In this episode, I’m celebrating my five year stroke aversary It’s gonna be a reflecting on how I plan to live my life and contribute to the brain injury community. Moving forward, you’re going to hear a lot of those things that regular people have emotions come from me as I process and reflect through the last five years of my stroke recovery.

 

Welcome to the neuro nerds. Let’s do I sound a little somber? Do I sound somber enough? So it is currently July 31st, still. I have a few hours left and I am going to be celebrating my five years. Stroke aversary on August 4th. So this is me processing out and sharing, some of my feels of my journey thus far.

 

it’s been a lot, I’ve been staring at this microphone for the past 15 minutes and I finally got enough. I got my emotions under control enough to start this very Joe’s solo episode. A lot five years cost a long time. And it doesn’t seem like five years. Cause I don’t really remember a whole hell of a lot of the first couple, to be honest.

 

I don’t really remember a whole five. A lot of all five. It’s disturbing. It’s uncomfortable to think about, but yeah. I’m full of emotion. It’s not been easy, but it’s been awesome. I know it sounds weird, but I try to take a step back and think, wow.

 

Yeah, this has not been an easy journey. Recovery has been the hardest, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in life by far, but it’s, difficult things are, they mean the most, I always think about like cooking, right? Fast food is quick. Yeah. But it’ll kill you. It takes a lot of.

 

To make a meal, go to the store, pick the right ingredients, chop them up meal prep, cook. But then what do you have afterwards? You have an incredible meal and it means so much more because you put all that effort into it. I feel like that about recovery. There’s not a lot of shortcuts.

 

it takes a lot out of you, but it could, it’s hard to stay focused here. It could be life changing. You stay the course, stay in a good head space, which is really difficult post brain injury, because sometimes you don’t realize what Headspace you’re in from one moment to the next.

 

I don’t know. I’ve been feeling like that a lot lately, but overall good. It’s weird, but it is overall good. Recovery is chaotic. I’ve learned over the past five years to feel my feels actually learned that a couple of years in couple years too late, but Hey, I think it came right on time.

 

I used to be toxically positive where everything was fine. Hey, how you doing? I am good. I’m not good. I’m awful. Most of it now, I don’t wanna say that. I don’t wanna sound so dooms day, I’m always on the edge. Of freaking out. I’m always on the edge of be overwhelmed. I’m always literally I’m teetering off the side of a mountain always, but anytime anybody would ask, oh yeah, I’m fine.

 

No, that’s toxic the positive. That’s not real, now I don’t want to tell her, oh, Hey, by the way, I’m hanging on by a thread. That’s not right the way I want to live either, but I think I’ve found a comfortable middle ground where it’s I’m struggling, but I’m finding my way back, I’m here and sometimes that’s enough.

 

And I feel that though, it doesn’t always have to be rainbows and sunshine. It could be some gloom, hopefully not too much doom and gloom, but it could be a little gloomy sometimes and still be okay. That’s one of the biggest things I think I’ve learned in recovery is that it doesn’t always have to be perfect, but from one minute to the next things can change.

 

So you can be having a great day and then the bottom falls out. Cool. So what does that mean? Does you just back up. Go home now, you just lick your wounds and start climbing again. And I feel like I’ve done that more than a few times in recovery recently. Today I had a little bit of a freak out because I didn’t remember, I was supposed to give my dog, her allergy medicine twice a day, instead of just once.

 

And it was told to me, and from one moment to the next it was gone and it really just, it really affected me because it’s like, when is this going to go away? When I’m doing the quilt fingers, what am I going to be normal again? When am I going to get back? The reality is that may never happen.

 

That’s a harsh reality. It’s a hard thing to say. It’s a hard thing to feel. I hope I desperately hope that’s not a thing, but I’m prepared for. The rest of my life, maybe forgetting things, maybe not, always not remembering really important things. People, things, situations, events. I think that’s the hardest part about my recovery is the memory. The physicality basically all the way back, again, I say it a lot.

 

I’m walking, talking. To have issues with my hand. That sucks. Even when you know, my hand exhausts and the tremors kick in, I drop things and I’m not able to eat the way I would want. Like I difficult to get the forks in my face, those moments suck, but those are just moments. That’s not really that big a deal I have.

