Crazy, Who Me?: My Journey as a Leader Overcoming Depression

By John Panigas

My depression reared it's ugly head at age 3. The "black pile" was my constant companion for the better part of 58 years until I finally found a way out. Yes, you can teach an old(er) dog new tricks!
This is my journey of leading with depression; the causes, the effects on those around me, the successes, the failures, the desperation, the hopelessness, and finally finding the faith I didn't know I had. This is my story, good, bad and ugly.
In these pages you'll find simple to understand ideas, strategies and tactics to overcome, minimize, and the potential to eliminate mental illness.
Relating to mental illness requires empathy, not sympathy. The road to empathy requires education, Inside you'll find short but concise lessons to better understand depression and mental illnesses. My hope is that if you believe you have depression you'll come out and talk about it. If you sense a loved one or workmate has depression you can be empathetic and helpful as they navigate through their complicated lives.

"This is a noteworthy book written by a remarkable man who has succeeded against all odds to build a $100 million family business. He did it while fighting lifelong depression. But you'd never know it by meeting John. He projects a cheerful attitude, confident energy, and an entrepreneurial swagger that dares you to challenge him. This is not a depressing book, but a book about a man who found his way from a very dark place. It is filled with pain, shame, terror, and despair. It also resonates with love, hope, and optimism – and his choice to get better."- Jack Muskat, PhD Clinical Psychologist - specializing in leadership therapy.

"How is it that seemingly happy, high-functioning and successful people who have achieved greatness, suffer so often from depression? How can it be that we are often blind to the pain of the people closest to us and those that we admire from afar? John Panigas takes us on the fascinating journey of a true entrepreneur that lives life to the fullest and yet suffers deeply. His honest, humorous and engaging story is a page-turner that is a must read. Intertwining business issues with mental health challenges, John gives us a superb account of the life's difficulties without losing his inherent optimism for life. Now, more than ever, we need stories like John's so we can be better as individuals, as business people and as a society." - Mike Shriqui, President Co-Pack Packaging Corp.

"Whether as an entrepreneur, blue-collar worker or a family member we all make decisions that are good, bad and regretful. I can only imagine the challenge of someone living and experiencing depression and having to lead and manage a business and deal with the stresses of everyday life. John shares his experiences as a father, an entrepreneur and as a human-being, and, shares with the reader the challenges and pain he experienced. The uniqueness of this marvelously written book is John's ability to share his life story while educating the reading with regards to depression. John goes into great detail helping the reader understand the disease and how he dealt with it as well as how he continues to manage depression." – Michael Zeidenberg, President Cornerstone Management and Consulting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jul 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780228801351

John Panigas

John Panigas - father, partner, and business leader. John has spent the better part of 58 years struggling with depression. Through all the struggle, he and partners and team managed to build a nationally recognized and award winning $100 million retail construction business. After leaving the business, he embarked on a successful and very fulfilling consulting and executive coaching career. Being the father to Michael, Bianca, and Alexander has been the most satisfying part of his life. Meeting Roxie, the love of life, has enhanced his life tremendously. Crazy, Who Me? is the culmination of a life filled with success and failure while coping with depression and ultimately coming out on the other side, authentic and happy.John's mission is to challenge the status quo of the attitudes, causes, and effects of depression on leadership. Leading him to guide leaders to overcome depression.

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Crazy, Who Me?

Copyright © 2019 by John Panigas

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-0134-4 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-0136-8 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-0135-1 (eBook)

Praise for Crazy,

Who Me?

This is a noteworthy book written by a remarkable man who has succeeded against all odds to build a $100 million family business. He did it while fighting lifelong depression. But you’d never know it by meeting John. He projects a cheerful attitude, confident energy, and an entrepreneurial swagger that dares you to challenge him. This is not a depressing book, but a book about a man who found his way from a very dark place. It is filled with pain, shame, terror, and despair. It also resonates with love, hope, and optimism – and his choice to get better.

