The trouble started in my first years of homeschool, which was how I started with my formal education as a kid. I began taking piano lessons as an extracurricular activity. I actually hated piano lessons, and I hated school…come to think about it, there was not much that I didn’t hate. I was an angry kid. Don’t worry, I’m not about to start whining about my childhood though. I would have never thought that something so simple would ignite the spark that eventually became my lifelong passion, but I’m getting ahead of myself here…
A few years and passed grades later, I got tired of dragging my feet to fiddle with those same ivory keys every Monday. I wanted something more, something cooler, something that I could get really hurt doing. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but my dad did introduce me to hard rock music at an early age. I remember the intense emotions I felt, specifically after hearing the song Return Of The Revolution by The O.C. Supertones. This fuel of energizing music that my dad continued to feed me kept me inspired about music through many experiences. From things as simple as driving to the grocery store with our family, to traveling outside of the province for business trips. He would always pump new rock and metal music through the speakers in one way or another, and now it’s easy for me to see why I turned out the way that I did as a person (love you, Dad).
Yes, indeed, a troublemaker, but perhaps one who now had an outlet for all of that anger. Bass guitar took my interest very quickly after I asked my dad what the deep sounding instrument was in some of the rock music we listened to. For several years, I played the bass in private school bands, for each grade ahead of me. If you’re wondering, I was basically in grade 7, but playing for the grades 7 to 12 bands. Mostly because they had a shortage of decent bass players, and I was also rhythmically very competent because of my piano background. Somewhat off topic, but worth mentioning.
Years later, I had acquired a track record of not only piano and bass guitar expertise, but I also picked up an affinity for electric guitar. Then soon after came the influence and sex appeal of the drums; quickly taking inspiration from the late drumming legend, Joey Jordison, drummer of metal band Slipknot. See how this is all tying together? Believe it or not, I learned how to play the drums by playing the video game, Rock Band, on expert mode (remember 2007?). Because I was able to kick my foot and flail my hands together at a consistent tempo, I even joined my first “real” rock band in middle school. Walking past the school band room and hearing three unsuspecting dudes rocking out was probably my downfall. After walking in, sitting behind the drum-kit, and beating it around a bit, they told me that they needed a drummer for a performance at an upcoming school assembly, and I fit the role pretty well. The gears were really turning the next few years. I continued to thrash my drums for heavy metal bands in high school. My life was at an all-time high at this point, because I was unstoppable. Or at least that’s what I thought…
Accurate depiction of the dream I had as a teenager in a metal band.
…then, life hit me like a collapsing brick wall. My mental health disintegrated, and I fell into a very dark place. Getting into underage drug use, drinking alcohol, lack of sleep, and hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was kicked out of my band, and began to suffer severe social anxiety and panic attacks. At my worst, I had mental breakdowns almost every day, and the people closest to me were in constant danger of me lashing out. The hell inside my head swallowed me whole, and my inner darkness got me kicked out of my home for the safety of my parents and younger siblings. I was brought to a youth shelter in the back of a police car, where things just kept piling on. There were other kids at the shelter who made my life anything but easy. They ganged up on me, and along with having my jacket stolen in the dead of Canadian winter time, I got punched in the face and surrounded in an alleyway. I eventually got kicked out of the shelter by the staff because they told me I was “causing trouble”. The kids followed me to the next shelter, and one of them was much older than us, and twice my size. He used his size and strength to his advantage and tried to pin me down and hit me over and over again, but fortunately I was able to recompose myself. They treated me like an animal, and everyone else at the second shelter stood there and watched it happen.
