There are a few things you’ll quickly learn when speaking with Charlestown, IN-based artist and Fifty Eleven Media founder Rick Gideons. The first is that with his upbeat, funny, easy-going personality, he will make you feel like he’s an old friend you’ve known forever. The second is how much of a loving husband he is to his wife and a doting father he is to his 8-year old son. But foremost, you’ll learn about how his PTSD almost destroyed him.
The National Center for PTSD estimates that around 6% of the U.S. population will develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at some point in their lives. Rick Gideons is one of them. But far from suffering, he is surviving it and thriving through his artwork, and by sharing his story - inspiring others to do the same.
“That is and always will be my ultimate success, the number of people that I can reach and inspire to find the things they need to heal so they can live a life they love and deserve. That’s why I want to share my story, because it proves that nothing is impossible, including healing from the things that refuse to let you go. I want people to see that it’s okay to open up and be vulnerable, but I had to learn that myself first.”
Born in Louisville to a drug addicted, emotionally abusive father who, according to Gideons, used him to commit crimes and as emotional leverage to get what he wanted. His mother, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. “She had to work hard to support me, but she did everything she could to give me the best life,” said Gideons.
His parents divorced when he was 8 years old, but his father would come and go in his life over the next several years, continuing the emotional abuse. “I don’t think there is a year between the age of 6 -17 that I didn’t have to deal with some sort of massive trauma,” said Gideons.
In 2006 at 20 years old, Rick joined the U.S. Army Infantry in an attempt to better his life, only to be honorably discharged a year later due to his mental health. “I carried that with me for a long time,” said Gideons. “That was the first time I felt like a failure.” This was just one of what Rick says were “at least 3 or 4 times in my life I’ve had to essentially start over with nothing; no plan, no direction, nothing outside of a few personal things I had managed to hold on to.”
He began working for Emergency Medical Services in 2009, eventually becoming a paramedic. It was over those next few years that he met and married his wife and had a son. By all outward appearances, Rick Gideons’ life seemed to finally be on the right path - then came May 20th, 2019; the day when Rick broke both of his legs in a skateboarding accident. “I was bed ridden for 6 weeks and then had to use a walker for 3 months,” he said, “and they have still never fully healed.”
But Rick has a far different perspective on this event than you’d expect; “Breaking my legs was the best thing to ever happen to me. That was the single moment that turned the page to the next chapter in my life and led me to the path that I am on now. Without it, we wouldn’t be talking right now. It saved my life!”
While still healing from his injuries in early 2020, Rick made the decision not go back to work in the EMS field, instead opting to focus on his mental health while being a full-time stay-at-home dad; but this proved to be a much greater challenge than he had expected. “It opened a lot of old wounds that I wasn’t ready for because I didn’t have any references of a father other than painful ones,” said Gideons. “All of this led me to the lowest point of my life where I was only caring about myself and what I thought my needs were. I was hurting everyone around me, just like my father had, and that’s what pushed me to find help. [The thought of] losing my wife, my son, my life, was scarier than anything I had run from in my past, because without them I couldn’t see a life worth living. So that’s when I made the decision to figure it out, to become the man that she deserves, and to the father I had always dreamed of. It was the hard decision that my father could never make, and that’s the moment our paths forked and I haven’t looked back since.” In late 2020, after having already tried numerous medications to no avail, Rick found a clinic in Louisville that specialized in ketamine treatments, and that’s when everything changed for him. He recalled; “I came home after my first treatment and took a nap. When I woke up, I stepped out into our sun room, and the first thing I noticed was how loud the birds were. I had never heard them so loud before in my life. Suddenly reality started to set in - it wasn’t that the birds were any louder than they normally were; it was that my mind was quiet! Nothing but the thought I was actively having - no intrusive thoughts, no constant stream of past memories being triggered, just silence. That when I realized that it was going to work! For the first time in my life, PTSD wasn’t behind the wheel.”
But after going through all of his health savings on the initial ketamine treatments, Gideons found that he could no longer afford them and was left to find a new way to cope.
“January of 2021 is when I first picked up my tablet to start drawing. It was something that helped occupy my mind when I was younger and going through some of my hardest times, so I figured it would be worth trying again.” This would lead Gideons to an unexpected revelation; “I was actually pretty good, and it was amazing for my PTSD in so many ways I wouldn’t have thought of.”
Within a month, Gideons had created several pieces of art and decided to post them online. To his surprise, people really liked them, and within a couple hours he had been contacted by someone wanting to purchase the rights to reproduce his art as pins. “I was shocked that someone would pay me for something I drew,” said Gideons. “That was what started my career as an artist, what showed me that it was possible.”
A self-taught artist, Gideons works digitally, but all of his art is painstakingly hand drawn. “That is something that I have really enjoyed, just allowing my style to develop naturally,” he said. “It’s been exciting to be able to finally devote the time to this part of myself that I have had to neglect for so long.”
And he has already built an impressive list of clients, having done work for the likes of Bad Daddy, Popo Medic, Two Dogs Dispensary, Ventura College Paramedic Program, Safe Medical Training Solutions, Faksy Art, as well as several names in the local music community such as Punk Rock Night Louisville, Indignant Few, The Response, and Goose Hydra. He’s also worked with a couple local nonprofits very near and dear to his heart: Code EMS Peer Support and Mindfulness Medic.
His success has also encouraged him to embrace a passion he’s had for over 20 years; video production. He recently produced and directed the music video for Louisville punk rock band Godawfuls’ song “Her Dad Sells Pot”, shot promo videos for Punk Rock Night Louisville, and has recently started work on his own video series titled PRN [Dayshift].
Future plans include creating a children’s book about EMS. Said Gideons; “I am still very passionate about EMS, and as a child who had to experience some pretty traumatic situation that involved EMS, I want to create a children’s book based around helping children understand what’s going on during an emergency.”
When asked about what drives him to make his experiences with PTSD public, Rick responded; “I want people to see me standing up for my PTSD and my treatments for it so it can inspire others to not be afraid of the stigma that comes with it. So sharing my experiences and publicly speaking out about it is something I have to do so others can see that they can too.”
He continued; “I have found my success in the success of helping others. That’s my real talent; everything else is just tools to help me to do that. I want to live a life that gives people that hope, not by telling them, but by showing them. Because you can’t tell someone how they need to heal, but you can inspire them to find the things they need to heal and show them it’s possible to turn your trauma into the reason for your greatness.”
And when asked about where he stands today with his PTSD, Rick said; “I have been able to make peace with the traumatic relationship I had with my father. I can now see how both of our stories paralleled each other, and I was able to forgive him through understanding how he suffered. And I hope my father can find some peace in that I was able to overcome what he couldn’t. Being who I am now, loving life more than I have ever thought possible, I can finally find gratitude for the things I had to endure, the obstacles I had to overcome. I knew I wanted to be a dad before anything else, and I’m finally getting to experience what it’s like to have an amazing father by being one to my son.”
Gideons concludes; “I still have a lot of story left to live.”
To learn more about Rick Gideons, his art and his story, visit his website at: fifty-eleven.com
