there is Hope for Veterans Experiencing PTSD with Depression and Anxiety Symptoms
Veterans experiencing PTSD with depression and anxiety will find hope and healing in this powerful conversation. In this episode of the Overcome Depression Podcast, Jennifer Stirling-Campbell interviews veteran and author David Curfiss, who shares his deeply personal journey from childhood trauma and agnosticism to faith, self-compassion, and inner peace.
David opens up about military trauma, betrayal of agency institutions, and the emotional toll faced by veterans with PTSD. He reveals how writing his books, experiencing human connection, and spiritual exploration became key to his depression healing process. The discussion explores the nature of heaven and hell, energy and consciousness, and the courage it takes to live authentically.
This episode is for you if you want to learn:
- Insights on trauma, faith, and emotional resilience
- Tools for mental health recovery and self-discovery
- How veterans heal through creativity and connection
- Real stories of overcoming adversity and reclaiming purpose
Read A Thousand Miles to Nowhere by David Curfiss
Want to Heal Faster?? Get the Overcome Depression Workbook!
Get The Overcome Depression Workbook for each #Chapter of the Overcome Depression Podcast and maximize your healing power!
Full Transcript for episode 33: Veterans Experiencing PTSD with Depression and Anxiety – There is Hope For You!!
Dave C (00:00)
I wanted to be the exact I knew that deep down inside that they were doing wrong. I watched my mom my grandmother right after the
And this is the same mom that tried to take me to church, child molester,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (00:08)
Mm.
Dave C (00:13)
My biological father just wasn’t around. But that brings me to the story of my faith.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (00:24)
Welcome to the Overcome Depression podcast today. I have a very special guest, my good friend, David Curfiss. Hello, David. I am so excited about this interview because when I first met you, it was on your podcast. You invited me and we talked about depression and overcoming and music on your podcast, MeloManiacs. That’s what it was called, right? We are MeloManiacs.
Dave C (00:32)
What’s up everybody? Hi, how you doing? Thanks for having me on.
It was called We
Are Melomaniacs,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (00:50)
We are Milomaniacs
and you were a very staunch agnostic, very stubbornly agnostic. And I was very, much the opposite. And so we had this amazing conversation where I talked from kind of a faith-based perspective and you talked from more science and logic and it was such a good conversation. Honestly, probably my best interview I’ve ever done and one of the funnest. And here we are. I don’t know how much, how long has it been? At least a year.
Dave C (01:19)
Probably going on a year and half now you were one of my first Interviews I was still brand new. I didn’t even have a headphone and mic set up back then I had actually reached out to you to get to your sister and you declined her and allowed me to have you on which was awesome because I was so hesitant to have somebody on with faith when I knew that the Hardcore metal black metal scene was so well
How could I put this? Anti-Semitic, anti-politics, and just anti-everything. So it was like, okay, am I going outside my niche here? But we had an amazing conversation that did very well. It was funny because our podcast episode started populating on people’s TVs and I was getting phone calls from people be like, bro, you’re on my TV. YouTube was actually recommending our podcast, which you’re one of the few podcasts that I ever put out there that allowed me to promote
I did enjoy those podcast days. Those are some good memories. I did like 74 interviews with musicians and artists of all types. It was one of the best years and a half of my life and I really got to figure out who I am in that process and what I’m good at. So I ain’t mad at it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (02:31)
Yeah, definitely. I would say it was part of your healing journey.
I was led to you. feel like that connection was valuable. I value connection that we made and your friendship. a year and a half later, you are now no longer agnostic and you’re off all of the medications you were taking at the time. And you’re in the middle, I would say. Is that honest to say you’re kind of in the middle still of this healing journey?
Dave C (02:44)
Here we are.
Yes.
I’m at the beginning. It feels very early. It feels very like the infant stages because there’s so many questions I have unanswered and there’s so much I’m trying to work through and I have a lot of trauma and a lot of the reason I didn’t believe in religion and God and
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (02:59)
You’re the beginning.
Dave C (03:19)
the story of Jesus and faith was because of my upbringing. I was mentally abused by the church I was taken to. I was mentally abused by my family, which to this day still sounds…
Weird to me. I don’t know another word to describe it because as a child that was my family So I’ve learned that I was kind of acclimated into this very traumatic upbringing I mean until recently one of my earliest memories was of my dad Trying to kidnap me and my sister who was newborn after finding my mom had cheated on him I caught her in the act of cheating and he came to her work after getting loaded on cocaine and booze and shot the guy who she was cheating with which was actually my
younger brother’s dad; didn’t kill that was like my longest memory. I couldn’t get past that. I couldn’t move to another part of my life. There were good memories there that I haven’t been able to access until recently and
Some of it is coming off the meds. Some of it is accepting my trauma. A chunk of it, admittedly, is finding God and faith and understanding the universe better. And the biggest thing is having a little self-compassion for myself. Something I’ve never done. I put my needs first. And I don’t mean that’s… I mean it’s selfish to a degree, but I’m not disowning my family or anything. I just… I’m putting my needs first to make sure I’m a better human being, a better father, a better…
Brother or sister just a better person, but there’s a lot of things I had to go through to get here And I’m still going through it And I don’t understand a lot of it, but what I do understand is I was raised Southern Baptist Christian, and I hated the church.
I hated the church so much that I am covered in anti-god, anti-religious tattoos. I have burning Bibles on my arm. I have a burning church on my arm. have a zombie Jesus. It was an astonishing upbringing when I think about it. And only recently have I learned to…
be compassionate toward myself, which Dave would have laughed at me. Like, I would look at me like, dude, you woohoo.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (05:31)
Well, kids though,
in a child to idolize their parents. Which is why when a couple gets divorced, they make such a big deal about not talking bad about the other parent. Because when a child believes their parents are crap, they start believing that they are crap. Additionally, if you’re a child and those things are happening to you,
what the child will do is blame themselves. This must be my fault. My parents are good, so I must be doing something wrong to deserve a weird thing that goes on, and I’m sure there’s reasons for it. But in the case of trauma, it can kind of get trapped in that age and not be able to move forward in a lot of ways.
Dave C (06:15)
Yeah, that’s what happened to me, essentially.
really grew up mentally Well, I did. I matured. I learned. I absorbed the world around me and the experiences, which only furthered the trauma because life is a hard son of a bitch. And I put myself in significant danger my entire life trying to prove to my younger self that I was the man I thought I could be. And it’s weird because I did not idolize my parents. I saw them as parents. I loved
them but I didn’t idolize them. actually when I saw them
I wanted to be the exact opposites and I knew that deep down inside that they were doing wrong. Like I watched my mom my grandmother in a parking lot of McDonald’s over a right after the got kidnapped from school in second or first grade, drove in a parking lot in circles with my aunt on my dad’s side and my grandmother in the other car screaming like imagine two cars and I remember
Two cars going in circles, front to front in circles, in the school parking lot mind you, as my mom’s jamming out of there to get me away, only to get to the apartment 30 minutes away and watch them fight. Because my grandmother only wanted to give me a jacket, but because it was coming from that family, my mom wanted nothing to do with it. And this is the same mom that tried to take me to church, that married a child molester, that…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (07:34)
Mm.
Dave C (07:41)
And to be clear, I was not molested, but he was a child molester. My biological father just wasn’t around. But that brings me to the story of my faith.
spent my entire young life, my teen years, my middle years without a dad.
My stepfather had moments, but I didn’t have a dad. I never had figure in my life that was of good quality by society standards, but there were males in my life that I looked up to.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (08:12)
Well even I, any standard,
I think the most important thing that a child needs is just to feel seen and loved. And if those things aren’t there, nothing else really matters. Whether it’s you have all the things a child could ever want in terms of toys or gadgets, it just doesn’t.
Dave C (08:20)
Yeah, it didn’t happen for me. Didn’t happen.
So I lived in Section 8 housing. We never had food. We were lucky if we had water running. used to joke, my buddy Joey, who lived behind also had a very traumatic life. He watched his younger brother Joey was a good kid.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (08:44)
So.
