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What kind of a fucked up time are we living in, when a friend can call me with “good news” about his 16 year old daughter,  when the good news is “She is only doing heroin!”? The sad thing is, it actually is good news because at least she isn’t addicted to fentenyl. That is so messed up.

I have noticed that the news and the government is starting to recognize it as an epidemic. Too little to late, but I guess better late to the party than not showing up at all. W-18 is on its way to the party too. For those of you that don’t know, fentenyl is 80x stronger than heroin or clinical morphine. W-18 is 100x stronger than fentenyl. Now math isn’t my strong suit, but by my calculations that would make W-18 8000x stronger than heroin!!! People are dying all over the country from fentenyl, and W-18 is making its appearance. Hey Christy Clark, better start stocking up on body bags cause there is a landslide coming.

Everyday I give thanks that my girls are still alive. Its not a happy place, because They are still addicts, still on the methadone program, with their methadone getting raised constantly because they still get cravings and still end up using fentenyl. It is only a matter of time….. And the only thing with lots of time….. Is time. Time is patient, time will wait, after all he has all the time in the world.

Me, I am just numb to it all. I have gone through every emotion including having a complete meltdown. I have gone through anger, fear, hate, love, compassion, depression, frustration, anxiety and now emptiness.

I recently spent a weekend with my girls. They had asked me for help, as everyone else has given up on them. They have lied, cried, begged, yelled, looked me straight in the eyes while high as fuck, swearing they didn’t use, they have brought and used the drugs in my house, the whole time telling me they would never do that. They have truly become fully blown addicts. They have every excuse to not get help. They have become selfish, rude, disrespectful people. They have become slobs that don’t clean up after themselves, they will help themselves to things that aren’t theirs and they are so messed up they can’t comprehend why people get upset!

I got the joy of watching them nod off for hours, and got to watch one of them that has developed an OCD disorder literally tear the skin off her face while she is high. It doesn’t matter what you say or do, she can’t help herself, so she just picks and tears until her face is bleeding and scabbed up. It is horrifying as a father. I have gotten to hear lots of awesome rumours about the horrible things they let themselves be subject too, and honestly, as a parent, I do not wish that on anyone. It tears apart your heart and soul! It breaks my heart that I can not help them, but the reality is that I can do nothing for them, but love them.

There isn’t really anything I can say to help my buddy either. I am sorry he too will have to go through this, but at least we are not alone. It is a sad fucked up time we live in, when the children feel that their lives are so bad, that those are the drugs they need to use to deal with it.

We can pray for them, and encourage them to seek the professional help that it will take to help them beat the addiction. We can try to look at any little positive thing we can, and we can take care of ourselves so that we don’t melt down ourselves. We can offer them love and support in trying to beat their addiction, and other than that we can wait….. Just like time…..

I am:
The energy of love manifested.
All that I should be at this time
The same as all that lives
More than the sum of all my parts
A part of the whole that is the universal oneness of all
Whatever I intend
Fear if I let fear live within me
All that is and all that will ever be
A living experience for my soul and the universal consciousness of which I am
I am a vibration in the universal song of oneness
A living vessel on the ocean of universal love
Flawed perfection
At peace

I am the energy of Love manifested, from the universal oneness that is all, brought forth through the love manifested within my parents, my parents parents and so on.

I am all that I should be at this time. How could I be anything but. The culmination of all I have experienced, felt, loved and learned has brought me to my present state.

I am the same as all that lives. I am but a vibration in the ocean of the universal consciousness as is all that exists.

I am more than the sum of all my parts, for when my parts are long gone my consciousness, energy of life will return to the universal oneness.

I am whatever I intend. My intent is my focus, that which I focus on will grow into my manifestation. My intent is to share love in all that I do, and all I experience even if my mind percieves negativity.

I am fear if I let fear live within me. Fear can not exist unless I allow it, as it is a product of my thinking mind. If I do not allow fear in my thought patterns there is more room for universal love. Fear is a product of forgetting who I am, and believing I am not.

I am all that is and all that will ever be. I am universal consciousness, the vibration of love resonating throughout all that is.

I am a living experience for my soul and the the universal consciousness that I am. My physical being is but a small part of who I am, sent here to love learn and experience all that our physical reality offers. The more I love, learn and experience the more I contribute to the experience and growth of all that is.

