“You changed my life.”

The woman and I stood on the second floor of San Francisco’s beautiful Park Central Hotel amidst people, mostly dads, but plenty of moms, talking, laughing and taking pictures with friends they might have met just days before but knew intimately for years online. My hands trembled. I tried not to speak on account of my stutter. Just hours before a room full of listeners swayed in my watery eyes seconds before I collapsed, bawling, head in my hands filling each molecule of my body with sickening embarrassment. I knew not what to say to this woman who came up to me in the crowd and uttered that crazy sentence. What do you say to someone who just told you you changed her life? What does someone who despises himself say to a person giving him the ultimate compliment?

My skin prickled with shame and self-doubt. I barely met her eyes. I remembered her from the panel, though I can’t recall what she looked like, only that she had dark hair. I recalled her crying, voice shaking, when asking me how to go about talking to her husband who’d shut her out for two years as he sank into depression and I remember responding that I’d almost lost my wife because of the same thing, that when you have the disease you can’t see anything outside of your own head, that you can’t see how you’re affecting others. I advised her to talk with him, to say that although she couldn’t completely understand his pain, he needed to clear his haze enough for him to see how he was hurting her. I suggested she work together with him, perhaps go to counseling together. It’s one of the few things I remember clearly during the 137 minute session.

“You changed my life.”

I think I muttered a “thank you” but I’m not sure if I said anything else. I’d spent the weeks prior to the fourth annual Dad 2.0 Summit persuading myself that no one would show up to my panel titled “Depression Doesn’t Discriminate” because of the subject matter and the fact that it was scheduled to take place at the same time as two other breakout sessions led by and containing men I consider to be powerhouse dad bloggers, arguably some of the top writing today. This despite knowing that my great friend, Christopher Persley of The Brown Gothamite, one of the two best friends I’ve made since joining the NYC Dads Group, promised to be there to support me just as I promised to be there for him during his blog spotlight reading. I worried about how to dress even asking Doug French, one of Dad 2.0’s cofounders along with John Pacini, if I could wear my Yankee cap because I feel slightly calmer beneath its brim, a security blanket of sorts. “Wear whatever makes you feel comfortable,” Doug told me. “You’re going to do great and the panel will be packed.” The constant negativity permeating my brain went so far as to convince me that Doug and John chose my panel idea out of pity, perhaps one of the most irrational thoughts I’ve ever had. Yet I struggled to believe the truth – they felt this was a significant topic, one that would resonate with people.

Panel description

In the days leading up to the panel dad blogger friends including Jeff Bogle, Chris Berhnoldt, Buzz Bishop, Chris Routly, Carter Gaddis, John Kinnear and so many more asked me why I was so nervous. Didn’t I read a blog about depression in front of 250 people at the previous year’s conference in turn receiving a shocking standing ovation (“shocking” being my word)? I consistently returned to the other two breakout sessions occurring simultaneously trumping mine because of their huge blogger personalities, though the real answer lay in my dichotomy of fears. Last year my terror dealt with potential failure. This time around I had to top what seemed to be a success (though I still have difficulty wrapping my head around that) and should I not, it’d go down as an enormous defeat and could be catastrophic, a thousand times more painful than possibly choking at the mic the year before. This time had expectations, particularly from the the part of my mind that applies megatons of pressure, and so I tore myself apart before anyone else could and hence my utter conviction no one would attend.

Scheduled for 10:45 am – 12:00 pm, the panel consisted of Dr. Will Courtenay, an authority on Paternal Postnatal Depression (PPND); Sally Spencer-Thomas, founder of the Carson J. Spencer Foundation (in honor of her brother who committed suicide) and an advocate for more resources and means (including a combo of humor and media) devoted to mental illnesses in men; Dr. Craig Garfield, a pediatrician at Northwestern University and researcher of mental health and fatherhood; and my chosen moderator and fellow anxiety and depression (as well as OCD which I do not have) sufferer, Katherine Stone, founder of Postpartum Progress, a non-profit designed to help women dealing with postpartum depression while educating both women and men about the condition; and finally myself, there to act as the “face of male depression” and to tell my story, real life incidents I’ve discussed and written about so many times I’ve lost count and yet each recitation or blog or article feels raw and spawns supreme apprehension.

