After a rather disastrous road trip driving my racecar to Simola, it was decided I would build my own RaceVan. Mine had been sold with the business.

Best therapy ever.

I learned so much about myself during this period. My confidence growing in leaps and bounds on every level. Pushing my creative boundaries. Surprising myself with my own capabilities.

I always regarded myself as a good problem solver. Someone who never shied away from a challenge and would persist long after other sane people would have given up. Something I believe made me a good debugging programmer — figuring out and fixing other people’s code rather than mundane day to day development.

I learned I was an autodidact. I thrived under challenging learning conditions.

Never stop learning.

Two specialists later, I have worked through more childhood trauma and learned that I am insulin resistant, complicated by fatty liver damage. Changed my lifestyle completely while treating both conditions.

My body still shuts down every day. A soft reboot more than a hard shutdown. My headaches and brain fog have improved massively.

As much as I feel ready for reintegration into society, it doesn’t take much to trigger my very raw, damaged nervous system. I am far more discerning with my energy. I do my best to focus on things that really matter and avoid placing myself under pressure.

It is important to me to lift the energy in a room rather than be the dark energy I was before. Not to take myself too seriously. To entertain people with my anecdotes. To never publicly criticise anyone. Ever.

OneTrackMind is the diary of the person described above.

Recovering from a life he didn’t know better — but now he does.

An ongoing learning and sharing of coping mechanisms, to inspire others to be better. Every day.

Biofeedback showed normal brain activity through EEG. Coached breathing techniques to control HRV. Colonoscopy. Gastroscopy. Prostate check. All very demoralising.

Part of the reason I wanted to stop drinking was the constant headaches. Yet they persisted. And still do. Often worse than before. Not to mention the brain fog — so bad I am unable to string a thought together.

I began to realise I had lived like this for years. For as long as I can remember.

The obvious explanation — and I now believe the easy one, the route of least resistance — was stored childhood trauma. The first suggestion of every doctor, every specialist. Stored childhood trauma.

I’d regurgitated my childhood memories so many times. Nothing. In fact, quite the contrary — I found myself grateful for the childhood I had experienced. My parents were not perfect. Despite their respective backgrounds, they did their best with what they had. And they did a pretty decent job.

Hell, I miss them.

Exasperated, out of the blue my doctor suggested CFS. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Brought on by tick bite or glandular fever. Epstein-Barr virus.

We tested for it. I was certain that was it. I suffered tick bite as a kid. Struggled with swollen glands. It had to be that.

The diagnosis in itself was healing.

Not treatable. Nothing I can do but learn to live with it.

Just knowing what it was. Giving it a name. Being able to research it, read about other people’s experiences. Knowing I’m not crazy. Not lazy. That it’s a real thing. That I’m not alone. That I only have stage 1 of 4 potential stages.

That was enough.

My search for help continued — through a few specialists, and not before stumbling upon Soulgenics, Quantum Energy Medicine, which appeared to make a difference for a while.

Until it didn’t.

It was no secret she and my mother did not get along. Even at a tender age I realised it didn’t help that grandma called my mother Miranda, when her name was Marinda.

Friends and family always assumed grandma was simply a difficult person. Something I grew up accepting as fact.

I recently made contact with my father’s brother-in-law, now ex, as well as a long-lost cousin. Both relayed stories confirming how difficult she was — with examples to boot.

I’m convinced my grandmother, and my father to a lesser extent, suffered from a similar condition to me.

Turns out he had a soft spot for my father. And my father had a tough life with my grandmother.

How did I not know this.

By the end of lockdown I had walked off close to 15kg. I felt better physically. But I felt exhausted. Fatigued. Spent.

I never had a problem falling asleep anywhere. Now my body was shutting down — accompanied by hangover-type headaches and brain fog. I had no choice in the matter. I would plan my days around the need to sleep. Mostly sleeping in the back of my van. Sometimes in other precarious places.

It became so bad I would rearrange or cancel engagements at the last minute. It was embarrassing. Debilitating. Frustrating.

I began seeking medical advice. Doctors would laugh at me, saying they wished they could sleep anywhere.

An MRI showed anterior spondylolisthesis on L5S1 — not the cause of my fatigue.

A sleep apnea study showed mild apnea — not enough to explain the extent of my problems.

A sports science sleep study showed HRV variability and recommended biofeedback.

My search for answers continued.

I was on a flight home from Sun City. The world had just gone mad. Thousands were dying in Italy. Everything was about to change.

I wrote this:

“Inevitable walk down memory lane revisiting milestones and memories, the goods and bads, rights and wrongs, relishes and regrets. Wonder to myself how I got here and where I am going.

Times like this we are reminded how preciously fragile and short life is. We are all fighting demons, trying to make someone proud, or at best not disappoint someone.

Step back from reality. Take a moment and spare a thought for yourself, those passed and those present. Push your boundaries, take a dip in the ocean. Life is short, live and enjoy every moment.”

By then I had already stopped drinking. Ended my 25 year marriage. Moved out of home.

A couple of days later I called my staff together and told them the world as we know it was about to change. A week later we went into lockdown.

I started walking. 10km per day. Reflecting on who I was and how I had become that person.

Eventually enlisted the help of a therapist, who suggested Serdep. This made a massive difference to my overactive brain. However, I became subdued. Monotone. I had lost my base emotions. I was numb — but aware of what was going on.

The numbness allowed me to work on myself without overwhelming interference. It allowed me to identify triggers and how I react to them. And most importantly — the damaging effects they have on my body.

I became aware of how ugly my reactions were. The damage they caused to relationships. I was embarrassed. Ashamed of who I was and the perceptions I had created of myself.

These were hard facts to swallow.

I knew, under the surface, was a gentle, kind soul with the best intentions. Just without the coping skills of life.

Looking back I can see I was far too dependent on alcohol as a coping mechanism — avoiding conflict, avoiding confrontation, escaping responsibility with adventure trips.

By 2020 I had had enough. I was hating myself increasingly. I certainly did not like who I had become or how I was conducting myself.

My guiding philosophy in life was always to make my late parents proud. I was abundantly aware that this was not the case. It was killing me — not literally — from the inside out.

I knew something had to change.

As one does in setting up a bike or solving a problem, I changed one thing at a time. A process of elimination. Reducing outside interferences until it was just me.

No alcohol. No wife. No business.

Just me, standing naked, looking at myself in the mirror.

Somewhere in there was rock bottom. I’m not sure where. But I had turned a corner, taken control of my life, and the only way was up.

I recently mentioned an encounter with a doctor/psychologist/homeopath medical professional, in which he made me address my imaginary past self out loud about previous traumas.

Early in one of the first conversations, the good Dr — and I use the term lightly — stopped me to suggest I not be so hard on myself and use kind words. “After all, you are the only real friend you will have for life, better to be kind,” he said.

So I said to myself, in my head, “listen up mofo, there is a new sheriff in town and he ain’t gonna take your…”

And that’s when I realised words matter and how you speak to yourself matters.

The world can be a nasty place, why make it even harder on yourself… I told myself in the friendliest tone possible.

I learned, just this morning, that I speak paraphrase.

“The rewording of something written or spoken.”

I have a rough idea of what I mean when I’m speaking. We can figure it out together, later.

Or not.

Sort of like this post.