Dave C (08:47)
The people I surround myself were a lot like me. We’re all walking contradictions. Like, we’re good but People see us and go, stay away from that person. But yet, they’re some of the best people in the world. And yet, the people that are supposedly of good standards are some of the worst people I’ve ever worked with. I’ve never been beaten, broken as bad as I was by the people who should have been looked up to, the professionals of the world. The best love and affection I got?
were from drug addicts and violent people in the streets.
These were my friends. These were my family. I saw more love and affection from one of my stepdad’s best friends than I did my mom and my stepdad at the time. And this guy was also a child molester. He hung himself in the shed across the street after getting caught. And I remember the cop showed up to my house looking for him once. And these are supposed to be the people that are supposed to nurture me. And here they are trying to force me to
go
to church, forcing me to read the Bible, putting me in Sunday’s school where I was getting picked on by the students and the teachers because I smelled like smoke, clothes, my parents were drug addicts, alcoholics, felons, they brought a pastor over to the house. We were living at my stepdad’s mother’s house in Dale City, Virginia.
I was a very playful, happy-go-lucky, energetic child. I didn’t sleep for shit, but I was always into adventures and I always had fun. liked to go through doors like I was Indiana Jones. And I walked into my parents’ room one time, which actually ended up becoming my bedroom later on. We rotated rooms so much.
But anyways, I walked into the room and I kind of rolled in like, hey, and there they are praying with the pastor from the church. And the pastor looks at me goes, get out of here. God doesn’t want you here.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (10:36)
Now that’s… that’s not a good pastor.
Dave C (10:36)
So,
I went through phases where I thought I was worthless. I started skipping school. I never experimented with drugs and alcohol. I was a straight-edge it was the Navy that got me into was a journey. home only to find myself in a harder world
without faith. And I was adamantly, adamantly atheist in the early days. Dude, it was written on my face. And I kept that for years and people always told me, Kurf, you have such an attitude. Of course I have an attitude. treat me like the dog in the corner of fleas that bites you every time you walk over to it, you know? I mean…
Yeah, no wonder you guys called me a pitbull. I snapped because everything you did to me was belittling me, telling me I was worthless, telling me I wasn’t of value, telling me that I will never amount to shit. And this is when I’m in the Navy.
further myself some more. I keep using my experiences and I keep looking back at my childhood and I go, this is what I’m not going to do. And I drove myself forward, I propelled myself forward. But I wasn’t being true to myself. I was not propelling myself forward in the direction that I wanted. I was propelling myself in the direction that I thought would gain the value of other people. I wanted to be seen, just like you said. Up until…
couple weeks ago? Just before you reached out to me. I didn’t feel seen. And it wasn’t you reaching out to me. I think we reconnected because I opened up. And I opened up out of desperation. And a non-believer watching this, just to poo poo on it because that’s what trolls do.
I’ve always believed in free will. always believed in the pursuit of happiness. And I may not have done that for myself, but I believed in it for everyone else. I wanted everyone else to have the happy lives, but I needed to be seen as more than I really was.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (12:18)
nice.
Dave C (12:33)
That’s why I went into the Navy to become a Navy SEAL. That’s why I went into customs to become an agent. That’s why I went into the Marshal Service to become an operator. I got more than I wished for. I had… The easiest way to summarize my career was I have never, ever worked so hard to be so let down.
The world let me down just like my parents did. And I ended up medically separating from the Marshal Service a year ago, March the date of my incident. I had a full mental breakdown.
I wanted to die and I had never been suicidal so much. I mean, I had had suicidal ideations for years. I kept them to myself. I’d only had one close call with suicide right after my best friend died and before my lethal use of forces with the Marshal Service. I had been in fights and less lethal encounters and just a lot. And then finally
harder side of the job and was involved in back-to-back shootings, one of which I wasn’t a shooter I was shot at. And the agency shooting so bad. They didn’t even have the response teams come out to check on us. They’re like, oh, you know what, you guys didn’t shoot, so it’s all good. I mean, I made an entry and the dude was dead when I got in there. He blew his brains out after taking hostages and shot at us three times. You know, say what you want to me, but that’s a shooting. You know, And a year, almost the day later, I got into another shooting where I was almost killed.
I have a photo of me afterwards. I got Didn’t solve anything. I Kept going I got up went to work. Never had faith though. And it’s kind of hard to have faith when you’ve been told you’re not of value and the church itself let you down. I ended up reaching out to a friend of mine in the agency get help
Almost, it’s been 11 years of my best friends had just died. We never found his body. He was in the ocean. was a Navy SEAL. Killed in training. Dedicated my last book to him. Talking about it is still kind of, I’m like defending myself when I shouldn’t be. I reached out to somebody at the agency that had, you know, his own fair share of…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (14:43)
Yeah.
Dave C (14:51)
circumstances. did look up to him. He was kind of the guy that I always wanted to be. He was one of a few dudes in the agency who treated me amazingly. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t make it anywhere in the agency because they were like me. But he had faith. And I reached out to him and he helped the only way he knew how. He had recommended his church. He loved his church. So I went to his church. I took the wife and we went to the church.
And the first thing I heard was the music. And I immediately had a panic attack. I had to step out. The music reminded me of being 11 year old Dave again when I was baptized by that pastor who told me out of the room. And I wanted to explode. I stepped out. My wife stayed in, I of the room and I could kind of hear the music in the background but this guy walks up to me and he goes…
You look like you need help. I go, yeah, I do. And we had this conversation and he was just such a nice, genuine guy. And he looked like me, man. He had tattoos. He was loose fitting jeans and boots. he’s the kind of guy that at that time I could have seen myself going to a bonfire and having a whiskey with. He was cool. That was the pastor. That was the pastor.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (15:59)
That was the pastor?
Dave C (16:04)
So I walked back in and listened, but the problem was is the anxiety had already hit. I couldn’t deal with it. And I started having a breakdown. I told my wife we gotta go. I ran, ran out of that church. And I do anything for my faith for another 10 years. And that actually gets us to where we are today.
So been struggling with my mental health for years. I denied it. I wanted nothing to do with it excepting the fact that had PTSD. I knew I was anxious. I knew I had depression. But I could write those off mentally. I knew everyone kind of suffered from anxiety.
Depression I might even have some OCD in there ADHD who knows honestly like we can’t really truly classify ourselves based on mental health. It’s too dynamic and it’s kind of supernatural the way we just don’t understand the brain enough and I’m not gonna sit here and say I’m all these different things like people like to do But I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety. I’ve been diagnosed with depression and I’ve been diagnosed with complex PTSD.
When I find… No, it’s not. No. That’s just, it’s a tool to get you to where you need. It’s like, okay, this is what we think. This is how we should probably go about treating. First off, I don’t like Western medicine. not a big fan of big pharma. I had to eat words and go on pharmaceuticals because last year got bad. I tried to get help.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (17:07)
the diag- but the diagnosis is not you. And you know that now.
Dave C (17:27)
having panic attacks keeping it myself. I wasn’t disclosing it to anyone at the job. I was in a small office. They didn’t like me. I had one friend in the office. My other friend left. People were talking behind my back. The upper management wanted me fired. They thought I was up to no good. I having mental health issues. I’d been in multiple encounters
I don’t know how I survived and then it occurred to me one day after having my dad up here I don’t know how I survived I was being looked after like it’s not a coincidence that spirits intervene you know it’s not a coincidence that our God intervene and I’m gonna talk on the God thing here in a there’s still a lot of
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (18:08)
But I completely agree,
there’s definitely times in my life that I would not have survived either. And the way that children, even just basic things like children playing, playgrounds, there’s about a million ways a child could fall to their death on a playground. And yet, and I’m sure it has happened, but it doesn’t happen very often. Or just how rough kids are with their infant siblings, you
Dave C (18:13)
It’s hard.
Hmm.
