Episode 57. Face It Foundation

Reed sits down with Mark Meier and Bill Dehkes from the Face It Foundation. Leveraging the power of peer support, Face It works with men to normalize life’s challenges and recover from anxiety, depression, and prevent suicide. 

“How do I deal with this stuff in my life?” It’s okay if you struggle because so many people do. The first step can be the most difficult, but after that you will see that you are not alone, and life can be dramatically better. 

“We have to be creating atmospheres and leaders and people who will speak openly and say, ‘I really do care.’ Regardless of what your issue is, please share with me.”

For more information, please visit www.FaceItFoundation.org or email info@FaceItFoundation.org 

(this episode was recorded on 12/30/24) 

Transcript

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hi again, everyone. Welcome back. It's another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries. We are so grateful for you checking us out Happy to be joined today by a couple of friends and collaborators from the Face It Foundation. Bill, Mark, welcome. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. It's awesome. like to give our listeners a little background on each of you. Bill Dekes, born in New Brighton, Minnesota. He's the last of five children and endured a rather chaotic childhood. His parents were divorced when he was seven years old and mom passed away when he was 15. Bill got married to his wife Wendy. They settled in New Brighton. even through working various jobs, he was dealing with something that he did not understand. Bill was quiet, a bit shy, lacking self esteem, and had some trouble finding joy in life. Never told anyone he was struggling with depression and anxiety, which led to a suicide attempt. Currently, Bill and his wife Wendy still live in New Brighton. They were often found helping a variety of animal rescue groups and other local non profits that benefit all animals in need. Bill is an avid weightlifter, finds joys in the kitchen, cooking all sorts of food for family and friends. Bill and Mark Meyer, his wife's cousin, started the Face It Foundation back in 2009. Bill serves as the chief operating officer. They're serving men struggling with depression and anxiety, and it's been a driving passion that he plans to continue for years to come. Mark Meyer grew up in Brooklyn Park. Had a relatively regular childhood. Played baseball, hockey, football. Loved to fish, hunt, camp. Bill. Graduated from the U of M and immediately pursued and completed his master's degree in social work in 1994. Mark has been married for 33 years. Wow. And three adult children, despite his detour with a mental health crisis in 2001. He has had an incredible and rich life with many experiences, incredible friends, and a career he would not trade for anything. Gentlemen, welcome again. Thanks so much for having us. it's maybe an obvious time of year to be talking about mental health, depression, anxiety, life is hard enough as it is and somehow we get into the holiday season and everything just gets accentuated. it's this time of year that everybody, uh, goes backward in time and takes everything that was difficult and suddenly it even seems that much more difficult now. I mean, you, you look around and everybody's supposed to be celebrating and full of joy and exchanging gifts and. It's just a, it's a really hard time of year for people. And for any of our listeners that are unfamiliar, I want to tell you about the Face It Foundation is about leveraging the power of peer support, working with men to confront and recover from depression and prevent suicide. It all starts with peer support. I'm so grateful to have you both here today, because this is something that my dad's generation never talked about. We never talked about our feelings. We were supposed to tough it out not even have that risk of looking like the weakling. I think we've all been there before. confronting this. Where do, where do we start? I think you start with the acknowledgement that there is something there that needs to be acknowledged. You, you mentioned your father's generation. I think it was alive and well, both Bill and I are, you know, we're in our late 50s, early 60s. It was alive and well in our generation in the 70s. Guys growing up in the 80s and 90s still come in and tell us that You know, this idea of, of admitting to struggling is very difficult for people. every guy has a picture in his head of how life is supposed to be. And we're supposed to be the patriarch. We're taking care of everything. Everything is supposed to be under our control. The problem is, is that we don't really have control over a lot of that stuff. And we don't know what to do with it. So a lot of times we isolate, we act out in anger, all kinds of different things, but it's the idea that we have this belief in our mind, how we're supposed to be. And when things don't go just the way they're supposed to, we really struggle. You know, we say it, face it a lot of times. Now what? So if things didn't go, go well for you, how are they working for you? You know, if, if all we'd have to