Lights Out

Episode 9: Lights Out

In August 2017, I found myself married after knowing my wife for a total of just two months. This brought an immediate wave of challenges. Knowing how reckless it looked, I didn’t want to tell my parents right away—I wanted them to meet her first and see how things went.

However, my wife didn't want to keep our marriage a secret. She wanted to post everything on social media, and that's exactly what she did. Naturally, my parents saw the posts and called me immediately. I did the worst thing I could have done in that moment: I lied. I lied because I was deeply ashamed of how impulsively I had acted.

The hardest part was that I worked for my father. Since taking over the Arizona market and driving major results, he had started seeing me in a brand-new, positive light. The company was even eyeing me for bigger opportunities. The instant loss of his pride in me was palpable.

We came clean shortly after—we had to. I needed to convince my dad to let me transfer back to Florida, and surprisingly, he agreed. However, he made it clear that I wouldn't be making anywhere near the money I made in Arizona. He suggested that I could work on presenting our company to the doctors who were issuing medical cards.

In Florida's medical marijuana framework, doctors evaluate patients to determine if they qualify under state requirements. Most Florida physicians were very strict, needing to see a genuine medical justification before recommending cannabis. My job was to educate them on our products, explain how the endocannabinoid system interacts with what we offered, and put a professional face on our company. This gave doctors the confidence to recommend us alongside established brands. In short, it was a public relations role.

Most of this outreach was supposed to happen on Florida’s west coast. The problem was that my wife insisted on staying on the east coast—specifically Fort Lauderdale—where her job and friends were. This created a massive commute. Our headquarters was three and a half hours away, meaning I had to make a seven-hour round trip on office days.

Before I even arrived in Florida, my wife had already picked out and furnished an apartment. It wasn't a standard starter home for newlyweds—it was one of the most expensive high-rises in Fort Lauderdale, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water. I had never seen anything like it.

The moment I stepped inside, a wave of sickness hit me. The pressure was overwhelming. Deep down, I knew I had no business living somewhere so far beyond my means. My stomach turned, and I completely stopped eating.

I’ve written before about my inability to eat under stress. Looking back, I believe severe stress pushes me straight into a state of psychosis. It feels like an intense physical jitteriness—as if I’ve taken a heavy stimulant or drunk a hundred cups of coffee. Paranoia sets in, my fight-or-flight response locks into high gear, and I feel entirely out of control. As usual, I hid it from everyone. For me, that state of mind can linger for years.

My typical routine began with waking up at 4:30 AM to hit the road by 5:30 AM, ensuring I made it to the office before 9:00 AM. Walking in that first morning, the shift in tone was obvious. I wasn't greeted warmly. Coworkers were skeptical about my new role, and their perception of my value had clearly dropped since I left Arizona.

It infuriated me. In Arizona, I had swallowed my pride, followed orders on nonsensical directives, and doubled my workload to fix mistakes—all because I was grateful to have a job after everything in New Jersey. But because I had abandoned my post, I was right back at the bottom of the ladder. Still, I pushed forward.

I did the three-and-a-half-hour commute every other day, using the days in between to meet with physicians near the new dispensaries we were opening.

Around this time, company leadership changed. My father retained a C-suite position, but the majority stake of the company was sold to a farm near Sarasota. The new CEO was a good man, but he didn't see the value in my outreach role.

During these months, my eating stopped entirely, and mild psychosis took over. My mindset with food became, "Why bother?" Occasionally, my wife would cook, but I could barely choke down a few bites. Four months in, I was the definition of "strung out."

I managed to prove my value to the company on paper, but I was no longer viewed as essential. My family was upset over my reckless marriage and the lie that followed, while my wife was unhappy with my reduced income and wanted me to leave the company altogether. I was running myself ragged trying to make everyone happy, and pleasing no one in the process.

Looking at pictures from those 18 months of doctor outreach, I looked sickly—reminiscent of my acting days, but without youth on my side. Today I weigh 178 pounds; back then, my weight plummeted to 140 pounds, which was what I weighed in the 7th grade.

In the middle of this turbulence, my wife got pregnant. It was a terrifying prospect. I was barely earning enough to support us, let alone a family, and I was already stretched to my limit. Some mornings, I caught myself nodding off at the wheel during my long commutes. Outside of my time in New Jersey, this was the lowest I had ever felt. Believing I was a disappointment to everyone only fed my psychotic state.

My daughter was born in November 2018. Holding her was one of the few things that calmed my mind. The shaking stopped whenever she was in my arms. Her little energy brought me a rare sense of peace.

A few months after her birth, the company assigned me a new project. That project—combined with the onset of an international pandemic—would trigger full-blown schizoaffective episodes. I was about to learn firsthand just how fragile the human mind can be without proper medical care. I had pushed myself too far, and severe consequences were right around the corner.