In early 2014, I was severely poisoned by a supplement prescribed by my doctor. The episode lasted over two months and reduced my Serotonin, Dopamine, and GABA levels to nearly zero, an event that took me to places both physically and mentally I never want to experience again.

I experienced true paranoia through acutely severe anxiety and was absolutely lost in a deep depression. I lost nearly 30 pounds in a matter of weeks, missing weeks of work and staying awake for days on end. It was the scariest time in my life to date. The most long-lasting and life-altering ramification of this ordeal for me was a hyper-intense form of disorientation. I described it to people as the feeling you have after coming out of an very moving and emotional movie and everything in and around your normal environment seems alien. Multiple that times one hundred, never going away even in sleep, and you have the kind of disorientation I had. On top of that was a dark aura to everything and every place. My own home felt strange and unfamiliar. At one point, my doctor told me my brain might never completely heal and that I might feel this way forever. Those words were devastating, for I could not see living like this for the rest of my life. It lasted for over a year and a half and to this day I can still feel its grip reaching back into my mind.

When it came time to start writing the lyrics for the new Tambersauro album, it struck me that the album concept should be about this event and my struggle through it. Oddly enough, the title for the original concept was Realia, but now it had a whole new meaning to me. It became the horrific state of being I had experienced: inescapable disorientation coupled with extreme anxiety and profound depression. Throughout the album you will hear references to what loved ones and others would say to me. Not understanding how damaged my brain was, they would continue to encourage me to just "focus" on positive things and start doing things I had always done, not knowing that I was in an unbendable state of mind where doing those things was in actuality impossible.

Realia is a place I never want to go to again, but during and subsequent to this episode, I felt a strong compulsion to document my sickness, my ultimate recovery, and my resolve within the scope of this new record with the hope that the story along with the music would somehow help someone else going through a similar situation. We often dismiss people suffering with conditions of the mind. Write them off. May that never be for me.

Sincerely, Jeff P.