We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Pearson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jeff, we are so appreciative of you taking the time to open up about the extremely important, albeit personal, topic of mental health. Can you talk to us about your journey and how you were able to overcome the challenges related to mental issues? For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
Mental health issues seem to be running rampant these days, but I have to deal with a little extra twist. I have a Traumatic Brain Injury. Several, in fact. When I was a child, I was at Mardi Gras, standing on top of a green transformer in order to gain more height and leverage to catch some of the best throws. It seemed like a good idea at the time, or at least that’s what I assume I was thinking. Anyway, someone threw a bamboo spear at me from one of the floats. There are several throws that you can catch that would be considered you having won Mardi Gras for that year, and a bamboo spear ranks up at the top. The spear was thrown a little too high, despite my boosted height from the transformer I was not able to catch it, so I decided to jump. I feel back and struck my head on uneven brick. Que the first TBI.
The force and damage of the blow would later reveal itself into a much more sinister form in the guise of epilepsy. When I was 8, I had a peak seizure activity of one seizure per minute. For those that are unaware, a seizure destroys your brain cells in masse, due to the violent jolts of electrical pulses that run freely during the seizures. You know when a person is shaking uncontrollably from a seizure? That’s an electrical storm frying everything there is to fry in the brain, hence the uncontrollable shaking and unconscious activity that accompanies it. Yeah, one per minute. Que the second TBI.
I was extremely lucky in that I was able to outgrow my epilepsy. There was a 50/50 chance that it would have happened due to the trauma happening when I was so young, which means there was still time for my brain to grow and adapt. It did, and I consider myself being extremely lucky to have had that happened. All of the luck in my entire life seems to have gone into that moment as I haven’t had much of it since, and I’m absolutely ok with that. There is, however, a third part to this. Aggression, anger and undying rage.
Epilepsy turned me into an absolute savage. I don’t know how my parents put up with me, but I’m grateful that they did. I would cut curtains with knives, took axes to walls and furniture, kicked through doors, dismantled new construction on houses, lined nails up on roads to blow out people’s tires, broke several noses and teeth (of other people) and all of this was before I was 13. My parents would defend me to their dying breath, because of course they would, I was their perfect little angel, but in reality, I was a demon. In order to deal with all of these rage issues they decided that putting me in martial arts would be a good course of action. For the most part, it actually worked quite well. Being able to hit people that want to hit you back while being padded is a great anger reducer, it turns out. Keep doing that for 10 years and you actually learn to control yourself. The downside though? Kicks to the head. Que the third TBI.
If you talk to me, or read anything that write, you may not believe I have any issue at all. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is for obvious reasons. You think I’m normal, possibly charming even, and you treat me as an equal individual. The downside is that when my damage is in full swing against me, nobody believes me, or they think I can just “push past it” or “make it work”. Some people think I’m exaggerating, which is infuriating, but if I had a missing arm, they would believe me when I say, “I only have one arm”. No one would be foolish enough to tell someone with one arm to “Just grow another arm and make it work.” Brain damage though? That can’t be seen, therefore I must be pretending. That is, unless you are in my life long enough to experience it, because it’s all tied to time.
But why time? Because I am unable to hold onto many memories. I’m not talking small things where I don’t remember someone saying something or even an individual being at a place. I’m talking about huge things. I don’t remember entire vacations as recently as the past year. Entire swaths of time, years even, are just gone. I’m the host of a show that’s coming up called “Drive Ride Repeat” and “Coasting Thunder”, and in it we travel to various places around the country, where I get to do amazing things and have amazing experiences, but if there wasn’t footage, I wouldn’t remember any of it. Nothing. Zero. Rollercoasters, Zip lines, 70 mile an hour Kart races, dressing up Bigfoot for promos, wearing stilts into and through the Texas Renaissance Festival, meeting celebrities, all of these phenomenal experiences and most of it does not stick. The only reason I know they exist, or anything else for that matter, is if there is photographic or video evidence, in which case I believe that thing really did happen.
I’ve been told many crazy things that I’ve done in the past, by people I would have sworn to death I had never met, but they very clearly know me, and yet, I don’t know them. Or at least I don’t now. At one point though, I apparently did. This happens almost daily. To say that it has made relationships complicated is an understatement. No one feels loved when you don’t remember the things you have done with them, even when you try your hardest to not forget. No one feels good when they tell you a story about how much fun they had with you when you did that thing, whatever that thing was, and you just look at them blankly because you are trying to figure out who in the hell this person is standing in front of you in the first place. At times people feel gaslighted, because at one time I said this one thing, but today I’m saying something that is the total opposite because I have no memory of what I said the first time. That one hurts the most. I never, in my life, want to gaslight anyone because that is true pain. When that happens, I just look at them and tell them I’m sorry and that I believe them when I said “XYZ”, because how can you defend something you don’t remember doing or saying? So, in order to overcome that issue, I make sure everyone around me feels like they are the most important thing in the room, regardless of if I know them or not, and regardless of if they claim to know me, or if they actually do. That has helped tremendously.
