Why Wall Street men are seeking pelvic floor therapy: lessons from the trading floor

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Transcript

Lindsey: Today's episode is a special one. I'm joined by someone I know very well, my husband, Doug Vestal. Doug not only has a PhD, but he's a passionate educator and author of the book, Financial Freedom for OTs, A Guide to Preventing Burnout.

In our conversation today, we really dive into the culture and let's say obsession to being able to provide for our family and the stresses that accompany it. Now, if you wanna understand more about these topics and specifically how they relate to financial literacy and autonomy, I really encourage you to check out his book. First of all, it is the only book out there that covers the topic of OT and finances.

It's really applicable if you are a new graduate and are really struggling with mounds of debt, but even just as applicable for anyone who may be experiencing any sort of, let's call it a hard relationship with money and our role with it specifically in healthcare. In the book, Doug shares his personal journey and really practical strategies to help OTs build financial security, reduce stress and reclaim their time. We also know that the number one cause for divorce is financial stress.

So even if it's something that you can relate to in your own life or can't, it is one of those things that when we think about tools to help our clients, remember that money and the ability to manage it is in our scope of practice. It's actually in our practice framework. So pick the book up for yourself or pick it up as a tool that you can also help our clients who are dealing with financial stress.

Okay, I can't wait for you to hear today's episode. It's extremely personal as Doug shares a lot about his time on Wall Street. 

New and seasoned OTs are finding their calling in pelvic health.After all, what's more ADL than sex, peeing and poop? But here's the question, what does it take to become a successful, fulfilled and thriving OT in pelvic health? How do you go from beginner to seasons and everything in between? Those are the questions and this podcast will give you the answers. We are inspired OTs. We are out of the box OTs.

We are Pelvic Health OTs. I'm your host, Lindsay Vestal and welcome to the OTs and Pelvic Health Podcast. 

So I recently read an article on Bloomberg and the title was why Wall Street men are turning to pelvic floor therapy.

And you have to imagine this completely caught my attention for a number of reasons. And one of the biggest reasons it got my attention was number one, I used to live in New York City. I started my first private practice there that specialized in occupational therapy for pelvic health.

It got my attention because my private practice, the functional pelvis was started in New York City. So like these clients were my bread and butter, right? I was around this all of the time. But number two, Doug, you, my husband of 20 years, you actually worked on Wall Street.

And so when I read this article, I was A, so glad I was getting the press that I was getting and B, just so thankful and immediately thought I gotta get you on the podcast. I wanna share kind of the insider scoop a little bit more to all of the practitioners out there who want to desperately help these men understand some of the things they're going through and our role in it. So thank you so much for being here today.

Doug: Yeah, I'm absolutely happy to be here. And as you said, I mean, Wall Street gets a lot of attention much of it is very negative. And I think that today's conversation is gonna be really interesting because we can kind of peek behind the curtain.

I can give you some firsthand account of what it's actually like to work on Wall Street because I worked on Wall Street for 15 years in senior management positions. And I have a firsthand glimpse from myself as well as the employees that I managed on a lot of these issues. 

Lindsey: Yeah, so I mean, basically the summary of the article is that they consider Wall Street a high pressure environment, right? And so the young professionals, even the older professionals that are there, we're seeing a lot of chronic stress, definitely prolonged sitting, definitely performance anxiety.

And the article basically summed it up to say that we are really seeing a lot of overactive pelvic floors and it takes clients a very long journey to be able to get diagnosed, to find help if they ever even feel comfortable bringing it up. My personal experiences, many more suffered in silence, didn't get the help they needed. Those that did, the article actually profiled someone who was going to the bathroom 20 plus times per day, was misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and then finally found pelvic floor therapy and had a huge transformation.

Lindsey: So Doug, I think that a lot of people listening to this podcast and probably a lot of people in the world don't have any sense of what wall Street environment is.

