March 24, 2024 • 60 mins
Key Takeaways:
- The importance of rethinking society's version of "normal".
- Vulnerability is not a weakness, but perhaps it is one of our greatest strengths.
- How to recognize when someone is in a state of crisis.
Erik DaRosa paints a vivid landscape of the trials that accompany anxiety and OCD. His candid recount of the shadows that once dominated his life serves as a profound reminder of the silent battles many face while outwardly projecting normalcy. Erik's powerful narrative on authenticity's role in healing illustrates that the courage to confront our inner turmoil is not merely a choice, but an essential step towards true wellness.
Childhood sets the stage for our adult lives, a notion deeply explored in this heart-to-heart with Erik. He opened up about the "bubbling cauldron of dread" that childhood fear and anxiety brewed up for him and how such early experiences shaped his mental responses into adulthood. We touch on the effects of genetics and environment on mental health, highlighting the urgent need to validate and support the psychological well-being of children. Erik unravels how the echoes of the past influence the journey to reprogram and heal.
We wrap up with a consideration of the multifaceted landscape of mental health management. Through Erik's experience and my own revelations, we underscore that therapy and medication are mere fragments of a broader healing tapestry. Discover Erik's "equilateral triangle of healing," where Western and Eastern philosophies converge with nature's grounding embrace, illustrating a holistic path to managing mental health. Our conversation transcends the notion of a quick fix, instead championing the relentless pursuit of a balanced life amidst the ebb and flow of mental health challenges.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kertia (00:00):
I sat down recently with mental health advocate ,
speaker and author of Scars toStars, and he's here to remind
us that there is no cure for ourmental maladies, but instead to
approach healing as a journey,a journey that requires a
healthy dose of honesty withourselves and with those who are
(00:23):
there to assist us on ourindividual journeys.
Eric puts this into perspectiveby speaking about his strongly
developed coping mechanism ofmasking.
That was a trauma response tohis childhood experience and he
presented as a highlyfunctioning type, a successful
(00:44):
overachiever, known for wearinga big smile, and I know a lot of
us can relate to that.
So, in speaking to Eric abouthis mental health journey, the
key takeaway here is that hidingbehind the veil of our issues,
deflecting and dishonesty toourselves, is a form of
(01:04):
self-harm.
We are doing ourselves a hugedisservice when we ignore,
disregard our issues, pretendingas if they don't exist, when
they're often staring us rightin the face.
It is such a disservice toyourself when you're not being
true to how you feel, as my wisefriend Ben Oofana would say,
(01:27):
when you suppress your authenticemotional responses by denying,
disconnecting or medicatingaway your feelings, you are
inadvertently rejecting theparts of yourself that carry
fear, hurt, grief, upset andother distressing emotions, and
this is what causes a lot of usto live in a state of disconnect
(01:51):
when we've numbed ourselves toour emotions, hence losing touch
with our true selves, to ourauthenticity, to who we are at
the core, often looking outsideourselves in an attempt to find
meaning, definition, directionand purpose.
But of equal importance isrealizing that when we fail to
(02:14):
take account of our experiencesand acknowledge the impact on
our mind, body and overallwell-being, we deny ourselves
the validation we often need and, most importantly, we deny
ourselves the opportunity toheal.
, thank you for being here withme today, so excited about this
(02:39):
conversation.
Erik DaRosa (02:40):
Hi, karsha, I'm so excited to be here, so excited
to see you again.
We had such a fun pre-callconversation and I feel like
we're already super closefriends and while we're
recording this, it's kind of fun.
It's knowing where you are inToronto and it's knowing quite a
bit here in the Rocky Mountainsin Colorado.
So can't think of a betterplace to be than in my warm,
(03:03):
cozy office talking all thingsmental health.
Kertia (03:07):
Yeah, I love that.
Mental health is such a hugething, such a huge topic, very,
very important.
So I'm really, really excitedabout everything that you have
to share with me right now.
Thank you so much.
Awesome.
So you have said, based on whatI know so far right, you said
that.
Erik DaRosa (03:26):
Yeah, I always keep secrets.
Yeah, in a good way nowadays.
Not I don't hide things.
I intentionally keep littlesecrets here and there from
hosts so that I can surprisethem on the air.
Kertia (03:37):
OK, all right, I'm looking forward to that.
So you said that you've alwaysbeen OK, right According to
society's definition, butactually you experienced
debilitated anxiety from a veryyoung age.
You had issues falling asleep Iguess you had a fear of
sleeping, I think you said andthen, also according to your
(04:00):
words, you had terrifyingobsessive thoughts during your
teenage years and then you hadpanic attacks and paralyzing
anxiety going into your earlyadult years.
So do you know, can you tell me, or have you figured out at
some point, the root cause ofthis issue and can you walk me
(04:21):
through what all of that hasbeen like for you, because I
know that is a really heavything to experience, especially
at such a young age.
Erik DaRosa (04:30):
Sure, great question.
So sit back, relax and enjoy,because here we go.
I love how you put it at thebeginning and I talk about this
a lot I was I'm using air quotesright?
I was OK by society'sdefinition, right?
Or I was normal.
So if you saw me at any pointin time, from my adolescent
(04:53):
years through the first 12 yearsof my career in New York City,
to the outside world, I wouldhave looked and acted just like
everybody else.
I had a smile on my face,carried myself with confidence,
and no one and I made sure ofthis, no one ever knew that I
(05:13):
was struggling and suffering onthe inside.
The reality is, what Ipresented to the outside world
could not have been anydifferent from what was actually
happening to me on the inside.
I wrote about this in the bookand I think it's a really good
description of how I feltthroughout that first kind of 33
(05:36):
years of my life.
I can only describe it as afeeling.
It's a bubbling cauldron ofdread paired with an impending
sense of doom.
So I will jump off from thatpoint and give your listeners a
bit of an insight.
And so you said, yeah, fromaround the age of seven.
For me it really started.
The anxiety and the obsessivecompulsive disorder presented
(05:59):
itself as this incredible fearof sleeping.
I wasn't able to go to sleepand fall asleep as a child, so I
would often find myself duringthe day worrying and panicking
about the very thought of goingto sleep and the thought of
going to sleep.
And would I be able to sleepthat night?
(06:21):
And eventually I would get intobed and at some point I would
get up.
The house would be dark,everyone else would be asleep
and I'd walk around the house,often shaking, physically
shaking, crying, and that isreally my first memory of what I
would call both the emotionaland the physical symptoms of
(06:44):
anxiety.
And, as you said, that began toworsen as I moved through into
high school, and so not only wasit this fear of sleeping, but
that was when the intrusivethoughts really started to creep
into my head, and so the OCD.
I knew something was not rightwhen I was young and I thought I
(07:06):
was broken and I thought I wasunfixable.
The reality was, if I had onlyknown the truth, I always
thought I was the only one.
So the intrusive thoughtsreally started to happen.
And for your audience who mightnot be familiar with that.
Intrusive thoughts are oftenterrifying, unwanted thoughts
that are like this bright, shinyobject or constantly screaming
(07:27):
in your head.
Look at me, look at me like thedisco ball on a dance floor,
and the more I would try to pushthose away, the more they would
come back, and it would make itmore and more challenging for
me to get through the day, andso my brain would latch on to
something such as a fear ofsleeping or fear of getting sick
(07:48):
, and would immediately go fromfear of getting sick to I'm
going to die, right.
So that thread got pulled verytightly and very quickly, and
along with it came thecompulsion side of OCD, and so
for me it presented itself interms of counting.
So everything I did had to bedone in threes, and so I would
(08:10):
turn my light switch on and offthree times, I would check the
lock on my door three times tomake sure that the front door
was closed, and if, for anyreason, I felt like I had
forgotten to do that, even if Ihad left the house, I would turn
around and I would come backhome and I would do it, and the
reason I was doing it and I knowthat now is it was the only way
(08:32):
that I or for those who sufferfrom OCD feel as though they
have some type of control inwhat is otherwise an
uncontrollable and irrationalthought pattern.
And so that continued.
It continued into college andit would ebb and flow.
(08:53):
And so I do want people to knowthat.
You know, I wasn't living if itwas a dial of one to 10.
There were some times when itwould all be dialed up to a 10
and there were others when itwould be more of a four, of a
five.
But I was always struggling,and I was struggling in silence
and I never let anyone know.
And I moved to New York City in1993 after graduating.
(09:16):
And where better than someonewith severe anxiety and OCD to
end up then on Wall Street,because we all know what a
relaxing world that can be?
And so what I didn't realize atthe time was the environment
that I was in.
The stress of that environment,the long hours, the lack of
sleep, was pushing not only mybody but pushing my brain to a
(09:43):
place where it just wasn'tsustainable.
Take that and put it togetherwith a couple of decades of
pushing down all of thesefeelings and not telling anyone.
And finally, in 2004,.
I was 33 years old, it was thelate summer and I suffered my
first of two dissociativeepisodes.
(10:03):
They used to go by the name ofa nervous breakdown and it was
at that point when I was totallyexposed.
I couldn't hide it from anyoneanymore my wife, who was not
aware all of that time.
We had been together both fromcollege through to our early 30s
and I needed help.
(10:24):
And I got that help.
With her encouragement, I foundan incredible therapist in New
York City and I really began thehealing journey.
And it all began with me Finallyhaving the strength and the
courage to stand up on my owntwo feet and to tell someone.
And from that point on, you talkabout the discovery and the
(10:47):
journey and finding out the whyand where did it all come from?
It's really been for me now kindof an 18, almost 19 year
journey, with lots of twists andturns and discovering things
about myself, discovering thingsabout how I grew up and I was
50 years old in the end ofNovember of 2021 when I was
(11:10):
finally diagnosed with childhoodemotional PTSD and that in and
of itself, those four lettersPTSD it really was the beginning
of the answer to the questionof why, and I realized what was
happening all along, even duringmy therapy for the first call
(11:35):
it 10 plus years, we wereaddressing the symptom and
finally, with my therapist herein Colorado, we were actually
able to say, hey, you have athing.
And once I realized I had athing, it completely changed my
journey for the better.
And so here I am today, able toshare my journey with others so
(11:59):
that they can recognize thatone.
They're not alone, there's nostigma in talking about it, and
that how important it is toshare your feelings and to be
able to tell someone because younever know who else is
struggling, whether it's you orsomeone else in your life Wow.
Kertia (12:18):
Like you came like right out with it all.
And when you said bubblingcauldron of dread, that really
hit because I'm just like I canonly imagine what experience in
that in your mind, in your body,as a child.
I can only imagine howterrified you always were, how
(12:42):
stressed you always were andwhat that did to your little
brain at the time.
You know your psyche and you'restill developing.
That was such.
You were seven years old.
That was like a significantstage of development that you
were in at that time and for Idon't know like how do you think
(13:04):
have an experience is, becauseyou know you just said that my
part of this was from childhoodemotional PTSD.
How do you think that kind oflike weighed on your life moving
forward, because then there wasthe OCD.
Was the OCD kind of like aco-morbidity with that?
