CR Bro

04/06/2026

I recently celebrated 3 years of my mental health journey with Celebrate Recovery! Honestly though, it has gotten more difficult each year, not easier as I had expected and hoped for. Not sure what to make of that, all I know is I am still here, so God is not done!

To mark the occassion I decided to finally get a ROMANS 8:28 tattoo! It has been my favorite Bible verse since I first got saved in 1995! And when I got my first tattoo nearly 20 years ago, I always wanted to get a ROMANS 8:28 tattoo, but for whatever reason it just never happened. Better late than never I say!

02/22/2026

Thanks again everyone for the birthday greetings! I must admit, I was worried about my birthday this year because my last birthday coincided with my first Eagle Syndrome Migraine. Of course I did not know what I was dealing with at the time, I just knew I was in a lot of pain. And unfortunately, that was just the beginning of the physical, mental, and spiritual suffering I would endure in 2025.

So when I say I was worried this year, that is an understatement, it was more like dreading it! I was genuinely preparing for something terrible to happen, or to find out I have a terminal disease! Even going to bed Sunday night, I wondered how I would feel when I woke up Monday.

Surprisingly, and thankfully, I woke up on my birthday, and I felt good! Not just physically, but most important, mentally! For the past year I have felt 20 years older due to my health issues, but this whole week I felt different, better, even 10 years younger than I am now! So if you take the 20 years older, and the 10 years younger, that is a 30 year difference!

Seriously though, I am so thankful to God for this youthfullness! I know it may not last, but I want to make the most of it while I have it!

12/25/2025

Meowy Christmas and a Purry New Year! May God bless you abundantly next year!

11/28/2025

Thankful to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and her friends! Love you mom Cheryl Bodey! I hope you all feel blessed this Thanksgiving!

09/20/2025

IF YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT ME PLEASE READ ENTIRE POST!!!

Ok here goes. I have had a lot of health issues the past year. It started last September when I developed a serious respiratory illness that lasted a month. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong and kept trying different treatments. Before this illness life was amazing! I was very active in Celebrate Recovery and going thru my first CR Step Study! But after I got this illness it derailed everything. I had to drop out of the Step Study because I missed too many meetings due to my illness and fell into a deep depression because of it.

Sometimes when you are battling depression you have to find something positive to do or even just to look forward to to help snap you out of your psychosis. For me that something was getting a kitty cat! Once I got a kitty I was able to press on despite my health. And finally after a month of this illness my doctor gave me a breathing treatment and it cleared up my respiratory system and I was healthy again the next day! I told her and thanked her for her help but she said something very interesting. She said that the breathing treatment either works immediately when done or it does not work at all. It does not take a day for it to take effect. So I told her it must be a miracle then and she agreed!

After that I was able to resume my life and things were great again! That is until February. Right before my birthday I started getting what I described as sinus migraines. There was major pain all over my face and head and once again doctors tried treating me with different things but nothing worked. On top of that I also got really sick from the flu during this time and I plunged into deep depression again because of my new health issues.

I ended up missing a month of work total during this time because of my physical and mental health and once again I needed something positive to keep me going. So I decided to get my labret pierced for the third time! After that I was able to snap out of my funk and return to work though I still had no diagnosis or treatment for my face migraines.

That is until a few months later when I saw an ENT doctor and they sent me for an MRI to determine what might be causing the pain. That is when I finally got my answer! The MRI showed I had a condition I had never heard of called Eagle Syndrome. They said it was caused by the ligaments in my neck calcifying over many years due to my TMJ on the left side of my jaw. It causes severe pain in your neck, jaw, face, and head, and I knew immediately that was the pain I was experiencing!

I got my results on a Sunday morning before church and as soon as I got this diagnosis I literally felt the weight of heaviness lifted off me! The fog of uncertainty was gone and I was able to go to church and worship God so fully for the first time in a while! I learned how to manage this condition the best I could but just knowing made all the difference in the world! Life was good again and I was able to keep going! That is until the end of June.

The last Sunday in June I went to both my churches. After I got home I started feeling really sick with what I can only describe as heatstroke symptoms. I was sick for days. When I started feeling better I would get sick again anytime I went outside. It was as if my body could no longer handle the heat anymore. So I stopped going outside during the day and became a night owl. I stayed up all night and slept all day because I could not go out in the sun anyway. And once again I fell into a deep depression. Are you all seeing the pattern yet? I am keenly aware if it unfortunately.

Anyway I met with my psychiatrist and for the first time our meeting did not go well. I did not feel supported and felt like she was tired of dealing with me. She even blamed me for not coming to her sooner when I fell into depression. It was absolutely devastating to me! We had always gotten along so well and now I felt I lost one of the people I truly counted on to help me. So as you can imagine that made my depession even worse. I had already missed 2 weeks of work and after this they placed me on medical leave.

It was around this time that I developed insomnia for the first time in my life! No matter when I went to bed I could not sleep! My mind would just race with thoughts about what was going on in my life. When I did finally fall asleep I could only sleep 2 hours and then I would be wide awake and I would lay there for hours trying to fall back asleep! This lasted over a month and took a huge toll on me physically and mentally! Not getting sleep made me weak and irritable and almost not feeling human anymore. And the mental toll made my depression the worst it has been since my last attempt to end my life 2 and a half years ago!

