Sep 24, 2023
Brandon returns to the Better Weather podcast with stories ofhis past two years dealing with the highs and lows of his battlewith mental health. A journey that began after episode 11, adecision to enter rehab, and ultimately a path to salvation andself love. Follow with me as I try to share this human experience,and hopefuly you can relate in some way.
Welcome back to the Better Weather podcast. It is your host,Brandon Leith. Been a little bit for some of you if you'refollowing along. Last episode was episode 11 with Ella Kasiba.Right now we're starting episode 12. If you're paying attention tothe dates, you'll notice that it's been some little bit of time.Last episode we recorded June 7th, 2021 with Ella and today isSeptember 23rd, 2023. So I feel like I owe you an explanation. Ifeel like I owe it to this podcast if the reason I started it wasto really be open and vulnerable. When I talk about mental healthand my journey through that, and truth be told, during that periodof this podcast, probably episodes 5 through 11, things weren'tgoing great. The podcast was helping. I was able to talk aboutthings and that's that's a really a a great part of this. It's kindof like therapy for myself, but sometimes that therapy isn't quiteenough.
I've gone through a journey with trying out antidepressants, Iwould say unsuccessfully for the most part. I think up to thispoint, I'd probably tried five or six of them and that's a prettybig undertaking because the ramp up. On these medicines is kind ofa little little bit of time, time, days or so to kind of reallyfeel what's going on. Then you kind of assess how you feel and thenif it's not great, you can take some medications for side effectsor just take that, take that medicine down and try a new one. It'sa very long, drawn out process and it's very hard on an individual.I was kind of going through this during that middle part of thepodcast and adding more medicines on for the side effects that Iwas experiencing and I was slowly crumbling and so I just want totalk about that. I want to talk about where I had to go, what kindof happened. I'll be back here definitely for several episodesbecause I have a whole lot of things to tell you guys and I'mhonestly really excited to tell you about it. The stories areprobably going to be a little bit dark leading up to it, but but Ipromise you, we're leading up to a great ending. So let's just kindof jump into it.
These Ssri's were making my life fall to pieces. I was becomingto the point where I was unable to work. My job was becomingincredibly difficult for me to even just regularly function. Icouldn't organize tasks in my day. For a lot of you that have beenlistening along, you know, I kind of work in the corporate world. Iown a CrossFit gym and I kind of do both throughout the day.Obviously I have a lot of help. My wife helps tremendously with thegym, but still, it's a pretty long day and it doesn't allow for awhole lot of free time. Now, is it all bad? No. I work remote. I'mnot complaining, but I probably am doing too much. Well, throw inthese medicines. Throw in the lack of sleep that I was getting fromthese medicines. My legs were going crazy. I was having restlessleg syndrome which was making me wake up almost every hour, everysingle night. So that lack of sleep was just building and buildingand simultaneously I was using cannabis. As a lot of you know, Italk a lot about how open I am with my use of that and and interesthonestly in in using it as a medicine. Now during this time, I wasreally using it as any way to make myself sleep by. That's the onlyway I can describe it and it it was helping for that. And then Iwould notice during the day I would have these huge crying boutswhere I would cry like 3 * a day uncontrollably. I would sleep tomaybe just make it all end. I would just force myself to kind oflay down. And
then when I needed to kind of focus, I found that cannabis washelping with that. It would it would kind of calm things down forwhatever reason. And I know if you if you don't really subscribe tothat, I can understand how crazy that sounds. But, I mean, anybodycould attest to it. They could see how I could actually function.Now, was that healthy? Probably not. It's definitely not somethingI even wanted to do. It got to the point where I didn't even wantto do that. I just didn't know what else to do. I was just, I waslike screaming for help. And it was the only thing that would makeme kind of function for that 30 minutes or 45 minutes that it wouldlast. Well, work was starting to start, starting to take notice.Management was like, hey, what's going on with Brandon? And it wasbecoming harder to hide it from them. Well, that slowly started tospill into my kids even starting to notice. Leslie's obviously veryinvolved in noticing and doing her best to try to understand it,but it it's it's it's almost too much for anyone to kind of dealwith. When it comes to the point where I was at, it was becomingharder to hide it from the kids. They were starting to notice. Myfriends were starting to notice. I was canceling plans. I was justacting. I was acting odd and you could see it on people's faces,and there's nothing worse than when people can see it because youstart to kind of feel crazy. And I'm just sitting there and all ofthis guilt is just building because here I am fixing to leaveLeslie is the way I wasn't. I wasn't thinking about her leaving methere. I was thinking about leaving her with all of theseresponsibilities
and in my chaos brain, understanding that if the roles werereversed, I don't think that I could handle it.