Yes, it has happened.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (18:33)
they should accidentally kill them sometimes, that doesn’t usually happen. So I just think there’s more intervention most of us can possibly know or understand, and that’s where the faith comes in. But even my faith, especially when I was depressed, I did not understand the depth and the breadth and just how much I was being looked after until I started healing. And part of that healing,
Dave C (18:58)
Yeah.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (19:00)
required that sight to see that am here, I’ve been here the whole time, and it’s all of the time. But it’s something that every person who wants to overcome mental illness has to surrender to, is this idea that you are not alone. You’re not doing it all by yourself. All these accomplishments you think that are you, you couldn’t have done that by yourself. And the fact that you’re still alive.
Dave C (19:02)
It did, and it does.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (19:26)
isn’t because of you either. And so it’s kind of that humility, but awe of, have so much support. I have so much love. And if I let it in, I can do anything, anything and everything I wanted when alignment, course.
The light will never give you everything that your carnal self wants, but the things that you really, really, really desire, which are peace, love. it kind of breaks down to those two things. Every person wants that, whether they realize it or not.
Dave C (20:01)
You say surrender, don’t see it as surrendering. I see it,
I don’t see myself as a religious person because I’m not but I have faith I have faith in God
I’ve read the Bible at least Judges. really wanted to read the whole thing I was reading it when I was going medical retirement
I had read some papers, I called them the betrayal letters, and this is the first time I’ve talked about this. my mental breakdown at work on the job, I went home. I was taken home by a co-worker. And of course, my boss at the time…
He had everyone in the office, people that didn’t know what had happened, people that had no business knowing what happened, write statements about my mental health to include somebody that was a contract employee that had no business having any input on my mental health.
And that guy wrote a three page paper on my mental health based on private conversations we had. He even wrote in the paperwork, I promised Curfews I wouldn’t say anything, but this is what he said. It’s like, where’s the value in human relationships if you’re gonna take things I told you in private knowing could be used against me, but trusting you to keep them to yourself when I thought you had my best interest in mind. me
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (21:09)
like
you had a lot of people surrounding you who lacked integrity.
Dave C (21:13)
They did. No one had integrity.
Except for one guy. One guy. He had integrity. His is the only letter that mattered to me because his is the letter that It was truthful.
It was factual. It was objective. wrote lies. A lot of them wrote lies. Some of them did just paint a picture about me. And that was hard to read because I was like, I do look like a crazy man because those were things I did. But some of it was just them searching for reasons to belittle me. They threatened me, said I was doing fraud stole government property. And I lied. And
it’s like goddamn guys like excuse me still a habit excuse me um like it’s somebody on the other side like oh he just said that my dad will kick every time he hears me say that yes our relationship is stronger than is awesome by biological yeah um I I wanted to die.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (21:49)
Yeah
You
And this is your biological dad? Okay.
Dave C (22:10)
I spent 27 years of my life serving to this country. I was on three deployments overseas, one of which was devastating. I lost a lot of good friends. And that was first time I really understood mortality. Even though I knew people who had died,
I’ve had a lot of people in my life die by their own hand. And then here I am. I was ready to kill Now this is the So if anyone listening to this is sensitive to suicide, guns, is not your part. So I lost it. I could not deal with it anymore. I wasn’t sleeping.
My brain was hijacked by thoughts. I thought I lost everything. And it wasn’t because was leaving the agency. It was because they were attacking me warrantlessly based boss’s personal toward me. It was bad. It was devastating.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (23:04)
But it was, it’s devastating. can’t, I can imagine. That
would just, that would keep me up at night. That would be very hard.
Dave C (23:11)
It was. I
went 10 days a year ago. February 19th. I went 10 days without consistent sleep. I was pacing.
then one night…
I was my bedroom and I was literally just contemplating the value of my life. I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. I knew I couldn’t go back to the job, but I ended up going back to the job for a couple days.
I had the full breakdown a couple days later. I… I was lying to myself. And that was part of the trauma. And that was what I think threw the agency off, if I’m being totally honest here. I don’t know. It’s hard to say because I’m trying to project what they were thinking when they’re looking at me through a much different lens than I’m using right now. But to be fair
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (24:02)
Mm-hmm.
Dave C (24:08)
I just think they didn’t understand what was happening to me and why. But they didn’t need to. They just needed to show support and they didn’t. They did the opposite. They made my life hell. And by them doing that…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (24:20)
I’m sure
there was an aspect of that that probably scared them that they weren’t comfortable with. And even from the time we’re children, if you watch kids on a playground, if there’s a child who’s acting strange or not playing, not sharing, not playing, whatever it is, it’s just they’re not getting along well with the can watch them. And how cruel…. They will ostracize the child, will…
Dave C (24:39)
Yeah.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (24:48)
build their bodies, they will push them out of the group. It’s horrifying to watch, when it’s children. And adults do this too. Yes, it’s primitive. It’s not based in love. It’s based in fear and survival. And it can be so cruel. been hard for me to watch my entire life. I’ve never enjoyed watching children be cruel to other children. Adults bully other adults, adults bully children.
Dave C (24:54)
It’s a thing.
It’s a defense mechanism.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (25:13)
some of the most traumatic experiences I have had, short of mine, was watching other people get feeling like I couldn’t do anything or that no one would listen to me and I couldn’t stop it. So living through those things is hard alone being the target of that kind of abuse.
Dave C (25:32)
Yeah, it’s different. I had never understood the term agency betrayal until it happened to me. And ⁓ my, did it happen to me. And one night I couldn’t do it anymore and I said, I’m done.
I grabbed my gun. I made sure it still loaded because I never take the rounds out of my gun. I always keep them hanging around in the chamber because in my head, I know what my safety to steal something Black Hawk Down. This is my safety. I that movie. one of my buddies was out that incident. He Marine. got problems too. I’ve helped him.
Anyways, it’s easy for me to get distracted. still navigating my emotions and being comfortable with a lot of this. So I grabbed my gun, I walked out of the house. I didn’t say anything to my wife sitting on the couch. I didn’t say anything to my son playing video games. I didn’t say anything to my daughter watching TV. And I left. And I went to a bridge that I had gone to with my daughter just the day before. took a photo of myself.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (26:16)
No, it’s okay. We think a lot alike.
Dave C (26:38)
It was going to be the last photo I ever took. The gun was in my other hand. You could see my shoulder slouched down. look at the photo, you could the depression on my face.
put the gun to my head and I started screaming. I had a Lieutenant Dan moment. I was screaming, come on God, show me not to kill myself. And I called for God. I did. And this is why I up reaching out to my dad. I called the God and I said, give me one, just one. And I looked down there was a flower on the rock. My daughter had been there.
the day before with me and she put two flowers on the rock. One of them washed away was me.
Broke the gun down and I went home and told the wife.
Called my dad and I said, I need help. I don’t know how to do this without you. I didn’t think he was gonna come up, because he’d never been there for me in my life and he did. He drove up the next day. And this is where it gets good. It hasn’t even gotten good yet. It had snowed so much and my dad is, he’s just like me, he’s a little kid. mountains and we hiked to this…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (27:41)
Yeah
Dave C (27:52)
Ancient spring It’s historic. There’s legends about the spring breeding goodwill to people Mind you there’s two and a half three feet of snow on the ground we’re just walking through it probably like a mile up the mountain because but my dad did not care I didn’t care it was a beautiful day the clouds were out like it was just a gorgeous day
I get to the spring and you can see the water bubbling up through the ice. I said, I don’t think there’s any time like the present. Show me how this works. Mind you, the clouds are out. There’s no sun. I’m in the woods. He starts to pray. He says, God, show me the light. And what happens? Clouds part and the sun shines on me. Like what are the odds?
How does that happen, you know?
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (28:41)
That’s amazing.