Was it already there or didthat kind of come along with
(13:27):
that PTSD?
Erik DaRosa (13:30):
Yeah, it's a really , really great question and it's
a little bit of both.
There was clearly apredisposition to mental health
challenges going way back in myfamily, but a key part of it was
, as you said, during mydevelopmental years, when we
know that the prefrontal cortexin the human being is, if it
(13:50):
does become fully developedwhich, you can argue, in most of
us it never becomes fullydeveloped.
It's usually not until aroundthe age of 25 or 26.
And so as a child, we're stillreally developing all of those
patterns right, and what we seeand what we learn from an early
age is often becomes the defaultmechanisms for how our amygdala
(14:17):
which in our younger years iswhat I like to refer to as the
CEO of the brain at that timeand over time, in a properly
forming brain, the CEO movesoffices and he moves to the
front of the brain where he hasan amazing or she has an amazing
view and can look out and youcan live in a world of responses
(14:39):
and well thought out responses,Whereas growing up in a world
where you're ruled by what'scalled it severe anxiety, it's
as though you're in fight orflight mode 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
As you begin to get older.
That is the training.
(15:00):
It's like going to the gym.
You've now trained yourself tobehave in a way where you're not
able to respond, but your brainjust simply reacts.
And it reacts based on whatit's learned and what it's seen.
And I was super prone to anger,sometimes rage.
A lot of it stems from me notfeeling as though I had a voice
(15:23):
when I was younger and it wasoften a way for I would act out
and it was a way for me to beable to be seen and feel like I
was heard.
And then I was constantly beingkind of shut down and stifled
and the more that would happen,the more I would turn that dial
from zero up to 100.
(15:44):
And it was just full out angerand lashing out at those around
me, those close to me, and Icould never really understand
why.
I couldn't explain why and Iused to just think that's who I
was.
And I realize now all of thatself destructive behavior was
built upon this lack offoundation of feeling safe and
(16:07):
secure in my younger years andso I developed attachment
syndromes and for me it wasanxious attachment syndrome and
I never really wanted to letanyone get close to me out of
fear that those people weregoing to leave.
So that was kind of what ruledmy life and when I thought of
that description for it, it kindof popped into my head.
(16:30):
And even now, when I talk aboutkind of this bubbling cauldron
of dread, I get this visualimage of a series of witches
standing around in the woodswith this big black kettle and a
giant stick and they'restirring the pot and all of this
mist and smoke is coming out ofit.
It's almost as though they eachand every day were kind of
(16:51):
concocting what the recipe of myanxiety and OCD was going to be
like.
And for any of your listenerswho may know someone or have
experienced that feeling ofanxiety themselves, it's really
that it's that sense ofimpending doom.
You're constantly worried aboutsomething that's going to
(17:15):
happen in the future, and for meit was constantly worrying
about something terrible oftendeath or harm that was going to
happen and it gets to the levelof not only terrifying, but you
just freeze, you don't have theability to move and you don't
feel safe and secure anywhere.
That was how my life was beingrun and we'll talk about it more
(17:38):
.
It's taken a very long time anda long journey to be able to
work and reprogram that and tobecome the person that I am
sitting talking on the podcasttoday.
Kertia (17:50):
That is tremendous and I was thinking as you're speaking
.
By the way, your description ofthe witches in the woods,
that's exactly what I wasthinking.
I was just thinking like thereis this huge cauldron, the smoke
, the witches, and you're justthinking about everything that
they could do to just like messwith you.
Erik DaRosa (18:06):
Yes, and they're like cackling, and they're like
we're going to throw in a littlebit of this today because Eric
might have thought that thispart of what he was obsessing
over was gone, but we're goingto add a little extra today just
to remind him that, hey, we'restill here.
Kertia (18:20):
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought about, and you
were talking about yourchildhood and the environment
that you were surrounded by.
And I'm just like, as a parentmyself I have two girls and I'm
like, if they were exhibitingthese behaviors, you know, like
these stress behaviors, anxiousbehaviors, I would like to think
that I would catch on at somepoint and I'm just like, well,
(18:45):
if you're in that type ofenvironment and you don't feel
safe even if, whether or not youcould conceptualize the thought
or concept of safety and beingsafe, your environment being
safer, feeling safesubconsciously you have already
kind of absorbed that, thatyou're not safe there is no way
(19:06):
that you would have been able toeven rely on the people around
you to kind of help you navigatethose feelings, those emotions
and the triggers right.
Yes, I can only imagine havingto deal with that for so long.
Erik DaRosa (19:21):
You're absolutely right and to give some context
for your audience.
So I grew up.
I was born in 1971, before wehad two zero before the date and
so I grew up in the 70s and 80sand it was a time where the
topic of mental health was neverspoken about, not in the home,
not outside the home.
(19:41):
So one I had no idea that whatwas happening within me.
I also joke that, looking back,I could have won multiple Oscar
awards for the acting job thatI did.
It was so good that no one knew.
(20:02):
So if you combine the actingjob and me, hiding it and never
letting people see the physicalmanifestations of what anxiety
and OCD look like for me, as Ialways made sure if I was crying
or if I was upset or if I wasdoing my compulsive behavior, no
one was around Couple that withmental health not being
(20:27):
something that was spoken aboutor even something that was well
known about by parents.
In those days, people were notlooking for the signs and the
symptoms, things like.
When mental health was thoughtabout in those days, it was
always thought aboutschizophrenia, multiple
personalities, movies like oneflew over the cuckoo's nest.
(20:51):
People thought that was thedefinition of mental illness,
and so if it didn't reach tothat threshold, no one would be
looking out for those signs.
As you said, what I'm sothankful for nowadays is we're
in an environment where thediscussions around mental health
are starting to become more andmore front and center, as you
said, more front and centerwithin homes and especially for
(21:14):
people who have experienced itthemselves being more aware of
it and being able to have thosediscussions with friends.
It's much easier to be able tospot that in your own children.
It's easier to start to havethose conversations with your
children.
Once your children know thatyou're there for them and that
you support them, it's so mucheasier for them to be able to
(21:36):
open up and to share theirfeelings and what's happening,
and so it's great to see in thelast 40 or 50 years, where the
direction of mental healthconversations have gone.
We still have a tremendousamount of work to do, but I'm so
hopeful that we are on thispath where it will become more
(21:58):
and more the norm to talk aboutour struggles and to talk about
our feelings and to show peoplethat vulnerability isn't a
weakness, but vulnerability isactually a strength.
Kertia (22:08):
Yeah, exactly.
And when you said to me thatyour wife you were with her
since college and she had noidea, it was just like holy
smokes, the kind of energy thatyou spend to kind of lie to
others.
You know what I mean?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Erik DaRosa (22:26):
It's a lot.
So you just hit on somethingamazing that I'd love to talk
about.
Is this idea of the energy awaste?
Yeah, and it's something that Ireally only started to reflect
on in the past couple of years.
I had no idea at the time howmuch energy I was actually
(22:53):
burning up trying to be twocompletely different characters.
So there was the Eric thatpeople saw on the outside.
It was very often the smilingperson joking and laughing.
I know now that was my defensemechanism.
I always felt if I was kind ofthe life of the party, if I was
(23:15):
the jokester often verysarcastic and then smiling
people would never be tipped offthat there was something wrong
or that I was struggling.
At the same time I was playingthis second character and that
character was one of me justdeeply, deeply struggling on the
(23:39):
inside.
It was a tremendous time sinkfor me.
Kertia (23:44):
Yeah, it takes so much energy out of you.
When you do that.
You kind of like you havedifferent personas and you have
to manage those personas inevery single environment that
you enter.
I get why you did what you did.
The stigma attached to mentalhealth is ridiculous, but it's
(24:06):
still attached.
But back then in the 70s and80s it was bad.
Even when I was growing up inthe 80s it was really disgusting
the things that people wouldsay.
So I can only imagine what youwere going through, because it's
just like you needed a help butyou couldn't even seek the help
and at some point I don't eventhink you realized how much help
(24:30):
you probably needed.
Because mental health, as yousaid, no one spoke about it back
then.
It's now a recent thing thatwe're really starting to talk
about these things and be moreopen about it.
Erik DaRosa (24:44):
So I just want to say, first off, thank you for
those words and the way that yousaid it, and that I can
understand exactly why you didwhat you did.
I've been on a lot of podcastsand I've done a lot of my own
and that's the first time I'veheard someone put it in those
(25:05):
terms to me.
So thank you very much for that.
I appreciate that Absolutely.
And yeah, it's one of thosethings where we don't know what
we need, when we don't knowwhat's available and when we
don't know what's wrong.
And I just think back sittinghere now through all those
different phases of my life andthere were often times when for
(25:31):
me, the baseline was thebaseline was never zero anxiety
or zero obsessive thoughts, thebaseline was more like a four.
And so that for me, if, when Iwould get back to that place and
my head would be somewhatquieter and my anxiety would be
somewhat lower, I often wouldthink to myself, wow, it's over,
(25:54):
I'm cured.
And that was another kind ofmistake that I had even into my
early thirties.
Was that just because I wasfeeling a certain way didn't in
any way mean that all thosesymptoms were gone and that
there was, that I was kind ofmagically cured from whatever
(26:17):
was was happening to me.
And you know it's taken me avery long time along my journey
to be able to go back anddiscover that and I think this
is really important for youraudience.
It is a journey and there weretimes in the early days of me
working with my therapist andbeing on medication where I
thought that just by going in totalk and by being on medication
(26:41):
that was enough and that wasgoing to be a cure.
And then I would have setbacksand I would beat myself up over
those setbacks and think why didthis happen again?
Why did this happen to me?
I was still living in thatvictim mode or you know, as I
talk about on my podcast thename you know I was surviving, I
was still surviving.
(27:02):
And then I learned through thehelp of therapy and through the
help of my wife and friends andjust reading and finding out
more.
That was only part of the work.
The real work had to come frominside of me and I really had to
open up and I had to be honestand I had to share everything
that was happening.
I couldn't tell little piecesand parts.
(27:24):
That was something I was doingin therapy in my early days is I
would think, well, I'm notgoing to share this because this
is just way too right out therefor me to tell my therapist.
So I would really kind of diceup what I was going to have in
terms of a conversation and Irealized, you know, after a few
setbacks that it was onlyhurting me If I really wanted to
(27:49):
get better.
It was like going to yourregular physician for your
checkup.
If you go in and they askquestions and you just say, yep,
everything's fine, everything'sbothering me and there are
things, then at some point downthe road it becomes a much
bigger problem.
And I'm glad that you know I'mhere today and I'm able to speak
(28:09):
about it.
But I can't stress enough theimportance of, if you feel
something, if something's notright, or you notice something
in someone else and somethingjust doesn't seem right, you
know, have that conversation.
It will most definitely changethe trajectory of somebody's
life and in many cases it mighteven save that person's life.
Kertia (28:30):
Absolutely, absolutely, and I was just thinking as you
were speaking.
You spoke about yourdisassociated episodes that you
experienced, and this was in.