What is the working environment? What are the hours? What is the day in and day in grind? I think there's probably some myths out there, misinformation, character portrayals. And I'd love to hear straight from you as someone who worked on Wall Street for 15 years, what is it really like? 

Doug: Yeah, it's a really, really tough, stressful environment. The hours are incredibly long. So speaking for myself, as well as people I manage and people that I worked with, and you can attest to this Lindsey, like I would wake up six o'clock in the morning, I would be out the door by 6:45, 7:00, so that I could be on the desk. It's always called on the desk. Wall Street has its own jargon and vernacular, but that just means you're there ready to work.

And so I'd get into the office no later than 7.30, most of the times 7:15, I would skip breakfast because I didn't have time. I would pick up some coffee, maybe like some sort of like bagel or something like this. I'd get to the desk by 7:30 and basically sit there until I left at the end of the day, which was anywhere from seven to 8 p.m. These were 12 hour long days, Monday through Friday.

And when I would get home, then I would still be on my email. I'd still be on my BlackBerry. And this is common for everyone.

And it's not just like, it's not just nice to do. You don't really do that because you wanna get promoted. It's really, that's the job expectation because literally for myself, I started out in trading.

So I was actively trading risk. And when you're working on the trading desk, anytime a client calls, you're expected to pick up the phone. You're not in the bathroom. You're not getting lunch. You're not going and getting a coffee with your mates. You are there to pick up the phone and make a price for your client.

And if the phone rings and it goes to voicemail or somebody else has to pick it up, you've just lost the bank money and you've potentially endangered the relationship with the client because everything is client facing from a Wall Street perspective. And then even when I was in risk management before I retired, it was the same thing because the trading desk was calling us, asking us if they had approval to execute this particular trade. And so things get escalated very quickly.

So you learn in your first couple of years, really your first couple of months because you get yelled at. If you're not on your desk and you're not answering your phone and you're not responding to email, then what the heck are you doing there, right? Because the only people that they want working are people who are incredibly diligent and responsive because that's the expectation management sets on you and that's the expectation clients set on you because the markets are moving every single second, every single minute. And if you are not there to fulfill the order of your client, then you may have just lost the money.

And so it's, and then when I wasn't working, typically I was on my phone checking emails because stuff was coming in overnight since I managed people throughout the world. And then on the weekends, I would often have to work as well, especially when I was doing risk management and doing regulatory stuff. If we had big projects or big deliverables, I mean, that's for the big regulatory stuff that I worked on for three or four months, I was working every Saturday and Sunday as well.

And so it's a culture that really, really emphasizes a lot of face time and being available. And there's no time for the bathroom. There's no time to eat lunch. You're scarfing down lunch at your desk. 

I remember one time watching my manager, he had one of these like 16 ounces of chicken noodle soup and he called me into his office and in between him talking to me, he was slurping down this chicken noodle soup and I swear it was like a cartoon. Like he inhaled that chicken noodle soup in like 30 seconds just so that he could then get to a particular meeting with the regulators.

He had three minutes and this was super common for me as well. Like you get off a meeting at 12:50, you have another meeting at 1:00 and you got about five minutes to grab food and about three minutes to actually eat it. And so that's really the environment and this happens over a sustained period of time.

You know, I was there for 15 years and it never, it never actually changed. It was always the same. The saying in Wall Street is that it's like a contest. It's like a pie eating contest where the first place prize is more pie. 

So as you get promoted, the work demands just become even higher and the hours become even higher. It isn't like other industries where maybe you have a little bit more leeway.

No, just the expectations are even higher on you. 

Lindsey: Yes, I have a question about that.

