Welcome to Hope's House at Bald Cypress Equestrian

 This has been something that I have had a deep-rooted urge to write yet have had no inclination as to how to go about it, so this is the best attempt. If you have 5 minutes of your day, I ask that you take it to read this from beginning to end. I hope that it does not pertain to you, however if it does, I promise that you are not alone. If it does not pertain to you, I hope that you can share this with someone who it may. Many people struggle with mental health issues alone and in silence. 

To start with a little bit of a background. I am by no means a mental health expert or even a professional. I spent the majority of my adult life working as a firefighter/paramedic and over the past 5 years have started and ran an equestrian business with my wife. Throughout my career, I have experienced and bought into the idea that mental health is a taboo subject, especially as a male. I can only speak from my personal experiences and observations. My hope in writing this is that someone who has/had experienced similar circumstances will be able to relate and that this will hopefully help them in whatever way they need. In the fire service and I can only assume in many male dominated fields, the idea of mental health is taboo. There is a large push across the country for mental health awareness and support, however the fear of being ostracized for speaking out is a common problem, in my belief. I joined the fire service as a Jr Volunteer at a small department in 2010 at the age of 15. I gained my paramedic license and was hired as a career firefighter/paramedic at the age of 19 where I worked until February of 2024. I witnessed my first fatal incident at the age of 15 and my first pediatric fatality at the age of 16. Throughout my career I have been assigned to busy stations and for much of the time was labeled as a “black cloud.” I don’t say any of this looking for any sort of sympathy but only to give an brief understanding into my background. I grew up and bought into/supported a culture that dark humor was the only means of venting. You were made fun of if you considered CISM as a legitimate option. At the time, CISM was not of use for most people. How many men and women who work in that environment want to sit in a circle and talk about how they feel. If you are in this sort of profession, I’m sure that you have some sort of nickname for a CISM meeting. I was exposed very early on to the negative viewpoint on mental health. I was taught to believe that you were weak if an incident bothered you, that it’s not your emergency or your family so why are you worried. I believed that thought process for well over 10 years. I understand that thought process, especially while operating at an incident and do not entirely fault it. I understand and support the use of dark humor as a coping mechanism. Where I feel that as a society we fail, is that when someone reaches out for help, the lack of support they receive. There is a culture shift in progress, however in my experience, it matters more to say that mental health is important than it is to actually make mental health support and inclusion a priority. 

My wife and I were blessed with a beautiful son in December of 2022. Shortly after returning to work, I functioned as a paramedic on a pediatric cardiac arrest. Following this incident, I began experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD without realizing it. I recognized the nightmares but kept them to myself out of fear for what would be said. I did not even tell my wife out of fear of causing her stress and due to the worry of her thinking less of me. I didn’t want to be considered weak by my peers, family, or wife; this is a personal fault of my own and I now recognize that, however in the moment, I felt as if I should not feel the ways I did and that I was weak for having those feelings. Following the incident, I began to place blame on myself and began to experience suicidal ideations. Following that incident, we handled a grotesque suicide that only deepened the feelings I was experiencing. I want to note here that suicide has been close in my life since childhood. I have experienced family and close friends commit suicide as well as the numerous suicides of all ages I have handled while working. I was unable to keep the negative feelings and suicidal thoughts from creeping in and almost fantasized about them. The thought of having to go to work began to make me sick and I started taking off frequently. During this time, I began to recognize that my mental health was affecting my daily life and was taking a toll on my wife. After a number of mental breakdowns, I finally sought help however refused to openly admit I was having any issues, again out of fear because of the mindset I had bought into at the age of 15. While starting therapy in private, I continued to work and began to slowly admit to close coworkers that I was experiencing these problems. There was a mixed response, some of which solidified my fears of being thought of differently; this is no different than I have probably acted in the past when in the other shoes and I by no means point any blame at anyone. I had the opportunities during my career to work with some of the most amazing humans that have walked this earth and am fortunate to have everlasting friendships as a result. While continuing to work both in my career, at the farm, and on my own issues, I began to put all my time, effort, and energy into my work. I used work as a way to ignore the issues I was experiencing with a false idea that achieving some goal would resolve them. My symptoms continued to worsen to the point I experienced physical symptoms that at times were debilitating. The suicidal thoughts became more frequent, and my thoughts began to shift towards plans. Constantly trying to figure out how to do it that it would have the least impact on my wife, family, and the responders who would have to care for me. I began using the fear of hurting my wife and child as the driving factor for my life. After a few months of little progress, solely because I was not ready to truly accept the help, I operated as a paramedic on a pediatric traumatic arrest. I accompanied the patient to the hospital via air, where we performed CPR for over 30 minutes to no avail. After this incident, my mental health took a turn for the worst. I placed the blame on myself and began experiencing frequent debilitating events. This ultimately led to admitting to myself, my family, and my employer that my mental health crisis had reached a point in which I was unable to handle it. I do not want to spend much time on my experiences surrounding my resignment from my employer. What I will say is that in my experience, there is very little care offered towards the individual rather than checking the boxes. Ultimately through the events surrounding my care, the decision to separate from my employer was made. Through this process I have failed continuously, however with each failure, I have tried to learn the lessons available. Through this I have been given the opportunity to grow as a person, husband, father, etc. and my hope is that in writing this, if you are still reading, that I can help one person not feel as if they are alone. Being alone is not the physical feeling of being in an empty space with no one around. Being alone, in my experience, is having a darkness inside of you and feeling like you have no one to listen. I was fortunate that I have an amazing and supportive wife, however in the moment, I allowed my own fears to blind me of that. I understand now how lucky I am and that not everyone is as fortunate. The premises behind Hope’s House is to create a place that everyone and anyone has the ability to go and never feel alone.

