the decision that I wanted to die I went
so far as to plan out all the materials
that I needed in front of me I pinned a
suicide note to little pill my blue
cardigan sweater I didn’t do it
and the question you might ask is why
what could have brought somebody as a
college professor who’s a father
who seems to have so much going on in
his life what could have brought me to
this place and what I want to talk to
you about is mental illness clinical
depression and a syndrome called
impostor syndrome let me just stay right
up front I have a thinking problem some
of you can go out and think about
yourselves once or twice a day and
you’re absolutely fine but when I start
thinking about myself I can’t stop and
nothing good ever happens see what
happens is when I start thinking I have
these squirrels that live in my head and
they take information in and they put it
through what I call the awful Iser
and what comes out is always the worst
case scenario now I don’t know why this
is the case but I just happen to develop
that way I’m an incredibly average guy I
had a pretty normal average childhood
with a couple of things that didn’t
quite go my way but as a result of my
thinking I developed this tool kit as a
young man to deal with the way that I
felt and it wasn’t a particularly
healthy tool kit if you look at it it
says things like anger and resentment
and dishonesty and running from people
and trying to hide and protect myself I
always wanted to hide my true self from
others but I always wanted to fit in so
I was this master of facades I could
always tell you what you wanted to hear
or manipulate you in some way shape or
form
so that you would like marry or invite
me into your group this led to some
serious behavior issues and some other
destructive behaviors that I’ll talk
about in a little bit one of my problems
is feeling less van that’s the imposter
in me feeling less than the college
years
so with that tool set that I had I went
off to college and within 5 seconds of
being on a college campus I knew that I
was in deep trouble everybody I looked
around at they he looked better than me
they looked smarter than me they all
knew what was going on and I said oh my
god I lost the manual or I missed a memo
or an orientation or something like that
these people are going to find out that
I’m a fraud an absolute fraud so I lived
in this internal terror that I was going
to be found out for being a fraud and as
it turns out I was actually quite a good
college student and this is where the
imposter syndrome thing comes in but
despite the empirical evidence that I
was a good college student I had all
this anxiety and all this stress I
didn’t understand why it felt like every
day I was having 13 simultaneous heart
attacks or I couldn’t get out of bed I
just didn’t know what was going on this
was the the mid-90s mental health was
not really talked about as I started to
go through college things started to get
worse and the tool set that I had so far
began to fail me not that it was a very
good one but I needed to add you know a
couple more arrows to my quiver so I
came up with this one that’s coming
shortly anger alcohol and cigarettes
should fuel you through your 20s
that’s what 21 year old Brian said out
loud one time whenever I would have
these feelings that things were getting
out of control this is what I was this
is what I would turn to this was my
go-to move I’d smoke a million
cigarettes probably party tomb
much and just hope that everything would
work out but it didn’t really work out
all that time that well so I decided
that listen what I’m going to do is two
things first I’m going to run from my
problems
right I’ve got a thinking problem so let
me just run away from everything that’s
potentially going to go wrong the
problem with that is when you got a
thinking problem like me wherever you go
your brain goes the problems between
your own two ears and then I started
letting these squirrels in my head who
had put life through the authorizer
making a lot of my life decisions with
me and I for me and I and I had to live
with the consequences so after I got out
of college something really amazing
happens after you leave college and you
move through your 20s you you get to be
almost 30 and I started to not know what
to do again I again I missed the manual
on how to be a 20-something year old and
I dropped out of graduate school and
then I worked and then life starts
getting exponentially more complicated I
went back to graduate school this time
to a top program in the hopes that I
would fail out again and and I got
married and I got a mortgage and I got
these small mammals in my life and my
children and I again was just panicked
and now our the stakes are much higher
at this point and I just didn’t know how
to deal with it if you don’t have
depression understanding depression is
really hard one time my wife said Brian
why can’t you just be happy and I said I
don’t know because it feels like I’m
swimming through a sea of melancholy
there was this oppressive weight that
kept me from being part of my life I
looked out there and I could see my life
passing in front of me and all the
wonderful things that should be going on
in my life but no matter
how hard I tried to move through this I
could never catch up I couldn’t feel
hope or joy I couldn’t feel free I was
trapped in this prison of my mind there
was no hope the only hope that I had was
the hoped I wouldn’t wake up the next
morning and I used to whisper to my wife
um I’d say right before she as she was
falling asleep I’d wake her up and say I
love you and she said well why do you do
that and I said in case I die in my
sleep I want you to know that I couldn’t
feel joy for other people because I was
too angry being pissed off that it
wasn’t happening to me and if something
good happened to me I was convinced that
I didn’t deserve it I honestly believed
that I didn’t deserve to be happy in
life what are some of the consequences
of this Act one a Christmas Story
I’m in bad shape I have a toddler we go
to Christmas he’s playing with some toy
that’s making a whole bunch of noise and
I don’t know I took it and I must have
smashed it or something I don’t remember
exactly what happened and my toddler
child says I don’t think I like
Christmas very much and I said good you
know why because I hate Christmas too
