He Wanted to Die. Surviving Changed Everything

[00:00:00] War is hell. And for a lot of veterans, the price they pay for their service continues long after their time in uniform. We have seen a rash of suicides in the veteran community as part of the global war on terror, and it's continued with the end of it. Now, September is Suicide Awareness Month, and here on the podcast, we are doing a five-part series exploring the issue of veteran suicide.

[00:00:24] We're having several conversations with veterans who have tried to take their life and clinicians to break down what exactly is going on in the community and what steps can be taken to help solve the problem. Now, this is not a fun topic to talk about, but it is a necessary one. And I got to tell you, veterans in crisis don't exactly look like what you'd expect. And there are absolutely steps that folks in their communities can take to care for them and provide interventions prior to them getting to a catastrophic state.

[00:00:54] Now, these are conversations by veterans for veterans about an issue that's very close to the veteran community. And with that, no efforts have been made to water down or sanitize any of the stories of the folks who participated in the project. It's important not to sensationalize an issue, but it's also important to be brutally honest about what's going on. Now, that can impact all sorts of people all sorts of ways, and if you think that might be a problem for you, please skip this series.

[00:01:21] Now, if you or someone you know is in a crisis situation and you need help, please reach out to the National Suicide Hotline at 988. With that, let's get to our first veteran in the series. We're talking to Zach. Well, Zach, good afternoon and welcome to the podcast. How are you doing, man? I'm good. I've been up for blind people don't sleep that great sometimes. And so I've been up since about 1030 last night. So I'm a little sleepy. But other than that, things are good. Blind people don't sleep that good.

[00:01:50] This is a way. What is that? I've not heard that before. Oh, those of us who are totally blind. Like I have no light perception whatsoever. There's nothing connecting my eyeballs to my brain. So our circadian rhythms get really dysregulated. It's pretty common. It's called non 24 sleep wake disorder.

[00:02:06] And so you basically go through periods of insomnia, essentially, where it's like I fell asleep at about nine last night and just forgot to take my meds that are supposed to help kind of counter that a little bit. And so I woke up at 1030 and just wasn't able to go back to sleep. That makes complete sense. But I've obviously never even considered or thought about that before. That's OK. OK. One more wrinkle. Yeah, it's very fun. So cool.

[00:02:37] Well, you know, obviously, we're here to talk about a pretty heavy topic. But, you know, before we get into the event of the day, can you tell us, introduce folks to like what were you doing in the military back when you were still in active duty? Yeah, I enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school and went into the infantry. So I was I ended up being in O331. So I was a machine gunner with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines out on the West Coast stationed on Camp Pendleton and doing the normal thing.

[00:03:06] I was in a combined anti-armor team. So it was mostly machine gunners and anti-tank missile men. A lot of mounted stuff, some dismounted stuff as well. Just kind of depended on what our battalion needed because I was in weapons company and those platoons are battalion level assets. So it's a lot of supportive fires, essentially. And I was also I got sent to school to be a GFO before my second deployment. But both of my deployments were peacetime deployments.

[00:03:34] I did a unit deployment program deployment over to Okinawa, where we basically just trained in the jungle and in the snow on Mount Fuji. And then my second deployment was a 31st MEU. So still in the Pacific. That's a Marine Expeditionary Unit? Expeditionary Unit. Yep. Okay. And what years were these? I was in from 2014 to 2018. I think my first deployment was 2015. And then the second one rolled.

[00:04:04] The second one was 2017. Yeah. Gotcha. So you joined the Marine Corps at war to go to war and somehow ended up missing the fucking war. Yeah. I mean, that's I knew my entire life. I wanted to go into the military and specifically chose the infantry because I felt that that was the way to serve as an 18 year old man. She's like, I want to get some. And so I I did the thing in training for four years and obviously a very, very cool job.

[00:04:34] And I would never not for a second take any of it back. But I've had to learn to look at it as being thankful for not having seen combat, even though internally I'm really like, you know, OK, what if I'd been in right now? What I get to go? What if I ran pops off? Like what I have gotten to to kind of cut my teeth and do what I was supposed to do, because you just feel like a boot when you meet guys like yourself. And like I tried doing the thing. I just didn't get to do it.

[00:05:03] So it's a weird dynamic. Now, I hear you completely. So I joined the army in 2012 was when I first got in branching to the infantry. And then I was supposed to go to Afghanistan in 2013. And the way I was still finishing up ranger school and the way it typically worked was like at the early in the global war on terror. You know, if you'd finish infantry officer basic course in ranger school and then if the unit you were assigned to was deployed, like you just go meet them in country. And that's how you got started.

[00:05:32] And so I was that first generation where like I got a ranger school, got my ranger tab. I'm Mr. Badass. I called my unit. I'm like, hey, Lieutenant Kelly, good to go. They're like, oh, yeah, there's actually a drawdown right now. They're sending guys home early. I was assigned to 10th Bound Division. It was the most heavily deployed division in the army. And they're like, actually, just stay at Fort Benning. Now it's Fort Morbill. Just stay at Benning. Do some more schools. Get up here when you can. It's no big. You're going to be in rear D for four months. And then, yeah, it was rifle platoon leader and then heavy weapons company platoon leader.

[00:06:01] So anti-marrow missiles and all that stuff. Okay. And then I had to join special forces to get a chance to deploy. And my first deployment was at JSET, Joint Combined Exchange Training in Morocco, which was a really nice trip, but it wasn't combat. And that pissed everyone off because we all wanted to go out there and do the stuff we had trained to. So I completely feel you there. Yeah, it's weird. And I'm sure you probably experienced this where your leadership will hype things up.

[00:06:29] They're like, oh, wait, things are spinning up. We're going to go. You know, they need a platoon to go over here. You know, especially on the Mew. I feel like they did that more so because Kim Jong-un was firing missiles over Japan, over the archipelago, I guess. I almost had to check myself before I said that word wrong. But so they kept, you know, everyone keeps kind of stirring the pot, but never, never got to do it. And again, I'm thankful for it now.