You said 2004 and 2006.
Was that enough for you to kindof seek help, to kind of figure
(28:51):
out what's going on with youand like, or did you start
seeking help before and then?
Because, as you said, thehealing is never done.
You kind of just learn how tomanage it.
It never goes away.
You learn how to manage itbetter so that you can function
better and more efficiently inyour day to day life.
But what was that thing thatcatapulted you into like really
(29:14):
saying like I need help.
You know what I mean I needhelp, or else.
Erik DaRosa (29:18):
So 2004 was when I broke, and the way I can
describe it is I shattered, notjust broken.
You know, if you take a plateand you drop it on the ground,
maybe it breaks into two orthree pieces, like for me.
The description was, you know,I had been broken several times
(29:39):
in a couple of pieces, and overtime I was able to put myself
back together on my own.
This time I shattered, and thatwas the first associate of
episode in 2004.
And that was when I firstreached out for help and I
started with therapy.
Now, your audience out there isprobably thinking this is great
(30:01):
, eric's going to therapy, he'snow starting to talk about
what's happening with him, andso his journey probably started
to get much, much better fromthere.
And so, yes, my journey didbegin to get better.
And then I made the mistakethat I cautioned everyone
(30:22):
against nowadays is I decided Iwas my own best doctor and I
marked myself as cured Again.
I thought there was a cure forthis and said I'm good, let's
call it good, and I stoppedgoing to therapy and I stopped
taking my medication.
And so, in 2006, not only did Ishatter again, but some of those
(30:47):
fragments actually disappeared,and so the way I talk about it
now is I had to completely andtotally shatter and lose
fragments of that person who Iwas in order to become what I
call a much better version of myformer self.
(31:10):
It's always fun when people askme who know me personally and
know about my struggles, andwill sometimes know if I'm
having an off couple of days,and then they'll ask me do you
feel like yourself?
Are you feeling like yourself?
And I always say thank you somuch for asking, but I now feel
like a much better version of myformer self, because my former
(31:33):
self living at a baselineanxiety level and OCD level of a
four that's no way to gothrough living life, and so from
2006 onward was really thisslow march towards becoming a
much better version of myself,and the biggest change really
happened in 2011.
(31:54):
My wife and I left our jobs inNew York City and we moved here
to Colorado, where a big part ofour lives was being able to be
outside in nature, and so anyonewho knows me knows that skiing
is one of my favorite things inthe entire world, and so I get
to do that in one of the mostamazing settings here almost six
(32:17):
months out of the year and thenI get to be outside in the
warmer months mountain bikingand enjoying time outside with
friends, and it's been such anamazing help and has helped me
heal so much along the way on myjourney.
Kertia (32:30):
Being in nature is very healing and extremely grounded,
so I love that for you.
When I read about the anxietyattack, or the disassociated
event as you refer to it, as in2004 and 2006, you saying that
you had gaps in your memory, itall falls in line with what you
(32:52):
just said about you literallyjust losing fragments of
yourself, right?
Yes, like that is very telling,because people lose their
memory when they have somethingthat's physically traumatizing.
You know what I mean.
Yes, like in a car accident or,god forbid, any type of
(33:13):
accident.
That is expected.
But when you have somethingthat comes out of your anxiety,
that is huge for you to actuallylose your memory, suffer memory
loss from that event alone.
That to me is extremely tellingof how much this kind of like
(33:35):
weighed on your psyche, weighedon you mentally, like you
literally did disassociate.
Erik DaRosa (33:43):
Yes, yes, and I did .
And what ends up happening in adisassociative episode is your
brain and your body separatingfrom one another.
Kertia (33:53):
It splits it literally splits.
Erik DaRosa (33:55):
It literally splits so your physical body.
You are still there and I canattest that.
The second one, which lastedover the course of a long three
day weekend, I moved around myapartment and I did things.
I don't remember doing them.
My wife, amy, was there toattest that I was doing things,
(34:16):
but I, to this day I have nomemory of it and the way I
describe a disassociativeepisode.
As a friend of mine at the timeshe was a psychiatrist she said
it's as though your brain isdoing a control, alt, delete,
and so your brain has gone intosuch overload that the only way
that it can protect itself is ithas to shut itself down and it
(34:38):
has to reboot and it has todefragment and clean up the hard
drive.
And the incredible thing aboutthat is when you finally come to
I'm going to call it describedas coming back to the present,
there's this period of elationand almost like a mania.
(35:03):
I remember the first time in2004,.
We had just gotten back to thecity, we had been away and I was
sitting in the diner with mywife and I had just sort of come
back to reality a few minutesearlier and I hadn't been eating
that weekend I hadn't beensleeping.
Those are all signs, by the way, for your audiences out there
(35:24):
listening when you move fromjust anxiety or depression to
what I would call crisis.
Like crisis is if you're you oryou are seeing people around
you who are not eating, who arenot sleeping, they don't have
the ability to concentrate,communication is difficult, they
don't seem motivated.
(35:44):
That's when you've crossed intocrisis mode and immediate
action is needed.
And so that's where I was.
And when I came out, we weresitting in the diner and I just
remember, like I've never beenso hungry in my life.
I couldn't stop talking.
I was eating, eating, eating.
I couldn't eat fast enough andI could only imagine, like what
(36:06):
Amy was thinking to herself,like will you please just stop
talking?
I know you haven't talked forlike a while, but can you please
just stop talking for now andagain.
At that moment I thought well,what just happened to me?
This is almost if it was afantasy novel, like I crossed
over into that other world andcame back and I was cured Like
it's over.
(36:26):
I'm done, I'm great, I feelgreat.
And what I've learned is thebrain as it reboots and those
feel good chemicals flood thebrain.
You feel good, but after awhile you start to feel yourself
drift back into that spiral.
And what's very important isthat in those moments, hopefully
(36:46):
you don't allow them to get tothat crisis, but if they do, and
by getting immediate care ableto help halt that slide so that
you don't fall back into thatdeep, dark well, without a way
out, but you have people aroundyou that are able to help
support and are able to helpstabilize.
(37:09):
And so now one of the things I'mvery well aware of in my own
life, in the lives of others whoare close to me, are those
warning signs.
And so I do a lot.
I'll check in with myself a lot.
Am I sleeping, am I eating?
Am I taking care of myself?
How am I feeling today?
I call it, you know, checkingin with yourself, meeting
yourself where you're at, andI'll do the same.
(37:30):
And friends know, like friend,friends of mine will call me and
say, hey, I'm not doing greatand I'll go through those
questions.
If any of those boxes arechecked, it lets immediately go
to see somebody, because wecan't let this go on any further
.
Kertia (37:46):
Yeah, and thank you so much for mentioning some of the
physical and cognitivemanifestations of anxious, of
anxiety, and I want to know isthere anything else that we can
look for?
Because I know, like I know,you've listed the ones that are
specific to you and your case,but what are the other
(38:09):
manifestations of anxiety Wouldyou point to?
I guess maybe generalizedanxiety?
I know you're not a physicianand stuff like that I know, but
just from your experience andlike you just haven't gone
through such a huge, amazingtransition and haven't done the
(38:30):
therapy and still doing thehealing work on yourself.
What else can you tell us aboutthis?
Erik DaRosa (38:37):
Sure.
So speaking from kind, of theinside, and yes, I'm not a
professional, I'm not a doctor.
I have spent plenty of timelooking and reading and
researching in the DSM five.
So typically general anxietydisorder is for people who are
experiencing let's call itanxiety and again I'm not
speaking from a professionalstandpoint, my own lived
(38:57):
experience but are sufferingfrom anxiety not related to some
severe or small T stacking uptraumatic events.
In my case the anxiety was amanifestation, symptom of a much
larger PTSD and so it farsurpassed just general anxiety.
(39:20):
And often there's also thismisconception between kind of a
panic attack and a dissociativeepisode, and the two are very
different and panic attacks andanxiety will often present
themselves.
Sometimes a severe headache,not the migraine type, but
really resonating kind of frombehind the head.
(39:41):
It's as though your head is ina vice it's the only way I can
describe it and the vice isgetting tighter and tighter and
tighter and that headache justwon't go away.
There's often a pit in yourstomach, and that's where I talk
about that impending sense ofdoom.
It's this pit in it and you canfeel it.
It almost feels like there'ssomething in your stomach
(40:02):
weighing you down and sweatingand shaking, things that come on
and present themselves verysuddenly.
You're like what is happening.
I know a lot of people who havedescribed to me panic attacks.
For them have felt as thoughthey're having a heart attack.
A lot of the signs and thesymptoms are very much the same.
(40:25):
You can also, with panicattacks, anxiety, you can get a
lot of pain in your chest,feeling this heaviness, feeling
this weight in your chest, andfor me I remember it would just
suddenly spiral into not feelingsafe anywhere and I would end
(40:47):
up huddling up on a couch undera blanket and I couldn't find
the physical to be able to movemyself.
And so some people talk aboutending up on the floor, on the
floor of the house, on the floorof the bathroom, not being able
to move.
It's almost as though you havethis temporary paralysis.
And, yeah, a lot of people talkabout like I thought I was
(41:11):
having a heart attack and it's aterrible feeling and I hope
that nobody out there listeningwould ever have to go through
that.
But if you have, or you do,just know that there's help
available to speak up about it.
And it does.
It does get better.
It absolutely does get better.
There are ways to live with it.
(41:33):
There are ways to treat it andmanage it.
Over time, the more work you do, the further and further and
further between episodessomething like that becomes and
I can say 2006 was the lastdissociative episode that I had.
I have not gone that deep downinto the hole ever since and I
(41:55):
credit a lot of that to mysupport team and to my therapist
, who is a part of that supportteam, and also them really
helping me to understand whatthose signs and symptoms are, so
that I have the ability tocheck in on myself.
They also, from the outside now, can check in.
It makes it a whole lot easierto be able to go through each
and every day.
Kertia (42:17):
I'm so happy for you, I'm so happy to hear that and
you saying that the fact thatyou got help it also enables you
to get in tune with what'shappening with yourself.
You can see the signs coming on, because, of course, this is
something that now it doesn't goaway.
And, as you said, this is oneof the mistakes that people
(42:37):
often make that they go totherapy or they take some
medication and they think thatthey're okay and some people
might stop taking theirmedication or stop going to
therapy or what have you, but itnever goes away.
It's something that you kind oflearn how to manage and the
more you do it and the more youpay attention to it, the better
you get at managing it, so thatyour symptoms don't present as
(42:59):
often.
And that is one of the mostimportant aspects of seeking
help not only to kind of detachyourself from the stigma of
getting that help in the firstplace, but also to kind of alert
yourself, to begin noticingwhat's happening within your
body, within your mind, tonotice how to recognize the
(43:21):
signs that you're about to haveone of those events again.
Sometimes it comes in reallyslowly and you kind of don't
notice that it's even happening,and before you know it you're
far down the dark hole and youhave no idea how you got there.