I am a vibration in the universal song that is oneness. I can choose to vibrate in harmony, syncing in to the flow of the eternal song, or I can choose to vibrate out of tune, experiencing all the lessons to be learned from resonating in disharmony creating dissonance within myself and my current life experience.

I am a living vessel on the ocean of universal love. I can choose to go with the flow, riding the tides feeling and experiencing what the ocean has to offer, or I can choose to paddle against the tides and struggle to create my own path in the ocean, which will be erased as fast as I pull the paddle from the water.

I am Flawed Perfection. I am perfect as I am, a vibration of the universal oneness, resonating love at the core of my essence, yet am flawed as a physical living entity, that can produce the intent of viewing that which is not, while believing it is. I create my flaws, they are only in my mind, and when my body has long turned to dust the imagined flaws will be gone and only love will remain.

I am at peace. I have chosen not to let fear exist in me. I have chosen to give up my beliefs, and live in my knowledge, that which I have experienced, resonating in the frequency of love, at peace with all that is!

I am!

To you I offer Love and Light, may you vibrate in harmony with all that is!

Everyday I wake up and wonder “Is today the day? Is today the day I will receive the phone call that one of my daughters has overdosed and did not make it?” Addiction is hell! For the addict, for the family, for anyone that loves that person. I find it unusual that I am finally getting comfortable with my position. For a very long time it scared the hell out of me, it gave me anxiety, had me living in fear, and helped to land me in a pit of depression.

For a long time I focussed it on me, “What did I do wrong?” What can I do to fix it?” No parent wants to see their child or any family member or friend deal with the harshness of addiction. I constantly questioned my parenting, my love, my strength and my knowledge. I buried myself in trying. Trying everything I could think of, learning about addiction, learning about specific drugs, learning about dealing with addiction and addicts, learning to love and feel compassion, learning to feel and deal with immense emotional and psychological trauma, as well as learning a hell of a lot about myself, my family, my friends and social networking.

So far it has been a long hard educational journey. I have had my mind blown many times in this part of my journey. I have experienced pain, depression, hate, anger, hopelessness, a breakdown, help, love, strength, encouragement, education, information, friendship love and more love. I have had my eyes opened to how blessed I am to be surrounded by the people I have in my circle, both virtual and digital. I learned that I am not alone in my struggles, and that my kids are not alone in theirs.

I am finally at peace with knowing that that phone call may actually come. I am at peace with knowing that as a parent I have done all I can (at this time, in my current mindset with my current tools) that I can do. I continue to love and encourage them to walk the pathway to getting clean, but that is a pathway they must choose and walk on their own. I got them to a safe place. I made sure they got on methadone so they use fentenyl way less than they were. I got them to see addiction specialists, doctors, and the people that can help them. Now i just have to love and encourage them, and hope that one of the relapses doesn’t end up fatal.

As a parent it is hard for me to see them, because I see the pain, the changes, the darkness and it hurts my soul. I see them struggle, listen to their tears, hold them when they hurt, and it breaks my heart. It is a harsh pathway, with really only two outcomes. You either start on a path to recovery or you end up dead. Dead is a final game play in this reality. You don’t get a replay, and you don’t get to fix any thing. You will have no chance to experience a life of love and happiness. Every day I hope that today will be the day that they get the call to get into rehab.

Our system is not really setup for high rates of success, and it definitely is not setup to make it easy for the addict to succeed. The drugs are stronger, the fight is tougher, the f@ckin dealers even deliver right to your door. I get why it is not easy to win the battle! I am glad I won my battle years ago before these drugs were available.

It is such a strange time we live in, an overabundance of information flowing at incomprehensible rates, accessible 24 hours a day, and yet we still know so little about addiction and dealing with and healing addicts. Our system is antiquated and underfunded. If one has lots of money you are open to more options, but if you are in the middle or low income area you are pretty much guaranteed a long brutal fight for help.

For those of you that read this and are dealing with a similar situation, know that you are not alone. The only thing I can say is never give up on them. Never stop loving them. Keep encouraging them to fight the addiction. Encourage them to seek the path to healing. Give them hope, give them love, give them strength, they need all they can get to battle the beast of addiction. Today so far has been a good day! Today we have avoided the phone call.