[00:06:57] I'll continue to say that until I really feel it, but I don't. Yeah. Yeah. There's like that one itch you get as a young man and there's like really only one place to go scratch it. And if it doesn't get scratched, it kind of just hangs out with you for the, well, I don't know for how long, but it hasn't gone away from me yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. We're still apes on the inside. Like there's, that's some caveman coming out still.

[00:07:24] When, uh, when, yeah, when you get out of the military and everyone goes and does jujitsu because there's something about like having the threat of being choked out by a large sweaty man. And somehow that like resets your normal level for life. Like that, that's a weird thing, but it's very real. I did that at six o'clock this morning. Nice. Yes. The, the cliche. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:45] Um, so you're in the military and you get out and I know at some point you had made a plan and decided to kill yourself. But what happens between getting out of the military and getting to self-imposed judgment day? It was, it started before I got out. So I came back on my second deployment near the tail end and I came home in late 2017.

[00:08:13] So that last like month or so, I found out that my wife was cheating on me. This was my high school sweetheart. Uh, turned out she made it like less than six months into our marriage before she found another guy. But you know, that's the way it goes. I came back from that and was not what someone would define as a happy camper, but I was dealing with it. And I was just keeping myself really busy on the gym, running, and on the weekends, taking my dirt bike out to the racetrack if we weren't out in the field.

[00:08:41] And on one of those weekends in March of 2018, because I, I ended up filing for divorce after I got back. Um, so March of 2018, a couple months after that, I was in a nasty accident and had a traumatic brain injury from that accident. And that is when I went from being kind of sad and, you know, just like, all right, this is the normal, this is what someone, what you're supposed to go through or feel when you're going through something like that.

[00:09:08] To all of a sudden I was kind of drowning in depression for the first time in my life. And I became like, like essentially flipped a switch. I was angry and agitative and impulsive all of a sudden. And I started drinking because I couldn't sleep at night. It was, I would just kind of comb through everything that happened with her. And then when I did fall asleep, I was, it was, I was essentially dreaming like all these different ways that I could walk in on her with another man, even though I never saw that. But so I would have a drink before bed. And then eventually that became too.

[00:09:38] And that continued when I got out, uh, or through at the end of my enlistment in August, I came home and was going to college and like kept leaning into keeping up appearances that I was doing. All right. So getting up at three 30 in the morning to work out, going to work, going to school, taking care of business, but at night having those drinks. And I slipped into a worse and worse place as you tend to do when you're stuffing that stuff down.

[00:10:04] That's at some point you have to deal with, with whatever it is that is driving you in that direction. And I refused to, because I thought that one, I'm a man, I'm a Marine. I keep my mouth shut and I'll get through this. Like I excelled in the infantry and that it was because, I mean, you know that you have that gear. Well, you just decide like, I'm going to do this and it is going to happen. And so you make it happen. And I thought that I could do that with that mental state.

[00:10:34] And that just slowly turned into this apathy as the depression was getting worse and worse where I wasn't enjoying anything that I was doing. But I kept showing up for my responsibilities and went so far as to like trying to force myself out of the house to do things that I did enjoy because I was still showing up for the gym and work and all that stuff to keep up the appearances.

[00:10:55] But I would load all my snowboard gear up because I live in Colorado, drive a couple hours up to the mountains just to try and force myself to do like one of the things that I love that I wasn't enjoying anymore. And I would get there and still not want to be there. So I would just sit in my truck because I couldn't make myself get out of my truck. I just, there's no joy in anything. And so I would sit there for a couple hours before I drove home so that it looked like I went snowboarding. And that spring rolling into 2019, I did the same thing with my dirt bike.

[00:11:24] And it wound up being the case that on March 31st, 2019, I put a gun right between my eyes right here and shot myself. So all of this, like where you can see where my nose is crooked, all of this is metal. They had to rebuild everything. And it took all of my sight and my hearing in one ear. And I had to relearn how to do everything. Damn.

[00:11:52] So it sounds like this dirt bike accident with a TBI was a tremendous trigger. So were you like on a consistent downward spiral or were you managing all right until that accident happened and you had a TBI? I was dealing with it until the accident. And it was like all of a sudden that I was just, I was keeping myself very busy. And that was one of the things that I used to do. And like after that, it was like I literally, my, like my personality changed.

[00:12:22] I became very impulsive, both with my money. I blew through about half of my savings. I'd saved up about $20,000 over the four years that I was in, which is pretty good for an enlisted Marine. That's really good. Pretty fucking good. And when I got home, I blew through half of it. And your wife didn't take it? No. So what I found out that she was cheating on me from the other guy's wife. So she didn't know that I knew.

[00:12:50] So she, when she found out that I knew it was because I had told my command because we were still deployed and they were like, you need to get your money out of that bank account before you say anything to her. So I went in. I looked at what we brought to the marriage. I brought considerably more than she did. So I took what I had brought to the marriage, left her with what she brought to the marriage and what was, you know, what we'd accrued in the time in between. I split in half.

[00:13:16] So when she found out that I knew it was because she saw that my half of the money was gone. Damn. So, yeah. That was some solid advice from the training command. Doesn't always happen that way. Yeah. I mean, they were, I mean, they were just like, we've seen this before. Be patient. Do not, do not say anything. And yeah, very, very thankful for them having that, that wisdom. Damn.

[00:13:42] So how'd you get to the point where you're, you said you were sitting in a pickup truck and you put a handgun to the middle of your head and pulled the trigger? Yeah. So that was actually, you know, I kind of took you through the winter and spring of 2019. So I got out in August, 2018, kind of that snowboarding and dirt bike, you know, like getting into a worse place was through that winter into the spring of 2019.

[00:14:09] And I actually, I shot myself in my apartment, but on, on March 27th, I'd come home and I was actually totally sober that night, but it was just at my wits end and had decided because. The thing with depression is that is a, it is a symptom of despair. Like what you are seeing when someone kills themselves or tries to kill themselves is that, that is the residual of utter hopelessness.