So by mid August I just wanted my pain and suffering to end permanently and I was actively planning to end my life once and for all. I decided I would drive to Vegas and stay at the Luxor for a few nights and just try to enjoy some final moments before ending it on my final night there. I was going to take a bottle of sleeping pills and take a bath so if the pills did not end me then I would drown in the bath when I fell unconcious. I WAS DONE WITH LIFE!!!

However as the pattern repeats itself again, there was one thing that I wanted to do that could delay or perhaps even replace my demise. That was getting a neck tattoo! I had been wanting to get this tattoo for a few months but was afraid to because once you tattoo your neck you can never go back or hide it like you can arm tattoos. But since I was in complete darkness I did not care anymore about the repercussions because I did not even know if I would be around to face them anyway.

So I decided to get the tattoo instead of going to Vegas. I figured I could still go to Vegas after the tattoo if I wanted to and still end my life. I was determined to endure the pain even if it killed me and it was very painful especially the throat! But I got thru it and survived and afterward I actually started feeling better about myself and wanted to go on living!

Now here is how good God is! God can use anything, people, places, things, to show how much He cares for us and to keep us going! And I truly believe now that if I had chosen to go to Vegas instead of getting the tattoo that He would have caused something to happen to keep me from ending my life there anyway because He loves and cares for me!

Anyway it was at this point that I finally reached out to my doctor for help! And here is where everything changed, hopefully forever! A few days before my appointment I was at church and ended up talking with my dear friend Antonio. I explained to him everything I had been going thru especially the insomnia and he asked me if I suffer from anxiety. I have never thought of myself as an anxious person or filled with anxiety nor ever diagnosed with anxiety but he explained my insomnia sounded like anxiety. The racing thoughts and worrying about my life and all the negative thoughts were anxiety and I never realized it!

It was at that moment that it was like a lightbulb came on in my head! I have always been this way for at least the last 6 years from when I had my first mental breakdown but perhaps it had been my whole life! I had always thought it was just depression! I even told people in CR that I just have depression not anxiety because I did not even recognize it myself! Not to mention none of my psychiatrists ever identified it in me either and they are trained professionals!

So I went to my doctor appointment in late August and I told her what I was experiencing and what I had recently discovered about myself and she agreed and said it sounds like General Anxiety Disorder so she prescribed an anxiety medication to see how it worked for me. And let me tell you what a difference it made! The first night I took it I slept 6 hours for the first time in over a month!That is not even the best part though! When I woke up the next day all my negative thoughts and worries were gone! It was like a miracle! I finally had my answer as to why I struggled so much mentally even when on depression meds and actively working my recovery in CR! I realized that anxiety is the trigger for my depression! When something went wrong in my life it would start with anxiety and since that went undiagnosed and untreated then it would eventually lead to full blown depression!

I have been on anxiety meds for 3 weeks now and I feel great mentally! Still no negative thoughts or worries even though I am still dealing with various physical health issues! That is proof to me the medicine is working and bringing my mind back to level so I have a fighting chance to live a productive life again!

In fact I returned to work 2 weeks ago after being out for over 2 months! I am so thankful for everyone's support! It truly is a miracle that I am still here let alone back to work! And the hope is that I will be better mentally going forward now that I am getting the help I did not even know I needed!

God used a kitten, a piercing, a tattoo, and a new med, to keep me going the past year because He knows what we all need more than we do and He will use anything He needs to to show us how much He loves and cares for each one of us! Thank you Jesus for your unconditional love and faithfulness to us even though we can be unfaithful and faithless!

09/19/2025

Getting this neck tattoo literally saved my life!!! I will explain why later but for now let me explain what it represents.

I came up with the concept a few months ago and created it using Gemini AI. I got the cross and skulls done a month ago, and added the thorns a week ago!

The tattoo represents the crucifixion of Jesus. There is the cross, the thorns, and skulls. The first two are straightforward, but the skulls are a bit deeper.

Jesus was crucified on the hill of Golgotha, which means "place of the skull" because the hill actually resembled a human skull! I had always thought it was because so many people were killed there, and skulls csn symbolize death. That could still be a secondary meaning.

Amyway, there you have it, a symbolic tattoo representing Jesus dying for our sins, so that we could live a life of freedom in Him, and go to Heaven when we die!

Speaking of freedom, my chest tattoo is not real yet, it is a custom temporary tattoo that I also created using Gemini. I came up with a concept on Memorial Day of the word FREEDOM spelled using broken chains, showing that Jesus can break the chains in your life so you can live in freedom!

And after Charlie Kirk's passing, it has even more meaning, as he was wearing a shirt that said FREEDOM the day he was murdered. R.I.P. Charlie.

Like I said, I will fill you all in soon on what I have been thru the past few months but please pray for my physical health for now. The good news is mentally I am doing really well, in spite of my physical pain, and that has never been the case, as I have always said, "When I do not feel well physically, I do not feel well mentally." But I believe that is no longer the case thanks to a new diagnosis and treatment plan! Ultimately though, thanks to God who knew what I needed when I did not know, and for His love and faithfulness, even when I was unfaithful! It truly is a miracle that God has restored my life!!! Thank you Jesus!!!

09/18/2025