- Jack Muskat, PhD Clinical Psychologist - specializing in leadership therapy.

How is it that seemingly happy, high-functioning and successful people who have achieved greatness, suffer so often from depression? How can it be that we are often blind to the pain of the people closest to us and those that we admire from afar? John Panigas takes us on the  fascinating journey of a true entrepreneur that lives life to the fullest and yet suffers deeply. His honest, humorous and engaging story is a page-turner that is a must read. Intertwining business issues with mental health challenges, John gives us a superb account of the life’s difficulties without losing his inherent optimism for life. Now, more than ever, we need stories like John’s so we can be better as individuals, as business people and as a society. - Mike Shriqui, President Co-Pack Packaging Corp.

Whether as an entrepreneur, blue-collar worker or a family member we all make decisions that are good, bad and regretful. I can only imagine the challenge of someone living and experiencing depression and having to lead and manage a business and deal with the stresses of everyday life. John shares his experiences as a father, an entrepreneur and as a human-being, and, shares with the reader the challenges and pain he experienced. The uniqueness of this marvelously written book is John’s ability to share his life story while educating the reading with regards to depression. John goes into great detail helping the reader understand the disease and how he dealt with it as well as how he continues to manage depression. – Michael Zeidenberg, President Cornerstone Management and Consulting.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Author’s Note

Introduction

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Depression

An Ode to Depression

The Black Dog

The Journey

Beginnings

I Can’t Remember

Ugly Pants

Happy…Yet…

Twenty Years a Slave: The First Ten Years

Twenty Years a Slave: The Next 10 Years

Wanderings

Recovery

I Saw the Signs

Millennial Depression…What Do I Know?

Types of Mental Illness

Facts, Myths & Ironies

You Are Getting Sleepy…

Crazy? Who Me?

Here’s to the Crazy Ones…

Epiphanies

Relapse

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren Mason, Gia, Jack, and Liam. Mason for his joy of life, Gia for that beautiful smile, Jack for his serenity, and Liam for his courage and strength. I need only think of how grateful our family is of you four, and a smile immediately comes to my face, and the black pile retreats.

Foreword

This is a noteworthy book written by a remarkable man who has succeeded against all odds to build a $100 million family business, only to lose it, and then go on to rebuild his life at age 58. And he did it while fighting lifelong depression and related family issues. But you would never know it by meeting John. He projects a cheerful attitude, confident energy, and an entrepreneurial swagger that dares you to challenge him. John was and is a born leader, still bursting with ideas and a generosity of spirit that has led him to share his business secrets as a mentor and trusted advisor to budding CEOs and business leaders. John is also a compelling motivational speaker and educator. For John anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer.

That was the picture John wanted to leave with everyone. Depression? What depression? He fooled everyone, including me, a supposedly well-respected psychologist with a knack for reading people quickly and accurately. And I missed it completely. I have known John Panigas for almost twenty years but knew nothing of his underlying demons and depression. I knew John was a respected business leader, a straight talker, street-smart and ambitious. I knew little of his early life, from his completion of high school education to his dropping out of university in first year. Perhaps it was his lack of formal education that drove him to think big ideas and dig deep into the detail. Like most self-taught men, John has an intensity of focus and concentration that is all-consuming. John took a broad swath across the research into depression, unencumbered by professional niceties or academic timidity, directed primarily by his own symptoms and experience. John is equally skeptical and accepting and was a one-person guinea pig for a variety of traditional medical and alternative treatments whose utility was marginal at best and evil at worst. Having seen the ravages of depression and decline in his own mother, and the emotional abuse at the hands of his father, John quickly learned even as a three-year-old how to weather the blows on the outside while falling apart on the inside.