Let me just add onto that and say the way you described your manager eating that soup from a pelvic health perspective, right off the bat, you know, we're thinking about the nervous system and how rest and digest is a crucial function for not only being able to absorb the nutrients in your food, but it really is meant to be this experience where you are resting, calm, being in a calm environment so that not only you can rest and restore and get the advantage of all of that nutrition. And your body actually can't do that if it's in that fight or flight state. So if these employees are able to eat throughout the day or drink water, immediately what I saw very often, because what goes in must come out and ultimately affects the pelvic floor, is that these clients were extremely upregulated because they never had that downtime.

That obsessive compulsive nature of looking at the BlackBerry on evenings and weekends meant they were never at rest. And so the way you described that chicken noodle soup kind of encapsulates exactly what we as pelvic floor therapists would see very often in terms of that ability to actually take that pause, take that moment, forget being able to chew your food 40 times each bite, which is something we talk about for great nutrition absorption, but just talk about that upregulated state. 

Doug:Yeah, and I'd like to add something because just to paint the picture a little bit, because I think we always think of Wall Street being dominated by a certain type of character, right? 

And I wanna say off the bat, that was not my experience at all. In fact, one of the reasons why I really liked working on Wall Street and really loved living in New York City was how incredibly diverse it was. So of those 30 employees I had, probably 60 to 70% of them were women.

And in fact, I was, now that I think about it, I was the only American on the team. So my head of Americas was from Kenya. My head of Europe was from Turkey.

My head of Asia was from Hong Kong. And then within there, I had people from India, people from China, I had a Russian, someone from the Ukraine, like someone from Pakistan. It was an incredibly diverse mix of people.

And that's because Wall Street really pulls and tries to get the most talented people. And really there's the saying that they want people who have a PhD. Not a PhD like I have in math, but PhD standing for poor, hungry, and driven.

Because the hours that you're working, everyone is there trying to attain some type of financial security. And that's a real huge primary motivator. I talk about that in my book, Financial Freedom for OTs, my story with that and my motivation for really wanting to put in those long hours.

And so they're really, really driven people, but they come from a very diverse background. And I think that's really important because we're talking really about a broad spectrum of people and lived experiences. 

Lindsey: Yeah, absolutely.

And thank you for bringing up that personality trait, that PhD, poor, hungry, and driven. Because that is, upon reflecting on this and after you and I read the Bloomberg article and I thought, let's get you on the podcast. Immediately what came to mind for me was I wanted to make that, I do wanna do an expose on what Wall Street life is like, but I also wanted to connect it a little bit to the everyday person.

And at the end of the day, that drive to be ambitious, to achieve financial security,You know, often drives us to do some of the very things you're talking about, which are long hours, double and triple shifts, forgetting, not being able to take in a meal because you are going to be able to get to that next client faster. I'm thinking about even people like plumbers and electricians and anyone who really has a thirst to provide for their family. And to be honest with you, as someone who is married to someone who has such a drive, and again, I really do recommend anyone reading Doug's book, which is called

Financial Freedom for OTs, you not only go into a little bit about sort of what drove you there from early trauma in your childhood, but I think it's a pretty universal story. And I bet that most people reading the book will not only see their partner in it, they'll see their clients in it, because it is such an incredible drive and personality trait that doesn't just belong or isn't just in Wall Street.

I really think it's at the crux of really care providers and people who want to provide for their family that get us there, that are able to put your own needs aside, Doug. That's really what I saw was you just being able to neglect basic things that you needed to at the end of the day, be on the desk, have that face time and be able to achieve the status that you did and the accomplishments that you made. And I think this article is really bringing to light how someone in any position, Wall Street or not, will often have pelvic floor issues because of not only sitting all day, but really that preoccupation and that ability to not set work aside, that ends up finding a imbalance of nervous system regulation, pelvic floor muscles, and roles, habits, and routines, of which we know at the end of the day really does all culminate into a healthy pelvic floor.

Doug: Yeah, 100%. It's almost like for that level of ambition, as you said, it goes beyond just Wall Street. It could be doctors, lawyers, plumbers, entrepreneurs, like anyone who has a really, really strong work drive and really is focused on getting ahead.