 

I still remember the first fight I was ever in. I was in grade 5. We lived on the Indian Reserve in a trailer park in Kamloops BC. I have an older brother that use to like fighting, and I had seen him win lots, and he made it look easy.

It was a cold winters day, we were skating on the outdoor rink, just a bunch of kids having fun. One of the trailer park owners kids Chucky, came to the rink and wasn’t wearing skates. He had just come down to bug people, and he was successful. He started to pick on one of the smaller kids and made him cry. I skated over and told him to stop. He told me to f off and pushed me. I have never been good on skates and ended up on my ass. I angrily jumped up and told him to F off and he just socked me in the mouth and down I went. I got up and headed home determined to take off the skates, put on my shoes and come back and teach him a lesson. I went home put my shoes on and went back! When I got there I called him out and we went at it. He proceeded to beat my ass! I went home like a wounded puppy, tail between my legs, bruised and bloody. My brother went back and beat up Chucky, and then told everyone “Nobody beats up my brother but me!” Thanks bro… I think.

The first time I was ever jumped by a bunch of guys was also in Kamloops. It was grade 9 or 10. I was on my way home from a soccer practice. I was walking down the street when I saw a group of about 10 guys up ahead and my intuition said it was a situation to avoid, so I crossed the street walking in front of the drive in theater entrance and then turned left to cut across the dirt field beside the drive in. I heard a voice behind me say “hey”. I didn’t look back I just kept walking. I heard footsteps coming up behind me and a voice said “I’m calling you!” as an arm came over my shoulder grabbing me by the hair pulling my face down to catch his knee a few times. He then started punching me in the face while the rest of the gang caught up. That was my introduction to an asswipe named Lee Kilty! He then held my head down and yelled at the others to kick me. A few of them kicked me pretty good in the face, and a few of them, guys I had thought were friends from school, tried to not kick me too hard in the face. One of them said to leave me alone, and Lee went off on him saying kick him or we will kick you too, so he kicked me in the face too. Some guys at the drive in came running to the fence and yelled at them to leave me alone, and Lee let go of me ran up to the fence and started challenging them. One of the gang, a guy named Rocky, leaned over my bloody beat up face and whispered “If your gonna run do it now. Go go!” He didn’t have to tell me twice I was fricken gone.

When I got home my parents called the police and my brother and a few of the
Osborne brothers, our neighbors and friends went looking for them. The police took all the info, the docs checked me out and stitched my lip, said I was battered and bruised but would be ok. My brother and our neighbors didn’t find the gang, but they did find one of the guys, slapped him around and told him to let the rest know that I was out of bounds for them, and if anyone touched me again they would get a beatdown, cuz “Nobody beats up my brother but me!” Thanks again bro…. I think.

A few days later the police arrived to say that they had Lee. They told my parents that I was the lucky one out of 3 kids beat up by them that day. One poor guy was on his way home from a ball game, and Lee used the kids bat to smack him in the side of the head. That poor kid was probably going to be deaf, and suffer brain damage. The other had been beaten to hospitalization as well. Oh lucky me!

For some reason the police never charged him for the assault on me. Some bullshit about him being from an abusive family, and charges already being laid blah blah blah. I don’t give two shits if your from an abusive family, it does not mean you get to go out and abuse others! You should know first hand how horrible it is, and you have the ability to end the cycle of abuse and start new beginnings! It is not a valid excuse! I have learned as I got older that this would effect me for life, both the beating, and not having anything done about it. It definitely taught me that acquaintance’s are not friends, and one needs to learn to protect themselves because there truly are evil people out there that want to hurt innocent people. Thanks for the lesson’s… I think.