and I meant it and the next year I was
uninvited to Christmas act – how –
incorrectly utilize a therapist
something was terribly wrong so my wife
said you know you should probably go
talk to somebody get some professional
help and so I did and I wasn’t really
ready to be helped so I started telling
this individual what was going on and
she said her you know you’re not a
half-bad guy and I said really maybe I
can manipulate her to tell me all kinds
of good things and so I just started
making things up
I lied to my therapist I didn’t really
make that you know I didn’t really do
this thing but if she tells me that I’m
a good guy then I’ll just keep feeding
her that info and that really wasn’t all
that helpful and this begins the
downward spiral the downward spiral here
we go downward spiral please the
downward spiral at this point the wheels
have come completely off the cart I have
no hope I have no joy and I’m not sure I
want to be on this planet anymore I’m
looking for an exit strategy
I have manipulated everybody around me
to the point where the only way that I
can find some sort of joy is to have
them validate my my existence and so
what I did was I made up a lot of
different stories as a father and as a
professional and as a husband and I
would do all these different things to
get people to like me and to help me
feel better about myself and after a
while it just didn’t work anymore like
the pressure of all of that lying became
exhaustive and there was nothing that I
could do about it and I had no more
tools I didn’t know what to do and so I
decided the only way for me to get out
of this is to erase myself from this
earth because I knew if I just left I
would do damage from afar I honestly
believed that if I died by suicide my
I woke up one morning I had been outside
I’d been out I didn’t tell anyone where
I had been I just disappeared from the
planet for a night and I woke up and
everyone was mad at me
rightly so and I don’t know why but I
had hit the absolute bottom and I just
said to my wife the first honest thing I
think I’ve said in my entire life which
is I tried to kill myself and in that
terrible phrase there was a little bit
of hope and in that hope was that I
might actually get better and she said
we need to get you to a professional and
so that we got this gang of
professionals I don’t know how many it’s
like they came down in a helicopter and
shot me with a tranquilizer dart full of
antidepressants and I went to any
everybody who wanted to hear me and I
went a lot and I told them everything
and for the first time in probably 20
years I told the truth I felt good about
it but it was baby steps baby all right
it wasn’t easy I couldn’t work I was
basically a non-functional adult my wife
came home one day I had been home by
myself and I I don’t know how I did it
but I made a bed and she said you made
the bed I’m so proud of you and I didn’t
I was like I did I made the bed and it
wasn’t because she was heaping praise on
me that I felt good I felt good because
I did something that normal people
normally do and so I went around the
house trying to find other things that
normal people do like empty the
dishwasher and life started to get a
little bit easier and a little bit
easier and I realized that one of the
biggest things that I had to change was
I had to learn how to forgive myself and
be a heck of a lot easier on myself and
I had to control my thinking because my
thinking was pretty dangerous I have to
go outside every single day and deal
with the world and adult the adult world
absolutely back
Foles me at every turn so I need to
remember to think in certain ways every
day of my life so as I go out and on my
way to work I remember that there’s a
beautiful mountain there the first
instruction that I have is I make sure
that I don’t compare my insides to other
people’s outsides right nah that’s an
absolute poison pill for me if I compare
my insides to other people’s outsides
that to me is going to lead me down a
path to discontentment and into a very
dangerous place what I need to do is to
interface with humanity and treat others
the way that I want to be treated but
what goes along with that is I need to
remember that people aren’t always going
to treat me the way that I want to be
treated and so I have to be okay with
that
and there’s two sides to every street
there’s my side of the street and then
there’s your side of the street if you
weren’t nice to me back then I would
hold that resentment against you for
ever and always you were on my poulos
people but now I’m just like yeah I got
to let that one slide because it’s not
good for me and for a long time I didn’t
really act with honesty and integrity
and humanity and interfacing with
humanity I find on a daily basis is
really important and so whenever I go to
the grocery store or I run into some
low-wage clerk I always make sure that I
tell them thank you or I ask them how
their day is and if they don’t really
want to engage with me or then I dig in
until they until they talk to me I mean
I deal with it like an Olympic sport
okay I gave up a long time ago on having
a better past whatever happened in the
past that’s water under the bridge
there’s nothing I can do about it they
shoulda coulda woulda’s they’re gone and
being humble
one definition of being humble that I
really like is being humble doesn’t mean
thinking less about myself
it just means thinking about myself less
often and if I can think about other
people then I’m not thinking about me
and as a teacher as a professor as a
mentor as a father and a husband I’m in
a great position as you do that on a
daily basis and the more that I can help
other people and the more that I can be
of service to others the better off my
thinking is and the better off of my
life is and here’s one that’s a family
favorite I always thought the grass was
greener wherever whatever it was but it
turns out that it’s not so here’s my
family famous quote if you spend one
foot into yesterday and one foot and
tomorrow all you do is poop on today and
trust me people I spent a whole lot of
my life pooping on today and I honestly
think now that I was not put on this
earth to be miserable I spent too much
of my life being miserable and what I
want to be and what I am today is happy
joyous and free to live the kind of life
that I want to live thank you [Applause]