Not everyone has someone aroundthem to kind of notice when the
behavior the behavior willchange or the change in the
(43:43):
emotional state of the personchanging the attitude, the
change in your responses andyour reactions to your
environment around you and topeople around you.
Not everyone kind of have peoplearound them to kind of be close
enough to them to notice thesechanges For you, for someone who
maybe have a wife, a childrenor maybe close family members
(44:04):
that can kind of help tosometimes to mitigate it,
whereby someone can bring toyour attention like hey, eric, I
noticed that you did this, areyou feeling okay?
Or I noticed that you reactedthis way, are you feeling okay?
Right, some of us don't havethat social capital to rely on
getting that help speaking tosomeone else.
(44:25):
A professional specializes inmental health and you know the
healing modalities that goesalong with that.
It's so important and so vitalbecause then it teaches you also
how to take care of yourselfand how to better manage
yourself and your symptoms andeverything that's happening.
So, resting on that, I want totalk a little bit about the type
(44:50):
of health that you receive,because you said that you relied
on both Western and Easterntreatment modalities.
Erik DaRosa (44:59):
So I call it my equilateral triangle of healing.
I think that's the road youwere going down, and the reason
I call it that is we often talkabout a toolbox.
So when we've been throughtherapy and we've sought
professional help, one of thethings that, as you were just
describing, that we do is notonly treat the symptoms as
(45:26):
they're occurring, but weactually learn.
It's like studying atuniversity.
There's a difference betweenthe professor giving a lecture
and writing down the notes andthen actually going home and
doing the reading and askingquestions and becoming curious,
and that's a very big part of itis learning yourself what are
(45:49):
the triggers.
You become, in many ways, likea forensic psychiatrist, where,
if something happens, you're nowable to look back over days or
weeks and say, aha, thishappened, then this happened,
then this happened and sotherefore, this is why I'm
(46:09):
feeling the way that I do, andanyone who's a really good
professional will help theirpatients be able to do that, and
it's so very important in theindividual healing journey to be
able to figure out what are thethings that I might want to
stay away from more in my lifeand what are some of the things
(46:29):
that I need more in my life, andso for me, the equilateral
triangle is.
It's comprised of threedifferent I'll call it healing
modalities, and I call it theequilateral triangle because
each part of the triangle isequally as important as the
other, and all the corners areequal.
The sides are equal.
If you pull one of the sidesaway, the whole triangle
(46:51):
collapsed, and so for me it'sWestern, so it's traditional
talk therapy.
I have both a psychologist anda psychiatrist.
I've been on medication nowsince 2004.
I went off for a year.
I decided to go off for a year.
Big mistake went back on in2006 and haven't come off since.
(47:15):
We do change the dosages andthe amounts and the medications,
so that's been extremelyhelpful.
What I added in the last coupleof years has been the Eastern
side, and it was something thatI had never explored before.
But I thought there's more tohealing than just doing this one
thing.
I want it to be ascomprehensive as possible, and
(47:36):
so for me, that became a findinga Reiki master.
So Reiki has been a huge partof my life, and I did something
extremely unorthodox.
I actually put my Reiki masterin touch with my therapist so
that she could explain some ofthe things that I was
experiencing or working throughin energy healing, and then I'd
(47:59):
have a better way to be able toverbalize and talk about it.
In therapy there's mindfulnessand meditation, and so I do that
in both the traditional senseof sitting, either listening to
music or just being in a quietspace and focusing on my
breathing, or I take it and Icombine it with the third part
of the triangle, which is nature.
(48:20):
So for me that again it's skiingand mountain biking and being
outside, and a lot of times,whether I'm on a chairlift or in
a gondola, or if I'm out skiingin the trees somewhere, I might
stop and just take a fewmoments to breathe or to look
around, to put myself in thepresent.
And those last two the natureand the Eastern it's all about
(48:43):
how do we bring ourselves intothe present.
So for me it becomes how do Istop focusing on and worrying
about what's going to happen inthe future, which is the anxiety
, and how do I bring my mindback to the present so that I
can live in the now?
And the more often that we doit, science has proven that with
(49:06):
neuroplasticity, that we canactually change what used to be
reactions and we can make thosebecome responses and I'm living
proof that, through hard workand dedication and being honest,
that you can get better.
And you, as you said very, veryaccurately, it goes from this
(49:32):
managing your life to justsomething that you live with.
Yeah.
Kertia (49:40):
I love that you highlighted so many things that
kind of helped you, because Ithink a lot of people everything
is not for everyone, right, youknow that and there are people
that would completely write offtherapy, like ugh, that doesn't
work or I don't want to talk tosomeone about my problems, and
you know what I mean.
(50:00):
Like outside of the shame andthe stigma and everything else
that's attached that goes alongwith that.
Everything is not for everyone,but it does help to try
different things and I like thatyou spoke about the way that
you kind of put your Reikimaster and your therapist in
contact with each other so thatthey can kind of bounce off each
(50:20):
other and kind of help youbetter.
So there are so many differenttypes of healing modalities and
ways that you can get help andthose two like even when you
spoke about mindfulness,meditation, being in touch with
nature and stuff like that whenyou have a mental illness that
(50:41):
kind of takes over your life andtakes over the way that you
operate, for me I think that youneed that professional help,
but I think that when you cancombine that, as you do, with
mindfulness and being in natureand having a Reiki healer, that
just takes it over the edge andmakes it so much more effective
(51:04):
and so much better.
I'm a huge supporter ofcombining different modalities
to kind of help you to get towhere you need to be.
I know we're getting up to time,but I just wanted to ask you
one more thing, because this issomething that's been weighing
on my mind.
When it comes to dealing withanxiety or depressive disorders,
(51:26):
any type of mental illness thatkind of affects your ability to
function on a day to day basis,what I've noticed sometimes is
that people kind of substituteor some people substitute it and
some others kind of do both butusing substances like, maybe,
(51:46):
alcohol, drugs, mushrooms,things of the sort.
Right, they may substitute itwith along with whatever help
they're already getting, ormaybe they might completely
forego the help, professionalhelp.
Can you tell me what you thinkabout this?
(52:06):
What do you think about theeffects of what?
Because for me I think thatlong time it kind of just makes
it worse.
But I want to know from yourexperience what do you think
about that?
Erik DaRosa (52:16):
Sure, that's a great question and I'm going to
take it from kind of theaddiction side.
So I, thankfully have not hadany substance addictions in my
life.
I had other awful copingmechanisms that I developed that
(52:38):
we talked about and others thatI'm more than happy to share.
I'll come back on the show.
What ends up happening is and Italk about this a lot with
friends who are in recovery, orrecovered, as I like to say, and
other people who have battledwith different addictions it's
(53:00):
not the substance, there's someunderlying issue, trauma,
whatever we want to call it thesubstance becomes the coping
mechanism and in many instanceswhether it's alcohol or, in too
(53:20):
many unfortunate cases now,opiates, which often lead to
heroin addiction, cocaine I'mjust thinking of, especially
being here in a ski town in theWest, a lot of the things that I
see People, rather thanaddressing the underlying issue,
find that the substance is ableto numb out whatever that pain
(53:47):
happens to be for whateverperiod of time it is.
And once the brain discoversthat that pain or that trauma or
that underlying mental healthissue could be numbed out for a
period of time, the brain goeswell.
If it works for a short periodof time, it must be really good
in big quantities for a longperiod of time, and that's when
(54:10):
the crossover into addictionhappens.
And a couple of really goodfriends who have been on my show
and we've talked a lot aboutthis and they've said that it
wasn't until they really decidedto address their underlying
mental health issues, traumaissues, that they were truly
(54:32):
able to find a way into recovery.
So many people think that if Ijust go into rehab it'll fix
itself, and again what we'redealing with is we're just
treating symptoms.
We're not treating, again, theunderlying issue.
And so recovery is amazing, butit needs to be combined with
(54:55):
what you said a little bitearlier, kershia, is this idea
of there is absolutely nosubstitute for professional help
, and over time we can begin tocombine lots of things in lots
of different ways, but we need aprofessional to help us on that
very first part of our healingjourney.
(55:15):
And so when we combineprofessionals who are trained in
the mental health field, I cantell you there have been so many
advancements in terms ofprofessionals specializing in
different aspects of mentalhealth.
And so there are professionalsout there who specialize now in
anxiety, they specialize inobsessive compulsive disorder,
(55:38):
they specialize in trauma, andso they treat trauma in a
completely different way.
And so once you begin doing that, combining that with other
types of resources in therecovery space, you start to
realize that it's easier tobegin recovery and it's easier
(55:59):
to kick the addiction, becausethe whole reason that you've
done that you're now figuringout and that is starting to go
away.
And then the whole weekend andget on again another show and
talk about like psilocybin andthere are some amazing uses for
things like psilocybin,mushrooms and MDMA and the
(56:23):
treatment of PTSD and thetreatment of depression and
anxiety but it needs to be usedand I think this is getting to
your point again it needs to beused in a controlled environment
with a professional.
Getting out and eating a bag ofmushrooms in the woods is not
going to cure all of your ills.
In fact, there's an equallikelihood that the trip that
(56:46):
you go on is even moreterrifying than what you're
dealing with at the time.
And so I would say anyone whois thinking about doing those
types of things in terms oftreatment which, it's incredible
, including ketamine as welldoing it under the care of a
professional and being able toprocess it and talk through that
(57:08):
experience I know so manypeople who have found so much
healing and so much recovery inusing those things.
Kertia (57:17):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
That's exactly the point that Iwas trying to get at, eric,
that there are these things thatcan help but get professional
help and when you're using thosethings, do it in a controlled
environment.
It should never be a substitutefor seeking professional help
and for actually addressing theroot cause of the issue that you
(57:40):
have.
So I'm so grateful for you topoint in that out so important.
Thank you so much.
I also want to ask you aboutSurvivor to Thriver, because you
are the host of Survivor toThriver.
Could you quickly talk aboutSurvivor to Thriver and kind of
just wrap up by letting theaudience know how they can reach
(58:01):
out to you or support you ineverything that you do?
Erik DaRosa (58:05):
Absolutely.
Thanks for asking so.
From Survivor to Thriver is ourmental health podcast that I
founded in January of 2021.
We were still in the height ofthat pandemic thing, right, and
I was struggling with my ownmental health.
I realized that if I wasstruggling and I had been on
this really long journey and Ihad the resources available and
(58:29):
I had the tools available, thatI was struggling, that I could
only imagine the other 7 billionpeople around the globe who may
not have been some, may nothave been predisposed to some of
these issues, and I could onlyimagine what other people were
going through.
And so my co-host, mark, and Ilaunched the From Survivor to
Thriver podcast, and it'll bethree years old in January.
(58:53):
It's all about shattering thestigma around having mental
health conversations, buildingcommunity, empowering voices and
, most importantly, lettingother people know that they're
not alone on their own journeysand that there's hope and
there's help and there's a waythrough.
And so, each and every Tuesdaymorning, we have a new episode
and we have a new guest fromsomewhere around the world who
(59:16):
comes on and they share theirstory of what it took to go from
however they describe survivingto, however they describe what
thriving is and, mostimportantly, the arc of what
they did to be able to movethrough that particular issue
for them.
