eli westfall, lmft LLC

I was having an interesting discussion with my wife the other day. This discussion was not dissimilar to ones we have had in the past. She will say something which has a profound effect on me. I recently stepped away from a mediocre fulltime job with the state of Florida to pursue being a marriage and family therapist fulltime. I have been working part-time as a marriage and family therapist for almost a year with Tree of Life Counseling in Oviedo. This is a path I wanted to give myself over to fully but I have found myself afraid to do so. There are any number of reasons for my fear and hesitation to commit to being a fulltime marriage and family therapist. Good reasons. And here I find myself having cast those fears aside and stepped fulltime into being a therapist. Likely because I jumped before looking at what the outcome may be.

Anyway, I was discussing this with my wife she says to me I would be very effective and have a meaningful impact on people if I would stop shying away from my history, fully embrace what I have walked through and use it to connect with people. She said if I stopped not talking about what I have experienced and shared my struggles with others they would see they are not alone. She suggested good in fact could come of what I have experienced. Of course, I told her she was wrong and I wasn’t embarrassed or shying away from my past experiences. She wasn’t convinced.

As I reflected on what she had said to me, I realized she wasn’t wrong. I only let people see and know what I have determined to be safe for them to see and know. I only let people see enough to add credibility but not enough for people to truly see there is hope ahead of them. And honestly, that’s probably the best part about my story. Hope. Hope for change. Hope for a better day. Hope for things to be different. Hope for me to be different.

Where does that leave us? Is there hope and comfort for others to be had by hearing my story? Well, I hope so, otherwise airing my dirty laundry is going to make everything really awkward moving forward.

Let me start with the short version. For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with anger. Struggled like anger is my base and go to emotion for everything. Thankfully, after many therapy sessions I have pinpointed what I believe to be the starting point for that anger. I get married at a very young age, not having dealt with, managed, or begun to understand that anger. My wife and I have kids at a relatively young age. Anger still being swept under the rug. After years of uncontrolled anger outbursts and generally inappropriate expressions of anger, I stopped being angry. I don’t mean I learned to not be angry, I mean I stopped allowing myself to feel anger. I refused to allow myself to be angry because I knew if I got angry, it was going to be bad. This approach didn’t really work… but is also didn’t really not work. I muddled through this approach to anger for years and it worked ok (not really good, but at least I wasn’t angry). And then 2008 happened. I lost my job and couldn’t find another. I lost my house. I lost two cars. I was unable to provide for, support, or contribute to my family. And that’s when the depression swooped in and took care of everything. I spiraled down. Fast. From a clinical perspective, there is no such clinical thing as a mental breakdown but I am here to tell you from a practical perspective they absolutely exist. The depression hit hard. Very hard. And wouldn’t you know it, that anger that had been held at bay was no longer held at bay. It was front and center wreaking havoc in my life.

This August my wife and I celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary. People often ask what is the trick to staying married? The trick for me was having a wife to committed to being married to me but more importantly committed to Jesus she was going to be married to me. My anger took me to some very dark places. I went through several mental health diagnoses. I tried multiple psychotropic medications. (If you ever find yourself in therapy with me and we discuss medications and advise against it, it’s likely because I know firsthand you want to stay away from it.) I destroyed jobs. I destroyed relationships. I almost destroyed my marriage. And I almost destroyed any chance my boys have at being ‘normal’, whatever the hell that means. It has only been in the last couple of years I haven’t had a pervasive feeling everyday of how much of a failure I am as husband and a father. The amount of guilt and remorse that has plagued me over the years is astounding.

Somewhere, somehow in the middle of all of this I learned actual coping skills and began to implement them. I learned to manage my anger and not just pretend like it didn’t exist (because it very much exists). I also learned to rely on God more than I ever had in my life. I learned to really believe what the Scriptures say God thinks of me. I embraced my brokenness. I embraced my need for a Savior. I embraced my need for forgiveness, not just from God but from my wife and boys too. Eventually, the days stopped being all bad. Some days even became good days. I still have hard times. There are still days when the depression, anxiety, and anger loom large over me. I don’t think the struggle will ever go completely away. Paul prayed three times for God to remove the thorn in his side, whatever it was, and God never took that away from him. And daily Paul knew he needed to rely and trust in God to make it through each day. And so do I.

Like I said at the top, I have entered into a new adventure. I am diving head first into being a therapist and making my best effort to fully give myself to being a therapist. With that, I hope to bring more helpful and relevant content back here. It has been a long time since I have sat down with regularity to write and share my thoughts and feelings. It brings me happiness to do so. And maybe in sharing my thoughts and emotions I can help some more people than just the ones coming to therapy.