Phoenix Rising Online Blog

I find myself creating new milestones as I start to move forward and today being my Anniversary with my Ex-wife is as good as any to pick a new one. I have closed the last chapter that tied me to the past and look forward to all my new relationships, both personal and professional.The one event that my protector says was my downfall is now gone. It has been over four years since my divorce and to say the road into the abyss has been difficult is an understatement. The slate has finally been swept clean and with Gods help I look forward to the future.

The one thing for sure is I am done finding new bottoms and will accept nothing but progress from here forward. I have made a ton of mistakes and the time has come to put them to good use and move on.

It is amazing how when you are feeling both physically and mentally better how much easier it is to function and make decisions. My therapist(AKA crazy doctor) told me last Friday how she wanted to consider long term disability for me, but she knew that given my personality it would have made me worse in the long run. She said she had never met a person with more character and determination willing to work through what most people would have considered overwhelming odds. 

With her guidance I have been able to handle all the negative influences in my life by breaking down the big picture into pieces and putting away those people and experiences that have have so adversely affected me. Between those mental excercises and medication the fog of depression is almost completley gone. It has helped me understand the OCD component of my personality that tends to keep the record of destruction playing over and over in my head.

We have our next interview with Mel Robbins this week and it will be interesting to see what she has to say.

With A Smile-Cory

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For the very first time since the beginning of PhoenixRising, I finally feel the name taking on my life. When I first started this three months ago, I had the pile of ashes to rise from part down completely, but the rising part was completely in question as to which direction it was going to take. After Black Sunday, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make it.

In three short weeks I feel the shape of my new life starting to take form. Career wise I have taken a position with a company that has given me the complete freedom to do what I do best with out looking over my shoulder and that is saying a lot when you are talking about a company whose combined sales have just past the $1billion dollar mark.

Personally I know that by this time next year my kids will be a part of my life because I know they understand my love for them and once their mother sees progress on the monetary front, the present hold that restricts them from seeing me will be lifted.

I also see my personal life getting better in the near future because I have faith that now that a lot of the stress that has strangled me for the past 5 years is gone, the real Cory will be able to open up, making it so much easier to develop relationships.

With A Smile-Cory

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It has been two full weeks since Black Sunday and if anything has become more clear to me, it is putting the past behind me and learning to not worry about tomorrow but accept today for what it is-a gift and a chance to start new and live the life I have always wanted. When I started this blog along with the website I wanted to keep religion out of what I was doing, but after Black Sunday it has become evident to me that not only could I not avoid God’s help and guidance in righting the ship, but excepting him into my life was absolutely essential. Now I am not talking about wearing a robe and building an Ark like Evan Almighty but what I am trying to say is I am willing to accept I can not do this alone.

Going to Church again seems to bring me a strength I have not felt ever. The underlying stress, anxiety and pain that has followed me now for as long as I can remember is at such a low level that for the first time since I was a teenager I feel normal.

I have spent so much time trying to avoid religion because I could not accept a God that continually allows bad things to happen that for the longest time I have tried to operate like the Lone Ranger believing I needed no ones help but my own. Changing that attitude I believe is the  break point for which positive things will happen.

I worked so hard at believing in the bad that now is the time to continue the transformation in my neuro-pathways that says it is time for Good to Happen.

With a Smile-Cory

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When rebuilding your life so many factors come into play that at times knowing which step to take first can be a daunting task to say the least. The OCD component of my personality doesn’t help the situation. It is so easy to stall in any attempt to move forward by letting the past get in the way.

I for the first time in my life decided to go to church Sunday and ask God for help and guidance in making the correct steps that would lead me away from the ledge of despair I have been running along and guide me towards a life of peace and happiness. I was so nervous walking into the Hall but I must say by time I left the service a sense of calmness and peace set over me that is hard to describe. I have set plans in motion including the start of a new job that will allow me for the first time in 5 years go on the offensive as far as living and controlling my life is concerned.

It is hard to explain but I have put together 5 very productive, happy and fulfilling days both professionally and personally that I believe for the first time in a very, very long time are starting to lay the foundation for my future. I do not want to get to far ahead of myself but I have actually felt like the old Cory this week. That in and of itself is a miracle because I never thought that would come back in any shape or form.

They say it takes 30 days of new thinking to create new neuro-pathways in your brain to affect real change in your thinking. Last Sunday was day one of positive affirmations that I will use to create these pathways. The cornerstone of these affirmations is my three kids and the hope someday I will get a second chance to be the father figure they expect and want to be around. I know someday that chance will come whether individually or collectively. No matter who I ultimately start my new life with, the kids will realize how much I truly love them.