[00:14:37] Like you, you start to fall into this lie because your, your scope of the world starts getting so narrow and narrow as you, you know, there's this heavy, just cold sucking weight where it is, it is. A leech that is pulling on you constantly and dragging you towards this point where there's just, there's really not any joy in anything. And so I'd been keeping up this act. Things were getting worse and worse.

[00:15:03] And on March 27th, I just totally sober that night, which was a rarity, but I cleared my gun out and sat on my bed and I held it under my chin and then I held it to my temple. And then I held it, you know, I thought like we were trying to shoot people in the tea box. So that's where I was going to do it. Hopefully hit the medulla oblongata and that would be it. And it's crazy because I felt relief that night. There was no panic.

[00:15:31] Like there, I, there was nothing you would think that you would snap out of that and be like, oh my God, I need help. But I just, because that feels like an inescapable place, I felt like all of a sudden I had it. And so it was like, okay, I have it. And a couple of days later on March 30th, my parents came by and toured my apartment. Cause they had just kicked me out in January because of, you know, I was that abrasive when I came home.

[00:15:58] Like they'd given me a free place to stay and I was just between the blowing through my money, the drinking, and then just like the friction that was immediately in the home because of the way that I was behaving. Uh, uh, that they kicked me out and when they came to tour the apartment, I didn't say anything. Um, I've since gotten to, I only just recently had the conversation with my parents about what that was like for them here in like the past year. So it took, you know, six and a half years, seven years before we had that conversation, but I didn't say anything.

[00:16:28] And then the next day I was actually in the middle of recording a suicide video to my family to finally explain myself on March 31st. And my roommate came home early from work and interrupted me. So I paused the video, went out and talked to him like nothing was wrong. And then went back in my room and shot myself at the end of our conversation. Damn. So you saw your family a day prior? Yes. Okay. This is really interesting.

[00:16:59] It's not the warning signs that you typically hear about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, at what point did you decide that you wanted to kill yourself? And once you made that decision, you know, you described a feeling of relief. Was it relief all the way from the point of decision to point of execution? Or was there any trepidation in between? So March 27th was the night that I held the gun to my head.

[00:17:28] And that is like when I knew, I mean, that was like I had, I was going to do it. I didn't know when, but I knew that I was going to do it. And so when I saw my parents a couple of days later, I knew that I was going to kill myself. And it's hard. I don't even remember that night that I, the night that I shot myself, all of my memory from that and what happened afterwards and stuff is filled in. Like I had so much trauma to my brain that even when they brought me off of life support, I didn't even understand that I was blind.

[00:17:56] So I was pretty out of it for a long time afterwards. But I, again, I was sober that night when I decided. And I think that I still would have gone through with it because I had decided while I was sober. But I'm assuming there was trepidation because on March 31st when I did shoot myself, I did have some drinks. Like while I was recording that video to my family, I had some beverages.

[00:18:23] So I was obviously building up some liquid courage and yeah, I mean, it's, you're not in a sane state of mind anymore by that point. It's, if you think about every, every biological organism on this earth acts in the interest, like fundamentally, if you really boil down what our behaviors are, it is self-preservation and then procreation. And we have instincts encoded in our genes to make us behave in the interest of those things.

[00:18:53] And so when you reach a point where your brain is telling you that that is the answer, alcohol aside, obviously that may have, maybe I wouldn't have gone through with it if I wasn't drinking. But people still do this when they're sober. You are no longer in a sane state of mind by that point. So it's, it's hard because it's not logical, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So what was it like? You shoot yourself in the head, you wake up, I'm assuming in a hospital, they take you off life support.

[00:19:21] What's that coming to experience like? I actually, I woke up while my roommate was on the phone with 911 and I don't remember any of that. And then, you know, when they did take me off of life support, it's kind of fuzzy again, because I was so concussed that I didn't really know what was going on.

[00:19:42] And so my first memories are actually, it was weird because even at that point when I didn't understand that I was blind, I could have a conversation with you like we're having right now. But I was having these very vivid hallucinations that I thought were real. So I would see, like, I specifically remember one day it was like war-torn France and I felt like I was like walking or why I wasn't walking because I was stuck in bed. But it felt like I was like in the city and like moving through it.

[00:20:12] And one day it was like the jungle. Another day, like the first day that I got to walk and it was out of bed, like it was so strange because obviously you're in these little grippy socks. The nurses are holding on to you because you're shaking, trying to walk and stuff. And I was seeing the surface of the moon, but the floor was like this cold, just, you know, perfectly smooth tile under my feet. And so it was very, even as I started to grasp what was going on, like that, that was still there. So it was very strange.

[00:20:40] But doctors were telling me for the first couple of weeks that I was going to get a sight back in my left eye. So I was totally blind at that point and I was deaf in my right ear, but they were telling me that I was going to get sight back in my left eye. So things were just kind of, it was like, you know, being deaf in one ear isn't a big deal if I'm going to get some sight back. They didn't know how much, but it was something. And, but I leaned into like, okay, I'll start learning the skills that they'll give me just in case I need it.

[00:21:09] And it ended up one day, cause the doctors would do these rounds every morning. And basically, you know, they're sitting there talking about me, like I'm not there. And then asking me random questions. Like, do you know why you're in here? Yeah. I shot myself in the face, blah, blah, blah. And this doctor was just like going through her chart. And I just picture her like flipping through this clipboard or something. And I don't remember exactly what she said, but she dropped it on me out of nowhere that I was going to be totally blind.

