Episode 349: When Life Explodes (Johnny Crowder) TRANSCRIPT

Terry: Hello and welcome to the Giving Voice to Depression podcast, brought to you by Recovery.com. Each week, we profile a guest who shares intimate details of their mental health journey. They share because they understand that when people don't talk about their depression or other mental health conditions, those of us who struggle with them can feel like we're the only ones, that there's something wrong with us, instead of understanding that we have a common and treatable illness. I'm Terry, the creator and co-host of this podcast. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: And I'm Doctor Anita Sanz, a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 25 years in clinical practice. I know from both personal and professional experience how significantly mental health and other disorders can impact not just our lives, but those around us as well. By speaking openly and with the wisdom of lived experience, we help normalize conversations that are often avoided due to shame or stigma. Our episodes are honest and real, and we keep them hopeful because there truly is hope — despite what depression tells you. 

Terry: This podcast is brought to you by Recovery.com, whose mission is to help each person find the best path to recovery through a comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers for both mental health and addiction treatment worldwide. Hello, Anita. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: Hi, Terry. In his international bestseller, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions, investigative journalist Johann Hari writes: "Depression isn't a disease. Depression is a normal response to abnormal life experiences." Today's guest, Johnny Crowder, knows a lot about abnormal life experiences, and they have affected him in many ways. Johnny, who by his own description is "hard to put in a box," is a childhood abuse and suicide-attempt survivor, a TEDx speaker with millions of views, a heavily tattooed metal rocker and a powerful, relatable and articulate mental health advocate-- the persona he's sharing with us today. 

Terry: Here now is Johnny Crowder giving his voice to depression. 

Terry: So before we dive in, I just want to check and ask the not so simple question. How are you doing? 

Johnny Crowder: I am doing better. I am healing through one heck of a 2024. What about you? 

Terry: The same, but less. Because I saw some of what your 2024 was, and mine wasn't that. 

Johnny Crowder: Oh, the first three quarters of it were mwah! Just Q4 got away from me. But I am, I am feeling like the worst of it is behind me. And I am on the mend. And I'm building my hope back, which is a good feeling. 

Terry: How does one get past that? I mean, your home was destroyed by a hurricane, right? 

Johnny Crowder: Yeah. What's funny is that people only know that part because that's the only part that I've shared. I haven't really shared, like, all of the different corners of your psyche that that touches or other things in my life that just happened to coincide with that big loss. But my home being destroyed is like the ultimate metaphor for everything I went through last year. And I don't think a lot of people plan on being 32 and feeling like they're starting over. But my friend was like, you're so lucky because some people are never forced to do an inventory of everything in their life. And when you have your life explode, you are forced to do that. And it's such a blessing. It's, it's going to make sure that you don't wind up being 70 years old, wishing that you would have emptied out your bag and checked to see what you wanted to keep carrying, you know. 

Terry: Wow. What else happened? 

Johnny Crowder: Yeah. At the same time that I lost my home, I was going through a big change in my band, which, so for people who don't know me, that might sound like not a big deal. But I started playing music when I was eight years old. I started performing when I was 16. I started touring when I was 17. I got signed when I was 19. And my whole Maslow's hierarchy of needs for the last 15 years of my life had been contained in music, in touring, and writing and recording music. We were signed to a record label. We had a booking agent. We were on the road all the time. And last year, two of the members of my band quit And we're a four piece. So that's a pretty devastating thing to go through. Like half of your band leaves. And at the same time, I was in a relationship that I thought was with the person that I was going to marry. And then on the same, like all at the same time. I'm playing these last two concerts, which might be my last concerts I ever perform. My significant other at the time broke up with me. And so I get I get dumped. Then a hurricane hits and destroys everything. So I was like losing my physical sense of safety, like my place where I go that's just mine. I'm losing my person- like my vision of my future with that person. I'm losing my vision of my future with the band and my creative outlet. And this was truly like, I think most people hit their midlife crisis around middle age. And I just, I think mine arrived a decade early, you know? 

Terry: Wow. That's a lot of loss at one time. 

Johnny Crowder: Oh yeah. And some of it literally overlapping like to the same week or even the same day. Yeah. So it's it's forced a lot of introspection and growth and coping strength that I don't know that I would have had to develop if I had an easier 2024. 

Terry: So what happens mentally to you with all of this going on, given that I know you also have mental health diagnoses? 