Dave C (28:43)
So I took a drink in the spring, which I always do when I go up there, just because I’m a little hippie inside too. I knew at that moment, I was like, okay, this is not And the only way I could get over some of the roadblocks I had regarding Christ and God and the trauma that still sits in me with religion is I had to remind myself that God’s not meant to be understood by the human mind.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (28:48)
You
Dave C (29:07)
He made Conduit for us through Jesus that you can look at it say it’s totally fake sure whatever easy to assume because it doesn’t fit within the realm of humanity It doesn’t fit within the conscious mind and the natural world and we’re never gonna understand it. We’re never gonna see
what we want to see scientifically to prove God exists. It’s not going to happen.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (29:29)
Well, I don’t think it would matter, even
if science could, because there’s pretty amazing things coming out that are pretty convincing. it, the shawl of Turin? they’re saying was Christ burial cloth that’s been passed down generationally. But even people of faith are discounting these scientific
findings. People, they don’t want to believe something, it doesn’t matter how much proof you give them, they’re going to find an excuse why they shouldn’t or why they don’t want I want to just interject a little bit. I hear what you’re saying, you’re not necessarily wrong, because I think that God will stop talking to us when we’re not listening. But I think that
when you’re willing to hear, the truth can be hard you know that it’s true, it requires change. If you didn’t realize that you had to change and start taking accountability for the things that you realize are true, it tears you up. Like you can’t not respond to truth. And so I think a lot of us resist truth because we’re not ready to hear it. But I do believe
Dave C (30:38)
Easy.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (30:39)
that God speaks to us, either through angels, through Christ, or directly in some cases. I don’t think it’s as common to most of us as it is angels, Jesus Christ.
Dave C (30:50)
I
see I haven’t experienced anyone in my life that has had those kind of conversations directly with God and I’m not sure my human brain would fathom it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (31:00)
I’ve only heard of two.
Dave C (31:04)
I don’t
know if it would resonate with me. I’d probably discount it to be quite honest. And the reason I say he stopped talking to us is because I only got through judges in the Bible. I had to put it down because I knew that the book wasn’t going anywhere, and I knew that He wasn’t going anywhere, and I knew that my beliefs…
weren’t gonna change for the worse because I completely disowned Him and he still looked out for me and He had been looking out for me. I was such a science-based person and I’m starting to look at science like, you kidding me? There are so many things in science that we turn back around and go, well, we were wrong, like negative time. Yeah.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (31:29)
Mm-hmm.
Right. It’s a constant theory in testing.
If people say, look to the science, they say, consider the science. It’s important to consider the science, but often it will disprove itself because variables in play weren’t…either it was biased to begin with or things were not accounted for. was this population, but when you test this population, it’s different for some strange reason. So it’s always evolving and changing. Whereas God…like the truth.
The truth is the truth is the truth. It’s light, it’s love, it’s peace. cannot be discounted. And peace is the one piece, P-I-E-C-E, of the equation that evil cannot mimic. can mimic lots of things, but it cannot mimic that.
Dave C (32:29)
No, it can’t. And that was holding me back a lot. I needed that proof. When, once I figured out that the proof wasn’t scientific based, but heart based, it allowed me to open up and I was actually able to start healing. And it was, it wasn’t the cure-all. I wanted it to be the cure-all.
And I think a lot of us do just like why we take meds or why we look for the fast pill to make us, know, slim down or bulk up or, fix this and fix that. mean, I’m just gonna take this and I’m fixed. No, man, it comes from inside and you have to be open to it. naturally resistant. It is. I call it an adventure. Yes.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (33:00)
Right.
It’s a journey. And it’s a journey of learning how to stop resisting, too. I mean, that is the biggest
deterrent. Like, how long do you want this to take? It’s pretty much how hard are you pushing back is the question. And it’s not an easy thing to tear down that wall.
Dave C (33:15)
So.
Mind, body, and soul. It’s huge. They’re connected. I know plenty of atheists who ask me how my soul’s doing.
And they see it from a different perspective. in their head, the universe isn’t God. Fine, cool. That’s your belief. I’m okay with that. And I think we should all be, but it’s not gonna happen because part of the balance is having different opinions and different views and not agreeing. If everyone agreed, I think we would crumble further. We’d all be a bunch of conformists who didn’t individualize. no.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (33:51)
wouldn’t have to think. We wouldn’t have
to think, because we’d all be the same.
Dave C (33:55)
There’s no way to get through life without the balance of good, evil, so on and so forth. And we just have to accept that life is flawed. We live, we die. Make the best of it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (34:09)
Or rather, life
was designed for learning and only learning can occur when you’re experiencing opposites and you know the difference.
Dave C (34:17)
Life, in my opinion, has one purpose, and that is to continue life. That’s it. That’s all I it’s… What? Glad I could throw it in there for you. spend too much time searching for meaning in things.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (34:25)
That’s actually a really cool perspective. I really appreciate that.
Dave C (34:36)
Since I have opened up my brain for starters and my heart for that matter because I closed both off years ago. I first closed everything off when I was four. when I came off the meds,
It took a while. I had some crazy downs was able to overcome it in my head I was like, okay, this is not me. This is just the drugs wearing off. Like it’s trying to get me to go back on the drugs and I was really happy psychiatrist wasn’t opposed to me coming off.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (35:07)
Hmm.
Dave C (35:07)
can’t go through this life without support. you is why when I think you see people who have been ostracized and they look like outcasts, it’s setting them up for failure. We need people like.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (35:09)
Right.
yeah, the number
one thing you need, that every single one of us needs is connection. And I believe very strongly that the forces of evil want nothing more than to make you feel alone because they can manipulate you so much easier when you feel alone. You’re incredibly right about that.
Dave C (35:35)
So I’m glad you said that because here’s something I used to talk about on almost every podcast. There is nothing worse than having a wife who you love and loves you unconditionally. And I mean unconditionally. And I say that comfortably because I’ve been married to an ex. I don’t even know if that’s proper English. I was once married and I have an ex. No kids with her, thankfully. And I have two kids now.
To say I was numb and detached is an understatement. I did not feel physically or emotionally any connection anytime I was touched or talked to for years. I could not, it sucks right? Like not being able to experience joy when you watch. Yes.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (36:16)
Yeah, I’ve been there. Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. When you want to, and you don’t know what’s wrong with you,
why I don’t know why I’m this like this, and you can see the pain that the other person is going through because you can’t give them that.
Dave C (36:32)
I think I have created more trauma for my kids than I ever really wanted to by trying not to create trauma. I should have just embraced life for what it was, but I couldn’t because I this unreal amount of brain fog that I only recently was able to cut through.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (36:40)
Sure.
Dave C (36:55)
It’s still weird saying some of this stuff because I would have laughed at people for this a year and a half ago, two years ago, six months ago, three months ago. When I came off the meds and I accepted I will never truly understand God, At least that’s my opinion. I was able to start
attacking trauma points in my brain and What I started doing was Texting and I made sure she was okay with this instead of journaling texting my trauma coach as I was feeling things She was totally cool with this. I’m like, thank you. This is I’m calling this my journal because when I tried to write in a journal I Couldn’t just write my emotions and how I was feeling and my beliefs. I think it felt fake
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (37:36)
Hmm.
when you kind of have to go get the journal
and make sure you have a place to write it. A phone, it’s always pretty much with us. It’s, can grab and go, right?
Dave C (37:50)
Yeah.
It wasn’t even that it was more of the connection there was no connection with the paper like yeah, like the papers paper like When I started writing I used to write in middle school. I wrote my first apocalyptic story in Eighth grade published it anyways. I published an apocalyptic story about a nuclear holocaust in eighth grade I actually still have the book and the bookshelf. My daughter loves it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (38:02)
there’s a person on the other side of this text. Yeah.
Dave C (38:24)
I found that by texting, one, I was getting a dopamine hit. Human connection. Two, I was I was getting interaction.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (38:28)
Mm. Right.
Dave C (38:35)
I was getting talked look for that in everything we do. That’s why people go to church. That’s why they pray. They want that connection to God. Well, we’re human. We need human connection in all forms. And this was a very intimate thing I’m doing. I’m opening up to a person on a phone about things I…
don’t even truly understand about myself as I’m learning them, as I’m discovering these things. And I had this breakthrough one day it was magical. And I still found myself wanting to have that instantaneous cure-all. where I’m just like, no more anxiety, no more… No, that doesn’t happen that way.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (39:20)
Ping!