Handling the daytoday with the kids and work and just not havingyour person there and her being under all of this stress,
it it made it so difficult because I knew that although I wasgoing to be going through a lot, being here, she was going to begoing through just as much. She didn't have the luxury of escapingall the daily stressors. She now had to take on 100% of ourresponsibilities. And at the same time knowing that your partner isstruggling so much and there's nothing you can do to help. And andthat sat with me. And to this day, it's something that I thinkabout daily, The amount of strength and compassion and love thatshe had to have
to get us through this dark period of time in our lives. And tothis day, I'm so forever grateful for her for that. It reallyculminate. One of the biggest things that it really culminated withis a friend of mine and his wife had a baby and that baby passedaway at birth
and he's a great friend of mine. The funeral was coming up. Wewere obviously set to go, and this was probably two days before theevent that I'll fix and talk about happened. I I just completelycrumbled
and I felt so ashamed that I couldn't be there for my friend inhis time of need. And I don't think I'll ever forgive myself forthat. But I just couldn't go. One day went by that next day was acomplete nightmare. And then the following day I could tell Lesliehad something on her mind and she wanted to talk to me and shesaid, hey, I want you to sit down, I want to talk to you aboutsomething and and I could almost feel what she was fixing to tellme, she said, Brandon, I don't know how to help right now. I needhelp helping you and I think we're going to have to put you in a amental health facility for a period of time and hearing that is forme. It was just so soul crushing. I don't know how else to describeit. Even though I was going through a lot of turmoil. I guess youstill don't think you're at that point and and to hear that that ison the table was just I I felt a fell to pieces because you'reimmediately thinking, hey I don't want to go do this. How am Igoing to deal with work? People are going to find out how am Igoing to explain this to my kids? But at the same time, I didn'twant to put this on my family anymore. And I knew the only thing Icould do was say yes, I I'm going to have to go to rehab. So yeah,that's where that's where I had to go. Now. I wasn't there theentire time. Obviously I I didn't just get out by any means. But Ido want to tell
you that story about what that that was like. It was a greatexperience. I I say great it it was it it saved me. Was it a greatexperience. Now you're going to hear a lot about those details. Ijust wanted to use this first episode back to just tell you thatstory.
So here we go. Let's start packing. So I have to originally kindof figure out a how long am I planning on and going to do this. Ithink in the very beginning, the way this was set up, this we,Leslie had found a place that was towards, I'm in the Austin area,this was kind of out towards San Antonio. I'm thinking aboutmentioning the place because I it it did, it was it was an amazingplace. So I'm still debating on whether I want to do that or not.But she had researched it because they had a couple of key things.It was what they call a dual treatment facility. So at thisparticular place, they treat
mental health and then they also treat alcohol and narcotics. Sothey offer training classes, therapy, a couple of specializedtherapy for mental health as well, which was really interesting,which is why Leslie kind of found this place. And the plans theyoffered were a 30 day, a 60 day and a 90 day, just depending uponhow long you needed to stay. Now, I could exit this place at anytime and that was a huge thing for me is I didn't want to be heldsomewhere. I wanted to be there on my own free will. But at thesame time, when you're going to this place, you're kind of thereunder the assumption that you can't just walk off the premises, Youknow, a conversation needs to be had. So I start packing. You know,I'm packing for 30 days trying to think of what do you take to thisplace? You know what, what am I, what am I going to be doing? Whatam I going to be wearing? Why am I even concerned about that? Itwould the whole thing was kind of a blur to be quite honest withyou
attacking snacks and food like you're going to onvacation
and your stomach is just turning because you know this day isapproaching you know three days away. I know that this is coming upso I have to make some phone calls. I have to actually call my worktalk to my boss and and and that went better than you would haveexpected. Fortunately, working for a corporation like this, thereare plans in place for people that need help in this way and I'mvery thankful for that. My boss was incredibly understanding.There's plans offered that you can kind of keep your your your payand not have to worry about that for that short period of time. SoI'm so thankful to God for that and so thankful for that companyfor that. So the day came and I said goodbye to the kids. The nightbefore they had stayed at another their grandparents house becauseI didn't want them to be there that day that I left.
And I'd sat there the night before and I'd written some notes tothem for them to read while I was gone. Just, you know, somethingfor them to not now Remember Me by, but just, you know,
something for them to have every day. And that final goodbyewith him was was was so heart wrenching,
you know, they knew I was going to get help. I don't think theyquite understood exactly what it was, but yeah, that was that wasrough.
The next day, the morning of. It's just dumb as it is. I didn'tknow what else to do. I remember sitting outside and and trying toescape because I knew at least maybe, maybe smoking one last jointwould would calm me down. And I remember how sad that was sittingoutside my backyard waiting to do that and the drive quite like anhour and a half drive and it seemed like one of the longest drivesof my life.
And you I can remember my stomach just turning as we weregetting closer and closer
not knowing what was ahead of me and and we pull into this placeand and kind of describing it I I it was we're in Central Texas andso this place was not like your fancy LA rehab that you're youmight be thinking of this was more like think of like a summer campas a kid if you ever did that where out here just amongst the cedartrees but it's like log cabin kind of set up I I guess you couldsay just a bunch of different buildings spread out throughout thislike like like a summer camp out in the woods kind of set up Iguess you're the best way to describe it but it was not a summercamp actually funny story is the place used to be a camp for kids Ithink Boy Scouts or something along those lines and then now it's anow it's a rehab facility so
we pulled up and we're sitting outside and this is right whenyou know COVID was still still pretty crazy I guess you could say.So they came out and they were going to give me my COVID test, theone and only COVID test I think I've taken since the pandemicstarted.
So they swabbed me and went inside. And that was kind of my lastfew moments with Leslie, and she didn't really know what I wasgoing to be going into. Antidepressants are wild. It's weird thatwhen you start taking them, you know, the goal is obviously to makesome sort of change, but it's wild to see when your brain is makingthat change. It's almost like you don't even realize it's happeningand and I found myself with several of different medicines justbecoming someone that I didn't even know.
And it's weird because you slowly start to lose your sense ofself because it's almost constantly trying to change or evolve.And
it became so frustrating and scary, honestly, just feeling likeyou're not in the right body, if that makes sense.
