Dead Man...

DEAD MAN…

(This has been re-edited, and is being shared in celebration of a one year anniversary)

"Dead Man Walking!" I recalled this quote from a movie, ‘The green Mile’. In the movie, it was spoken as a man walked down a hallway; heading toward his planned and certain death in an electric chair.

“Dead Man Walking!” This phrase was now being heard about myself, within my own mind; and I knew why. A fitting phrase for the empty, dead, shell of a man that I had become.

February 23 of 2020, was the first day I walked into "First Responders First". This place was a live-in therapy and rehabilitation center. Focused on helping first responders to overcome and heal from both PTSD and addictions. For me, it would be so much more. I did not need healing. In so many ways I was already dead. I would need, at the very least, a miracle. I needed a resurrection.

The recent years, the seemingly unending days and nights prior to this date, had been saturated with haunting memories, pictures, and internally projected movies of unresolved traumas and emotions. A conglomerate of abstract portions from incidents that I had experienced; both in this realm and the realm of my creative mind. Awake or asleep, it did not matter. Terror - Hell - was what existed inside of me; and I within it. Therefore, by all accounts, I was dead.

I was physically alive yet living in an internal, continuous and unstoppable flow of flashing reminders that were filled with trauma and death. Women with crushed faces from their abusers. Children trembling, in blood stained clothes. Interior walls of a home painted with blood. The blood of children, sons, daughters, a spouse or even an elderly adult. A deceased man, with a bullet wound to his head from a drive-by-shooting, still sitting in the seat of a car while his fiance laid on his body, screaming for him to wake up. Death, terror and trauma had no limits; nor respect for it’s victims.

Not even the one’s close to me were exempt. Like my brothers, who wore the same uniform and badge as me. I was terrorized inside by the detailed images and memories of their deaths. The color of the blood that poured from where half of one’s skull no longer existed. The burned corpse and patrol vehicle of my dear friend.

Incidents and moments of grief and despair never truly phased into “the past”, or into simple “memories”. I was reliving and re-experiencing these moments daily. Holding and moving the cold, stiff body of a son who ended his life by using a 12-gauge; which obliterated his head. Lifting, untying, and then slowly lowering the body of an Assyrian mother who hung herself from the garage rafters; just one week before her eldest daughter’s wedding.

I carried the burden of death, of ungrieved sorrow and unanswered questions. I was skilled and well trained in so many tactics; emergency procedures, driving, fighting and shooting. I was an expert at verbal communication, both to criminals and victims alike. Yet, I couldn't find a way, and I had no skills, to communicate to my own mind and soul how to leave these daily traumas behind and continue to live.

This invisible enemy of my mind and soul would show to be more volatile, and terrorizing, than any other enemy or threat that I had ever been warned about. The personal destruction that ensued was catastrophic. The disaster that was occurring within led me to divorce, losing custody of my son and losing my home. But this was only the beginning. Added to the trauma over these years, was the death of 4 friends in the line of duty. Killed in shootings or on the job traffic collisions.

Throughout those years I had collected an arsenal of prescribed medications for psychological and emotional relief. Medicating myself, "as needed", on a daily basis. As I spiraled into this black hole of devastation, I found myself lost; and astray. Having lost more of myself, and in life, than I'd ever imagined, I had also lost the ability to maintain even an unhealthy relationship. Any motivation or ounce of concern about finances, my future, or for life in general, had vanished.

My hobbies, aspirations, and passions; such as competitive bodybuilding and starting my own gym, which I attempted to use as my new life and career focus, also came to an end. The motivation to merely enter a gym had disappeared. Attempting to force myself to stay in a “healthy” routine, I would drive to the gym. Then unknowingly, and unwillingly, fall asleep in my car at the gym parking lot for hours. The depression had claimed me as it's prisoner. It's darkness and tangible heaviness had overcome my soul.

Inside of this shell of a body, all lights were out except for a very dim light that appeared extremely far away. In 2017, I attended a mandated psychological evaluation. The conclusion of the evaluation was that I was no longer able, nor allowed, to perform the job I had committed my life to. The literal words written down by one psychologist were, "Prognosis, very unlikely."