The second time I got beatdown by a gang was years later at a rock club in Vancouver. It was a rockin place called Club Soda where through out it’s time I got to meet, gig and party with a lot of rockstars. I was there one night watching the band Smash LA, when a fight broke out on the dance floor. Some guy was getting ready to throw a chair at the band when the singer, Johnny Harley, came flying off the stage and started hammering the guy. A bunch of other guys jumped in, the rest of the band dived in and a brawl broke out. I turned to say something to my buddy Ian, but he was gone. Somebody had grabbed him from behind and sent him headfirst backwards down the back stairwell. I was looking around when all of a sudden something smashed me in the face and I was knocked out. ( I would later find out from a friend who said “wow, couldn’t believe you were getting up after Victor smashed that chair on your face” that that is what happened.) As I came to, I realized I was face down on the floor and a fight was raging all around me. I went to stand up and all I saw was a Dayton Boot tee off on my face knocking me out again. The next thing I remember was being in a back room with ambulance people flashing a light into my eyes asking me questions while they tried to stop my face from bleeding. The chair had put my teeth through my lips and cheek. The boot had closed my right eye and it was so swollen and fat, I could see the swelling with my left eye. They took me to the hospital, where I sat for hours with no attention because I had no medical. At some point some friends showed up to see how I was doing, and decided it would be better to take me home as no one was going to look at me anyway, but I couldn’t leave with out some one to look after me. A doc came over and told them I had a concussion and should not be allowed to sleep, and then he changed a couple of the bandages that the ambulance guys had done and they sent me home.

I had no idea what the future would hold, but I would find out later that a dear friend of mine would have a son with the brother of the guy that laid the boots to me, and Karma would take care of him anyway. He hung himself a few years later at Christmas. Nice Christmas present to leave your wife and kids! This was in an era where cocaine and alcohol ran rampant, steroids were being introduced and freebasing was just starting. I ended up watching a lot of friends and musicians lose everything, including their lives over the next few years.

The last time I got a good beating was many years and 3 kids later. I was living in Richmond, had my kids half time, rotating week by week. I had taken a job as a djay at a nearby strip club for a few years, and when I left the gig I was able to get a couple of friends in there to djay. I was stopping in to visit one of my buddies and say hello. I was hanging with him at the djay booth when we decided to step out. While we were outside I saw a couple of guys come out that I had known when djaying and called them over. They came over and one of them grabbed me by the throat, pushed me up against the wall and started punching me in the face talking about me owing someone money, that I had ripped these guys off and was going to pay. I gotta say, it took me by surprise! It also took my buddy by surprise. He went to step in and the other guy grabbed him and said stay out of it. I told the guy that was punching me in the face that he had the wrong guy. He said “wrong answer!” and punched me again. It is amazing how many things go through your mind when you are confronted with something traumatic and violent. I had known this guy through the bar, and knew he was a tuff guy with biker connections, and could tell that even though he was punching me in the face it wasn’t as hard as he could. He punched me a few more times yelling “When are you going to pay them back!” I kept saying “you have the wrong guy!” and he would punch me a few more times and yell “wrong answer!” Lot’s of things went through my mind, the first being “How stupid are you? Your standing there in front of me with your legs spread apart and your nuts wide open, if I knee you in the balls and then gouge your eyes out… !” Then “‘If ya do that this is gonna escalate big time, and it is not you he even wants! He is looking for an answer, give him what he wants to hear… ” And then I heard myself say “Ok Ok, I will pay, I will pay!” He released his clamp on my neck and asked “when?” I said as soon as I can, how much do I owe?” He said “2000 dollars and you better pay it soon or I am coming back! Nobody rips off my friends!” I said to him, your gonna feel pretty stupid when you find out I am actually the wrong guy! He said “Just fucken pay so I don’t have to do it again!” Then him and his buddy went back into the bar. My buddy looked at me and said “What the fuck just happened? Who did you rip off?” I looked at him smiled and said “He has the wrong guy!” My buddy asked why I said I would pay? I told him it was the magic words! That was all he was listening for and it worked, he let me go. My face was bruised, swollen and bloody, and my buddy said “I have to go back inside and djay, do you want me to call an ambulance?” I said “No, I have been beaten way worse by worse guys, I will survive!” We both walked into the club, he went to the djay booth and I headed over to the bar where my friends were working. They took one look at me and asked what had happened. I told them, and they went and told the guy that had punched me out, that I was the wrong guy. Yes my name was Steve, yes I had djayed at the club, but no I wasn’t the one that had ripped off the guys. I had been right, he felt pretty stupid! I went to the bathroom and cleaned up the blood, saw how bad my face was and decided I should just go home. This happened in early December. I was having a tough year financially and had come to the conclusion it would be a very slim Christmas for me and my kids. I was kinda running in the downer mood category, bumming that I couldn’t find enough gigs to make things more comfortable, but knowing we would get by. It was about a week before Christmas, I had wrapped up the few small presents that I could afford and put them under the tree. It was a lonely week, as the kids were at their moms that week. I would sit out by the tree and look at the presents and pray that I would have an awesome Christmas with my kids and the presents didn’t matter! It did, to me, and I have to say I felt like a failure father! It was in the late afternoon just before Christmas, when I heard a knock at my door. When I answered it I was surprised to see the guy that had punched me out. He said sorry over and over and I told him it was ok. He had the wrong guy but he was just trying to help his buddies that had been ripped off. It was all good! He asked me to come out to his car, and he proceeded to pull out a huge pile of presents, including a giant white teddy bear! He told me that he couldn’t take back what he had done, but that he could try to make Christmas good for my kids! I actually cried! I thanked him and shook his hand. It ended up being an awesome Christmas for the family. The kids got a pile iof presents, and they even got to give their mother a giant white teddy bear which made them extra excited. They were so happy, it still brings tears of joy to my eyes.

