RETREAT

From whatever is causing you stress, busyness, distraction...

For 1 Week, or 1 day, or 1 hour, or 20 minutes...

RETREAT

Then...

RE-ENGAGE

HAPPINESS IS OVER THERE.

My first idol outside of my Mother and Father was Michael Jackson. I wanted to be everything that he was and have everything that he had: copious talent, fame, money, success and power. On the other side of those attainments, I swore, was my fulfillment and happiness. And so my quest began… 

• 5 years old = Professional Dancer. Won dance competition and met Michael Jackson.

• 7 years old = Became Michael Jackson’s “friend” and protégé.

• 9 years old = Moved to Hollywood. Professional Dancer and Actor.

• 11 years old = Professional Recording Artist.

• 12 years old = Professional Dance Teacher.

• 14 years old = Professional Dance Choreographer.

• 16 years old = Professional Stage Director.

• 17 years old = Professional Song Writer and Music Producer / Famous for being a celebrity Stage Director and Choreographer.

• 18 years old = Millionaire. Bought a million-dollar home.

• 20 years old = My own dance show on MTV.

• Talent, fame, money, success and power, accomplished.

• 22 years old = Professional Commercial and Short Film Director / No longer a millionaire.

• 24 years old = Emmy Award-winning Choreographer.

• 25 years old = 2 x Emmy Award-winning Choreographer.

• 26 / 27 years old = More of the same.

• 28 years old = Became a Father / Professional Hollywood Feature Film Director, momentarily, until = Nervous Breakdown #1.

• Four months later = Back to work Stage Directing for celebrity pop artists.

• 29 years old = Nervous Breakdown #2 = Disclosed for the first time that Michael Jackson sexually abused me as a child = Everything Changed.

Year after year, achievement after achievement, I swore my fulfillment and happiness were on the other side of each. But year after year, achievement after achievement, I could not find them. So again and again, I set my sights higher, believing that the achievements were just not large enough yet, and that was why I hadnʻt found fulfillment and happiness. But on that quest, I never found them. On that quest, I eroded and eventually crumbled.

I knew for many years that people said all the time, “Success and money will not make you happy.” But that was really hard to believe until I myself had achieved multiple successes, fame, money and power and was still not happy. I actually became more depressed, the more success I achieved because time after time, the expectation of fulfillment and happiness was not met. It felt like climbing a mountain and every time I looked up to the summit, it had moved further out of my reach. Nothing was ever enough. 

The crumbling forced me to question all that I believed to be true. What if there was no achievement or bundle of achievements that could ever make me happy? What then would be the purpose of work? What then would be the purpose of life? Thus, my next quest began…

You can click the following links to read a detailed account of that quest in the previous entries of BREAK TO HEAL, PART I, PART II, & PART III.

In summary, I left most of what I had always known; my dance, film and music career in the entertainment business, Los Angeles and my immediate family, packed up and moved to Hawaiʻi with my wife and son to start a new life. I dove head first into psychotherapy, Vedic Meditation, spiritual and psychological literature, spiritual studies, nature, parenting, volunteering, and new friendships. Slowly, film came back into my life in a new way, with a new purpose and new people, music came back into my life mostly as an avid enthusiast, and last but far from least, after about five years of painful aversion, dance finally found its way back into my heart and body.

My current relationship with fulfillment and happiness is as follows.

• I no longer allow myself (for any considerable length of time) to look for them in anything outside of myself; not in what I do, not in what I have, not in what I want, and not in my relationships.

• Iʻm constantly looking for how I can bring fulfillment and happiness to what I do, and to my relationships.

• I try my best to engage with my wife Amanda, our son and all of my relationships from a baseline of, "You are not responsible for or capable of making me happy. Therefore, I want to be with you, purely because I enjoy being with you. You owe me nothing.”

• I try to keep my material possessions and desires much more minimal. I like nice things but I will no longer allow myself to need them. If I desire and am able to acquire something nice, I try to soak in gratitude for my privilege and release attachment to it. I now deeply understand that the nature of all things is that they come and go, theyʻre shiny and then theyʻre rusty, they’re relevant and then theyʻre not. This also being the nature of all experiences, thoughts, emotions, you name it. The only permanence is impermanence.

