For the last two years, I feel like I've been on a P.R. run discussing my mental health film work or doing talks about my experience with suicide and mental health, but I've never sat down to dissect everything. It seems like it's all been summarized, and I haven't gone into any detail on bad it got. I want this written post to be a beacon of light for someone who thinks they can't get better or will never see the light. I'm here to prove you wrong. To add validation to that, in 2021, I opened my notes app and wrote down all the ways I could kill myself. I've been there, and I know many people have. It's a strange place to be in. You feel like you've exhausted all options and have nothing to give. The great news is that you have so much more to offer, it may just take time, but I promise you that the feeling of looking back and knowing you made it out of that hole is much stronger than that feeling of wanting to end everything.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Starting in 2011, I got my first camera. It was a 1080p Samsung handycam, and it was awesome. I remember being so stoked to document my friends and skating and having a tool to share my memories with others, most importantly myself. Shortly after this, I got a DSLR for my birthday. Now I was able to take videos and photos. It never left my side. I was also taking pictures and always looking for that subsequent frame. I had found my love. From watching videos on Vimeo and youtube, I saw other creators doing incredible work, including JOHANNA MUSKAT GREVE.I found this guy through Call of Duty videos in middle school, and he eventually did like me, got a camera, and started making films. They were beautiful, and they made me want to make similar films. I bring up this name because it ties into the end of this post. This guy was the visual representation of who I wanted to be like. I watched him grow from a young filmmaker like me to getting into the commercial and narrative world. It was inspiring.
Shortly after getting my camera and learning how to use it, I wanted to make music videos because I saw other filmmakers Like Frank Paladino and Rex Arrow make music videos with the cameras I was using for artists I listened to, such as Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa. I was lucky to be in a city like Dallas with an emerging music hip-hop scene, and I only wanted to make skate and hip-hop music videos at the time. Something about those two felt the same to each other. They were both raw in content and style. You made up your own rules, and it was lame to try and be like someone else. Style and steeze were the barometers for how original you were.
I started shooting music videos for a rap group at my high school and went from there. I was in a constant state of creating and didn't care what anyone said. From the local music scene, I connected with a music manager, MSAW of Iras. This was when everything changed. Matt (MSaw) became a close friend, and we probably made 20+ music videos together with him and his label when I was in high school. If I had to give anyone credit for this journey, then it would be him and my A.V. teacher in high school, Josh Phillips. Both of them saw my potential and pushed me in that direction.
At the time, I worked at a bar-b-que spot in town and would work there during the week after school and shoot music videos on the weekend. I booked a shoot with an artist I met through Msaw, Deveon, and he wanted me to shoot a video for him. The issue was that I had to work that day and couldn't request off, so I skipped work, made the music video, and came into work the next time but with a suspension because I missed it. I quit and decided to put all my time into high school and filmmaking. I kept making music videos every weekend and even shot a show for Post Malone in 2013. Except he had no following. The show was about 12 people, so I had no idea he would turn into the machine he did.
From that time until graduating high school, I entered an awards show for Dallas Filmmaker of the Year and won it. This was the moment something felt different. I knew I could do this. My parents believed in me, and I was ready to move on to the next level. I moved to Chicago for school because the emerging music scene was on another level. The Cool Kids, Chance, Vic, Lucki, Mick, Hurt Everybody, Martin Sky. It was stacked. I moved to Chicago and pursued that dream. I sometimes have a hard time remembering what moments felt like, but that feeling of the first day in Chicago with my whole life ahead of me was a feeling that will never leave me. That was the start of my career.
From 2014-2018 I grinded every day. I was so hungry to grow as a creative. I moved to LA in 2016 and NYC in 2019. I was on the path to being everything I wanted to be and, without knowing it, was on the trajectory Johanna inspired me on in high school.
2019 is when things changed. My whole life before was filled with inspiration and hunger. I was making something every day, traveling the world, and working with incredible people, but I hit a point where I felt I had lost myself. I was curious to know what I was creating for. I realized the only things I had created in the last five years were all style, no substance. I looked around and saw my friends doing significant work, and I was making subpar music videos. I was fortunate enough to meet a director from Chicago when I lived in L.A., and we started to make projects together. We formed a directing duo and pursued that, and it was the first time I felt like I was creating something from substance mixed with style. We made a motocross commercial for Redbull, a wrangler film with my grandfather, and a doc film in Mexico, but I still felt empty.