When I told my friend Gord Foster what had happened I said “Man, if all I gotta do is take a few punches in the head for my kids to have an awesome Christmas.. I will roll with the punches!”
Gord looked at me and said “Seasons Beatings!” and we laughed and laughed, and every year we still laugh!

Love and light always!

Lately people have been telling me that I am brave and courageous for writing my blog. I thank you for the kind words, but I am neither. I am just another person trying to live, love and learn. I am you!

What you see in me is a reflection of yourself. You are brave and courageous! I am no different than you! I am just writing down my truth. It helps me to organize the endless chatter going on in my head, and if it can help some one going through something similar, why would I not help? If I can help someone to better understand a situation, why would I not? That is one of our most valuable resources! Helping, sharing, loving, that is life! The real brave and courageous people are the ones continuing to struggle with depression, addiction and mental health issues! To those of you I freely give my love, compassion and understanding. ❤️💕❤️💕

As many of you know, my year started out pretty harsh, and surrounding circumstance caused me to fall back into that ever waiting darkness we call depression. After I had my meltdown, and I realized where I was, I decided to use my analytical self to become the watcher. I started to analyze the voices chattering in my head. I started to look around at my depression. I started to analyze the walls of the prison I was building for my brain. I would watch as pressure would mount, the walls close in and the room get smaller, the chattering getting louder and the fear more over whelming. I analyzed the vibrations I felt and the vibrations I created.

What I discovered is that the deeper I allowed myself to fall, the more I came alive! It opened my ability to be sensitive and understanding of situations that I previously could not! It opened me to a level of love and pain that was previously unattainable. What I did not understand was the universe was giving me what I had been praying and asking for.

Until that point I could not understand my daughters situation. I would get mad when discussing or thinking about the addiction and the drugs. I would close my mind because I was incapable of resonating at the frequency of love and understanding that is required to help and support a person with addiction depression or mental health issues. I could learn about them and talk about them, but I could not feel them or resonate with them. They were not part of my truth. Boy did the fricken change!

When I would find myself crying, I quit analyzing why I was crying. I buried myself in my tears, I welcomed them, i bathed myself in the emotion that immersed my soul at those moments. I felt the beauty of being able to feel those depths of love and despair. As far as we can fall, we have the ability to climb.

I was experiencing emotions and frequencies previously untouchable by me. I took joy in the ability to feel the vibrations of the depression. The people that fall the farthest resonate with an overabundance of universal love! Their chatter in their heads is so overwhelming that it masks their ability to hear and feel it in their own lives. A great example of this is Robin Williams. He resonated, vibrated and shared so much love he lit up a planet, but it was being delivered from an endless pit of depression. How is that possible if he was not buried and immersed in universal love?

A few years ago a friend committed suicide. She was a beautiful soul, she was a singer, a dancer, a performer and an actor. One of the greatest roles she ever played, was the smiling happy beautiful girl smiling and generating happiness everywhere she would go. Little did we know that she to was delivering from the pit of despair and depression. Everyone loved her, she made you smile immediately. Unfortunately the chatter in her head would not allow her to surround herself with that same love, and now We only get to enjoy her company in memory! We all love and miss you Kimmy!

Please if you are reading this and are battling depression, addiction or mental health problems, please ask for help. There is so much love in this universe and you only need to ask! I love you, we love you, the universe loves you!