A half hour before the panel commenced, we gathered in an empty classroom and went over strategies – Katherine with a quick mission statement and introduction of each panelist; Will, Craig and Sally discussing their expertise, theories and experiences using powerpoint presentations and videos as evidence; myself revealing my history, my breakdowns, my heart and soul; and then ending with a Q&A (at which I internally scoffed knowing there’d maybe be no one there to ask questions). Within the empty room we finally met each other in person; I’d briefly met Katherine at Dad 2.014 and we developed a rapport over Facebook, but Will, Craig and Sally I knew only from e-mails about the panel. I expressed my fear that no one would show up and my four fellow panelists assured me it wasn’t true and that what we planned to discuss was incredibly important, but all I saw was a podium; a long rectangular table holding a pitcher of water, microphones and folded papers containing each of our names; and a vast deserted room under fluorescent light…that is until Chris showed up and took a seat at the front so I could look to him for support.

“One,” I whispered.

As the clock ticked and Katherine, Will, Craig and Sally got settled, three more people entered the room.

“Two, three, four.”

“Stop counting!” whispered Katherine. Katherine told me beforehand that in her experience, it didn’t matter how many people showed up – a panel’s strength did not lie in its audience’s numbers. I refused to believe this. I continued counting under my breath.

By 10:45 am maybe two or three more people occupied previously empty seats.

“We’ll wait a little longer to start,” Katherine said. And then the door began to open and close rather quickly and I lost count somewhere in the twenties, but instead of relief, I felt even shakier for I couldn’t let these people down. Katherine began the program and – my deepest apologies to Will, Craig and Sally – I cannot remember anything the three of them said; I was just way too in my head. When Katherine indicated it was more turn to speak, my voice was a jittery mess, my lips stumbling over words (or at least this is how I recall it). I teared up a bit. I sat with shoulders slumped forward and hands beneath the table so no one could see them quiver. I would not have gotten through it had Katherine not showed genuine understanding about my vulnerability by keeping her hand on my back from the moment I began speaking until the end of the panel. I’m not sure I even looked at Chris in the audience. I hope I did.

Katherine Stone lends me a supporting hand

Once I’d finished speaking I think it was back to Will, Craig and Sally, or maybe it was time for Q&A. I don’t recall. My mind might as well have been Play-Doh and my only memory was of the woman with tears running down her face, asking my advice, the woman who’d later come up to me in a happy and crowded room.

“You changed my life.”

I did notice my great friend, Aaron Gouveia of The Daddy Files, standing by the door with his wife, MJ, and I found that odd because his panel about the intricacies of blogging and marriage was one of those scheduled against mine. I’d learn later that we’d gone over the designated time allotment by 22 minutes.

At some point Katherine announced the end of the breakout session and it took literally seconds for me collapse into first sobs and then all out wailing. I overheard someone say (I think it was Katherine) that it was all the anxiety built up over the weeks finally releasing, that this cry was cleansing. The next thing I knew Aaron and MJ were by side, MJ speaking softly, but sharply in my ear.

“You did a good job. Say, ‘I did a good job.'”

“I can’t!” My eyes were squeezed shut, my head in my hands. How many people stood staring at me? What happened to Katherine, to Sally, to Will, to Craig? Did I thank them? Did I say goodbye? These people must think I’m a disgrace!

“Yes you can! Say, ‘I did a good job.'”

I mumbled something.

“I did a good job. Say it.”

“Ididagoodjob.”

“Louder! With strength!”

“I did a good job. Noooooo!”

“Don’t fall backwards! Don’t you fall back! I did a good job! Again!”

“I did a good job.” Where was Chris? Was he scared? He’d never seen me like this, only heard stories, read what I’d written. Did he hate me know?

MJ called me on it each time I fell back. Eventually my tears abated a bit, my breath hitched less. My stutter and remained. My hands kept trembling. I looked up and saw Chris. He seemed worried, not sure what to do. He asked what he could do and I said something like, “Just be here.”

