My Story

Four months before my 18th birthday I woke up shaking, heart pounding, convinced I was going to die. I had no clue that what I was experiencing was my very first panic attack.

Over the next twenty years I suffered with panic attacks, anxiety, depression and obsessive/intrusive thoughts. Early on I benefited from in person Talk Therapy and from a self-help CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) program, which I stumbled onto on a late night infomercial.

After some time I discovered EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and PSTEC (Percussive Suggestion Technique), which helped me overcome a fear of flying. All these techniques had certainly diffused the spikes of panic and while my underlying anxiety persisted, I was more or less able to live a relatively normal life. I got married, found a dream career in screenwriting, hobnobbing with A listers and enjoyed traveling and spending time with family and friends. I thought I had finally made it. I remember laying in bed one night and thinking I had “fixed” the issue of panic as I hadn’t experienced a panic attack in 8 years.

I didn’t recognize it at the time, but the underlying anxiety I didn’t resolve were from past traumas and as the pressure increased in my career, it subconsciously activated those traumas and slowly raised my level of anxiety.

How do you boil a frog? Put it in cold water and slowly raise the temperature so it doesn’t jump out. How do you boil a creative person with unresolved trauma? Put him in Hollywood, have him say yes to every crumb of opportunity, ignore his intuition and stuff down every rejection with a smile. I never even noticed the temperature go up.

My obsessive thoughts grew unbearable. I sank into a depression. I couldn’t do my work. And eventually the panic attacks returned with a vengeance. By the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic I was a wreck and the lockdown wiped out any illusion that I was doing “fine.”

I got addicted to Xanax (with no history of any addiction), lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks and found myself in the midst of a nervous breakdown. I didn’t want to die, but if I were to somehow cease existing, I thought, that would be simpler. I couldn’t do meditation, breathing techniques or yoga. Nothing was working. I remember one clear afternoon crying in a ball on the floor that I was tired of working on myself. I was tired of seeing myself as broken. I was done trying so hard. It all seemed so hopeless at the time, but I now consider that moment my awakening.

Coming off Xanax, a highly addictive benzodiazepine, was the single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. My wife had to hold me down in bed to prevent me from calling her seven-month pregnant pharmacist friend for reassurance. But the combination of suffering I had gone through gifted me a new perspective on life. I kept coming back to this belief I discovered in the depths of my despair— “I’m done trying to fix myself, there is nothing wrong with me.”

It felt different than previous self-discoveries. I didn’t just think it. I felt it with my entire body. Little did I know this was my entryway to healing.

About this time I discovered the gentle teachings of self-compassion by Tara Brach and with the help of my psychologist and a low dose of SSRIs I began to recover my body and mind.

The biggest strides in my healing journey were made through Inner Child Work and Re-Parenting. This is where a therapist, coach or healer connects you directly with the hurt inner-child in your subconscious so you can bring in the healing and love you never received. This is precisely how I was able to heal old traumas.

Becoming intimate with my fears melted them away and meeting the part of me that could hold all my fears in gentle compassion filled my heart with a healing I never experienced before. I still experience stress, but I’m no longer shaken by my emotions. I now known in my bones that I don’t need to do anything or ‘be someone’ to feel love. I can tune into the part of me that’s connected to the Universe and feel love whenever I want.

This has been the most beautiful and freeing experience of my life and I’ve set an intention to share it with those who are suffering. Through my 20+ years of experience with anxiety, depression and OCD I recognize that there is no rubber stamp approach to healing. I know that CBT is helpful in mitigating anxiety, but I’m also aware that it is generally not enough on its own to heal the underlying traumas.

The way into healing is by developing your own healing program. It’s part science, part art. You have to feel out what works for you. But it will go a lot quicker if you begin working directly with your subconscious. This means connecting with your body, developing your listening skills for what your mind-body is telling you, and honing your intuition for how to give yourself what you need.

You don’t need to be suffering from a mental health disorder to try this. This benefits everyone, from students to CEOs to world leaders. Developing self-awareness and self-compassion will allow you to give yourself what you need at any moment in time. And when you witness that you can give yourself what you want you will discover an inner resilience you never thought possible.