peace is a battlefield by Matt Brant

Images by Matt Brant

Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others.

How could you possibly know Happiness without sadness?

What does it even mean to be happy?

I saw a video one time where a guy was walking around the streets with a microphone. He asked random strangers if they were happy and recording their answers. Most people said "yes."

I began to think about what I would say if asked.

I'm sure I would have been caught off guard and my instinct would be to say "yes." But would that be the truth? 

Today, “yes, I’m happy” would be the honest truth. However, if this question was asked to me over the past 40 years, saying “yes” would have been a complete lie. I would have put my fake mask on and pretended that life was grand.

The truth is life was terrible.

The truth was that an ominous dark cloud had enveloped my life in such a way that I was suffocating in anxiety and depression. Ever since I turned 16 or 17, things became unreal to me. I was alive but felt dead. I don't know why it happened – well I do have a guess – but in light of this article, I don't want to appear to be a victim, nor am I looking for sympathy, it's just a story of how I came to understand "happy."

Everyone's got a story to tell that is horrendous, and life can be complicated, difficult, deceitful, and any other awful situation you want to throw in there. We all are victims of life's tragedies. Mine is no worse than yours. 

Anyway, back to being a teenager, I was looking for a way to escape my depression and anxiety and that is when I found alcohol. I never really drank liquor, but man, the beer was good, and I quickly discovered how happy it made me when I drank it. Temporarily anyway. What a vicious cycle it turned into. For 40-some-years I ran as quickly as I could to the comfort of alcohol and the numbing feeling that accompanied it. Of course, it's a dead-end road. But you really don't think of that because the alternate route, when you're not drinking, is so dark and gray that you do nothing but look for the first exit you can take to get off. Which is what I did in 1986.

Drunk out my mind, I decided to empty a whole bottle of pills down my throat because I was tired of the constant cycle I was on. Luckily, by the grace of God, I am still here. Fast forward to 1989.

In 1989 my first daughter, Amanda was born. I had a good job and life was going okay and in 1990, Sarah was born. I still struggled with severe anxiety at the time, but I did cut back on the beer because I didn’t want to be 'that' alcoholic father. I kept my drinking to a minimum, mostly just a few beers here and there. No biggie. I managed my depression the best I could and raised a family that I’m very proud of. 

Unfortunately, as Amanda got older, I noticed that she seemed to be battling anxiety too. I began to wonder, after watching my Dad struggle with it, was it hereditary? That dark cloud that consumed me, was now enveloping her life. Years of counseling and medications never seemed to help and as fate would have it, she took her own life in July of 2014, right after her 25th birthday. 

Of course, this sent me over the edge. Life was unbearable. There is a sadness that you cannot comprehend when you lose one of your children. I was a total wreck. Once again, I began to fantasize about death and drink more heavily than before. I remember planning it out, where I'd go so I wouldn’t be found, and one time I put a rope around my own neck just to feel the tug. This is sick when I remember back, but that’s where I was in life. Depression does that to your mind. You begin to think things that aren’t true. You begin to believe that the world is better off without you. Depression is a liar! Then something happened...

One Christmas I bought myself a camera. That’s it. A camera, nothing great, but just something I could focus on. I had no clue how to use it. I didn’t know what the buttons did or anything else about it.  

With my camera in hand and the Antietam National Battlefield about 20 minutes away from where I live, I began to go there constantly and walk the fields and I slowly began to notice changes within myself. This may sound strange to some, but I began to have conversations. I began asking God for peace, thanking Him for everything, good and bad, just practicing gratitude in general. You may not believe in God and that’s okay, but that’s just what I did. It wasn’t overnight but surely and steadily I felt better. Those dark clouds were receding. I described depression one time as seeing everything in black and gray. No color, EVER. 

I began to see things more clearly the more I went and 'talked.' More color was appearing. My breaths were getting deeper, I was no longer afraid of dying. (That’s always been a huge fear of mine for whatever reason). Yet I planned suicide. Funny. 

I began to think of Antietam’s past and how horrific it was here in September 1862 during the bloodiest day in American military history. On this field, 23,000 men were either killed, wounded, or went missing during the American Civil War. But now it is peaceful and beautiful. Kinda like each of our lives. We all may have a past that’s not so pretty, but we grow and continue to move forward no matter what and that’s what I did. Day after day, with camera in hand, I came to these rolling fields of death and I laid my burdens down one by one. 

I am four years sober now, I have no depression and no anxiety anymore. I will always carry Amanda in my heart and there is definitely a hole that can’t be filled, but that’s okay. I have a beautiful daughter and two beautiful stepdaughters and three grandchildren and l am... happy. That’s the honest truth.

It took all the heartache and sadness to make me realize what true happiness is…on a battlefield that saw so much heartache and sadness.   

In closing, I'd like to say, "Thank you!"  

I thank God and I thank Sharpsburg, Maryland. 

Both have helped me understand what it means to be happy.

Antietam National Battlefield will forever be my Happy Place.