I’ve been thinking about this whole mentoring/coach thing. I mean, it’s all I’ve been thinking about. Lately, I’ve been on YouTube, watching artist coaches talk about how they approach their practice, coaches that coach other coaches, and places where you can earn a coaching credential and certification: so many different learning videos and websites with workshops, cohorts, lessons, and blogs, oh my.

I’d say less than half have been helpful (to me), but some are extremely helpful. Although a large percentage of them make me feel exceptionally unqualified, mainly because these coaches are so slick, so well-spoken, and can sell ice cubes to the people of the Arctic. They practically speak like they’re in car sales. They are eloquent and come off very knowledgeable. Most have a system. I kinda have my own too.

Researching and studying all this has wreaked havoc on my confidence. However, part of me thinks that’s okay. Inside, I’m very confident that I can help artists. Maybe I just don’t come off like I can—at least not in a slick, articulate way. But that’s not really me, I guess. I am who I am, and maybe that can be relatable. I don’t know.

But it got me thinking about writing a book again. An even newer one. It’s possible the one I’ve been working on for so long can possibly be worked into it. I’m not sure yet, because it’s been only forming this morning. That’s extremely new! Ha ha.

Maybe it can be part memoir/part artist’s guide. Is that a “thing?” Well, perhaps it can be. My experience must mean something.

Many years ago, just before I became disabled, I was a professional musician for about 15 years. Looking back, it was short-lived, but it was still almost my entire life and my identity. Being a drummer was everything I worked hard for. I obsessively practiced. I promoted myself. I played live, recorded, toured, and jammed with every single other musician I knew. I went to music school and studied with the best teachers on earth.

I also wrote songs. Guitar was my very first instrument, and while I would never be a good enough guitar player who could play in a band, it was my vehicle to compose chord progressions, rhythms, and melodies, and I’ve written 70 songs or so.

Then I joined a band in 1989 and played with them until the mid-1990s. We toured a lot, especially in the later years. It exhausted me. We were also all Scientologists, which was getting to be debilitating for me, as I was also creatively and desperately masking my bipolar disorder. In Scientology, both physical and especially mental illness is not a thing. It’s denied, called something else entirely, and just not allowed. You’re forbidden to seek professional help. That would get you kicked out.

Physical disability is also not accepted. You can no longer do any Scientology services. You can still have a basic community of Scientologists, but they look down on you and consider you what is called a PTS (Potential Trouble Source). Whatever is going on with you, be it a disability or the flu, cancer, or getting in a terrible accident, it is wholly your own fault. Somehow, you “pulled it in.” If you have a mental illness, you don’t even have friendships with other Scientologists anymore.

Because of me pretending not to have bipolar 1 (which I was not diagnosed with at the time), being on the road was incredibly difficult. There’s no privacy, and no getting away from the rest of the band for any reasonable amount of time to recalibrate or rest. My best friend at the time, who was also in the band, had a watchful eye, to put it lightly. She was extremely controlling; she controlled the band like a mini Scientology organization, and while there were some good things about that, it was still just a cult within a cult. Even our one-on-one friendship was high control and toxic. It’s a relationship kinda like when a man beats his wife, and she has no choice but to forgive him and stay.

Once upon a time, I loved being a drummer. I was pretty damn good, too. I had to be because I was competing with men. Those days, there were hardly any other gender of drummers, especially the weird gender I was, which I also had to hide. I was just considered a “girl” drummer, which was never taken seriously until people heard me play. I was also very slight, so I always surprised people that I was as good as I was. Whoa, that’s a girl???

As a few years went on in that band, I began to live in trauma and stress. I mean a lot of stress. So much was going on in addition to being whipped into more than the workaholic I already was. I was in a relationship with a pathological liar who was gaslighting me left and right; about three years into the band, I was raped by someone I thought was one of my best friends; and my art mentor, who was always extraordinarily hard on me, stopped speaking to me because he didn’t approve of my relationship with the lying manipulator. It was for good reason, but I felt severely abandoned.

On top of that, my brother had an extreme drug problem. I tried to help him for years, but I finally stopped talking to him too, as well as my parents—mostly my mom, who was always trying to kill herself. My relationship with both my parents was very complex.