I was feeling depression and anxiety for the first time in my life at 24. I didn't know what to do because this was a new feeling, and I was unsure how to understand it. In 2020 right before covid locked down, I was in a hole of depression. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted in life. I remember being in Mexico shooting that doc and driving alongside a cliff and thinking that if I opened the door and jumped out, I could end all of this and not feel like this anymore. I was in a very dark place. I backed out of all future projects with my directing partner and explained to him what I was feeling. To this day, he's never reached out or checked in. When I said I was out, that was the last time we spoke. I worked with this person for over two years and traveled the country with them, yet it seemed like it didn’t matter. It seemed that no one cared about me.
For most of 2020, I was an anxious shell of a human. I felt the opposite of the Parker who stepped into Chicago on the first day and thought I could conquer the world.
The peak of all this was when I was in Austin with my girlfriend, and it hit me. I sat down on a bench with her, cried, and wept for what felt like forever. I didn't know who I was anymore. I couldn't see a future with anything in my life and had no idea where to turn. It's scary because you can't just take a pill and make it go away or go for a walk. You exist in this mess you desperately want to clean up.
From 2020-2021 I was at my lowest. I was in therapy, and that was helping, but I didn't know the cause of all of this. It wasn't something I could point at to make sense of, which creates more panic because you feel crazy. I decided to get on depression medication, which was when my life hit its lowest. That medication stripped me of every feeling. I couldn't sleep, eat or feel. That's when I didn't think it couldn't get any worse. So I opened my notes app and wrote down every way I could kill myself. I scrolled through all of them, making notes on what I didn't want to do because it would be painful or scary. There was no easy way out.
I found the courage one day to flush all those pills down the drain and try my hardest to stay alive. It was that same week that my therapist had an idea. She told me that since I’m a filmmaker, I should create a film about how I feel in hopes that maybe through the writing and creation of that, I would somehow come out of my shell. That is when I started the creation of Be Here Now. This was when everything changed.
HOW I FOUND MYSELF
When I started making Be Here Now, it was for myself. It was to speak on how I felt in life. I wore this mask of happiness and joy around everyone, yet when I got home, I'd curl up in a ball and cry to sleep, feeling crazy that I wasn't myself around others. No one had any idea I was so broken because I was the happiest to them. I could've won an Oscar for the performance I played. It was so opposite to how I felt inside. I was an emotional chameleon.
We made the film, which was everything I could have asked for. It gave me that purpose back in my life. I now knew what it felt like to make something that was my own. I had regained that feeling of how I felt in 2014, but now, with the wisdom of knowing what it feels like to go to the very bottom and somehow find a way to the light.
Making the film was all I wanted. It was for me and my sanity to show the world; it is normal to feel like this. To my surprise, it was a message that people needed to hear. Ten messages turned into 300 over the few weeks I put it out. People told me how they have felt like this before or now feel like it and feel better because someone else told the story they didn't know anyone else had. It went on to be one of the most well-received films I have made. It went on to win awards and even snagged global recognition at the Webbys for best mental health film of the year. It was indeed a moment I'll never forget. Months later, as I felt healed and more like myself, I wanted to make another film that was a sequel to this film to show the other side of depression, the healing. So we teamed up with Betterhelp and made I'm Here. This film was made to show that mental health isn't black and white. You don't get healed; you get better at managing these feelings. Depression doesn't have a cure, but it does have ways to break through it. I found my way to get out of it by talking about it and making films reflecting my feelings. It's something that gets better as it is released. The longer it stays inside, the longer it makes you feel like it will never end.
After making those 2 films, I was on youtube one day and saw a video that Johanna had made, and it reminded me that I hadn't kept up with him since high school. I wanted to send him Be Here Now, and I'm Here, and tell him my story and how he's inspired me to create and chase my dreams. I couldn't wait to talk to him. Sadly, after googling him, I saw that just a year ago, he had committed suicide.
I don't know if the appropriate word is irony, but it felt like it. I had grown up inspired by him, and part of me wished he could've stayed another year and watched Be Here Now and know that he's not alone in this. Maybe he wouldn't have seen it, but I think he would have enjoyed learning that he inspired me to make my first music video in 2012.
HOW I MOVE ON
Even after making these films and continuing to talk about my experience and connect with others who have felt this dark feeling, I still go through these feelings. Just this week, I've had trouble sleeping because of bad anxiety and even feeling depressed for some days, but I know it doesn't last forever and it is temporary. I've found my medium to release those feelings: writing/creating. Everyone can have a different medium, and that's the important part, taking time to find your release. In the world of A.I., filters, and Instagram, it's a rare moment to feel something truly real. I've learned to enjoy all of my emotions and have gotten better and learned how to feel them healthily. I wouldn't have created my most personal and authentic work without my darkest days. Case and point, for five years of pure bliss and happiness, I felt like I mainly created work that lacked authenticity and substance.
You don't have to wait for creativity to strike; you just need to feel something.