If you are reading this and know someone going through troubled times, please share this with them, love them and believe in them.

May your day be filled with peace love and understanding! I am truly humbled and honored to be able to share my mindless chatter with you!

As some of you may know myself and my family have been going through a rough time for the past while. I know that everyone has them, and ours are no more or no less than anyone else’s.

I have generally been a pretty positive and loving person for my whole life, other than a period during my divorce. My first experience dealing with depression happened when my ex and I split up and our family was broken. I had always thought of myself as the guy that could fix things, and when I discovered that I wasn’t a superman I was just another crazy guy in a cape I really wasn’t ready for it. I had spent my whole life believing I was one thing and when I discovered I wasn’t, my brain didn’t know how to take it. I got served divorce papers that as I read them they talked about this horrible abusive person, and I was getting mad at that person as I read more and more. When I got to the end, I realized that it was me…. I was being accused of being that horrible guy! My brain started to analyze everything, my past my present and my future. I started to doubt who I was, and investigate and research whether I actually was this horrible abusive person.

That was the beginning of my downward spiral. My brain had a really hard time putting the pieces together, and as more papers came it made me out to be worse and worse. I was being told that I wasn’t a worthy father, and didn’t deserve the right to have my children or any say over their lives. At the time my doubting self started to believe all the stuff being said, and my spiral down got worse. It was all new to me. I found myself bummed out, always in my head with too much info that I couldn’t comprehend. I found myself crying, and while crying I would be thinking to myself “I don’t feel like crying, what the hell! Suck it up Princess, your the “Mayhem”, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the game!” Except I couldn’t. I had no idea what was going on in my head or my life. Things got worse and worse for me as the days passed. I found myself arguing with the voices in my head, and constantly bursting into tears. I found I didn’t want to socialize with or talk to anyone. Things went bad at my job, and I started to get buried under mass pressure from upper management, and really found I had no place to go to get away from my life. What I found was I couldn’t make any decisions, because I was unsure what was right or wrong to do, so I tried to do nothing and make no decisions.

It was a Thursday evening and I decided to go downtown and just wander around, observing and thinking. I stopped in at a little club ion Granville street and decided to have a few drinks. I stayed for a while, and had a few too many. I decided to do some walking so I started over the Granville bridge. As I was crossing the bridge one of Mayhem’s bright ideas was “Hey, let the universe work things out for you. You should walk the railing, if it is suppose to end here, you will fall into the water, if it isn’t suppose to end you will make it across.” Not the smartest idea, but hey I was swimming in depression and had no idea! Amazingly I actually was able to walk the railing, and when I look at that railing now, I wonder how I didn’t fall. It is not a flat railing, and I had to work my way around light posts. When I got to the middle, one of the voices in my head, which I have since named Captain Stupid (he is the voice with the dumb ideas), suggested that I just end it all and jump! I stood on the rail holding on to a lamp post, and stared down into the water. Captain Stupid was gabbing away, and I noticed there was another voice in my head arguing with Captain Stupid. If there is two voices in my head arguing, who the hell is listening?

As I stood there staring down at the water a vision of my 3 kids appeared. The 2nd voice said to me, “Your writing the story of their father. You are about to write the ending. Is this the story you are going to leave for your kids to tell? The story of their father is gonna end with you leaving your kids with “my dad committed suicide? ”

Look around you, whether you jump or whether you get down off this railing, everything has already changed! If you are ready to die, then who can hurt you anymore? Tell everyone to F off, and get fighting for your children! They need their father. Go ahead and hate yourself, but you don’t have the right to hate their father.” Everything was different from that moment! That voice let me see a different perspective. I jumped down off the railing and walked home.

The next day I went to my doctor and told him what had happened, how I was feeling and that I would randomly break into tears, and that I couldn’t seem to fix myself. He called a psychiatrist while I was there and they started discussing me and my situation and the fact I had contemplated suicide. They came to the conclusion that I was clinically depressed and discussed putting me in the hospital. It was at this point that I informed them that I was still in the room. They decided to include me in the conversation, and I suggested that now that I knew what was going on, and that any thoughts of suicide were not going to be acted upon, as that was why I was there, that the doc could give me some happy pills and I would go home and learn about clinical depression, do some work and would come back in a couple of days and we would discuss things again. I went home and started surfing the internet for info on clinical depression. I learned that it is a brutal place for a person to be, but that there were things I could do. I started taking melatonin, 5htp, multivitamins, and changed my diet to a healthier format, with more veggies, fruit and juice. I started exercising, I started walking, lots. I would walk for hours on end, along the waters edge, acknowledging the water, the sky, the birds, and myself. I started doing affirmations.

