Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Come on a ride along with a Veteran Homicide Detective as the twists and turns of the job suddenly end his career and nearly his life; discover how something wonderful is born out of the Darkness. Embark on the journey from helping people on their worst days, to bringing life, excitement and smiles on their best days.
Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Going in Blind: US Marine, "That's When I Shot Myself in the Face" ...Turns Tragedy into Triumph
"What if the darkest moment of your life became the catalyst for your greatest purpose?" This question sits at the heart of Zach Tidwell's extraordinary journey from Marine Corps veteran to blind software developer changing the lives of people with disabilities worldwide.
After serving as a machine gunner in the Marines, Zach's life unraveled when his marriage collapsed and a motorcycle accident left him with a traumatic brain injury. Spiraling into depression and alcoholism, he reached his breaking point in March 2019 when he attempted suicide by shooting himself in the face. Though the bullet didn't enter his brain, it took his eyesight and hearing in one ear, forcing him to rebuild his life from scratch.
What makes Zach's story remarkable isn't just his survival, but how he transformed tragedy into purpose. Within eight months of his suicide attempt, he was snowboarding again in the Rocky Mountains. When his college couldn't make his coursework accessible, rather than giving up, he taught himself to code and developed award-winning software that adapts to various disabilities – from blindness to paralysis – allowing users to play games alongside people without disabilities.
Throughout our conversation, Zach speaks with raw honesty about confronting alcoholism, receiving a diagnosis of Huntington's disease, and finding the courage to speak up about mental health struggles. His philosophy of focusing on "cans" instead of "can'ts" has enabled him to kayak whitewater rapids, rock climb, and ski – all while completely blind – guided only by voice commands from companions.
The power of Zach's story lies in its universal message: our greatest challenges often reveal our deepest purpose. Whether you're facing mental health struggles, addiction, disability, or any seemingly insurmountable obstacle, this episode reminds us that speaking up is the first step toward healing, and finding ways to help others can illuminate our darkest moments.
Listen to Zach's podcast "Going in Blind with Zach Tidwell" on all major platforms, and visit ZachTidwell.com to follow his journey and upcoming book release.
Gift For You!!! Murders to Music will be releasing "SNAPSHOTS" periodcally to keep you entertained throughout the week! Snapshots will be short, concise bonus episodes containing funny stories, tid bits of brilliance and magical moments!!! Give them a listen and keep up on the tea!
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So my name is Zach Tidwell. I'm a 29-year-old Marine Corps veteran. I lost all of my sight and hearing in one ear to a suicide attempt six years ago when I shot myself in the face. Despite that, and struggling with rampant alcoholism for a couple of years along the way, and getting diagnosed with an incurable deadly genetic disease along the way of trying to get sober, I am still here. I am a self-taught, award-winning software developer and entrepreneur, and I ski, rock climb whitewater, kayak, surf, skydive and compete in Brazilian jiu-jitsu against people without any disabilities, amongst a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host and thank you guys so much for coming back. You know, after that introduction I don't think I need to say anything more about this man. I'm going to let him do all the talking for himself. Be sure to stick around to the very end of this extended episode until you hear the absolute key points on how you can find Zach, and the twists and turns at the end that we never expected. Ladies and gentlemen, here we go. So tell me your story, zach. Tell me about yourself. Start at a young age and just walk me through today. Tell me your story. I'm sure you've told this before. Tell me all about you. I just want to be sitting here and be fascinated.
Speaker 2:So I grew up all over the place. I was a military brat, so I think I'd moved 10 times by the time that I graduated high school and these are big moves, like States, not, you know, to a new house thing. So my dad was air force and even after he got out we he was federal law enforcement. So we, just we moved every couple of years. But I played sports year round growing up, including sometimes playing multiple sports in one season and knew that I was going to go into the military. I just I wanted to be like my dad, and most of the other men in my family have been military, so I just I wanted to be like them. That wound up being the Marine Corps and my idea in going in the Marine Corps was that if you are going to serve, and again, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying I believe this now. Like I, as a 16 year old, when I started talking to a Marine Corps recruiter, I wanted to be an infantryman because I thought that's if you're going to serve your country, that's how you do. It is on the front lines and which is hilarious, because I'm not a combat vet. But I was a machine gunner and served for four years and I did deploy twice, but both of my deployments were into the Pacific, so no combat, and I went in straight out of high school. You know, I got back together with my high school sweetheart after I got to my unit and we were together through my first deployment, you know, the idea being that if we made it through one deployment, come back from the deployment, we try living together. Because she was back in Michigan where I had started high school and we had moved in between then and when I enlisted. But so the plan was for her to come out to California, move in together, start doing the real adult relationship thing and making sure that that worked. And then I ended up proposing to her before my second deployment. We got married just in a courthouse, marriage shortly before I left, so she would have my benefits and then, near the tail end of that second deployment, I found out that she was cheating on me and I found out from the other guy's wife. So she, she reached out to me, she tracked me down on the internet and was like hey, I don't know if you're okay with this, you know, but we don't have an open relationship, so I'm not cool with what's going on. Here's some things that are being talked about between your husband, or between your wife and my husband, and that wasn't great. But I gave back from that deployment. What's that? I said? I bet it wasn't great. That's an understatement, yeah, so I got back from that deployment in November ish of 2017.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I was senior by that point. I was in E5. I was getting ready to process out. I was kind of at a weird point because I enlisted in August of 2014. It was a four year enlistment. So August of 2018 was kind of approaching, near the tail end of that deployment, and I either needed it was time to put in a re-enlistment package or, you know, start processing out. And I came back and tried to make things work with her. And so, knowing that I was doing that, I knew that there was no way I could deploy again and, like trust, the trust was all gone. As you can imagine, that tends to be what happens when someone cheats on someone else. So I didn't reenlist, I started processing out. I finally called it quits with her in January of 2018.
Speaker 2:And I was in a really nasty motorcycle accident in March of 2018 and acquired a traumatic brain injury from that and I really spiraled. Like I said, I wasn't in a good spot before that right Like I was very sad. I was not a happy camper. I probably wasn't very fun to be around, but I was just. I was dealing with it in the way that I could. I was keeping myself very, very busy. You know I life was still busy as a machine gunner, but I was also training for half marathon. I was spending a lot of time in the gym and on the weekends I was also taking my motorcycle to the racetrack and that's where that accident was at.
Speaker 2:And I still don't really have a lot of memory of that day, like most of everything that's been filled in was being filled in by someone else. But somehow I made it back to my truck, called my parents, who lived 17 hours away in Colorado, and was like, hey, uh, you know, I'm at a racetrack and I I wrecked, I think I have a concussion and they were like where are you, I don't know? And they were like give the phone to someone you're with, and I was like I'm not with anyone mail. And they were like give the phone to someone you're with, and I was like I'm not with anyone. And they're like, okay, well, you know, find someone around to give him the phone. And I guess they said, yeah, we'll, you know we'll, we'll try and call you back real quick and see, see what we can do to get someone out there to help you. And I guess, right after they hung up, I called back and said the exact same thing. I just said, with no recollection of the fact that we just talked, but so it was. You know, I've had head injuries before, other than what will come later in this story.
Speaker 2:That was the worst one that I had ever had and I went from dealing with things to experiencing true depression and ruminating thoughts. I was just. I was stuck on everything that had happened with her, with my ex-wife, my, my now ex-wife and, you know, couldn't sleep. I was very agitative. I became very impulsive and, you know. So that I could sleep, I started drinking. It was first it was all right, I'll have a drink or two before bed, and then it turned into pretty quickly and every night thing. And that continued through my, my honorable discharge. In August.
Speaker 2:I came back to Colorado and started going to college so that I could become an ER nurse and kept up appearances that I was doing really well and I was getting straight A's in school. I started working at a local hospital as a CNA, which is a nurse's aide You're kind of doing all the grunt work for the nurses that they're overqualified for. But it was pretty obvious that I had found my path and so I was hitting it pretty hard with that School full-time, work full-time and also still trying to just keep myself very distracted. I progressively was just getting into a worse and worse place Mentally. The alcohol wasn't helping with that because I did. Looking back now I know that I had developed into a, a functional alcoholic. But you know I just I wasn't speaking up because I thought that it was weak.
