Here 4: Eric Munoz

Transcript

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Hey, I'm Eric and I'm here for you. So this is the first here for you podcast episode. super nervous, super excited because this is a passion project of mine, something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. I've been too nervous about, in my head about, how will it be perceived? Will people care about it? Are you gonna be looking like a fool just by doing this? And I think I finally came to a point in my life and to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. the main reason why I wanna do this podcast is more than enough to commit to it, do it, and make it happen. Here for you has been stewing around in my head for years now. Close to a decade, if I'm being honest. It's because I've always struggled with finding the best way to help people. I really enjoy helping people in any way that you can think of. Whether it be, helping an old lady across the street or helping them with their backs. Maybe it's, just giving somebody 20 bucks to grab something to eat Any way that I can help, I'd love to be helpful I feel like it gives my life purpose I'm sure there will be people listening to this that think, that's not how you should go about life. You shouldn't put value in your life based off the joy you bring to others. But I mean, that's who I am, right? I live for the laughs. I live for the Smiles I live for. The warming braces. The acknowledgement of somebody sitting there saying, thank you for, even if it was just for a little bit, giving me a second of a smile. Just a little bit of hope. That is what I feel. My life should be about, or I want my life to be about is to make people happy and to make them feel like they're not alone and that times aren't that bad. As I grew up and got older, I could see. How tough the world is, how hard it is for anyone and everyone. Depending on what part of life I was in, it was, either more difficult for our parents, times were tough for them, whether it be finances, the economy, the political standing of the times. I found myself wanting to be there for my mom, my grandmother, my dad and the adults in my life. I became a teenager into high school. I noticed that times were hard for all the kids Some households were rough to be a part of, and kids were just trying to maneuver through their own life they didn't know what to do with their aggression anger and hormones, growing up from being a teenager to a young adult going to college. I saw that everybody had it hard. these now adults were. Still relying on their parents, but their parents were struggling or, professors were just trying to get by with TA's help everyone had such a hard life, I hated that there were so many people I couldn't help and so many people I wanted to help and just couldn't. I was fortunate enough to work at, a little college radio station for a bit, and I realized that the DJs there, were playing music and having a good time, but people were calling in, people were talking to them, people were getting their emotions out, on the air sometimes, not even on the air. Sometimes they were just talking to the DJ to say, Hey, my boyfriend broke up with me and I don't know how to deal with it. And they wouldn't put it on the air. They would just tell'em, it was gonna be okay, and that they would help them any way that they could. And, that felt good. I wanted to go into radio because of that. I thought it would be a fun thing to do, to give people a little bit of enjoyment and, start their day off. Right. I thought that would be a. Cool thing, and I was quickly turned away from it. Rightfully so though. I had an idol of mine speak to me for all of two minutes and he basically said the medium is dying. Don't do this. Switch to podcasts. If you wanna do that, go to podcast. I tried, I did maybe three or four different times. It just never stuck. Maybe all of those shortcomings and rough events to get to this point, were worth it. At least that's how I'm gonna see it. what's all this rambling about? What's this whole backstory for? it's to tell you that this podcast, the Here For You podcast is a culmination of all those thoughts, those feelings, those emotions, my goal for this podcast is every week to sit down with you. Maybe somebody who's having a rough go of it. maybe last year just wasn't your year, and you're trying to make this year the best that you possibly can. Maybe you are going through a lot right now and you feel like nobody's there to listen to you to give you advice or to just be there with you in the moment. Maybe you're having a great time. Maybe your life is booming, everything's going great, and you just want to tell people about it. You just want to tell everybody how good you're doing, your successes, your goals. You just want to talk to somebody and say, look how great I'm doing, and if you want that validation, I'm there to give it to you. I'm excited for everyone's successes. Everyone deserves that. Or maybe you just wanna know you're not alone, that you're not by yourself. Maybe you want to talk to somebody about anything, come on, I would love to