Johnny Crowder: I have experienced deep, deep depression before. Like I've wrestled with that bear many times. And I would say over the past probably eight years, I have been relatively free from the dark, pervasive depression. And the day of the storm, so I walk into my home and I see that everything is just obliterated. It is absolute, like it's uninhabitable. And I'm like, just how much more can be taken from me? And the next morning. I could feel the depression that I remembered. 

Johnny Crowder: But I went to bed that night. I stayed at my mom's apartment. And the next morning, I sort of refused to open my eyes because I'm like, if I don't open my eyes, then I can pretend I'm back in my home and everything's just as it was. And then I got up and I had my mom was like, you have to eat something. So she made some soup for me. I took one sip of soup, like one spoonful of soup. I start crying. I go back to bed , and then it's like noon, right? And I usually I don't sleep till noon. So this is like an anomaly. My mom wakes me up and she's like, you need to get outside. You need to go on a walk or something. Like, you can't just be in this room all day. So my mom and I go on this walk, I say nothing. I'm just, like, catatonic. I go back inside, I'm like, okay, at some point today, I'm going to have to go back to my condo and dig through debris. Then I go sit on my bed, on the bed in my mom's office, and then close the blinds and go back to sleep. And it was like this avoidance that I think I really wasn't ready to accept. The depression that I knew was knocking at my door. Like I didn't want to answer it. I'm like, oh, if I deal with this, it's probably it's not going to be a week. It's not going to be a month. Like, I really have to sort of slog my way through this. 

Terry: And you were just certain that's what it was, and there was no avoiding it other than perhaps sleeping and having the blinds drawn. 

Johnny Crowder: I mean, I I've faced enough hardship in my life to where I knew, like, I know what's going to be required of me. And I think the, the moments where I felt really, really hopeless in my depression over the last few months, or when I would go to turn to something that normally would make me feel better. Like I'm a big car person. So I love going to car shows. And I went to a car show and I felt nothing. Terry. It was like this thing that always brings me joy, that always lights up my eyes and I leave with my spirits lifted because it's such a it's a hobby that I'm so passionate about. I go to this car show and I feel nothing, and I leave and I'm just like, oh no. Like, that's not a good sign. So I have worked to not fight the depression this time around, because it's sort of like an old foe like it comes back and I'm like, oh, hey, Jeff. And he's like, hey, Johnny. And I'm like, all right, we're just going to sort through this together, aren't we? And he's like, yeah. So instead of me being like, back, stay away, you can't touch me. I'm just like, we've been through this before. I know we can get through this again. And I, I feel So I feel that all of my denial in the last, it's been almost three months. It's like two and a half, three months. All of my denial has just been an effort to avoid the depression. Not necessarily the the the circumstance, but the depression associated with the circumstance. Like I never really wanted to look right at it. And once I started looking at it and addressing it as like, instead of pretending Jeff's not there. I'm like, hey, Jeff, it just helped me sort of not spend too much time pretending that the problem was really there. 

Terry: Did you catch that reference to the time frame we're talking about? This isn't a distant memory Johnny is sharing with us. We recorded about two and a half months, or ten weeks after all this went down. And already he had processed it in such a philosophical way that — I don't know about you — but I seldom do, probably in general, and certainly not fast. 

Johnny Crowder: Terry, if you asked me in September about my life, I would say my life has never been better. It has taken 32 years to build my career, my love life, my personal life, my health, my home into exactly like if you groundhog-dayed my September for the rest of my life, I would have been completely content. So to lose everything that I cared about so swiftly made me think, oh no, what if I can't build it back? 

Terry: Absolutely. Okay, so your depression is is there — what has your experience of it been these last three months? Are you able to keep enough distance between you and it that you know your life is worth living? And the things that it can convince us of. 