I felt so out of control. I I, I I wish I could really put itinto words. I was becoming this person that I didn't even know. Iwas having constant like panic attack moments where you'd feel likeyour whole body is on fire and you're just, you're just shaking andyou just don't know you want to escape. Like I'd find myself justwalking around the house at a super fast pace, just in such a stateof confusion and not knowing how to make it stop. You'd wake up inthe morning and you would almost sense it. You could tell hey, thisday is not going to be good
and it just would set the tone for the entire day. And it's sodefeating to wake up in the morning and just feel this, you know,wet blanket of chaos, I guess just laying over you. You don't evenwant to get out of bed
because it's like it's futile. Like there's nothing that you'regoing to do to change it.
And you become
such a different person inside. And your family and friends,they see you and they see that same Brandon, but they something'soff
and all. And all I wanted to do was just put on this, this, thisface so I could trick everybody, I guess. But you can only do thatfor so long. And it's really, it was really starting toshow.
I I would find myself at a point where I was so tired of Leslieseeing me that way, because I could just feel how scared she was toto see me wear this on my face, this feeling of despair.
And so I would leave. I would leave the house. I would justdrive around, which probably wasn't the safest thing to do in theworld, but it was almost like I was physically running away from myproblems. My problems were in my head, but that was the only thingthat I could think to do.
And I just felt so bad for Leslie. Just you don't. That's that'syour person. We've been together since high school
and all of the sudden I'm a different person.
And not only am I a different person, I am. I'm not able to evenfunction as this new person. Leslie almost had to take on amothering role for me, which is something that we're still workingon, because she was put into this position where she had no choicebut to almost treat me like one of the kids. Because I was. I washonestly way more of a handful than the our our teenage kids. I wasworse than a toddler.
It was one of the most helpless feelings I think I've ever felt,and dealing with that as a man, you just go into this shame cyclebecause this is not how a man is supposed to act. It shouldn't bejust crying all the time. It was absolutely insane. But it camebecame so normal. I mean, half the time my eyes were bloodshot andI didn't know if it was because of the weed or because of mecrying. It just became kind of a normal look to me.
We had had a quick tour of the facility a few days before, so Iactually got to go out there and see it. Nothing really soaked in.They come back. I can see them coming out to tell me that I'm freeof COVID. Actually, the one time I was hoping I got COVIDright.
And I could just remember looking at Leslie just like with suchdefeat, just like you feel like you really let a lot of peopledown. And, you know, a lot of it was caused by some of themedicines and things that I couldn't control. But at the same time,you still felt a lot of responsibility, especially as the the manof the household, the dad, the owner of the gym, the guy who'salways smiling, the guy who always talks about on podcasts aboutmental health. And here you are in front of her rehab facility.Yeah, it's it's weird. I'm I'm just it as I'm taught, this is thefirst time I've really talked about it out loud. And it's just,it's taking me right back to it, which is, it was weird. It'sprobably good, but it's weird nonetheless. So bear with me here alittle bit. I give Les that final hug, like I don't ever want tolet go. And they take me inside and they're nice people. They'resuper nice people. They sit me down in this front room and thefirst thing I have to do is go and pee in a cup because we've gotto see, you know what, what's in your system. I've never beenarrested before, so I've never really had to have someonephysically stand there and watch me pee into a cup.
But it was pretty rough. I mean, I know that sounds dumb, butit's it really started to soak in. I think there, because that wasmy first intro into this place, was what was was being treated likeI was a a prisoner, I guess you could say. You know what? So we goin, they assign you to your room and the first few days and arehabilitation for most people, they do detox. So you're in a roomsolo and those first few days you're not really expected to do awhole lot. A lot of people in there are detoxing off of alcohol,heroin, pills, pretty much the same thing, as we knownow,
but they're not really required to do a whole lot. And I waskind of treated the same way, which it was really fortunate becauseI knew ultimately I was going to get a roommate assigned to me.This whole situation was crazy anyway. But to be also thrown inwith another person, and I know this is horrible to say, but you'relike, this is another addict, you know, whatever they're addictedto. But I, you know, I don't want another to be dealing withanother unstable person. That's kind of the way I was looking at itwhen I went in. The goal originally was to get off all mymedications or you know, right off the bat. And we kind of startedthat immediately. So when I went in, they asked you what medicinesyou're on. You get to see a psychiatrist, They can throw somesuggestions out there for things that they think might help you.And I wish I could remember the name of the medicine I did takewhile I was there. It was a very, I think it was almost like anover the counter thing for anxiety and I would take that in theevenings. But other than that, the goal was to get all the medicineout of my system. I I was pretty much at a point where I was like,this is not not working for me. And while I'm in here, I want touse this as a time to detox off of. Because what better place toget off than the place where you don't have to worry about anythingelse in life. But at the same time, I'm also just coming off coldTurkey, essentially, which if you've ever done that before, it'sit's a little little challenging. It's not not the easiest thing inthe world,
but that's what we were going to do. So let's talk a little bitabout the routine so you can know what what it's like. Those firstfew days after I, I went through these this what they call detoxprocess where you just kind of meander around for the first fewdays, meet some people. You kind of walk to the classes that you'regoing to be going through in the mornings when you wake up, youkind of go out into this main kind of lobby area where there is aTV in there and they do play the news in the morning, but that'spretty much the only exposure to TV you have. Also, I failed tomention this earlier. You had to obviously leave your phone withoutside, so let's have my phone, No access to that, no access tocomputer. So you can't really do anything outside looking at thator reading a newspaper if they bring in the newspaper. But theyhave this schedule board at the top. It's a TV in this lobby. Whenyou walk in, it kind of has your name as well as everyone else inthe facility, and it shows your schedule. So you checked out in themorning, You have your coffee that's sitting out there. You can gograb a cup of coffee. Coffee is over at 1:00 PM. No coffee andrehab after 1:00 PM. For whatever reason, they don't want you alljacked up.
