August 19, 2021 (Trigger Warning: Suicidal Ideation)

Trigger warning: this post discusses suicide ideation and personal struggles I face and have faced through my life. _________________ Living with Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder means that I struggle with the two ends of mania. When I am manically high, I struggle with anger, but when I have depressive lows I think of killing myself. It’s something that gives me this weird happiness in my chest. I have been struggling mentally, and sometimes when I’m manic, I make plans to hurt myself, and it gives me this little burst of joy that makes me feel like I’m finally free and have control over my life. I feel trapped in my body most days, like a little disturbed shell that wants to be free. I can feel that thing we have in our chests that our emotions come from. It’s like the roots to the tree of life and I think it’s my soul. And many times I feel like my soul is trapped in my body and that it would be happy if it was free from the human experience. It’s selfish and wrong and that’s why I haven’t done it, but I fantasize about it. I feel like a coward for not doing it because if I truly feel this way, I think I should just stop threatening it and just get it over with and try again in the next life. But when I think of my partner finding my lifeless body in the bathroom, I have to stop thinking about it because the pain and trauma that would cause someone who loves me is too much to do to a person. I think the saddest part of suicide is the effect it has on the family left behind. Sometimes I look up stories from people who have been left behind by someone close to them who has taken their own life, and the story is almost always the same. Usually, the lasting trauma they are unfairly forced to feel, and guilt imposed on them is along the lines of "I wish I would have known. I wish I could have done something.” It is not that person's fault, and I believe that there’s nothing an external force can do to really save someone struggling with taking their own life because the person planning to hurt themselves has to make that decision and go through with it. In my personal struggles, when I get that burst of happiness from thinking about finally going to sleep and not feeling this way, it’s a selfish disease that doesn’t care about anyone or anything because it’s all about me. I think if I could talk to people who have committed suicide, most would say they wish they hadn’t done it. In those moments of darkness, myself included, people aren’t thinking correctly. For me, every positive external force, every “I love you and I need you” isn’t relevant, because I just want the pain to stop. But I know it isn’t right or fair. I don’t believe external forces can save us from ourselves because we are the ones who have to make that choice. When I am manically low, “I love you’s” mean nothing to me because the hatred for myself overcomes it. But I’m scared of going to hell, and I’ve been a coward most of my life so I don’t want to be remembered as an abusive failure. But I honestly don’t know what to do. I feel like my mental health is a show to people and it makes me feel isolated and cornered. I wish I could show people that I am a real person who struggles and has hurt people, but is good in my soul. I don’t feel like a bad person in my heart, so I often feel like I’ll never be able to get past the fact that people define me by my past when I was undiagnosed, unmedicated, and hadn’t been to rehab or started treatment. I’ve written suicide notes before but I’ve never been happy with them. Which is stupid, but important to me because its hard to convey a meaningful summary of my life and what I am suffering through. I remember the first time I made a plan to kill myself was when I was in 9th grade. The home I grew up in was near something called, at the time, The Achievement Center. It was an activity center for adults with physical and mental disabilities, and it had this big open field in front of it that I used to fly kites in. Behind it was a path around a lake that you could ride a bike on, and I felt safe and happy there because I have a memory of my dad from when I was 10, walking with me and patting me on the back telling me he loved me. He stopped doing that once I became a problem child in 8th grade and It made me feel so alone that when I think about it still, it’s just as fresh as it was then. Trauma is an awful thing because when we focus on it and let it consume us, it’s like being there all over again. I remember having the idea of killing myself while mowing the lawn, and feeling that happiness in my chest. The same happiness I feel now because I would finally be free. Free from my disturbing thoughts, free from my anger, free from the abuse from my mother. I made the decision that I was going to sneak out and drown myself when my family fell asleep because