 

The memory that’s really the most. It’s a difficult thing to deal with. It’s just, I look at pictures, I see things online, you search social media and you’re like, oh wait, who is this person? Wait, what, why is this person saying this to me? Oh yeah. We had a whole conversation about it that I have no recollection of those moments that are really infuriating in recovery.

 

I think a couple of you out there understand what that is. It’s hard. To not get stuck there. I’ve been preaching this forever to feel your fields. If you’re upset, be upset, if you’re angry, be angry, process it, and then move forward. It’s hard to not get stuck in those feelings, but I worked through them.

 

At least I do my best to, I’m not perfect, but I’ve gotten significantly better than I used to be. And I’m going to continue to work on that. Stuff like that. My dog is allergic to everything and she’s been biting like really bad. So she’s back on her allergy meds and I forgot to give her allergy meds.

 

Now it’s affecting my dog. Why can’t I just remember that it’s it makes me feel dumb. It makes me feel silly. It makes me feel broken. I hate that feeling. I can hate that feeling. I know a lot of you out there feel the exact same thing, and here’s where I would come in. If somebody was telling me this and say, look, you got a brain injury.

 

It’s okay. You’re healing, you’re recovering. You’re here. It’s a big deal. And it is. And I think one of the things I’ve learned in the past few years is I want more. I don’t just want to be here. I don’t just want to be okay. I just, I don’t want to just do well. I want to thrive. I want to live.

 

I want to do more. I want to be everything. I want to just keep getting better. And when I’m not, when I feel that I’m not, and when I have these little hiccups, I call them hiccups. Now I don’t call them setbacks. When I have these little hiccups. I always have that recovering Catholic in me where it’s oh, this is going to consume my life. But I’ve, I fought through that. This is just a hiccup, just a moment in time. And from one moment to the next, things can change and things do change and things get better. So I’ve gotten really good at that last few years.

 

I think out of everything I’ve done in recovery, I think I’m most proud of that change in my life. That I can shift from not even one moment to the next. I can’t do that, but that I can take some time, put up some boundaries and say, even with myself, Hey, take a breath, relax, give it a few minutes.

 

And then move forward where before it would just eat away at me. And then I wouldn’t do anything. I wouldn’t say anything. And then I would, my blood pressure would spike and I’d feel sick. I would get migraines. And that was before my stroke. That wasn’t living. That wasn’t life. That was survival at best.

 

It was existence in that. And that’s it. That’s all. Five years in, I’ve lived more life than I have in the 30 plus years prior to my stroke. It’s been great overall, overall, it has been amazing. I’ve done things that I’ve never done before. I’ve learned how to put up boundaries. I’ve learned how to take care of myself.

 

I’ve learned how to live. It’s been great. I’ve traveled the world. Something I never thought I would ever do. I thought traveling was going to palm Springs, which is a couple of hours away from me in California, going to Tijuana. Hey, I’m outside of the country. Wow. I did it. I’ve traveled. It’s not traveling.

 

I got on a plane and dander got blood clots. It was like a 14 hour flight. And I went to a whole other part of the world. It’s a big deal. That was not something I ever dreamed I could possibly do in life. It wasn’t even on my radar, and now I’m like, wow, I can’t wait to do that again.

 

These are the beautiful things. About a second chance in life. You can do anything. You literally can do anything you want. You could shift your life. You don’t like your friends, get new friends. You don’t like the way your family treats you we’ll leave him alone, but move forward, move past you.

 

You don’t like the way your hair looks, get a haircut. You don’t like the way you feel do something to make you feel better. We can do that. We’re adults on top of the fact that this is our second chance in life. If we’re not going to do it now, why do we make it back? Why don’t we come back?

 

And that question in and of itself, that gets me, what I make it back, I suffer still, like a lot of us do from survivor’s guilt. It’s why me? I’ve been saying it for years and 90, some odd percent of the time. I truly believe it that we made it because. We can handle it. Other people that this happened to would cave, it would just give up and then that’s it.

