Why I do what I do..

Ok.. Why do I do this..

The truth is I love music, always have and hopefully always will..

I began making music at age 26.. Which is real late for a musician..

But I used to be by myself in my childhood home, listening to music, with music
being almost my only friend..

The reason for the loneliness was probably that I grew up as the son of a millionaire,
people were being kept arms length away and on formal occations I could talk with people..

But honestly.. I grew isolated with only few friends.. So money could buy cds and coffee..

And cds and coffee were my life.. Art..

Most people grow up with real world concerns, me not so much, that seemed to be all taken care
for me.. I thought I would grow up like my big brother who drove a bmw and became a airplane pilot.

I was already working at family paint store (my dad owned a chain of them) at age 14, I thought
my life was going to be all taken care of..

Well, multiple things hit the fan when I was about 18..

My dad was heavily invested in real estate when the Finnish economy (Finland had been called Japan
of Europe at the time), took a steep nose dive to shit.

Real estate interests rates rose through the roof and my dad was heavily in debt..

Well, it was bye bye to the big old house.. It was bye bye to a life style I thought
I would have till I die.. (I used to do down hill ski every weekend at winter time and
summer time.. Well, I was working at the family paint store)

Last time I did downhill skiing was New Year 92 / 93..

Suddenly, we were living a life, I could not imagine when I was young..

Sure I knew there were poor people around us.. But I was a rich kid..

My parents meanwhile, they grew up poor.. My dad was one of those rags to riches stories
where he grew up on a two room house where there were eight people living and they were
burning birch bark like it was still the stone ages..

For them they just reverted back to how things used to be..

Me.. Not so much.. There were other things that happened at the same time..
Which rocked my world beyond all belief. . Lets just say that I suddenly had a
lot of anger issues.. Which I did not have as a kid.. I was the most peacful person
you could find..

The kid who runs away from trouble..

At this time, music was my life.. Music and computers..

I worked briefly at warehouse and at a pc company, tried my hand at becoming
a business man but failed miserably (mainly because now looking back, I understand
I am not a sales man like my father.. )

Somehow, the artistic trait from my childhood carried on.. I began writing poems
to a usenet newsgroup called rec.arts.poems..

Through that place I later on ended up finding my wife.. Whom I married in 2002..

I went to Finnish army in 1993 and that changed me a lot.. At home at this time
my parents faced trials which ended up with my dad going to a prison and my mother
getting a suspended sentence for debtors crime..

Which means that they were not entirely honest when they were disclosing their assets during the banktrupcy..

My dad swears hand on the bible that that did not happen..

And when it comes to my mother..

Well, lets just say that people did not say no to my father when he was in
height of his power..

He looks and sounds like Donald Trump.

Before the army, the little money I had left I used at mc donalds and was
kind a chunky kid..

I got in shape for the army, because I knew it would be hard if I was out of shape..

And that made me a little bit of exercise nut, which is now
slowly ending due to my health problems which I will talk about later..

All that time.. Poems were my life.. I had been tinkling the keys of our piano
since I was a kid when I could.. But slowly.. After the company failed..

I began doing that more and more..

Which led to me going on soundclick sometime in spring of 2000..

I knew I was not greatest musician.. I lived off the little money my parents
gave me for rent (I had bought a house for us when my parents went bankrupt,
a house I almost lost due to stupid financial decisions which led to massive
tax bill which I was barely able to pay.)

Why did not I go to work at this point?

Hmm.. I tried the business and failed.. Before we did that, I was working as a pc
assembly mechanic at a company called pc superstore and I had turned them down
when they offered me a long term position due to me and my friend trying the
business..

Also, at fall of 1997, I developed pretty bad social anxiety.. I would feel
woozy when I was out and about.. Which sucked because I loved going to Helsinki
(capital of Finland) and walking around.

Doctors wanted to give me ssris (anti depressant) at the time, but I denied them thinking "I am not
crazy", all of this co incided with the almost foreclosure of the house we were living on..

Now looking back, this could have been a first glimmer of my deeper health problems
that I have become aware of only in the last two months..

At this time, my folks were bankrupt (all the way till 2011), my dad served two years
in prison and life was.. Lets just say.. Not easy.. For a former rich kid..

Poems (starting 1996) and later on, music (starting in 2000), became my escape, a henkireikä
in Finnish (life line in English). I would vent at the usenet group, fight, fall in love,
write shitty poems, followed by some ok ones.. I was living precariously in internet like a
lot of people do these days in Facebook etc..