talk to you. So how does this podcast work? My idea was, here's an intro. Who am I talking to? Why does their story matter? Let's talk about their background a little bit. Maybe their childhood key moments in their life. Let's talk about their hardships. then let's talk about the triumphs and reflect on it. A conversation with a friend or somebody you just want to listen to. shouldn't be, hi, I'm X and let me tell you how it was growing up. Now lemme tell you how my life is hard. Lemme tell you how successful I'm gonna be and my thoughts and my dreams, and let's reflect on these things. It's not always gonna be that way, and honestly, I prefer it not that way. I just wanna sit there and say, what's bothering you today? How are you feeling? What is it you want to talk about, Too many times people don't ask that. Too many times people just tell you what they want, but nobody asks you. What do you wanna say? What's going on in your mind today? That's why I wanna do this. I'm gonna start this off with one for me, to give you an idea of what I would think, or just me talking to you guys I've lived a very good life. I've had a lot of fun things happen to me. Some because of my own stupidity. About 80% of it'cause of my own stupidity, I've got stories of me being attacked by almost every animal you can think of. Rabbits, cats, dogs, horse, cow, chicken, a moose one time. A bear, a wolf, this really ridiculously big. Snake. I don't know what it was, but yeah, animals, reptiles everything. I don't know what it is. I'm not a bad guy, but animals just don't like me, so I could do stories about that. I can talk about the time I joined a cult. Yeah, that was a thing But what I really wanna talk to you guys about is something that I don't think I talk about enough that I feel like I should talk about it more. And I think ever since it's been happening to me, I've been trying to put it to the back burner of my life. I've been trying to push it away and make myself feel better about it. But. This isn't one of those things you can just push away I have to face it head on and hope I can, be a better person at the end of it all it's nothing ridiculous. Or insane. I would argue that maybe half. Of the people in the world deal with this, deal with the same thing I do. And that's anxiety. I was about 14, 15 when at first experienced a form of anxiety. And at the time, I didn't know what it was. I was so scared and concerned. I remember that I first experienced it and I was like, oh, my heart's racing crazy fast. I need to control it I didn't know what it was. One day I had a really bad wound. My heart rate just could not go down. I couldn't control it. I was with a girlfriend at the time and my little sister, and I remember. Freaking out so much. I was like, Hey, we gotta go. I think we were at the mall or something and we hopped in the truck and took off and barreled home. I had to get home because in my head at the time, your parents know everything right? They'll be able to save me and make me feel fine. So I barreled home. As fast as I could, and the rest of it all just seems like a blur. Now at this point, it's been some time, so I don't remember all the details fully, but I do remember one horrible moment where I'm laying in a hospital bed and I'm shaking furious my heart rate is up I have four doctors pinning me down, putting needles in my arms. Just so they could sedate me and keep me calm. My mom was there and she'd taken me to the hospital I've got needles all over my arms and they can't find my veins. They had to stick one just above my crotch, which was less embarrassing, more aggressive. they said they couldn't find a vein that was the best vein they could find. I would've worn better underwear had I known. All of it kind of came together to a point where I went to see a specialist, I remember that was a very traumatic moment in my life because the doctor was like, Hey, he has thyroid cancer. And of course you hear the word cancer and immediately you're like, my God, for me and my age, at my younger age, I was thinking, this is life ending. I'm done. My mom was crying. She was confused. She was worried. I didn't wanna break down in front of my mom. she's screaming like, what does that mean? What's going to happen? they had no idea. It was just a doctor saying my thyroid levels were crazy out the roof and it had to have been thyroid cancer. They did more tests and they were like, oh, thyroid's actually, okay. He has a hyperactive thyroid hypothyroid, so we'll have surgery to remove it or do these medical things and here's some medicine that'll fix it. I became a Guinea pig for a little bit there, but, test came back and everything seemed normal. You know, the thyroid seemed fine and they're like, well, we have no clue what happened here, but you seem good I don't really have another panic attack, for quite some time. None that I can remember. I'm sure there had to have been some,'cause I had been taking anxiety medication. So the medicine helped a little bit there. Now, of course, I'm a young kid at this point. Going through high school. Not really taking my medicine. Energy drinks