Aaron, MJ, Chris and I went downstairs for lunch. I made weird sounds, the same type of bizarre morse code that uncontrollably comes from my lips each time I have such a breakdown. Chris and I separated from Aaron and MJ after lunch, my NYC Dads Group brother staying by my side making sure I was ok. I can’t thank him enough. I especially cannot thank him enough for writing this ridiculously wonderful post about me.

A few hours later a woman would tell me I changed her life and I’d be tongue-tied and insecure and ashamed and unable to accept it.

The conference officially ended later that evening with the announcement that the Dad 2.0 Scholarship Fund (which grants money to dad bloggers normally unable to attend the conference) would forever bear the name of Oren Miller, the dad blogger Facebook group founder, the person who united so many of us both online and off. Oren, the beautiful force behind A Blogger and a Father, had been battling stage 4 lung cancer for nine months, and the audience received the news with applause, whoops and cheers. Although I’d met him in person just a few times, I looked up to Oren with undeniable admiration, for not only did he lead the charge of modern fatherhood, not only would none of the things – Dad 2.0, Huffington Post, Dads Behaving Dadly, etc. – that had happened to me since he invited me into the group when it held just 256 members (it’s now over 1,050), he was battling his illness with a quiet grace via his words and taking the chance to appreciate his wife, his children, his family, his life. When he first diagnosed, we dad bloggers helped raise over $35,000 for him and his family to take a dream vacation. He was supposed to go to Dad 2.0, but unfortunately could not, but his closest blogger friend, Brent Almond of Designer Daddy, read us a letter from Oren at the conference about how honored he was to have his name associated with something so important.

There’s a reason I’ve gone in this direction, so bear with me.

I was afraid to check Facebook or Twitter upon arriving home from Dad 2.0, scared at the reaction to my panel, nervous about potential criticism. Elaine and my parents told me everything they read was positive, but I still couldn’t see for myself (long after what follows next, I read this amazing post about me by Christian Toto of Daddylibrium). When I finally did summon the courage to check the first thing I saw was a note to all of us from Oren saying that the time for further treatment had passed and that he only had a few weeks to live. I shut my computer immediately, stricken by the news, and for the next few days I tried to figure out what to write this incredible man. It took me three days for me to do it. Oren died at the age of 41 two days later. I took his death extremely hard eventually suffering a massive and frightening (to Sienna, Elaine and my parents) breakdown two days later, the day of his funeral which I desperately wanted to attend, but could not. The same images kept playing in my head: us sitting in his house in Maryland, listening to his little girl, Madeline, sing “Tomorrow” from Annie on a karaoke machine while Oren beamed with pride. Such a hopeful song in the middle of increasing horror. His wife, Beth, no longer had a husband. His children, Liam and Madeline, no longer had a father. I suffered survivor’s guilt as well as genuine loss, the loss of a great man.

A man who changed my life.

These are the last words I ever wrote to Oren. I don’t think he ever read them, but I’d told him in person before so I hope he knew:

“Hey Oren. I’ve probably started and stopped writing this message about a dozen times because I’ve been so stunned by the news. I can’t imagine what you and your family are going through and I wish I could do more than tell you what you mean to me, but at the moment’s that’s the best I can do. I’ll talk about the FB Dad Blogger site in a bit, but first I want you to know to me you’re the embodiment of love and fatherhood. That came to me through your writing. It was further shown when I first met you at Dad 2.0 last year and then the two times we met up over the summer. I know some days must have been horrendous as you’ve battled this illness, but I too know that your outlook on life is joyous and something I truly need to learn. Beth and Liam and Madeline are all wonderful and they’re so lucky to have you in their lives. Now to the Dad Blogger site and how you changed my life forever. I have no idea if you knew what starting that site would do, but in truth it created a family, one that it is incredibly important to me. Without you inviting me into the Dad Blogger group when it was 250+ members, none of what’s happened to me over the past year and a half would have ever happened. I never would have read at Dad 2.0. I never would have been published in any way, shape or form (and I can say this because I know my own crippling fears). I never would have appeared on any podcasts. I never would have appeared in Dads Behaving Dadly or had the chance to be in the sequel. I never would have submitted and appeared on a panel a this year’s Dad 2.0. Because of you I’ve addressed some of my major fears and dislikes about myself head-on. Because of you I’m more than just a depression sufferer, I’m now an outspoken advocate for stripping the disease from the shadows. This past weekend someone told me that after my reading last year, he went home and went into therapy. After my panel this year, a woman approached me and said I changed her life. Neither knew your part in it, whether direct or indirect. I might still have depression and anxiety, but your invitation into the dad blogger community has made me a stronger man, a better father and given me a tribe I can count on. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that and you’ll probably say I never have to. But I’m going to anyway. Thank you. Thank you so much. I do hope you write back, but if you don’t, I understand. You’re probably getting a ton of these because you’re so beloved and revered and rightly so. I’d rather you spend the time you’d take to write back to me to spend with Beth and the kids. Just know I love you, man. I love and respect and admire you and yes, you did change my life and I will never forget that or make the mistake of regressing to what I was before. That is the Oren Miller effect. Love, Lorne”

Oren Miller was a humble man, but he understood how one person could change the life of another and then another and then another and so on and so forth. By changing just one life, whether it be through writing or just plain old simple kindness, you could start a movement and he did that when he founded the dad bloggers Facebook group.

So if Oren Miller could change my life, why couldn’t I have done the same for the woman who told me I changed hers at Dad 2.0 in San Francisco?

Perhaps it’s time I acknowledge that I did.

(l-r) Brent Almond, Oren Miller, Dustin Fisher (of www.daddyneedsanap.com) and myself

Ear-piercing screeches. Tears like Victoria Falls. It was the first day of camp, the first time Sienna would be separated from me for a long period of time (in this case 3 hours) and my little girl’s brain must have pulled some sort of “ABANDONMENT” trigger because I had never seen her so terrified. Her counselor, a somewhat stern looking woman with glasses and a light blue shirt held Sienna back from me.

“Go!” she commanded, her dirty blonde hair falling into her face as she wrestled with my daughter. “This is normal. It’s her first time being away from you. We deal with this regularly. But go or it’ll get worse!”

Sienna wailed. Other kids cried but Sienna’s tortured, almost guttural howls drowned them out. I didn’t feel frozen to the ground, more like my feet were stuck in bottomless tar. My knees wobbled as I thought back to camp orientation when they said that some kids would act as if nothing was wrong while others would feel as if it were the end of the world. I thought Sienna might cry, but this, this I didn’t expect when I dressed her that morning in a bathing suit, shorts and a t-shirt. I didn’t prepare for this as I slathered her body and face with suntan lotion.

Sienna’s sneakers squeaked as she tried to pull away from the counselor. She wrenched herself out of her grip, scooted around her like a basketball player pulling off a pick and roll and wrapped herself tightly around my legs.

“DADDY!” she screamed! “DADDY! NO! DADDY!”

The counselor pulled Sienna away, ripping both her from my legs and my heart from my chest. My eyes watered. The general anxiety disorder-related facial tic that I’ve had since my nervous breakdown in 2010 twitched awkwardly.

“GO!!”

Somehow I gained the strength to turn and walk out the door letting it bang closed behind me which set off a new set of shrieks. Peering shakily through the door’s small rectangular glass I saw the counselor and other volunteers trying to get Sienna under control, pulling her towards the main room as if she were an a new inmate in an asylum.

Three hours. Three hours without me. Her protector. Her father. Three hours without my little girl. I thought I’d enjoy the time alone, but I felt tremulous and unsteady. I drove home and watched television instead of blogging as I’d hoped to do.

She ran into my arms when I arrived. I picked her up, her fresh tears dripping onto my face and shirt.

“She cried most of the time,” the counselor said. “She played a little. She didn’t go into the water. It’s the first day. It’s normal. It’ll get easier and better.”

