Eric's Story
After years of hidden depression, anxiety, and self-medication, Eric found healing through reflection, nature, and silence.
Sometimes the hardest part of mental health is not simply asking for help, but knowing what kinds of tools and resources even exist in the first place.
Hey, my name is Robert Eric Wagner, but most people just call me Eric. 
Ever since I was a kid, I always felt a little different from the average guy. I was usually more content disappearing into a fantasy novel or science fiction story than chasing trends or trying to fit into whatever version of normal everyone else seemed comfortable with. I’ve always loved hiking, storytelling, nature, my family, and above all else, my wife, who is also my best friend.
And for as long as I can remember, up until the last several years anyway, I struggled with depression.
The strange thing is, for most of my life, I didn’t even realize that’s what it was.
Depression doesn’t always arrive like a dramatic scene in a movie. It doesn’t announce itself the way a broken bone or physical illness does. For me there was no clear beginning, no singular traumatic moment where everything in my life suddenly changed. It simply existed in the background for so long that I mistook it for part of who I was. It felt less like an illness and more like a second skin.
For me, depression hid itself inside everyday life through a thousand small cuts to the soul that slowly drained meaning, hope, and connection from the world around me. It was a gradual surrender to hopelessness. A slow drifting away from myself.
In high school, depression took the form of constant anxiety that followed me everywhere. Talking to people often felt physically painful. I would wring my hands without realizing it, clenching and unclenching my fingers until they hurt. My shoulders were always tense, as if I was carrying a weight I didn’t understand and couldn’t put down.
And yet, if you asked almost anyone who knew me during that time, they probably would have been shocked to hear any of this.
On the outside, I looked happy. I had friends.
I did well in school. I made people laugh. My senior year, I was even voted “Most Theatrical” by my graduating class.
Looking back, there’s something painfully ironic about that now.
Like many people struggling with depression, I became very good at performing normalcy. Human beings will wear almost any mask available to avoid confronting pain, especially the kind we don’t fully understand ourselves. I learned how to become the version of myself that people expected to see.
But eventually the mask started to crack.
I remember graduating high school and feeling strangely empty as I walked across the stage. For years, I had imagined that moment as some great turning point, the beginning of the person I was supposed to become. I thought college would finally make everything click into place.
Instead, I felt more lost than ever.
Still, on paper, my life looked perfect. I had earned early admission into my dream school and planned to major in Journalism with a minor in Creative Writing. In my mind, I was going to become the next great writer or reporter, someone who could finally make sense of the world through stories.
But before I had even fully unpacked my dorm room, I realized something terrifying: my depression had followed me there.
That was also when I first began to understand that you cannot outrun your problems.
It was also when I began to experience what self-medication and substance abuse really were.
In college, I found myself reaching for anything that could temporarily quiet the constant sense of disconnection, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion I had been carrying for years.
For the first time in a long time, I felt temporary relief.
Of course, like many forms of self-medication, relief and healing are not the same thing. It would take years before I truly began understanding what was happening inside me and even longer before I started learning healthier ways to confront it.
One of the most important tools in my healing process eventually came through sensory deprivation therapy aka “floating”. Before I discovered it, I had spent years trying to outrun my own mind through distraction, overstimulation, constant movement, and self-medication. Floating was one of the first experiences that forced me to truly slow down and sit with myself without the noise of the outside world constantly pulling at my attention.*
For me, the float tank created a rare environment where my nervous system could finally begin to settle. In the silence and darkness, I started recognizing how overwhelmed and dysregulated I had been for most of my life without even realizing it. Sometimes the hardest part of mental health is not simply asking for help, but knowing what kinds of tools and resources even exist in the first place. Sensory deprivation therapy became one of those tools.
It helped me reconnect with myself, process emotional weight more honestly, and begin moving toward healing instead of constantly escaping from what I was carrying. Part of that healing eventually came through silence, nature, long walks, reflection, writing, and learning how to slow my mind down instead of constantly trying to outrun myself.
That journey is a major part of why I decided to participate in the HeadsUpGuys Step Up For Him campaign through a 40-day silent hike on the Appalachian Trail.
This hike is about raising awareness for men’s mental health and reminding people that many men are suffering silently behind versions of themselves they have carefully constructed for the world to see.
It is also deeply personal for me because I come from a family with a long history of military service. My grandfather served during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. My father served as an Army Ranger, and my uncle served in the Air Force during Desert Storm.
Like many military families, I’ve seen firsthand how trauma, emotional suppression, hypervigilance, and silence can quietly travel across generations. All three of them have struggled with PTSD in one form or another, and growing up around that reality gave me an early understanding of how deeply emotional pain can shape a person’s life long after service ends.
Veterans carry burdens that many people never fully see. Too often, those struggles remain hidden beneath responsibility, routine, and the expectation to simply keep moving forward. Throughout the journey, I’ll also be sharing reflections and writing connected to my upcoming book, “The Wolves Who Change the River: Rise of the Modern MetaCine Man,” which explores mental health, silence, identity, emotional resilience, modern overstimulation, and the relationship between nature and psychological healing.
In addition, I created a free companion ebook titled “40 Days of Silence” to help introduce people to many of the ideas and experiences connected to the hike and the larger mission surrounding men’s mental health and veteran awareness.
As part of this campaign, 20% of the profits from the first 1,000 copies sold of “The Wolves Who Change the River” will be donated to HeadsUpGuys to help support men’s mental health resources, awareness initiatives, and access to support tools for men who may be struggling silently.
My hope is that these projects encourage more men, especially veterans and those struggling silently, to speak honestly about what they’re carrying before that weight becomes unbearable.
Because strength is not silence.
And asking for help is not weakness.
Robert Eric Wagner, @modernmetacineman6 
More on Eric’s 40-Day Silent Hike.
* Early research on sensory deprivation therapy is promising for different mental health issues, though evidence from large clinical trials is still limited. If trying it, seek out established centers and/or discuss it with your therapist or primary care provider first.