were all the rage. So I'm drinking a ton of those. And to this day, I believe that's what kicked off this horrible trail of events. It's all the monsters and Red Bulls, all the energy drinks I was drinking, I was taking like two or three a day, It was horrible. But you know, I'm going through this off and on, on medication. I lived my life, you know, off and on, on medication with anxiety. It really wasn't controlling me. I felt there were times I had it under control, and then there were times where I just couldn't, there was a time that I ran off of a completely boarded airplane because of the fear I felt being inside of this small cabin. Just in the air not having any control over my situation. I got off the plane, they were, understandably, freaked out when a, 16-year-old, 17-year-old kid is like, I gotta get off this plane. I cannot be on this plane. I have to get off this plane. They were telling me, no, it's fine. Sit down. You're okay. I was like, Nope, sorry. I'm getting off this plane. I basically opened the door myself, got off the plane, and when I got back in the airport terminal, I blacked out, passed out right there, faced down on the carpet. I came to about 15 minutes later. There was one attendant, by the way. There was one male attendant who was there and was like, Hey buddy, are you okay? And I remember being like, wow, man, I'm so sorry. How long have I been out? And he was like, oh, I don't know. I just got here like four minutes ago. I was like, well, it's been at least four minutes. at that time I knew I was out for at least 15 minutes. Took a taxi home, went home and slept for the next 12 hours. I was so exhausted from that event and the anxiety that came with it. I think that little story helps push into. My main stressor, or the new cause of my anxiety overall. A few years ago. I'd say close to about four or five. I had a little episode. I was working a physically intensive job, I was, physically moving, 20 pound, 30 pound water jugs, delivering those, working in a delivery truck. After work I'd go to the gym and do a bit more of a workout that was my Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday routine. This particular day I had a level of anxiety and thought to myself, that's is, uh, it's pretty rough, but I can get through it. Drank my water, my electrolytes, went throughout my day, went to the gym, worked out, and it didn't stop. The anxiety was still there. It was very rough, very hard, very heavy. So I said, okay, lemme just Go home. I get something to eat, something to drink, rest, and relax, and it didn't stop. My heart rate was still pounding, pacing like crazy. I couldn't control it the worst part is my heartbeat was all over the place. I could feel my heartbeat just similar to like a, like a child playing a drum. Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. There was no uniformity to it and I could not get the heart rate down. After dealing with it for years, anxiety, almost controlling my life. So many times I said, this is just anxiety. There's nothing you can do about it. Sleep it off. So I went to bed, and then I woke up the next morning, ready to go to work, but I woke up with anxiety and the same heart racing feeling. I was terrified. I had no idea what was going on with me. I was freaking out. To make this long story short, I go to the doctors that morning, they check it, they freak out, which freaks me out even more. And they're like, you gotta go to the hospital. I'm like, oh no. And so I said, I'm gonna go to the hospital. And they're like, you can't drive. I was like, right across the highway. they said, you cannot drive. So ambulance came, scooped me up, put me on the stretcher. The guy was very nice. He was like, Hey man, don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay. We can give you a little relaxing juice. We're gonna figure out what's going on. I said, sounds like a plan. Get to the hospital. They get me all set up and lo and behold, I had AFib. I had no idea what that was. I had no idea what it did to the body. I don't know what was going on with it, but everyone I talked to every, let me rephrase that. Everyone at the hospital I talk to, every doctor I talk to. Made it seem like, oh yeah, it's AFib, don't worry about it, i'm freaking out. I'm, 30 years old at this time and I'm losing it. I'm like, I'm going to die. And they just made it seem like it was just another day at the office. They were like, it's fine. Anesthesiologist comes, they get the cardiologist there. They take me to the back, put me down. I think I died for a second. There is what they said. Nobody really knows. They shock my heart back in the rhythm and they said, okay, you're good to go. I don't know, even to this day. What AFib truly means in regards to me, but I know what it made me feel. It made me feel weak. It made me feel helpless. It made me feel useless because at that moment I realized that I don't think that I've truly done anything. With my life, I partied. I had amazing experiences. I've been in love. I have love. I have a family. I have all the things that you could want, right? But at that moment, what had I