And so you can find us.
The podcast is availablewherever you get your podcasts,
(59:39):
and you can go directly to ourwebsite from survivor to
thrivercom, where you can accessthe podcast, the book that I
was a contributor in calledScars to Stars, which was
published in September of 2023.
You can reach out to usdirectly if you have questions,
comments, if you want to be onthe show.
(01:00:00):
We'd love to hear from you.
So, again, it's from survivorto thrivercom.
Kertia (01:00:07):
Thank you so much for hanging out with me thus far.
If you'd like to support ourwork, join our Patreon community
and share this podcast withyour friends and family.
Until next time.
I sat down recently with mental health advocate ,
speaker and author of Scars toStars, and he's here to remind
us that there is no cure for ourmental maladies, but instead to
approach healing as a journey,a journey that requires a
healthy dose of honesty withourselves and with those who are
(00:23):
there to assist us on ourindividual journeys.
Eric puts this into perspectiveby speaking about his strongly
developed coping mechanism ofmasking.
That was a trauma response tohis childhood experience and he
presented as a highlyfunctioning type, a successful
(00:44):
overachiever, known for wearinga big smile, and I know a lot of
us can relate to that.
So, in speaking to Eric abouthis mental health journey, the
key takeaway here is that hidingbehind the veil of our issues,
deflecting and dishonesty toourselves, is a form of
(01:04):
self-harm.
We are doing ourselves a hugedisservice when we ignore,
disregard our issues, pretendingas if they don't exist, when
they're often staring us rightin the face.
It is such a disservice toyourself when you're not being
true to how you feel, as my wisefriend Ben Oofana would say,
(01:27):
when you suppress your authenticemotional responses by denying,
disconnecting or medicatingaway your feelings, you are
inadvertently rejecting theparts of yourself that carry
fear, hurt, grief, upset andother distressing emotions, and
this is what causes a lot of usto live in a state of disconnect
(01:51):
when we've numbed ourselves toour emotions, hence losing touch
with our true selves, to ourauthenticity, to who we are at
the core, often looking outsideourselves in an attempt to find
meaning, definition, directionand purpose.
But of equal importance isrealizing that when we fail to
(02:14):
take account of our experiencesand acknowledge the impact on
our mind, body and overallwell-being, we deny ourselves
the validation we often need and, most importantly, we deny
ourselves the opportunity toheal.
, thank you for being here withme today, so excited about this
(02:39):
conversation.
Erik DaRosa (02:40):
Hi, karsha, I'm so excited to be here, so excited
to see you again.
We had such a fun pre-callconversation and I feel like
we're already super closefriends and while we're
recording this, it's kind of fun.
It's knowing where you are inToronto and it's knowing quite a
bit here in the Rocky Mountainsin Colorado.
So can't think of a betterplace to be than in my warm,
(03:03):
cozy office talking all thingsmental health.
Kertia (03:07):
Yeah, I love that.
Mental health is such a hugething, such a huge topic, very,
very important.
So I'm really, really excitedabout everything that you have
to share with me right now.
Thank you so much.
Awesome.
So you have said, based on whatI know so far right, you said
that.
Erik DaRosa (03:26):
Yeah, I always keep secrets.
Yeah, in a good way nowadays.
Not I don't hide things.
I intentionally keep littlesecrets here and there from
hosts so that I can surprisethem on the air.
Kertia (03:37):
OK, all right, I'm looking forward to that.
So you said that you've alwaysbeen OK, right According to
society's definition, butactually you experienced
debilitated anxiety from a veryyoung age.
You had issues falling asleep Iguess you had a fear of
sleeping, I think you said andthen, also according to your
(04:00):
words, you had terrifyingobsessive thoughts during your
teenage years and then you hadpanic attacks and paralyzing
anxiety going into your earlyadult years.
So do you know, can you tell me, or have you figured out at
some point, the root cause ofthis issue and can you walk me
(04:21):
through what all of that hasbeen like for you, because I
know that is a really heavything to experience, especially
at such a young age.
Erik DaRosa (04:30):
Sure, great question.
So sit back, relax and enjoy,because here we go.
I love how you put it at thebeginning and I talk about this
a lot I was I'm using air quotesright?
I was OK by society'sdefinition, right?
Or I was normal.
So if you saw me at any pointin time, from my adolescent
(04:53):
years through the first 12 yearsof my career in New York City,
to the outside world, I wouldhave looked and acted just like
everybody else.
I had a smile on my face,carried myself with confidence,
and no one and I made sure ofthis, no one ever knew that I
(05:13):
was struggling and suffering onthe inside.
The reality is, what Ipresented to the outside world
could not have been anydifferent from what was actually
happening to me on the inside.
I wrote about this in the bookand I think it's a really good
description of how I feltthroughout that first kind of 33
(05:36):
years of my life.
I can only describe it as afeeling.
It's a bubbling cauldron ofdread paired with an impending
sense of doom.
So I will jump off from thatpoint and give your listeners a
bit of an insight.
And so you said, yeah, fromaround the age of seven.
For me it really started.
The anxiety and the obsessivecompulsive disorder presented
(05:59):
itself as this incredible fearof sleeping.
I wasn't able to go to sleepand fall asleep as a child, so I
would often find myself duringthe day worrying and panicking
about the very thought of goingto sleep and the thought of
going to sleep.
And would I be able to sleepthat night?
(06:21):
And eventually I would get intobed and at some point I would
get up.
The house would be dark,everyone else would be asleep
and I'd walk around the house,often shaking, physically
shaking, crying, and that isreally my first memory of what I
would call both the emotionaland the physical symptoms of
(06:44):
anxiety.
And, as you said, that began toworsen as I moved through into
high school, and so not only wasit this fear of sleeping, but
that was when the intrusivethoughts really started to creep
into my head, and so the OCD.
I knew something was not rightwhen I was young and I thought I
(07:06):
was broken and I thought I wasunfixable.
The reality was, if I had onlyknown the truth, I always
thought I was the only one.
So the intrusive thoughtsreally started to happen.
And for your audience who mightnot be familiar with that.
Intrusive thoughts are oftenterrifying, unwanted thoughts
that are like this bright, shinyobject or constantly screaming
(07:27):
in your head.
Look at me, look at me like thedisco ball on a dance floor,
and the more I would try to pushthose away, the more they would
come back, and it would make itmore and more challenging for
me to get through the day, andso my brain would latch on to
something such as a fear ofsleeping or fear of getting sick
(07:48):
, and would immediately go fromfear of getting sick to I'm
going to die, right.
So that thread got pulled verytightly and very quickly, and
along with it came thecompulsion side of OCD, and so
for me it presented itself interms of counting.
So everything I did had to bedone in threes, and so I would
(08:10):
turn my light switch on and offthree times, I would check the
lock on my door three times tomake sure that the front door
was closed, and if, for anyreason, I felt like I had
forgotten to do that, even if Ihad left the house, I would turn
around and I would come backhome and I would do it, and the
reason I was doing it and I knowthat now is it was the only way
(08:32):
that I or for those who sufferfrom OCD feel as though they
have some type of control inwhat is otherwise an
uncontrollable and irrationalthought pattern.
And so that continued.
It continued into college andit would ebb and flow.
(08:53):
And so I do want people to knowthat.
You know, I wasn't living if itwas a dial of one to 10.
There were some times when itwould all be dialed up to a 10
and there were others when itwould be more of a four, of a
five.
But I was always struggling,and I was struggling in silence
and I never let anyone know.
And I moved to New York City in1993 after graduating.
(09:16):
And where better than someonewith severe anxiety and OCD to
end up then on Wall Street,because we all know what a
relaxing world that can be?
And so what I didn't realize atthe time was the environment
that I was in.
The stress of that environment,the long hours, the lack of
sleep, was pushing not only mybody but pushing my brain to a
(09:43):
place where it just wasn'tsustainable.
Take that and put it togetherwith a couple of decades of
pushing down all of thesefeelings and not telling anyone.
And finally, in 2004,.
I was 33 years old, it was thelate summer and I suffered my
first of two dissociativeepisodes.
(10:03):
They used to go by the name ofa nervous breakdown and it was
at that point when I was totallyexposed.
I couldn't hide it from anyoneanymore my wife, who was not
aware all of that time.
We had been together both fromcollege through to our early 30s
and I needed help.
(10:24):
And I got that help.
With her encouragement, I foundan incredible therapist in New
York City and I really began thehealing journey.
And it all began with me Finallyhaving the strength and the
courage to stand up on my owntwo feet and to tell someone.
And from that point on, you talkabout the discovery and the
(10:47):
journey and finding out the whyand where did it all come from?
It's really been for me now kindof an 18, almost 19 year
journey, with lots of twists andturns and discovering things
about myself, discovering thingsabout how I grew up and I was
50 years old in the end ofNovember of 2021 when I was
(11:10):
finally diagnosed with childhoodemotional PTSD and that in and
of itself, those four lettersPTSD it really was the beginning
of the answer to the questionof why, and I realized what was
happening all along, even duringmy therapy for the first call
(11:35):
it 10 plus years, we wereaddressing the symptom and
finally, with my therapist herein Colorado, we were actually
able to say, hey, you have athing.
And once I realized I had athing, it completely changed my
journey for the better.
And so here I am today, able toshare my journey with others so
(11:59):
that they can recognize thatone.
They're not alone, there's nostigma in talking about it, and
that how important it is toshare your feelings and to be
able to tell someone because younever know who else is
struggling, whether it's you orsomeone else in your life Wow.
Kertia (12:18):
Like you came like right out with it all.
And when you said bubblingcauldron of dread, that really
hit because I'm just like I canonly imagine what experience in
that in your mind, in your body,as a child.
I can only imagine howterrified you always were, how
(12:42):
stressed you always were andwhat that did to your little
brain at the time.
You know your psyche and you'restill developing.
That was such.
You were seven years old.
That was like a significantstage of development that you
were in at that time and for Idon't know like how do you think
(13:04):
have an experience is, becauseyou know you just said that my
part of this was from childhoodemotional PTSD.
How do you think that kind oflike weighed on your life moving
forward, because then there wasthe OCD.
Was the OCD kind of like aco-morbidity with that?
Was it already there or didthat kind of come along with
(13:27):
that PTSD?
Erik DaRosa (13:30):
Yeah, it's a really , really great question and it's
a little bit of both.
There was clearly apredisposition to mental health
challenges going way back in myfamily, but a key part of it was
, as you said, during mydevelopmental years, when we
know that the prefrontal cortexin the human being is, if it
(13:50):
does become fully developedwhich, you can argue, in most of
us it never becomes fullydeveloped.
It's usually not until aroundthe age of 25 or 26.