[00:21:37] Cause up until that point, we were waiting for my facial reconstruction. And so I was like, you know, what did you just say? And she said it again. And my parents were with me basically, I mean, it was every day while I was in the hospital. It wasn't all day. It was 24 seven for those first, that first while until they knew that I was going to survive. And like, even once I was, you know, with it enough to not do something stupid in the middle of the night,

[00:22:06] even though I had, you know, sitters on me because I was a suicide risk, but I was so out of it. But they weren't at the hospital when they had that conversation. So when I got to tell them later that afternoon, we were having this conversation of like, what is life going to look like moving forward? And my mom threw out her ideas and my dad threw out his. And then none of us had ever been around a blind person before. But I mean, it boiled down to, I wanted to do something with my life and I wouldn't become a bump on a log.

[00:22:36] Like I, when I had gotten out of the Marines, I was going to college to be a nurse. I wanted to be an ER nurse. Like I still wanted to do something positive with it. And so I leaned into that. And eight and a half months later, I was snowboarding again. A month after that, I was back in college pursuing a clinical psychology degree. And then another six months later, I was living on my own. Cool. So I mean, like, what's it like going from you wake up and you're still there?

[00:23:04] I mean, how does it feel to have this plan? Like I want to kill myself and now I wake up and I'm still alive. Is it, well, fuck, I screwed that up? Or is it, thank God I'm here? Or is it just like, I don't know what's going on. I'm just living in the moment. That, like I, because I was told, I almost beat you to the punch. I wasn't going to say like, you would think you wake up from that and be like, oh man, I'm such a fuck up. I can't even kill myself. But I, it's worse if you're a Marine. I'm just going to say like, every Marine's a marksman and this guy can't go to the fucking

[00:23:34] pistol range. Okay. Well, it's crazy. I hit, I hit, too much time behind the javelin missile launcher on the clue. Not enough time working that M9. All right. Sorry. I got to do some long distance for the first time this year and I hit steel from a thousand yards, like off of, I mean, it was off of bipods, but it's like, I can still shoot. But apparently you're blind as shit. How are you aiming? They had a camera set up to this, the site on my rifle.

[00:24:01] And so I've got my cheek weld to the rifle like you normally would. But even though I, you know, I've got my like, and where I would normally have the space between my eye and the optic, there's a little camera looking through the optic. And so I had the bipods and then I was prone. So I've got the rifle cut up and I'm like real tight to it and have my palm, basically like the V of my hand, like shoving the stock back into my shoulder. And I just got real wide.

[00:24:29] And the guy would tell me like, click, you know, two clicks left, five clicks up. And it was windy. And so he was, it was all relatively. It's not like I wasn't using like a T and E. We were, it was all just, it was all by body, but I would just, he, he knew my movements because we've gotten some time on the range doing shorter range stuff. And so he'd be like two clicks left and I would just barely move. And then, so yeah, we just, and then he'd tell me to fire and I'd just slowly squeeze and it was so cool.

[00:24:57] Cause you know, I mean, you know, the delay at a thousand yards, like you pull the trigger and then you hear. So let me ask you this. How do you know it actually hits steel? How do you know there wasn't a guy with a pipe and a wrench off to the side going three, two, one, cling. I had the same thought. I had the same thought. Cause I mean, they're like, you can tell me whatever you want. I mean, it's a lot of the stuff I do. You can be like, yeah, Zach, you're skiing, but it's yeah. I don't know.

[00:25:24] I just, at that point, I guess if you buy into it, it's the same as doing it for me. It's the bliss of not being able to see what's going on. Yeah. Now I was out to give you shit for, uh, you know, having someone else see for you, but I'm like, all right, modern optics these days are so good. Like that front to rear sight alignment, like no one's even using it anymore. And it's not that much different than shooting with a spotter. So I guess the rest of that's legit. All right. I'll get a pass on that one. Um, yeah. Okay.

[00:25:49] So you're, I guess, I mean, at what point post trying to kill yourself, did you decide I want to stay living? Cause I mean, you got all your faculties before this, you've got fuck all now, but you seem like you still want to be alive despite that. Uh, this is irrational for someone listening. So how'd you get to that point? It really happened. Did it just happen naturally? It was just there.

[00:26:17] I think some of it may have been, you know, it's, it's easy to stay here and try and apply looking back then. Cause I, I really, I didn't struggle. And this is going to sound, I guess, even more irrational, even like to this day, I've never really struggled with being blind. Uh, even going throughout my, my daily routines. Like I, I rarely do I think about the blindness.

[00:26:46] It's my lack of independence is what I like. That is like what haunted me afterwards. And so early on, I literally, I had a conversation with one of the guys from my platoon cause they'd been trying to get ahold of me. They thought I'd been in another accident when they couldn't get ahold of me. So they started reaching out to my mom. Um, and eventually she was like, Hey man, you need to have this conversation with them because I, I wasn't telling anyone. I was like terrified that my ex-wife was going to find out.

[00:27:14] And just, again, not rational, but, uh, we had this conversation. I told her, he asked like how I was doing after I told him that I shot myself. And I was like, it's weird. It's like the depression's gone. And he goes, well, I guess sometimes it takes a bullet to clear your head. Huh? But I was just, I was dying. I'll like immediately off the bat. It was just my, my thing immediately was like, I want my independence back and I want to do something with this.

[00:27:42] And I think that probably was almost kind of put blinders on for me because I really did not. I struggled some when I went to blind rehab later that year, cause I was in the hospital for 51 days. And then when they sent me to blind rehab to basically, I went to school for two and a half months at the VA to learn how to be blind. Essentially. I struggled there just with the isolation and like kind of realizing like how fucked I was

[00:28:10] like, yeah, I could walk again and stuff, but like that was really it. And then especially, you know, fast forward to the end of 2020, rolling into 2021, I bought my first house and it was over COVID. I was in college, but it was over winter break. So everything was locked down. I was in a city where I didn't know anyone. And like, I had several, like a couple of months there where that is the first time that I really struggled. And that was, you know, the worst depression of my life came then.

[00:28:40] And it really in between there, you know, there were some hiccups, but I don't think I ever let myself fully sit and feel what I had done to myself to its entirety in the sense of everything that I'd lost and how, how far I still had to go. Yeah. How was that depression, you know, post event different than what you had pre event? Because I mean, the first one drove you to put a gun to your head. The second one, thankfully you're still here.

