Who is OGGO?
Before I tell my “story” about “what happened” let me make a few distinctions. There are things that “happened” over the course of my life that just “were.” But I developed very significant “stories” which I told repeatedly surrounding what happened. Sometimes there were multiple stories about what happened which were really just justifications for “who I thought I was” as a person. Excuses for the shame and guilt that were ruling my life and I didn’t know that I didn’t know that.
I was born in San Francisco California in 1963. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old and my Dad left for a few years and went overseas for work. I bounced back and forth a few times between my mother and father and lived in 28 different residences in my childhood. I lived with my mother and two siblings at that time. My mother was a heroin addict and later became a methamphetamine addict. I lived with my mother after she divorced my Dad until age 8 where I lived in his home until age 14. From 14 years old until I was 19 years old, things got a little crazy. My mother married and remarried 4 times during my childhood. Gangsters, convicts and drug dealers were in an out of our various residences with the police kicking our doors in numerous times. I’ve had guns pointed at me 4 times, shot at twice, been in gang fights and was thrown through a plate glass window. One of the most memorable times was when an ex-convict had an AR-15 and shot a round right in between mine and my mothers heads while he was robbing her to feed his heroin habit. Our various residences were drug houses where people came to sell drugs, buy drugs and do drugs.
I lived with my father from ages 8 to 14. My father found religion and became very devout and passionate about it. He used to wake us up at 3:30 in the morning so we could listen to religious readings on cassette tapes before he went to work. Sometimes I would get smacked upside the head if I feel asleep or didn’t pray properly after the reading. My father was physically and emotionally abusive. I was hit, kicked, slapped, choked and beaten with a belt. I was thrown through the air, slammed against walls and had many things thrown at me. When he threw the bowling ball at my head, I knew it was time to leave because I knew that would have killed me. I took my brother who was 10 ½ years old and we took two full days to walk from Napa California to San Pablo California, a 32 mile trip.
Like I said, I have numerous stories about the “what happened” during this period of my life. But they are now in the past and are no longer real. But prior to waking up, they were very real and defined me as the person I thought I was. Filled with shame, guilt and fear of everyone, I learned to mask it with anger and bravado. This led me to becoming a United States Marine serving in the Infantry and on a specialized terrorism unit. It also drove me to become a cop and drove me to take all of the dangerous assignments I could. Working narcotics, homicide and one of the most notorious gangs in Northern California, I had some close calls. They didn’t faze me. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid of living.
Because of the environment I grew up in, I picked up various “survival strategies” that “worked” for me while growing up in a tumultuous childhood. These strategies continued to work as a Marine and as a Cop because I was hyper-vigilant and an excellent reader of people. I was also a leader as my need to dominate situations before becoming dominated made me very comfortable in the drivers seat in every aspect of my life. I was a control freak. I had to be. Loss of control meant death to the deepest, darkest parts of my sub-conscious. I remember making a conscious decision at 19 years old as a Marine in Camp Pendleton California. I told myself that I would never in my life blame my mother or father for anything I do in this life going forward. Because I was a man now. I was a United States Marine and I am responsible for everything I do. I remember having a mental image of slamming a door shut on everything that had happened in my life up to that point. I learned later on that the pain of my past refused to be buried and would demand that I deal with it or pay some serious consequences.
The coping mechanisms that became a part of my “way of being” at the time was to numb out my very existence. Alcohol, drugs, work, adrenalin, video games and creating drama or conflict everywhere I went were my main ways of numbing. After a time, I could no longer numb the unprocessed pain I had shut the door on so many years ago. The Body Keeps the Score as Bessel Van der Kolk states in his book of the same name. And it was certainly true for me.
The Awakening
While working as a State Veteran Service Officer, something happened. I was sitting in my recliner with my wife and two daughters watching a rerun of The Office when I felt a crushing pain in the left side of my chest. The pain moved to the left side of my jaw and into my left shoulder. A heart attack. I told my wife to call 911. My left leg started bouncing and I was talking as if I had had a stroke. Then I felt the darkness coming and closing in on me and I knew I was going to die. I tried to tell my wife about the finances and tried to apologize to my daughters for anything and everything in life. This darkness around the edges of my vision that closed in on me happened 5 times in 30 minutes or so from the time it started until the ambulance came and started transport to the emergency room. Each time this happened I was certain I was about to take my last breath.
“Near” Near Death Experience
On the 6th and last time this occurred, I was being taken out of the ambulance and into the ER and at that time I absolutely knew death was coming within seconds. I surrendered to it. I became peaceful. I realized I had done the best I could do in his life. I had no regrets at that moment. I knew I was about to see what was on the other side. There was no fear. I felt as if I were being pulled into a different realm. A different dimension. I felt a strong feeling of curiosity and excitement. I became serene and felt a sense of lightness. And then I let go. I have vague memories of a hallway, a doctor, a nurse and then I was alone. So when my wife and one of my daughter’s walked into the hospital room, I was shocked and confused. I opened my eyes in bewilderment as I heard them and then saw them. I didn’t understand why I was there, why there were no doctors in the room and how my wife and daughter were able to come into this room. It seemed like no one understood that I was dying, had died or was going to die.
I didn’t die and that fact sent me into a rapid state of suicidal ideation. It was not a heart attack. It was a severe panic attack caused by years of denial, numbing and survival strategies that no longer served me and hadn’t for years. But I didn’t know that I didn’t know that.
The next day and for a week after, I truly felt like I had cheated death and wasn’t supposed to be alive anymore. My inner voice kept going off and telling me to “get the gun” and “do it” which had never happened to me before. This experience seemed to throw me into a sudden, extreme depression with an urgency to commit suicide. 10 days later I was in some hills in Idaho with a half bottle of vodka between my legs and a .40 caliber Glock 27 to my head. One text message from a Marine brother while that was happening saved my life.
This same Marine brother knew I was in trouble and suggested a suicide prevention program which he had just attended days earlier called Save a Warrior. This program was a hard hitting spiritual program combining scientific facts mixed with 4000 year old rituals designed to wake you up. On the third night during this experience, I found myself on my knees in front of a fire, face down in the grass when the words, “I Surrender, I Surrender” exploded in my head. The words “I” and “Surrender” are words that I had never put together in my entire life but at that moment, I knew it was exactly what I needed to do.
Peace
Ever since that day at the fire, I have been on a journey seeking spiritual enlightenment and life has never been better for me and those closest to me. I came to realize that the panic attack, the feeling of a “near” near death experience, the suicidal ideation, the Marine texting right at that moment of desperation, attending the Save a Warrior Experience and “surrendering” in front of a fire was the universe calling and asking one last time if I would like to answer the call and “Wake Up.” I answered the call and have been on the phone ever since. I dove into recovery work having to do with alcohol and drugs, integrating the unintegrated survival traits stemming from adverse child experiences and immersed myself in spiritual teachings. I have found a life of peace and tranquility and have been acting as a coach for quite some time now assisting others on their own paths and journeys to find their inner peace.
I don’t profess to have arrived anywhere. I have unlearned more than I have learned. I have processed intense emotional and spiritual pain and now I thrive. And I have helped many fellow humans in doing the same. For you who are reading this, whether we ever talk or not, I wish you joy, happiness and a strong sense of the daily inner peace I have found in this life. Wake up. Live well. Live NOW.