But I began every morning doing some walks. I'd wake up at 6:00AM and this type of therapy that I was going to be doing there atthis facility is called TMS. Some of you guys might have heard ofthat. It's starting to gain a little bit more popularity. TMSstands for transcranial magnetic stimulation and what it is is aseries of magnetic like balls which they put on your head indifferent areas of your head. So on your right side, your leftside, then on the frontal area where your frontal lobe is, what itdoes is it sends these magnetic like pulses. It sounds like it'sshocking you. That's the sound it sounds like and it really feelslike someone's just tapping on your head. It's not painful, but Iwouldn't say it's the most comfortable thing in the world. But theyoffer that there and they've been offering, they've been doing alot of studies with people with CTE, seeing how it stimulates a lotof these nerve cells in your brain. So they started off that thisone at this particular place is individual transcranial, so it'sITMS. So what they do in the beginning is they do a brain scan,they check out this brain scan and then they use their scientificwhatever to decide what kind of pulses, the level of magneticpulses or stimulation that they're going to apply to this. So thatwas really interesting to get that apparently the my brain scan, Iwish I could remember the actual way to describe it, but my frontallobe was just like flat. Things weren't looking great and theycould definitely see some areas where this could possibly help. Andthere's been a lot of great stories behind this. I do encourage youguys, if you're kind of interested in this TMS transcranialmagnetic stimulation. Look it up, There's a whole lot of stuffabout it. It's not just crazy hippie stuff,
but in the mornings they requested that I get out and I go onwalks in the morning when the moon is still out to get the bluelights. Good for your eyes. It's also really great for sleep. Ididn't really understand that helps with your sleep rhythms, doingthat in the mornings. So part of my goal every morning was to getup, go on these walks, be outside, get this blue light. So I wouldtake my little coffee and I would go on these walks every singlemorning and I would walk through this kind of like trails throughthese cedar trees and I would do it every morning. One morning whenI was walking through, I came up upon this Chapel like area in thewoods. There was this giant cross, and it was made out of like acedar tree. And then surrounding it in like a horseshoe shape wasthese little rocks. And on each of them it had an inscription. Andso I walked over and I started reading them. And there's also likebenches, like a Chapel would be just in the middle of the woods,like a bunch of crazy people set it up or something. It's very, butit was super peaceful for whatever reason. But on these rocks,you'd see a name and you'd see a birth date and you'd see a deathdate. And every one of these was a, you know, a makeshiftgravestone for every person that had come into that facility andthen later passed after leaving. So that was pretty shocking to seebecause the ages of some of these people were just so young. Imean, you're seeing 16 year old kids, but all the way up to 80 yearolds. I mean, it's just, it was just, it was very weird, but Iwould go out there every morning and I would just sit there and I'mnot a religious person that, you know, you guys know this. I'mreally, I don't talk about it that much, but I've never really hadmuch of A spiritual side. I do. I do enjoy going to church with mywife, but I never really got this feeling of God. And and I want tosay that on this podcast because you're going to see, as this storykind of unfolds that change just a little bit. But I always findmyself out sitting in this Chapel every single morning for whateverreason, and I would find so much peace from it. There'd be alwaysan owl out there. I don't see too many owls, but there was an owlout
there, just always Putin. And at that early morning. And I just,I don't know. I would come out there and I started journaling alot. I'm always loved writing. And so part of my morning routinewould be able to journal. I'd be able to escape through that. But Ialso wanted to document everything about what this was going toentail.
So I'd go out there and I would write. And then after a coupleof days, there's these young kids that were there. So I'll starttalking about some of the people that are there. I can't reallymention any names, but there are some, some key. The key peoplethat I met there, this facility had males and females. They wereseparated, it's Coed. They have a women's dorm, I guess you wouldsay, and then a men's and then a bunch of other buildings where allthese classes are held because the classes you go with their Coedclasses. So you're all kind of intermingled, but you're separatedin the evenings.
There were two young kids in there that really kind ofgravitated towards me for whatever reason. I don't know if it wasthe tattoos or my clothes. Whatever it was, they thought I wascool. These are young,
probably 1718 year old kids I guess, face tattoos, ratchettattoos all over their body. You could tell they've been they've,they've seen some stuff in there, younger. I guess their lifedidn't live the cleanest life, I guess. Well, they're in rehab. Sowhat are you going to do? One of them, little Brandon and the otherone, we'll just call them Slim. They would follow me out. It wouldalmost annoy me sometimes because I wanted to just kind of havethese easy walks by myself. But they they they saw me doing, hey,can we can we join you? They want to start drinking coffee and theywanted to walk with me every morning. So we kind of talked about,you know, their history, their experience with drugs, with drugs.Excuse me, with drugs,
pills, friends that they have lost it. It's hearing some ofthese stories from some of these people is just heartbreaking. Butthey would join me on those walks every single morning and and Ikind of grew a liking to them and throughout classes they wouldalways find themselves in the same classes that I was. So it waskind of, it was kind of fun to have, you know, some little, Iguess, friends, some some fans. I guess you could sit inthere.
