Surviving Suicide With Zach Tidwell

 

Trigger Warning: This episode talks about suicide and self-harm.

What happens when someone tries to commit suicide but still manages to survive? This is exactly what happened to Zach Tidwell, a Marine Corps veteran who lost his sight in 2019 to a suicide attempt. He joins Daniel Weinberg to share how one motorbike accident pushed him into alcoholism, depression, and trying to shoot himself in the head. When he received a second chance in life, Zach’s goals transformed and his overall perspective evolved, which led him to become a self-taught and award-winning software developer making significant waves in today’s digital world. Get a glimpse into the mind of a man moments before suicide and the years of optimism after surviving it.

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Surviving Suicide With Zach Tidwell

This is a conversation that may be uncomfortable at times, but these are exactly the conversations men need to be having. My guest is Zach Tidwell, a Marine Corps veteran who survived a suicide attempt that left him completely blind.

 

 

Zach, so good to finally have you on the show. I know I have been trying to get you for some time. I have been pumped in a roundabout way of having you. I want to say welcome.

Thanks. It has been a long time coming at this point. I am very excited to be here, and thank you for having me.

Where are you right now?

I am in Denver, Colorado. Denver, Colorado.

Looking Back To Zach’s Personal And Professional Journey

We are going to go very deep. It is very rare that one has the opportunity to speak to a survivor of a suicide attempt. I think that the conversation and what you have been able to achieve are going to have quite an impact on a lot of men out there. I will start with, before everything changed, why didn’t you describe who Zach is?

I was in the Marines for almost four years at that point, and coming up on my four-year mark, but I was a machine gunner in the Marines. I was 22 years old at the time and had grown up knowing that I was going to go into the military. I had always wanted to serve. When the time came, I decided that I would be in the infantry because I felt that that was the best way to serve. I had been an athlete my entire life and had grown up with everything working towards where I was at. I had been married for almost a year at that point.

Twenty-two and already married?

The military is set up that way. That is not the right way to put that. It definitely sets you down a funnel towards that path if you are in any serious relationship. I was dating my high school sweetheart, and then, with being gone all the time, I deployed twice in those four years, and to be able to actually have us get to a point where we could live together and afford it and actually have her be taken care of as well under my benefits, the only option is to get married.

It was very early to get married. I had just turned 21 a couple of weeks before we got married. Hindsight is 20/20, but as everyone will hear, it did not end up working out. I was still on my second deployment when things started to shift, and then, when I really hit that big turning point, I had just been back from my second deployment for a couple of months.

Why don’t you describe to us what the world looked like from inside your head pre the attempt of suicide, what was going on?

On my second deployment, I actually found out that she was cheating on me. I found out from the other guy’s wife. I did not even find out from her. That was pretty cool. I came back from that deployment near the end of 2017 and tried to make things work with my wife, but they did not. I ended up separating from her in January of 2018. I was in a motorcycle accident in March that left me with a traumatic brain injury. That is when things started to spiral.

Let us slow down. You get separated because of infidelity. Obviously, that is crushing to you. I can imagine you were heartbroken. How did that affect you? The marriage breakdown to start with.

I was not in a very happy spot, but I was dealing with it. I was just keeping myself very busy. Life in the infantry is very busy in general. You are gone a lot. You are in the field all the time. It is very arduous work. On the weekends when we were not in the field or out doing some training, I was at the gym lifting weights, training for a half-marathon that I ended up running that spring, or at the dirt bike racetrack, where I was going every weekend if I was not in the field. It was constantly just keeping myself very busy. I found that if I exhausted myself, then it calmed or quieted the turmoil of it. I was not in a happy place, but I was dealing with it, and I was doing all right, all things considered.

How One Bike Accident Led To Alcoholism And Depression

You had a bike accident. Explain to us the severity of the bike accident.

Some of this is actually pieced together from other people, and some of it is from me. I was out at one of the racetracks that I used to go ride at. This was in Southern California, where it is very dry all the time. When it does rain, if it rains really hard, you will get some thick mud on top of rock-hard ground. It is just a thin layer of mud. I was riding, and I went off the jump, and I do not remember coming down off the jump.