But this is not a depressing book. It is not even a book about depression, but a book about a man who found his way back from a very dark place. It is a story about a man who overcame many setbacks but was not defined by them. You could say John has fought through his depressions but is not a depressive. John takes you through many personal struggles to fight the ‘Black Dog of depression, or as John calls it, the Black Pile." It is a tale of going up against an indifferent medical establishment, a dismissive society, personal shame. and guilt. It is a searingly honest account of one man’s struggle to defeat his demons and find peace. John takes no prisoners and is remorseless in his honesty about himself, his family, his business associates, and his friends.

He writes with the journalist’s eye for detail, the objectivity and discipline of a scientist, and the curiosity and wonder of an explorer. John puts you at the center of the action in his tireless quest for treatments and solutions. He asks very tough questions. Is depression a disease or a condition? If it is a disease, why is there is no cure? Why are there no biological markers for depression? What causes depression? Why do anti-depressants fail to work for two-thirds of patients? What other therapies are available? Why have psychiatrists stopped talking to patients while relying on medication, leading to life-long dependencies?

John continually challenges our assumptions about treatment for depression through his own experience and research. If depression is a condition, he asks, then why do we call it a mental illness? And if it is an illness, then why do so many creative and successful people suffer from it, yet go on to achieve great success? Can depression be good for you? Yes, according to Nassir Ghaemi, a Tufts University psychiatry professor, who argues this in his book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness. He says mentally healthy people make fine leaders when times are good and the challenges are easy, but "in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even ill, become the greatest leaders, people like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr, who all suffered from depression in their lives, but overcame it. Others were not so lucky, like Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Aaron Swartz, and motion picture director Tony Scott. John argues that had they been able to be properly treated to manage their depression, they may not have been so inclined to take their own lives. John wisely concludes that depression is too complicated to explain by any one theory or approach but can only be managed to minimize its effects.

This book is also a business story. In fact, it is primarily a story of a young man who joined a small, family construction business and while leading his team grew it into a $100 million dollar multi-discipline company while in the throes of lifelong depression. You won’t find John’s business situation described in any Harvard business school case study, where the issues are neatly laid out in logical order for the students to discover. Instead, we see a scrappy family business — passionate, earthy, rough around the edges, not given to niceties. It is a Canadian Italian immigrant success story, battered and bruised and raw. There are no heroes, just survivors. John weaves a tale of overcoming the hardship of a demanding and critical father, a nurturing and passive mother, an indifferent younger brother, and the responsibility of trying to grow the business through his wits, daring, and guts. We see John tearing around town in a pick up truck, trying to manage projects and deliver materials to sites, only to race back to the office to use the only copy machine, which he had to buy with his own money, at the age of 23. We see John learning how to price bids, work with partners, uncover shady practices, look after his workers, deal with his dad’s obstinance, shield his mother, and protect his brother. Each day brings chaos and ends in exhaustion. But John’s spirit is never fully crushed. He always gets up. And he never, ever gives up.

Finally, this book is a call to action. We must do better as a society. If someone like John — intelligent, successful, determined, and persistent, who has both the means and the access to help — could not get adequate help, then how difficult must it be for the rest of us? John is scathing in his indictment of the medical establishment’s overreliance on medication often prescribed by undertrained general practitioners, the glaring lack of skilled psychiatrists — especially in rural and third world areas — and the lack of adequately researched and accepted alternative approaches, from which he benefitted. To that end, John’s book is an important contribution to our understanding of how depression feels for the person feeling it, as he or she lives it. John has taken the darkest and most shameful aspect of his life and shone a light on it. And guess what he has uncovered—us. I hope you, the reader, derive as much satisfaction in following John’s journey. It is filled with pain, shame, terror, and despair. It also resonates with love, hope, optimism, and choice. It is a story about the human condition. We can choose to accept it or reject it. The choice is yours.

Jack Muskat, Ph.D., is a Toronto-based organizational and clinical psychologist, writer, and lecturer with over 25 years consulting and business experience with individuals and organizations. Dr. Muskat is an acknowledged expert on issues relating to organizational culture and leadership, as well as mental health and emotional wellbeing. He is currently director of psychology at a multidisciplinary health and psychological wellness practice in downtown Toronto.