 

We won’t, we’re fighters, we’re survivors. This happens to us for a reason, so we can beat it so we can show other people that there, that it can be done, that you’re capable of doing this as well. I believe that most of the time, but then sometimes, that guilt kicks in.

 

Like, why me? What’s my purpose now? Like why am I here? But I think, I truly think I made it to help my community, our community, to help people along their way to not go through the things, the pitfalls that I fell into, that a lot of us have fallen in.

 

The isolation that we all suffer. The chaos that a brain injury brings, I feel like I’m, I’ve been put in this position to have a voice to advocate for our community to share loudly, to share passionately, to share sincerely. To be here to help and guide people. And that’s all, that’s honestly all I want to do.

 

I talk a lot lately about energy, monitor hippie, Joe. I talk about do what energizes you, do what energizes you like when you wake up and whatever it is that you do. And afterwards you’re like, wow, I feel great. It was like, two red bowls amps, whatever it is that you do that.

 

And what does that for me is the community. I just, I love connecting people, I love helping people. I love getting people on the right track. It’s led me to, in my opinion, do some amazing things. It led me to be an ambassador for the brain and spine foundation, which is really cool. Just an opportunity to help people like worldwide. Speaking of helping people worldwide, I have connected survivors in think last count was 14 different countries, which is cool now. My podcast is in over 40 countries. I think I might have surpassed 50 now. I hope so fingers crossed.

 

But yeah, like just, I just want to help the world. I do. I just want to help everybody as best I can. It’s a passion of mine and it energizes me and I truly feel that’s why I made it, to be a beacon of light, to help inspire. People to show people that it can be done. It’s never give up, look, and I’m not saying having a brain injury, doesn’t suck. It sucks. Oh my God, it sucks so bad, but we’re here now. That’s the main thing I keep going back to almost daily where it’s a struggle. Yeah, this is hard. This is difficult even now, almost five years later, I still have those moments.

 

Those days, those patches of time where it’s I can’t do this in those moments is where I just take a step back. And I think, I’m here, I’m here. I made it. I’m here to experience how fucking awful this is. I’m here to experience how terrible this is, because if you take a step back and you really look at it, the alternative is what nobody knows what happens.

 

My fear and, it talks a lot, like a lot of these even Neil deGrasse Tyson, are very popular scientists. He’s oh yeah, when you’re gone lights go out and then that’s it. I was like, oh, that’s scary. That’s frightening to me because I feel like there has to be another level after this, like another plane of existence, whatever it is.

 

It just can’t be, oh lights go out and that’s it. But here’s the thing I don’t know. Nobody knows. So let’s say yeah. When it’s over lights go out and then that’s it. Oh, wow. That’s horrible. So that’s possibly the worst thing I could think of, you know what, significantly better than that.

 

Every time. Everything is better than that as crazy and as hectic and as insane as things get, it’s so much better than lights out. It really is. Just think about that. Like when you’re gone, look, we all have those moments. I think in life where it’s ” you know what? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be.” Now, I’m not saying, well, in some cases people might get dark for a second guys. So trigger warning, people become suicidal. And I just want to end it. I don’t want to be here. I can’t get through this. It’s too difficult from a million different things in life, unfortunately in our community, a brain injurymake people feel that way post-concussion syndrome makes you want to do awful things to yourself. It makes you want to harm yourself. When you’re in junior high school and your significant girlfriend or boyfriend breaks your heart, you don’t want to be here anymore. If you really think about that though, that’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

 

And that range true even today, in recovery, I’ve heard this so many times. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this anymore. You, you have to, and it’s a blessing that you are. So those days I have those days, I have those days, I have those days a lot more frequently than I’d like to say.

 

It’s not days I have those moments. I have those moments, but in those moments, it’s when I take a step back and I think I’m here. I fucking made it. I did this, I made it back. It wasn’t easy. And I’m hearing that’s significantly better than knots. So in those really dark moments, just think, yeah, this is just dark moment.

 

This is just a moment in time. That’s all it is. It’s a moment in time. Sit in it, feel it, it sucks. It’s terrible. It’s awful. Yeah. And you know what? The next moment could be amazing. It could be great. Could be beautiful really from one moment to the next. That’s what we have to look at life as series of moments, series of situations.

 

This is everything sucks. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. When people like man, my entire day was awful. Really, your entire day, you woke up awful. You’re eating awful thing. You’re having a snack. Awful hydrating. Oh, no, you had a bad situation. You had a bad incident, like a few bad moments maybe.

 

And that feeling was so loud. It overtook your entire day, but it wasn’t the entire day was not that, I’m sure you ran into somebody, you enjoy, somebody smiled at you. You saw birds fly. For me, you saw a wind rustling, the leaves of a tree, which is the most beautiful sight any pair of eyes could ever. You hydrated, you woke up, you opened your eyes. It’s beautiful. Really is. Your whole day wasn’t terrible. You just had a bad situation, bad instance. So it’s hard to not get stuck in those feelings though. I think what’s helped me a lot with that is meditation. I meditate every single day, minimum 10 minutes every single day.

 

First thing in the morning, every single day, I do it with my significant other. If our timings don’t work out I’ll meditate by myself. I’ll meditate a bit of say a second and third time during the day if I need. It helps slow down my thoughts, cause thoughts could get dark.

 

They could become overwhelming. It’s been great and I suggest everybody do the same thing. It’s very helpful. It’s shifted the way that I think it it really has in the most beautiful, positive way. Also in those really dark moments and those overwhelming moments, just, it helps to slow your mind down to remember the good, not the chaos that’s happening right now.

 

Like you’re in an argument with somebody and they’re yelling and everything seems chaotic. Remember the times when you guys were laughing and smiling and joking, of course, if someone’s yelling at you remove yourself from that situation as best as you can try not to hold back because that’s just adding fuel to the fire.

 

Now again, I say this, it’s not easy, this just isn’t, it’s not easy to do, but it’s necessary. Yeah. Five years. So that’s a long time. More good than bad for sure. I know there’s a couple of, I try not to regret anything because I don’t think it’s helpful at all. You learn from your mistakes.

 

There’s some things that you probably would do different. So do them different. Moving forward, just don’t fall in the same, don’t follow the same patterns that you used to don’t fall in the same trap that you’ve fallen into. Don’t make the same mistakes. That’s it? That’s all. You can do a lot of my regrets there through no fault of my own.

 

I have brain injury. It really messes with my memory and there are some things, so I want to say I regret the things that I’ve forgotten. I didn’t do any of this on purpose. It shouldn’t I shouldn’t have any regret. I don’t have any regrets. No, I do. I’m lying. I do. I shouldn’t. So I’m working on that where there’s a lot of stuff that I just don’t remember.

 

And I hate, I don’t have. I put this, so it doesn’t sound so sad. And I think I have a ton of people, especially in the community I have people don’t understand. When I say I reach out to a stranger every single day of my life, I do. I reach out to a new brain injury survivor every single day of my life.

 

And I’ve made very close friends from that, have a lot of good survivor friends. I have a lot of them close acquaintances, I guess that’s a good way to put it. But like long time friends, I have a handful at best, it’s what that is. And one of my really good friends, I won’t name them, but a father of a couple of kids, and there was some pictures that I saw, I was after my brain injury and before I moved away and, we went to eat and I, for the life of me, I have the vaguest of memory of the situation. But I don’t remember meeting his kids breaks my heart.

 

It’s I don’t think I’ve ever said that before. It’s just kinda like one of those things in passing. I just remember seeing some pictures and I’m like I don’t remember that. I don’t have any memory of that. It’s just it’s crushing to me. I try so hard to just think about, okay what was I doing? What okay. I was wearing that, did what? I don’t have any memory and it just, it crushes me. And then it brings me, it’s all my people now, anybody out there that I’ve connected with.

 

And have you guys that I’ve met in all likelihood? I don’t remember. Now I hope that doesn’t affect our friendship cause I still care for each and every one of you guys, just I was thinking about the other day with a lot of people I speak to on a regular basis, people I’ve spoken to for years now.

 

I’m like, wait, how did we meet? And I don’t recall. It’s like a movie or a TV show where you get into it. And then it’s oh yeah, they’re friends. How they become friends? I have no idea. They didn’t show that episode. I feel like these episodes in my life just haven’t aired because I don’t really remember a lot of stuff that I feel like I should, which makes me feel like, have I really recovered?

 

Am I doing now? This is where the imposter syndrome kicks in. Am I really doing as well as I think I’m doing, as people are telling me, I’m doing it. It is a mind fuck. Now I’m sure this resonates with some of you guys out there and if so, please feel free to reach out connect and let’s discuss, it’s miserable and misery loves company.

 

But yeah it’s hard, but this a few years ago would have crushed me. I wouldn’t have been able to get past this. I wouldn’t have, I would’ve just. I would have had a pity party that would have lasted the rest of my life. I would have just buried it down and pretended everything was fine. New me. Yay. This is my new normal. I forget some shit, but I processed it out and I move forward. And the hope, the one thing I will always have is hope because I truly feel, if you have hope you have everything you will ever need. I hope that this stuff comes back. Sincerely. I hope cause that’s what I’m desperately holding onto. Now, I’m looking forward to five more years and then five more years after that. And five years after that. And five years after that I have a couple of goals that I want to hit a couple of things that I want to do, which I think that’s going to be like my main focus moving forward.

 

I am putting together a program cause desperately I don’t know if people really understand how desperately I just want to help the community. Like I, I really do. I run a support group for Jane and her heal the brain with Jane. Non-profit, I run two support groups on clubhouse, just for survivors to connect and feel heard and understood and help guide them on their way if they’re not doing well.

 

I reach out to an ungodly amount of people on a daily basis. And I’m starting up a survivor to thrivor coaching program, a you so rock survivor to thrivor coaching program, where I just want to help survivors thrive. All of the things that I’ve learned in the past five years, I want to share that information because I feel it’s vital.

 

I keep stressing to people that I just meet. What’s your routine. And, oh, I don’t have a routine. It’s oh that’s it. That’s where it starts. Somewhere. And that’s a huge help for a brain injury survivor. If you connected with other survivors? No. Okay. Let’s figure out a way to change that.

 

What kind of stroke did you have? I don’t know. Okay. We need to know these things. If we don’t know what’s wrong with us, how do we know how to fix the things that happened to them? It’s literally, it’s the devil’s in the details, there’s a thing I say about like movies, right? What separates a good movie from a great movie.

 

It’s the details. It really is what separates a good basketball player from a great basketball player. It’s the details. If you ever look at Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, those are probably like the three greatest of the modern day basketball. Look at the way they train. Look at the way they practice.

 

It’s the details, the little tiny things that you wouldn’t think are important that they work on obsessively details. It really is. And I want to bring that kind of mindset, that kind of thinking that kind of information that like, I’ve lived this, I’ve gotten to this point. I did some awful things and I don’t want anybody else to do.

 

I did. I’ve done some amazing things. I want other people to do. Some helpful things that I really wish I would have had somebody helped me with early on and I want to bring that to the community. I have my first couple of clients I’m looking forward to, Working on this program for them getting their feedback and then continue to adjust it and adapt it to other survivors on their journey, and that’s going to be, I think, a big focus of mine moving forward just to keep growing. I really want to help the world. And it sounds so grandiose and it sounds so big, but why not? Why not? Yeah. When good things happen to people. Oh, that person won the lottery. Wow. Wow. That person ran into this person and then that person did this and then they ended up there.

 

Wow. It sounds amazing. Here’s the thing. Why not you? Why can’t that happen to you? It happened to somebody else. Why can’t it happen to you? So changing the world, there’s a lot of people out there that have changed the world and are currently changing the world. Why not me? Why not, I’m not saying that arrogantly.

 

I’m not thinking, oh, I’m the only one who can do this. I’m just saying that I had something that I would love to do. I sincerely just want to help. I feel it’s my purpose. I feel it’s why I made it back. And it, what, it’s what energizes me. It wakes me up in the morning. It keeps me up at night, not a bad way.

 

It keeps me up because I like, Hey, I’m talking to somebody from singapore right now. This is crazy. It’s three in the morning. It’s fine. Helping them and I want to keep on going.

 

It’s not an easy journey. It’s not. Having a brain injury sucks. Really does. It’s indescribable. Not only those who have had a brain injury, understand what it’s like, and that’s why we need to come together as a community to help one another. On top of that, we need to come together as an extended community and partner with doctors and advocates and caregivers and just friends and family.

 

So we all understand, and we’re all on the same page because one of the biggest issues too, is understanding. Nobody understands when people try to. They just don’t doctors read a book because they don’t care to really talk to us or listen to us. That’s that has to change. It does, friends are off put by new versions of us that kind of needs to change.

 

Significant others. Sadly, a lot of them leave and that’s awful. That really is, and those who have been married, it’s till death do us part. Not saying we need to die before you, but look, it’s through the good times, the bad times, through thick and thin and we’re supposed to be able to fall down.

 

And not fear that the other side is going to run away while we’re on the ground. And sadly that’s happens a lot more often in our community than not like it’s sad. So I want to be there to help support those people who have had their friends and family turn their backs on them, who have had doctors who don’t know how to advocate for themselves.

 

Sometimes it’s just, we don’t know. These things. I just spoke to a woman today. She had her brain injury. What was it? Oh my gosh. 15 years ago. And she had no advocate, none the doctor she remembers, but in 2008, she said, the doctor told me this is going to be one of the most important things. Don’t forget this. And she’s I completely forgot because I had a brain injury and she’s been struggling this whole time. All I want to do is help guide this woman to the promised land, all of those good feelings, all of that. Comradery that we have when we meet one another, I want that permanently for each and every one of us.

 

So that’s what I’m working towards. And that’s my goal. My, my hope is my coaching program picks up with a lot of you to help. I’m hoping to keep sharing everybody’s story, keep reaching out and showing people that recovery doesn’t have to be so doomsday with my podcast. We can recover smile, joke, and laugh because we made it we’re here.

 

We’re here. Enough of this doomsday let’s this is half it’s happy times. As I say this being super somber. Most of this episode’s fighting back tears overall. I think I’m looking forward to life. I’m looking forward to living comfortably lovingly happily. That’s why we made it. That’s why we made it for myself. That’s a big deal for me to say that because for most of my life, I haven’t really care about me. That needs to change for all of us, because a lot of us feel that way we’re important, what we feel matters, and we want to do all of these things for other people, which is great. doesn’t mean anything if we’re not doing this stuff for ourselves. So yeah. I desperately want to help others. It helps me. I’ve helped myself over the last few years. I’ve gotten to this place because I care about me. I care about my feelings.

 

I’ve put up my boundaries. I’ve lost family. I’ve lost friends, but I did that for myself because I care about me. You guys have to do the exact same thing. So now I’m in a decent place with that. That’s why I’m saying, yeah. I just really want to help the entire community. You can’t help yourself.

 

You can’t help other people until you help yourself. So I felt myself a good amount and I want to help others. I do. And that’s the goal? The goal is after we started our brain injury cult. Yep. Still happening where we give all normies brain injuries. Yeah, no, maybe yeah. Is to have a giant festival. For the brain injured, maybe not such loud music, maybe there’ll be complimentary noise canceling headphones for those who need them, but get together.

 

I saw the documentary Crip camp where it had the disabled, like the, a ton of disabled people fighting for their community fighting for change. And they got it. All of the rules that are put in place today started. And it was such a beautiful documentary and it made me cry. I cry all the time.

 

It was so beautiful that it inspired me to want to do that. I want what they had for all of us. I don’t know how I’m going to do that yet, but I know I’m going to partner with some people and it’s going to be beautiful. If anybody has any ideas, please hit me up. Pretty nice guy. So that is my goal moving forward is to continue to help the community help just build community, really to help every single one of you guys truly live life. Get everybody on the right page connect. Live love. Move forward in life. .

 

I’m doing my best to hang on here. I’m very emotional.

 

Not crying, not screaming, not yelling. I don’t know. I feel like a Christian bale in American psycho. I’m oddly calm, even though inside I’m hanging on by a thread that makes any sense now, like in an awful way, just in an emotional way, this is, this has been a lot. So I’m wrapping up now and I think I’m going to probably play some video games, watch a horror movie and then cry most of the nights.

 

I just want to say every single survivor out there. I hear you. I feel you. I understand you’re not alone. You’re never alone ever. It feels that way a lot. It feels scary. It feels isolating. It feels lonely. Feels hopeless. Those you’re just feeling. The reality is we’re all here. We’re all here together where we made it.

 

We did, we lived, we survived. So now it’s time to live and thrive. Like it, it really is. We’re all going to be all right. We are. I’m not just saying that because like I’m on the verge of breaking down again. I say it because I sincerely mean that we’re all going to be all right.

 

I appreciate each and every one of you guys, I’m proud of each and every one of you guys, everybody that I’ve connected. On this journey. I just, you all hold a special place in my heart. For those of you who I haven’t connected with, I look forward to getting to know you. I mean that I really mean that.

 

And I, a few people have reached out to me recently and it’s made my, it makes my day because I got to tell you reaching out to strangers. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting. I do it every day. It’s so tiring. It’s also very awkward. I’ve mastered it because I do it every day, but it’s still really awkward. It’s a lot easier for me when people randomly hit me up. And to be honest, the people that have hit me up, it becomes some of my closest friends. My friend Xavi randomly hit me up and she was like, Hey, you seem like a pretty cool guy. I’m like, I am. And she’s been one of my closest friends ever since, If you’re out there and you’re lonely, if you’re looking to connect, feel free to hit me up.

 

Let’s build, let’s grow. Let’s recover. Let’s go on this journey. We don’t have to go out alone. We can do it today. I say it all the time sincerely mean it. The neuro nerds, we are here to help me. I am here to help. I’m going to throw out our socials in a very somber way. I can’t thank my tiny, beautiful ass kicking co-hosts enough being just so amazing. Such an amazing friend to me. She is more than just my co-host. She’s more than just a friend. She’s family. I wouldn’t be here without Lauren. Like I don’t think I would be, you know what? I don’t want to say that I’d be here in a completely different way. I don’t think I would be as functional and happy as I am without, being able to do this with Lauren for when we were doing this weekly, it was everything. It was everything. And I miss her all the time and I just have so much love for that insane woman. I sincerely wish she would wear pants more often. You can reach out to Lauren at Lauren L Manzano on Instagram.

 

Good luck. She’s super busy. The world’s kind of opened up a little bit more and she is just the James Brown of everything that she does. She’s just like constantly busy, but she’s the sweetest human being in the world. And I just love it. It’s just, I just love her so much. She is amazing. Speaking of wouldn’t be here without, my significant other, she had every right just to leave in the hospital, battered, bruised. She didn’t and I’m forever grateful. I’m thankful every day that she didn’t leave me there, and I, it just means the world to me, it. No, Felice. I love you so much and I’m completely, I wouldn’t be here. Not even as fun, not as functional. No, I just wouldn’t be here without you. I’d say reach out to her, but she’s busy and I can give you her social. You can reach out to me anytime. And I implore you. I love that word. I really do. I really hope you guys choose to reach out to say, Hey, so we connect and build you can reach out to me @joesorocks and all the socials. You can reach out to us. The neuro nerds all over the internets.

 

Five years, five long years. It seems yesterday. To be honest, it seems like yesterday because I don’t remember a whole lot of my recovery that in and of itself is driving a little bit crazy, but I’m not going to fix it on that. I’m gonna fix it on the positive to close out this episode. And the positive is I’ve helped countless people in countless countries around the world, which is mind blowing. And I’m looking forward to continuing that journey. I’m looking forward to helping as many people as I possibly can. If any of you guys are curious about the program that I’m running, please reach out. If anybody needs any help, please reach out. If anybody is feeling lonely, please reach out.

 

We’re in this. We’re in this. We’re never alone in this journey. We are part of the greatest community in the world, and that’s what I want to bring to every single person out there. So five years. It’s been one wild over emotional ride. Now it’s time for me to sign off. Probably go smoke a joint, watch a horror movie, cry a little bit and have desserts.