[00:29:11] Um, what was it about the second round of this? Do you think? Why I'm still here or why it was worth her both? I mean, like, yes. Why? Because you mentioned two episodes of depression. Now one prior to killing, trying to kill yourself. Second one afterwards, as you're dealing with the blindness and the loss of independence and trying to get that back. Um, I guess when you go through that second bout at that point, did you have any suicidal ideations or did that not come up again?

[00:29:40] Oh no, big time. And that's okay. So you did have more ideations. Yeah. So this was like December of 2020 rolling into like the end of March, probably early April of 2021. Like I could not explain why. And again, logically it didn't make sense. I had, I was living on my own. I was skiing at that point. I was competing in jujitsu against people without any disabilities, which I'd never done when I could see, uh, living on my, had my own house.

[00:30:08] Like I had everything that I had tried to do in like this miraculous amount of time when I had thought while I was in the hospital early on that it wouldn't ever be possible for me to live on my own. Like I thought that I would have to live in an assisted living facility if I wanted to get out of my parents' house. So it didn't make sense that I felt this way, but I reached the point where I just didn't want to be alive. Like it, and I, that sounds like nonchalant to say, but it's just there. It, that is literally just what it was.

[00:30:36] I just had this sinking feeling of like, I just, I do not want to be here and I don't know why. I do not want to be alive. And I think one big difference is I was sober. The other difference is I had seen what my suicide attempt had done to my family. It sounds crazy, but that never crossed my mind leading up to my suicide attempt.

[00:31:04] But so when my family came to visit me in my apartment, that was my two parents, my, I guess, 12 year old sister at the time who has down syndrome and has like looked up to me like nothing else her entire life. And then my newborn baby sister that was about a year old. And so somehow when I tried to kill myself, like what this was going to do did not cross my, to them did not cross my mind at all.

[00:31:32] But having seen what I did on the back end, that is what came into my mind. And I knew that if I didn't say something that I was going to do something crazy again. So the other side of that is that I was fully convinced that if I did speak up, someone was going to call the cops on me and that the cops would come and rip me out of my home and stick me in a psych ward somewhere and sedate me on who knows what kind of psychiatric medications until they decided that it was safe for me to be out in the world.

[00:31:59] But I was, it was mid COVID. So we were doing therapy over the phone at that point, but I was talking to my therapist once a week and I just finally told her cause I was like, okay, I can't do this to my family again. And she asked me if I had a plan to kill myself. And I said, no, I don't want to be alive, but I'm not going to kill myself. And she said, okay, then we're going to get through this together. And we went from talking once a day to her once a week to once a day. And sometimes it was multiple times a day.

[00:32:28] Like it was, and that was because I just, the thoughts were there, man. And it was like, I would have to call her. It was like, we talk in the morning and I can make it a couple hours and I have to call her in the afternoon. And then maybe I need to call her another half hour later. Cause I was just like hanging on, but it wasn't again, I wasn't planning to kill myself, but I was just, I was in hell and I had not felt that way leading up to my suicide attempt because I wasn't dealing with it. I was just stuffing it down.

[00:32:58] How has your relationship with your parents changed at this point? Cause you described, you know, things being so abrasive to kick you out of the house. Now they're coming over to the hospital describing what life's going to be like. Like, so where, where is that relationship evolved at this point? At the point where we're at in the story or now? At the, in the story. They were, I mean, so, you know, them kicking me out of the house, they set their, their boundary with me. That was, they did what they needed to do.

[00:33:26] There was no, like anyone, they had the conversation with me to kick me out. Like I was like, yep. Okay. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I have, I've been that way. I've done those things and okay, I'll get my own place. There was no, it wasn't like this nasty thing. I just needed to go. They had two little girls at home and they were like, this friction wasn't here before you got home. So we need, we need you to go. And so again, they were, they were immediate. They were there every day at the hospital.

[00:33:54] So we had, we had a good relationship at this point. I don't, um, I just, I eventually, I told them at some point after I told my therapist that that's where I was at. So I ended up communicating that with them and everyone was aware, like I am not in a good spot, but I am doing something about it. And I, I'm sure that was probably terrifying for them to know that, but there was a whole lot better than what I was doing before.

[00:34:23] And it was a lot better than what they were eventually going to have to deal with. Unfortunately, they went through some shit down the road as a by-product of me, but at that point it was good. Okay. So how long after that would you say that you actually found yourself in a good spot? A couple of years. A couple of years?

[00:34:47] Uh, well, uh, from, I guess from that bout of depression, it was, it was a couple of months. So by the beginning of April, I kind of started feeling like myself again and was coming out of it. But then I went through a couple of years of things just got worse and worse. And that, so when I say like coming out on the backside of that, it wasn't really until

[00:35:15] 2024 because there was, you know, the years of turmoil in between there that I don't feel like I was actually in a good spot. What was going on in the, uh, the years of turmoil? So that, that summer of 2021, after I'd just come out of, so come out of the depression in April, that summer semester, my college stopped making my course content accessible to me.

[00:35:40] They, they're legally required to convert things into formats that are, that work with my screen reading software. And they stopped doing that over the summer semester because, you know, people are on vacation. So you're just going to have to fall behind and deal with catching up. We'll, you know, we'll figure it out. Um, I didn't like that answer because I had worked so hard to get my independence back. And now someone else not doing their job was leaving me unable to pursue my education. Like instead of doing their job, they assigned a student who could see to be my

[00:36:10] eyeballs for my math homework. And it was just, so some of this was a moment of weakness. I didn't realize after taking my first exam for that class, I ordered some alcohol, just like blow off some steam. I hadn't realized that I was a functional alcoholic before that point. So that kicked off two and a half years of rampant alcoholism. Uh, and you know, victim mindset leaned into that eventually.

