despite all of these things, the overall microscopic spikes of people checking it out are worth it for me.
So, for the next year, I hope to figure these things out and get a consistent audience going. I still have no idea what I want to do with it, aside from "I just want to try it properly". It also helped me step away from my day-to-day job and have something to do that is completely different.
Another thing that I also hope to do is move out of my current apartment and get away from this dreadful neighborhood, but that will happen eventually. It's just a matter of time, and I can't control how it develops.
If you are comfortable, shoot me a link! I'd love to check it out. I don't often have time to sit and watch, but it would be cool to check it out. Good luck!
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