Becoming jobless and having set myself up for failure due to unwise, addictive and careless use of finances I was now without a home, job, or anything in life that had ever mattered. My only sense of hope was an abstract, and very small, dim light which appeared way off in the future. A hope that never felt like a hope; but was just enough to keep me from following through on multiple suicidal ideations and cries for help. Still, twice, I ended up being placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold, due to suicide attempts.

By 2018 I was willingly escaping this life, my internal Hell, through daily illegal drug use. A different type of suicide. I had given up in every way, except for ending my heartbeat. Through those years it was that small glimmer of hope, my faith in God and miracles, that kept me praying; "God, please. Somehow, save me."

I wasn't concerned about being saved from a hell that many people speak of in an afterlife. I was already in hell. Hell was real. It terrorized me daily and specifically; in its own demented way. Especially at night during my sleep.

Then one day, on February 23rd, 2020, I walked into “First responders First”. It was a literal miracle that I had even arrived there. As I walked inside I saw, and felt, the way everyone looked at me. I concluded that they probably saw the years and weight of the failures and burdens that I carried. I knew that the way I walked, my posture, and my eyes were all ways in which people could see a glimpse of my internal Hell, from the outside.

In my head, in my mind, the voices of darkness chuckled and condescendingly spoke to me; quoting, "Dead Man Walking". A ‘dead man walking’ was exactly what I had felt that I had become. I wasn’t convinced that anything could bring me back to life; but somehow I had made it this far.

After only two weeks of residing at "First Responders First" I began to notice some extreme changes. I experienced in depth, tear jerking, one-on-one and group therapy sessions. As well as an unexpected, and seemingly miraculous, healing session through ‘EMDR’. I had begun to experience some “alive” moments. Moments of life and hope that hadn’t been experienced for the last eight to ten years.

One of the most miraculous changes was that I finally began to experience nights without nightmares. Without waking up screaming, cussing, swinging my arms as if in battle, and completely drenched in sweat.

As changes continued within me I experienced something that I had forgotten that I used to enjoy. I laughed. I laughed with others, and even made some jokes. I was finally beginning to feel alive again. I slowly, yet cautiously, grew hopeful that maybe this was only the beginning. Maybe I could live again.

As these miraculous changes were occurring I recall, during that same time frame, being at an outdoor yoga session. While laying on my back, I reached my hands toward the sky; as encouraged by our yoga instructor. As I saw the sun's rays surround, the way they enveloped the outline of my hands, I heard another voice. A new voice.

Within my mind this voice spoke, speaking a new phrase. It was original to me. I know now that the voice was confirming the miracle that was taking place. It must have been God. His way of confirming to me that He had heard me and been with me through it all; and that He was answering my prayers.

I heard the voice, and it said, "DEAD MAN RISING!"

It’s now been one year since that day; the day my miracle began. How all the details occurred, who was involved, etc., would be much longer in explaining. The details themselves are nothing short of miracles; and the people involved were, and are, nothing less than Angels.

I am alive today. I was a “Dead man walking”. Yet in comparison to where I was, I am more free and alive today than I would have imagined possible. God - the loving, powerful creator, being, and source of all things - performed a miracle. Yes, that miracle required human beings. Others who chose to be selfless, to reach out and to help. That miracle also required my involvement. Although I had very little ability, faith, hope or desire, the miracle required what I could give.

If you, your life, or someone you know, appear to be, or are, hopeless and near death; there is hope. The voice of death, failure and hopelessness may be speaking loudly, “Dead man walking”. But there is another voice, a more powerful voice that can change everything. Believe, and listen for that voice. God is not running short on miracles, power or ability. He can, and desires to, speak the words over your life, “Dead Man Rising!”.

“Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 43:19 AMP

This link, below, is to a great song that I think is very fitting for my story. Thank you for reading. If this post may bring hope to anyone you know, then please share.

https://youtu.be/37wV6D49iEY