[00:36:36] At the same time, I started researching like what caused those accessibility issues. And when I found out it was code software, I decided to drop out of college and teach myself how to code so I could become part of the solution. So I immediately went into drinking full time. And anytime that I wasn't too drunk to type, I was teaching myself how to code. But that within a couple of weeks or I don't know, a month, I ended up in the psych ward, uh, because I was, you know, not actually suicidal.

[00:37:03] Uh, but it was, I was just really drunk and saying I was in a bad spot because I was drinking. Uh, about a year later, I finally went to rehab because I accepted that I couldn't drink or that I couldn't stop drinking on my own. And while I was there, got diagnosed with Huntington's disease, which is a genetic, it's a degenerative neurological disease that will eventually take my mind from me. Like the end stage of the disease, because it is incurable is that you are a vegetable.

[00:37:32] So I came back from rehab and the wheels fell off and, uh, you know, at its worst, I was going on blackout binges for two or three days straight. And before you say it, I know that technically anytime I drink, it is a blackout, but I was going to say this sounds like the most Marine shit ever drop out of college, go drinking like crazy and fuck around on the computer. I mean, I'm just waiting for the strippers to show up. Yeah. So granted, you're probably broke at this point. No money for strippers. I get that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:01] And I mean, I can't see him. You can't touch him. So what's the point? But you can't touch him in Colorado. I shouldn't ask that question. My wife might be listening. Yeah. So yeah. And that, you know, I, especially after I found out about the Huntington's and I was in the full why me mode, which is a, I mean, it was, it was a victim's mindset to take, but it was, I felt sorry for myself.

[00:38:29] And so I leaned in my addiction got worse and worse, but I was still teaching myself how to code the whole time. And eventually I pulled myself out of that and as a by-product of my work, uh, in the software world. And by the end of 2023, I finally started coming out of that. Wow. So when we've gone from, you try to kill yourself to bouts of depression to you've got an incurable disease that's going to turn you into a vegetable.

[00:38:53] Um, and now it's 2026 and in 2023, you start feeling like a productive human being again. Did I get all that right? Yeah. I had, I'd launched my first business and won a couple of awards for my work at the end of 2023. And so it was like, I finally had come full circle where I was, like you said, I was being a productive member of society again. And I felt like a man again. And like, okay, I'm not, I've come back. Right. I didn't all of that.

[00:39:21] I've done to myself has not defined me at this point. And so now things have been moving forward since then. How do you learn how to code when you're blind? Like, cause this is before you can like vibe code in the clod with a mouth set. Like, so how do you learn how to code? Yeah, this is real, real coding. Uh, if I pop my headphones out, you might be able to hear how fast my computer talks, but it, it is, it talks fast enough. Actually, I have my phone here.

[00:39:50] So tell me if you can hear this. I hear it. So that was just reading like the lock screen on an iPad. It read the time. And then, uh, I said, do not disturb. It said locked. And then it said camera. Like I was just swiping through the things, but my computer reads like that. And I was just, I was Googling things online and finding articles and reading about, you know, I, I'd never done, never seen.

[00:40:19] I actually, I'd seen code before. I'd never written a line of code before. I'd never, you know, I'd seen it like in passing. So I was reading articles and not recently. What? Up to that point? We hadn't seen it recently. I'm sorry. Bad job. No, no. I hadn't. Sorry. It was right there. It was right. You're good. But so I would, you know, for like the symbols and stuff, I was going like character by character and be like, okay, there's a word and then space. And then, okay, there's a left bracket there. And so I just slowly applied that over time.

[00:40:48] And now I'm a full-time nerd. So it's really, it's not, it's not a good look. You go from machine gunner to code, but we're doing it. And I, it's honestly, man, I mean, I'm, I'm so thankful that I found this. Like it is, I fricking love it. It's wild. Nice. So what are you coding? Uh, the first thing that I'm like a language or what I'm building. Yeah. Well, what tools are you building? I built the first thing about code. I, I, I failed.

[00:41:18] What was, Oh, C plus, plus, not even that. Whatever, whatever. Or C plus plus. Uh, objective C maybe. I don't know. Uh, it was whatever the weakest coding class you could take in high school and still say you took a coding course that I did that. Okay. The language is obsolete by the time I finished high school. So, Oh, so it's probably basic. Okay. Oh yes. Basic and C plus plus. I think it was like the advanced course. Yeah. So, um, the first thing was just a game, but it was, it was a proof of concept for me because

[00:41:48] I wanted, so it was visual. Like you wouldn't know that there was anything special about it except you'd probably like, man, this looks plain. Like a blind guy must have created this, but it, it appeared normally for people without disabilities, but it was functionally accessible for every physical disability, whether you were paralyzed from the neck down or had no arms and had to use it with your voice, or you were completely blind and completely deaf and needed to use this app with Braille. You could.

[00:42:14] And so I took all that stuff and I have been applying it to a new company for the past two and a half years that I'm not really, it's not out yet. So it's still, I kind of keep it close to the chest and I'm trying to fix basically these, these issues that I had in the education system for people like me. Gotcha. So are you like pitching investors to provide funding for your company? Uh, not right now. I might eventually, but I'm avoiding that for now.

[00:42:43] Gotcha. And it's not, I mean, it's not, I'm getting to where it's almost ready. I think by the end, end of next year, it'll be like out in like fully out, but I think probably next like nine months it'll be getting to testing. Cool. Yeah. So what does your community look like now? Outside of work and that, like who are you connected with? Yeah. So work is all for myself. So there's not a community there.

[00:43:12] It is my jujitsu gym is a big one, but I am very isolated. I know I have some very deep friendships, but they are across the country. It's either people who have, were here during my really nasty years and kind of saw me through that, but have since moved away for other things. I know blind veterans all around the country, some of whom I'm very close with, but again, they're just, they're all over the place.