Dave C (39:21)
It doesn’t
work. Like you don’t get a doorbell and it doesn’t go, bing! Your freedom has been delivered. It just doesn’t work. You know? No, no, this is my life.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (39:26)
Yeah, no magic wand. Not in most
cases. I have heard of instantaneous healing, but it’s not very common.
Dave C (39:33)
Well, let’s.
Let’s look at this from a realist perspective here. If we focused our life around being the exception, which we almost all do, I did. I did it with my writing. I did it with my career choices. wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I was planning on being the exception. I was the exception though. I just wasn’t the exception the way I thought. And we’re all exceptional at just for me,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (39:57)
Hmm.
Dave C (40:00)
I wasn’t the exception for becoming a seal. I could have, but they all died. And then I chose a different path, you know? And then I kept looking for these outs, these magic cure-alls for my discomfort. Life to me was an adventure. And then it stopped becoming an adventure and it became a job. And then it became hell. And that’s the only way to describe it.
I hate saying Satan, and hell, and demons, and God, and
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (40:35)
Well, I think I share a
similar thread with you there because I think Outer Darkness is a place. I don’t think Hell is as much. I think it’s more of a state of being. It can feel like a place because you’re in it, but I don’t necessarily feel like it’s somewhere where you’re sent to. place that you up in of choices were made.
not just by you but by others. Ultimately though, it’s us who chooses to believe the lies we were taught, innocently, of course, for most of the time, but that that hell is very real it can be experienced here. And I’ve felt that as well.
Dave C (41:15)
So this is where a lot of my views differ from people, especially in the world of religion and faith.
And think this has a lot to do with my past. lot to do with where I am adventure. I’m calling it an adventure because even describe this. Like every day, it’s something new. But mostly it’s mostly good. But there’s bad news. There’s a lot of hardship overcoming trauma and understanding things. It’s… Yes, challenge.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (41:38)
We’ll challenge.
Definitely
challenge.
Dave C (41:43)
Before I go into that story, if I
This is where my belief system varies from others, especially the very righteous Christians out there and it does not change with my father and I give him a lot of respect because
As much of a God-fearing man that he is, he doesn’t view himself as a religious person. He does not like the church. had similar issues that I did. he hates that I had those because admitted that when had me, his goal was to protect me. My middle name is Elijah. And he did that because he wanted me protected the way Elijah was protected in the Bible. And I think it worked. I’m here.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (42:18)
Hmm.
Dave C (42:20)
You know, I’ve been shot at, I’ve been on planes that have crashed, I’ve been in car accidents that should have killed me, I’ve had guns to my head since I was 12 years old, I’ve put my own gun to my own head. I shouldn’t be alive. But, you know, the universe… God.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (42:21)
You are here.
Dave C (42:37)
has spoken and said, Nope! Dave, you’re gonna live and you’re gonna be a parent and you’re gonna be a husband and you’re gonna die one day exactly how you’re supposed to die right when you’re supposed to and it’s gonna be magical and you are gonna find that little piece of heaven. And this is what I wanted to talk on. What do I view as heaven and hell?
if I told you I believe there is a physical heaven and a physical hell in which my soul will go to I just don’t see that happening and I think I view the crossover from life to eternal life as a universal energy versus a physical being going to a gate and being admitted or falling through the gates of hell and being burned for the rest of your eternity It’s an it. Yeah, it’s an
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (43:22)
Pretty black and white there. I,
although I do, believe that I will be me, I will still be female, and so forth, and that there’s a plan for me after this life that may involve other life.
Dave C (43:24)
you
I feel we’re all connected. You said it earlier woke up frantic. I was frantic I was already free you and two other people reached out to me over the last 24 hours to check on me because I popped into your minds and it’s because I’ve been frantic and you you sense that and to me, I think our energy energy scientifically cannot be created or destroyed the energy that is here has always been here. We have always been here. We all come from
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (44:01)
true.
Dave C (44:03)
Earth’s dust which is stardust like that’s what science says right now and I think we can even relate that if you go back to the early days of Bible where they talk about Adam and Eve and the early Genesis chapters God created us, He created earth He created everything right if we want to believe that go for it even though I know there’s some controversy out there as to whether it’s mythology or not. I don’t know I don’t think we’re ever going to know I I think that yes
the Bible has been written by man, but it’s no different than keeping a journal entry. It’s testament to witnesses, yeah, yeah, by what they saw. We don’t truly know who recorded those early pages. We just know that somebody did. There’s no Sanskrit.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (44:40)
It’s a testimony. Inspired witnesses. Yeah.
and that they were preserved,
which is pretty cool.
Dave C (44:55)
Yeah, they were… Yeah,
it’s… There’s… It’s believed to be mythological. Cool, whatever. So be it. But there’s still a purpose to it. It’s a way for humans to understand and connect. It’s a hook. But it’s a good hook. And I say that comfortably because don’t think as human beings we would actually be able to comprehend
what God really did. That’s why we can’t understand the vastness of space. Like, can you understand, like I just read an article yesterday on negative time. By the way, they said that wasn’t possible. Now they say it’s possible. Which is one more, yeah, like they found negative time. Like humans created time. We made time a thing. They, in science,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (45:35)
Like going back in time, kinda sorta.
Well, I think
the sun and the moon and the stars, you can see in the creation where time became a thing for this planet. me kind of a long time to conceptualize this that I still don’t fully understand. But the idea that time is irrelevant when you die, I mean, with God, it’s irrelevant. just doesn’t matter. And everything here is based on beginnings and endings, life, death, sun coming up, going down, getting out of bed in the morning, going back to sleep. a revolving
Dave C (45:57)
Yeah.
It is.
us.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (46:14)
everything is about time here and you only have so much time. But even here, I have found study and in practice It’s almost like everything you need to get done happens and it shouldn’t have been able to get done. And you’re wondering, how did that happen? I only had this much time and even that principle can occur for a human being.
Dave C (46:14)
being.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (46:35)
when God needs it to, I guess when he needs you to do ABC, and you don’t have enough time to do it, He will make enough time for you to do that, that’s making sense. heard many different testimonies of that. felt that in my life from time to time, not often, but where it’s like something miraculous just happened and I don’t know how to explain it. And I think I’ve talked about this on another podcast, but with a sister who almost died.
was in the process of dying. Like she should have died. Horse was going down in the street, semi was coming about to hit her. And she was like, This is it. My life is over. She could see it coming. split second later, she found herself walking with the reins in her hands beside the horse, calm as could be, and the semi way down the street. And there’s no way.
that should have ever been. It was like someone said pause, moved a few things around and then boop, continue.
Dave C (47:33)
Having
been in a moment where I literally accepted my death, like I was done. my death being vague because I don’t wanna talk about the details of the shooting. It is known to humans that stress causes us to
hyper fixate on things. And we lose some of our senses. We lose sight or we lose we lose something during stress. Your body can’t overcome that experience because it’s unnatural, but you’re having a natural reaction to an unnatural event, as was in my case. And I somehow,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (47:48)
Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Dave C (48:12)
did not get run over in this event, even though I was already hit. No injuries, none. I was squished. Didn’t hurt, my shoulders are jacked up, my hips are jacked my lower back’s jacked up, my knee’s jacked up, my neck’s jacked up, I’ve got a couple TVIs, I think. yes. I should have been dead. Yeah, I should have been dead.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (48:23)
Yeah.
But do you feel like something intervened, something prevented that from being your death day?
Dave C (48:35)
There’s no doubt in my mind I should have dead. Several people there thought I did die. That’s why they shot. They thought I was dead. They were expecting to pull my squished body out. One of them was in the car next to me. He said he thought he saw me go under. I might have, but I was definitely inside another vehicle. I can’t explain it. And when I had to testify on that, it was hard because I’m like, I’m not sure.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (48:46)
Hmm. Hmm.