It's irrational at the end of the day, right? It's an irrational thing. My ability to put up with all the crap that I did for 15 years to you know,  build the career that I wanted to build, I look back on it now and I'm like, there's no way I could do it. The amount of sacrifice that it took and the toll it took on my body, my mental health, everything else, you're just kind of like, well, that was kind of stupid.

It was out there, the amount of stuff that you have to deal with. And that's true, not just for the men on Wall Street, but the women on Wall Street, because 70% of the people that I managed were female. But it's an irrational desire to provide and get ahead.

Lindsey: For me, something that really comes to mind when I think about that era of our life, we did that for 15 years together. During that time, I was building my own business, right? We started the Functional Pelvis where I provided concierge visits to my post and pre and postnatal clients. Kids were zero and two when we started that.

I mean, we were really in the thick of it. And I wish that I would like, and I'm really encouraging you to, if you're comfortable, to share the story anonymously, of course, because this is, I think, when it really struck me. I think that you and I are both really driven people and so we really work well together on that.

But there was this one time where we were really into taking the kids to play and.

Doug: Yeah

Lindsey: There was something that happened that weekend that I think was a wake-up call for me in recognizing the amount of stress and pressure you were under. Do you feel comfortable sharing that story with our listeners? 

Doug: Yeah, yeah, I won't mention what bank I was at because I've worked at about, yeah, five different investment banks.

But yeah, our kids were, what? They were probably four and two at that point, and we really enjoyed taking them to this midtown theater. Our daughter had done some classes there and everything and they put them on really fantastic kids' plays. And so it was a Saturday.

I think we went to a matinee. It was noon or something. And on Wall Street, they have these random exercises that they do where they try to get in touch with you.

And it's for continuity, for if there was a terrorist attack, if systems went down. It's basically kind of like a lockdown drill that would happen at a school, but you're obviously not at work. And what happens is they send out these messages.

They send out a text message, a phone call to your personal cell phone, as well as your work cell phone. They send you emails, and you are expected to reply to that within 30 minutes, letting them know that you are okay. It is this huge exercise, hundreds of thousands of employees that happen.

Well, my luck would be that we went to that play and I wasn't expecting a drill. They don't tell you ahead of time that there's a drill. You had your cell phone.

I didn't feel the need to bring my cell phone. I didn't bring my work BlackBerry. I didn't bring my personal.

And then we were out all day. So I totally missed this window. And it just so happened that our group had been recently reorganized into a different group.

And my manager's manager sent my manager an email saying, basically, WTF, where is Doug? Why is he not responding? And if this happens again, he's fired, just for not responding within 30 minutes to this message. And so what did I do? Because I don't like taking that stuff. So I took that email that he sent to my manager and I forwarded that to his manager and said, hey, apologies for this.

I was out with my family. My wife had her cell phone. Make sure that it doesn't happen again, just to kind of throw him under the bus a little bit and let him know that I wasn't gonna take that.

But lesson learned from then on, you always had your BlackBerry at your hip. And so it's that type of stressful environment where really at any one time, you are going to get fired, right? Like there's no loyalty from the bank's perspective. If they have a down quarter, if they have a down year, then you're going to be letting people go.

And that was actually, we didn't touch on that, but when I first joined one of the investment banks in the very first week, I had to fire six people, including two in London. And one of them, I had to travel second week on the job to London to do it personally because he had just gotten back from vacation. And so you're put in a lot of these very challenging, intense situations, which looking back on it now, I do appreciate it because I think it takes a certain type of person to thrive in that type of environment.

And I did thrive under the stress and pressure. Like for many people, it could break them. But for me, I always wanted to know what my limits were and know that I could handle the stress.

And so I think for the stuff that we do now with our individual businesses and the way that we live our life, it becomes something that you can rely on for being able to handle yourself under pressure. But at the time, when you're in the thick of it, you're not necessarily thinking of that. You're just purely in survival mode.