do is be the, be the stoic father figure in our lives. Then we're leaving so much on the table because things are not going the way we want them to we need to break that Chain, I know we're talking about a rather heavy topic, but it's one that needs to be discussed and I appreciate you sharing transparently you had if you tell us a bit more about your struggle with depression and anxiety You had really been contemplating the worst option possible. You know, it's, uh, as you read my bio, it's, anytime I hear that, I always think back to those times. You know, I lived in a chaotic home where my father and mother, my father was an alcoholic and, uh, he left when I was six or seven. then it was just me and my mother. We were very poor at that point. Um, my, my mother died of a brain aneurysm. So, at 15, I need to be the, uh, the Man of the house. I need to be responsible for all my own actions, which I don't think that's fair for a 15 year old So I had to grow up really fast But you know it got to the point where I could tell something was wrong because I wasn't happy You know, we talked about the holidays a little bit. You know, it's supposed to be the father and the mother and the three kids and the, and the, popcorn ribbon stuff around the tree and the fireplace and the dog and everything. Well, that doesn't always play out. And it didn't for me, and I couldn't find joy in things. And what led to my eventual suicide attempt was the fact that I felt everyone would be better off if I wasn't around. I was a burden. I was a terrible husband, a terrible friend. I was a terrible brother, uncle, all that kind of stuff. I provided no value to anything or anyone. And the world would be better if I was gone. so what was the catalyst to hit reset for you? How did you get through that? you know, I think to jump ahead, I think what happened is I heard, Mark Meyer tell his story. And as you mentioned earlier, my wife is Mark's cousin. They grew up very close together. They grew up very close together. I heard him at our church on mental health Sunday. Um, I think what Talk about his challenges with depression and anxiety and I didn't really understand it all but what he said was my story It was stuff that I can personally relate to and that's why we realize that face it that the stories make such a big difference They're so powerful to tell your story and it's not easy to do to get up in front of people and just Be vulnerable and say all the things that you're thinking. But they become so helpful to so many men. But it wasn't until I heard Mark's story where I said, you know, I don't get all this stuff, but you just told my story. And I think that was the big turning point. How often have you both seen that happen where, when you're transparent, whether it's you or someone who shares their story, how many other men or does anybody will come up and say exactly that? It's a, it's a 100 percent return on a dollar you put in the bank. Because whenever we get out and share stories publicly, whenever you sit in a face it group and you watch a man agree to be vulnerable, it gives everybody else the license to also be vulnerable. that's the power of peer support is, we're sharing these connections together. And it always works, because suddenly you realize that your struggles are not that out of the norm. I mean, All of these things we're talking about, not necessarily suicide attempts, of course, but struggles with shame, sense of self, connection, fitting in, feeling like a burden, they're probably part of the human experience. And by not talking about them, we build them up into our heads into something evil and ugly. When in reality, if we all were just a little bit more honest and transparent, we'd realize we all kind of struggle with these things. what seems like just a daily stress or anxiety source can well up over time and not necessarily everyone that you talk to maybe. considering suicide or something very extreme, but there is, there's got to be quite the depth of addiction issues, that feeling of worthlessness, the just being really down on oneself. And we bottle that up and man, that that's really where friendships and relationships and being comfortable sharing is so crucial. And I think in this world where we as men seem to defer to the jokey banter all the time. Um, can I be vulnerable with that guy? Can I really share my, how I actually feel? And something we talk about a lot on this podcast is the need to be building relationships with intentional purpose. there's a particular author that I like to cite frequently, who says, if you can't talk about the little things on a regular basis, it's even more difficult to talk about. The big things how do you suggest someone step forward with confidence to say, I need to talk regardless of what their struggle might be. I don't even know if you can step forward with confidence. I think you just have to agree to step forward with courage and raise your hand and say, help me because it's going to feel awkward. You know, we When we gather guys to, to be part of a face it group and, you know, there's 12 of us sitting in a room, you ask any guy in there, outside of