I doubted it. Sienna hugged me tighter than I thought possible. I nodded and said, “Ok.”

Two weeks in and nothing changed. Sienna cried when I woke her up for camp. She cried as she lay in bed with my wife for 20 minutes after I’d gotten her ready. She cried in the car. She screeched once we got to the red brick building. She clung to me like a monkey, scrambling onto my shoulders once we reached her classroom. Each day was the same. The counselor tore her out of my arms along with a piece of my heart.

“Does she have something she loves? A doll? A stuffed animal? A blanket?”

Her scarf. I immediately thought of the delicate scarf dotted with blues and greens and browns and oranges she’d appropriated from my wife. She slept with the scarf. She took it everywhere looking like Linus of Peanuts fame but as a fashionista. Once we washed scarf and she wailed until we brought it upstairs to air dry. We hung it on her highchair and she stood next to it, holding the precious fabric to her cheek, her free thumb stuck in her mouth. I brought scarf with us the next time we went to camp and scarf helped turn the tide.

“She was so much better today,” her counselor said. “She cried for awhile but it tapered off. She even stuck her toes in the water.

In fact, Sienna didn’t even cry when I’d picked her up. She’d smiled and said, “Daddy!” She still wanted to be held. She still didn’t want me to go, but there was a difference. She felt safer and so did I.

By the end of camp Sienna no longer screeched or sobbed when I dropped her off.

“Bye, Daddy!” she’d say cheerfully before I walked out of her classroom door leaving her in the company of children her age, teenage volunteers, her counselor, loads of games and toys and books.

And I felt chilled, the cold hard fact of her no longer needing me. Dropping off at camp had, as her counselor predicted, transformed into a quick and happy goodbye. No wild reaching for me. No teardrops. No looking back.

Sure she still ran into my arms each time I picked her up from camp, still buoyed my spirits with a happy yell of, “Daddy!” when I entered the classroom, but my little girl couldn’t wait for camp, music, snack, the pool.

One day, right before the end of camp, I stood there after Sienna had darted into her classroom with a smile and a “Bye-bye, Daddy!” and I realized this was a microcosm of life; one day, the little girl who’d once relied on us for everything would walk, 18 years old, onto her college campus, give me a hug, a smile and quick “Bye-bye, Daddy!” before turning towards the rest of her life, not looking back.

I stood staring through the small rectangular glass of her classroom door, fingers trembling from separation anxiety.

Tuesday, the 10th of February, 2015. Birthday number 41. Nine days until I leave for San Francisco and my second trip to the Dad 2.0 Summit. I’m normally antsy on my birthday, focusing extra hard on the past, lost opportunities, goals unaccomplished. The slightest thing can knock me down a rabbit hole of anxiety and churning negative thoughts. It’s the same feeling I have on New Year’s Eve, an annoying and unfortunate part of depression. I open Facebook, a site I’ve had difficulty visiting for the past few weeks; I check a little each day, but feel overwhelmed by those that can spend so much time writing, reading and commenting on blogs or opining on threads. I’m envious of them. at times I feel lost in the dad blogger community. I notice a post from Aaron Gouveia. His wife is coming to San Fran and both will speak at the conference. I’m excited! Aaron and I hit it off at last year’s gathering. He visited us in New York last summer while Elaine, Sienna and I traveled to the Boston area to spend time with his family later in the season. I can’t wait to see his wife again. But then it hits me. If Aaron’s wife is going to the conference it means only 1 thing – they’re speaking on a panel about blogging and marriage and that panel is scheduled to run at the same time as mine, one about how depression doesn’t discriminate. Excitement replaced by dread. Chest fills with cement. Eyes water. Elaine wants to know what’s wrong.

What’s wrong is that Aaron is a dad blogger rock star. His page, The Daddy Files, annually ranks as one of the top dad blogs in web land with good reason. He writes with precision and passion. He captures the smallest memory or parenting moment in beautiful language. He’s unafraid to tackle the most controversial topics. And he’s fast. As soon as something happens in the world, he writes about it. I’m often too late to the table on political issues such issues as paternity leave, abortion, a celebrity or personality talking poorly about fathers, etc. He has over 4500 Facebook followers; I just broke 500. Immediately I saw everyone in the conference – all 350 people – running to his panel as if Elvis and the Beatles were throwing a concert despite some of them being ghosts or zombies while tumbleweed drifts through mine. I stutter my fears to Elaine.