[00:43:41] So I really, I have a hard time building a community. People are, I think, especially who haven't been around disabilities before, like me having a younger sister with down syndrome. It's not weird. It never was for me to be around people with disabilities, but it makes people uncomfortable. And it usually takes a long, long time. Even with all of the things that I do, I live a very normal life, despite the fact that I

[00:44:10] can't see, I mean, it's, but it takes a long time to bridge that gap. And so I, I don't have a big community. It's yeah, it's something that I've struggled with even, even now. Like the loneliness is like when I, I still deal with depression. That's part of, you know, head injuries. That's part, that's also a big thing with Huntington's disease. Like when I got diagnosed, they, the neurologists were like, you know, given your mental health history, we weren't shocked.

[00:44:41] Um, so I deal, I struggle with that stuff and loneliness has been part of it. But I try and, you know, put myself out there and I do what I, what I can in that, in that regard. Yeah. How'd you get involved in jujitsu? I wrestled in high school and it was something that I really, really wanted to do while I was in the Marines, but I didn't have the cash, nor did I have the time. You know how busy life is in the infantry.

[00:45:07] So that just, it wasn't an option, but I, I'd really want to do it when I got out, but I was also working full-time and going to school full-time before I shot myself. But once I was blind and back out of my own, I immediately just started reaching out to jujitsu gyms to say like, Hey, I have some grappling experience. I don't know if you've ever, I, I don't know any other blind people that do this, but I, I positive I can do this. I just need you to give me a chance. And I finally found a gym that would take a chance on me.

[00:45:34] And now I've been doing it for five and a half years and I've started teaching a little bit too. And I compete and all that stuff. I can't imagine what type of waiver they had to put together for you walking through the door. It's a hate crime. It's also, they're being very inclusive. So like no one knows how to handle that. That's true. That's true. Oh man. I'm sure Colorado's got some crazy laws about that too. That seems like that kind of place. Do you train? Yeah. No, I train a place here in where I live.

[00:46:03] I gotta say like, you know, I've never had suicidal ideations, but definitely the process of getting out of the military and going through all that. And, you know, thankfully my wife did not cheat on me while I was deployed and we're still married and we've got kids and at that, that part's wonderful. Yeah. But it's weird that like jujitsu has been the most grounding thing I've done since getting out of the military and I suck at it, but like just going to the gym and being around those guys, it's the most grounding thing that I've done.

[00:46:34] It attracts, I think it's a, it's a certain kind of person. It's a lot of weirdos, but like good weird. There's a lot of goobers in jujitsu. I don't know what it is about it that attracts those people. And it's, it's just, it's 99% of the people are just good people. And then I think it also exposes you, you know, the other side of that is that it attracts very people from very disparate parts of life.

[00:47:00] So, but where some, for some reason, this masochism that you have and you brings everybody together. And I think like that, it just, there's something about that. It's very, very unique in that way. Yeah. It's also like, it's so hyper egalitarian and you really get to see how polite people are or are not because I mean, you know, I can show up and some kid from the local college can show up. Who's like a wrestler and like, yeah, this kid can throw me across the fucking mat.

[00:47:28] So if he wants to, but he'd also be a dick if he did it. So it's one thing to like to beat me and to tap me, but like, so they're in the same thing too. Some people walk in and I've been training there for a couple of years and they just starting like there's ways to win without being a prick. And I think it establishes that certain type of politeness where you can be vulnerable and also express yourself physically, but it's also a very safe environment for that. Most of the time, sometimes you get the actual creeps and well, they get kicked out of the gym pretty quick, but yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:56] They get handled by the people who are actually good at jujitsu pretty quickly. That's not me either, but like there's other people that take care of that. Yeah. We got a couple of people that actually like compete in worlds and they're, you know, internationally ranked. And they're very, very nice, very pleasant. Like open math, they're so instructive. Uh, but if you do something that breaks one of the unofficial rules, like I've seen them just make someone's life miserable for 15 minutes straight. You can be that calm and you can murder everyone with your hands. Like that's, you're allowed, you can get away with that.

[00:48:27] Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, like, so I guess what is it about your life now and living blind and having a purpose that you didn't have back when you could see, but you wanted to kill yourself? I mean, have you reflected on this? Do you, do you have any idea of what it may have been missing? I, I mean, this was entirely avoidable on my part.

[00:48:55] If I had swallowed my pride and spoken up, like the, the other, like almost crazier part of this is I have suicide on both sides of my family and a murder suicide and additional murder suicide in addition to the suicides on one side. So I had very, very strong opinions on, on suicide and that those people were cowards and that they were weak. And obviously I had my own probably magnifiers on that from my, my mindset as a Marine.

[00:49:25] But like, I just, I truly believed that that gear that we talked about that you obviously have to a, you have a much bigger gear than I do being a Ranger in the green beret. Like I have a little baby gear compared to yours, but that ability that you have to just decide you're going to do something and do it regardless of what's going on around you. Like I thought that that applied, that is a tool that is a very valuable tool. I thought that was the tool.

[00:49:53] And I, I truly believe like I, this is why I talk about this stuff. Like I, I used to get, just be soaked in sweat talking about any of this stuff, even just the stuff with my ex-wife. But I talk about it because I, I truly believe that if I had heard a story like mine now, like God, he's, he couldn't even, he couldn't even kill himself and he's blind and he's that ugly. And like, he's still here.

[00:50:22] He's still pushing through it. Like I, it's obviously there is a way on the other side of this. And he keeps saying like, all I had to do, all I did, the reason that I survived that worst depression that I've ever been through and the depression that I've dealt with since is because I spoke up and, you know, in speaking up, I learned the skills to now work through this. Like when I still get these bouts of depression that are months long, but I know what it is now and I know how to get through. Like I have the tools and I know how to navigate on my own. I'm not on antidepressants.

[00:50:52] I'm not, I still have therapy. But it's not like it all would have started with just telling someone that I needed help and being willing to do the work that comes along with asking for help, because that is the other side of it is like, that is, that is the first step and you that, but there will be work that has to be done on the other side of it. Yeah. So, I mean, for someone listening, it's so easy to get caught up in your own shit and

[00:51:21] dealing with your own life and your own stuff. And there's so much noise just bouncing around your head, especially when it's not, you know, working the way it should. Yeah. Um, you know, at, at what point would you say to a fellow veteran or just somebody going through stuff like, Hey, if you're going through X, Y, Z, like you need to ask for help, or if you're starting to feel X, Y, Z, like ask for help now.