So yeah, I was living in “trauma mode,” and I lived like that for some years. It was getting to me. My best friend in the band also began lying to me about carrying on an affair with our married guitar player, among other lies. She was lying, controlling, and playing mind games with me. She was also gaslighting me, so I got it from all sides. Everyone in the band was fighting most of the time, too, about anything and everything.

Okay, so point made. Needless to say, I was heading for a major burnout.

Was my following physical disability a result of that burnout, or was I already susceptible to having some kind of autoimmune disorder? I don’t think I’ll ever really know for sure. All I know is that I could hardly walk up the stairs to my apartment anymore. I was having vertigo, slurring my speech, developing a tremor, and was too weak to play. It was something neurological, but I wouldn’t see a real doctor to find out yet. I had to will it all away, but of course, I couldn’t. So, I quit the band.

I didn’t quit and just leave, though. I thought it was the right thing to do to give notice until the band found a new drummer. That’s a Scientology thing—replacing yourself. But in that interim, my said best friend started booking an intense amount of new gigs. Part of her job, aside from being one of the singers, was a semi-band manager. She booked most of the gigs. Once I told her I was leaving, she booked 10 more local gigs.

Okay, I will admit, it was at the dawn of our album release. I “picked” the wrong time to leave. But despite my timing, I was willing to play most of the shows she booked the best I could. However, after the first few shows, I’d leave at the end, crying my eyes out because no one in the band would speak to me. And I mean, at all! I hardly knew what songs were next in the set list because they completely ignored me with dirty looks to boot. It was harsh punishment.

They found a new drummer a few weeks after I gave notice, but he hadn’t learned all of their songs yet, so I was still made to feel obligated to stay a while. But then, after I played a great show with them at the House of Blues, they continued to ignore me, not even acknowledge my presence, and I’d just had enough. I told them I would not play another gig with them.

Said best friend demanded I do one last show at the Troubador. I refused. She said I’d have to replace myself with another drummer. I picked a guy who knew all their songs, but he wasn’t good enough. Then, I got Chick Corea’s new drummer to do the gig for me. He’d be like a famous guest musician. He did play that gig, but the rest of the band complained that he “overplayed.” But I wouldn’t have expected anything less for Chick Corea’s drummer. Ha. But at least I was out. Fuck them from now on!

The band absolutely hated my guts. It was hard since they were like a family to me (once). I was pretty devastated by the end of all this from only the bad things I’ve mentioned. There was much more drama that I won’t even go into.

By the very end, I was physically and mentally unable to play, but I also never wanted to play drums again. And I hardly did. During the few years that followed, I played with a few people and did some studio work, but that was about it. So, I dove full-on into art.

I’d been making art and exhibiting all the while I was in the band, but now I’d be able to slow my life down and only make art. It renovated my broken body. It got me sane. In the meantime, said best friend told almost everyone we’d dealt with in the music industry that I’d lost my mind and was now crazy. I mean, producers, A&Rs, engineers, and other musicians. So, I couldn’t really play again if I wanted to. I’ve made attempts to play again, but the longer I’ve been away from playing, the harder it’s been to play well. It’s been so bad, I haven’t been able to accept just how horrible I sound now.

Living in trauma is hard to describe. Maybe you can imagine? Maybe it’s happened to you? It took leaving the cult for good, being paranoid of doctors and psychiatrists for many years before getting help, and finding real love in the partner I still have today to finally heal. I’ve been through the wringer, but I have survived it. My confidence might seem shattered on the outside, but I’m pretty damn certain of myself on the inside—something I hardly ever disclose.

Does that qualify me to help others? I’m not a therapist, but I have a lot of life experience in figuring out how to build something on my own. I have a multitude of knowledge to give. I have the deep desire to help artists, especially those dealing with major hardship. I have the resources for them; I have the advice, I have the lived experience, and a long career that’s sustained me.

But who am I trying to convince here? Yup, you guessed it: myself. Maybe that will happen sooner rather than later, and I will get this mentoring thing off the ground.