Johnny Crowder: Yeah. This is this is huge. So previous and previously — previously in the life of Johnnie Crowder — like what you missed in in seasons past is that when I would face something really tragic like this, my brain would go to: Should I even be alive anymore? Why should I even try? Is my whole life going to be dismal and pointless and hopeless? Does anybody care that I'm going through this? And this time, I never once considered self-harm. I never once considered that my life would not get better. I never once considered that — that I wouldn't be able to rebuild into something better than what I had. So what made this challenge really unique was I had been through so many unique hardships before — really devastating things — that when this happened, I said, what do I know for sure? I know that I'm a resilient person. I know that I have friends and family who care about me. I know that I have things that I'm passionate about, and even if I'm not passionate about them right now, I know that that doesn't mean I'll never be passionate about them again. I look back at all these changes in my life that have caused severe distress and disruption. And I can see now the fruit that came from enduring that hardship, for example. I would say, what if I move into a place that I like even more? What if I meet someone who's an even better fit for me? What if I pursue a different creative outlet that's even more fulfilling than my band? So all of these potential positive outcomes I recognized as being possible. And then I said, I know myself to be the type of person who does not get defeated when difficult things happen. I don't run away. I don't quit. And I had to remind myself of my character by looking at the body of evidence of things that I've overcome in the past. And then I had to remind myself that I don't know the future. So I can say now that this is a bad thing, but I don't really know if it's bad. I can say it's difficult, but I can't say it's bad because I can't see what my life will look like in a year, potentially as a direct result of experiencing these challenges. 

Terry: How how do you How did you do that? What? What's different? Or is it just growth and experience and — I mean, I'm fascinated by this. I wish you could read an instruction manual. 

Johnny Crowder: Man, this is — So first of all, I'm working on a talk and and potentially a book about, like, what to do when your life explodes. I've already written like a ton about this. Writing is a great creative outlet for me. It's a good coping mechanism, so I've written pages and pages about what I've gone through. It's really helped me process it. But I will tell people a cheat, like a workaround. So in my life, I have people who I know will tell me the truth if I ask them directly for the truth, not the make me feel better truth, but like what's actually true. So what I did when when all of this exploded is I asked my sister, can you think of any thing this hard that I've been through, that you've seen me overcome? So I was just as devastated in that moment, and my pain was like, right now when I was talking to her in that moment, I was like, I've never experienced pain like this is how I feel. But from the third party perspective, I'm sure that you've seen me experience pain like this before in other situations, because you've known me for a long time. So can you think of any time in my life where I have experienced this level of pain and survived it? And I thought she was going to say no. I thought she was going to be like, this is the worst I've ever seen. And she said, oh yeah. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? Name a couple. And she rattled off a list of, like, all of these big challenges that I faced. And one of them that she mentioned was my first band breaking up after eight years. And this was my entire identity at the time, like I was I was the singer of Dark Sermon — that was like my that was who I thought of myself as. That was my own self-image was like being attached to my work. And that band breaking up devastated me for a year. Like I gained a bunch of weight. I stopped seeing my friends. I totally socially shut down. I was supremely unmotivated. I was convinced that I would never have like, utility in human ...

Terry: Yes. 

Johnny Crowder: Like in the human world. I was like, what am I even for? If I can't do the one thing I'm good at? And I was like, Holy crap, that's so encouraging, because I never think about that in my daily life now. In fact, just the previous week before I asked her that I had listened to one of our old records just because one of our old songs popped into my head, I listen to the record. I'm like, man, this is good. I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel like — I didn't mourn it. I didn't wish that I could have the band back, none of that. And I was like, wow, time heals just by virtue of you being further from the pain. So all of this to say, if you're going through something right now and you're listening to this and you're like, I have no idea how to frame this, this feels bigger than anything I've ever faced. Ask a friend or family member that has known you for a long time. Can you tell me about a time that you've seen me really struggle with something? And then eventually, I didn't struggle quite so much with it? And they will tell you and you'll think, wow, I can't believe that I was this devastated. As devastated as I feel now back then, because in my daily life, I really don't think about that battle anymore. 

Terry: Don't even think about it. That's wild. That's a great hack. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: So, Terry, you know, we often talk about on the podcast how depression lies. And I feel like Johnny really highlighted some really important ways that depression was really kind of messing with his perception of himself, of his past and his future. And we know that depression distorts our perceptions of of all of those things. You know, you can't remember the good times. You feel like time is just dragging that your feelings are never going to end. It's not only going to not get better, it's going to get worse. And even things that used to give you some joy, Johnny really talked about with decreased dopamine, you can't even feel the good in the good anymore. Yeah. And so his hack of of asking someone who knows you to remind you of times that were just as challenging and the ways that you survived, just even reminding you that, hey, you did survive that, can really break up, you know, that distortion of depression. And I think that is that is such an amazing thing, if you can remember to ask for that when you're in that space. But if you are again, sort of that person, that caregiver or that loved one, if you can remember that, how how helpful that could be to remind a person, listen, you've gotten through so much before, including really bad times like this, and you're going to get through this one that that's that's so powerful. 