the lake seemed like a beautiful place to stop my heart. My parents put a self-installed security system in their home so they could hear the door chime every time it was opened, because of the problems I was causing them, so I left the back door ajar slightly so it would look like all the doors were closed when everyone went to bed. I left my Spider-Man bike next to my house and I took it after everyone went to bed and rode to The Achievement Center. I remember wearing cargo shorts and a Mountain Dew T-shirt I had at the time and I walked into the lake up to my knees. It was freezing which I hadn’t taken into account, and I have this vivid memory of laying on my back and floating looking up at the moon. I remember the way the water sounded and the bugs felt flying around. I lived in a rural area so I could see the moon, the clouds and stars perfectly, and I just laid there. I laid there and cried and screamed because I was scared. And I couldn’t do it and I felt like a coward. I had less to lose as a kid, but that feeling I still struggle with was as real and as intense as it is today. But back then I had to bottle it up because my family didn’t believe in mental health. So I rotted inside. I rode my bike home soaking wet and snuck into my room, and I started kicking holes into my wall. That was the start of a lot of physical destruction I had when I felt cornered. I remember the way the wood broke on my door and how my foot went into it and splintered. I had to pick the splinters out of my toes and feet and it hurt like hell. I wish I could have a do over for my life, because I am not happy with it. I think about my failures non-stop and I feel scared. I feel so lost. I am sorry to everyone and I hope someday I won’t feel like this and that I can be forgiven. The judgment I feel perpetuates the Christian ideology I grew up with. I feel like humans hate me, God hates me and It makes me hateful of people. The sadness and regret I feel for my life isn’t a momentary thing. It’s something I feel the moment I wake up, until the moment I go to sleep. I usually get about 2-3 hours of sleep a night because I can’t stop my mind from racing, even with my medication. I wish I could start over, and that’s what suicide makes me feel hope for. But suicide isn’t right, it isn’t the answer, and even writing that I feel like a hypocrite because I struggle with it daily. Sometimes I wonder if I’m writing things like that to try to convince myself that it’s not right. I still feel pressure to be this person who can conquer these feelings, but they are very real to me and most of the time I feel like it’s a war I’m losing. I can’t hold a job, I keep dropping out of school, and have delusional paranoid thoughts of people hurting me, and I just feel so lost. I also know if I do kill myself there are people out there who would say I deserve it and be happy, and that’s what gets to me most. I feel so worthless and like I don’t matter to people, because my mental health struggles are a show. But there would also be people who think about me everyday and won’t ever heal from it, and I don’t want to force that onto anyone, especially people I love deeply Suicide is not something to be glorified, and it’s not something I am going to do. It’s not something anyone should do because of that pain, that loneliness, it’s something we don’t stand a chance against, and that decision is permanent. There’s no coming back from it, and we don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. I think of the movie What Dreams May Come a lot. It's a film starring Robin Williams in which he and his children are killed in a car accident but his wife survives. She is unable to live without her family, so she commits suicide. The film follows the principles I was raised on, by which Robin Williams and his children go to heaven, while his wife goes to hell because she took her own life. It’s about his journey to find her and take her back to heaven. When I think about hurting myself I think of the scene of him crossing the river sticks and the tortured souls that are stuck swimming in it screaming in the darkness. I don’t want to be one of those souls. I don’t want to drown forever because of my pain. We have to be the ones to save ourselves. I have to stay grounded in reality, I have to stay healthy, and I refuse to give up on myself, even if I feel like the world is against me. I refuse to be one of the people in the river sticks. I just want to be happy, and I am on a journey of figuring out what healing and happiness looks like for myself even when labeled by people who don’t know me. I don’t know if I’ll find it, but I’m going to continue to try. Nick ______________ If you are having thoughts of harming yourself and are in a place you don’t feel like you can come back from and be happy, I believe you can. National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255