With A Smile-Cory

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Reset and Recovery-What do you do when the past and prospects of the future are so overwhelmingly stacked against you that the will to continue comes into doubt. Lets recap where I am and try to make sense of what has happened.

After surviving a very traumatic and stressful experience in New York that left me suffering from PTSD, depression and anxiety, I came to Phoenix to start my life over with my family. Not wanting to deal with the hurt and pain of the past I put it into a corner recess of my mind and set out to start my new life and provide for my family. Starting completely from scratch I was able to build a very successful company that provided my family pretty much anything they wanted while also allowing me more time to spend with them.

As the business continued to grow I realized one thing, my better half still did not seem to be happy and as time went by, we seemed to grow apart. As we continued to lose our ability to communicate with one another, I did something very stupid and had an affair.

The resulting four year slide that has culminated with my loss of everything including my three kids has left me in a state of total despair. The seemingly insurmountable financial and personal challenges that lie ahead of me are nothing short of colossal. Faced with a legal battle that I must fight on my own and a child custody battle that from what I can see as being nothing short of futile makes me wonder and beg the question; Why?

I have gotten my first glance at the medical records of my kids and the portrayal of myself as a monster is an understatement. Pile on top the financial obligations I am expected to pay back and the state of my current situation and “Vapor Lock” would best describe how I am progressing. This past weekend was a most definite step backwards that has left me re-evaluating everything. You find who your true friends are and to say I am a lousy judge of character is an understatement. To those who have stood by me, I Thank You.

I have no idea what the future holds moving forward, and the only way I can proceed from here is One Step At A Time-Living In The Moment. I can’t worry about the past or stress about the future but instead live each day -one by one.

This is a true survival story-one I am determined to have a happy, positive and successful outcome with.

With A Smile-Cory

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Just a quick note on our show with Mel Robbins, we were rescheduled for this coming Tuesday. We also landed our first TV interview on the Gregory Mantell TV show and it looks like we are going to tape on September 9th.

Yesterday my kids left to spend the month in New York and as I mentioned before, they are spending half the month with my brother which does nothing more than tear at my soul. It is completely Ironic that my brother and Ex now have a cozy relationship. At the height of the physical beatings in New York which averaged about one a month, my ex actually knocked him out once in defense of me. You see, the last couple of years there I became so depressed by the constant stress over work and family relationships, I literally turned into a zombie.

The instance my ex attacked him was on a Monday after another 32 hour weekend by myself, and my brother was mad that something that happened in the press room and came into the office yelling and screaming about something, threw his coffee at me and started his ritual beating. When we were done he went about his business like nothing happened, in the mean time I called my father begging him to do something but as usual he did nothing, my ex called in the mean time, she knew something was wrong, she said “He did it again, didn’t he?” I couldn’t answer, she hung up the phone drove into the office, he confronted her right away and she punched him right in the mouth. I was working in the shop and did not even see it. For every story I tell about that chapter of my life, there are hundreds more I could tell. The sense of hopelessness was so overwhelming, that it manifested itself physically in my head with this thick fog that settled in that made functioning almost impossible. The days became so miserably long, I had nothing to look forward to other than getting home to bed and pulling the blanket over me and completely withdrawing.

I will tell more of this compelling story in my next blog.

With A Smile-Cory

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Hearing back from Mel after Tuesdays show was a real boost at the right time. Whenever you start a new venture, you run through periods of doubt, especially at the beginning when you are trying to get it off the ground.  Although the website has been up and running for less than a month, we’ve had more positive responses than in my entire lifetime of printing. That fact does not stop the voice of doubt and depression from still trying to take control.

Some of the outside factors that contribute to the doubt is the ongoing isolation from my kids. even my ex-girlfriends daughter is a loss I have had to deal with. She is such a bright and shining star that I miss her as much as my own kids. She has endured the loss of her brother in a car accident and the effect it has had on her mother but not a day went by that I did not see her smile, laughing or singing. On the other hand, I see my kids who had everything but because of my Ex and her Holier- Than-Thou attitude has dragged all three of them into her blackhole of anger and hate. She scares me to death, because if she has told me once she has told me a hundred times how each of my kids want to hurt themselves over what has happened.

Although I miss my kids very much, the one positive is I do not speak to my Ex at all and to be honest I hope I never do again. Just the sound of her voice affects my physiology instantly, my stomach cramps, my heart races and the muscles tighten activating the fibro.

Meeting with my attorneys Thursday also slapped me with a dose of reality as far as my future is concerned. No matter what happens in the courts, I know my Ex is never going to change when it comes to my kids. I am faced with the reality that in some sick perverted way distancing myself from them is actually the best course. If I try to stand and fight the prolonged exposure by the kids to the noise and pressure will only hurt them more in the long run.  I love them so much I just do not want them to suffer anymore.

