This week, Johnnie Calloway continues sharing about his journey -- this time highlighting the fear and depression that followed.
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"Most dragons have many heads and only one body, a body
nurtured in fear." ~from 'Taming the Dragon', 1991.
There are many faces to fear: guilt, shame, remorse, anger, resentment, hatred, all of these are just
different guises to the same issue.
The situation with my step-mom brought all of these to the
table for me. Each of these became bars to my prison. Holding me back. Not
allowing me to become…the writer, the poet, the teacher, or any of the things
that were my heart's greatest desire.
I loved women, too much I admit. Still, they were terrifying
to me. I was so enmeshed in all of the faces of fear that I could not be real
around a female, Everything I did was an attempt to impress them or to lure
them into me. Only so I could run if they responded.
The fear of being laughed at if I attempted sex was paralyzing. I would literally stutter for
some time around a woman I was physically attracted to, until I learned to
suppress it, and I became quite the actor. I could become so nervous around them
that my stomach would get in knots to the point of making myself sick. Enter
alcohol, or any of its little buddies, i.e. pills, pot, acid you name it. If it
would settle my nerves so I could act possible, I took it.
Usually, I would get myself so inebriated I could not perform
sexually even if the opportunity arose. Which was very rare, not many women
were attracted to the depth of my drunkenness.
Most would have never guessed what was going on within me.
For the most part , I was the life of the party, always trying to make others
laugh and was typically successful. By the time everyone else was ready to end
the party, I was often to the point of being blacked out. Many times, I awoke
not knowing where I was or who I was with. Frequently, I came to in a jail
cell.
All the heads of the dragon were chasing me every day. The
female/sex thing was the most powerful. I was incredibly co-dependent, which
created quite the dilemma. There was a need that drove me passionately toward
women and a terror that imprisoned me to no end.
Do not get me wrong, it was not only the situation with my
stepmom that created all these fears, the loss of my mom and the fear of being
left, all the things that were going on at home with my dad also played their
part.
I lived on the outside,
only an observer to the game of life. All my friends, it seemed, were
having girlfriends and sex, and I was left out. The loneliness that was with me
constantly, even when I was being the life of the party, pushed me into a great
depression.
Whenever I did not have someone to entertain I was suicidal.
THE BREAKS
During my adolescence and young adulthood, my only breaks came
while I was incarcerated. I did stupid things often, without realizing at the time to get locked up.
Fear ran every aspect of my life. Running from and to women
was my entire existence. Still, the biggest deterrent to being with someone was
my fear of being laughed at about sex. My stepmom was still running my life.
Eventually, at the age of twenty-three the dragons had
defeated me. I was reduced to a shell of a human being. I lived basically in
the streets, sleeping wherever someone would allow me to use their couch. I had
only one pair of jeans, two t-shirts, a size nine blue flip flop and a size
ten and a half red flip flop. I had the perfect alcoholic job, lawn
maintenance, I could work in my flip flops, wear the same clothes every day,
drink all I could while working, the boss bought lunch every day at a bar, at the end of the day we each
were given a twelve pack to take home and at the end of the week we were all
given a one-hundred-dollar bill.
THE DIVINE INTERVENTION
At a party one night, where I felt totally out of place, in
jeans I had on for over a week without washing and one of the t-shirts I
owned and donned in my sexy flip flops, I met her. I was so high on the three hits of acid I had taken as part of
my death wish, I had no concern whatsoever about my appearance, my demeanor or
anything else.
This beautiful blonde approached me and started a
conversation with me. In my usual don’t give a crap manner, I responded. I say
the intervention was divine because we were the perfect match. Her attraction
to relationship at that time, she needed someone to rescue, and I certainly
needed to be rescued.
Her need to rescue me allowed her to look past the fact that
I was so stoned I could not perform sexually and that I had nothing.
Two days later she moved me in, based on the promise I would
stop using a needle. Not long after that, we were married. Still, even married I
needed to be loaded to have sex. More often than not, I wasn’t of much use to
her.
It took three years for me to destroy any chance
we may have had at making it, with my drug and needle use. I was finally driven
to the point of asking for help and ended up at a twelve-step meeting. There, I
finally had to begin the journey of Facing the Dragons.
Read Part 4
Read Part 4
Johnnie Calloway believes that all healing is an inside job.
To heal and become a better version of ourselves we must change our self-talk or inner dialogue so we start to believe it. As Johnnie says…
“If you want to change your life, you’ve got to change your mind about your life.”
To that end, Johnnie has dedicated his life’s work to helping others do this. He does this through the following passions:
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