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Author’s Note

From a business perspective, I, along with my brother and our team, built and led a successful $100 million retail construction organization. Prior to my exit, The Panigas Group of Companies delivered retail construction programs for major retailers across Canada. We operated 5 diverse businesses in 3 geographical locations and employed up to 500 people. As the firstborn in an Italian family I also had the responsibility of leading my family. A family business is a 24/7/365 endeavor with the business being the focal point of the family’s life.

This story is about the trials and tribulations of my life as a business leader who struggled with depression. It is about my recovery after 57 years of crippling depression — 30 years of which were diagnosed — to where I am today, a happy and content person who has realized he has so much for which to be grateful. This book details the good, the bad, and the ugly of my journey. At times the story will seem quite melodramatic and could appear to be somewhat of a soap opera. Depression is not a rational disease — there is no blood test for depression and emotions reign supreme; as such, emotion has been a major driver in my life, many times resulting in inauthentic behavior. My journey as an entrepreneurial leader has not been a pleasant one, though there have been awesome achievements along the way. Originally, the writing of this book was to be a therapeutic endeavor. As I progressed developing the manuscript, I came to realize I have a message to share. Apart from my story, I have included a significant amount of education, both in personal anecdotes as well as formal facts, figures, and well-researched information. And don’t worry, I will not confuse or bore you with clinical or academic language. To be clear, you’ll notice that I mention the depression in two ways, one is described as depressive feelings and the other is simply depression. I was diagnosed with severe depression 30 years ago. After the journey I have been on, I now know that it has been severe depression all along; prior to 1988 I was not diagnosed, hence the term depressive feelings.

One final and critical note. I am not a trained mental health professional. For the writing of this book I have interviewed numerous professionals and researched the area of mental illness, specifically focusing on depression. My hope is that if you suffer from depression you’ll realize you’re not alone and you can take control to minimize it. If you do not suffer from depression, you’ll be able to understand and feel what depression feels like and be able to provide empathy and encouragement to those that are close to you and you love.

Enjoy!

Introduction

Why the title Crazy, Who Me?

My favorite all-time television commercial is Here’s to the Crazy Ones that was created during Steve Jobs’ second coming to Apple. I believe you need to be somewhat crazy in order to succeed. Some would describe the writing of a book such as this as crazy. It wasn’t too long ago that anybody with mental illness would have been characterized as crazy.

I have struggled with severe depression for as long as I can remember. During a hypnotherapy session involving age regression with hypnotherapist Wes Rupel, I discovered I had experienced depressive feelings at a very young age. I was three years of age when my father came home one day and immediately started to yell at my mother. I can’t quite remember what he was yelling about, and yet it felt familiar. I yelled back to defend my mother and, as a result of my defiance, my father left the house. As a three-year-old, I was totally reliant on my parents. They were my safety net, as without them I was helpless. Yet, here was my father yelling at my mother, and she, in turn, reacting by cowering in fear. Though it may have seemed I was a brave little boy for standing up for my mother, I was terrified that my father was treating my mother this way; it just felt wrong to me. It was the first time I felt the pain in my gut, the black pile: my personal physical manifestation of depressive feelings. This was not a dream or delusional experience — after so many years my mother confirmed this occurred.

Later in life, while working at McDonald’s Restaurants, I began to become more in tune with mental illness as I matured both physically and mentally. Though projecting a happy and confident persona, fear and intense worry were the hallmarks of this time for me.

As I got older, I became a partner and leader of several private companies, the largest of which was The Panigas Group of Companies (PG). PG was an offshoot of a family business founded by my father.

During my twenty-year tenure as the leader of this organization, the severe depression was a familiar part of my life. Apart from the challenges of leading a fast-growing organization, I was also responsible for refereeing the issues of our dysfunctional family, and most importantly, living with my own family. I knowingly took these responsibilities on, and I own it. After having sold my share of the business, I became a consultant, executive coach, peer group leader, and participant of peer groups of business owners. Working with business owners, I discovered depression is very common within leadership in business. In fact, I believe we are in the midst of an epidemic of mental illnesses, especially as it relates to entrepreneurial leadership.

