I didn't crash.
I was just tired all the time.
A few years ago, I lost myself. Nobody noticed, including me.
I'd built a life — husband, father, producer, provider, the guy who shows up. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being a guy at all. I became a function.
I didn't get bigger. Some men go through this and visibly balloon — and at least they know something's wrong. That wasn't me. The number on the scale barely moved. I just got softer. Quietly, steadily, I traded muscle for fat — same weight, different body. From the outside, fine. From the inside, terrible.
I'd been a professional athlete. Tennis players are some of the fittest humans on the planet. That mindset doesn't leave you. Even as I was gradually feeling weaker, slower, foggier, some part of my brain was still running the old program: I'm an athlete. I'm in shape. I know what my body can do.
Then Nicole — my wife — looked at me one morning, tilted her head, and said: "Babe. You look grey."
So I went to the doctor. The full panel.
I walked into that office thinking I was Spartacus. I walked out with a panel telling me I was the exact opposite. Gut punch doesn't begin to cover it.
The next seven days are the on-ramp back. Not the whole system — the on-ramp. Enough for you to feel a difference, prove to yourself that you're not broken, and decide whether to go further.