But there were also a lot of regulars in there, which was veryinteresting to see because there's people in there that know thelayout, they know how to work the system. A lot of people that wereat this particular place actually were railroad workers, which is avery old statement to say they're railroad workers. But therailroad has a plan there. So they send a lot of those peoplethere. And it sounds like a pretty good deal at you. You kind oflearn more stories about some people and some people kind of justgo there just to get away. I kind of found which is veryinteresting, but you know, whatever floats your boat. And I alwaysthought, you know, when talking to some of these people whileyou're in there, it's interesting to see because I noticed thatthere weren't a lot of people in there that were there for mentalhealth. A lot of them were for drugs and alcohol, and over time,after they deep fighting, it hard to deal with the fact that theywere able to leave their addiction outside and mine I brought in. Iguess that's probably a very selfish way of explaining that. But Ifelt like I was struggling so much in there as I was detoxing offof the depressants and still having my brain just telling me all ofthese negative things over and over again, just reinforcingthat.
And then here were these people that once they did go throughthe detox process, they seemed to be handling it okay. And andthat's probably very judgmental for me to say, but I think that'sthat's where my brain was at there. I think I'll just be honestwith you. And so that's what I that's where I was thinking. Butevery morning after these walks would come back, we would have alittle morning routine where the kind of leader of the facilitywhich we called him coach, interesting enough he was a very, veryfit guy. He's the owner of the of the facility and his wife veryfit woman. He actually ran a lot of the athletic classes there.They have like APE thing there which was great for me as as a as abig CrossFit guy. I really wanted a place to kind of be able tohave that outlet to work out and fortunately they offered that andhe's very excited to have us use it. So that was really great. Butwe'd have these little morning meetings, we'd go around the room,we read a prayer, there's a lot of Alcoholics Anonymous
books, quotes, a lot of that materials. What we would go over.You'd also talk about what you were thankful for every day. And andyou would have to do this in this giant circle of probably 60people.
And it was so I hate doing things like that. I hate talking infront of people like that. You wouldn't think so with the being ona podcast, but in front of people that was. And especially in thatsituation, the last thing you want to do is share things thatyou're happy about in rehab. But I noticed over the course of abouta week in there that practice was, I was just looking forward toit. I would be like, oh, this is a great one to bring up tomorrow.I started to really kind of latch on to that for whatever reason. Idon't know why we'd have these morning meetings and then we wouldbreak and we would start to go to our individual classes. And whenyou're in there, you kind of required to go to NA, which isNarcotics Anonymous, a A, which is Alcoholics Anonymous and gothrough those programs. Some of you might be familiar with those.If you're not the 12 steps you're you're really going through that.I think it's very helpful to a lot of people and I even found thattaking out the word alcohol and replacing it with you know, theeffects that I would have or the the causes of my depression andthings like that really made a lot of the material work for me. Youwould also have individualized therapy, which is great. We would dothings like EMDR therapy, which was really very interesting. You'reessentially holding some paddles in your hand. You kind the thetherapist leads you into almost this kind of trance like state andyou're able to almost access traumas or or or things from your pastwithout having them affect you too much. You almost dissociate fromthem, I guess you would say.
So I really look forward to that. We also had my ITMS session,so those were pretty cool. So I kind of explained what that was. Itwas a huge break for my day because you would actually get to leavethese classes and you would go sit, you know, talk to these, thethe nice, the nice pretty girls at the ITMS place. I get to walk inthere and say hello to them. You'd have to drink a little pineapplejuice to get your sugars up to do it too, which I was corny enough.I look forward to that every day. But you'd go into this room andyou sit in this giant almost like a dentist chair, and the room islike neon colored. It's it's real chill. There's music playing,there's incense or whatever it was burning. And then there's thisTV with probably just like drone footage of Indonesia orSwitzerland or whatever it might be. It's one of those kind ofvideos that's super calming and then has this great music behindit. And so you would sit in this chair, you'd lay back, they putthis thing on your brain, on your head, and it would start to go towork doing this tapping thing. And you just try to zone out, justwatching this relaxing drone footage with this music. And it'salmost meditative in a way.
But I also was you, you would almost have this placebo effectof, oh, this something's happening. I'm doing something, somethingpositive is is working.
And so that was giving me this little bit of confidence, thislittle boost in my step every day and kind of keeping me, keepingme there. The only contact with the outside world I really had wasthrough the phone signups that you have in this facility everysingle day. So every morning I say this, you'd wake up and youwould ask the front desk, hey, when are you going to put out thephone signup? And I learned this very quickly once I got there. Thephone signup has put out at like 10:00 right on the dot, not nine.Fifty 9:10 AM and you rush to it. It's this Excel spreadsheet theyprint out and then it's got 15 minute blocks starting right thenand then ending at probably 10:00 PM I believe. Maybe 11:00 PM andyou get to sign up for two. You get 215 minutes shots to make aphone call and hope somebody answers. And I later found out you'realso in this facility with a bunch of addicts and some people don'tgive a **** about the time on the phone at all. And So what youfind out is if someone decides to use 20 minutes instead of 15, youlose 5 and you know **** you. Essentially is what I found out. Ithappened to me very regularly and it made for a very stressful daybecause that's you look so forward to that phone call.