John Brandon, contributing editor at Inc.com, cites a 2014 study:

Dr. Michael Freeman at the University of California San Francisco claims that as many as forty-nine percent of entrepreneurial leaders have suffered from some form of mental disease, a full thirty-two percent experienced lifelong mental illness.¹

Having also worked alongside several public company leaders, I would submit the same is true for them as well.

I have written this book because I believe depression can be controlled with the proper treatment, therapies, and possibly without medication. As you read on, you’ll realize how all this is personal to me. I will not name names, and yet I realize that personal relationships could be affected. If, as a result of reading this book, you realize you may have a mental illness and you take action for how you feel, I will be successful. If, after reading the following, you see behaviors similar to the ones discussed in this book in loved ones, business associates, or team members, take the plunge and start a conversation.

I am not a psychiatrist nor a psychologist. After doing research for this book and spending time with psychiatrist Dr. Adam Stein and hypnotherapists Wes Rupel, Debbie Papadakis, and Rahim Jiwa I find the study of brain function and mental illness fascinating. Eventually, during a relapse in my recovery I discovered my heart was the catalyst for a more profound recovery.

The information and opinions expressed in this book are mine. I have backed up my thoughts and opinions to the best of my abilities, and I have relied on my experiences of struggling with severe depressive feelings for 57 years — 27 years undiagnosed and 30 years of diagnosed clinical depression. This has been a very personal journey for me, and I am honored you’ve decided to join me. You will see that I frequently mention I wouldn’t wish my experiences on anybody, yet this book wouldn’t have been possible without the life I have lived thus far.

The book has three distinct parts. In THE JOURNEY, I will relate a condensed version of my life as a parent, as a son, a brother, and leader, and the effect depression has had on my life. In RECOVERY, I will present simple, straightforward definitions of various types of depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. I will relate personal stories and other stories I have permission to share. We will explore well-known depressed individuals and their experiences. I will discuss medication, my thoughts on the medical health community, and strategies for eliminating the reliance on medication for depression. In RELAPSE, I will describe how getting too cocky and self-indulgent led to a very difficult revisiting of the depression and yet was necessary for the realizations I experienced.

Ultimately, my objectives are to dispel myths, provide new information, present strategies, and, finally, to help you, my readers, live better, happier, and more productive lives.

We need to take the mentally ill from a place of shame to a place of dignity (John Tory, Mayor of Toronto, speaking at the Mental Health & Cities Summit, April 2018).

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Depression

What does a functioning depressed leader’s mind feel like? Imagine a browser with 1,287 tabs open...all at the same time.

Worldwide, a small number of people can be described as true entrepreneurs. By true, I mean laying it all out on the line every day. We don’t look for greatness because that is not the goal.

The goal is to create, do good by the world, and of course make a profit! We, as an entrepreneurial leadership community, have led the world with respect to inventions, innovation, cures, and significant employment. A book on leadership and depression would be incomplete if there wasn’t a discussion of how depression is related to leadership, and especially as it relates to entrepreneurs.

Yet the two, leadership and depression, couldn’t be more polar opposite.

• Leadership is based on courage while depression is fearful.

• Leadership is full of hope while depression is hopeless.

• Leadership looks at possibilities while depression looks for disaster.

• Leadership craves the audience while depression prefers to avoid the crowd.

• Leadership is full of energy and depression wants a nap.

In an article for the Globe and Mail, contributor Chris Gory states:

According to a 2013 study by Morneau Shepell, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that entrepreneurs are more likely to experience mental health conditions than the general public. In fact, these mental health concerns have been reported across 72 per cent of entrepreneurs.²

As a person who has struggled with clinical depression and who is also an entrepreneur, I can firmly attest that those who match this combination have more issues to deal with than a person with good mental health. We deal with both sides of the coin: outwardly to be the positive and proactive leader required for success, and inwardly someone who sees the negative first and is in a constant mode of fear.