I guess just not matching up.
The facts aren’t.
Dave C (49:01)
It didn’t match up, you there was enough witnesses that had saw what happened and it made sense once people started putting it together, but that’s not what I saw and not what I felt. There’s a reason I reacted the way I reacted and did what I did. My goal was to not die and I didn’t. ready and I realized it
in the middle of that. was a rough morning too because I had actually just read an article. One of our had been killed that morning and it was it was a bad day. I was reading it. Gives me chills.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (49:30)
Mmm.
So.
Would you say
person, I asked this of another military friend of mine, what is the hardest thing about being in the military? makes it so traumatic for so many people? But Her response was that…
For her, it was when you make a mistake, that gets someone killed. Or that you think the what if, what if I’d done this, could it have kept them alive? if I had not done this or that about potential mistakes, even if it maybe wasn’t a mistake, but that you could someone and you didn’t.
Dave C (50:09)
one. Everyone’s traumas are unique. Our experiences are unique. And I can’t talk on other people’s trauma because I wasn’t there to experience it. And for years, I compared myself to combat vets. How do I have PTSD when I never saw combat? Because I didn’t. I never saw combat. I saw people who saw combat right after that happened to them too….
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (50:11)
Yeah.
Dave C (50:35)
I saw result of combat.
both from the living who got shot up and blown up but survived and then the dead who…
anymore and at the end of the day I think it’s just the individual and how they’re able to process what they’re going through. When it comes to combat specifically having not seen war combat but having seen gunfights in the street I guess I can call it it’s
It’s hard. When we overcome these events, I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s just unreal. We all know we’re gonna die. But when that moment hits you and the chaos ensues and guns are firing and glass is shattering and metals popping and people are screaming and bodies are convulsing and blood squirting out and…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (51:12)
And that’s okay.
Dave C (51:36)
It’s different.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (51:39)
Yeah. And like, do you think that anyone can really understand without actually going through it? No? Yeah. Which is why I think veterans talking to each other is so important. something else I learned from another friend who said he came back from Iraq after served for 10 years and that there’s just no one to talk to who understands. And you start recognizing that when you try to tell your stories, people just don’t get it. And so a lot of them stop talking.
Dave C (51:42)
No, it’s impossible. I watched.
No they can’t. And it freaks them out.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (52:09)
is not good. They need to be connecting and talking. And so when these vets feel so alone that nobody understands, wish that there more being done on that front the VA is doing with just giving people drugs and sending them home. It’s the connection, and I’m not experienced in this area at all, but just from observing, it seems like that’s one of the
biggest missing pieces.
Dave C (52:35)
Man, it is impossible to fix us all. It is. There’s just no way because we’re all too different.
There’s no pill that’s gonna fix this. There’s no group therapy sessions. All we can do is hope that we can get through it. I feel lucky. I feel blessed. And I never say And I say blessed because I was able to push through my experiences and I had the will to live. There’s so many cliche comments out there to live having family and friends.
But this goes back to, ⁓ that’s what I was gonna talk about. This goes back to what I was talking about earlier about feeling alone. We feel alone. And you can be standing next to somebody you love and not have a single feeling. And I think when it comes, yeah, to know that they love me as much as they do and as unconditionally as they do, but yet I felt empty inside and alone, that’s a hard place to be. You’ve been there. And with combat vets,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (53:20)
When you were talking about your wife, right? Yeah.
Dave C (53:36)
and law enforcement who have been in shootings. And mind you, law enforcement right now, there’s an epidemic of suicides. Like almost every day I feel like I’m reading articles on cops who kill themselves because they can’t get the treatment they need. They’re afraid to because their bosses push them down. Yeah, well, we are. There comes a point where we are. We’re afraid to lose the pension.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (53:56)
They might be seen as unfit for the job, possibly.
Dave C (54:03)
a big part of it. A lot of these guys and girls don’t want to lose pensions. I can’t tell you how many people I talk to with… PTSD. I couldn’t think of the word I wanted. choose, but blatant… Nope.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (54:04)
Yeah.
they won’t walk away. I talked
about that in another podcast of just this desire for security and that surety and pension, whatever it is, versus leaning into what’s not comfortable for you that you don’t know, but that God can show you how you can navigate the next chapter of your life. You need to leave. Like there’s a lot of times when you need to leave, but people will not leave because they want the pension,
Dave C (54:33)
That’s me.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (54:35)
or they wanted insurance and they’re too scared and can’t trust that there is a power that is more powerful than will be able to not only get them through the next step, but it will be so much better if they’ll just let go and trust that it’s gonna work out so much better than they could possibly imagine, but they have to let go. And we live in a society where everybody that
Dave C (54:40)
⁓
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (54:58)
salary that’s guaranteed instead of the adventure that you’re talking about.
Dave C (55:00)
like the magic pill. Yeah.
Well, I don’t recommend my adventure to anyone. Yeah, I don’t recommend this for anyone. fortunate that my wife loves me enough to deal with my We’re your typical married couple. We barely fight, though. We’re trying to get better with our communication. I have pushed her away. I mean, I s-
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (55:05)
Well, their adventure.
69% of the
problems that marital couples have are ongoing. I learned that this week. And it’s just, yeah, you just keep rehashing the same things and stay in the course. Keep trying.
Dave C (55:25)
It doesn’t change. It’s humans. It’s the individual…
It’s our individualness. Like, we’re not gonna marry someone just like us. We’re gonna marry someone that’s got, conflicting views and different behaviors. There’s all those memes about one of you in the the dishwasher like a Greek architect and the other one looks like a dorm room.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (55:47)
yeah, that’s a big source of contention, the dishwasher.
Not for me, but for others.
Dave C (55:49)
That’s me and my family. That’s
here. That’s me and my family. It’s like, I just put all the dishes in the dishwasher and then my wife will come behind me and throw dirty spoon in the sink. I’m like, babe, it’s not on yet. And then she just looks at me like, ⁓ I’ll just do it.
And then it becomes a thing. cordial, we’re friendly. It’s loving bickering and I wouldn’t change her out for the world. switched wives once, I’m not doing that twice. I just wanna make it to my death in peace. Ya know, my grandmother passed away a couple years ago on my sister’s birthday and my grandmother had a very, very hard life.
She woke up one day, came downstairs, had a cup of coffee and goes, You know what? I’m gonna go take a nap. Never wokeup.
I can only be so lucky. She earned that death. Let me tell you what though. I’m so happy she died peacefully in her sleep. She was so peaceful that my aunt was sitting next to her and did not know she died. She tucked her in. That’s how peaceful my grandmother’s death was. That’s all I want. can’t talk for other people when it comes to trauma.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (56:35)
Yeah
Hmm.
That is beautiful.
Dave C (56:54)
don’t know. This is my journey and I’ve met people who I honestly don’t know how they have PTSD but they do. I don’t know what their traumas were. There’s things that we don’t tell each other like who am I to judge you? You got PTSD, anxiety, you got depression, you know what? And there’s that too.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (57:10)
are things that you don’t even remember. I mean, in my case,
remember them vaguely now, but there were a lot of things that were, building on the depression that I had hidden very far away back in deep in my brain. Didn’t want to remember, I suppose. Children do that to protect themselves. There’s a reason for that, but
I would say if you struggle with PTSD and you don’t know why, there’s no condemning what’s wrong with you. You should be fine. Even if it’s genes, ancestral trauma that got passed down to you, it’s still a real deal. It’s not fake. You’re not making it up. And there’s a reason that you’re struggling with it. But there’s also divine reasons that…
Dave C (57:46)
It is.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (57:56)
are maybe hard to understand right now, but when you look back as you heal, you’ll be grateful for the challenge. And I want to say that’s the case for you. Have you been able to get to the point yet where you find gratitude in some of the challenges that you’ve experienced that’s gotten you here?
