The following podcast contains discussion of suicide and self-harm, which some listeners may find disturbing.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or is an emotional distress,

contact the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988 or 988 lifeline.org.

Listener discretion is advised. For pretty much my entire adult life, I've had a dream that I'm in college and I realize that I haven't been going to class.

I don't even remember all the classes I signed up for or where they're located.

The problem is it's nearing the last few days of the semester so I'm walking all over the place trying to figure out courses, days of the week, room numbers, etc.

I decided not all that long ago to Google that dream and see if anyone else ever experienced it.

To my amazement, a lot of people have.

I suspect it as something that is triggered whenever a person is facing a deadline and has some anxiety over it.

If that were the case, then I shouldn't have

had the dream once I left the KC Star. However, I've had it a few times since then. Of course,

knowing the ultimate deadline was coming up August 15, 2013, might have been a trigger for it.

I still remember the first time I saw the headline.

It was August 16th, 2013, and I was not in a good place.

That summer, the Celtics had just traded Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, kicking off

a long rebuild

and really stalling my sports riding career. My personal life was in shambles. It was just one of

those situations where you look around and feel like all your friends and colleagues are passing

you by. A few months earlier, there had been a terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon.

A few months before that, there was Sandy Hook.

I wasn't feeling great about myself or humanity.

And then that afternoon, I was at my desk, scrolling through Twitter,

...