• My definition of success has broadened tremendously. The focus has shifted from what can I get, to what can I give? I try my best to gauge a projectʻs success based upon how honest, courageous and vulnerable I was able to be, how it makes me feel, and do I feel it contributes to humanity in a positive way? Rather than whether other people think it is good or not. Which really always meant, do they think I am good enough?

• I try my best to no longer engage in comparison; gauging my worthiness based upon how my activities, achievements, and state of being stack up against John or Jane Doe. We are all on our own journey and our own timeline. I can look to others to be inspired but comparison is an irrelevant activity that delivers absolutely no positive outcome.

• I no longer believe that I, meaning this brain and body, am the author of what I create. I believe we are all particular windows through which the universe expresses and experiences itself; each window offering a slightly different view and each view of equal importance. When I am able to get my ego out of the way and joyfully surrender to what wants to manifest through me, everything naturally falls into place at its own pace and there is a profound absence of fear, pressure, friction, and anxiety.

All of these are constant practices for me that when engaged in consistently, I feel a sense of contentment, no matter the inevitable ups and downs of life. Pleasure and happiness come and go, but I now feel more deeply connected to something larger than my body, brain, thoughts and emotions, which carries me through this human experience with trust and purpose. No longer will I (for any length of time) search for fulfillment and happiness where it is not located; over there, when I achieve this thing, when I make that money, when Iʻm with that person, when Iʻm away from that person, when I change that person, when that person loves me, when I buy that thing, or when they tell me Iʻm good enough. 

Let us not act in order to be worthy. Let us know that we are worthy; then act. 

I wish you all health, love and contentment. Happy holidays. 

Love, Wade. 

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QUOTES THAT HAVE CARRIED ME, Part II

Dear Readers, the following is Part II of some of the incredible quotes that have carried me through the last five years. 

The names following the quotes are links.  

The following quote is often a powerful reminder whenever I find myself becoming rigid within any particular belief. 

"No truth is so sublime but it may be trivial tomorrow. People wish to be settled; Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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The following quotes have the capability to knock my internal control freak out of business and put me back on the road to joyful surrender. 

"Nature will not have us fret and fume. Our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless. Only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Speculation is the source of all suffering." -Thom Knoles

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"Established in being, perform action." -Bhagavad Gita.

For me, the above quote reminds me to release speculation, meditate, locate charm, and perform spontaneous right action. 

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"Nothing heals like pain." -Wade Robson

I find that we humans tend to unfortunately not make needed changes until the pain becomes so unbearable that we feel we no longer have a choice. Pain has softened me. Pain has humbled me. Pain has enabled me to know and feel joy. 

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Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the task ahead. 

"The journey of a thousand miles commenced with a single step." -Lao Tzu

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The first time I read the following quote, tears immediately fell from my eyes. 

"We cannot give our children what we donʻt have." Brené Brown from The Gifts of Imperfection.

I think my reaction was a combination of fear that I did not possess, and hope that I could achieve the embodiment of self-fulfillment I deeply wish for my son. I know I canʻt give him self-fulfillment, but I hope to be a good model.

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To help snap me out of not paying attention. 

"The universe is not short on wake-up calls. Weʻre just quick to hit the snooze button." -Brené Brown from The Gifts of Imperfection. 

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The following quote helps to rid me of the fear of taking a new leap into the unknown. A reminder that 24/7, 365, there is nothing going on but evolution. 

"No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” -The Alchemist

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I was 8 years old. My Mother, Sister and I were days away from moving to Los Angeles, California from Brisbane, Australia. Amidst a nervous breakdown, my Dad took me aside in the kitchen, looked me in the eyes and repeated to me several times...

"There is nothing you have to do." -Dennis Robson (Dad)

This quote came back into my consciousness early on in the healing process, post disclosing the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of Michael Jackson. These words from my Father have mobilized me amidst many moments of paralyzing fear and imagined pressure. 

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I have such deep gratitude for the teachers that I have had access to. I hope some of these quotes benefit you as well in your journey to live your highest life.

Love, Wade. 

BREAK TO HEAL, Part III.