Update 2/20/2023: I recently was approached by ColumbusRecoveryCenter.com to include some potentially life-saving resources they've worked so diligently to compile.

This link leads to their comprehensive depression and suicide resource guide, with national resources which can help you in your mental health journey even if you don't live in the Columbus area. Many of these resources also aid individuals in other areas beyond depression.

For a comprehensive guide of education of resources for substance abuse and treatment, as well as suicide prevention, they were also kind enough to share a resource from TheRecoveryVillage.com. To learn more about substance abuse and how to notice the signs and take the first step in recovery, you can follow this link.

Thank you to Enmanuel for sharing these resources with us, and for seeing an opportunity to collaborate on sharing mental health education in our community. ______________

(The home I was raised in and where wrote a majority of my songs)

August 18, 2021 (Merchandise for Charity)

My team and I have been having an ongoing discussion and have decided that it would be appropriate for a merch store to exist for McCafferty. I wouldn't feel comfortable having a merch store unless it exists to help people, so the profits from the merchandise that will be sold through my site will be donated to Easterseals. To be accountable, my team will update the site with the profits that were donated after a merch run, no matter how small, because every little bit helps. Easterseals is a charity that is important to me.

You can find out more about who they are and what they do here: Easterseals | The Story of Easterseals (I will also include a brief description at the bottom of this blog and a permanent section to the site). I do not have any interaction with the website or store, my team runs it and will be in charge of its day-to-day operations.

We have decided to start with 50 shirts. I have had people email me interested in merch, but I want people to feel right purchasing it knowing that it goes to helping people. If there is more interest, we will expand into other merchandise.

The new EP (which may become an album) will have a vinyl pressing and be sold through the site as well (again, all money raised on the site will go to Easterseals). I will include a mock-up of the T-shirt design we have chosen and the color we are working with, so people can see if they are interested. My team will update the blog and Spotify when pre-orders go live. The color of the shirts is subject to change because we won't know what it looks like physically until orders are up, but we are hoping it will be close to the color shown. The temporary mock-up below shows men's sizing, but the final product will have neutral sizing options. If you have any questions, feel free to send a message.

My team doesn't have specifics on cost, but we are aiming to have pre-orders up in the next two weeks (again, nothing is concrete but we have begun working with a production company).

I want to thank everyone who has been reading these blogs and connecting with them. I'm going to continue my journey of treatment for my Bipolar, my BPD and becoming the best version of myself. Thanks for listening.

Nick

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The Story of Easterseals:

As America’s largest nonprofit health care organization, Easterseals is committed to the comprehensive health and wellness of the more than 1.5 million people it serves each year and is prepared to respond to the needs of the one in four Americans living with disability today with outcomes-based services for all disabilities throughout the lifespan. Among our services: early intervention, inclusive childcare, medical rehabilitation and autism services for young children and their families; job training and coaching, employment placement and transportation services for adults with disabilities, including veterans; adult day services and employment opportunities for older adults – in addition to a variety of additional services for people of all ages including mental health and recovery programs, assistive technology, camp and recreation, caregiving support including respite – and much more. Additionally, we’ve served transitioning military, veterans and their families and caregivers since WWII and continue to be the “go to” resource for them to help ensure their successful transition to civilian life. (Link: Easterseals | The Story of Easterseals)

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McCafferty T-Shirt Mockup:

August 9th, 2021 (Rehabilitation/Mental Health: Bipolar/BPD)

I think the world is becoming more understanding and accepting of mental illness, but I still see a stigma towards people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar.

I think because other mental illness, such as depression or anxiety, are often associated with a personal internal struggle, it makes it easier to empathize with and relate to. People with an illness such as BPD or Bipolar tend to have external struggles that hurt people around them and themselves, and because of that, it’s easy to dismiss.

I saw an article about a celebrity who is struggling with BPD and one of the top comments said, “people with BPD are irredeemable” and it really hurt me to see. Living with Borderline and having the manic highs and lows of it are unlike anything you alone are prepared for. The highs of my mania are like snorting cocaine up your ass and I feel like Superman, but at the same time I feel violent and angry, so I describe it as kind of like Superman on Ketamine. It’s like losing all control of yourself and every angry thought, every impulsive word become unfiltered. In my case, when I was manic, I would become verbally abusive in fits of rage that I wouldn’t stop until the person was ground into dust.

I’d lash out and put holes in walls and tell people I didn’t care about them and become so self-destructive that I hoped people would just let me spiral into my death. The thing I learned is that people will let you do that. No one was going to save me from my mental illness. I came from a small rural town in Ohio, where the concept of mental health was pretty unheard of. My old social circle had little understanding of mental health and no intention of learning about it. They would tell me I was making up my mania and that I was “crazy”. And they were right, I am crazy, I have Borderline Personality Disorder.

How they perceived mental health was how I perceived it, it was something to be ashamed of and to just “get over”. They were raised by families who never discussed mental illness because it was a weakness. My parents were the same way, they would tell me if I was “really crazy they would take me to the doctor” and they made it out to seem like having something wrong with you was meant to be bottled up and ignored. If you let it show, you aren’t normal and you won’t amount to shit.

I think that stigma is also perpetuated by the media. Take Kanye West for example. I think he is an incredible artist and a savant for his craft, and created songs that have changed the course of music and saved millions of lives, but I think he is a horrible example of handling Bipolar and it offends me. I don’t like the idea of labeling your mental illness as a super power and as something that fuels your creativity so you won’t be medicated because you “can’t write music.”

Medication is a must for my mental illness. I take it for my Borderline and it keeps me balanced chemically. If I miss my medication, I become an entirely different person. Therapy is necessary to maintain mental health and rehabilitation at our lowest. But therapy alone isn’t enough for Borderline, or for Bipolar, in my experience. It takes all of those things and the willingness to understand your own mental illness and grow with it. You won’t ever cure your mental illness, but you can control it.

