Peter Attia· MD
there's a sort of bifurcation often after big trauma and you know I had wanted sort of other things in my life before my brother's death I wasn't completely happy with my career and I thought well maybe I want more education and I had a lot of thoughts about that and the idea of doing those things was really based on some sense of faith and confidence in myself they like hey could go do that I could apply myself I could learn new things I could take a different path and and figure it out right but after Jonathan's death there was a bifurcation where I start to feel feel very differently about myself to feel incompetent right to feel incapable I mean how could I even hope to take care of myself if I couldn't be a brother to my own brother right and and my thoughts about myself changed in this way that that I now I write about in the book and I think about and talk about a lot which was sort of forgetting that I had a sense of confidence in myself right and and you know I was going in a negative direction of becoming less healthy and drinking too much and just just Walling in my own unhappiness in in through a sense of guilt and shame over what had happened and and it really came to a point of realizing like this is not going well right and and I I'm sort of forgetting who I have always thought I was right and and I got a little bit of therapy which was a very um um like kind of wild thing to do like you know no one went to therapy right and and there was a sense of stigma even around needing mental health help after my brother's suicide right but even in that little bit of therapy it helped me ground again to like like no I don't actually feel differently about myself and and if anything then I felt more of a drive like I want to go do this good thing and and yes it was a drive to help people but it was it was really based in a drive of self that am I going to take care of myself in a way that says if you're not happy and you want more of your life right in the way that you see it are you going to go do that right and that's where I think helping ourselves and helping others kind of comes together I mean if I had no confidence in myself that I could guide my own life or be worth having in anyone else's life right how would I go off and do something to help other people and and I think that's often what we see after tragedy is you know in a very seductive and evil way the consequences of trauma beckon us to limit our Horizons to see ourselves in a different and very negative way which which leads to bad things right it leads to depression it leads to panic attacks it leads to substance abuse it just it leads to not being who we want to be right and and often ju opposed to that is is seeing the trauma a lens that that makes us redoubled in wanting to be who who we can be and our understanding of trauma whether it gets the best of us and the guilt and shame wins the day and the changes to our memories of who we think we are it's it's is it going to be that or are we going to be lodged into life in a way that lets us move forward and I was very fortunate to have to have gone the good path right instead of where it could have led me and going to medical school was although yes I wanted to help people you know was about me and my sense of of confidence in myself that ultimately wasn't taken away by my brother's suicide but man really could have been