Dear Readers, it may be helpful to read, “BREAK TO HEAL, PART I & PART II,” before reading Part III. 

We moved to Hawaiʻi in May 2013 and with deep gratitude I report that Hawaiʻi has enveloped us in infinite love ever since. The familial embrace is beyond compare, the friendships we have created are among the deepest of our lives and the land, ocean and air have grounded, cleansed and exalted our spirits. We have been humbly soaked in the Mana (Spiritual Energy) of Hawaiʻi. The most pointed focus of my life in Hawaiʻi so far has been internal healing. Nothing could truly move forward in my life unless that remained one of the first priorities. Divine organization brought a talented and mindful Hawaiʻi therapist into my life within the first few months, that specializes in many of the same techniques which electrified my healing process in LA, such as E. M. D. R. and Somatic Experiencing. I have had the privilege of seeing her weekly ever since. Vedic Meditation has also remained a powerful and life-changing daily practice for Amanda (my wife) and me. Other forms of healing have come via voracious reading, time in nature, parenting, husbandry, working with child abuse prevention organizations, running a support group for adult survivors of child abuse, and friendships. 

Periodically over the last four years, Dance has knocked on my door to let me know it was still there, if I wanted it. For the first couple of years, I would immediately shun it: “not a chance, no thank you.” My association with dance was still completely intertwined with Michael Jackson and therefore his sexually abusing me for seven years. I could not fathom ever dancing again. Then, slowly, a timid curiosity began to arise. A few times, when Dance came knocking, I would try something such as dance in my living room, at a party, or take a dance class. But these experiments would mostly end with me running in the other direction again, fast: still too much pain. 

Until, in about March of 2017, that knocking from Dance came again, but something was different in me this time: there was a level of magnetic charm and a childlike curiosity. I was finally able to acknowledge that once upon a time, Dance and I had a pure, simple, playful and joyful relationship and I was now curious if there might be a way to find and/or rebuild that relationship. So one morning, I woke up, and booked a date, about two weeks out, for me to teach a dance class in Hawaiʻi: one of my first in over five years. I suddenly felt it was time to try and thought that if it was a disaster, at least my conviction that I was not supposed to dance anymore would be concretized. 

That first class was quite an experience: muscle memory kicked in and I slipped right back into the role of dance teacher as if no time had passed. All of the students seemed to have an amazing experience in the class, but maybe as some sort of nervous system protection mechanism, I remained slightly numb and a layer removed. I think I was confused by how well it seemed to be going. Itʻs as though it would have been easier to understand if the class and I were a complete disaster. By the end of that night, the only thing I was clear about was that this was incredibly fertile ground for my evolution and I needed to keep diving in. I made the class a weekly occurrence.

Over the course of the next few classes I began to have an experience that was akin to my five-year-old relationship with dance: playful, experimental, joyful, invigorating and meaningful. This brings tears to my eyes as I write because for the last five years, I swore that dance was dead for me forever. Suddenly, enough healing had seemingly occurred that Dance and I could BEGIN AGAIN. Now each time I dance, I feel Michael Jackson and the sexual abuse expel from my body a little bit more. I now feel and understand that I am not the author of the dance; I am a vessel for creative intelligence to flow through me into the world, just as is every single one of us. I now comprehend for the first time in my life why I was given the gift of dance. It has become a vehicle for me to connect with people deeply, share my story, what I have learned so far, and listen intently to their stories, lessons and questions. My gratitude for this rebirth knows no boundaries. 

Upon surrendering whole-heartedly to the dance, and leaping into the unknown, it has been amazing to watch opportunities to expand this quest, effortlessly unfold. To watch areas of my life that were still plagued by friction, begin to heal. It all reminds me of these beautiful words from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

I am by no means finished healing; I believe I will be amidst that process for a long time, but my gosh have I experienced some profound healing so far. I am infinitely grateful.  

To all of the child abuse survivors out there who are living in silence: healing is possible, it is real, you will be believed and supported by many and you are not alone. Pay attention to when it is time to speak your truth. And once you begin, do not stop because every time you speak it, a drop of the pain leaves your heart, body and mind. 

