Warning: Intended for Mature Audience

The video and information below involve topics such as depression, anxiety, self-mutilation, suicide, and guns. If any of these things trigger or offend you, I suggest navigating to another page on this website or one of our more entertaining and uplifting videos.

Video

Click here to watch a video of Matt and Sarah sharing the story below.

Matt’s Story (As of Aug 24, 2018)

This story may come as a surprise to a lot of my friends and coworkers, most of the subscribers to the YouTube channel, and even a few people who have known me personally for quite some time, because this isn’t really a topic that people like to chat about at dinner or post about on Facebook and I’m pretty sure almost everyone I know thinks of me as, “That crazy guy who is always smiling, laughing, and making jokes.” I know I am nothing compared to the man and comedian Robin Williams was, but his story brings to light the fact that even the funniest people in the world can still be struggling and may just be really good at hiding how they really feel… or that they might be using humor to escape from their struggles every now and then. I believe he was also the one who said that, “All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul, and they will never notice how broken you really are.”

All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul, and they will never notice how broken you really are.

Robin Williams (I think)

High School and College Life

I have personally been struggling with both anxiety and depression since at least high school, but at that stage in a person’s life, it is difficult to know if it is real mental health issues, or just a combination of stress, hormones, bullying, and trying to fit in or stand out. These are certainly things which should not be ignored, as they can all affect a person’s life and be detrimental to their mental health, but there is just so much going on at that time in a person’s life that it is difficult to pinpoint specific causes of anything going on. I have always had a wonderful family and great friends, so you would have expected everything to be fine for me through those years, but yet I cut, carved, and burned myself intentionally on multiple occasions just to feel something different and have a temporary ‘escape’ from how I almost always felt. Thankfully, none of those incidents were significant enough to require hospital visits or leave any noticeable, permanent scars on my skin, so I don’t have to worry about covering them up or being judged, but I will certainly remember those times for the rest of my life.

Throughout college in Cincinnati, I continued to deal with these issues, and the added stress of challenging classes certainly did not help, but instead of self-mutilation, I began seriously considering ending my own life and making plans for how I would do it.

Skydiving, Riding Motorcycles, and Hang Gliding

Unrelated to those suicidal thoughts, I went skydiving with some friends in 2009 and quickly realized that experiences and hobbies like that could significantly help me temporarily escape my depression without hurting myself. I also found that these things would give me opportunities to look forward to on the really bad days.

In early 2010, I bought my first super-sport motorcycle (a Honda CBR600RR) and began riding around the hills of Northern Kentucky whenever I had a chance. Later that year, I also began taking hang gliding lessons every weekend and quickly became a certified hang glider pilot and bought my own glider and gear!

Trying Therapy

Somewhere around this time, I decided I should get help with my mental health and started looking for whatever therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist would be covered by insurance to see if they could help me more permanently, rather than relying on my hobbies to keep me going.

Unfortunately, instead of connecting me with a professional, the university paired me up with a psych student that needed practice with real people. That didn’t help my situation at all and just made my anxiety even worse because of how much time I felt like I was wasting every session.

Making Plans for a Future

In 2012, I drove to Pittsburgh and proposed to my long-distance girlfriend at the time. I was scheduled to graduate in December of that year, and wanted some sort of commitment before uprooting my life and moving to a new city with no family or friends just to be with her while she finished school. She said “yes”, so I began the search for jobs and apartments that would bring us closer together! By Spring of 2013, we were living together in downtown Pittsburgh and figuring out plans for after she graduated (which we were waiting on for wedding planning). Meanwhile, I was working downtown full-time, starting up a hang gliding school by myself on the weekends, and finishing up a hardware/software invention prototype that I had been developing for a couple years.

The Pieces (Almost) Coming Together

In May, my fiancée of the time took an internship job that would last a few months in Houston. While she was out of town, I decided to really buckle down on things in an effort to have more free time when she returned. By the middle of July, everything was fitting together perfectly; my hang gliding school was getting a lot of new students, I finished a working prototype and was scheduling demos with potential investors, I began a joint venture with someone on another startup, and my fiancée was scheduled to come home in a month and graduate so we could start planning a wedding and moving out West! On July 18th, 2013, I even made a Facebook post that said, “And then all the puzzle pieces start fitting together…this could just work”. I was feeling more hopeful than ever before. Two days later, my fiancée at the time broke up with me over Skype…I can only assume she met a guy in Houston and needed to break up with me before she came back to Pittsburgh so her conscience could be cleared. This was certainly hard to take in, but I didn’t really feel the full effect at this point, since she was still in Houston.

By the beginning of August, both startups were going well and I was feeling pretty good about my prototype demos. My full-time job even let me switch to part-time remote work so I could focus more of my time on these ventures without worrying about paying rent and bills! My ex-fiancée, however, moved back into the apartment by mid-August, so I began thinking about and planning vacations by myself to get away, and even started the grandiose plan to go on a three month expedition as the first person to cross the US in a powered hang glider. I had television interviews lined up and everything! As you probably guessed, that hasn’t happened yet.