And so as a child, we're stillreally developing all of those
patterns right, and what we seeand what we learn from an early
age is often becomes the defaultmechanisms for how our amygdala
(14:17):
which in our younger years iswhat I like to refer to as the
CEO of the brain at that timeand over time, in a properly
forming brain, the CEO movesoffices and he moves to the
front of the brain where he hasan amazing or she has an amazing
view and can look out and youcan live in a world of responses
(14:39):
and well thought out responses,Whereas growing up in a world
where you're ruled by what'scalled it severe anxiety, it's
as though you're in fight orflight mode 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
As you begin to get older.
That is the training.
(15:00):
It's like going to the gym.
You've now trained yourself tobehave in a way where you're not
able to respond, but your brainjust simply reacts.
And it reacts based on whatit's learned and what it's seen.
And I was super prone to anger,sometimes rage.
A lot of it stems from me notfeeling as though I had a voice
(15:23):
when I was younger and it wasoften a way for I would act out
and it was a way for me to beable to be seen and feel like I
was heard.
And then I was constantly beingkind of shut down and stifled
and the more that would happen,the more I would turn that dial
from zero up to 100.
(15:44):
And it was just full out angerand lashing out at those around
me, those close to me, and Icould never really understand
why.
I couldn't explain why and Iused to just think that's who I
was.
And I realize now all of thatself destructive behavior was
built upon this lack offoundation of feeling safe and
(16:07):
secure in my younger years andso I developed attachment
syndromes and for me it wasanxious attachment syndrome and
I never really wanted to letanyone get close to me out of
fear that those people weregoing to leave.
So that was kind of what ruledmy life and when I thought of
that description for it, it kindof popped into my head.
(16:30):
And even now, when I talk aboutkind of this bubbling cauldron
of dread, I get this visualimage of a series of witches
standing around in the woodswith this big black kettle and a
giant stick and they'restirring the pot and all of this
mist and smoke is coming out ofit.
It's almost as though they eachand every day were kind of
(16:51):
concocting what the recipe of myanxiety and OCD was going to be
like.
And for any of your listenerswho may know someone or have
experienced that feeling ofanxiety themselves, it's really
that it's that sense ofimpending doom.
You're constantly worried aboutsomething that's going to
(17:15):
happen in the future, and for meit was constantly worrying
about something terrible oftendeath or harm that was going to
happen and it gets to the levelof not only terrifying, but you
just freeze, you don't have theability to move and you don't
feel safe and secure anywhere.
That was how my life was beingrun and we'll talk about it more
(17:38):
.
It's taken a very long time anda long journey to be able to
work and reprogram that and tobecome the person that I am
sitting talking on the podcasttoday.
Kertia (17:50):
That is tremendous and I was thinking as you're speaking
.
By the way, your description ofthe witches in the woods,
that's exactly what I wasthinking.
I was just thinking like thereis this huge cauldron, the smoke
, the witches, and you're justthinking about everything that
they could do to just like messwith you.
Erik DaRosa (18:06):
Yes, and they're like cackling, and they're like
we're going to throw in a littlebit of this today because Eric
might have thought that thispart of what he was obsessing
over was gone, but we're goingto add a little extra today just
to remind him that, hey, we'restill here.
Kertia (18:20):
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought about, and you
were talking about yourchildhood and the environment
that you were surrounded by.
And I'm just like, as a parentmyself I have two girls and I'm
like, if they were exhibitingthese behaviors, you know, like
these stress behaviors, anxiousbehaviors, I would like to think
that I would catch on at somepoint and I'm just like, well,
(18:45):
if you're in that type ofenvironment and you don't feel
safe even if, whether or not youcould conceptualize the thought
or concept of safety and beingsafe, your environment being
safer, feeling safesubconsciously you have already
kind of absorbed that, thatyou're not safe there is no way
(19:06):
that you would have been able toeven rely on the people around
you to kind of help you navigatethose feelings, those emotions
and the triggers right.
Yes, I can only imagine havingto deal with that for so long.
Erik DaRosa (19:21):
You're absolutely right and to give some context
for your audience.
So I grew up.
I was born in 1971, before wehad two zero before the date and
so I grew up in the 70s and 80sand it was a time where the
topic of mental health was neverspoken about, not in the home,
not outside the home.
(19:41):
So one I had no idea that whatwas happening within me.
I also joke that, looking back,I could have won multiple Oscar
awards for the acting job thatI did.
It was so good that no one knew.
(20:02):
So if you combine the actingjob and me, hiding it and never
letting people see the physicalmanifestations of what anxiety
and OCD look like for me, as Ialways made sure if I was crying
or if I was upset or if I wasdoing my compulsive behavior, no
one was around Couple that withmental health not being
(20:27):
something that was spoken aboutor even something that was well
known about by parents.
In those days, people were notlooking for the signs and the
symptoms, things like.
When mental health was thoughtabout in those days, it was
always thought aboutschizophrenia, multiple
personalities, movies like oneflew over the cuckoo's nest.
(20:51):
People thought that was thedefinition of mental illness,
and so if it didn't reach tothat threshold, no one would be
looking out for those signs.
As you said, what I'm sothankful for nowadays is we're
in an environment where thediscussions around mental health
are starting to become more andmore front and center, as you
said, more front and centerwithin homes and especially for
(21:14):
people who have experienced itthemselves being more aware of
it and being able to have thosediscussions with friends.
It's much easier to be able tospot that in your own children.
It's easier to start to havethose conversations with your
children.
Once your children know thatyou're there for them and that
you support them, it's so mucheasier for them to be able to
(21:36):
open up and to share theirfeelings and what's happening,
and so it's great to see in thelast 40 or 50 years, where the
direction of mental healthconversations have gone.
We still have a tremendousamount of work to do, but I'm so
hopeful that we are on thispath where it will become more
(21:58):
and more the norm to talk aboutour struggles and to talk about
our feelings and to show peoplethat vulnerability isn't a
weakness, but vulnerability isactually a strength.
Kertia (22:08):
Yeah, exactly.
And when you said to me thatyour wife you were with her
since college and she had noidea, it was just like holy
smokes, the kind of energy thatyou spend to kind of lie to
others.
You know what I mean?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Erik DaRosa (22:26):
It's a lot.
So you just hit on somethingamazing that I'd love to talk
about.
Is this idea of the energy awaste?
Yeah, and it's something that Ireally only started to reflect
on in the past couple of years.
I had no idea at the time howmuch energy I was actually
(22:53):
burning up trying to be twocompletely different characters.
So there was the Eric thatpeople saw on the outside.
It was very often the smilingperson joking and laughing.
I know now that was my defensemechanism.
I always felt if I was kind ofthe life of the party, if I was
(23:15):
the jokester often verysarcastic and then smiling
people would never be tipped offthat there was something wrong
or that I was struggling.
At the same time I was playingthis second character and that
character was one of me justdeeply, deeply struggling on the
(23:39):
inside.
It was a tremendous time sinkfor me.
Kertia (23:44):
Yeah, it takes so much energy out of you.
When you do that.
You kind of like you havedifferent personas and you have
to manage those personas inevery single environment that
you enter.
I get why you did what you did.
The stigma attached to mentalhealth is ridiculous, but it's
(24:06):
still attached.
But back then in the 70s and80s it was bad.
Even when I was growing up inthe 80s it was really disgusting
the things that people wouldsay.
So I can only imagine what youwere going through, because it's
just like you needed a help butyou couldn't even seek the help
and at some point I don't eventhink you realized how much help
(24:30):
you probably needed.
Because mental health, as yousaid, no one spoke about it back
then.
It's now a recent thing thatwe're really starting to talk
about these things and be moreopen about it.
Erik DaRosa (24:44):
So I just want to say, first off, thank you for
those words and the way that yousaid it, and that I can
understand exactly why you didwhat you did.
I've been on a lot of podcastsand I've done a lot of my own
and that's the first time I'veheard someone put it in those
(25:05):
terms to me.
So thank you very much for that.
I appreciate that Absolutely.
And yeah, it's one of thosethings where we don't know what
we need, when we don't knowwhat's available and when we
don't know what's wrong.
And I just think back sittinghere now through all those
different phases of my life andthere were often times when for
(25:31):
me, the baseline was thebaseline was never zero anxiety
or zero obsessive thoughts, thebaseline was more like a four.
And so that for me, if, when Iwould get back to that place and
my head would be somewhatquieter and my anxiety would be
somewhat lower, I often wouldthink to myself, wow, it's over,
(25:54):
I'm cured.
And that was another kind ofmistake that I had even into my
early thirties.
Was that just because I wasfeeling a certain way didn't in
any way mean that all thosesymptoms were gone and that
there was, that I was kind ofmagically cured from whatever
(26:17):
was was happening to me.
And you know it's taken me avery long time along my journey
to be able to go back anddiscover that and I think this
is really important for youraudience.
It is a journey and there weretimes in the early days of me
working with my therapist andbeing on medication where I
thought that just by going in totalk and by being on medication
(26:41):
that was enough and that wasgoing to be a cure.
And then I would have setbacksand I would beat myself up over
those setbacks and think why didthis happen again?
Why did this happen to me?
I was still living in thatvictim mode or you know, as I
talk about on my podcast thename you know I was surviving, I
was still surviving.
(27:02):
And then I learned through thehelp of therapy and through the
help of my wife and friends andjust reading and finding out
more.
That was only part of the work.
The real work had to come frominside of me and I really had to
open up and I had to be honestand I had to share everything
that was happening.
I couldn't tell little piecesand parts.
(27:24):
That was something I was doingin therapy in my early days is I
would think, well, I'm notgoing to share this because this
is just way too right out therefor me to tell my therapist.
So I would really kind of diceup what I was going to have in
terms of a conversation and Irealized, you know, after a few
setbacks that it was onlyhurting me If I really wanted to
(27:49):
get better.
It was like going to yourregular physician for your
checkup.
If you go in and they askquestions and you just say, yep,
everything's fine, everything'sbothering me and there are
things, then at some point downthe road it becomes a much
bigger problem.
And I'm glad that you know I'mhere today and I'm able to speak
(28:09):
about it.
But I can't stress enough theimportance of, if you feel
something, if something's notright, or you notice something
in someone else and somethingjust doesn't seem right, you
know, have that conversation.
It will most definitely changethe trajectory of somebody's
life and in many cases it mighteven save that person's life.
Kertia (28:30):
Absolutely, absolutely, and I was just thinking as you
were speaking.
You spoke about yourdisassociated episodes that you
experienced, and this was in.
You said 2004 and 2006.
Was that enough for you to kindof seek help, to kind of figure
(28:51):
out what's going on with youand like, or did you start
seeking help before and then?
Because, as you said, thehealing is never done.
You kind of just learn how tomanage it.
It never goes away.
You learn how to manage itbetter so that you can function
better and more efficiently inyour day to day life.
But what was that thing thatcatapulted you into like really
(29:14):
saying like I need help.
You know what I mean I needhelp, or else.
Erik DaRosa (29:18):
So 2004 was when I broke, and the way I can
describe it is I shattered, notjust broken.
You know, if you take a plateand you drop it on the ground,
maybe it breaks into two orthree pieces, like for me.