I wish I could figure out a way to help the stigma of Borderline and Bipolar become less of a thing, but look at me, my past self is a contributing factor to why it’s stigmatized. I remember when I was on social media and people would say things like “I’m sick of waiting for Nick to get better” and I understand that. It’s hard to see someone being outwardly mentally ill and it tests patience and acceptance, and before I started treatment for my mental illness I didn’t care about “getting better.”

I’m proud to say that I am at a point now where I am getting better. Am I better? No. I still struggle daily with my mental illness, but I recognize the toxic behaviors that come from it, and how to counter those things. Medication for the mania, therapy for the anger, recognition of triggers and situations that are unhealthy for me and being able to handle those things in a safe way. I work hard to be self aware of my behavior, even in my mania. I struggle with being manic a lot still, but the way I am manic has changed completely because of my treatment.

The way I live my entire life has changed completely. I have a lot of regret about how I’ve lived my life and how self-destructive I was. It hurts looking back on, and I know it hurts other people too. But what I’m trying to do now is be someone who has failed so badly publicly, because of my own choice not to treat my Borderline the way it needed to be, and show that it is possible to life a safe fulfilling life with it, and do the things you want to do in your life.

I didn’t know I had BPD until I was admitted after my suicide attempt, but every day since I have taken it seriously and it has changed my life for the better. I am a reason that BPD is stigmatized, and I have a responsibility to be a reason that it can be seen as something that can be controlled and “redeemable.”

All mental illness is redeemable, but it takes work to do that. It takes time and follow through and commitment to doing what’s right, even when it’s not easy. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, and my journey is one of millions of other people who have fucked up their lives with this illness, and hurt others with it. I want to be a good person, I want to help people. My mental illness is not an excuse for my failures, but it helps me understand the way I was. If I were acting the same way, it would show I haven’t grown at all.

How do I become the person I want to be while having Borderline? How do I maintain staying healthy? Who am I hurting with my mental illness, and what are the long term consequences of what I’m saying and doing? These are all things I actively think about because I never did before. The external damage that is caused by failing to control BPD or Bipolar is the reason it’s stigmatized. It’s because it’s scary and intimidating and people without mental illness can’t imagine acting that way, and I understand that. It’s hard for me to look back at how I used to act before my treatment, and it scares me. It’s hard to empathize with someone with mental illness who is hurting other people as well as themselves.

I want to redeem myself and my mental illness, and I don’t care how long that will take. Despite my massive failures I want be someone with BPD who has survived it and came out the other side for the better. It will take the rest of my life, but the last year and a half has been the start to a journey that I’m not going to give up on. I am ashamed of the struggles I face, but I openly accept it because if I were to run from it, then the path to recovery has never really started.

Everyone is worthy of being what they want to be, and growing alongside their illness. Staying off social media is a must for me with my with Borderline and Bipolar, and nothing good comes from it. The impulses of posting, arguing, and obsessing are fed every moment you are online. The paranoia, anger, and need for social acceptance that come with it is harmful to anyone’s mental health. That being said, everyone’s mental illness is unique to them, and up to them to understand their triggers and what works.

I am interested to see where the discussion/public perception of BPD and Bipolar are headed in our lifetime. External destruction from mental illness is hard to empathize with because it seems selfish, and it is, so it’s up to us who have that illness to show that we can grow with it and overcome it. If you are struggling, you aren’t alone.

Over the course of last year I wrote a film that took inspiration from the situation I created for myself and BPD, and I have been shopping it around to agents. I am debating publishing it also and putting it out, but it’s too early to tell. Either way, it’s important to never stop creating, despite our failures.

Nick

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On a music-related note, I’ve finished two demos for songs that I think are better than anything I’ve put out recently. I like the electric I’ve written on them, and they keys remind me of my older stuff. It’s annoying because I get overwhelmed when I think I’ve written a good song and I want to record it immediately and upload it so people can see that I’m capable of writing good music. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I’m using this EP as an opportunity to not feed my paranoia that I’ll be forgotten, and take my time releasing it. It also doesn’t matter because not that many people care anymore, so I want to give the people who do something that means a lot to them.

I’m really proud of these songs and want to share them when the time comes. I’m excited to be able to share more with you soon. Thanks for listening