“You’re being irrational! People will still go to your panel! Get out of the whirlpool and tell Aaron how you’re feeling!”

“I can’t talk to Aaron,” I said.

“Of course you can! He’s you’re friend!”

After awhile I recover long enough to have a rather good birthday until late at night when I check Facebook and find only 30-something people have wished me happy birthday and only a few are dad bloggers. Tears flow. My body shakes. What happened? What happened to all the dad bloggers I thought I’d connected with at last year’s conference? Irrationality rules as I decide they’ve abandoned me, that they consider me so unimportant that they didn’t take the few seconds to write me their best wishes.

“It’s a Tuesday,” Elaine says, rubbing my shoulders, trying to comfort me. “I know you’re hurt but maybe people were busy. Maybe they didn’t check Facebook. Maybe they meant to write it and forgot.”

But I wasn’t having it. The lack of birthday wishes from my dad blogger community reinforced the sense of abandonment I’d imagined when I pictured people scrambling to get into Aaron’s panel as mine stayed empty.

This is what depression can do. Despite your own self-loathing, you need everyone else to like you, to acknowledge you.

My mind’s gone to awful places as the conference has drawn closer. Even though it’s nonsensical, I feel like I’m going to be ignored and eclipsed. Last year I spoke in front of an audience about my battles with depression and received a standing ovation. I still struggle with that. My brain won’t let me trust it. I won’t let myself trust it. As much as I tell myself it was real and that people were proud of me, that I’m accepted as an important and perhaps influential voice in the dad blogger community, my mind nags at me like a bee bugging picnickers.

It’s all fake. They pitied you. They tolerate you. You’re NOTHING! In fact, this panel you’re on, the one you submitted, was only accepted because they felt sorry for you!

Reality check – there is no way Doug French and John Pacini, the co-founders of the summit, would have spent so much money to fly in depression experts and choose your panel submission over others unless they considered it worthy and significant.

But still I’m afraid.

And I’m frightened of being eclipsed. I got that standing ovation last year. What if a blogger spotlight reader gets one this year? What happens to me?

Reality – nothing. Irrationality – I’m forgotten entirely.

The battle persist in my head as my anxiety grows even though I see the contradiction that getting that ovation clearly meant I made an impact. My thoughts must be wrong.

A couple of days ago I gathered the courage to call Aaron

“You’re being ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not about who’s on the panel, it’s about content and your content is much more important than mine. Plus the first thing I thought when I was invited to participate on this panel was that I wouldn’t be at yours to support you. That’s killing me. You’re gonna be great! Just like last year! And yes, you’re beloved by us dad bloggers.” (I’m paraphrasing)

After talking to Aaron I felt a little better, but it’s now the week of the conference. My flight leaves in three days. My anxiety’s gnawing at my stomach. I feel the walls closing in, the pressure of 350 people crushing me. And yet, I’m excited to see my friends and to once more take part in this crucial conference about fatherhood and how its portrayed in media. I somehow won a free stay at the hotel. My parents gave me miles for the flight. I don’t have to pay for the conference because I’m on a panel. I’m crazy lucky. I can use my money for all sorts of things because I’m not paying for anything major. I get to visit LucasFilm! And I’ve written plenty of blogs about how much I loved Dad 2.0 the first time and what it means to me.

I’m anxious and frightened and eager. I need to stop putting so much pressure on my myself and stop playing the comparison game because I have a voice and that voice matters.

UPDATE: A dad blogger friend told me that my birthday didn’t show up on his calendar and to check my Facebook settings. Sure enough FB changed my birth date settings from “friends” to “just me” hence the lack of well wishes. Why they did this, I have no clue, but he made me feel tons better because now I know for sure that it wasn’t about me. Damn you FB!