[00:51:48] I think the point at one, when you catch yourself running from it, as opposed to dealing with it and obviously we do. And I, I, so I've never thought of this before. I've never been asked this question. So I'm, I'm talking off the cuff right now. I really believe that the point at which you catch yourself running from it, I was running from it with the alcohol. I mean, that is how addictions develop is because you are running from something. You're filling a void with something else.

[00:52:17] Like when you catch yourself doing that, and it doesn't have to be a substance, it could be gambling. It could be looking for a relationship outside of your marriage. Like when you start avoiding things and it's not a one-off, because obviously we all do that sometimes it's, it's normal to kind of like pull away from the pain a little bit. But when you notice that starting to be a shift and a trend that is developing, I think that's when you need to really stop and look at yourself and ask what's going on and start to make

[00:52:47] adjustments. That's very well said. Um, and I think it's really applicable to veterans too, when you're talking about being in the military is all about being accountable, facing up to any challenge, that gear that you talked about. Um, so I think when you recognize that you're running away from something and you're avoiding accountability, you're avoiding using the gear appropriately. Um, it's like, you're not, you're refusing to call on the right enabler for the task, but you had an interesting case study there where you mentioned, you know, and we find yourself

[00:53:17] seeking a relationship outside of marriage. Uh, looking back, do you think your ex-wife should have asked for help earlier or is that just a completely different scenario? Any sympathy there or she just, you know? Yeah, I, I have empathy. I don't, I still don't obviously agree with what she did. I don't think that was the right course of action, but I, I understand why she did it. She had wanted to be, she wanted to move back home for that deployment with her parents.

[00:53:45] And we had a very cheap apartment that was, you know, the only place that we could really find within our price range. And me being the tough guy was like, Hey, I've been able to be out here by myself. Like you can, I'm going to be gone for six months. It's not going to be easy for me either. Like, I think you can stick it out here so that we are able to keep our apartment. Obviously that no one, that action doesn't force her to cheat on me, but like I, she was lonely and I played a part in that.

[00:54:13] So yeah, she should have spoken out and told me like, Hey, I'm, this isn't going well for me. Obviously it wasn't going well for her and that's why she sought the comfort of someone else. Um, but so yeah, I get why she did it. I don't, I don't know. Cause we, we never had that conversation. I don't know if she was dealing with depression. I know she was lonely, but I think those aren't necessary. Those aren't mutually exclusive. So yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:43] So what are you looking forward to next? I mean, obviously you've got this disease that's put you on a bit of an early timer. Um, I was told when I got out of special forces that, you know, the average Green Beret is expected to live 57 years and the two leading causes are suicide and cancer. I think I'm doing okay, but I might theoretically be on a timer as well. But you know, now that you know that you're on a clock, I guess, what are you looking forward to with the time that you have left? What are you trying to accomplish while you're still here?

[00:55:18] Yeah. Um, this is, you know, that's almost like one of the things that I had to think of trying to get sober was like, I still have this time left. And who's, who's to say something doesn't develop along the way. There's not a, uh, an advancement in medical technology that means that they'll be able to cure this. And I've still got, you know, probably I've still got time until even the symptoms start to set in and stuff. So I've, I've continued pushing forward.

[00:55:45] I work now more than I ever did when I could see, and I'm not getting paid for it. I will get paid for it eventually, but I've been in the software that I'm making. Uh, I've working on a book. I'm working through the fourth draft of a memoir that really like trying to put more of this to the page. Cause I can only talk about this so much, whether it's in a speech or on a podcast to where there's a lot more lessons to be gleaned because there was a lot more nastiness along the way.

[00:56:11] And I can articulate my thoughts more thoroughly on a page and leave that somewhere for someone else to digest to where maybe, maybe that's what they see where it starts. They start to realize that they're on that trend where they're, they're pulling away from things and they're headed down that path and hopefully keep others from making those choices. Um, and also family members who are left behind after suicides. Like a lot of times this leads to additional suicide because of the misplaced guilt that people

[00:56:40] feel like my family, my dad specifically has been not really haunted. by the guilt, um, of my attempt. So all that stuff. And then, you know, I'm, I'm getting to do a lot increasingly more in the suicide prevention space of keeping other people from going down these paths. But I also just, I get to live a life that I have like never would have if I hadn't, you know, like I'm skiing and rock climbing and whitewater kayaking and doing jujitsu and traveling the world and all these other things.

[00:57:08] Like there's so what that that's on in the future. And I'm sure I will feel a little differently once the symptoms start setting in. And I have that to look at where there is, okay, now there's a defined, a more, more concrete timer. But right now it's, you know, everyone has something in their family, whether it be cancer or what else, whatever else that is in their bloodline that, that is nasty. This isn't that different. And I just found out about it before most people do.

[00:57:37] So I try and look at it that way. Okay. Well, Zach, really appreciate the chance to talk to you. You know, while we're still together, is there anything that I haven't asked you about that I should have asked you about? I don't think so. Feeling good. We covered it all. Well, it sounds like there'll be a lot more to talk later. I do have to say though, it is a bit of a cheat to be so productive when you don't have to sleep like normal people, but you know, teach. I feel like garbage right now, if that makes you feel any better.

[00:58:08] Well, hey man, it was great talking to you. I really appreciate the time. Really love what you're doing. Thank you so much for being with us here today. Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. So that's Zach's story. Now, part two of the series will be released next week. And we are talking with Lindsay, a clinician, and we are going to be breaking down what exactly is going on in somebody's head when they are getting to the point where choices like what Zach made start to make sense to them.

[00:58:38] And please, if you or somebody you know needs help, reach out to the National Suicide Hotline at 988. See you next week.