The description was, you know,I had been broken several times
(29:39):
in a couple of pieces, and overtime I was able to put myself
back together on my own.
This time I shattered, and thatwas the first associate of
episode in 2004.
And that was when I firstreached out for help and I
started with therapy.
Now, your audience out there isprobably thinking this is great
(30:01):
, eric's going to therapy, he'snow starting to talk about
what's happening with him, andso his journey probably started
to get much, much better fromthere.
And so, yes, my journey didbegin to get better.
And then I made the mistakethat I cautioned everyone
(30:22):
against nowadays is I decided Iwas my own best doctor and I
marked myself as cured Again.
I thought there was a cure forthis and said I'm good, let's
call it good, and I stoppedgoing to therapy and I stopped
taking my medication.
And so, in 2006, not only did Ishatter again, but some of those
(30:47):
fragments actually disappeared,and so the way I talk about it
now is I had to completely andtotally shatter and lose
fragments of that person who Iwas in order to become what I
call a much better version of myformer self.
(31:10):
It's always fun when people askme who know me personally and
know about my struggles, andwill sometimes know if I'm
having an off couple of days,and then they'll ask me do you
feel like yourself?
Are you feeling like yourself?
And I always say thank you somuch for asking, but I now feel
like a much better version of myformer self, because my former
(31:33):
self living at a baselineanxiety level and OCD level of a
four that's no way to gothrough living life, and so from
2006 onward was really thisslow march towards becoming a
much better version of myself,and the biggest change really
happened in 2011.
(31:54):
My wife and I left our jobs inNew York City and we moved here
to Colorado, where a big part ofour lives was being able to be
outside in nature, and so anyonewho knows me knows that skiing
is one of my favorite things inthe entire world, and so I get
to do that in one of the mostamazing settings here almost six
(32:17):
months out of the year and thenI get to be outside in the
warmer months mountain bikingand enjoying time outside with
friends, and it's been such anamazing help and has helped me
heal so much along the way on myjourney.
Kertia (32:30):
Being in nature is very healing and extremely grounded,
so I love that for you.
When I read about the anxietyattack, or the disassociated
event as you refer to it, as in2004 and 2006, you saying that
you had gaps in your memory, itall falls in line with what you
(32:52):
just said about you literallyjust losing fragments of
yourself, right?
Yes, like that is very telling,because people lose their
memory when they have somethingthat's physically traumatizing.
You know what I mean.
Yes, like in a car accident or,god forbid, any type of
(33:13):
accident.
That is expected.
But when you have somethingthat comes out of your anxiety,
that is huge for you to actuallylose your memory, suffer memory
loss from that event alone.
That to me is extremely tellingof how much this kind of like
(33:35):
weighed on your psyche, weighedon you mentally, like you
literally did disassociate.
Erik DaRosa (33:43):
Yes, yes, and I did .
And what ends up happening in adisassociative episode is your
brain and your body separatingfrom one another.
Kertia (33:53):
It splits it literally splits.
Erik DaRosa (33:55):
It literally splits so your physical body.
You are still there and I canattest that.
The second one, which lastedover the course of a long three
day weekend, I moved around myapartment and I did things.
I don't remember doing them.
My wife, amy, was there toattest that I was doing things,
(34:16):
but I, to this day I have nomemory of it and the way I
describe a disassociativeepisode.
As a friend of mine at the timeshe was a psychiatrist she said
it's as though your brain isdoing a control, alt, delete,
and so your brain has gone intosuch overload that the only way
that it can protect itself is ithas to shut itself down and it
(34:38):
has to reboot and it has todefragment and clean up the hard
drive.
And the incredible thing aboutthat is when you finally come to
I'm going to call it describedas coming back to the present,
there's this period of elationand almost like a mania.
(35:03):
I remember the first time in2004,.
We had just gotten back to thecity, we had been away and I was
sitting in the diner with mywife and I had just sort of come
back to reality a few minutesearlier and I hadn't been eating
that weekend I hadn't beensleeping.
Those are all signs, by the way, for your audiences out there
(35:24):
listening when you move fromjust anxiety or depression to
what I would call crisis.
Like crisis is if you're you oryou are seeing people around
you who are not eating, who arenot sleeping, they don't have
the ability to concentrate,communication is difficult, they
don't seem motivated.
(35:44):
That's when you've crossed intocrisis mode and immediate
action is needed.
And so that's where I was.
And when I came out, we weresitting in the diner and I just
remember, like I've never beenso hungry in my life.
I couldn't stop talking.
I was eating, eating, eating.
I couldn't eat fast enough andI could only imagine, like what
(36:06):
Amy was thinking to herself,like will you please just stop
talking?
I know you haven't talked forlike a while, but can you please
just stop talking for now andagain.
At that moment I thought well,what just happened to me?
This is almost if it was afantasy novel, like I crossed
over into that other world andcame back and I was cured Like
it's over.
(36:26):
I'm done, I'm great, I feelgreat.
And what I've learned is thebrain as it reboots and those
feel good chemicals flood thebrain.
You feel good, but after awhile you start to feel yourself
drift back into that spiral.
And what's very important isthat in those moments, hopefully
(36:46):
you don't allow them to get tothat crisis, but if they do, and
by getting immediate care ableto help halt that slide so that
you don't fall back into thatdeep, dark well, without a way
out, but you have people aroundyou that are able to help
support and are able to helpstabilize.
(37:09):
And so now one of the things I'mvery well aware of in my own
life, in the lives of others whoare close to me, are those
warning signs.
And so I do a lot.
I'll check in with myself a lot.
Am I sleeping, am I eating?
Am I taking care of myself?
How am I feeling today?
I call it, you know, checkingin with yourself, meeting
yourself where you're at, andI'll do the same.
(37:30):
And friends know, like friend,friends of mine will call me and
say, hey, I'm not doing greatand I'll go through those
questions.
If any of those boxes arechecked, it lets immediately go
to see somebody, because wecan't let this go on any further
.
Kertia (37:46):
Yeah, and thank you so much for mentioning some of the
physical and cognitivemanifestations of anxious, of
anxiety, and I want to know isthere anything else that we can
look for?
Because I know, like I know,you've listed the ones that are
specific to you and your case,but what are the other
(38:09):
manifestations of anxiety Wouldyou point to?
I guess maybe generalizedanxiety?
I know you're not a physicianand stuff like that I know, but
just from your experience andlike you just haven't gone
through such a huge, amazingtransition and haven't done the
(38:30):
therapy and still doing thehealing work on yourself.
What else can you tell us aboutthis?
Erik DaRosa (38:37):
Sure.
So speaking from kind, of theinside, and yes, I'm not a
professional, I'm not a doctor.
I have spent plenty of timelooking and reading and
researching in the DSM five.
So typically general anxietydisorder is for people who are
experiencing let's call itanxiety and again I'm not
speaking from a professionalstandpoint, my own lived
(38:57):
experience but are sufferingfrom anxiety not related to some
severe or small T stacking uptraumatic events.
In my case the anxiety was amanifestation, symptom of a much
larger PTSD and so it farsurpassed just general anxiety.
(39:20):
And often there's also thismisconception between kind of a
panic attack and a dissociativeepisode, and the two are very
different and panic attacks andanxiety will often present
themselves.
Sometimes a severe headache,not the migraine type, but
really resonating kind of frombehind the head.
(39:41):
It's as though your head is ina vice it's the only way I can
describe it and the vice isgetting tighter and tighter and
tighter and that headache justwon't go away.
There's often a pit in yourstomach, and that's where I talk
about that impending sense ofdoom.
It's this pit in it and you canfeel it.
It almost feels like there'ssomething in your stomach
(40:02):
weighing you down and sweatingand shaking, things that come on
and present themselves verysuddenly.
You're like what is happening.
I know a lot of people who havedescribed to me panic attacks.
For them have felt as thoughthey're having a heart attack.
A lot of the signs and thesymptoms are very much the same.
(40:25):
You can also, with panicattacks, anxiety, you can get a
lot of pain in your chest,feeling this heaviness, feeling
this weight in your chest, andfor me I remember it would just
suddenly spiral into not feelingsafe anywhere and I would end
(40:47):
up huddling up on a couch undera blanket and I couldn't find
the physical to be able to movemyself.
And so some people talk aboutending up on the floor, on the
floor of the house, on the floorof the bathroom, not being able
to move.
It's almost as though you havethis temporary paralysis.
And, yeah, a lot of people talkabout like I thought I was
(41:11):
having a heart attack and it's aterrible feeling and I hope
that nobody out there listeningwould ever have to go through
that.
But if you have, or you do,just know that there's help
available to speak up about it.
And it does.
It does get better.
It absolutely does get better.
There are ways to live with it.
(41:33):
There are ways to treat it andmanage it.
Over time, the more work you do, the further and further and
further between episodessomething like that becomes and
I can say 2006 was the lastdissociative episode that I had.
I have not gone that deep downinto the hole ever since and I
(41:55):
credit a lot of that to mysupport team and to my therapist
, who is a part of that supportteam, and also them really
helping me to understand whatthose signs and symptoms are, so
that I have the ability tocheck in on myself.
They also, from the outside now, can check in.
It makes it a whole lot easierto be able to go through each
and every day.
Kertia (42:17):
I'm so happy for you, I'm so happy to hear that and
you saying that the fact thatyou got help it also enables you
to get in tune with what'shappening with yourself.
You can see the signs coming on, because, of course, this is
something that now it doesn't goaway.
And, as you said, this is oneof the mistakes that people
(42:37):
often make that they go totherapy or they take some
medication and they think thatthey're okay and some people
might stop taking theirmedication or stop going to
therapy or what have you, but itnever goes away.
It's something that you kind oflearn how to manage and the
more you do it and the more youpay attention to it, the better
you get at managing it, so thatyour symptoms don't present as
(42:59):
often.
And that is one of the mostimportant aspects of seeking
help not only to kind of detachyourself from the stigma of
getting that help in the firstplace, but also to kind of alert
yourself, to begin noticingwhat's happening within your
body, within your mind, tonotice how to recognize the
(43:21):
signs that you're about to haveone of those events again.
Sometimes it comes in reallyslowly and you kind of don't
notice that it's even happening,and before you know it you're
far down the dark hole and youhave no idea how you got there.
Not everyone has someone aroundthem to kind of notice when the
behavior the behavior willchange or the change in the
(43:43):
emotional state of the personchanging the attitude, the
change in your responses andyour reactions to your
environment around you and topeople around you.
Not everyone kind of have peoplearound them to kind of be close
enough to them to notice thesechanges For you, for someone who
maybe have a wife, a childrenor maybe close family members
(44:04):
that can kind of help tosometimes to mitigate it,
whereby someone can bring toyour attention like hey, eric, I
noticed that you did this, areyou feeling okay?
Or I noticed that you reactedthis way, are you feeling okay?
Right, some of us don't havethat social capital to rely on
getting that help speaking tosomeone else.
(44:25):
A professional specializes inmental health and you know the
healing modalities that goesalong with that.