sitting in this face it group room, how many of you have ever sat with 10 men and shared your insecurities? Well, invariably, they, zero. Nobody. We don't do it. So you, You start with the little things, and maybe the jokey banter stuff, it's fun and you know, we always say, oh, if a guy's not mocking you, he must not like you. That's fine, but we have to agree to take it to another level. A lot of times when, uh, when a guy reaches out to us about joining a group, he'll sit down with Mark and I and we'll spend an hour or so just talking about what's going on, what face it is, and, and what's happening in his life. and inadvertently he goes on and talks about some of his challenges and things he's dealed with or has dealt with. And Mark and I just keep nodding our heads because we've lived the same lives. What that does is that tells him that he's not the only one out there. That's why guys keep it alone to themselves because they feel they're the only ones that feel this way. And when they sit down with Mark and I and we share some of our stories, that's It's the exact same thing this person is going through. You can see the, the, the anxiety kind of leave their body a little bit when Mark will say, You know what, with my kids, I get it because this is blah, blah, blah. Um, that's so powerful. It is so powerful to see. it's the normalization of challenges. I, Look, I'm a, I'm a clinically trained social worker by background and I think diagnosis and therapy and all that stuff is fantastic. But for a lot of men, once you enter into that world, you get set apart. And now you feel like you are different, and you are broken, and you have this stigma that you're not okay. Whereas when there's just a bunch of us sitting around the room talking about the fact that we feel like we don't fit in or we feel like we're a burden and everybody's nodding their head, well Okay, I guess that's part of life, right? Something we talk about on a regular basis on this podcast is brotherhood. Freemasons, brotherhood, quality friendships. But sometimes brotherhood can feel like an abstract term because if we don't know each other deeply, like we said, it's very difficult to discuss the heavier aspect of life's challenges. we sprinkle words like that in all the time, friends and brothers, but if that bond isn't genuine, real or authentic, that when life happens, we don't know where to turn. And the irony of that is we may have a thousand friends or followers on a social media app, but that is a hollow connection. We talk a lot about the friendship recession. One in four men surveyed who are under 35, not married or in a relationship, said they have no close friends at all. That was in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. There's an app out there called Replica. This app bills itself as the AI companion who cares. Always here to listen, always on your side. This replica app describes itself as a virtual friend or sibling and has 25 million users around the world. A virtual friend or sibling. That recurring theme is alarming to me. All this technology, all of this virtual connection, and yet feeling hollow and empty inside. my response to that is, why do people turn to AI? And I think the easy answer from where I sit is because there's no judgment. AI doesn't come back and look at you sideways. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't wonder why you're doing the things you're doing. you know, we had an interesting experience. We've spoken at, uh, We've talked at many Mason Lodges across Minnesota. We've thrown around the number 50, 60. We've been to a lot of lodges. We went, to one particular lodge a few years back, and as we were being introduced, the, the leader of this particular lodge introduced us by saying, here's a couple of guys who are coming from an organization that deals with depression and anxiety. And now I realize this is what the guy was saying, I realize none of us here deal with that. And there was probably 50 guys. It was like a riot. A bunch of guys threw up their arms and said, wait a minute, I struggle with this, I deal with this. One guy said, I just came from the pharmacy getting my medication. So the, you know, the, the, the guys in the group are saying, hold on here, we are struggling. So what I'm going to do is you ask, where does the guy who's struggling begin? And we acknowledged how hard that is. Maybe that's not where this starts. Maybe the onus is on People who have had struggles. People who are now doing better. People who maybe haven't struggled but need to understand these struggles are real. They need to create the atmosphere for people to feel safe. And if that doesn't happen, then people are going to continue to be quiet and to put on their best face because it is really risky, biologically, socially, all sorts of reasons to be vulnerable. That's a risk we, we, that's counterintuitive to us. So I think when we keep waiting for the guy who's struggling to come forward, That's why we lose people to suicide and we never saw it coming because we're so busy wondering What's going on in our lives that well wait that guy did what to himself? I never knew he was