Lindsey: Well I just, I remember that weekend and I think that's when it really struck me, just the intensity and how you were never really able to let your hair down.

Doug: And then moving forward, it actually became quite a point of stress for me because we would be at a playground with the kids. We would be at play dates and you always had your phone on after that.

The moment it would vibrate, you would look at it. And I was just really aware of that stress and that toll and sort of that vigilance. It was really a vigilance that you had to have.

And that at the end of the day, you knew you had to have it if you were gonna stay, stay on Wall Street. And so I think at that time, I started seeing more clients from Wall Street and I was able to really kind of put everything together. My business really specialized in pre and postnatal people.

But living in New York City, you start to develop a great reputation and you start seeing diverse clients after that and really starting to see a lot of perimenopause and menopause clients, even started seeing some teenagers and then people from Wall Street, both vulva owners and penis owners. And so it was one of those things where I appreciated what you were doing so much more. And then I also was able to extrapolate it to my clients who weren't in these high pressure situations who for whatever reason, either because of that intense drive for financial security or that ability to be a punching bag for the ultimate sacrifice to provide for your family, whatever the case may be, it helped me see that holistic perspective because I think very early on in my career, I studied with a lot of PTs and I think I thought this was the mode, this was the model.

I had to treat clients in this very manually focused way, which didn't allow a lot of time for looking at habits and routines. So how do you make time to incorporate chicken noodle soup in the middle of your day and actually take a moment to pause? How do you make sure you're able to pee without getting up after being at a desk for eight hours? Some of these more holistic sort of habits and routines are things that I really started to look at to help my clients. And honestly, it was some of those moments that helped me wake up more to the OT perspective because I saw those are the things that were moving the needle.

And honestly, I lit up. I loved talking about that stuff. I loved providing that education.

And I think that's honestly when my business really started to take off because my reputation grew. I was the first occupational therapy practice there. And so all the other practices really were from more of that physical therapy lens.

This is way before biopsychosocial was talked about and trauma-informed care was out there. I mean, this was over a decade ago. And so I think now I'm seeing a lot more physical and occupational therapists really sharing lanes and taking each other's perspective.

But back then, I think it's honestly one of those things that helped me open the door to, and give me permission to really practice through my OT lens. Okay, 

And so I was really grateful for those experiences. Doug, I'm super curious. Did any of the employees that you managed, did they ever, were they ever comfortable in sharing with you any of the, I mean, specifically pelvic health concerns, anything like that? Were they ever able to open up to you and share they were having issues on the desk? 

Doug: Yeah, I mean, I think about three people.

Two were guys, one was a new mom. And the guy in particular, well, let's call him Sam. He actually had an anal fissure.

So, and he was really, really super embarrassed about it. And so I remember one day he came into my office and he was like, hey, I am gonna have to be going out for treatment quite a bit. And he was really nervous because he was a really key point person on the desk.

So he had a really great relationship with the Latin American sales team. And so he covered a lot of that. And so when the Latin American sales team needed a price on something, they would call Sam, and Sam was a whiz at the computer, right? Like he could get any number out of an Excel spreadsheet.

And so he was really, really nervous because one of the ways that you get promoted, one of the ways you get bonuses and everything else is recommendations from other people. And so he was really, really nervous about being away from the desk so much to take care of this because he knew the Latin American sales team wasn't gonna go to rely on him quite a bit. And all of that trade flow was gonna go to someone else on the desk.

And so I remember talking with him about it and just reassuring him that from my perspective, like I wasn't gonna let that influence like anything that we do from a bonus perspective or from a promotion perspective, but it was also really hard for him because it was an anal fissure and you're sitting all day. And you're sitting for 12 hours a day, 10, 12 hours a day, not to mention the commute that you're doing, right? So you're sitting on those hard subway seats. Some of the people that I managed had an hour plus long commute and everything.