Dave C (58:14)
for
the first time yesterday. I actually texted my trauma coach
she was like, that’s a win if I’ve ever seen one. Oh, I know, despite how bad of a day I had, I still had a love level of peace about me. Even this morning, I was still kind of like, well, tis life. And it wasn’t like a bad tis life, was just like, this is just how I deal with things. This is Dave not managing his time Yeah.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (58:30)
Yeah. Yeah.
More of an You’re in
a place of acceptance and flow where you’re like, okay, that didn’t go very well. Moving on. Next. Let’s try again.
Dave C (58:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, this sucks. This
is my life. My dog’s got worms, my cat’s got gut issues and puking everywhere, my kids are home from school because of a snow day, my wife works from home, and here I am hiding out in my cubby hole slash office slash music room slash writing room. I don’t even know what I call this place. This is my area. Yes.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (58:51)
⁓
Just a little bit of chaos.
And you are writing a book right now. just tell us a little
bit. I know you didn’t want to reveal anything, but just sell us a little bit on this upcoming book because I think it’s going to be awesome.
Dave C (59:14)
Well,
to sell it, I’m gonna talk a little bit about coming up to it. And don’t worry if you’re listening to this, it’s not gonna be as long-winded as the rest of my speeches. my first novel after having a conversation with my traditional Western psychologist about journaling. actually told him, no, I’m not gonna write in a not gonna say exactly how I said it. It’s completely inappropriate. It doesn’t fit my, I don’t want it staining my personality because I meant it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (59:41)
Yeah
Dave C (59:42)
I’m not gonna go there. Anyways, point is, is I
said no, and then I ended up doing it anyways. At the time, I still drank heavily. easily put down a half a bottle of whiskey in a night, and I just wrote. And I started out as a short story. I called it Michael’s Home. I wrote it in just a couple hours, and I never changed it. I never did like a draft change. I edited it for the synthesis of like having the line and copy I had just done, like punctuation, context, grammar, things like that, but I didn’t change the story. I filled up on Amazon just for fun.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:00:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:00:09)
wanted to sell it for like 99 cents and it wouldn’t let me do it any cheaper than like $2.99 yes, it’s like $2.99. That wasn’t the point though, didn’t…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:00:13)
Anybody can drop $2.99. I shouldn’t say that. There are some people who maybe can’t, but
most people, if it’s a value that they need to read it, then it’s a sacrifice I would be willing to make.
Dave C (1:00:27)
It’s it’s let me tell you what it was hard to sell
a single short story but I loved it I loved what I wrote and I felt like as amateur as that story was it had potential so I started doing novel with my brother and then he kind of fell off and I just I ran with it and I wrote this novel called A Thousand Miles to Nowhere, and I took a lot of my experiences that I had been experiencing up to that point that I didn’t quite understand I accepted them. I laughed at them because they were crazy, but I did
not realize what it was leading up to. I did not realize that was the fuse that I was seeing. The fuse was sparkling, working its way down like super duper long fuse that’s just working its way to the end where all the dynamite’s sitting you know like in a cartoon. I wrote a great book.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:01:02)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:01:15)
zombie apocalypse, a lot of mental health stuff, and I threw a lot of things I did. For instance, there’s a scene in it where my main character gets naked and runs outside with a gun and starts screaming. I did that. I did that in a suburban neighborhood in San Diego. Wasn’t snow on the ground when I did it, but it was 2 a.m. I thought somebody broke into the house and I was gonna kill him. I was outside, butt naked. I’m talking naked naked. had my gun in my hand, light on,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:01:25)
Hmm. Wow.
Ha ha ha!
Dave C (1:01:42)
Nobody was there. It was my imagination. in the morning; I got so used to waking up at 2:15. That was my go time. That’s when I woke up and stayed up because that’s when the monsters were coming to get monsters, mean the anxiety and depression and the panic attacks and the fake demons outside trying to break I wrote this this novel it took me
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:01:43)
Hmm.
Sure.
I believe they’re quite literal. Yeah.
Dave C (1:02:03)
Four
years and I loved it. I still love that you can get it on Amazon Yes, shameless plug go to Amazon type in A Thousand Miles to Nowhere; spell it out a thousand miles to know we’re not a 10000 and it’s my name David Curfiss; but there’s a big mental health aspect to that story. There’s a love story mixed into the zombie apocalypse. There’s PTSD mixed in the zombie apocalypse. There’s death lots of much death that somebody actually messaged me on Twitter back when I had Twitter account was like
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:02:14)
Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:02:30)
Are you okay? That story was the saddest thing I ever read. I go, thank you. No, I’m not okay. Bye. And then I kind of couldn’t write anymore. was so bogged down mentally from stress. And then while I was writing that book, my other best friend died. And then I just started having a series of deaths. Four or five a year. Cancer, suicide, heart failure from drug usage.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:02:53)
Mm.
common in the military,
I’ve heard. Yeah.
Dave C (1:02:58)
Military, law enforcement, the kids
I grew up with, I had two people very close to me. Killed themselves, a year apart from one another. I have a photo with me and both of them in it, and a couple other friends. It sucks when you look at a photo and half the picture is dead. It’s hard.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:03:18)
Yeah, guess we all have to go through that eventually, premature is just a, you know, it’s a shame. It’s sad.
Dave C (1:03:26)
Young people, 20s, 30s, 40s,
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:03:27)
Yeah.
Dave C (1:03:28)
know, all killing themselves, dying from cancer. One of my buddies was an Iraq war vet, died from cancer. Another one of my buddies, was a golf war vet? Rambo Gaudi shoe vet? I can’t remember. died from
other things. You know it’s just like every year I had a friend die from COVID of all things. And then I couldn’t write. I couldn’t think. There was too much stress.
And that led me up to this moment on New Year’s when a friend of mine who I’ve only known for like six months at the time comes and stays at my house and we just hang out for two days and he opened my head and he opened my mind up to the idea that I was killing myself because I was still running.
and he was 100% true. So I did something little drastic and even my trauma coach was like, oh I didn’t expect you to do all that. I’m like, well, you know, this is how I roll right now. Let’s just go with it. I have this ideology that if I’m clogged and I don’t know what’s clogging, start from scratch.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:04:21)
Yeah.
Dave C (1:04:27)
So I did. I deleted everything. I got rid of my all my socials. I got rid of my podcast. I got rid of the novel. I took all the novels got rid of everything. took every day for what it was a day. I woke up. I had my day. I went to bed. I have my next day. And I got to the point where I started having feelings.
Started noticing I was able to communicate with the wife and kids my purpose shift. I stopped looking for a way to change my time for money because the thought of me getting a job right now scares
well there’s
also an ego complex. I spent near 30 years of my life doing cool guy You know, fighting people, getting into shootings here and there, accepting death and accepting it as a common day and just kind of doing the work that…
no human is really supposed to do and it has an impact on you. it’s a necessary function in the society because there is balance. But I finally got to this point where my brain started letting me see what I wanted and I realized…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:05:25)
Hmm.
Dave C (1:05:40)
need of purpose and that purpose became my family and that was so hard for me to wrap my head around it’s still it’s it’s conundrum so
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:05:44)
Mm.
If you’re
not watching this and you’re listening, I’m smiling from ear to ear. That’s just, like that is, like you got it.
Dave C (1:05:55)
Yeah
It’s hard though, and it was something my daughter said. She asked me why I was so tired one day. And I told her my day, she goes, You live a good life. That’s a 14 year old. She gets it. And it just the next morning I woke up, I was like, I got this. I sat down.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:06:11)
Hmm
Dave C (1:06:16)
I deleted the book I was working on for eight years I don’t even know how many years I’ve been working on this book, but I deleted it and I started from scratch and I took my time and I started writing this outline and then I started creating a story setting and then I started creating my characters and then I wrote my first line and then I wrote my last line and then I wrote all my themes, sub themes, plots, sub plots. And then I started developing every single scene and yesterday I did the final revision of the scene
of my scene breakdowns. As it stands, I’ve got 60 scenes. Your traditional three act storyline. Act one, act two, act three. Beginning, middle, end. I’ve got my hook, my introductions, I’ve got my plot points, I’ve got everything. And I sat down and for the first time in years I wrote.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:06:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:07:04)
Like I really wrote and it was so good and cathartic and I reread it. was like that’s that’s what I want. But the story is I’d love to give you guys the theme statement
And something I want to point out is I’m not going to self-publish this book.
this book may or may not see the light of day. It depends on if I can get it picked up by a publishing company.
