I Should Have Been Dead Many Times Over

Transcript

I should have been dead many times over.

I'm not. And I've spent a long time trying to understand why.

My name is Darrin. I live in Yuma, Arizona. I live with bipolar one, anxiety with panic, and ADHD. All three. At the same time.

I was born with the plan already written. Firstborn son. Private school. Straight A's. Marry the high-school sweetheart. Take over the family business.

I never questioned it. I performed it.

And by twenty-two I had done every single thing on the list. Degree. House. Fiancée. Career waiting for me.

Then my back gave out on a riverbank, and I walked out of the hospital with a month of pain pills and a hole in my chest that the script had never mentioned.

Here's what nobody tells you about a scripted life. When you reach the end of the script and you're still empty, you've got nothing left to reach for.

So I did the one thing that made the dread go quiet.

The fall took years. Prescriptions became a habit. The habit became fentanyl. I lived that story years before the rest of the country learned the word.

It took two interventions and a rehab in the frozen mountains of Pennsylvania to stop.

And then, sober, I lost the rest anyway.

The marriage. The business. The house. Bankruptcy. A beach trailer in San Diego. Long stretches without my kids.

Only in the rubble did anyone finally find the root of it.

Bipolar one with psychosis. Generalized anxiety with panic disorder. And, much later, the ADHD that had been there the whole time.

Three names. And here's the part I wish someone had told me sooner: the meds for one can stir up another. The coping skills that work in one room don't hold up in the next. Most support groups are built for one diagnosis. I had three.

I rebuilt. A twelve-year career in Silicon Valley. A woman named Kristen who took care of me after a spinal fusion one month into dating.

And then I fell again. A relapse. A psychiatric hold. A year of programs and promises I couldn't keep. In 2017 Kristen put me out, and I was homeless with no safety net, and I had to decide.

Give up out here. Or live.

I chose to live.

The right medication, every day. Sleep, non-negotiable. A routine I did not break for years. In 2018 I asked Kristen to marry me a second time. She said yes.

Now here's the part most recovery stories skip.

I was stable for seven years. Strong. Successful on paper. And completely empty. My children had cut me off. I had rebuilt myself to be their father, and I was a man standing in a rebuilt house with no one to live in it.

There were times I did not want to be here anymore.

I say that out loud because if you've felt it, I want you to hear it from someone who felt it, and is still here, and is glad to be.

What changed wasn't one thing.

A question from my wife. A memory I'd buried for thirty-three years. And, for me, God. One night in September 2025 my mind went quiet for the first time in decades. That's my story. It doesn't have to be yours.

But this part is for everyone.

The people who kept me here were mostly not the ones with the credentials. They were the ones who could look at me and say "me too," and mean it.

Hurt people know hurt people.

That's why Rebuilt Minds exists.

Free peer support groups, online, for Arizonans living with bipolar, anxiety and panic, and ADHD. And one group built just for the people carrying more than one.

Led by people who have been where you are. Ninety minutes, once a week. Camera optional. It's always okay to pass.

I'm rebuilt, not repaired. If you're in the middle of it, there's a room for you.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988. In Arizona, it's answered by Solari. You can also text HOME to 741741, or call 911. Rebuilt Minds groups are not a crisis service.

Find your group at rebuiltminds.org.

Resources mentioned

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988; in Arizona, answered by Solari.
• Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741.
• DBSA, NAMI Arizona, CHADD, ADAA
• More on our Resources page.

Narration is a synthetic voice reading Darrin's words. No participants appear or are quoted in this episode.