With A Smile-Cory

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I know I was going to write more about my New York experience and my brother but would rather speak first about my interview Yesterday with Mel Robbins on Make It Happen. To say it did not go exactly the way I planned would be an understatement. I went on hoping to promote the website but instead spent most of the segment talking about my past and what happened. When people do not know you personally and they hear your story and all your ailments they figure you to be more a cripple than someone who can rise above the mess. In any event, Mel is going to have me back on next Tuesday to promote the website and tell more of the story. I see a radio show in my future called “CRAZY WITH CORY.”

I did have a dream last night about my plant manager we called Mr. Herman, an amazing man 80 years old that has the fight and energy of a 20 year old. I remembered him thinking over the last couple years I had really bad allergies because when I would get to work in the morning, my eyes would be all puffy and I did not want to tell him that I actually was crying from the pain of the fibromyalgia. I knew the entire situation with my ex, work, and my health was effecting my relationship with my girlfriend so I would try to hide the pain as best I could from her but many times I would breakdown on my ride to work because I knew I was going to be exposed to situations that only aggravated the problem. I guess talking about the pain on the show stirred that memory.

I will write more about New York in a couple of days.

With A Smile- Cory

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I have put off writing my next entry a few days for two reasons. The first is I am not sure where to start when it comes to my brother and my experience in New York. There is so much to the story that I am afraid once I start, the entry will turn out to be one not typically seen in a blog but more like one consuming many chapters of a book.

My second reason is I have my first Interview on the national radio show, Make It Happen with Mel Robbins tomorrow and I wanted to see how that develops to help me better understand where to take this.

In any event, when it comes to explaining what happened in New York I have to write down little details and let my mind digest the info and hope more pieces of the story come back to me. There are entire blocks of my 20’s and 30’s I do not remember and my CRAZY doctors tell me that it is my bodies way of protecting itself, similar to the black out of an accident or traumatic experience. The one thing I have noticed is the thoughts start to come back to me first in my dreams, in the form of nightmares. I keep a journal next to my bed so that when I wake up in the middle of the night and the image is fresh in my mind I quickly write it down before I forget.I typically make it through the night by turning the temperature way down, usually about 65 degrees, put the ceiling and desk fan on high and sleeping with as little clothing as possible. I will typically  wake up at least once in a pool of sweat and shaking feverishly. If the room is not cold I might as well sleep in a swimming pool because within a few ours of sleeping I will wake up soaking wet.

I have a bunch of experiences and thoughts I want to tell and I will write a new entry Wednesday, after the interview.

In the mean time I will try to stay dry.

With A Smile-Cory

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Today being Fathers Day, I will need to keep myself busy, knowing I can not speak to my kids will create a sense of emptiness that I can not accept. I know eventually I will get a chance to put the peaces of our relationship together and I just have to be patient and let the court system work. It just breaks my heart that everyday that goes by, is a day I do not get back. My Ex is a master at playing the game. Now that she has an attorney, she sent me a courtesy letter letting me know the kids are going to New York in July to see family. The fact they are going back does not bother me but what does is the fact they are going to spend half of the time staying with my brother.

What makes that fact interesting, is my Ex could not stand him up until a year ago when it served her purpose to campaign for her support of “Lets Destroy Cory Campaign.” My brother whom I can assure you I will never see or speak to again, was the final ingredient for my PTSD to form and take shape.

This kid also worked for my family and the day he started is the day I should have gotten out. His personality was a lot more like my Dads and the two of them formed a bond that wreaked havoc on my soul. If he had a bad day, you knew I was going to have one also. He would routinely physically attack me in the shop and my father, the only one capable of doing anything about it, just figured it was sibling rivalry, meaning I had to shut up and take it.

I remember one Friday afternoon, I was doing a press OK with a customer. We were looking at a press sheet in the office and out of nowhere my brother comes running in screaming and attacking me. I will never forget the look on the customers face and when my brother finished, my father came in the office, shrugged his shoulders and went back to his office and hid behind his computer. My consolation prize was they all got the pleasure of going home for the weekend while I worked another 30 hours between Saturday and Sunday because we were so busy.

My brother was such a social misfit, that to this day, I still feel sorry for him. The only clue he would give that he was going to explode, was his eyes would roll in his head and he would grimace just like John Gruden of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers does on the side lines of a football game.

The point about my brother in this blog, is my wonderful, wholesome, devout Catholic Ex made a point to let me know the kids would be staying with him. The very thought of my kids getting any advice from him scares me to death.

Anyway, more on my brother in my next blog.

With A Smile-Cory

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