struggling because you never asked when we're the healthy ones when we're the ones who have recovered That's why we do face it That's why the guys who have struggled at face it and get better lead groups is because they know what it's like and now they're out there talking so Sure, if you're struggling, you need to ask for help, nobody can read your mind. And at the same time, we have to be creating atmospheres and leaders and people who will just speak openly and say, I really do care, regardless of what your issue is, please share with me. It's a, it's a simultaneous process, in my opinion. You hear all the time about men don't want to talk about their feelings. And what we always say at FACE is, they just don't have the right environment. Our groups run two hours and they never finish on time. People stick, I still have stuff to say, to say and to talk about. And if you give them the right space, the safe place that they feel safe, that's where the relationships come from. If you and I talk about the weather all the time, that's going to be our relationship. But if I talk to you what it's like to lose a child, or we went through divorces, or something we have a commonality, those, those bonds last forever. And you can still talk about the weather and joke and have fun, and then you can take it to that next level. And that's, that's where the protective factor in all of this is, is that next level where we can be vulnerable and share with one another. You make a very powerful point about continuing to share your journey. And how you got through it and not just keeping that to yourself. I think that is such a key. We're waiting for someone to raise their hand and say, I need help with something. We have an opportunity out there in our world, in our Masonic lodges specifically, to continue sharing. I'm guilty of that myself. And I, I would think back to 2015, I was living in Boston, my life was imploding. And yet I, I thought I should call, I need to talk to somebody. How is it that I have all of these scores of friends and in quotes brothers and yet I'm afraid to look like I'm weak that I'm vulnerable and that was how I first Logged on to face it, But I don't tell that story enough, do I? Or there's an opportunity to continue sharing. It's okay. Right. And it's also a, a simple situation is that you don't feel comfortable reaching out. How would you feel if that person reached out to you? Would you turn him off and say, I don't have time for this? Or would you say, you know what, no, tell me what's going on. We, we act different with ourselves than we do with other people, right? We need to flip that script a little bit. We need to think about, well, I would feel slighted if a friend of mine took his life and never felt comfortable reaching out. I should be the one to reach out if I need to talk to somebody then. it is hard. Certainly in the moment of crisis for people to reach out. we lost a guy at Faceit a little over a year ago. About a year and a half ago. Led one of our groups, super nice guy, well respected in the community. I mean, out there advocating, educating about depression and things men were struggling with. The day before he took his life, he and I were texting about having coffee the following week. And, you know, don't think there hasn't been a day gone by that I don't wonder what did I miss? I mean, I've saved his text messages. I've poured through those things 5, 000 times. I didn't miss anything. I really didn't. But for whatever reason, he couldn't, at that point in time, say here's what's going through my head. And, it is Really incumbent on all of us, with our friends, our loved ones, as best as we're able to check in with them daily. You know, the classic Minnesota thing. How you doing? Great, great. How are you? Great, great. Okay, we can do a little better than that. The understatement of the century might be this. It is so crucial that we know what's going on in each other's lives, but that requires that rapport of deep trust, empathy, and knowing when to turn off the jokey banter. What is it with men? How we love to, and there's a time and place to have some fun and tease. But if that is the core of our relationship, that wall never goes down about raising one's hand to say. And not feeling foolish or less of a man to seek resources. And you're so right. the father, the patriarch that everyone's supposed to come to us to have some sort of solace and answer counsel, whatever that looks like. when someone logs on to faceitfoundation. org, what does the process look like? What happens? You know, there's, the biggest thing on there is our stories. Mark's story's there, my story's there, there's videos there. People can see us being vulnerable, even though through it's over the internet, but they can relate to things and that's what happens. When someone hears my story, someone can relate. Someone listening to this podcast understands what it's like to lose a parent at a young age. you don't understand that, but if someone else did, him or that person would have a bond that we can share and deal with. And that's what happens. We have a lot of guys that face it when we