Those first few days, those phone calls were horrendous. I couldnot get through the phone call without breaking down, tellingLeslie I think I'm going to have to leave. I can't do this. I thinkthat first week, every day was that it was just me breaking down onthe phone. But I needed it so much, and I could have calledanybody. I used the two calls every day for the first probably 2weeks, maybe even 3, to call less. I just wanted to hear her voice.It was the only comforting thing I could feel. And I felt so badfor breaking down every single time because she was trying to pickup the pieces at home. I mean, life was still moving on.
She's having to run the gym. She's having to deal with threekids, two giant German shepherds, the regular daily stuff that youhave to deal with. She's not taking it on by herself and then alsostressed out because she knows she can't help me and she knows I'mcrumbling. But there were some good things about that place and itwasn't, it wasn't all just kind of nightmare. She kind of get intoa groove after a period of time. You start to talk to people, youstart to relate to people. And when I really started to do that, II it got easier to accept the situation than I was in to let go of.Who's talking about you back home. Like where's crazy Brandon atLike what did he. He's in rehab. Like what? How? How is how ******** is he? Didn't he have a podcast before a mental. He's in rehab.Like you know all those things are running through your head. Atthe same time I'm worried that I'm going to get fired when I getout. I remember I was sitting in the
downstairs area 1 morning and one of the guys was like this was,you know, back in 21,
one of the guys was like, hey, you know who Jelly Roll is, thesinger. And I was like, I think I heard of that rapper back in theday and he said don't check out the song. And so he played thisvideo and it's the song saved me if you've ever heard it from JellyRoll, who's really blown up as of late. But back then that videohad just come out I believe, and he played it for me. And if youhaven't heard the words, I encourage you to to to take a take alisten to that song today. Because it it, I felt like it describedme and it spoke to me in so many ways. And so every morning I wouldtry to find some way to play that video, because it really. It gaveme hope, I guess, but it also was like, oh, you know, this thisperson kind of understands in a different way. Obviously, I thinkthe leader is probably referencing a lot of different things. Butto me, it spoke to me a lot and and it brought so much peace to me.Sundays at rehab were a little bit different. On Sundays you startevery morning cleaning, which is great. You they have cleaningassignments. You clean the whole premises, the whole facility. Andthen after that you get your option to go to church proper, Iguess, which is there. Or you can go to a spiritual class. I'm notsure how they, how they worded it exactly, but it was spiritualityor something. It's people who don't want to go to the traditionalroute the first couple times. The first, first time. I chose thatbecause I was like, I don't want to sit in church and rehab. That'sjust too much for me.
Let's go see what the spirituality class is. I walked in. Theywere playing flutes and I was like, this is bad decision forBrandon. So I I learned from that mistake and I started to to go tothe church and it was basically just a group of people andessentially what they would do is they would play a few musicvideos mostly. If I could only imagine they would always lead itoff with that, that the old timers in there, they would alwaysbring that song up. Really got tired of hearing that. And then theywould find it just a YouTube preacher. They find some sort ofsermon that's online. Maybe it's a preacher that they know backhome. Maybe it's just a very common Ted talk they wanted to listento, which is fine by me. I didn't care.
One time when I was in there, they played this song by CoreyAsbury and it's I'm sorry, Not Save Me. It's called Reckless Love.Sorry I was getting tricked up there for a second. It's calledReckless Love, and it's another song that I talk a lot about music,because that really was carrying me through. This song was aboutGod directly, and it was the first time I had ever
been somewhere at my very lowest. And I think I was so open toanything at that point to help me.
And for whatever reason, that song came on and it just spokeright to my heart. Like God was talking to my heart not, but notlike just somebody was just talking about my problems. It was like,you know someone else has got your back, man. There. There'sthere's something else here. Whether you want to believe it or seeit or not. Something else is here. It was just as simple as that.And I didn't really feel like delving into it too much, but I justremember that that was so comforting to hear or to feel ratherabout 3 weeks in, Leslie was scheduled to actually come and do avisit. You can actually do an onsite visit. And I can remember thefeelings leading up to that because I hadn't seen her.
And I knew, I don't know, they it it it was like it was likeChristmas morning leading up to that. That's the kind of feelingyou have just to see your rock again.
And there was also this fear of seeing somebody whose life hadkind of gone on. And I know it's only been three weeks, butunderstand my mental state at the time. It seemed like three years.But she had come and we were going to do couples therapy and thenwe had a little bit of time to ourselves and that was going to be akind of the trip she got to bring me some more food and stuff. Butwhen she arrived,
man, God, it was like it was like the first time I ever saw her.I just remember holding her. I I just did not want to let go, butwe started couples therapy that day and that was reallyinteresting. I we had never done couples therapy before. You thinkthat you you know somebody so well. Leslie and I've been togethersince we were in high school, essentially.
I'm 43 now. You don't think there's a whole lot to learn aboutsomebody. And just that one session at Couples Therapy, we got toLeslie, got to talk about some things that she had been goingthrough
without fear of me falling to pieces. We were in this controlledenvironment. I was starting to feel better. I'd been away fromwork, my phone smoking weed, all the stressors. Obviously I left alot of good things, but all those stressors that were creating thisalmost callous on my body was removed for this period of time thatI was in there. And after those three weeks, I could really startto feel it. You could feel your body calming down. You could feelthe medicine leaving your body. And I was almost proud to show her,if that makes sense. So after therapy, we got the chance to to kindof sit there and talk for 45 minutes
and just kind of catch me up on things. It is so funny too,because right before we had left she had booked this like one ofthose poudoir shoots where you dress up in some sexyclothes.
And we had done it, which was very out of the ordinary for us todo.