When I went to the docs a few days later he said I was doing really well. That I was still depressed but he didn’t think I was in that desperate clinical state anymore. He set me up with a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and my healing began. The shitty thing was, my family was still broken up, I had lost my job, and I still didn’t have any rights to my kids.

It didn’t matter, it just meant I had to get to work for the sake of my children and their father. After meeting with various lawyers I realized that I didn’t have the finances for one, and that I didn’t like the way they wanted to make things confrontational. Nobody wins in a divorce. Everyone loses, some one might get all the stuff, but stuff is just stuff, it can be replaced. What matters is the family, the children and the energy that is passed and thrown around during the timeframe that it takes to get things worked out.

I decided I would have to be my own lawyer, (I know, a person that represents himself has a fool for a client!). I bought a copy of the divorce act and the family relations act and buried myself in learning them inside out. I started going to divorce court regularly, watching custody case after custody case. I would go and stand behind lawyers as they would discuss their clients and the divorce. What I learned was that if you want to know the real legal meaning of words, you needed to have access to a dictionary called “Blacks Law Dictionary.” It was way too expensive for me to get a copy but I found out there was one at the law library downtown. You cant take it out, but you can use it there. It is the only real meanings to words that have bearings on our lives, and the definitions of lots of words are not anything like the dictionaries that you get for English class. I also learned that a lot of lawyers (not all) are pretty scummy manipulative people. They try to keep both parties angry at each other, fighting, and not speaking to each other. The bigger the fight, the more the anger, the longer it will take to settle things, and of course more money they will make.

While reading the family relations act and the divorce act I learned something profound. Every where in the acts it would talk about everything having to be in the best interest of the child or children. Something I was not seeing put into practice in the courts. I discovered it was because of the lawyers. If one does or says something not in the best interest of the children, nobody does or says anything about it, so it wont be stopped. Someone has to stand up for the kids or they will lose. It was at that point that I figured something out. I would not represent myself, I did not know what was right for me, but I did know what was right for the children. I had been studying and learning that. I decided that I would represent and fight for my children’s rights. These rights are fully documented and written in the court room rule books. I learned that I had magic words I could use whenever the judge and my exes lawyer would talk and try to make decisions. When the judge would turn to me after stating his piece and ask if I understood?, I would reply “No. Can you please explain how that is in the best interest of my children?” If they couldn’t it would get changed to something that was in the best interest of my kids. I learned to start saying “my children have the right to…” and keep my focus on them. If it is good and right for them, how can it be wrong for me?

I also discovered that every judgement made in court in the last few years was accessible on the internet. I went crazy! I downloaded every judgement that my judge had made in every divorce custody case in the last two years. I then went through them piece by piece, finding anything that was similar to ours. I highlighted everything that I agreed with. I went through hundreds of documents and thousands of pages. When I was done I typed out everything I had highlighted in wordperfect. (Microsoft word wasn’t out yet). After I had everything typed out I began to rearrange everything into a document. It took me weeks to accomplish this, but by the time I was done I had a document that I felt was in the best interest of my kids, was fare to my ex and myself and gave my ex some options for custody arrangements all in the children’s best interest. The best thing was that it was all in my judges own word, from decisions that he had already made.

In the end it worked out just fine. The kids got a fair judgement in their best interest, and I worked my way out of that pit of depression with the words “I am never going there again!” Famous last words right?

Well return to now… I have identical twin daughters that have been struggling with addiction off and on for the past few years. Someone at a party introduced them to “Oxys”. It ends up they were fake oxy and real fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate that is 80x stronger than heroin. Take everything you know about heroin, heroin addiction and heroin addicts… Now times that by 80! Really!!! We are in the midst of a huge opiate epidemic and people are dying at an incredible rate from it. I have been trying to help my girls, get help for my girls, and get them to get help for themselves. One has overdosed 4 times, once having to be brought back to life and the other has overdosed as well. They have lost friends to the drug, and they have held their friends and their own sister trying to keep them alive until help arrives. One has been through detox 3 times and the other one twice. I have watched them try to get clean, go through detox and have no where to go after detoxing. They got put on a list for rehab and told to phone 3 to 4x a week to remain on the list and in 6 to 8 weeks they would probably get in. Really! You expect a drug addict on something 80x stronger than heroin to be successful? Really? I just can’t see it.