first meet them. There's a lot of jokes and humor, and that's their defense mechanism. That's their wall they put up. They don't have to be vulnerable if they can laugh and joke all the time. And, you know, we used to, uh, we had our own podcast as well for a while, and, and, you know, The guests we had were just guys who come to group. That's by and large who are the guests. And just them sharing their story. It's, you know, you log on to the website, you're gonna find Connection, you're going to find Some quote unquote normalization of the challenges that you're living with. And if a guy chooses to learn more and fills out our contact information, that individual is gonna probably hear from me within 24 to 36 hours. You know, and we're gonna find a way to connect with them and talk to them and grab coffee and do something. Or somebody will will make themselves available so you don't feel like you're just a clog in a system. I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a, with a father, um, whose son was in, in, in crisis and struggling. Had set up a therapy appointment and, uh, therapist no showed. It was a virtual no showed. So he set up another therapy appointment with a different therapist. And the therapist no showed. Now, I don't know the circumstances, but to me, that ranks right up there with showing up at the ER and the doctor deciding, yeah, I'm not going to go down to bay number seven. That bleeding will stop eventually. The system, it's not that the therapist in this particular instance, and I don't know what happened, but the system is so overwhelmed. And the real opportunity that we have here is to build stronger connections with our friends and our peers that are out there because they can be that first line of defense when somebody is really struggling. That's something we talk about a lot in the Masonic experience that we get back to the brotherhood aspect. We can say the word all day long, Masonic lodges were originally intended to be a men's support system. one of our goals is to get back to that. It doesn't always have to be serious and we're on a pretty, pretty heavy topic today, but it's one that needs to be addressed because it's certainly affecting way more of the people around us than we would ever realize. That recurring theme we talked about in the world of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection. That is a huge ask on new members that are lining up to become a Freemason. They're looking for that bond of friendship, of brotherhood, maybe a mentor, someone to talk to. It's more than just showing up and going through the motions. It's really distilling this down to getting to know one another in a deep, meaningful way. And that is a huge focus for us in the future of how we shape the Masonic experience specifically. But even bigger than that out there, we talked about the friendship recession, the replica app young men are now spending two hours less per week socializing. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. And I think that that is a huge area of opportunity, if not concern that we should be focusing on. Absolutely And you know, the question I'd have about that screen time, too, is what is that? It's not just gaming. It's getting connected into communities that aren't interested in your well being. It's profound and serious pornography addictions that are occurring across the United States, which warps your sense of relationships. It warps your sense of connection. I mean, the additional seven hours isn't benign. It's not just seven hours. It's seven hours that's working against your emotional well being. It's interesting. During 2020, during COVID, Um, obviously Faceit went to Zoom like most organizations did. And, I mean, our guys were into it for about a month. And they needed the connection. Not the little thumbnail that you saw on your computer screen that would go blank all of a sudden because the person walked away. You felt unimportant if all of a sudden all these pictures went away. it, we need the connection and that's what we hear a lot about it. Face it when, when, when the governor of Minnesota lifted some of the restrictions during COVID, we have a daytime group of guys that are probably close to their eighties and they were the first group to say, can we come back and meet in person, please? The highest risk group at that time for they didn't care. They needed each other. They came in, one of the guys came in and asked if it's okay if we took our masks off. And I said, well, as long as everyone in the group is okay with it, that's fine. About 30 seconds later, I heard the loud cheers and hoots and everything else. They needed that connection. They really did. That's what we need to focus on. You just mentioned that demographic. That was a light bulb to me. octogenarians, they're, this is not something just limited. This isn't a young person's game. This isn't just the 19 year old that's spending an inordinate amount of time on a screen. This transcends the demographics. 