I have a vague memory of picking my bike up, and then everything after that was pieced together. Somehow, I made it back to my truck, and I picked up the phone and called my parents, who lived seventeen hours away in Colorado. My dad picked up the phone, and I was like, “I am out riding my motorcycle, and I was in an accident, and I think I have a concussion.” He was like, “Where are you?”

I said, “I do not know.” He said, “Hang on there. Do not go anywhere, stay at your truck. Do not drive anywhere. Just sit here and wait for me to call you back. I am going to see if I can call one of your buddies and figure out where you are.” He hung up the phone, and I immediately called him back and said, “I was in a motorcycle accident. I have a concussion,” with no recollection of the fact that we had just talked.

Literally seconds after he got off the phone. It was that bad. I do not remember. I effectively did not. Long story short, he ended up tracking down some of my friends, and he also got me to talk to someone who was at the racetrack. These places are busy. I gave the phone to someone who was there. I guess he told them where they were. My dad got hold of them. Paramedics at the track came and got me, and then guys from my unit came down, got me, took me to the hospital, and all that stuff. Traumatic injury.

What was the diagnosis?

It was a traumatic brain injury. I had never dealt with any depression in my life. I had some head injuries before, as an athlete my entire life. I have had my bell rung before, and I have had concussions. This was very different. This was just another level. I became very agitated and impulsive. I became very depressed. I started having trouble sleeping.

Over that time, I started soothing myself with alcohol because at night I could not shut my mind off, and I was just replaying everything with my soon-to-be ex-wife. I found that having a drink or two before bed would quiet that. That transformed from a drink before bed to more and became habitual for me. I ended up getting out of the Marines in August of that year.

Six months later, basically.

That was the end of my enlistment. I came home, was going to school, working full-time, and keeping up appearances that I was doing all right. I just kept getting into a worse and worse place. I am adding a depressant to this fire of everything. Again, pretending that I am doing all right, I was just getting worse and worse.

Is that drinking and depression?

Yes. I was just depressed. When you add drinking into that, that is, in and of itself, a depressant. Obviously, while you are drinking, your mind also goes to worse places. Specifically because I was not talking about it, it kept getting worse and worse, but I had a very strong-minded opinion on a couple of things. One was that I thought speaking up was weak.

I had just come from an environment where there was no room for that, and it was probably ego on my part. No, I was a machine gunner in the Marines. I do not need to talk about that. That is weak. I can handle this myself. I excelled in the Marine Corps because of my ability to just push through things. I thought that would apply to my mental health. That turned out not to be the case.

As it got worse and worse, the big thing outside of just being miserable was feeding into my drinking. Again, it was functional. I was working full-time, going to school full-time, getting straight A’s in school, and doing well. I became very apathetic about things. I got to the point where really all I was doing consistently was showing up for work, school, working out, and then drinking. Everything else, the things that I used to love, taking my dirt bike to the racetracks when the weather was nice, or snowboarding in the wintertime. I just did not want to do anything, but those things were the things that I forced myself to do.

By that winter time rolling from 2018 into 2019, because my suicide attempt was in March of 2019, I got to the point where I was trying to force myself out of the house. I would load all my snowboarding gear up, drive a couple of hours up to the mountains to try and just make myself go do the things that I usually enjoyed. I would get there and still not want to do it. I would just sit in my truck for a couple of hours and then drive home so that it looked like I went snowboarding.

The same thing happened that spring with my dirt bike. I would load all my gear, I paid to get into a track, get there, and still not want to be there. I would keep up the appearance that I had gone and ridden my dirt bike so that everyone else thought things were good. In early 2019, my parents actually kicked me out of their house because they had offered, “If you come home and you are taking care of business, going to school, and all that stuff, you have got a free place to stay.”

I had become that big of a problem in terms of they took a big issue with my drinking and also just with me being a grumpy asshole. I was miserable. It was coming out to be around. They rightfully kicked me out of their house. I got my own place in February. I got a two-bedroom apartment with a buddy that I had gone to high school with.

Just pause it for a second. A question I want to ask is, did you share anything you were going through with anyone? Was there any male buddy from the military? Was there any male high school buddy? Was there anyone in your life that you shared anything with?