But for some reason she was, she was feeling good about herself.And I was like, hell yeah, even though I was in a ****** state inmy my brain right before I left. But those pictures had come backwhile I was gone. And she was, you know, after we kind of talkedand and got past the emotional part. That was one of the thingsthat she showed me and Oh my God, it was like, you know, it was, itwas something that just made you just you smile so big. Which isit? Just because it just felt, I don't know, the sense of normalcy.Like, we don't have to just talk about this. Let's let's just stayhere. Look at this. This is awesome. You know, they, I don't know.I for me, it was just this huge thing that kind of just brought thetension down, You know, Obviously I've been away from my wife for along time too, so you can imagine.
But those 45 minutes went away pretty quick and she had to goagain,
and that
this goodbye wasn't near as bad as the first one. But I can tellyou just watching her drive off, standing there was was a littlebit rough seeing that dust kick up. I know you're thinking, did didthe kids come and no, no, they weren't going to come to that. Ididn't want them to. I don't know if they were mentally preparedfor that, but my routine there, it became pretty normal in theafternoons. I was I I kind of developed this relationship at thelittle CrossFit, or I kind of made it a CrossFit gym. It's just aregular gym with a bunch of barbells. And I would go in there andmake up workouts on my own and people would start to see what I wasdoing and become interested and I would just fall into my normalcoaching. And so I found a little bit of peace through coachingpeople through CrossFit and rehab, and that became a real greatoutlet for me. And it was nice too, because you're getting peoplethat are Alcoholics and drug addicts and they're in there running,doing burpees and wall balls, smoking cigarettes outside before,which was insane. And it's another funny thing about being in rehabis they would do nicotine runs every Tuesday. And I remember themjoking with me. All the guys would joke with me like, do you smoke?And I'm like, no, I'm a cross. I do cross, but I try not to. Imean, obviously cannabis is different, but like, you'll smokebefore you leave here. And I was like, no, I don't think so,fellas,
but they would. I think everybody in that place smoke cigarettesfrom the people that were in the facility to the people who werethe like armies, I guess she would say. That would kind of like thepeople that would make you stay in your room, etcetera, kind of thelaw, the law people. And then even the doctors were vaping and andnicotine everywhere. It's insane. But on Tuesdays you could go downto the front and you could put in your order for your cigarettes.And I I just, I I wanted some sort of escape. As weird as that is,I think I kind of fell into this Zen crowd. I was using thoselittle nicotine zens and so that became a little treat that I wouldhave while I was there. The food was phenomenal. I will say thatthey if if you like to eat healthy, which I I really was so nervousthat I was going to start eating like trash because it's it's rehaband you're not going to be working out. That's what I thought. Thefood was phenomenal. You go to the cafeteria, you lineup,
there's actually former residents at that rehab facility thatactually work there now. So that that it's kind of cool to see thatbecause you see how they're they want to give back and that wasreally nice to see. But you could also see that they're they'retalking from experience and you just felt like, hey, you're one ofus also. But you have some really interesting conversations withthese people that you really hear some some really crazy stories,some really heartbreaking stories. They had a nice little pooloutside. They would every now and then you would have this duringsome of the weeks if if you had great participation and things likethat, you could do pool volleyball. So that was a fun thing to dothroughout the throughout the day, throughout the week. You get toget this little opportunity to play pool volleyball with the squadso you can hang out. I have a little iPod that Leslie haddownloaded some music for me so I could go out there and just sitin the sun and listen to some music every now and then when youhave a little bit of free time. But most of your day is pretty,pretty structured to say the least. I think one of the moreinteresting things that I saw when I was in there is watchingpeople have to detox, because you'd see new people come in whileyou're there and then you would also see people leave while youwere there. And it was always a very weird vibe in the placebecause this kind of changeover of people would happen prettyoften
and you would always hear stories about someone would mention aname and they're like, yeah, that person's coming back again. Or,you know, unfortunately that person ended up relapsing or OD ING.Unfortunately, there were a lot of those stories,
but I think of all the people that I all the types of detoxingthat I saw when people would come in, whether it be, you know, anykind of drug you could think of. Even in the prescription world,alcohol was the worst to watch. Watching someone detox off ofalcohol was you felt helpless for them. Just seeing them with theshakes, trying to get the fork to their mouth to eat and you'rejust like this is over booze the legal thing. This is insanity. Italso pump you full of sugar too. That helps with the detoxing. Soin the very beginning days, they're just flooding you with likeSour Patch Straws and Skittles and Gatorade. I never understood itin the beginning because they kept asking me if I want this and I'mlike, y'all chill. I'm trying to get my **** together and you guysare just treating us like it's Halloween. But I understood. Then Istarted to understand that would help tremendously with them detoxsince they're always flooding these people with that stuff and theytried to create the an environment there that was as positive as itcould be. I mean it it's hard when you're dealing with a group ofaddicts, but they did such a great job of really making you feelincluded. They really cared about when they're having youparticipate in these classes to tell your story, to really get downand kind of see, you know, what's really causing this, What are youusing, you know, this or that to escape from. Let's really get downto that. And that was really huge for me. And and after being inthere for a period of time, your your body's able to calm down oryou can actually, like I said before, you can actually soak thesethings in. And I think that was a very important lesson for me tolearn when it comes to therapy in general is that
I'll say this, it it when it comes to therapy or or religion,spirituality, if you're not in the place where you can be openenough to receive it, it's not going to work.