100%. And as you age, you lose your friends. You lose your partner, your husband, your wife, your, your physical abilities. You hurt you. I mean, everybody is faced with challenges regardless of what age demographic you check. And the antidote appears to be community. And connection. And as you've identified, we'd like those connections. I'll, I'll take any connection over no connection, but we'd like those connections to be a little bit deeper. We'd like to know that it's safe and okay to bring up the hard stuff. We sure would love it when we can joke and have fun. It's a well rounded, super balanced, amazing thing that can happen when we build these things. And in the right environment, that's what's key. We, we laugh all the time. Anytime a guy starts a new group, he's going to join a new group. You know what, I'm probably not going to talk much. I'm probably just going to listen. That group runs an extra 45 minutes because he would, he had a place where he could unload some of this stuff. And to each of those guys, tell us, they walk out of there and they feel lighter. They feel like they've lifted a burden off of their shoulders. And, and the more we do this, the more we make it, normal rather than this big event to share what's going on with me. It just becomes part of my Tuesday that today I reached out to your read and I said, Hey, I'm gosh, I'm just kind of struggling. I don't feel like I fit in. And you know what? Quite frankly, I feel stupid. Then you and I proceed to have a great conversation. You helped me understand that what I'm thinking and seeing is probably not too accurate. And we go about our day. When this topic comes up in general conversation, I hear time and again, I can't afford therapy. I can't afford how much this is going to cost. What's the fee structure at Face It Foundation? We always say we have a terrible business model. We don't charge for anything. I mean, how do you bill for friendship? We don't charge for anything. You know, we never have. We don't charge for breakfast. We don't charge for our groups. We don't charge for, we own a retreat center. We don't charge for the therapy trauma program we've developed. so much of that is not about whether guys can or cannot pay. It's, About friendship and connection. And if, if I tell you that I'm going to hang out with you for a couple of hours and where I'm your buddy, and if you want to go to the ball game, great. And oh, by the way, if you could slip me 150 bucks, I mean, that kind of defeats the purpose, changes the relationship. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. And my hope is that that will be a catalyst for someone that. Needs to talk. Reach out. One thing about guys is that we will use every opportunity to come up with every possible excuse to not do something we don't want to do. Right? It's, it's too expensive. We can't afford it. I can't get off work. I mean, if we can at least take away the monetary side of it, that's one excuse that we can take away from guys. And, uh, it's, well, it's still working after 15 years. Right. And, and, you know, I want to be clear that we're not suggesting therapy isn't valuable. But if you think about what therapy provides, and, and Bill coined this phrase, and I think it's really good, therapy is really a one way street. It's the therapist inviting you into their office and for the next 50 minutes, you pretty much sharing what's going on. And that's a one way street. You don't know anything about the therapist. The therapist is trained not to share how old they are, how many children they have, what they like to do, what their struggles are. That's not why we go to therapy. And there's a lot of value in therapy. But for so many men, what they're actually just looking for is a deep connection with another guy or another woman. I mean, it's not necessarily, it's the gender issue, but it is I just want to be close with somebody who understands and sees me. And that plays such a big role in the Masonic experience, that joining, seeking to have that relationship, that connection. So often, I think it's more of an unintentional mentor mentee relationship evolves just out of the blue. And guys don't even realize that that's happened. We want to see that happen more of spending the time over coffee, over breakfast, or at a game of really. It's ironic that the actual connections sometimes happen outside of the Masonic Lodge, outside of the House of Worship. It's that the time involved face to face though, that we live in this impatient world. Give me what I want right now. But man, is it, it's so cathartic to put the device away and talk about everything across the board. We, we do a monthly men's breakfast at Face It, and we turn out 50 guys. I, I announce the breakfast. It fills up in about two days. I have to turn away usually 15, 20 guys, because we don't have the physical space to handle. And those guys come there. I mean, Bill's a great cook, and he makes good eggs and bacon. That's not why they come. They come because they sit elbow to elbow in a room that really probably shouldn't accommodate 50 guys, and they talk. That's why they come. And then, and then there's always a guy who gets up and shares his story. You know, he's prepared a story, so he goes, he'll go deep. We've had guys share histories