Terry: And it seems so much more genuine and more likely to be received than, you know, I keep seeing the meme that says, like, you've gotten through 100% of your hard days, and every time I see it, my eyes automatically roll back in my head because it's like, well it doesn't mean I want more? That's right, I do like it. And a previous guest recommended writing what you know to be true about yourself. That's positive. And having that in, you know, maybe a little box that has some other things that remind you of good times, whether that's pictures or, you know, mementos of some kind. And then you can read and you're seeing like, I know that I get through things, I know that I'm strong and capable, and I know that I get knocked out and forget all of this when I'm depressed. And so even if you don't have somebody to ask, you can do it for yourself, which I think is an interesting option. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: I think that's that's a great option. And and when I think about it, I think about creating like that. Break glass in case of an emergency box. Yes. Yeah. So you can have that as a file on your phone or your computer, or you can actually create that box and and just like the fire extinguisher, it's like, get into that box. Get into that writing that you have done where you can remind yourself of things that you've overcome. And like you said in your own words, want to write down how you felt at your worst moments so that you won't also dismiss yourself. You'll say, oh, that sounds exactly like what I'm going through right now. You're right. You're talking to yourself. You're right. I was here before. I did feel this hopeless before, and I'm here now. So I did survive that. And I can probably survive this again. You can write really positive, inspirational messages to your your future-self who might be struggling once you get out of that struggling place. So it's like your past-you could be helping your future-you.

Terry: I love that. One other thing I'd like as well his awareness, to put it mildly, of himself and what's going on. And he said, you know, when he heard depression knocking at the door, he wasn't ready to accept that. And he said he had faced enough hardship in his life that he knew what was going to be required of him. And that's such a higher level language than I tend to use related to my depression. And it does require so much from us. And I totally understand not being willing or perhaps even able to answer that door and to hear it knocking, maybe before it's knocking you out might be that window of opportunity, which it was for him to to tap into some of the tools, including the one we were just discussing. Yeah, that might help you not open the door or not open it so much or not let him unpack. I made it a "him." Sorry. Not let it unpack its bags once it comes into your house. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: Yeah. Yeah. The timing, the timing is really important. And how how when you're in the midst of a depressive episode, you can expect yourself to be able to, you know, time that correctly and catch it correctly and ask for the help correctly. Again, it's just so important to practice as much self-compassion as depression will even allow you to muster in those times so that, you know, you acknowledge you're doing the absolute best that you can. But yeah, the if you can, if you can — and we keep saying, if you can get it as early as you possibly can, if you can intervene as early as you possibly can, it makes it easier. 

Terry: Which is true with any other thing, right? Right. When you are getting a migraine, when you're realizing your back might be about to go out, you know, all of those times we have to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need to lay down, you know, get flat on the ground. I need to I don't know what people do to to ward off a migraine, but do those things. You have to do those things. And we have a little — that's kind of the only time we have any power, you know, over it because, you know, before we don't know it's coming. And then once it's all the way there, we have fewer options. Yeah. So with this episode, because if you're like us, you're probably going to want to learn and hear more from Johnny. We are going to link to his Ted talks on his website, Johnnycrowder.com, as well as information about Cope Notes, which is a science based text message tool that might help you with your depression, anxiety and other things where you randomly, at different times each day get a message that is validating. And again, it's science based. It's supposed to interrupt any negative thoughts you might be having. There is a fee for it and we're not selling anything, but there is a seven day free trial. So you might want to just see if that is something that might be effective for you. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: And so please, if you liked this episode, please tune in next week. We're going to listen to Johnny talk again about how depression made him not even want to fight. And he's got some really, really good insights to share. 

Terry: Thank you Johnny, and thank you Anita. 

Dr. Anita Sanz: We truly hope that our podcast brings a little more understanding, helps you better articulate and reflect on your own experience with depression, or better understand how to support someone else who is struggling. 

Terry: If this episode has been of comfort or value to you, know that there are hundreds of others like it in our archive, which you can easily find at our website givingvoicetodepression.com. And remember, if you're struggling, speak up — even if it's hard. If someone else is struggling. Take the time to listen.