Entrepreneurs measure time from deadline to deadline. We feel the need to be in perpetual motion or we’ll fail. Entrepreneurship coupled with depression becomes more like an addictive relationship; we require success to counteract the debilitating fear.

The 2016 Gallup Well-Being Index claims,

45% of entrepreneurs report being stressed, and in another survey of 242 entrepreneurs, 30% identified as depressed, and 72% of entrepreneurs have a family history of mental illness.³

Chris Gory, in the article for the Globe and Mail, makes a statement that an entrepreneur with mental illness can identify with:

Entrepreneurial swagger is often a thin veneer masking crippling self-doubt, insecurity, and a fear of catastrophic failure. The more successful you are, the more people depend on you, and the more at stake if you fail. If you feel like you’re living on the edge of a knife, you are not alone.⁴

Not alone indeed.

Ben Huh, author of When Death Feels Like a Good Option, says:

Loneliness, darkness, hopelessness…those words don’t capture the feeling of the profound self-doubt that sets in after failure. Loneliness. Darkness. Hopelessness. Those words describe the environment of depression. Self-doubt? That shakes you to the core and starts a fracture in your identity that makes you question if you should even exist anymore.⁵

To some, the preceding may seem melodramatic. To those of us who suffer from depression, this is our everyday existence.

Unfortunately, we believe(d) masking depression as an entrepreneur and/or leader is critical for success. People rely on us for their livelihood and we have families to support. So, in order to portray the confidence and assertiveness of leadership, we mask our true feelings of desperation and fear. God forbid anyone sees the loneliness, darkness, and hopelessness, and this is exhausting work.

I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with numerous hired gun leaders, leaders without skin in the game. In my experience, some of these folks tend to idolize and dream of the entrepreneurial life, while other leaders are content to lead their organizations effectively and successfully as employees. The truth is these leaders are not immune to the ravages of depression or other mental illnesses. Public company leaders are at the mercy of the pressure to provide shareholder value. They tend to live a quarter by quarter existence. This is a highly stressful existence; mental health issues are just as prevalent in these leaders as they are with entrepreneurial leaders. This book is for both these leaders.

Let’s start with simple recommendations to help in minimizing depression, most of which are common sense for normal functioning individuals and yet more important with suffers of mental illnesses:

If you don’t nourish your body with exercise, your brain will not function as well as it could. Exercise does not have to be a two-hour-a-day struggle. Activities such as simply going for a walk several times a day are effective. Walk outside so you are nourishing yourself with fresh air. You’d be surprised how quickly you can walk 10,000 steps per day. Simple stretching in the morning before starting your day is an effective way to keep active. Play organized sports — age appropriate, of course. For me, I love to swim, as the buoyancy makes exercise easy. In the past, I would go for walks around the building of our head offices, two to four times a day. This aided in clearing my mind, and the simple act of mobility would allow my brain to clear space for what was to come. If I had a long meeting to attend, I generally went for a walk prior to the meeting to prepare and then afterwards to debrief myself.

A diet of fast food and loading up on carbohydrates is not a healthy way to live. You wouldn’t fill the tank of your Ferrari with regular gas, would you? No, you’d use the high-octane fuel recommended in the car’s manual. Start by just having three meals a day. As the leader of my former companies, I’d miss both breakfast and lunch consistently. Then I’d have a very large dinner. Our bodies are designed for regular refueling. This type of behavior can sap the energy out of a person, as well as adding needless poundage. Eating well-balanced meals with all food groups included is a good practice to develop. If at all possible, stay away from processed foods. And drink water or choose a beverage with a lot of electrolytes. Human beings are fifty-to seventy-percent water, depending on age. Perspiration occurs at a rapid rate, especially during emotional and stressful situations. Based on my personal experience, a person struggling with depression requires more frequent