Additionally, overcoming acting in film, because as an actor you have to REMEMBER YOUR LINES, has been a unique challenge entirely on its own, but that is a different story for a different time.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Oh geez, I am a lot of things. Probably too many things.
I’m currently focusing on 4 things. The first of those being the continuation of my existing businesses. I was actually betrayed into owning a video game shop (Play N Trade), which was one hell of a curve ball that hit 16 years ago, and recently I acquired 50% ownership of a mechanic shop (Danny’s Auto) which has been a wild and interesting experience to adapt to. I never wanted to be a businessperson because my heart was always set on film. Life has a way of mixing things up though.
Second Thing – Digging back into film. Before I was betrayed into owning a business, or rather the business owning me, I was already going head first into film. I was a background dancer for a several films that Disney shot in New Orleans about 17 years ago, and was a finalist as a first time director for the Tribeca Film Festival when they did a joint venture with American Express, but when the betrayal happened it set me back by a decade, so I’ve been playing catch up like mad ever since. I will never be able to fully recover that gap in time that was lost, but I’ll be damned if I let that slow me down.
Third Thing – YouTube Channels for the businesses. For the automotive section there are a bazillion videos that show you how to fix your cars, but there are hardly any videos that show you why these things happen to your cars. Neglect and the fall out from it isn’t covered enough. Vehicles are extremely complicated pieces of machinery that are being put into untrained and misunderstood hands. So I’m making videos on covering those subjects, because people need to know how to prevent the damage. That way they don’t have to fix it. That is done with the YouTube Channel called We Can Fix That. The other channel is for the videogame stuff, and it’s called Permadeath with Jeff. I play a game until I die, and then I have to move onto another game. Some games I’ll only live a few seconds, some a few hours. Pretty much anytime I die it comes as a shock though because I’m usually in the middle of having a ton of fun and then *POW* the fun gets yanked away and I have to move onto something else.
The Fourth Thing – My Film script turned comic/graphic novel that is being released with a 17 song Original Soundtrack, many of which are international artists. Venjent, Rabbit Junk, Sebastian Komor, Death Blooms and Zardonic (He’s going to be in the novel, the comic releases first to kick things off) are just some of the incredible talents that have come to the table. The Script is called Clowns VS Nazis, and it’s what you’d get if you crossed Power Rangers with Mad Max Fury Road. Early reception has been overwhelmingly positive, so fingers crossed that transcends into anyone that picks it up to give it a read/listen. Honestly, the soundtrack is so intimidatingly good so I’m worried that the story won’t be able to keep up with it!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Perserverance. You are going to hit walls. Don’t stop, because if you do, someone else it going to fill the gap you left and you will probably regret it. Don’t Stop. Seriously.
2. Don’t wait. Don’t do it tomorrow unless the time to do it today literally does not exist. I have 4 businesses (2 video game stores, a mechanic shop and rental property), live in two different cities, write, direct, act, edit, have 2 new Youtube Channels all while being in the best relationship of my life plus balance a healthy social life (I’m also a trained stunt driver). If I wait on taking care of one thing it creates a domino effect. Do the things now, even if it is something completely different than what I mentioned above. Thinking about moving to try out a new career? Don’t wait. Thinking about inventing something new that hasn’t been done before? Don’t wait. Want to write a book? Don’t wait. You will learn how to tackle the roadblocks as you go (just bring perseverance with you).
3. Being wrong is ok, in fact, being wrong is awesome. This is the best way to learn and to learn QUICKLY. Don’t beat yourself up over being wrong, embrace it. It will get you much further than thinking you are always right.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Ok so I’m going to bend this one and change it from “book” to “game”. Starcraft 2. Or any real-time strategy game honestly, but for me Starcraft 2. If I had never played this game, I never would have learned how to balance all of things that I do. Not only that, but it has helped tremendously with tempering anxiety because so much is thrown at you that you have to learn to remain cool. This has had a tangible impact that has transferred to the real world for me. They have done a ton of studies that say games don’t affect how a person operates outside of playing them. I’m proof that they do. If it wasn’t for StarCraft, I’d probably still be drilling holes in dirt to test soil for compression and weather resistance like I was 21 years ago. StarCraft is also a business 101 lesson on growth and development, as well as having to make tough calls to reach your goal. I am not endorsed or paid by Blizzard to talk about StarCraft, but you should play StarCraft.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2905319/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drivingactor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrivingActor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@YesWeCanFixThat
- Other: Google Clowns VS Nazis at the end of 2023. If nothing else, I hope you enjoy the soundtrack (which will be free to listen to).
