I was twenty-four years old, going on twenty-five, when I rushed to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack or something just as severe. I was wrapping up a business meeting that encompassed some tense negotiations of the parting ways type, so you can imagine the stress-build-up leading up to this event.
I vividly remember what I felt that day: my chest bursting through my shirt, the world closing in on me. I struggled to breathe and had a strange, bloated feeling that was forcing me to burp repeatedly. I was a young man with no prior medical issues, so I had no insight or reference point to what may have been happening to me. The more I tried to regulate what my body was experiencing, the worse it seemed to make the entire episode; it was a downward spiral.
I seemed to feel better as I walked up the hospital’s ER entryway. While I waited for the medical staff to give me a complete evaluation, the symptoms began to settle, and my mind seemed to stop racing; at this point, the entire episode was about an hour in duration. I walked out of the hospital feeling much better and with a good report regarding ruling out anything serious. But there was a sense of impending doom that hovered over me; something told me this wasn’t over –– yet. I had no idea at that time that this sense of hopelessness would go on to torture me for over a decade. This would be the start of my brain playing this vicious loop for what would seem like an eternity.
Years and No Answers
The unexplainable feeling I experienced that day, the bloating, the uncontrollable belching, was the first of many episodes I would have throughout the next few years. In that length of time, I hauled myself into the Emergency Room about eight or nine times –– each time leaving feeling more foolish. I sought medical advice: and after every kind of doctor and specialist under the sun ruled out everything from hernias, asthma, allergies, to gastrointestinal problems and so on, the revelation of “my mind’s playing trick on me” grew louder.
With no medical diagnosis to confirm my fear, I continued to ignore the nagging feeling that maybe my situation was more in the realms of a mental health condition. When I was around thirty years old, I remember thinking to myself, “I’ve overcome so much adversity in my life, I am mentally strong, and I am a fun and positive person. How could I have let my mind betray me like this?!”
To better appreciate my internal conflict, you must understand my upbringing; I was raised in the mean streets of Houston’s East Side in a neighborhood known as Denver Harbor. I did not have access to mental health professionals. Heck, we didn’t believe in such a thing – to us, any type of mental therapy was a scam for sure. Our way of thinking was simple, “suck it up” and “men don’t cry.”
For someone that doesn’t understand anxiety, it’s easy to bark out, “snap out of it, man,” but it’s not that simple. Just ten years ago, many good-hearted people perceived issues like panic attacks, anxiety disorders, or mild forms of OCD and other mental health struggles as a sign of weakness or some sort of made-up phantom ailment. Also, during this time, the internet was still in its infancy: it did not have a wealth of verified information on mental health conditions and psychosomatic symptoms related to stress as it does today.
Diagnosis
Admittedly, I, too, fit in the margin of people who did not understand these types of illnesses. So when at the age of thirty-three, when my doctor stared me in the face and said, “You have an anxiety disorder, and I am prescribing you Lexapro,” –– I became resistant. I told her I would not take it. After a bit of going back and forth, I reluctantly picked up my prescription, but it would take me a month to start taking the medication and come to grips with my diagnosis.
It took about ten days for the Lexapro to take its effect. I’ll never forget walking to my garage and suddenly feeling as if my entire life was playing on a record at top speed, and in about two to three seconds, the record player’s pace slowed down to a crawl. I thought to myself; this must be how “normal” people operate?
Living While Medicated
Medicated, I found myself relaxing much more. While I enjoyed this newfound pace of life, I also noticed that the thing inside of me that makes me work like a madman, that makes me a great entrepreneur, was missing. My personality also began to change –– I found myself subscribing to some false sense of foolish pride and self-importance. It seemed like I more easily cast off restraint.
When I would meet with friends or colleagues, it felt as if I was sitting and listening to them speak in slow-motion for hours, in reality, what was only a ten-minute discussion. I took
Lexapro for about a year and then grew tired of the slower pace of life, and more importantly, I did not like how it was changing my personality and arguably my character.
My Life with Anxiety-Attacks
By the time I was 35 years old, these anxiety-attack episodes had wreaked havoc on my life. It affected my marriage, mainly because my wife’s mind operates differently. She strolls through life calm and collected –– a contrast to the chaos constantly running through my mind. It was difficult for her to understand or even empathize with what I was experiencing. My faith was shaken; I couldn’t just pray away the anxiety or recite a scripture as so many faith believers suggested (remember this is pre-WebMD or Ask a Doctor.) My professional career suffered as well: my tendency to overthink sometimes caused me to be overly suspicious when not warranted. This caused me to ruin great relationships and cost me multiple millions of dollars in lost gains.
Having said all of that, my over-analytical tendencies did bring some positivity: I wanted to be a great father, and my prayer was that none of my children would have to bear this type of burden. Hence, I became extra communicative with all of them, and I am happy to say that I have great transparent and sincere relationships with each one of them.
Learning How to Manage and Take Control
The following concepts were instrumental in helping me to pivot away from a condition that I felt helpless in and into something that could co-exist with my life and would no longer take my inner peace. I know these concepts may sound simple or even silly to some; however, these were profound revelations to me at that time – these are as follows:
- Understanding – Perhaps the most beneficial thing to come out of these anxiety attacks is that I started to understand myself more and began to have clarity of who I am as a living, thinking being. I understood the differences between my personality and thought process, my biological chemistry and my free will in a different sense than before. I spent countless hours, weeks and months researching how certain navy seal or extreme athletes utilized their own volition, or free will, to regulate their heart rate and blood pressure when required. I began to put what I learned into practice; possessing this knowledge had a calming effect on me.
- Education – Reading on the why and how and the different types of anxiety attacks helped me manage my own. The more I understood how the average brain processes information and stimulus versus someone’s brain with Generalized Anxiety or Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, the more empowered I felt. There was an essay that I found, which had a simple cartoon image of two butterfly nets: one representing the normal brain and the other representing an anxiety-ridden brain. The average person’s brain has a netting that was sparse and would only retain important information and stimulus – it came naturally to let unimportant and unrealistic stimulus just pass right through. Alternatively, the other netting was incredibly dense and would trap and entertain much more information. Whether it be silly, unreal or real, it just traps the stimulus, and of course, the person, unknowingly, or perhaps untreated, will process it all and then respond or react accordingly. Herein begins the battle of the brain and his/her/their volition.
This concept of brain versus will was captured and displayed brilliantly in the movie A Beautiful Mind. In the closing scene, John Nash, who has schizophrenia, is confronted with the fictional, imaginary characters in his mind that drive his mental episodes and breakdowns. He recognizes that they are just that: fictional. He consciously chooses to ignore them (volition or free will), walking away from these characters and continuing on his journey with his wife.
For me, having the knowledge above allowed me to build a game plan, and for me, it was very productive – it has taken me years to perfect it, but it allowed me to live a more productive, more genuine and more fruitful life.
My Life Today
Today I am headed into my late forties, and the chemical make-up in my brain hasn’t changed much. I still get anxiety attacks; however, I have learned to stave off, mitigate and manage as much as possible. These days, my brain can start to go into its anxiety loop, and I can completely ignore it – I’ve even given successful board room presentations to billion-dollar fund groups while undergoing an anxiety attack. Over time, I’ve picked up many other habits and daily routines that would improve my life and lessen the frequency of my anxiety attacks. This includes everything from some fun human interaction, yoga, breathing exercises, muay-thai, supplements, painting, coloring, hiking and even walking.
Life as an entrepreneur is challenging – managing multiple projects and regularly dealing with shifting priorities aren’t the best recipe for peace of mind. Ironically, I’ve concluded that the same attributes that make me a good entrepreneur, that allow me to see all possible outcomes in any scenario almost immediately, or my ability to retain vast amounts of information on any subject matter are the same attributes that contribute to my anxiety disorder. One might say that these are simple concepts, paradigm shifts or tenets; however, these have been highly beneficial for me and have made my life easier, giving me peace of mind during some very troubling times. There is no scientific reasoning behind my observations. This is purely my opinion, experience and my journey.
Anxiety disorder by no means has a simple solution. I am very fortunate that my situation is one that I have learned to manage. I have met and know people whose situation is far more complex than my struggle. My heart and prayers go out to those individuals and their families. I hope that someone else can find my experience beneficial.
ourth installment in my ongoing blog entitled, “The 1000 Pound Journey”. If you’ve not seen or read the first two installments, please be sure to check them out under the articles that I have posted or by clicking here.
In my previous installment, I briefly mentioned a condition known as Acanthosis Nigricans which darkens the skin on and around the neck. This dark patch is usually a sign that your body is making extra insulin that it cannot use so the insulin builds up and as a result, darkens the skin around your neck. While this can be found in anyone, it is prominently found in children in the Black and Latino communities and is a surefire way to determine if a child is insulin resistant or even pre-diabetic.
As most of us are aware, “Hispanic” or “Latino” people make up a diverse group that includes people of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South and Central American, and other Spanish cultures, and all races. As the very funny and accomplished comedian/actor, Mr. John Leguizamo informed us in his edutainment-based Broadway show, “Latin History for Morons”, all of us are at the very least approximately 30% indigenous or “Native Americans” by blood – or DNA. Surprising to me, my own DNA test with a great and trustworthy research company CRI Genetics, revealed that I was just under 78.2% indigenous, with ancestors going back to what is now the Arizona area and Peru thousands of years ago – it also showed me as a member of Haplogroup B2 on my maternal side and Haplogroup I2 on my paternal side. Well, according to the Centers for Disease Control, “Each has its own history and traditions, but all are more likely to have type 2 diabetes (17%) than non-Hispanic White people (8%)”. That’s a whopping 2 to 1 increased probability!
I had my first signs of being insulin resistant at around 7-8 years old when my neck first started to darken – with the condition that is widely known today as “Acanthosis Nigricans” or “AN” for short. However, it is important to note that this was in early 1980’s and while the condition was not uncommon, general practitioners really had no idea what they were dealing with. As mentioned in my previous installment, when my mother took me to our family doctor’s office his response was simply, “tell him to wash it”. If only it were that easy. Upon the realization that I could not simply wash this darkness from my neck, I developed a sense of shame and embarrassment. My dark neck was something that always lingered in the back of my mind in locker rooms, at the pool or even when wearing normal t-shirts. I didn’t want my peers to think I was dirty or didn’t take care of myself as that couldn’t be further from the truth. I would wash my neck vigorously, but it was all for not and my dark neck became something I would have to accept. I don’t need to tell you how embarrassing this was for me entering Junior High School and dealing with members of the opposite sex – it was brutal at times!
I understand this might be difficult for some younger readers to grasp as nowadays we can simply search any symptoms we have on our phones and find the answers but try to imagine a world in which we plainly don’t have the answers and when you do go to the experts, they flippantly bark at us, “tell him to wash it!”. I can’t help but wonder what my life would look like had my doctor sat both I and my mother down and told us that my dark neck was a sign that I was pre-diabetic or at risk for developing the chronic disease. Furthermore, if he had said, he cannot eat the normal Mexican-American diet like his peers or it will get worse and then he will have to fend off obesity his entire life. Could you imagine getting the benefit of that information back then – I mean, from an information and access perspective, we live in truly blessed times. Had I had the information we have now, I could have implemented a nutritional plan and lifestyle that was right for me, changed my health forever and who knows, maybe I would be in the MLB! Baseball could have two legendary Alex Rodriguez’s! Yes – I am kidding, I would have settled for not having to shop in the Husky section at Montgomery Wards.
Joking aside, the lack of information I had as a child hurt me and put me through years of constantly battling my weight. It’s only been in recent years that we have learned this information however it is still not commonly known and there are still Black and Latino children out there who will suffer at the lack of information that still permeates parts of our communities. I’ve said this before but one of my personal and professional goals is to make wellness available and accessible to everyone; for people with an upbringing like my own, wellness and good nutrition were very much luxury items. There’s certainly a derivative blog in this one that must come to fruition and that is the normal typical diet for most Latinos – in my case, being raised as Mexican American, staples in our diet are of course, beans, rice and either corn or flour tortillas – all of which, are carbohydrate rich foods. I will tackle this separately, but imagine the lack of knowledge and information regarding nutrition and macronutrients in general in the 1980’s. This of course, would make things much more difficult.
Now here’s where I disagree with the experts – in most of the now available research papers discussing the topic of Acanthosis Nigricans, they are surmising that obesity leads to insulin resistance, which in turn leads to Acanthosis Nigricans. This is not always the case, and I would venture to say, it’s probably not the case for most people such as myself – with my DNA make up. We are only just a few generations away from running around in a loin cloth, fighting for each day’s survival – and now we’re sitting behind a desk, in some damned cubicle for most of our adult lives. I tell you, I was very much a regular sized kid when I developed Acanthosis Nigricans – in my life, the “AN” came first, then the battles with weight ensued. It does not escape me that there are some fine lines and nuances here in the spirit of which came first, the chicken or the egg dynamic – however, to dismiss millions of people is just not true and I find it irresponsible according to my life’s experience. What makes it even more difficult is that when these components begin to go to work, it becomes a slippery slope very fast, making it easy to gain fat and more and more difficult to lose it, and the insulin resistance worsens, it has a derivative impact on other organs, overall mood and most definitively play a role in mental health – making this a very difficult downward spiral to get out of.
I am thankful for the for the information we have today and the many advocates out there analyzing, deciphering, and sharing complex information about health and wellness, in a way that ordinary folks like myself can consume and apply. There are far too many to include here, but some of the professionals who were instrumental in changing my own life are the late great giant-killer known as Dr. Sarah Hallberg, Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. Eric Berg, DC – and of course my own local, Ms. Julli Randol, FNP-C, who is a complete badass and has helped navigate through the last 100 pounds that I’ve lost – while helping me review all my ongoing labs.
If you’re battling diabetes and/or obesity – or if perhaps, your child or a child in your family may show signs of Acanthosis Nigricans – please do not hesitate to drop me a line with any questions that you may have, and I will gladly share any information that I can with you. For those new to my blog, this is an installment in my ongoing blog entitled “The Journey of 1000 Pounds”, where I discuss my own health transformation and my reversal of Type-2-Diabetes – along with all the other struggles and victories that I’ve had the privilege of participating in. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful in some manner.
Live Epiq, Be Epiq!
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