Speaker 2:I which it's, you know, I had pretty strong opinions on mental health and suicide at that point. I still do, in different ways, though like in more objective ways. But I, you know, I had suicide on both sides of my family. I had murder-suicide on one side of my family and I thought those who spoke up were weak, so I kept self-medicating. I thought that that was something that you just. This is what you go through when you've gotten divorced at 22 because your wife cheated on you. This is just how it goes. It will pass and kept just becoming more and more apathetic, and the more apathetic I got I would, the more I was withdrawing from everything and I was trying to still make myself get out and go do things. You know, I was, like I said, I was very active in the summertime, and spring and summertime motorcycles were a big thing for me.
Speaker 2:So that meant going to the racetrack. In the wintertime that was snowboarding. But I would load all my gear up just just to try and make myself get out of the house, because the only thing that I was consistently doing was going to the gym, going to work and doing my schoolwork and drinking. But drinking always came at nighttime and so I was trying to force myself out of the house, load all my gear up, drive to a track, pay to get into the track and get there and not want to be there, and so I would just sit in my truck for a couple hours and then drive home so that it looked like I had gone and ridden. I was just keeping up appearances.
Speaker 2:The same thing happened that winter, that winter of 2018, leading into 2019. I'd wake up super early, load up all my snowboarding gear, drive a couple hours up to the mountains, get in the parking lot and be like man, I still don't want to be here, and I would just sit there for hours sitting in my truck, doom scrolling or whatever, and then drive home so that again people thought that I had gone snowboarding. Never there were. I was. I was hiding everything as much as I could. That carried through all the way to March of 2019. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, there's a couple of things. March of 2019.
Speaker 1:I want to come back to there, okay, but there's a couple of march of 2019. I want to come back to there, okay, but there's a couple things you said that I just want you to expand upon, because I have a feeling your story's long and I'm super excited, but I don't want to forget these things. So let's clarify. Let's talk back about your dad. What, yeah, what did your dad do in federal law enforcement?
Speaker 2:he was efficient wildlife service so he's a special agent with them okay, and did he do that your entire childhood?
Speaker 1:did you grow up as a cop's kid?
Speaker 2:mostly he got out of the air force when I was four, so everything after that, you know, from four to eighteen was, was all stuff with fish and fish and wildlife service. Okay, and um, you mentioned you lived in california.
Speaker 1:What part of california did you live in? Was all stuff with fish and wildlife service. Okay, and you mentioned you lived in California. What part of California did?
Speaker 2:you live in. That was all while I was in the Marines. So that was Camp Pendleton, it's like. Are you familiar with where that's at? I am, yeah, totally Okay. Yep, I was on the very north end of Camp Pendleton, right outside of San Clemente.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Okay, and I've never been in the military right. I served 21 years in law enforcement. I've never been in the military, but I can only imagine. In fact I was just reading this morning doing a Bible study and it was talking about fear, and the Bible that I have is a Bible that is used for military people when they deploy. So the study in there talks a lot about military stuff, but it's pretty easy to adapt to law enforcement. As far as levels of fear, and the chapter I was reading was talking about fear being deployed, fear of getting injured, fear of getting killed, handling that fear and then fear for the spouse staying at home wondering if you're going to come back. Did you experience any of that in your deployments?
Speaker 2:Well, it's hard Again, I didn't deploy to combat, I went into. So the Marine Corps does, typically does this rotation between either it's either a combat deployment or a unit training, or a unit deployment program deployment, which is a UDP deployment. So like when I was in, even though the war was still going on, our West coast units just weren't, for whatever reason, rotating into combat. I think I was three generations removed from combat vets, so like, for whatever reason, my, my unit just wasn't going. So my first deployment was just a unit deployment program deployment to Okinawa and the main Island of Japan, and so it was training in the jungle, training in the snow on Mount Fuji, and that was it. You know, if something were to pop off we would go. But like there were really, really we were doing more stuff that we did on camp pendleton, just in different climbs, in different places. And the second deployment was a marine expeditionary unit, because or a marine expeditionary unit deployment, it's a mu, it's the 31st mu, or lovingly called the 30 worst mu, is still over into the Pacific, it's based out of Okinawa and you're basically it's because the Marine Corps is an amphibious force and traditionally is a. You know, it's it's the landing force that just goes in and supposed to wreak havoc, before like a larger force like the army, comes and backfills and carries on more more traditional, like sustainment operations and stuff like that. We were, we were over there and Kim Jong-un was firing missiles over Japan, and so it was a weird time in the sense of like hey, we very well, if he gets a little more squirrely and something happens, like if there's an actual act of war, we would have been the ones to go. But it wasn't. The plan was for us to go to okinawa, train someone okinawa, float around the pacific, go down train and all in the albac in australia and then come back and do some more in okinawa. So like that wasn't never the primary intent. But with both of those deployments was not like it was a null, almost like a null chance of anything happening. So no, and it was actually weird.
Speaker 2:On my second deployment we had a helicopter go down while we were in that. It was an Osprey, those the propeller aircraft where they can fly like a plane or take off like a helicopter. You've probably seen those. They are notoriously yeah, they are notoriously like pieces of crap. We had one go down while we were in the Pacific and four guys drowned and like they shut down everything on the boat, all comms going out of the boat and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And you know, like my family, after the fact, once I was back from that, they were like, yeah, when all that went down she didn't even like inquire. There was no worry on her and I think timeline wise she was already cheating on me by that point. But I, what I definitely didn't set her up for success for was, you know, there there wasn't the worry of combat, but there she was. Like I had mentioned earlier, she lived in Michigan before I moved her out to California.
Speaker 2:She wanted to return home for that deployment and you know we had just barely found an apartment that we could afford on my enlisted single man E4 pay at the time. And I was like if you leave, we may not have an apartment when we come back. So I need you to stay out there. And I had zero empathy for the fact that she felt lonely out there. I was like I've moved away from my family, I've been out here you can do it for seven months too, and it just so that doesn't excuse her actions. But I absolutely did not set her up for success there, you know, and she found that comfort and that support from a another guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally get that. And, coming into this, a minute ago you mentioned about the PTSD, the mental health and the stigma showing is weak, and we're going to get to that, because I think that is a huge part of at least my story and ultimately it's going to be your story. I got a big, I got a sneaky feeling, um, but let's talk about right there, right, so you're off on that first deployment. Life is good, you've been married, you think everything is going great. How was your mental health at that point in your life? Have you started to spiral or are you still?
Speaker 2:pretty good about things. No, I was fine, I, I. I didn't find out about her until it was the end of that second deployment and I really it was. That motorcycle accident is where things changed, man. Okay, so that was. You know, I've been back several months at that point from the second deployment gotcha okay.
Speaker 1:That in that motorcycle accident is where things started to spiral. Yes, it did. Would you say that there was an effect on your mental health, uh, decline of any kind when you found out about the infidelity, or did you handle that, as you know, matter of fact, tactically thinking?
Speaker 2:it definitely wasn't matter of fact, but it was. That's where I was. Just I was keeping myself super, super busy and that was like I had mentioned. With the gym I was training for that half marathon and then anytime I could on the weekends, you know, I was taking my dirt bike. If we weren't in the field, which I actually I needed surgery at that point. I guess by the time I had the motorcycle accident I had had surgery. So I was still kind of on weird grounds with with stuff.
Speaker 2:But like before that, yeah, if we weren't gone, I was going to the racetrack on the weekends or anything, anything to keep me away from the barracks. You know, moving back into the barracks because having having made it to the pinnacle of getting to move off base because I'd gotten married and all that stuff, and then having to move back to the barracks because it all fell apart, was kind of a kick in the nuts. So like getting out of there and just distracting myself with with whatever physical stuff that would wear me out was kind of just what I was doing before then and I felt like I was moving along with it. You know, I was still only a couple of months into grieving the loss of that. So it's not like any real progress was made, but I was. I was doing all right.
Speaker 1:Well, like all things considered, yeah, and that depression kicking in, starting that spiral. And then alcohol. You mentioned alcohol and I think that you know I can relate to it. A lot of my coworkers can, a lot of your coworkers can and a lot of people listening. Alcohol is a very easy first place to start as a coping mechanism during those depressive times and all we're doing is adding, you know, a central nervous system depressant on top of mental depression, and it's really a bad combination. Um, had you been a drinker prior to that, or was that something new in that escape mechanism for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to add on to what you said there before I answer that, like with your def, you're right, it is, and I think some of that with with it being such an easy thing for people to reach to like some of that might be a lack of awareness that it is a depressant in and of itself and that, like that, that dopamine hit that you get from drinking it does come, you know, then there's a deficit on the backend and so you do, you pay the price for it. But I think that is outside of the education and like knowing that that is the case. It is because of that dopamine hit it feels so good, it's like all of a sudden, you know, I got that like the weights lifted a little bit, I got my buzz going that whatever I just started trying to drink away is gone right now and it's not present in my mind. So it's it's counterintuitive and it's easy to get yourself into that hole and instead of actually dealing with whatever it is that is making you want that drink, you're just stuffing it down and really it feels like it's actually going away, but you're just putting it on the back burner and it kind of compounds over time.