To all of the survivors out there of any trauma, at any level: healing awaits you; ask for it, and take action towards it. You are worthy of love, light and belonging.

“Without jumping off its perch, the bird would never fly." -Mark Nepo

Love, Wade. 

QUOTES THAT HAVE CARRIED ME, Part I.

Dear readers, due to my travels, “BREAK TO HEAL, Part III,” will not be ready to publish until next Friday, December 8. In the meantime, I thought I would offer a short document containing some of the powerful quotes that have carried me through the last five years.  

I originally heard the following quote via Brené Brown’s TED talk which played a distinct role in inspiring me to first disclose my child sexual abuse. 

“We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.” -Brené Brown, from “The Gifts of Imperfection.”  

I came out of Yoga class and the following quote was staring at me from a card at the reception desk. It knocked me over. I bought the card. 

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anaïs Nin

The following three quotes came to me via my life-changing therapist (2012 to 2013) in Los Angeles, CA.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” -Helen Keller

The following quote helped me in releasing my white-knuckled grip on the entertainment business and opening my heart and mind to a new life. 

“When one door closes, another opens: but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” -Alexander Graham Bell

The following quote was on the side table next to my therapist's couch, staring at me, every time my mind was running rampant with fearful speculation.  

“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” -Mark Twain

The following quote is from a book that is never far from my side. 

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” -Eckhart Tolle, from “A New Earth.”

The following quote found me soon after the news of my lawsuit against Michael Jackson’s Estate and entities broke in the media. It has inspired me to keep moving forward many times. 

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

I continue to come back to the following quote whenever I feel discouraged about the pace of my emotional, behavioral and/or spiritual progress. 

“If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness.” -Lao Tzu, from “Tao Te Ching.”

Love, Wade Robson. 

BREAK TO HEAL, Part II.

Dear Readers, if you have not read “BREAK TO HEAL, PART I,” I recommend you do so before reading the below.

Itʻs May 2012. Iʻm sitting across from my therapist of about three weeks, an hour or so into our session and the idea of saying the thing I need to say, the thing I have never said, is frenetically floating in my mind. “Say it….Say it!” says an inner voice. I take a deep breath and finally, I surrender. “Michael Jackson...molested me.” My eyes and the therapist’s eyes lock, my nervous system forms rank, walls go up, and numbness reigns. 

Most of the rest of that session and the drive from it is a blur to me now. As was previously planned, I drove straight to meet my wife Amanda, our son, my brother and sister at Food Truck Tuesdays in Venice, California. As I had done for most of my life and was incredibly good at, I bottled it all up and walked into that gathering as if everything was just fine and just the same. I hugged and kissed our baby boy, Amanda and my siblings and we all sat around an outdoor table and caught up. 

Then, my sister stayed with our son at the table while Amanda, my brother and I went to get some food from the trucks. Out of nowhere, my brother said, in a playful tone, that his wife had a crazy dream the night before. She dreamt that all the stories and accusations about Michael Jackson molesting me were actually true. I couldn’t believe this just came out of his mouth. Time stopped. Usually I would have cracked some sort of irreverent joke at that point along the lines of, “Dude, if he did molest little boys, why didn’t he molest me? I wasn’t sexy enough?” But suddenly, I no longer had the capacity to react in the same old way. Post the session I had just come from, everything was different now. My head sunk and my heart throbbed. “It is true," I said quietly. “What?” said my Brother. I raised my head, “Itʻs true.” My brother’s chest puffed out in anger. Amanda's whole body caved in as if sheʻd been hit by a boulder. The man from the food truck yelled out that our food was ready. 

All experiencing our own level of shock, we went back to the table and I told my sister. Immediately, tears streamed down her face. There was lots of confusion, questions, crying, anger, sadness and support. This was all so new: I didnʻt know how to talk about it, I didnʻt know what to do next and neither did they. It had been 22 years of living a lie, most pointedly for me, but also for my entire family. 