Not a single person. I thought that was for weak men. I thought people who had to talk about stuff like that were bitches. Obviously, that was my downfall. That is one of the things that I really had to learn almost two years after my suicide attempt, that speaking up was the bravest thing that I ever did because I had never really done that until then. Also, just the fact that will is entirely separate from your ability to handle things on your own.

Men often assume that people who reveal their vulnerabilities are weak. It is actually a show of strength. Share on X

For whatever reason, I think we as men tend to put those two together so that somehow struggling with depression, which is a chemical imbalance in your brain, is tied to your intrinsic will and your character as a person. Those are not attached in any way. I unfortunately had to learn that the hard way. That came to a head in March. On March 27th, 2019, is when I decided I was going to kill myself.

Zach’s One Attempt To End It All

Can I ask you, was there a moment where things tipped from struggling to hopeless? Were you having suicidal thoughts and then just said, “I am going to do this?” How would you describe that tipping point?

That is the thing. It is not a point. It is a gradient. It is a process that is a slope that you are sliding down. That was from the motorcycle accident through a year later to March 27th, when I decided I was just going downhill. I do not think I recognized how bad a place I was in until this point. Again, I thought that what I was going through was normal. I thought that was what it felt like when you get cheated on and you get divorced.

My approach in the Marine Corps, which worked for me very well there and served a great purpose there, was just gritting my teeth and getting through things. That is a tool in a toolbox, not the tool. I thought it was the tool. I did not realize that it does not translate over to mental health stuff. This is where I wound up. It was specifically because I was stuffing it down and then doing everything that I could to keep up that facade. That is extra draining while everything else is compounding.

Putting up the facade while you are dying inside, where you have to look happy to your mates, or you have to look social. That takes a lot of energy.

 

 

It was not good. Obviously, I am adding alcohol into the mix, and that just facilitates sliding downhill. It is crazy because I do not remember an a-ha moment where it is like, “Now it is time to go.” On March 27th, for whatever reason, I decided. I had my concealed carry permit. I had my gun, and this was the first time in my life that I ever mishandled a firearm.

I had grown up with my dad as a firearms instructor. I knew how to handle guns safely. I did guns in the Marine Corps. I was a machine gunner. For whatever reason, I decided I would clear out my pistol, and I held it to different places on my head and decided that I would shoot myself in the eyes because that is exactly where we were trained to shoot people for headshots, which is like this little T-box between your eyebrows and the verge of your nose.

The wildest part about all of this is that I felt relief when I decided. I am not trying to glorify anything. I am trying to paint a picture of a person. By the time you have reached this point, you are not in a sane state of mind by any stretch of the imagination. Everything that any living organism on this earth does, you exist to first preserve your own life and then pass your genes along, and killing yourself flies in the face of both of those.

To even be considering them goes against every part of any instinct that we have encoded into our genes. I was like, “This is my way out of this seemingly inescapable place.” I went back to work and school for the next couple of days. On March 31st, I decided I was going to do it. The day before, my parents had actually come over with my two younger sisters to see the new apartment. They thought that I seemed a little grumpy and tired, but what person who is going to school full-time and working full-time is not grumpy and tired?

I was already a grumpy asshole at that point, so it did not stand out from the baseline. They were in the room where I would shoot myself about 24 hours later, but I did not say a thing. March 31st rolled around, and I thought it would be more personal to record a video explaining myself to my family as opposed to leaving a note. I wanted to address each person in my family. That was the first time that I had opened up about any of this to my iPhone.

I actually tried some marital counseling with my ex-wife before I filed for separation from her. I apparently needed some liquid courage to go through with it. In the process of building myself up to explaining that, I had more than just a little bit. I was very drunk by the time I did try and shoot myself. While I was recording this video, I addressed both of my parents and one of my sisters. I only know that because one of my family members has watched the video.

I did not finish addressing my youngest sister. My roommate actually got home early from work. I paused the video, composed myself because I was crying, and went back out to the kitchen because my room and bathroom were on one side of the apartment. I went out and talked to him like nothing was wrong, asked how his day was, lied about how mine was, and we made plans to both hop on Xbox after he was done cooking because I was done with my homework. I went back to my room and shot myself.

While he was in the house?