Speaker 2:But for me, I was not really a drinker before that. It's not that I wouldn't drink, but you know we would. Marines can drink, like there's's. There's a drinking culture. The military is a drinking culture, especially like in a grunt unit it is. You know, that is a lot of what goes on, but I was always very cognizant of that and if you know, if I'd had a drink that week, like if, if we, if we drank on friday, friday night after work or whatever, I, I would not drink saturday or sunday because like, hey, I already I had, I already drank, right, like I'm, I'm good for a while. I need to stay away from that. Also, that's gonna undo everything that I did in the gym this week. I don't want to mess with any of that and it just it was.
Speaker 2:it's not that I didn't like drinking, I was just I held boundaries for myself on that stuff even though it was around yeah, but for you, I mean, it sounds like I think everyone knows there's a lot of parallels between first responders and military and definitely police, and I've had enough conversations with cops that it seems like it's also. It's another, it's a cultural thing that often does turn into an addiction. Is that kind of how you got into it, or were you a drinker before? It sounds like you may have had issues with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for alcohol, alcohol was never a huge issue for me. Other things were issues for me. Right, you're always, whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever it is. I think in our experience and in our world that we live in, we see negative. We're high speed all the time. Our adrenaline, you know our baseline, is two or three times that of a normal civilian, and I'm going to speak for military as well. You're always functioning at that higher level and therefore dopamine doesn't hit the way that it does for everybody else, and these aren't excuses, but this is just why I think our cultures do that.
Speaker 1:And then, before you know it, we're running in that fight, flight and freeze state. We're working out of that sympathetic nervous system, our parasympathetic kind of dies because we don't use it, and we start trying to find something to cope with ourselves. Whether it's affairs, alcohol, drugs, you know whatever it is, overworking, you know committing crimes, committing rapes, committing robberies, whatever it is, these things aren't outside the realm of possibility, at least in the law enforcement world. So for me, my vices were driven. While there's no excuses for my actions, my vices were driven more because I was trying to seek something that made me feel good and in the moment when all I dealt with was homicides and child abuses, day after day after day, and every day was somebody else's worst day. There was nothing positive. And then you start to look around and you blame everybody else. It's my wife's fault, it's my kid's fault, it's my family's fault, it's their fault. They don't understand me. This is just the way that I am. I'm going to find something to make myself feel better, and that was my experience with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean that's what I was doing, just with depression. I can't relate to the the fight or flight mode of things because I'm not a combat vet. You know guys who, but you do see that same thing in guys who do go to combat and they come back just that with that same thing, that that same mechanism that you were talking about, where that then they come back and they die in a motorcycle accident because they were going 130 miles an hour on a crotch rocket and got, you know, ran into the back of a semi or going out and gambling or picking fights with people and getting shot. Because they're picking bar fights with the wrong people and stuff where they're just there. It's a it's, it's all, it's an escape, or like it's always an escape, or trying to fill a void, which is really what you're doing with it. The addiction in the escaping like it's all it all is playing on the same thing or at least on the same theme. At the end of the day, I totally agree and hearing.
Speaker 1:You actually wrote a note here when you were talking and it said the note says this fear of motorcycles question mark. Did it bother you or did it bother you motorcycles after your accident, or were you wishing upon an injury? Did you want to hurt yourself as a result of this motorcycle? Would have that been an escape? I know in law enforcement we would put ourselves into situations and I'll speak for myself where there's a chance that I could get killed, or maybe I'm reckless with my actions, hoping that somebody does it for me. Did you ever feel that way when you're riding that bike, cause I know you came out of that really severe motorcycle crash. Did that relate into it all or no?
Speaker 2:Not before that, but I've definitely. I got into the self-destructive stuff afterwards. I mean, it was, that was part of. I was so it was. Anything would make me become confrontational and also I would. If I got an idea of something, I would just there was no, I'm just going to go do it. And a lot of time it was, it was women or it was drinking and trying to, you know, trying to start with people. Uh, it was buying things. I started I I've always been very, very frugal with my money and like, right when I got out of the marines I spent five thousand dollars to get my truck lifted.
Speaker 2:I bought a souped up glock for my carry firearm and then I bought a three and a half thousand dollar mountain bike so that I could go downhill mountain biking, even even though I'd never done it before. It was like it was stuff like that where it's like it is so out of character, but it was it's again. It's another way that I'm getting some sort of neurotransmitter dump into my brain slash, distracting myself to where it's okay, I don't feel. I don't feel good doing anything right now, but like, is this going to feel good when I go buy that or whatever other maladaptive behavior you can think of. I was. I was doing it because I was doing, you know I was doing everything, but the right thing it's. It's not easy to speak up, but it is very simple and straightforward in the fact of like that is.
Speaker 2:Had I been doing that, I don't think I would have ended up where I'm at. I'm very I've. Also I've wound up going down a path in life that I never would have before. Right, and I'm having a big impact on and in a space that I never would have before. And it's not that, obviously, I wish I could see. Right, I don't think about that regularly, but life would be a little easier if I could see. But I that I wish I could see. Right, I don't think about that regularly, but life would be a little easier if I could see, but I, you know, when you just focus on the positives that have come out of things, or like the things that you can do and not the things that you can't like, I've ended up in a really, really cool spot despite all of that. So it's, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's just isn't the silver lining and the lessons that learned through tragedy Pretty cool. Um, you know these things happen and you wouldn't. Maybe you wouldn't want to live them again, maybe you would, I don't know but you know being able to find the silver lining and the meaning and the purpose behind it and then helping others. And you know, all of a sudden, like you just said, all of a sudden you're in some spot. You would have never been in had your life not taken these simple turn of events and, um, at least I think that's super, super cool as what you're doing. Um, you mentioned something a second ago that, uh, nobody else has ever mentioned and I honestly thought I was the only one. So the fact that you mentioned it I got a touch on it, because I've never really spoke about it to anybody and I didn't think anybody else was doing it.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about keeping up appearances. And when you're keeping up appearances, uh, I also ride a motorcycle. I did. I rode a, uh, I rode a street bike. I rode a Yamaha FJR and I rode a BMW GSA adventure bike.
Speaker 1:So I did that for about 10, 12 years and in those first year and a half, two years, of coming out of law enforcement when my mental health was really the worst, I would oftentimes go out into my garage and get dressed up in my gear and just stand there and look at my bike for hours and literally just stare at it and not have the energy or the willpower to get on it and go for a ride. And then I'd come back in and sometimes I'd be like, yeah, I went for a ride and that's the story I tell, but that's not really what happened. I went out and stood and looked at my motorcycle for hours but just didn't have the drive to act upon it and I thought I was the only one that had ever done that. Um, and I don't know why I did it, but what was your why?
Speaker 2:why were you trying to keep up that appearance? Because I didn't want anyone to know that I was struggling. I was I'm going to get myself through this and I thought that I would, and I it's. Obviously I realized something was wrong If I'm trying to keep up the act that I've gotten done those things, but it was. I didn't want to keep up the act that I've gotten done those things, but it was. I didn't want to be questioned about it, I didn't want to talk about it and that's. You know totally I that's. It got worse. If you want to move on to March, yeah, totally yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about March 2019, man, I want to hear it. Keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So March 27th of 2019 was the first time that I had ever mishandled a firearm in my life. You know, I'd handled guns as a kid. My dad was a firearms instructor so I knew how to handle guns. And then I was a machine gunner. So I did guns for four years for my job and that night I and I was totally sober, which was, you know the minority of nights at that point but I cleared my concealed carry firearm out and held it to my head that night and I held it to different places on my head and I just kind of turned it over in my hand and felt how it felt in different places and I decided that I was going to kill myself that night and I kept it to myself.
Speaker 2:On March 30th, my parents came over to my apartment with my little sisters. I acted like everything was fine still, even though in that same room, because they had actually just recently kicked me out of the house and I'd gotten this apartment and that cause they offered me. They said hey, if you're going to school and working, you can have a free place to stay. My agitativeness and confrontation confrontational nature that had developed was a problem and I got kicked out of the house. So I got this apartment, they came over to see it and we were all hanging out in the room where I had just held my gun to my head a couple of days ago and I didn't say anything that said that I thought I seemed tired and grumpy, but that was not out of my baseline by that point. So they just, you know, carried on.