I believe it was that night or the next morning at the latest, that Amanda asked me one of the heaviest questions Iʻve ever received. “Iʻm sorry but I have to ask you this," she said. “Do you have any confusion about our son?” I understood that what she meant was, due to my being molested as a child, did I have any urges to molest our son? A painful question to hear but one of the easiest Iʻve ever had to answer. “No, absolutely not. He is the reason I finally spoke the truth about what happened to me and have begun this healing journey. My relationship with him is one of the few things I have clarity on.” This speaks to Amandaʻs strength and clarity as a human and as a Mother. This was a hard question for her to ask me, but she knew in her heart that she had to and didn’t hesitate. 

My therapist gave me a book entitled “Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for Men Recovering From Sexual Abuse.” "This book isnʻt about me," my terrified mind told me, but nonetheless I began to read, albeit skeptically. Almost immediately, I swore that the words I was reading were written specifically about me. The descriptions and male survivor testimonials about common symptoms, distorted beliefs, behaviors, fears, and longings were so undeniably aligned with my own experience that I was absolutely blown away. It was starting to make so many aspects of my life make sense. I took the book everywhere with me and read it voraciously. But I had my wife create a book cover for it because I was too ashamed of people seeing what it was that I was reading.

I was extremely nervous to tell my mother about the sexual abuse, so I organized for her to come into a therapy session with me, enabling me to have the Therapistʻs support. The moment I told her that Michael sexually abused me, tears cascaded down her face, she let out a wailing cry and kept repeating the words “Why didnʻt you tell me?” She grabbed me and hugged me while she sobbed but I couldnʻt quite hug her back. At that point, I had so much confusion as to how I felt towards her. 

I went through many emotional and mental phases in the beginning stages of healing from the sexual abuse: confusion, shame, loss, sadness, hopelessness, anger, surrender, forgiveness, wonderment, release, clarity, and hope, to name a few. And not in a linear fashion.

I could no longer bear to dance, make music, watch or make films. In my mind, heart and body, Michael was the reason I started doing all of those things, therefore they were all deeply intertwined with the sexual abuse I suffered at his hands from seven to fourteen years old. I felt I could no longer be a part of the entertainment business because it too was synonymous with Michael for me and therefore the sexual abuse. But the problem was that dance, music, film, and the entertainment business were all I had ever known, all I had ever done, and the definition of who I thought I was. I felt as though if I were to stop doing them all, I would disintegrate, disappear and nobody would love me anymore. Despite these intense fears, I had to try and find out WHO I WAS beyond WHAT I DID. The incredible book “A NEW EARTH” by Eckhart Tolle was an indispensable inspiration and guide through this process. To this day, that book is NEVER far from me. 

I continued my twice-a-week, two-hour therapy sessions, embarking on an epic healing journey that included what I have found to be profoundly healing, life-changing therapeutic techniques: E. M. D. R. (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Somatic Experiencing. E. M. D. R. is a technique developed for people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: it taps into the mind and body’s inherent ability to heal itself and turbo boosts that process. I found sources and connections to trauma, triggers, thoughts, and behaviors that I would NEVER have located via a purely analytical talk-therapy modality. Somatic Experiencing operates from the insight that trauma is stored in the body at a cellular level. We spent a lot of time focusing on painful and frightening sensations in my body, began to create a more holistic relationship with them, slowly desensitize to them and then systematically eliminate those sensations which were no longer serving me. Itʻs incredibly powerful healing work. If you have experienced any level of trauma in your life, please click the techniques above to learn more about them and consider finding a therapist that practices them.

During this time, I started a Yoga practice which served to give me a new and desperately needed consistent physical and energetic release as well as spiritual upliftings. It was incredibly helpful to move my body in a new way, and for a different purpose: not to impress anyone, not for money or fame but purely for pleasure and healing. 

For years prior to this point, I had tried several meditation techniques but had never been able to stay consistent in my practice. About a month after I disclosed to my therapist, I came across a technique called VEDIC MEDITATION. I went to a free introductory session to learn more, was quite intrigued, signed up and learned the technique. It is designed to effortlessly unwind stress from the body and mind and is the easiest and most profoundly effective Meditation practice I have ever come across. This turned out to be one of the most important decisions of my life so far. It catapulted my healing process into the next gear and has remained to be a life-changing daily practice. Google VEDIC MEDITATION and your AREA if you would like to learn more about it. 