And so for him, he actually ended up having to go on some disability leave for quite a bit so that he could actually take care of this. Another person I mentioned that, 70% of the people I managed were female. So we had a lot of people going on maternity leave at any one particular time.

And so I remember one person in London had quite a bit of issues from a leaking perspective. She was also like not at all comfortable sharing that information, but she had to because she was going to get treatment. And then for me, I mean, you'll remember when we lived in Paris and COVID lockdown happened, like your posture is so bad.

And I was sitting all the time that I developed myself like extremely bad tailbone pain, right? And it took years for that to resolve and a lot of treatment to resolve that. And so, yeah, there were quite a few issues and then I'm sure there's a lot that obviously people wouldn't feel comfortable necessarily talking to their manager about, right? 

Lindsey:Yeah. And I, I, that's why I'm so happy that things like this Bloomberg article are coming out because I'm hoping that it gives people an opportunity to not only speak up and seek the treatment they need, but also just to recognize the role that stress, that posture, that poor eating habits, that not taking time to drink water really create, because the article did a decent job of highlighting some of those things and things that are under our control and things that are not under our control. I remember one of my clients, I worked for him to be able to get a standing desk because sitting was so painful for him. And so once we're able to do that, like a lot shifted for him.

And so, and then other people in the office started getting them because they saw he had it. So it really, once you start developing and showcasing how good habits can make a big difference, it really does spread. So I hope that it's a start for more and more conversations happening in all high pressured environments across the country so that people can start like speaking up and saying, I need to care.

And your employee, the one who finally had to take medical leave, like how awesome would it have been if he could have gotten help before it ever got to that point. The desk would have been happier because he, you said he was really great. You know, so they would have kept a great employee.

He wouldn't have been in so much pain. And we know that to get to that point, to take disability, like it it's, it's probably pretty, pretty extreme. So earlier conversations, the better, the more we can advocate for our needs.

I'm all for that. 

Doug: Absolutely. 

Lindsey: So Doug, we've talked a little bit about pelvic health concerns and postpartum and things like that.

What about other health concerns? Were there anything else chronic or otherwise that you saw on the desk that some of your colleagues or managers struggled with? 

Doug: Yeah, so the eating one is, is a really big one, but the other one I would say, and it goes along with all of the stress management is sleep. Like that was huge. And I'm thinking of specifically a lot of people who had incredibly long commutes, right? Like it's, it's no secret that it's expensive to live in Manhattan, right? So the normal trajectory is, Oh, somebody is actually living in Long Island or in Queens.

They're starting out their career. Maybe they get some raises, they move to Manhattan, they meet their spouse, they get married, they start having kids. Suddenly they're priced out of Manhattan.

They don't want to raise kids in Manhattan. And so they moved to New Jersey. They moved to, to New York and one of the river towns, 

Lindsey: Connecticut.

Doug: Connecticut,And so like, for instance, one of my bosses and he was my boss for a long time. He had been living in Connecticut for the whole time that I knew him, the 15 years. And he had an hour and 45 minute commute one way.

Lindsey: I remember that.

Doug: So in on top of a very high stressful job, managing 400 plus employees, and he's been doing that for 15 years. He didn't do it because he wanted a big house or his wife wanted a big house, but for them as a family, it was important to raise kids out in nature, right? Like they lived in a town in Connecticut where it was easy to do sports and everything else. And his wife worked locally in town.

So it worked for them. And also knew a lot of other people who did that. Like one of the, the, the moms that I managed, like her and her family lived in one of the river towns and both her and her husband commuted in and they had two kids at the, at the time.

And so spending that time sitting on the train, right. Having to wake up early. Like these people would have to wake up at five, be on the train by six to be able to get on the desk by seven.

And then they're not getting home till eight 30, nine o'clock. Right. And then they're having to do all of the parenting stuff and catch up and everything.