Speaker 2:We went our separate ways and the next night I I started recording a suicide video to them instead of writing a note, because I thought it was more personal, and I also started having some alcohol to get some liquid courage up. And while I was recording that video, my roommate came home early from work. So I paused it, composed myself I don't remember any of this, but must've composed myself went out and talked to him Like nothing was wrong. It was like my room was on one side of my room and bathroom were on one side of the apartment. There was the common area with the living room and kitchen on the other side and his bedroom and bathroom were on the other side of the apartment.
Speaker 2:And we'd gone to high school together once I moved to Colorado. So that's how I knew him, that I went out and talked to him like nothing was wrong. You know kind of saw how his day was shot the breeze. And then I went back into my room our plant we were both going to get on xbox and play some video games. When he was done with his dishes and stuff and when he went back to his room he thought he heard a pot fall out in the kitchen and it turned out that I that was me shooting myself. So he went out and saw that nothing was amiss, knocked on my door, I didn't answer and then he came in and I was slumped on my bed with a bullet hole in my forehead.
Speaker 1:Wow, what happened next?
Speaker 2:I don't remember this either, but it was so I guess. He called nine one one and I woke up somehow while he was on on the phone with him and was asking him for help in water, and he got help to come. I was combative with them all the way into the hospital and they ended up putting me out and putting me on life support. They didn't know at that point if I would survive or if I did, if I would be myself or anything like that. You know if I would walk or talk ever again. And but when they did bring me off of life support, I was there, I was just. I was so out of it that I didn't even realize I was blind, so I mentioned earlier. But because I shot myself in between the eyes, which is I shot myself there because that's where we were trained to shoot for headshots, like the idea being that it hits your medulla oblongata and shuts everything off. It's just supposed to be your off button, but I somehow none of the bullet entered my brain. It was a hollow point round and I think, because the structures of your sinuses are actually pretty large back behind that, that you know the bridge of your nose right there. That I think the hollow point hit those cavities and broke up, because it's all of it still. The fragments are all still in my head and that's actually why I can't hear out of my right ears, because some of the bullet fragments settled there but none of it entered my brain and I think that's probably what saved me.
Speaker 2:But when they did take me off of life support and for some time afterwards like I could have a conversation with you like we're having right now but I didn't know that I was blind and no matter how much you told me that what I was seeing wasn't real, like it, just it would not click. I was, I was just that out of it from the head injury and probably all the medications that they had me on, but it wound up being 51 days in the hospital. They reconstructed my face. But it wound up being 51 days in the hospital. They reconstructed my face. So I had the bridge of my nose, the lower part of my forehead and my right eye socket all reconstructed with a titanium plate and went home for a month after that and then went to blind rehab for two and a half months with the VA. So the VA actually has a bunch of blind rehab centers around the country it was 13 at the time, I think it's only 12 now but where I got sent to school to learn how to be blind for two and a half months basically.
Speaker 2:It was, you know, learning braille, starting to learn how to use a cane and a talking computer, like how I, how I got on this call I don't know if you heard my phone and stuff talking to me when we were trying to get stuff situated, but in cooking and all that stuff it was a little bit of everything and came, came home from that.
Speaker 2:It wound up being the case that eight and a half months after I shot myself, I was snowboarding again in the Rockies and a month after that, boarding again in the Rockies. And a month after that I was back in college, this time pursuing a clinical psychology degree, because I tried finding proof of a blind nurse somewhere and there were none right, like which it makes sense there's. There's no way a person who can't see anything whatsoever can provide effective healthcare for someone you can't look to see visual symptoms of things. You can't see what you're poking, right? No one wants a blind guy running around with a needle. So I had to change majors, but I still wanted to help people and you know that carried on. So that was January of 2020 is when I started college again.
Speaker 1:How old are you at this point? How old were you when you shot yourself?
Speaker 2:I was 23. So I had just turned 24 when I started college again.
Speaker 1:Wow Okay.
Speaker 2:And so that was January of 2020, six months after that I was back out on my own and another six months after that I bought my first house.
Speaker 2:So that was at the end of 2020, running into 2021. And I still think that winter into spring is the worst depression that I've ever been through, even you know, keeping in mind the fact that I had just shot myself a year and a half earlier. It was and I say that because I was sober through this time but it was a combination of uh I'm I, I had moved up to Denver and I bought that house. I didn't know anyone there. It was in during COVID, so all my classes were virtual, so I'm not really going anywhere. I'm now in this house, in this city, where I don't know anyone and everything's just kind of shut down because of COVID, and it doesn't make any sense that I got to that bad of a spot If you look at what I had achieved in such a short time. Like, all I wanted was my independence back. That is all I wanted. That's why I pushed. I pushed so hard to get that back, like when I moved back out on my own, I was not ready for that, I just forced myself through it and I, I, I just I needed that, and so it's like I'd finally achieved that and was doing these big things that I really never thought would have been possible after I shot myself. And but just having all of that time to myself, I think the pace of everything was finally slowed down. I no longer was having medical appointments, you know, multiple times a week. There was over winter break, so I didn't have any college courses going on. Like I said, I didn't know anyone there or anything else, and it just, I think, everything finally hit me how difficult everything was. Everything takes very, not very long.
Speaker 2:At this point, at that point, everything was taking me very, very long. Everything, even to this day, a lot of thing, anything digital. The vast majority of the time, like I, have to jump through a lot of hoops to do things because, like you know us trying to get this recording software set up, whoever developed this, this recording platform, did a horrible job from an accessibility perspective, and I I can say that as a software developer who makes accessible technology like this is it's a, it's a piece of garbage, and that is that's the case with a lot of software, and it was all those things it was. You know, I'm burning all of my food. I dropped something and I have to crawl around on the floor to try and find it, and I'd finally find it with my hand and I'd like punch it across the floor and now I can't figure out where it's at and I just, I think I've finally realized, like, how different life was and that this was going to be how things were and it just, for whatever reason, that dragged me into a bad spot.
Speaker 2:And but that was also a big turning point in my life because I I did in those first couple months of 2021, I reached the point where I did not want to be alive, but I was not going to kill myself and I was terrified to speak up because I thought that, because I was at that point that, you know, someone would call the cops on me and that I was going to be whisked away to a mental health institution somewhere, walked away in a psych ward and medicated, you know, until I'm a zombie, and basically kept there until someone else decided that it was safe for me to leave. But I couldn't. I had seen what my attempt did to my family, my parents. And then I have two younger sisters. One of my, my middle sister, is 11 years younger than me and she has Down syndrome, and my youngest sister is 22 years younger than me, so like she didn't really know what was going on when I shot myself. But my middle sister very did, did very, very much so, and I couldn't do that to them again. So I did.
Speaker 2:I knew if I didn't speak up I was going to end up doing something stupid. So at that point I was talking to my psychologist once a week for therapy sessions and one week when she called to check in, I spilled the beans and she didn't call the cops on me. You know I wasn't. I told her I didn't want to be alive, but that I was not going to act on it, and that is why I was speaking up and she was just there for me. I that that was the first time I'd ever spoken up. You know I hadn't. I had not dealt with any of my problems when I shot myself. All of a sudden I was forced to talk about it because I had a bullet hole in my forehead and I'm in the hospital and everyone's trying to figure out what went wrong. But this was the first time that I proactively dealt with something and it was. She was just there for me and all of a sudden we weren't talking once a week, it was every day and sometimes it was multiple times a day, because it was just.
Speaker 2:You know, you hear this a lot when people talk about getting sober where sometimes you have to Dealing with an urge is taking it minute to minute and just okay, I'm going to make it to the next minute, I'm going to make it to the next minute, and it was like that at that point in trying to keep from doing something stupid, and so sometimes we would talk multiple times a day and but over the period of a couple of months we started kind of coming out on the other side of it and I learned as I did that you know that that showed to me that I could get through these things Even when you're at what feels like the lowest point possible. There is a way forward. But you have to help yourself and it is going to be work and it is going to be painful and it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be slow, but speaking up is that path forward and you know that that and has ended up that. That is why I'm still here, not just because of that that period, but some of the stuff that has come up along the way. It's that that summer my college stopped making my classwork accessible to me, and so pursuing my education independently was not possible anymore. So I dropped out of college and I started researching why. Actually since we're going long here, I'm not going to skim over this I picked up the bottle that class.