After several months of therapy, I decided I wanted to try a support group. I researched and found an international support group format entitled ADULT SURVIVORS OF CHILD ABUSE by The Morris Group that looked promising. It took me several months to work up the courage to go to one but once I did, I quickly found it to be deeply healing. I had felt so isolated in my experience and my healing journey and now I was in a room full of people once a week who had been through similar circumstances as I had and were experiencing similar symptoms. Over and over I would receive such solace listening to someone’s share to which I could relate and the soothing feeling that I was not alone. 

As a child, in the effort to survive the abuse, and the fear-induced need to lie about it to family, friends and in legal situations, I had compartmentalized and numbed many thoughts and emotions. Therefore, often in therapy I would hit a wall when trying to connect to my younger self. But similar as to what inspired me to disclose in the first place: having visual flashes of my son being sexually abused and feeling so viscerally in response to them, in therapy, my Son became a profound access point to little Wade. Upon difficulty connecting with my younger self, I would often envision my son in the traumatic scenario from my past that I was trying to process. I could then feel it deeply, tap into what little Wade was feeling, and what he really needed, to heal.

About nine months into the healing process, so much having changed in my and my family’s inner and outer life, the external details of our current life situation had begun to feel less and less relevant: most notably of which, the notion of continuing to live in Los Angeles. Amanda and I decided we were going to move to Hawaiʻi, where Amanda is from. This idea was terrifying and incredibly exciting: a new beginning. 

I then also made a big decision to take legal action against Michael Jackson’s Estate and entities. My intention for doing this was to create a serious legal platform from which to raise awareness about child sexual abuse, the abuse of power, and all of the people along the way that help facilitate the child abuse, directly or indirectly. As well as to hopefully play any role in helping other victims of Michael Jackson’s and/or victims of any child abuser feel less alone.

So, I buried dance, music, film, and the entertainment business alive; we sold our home, packed up our lives, said goodbye to my Mother, Brother and Sister and braced for the adventure of a lifetime. Just before we boarded the plane to Hawaiʻi, our little boy fell asleep in my arms. I carried him onto the plane and held him tightly as the wind lifted us into the sky. I looked down on the Los Angeles cityscape where such pain had occurred in my life. I then looked back at my sleeping boy and as tears streamed from my eyes, I whispered, “You saved my life.” I held Amanda’s hand and looked to the front of the plane where my eyes landed on the airline’s logo…a heart with wings. 

To be continued…

Love, Wade Robson.

BREAK TO HEAL, Part I.

It’s April 2011, about 4:00am. I’m lying awake in bed as I have been for the last six hours. I’m breathing heavily, my heart is pounding and it feels like there is a 12-inch knife in my stomach. “Wade?” says my wife Amanda who lies nervously next to me. I turn my head towards her and drowning in fear, I say, “I’m unraveling.” 

About 5 months prior to this moment, in the course of one week, I landed the job of my dreams, and Amanda gave birth to our baby boy. Two monumental events in my life that, as it turns out, were diametrically opposed. 

By the time I was a three-year-old boy growing up in Brisbane, Australia, I was absolutely obsessed with Michael Jackson. When I was five years old, I won a dance competition and the prize was to meet him. My wildest dream had come true. About two years later, when I was seven years old, my mother managed to arrange for us to meet Michael Jackson again during our first visit to the United States in Los Angeles, California. This is when my “friendship” with Michael Jackson began. A dream I could never have imagined had come true. Very early on, Michael told me that I would be a Film Director of epic proportions. Michael was God to me and therefore everything he said was gospel. So as far as I was concerned, my future had been written and from that moment on, no success would be enough until I fulfilled his prophecy. 

When Amanda gave birth to our baby boy, I felt a sense of meaning, purpose and love that I had never experienced before. But my drive to fulfill Michael’s prophecy was still extremely strong as well. So for the next five months, I pushed relentlessly on all cylinders, prepping for that dream job I landed, to Direct my first Hollywood studio feature film, parenting and husbandry. The combination of which led me to the moment where this document began: The Unraveling.

