I spent a long time
thinking I was the problem.

I spent years chasing the love and acceptance I couldn’t give myself.

I put a lot into building a life that looked good on paper. There was grit, ambition, and a lot of luck. But I could look at everything I’d achieved and still feel anxious, depressed, and convinced there was something wrong with me.

My ADHD was largely undiagnosed, and I struggled to make sense of what I was feeling. I knew I wasn’t okay. I didn’t know what to do about it.

My son gave me a reason to get help.

By 31, shortly after my son was born, I was ready to check myself into a psych ward. I felt hopeless and paralyzed by constant anxiety and deep depression.

Through my son’s love, I found the strength to begin therapy. It didn’t start as a tidy story about personal growth. I was desperate.

So I showed up. Every week, sometimes twice. Over the years, I’ve seen several therapists and psychiatrists, including couples counselors. There has been a lot of reading, a lot of overthinking, and a lot of trying to put what I learned into practice.

I wouldn’t be where I am without that help. Or without having a lot of the identity I’d built for myself come apart.

Starting over has been messy.

Divorce meant trying to understand who I was outside the life I’d imagined for myself. Parenting meant trying to be there for my kids while I was still figuring out how to be okay myself.

I still struggle with anxiety and depression, my incessant ADHD symptoms, and the ongoing business of working out who I am. I’ve made a lot of progress. I’m also quite capable of getting in my own way.

I’m grateful for the life I have, and proud of the work it took to get here. Those feelings get to exist alongside the difficult ones.

I still want to make things.

Music. Writing. A business. A life that feels like mine.

At one point, I’d more or less resigned myself to being an upper-middle-class corporate goon for the rest of my life. Therapy helped me take the idea of writing seriously. It gave me room to think about opportunities, instead of only my problems.

I’m still the guy with the fucked-up sense of humor and a tendency to disappear down a research rabbit hole. I like taking an idea that sounds impossibly abstract and finding the part of it that connects to an actual human life. Sometimes mine is the unfortunate example.

I write partly because it helps me think, partly because it makes me feel good, and partly because I hope it might be useful to someone else. I don’t have a more polished explanation than that.

I’m in it for the long haul.

Peace and love,

Alex.