In my experience, there are 3 driving factors that keep us alive. The dependency of someone/something else on you (a parent, child, pet, that is dependent on you for survival), The desire and need to work towards a goal (whether that be completing a project, working towards the next promotion, making it through school, etc.), or the hope that there are better days to come. In my personal experience, it is easiest to live for someone else. In my experience, the most immediate exit from a suicidal thought was to imagine my wife finding me. This was easy for me to do as I have seen the aftermath and heard the shrieks of a loved one who had just found their partner, parent, child, friend dead after taking their life. I have seen and experienced firsthand the pain that it inflicts on others both short and long term. It is easy to say, I don’t want others to suffer because of my actions. It is easy to listen to the rest of the world when they say that suicide is the selfish thing to do yet no one seems to realize that staying alive is the most unselfish thing you can do. When the darkness creeps in, to the point that you consider ending your own life, you have given up on your reasons to live and I believe for many, they make the conscious and unselfish decision to push on for others more often than for themselves. When working towards a goal, I have found it possible to distract myself from the suicidal thoughts that inevitably come creeping in by replacing them with an obsession into my work. This is, what I believe, to be a very common practice that allows us to cover the actual problem and avoid it by replacing it. The problem with this is that you will spend your entire life chasing happiness that is only ever achieved through success and completion rather than true internal happiness. Hope gives people the ability to see through the tough times and look for better times ahead. Hope allows people to see that their circumstances are only temporary. Some find hope in the comfort of religion, others through support groups, and some within themselves. 

Hope has a little bit different meaning to everyone. Webster’s dictionary defines Hope as “to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true” or “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.” Others describe hope as the only emotion stronger than fear. Many people who have lived through the toughest of times have described hope as the “thing” that got them through the hard times. Humans have used hope to push through their lowest moments for as long as we know. To me hope was the unborn foal to my retired racehorse. When we retired Happylife from racing, it was a disappointment, but we found the positive in that Happylife was retired sound and healthy. We made the decision to expand into breeding and took on the challenge with enthusiasm. After a couple of hiccups and challenges including multiple breedings, Happylife finally took on June 21st 2023. For context, the incident that started my spiral was in the beginning of April 2023 and my resignation in February of 2024. Throughout the disaster that was my attempt at handling my mental health, one thing that kept me going was Happylife’s unborn foal. I made a promise to myself that I would be the one to care for that horse as it was my dream to see through. This may sound stupid to some, especially with having an amazing wife and son to live for, however the foal would not care in the slightest if I was not alive. The foal’s life would be completely unaltered whether I was living or not. My wife and son would suffer the consequences of my actions however this foal would be no better or worse with or without me. The unborn foal became something that was a selfish reason to live but it helped give me the hope that there were better times ahead. If I could convince myself to live for an animal that will truthfully not be affected by my living, there is hope that I can get past this and be the husband, father, and person I want to be. 

On May 21st, my wife and I checked the camera before we did night check and immediately knew that tonight was the night. We checked on Happylife and collected a sample to test. Once we returned home and did the test, it was an immediate positive and the excitement skyrocketed. Less than 30 minutes later we were in the barn that we had just finished building for this event and Happylife was in active labor. It did not take long to realize that things were not normal and less than an hour after checking the camera, my wife and myself were sitting on the floor watching Happylife nuzzle the lifeless body of her stillborn foal. The devastation of having the thing you had convinced yourself to live for, not even take a breath, was crushing. It led me to a low that I did not know existed, luckily this time I had already opened the door looking for help. I was able to see past the immediate pain and towards a better future. We were fortunate to have found a phenomenal crematory that was able to help us in the aftercare of our beautiful filly. When asked what name to put on the shadowbox in which we would receive her ashes, I immediately went to say what the planned name was, Divine Happiness (a combination of the sire, Divining Rod, and the dam, Happylife) however hesitated. After a brief discussion with my wife, we settled on Hope. Hope was the driving force for 11 months that kept me going, that when I was at my lowest, she was something I could look towards and get through the moment. Viktor Frankl said “Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.” If you have made it this far, I hope you have an understanding of what the meaning behind us starting Hope’s House is. 

If you have made it this far, I hope that the true meaning of writing this has come through. I by no means am looking for anything from writing this other than to hopefully reach someone who may need to hear it. 

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold in the absence of an empathetic witness”

-Peter Levine