And it took me being in that facility for these things to reallystart to unfold. For me, it taught me a lot about my use ofcannabis and and how I used it to escape. I used it as medicine inthe beginning, and I had in a positive way, and I started to use itas an escape.
And that was bad. But really it was like, hey, what are youescaping from, Brandon? What? What's the what's the cause of allthis? Man,
it's amazing when you realize how much little stressors stack upand create this layer over your body that just builds and buildsand builds and it's harder for things to penetrate that thoselayers. I was there for a total of five and a half, six weeks. Itwas life changing. It was life saving.
It's a nightmare. One of the things that really helped me somuch, and I don't want to offend the story without telling this isyou. Every now and then you receive mail, and to those of you thatwrote me that knew where I was at, obviously, and took the time todo that, you'll never know
how much that meant to me and still means to me. If you everknow of anybody that's in one of these facilities or in jail orwhatever it might be taking the time to write themanything
means so much, especially when you're cut off from so manythings. I kind of had the option after a period of time to to makethe assessment, to realize that after I think it was sixweeks
that I'm at a place where I think that staying here any longeris not really going to benefit me anymore. I think I'm at a placewhere it's time to go. I think my at that point, my leave for workwas kind of ending. There was only so much that they could do, so Ididn't have a whole lot of options, but I also felt like I was in agood space at this point. Therapy had been helping, the dailytherapy they were doing, the classes, the detoxing off themeds.
I felt good. I felt positive. I felt like I'm ready to take onthe world again. And after talking about it with less than talkingabout it with a therapist, we decided, hey, it's time, it's it'stime to to go.
And those last couple of days were just like butterflies. You'rejust like, Oh my God, it feels like I've been in there for a year,two years, three years. It's so crazy how that sounds and maybethat your people are rolling your eyes to that. But I was so usedto my routine, and this was so opposite of that. But packing mystuff was just such a relief. Knowing that I did not have to comeback to that place and knowing that I wasn't going to come back tothat place. Saying goodbye to everybody was was more difficult thanI thought it would be. Because
you're pretty sure that those relationships aren't going tostay. They they don't typically do.
You're just hoping that nobody comes back. You're just reallyhoping the best for these people because you you really, you reallyget to know know a lot of them. And I don't want to go into toomany of the stories about them. So I'm going to kind of leaveit.
I I think it's their stories to tell. But there were some reallyamazing people in there,
and they were able to have a little Facebook group for membersthat once you leave, you can kind of keep in touch, find out whenthey have certain classes. They have these meetings where they'llhave people from the outside come back in and tell their entirehistory, their drug history, all their worst stories. They'll justkind of give the speech. And it was sometimes entertaining for somereally great speakers,
but there's also invitations to do that on this Facebook group.So I I I joined it and it it was the first few weeks, it was great.I was still attending some of the the meetings on thatgroup.
You'd kind of just phone in and do them remotely. But yeah, likeprobably
6-7 weeks after I left on that Facebook group, it popped up thatmy good buddy Little Brandon that would walk with me every morninghad passed away of cardiac arrest and that that hit me so hard forsome reason. It was just there was this young kid and this dumbyoung kid that had just ****** ** you know didn't have a great homelife
was in this facility and and just trying to do his best, youknow trying to participate in these classes, just wanting toto
get a good job and meet a meet a *** ***** is what he alwayssay. And that was it. Just like that. He's another one of thosegravestones in that Chapel out there now. But that was in a reallyweird way. It was a good reminder of
the fact that you can make a lot of these things better, butthey're going to be a part of your life for a very long time andyou and you really need to prepare yourself for that. But I kind ofskipped over getting out. Leslie coming up and and picking me upwas just this feeling. Oh God, it was so amazing when she pulled upand and I just had to walk out there and just hold her knowing thatwe were going to leave together this time and that things werebetter. It was so emotional to me. Just getting in the car and justdriving off those premises is just like, it was just such a reliefjust seeing other trees on the way home. I made her pull into DQ.Dairy Queen, got me a Blizzard, knocked that out. That was a great,great foray back into the ****** eating when I was about to partakein
and oh man, the reunion with the kids pulling back into thehouse. Gosh Dang it, man. I was a mess. But at the same time, itwas like this sense of knowing that you did something good thistime. You took the time to better yourself. That was it made thosehugs a lot better. I'll say that. So yeah, that's that's where Iwent. That's where episode 11 ended and Brandon began a differentkind of journey.
But things don't stop there. Rehab fixed me in a lot of ways. Alot of things went so great after that. I started a new career,which is going fantastic, but this journey isn't without hiccupsand I did experience some other things and it led me down some veryinteresting paths that I really am excited to talk to you guysabout. It's a journey that includes self love, salvation,psychedelics, and we're going to talk about that a lot in theupcoming episodes as we kind of continue this journey.
I got away from doing this podcast, but I need it back becausesharing is is really what helps me heal. I I have gotten messagesfrom some of you. And I and I thank you guys so much for sending memessages periodically while I was away, You know, wondering wherethe podcast went or just saying, hey, Brandon, you gonna do anotherepisode? Because that means so much to me because this, this,doing, this helps me out so much. But I'm glad you guys are herelistening to it. I really do appreciate it. If you think someonecan benefit from it, please feel free to share it because it helpsme out as well. But I want to continue to tell my story
and I hope you guys find some value in it. So here's the nextfew episodes, guys it does pick up from here, does get a lot morepositive. I know that was a heavy one to hit you off with, but Ifelt the need to tell that story. So until next time.