Speaker 2:When the school stopped making my course content accessible to me. I made it through the first test. So instead of making converting all my materials into formats that that would work for my software, the school assigned someone to be my eyeballs, and so they literally had a sighted student reading huge data sets to me because it was a statistics for clinical research class. She would read huge data sets to me. I would do these incremental calculations on a talking scientific calculator, record part of an answer into a word document and then you know, do success, do successive calculations on that, and until I got an answer I'd give it to her, she'd plug it in and we'd move on to the next thing.
Speaker 2:But after we took that, our first test together, I ordered booze not again, not having realized that I was definitely an alcoholic by the time that I shot myself and that kind of reignited my addiction. But then I don't know what the timeline was. It was either within a couple of days or within a couple of weeks. I self-admitted to the VA hospital because one night, when I was drunk, I was getting some squirrely thoughts, and so I I wasn't suicidal because obviously when I was sober that wasn't an issue, but as a while I was just blackout drunk, the depressant fed into whatever I was grumpy about, and I, you know, I saw, I self admitted, and when I got out of that the psych ward, I started researching what caused those accessibility issues and specifically what, what, how come some things were accessible to me and how come others weren't like? How come I could pay my mortgage but not my water bill? How come I could order groceries on one website but not another? How come I could do English and psychology homework but not my math homework? And that's when I found out that it all came down to the code running behind the scenes of each app or website that I was accessing. And so I dropped out of college to become part of the solution and I started teaching myself how to code in I think that was October of 2021. And but became a, fell right back into my alcoholism and it went from being functional to not being functional whatsoever. So it was every time that I would drink it was blackouts it.
Speaker 2:By sometime in 2022, it became apparent that I I guess even before the end of 2021, it was obvious that you know the wheels were coming off. So I started trying AA. Aa didn't work. I tried outpatient rehab and that didn't work, and finally accepted that I needed to go to inpatient rehab. And before I did, we found out that my mom had Huntington's disease, which is a degenerative neurological disorder. That is the incurable, deadly genetic disease that I talked about earlier. So it is. It starts as a movement disorder and then develops into behavioral and speech issues, but what is happening is your, your brain tissue is dying and the end stage is that you end up in a vegetative state for several years before something else kills you and it's passed down parent to child. It's a 50, 50 shot. So, because we found out that she had it, I went and got tested and then I went to inpatient rehab. I got my results while I was there and found out that I have it.
Speaker 2:So, needless to say, when I got back from rehab, I had another excuse to drink, and so I really, really leaned into it and I took the victim mindset of all right, you know, I'm blind, I'm deaf, I don't want to hear the. Now I have Huntington's disease. Like the universe hates me. What's going on here? I'm just going to drink, like I have the excuse to drink here, and that, at its worst, progressed to me blacking out for two or three days straight, recovering for two or three days and doing it all over again.
Speaker 2:And meanwhile I was continuing to teach myself how to code anytime that I was conscious enough to read and try and apply things that I was reading into code. I was doing that, and that carried through all the way into 2023. I still trying to get sober the whole time, but not making any progress. It just it kept getting worse and worse, and I was still trying to get sober the whole time, but not making any progress. It just kept getting worse and worse, and I was making horrible decisions while I was drunk as well.
Speaker 2:But I started my first business and I released my first piece of software on the 4th of July in 2023. And it was a word puzzle game, but it looked and functioned normally to people without disabilities, looked in, function normally to people without disabilities. But whether, whether you were legally blind, colorblind, totally blind, totally blind and totally deaf, had no arms or were paralyzed from the neck down, anyone could use the word puzzle game, it didn't matter. It didn't matter Basically, any any physical disability. My software adapted to the access technologies that these different populations use and they could use it, and without it being anything separate from what anyone else would use. And I started getting feedback from people and like just a little thank you emails of someone reaching out and saying like hey man, I just I've been able to play this with my wife and it's been, it's been so nice for us to have something that we can do together where, you know, x disability is not preventing me from doing that. And I started getting more and more emails and I I strung together a month of sobriety and then fell off the wagon, and then I got two and a half months of sobriety together and then I fell off the wagon and that last time that I fell off the wagon was december 5th of 2023.
Speaker 2:I've been sober since then and, at the same time, in at the end of december of that year, that app won two game of the year awards for it's, specifically because of the fact that it was accessible to everyone. And that is so cool, man, that I think you know when I started making progress there because before that I couldn't like making it. Four days when it was at its worst, where I was binging for two or three days straight was like a long time for me, and for the longest time before that I couldn't make it two week. But all of a sudden it was those, once the app was out there and people started getting back to me. It was that's when I strung together that first month and I really, looking back on all this, like I'm very confident it was.
Speaker 2:I found my purpose and a sense of identity again because I'd been a Marine and a machine gunner and you're always a Marine. But I got out and didn't have that and then all of a sudden you know I was, I was going to be an ER nurse. I didn't have that anymore. I wasn't a husband anymore and then all of a sudden, now I'm blind and I don't even have my independence anymore. I mean, I was having to have people wipe my ass for me while I was in the hospital. I could not do anything for myself and all of a sudden it was.
Speaker 2:I had come full circle and I'd put something back out into the world and it was helping people again, which, again, if you look at the things that I've always been drawn towards, it is service of some kind, and I was doing that even though it was in a way that I never would have thought was. You know, you don't think of making software as like being, like doing a service for people, but it it totally is, and especially in this context, and it just you know that that everything in my life started. I started making progress with everything and it just it stuck. And so that was. And I knew that it was very obvious, I think, with those two successful stints of sobriety, like I was positive that it was going to stick after December and so I started writing a book in 2024. That's a memoir that dives into all this stuff it's. I started my own podcast as well. Last year.
Speaker 2:I've been working on another software project with a much.
Speaker 2:It will still be accessible to everyone, but I'm taking all of the concepts that I learned and applied to that first award-winning piece of software to this bigger one, because that was that first one was a test run for me, because I did everything, including the visuals, having never written a line of code when I could see I wanted to make sure I could do it all right, cause early on in a business I'm not going to have the funding to hire someone to do that stuff, so I at least need to be able to make something that's palatable, and so I've been working on something since last March that will actually be, you know, something with a a big impact for people with disabilities, but it also be some cutting edge stuff for people without disabilities.
Speaker 2:Again, it's just everything that I make is meant for everyone, whether they have a disability or not. But, uh, so that is a new business. It's not out yet and I'm not going to go into too many details on it, but that will you know, hopefully in the next year or so be out. The book is currently. I just got my first round of editing back from my editor, so there's a couple of rewrites to do, you know, still to be done with that, and it'll be a while before the book is out too. But between that and this new software project and I'm also doing long form conversations like this on my own podcast. It's like trying to get more of this stuff out there and have these uncomfortable conversations because people tend to tiptoe around this stuff.
Speaker 1:Dude, I think it's so important, you know, I think it's so important to have these uncomfortable conversations. Nobody, especially as men and being a cop, being military, being, whatever, being a guy there's this one cheese mowing we never want. We want to keep up that appearance. We want to stand there and look at our motorcycle. We want to hold onto the identity of what we were yesterday. And it is so rare, I think, and it's becoming more popular, it's becoming more of the norm, but in general, I think it's so rare for men to really dive into their feelings, dive into the weaknesses or where they feel they were weak at one point. And oftentimes what we think is weak is really strength. But it takes, you know, time to process that and it takes looking at it from a different filter or a different angle to understand what, you know, I perceive as weak today is really strength tomorrow. And I'm so like, thankful that you're willing to have these long form conversations and really dive into the weeds about these different things, because somebody out there is dealing with something very similar, you know, and it's it's amazing, just like you, your life can change in an instant and I'm going to ask you, I'm going to go back and touch on some of your stuff here in a second, but since we're here, I want to ask you this.
Speaker 1:So about two months ago, two and a half months ago, my son was out riding his motorcycle with one of his buddies and his buddy was taking my son's bike around the track and crashed and launched himself about 30 feet up in the air, came down, uh, hit into a gravel parking lot and he's instantly paralyzed from the waist down. He's a 20 year old young man. He went to school for an engineering degree, active mountain biker. You know all this, all this stuff, right, but that, as you know more than anybody, your world can change in an instant. Um, and I got to imagine that there's. You know, I don't got to imagine, you just said it there's some depression that can come with that, or some mental stuff, stigma, that can come with that. What would you say to people like my, like my buddy, or anybody else out there listening across the world right now? What would you say to them if they find themselves in this situation? How did you stay strong and how did you grow and prosper out of this?
Speaker 2:So I didn't stay strong the whole time, right Like I, the alcoholism was me not staying strong, but I'm still here and I am sober now. So it's uh and I think I touched on this earlier it's focusing on the cans and not the can'ts. There's plenty of things that I can't. I can't drive a car right, but I, if there's, I will do everything in my power to make a can't a can, and if I can't, then I'll accept that that is something that I can't do right now and I stopped focusing on it and I focused on the things that I can. That is and I know that sounds so simple but perspective really is everything and, yes, there are times where chemical imbalances can skew that. Sometimes there are mental health disorders that cause that, or like. Perspective is a choice. Most things in life are. It is choosing to focus on the things that you have control over and the positives, or the things that you do still have, Because focusing on the things that you don't doesn't do you any good, and I'd really I would like you to, if I know.
Speaker 2:Obviously he's very early on in recovering from his injury, but a lot of the stuff that I do, these adaptive sports things, which jujitsu is not an adaptive thing. I compete against people without disabilities, but the skiing and the whitewater, kayaking and surfing and all of that stuff is. I go to places, either facilities or organizations, that have people who are trained to guide blind people to do that stuff, and these same organizations some of them are veterans organizations but some of them are not and when he is at a place where he would like to start returning to some of that stuff because I'm guessing, based off of what you said about all of his hobbies, he will want to just reach out, and I can try and start sending some resources your way for places for him to reach out to and do some of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Dude, that is so awesome. Thank you for that. Let's talk about some of those cans. You've mentioned a couple of times your whitewater rafting, your mountain climbing, all that stuff. Tell me about that stuff. What is that like now that you have? You know you're blind, right. What is it like to climb the side of a mountain, blind For me, I'd be scared shitless to do it with, you know, full vision. Uh, what is that like in your world?
Speaker 2:Well, I think rock climbing is probably cause I don't. If I look down I can't see it. So I think that's probably a benefit to not be able to see it. It really it does not scare me at all because I can't see the consequences. But skiing and whitewater kayaking specifically, because, like the kayaking you know, it's when I'm doing this stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm not tethered to anyone. I'm in, I'm in my own kayak, I'm on my own set of skis. No one is attached to me in any way. Someone is just being my eyeballs and yelling commands and I'm, or I'm feeling what's going on in my under my feet on skis, or feeling the water toss me around in a kayak, and those can be terrifying, especially the kayaking.
Speaker 2:You know, when I end up upside down in the water and it's freezing cold water and I feel rocks bouncing off of my back and I can hear the boat scraping against rocks, like that is terrifying. I know how to roll the kayak, but things happen where the water's aerated and you miss a roll, or you roll where you try and set up for your role and it's in a wave and there's no way for you to come up and then all of a sudden it's in a wave and there's no way for you to come up. And then, all of a sudden, it's okay. Now I'm holding my breath and waiting for someone else's boat to come nearby so I can grab onto it, cause I lost my paddle or whatever. That stuff is terrifying.
Speaker 2:That's that terrifies me every time that I go do whitewater kayaking, but it is a freaking rush and I'm terrified Just listening to you. It's, it's cool with the with that in the skiing. My guide rides some distance behind me and we use radios and I know guys who will just follow sound down the mountain or follow sound on the river. But being deaf in one ear, it just it does not work for me. And when I, when I go skiing, my guide will, we'll get off the lift and we'll start heading wherever we need to head. And as we start getting close to a run, they'll be like hey, you know we're, we're approaching a black groomer and it's pretty wide. We're going to drop in on the top right side of the run. So when you drop in, hold a left and I'll tell you when you're centered. So I drop in and I just keep holding the left until they tell me that I'm good and then it's all by feel and I can, especially on like the steeper pitch, like that, like a black run it's it's very easy for me to feel which way is downhill and so I just make my own turns. No, if someone goes down in front of me or if I'm about to get into a choppy place or there's going to be some small moguls, or if I'm getting too far to one side of the run, they'll start calling my turns as needed and be like all right and left and right and hold this right and all right, need to dump a little speed here. We're getting into a crowded area, but it's all. It's all verbal communication and a lot of trust. And it's the same way on the river, where it's my guide A lot of the time is mostly setting me up for a rapid so that I'm coming in at the right place and then yelling some commands. But really when you're in the thick of it, it's just responding to getting tossed around. And if I roll and come back up, they'll be like I'll just be screaming in my ear. But it's, it is. It's so cool and that's what the rock climbing, because it is all by feel I mean it's when you get me to the rock.
Speaker 2:I am independent from there. I don't. I don't like people calling out stuff for me, unless if I'm like stuck somewhere, it helps for if someone can see something. But I like getting there and just feeling my way around. You know, I I'll climb, you know move up, and then all of a sudden I'm in a new spot and then, once I feel secure, I will, I'll take one hand off the wall and start feeling in like a big sweeping arc on that side of my body for handholds, and I do it on the other side and then I start feeling down by my knees for other feet spots, and it's just I, it's again, it's that independence and it's this, like all of this stuff, it is having that independence again and getting to do some stuff that I used to do and I never whitewater kayaked before but like it's actually something that I thought looked too dangerous and I was never interested in.
Speaker 2:But now I do it. And it's having that agency and having people who are willing to like take the risk on me to let me do that stuff is just it is my favorite thing in the world. I, I freaking, I love coding and all everything that I do there, but like nothing beats skiing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's's nothing. That's awesome, man, that is. That is so cool to hear the comeback and just your passion, even here, and you light up when you're talking about it. Um, that's way cool, dude, way cool. Did you ever get into, uh, drugs? They often go hands in hand with alcohol, did you ever?
Speaker 2:do any drug stuff, thankfully, no. You know, I've done marijuana for like sleep and stuff like that, but never, that's never been my thing. It's never been like a thing that I used really. Yes, I technically that's recreationally and like the legal sense I guess, but it is. I've never used it like a regular for I'm just going to get high and do stuff Now. It's never been my thing and I just thankfully never tried anything else. I think had I done that, I probably would have had a much worse turnout in things Like I. If alcohol got me that bad, I'm sure something heavier would have. It sounds like you may have Uh drugs. Yeah, earlier, when you were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no no, no drugs. Um, drugs, not my stuff. Uh, you know, I've never even smoked weed. I grew up in Alaska in a small town and all there was was weed and I never did it because I always knew that I was going to come back and be a cop. But we had cops my sergeant on my police department. He got into drugs, you know.
Speaker 1:And again, ptsd, mental health stuff is a stigma. Nobody talks about it and ultimately you get hurt on the job, right, you break a knee, you break a back, something like that. And it's very easy to get on that opioid epidemic. And you know what he was doing was he was responsible for all these pill turn-ins and every time somebody come and turn in a you know prescription into the lobby, you would get this, you know, essentially looks like a mailbox full of pills and then somebody would have to empty that out. And it's supposed to be a two-person job with multiple keys and checks and balances. But you know as well as I do, if you want to try to make something happen, you will.
Speaker 1:And he was stealing pills out of that and before you know it, you know he's stealing oxys and then they're serving a search warrant on the police department and on his locker and everything else right, and we get this black eye for a minute, and from the outside looking in, while it doesn't excuse any of this behavior, but from the outside looking in and at the time, to be honest with you, I'm like what the hell are you doing, dude? Now, knowing what I know about mental health and PTSD and law enforcement and the you know the hurdles that this job throws in front of us, that John Q Public has no idea and never will. Thankfully, I get why he was doing what he was doing. You know.
Speaker 2:I get it. It's tough because he messed up and there needs to be repercussions from that, but he also deserves help, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely yeah, yeah. What is the prognosis for your Huntington's disease?
Speaker 2:It's tough, there's really it's. You know, the predictive side of it is not. It's not an exact science. So they, they do a genetic testing because it's a certain it's your CAG repeat which is referring to the. I think it's the, the amino acids, it's like cytosine, adenine and guanine, I think, for that are in your, your DNA and check for that repeat the, the, whatever the mech or you know the measure is for them, counting a score of 40 or above means that you have it and that you know, it will present at some point in your life.
Speaker 2:My score was 43, which is relatively low. That can indicate that it'll be a later onset. They can also kind of look at familial stuff. My mom is 49 and she is, you know. She's been showing symptoms for a couple of years, from my understanding, so that can be predictive for me. But on one side of things, like the only thing that they really say you can do to slow or delay the progression is taking good care of yourself physically and dietarily, and I do that. However, I've had the. I've had multiple brain injuries and several years of alcoholism under my belt and my mom hasn't had those. But she doesn't really take very good care of herself. So maybe my timeline will be similar to hers, maybe not.
Speaker 2:I'm optimistic They've got a lot of big studies going on right now that something will come along in the next. I'm 29 now. I'll be 30 here in a couple months. If that's the case, I still have a good chunk of time before. It's a real issue for me, and so I'm optimistic that something is going to come along. I'm not I wouldn't say I'm like I'm not optimistic in the sense that I, like, truly believe that that is going to happen. But I have hope that like something is going to happen and if not, I'll just I'll have to deal with it when it comes.
Speaker 2:But for now I go in once a year and kind of get like rechecked for symptoms and they check for really they check for small things that you wouldn't, some of it you know, early on or later on you definitely would notice yourself. But the early stuff they kind of do all of the cognitive testing for that stuff and watch for other physical things while they're having you perform a task to kind of distract you and see what happens when you're not paying attention for like small movements and stuff like that. But it's, it's weird man Out of everything, like nothing in my life bothers me except for that that one is. That one's been a tough one and I think it's. It's the not knowing and it is the I mean the clock. At one year, when I go in for one of those appointments, they're going to tell me that I'm showing signs and then it's okay. Now the clock is proverbially, proverbially ticking and that is what I, I, I struggle with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could. You know, I can't even imagine, man, I can't even imagine what that would be like. Um yeah, I'm sorry, brother, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I wasn't saying it for that.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that, but I wasn't like I know you weren't, but I mean it's, it's the reality, right, you had this reality kind of lingering in the background and while you're, you know, full of energy, and I get it, but it's the stress. I could only imagine the stress going into one of those meetings is, you know, and if it's not now, I think it will be in the future as you get old, closer to your mom's age, on the onset side, um, it's, it's gotta be stressful, man, you know, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.
Speaker 2:No, I mean even I just had mine in June. Yeah, I just had my checkup in June and I mean it was for like two months beforehand.
Speaker 2:It was messing me up. I was like, come on, this is just it's. And you start hyperanalyzing things that, like you know, are potential symptoms and you're like, all right, was that, was that something or no, or was that and it's? And it's weird knowing that like that is in the future at some point, barring any medical advances. It's like I feel like I'm never doing things fast enough, like I feel like I'm not, like the book isn't coming fast enough, like this software project isn't coming fast enough. I feel that way with all of these like big goals that I have. It's very, it's weird.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm aware of it and obviously trying to work on that and like not counter for, but I'm just I yeah, just remaining cognizant of that, but it is like this weird urgency that is in the back of my mind with things. But it's the other side of that is, everyone's family has some sort of crappy condition in their genes, right? Whether it's breast cancer or something else. Like everyone has that, and so it's really. It's not what's that? And so it's really. It's not. It's not any different, it's just, it's just what it is. Yeah, yeah, so it's. I really it's like everything else. I don't think about it much. It's more so knowing that. Those it's which I guess that I kind of just contradicted what I said, that urgency is always there, but like other than that it's when the appointments are coming up. Where I'm it's a little off, which it's still kind of new. You know, it's only been a couple of years, so maybe that'll get better here as I get a little more used to it.
Speaker 1:But that that is definitely a half a glass empty kind of approach. What about therapy? Earlier you mentioned therapy. Uh, what kind of therapy have you done? Are you still in therapy?
Speaker 2:yeah, still still in it now. It's just like kind of more maintenance. Yeah, it's weekly maintenance, talk therapy stuff. But we did some cbt stuff, cognitive behavioral therapy stuff, a couple years ago I think. I think we tried another modality I don't remember what and I can't remember if we did for sure, but I know I did CBT stuff, um, and all that was more early on after I shot myself. But still do therapy.
Speaker 2:I've been on for a while. I guess in two stints I was on antidepressants. I was in on antidepressants for a long time until actually I weaned myself off of them in that late fall of 2020, preceding that really bad depressive period in, uh, in early 2021 for those several months and it's interesting cause I actually I got back on them after that and then I actually just weaned myself off of them last October and then I just had another two or three months of the worst depression that I've had since then. I don't know if they're related or not. It's because I had, even after I, a couple.
Speaker 2:I guess late last year, after I first weaned myself off of them, I started noticing like changes in jujitsu, where I would start like when I first the first, like six months or a year that I trained and it's pretty natural like you get terrified of being smothered, like you panic when you get smothered or when you get strangled. I don't get that now and I can just like stay in the pocket and be conscious of what's going on and work to get out of it. You just kind of get desensitized to it. But I noticed late last year, a couple of months after I did wean myself off of those, that I started getting that again and it was nonsensical, given that I'm just kind of can stay comfortable with that stuff now and I you know I'm noticing a trend here when I get off of them that there's just these. It's another similar timeline to where I just I really really had a bad couple months here and I'm out of it now.
Speaker 2:But and that's, I see the go ahead, no, go ahead. I I see and fully recognize the value of those drugs. I just don't believe that you should have to be on them your entire life if you don't have to. So, like I've both times, I just it wasn't necessarily advised that I do that, but I'm, I want to see if I don't need to be on them because I don't think you should just take stuff that you don't need, and I've learned until I can tell you that my pattern is the same way uh on drugs, self weaning everything's going good, life is smooth, I don't need these.
Speaker 1:I wean myself off. I go through a period of time where it's coming out of my blood, life whatever and then I go into really bad depressive state and suicidal stuff and all of that. And then you cope, I get back on them my pattern is the same as yours.
Speaker 2:Okay, see, that's. That's where I don't know, because they did and I don't. I really don't talk about diagnoses a lot from, like you know, mental health stuff, because I feel like a lot of people use it there today. There seems to be some sort of like if people use their diagnoses as like an identity, like a, an added value. You're like, oh, I have this and this and this and this and this, and I also think that I I see a trend sometimes of people using those as an excuse to justify their behavior.
Speaker 2:But I have been diagnosed with insomnia and major depressive disorder. My sleep definitely correlates with when I'm in a bad spot, but this depressive disorder episode, I mean, it was, it's, it was bad for those couple months but, like I did, I just got through it and I, I, that's, I don't know man, it's, it's, it's tricky, cause it is, it's like, okay, since I made it through that, I don't want to just be back on it to hedge my bets against the next one that comes, cause maybe it's not going to come or maybe it'll be longer until it comes. And if I can keep it, you know, does getting back on that treadmill, restart that same cycle, or can I extend these times in between? And I'm I do everything else that I can in that realm of the you know diet, exercise, everything, just staying very busy even when I'm very apathetic about things and I'm just I don't know, I have like, have you always gotten back on them Like, are you still back on them now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I went on them. I was uh signed while I was prescribed major depressive disorder and on antidepressants for the first time in 2013. 2013 and uh 2012, I went out in the woods to kill myself um june 13, 2012 and uh went out gun in the mouth type of thing. Got the phone call at the end, changed my mind and here I am to talk about it, but finally got over that stigma. In 2013 went to the doctor, didn't tell him about the suicidal stuff because I didn't want to be the suicidal stuff, because I didn't want to be put out of duty. I didn't want to say it was not fit for duty. So I lied about that.
Speaker 1:But they major depressive disorder went on meds. I was on them from 13, 14, uh weaned myself off about 14. And then by about 2015,. 16, I started to see the spiral and uh, probably 2015, I started to see the spiral and the you know, the poor choices and all the depression and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't go back on them until I came out of work in 2022.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, when my stress level was so high, my PTSD was rampant, my dreams, all the things that go with that BTS diagnosis and the symptoms, you know, it was literally going to kill me and I went back on the meds. Then I was on the meds. We had to change my meds because I started to have some seizure activity in about 20, mid 2022, 2023. And then, 2023, I came off of the meds because I wanted to wean myself off and I had a month or two of honeymoon and then right back into the depression and got back on them and, uh, I've been on them since.
Speaker 1:Maybe I weaned myself off one more time, but I think I've been on them since and I'm still on them. But the whole time has been, you know, supplemented with or the pills have supplemented lots of therapy EMDR, talk, therapy, you know, retreats, that type of stuff that I've participated in. So, like you said earlier, it's a ton of work, right, but I think that all of those things have helped me heal. But I know that if I come off the meds, um, I don't want to repeat that pattern of behavior. I don't want to go back in that depressive state, um, so that's why I'm staying on them right now. I don't know what the future looks like, but right now that's where I'm living.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously those states are miserable, but they're scary too because of the risk that obviously comes with it. And it's just, it is, it's tough man, it's like what do you do it? But I think you said something very important with it is the medications are paired with therapy. That is there. They are supposed to be used that way. They are not the answer. They are something to help diminish the differences between the highs and the lows and it's supposed to help you again while you're putting in the work.
Speaker 2:It is and that's like you mentioned the retreats. I guess I haven't been or I guess you know when I go on a lot of these adaptive things. It is, it is trips with other disabled vets, and so it is. It does become a retreat because it's yeah, the, the skiing and stuff is awesome and it's a blast. But it's the time in the mornings before we go out and ski and the times in the evenings together where, like always said, those are my favorite parts of these trips and I get recharged by that stuff. Is that like when you go?
Speaker 1:Yes, I've been to two. The first one was called first responder resiliency out of California, northern California, and the way that conference works is that conferences for anybody first responders or military come together and they talk about the science behind your job, your experiences, your exposures, what happens to the body and physiologically and psychologically during repeat trauma, what happens when you're going a hundred miles an hour in that sympathetic nervous system and you never activate the parasympathetic, you never slow down and, you know, create game trails or neural pathways through the slower part of your brain. It talks about breathing exercises, talks about yoga, talks about meditation. All this stuff that you know sounds like kippy dippy bullshit but really there's a science behind it and that was the first one I went to, science behind it and that was the first one I went to. It was four days and we spoke about everything. Psychological medical doctors came in and taught us and, uh, when you start hearing that and we're hearing them break it down, it really makes sense. All this stuff makes sense.
Speaker 1:I don't get any sleep. I work 36 hours straight, I go home for three hours and I go back to work for another 20 hours. You know that is a normal life for me at that time. Well, your amygdala doesn't get to reset. So that's why you're short tempered. After about day two or three, you know somebody walks in the room and they look at you wrong and you lose your mind. Well, you know, if you got good sleep and your amygdala reset itself and wasn't swollen, then you would be just fine with that. But because you've compounded the lack of sleep, that's why you become an instant asshole when somebody crosses your path. You know, and I experienced that. So even just that one example really made sense. It's like this actually means something. And now you start doing meditation and you start slowing the brain down and shutting off that noise and, you know, centering yourself and all of a sudden you're sleeping better. So that's what I got out of the first one.
Speaker 1:The second one was faith-based, called Mighty Oaks, and Mighty Oaks was for first responders and military. But that one started with military. It actually started with a Marine who started that one and he came home with some PTS issues and had nowhere to go, realized there was no resources. So kind of like you did with the coding world, he did in this world, where he, you know, hit rock bottom and needed help. So we started this and that one actually is cool because it's totally free. You apply for it, there's a scholarship. They fly you out.
Speaker 1:You go through the week long stuff, um, and it's the exposures you have. But it talks about a lot of character stuff uh, strength, honor, vulnerability, pornography, finances, faithfulness, all of those things. It talks about those things that Plague us in our professional world sometimes and not everybody gets it with all of them alcoholism, drugs, etc. But then it talks about you know what is. First of all, you're not the only one experienced in this and it's been going around a long time. Look, it spoke about in the bible here verses that we can talk about.
Speaker 1:And then they break you down into small groups and those are your corner men. There's about four or five of them. You guys go through and you talk about these experiences. You talk about your life and how these things affect you and they don't all affect everybody, but you get very, very intimate. And then you go home and when you go home, you have these corner men that are a text group in your phone and you text them at three in the morning and say hey, you know I'm having these crazy thoughts, things are going sideways, help me out and all of a sudden you're getting phone calls, so that was the other one that I went to, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never. I've never done one. Like I said, the the ones that I've been to are specific. It's okay, hey, we're going skiing for several days. The other stuff just happens naturally along there. I I've never enjoyed, you know, I tried like some blindness support groups and stuff early on and I just for whatever. That format is not my thing, but it's those programs are so important to have. They really are. That is it's everyone's. You, my flavor of things may not be the same as your flavor and it's just. You know, it's a lot of times being around other people who understand right, which is the. It's the same mechanism of these things playing out naturally with me and these other settings. It is you just need that. It really that goes so so far, and it's such a straightforward thing is just bringing those people together and so that it can't happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, man, I totally agree. Hey, let's talk about your podcast. What is your podcast called and where's it at, and what do you talk?
Speaker 2:about. It's called going in blind with Zach Tidwell. It is not blindness related, that's just a play on words, but it's it's kind of everywhere. Uh, it's Apple Spotify. I put it on YouTube. It's no video, it's still just the audio, but I just put it there to see if it's another. You know, it's another place for it to be available, especially because a lot of people just get their stuff on YouTube.
Speaker 2:But it's, my conversations are all over the place.
Speaker 2:I just recorded, I think episode 50 today, if not 49.
Speaker 2:So I started, you know, first episode came out in January, so I released five a month and I've had everything from self-proclaimed profit and a that's the only like out there one that I had that where I was like, okay, I shouldn't have that guy on, but the I I've had former Super Bowl champ who had to, whose career was ended by brain trauma. I had a professional dominatrix who does it specifically in a therapeutic setting, a couple silver star, bronze star recipients, veterans, founders of businesses, and just it's always it's people that I find compelling and it's it's conversations that I hope will leave guests thinking about stuff like I just it's whether that be scientists or psychologists or whoever um, there's kind of a little bit of everything, and I'm I'm a very curious person, naturally, so I'm just following that and it's some of it is also people who have just been through a lot, but specifically then gone out, come out on the other side to do big things, cause, like it's I think you know it's that matters, right. A lot of people have been through stuff. It's what you do with it on top of that, I think, where and how you turn it into like a way to help other people. So it's just, it's kind of all over the place and I don't know where it will go, other than the fact that I will continue following things that I'm curious about. So that's awesome man.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, I want to. I'm going to wrap this up. Is there anything that we haven't spoke about, that you think we should get out there and you want people to hear or know about? I?
Speaker 2:think the only big thing, just because I don't have a any sort of timeline on the books release other than I'm hoping here in the next year or so. I have a mailing list on my website at Zach Tidwellcom, and that is. It is not a spam list. I've had this thing for over a year. I don't send emails out. It will just be for announcements about the book and you can also reach out to me there If you'd like me to come speak somewhere. I think that's about it.
Speaker 1:Awesome, man. Well, hey, I really want to thank you for taking time to dig deep, go down past surface level. You know one of the things you mentioned we first started talking and you're like hey, your podcasts vary, you know, in length and time and this one is, you know, coming up on an hour and a half. Um, but I really appreciate you taking the time just to dig deep, be personal, be vulnerable and be real, and I think that my podcast I really try to have everything that I put out be educational, entertaining or provide value. It's got to hit one of those three things, or multiple, and we need to do it through transparency and vulnerability and honesty. And that is where I think and it sounds like you have the same philosophy. That is where you connect with people, because nobody wants to hear the fluffy BS. Nobody wants to hear, you know, the, the, the, the fluff. So thank you for so much for coming out and doing that for us tonight and let my guests hear you. You know, ladies and gentlemen, as you guys are moving about, go right now. This podcast is going to wrap up in the next one minute. Go find him.
Speaker 1:It's Going In Blind with Zach Tidwell. It's on all your streaming platforms. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you guys again for coming back and listening and sticking away to the end of this. It's so cool to have guests that are willing to share their personal stories. We all have stories, but Zach wrapped it up in the very end beautifully. We have stories and it's not about what happened to us, it's about what we do with those things. Whether you're Zach, whether you're me, whether you're my buddy with the, you know, paralyzed, whatever it is, tell your story and find that silver lining. And if you're out there with that gut in your mouth, you're out there with the alcoholism, you're out there with the drugs or whatever it may be, and right now is your kind of low depressive life. Like Zach said, there's a way out. You have to push forward. It's going to be hard, but there is a way out of this. Ladies and gentlemen, you guys are absolutely amazing. I absolutely love each and every one of you guys. Keep coming back. You can reach out to me murderstomusic at gmailcom that's the number two. You can find me on Instagram and all the streaming platforms.
Speaker 1:You know and I'm going to leave it with this, as we're sitting here talking, something happened organically that nobody out there knows about, except me. Here's what it is In my recording software I have Zach's camera and I have my camera and, as we have continued this conversation, zach's camera has went completely dark because the sun is going down. So I'm literally looking at a black screen and as we're doing this, I just that little bit of difference when you're having a conversation all of a sudden you can't see, and now the screen is black, like it's nothing compared to what Zach is, but I get it and I think that I don't get it. But just seeing that black screen, it was just, it was different and it was organic and it happened. I happen to be talking to a blind guy that talks about living life to its fullest and not letting that get him down. So, dude, thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a Murders to Music podcast.