I was extremely withdrawn from outsiders, exercised like a complete nut (50 km bike trips a day)
and God do my knees feel that know..

I still get a kick out of driving my bicycle, because it feels good, God knows it.. Just
like Casey Neistat, I need it in my life.. But at the same time, now, being 45 (almost)..

I do know how long I can carry it on..

So I married my wife in 2002.. We met on rec.arts.poems.. I treated her like just a silly girl
for years, who should have been interested in local boys.. I tried to tell her to marry a Texan.. :D

But she persisted, she had a fire in her to leave America.. So.. April 26th of 2002, I flew to meet
her.. And the rest.. Is history.. I have a steel ring in my finger.. And I hope I carry it till I die..

The first years with her.. Were hands down best years of my life.. She cured me out of my social
anxiety.. But still.. The thought of getting a real job and quitting my music..

It just was not me..

The rich kid inside of me.. It hangs on real hard..

At this poing.. I guess, I was learning the ropes.. Slowly.. Without a clue, like many bedroom musicians..
I had my DAW (FLstudio) and I was making tunes all the time..

Living our poor lives..

Fast forward 2011..

I had been about the same until that point..

Then that spring.. I mysteriously, lost my shape.. Now looking back it was probably a bad case
of mycoplasma infection.. And in April 2011, I caved in to the doctor who was hell bent on prescribing
me ssris..

Holy hell..

My life descended into.. Poop..

Soon after that I began getting skin burning sensations from my toes to the top of my head..

I would not wish that feeling for my worst enemy..

It was super anxiety.. For the super anxiety, I was prescribed Ketopirin (Known in US as seroquel)..

So I could sleep..

I barely did.. Life was living hell.. I had these adrenals the whole night and most of the day..

Just thinking about it gave me the burnings.. I felt like I was trapped in my body and there was
no way out..

At the same time though.. Ironically, I got a message from Mr Kyle Le, a Californian english teacher
 who was in his early twenties and said that he was doing a vlog from Vietnam..

He said can he use my music..

I said, sure, go ahead and promptly forgot about it..

I actually quit my pills sometime in late 2011, and began feeling better..

I had asked from the doctor, could the pills be causing my anxiety.. She said "no, believe me
I am a doctor."..

Well.. I disagreed and quit taking the pills and began feeling better.

But then in 2012.. I began getting this blips, adrenal jolts out of nowhere, I could not
pinpoint them.. And that began a trend that culminated in 2016 when I was having ten a day..

Anyway, back to 2013.. I got a message from Mr Kyle Le. He said he had used my music and sent
a link to his youtube channel..

You have to realize I was doing these obscure songs I thought no one cared about, for no reason
other than, because i felt I had to..

So what did my eyes see? HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VIEWERS ON HIS VIDEOS USING MY MUSIC!

My mind blew up.. I have always been a self hating musician, (I wrote a song in 2001 and said
in the lyrics, I am a shithead who cannot sing.)

So I began doing something different at the time..

In 2013, I began making pretty much a song a day.. There have been breaks, but I began
doing it.. A lot of these pieces now looking back were not too great, because I laced them
with simple Asian instruments for Kyle.. But he was using them and that gave me a sense
of purpose..

I know my music is not the greatest stuff out there.. I know there is a bunch of outright crap,
but I do not think all of it is..

And it makes me happy to have people use my music, especially with my health condition and the
way my life is. After God (Health problems have made me turn to Christianity, after most of my
life believing in science and doubting the existence of God), my wife, family and the few friends,
music is the most important thing in my life.

So, I was doing a song a day.. Listening to the tunes, I realize 2013 to 2014, there was a lot of
crap.. I go through these periods, when there was probably a lot of suffering.. And it reflects in
my music..

Part of it was that I was making the tunes mostly in hour or less, because if I did it for longer
, I would end up with one of these blips.. And I did not want music to have that anxiety
attachment to it..

At one point when I was unmedicated I was driking three to four beers a night, screaming at my wife
about how hard life had become, because the adrenals, the anxiety, it never ceased.. I tried not to
think about it.. But it was always there.. Music mostly gave me a short refuge from it..

Even though I clearly remember in 2013, getting one of these adrenal "jolts" even when making
music, and it still can happen..

But I was making music and now looking back, I am more productive than I ever was when I was healthy.

Part of it is probably because i was a hard core porn addict. Say what you will, but in 2011
I said a prayer to God that he would help me to kick the porn habit and next thing I knew-- the anxiety
caused me not being able to sleep.. And getting porn dreams on the top of that was the last thing I
wanted..