of sexual abuse, physical abuse, you know, all sorts of things that they've never shared before, Reed. And they'll stand up and share that with 50 men. It is beyond the pale, the power of it. And it's connection, and it's safety, and it's vulnerability, and it's all of these things that aren't new to men. We, we've evolved our understanding of what people need from each other. And men have to hurry and catch up a little bit to this. And, and you know, one of the challenges that I think, and, and I certainly, I'm not a Mason, so I don't know all the things that happen on Lodge Night, but our institutions have to evolve alongside of this. If we want something, if the Masons want men to be closer with one another, They're going to have to find a way to evolve and incorporate that into the things they do. We're seeking to find a nice balance between our process and tradition, but with content. With meaningful topics across the board. We have a lot of Masonic education, but we're incorporating non Masonic education of things that could be impactful to someone outside of the lodge setting financial planning. I have a few brothers helping me, giving me advice on caring for aging parents right now. That's something that no one. Ever gave us the playbook on what that was going to look like. and there's countless other topics that we're injecting into that experience. But the difference being, you look at a house of worship, lodges that are well attended. And when you have, when you're turning people away. That is because they're fired up to go. They're not going just for the process, just for the administrative requirement. It's the heart to heart connection. what happens at breakfast is remarkable. Like Mark said, there's 50 people in a room that probably should hold 30. Guys are elbow to elbow, which is uncomfortable for most guys, but that's okay. They're sitting at a table of eight other guys, seven other guys, and they may know one or two. I mean, everything about breakfast says they shouldn't come, for the average guy. Who's depressed and anxious. But they do. You know, one thing that's an important issue is about depression and anxiety. You know, the thing about Face It, and you just mentioned it too, about other things in life. It's not, you know, the idea is that a guy that's depressed has got his head in his hands and is crying all the time. That's not the way it is. A guy referred to Face It as not his depression group or his anxiety group, but his life group. You talk about connection. If you have trouble with your teenage kid, You can't connect or something. You know what, a guy in group might be a really good resource because he's in the same boat, has gone through the same thing, something like that. There are a lot of guys that face at our age that have the aging parents. And that's a big stressor, you know, to have tough conversations. We have guys that have gone through divorce. Guys that have lost loved ones real close loved ones. There's a lot of different stories to it. It's not just depression it's how do I deal with this stuff in my own life and Inadvertently one guy talks about it in group and there's six or seven other guys shaking their head saying me too Big picture you're covering the rollercoaster of life. Amen It's what we're talking about. It's you know to me depression is It's like the end of the map. It's the point where you find yourself. But what about the several pitfalls and detours and construction sites you had to navigate to find yourself at the end here? And when you get to the end and we're at this challenging spot where it's difficult and it's, you know, it's, I mean, the depression is paralyzing. It can lead to suicide, obviously. At that point in time, maybe you're not right for Face It, but eventually, or before that point, is exactly what Face It can give you. Because it's the opportunity to talk about and unburden yourself with some of these challenges and learn from other people and be connected. There was an old, this is a number of years ago now, I haven't checked it recently, but they said there was like a suicide every 15 minutes or something like that. You know what? Face It wants to show up at the 5, 6, 7 minute mark. We need to get there before people get up to that 15 mark. Face It. And that's the power of what we do. Guys come to face it. There is no end date. You don't get three months, six meetings. You don't get that. There have been guys that have come to face it now for a decade. These are their friends. This is their community. They're doing a lot better mentally, but this is their people. It's powerful. We mentioned the website already. Is there a phone number? What do you suggest is that first step? You know, I, I think it's always good to email us. info at face at foundation. org. We'll get to my phone, my email, Bill's phone, Bill's email, and we will reply to that email quickly. You will absolutely get a fast response. And that's important. If you, if you reach out for help, and you don't hear from anyone for two, three weeks, the moment's passed. Most guys will run away then. You gotta, you gotta answer really quick. And Mark's really