done? Was I a good enough son, a good enough brother, a good enough husband? Was I a good dad? I fight that every day of my life right now in everything I do. Am I good enough? Am I working hard enough? Am I bringing in enough money for my family? Am I making my kids happy? Am I involved enough? Am I spending enough time with not just my family, but my mother and father, my grandmother, my sisters? My nieces and nephews, my friends, that moment in my life has changed the trajectory of my life and I don't know how to deal with it completely It has only happened one other time. It happened about three years after the first event, and I couldn't control it again, so I went to the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital, it seems that my body regulated itself, so I didn't need to get shocked again or put under. they said, for being a bigger guy, you're pretty healthy for the most part. You have a good heart muscle structure. I work out, I like to work out. It's kind of like my sanctuary. Like my church, I lift pretty heavy and that could be a strain on a body and I don't really like cardio. I'm working on that. I know that will help. But the doctor said, listen, this is, kind of unique. Doesn't really happen to younger folks all the time. It's predominantly something that happens to 70, 80 year olds, and even then they have medicine that regulates it. So from the doctor's telling me this is something that older people deal with. they have the medicine that helps them regulate it and keeps them going, and they're doing great. They're striving and they're looking fantastic. To me. What I heard is I am falling apart. I took it as I don't have a lot of time to. Do the things that I need to do to make people happy, to give the people that I care about, the life I feel they deserve and the attention they deserve. And so I wanted to change that. I'm working every day to do that. I am working on eating better. I'm not doing a great job of it. But I'm working on it. there's a lot of sweets that I haven't eaten because I've decided to pull back it was a conscious decision, but I can always do better. I need to do more cardio. I work on that as well. But what I need to do is find time to really. Succeed for everyone around me that I wanna succeed for. I know somewhere deep down that I've, I've done enough and that if I were to pass away the people I care about, would remember me fondly. I think they'd be, happy with how I've turned out, and they'd be okay with how I treated them. Honestly, there might be some people that I don't even know about that I might have made an impact on their lives. But I think that's what I wanna change with this podcast. I want to change that because if I'm feeling this way, I'm sure there's somebody out there feeling the same way. Maybe it's loneliness. Maybe you feel embarrassed about something. I do, about how I feel about this whole situation and my own weaknesses. Maybe you just need someone to talk to, and that's what I want to do with this. I want to have people get things off their chest and feel better about all of this. Just by talking with you today, I feel so much better. I feel empowered to take back my life just by speaking it out loud, knowing that somebody is listening, that somebody heard how this event affected me Somebody heard me and I finally got that weight off my chest. You know, there's so many people I could have told this to, right? I didn't have to put this in a podcast, and I'm sure there many, many people out there who would never go on this podcast and talk with me because they don't want there. Business out there like that. And I respect that. I understand that. But there are people out there who want to use this type of platform to reach out to others to say you are not alone. To maybe help them feel that it doesn't patrol them anymore. That's really what I want to get from this. Thank you guys so much for listening. I greatly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart It truly means the world to me. I really do look forward to making more of these episodes. I hope that I can speak with all of you at some point and get to know you better. understand what makes you you, what makes you happy, what's something that you wanna work on I'm not a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, and I'm not saying that I can fix anyone's problems but I would love to be here for you if you need me to, and I'll always be here for you everybody needs somebody. if you need me. I am here. Thank you so much for listening. I hope to have more of these episodes come out weekly, I look forward to, telling you all about so many other stories, not just my own, but. From everyone else, if you're interested in sending in a story or talking with me please feel free to shoot me an email at here for you pod that's here, HEAR, that number four YOU pod@gmail.com. I should also say, don't feel like you have to put your name out there, if you want to be anonymous, that's more than enough. I just want you to feel comfortable. If you do want to tell a story, you're comfortable telling it I look forward to talking to you soon.