Yes. He had finished in the kitchen at that point, but he was back in his room. There was that common area in between. When he heard the gun go off, he thought it was just a pot falling in the kitchen. He was not in the military. He would not know that sound in an apartment. He went out to check in the kitchen, and nothing was amiss. He knocked on my door, and I did not answer. When he came in, I was slumped on my bed with a bullet hole in my forehead and my gun next to me.

How Zach’s Life Was Changed After His Suicide Attempt

When you woke up after the attempt, because you obviously failed, what was the first thing you realized? Talk us through when you became aware of the post of the incident.

There was a lot in between there. I woke up while he was on the phone with 911. I do not remember any of this, but I was combative and asking him for help and water. They put me on life support when I got to the hospital. They did not know if I was going to survive at all. Once they thought I was going to survive, they did not know if I was going to be brain-dead or if I would be me.

It was touch-and-go there for a little bit. When they brought me off of life support, I was so out of it, not just from the brain injury but also from all the medications, that I did not even understand that I was blind. I was 100% blind just like I am right now, but I could not comprehend it. I could talk like we are talking right now, except I was seeing these very vivid worlds. I was somewhere that everyone else was not, but I would talk to them, and even though I could not see them, that was not clicking with me.

It was messy, and they thought I was going to get sight back in my left eye for a while. I had facial reconstruction surgery. My right optic nerve, this eye socket, and the bridge of my nose were gone. My left optic nerve was still intact. They thought that when they did the facial reconstruction and alleviated some of the pressure off the optic nerve, I would get some sight back.

At one point, while I was in the ICU, the doctors were doing their daily rounds. One of them just dropped it on me that I was going to be completely blind for the rest of my life. I already knew that I could not see, but I thought that I was going to get some sight back. I was also deaf in one ear. I was like, “It’s not a big deal if I am going to be able to see again.”

We’re just pushing forward with things until then. It was just me, the doctor, and then my mom’s best friend at the time. I thought that with the way that she dropped it on us, she had made a mistake when she said that I was going to be completely blind, and she confirmed that it was not a mistake. I had the awkward conversation with my mom’s best friend. When my parents got to the hospital later that day, we had a conversation with them.

I had decided that I was not going to be a bump on a log. I did not want to become a victim of my circumstances. We were talking about what life would look like as a totally blind guy. My mom was like, “You could get a guide dog at least,” because I have always loved dogs. My dad was like, “It is not that bad or whatever. Maybe you could be a therapist.” I responded with, “I am not making fucking salt and pepper shakers.” They were like, “What are you talking about?”

 

 

I had to explain to them. There were these salt and pepper shakers in the chow halls in my area on Camp Pendleton that, in little fine print, said, “Made proudly by the blind and visually impaired” on them. For whatever reason, when we started talking about work, my mind went back to that, and I was like, “I am not doing some menial existence.” It wound up being the case that eight and a half months later. I had to relearn how to walk, pee, and feed myself. I was snowboarding again. A month after that, I was back in college, and six months later, I was back out on my own.

When did it fully sink in that your life was just going to be different from what it was before?

I honestly do not think it fully sank in until almost two years afterwards. The hospital was so busy that I did not have time. I did not feel depressed anymore; it was just gone, even though everything else was going on. It was appointments all day, every day, because I literally had to relearn how to do everything. After that, I was home for a month and then went to blind rehab for two and a half months at the VA. I went to school to learn how to be blind.

I struggled there, realizing how much I had to relearn how to live entirely. I had to learn how to use a cane, read Braille, and use a computer. I did not think that independence was possible. Learning how to cook again was a huge issue. I was still recovering from a brain injury with one ear. When blind people cross streets, they are listening to traffic, trying to figure out the traffic patterns. I am doing that with one ear. It was a lot.

I had my mind set on doing something with this, and so the whole time I’m like, “I wanted to get back in college and was going to go to school for clinical psychology so that I could use this for something positive.” Even that whole time, I still had something driving me forward. I really leaned into the tech side because I needed to get back into college. I was not wasting time with that. I ended up getting to go snowboarding in December, and that was my first taste of independence again.

I was on a trip with some other blind veterans, and that was my first time being around blind people who were doing it. Total blindness is not very common, and it is definitely not very common to have loss from a traumatic event, because usually something that hits your head that hard kills you. I met a lot of older veterans who were losing their sight to genetic conditions, but none who were out there getting after it.

