Why I Share This Journey:

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THE MORNING EVERYTHING CHANGED

It was March 10, 2025. Six o'clock in the morning.

I did what I did every day — walked out the door to take my dog for his morning walk. Simple. Routine. Normal.

Except nothing about that morning turned out to be normal.

Within moments of stepping outside I became dizzy and lightheaded. The kind of dizzy that tells you something is seriously wrong. I turned around, went back inside, and checked my blood pressure.

My pulse rate was over 110 beats per minute.

I sat down. Collected myself. Told myself I was fine.

Then I got up, took a shower, got dressed — and drove to Charleston, South Carolina for a medical appointment I had scheduled that day.

Looking back now I understand how serious that decision was. But that's who I am. I push through. I show up. I keep moving.

When I arrived at that appointment and they began to triage me — the numbers told a different story than the one I was telling myself. My pulse rate and blood pressure were dangerously elevated. They didn't want to see me for my scheduled appointment. They wanted to call EMS and send me to the emergency room immediately.

I told them that wasn't necessary.

I sat there. Waited. Willed my body back to normal. Eventually the numbers came down. I got in my car and drove back to Savannah.

And that was the beginning of an eleven month journey I never saw coming.

THE DESCENT

What started as an irregular pulse rate became something much more complicated.

Any time I began to move — to exert myself — my pulse would become erratic. My cardiologist placed me on two heart medications designed to stabilize my heart rate and keep it from spiking too high or becoming too irregular.

After a couple of weeks the medications began to work. I kept a journal tracking my pulse for ten days and by day ten things had stabilized significantly.

Then my hands started shaking.

Not a tremor. Not occasionally. They shook the way you see in someone with Parkinson's disease. Constant. Visible. Alarming.

And then came the panic attacks.

I don't know if the panic attacks were triggered by the irregular pulse rate, by watching my hands shake uncontrollably, or simply by the spirit of fear that had quietly gained a foothold in my mind and in my thought process. Probably all three.

What I know is that fear moved in and made itself at home.

And from fear came something darker.

Depression.

Not sadness. Not a bad week. Depression. The kind that drains color from everything. The kind that makes you not want to be around people — not your friends, not your family, not even your wife and children. The kind that makes the things you love feel like obligations you can barely manage.

I felt heavy. I felt dark. I felt like peace and joy were things that belonged to other people — not to me. Not anymore.

THE DARKEST MOMENT

There was one weekend that I consider the lowest point of my life.

My wife had traveled to North Carolina to visit her daughter. I was home alone. And I could not get out of bed. Not because I was physically unable. Because I had nothing left. No energy. No desire. No reason that felt strong enough to make me move.

I just lay there.

And depression came in waves.

It would sweep over me — heavy and suffocating — then lift slightly, then sweep again. Over and over. Like standing in the ocean and getting knocked down before you can get back to your feet.

At some point I found myself holding on. Just holding on.

And then — in my mind — I saw myself jumping off the Talmadge Bridge.

I saw it clearly. Like a picture I didn't ask to see.

I jumped out of that bed.

I began to shake myself — literally and spiritually. I spoke out loud. I said no. This is not how my story ends. I want to live. I choose to live.

And I cried out to God.

Not a polished prayer. Not eloquent words. Just a desperate cry from a man who needed to be kept. Who needed help that no medication, no doctor, and no amount of willpower could provide.

That moment — that desperate cry — became the turning point.

WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW

There is something important I need to share because someone reading this may be in the same situation right now.

Three months before that March morning I had allowed a doctor to prescribe me a medication for anxiety and mood management. I was feeling agitated. Unsettled. My mood was difficult to regulate.

What I did not know — what nobody told me — was that this particular psychotropic medication came with serious metabolic side effects.

When my blood work came back and revealed that my A1C had jumped to 6.3 — something that had never been a problem for me before — and that my cholesterol was significantly elevated, I was shocked and angry.

And I made my second critical mistake.

I stopped the medication immediately. Cold turkey. No weaning off. No medical supervision. Just stopped.

That was dangerous. Dangerously dangerous.

Looking back I believe that abruptly stopping that medication contributed significantly to everything that followed — the irregular pulse, the shaking hands, the panic attacks, the depression. My body and my brain were in chemical chaos because of how I came off that drug.

I share this not to place blame. I share this because someone needs to hear it.

If you are on psychiatric medication — please do not stop abruptly. Talk to your doctor. Wean off properly. What I did put my life at serious risk.

THE ROAD BACK

Recovery was slow. Slower than I wanted. Slower than felt fair.

But it was real.

The only place I found genuine peace during those dark months was in the presence of God. Reading His word. Praying. Worshipping. Those were the only moments when the heaviness lifted — when I felt something close to joy again. That reality drove me deeper and deeper into my relationship with Christ. Not out of religious obligation but out of desperate need.

He became my lifeline.

Physically I began to move again. Walking became my therapy. Thirty to forty five minutes a day. Six days a week. Just me, the road, and God.

I began to look seriously at what I was eating. At how I was sleeping. At every input going into my body and my mind.

Slowly — brick by brick — I began to rebuild.

WHERE I AM TODAY

It has been a little over a year since that March morning.

I am in a completely different place.

My A1C has dropped from 6.3 to 5.8. My heart is stable. I am training athletes again. I am coaching again. I am showing up for my family again. I am showing up for myself again.

The depression has not destroyed me.

The fear did not win.

God kept me. And I am still here.

WHY I STARTED LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WHAT

I started this ministry because I know there is someone reading these words right now who is in that bed.

Waves of depression sweeping over them. Hands they don't recognize anymore. Thoughts they are ashamed to say out loud. A bridge they have pictured in their mind.

I see you.

I was you.

And I want you to know what I had to learn the hard way —

You don't have to fight this alone.

Wellness. Health. And Training.

These are not just words to me. They are the three pillars that carried me back from the darkest place I have ever been.

And they can carry you too.

Welcome to WHAT. Let's talk about it.