That moment turned out to be the onset of a complete nervous breakdown, including symptoms of extreme anxiety, depression and insomnia. I had experienced bouts of anxiety and depression on and off for many years but never before had I encountered anything of this scale. Mentally and emotionally incapacitated, I ended up having to remove myself as the Director of the film as well as from multiple other creative projects I was committed to at the time. One of which, was the position of lead choreographer for Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson show in Las Vegas. I thought removing myself from all of these projects would alleviate some of the pressure but it served only to exacerbate all of my symptoms. Additionally, I was now ravaged by a debilitating feeling of shame that I was a complete failure.  I felt that my entire life had been building to this opportunity to become a Film Director, it had arrived, I was fulfilling Michaelʻs prophecy, and then I blew it, therefore my entire life, I believed, had been in vain. Thank God I had Amanda and our baby boy because beyond them, I felt no purpose anymore.  

In crisis mode, I tried a few therapists and a psychiatrist. The highly recommended and incredibly expensive psychiatrist, with whom I spent 45 minutes, during which he almost never looked me in the eyes, diagnosed me with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and prescribed me two medications for anxiety and depression. I was terrified of medication, therefore I never took the depression medication and only tried the anxiety medication a few times in an attempt to get some desperately needed sleep.

Through it all, my wife Amanda was an absolute rock for both myself and our baby boy. She carried a strength and clarity, the likes of which I have never experienced elsewhere. 

I finally settled on a therapist who specialized in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I saw him for about two months, skimmed over my past, learned some mental techniques, stitched myself back up and got back to what I knew best, WORK: my long-practiced technique for burying my anxiety, pain and sadness. A technique I learned from my childhood idol and mentor, Michael Jackson. 

I was on a high, feeling as though I had done some foundational healing in relation to my work life and I was now bulletproof. I pushed hard again, working around the clock as a Creative Director for Stage and TV while also trying to remain a committed Father and Husband. Amanda had just been put through so much with the combination of my nervous breakdown alongside being a brand new Mother, and was, rightly so, having a hard time trusting that everything was ”just fine” and stable now.

In the meantime, Cirque Du Soleil’s Las Vegas Michael Jackson show had fallen apart and been put back together with a new Director who also wanted me to be the lead choreographer. For reasons I couldn’t quite articulate at the time, I was very reluctant to get involved with the show again. But the Director was persistent and persuasive and I ended up agreeing to take the project back on. 

Similar symptoms to the previous nervous breakdown then began to appear such as fear, anxiety, and depression. I tried to stay quiet about them and remain busy, hoping that I could work them away, but the symptoms gradually intensified to the point where I was becoming inoperable. Eventually I had to remove myself again from all of my creative projects, the last of which being the Michael Jackson show. At the time, like the previous nervous breakdown, I could not understand why this was happening. I had been in charge of massive creative projects since I was sixteen years old, so why these projects were seemingly too much for me now, just did not add up. 

Then, something began to occur which had never before. I began to have visual flashes of my son experiencing something that I had experienced as a child. Something that I had never spoken about to anyone in my life, had actually passionately denied over and over and had always tried to just not think about. My emotional reactions to the visuals of my son experiencing what I had as a child were visceral encounters with pain, disgust, and anger. Yet when I recalled myself in these childhood experiences, I still felt completely numb. For the first time in my life, I began to question if there was something wrong with that.

I found a new therapist and began going twice a week for two hours per session. About three weeks in, on my way to a session, I listened to a TED talk that my therapist had suggested by Brené Brown entitled “The Power of Vulnerability.” I found the entire talk riveting but particularly the part where Brené spoke about how we all have aspects of our lives that we try to numb. But the problem is that as much as we would like to, we cannot selectively numb. When we try to numb our pain, we also numb our joy. This really resonated with me because I had felt for so long that it was hard for me to ever feel excitement, joy, or happiness to a strong degree, even momentarily. In the face of seemingly great moments, I often just felt numb or even melancholy. Apparently this insight inspired me because that day, in that therapy session, I finally worked up the courage to speak a particular truth for the first time in my life, "Michael Jackson molested me."

And thus, the healing process began: a profound emotional, mental, physiological and spiritual upheaval, 22 years in the making, that changed absolutely everything for me and my family. 

To be continued in BREAK TO HEAL, Part II.

Love, Wade Robson.