I got on this trip with a blind veteran named Lonnie Bedwell, who has finished the seven summits. He is about to finish the Adventurers’ Grand Slam. He just went back to Kilimanjaro and just did it the second time to help a blind and deaf veteran to get to the top of Kilimanjaro. They just got back from that. I met that guy on this first trip. He lost his sight in a hunting accident. He got shot in the face with a shotgun by one of his friends. That very first night there, I could not talk about any of this.

It would get me sweaty. I would get angry. People did not receive it very well. He shared his story of how he got shot in the face by his friend, and he was laughing about it and telling jokes. I was like, “Lonnie, how do you talk about it like that?” It’s all these other things that you do that are incredible and set that aside.” He said, “Zach, the more that you own it, the more people will be able to receive it.” I would avoid it when people would ask.

They would be like, “It was the head injury. You got blown up in Iraq?” I would be like, “No.” They would ask, “You got blown up in Afghanistan?” I would be like, “No. I shot myself in the face. Leave me alone.” It would not go very well. He said the more that you just own it, the more people will be able to receive it. I went home from that trip pumped that I got to snowboard again. He would know it was not very successful. Like, “I wanted to be like Lonnie.”

The more you own your weaknesses, the more people will be able to receive them. Share on X

I have everything sensed, and I was already enrolled in college. I got back in college for my first semester, then moved back out on my own in Denver. That was the middle of 2020. By the time winter rolled around, COVID was in full swing. I was back up on my own, and I bought my first house. I was living alone in downtown Denver in a place that I did not know, in a city that was shut down, where I also did not know anyone.

Over winter break from 2020 into 2021, that is when it really kicked me in the nuts that this is how different everything was. I had nothing to distract me. I was very lonely. I was burning a bunch of the meals I was cooking and dropping stuff on the floor, and then having to do face-down snow angels on the floor to find a can that I dropped. I hit it with my hand, and it would go scattering back across the floor. It was a lot of stuff.

I finally had to actually feel all of it because I could not just distract myself. That was the worst depression that I have ever been through. I reached a point where I did not want to be alive anymore. I realized that if I did not do something about it, I would end up killing myself. That is when I spoke up for the first time. That’s what I was talking about earlier. I obviously never dealt with my depression before that.

I finally faced that even though I’ve been in therapy, inside was cohiring enough to do so. I was terrified that I was going to get locked up in a psych ward. That is why I say that it was the bravest thing that I had ever done. I thought that telling someone would result in the cops being called on me. My therapist called for one of our appointments, and I told her. She did not call the cops.

That was the first time.

No cops. No nothing. She was just there for me. We went from talking once a week to every day and sometimes multiple times a day because it was bad. For no reason, I just did not want to be here, even though by all measures I was kicking ass. I got through it. I learned that these things do get better, but you have to make the choice.

It will not get better if you do not choose to do something about it. It is a choice. I made the choice not to do anything about it before I shot myself. This time, I made the choice to do something about it. It was a lot of work, and it was miserable. I learned that that choice and putting in that work would get you through it. There is light at the end of the tunnel if you stick with it and you speak up.

When you say that, just break that down. This is a mindset shift where you are basically saying, “I am not going to give up here. I’m going to get through this.” Even more so, “I want to live. It’s real.” Is that what you are doing? Are you talking to yourself? Where is that coming from when you’re saying that, “It’s a choice?”

I had already decided that I wanted to live because I made the choice while I was in the hospital that I would turn this into something positive. That’s what that conversation was. I have not expressed it very well, but I made that choice the day I found out I was going to be blind. I had seen what this did to my family. A lot of people think of suicide as selfish, and I did, too. I have suicide on both sides of my family. I had very strong opinions until I got to that point. I realized you are so out of your own mind that to be selfish, you have to be thinking of yourself. You are not thinking of yourself when you reach that point.

What are you thinking about?

You just need an escape. It is just whatever this hell is that I am in, and I just need out of it. I just do not think that if you were thinking of yourself, that would be the solution. It is not that the self is erased, but that nothing else is there other than the anguish that you are feeling.

How Zach’s Suicide Attempt Impacted His Family

You were just talking about the impact you saw that it had on your family. Can you tell me how you experienced that?

