My Story

How I went from the brink of suicide to leading happy life

Men played with fire.

This invisible fire burnt forests, people, and even concrete. They unleashed 300 Hiroshima bombs’ worth of power onto the sleeping country.

But!

…this danger was kept secret.

In the next few days, my parents enjoyed walks in the park, breathing the radioactive air, and the gentle radioactive breeze.

Luckily, however, they didn’t experience any adverse effects.

But I did.

My weak immune system and underperforming liver kept me mentally fatigued and often sick.

I also developed all the tell-tale signs of ADHD, and mild autism.

But nobody knew about them at the time. Nobody diagnosed them then.

This potent cocktail of physical and mental handicaps made sure that I was underperforming at school.

My grandma once said: “you used to be such a happy smiling child, what happened to you?”

School happened.

I was the smallest and “the slowest” kid of the class.

I learned that I’d never amount to anything.

I struggled with every subject apart from some of the sports.

I learned that I was defective.

But I also learned that if I ever wanted to keep up, I’d need to work hard. I’d need to push, push, push.

This lesson was hammered into my mind.

When I was tired, I was told: “you’re just lazy!” Sometimes, followed by a smack upside the head.

This very lesson was also taught to me with love.

My grandma saw how much I struggled with Math and decided to help.

She taught me Math and helped me do my homework, and you know what?

My grades got better!

I learned that I just needed to work harder.

However, this belief came from the place of stress (e.g. “STOP FAILING”) and not from a place of confidence (e.g. “With hard work you can do anything!”).

In general, it’s a good belief to have.

But then came time for my university years.

I decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a doctor.

I worked my butt off and got accepted into Med school.

“My work ethic paid off” I thought.

I then proceeded to work my butt off in Med school.

I would study most of my waking hours.

I’d come home exhausted, eat dinner and go to bed.

Then, I’d get up at 4AM, and study, study, study.

I made sure I was working harder than anyone else.

But all this hard work wasn’t paying off.

I was at the bottom of my class.

So, I pushed myself even harder.

My erratic sleeping schedule weakened my immune system even further. I was almost constantly sick.

To “deal” with it, I started self-medicating and that, in turn, damaged my liver.  My diet was best described as “shove something in your mouth and go study more”.

My body started to fail.

My mind did the same.

I was burnt out.

Depressed.

Sick.

Once, on my way to classes I looking out the window of a bus and wondered:

“What is this human body doing in this bus? Where is it going? Why?“

This was dissociation.

This was depression.

But what could I do?

I had nobody to talk to.

“You’re just lazy” – I expected to hear in return.

You can guess how this story ends…

In a hospital.

My liver, pancreas, stomach all were messed up.

And then, there was the fatigue.

I’d wake up tired, spend the day tired, and go to bed tired.

Rinse and repeat.

My mental focus was gone.

I had brain fog

I could not read, study nor do anything that required focus.

I had to take a break from the Med school.

So, I had some free time.

I thought: why don’t I learn how to drive while I’m on the break?

Big mistake.

My brightest memory of my driving lessons was this:

The instructor screaming at me, and me doing my best to not act on my sincere, deep and all-encompassing desire to swerve into the opposite lane to kill us both.

It was one of the most stressful experiences I had had up to that point in life.

So, I developed driving anxiety.

I was genuinely afraid to drive.

What’s ironic is that I already knew how to drive.

I had learned to drive when I was 13.

But after going to the driving school, I was now too stressed out to even touch the steering wheel.

I didn’t have any particular worrisome thoughts.

I felt this fear in my body.

I just couldn’t drive anymore!

With this another failure under my belt, I then dropped out of Med school completely.

I enrolled into another university to study linguistics.

I was still stressed and often depressed, but it wasn’t as hard as Med school.

Long story short, I studied linguistics, got pretty good at it, and after graduating I came to Japan with my girlfriend.

In Japan I got my first stable job of my life – teaching at a kindergarten!

My anxiety, surprisingly, helped me to develop a strong work ethic and over the next 11 years I worked in education and climbed the “corporate ladder”.

Without me realizing it, my anxiety became the engine that drove me.

Inside my head, it was hell, but on the outside it looked better and better.

What’s more, my anxiety might have saved my son’s life.

One time during dinner my son (who was 2 at the time) looked up at me. The light was just at the right angle and I noticed something white inside his eye.

My GAD stepped in and forced me to look it up.

I’m glad I did.

The most likely explanation was a rare eye cancer.

I still remember that moment.

It was a full-blown fight or flight response.

I had to lie down on the floor and gather my thoughts.

The next two weeks changed me forever.

In secret, I cried every day.

My son’s cancer broke me.

But out of the rubble I built a new me.

A stronger me.

We were lucky too.

Thanks to our quick reaction, my son was checked by doctors on Monday. Hospitalized on Tuesday. Had his eye removed on Friday.

Yes, it was lucky.

He survived.

He can lead a mostly normal life.

He is now a happy, kind, curious kid.

And I couldn’t be happier to have him around.

That year, another “trouble” awaited me, though.

The school I had worked at for over 5 years closed down.

So, I was forced to start my own.

This experience was like a mirror that revealed all my weaknesses and shortcomings.

You see, I had always blamed others for my stress.

But now I was the captain of my own ship. I was free to do anything I wanted with my life.

But the anxiety was still there!

I realized that others have never had anything to do with my stress, emotions and thoughts.

I had been the problem all along.

I carried the problem in my mind, in my brain.

That year taught me new skills for dealing with stress, anxiety, fear and real-life problems.

Two years later, in 2022, these skills would be put to the test.

On February 24th 2022 I received a voice message from my mother:

“The war has begun. We can hear explosions”. My family is from Ukraine.

I hope nobody ever has to hear these words.

But I did.

So, as many other Ukrainians, I did my best to help.

But what could I do?

I was just a teacher!

So, I did what I could.

I volunteered to help Ukrainian refugee children in Japan.

I also participated in workshops and courses by psychologists specializing in war-related and general mental trauma.

During these training sessions, I discovered that what I had learned prior to the war could be used by others to deal with stress, trauma and anxiety.

I realized that my pain and suffering taught me valuable skills.

Sometimes, I would recommend a technique that I had developed for myself and the participants would comment on how helpful it was.

Trained psychologists said: “this is a great technique, I will use it in my practice”.

This showed me that my suffering was not in vain.

What’s more, keeping it to myself, would be a waste.

So, I started posting content online, participating in online forums and just helping people who find themselves in challenging situations in life.

Many people contacted me saying words like: “Thank you very much for posting this”

“It really spoke to me”

“This is really helpful”

“You have such amazing posts about anxiety”

“Not many people have been able to reach me that way”

Of course, I’d like to take all the credit for being so smart and knowledgeable.

But the truth is…

All the suffering that I went through made me so.

I just learned to avoid it.

And I’m happy to share what I learned so that you don’t have to suffer as I did.

So, this is why I decided to create this course.

This is for me, for my son and for you.

If you ever find yourself in a dark, scary and uncertain place in life, this can help.

I’m still learning, so I hope to be more helpful in the future.