Everything Falling Apart

Not even a week after my ex-fiancée moved back into the apartment, the boss at my part-time job sent an email to me to let me know the part-time gig wasn’t working out and my account would be disabled. Unfortunately, he either sent that email to my work account after I had signed out or he misspelled my personal email, because I never got that warning. The next morning, when I woke up and attempted to login to work for a bit, I discovered that my account had been disabled! When I emailed them to find out what was wrong, I discovered I had been terminated. Over the next couple days, the startup I was partnering with started running into major logistical setbacks that we could not afford, and I received rejection letters from all the potential investors I had been demoing with. Within a period of just a week, my ex-fiancée moved in and everything I had been hopeful for fell apart. All I had was my hang gliding school and that season was quickly coming to an end. I had barely enough money to pay the bills for a couple months, still had student loans to pay off, and was already racking up credit card debt.

Almost Ending it All

When I went to bed on August 24, 2013, I couldn’t sleep because just a week prior, I felt like I had finally overcome my anxiety and depression and would be able to achieve my dreams, but now life had officially ripped that all down and defeated me. I was living in Pittsburgh with no family, few friends, very little money, and students who paid for hang gliding lessons…so now I was now obligated to either pay them back or stay in town. I was literally shaking, crying, and completely overwhelmed by everything.

At the time, I commonly slept with a .40 caliber handgun under my pillow, in case of a break-in or other threat. It always had a full magazine with nothing in the chamber, so all I had to do was rack the slide and pull the trigger to solve everything.

As my whole body continued to shake that night, I racked the slide and stumbled to the living room of the apartment as a last ditch call for help if anybody was out there. Everybody was asleep, so I fell to my knees, held the gun to my head, and pulled the trigger. My shaking and weak hands must not have racked the slide properly, because that is the only time I have ever had my gun jam on me. I’m not a religious person, so I’m not going there, but I’m sure some of you are. At this point, I was shaking too much to free the jam and stumbled to my ex-fiancée’s door to help me. She helped me finally stop shaking and I fell asleep while she called my family to let them know what had just happened.

Recovering and Fighting Back

Over the next week of talking to my family and friends, I decided to make an effort to fight back and reclaim my life. I started searching again for psychiatrists and found one nearby. I also decided I would focus more on travel, hobbies, and experiences that make me happy, rather than putting so much time into my projects and inventions, which led me to do two things:
1) Even though I was broke, jobless, and in debt, I drove to Orlando and maxed out my credit cards on powered hang gliding equipment which would let me fly pretty much anywhere, whenever I wanted to.
2) I planned to start producing and sharing photos and videos of everything I did to try to inspire people and motivate them to enjoy their life, rather than end it.

The psychiatrist prescribed me some drugs, and I took them for a while, but they seemed to just make me feel numb to everything and had strange side-effects. They very likely helped me get back to my feet, but what I primarily attribute to my improvement is always having future travel to look forward to, learning new hobbies, practicing old ones, and dreaming of becoming a full-time YouTube videographer, along with always having friends and family cheering me on.

Looking Back on what I Could Have Missed

Since that day, just five years ago, the following things have happened which would have been impossible if that gun hadn’t jammed:

• I’ve flown my hang gliders, both powered and unpowered, all over the country (but not from coast-to-coast yet)
• I restarted my engineering career
• I paid off all my loans, credit cards, and student debt, along with refunding all my hang gliding pending lessons and gift card holders in order to close the school on good terms and without filing bankruptcy
• I bought a house
• I went to Disney World with my sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces
• I bought another motorcycle
• I bought a motorhome
• I rode my motorcycle on a racetrack for a day
• I met my perfect match and married her, instead
• We learned how to dogsled, adopted two more huskies, and take them out regularly every Winter
• We got jumping stilts and learned how to use them
• We took two road trips across the country for hang gliding, mountain biking, and visiting national parks
• We took another road trip through Canada for their national parks, mountain biking, motorcycle riding, and bungee jumping
• We got certified in SCUBA diving and went diving in the Bahamas, Cancun, and the Great Barrier Reef
• We went skiing and snowboarding in Colorado multiple times
• We took a road trip through New Zealand with skiing and snowboarding on Mt. Ruapehu
• We spent a weekend off-road touring and snorkeling in Tahiti

Looking Forward to the Future

I still certainly struggle with anxiety and depression on a daily basis. I do not claim to be cured, but these adventures and experiences, combined with the support and encouragement of my friends and family, have officially stifled all thoughts of suicide for five whole years today.

Sharing my Story, Reaching Out, and Having Important Conversations

So, now that you know the true background of Life Is For Enjoying (L.I.F.E.), I encourage you to write down my email address, Matt@LifeIsForEnjoying.com, and send me a message if you are ever considering suicide or know anyone who may be soon. I’m not a licensed therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist, and I won’t call the cops to have them intervene, but I believe strongly that you can live with depression and anxiety and make it much more manageable with the right approach to life, so let’s chat, shall we? If someone is struggling and doesn’t want to chat, I encourage you to share my story with them and let them email me on their own time. I don’t want to put my phone number on YouTube, for obvious reasons, but if you want to talk on the phone, let me know and I will give you my number.

Thank you all for reading this super-long story. I sincerely hope that this has either opened your eyes to what the people around you may be hiding, or convinced you to live another day if you’re the one struggling.

Either way, there’s a lot of life out there to enjoy, so stop watching YouTube videos for a moment, go outside, and do something awesome! I’ll be here when you get back.