Some of this, regarding my parents, I will skim over, but there was some turmoil at home after I was back. One of my younger sisters was a baby at the time, so she did not know what was going on. The other one is eleven years younger than me, and she has Down syndrome. It hit her hard. Stuff was not directly communicated to me, but it’s obvious that it was very difficult for everyone. They thought that they were going to lose me, and it was not a quick path back.

They were still worried about me, even just being out on my own. I spoke up, and we got through it. I can give you a compressed time. You can drill into everything you want off of that because there is a lot. Things were good there for a while until that spring-ish, that’s coming of that. That summer, for me to get on here, I used my computer, and everything was read out loud to me. For me to go to college, all of my school materials had to be converted into accessible formats.

A lot of software is not accessible. My textbooks would have to be converted to Word documents. My college stopped doing that over the summer semester. That drove me nuts because I was fully independent at that point. I was snowboarding and rock climbing, learning how to kayak, and competing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. All of a sudden, if you set this homework in front of me, I could not do it. That pissed me off.

After my first test in the class where they were doing that, like, they assigned somebody to be my eyeballs instead of converting my materials. It was very frustrating for me. I picked up alcohol again, not having realized that I was definitely a functional alcoholic by the time that I shot myself, which kicked off two and a half years of rampant alcoholism.

At the same time, I had actually started researching what caused those accessibility issues. I found out it was software. I dropped out of college and taught myself how to code. That could create accessible software. That timeline, like two years into my drinking, guess, maybe now, probably a year into my drinking, I found out while I was trying to get sober, I was actually at a rehab facility trying to get sober.

I got diagnosed with a terminal genetic disease that will eventually reduce me to a vegetative state before it kills me. I kept teaching myself how to code that entire time. I wound up developing some accessible software that won a couple of awards at the end of 2023. That’s when I finally started making progress in my sobriety. It’s been two years now. I’ve got a new company coming, a book on the way, and a bunch of other stuff.

You’re a bit of a weapon. Your capacity and your potential are obviously much greater than you expected in your previous life. It sounds like the path that this has taken you on has opened up way more potential than you ever realized you had.

I’ve thought about that a lot because I think it’s hard for. It’s hard on a surface level for people to understand, like how I can say this, but I guess on one hand, I’ve ended up with a really beautiful life, even though there was a lot of ugliness to get here, and I’m very thankful for where I am now. I’ve thought about this a lot, specifically along the lines of what you said, like, “If I had not done any of that, let’s assume none of it, guess I hadn’t struggled with the depression or had gotten through it or whatever.”

If I’d stayed on that same path, I would be an ER nurse right now because that’s what I was going to school for and what I wanted to do. I would just be doing my three 12s a week and then playing video games on my off time, or going to the gym and taking my dirt bike to the racetrack and stuff. Not like that. That’s a very meaningful job, and that’s why it resonated with me. I’ve always been drawn to service.

First of all, I never would have written a line of code in my life had I not needed this solution like I did, just because it was not my thing. It’s the very polar opposite of what I did before. That’s a force multiplier. I can make software that will affect thousands and thousands of people. Just all this stuff with the speaking man.

I get to see the impact of this stuff in person, like coming up to me afterwards and just opening up like, “This is what I’m going to go get help now. I’ve been struggling with this,” or, “I lost my dad and I’ve always felt this guilt, but I did do something wrong.” You’re telling me that I shouldn’t feel guilty for that. This is open something. I just needed to hear that from someone who’s been through it.

It’s been very rewarding. All of it has. It’s weird. I don’t think about the blindness. I know that sounds ridiculous to say, but it becomes your new normal. The only time that it becomes like something in my mind that bothers me is when I reach inaccessible software for stuff. I’ve ended up in the perfect lane here where I’m fixing those problems.

I’ve got an appointment next week to help a very big company, like fix some of these issues. They’re finally listening. I have the technical background to back it up. It’s just like, it’s cool. Things are kind of coming full circle, and it’s actually this new company that is trying to address some of the issues that I had in college and remove those barriers for other people like me. It’s been so cool.

Mustering The Courage To Speak Up

Can I ask you, if a man is tuning in right now and is in the same darkness that you were some, whatever it was, about six years ago, what would you want him to know?