Life was pretty damn bleak for a painful amount of time. The final shelter I lived in – the men’s shelter, was the last in my experience, and was also the least troublesome. My mental health continually degraded though, and I even earned regular visits from a counselor who worked at the local youth hospital, specifically, the mental health unit. He thought I was mentally unfit to stay at the men’s shelter anymore after some unusual encounters I had with the shelter staff. So from there, an ambulance transported me to the hospital where the counselor worked. For months, and then over the course of years, they pumped me with unnecessary medications against my will. What sounded like a glimpse of hope at first turned into another limb of the nightmare. They botched my recovery by discharging and re-admitting me before I was stable enough to function properly. I even had a moment experiencing severe dizziness – I completely lost my vision, my head felt like it was in a vacuum, and the rest of my body felt like I was holding a thousand pounds. I literally thought I was going to die there, in that exact moment. Thankfully, God had other plans for me. But I still ended up living intermittently in hospital through my late teens and early adult years, from age 16 to 21. Of course, this goes without mentioning that my parents showed up to visit me almost every day through this entire journey. They walked through the flames of hell beside me, and what do they say about that? “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
To recap, here’s some of the things that I fought through while otherwise experiencing the depths of my suffering:
– Drugs, alcohol, smoking (all underage as a coping mechanism, not for fun)
– Sleep deprivation
– The worst breakup of my life, also losing an ex-girlfriend to drug overdose
– Fist fight with a friend from school, held at knife point by a stranger, generally being in the wrong crowd
– Being arrested, transported in the back of police cars
– Kicked out of my band
– Kicked out of home, sleeping overnight at a friend’s house, living in shelters
– Beaten up by teenagers at the shelter, winter jacket and headphones stolen
– Transported to the hospital by ambulance, lived in the hospital intermittently for several years
– Beaten up at the hospital more than once, forced by security guards to be unnecessarily medicated against my will
– Left in solitary confinement rooms for violence against other patients/general disobedience
– Only seeing my family when they visited or called
– Pulling out my hair in big clumps because of the medication
– Feeling like I was literally going to die on a consistent basis
There’s always a lot more to a story than what anyone can ever explain – but that is pretty much all of the worst things that happened to me at that point in my life. There were definitely a lot of good moments too. Like one of those Summers, being a particularly beautiful summer, me and my dad went to the beach almost every single day. Those things were simply things that made life nearly unbearable because of how difficult they were to go through. I don’t want to paint a picture that it was misery 100% of the time. With that being said…
Not long after my 21st birthday, I started showing signs of improvement. I still struggled internally, but I began to find some solid footing after dealing with many side effects from ridiculous medications that I didn’t need. Reality began to present itself to me in ways that helped me understand how to take control back. I eventually found a medication that worked well enough to not make me hate my life. Then, October 2015 was one of the most bittersweet times of my life. It was the year that I got diagnosed with schizophrenia. My support system (basically, my immediate family and psychiatrist) now had a better grasp on what was going on behind my behavior. Which, fortunately, had also happened to become more compassionate with each passing day. It was also the month that I left the hospital for the final time. It felt like I had just won a war against an unbeatable enemy: my own mind. I was on the upswing, and the next few years I made immense progress. I learned how to deal with faint symptoms of my illness, and mild side effects of the medication. My mind kept getting stronger every day, and eventually I started making leaps and bounds in my mental health. Just to be clear – to this day, it’s never been perfect. There have definitely been many more hard days. But I can say without hesitation that every second was worth it. I’m also much stronger now than I ever was before. Life has never been better for me, where I am at this point, and it’s been an insane little adventure to say the least. I made it out of that crucible alive, and I can honestly say I believe God worked to keep me going through it all.
Me in 2011 (left) vs. 2024 (right). I can almost feel the pain that I was going through just by looking at my face in the first picture. You can probably tell I’ve made leaps and bounds since. I promised myself many times I would get out of that dark, hopeless place.
So now, all of the musical skills I earned, all of the horrible experiences I went through, allow me to write, record, and produce my own music on a level I didn’t ever think would be possible. More than 10 years after my life began to degrade so profoundly, this fun little project, Monsters Who Sleep, is my reason to keep pushing. I’ve invested the most intense hours and endless amounts of cash into my work. I do it for you, but also for me. So that I can enjoy my life knowing that I am working for a purpose greater than myself, and to help inspire others so they can weather their toughest battles like I did. Because I know what it’s like to suffer.
Also, in case you didn’t guess already, I was fortunate enough to come home and live with my family again.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey!
Whether you’re here for the first time, or are already an existing part of it, I hope we can conquer this rollercoaster of a life together.
Through all the ups and downs.
Let’s make it count.