The Fog Beat Me Today

Give 'Em Hell, Brigham is more than a sports newsletter. It's a community of BYU fans going through their individual lives and experiences. It's always been said that it 'takes a village.' In the year 2025, our villages look different than they used to. At GEHB, we try to be an online village for as many people as there are that need it. As such, today I am sharing a personal experience in hopes it helps lift someone in our village.

I had a mental breakdown today.

I've been stressed the last couple of weeks and I have felt myself move increasingly further into a shell, but I didn't care enough to address it. Instead, I have been a ship quietly drifting toward the horizon while the fog has intensified around me.

Today, the fog won.

One of my sons did something completely innocuous and innocent and, for whatever reason, that was the final straw for my mental camel. I snapped.

I was only two or three sentences into my less-than-enviable parenting moment when I realized that the things I was saying weren't even meant for my son.

"I'm tired of being the bottom!" I exclaimed. "I'm the bottom. Everywhere I go, I'm the bottom!"

The words came from deep inside me and pierced through the fog that had completely taken over. The room was filled with my wife and all of my children, staring at me in disbelief as my inner-feelings made a rare outward appearance.

"I go to work every day and I come home to be the bottom! What I make for lunch isn't good enough. What I want to do isn't good enough. The simple things I ask for help on get ignored. My voice means nothing to anyone and I'm tired of being the bottom!"

It was all coming out. I felt my voice crack. I felt emotion take over. I felt the familiar prick in my chest that informed me that I was in the midst of a panic attack. My vision blurred and I just kept repeating myself... over and over and over.

"I'm sick of being everyone's bottom!"

Fortunately, I maintained enough wherewithal to feel myself losing control. I knew that the things I was saying weren't meant for my kids or my wife. I knew it was my feelings. So, I stood up from my chair, and decided to remove myself from the situation. I slammed some doors, found my wallet and keys, and headed for the car.

"I'll be back later before I say more things I regret," I told my wife as I was walking out the door.

It was a move that I had never done before. I was the stereotypical bad dad in every movie you've ever seen. I just left. It was embarrassing, but in that moment, it was the best thing to do. Staying would have resulted in more knots to untie later.

I didn't drive anywhere specifically - I just drove. I eventually found myself at a park. I parked the car and broke down.

Some time later - I really don't know how much time passed - my wife pulled up next to me (thanks, Steve Jobs, for tracking me everywhere I go). She got into my car and didn't say anything. I was still in the thick of the foggy panic attack.

"What I say to the kids doesn't matter - I'm just talking through them, not to them. My job doesn't matter - I still have bills piling up and never have enough money. When I do laundry I don't do it right. The kids don't want what I cook. When I plan something fun it isn't fun enough. Nobody ever asks what I want to do because my opinion doesn't matter," I muttered through broken breathing and incoming tears.

I was really deteriorating at this point.

"Nothing I do matters."

"Nothing I say matters."

"Why doesn't anything I do or say matter?"

"Because I don't matter."

"I just don't matter."

And... that was it. The rock hit the bottom.

Those words echoed in the caves of my brain immediately after they left my mouth.

"I just don't matter."

My wife was there to reassure me that I do matter. I was lucky that she was. She drowned out the echoing quickly and was able to be the lighthouse that my ship could drift towards.

But those words continued to rattle my brain. Even after the raw emotions had stopped and my vision started to sharpen, those words were still there. Even as I write this, I still feel the vibrations that they left inside my head. I think they will probably rattle for a few days. They were loud and they were powerful.

Writing this and sending it into all of your email inboxes is probably more about me finding some semblance of catharsis on a day when I desperately need it. But I feel compelled to take these inner feelings and get them into the outside world in hopes that they can be someone's light in the middle of someone else's fog.

I've had more than a few people reach out to me over the last few weeks and each of them were in the middle of their own foggy seas. One was feeling the sting of anxiety for the first time in his life and wondering if there was anywhere he could turn for relief. Another was feeling burdened by a career that has forced him to reevaluate what really matters in life. One felt that his marriage was on the rocks and that he was weeks away from getting divorce papers. Another has been unemployed for nearly four months and just accepted a job offer for a salary smaller than he made when was first out of college, but he was desperate for any income coming in and knew he couldn't say no now.

Life is foggy. The fog is scary.

I could have been convinced to do anything while "I just don't matter" was pulsating through my mind. It was dark and I was lonely. The fog had completely won in that moment. I don't know what actually would have happened because my lighthouse was there to pull me out of it so quickly, but I know that I had lost control.

I will be okay - I'm okay now, frankly, just rattled. But I will be okay.

There are people out there still stuck in the fog. Their ships are drifting aimlessly, being pushed to and fro by waves they can't control. If you are drifting, please don't look down - PLEASE keep looking for a lighthouse. There are people who will share their light with you until you get back on course. Please don't stop looking for them. Look up, even if the fog wants to pull your head down.

If you aren't drifting and your skies are bright and clear, I'm sincerely happy for you! Please let your lighthouse shine so that others may find you. Some of you understand the way that the tentacles of the fog can grab you and take over and others of you have maybe never experienced that fog at all. No matter which category you fall into, please seek out those wandering ships. They need you. We need you.

I needed a lighthouse today. I get chills thinking about where I would have drifted without one.

Never stop looking up.

Never stop shining your light out.