You have to speak up. Again, I kind of touched on this earlier, but what you are going through right now is temporary, even though it does not feel like it. There’s an entire world of people out there who want to help you, but no one can help you until they know that you need it. You have to ask for it. You have to speak up to someone, and it doesn’t have to be a professional.

It needs to be someone that you trust. If you don’t have that in your life, like I did not have anyone. Thankfully, I had my therapist, but I didn’t have someone else in my life when I spoke up in 2021. The crisis line in the United States is 988. I have called that number before. They will connect you with the services that you need and just help you find the help that you need. It will not be hard, and it will not be easy, and it will not be quick, but it will get better. Again, you have to make that step, which is the choice to do something about it.

You will come out on the other side of that. However long it takes you to, you will come out on the other side of that a more well-rounded person and a more thankful person, and just be better equipped for life, and then to help others as a byproduct of it, because no one wants to go through that, but people go through this stuff in life. I’ve been through other bouts of horrendous depression since, but I’ve learned the skills, and that’s all because I’ve spoken up and worked with people. It is totally navigable. You just please speak up.

No matter how long it takes, you will come out on the other side of your challenges and become a more well-rounded person. Share on X

I’m a little bit speechless, obviously, with the discussion we’ve just had. I’m so blown away by where you were and where you are. It gives a lot of hope and shows the power of the man, the power of the human. Finally, I asked all my guests five questions at the end of the discussion. Have you found your tribe? Do you have a group of men that you open up to and speak to?

I’m sure you have bouts like all of us. We’re good, and we can be on a good trajectory and have a very fulfilling life, that’s all, I call it big wave surfing. We all have points in our lives where we hit lows, and we do get down. I’m sure you have experienced that, and you will experience that again. Do you have men now in your life that you open up to and talk to about it?

I’m still working on it. The bouts do come, but I’m more equipped to deal with them now. Again, I’ve learned that it will pass. I just accept it and roll with it and do what I need to do. Keep doing all of the good things that I’m doing, and keep doing them, which helps get through that. I have two really close female friends that I can open up to about this stuff. One of the things that I’ve really struggled with since being blind is loneliness. Finally, I’m starting to come out of that.

In the past six months or so have started to finally, I’ve started to finally notice that when I move places, it takes me about two years to like start building a tribe. People are very uncomfortable around disabilities, a lot of them if they haven’t been around them. It takes a while for people to start treating me normally. Finally, at the point where I live now, things are getting good. Starting to build a tribe specifically centered around martial arts stuff, honestly, is where I’ve found it. It’s been great.

Answering Five Rapid-Fire Questions

That’s fantastic. I’m gonna ask you five questions, and just give me whatever comes to your mind. Who would you like to say sorry to, given the chance?

I actually think that I have now apologized to everyone who needed a positive. That’s been like a recent development, but yeah.

What are you proud of being or doing in your life?

A lot. Probably getting sober.

When did you receive kindness while needing it most and expecting it least?

Probably when I met Lonnie on that snowboarding trip.

Nice. What did your mother or father teach you that you frequently remind yourself of?

The drive and discipline. I don’t know that I have to remind myself of it, but that is something that has been driven into me and that I feel very thankful for. Obviously, the Marine Corps focuses on that even more, think. Those are like foundational things that are critical to where I am.

Now, final question, Zach. What is your superpower?

I can do things that you do with my eyes closed.

You’re something else, mate. Honestly, I’m there. I’m trying my head. I’m talking to you. I’m listening to this story, and you certainly don’t sound like someone who’s been through what you’ve been through. Your temperament, your energy, or your calmness. I’m quite overwhelmed just speaking to you and hearing your story.

I really appreciate you giving us the time and being very deeply honest with us about what you experienced. What you went through definitely must not have been easy by any means at all, but you’ve certainly shown us that, I guess a little bit cheesy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and you’ve certainly shown us the way. For that, I am very appreciative, and I look forward to chatting again. You’re a of a wonder wonder boy.

Thanks for actually letting me talk about it all. I feel like I talked way too much.

I’m sure there’s a lot more we could talk about. Thank you.

Thanks for having me out and having these difficult conversations, man. This stuff is very important. Thank you.

 

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