good about that. and you know, one thing I do want to say, Reid, I think guys are getting better. I, I think that anecdotally, as I look back on the last 15 years, a couple of things come to my mind. When we first started, it was a lot of moms, wives, sisters, daughters reaching out on behalf of dad, brother, uncle, boyfriend. Now it's guys reaching out for themselves. And the other thing I've really noticed over the last couple of years is the number of no shows, meaning a guy will call and we'll set up an appointment to do an initial meeting. The number of no shows has decreased dramatically. I don't have the numbers, but I think it's fair to say that every one out of four would just not show up. Now, not only are they, I mean, if they show up, but if they're not going to be there, they let us know. I mean, it's changing. Something is changing. Well, even in society, you talk about it before, about our grandpas, our older uncles or whatever, they just got sick and they died. Nobody really talked about it. It's talked about a lot more now, it's talked about in schools, it's, you see it in obituaries now. Yeah, you see the suicide word in obituaries. Yes, instead of Accidentally, unexpectedly, whatever the buzzwords were. Now you're talking about loss of life due to mental illness. And, and that's powerful. Mark mentioned it earlier, it comes from leadership. Whether it's the Masons or anything else, the people at the top have to share their stories too. You see it a lot now with athletes, pro athletes. A lot of them are coming out. I mean, here in Minnesota, Kevin Love was one of the first ones. Talked about his anxiety, he had to leave basketball games. I mean we need people to make this normal and not that anxiety is normal but it's okay if you struggle with it because so many people do. We have a couple of guys at Face It who are practicing clinicians, practicing therapists who are pretty open about the fact that they attend a Face It group. Really? With their clients. And one in particular who I think of, a dear friend of ours, Sean, he's very open. And his clients absolutely, who we have a number of them in our groups, have appreciated that their quote unquote leader as a therapist acknowledged being human. And that really gave them license to go beyond just the clinical office and to expand this conversation to other parts of their lives and build other friendships and relationships. You used the word leadership, and I like to think of that as influence. It's not always a leader standing up, or the person that we've elected to leader, but somebody who can stand up and say, and not in a showy way, hey, look at me, I had this But to take the stigma away to say maybe you're in a spot like I was and I pursued Finding some resources finding some help and I'm glad I did and so should you and here's why and share the why behind it Exactly, you know so many guys say they they just assume my my oldest kid gave me a book for Christmas And I'm not a cynic, but it's got a lot of lessons in it and the book is called hope for cynics A lot of people who struggle with depression and anxiety are cynical by nature and, and cynical means nothing is ever, ever, ever going to work out. The longer you keep that story to yourself, the more miserable you're going to be. You need other voices. You need other people pointing out how life really is. Sharing another book suggestion that was transformative for me, James Clear, he's an author, influencer, wrote a book called Atomic Habits. His quote is. If you do not actively choose a better way, then society, culture, and the general inertia of life will push you into a worse way. The default is distraction, not improvement. Now, what's the name of this organization we keep talking about? Face it. Do something. That's why I named it that. You gotta do something. Because otherwise, you're It owns you, it eats you, and that's no good. That's no way to live. We say it all the time, make choices or life make choices for you. And if life does it, you don't get any say. I wish we had more time to continue the conversation, but I'm so grateful to have you both here. And especially the time of year that we're recording this in late December of this year, Bill Deckus. Mark Meyer of the Face It Foundation. One more time for our listeners, the website and the email to contact you. Uh, www. faceitfoundation. org. That's F A C E I T, the word foundation. org. Uh, telephone is 651 200 4297. Or info at FaceItFoundation. org. And before we sign off, Reid, I just, on behalf of Bill and I, I want to make sure that all of you Masons and anybody else listening, uh, we are so grateful for the support the Masons have given us. Your organization started supporting us about 13 years ago. And have given us lots of resources, have given us money, have helped us to grow. and we are super grateful for the relationship we've developed with you. It is our pleasure. The work you do. It's a debt of gratitude that can't be articulated. We appreciate that. Very much. Mark and Bill, thank you again, faceitfoundation. org, and this has been another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries.