Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It (5 page)

Except, I didn’t.

The truth is that a therapist doesn’t handle your problems for you. Instead, therapists give you tools so that you can help yourself. They have training, experience and a much wider and deeper perspective than most people, and they are skilled listeners. Mostly, my therapists just let me talk. Part of me still fights the idea that I need professional help, but we all need someone to talk to and the therapists I’ve had really have helped me see my life more clearly. Friends can be great, but they will often judge you according to their own biases and perspectives. Some might be afraid to tell you what they truly feel. So, I recommend a professional.

I don’t believe that the majority of people need drugs to overcome psychological issues, but each person is different. I do know that it’s been a great help just getting things off my chest that have bothered me and have festered over time. The stress from carrying around heavy baggage like that can make you physically sick, so that is another reason to look for someone you can trust to listen and offer guidance. I went through that for more than two years while stuck in a negative and unhealthy relationship with a girl. She was jealous of my career success and tried to make me feel guilty about it. I felt trapped, but because of the environment I grew up in, I really didn’t know what a healthy relationship should be like.

I was still a teenager, but I actually moved in with this girl and her family for a while, which was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire in some ways. I don’t blame the girl. She was young too. We both had insecurities and baggage. My career was taking off so fast neither one of us could keep up with everything going on.

Our relationship became so stressful that I became physically ill. I developed a cough that wouldn’t go away and my complexion turned gray. I was afraid there was something seriously wrong with me. That is how powerful the mind and our emotions can be. They were eating at my soul.

I REALLY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT A
HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP
SHOULD BE LIKE.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, I suggest you seek help because it’s tough for you to find a way out on your own. Someone you trust to have your best interests at heart can help you make the hard decisions you’ll need to make in order to remedy the situation. Be aware that some of your decisions may come with consequences. Sometimes you might be in an unhealthy relationship or you might be in an environment that is not good for you and you’ll not only have to recognize the situation for what it is, but you’ll have to change things about those relationships. If you find yourself too upset, stressed out or feeling sick over it, as I did, you may need help from a therapist to figure out what to do.

When I finally got out of the relationship that was troubling me so much, the feeling of freedom and liberation I felt was fantastic. I had no idea just how much that situation was affecting me. I still needed help from a therapist to resolve the issues and baggage I carried into the relationship, which is another important thing to remember. Sometimes the problem isn’t the other person, or isn’t JUST the other person. Bad relationships can grow worse because of what you bring into them, too.

LOOKING AT YOUR BACK-STORY

One of the mistakes I made, which I hope to help you avoid, is that for the longest time I never stopped to ask why I was being so self-destructive and angry. It never occurred to me to look at where I’d been, where I was headed, and where I wanted to end up in life.

Even when people who cared about me tried to warn me, I mostly blew them off. I didn’t want to evaluate my actions or think about
why
I was choosing them over other options. I thought I was in control until I found myself at the bottom of a deep black hole wondering what the heck had happened to me.

It’s taken me a long time to climb out of that hole and put my life back on track. One of the first big steps I took was to look at what led me to nearly self-destruct, examine why that happened, and decide to take a healthier and more constructive path.

Once you truly believe that you deserve a better existence, you’ll have to clean house of the negatives in your life. By that I mean you have to clear out all of the hurtful and self-defeating baggage that’s stacked up over the years so you can start your new life without any old burdens.

Every song, movie plot and book of fiction has a back-story. Many singers, screenwriters, actors and authors consider that history when writing or performing. They ask what has happened to their characters in prior years to make them act the way they do in the song, movie or book. Your back-story may say a lot about you too. So in this chapter, I’m asking you to consider the people, events and circumstances in your life that may have influenced your behavior to this point.

YOUR BACK-STORY MAY SAY
A LOT ABOUT YOU
TOO.

Some of those people, events and circumstances may have had a positive impact, but if you have struggled like me, odds are that some of them were negative influences. To help you understand how to do this and why it is important, I‘ve shared some of my own back-story with you—things I’ve never talked about publicly. Now, please think of your own history and those influences big and small that might not have served you well. Think about the influences that have affected your thought and behavioral patterns, especially those that have led to self-destructive or hurtful actions you‘ve come to regret.

When you do these self-destructive and hurtful things, you may find yourself thinking:
That’s not like me. I’m not the kind of person who does something like this.

Thoughts like that are good indications that something has thrown you off. By identifying those negative influences, you can analyze them and then resolve to make changes so you can return to the person you really are or the person you really want to be.

BAGGAGE INSPECTION

Bear in mind, the factors that may have had a negative influence on you could have occurred at any stage in your life, so it might help to make a list of the good and bad things from as far back as you can recall. Before you do that, though, you need to get your mind clear. That means no alcohol or drugs or any substances that cloud your thinking. Once you’ve cleaned up, whether that takes professional rehab or just self-discipline, then you can take an inventory to see what events and experiences are causing self-destructive behaviors.

Once you’ve written down the important events and experiences, try to understand how each one affected you. After you’ve done that, you can begin the healing process.

If you have difficulty taking this inventory, it might help to review your life in blocks of time, including your years in pre-school, grade school, high school, college and your post-graduate years, too. You can also look at the influences of family members, friends, teachers, coaches, bosses, teammates, co-workers, and others who might have had an effect on your thinking.

In general, look for key moments and the most emotional times you can remember. Our actions also can be greatly influenced by tragedies or the loss of a loved one, or by experiencing fear and stress over long periods of time.

You may want to first identify the most damaging and self-destructive behaviors you seem to repeat and then try to trace those back to when you first practiced them or where you first learned them. Remember, you can’t move ahead if you are stuck in the same patterns that have blocked your progress so far.

I finally came to the realization a few years ago, with the help of my therapists, that I needed to examine what I’d been through and who I’d become. Call it soul-searching or self-assessment; it’s all about increasing your self-awareness, which has been just huge for me.

Self-awareness includes understanding why you do what you do, what triggers your anger, what makes you do self-destructive things, or why you repeat the same unproductive behaviors over and over again.

Have you ever found yourself wondering:
Why did I do that? How could I have said that? What was I thinking?
We’ve all been there. The goal is to think and reflect
before
you act so that you aren’t just acting on impulses without considering the repercussions and consequences of your actions.

Building greater self-awareness can save your life, or your career, or your relationships. Being more aware of the triggers that set you off might just keep you from being the drunk driver who killed some innocent person, or from killing yourself, or hurting someone you love.

NO LONGER A VICTIM

There is another aspect to self-awareness that I’ve found very helpful: it’s actually taken me out of the victim mode that I mentioned earlier. For the longest time, I blamed other people and my past for my problems. I can’t tell you how joyful it makes me to stop feeling like a victim and to take responsibility for my own life. A victim has no hope. A victim can’t see better days ahead. A victim lets other people or events determine the course of his or her life.

I never want to be the victim again. I am so lucky to be out of that mindset. I broke free of it after finally becoming aware that I had to change some things. I had to accept that I needed help, that what I’d been doing wasn’t working. Blaming wasn’t working. I needed to get in position to take control. If I hadn’t made changes and if I don’t stick with them, my life could easily become a tragedy like Leslie’s or like so many others who’ve fallen to drugs, alcohol or despair.

A key point for me came when I asked a few simple but critical questions:

    
•  Is this really who I am?

    
•  How did I get to be this way?

    
•  Who do I really want to be?

    
•  How do I become that person?

A VICTIM
CAN’T SEE BETTER
DAYS AHEAD.

You and I can choose the lives we want. Each of us has that power, but we have to act upon it. We can’t put it to use if we are caught up in the blame game. Sure, maybe we’ve had some bad breaks. Maybe you’ve been abused, or neglected, or have been subjected to violence. Terrible things may have happened to you and I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered and endured. But remember, whatever has happened to you does not define you
.
You still have the ability to write your own story. It may not come easy. You may have a lot of work to do. But many, many people have overcome terrible events and gone on to do great things. If you want to have a better life, you have to dedicate yourself to pursuing it. That may mean admitting that you don’t have all the answers. You may have to educate yourself, just as you are doing by reading this book, or may have to ask for help.

LIVING THE DREAM

Challenges pop up now and then for all of us—sometimes they even occur daily. There may be times when you feel like troubles are just coming at you one right after the other. One positive way to look at this is to keep in mind that dealing with tough times is part of life. In fact,
it’s part of being alive
.

Think about it: The only time you won’t have some sort of challenge is when you are dead and buried. As long as we are alive and breathing, we’re going to have to deal with bills, sickness, tough jobs, and relationship troubles. Those challenges are just part of life so you might as well accept them, deal with them, and move on.

Stuff happens. The good news is that when bad stuff happens, you have a choice in how you deal with it. You can let it send you into a downward spiral, throwing you into that dreaded black hole of despair, or you can rise to the occasion and handle it in a positive way that may very well lead to the best days you’ve ever known.

Remember the opening scene I described in the introduction? I was standing on stage in Central Park singing with the reunited Backstreet Boys to kick off our 20
^th
reunion tour. Thousands of people were cheering. The sun was shining. Kevin was with us again. The harmony was back,
LOL
, (no pun intended).

YOU DON’T HAVE TO
GO THROUGH WHAT
I WENT THROUGH.

I wanted to drop to my knees and scream with joy and gratitude. That great moment would never have happened if I had not finally stopped to examine my life and ask myself what was making me put my entire future at risk. It’s sad that I had to hit bottom before I asked myself the tough questions and made the changes that were truly necessary in my life. But sometimes you have to learn where the bottom is so you can recognize that you don’t want to stay there. Hopefully you will bounce back quicker than I did. I really do believe the best way to learn is through experience, but you should learn in a safe and healthy, non-destructive manner.

You don’t have to go through what I went through. And believe me, you don’t
want
to.

You may have heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over while expecting different results. If you don’t examine your past, acknowledge those things that have held you back, and commit to moving forward, you will very likely find yourself stuck in your own insane cycle of unproductive behavior.

I sure did. I spent most of my teens and twenties sabotaging my career, and my life in general, by self-medicating with drugs and alcohol as a way to deal with my insecurities, anger and fear. Through therapy, the guidance of friends and working to educate myself and make smarter decisions, I began to make some positive changes. I came to realize that instead of running from my past or trying to numb myself to it, I needed to examine and understand it.

I had to look back and really comprehend where I’d been and how certain events and circumstances affected me before I could move forward to where I want to be. It’s like planning a trip. If you go to Google Maps on the Internet, you first have to establish where you are before you can map out where you want to go. In this case, though, we’re not just talking geography or your physical location. We’re also looking at where you have been mentally and emotionally, and maybe even spiritually if you want to go there too.