So everything I did, I did on my own and this is the first time I’m going to be pursuing publication. But I’ve called the working titles called The Lies We Tell Ourselves and to kind of keep myself on track I found a proverb that embodied my theme.
And the proverb is, among life’s hardest lessons is learning to let go of what was never meant to stay. And for me, that’s trauma response. We hold onto these traumas and we don’t let them go because we use them as protection and a defense mechanism. And we’re supposed to let them go. Like, it happened, we process it, let it go. I never did that. I’m doing it now.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:08:05)
Yeah.
But we are learning.
Dave C (1:08:09)
But we’re learning, you know, this is how I’m learning. My main theme is compassion for self, self-compassion, however you want to word it. And that goes hand in hand with the proverb, not allowing trauma to define ourselves. So how is this gonna make a cool post-apocalyptic story? I’ll tell you. I can’t tell you the plot that’ll give away the story.
But I will give you my theme statement and my USP, the unique selling point. And the USP is something that writers have to create if they want to sell the book to a publishing company. This, you, is superficial. Both of these are superficial. The USP is this.
The theme statement is used in conjunction with the USP. That’s it.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:09:22)
I love it. mean,
foundational truths there that can change anyone’s lives. I know we hear it, but when we know it, it changes everything. We’ve got to figure out a way to make this book available, even if I publish it for you. I’m Aquarius!
Dave C (1:09:32)
It
Well, I’m not gonna self-publish it.
Hey, if you wanna open up a publishing company and push it out there, feel free. But I’m definitely gonna spend a few months trying to get an agent and I’m gonna start my next book. Everything I write is mental health advocacy based. It has to be in me, like I can’t not. But I also have the dark side that I love to touch on and for me that’s the post-apocalypse. And before I let you go, I do wanna explain why I love the apocalypse so much.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:09:50)
Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:10:04)
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by violence and destruction. I think most little boys tend to be. We enjoy things blowing up and whatnot, but I was very fascinated by it. But I was always looking for a way out. didn’t like being home. It was uncomfortable for me.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:10:15)
Mm-hmm.
Dave C (1:10:20)
I might not have been getting punched or beat but it was hard. was volatile. don’t even know to pronounce that word. You never knew what you were going get with my mom and my stepdad. You don’t know if my stepdad was coming down off a heroin fix and was going to lose his mind or if my mom was frazzled and didn’t know how to respond to you and all you needed was a yes or no and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs to shut up. I can’t think, you know. I hated being home. So I would leave the house before anyone was up and I wouldn’t come home until everyone was
gone. And while I was in the woods playing, I pictured myself in a world where no one else existed. I pictured survival of a child. And that’s actually how Michael’s home came about. it’s about a little boy trying to figure out why he is the way he is. He doesn’t realize the world is gone. He just knows his mom left him and that some mean people are chasing him, but he doesn’t know why. And that’s kind of how I felt.
I never understood why I got treated the way I did being told your entire life that you’re not gonna make anything of yourself, you’re just like your family, doesn’t feel good. I knew we were broke. go to the store with $100 food stamps, buy 25 cent piece of gum and give the cash, because they gave you cash back to my mom so she could buy heroin and crack for my stepdad.
booze for the party that they’re gonna have. But you walked into my house, you weren’t gonna find meat in freezer. You were gonna get, spoons with burn marks on the bottom of them and maybe an egg? I don’t know. I feel like I eggs a lot. My mom did, not to poop with my mom too much, she did, she did love me. know that. But I don’t think she knew how.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:12:00)
I’m sure she did the best
Dave C (1:12:03)
I grew up in a different environment, but that was my home. So that’s where I got my creativeness from. That’s why I love the apocalypse. It’s a safe place for me. I can be myself there, and it doesn’t make it hurt. It’s not contemporary world. So for me, everything is post-apocalypse because the world’s already gone. There’s no hurt. So to me, that’s the only way I can do it. That’s my escape. So that’s all.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:12:26)
No, that
makes a lot of sense. Very cool. I love how you’re able to capture it in a way that is healing for you rather than more hurtful. Right? Because if you were to tell your story, it might just stir things up. too much pain. But if you can tell a story in an apocalyptic world, you kind of separate yourself from it a little bit, enough to… Yeah. Right? That’s so cool.
Dave C (1:12:37)
Whole Keen did the same thing.
removes. Yeah, yeah, you detach. Yeah, that’s my trauma response.
That’s how I coped. I think that’s a healthy. Yeah.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:12:53)
No, but that’s amazing that you are able to do it at all, you know, because
some people just avoid completely. So thank you so much for sharing so much of these very with us today about your book. And I am really looking forward to seeing the next developments in your life. because it seems like in just this year and a half, and even you said like yesterday, a month ago, man, this guy’s developing fast, like,
Dave C (1:13:18)
It’s new.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:13:21)
talk to you in a month or a year from now, you’re going to be a new David. And after that, a year from then, you will be a new David. And I think that’s all of us. But when you see that escalating or just going very quickly for someone, it’s really fun to watch. And I’m really enjoying watching you. And I just think you example of hope
you’re a warrior. I want to say you are a spiritual and a physical warrior. And I’m grateful for you in my life. is there anything else you want to say before we end today? Any, any last words that you want to say to our audience?
Dave C (1:13:52)
I could go on.
If I had to end this with one short final note, I would say this. Don’t let your fears of other people’s perceptions drive your direction. Do what you need to do for you.
And you feel that that means dedicating your life to the pursuit of God, so be it. If that means dedicating your life to your family, so be it. If that means dedicating your life to a job, so be it. Do what you want to do. Don’t lie to yourself about it either. That’s a hard thing to go on. Be honest. It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. I lived my life trying to impress other people and it killed me.
Be true to yourself because if you’re not, no one else is. You have to trust that you know what is best for you. Don’t search for material comforts. Don’t search for job satisfaction. Search for contentment. My wife told, at peace, my wife told me a couple months ago, all I want is you to be content.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:15:05)
Peace.
Dave C (1:15:12)
I literally woke up the next morning and said, all I’m going to focus on is being content. And guess what? It worked. I started finding peace in my life because I was being true to myself. I wasn’t letting other people push me in directions. I got pushed over my entire life. No. So do what’s best for you. If that means quitting your job, losing your pension, and I know that sounds scary I didn’t want to lose my pension.
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:15:30)
Nobody likes being pushed either.
Dave C (1:15:40)
You gotta do what’s best. Don’t let it kill you earlier than you’re supposed to die. We’re all gonna die sometime, it’ll come Don’t let it be by your own hand.
Don’t succumb to outside pressure. Be true to yourself regardless of the situation. Have faith in yourself if you can’t find it in God. Have faith in yourself that you will get through it because something somewhere is looking over you and that’s where the connection comes from. Yes, that’s…
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:16:06)
And I would add, don’t look for validation from other people. When you know, remember, don’t forget
what you know, what you know for yourself, and don’t let other people talk you out of it.
Dave C (1:16:17)
Exactly, and I was easily talked out of things. So that’s it. That’s all I want to say be true to yourself Follow your heart. Don’t listen to your brain Follow your heart and if this feels clogged, there’s a reason for that. That’s it. Thanks for having me on
Jennifer Stirling-Campbell (1:16:27)
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you, David. You’re incredible. I know going to be people who are going to listen to this and benefit from it. So thank you again for being here today. And so this is it. We’re at the end of our podcast episode today. I am your host, Jennifer Stirling-Campbell, and you are listening to the Overcome Depression podcast.
Dave C (1:16:49)
Later, guys.
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