I stayed on my girls, trying everything I could think of or learn, to try to help them. It was brutal on the heart and soul. It still is, they are still struggling. They went to detox at thanksgiving, and were on lists waiting for phone calls to go to detox. 3 months later they were still waiting for calls when the dog attack happened. See my first couple of blog posts for that debacle. I almost lost one of the girls to the attack! It was brutal and she almost bled out.
So here I am, having almost lost my daughters numerous times, they still are not in rehab. They are still struggling addicts, but at least they are still struggling and not dead. At some point after the dog attack, and a couple of years of dealing and fighting with the addicts, dealing with the aftermath of the attack, the mass publicity that went along with it, then the publicity of the girls being drug addicts and the wave of haters, the fighting with the system while screaming for help, and just being a caring loving father seeing his girls so brutally injured, judged, hated and struggling, all of a sudden I found myself back in that pit of depression.

I found myself in the middle of a breakdown. Funnily enough, I posted the breakdown on Facebook! Boy was I broken! Some of you may have seen the video. It was only up for an hour. A friend of mine sent me a message telling me I should take it down, that I was broken and needed to fix myself for my kids! I took his advice after watching the video, and seeing it had been shared over 800x in an hour. I realized I was wallowing in that pit of depression. Thank you Darrell for the advice.

Depression is a horrible place to be. You doubt yourself, you doubt your whole being, your brain just wont shut up and it isn’t saying good things! That is when Captain Stupid says all sorts of brutal things to hurt you. It physically and mentally destroys you from the depths of your soul outwards. You don’t feel like asking for help, you don’t feel like getting out of bed, you don’t feel like talking to anyone, you start getting sick it is a brutal dark place to be, and I know there are people out there way way worse off than me.

To those people fighting depression I say “I love you! Please please please go ask for help! Don’t just rely on the happy pills that the docs are so quick to prescribe. Walk, walk, walk, get out into nature where your body can resonate with real life energy rather than the vibrations of a concrete jungle. Eat healthy foods. Drink healthy drinks take healthy supplements. Talk to someone! Get help. If you get thoughts of suicide do not act on them. From the moment you have that thought of suicide, all things are truly different in your life. If you are already willing to die, then how can the pressures and things that got you to that point hurt you anymore? That is the time for a new beginning, not a sad ending! I love and respect you!”

They put Yogi down yesterday. It was a sad day for a lot of people, and the day for the start of a lot of healing for others hopefully.  The haters made sure that my daughters knew they were hatin. They made sure they spewed negativity at them. Saying things like “I wish the dog would have killed you!” “Saw the photos of the your wounds, too bad he didn’t get your face too!” and other hurtful ignorant things. I went over to visit my girls last night and they were hurting. Kati was extremely upset, and emotional.

What everyone forgets is that she too loved Yogi. She doesnt know why he turned on her, all she knows is that he did. Most of the pictures used for the “save yogi” campaign were her photos. She had loved Yogi like he was her own dog, and having him attack like he did was brutal enough on her physically and mentally, I cant imagine having to put up with the haters too.

Kati said to me last night “What they all don’t understand, is that everything they are going through, so am I! I loved yogi more than they did. I feel all the same feelings as them, and I get to deal with being hated by them For something that Yogi did that was beyond my control. I didnt want this! I didnt ask to be ripped apart. I just wish he would have killed me so everyone could be happy!”

Wow! How messed up is that! My heart aches when I see the pain that radiates from her broken heart and soul! All I can do is love her and tell her that this too shall pass. She is covered with physical scars, she is suffering from emotional scars, and as if that isnt enough she has to deal with the negative energy of the haters, compounding everything she is already going through! Wow! I don’t wish that on anyone. It hurts my heart just to see it, I cant’t imagine living through it! Wow! So for today I am sending extra love and healing energy to the girls and all who need it. Love and light my friends!