My Personal

journey From Darkness to Light

Hi, I am Scott Lifer, the founder and CEO of Wake Up Sense. With Wake Up Sense I’m on a mission to help people heal from depression naturally, recover their vitality, and feel empowered about their own health. But before I started on this path I was in a lot of pain. I was suffering from not only depression and anxiety but the adverse effects of the antidepressant medication I was taking.

I want to share my story with you to help you see where I’m coming from. My journey has led me to where I am today and continues to inspire me to share with everyone the natural and holistic ways of healing I found.

The beginning

Like most young people starting out on their career I was convinced the only way to stay on the fast track treadmill to success was to stay focused, stay numb to stress, and just push forward. With this mindset I entered the world of commodity training. At the tender age of 23 I was put into an environment that exuded stress. In fact, after you are in that sweat box, you actually can’t survive without it, it’s who you become. Red Lights going off, phones constantly wringing, and 30 alpha males shouting from 8 am to 5 pm.

Looking back, my mental state was almost always in a state of heightened anxiety. But when you are young, full of life and vigor, you tend to bury the anxious feelings. You don’t allow yourself to get caught up in that little twitch you get from overwork, that brief but impactful first brain fog moment or that first time your once exuberant step onto the floor out of bed is no longer effortless.

It’s no secret how stress impacts our bodies and minds. While the health and fitness industry focuses heavily on exercising our body and converting stress into strength, the focus on exercising or building our brain to deal with stress is not as strong. Anyway as you can probably guess, that high stress lifestyle eventually got to me.

The beginning

I was well beyond my stressful trading days and just shy of 40. I thought I had it all figured out then. You know, a good job with good pay, the classic 9 to 5-er. Except that I was dealing with the IRS besides other financial problems and debts. It was October 7, 2006, my birthday of all days. And like most Fridays, a special one indeed as I took the day off to celebrate a classic “me” day. I had a great morning workout (like always), and was sitting in a classic Ma and Pa cafe waiting for my eggs and sausage to arrive while reading the morning paper.

All of a sudden, my hands began to sweat, my vision blurred, my heart started to pound like it was going to burst out of my chest and I thought for sure I was going to pass out right there in that restaurant. My mind went blank and my vitals went limp and the next thing I remember is being strapped, poked with needles, and hooked up to oxygen.

In those disorienting moments of life you realize something with absolute certainty. Your life as you knew it has changed. I spent four hours in the hospital. A battery of tests were done. All this while I was thinking why? Is this the beginning of a life of heart problems? What do I do now? Is it just a natural progression of life?

I knew I must find a way to never have to go to the hospital again from an episode like that. I began to research everything I could on keywords and topics to help heal my newly labeled “anxiety attack” brought on by suppressed depression. I was absolutely determined to find the answer to help me fix the problem.

My introduction to antidepressants

And that led me straight to the path of antidepressants, benzodiazepine to be specific. Wikipedia describes it as:

A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior.

Now if you are fresh off your first anxiety attack and find this on Google, it must seem like you’ve found your quick fix right? It might bring you back to normal right? After all, if my family doctor or mental health psychiatrist has prescribed them for my label of depression, it must be a good thing. So I was put on Effexor and Klonopin back in 2006, two very much marketed and sensationalized BENZOs at the time.

Enter side effects

Soon thereafter, and I mean soon, all the side effects crept up on me like that ever increasing monthly credit card bill you see when you have the mindset of “It’s only one more charge.” Yes, there is no denying, I felt the euphoria at first. I could finally sit in an airport and not feel like I was going to jump out of my skin. I could finally eat at the dinner table with my 10 year old son and 5 year old daughter and actually listen to them without feeling like my head was going to pop off my shoulders.
I knew when I was traveling away from the mundane of my routine and would no doubt get “those feelings” I had my little mini helpers with me to ease the jolt. The occasional anxious feeling was now being replaced by night sweats, uncontrollable convulsions that felt like a freight train in my melon and even thoughts of suicide when the demons would come. And, Oh My God, did they come!

Post drugs and into the light

After years of suffering from the horrible side effects of antidepressants I had finally had enough. I knew I had to find a different path, a path where I could feel like myself again, that healed my mind without harming my body. I wanted to feel truly well and not be dependent on those little brain foggers. I wanted to be able to really feel all my senses and be free from the added stress brought on by pharmaceutical drugs.

This very strong desire in me to feel alive again led me on a path of discovery, educating myself on what actually goes on inside our bodies, and finding holistic solutions to my problem through natural means without poisoning my body. My personal journey of recovery was so exhilarating that I made it my mission to share it with the world.

Everyone gets stressed, it’s part of life, our bodies get taxed and our minds go astray. But the solution to feeling better is not through a chemically engineered and synthetic drug made in a laboratory. I, along with my team of industry professionals, am here to share a better way to heal the body and mind at the cellular level through orthomolecular medicine and education on the truth about our bodies that empowers the masses.

So if you’ve ever suffered from mental agony and wish to feel well again, I invite you to walk the path of true healing with us. Take the first step and click here to read more.

By Scott A. Lifer, Co-Founder
Copyright, 2013. All Rights Reserved.