So I became active in reddits pornfree forum and with other porn addicts (who is not one these days)
I began fighting the good fight..

It actually took me three years to be able to finally Kick it (Feb 26th 2015 was last time I relapsed)..

And I think you can see it in my music.. The little energy I have, no longer goes to the constant
thought about porn and sex..

So I was doing daily songs.. Living my life with my wife.. The anxiety came and went.. 2016 spring was
very bad So I ended up back at the doctor asking for help.. This time, my "anxiety disorder"
treatment began.. Which led me to anti depessant I still eat, also I got seroquel once again for my
sleeping problems (massive adrenals from just thinking about not being able to sleep and these
small, mysterious blips..)

Fall of 2016, I found Jazz. I found a mental place, where if I took a lot of seroquel at night
and ate my anti depressants, I was pretty good.. Some days banging out multiple tunes a day..

I used to drive my bicycle to Helsinki, listen to Jazz classics, and 50es 60es pop, Dean Martin
was my favorite.. Post endless amounts of instagram pictures no one liked.. (It gave me a purpose
to go to Helsinki) And just chill.. And damn it.. It worked.. To a point..

I had a mental place.. But the anxiety, the blips.. Were still there.. Better, but they were still there..

So we tried to go back to the exact same ssri I ate in 2011..

And holy mother of God..

This time it was 3 times the dose..

The anxiety was out of this world..

I finally realized it was the initial ssri that made me sick in the first place in 2011.. Had I not taken
the pill back then and just suffered through the mycoplasma infection (I had lung infection that was seen
on x ray for 3 months in 2011) I would have never been on this road..

At this time, I began taking even more seroquel..

2017, I was doing the jazz walks.. As much as I could.. But the spring was pretty hard..

Because I was recovering from the SSRI experience (Citalopram is the Finnish trade name)

I get these long lasting flus.. That go on for months..

Which is tough for a guy who was pretty close to being as much of a exercise nut as Casey Neistat..

To suddenly just lie in bed for days on end.. Getting these small "Blips"..

In the shrink sessions starting 2016, we began calling them "Depersonalization" which can happen
with anxiety attacks..

I got them on front of doctors of Psychiatry and ask if they could be seizures, they said no..

But after each blip.. I would get insane adrenals.. Anxiety..

See.. From the beginning since I got sick in 2011.. I had one thought..

Brain tumor.. I felt everything was not right in my head..

But that was one hell of a thought.. So I actually went and had a fmri done on my head..
In 2017 fall..

It came out clean..

Not tumor.. So back to thinking what i suffer through are depresonalization attacks..

Fast forward to 2018 spring... I was in States with my wife..

Eating a fistful of seroquel at night to be able to sleep.. Often waking up
to these blips..

I was sitting on a porch in Georgia with my wife, it was a beautiful day..

Next thing I come to, I am in a ambulance, confused..

People are saying i had a seizure..

Holy mother of God..

I broke a vertabrae to boot.. The vanity of my younger years (doing 500 abs a day)
ended up breaking my back..

At this point I found out.. The seroquel I had been taking causes seizures.. So I told
myself.. I am not epileptic.. The pills cause it..

Once again I had a CT scan, it came out clear.

So we come back to Finland and three months after the first seizure I go to neurologist office
(Late June 2018) DEAD SURE I am not epileptic..

And she is reading the eeg test results we did a week before..

"You are a epileptic, we could see epileptic spikes on the right hemisphere of your brain"..

Yeah..

Mind in a blender..

Next thing she says.. Maybe you do not need pills for it though, because the massive grand mal
was probably caused by the seroquel..

So she gives me two options.. No pills, or new pills, because she said the epilepsy meds I was
taking were very tiny amount..

Me being the anxious sort, I take option b..

Start taking my pills..

4 days later..

I am going to sleep..

I come to.. I am laying in the bed..

Everyone seems scared as poop around me..

My mother is crying, even my stoic father looks scared, my wife is losing her poop..

(understandably)

Ambulance crew is explaining to me I had another seizure..

I cracked another vertabrae.. (Boy do I have good abs)

So I begin seeing neurologist and she tells me that it was probably due to us quitting
one med and switching to another..

These new meds.. Three weeks in.. I am having trouble walking.. I feel like ground is shaking..

My nose feels weird..

We keep on lifting the amounts..

I keep on getting blips.. But less, I guess we are adjusting the meds..

And all this time..

I make music.. (I seem to be able to work on music now longer)

Because it is what I do..

I hope you can find something you can use..

Yours

Antti Luode