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The Hollow Peak: Before the Spark
I. The Checkbox Life (2018–2025)
Conquering the Mountain, Finding the Void
By late 2025, I had nowhere left to go.
I don't mean physically. I mean I had scaled every mountain I was told to climb. I lived by the logic that if I just accomplished one more thing—one more milestone, one more improvement—the hole in my chest would finally close.
I was a machine of discipline:
Mental Health: Mastered. I knew my Bipolar I diagnosis cold. I followed the regimen faithfully: meds, therapy, psychiatry, "know thyself." I hadn't deviated from my routine in eight years. I was stable.
Physique: I was in the best shape of my life—better than my 20s (and I did that with steroids). Intermittent fasting, rigorous training, clean diet.
Career: High performance.
On paper, I was a success story.
In reality, I was completely and totally empty.
II. The Silent Heartbreak
The Missing Children
The emptiness wasn't just existential; it was specific. It was the shape of my biological children, Parker and Ellie.
I had endured the most trialsome experience of my life: the effective loss of both of them.
I had centered my entire recovery—surviving the Fentanyl, the broken back, the psychosis, the hell—on them. I rebuilt myself so I could be their father.
And then, without so much as a conversation, they were gone.
They chose to erase me. No explanation. No closure. Just silence, encouraged by a vindictive and bitter co-parenting dynamic.
Nothing has driven me closer to the point of suicide. I considered punching out, not because I was weak, but because the primary reason I had endured the hells was to be their dad. If they hated me, what was the point?
I was a man standing in a rebuilt house with no one to live in it.
III. Hawaii (September 2025)
The Question
We were in Hawaii. Paradise.
But I was an emotional wreck. I was sitting there writing a note to my stepson, Bodie, spiraling into a pit of self-doubt, wondering if I had been a good dad to him or just total shit.
Kristen saw the spiral. She asked one simple question:
"Why do you overthink so much?"
I walked out. I sat on the couch. And I dug deep.
Why DO I overthink?
Because I feel like a failure. As a father, a husband, a son. Even after working so hard just to survive.
That question sent me tracing a red line backward through time. I traced every trauma, every hospital stay, every panic attack, all the way back to the first domino.
IV. The Recalled Trauma (Age 9)
The Origin of Guilt
It was a gift from God—a piece of the puzzle I had blocked out.
In "Scripted Life," I told you about the BB gun accident. I told you about the blood and the ambulance.
But what I remembered in Hawaii wasn't the blood. It was the Blame.
I remembered the crushing weight of being nine years old. I was a sweet, sensitive kid—the kind of Christian boy who, when playing hockey with neighbors, accidentally yelled "FUCK" and ran home sick with grief, confessing to my mother because I thought that one sin would condemn me forever.
I had a massive, innate guilt complex.
So, when that BB ricocheted off the concrete and hit Daniel in the eye—a one-in-two-billion shot—it didn't just hurt him. It destroyed my innocence.
I remembered my young parents, terrified and angry, looking at a nine-year-old boy and saying:
"This is all your fault."
That sentence cut me in a way that never healed. I had blocked it out to survive.
In Hawaii, the memory flooded back. I realized that my "overthinking," my perfectionism, my desperate need to "fix" everything—it all started there. I had been trying to atone for a sin I committed when I was nine.
This realization was profound. It brought closure, but it did nothing to alleviate the pain. In fact, it exacerbated it. I was raw. I was open.
But I didn't realize it yet: This full-circle completion of my trauma story was exactly what I needed. It cleared the debris for what came next.
I was finally broken enough to receive the Catalyst.