Hello Everyone, I’m Carl Vreeland and this is the podcast “Close to the Bone.”

This is episode #40, it’s called, “On the Outside Looking In.”

As a young boy in elementary school, I watched my school mates studying at their desks, raising their hands in class, receiving good grades, smiling, joking, and laughing. On school trips, while sitting at a distance, I watched them swimming, playing sports, and teasing one another. I saw them displaying excitement about certain classes and teachers. I saw them on dates in pizza parlors, holding hands walking in the park, and kissing on street corners. I watched. It was all like a movie to me. I looked at all my class mates curiously, fascinated by them, and at times envious. I was shy, uncomfortable, nervous, distracted, and obviously voyeuristic. I was awkward. That is, until I discovered alcohol and a talent for music. I started playing drums, and soon after began drinking and drugging. Being a musician gave me a sense of identity and belonging. It gave me confidence. And of course alcohol and substances made me comfortable around others, especially those of the opposite sex.

Nevertheless, I still felt apart from and not a part of. I spent too much time in my head. And this contributed to my depression, heavy drinking, and drugging. They all fed off of one another, and my thinking turned negative from overthinking, and of course drinking and drugging, which deepened my depression. And so I drank more because I was depressed, and I drugged more, and I dwelled in my head more, and on and on. . . .  The depression, the booze, the chemicals, the weed, etcetera, distorted my perception of people and the world. It kept me blind and un-awakened. It kept me in my head and out of reality. I lived in the cerebral world, in imagination, seldom engaged with others. And I was stuck there, although I didn’t know it. I believed my view was clear. This was partly because I didn’t know any different. It was my only experience. There was no contrast. I mean, how do we know hot without cold? How do we know what is up, without down? And so, I didn’t know my perspective was skewed and distorted, because it was how I always saw the world. This is depression, and it was all I ever knew. Living in my head was all I ever knew.

To explain. . . I experienced a childhood trauma which