It's so important and so vitalbecause then it teaches you also
how to take care of yourselfand how to better manage
yourself and your symptoms andeverything that's happening.
So, resting on that, I want totalk a little bit about the type
(44:50):
of health that you receive,because you said that you relied
on both Western and Easterntreatment modalities.
Erik DaRosa (44:59):
So I call it my equilateral triangle of healing.
I think that's the road youwere going down, and the reason
I call it that is we often talkabout a toolbox.
So when we've been throughtherapy and we've sought
professional help, one of thethings that, as you were just
describing, that we do is notonly treat the symptoms as
(45:26):
they're occurring, but weactually learn.
It's like studying atuniversity.
There's a difference betweenthe professor giving a lecture
and writing down the notes andthen actually going home and
doing the reading and askingquestions and becoming curious,
and that's a very big part of itis learning yourself what are
(45:49):
the triggers.
You become, in many ways, likea forensic psychiatrist, where,
if something happens, you're nowable to look back over days or
weeks and say, aha, thishappened, then this happened,
then this happened and sotherefore, this is why I'm
(46:09):
feeling the way that I do, andanyone who's a really good
professional will help theirpatients be able to do that, and
it's so very important in theindividual healing journey to be
able to figure out what are thethings that I might want to
stay away from more in my lifeand what are some of the things
(46:29):
that I need more in my life, andso for me, the equilateral
triangle is.
It's comprised of threedifferent I'll call it healing
modalities, and I call it theequilateral triangle because
each part of the triangle isequally as important as the
other, and all the corners areequal.
The sides are equal.
If you pull one of the sidesaway, the whole triangle
(46:51):
collapsed, and so for me it'sWestern, so it's traditional
talk therapy.
I have both a psychologist anda psychiatrist.
I've been on medication nowsince 2004.
I went off for a year.
I decided to go off for a year.
Big mistake went back on in2006 and haven't come off since.
(47:15):
We do change the dosages andthe amounts and the medications,
so that's been extremelyhelpful.
What I added in the last coupleof years has been the Eastern
side, and it was something thatI had never explored before.
But I thought there's more tohealing than just doing this one
thing.
I want it to be ascomprehensive as possible, and
(47:36):
so for me, that became a findinga Reiki master.
So Reiki has been a huge partof my life, and I did something
extremely unorthodox.
I actually put my Reiki masterin touch with my therapist so
that she could explain some ofthe things that I was
experiencing or working throughin energy healing, and then I'd
(47:59):
have a better way to be able toverbalize and talk about it.
In therapy there's mindfulnessand meditation, and so I do that
in both the traditional senseof sitting, either listening to
music or just being in a quietspace and focusing on my
breathing, or I take it and Icombine it with the third part
of the triangle, which is nature.
(48:20):
So for me that again it's skiingand mountain biking and being
outside, and a lot of times,whether I'm on a chairlift or in
a gondola, or if I'm out skiingin the trees somewhere, I might
stop and just take a fewmoments to breathe or to look
around, to put myself in thepresent.
And those last two the natureand the Eastern it's all about
(48:43):
how do we bring ourselves intothe present.
So for me it becomes how do Istop focusing on and worrying
about what's going to happen inthe future, which is the anxiety
, and how do I bring my mindback to the present so that I
can live in the now?
And the more often that we doit, science has proven that with
(49:06):
neuroplasticity, that we canactually change what used to be
reactions and we can make thosebecome responses and I'm living
proof that, through hard workand dedication and being honest,
that you can get better.
And you, as you said very, veryaccurately, it goes from this
(49:32):
managing your life to justsomething that you live with.
Yeah.
Kertia (49:40):
I love that you highlighted so many things that
kind of helped you, because Ithink a lot of people everything
is not for everyone, right, youknow that and there are people
that would completely write offtherapy, like ugh, that doesn't
work or I don't want to talk tosomeone about my problems, and
you know what I mean.
(50:00):
Like outside of the shame andthe stigma and everything else
that's attached that goes alongwith that.
Everything is not for everyone,but it does help to try
different things and I like thatyou spoke about the way that
you kind of put your Reikimaster and your therapist in
contact with each other so thatthey can kind of bounce off each
(50:20):
other and kind of help youbetter.
So there are so many differenttypes of healing modalities and
ways that you can get help andthose two like even when you
spoke about mindfulness,meditation, being in touch with
nature and stuff like that whenyou have a mental illness that
(50:41):
kind of takes over your life andtakes over the way that you
operate, for me I think that youneed that professional help,
but I think that when you cancombine that, as you do, with
mindfulness and being in natureand having a Reiki healer, that
just takes it over the edge andmakes it so much more effective
(51:04):
and so much better.
I'm a huge supporter ofcombining different modalities
to kind of help you to get towhere you need to be.
I know we're getting up to time,but I just wanted to ask you
one more thing, because this issomething that's been weighing
on my mind.
When it comes to dealing withanxiety or depressive disorders,
(51:26):
any type of mental illness thatkind of affects your ability to
function on a day to day basis,what I've noticed sometimes is
that people kind of substituteor some people substitute it and
some others kind of do both butusing substances like, maybe,
(51:46):
alcohol, drugs, mushrooms,things of the sort.
Right, they may substitute itwith along with whatever help
they're already getting, ormaybe they might completely
forego the help, professionalhelp.
Can you tell me what you thinkabout this?
(52:06):
What do you think about theeffects of what?
Because for me I think thatlong time it kind of just makes
it worse.
But I want to know from yourexperience what do you think
about that?
Erik DaRosa (52:16):
Sure, that's a great question and I'm going to
take it from kind of theaddiction side.
So I, thankfully have not hadany substance addictions in my
life.
I had other awful copingmechanisms that I developed that
(52:38):
we talked about and others thatI'm more than happy to share.
I'll come back on the show.
What ends up happening is and Italk about this a lot with
friends who are in recovery, orrecovered, as I like to say, and
other people who have battledwith different addictions it's
(53:00):
not the substance, there's someunderlying issue, trauma,
whatever we want to call it thesubstance becomes the coping
mechanism and in many instanceswhether it's alcohol or, in too
(53:20):
many unfortunate cases now,opiates, which often lead to
heroin addiction, cocaine I'mjust thinking of, especially
being here in a ski town in theWest, a lot of the things that I
see People, rather thanaddressing the underlying issue,
find that the substance is ableto numb out whatever that pain
(53:47):
happens to be for whateverperiod of time it is.
And once the brain discoversthat that pain or that trauma or
that underlying mental healthissue could be numbed out for a
period of time, the brain goeswell.
If it works for a short periodof time, it must be really good
in big quantities for a longperiod of time, and that's when
(54:10):
the crossover into addictionhappens.
And a couple of really goodfriends who have been on my show
and we've talked a lot aboutthis and they've said that it
wasn't until they really decidedto address their underlying
mental health issues, traumaissues, that they were truly
(54:32):
able to find a way into recovery.
So many people think that if Ijust go into rehab it'll fix
itself, and again what we'redealing with is we're just
treating symptoms.
We're not treating, again, theunderlying issue.
And so recovery is amazing, butit needs to be combined with
(54:55):
what you said a little bitearlier, kershia, is this idea
of there is absolutely nosubstitute for professional help
, and over time we can begin tocombine lots of things in lots
of different ways, but we need aprofessional to help us on that
very first part of our healingjourney.
(55:15):
And so when we combineprofessionals who are trained in
the mental health field, I cantell you there have been so many
advancements in terms ofprofessionals specializing in
different aspects of mentalhealth.
And so there are professionalsout there who specialize now in
anxiety, they specialize inobsessive compulsive disorder,
(55:38):
they specialize in trauma, andso they treat trauma in a
completely different way.
And so once you begin doing that, combining that with other
types of resources in therecovery space, you start to
realize that it's easier tobegin recovery and it's easier
(55:59):
to kick the addiction, becausethe whole reason that you've
done that you're now figuringout and that is starting to go
away.
And then the whole weekend andget on again another show and
talk about like psilocybin andthere are some amazing uses for
things like psilocybin,mushrooms and MDMA and the
(56:23):
treatment of PTSD and thetreatment of depression and
anxiety but it needs to be usedand I think this is getting to
your point again it needs to beused in a controlled environment
with a professional.
Getting out and eating a bag ofmushrooms in the woods is not
going to cure all of your ills.
In fact, there's an equallikelihood that the trip that
(56:46):
you go on is even moreterrifying than what you're
dealing with at the time.
And so I would say anyone whois thinking about doing those
types of things in terms oftreatment which, it's incredible
, including ketamine as welldoing it under the care of a
professional and being able toprocess it and talk through that
(57:08):
experience I know so manypeople who have found so much
healing and so much recovery inusing those things.
Kertia (57:17):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
That's exactly the point that Iwas trying to get at, eric,
that there are these things thatcan help but get professional
help and when you're using thosethings, do it in a controlled
environment.
It should never be a substitutefor seeking professional help
and for actually addressing theroot cause of the issue that you
(57:40):
have.
So I'm so grateful for you topoint in that out so important.
Thank you so much.
I also want to ask you aboutSurvivor to Thriver, because you
are the host of Survivor toThriver.
Could you quickly talk aboutSurvivor to Thriver and kind of
just wrap up by letting theaudience know how they can reach
(58:01):
out to you or support you ineverything that you do?
Erik DaRosa (58:05):
Absolutely.
Thanks for asking so.
From Survivor to Thriver is ourmental health podcast that I
founded in January of 2021.
We were still in the height ofthat pandemic thing, right, and
I was struggling with my ownmental health.
I realized that if I wasstruggling and I had been on
this really long journey and Ihad the resources available and
(58:29):
I had the tools available, thatI was struggling, that I could
only imagine the other 7 billionpeople around the globe who may
not have been some, may nothave been predisposed to some of
these issues, and I could onlyimagine what other people were
going through.
And so my co-host, mark, and Ilaunched the From Survivor to
Thriver podcast, and it'll bethree years old in January.
(58:53):
It's all about shattering thestigma around having mental
health conversations, buildingcommunity, empowering voices and
, most importantly, lettingother people know that they're
not alone on their own journeysand that there's hope and
there's help and there's a waythrough.
And so, each and every Tuesdaymorning, we have a new episode
and we have a new guest fromsomewhere around the world who
(59:16):
comes on and they share theirstory of what it took to go from
however they describe survivingto, however they describe what
thriving is and, mostimportantly, the arc of what
they did to be able to movethrough that particular issue
for them.
And so you can find us.
The podcast is availablewherever you get your podcasts,
(59:39):
and you can go directly to ourwebsite from survivor to
thrivercom, where you can accessthe podcast, the book that I
was a contributor in calledScars to Stars, which was
published in September of 2023.
You can reach out to usdirectly if you have questions,
comments, if you want to be onthe show.
(01:00:00):
We'd love to hear from you.
So, again, it's from survivorto thrivercom.
Kertia (01:00:07):
Thank you so much for hanging out with me thus far.
If you'd like to support ourwork, join our Patreon community
and share this podcast withyour friends and family.
Until next time.
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