And so all of these people with the chronic stress are also chronically underslept, if that's a, if that's a term, right. They're running on, on fumes and you see that making, you know, impacts on their life, right? You can see that in their physical appearance with their eyes and their energy levels and everything. And so it's really something that can constrain you.

And so I would say one big thing, and OTs know this, obviously I'm preaching to the choir is really asking about like their sleep routines and their, their ability to, to de-stress and, and regulate their nervous system. 

Lindsey: No, I think, I think that if you're expected to be on constantly, when it gets to the place where you put your head on the pillow, how easily are we able to flip that switch? And that's, that's absolutely true. I also remember, and I think I read about this in your book, there was an instant pretty early on when you first got on wall street where someone actually died.

Doug: Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, on the trading floor and he was in his early fifties and he died of a massive heart attack right there on, on the trading floor, you know, and that was a huge wake up call as well.

It was incredibly, you know, unexpected and, and traumatizing that I wasn't on the floor when, when it happened. but he was a really, really well respected person and it was, I would like to say that there was changes made after, after that, like a lot of times these articles come out about the working hours and the 80 hour work weeks and the 100 hour work weeks. And, you know, banks do try to make some sort of concessions and they will tell people that actually they, they can't work seven days a week.

They can only work six days a week. You know, the managers are supposed to, to manage, uh, how much time they're working and everything. But in practice, I don't see a lot of that working.

You always slip back to the old routines because it's so incredibly competitive. 

Lindsey:Yeah. I want to just highlight one more thing as we're sitting here having this conversation, which is really kind of a shift in what we might call like penis owner vulnerability. I think the fact that, that articles like this are coming out again, where people are talking more openly about things like sex related symptoms, pelvic pain, anxiety. topics that they may have avoided in the past because they thought, okay, this is this, I'm not supposed to talk about this. Right.

And we all know that it's also not just in penis owners, but I think we definitely see it a lot in more of these like high functioning, high stress environments where there is really such a awareness of how mental stress manifests in the body, specifically in the pelvic region. So being able to be vulnerable, embrace the fact that you may need help, but still be able to show up and be that high performer is really important. And I think it also shows a massive gap in public awareness.

In fact, that like from occupational prevention, early screening, OTs have a huge role to play here in advocating for just basic habits, being able to eat, being able to drink, being able to shut off from work, being able to really be able to be in multiple postures throughout the day. Again, I love that we're talking about this. This is right up our alley in terms of what we know is so important in getting this information out there and shifting some of these more chronic stressors in our clients' lives.

Doug: Yeah, I think so too. And I think anytime, you know, I think it's a misnomer that men have it figured out or that men have this amazing support system or anything. That certainly wasn't my case.

And I think a lot of them are just suffering in silence, you know, and they're feeling the pull of taking care of the family. They're feeling the pull of status. They're feeling the pull of, well, I can be really useful at work, right? Like that's an identity that I can really step into.

I get a lot of feedback. I get a lot of, a lot of positive validation about that. And it's very easy to ignore all of those other symptoms, you know, for, from the headaches to the fatigue to like the pain and everything.

And it's what, you know, it's not that they have it figured out or they have these great solutions. In fact, many of them are so incredibly busy. They can't imagine taking the time.

Like when I was doing it, I could not imagine taking the time out to go to an appointment, you know, to, to be off the desk, not only for an hour, but then with the commute as well and have to talk to my manager about it. And so I think, as you said, Lindsey, like the more this gets discussed, like the better it is because they certainly haven't figured it out. And there's a saying on wall street, which is that it's like golden handcuffs or golden cage is that you get to a certain place that you're unable to escape it, you know? And so I think these types of conversations are, are really important to bring, you know, a lot of light to, to what is happening with these men.

Lindsey: Well, thank you so much, Doug, for taking the time to not only share your experience, but the experiences that you've had, just being able to have been in that position for 15 years, have now retired, are really now stepping into supporting OT, starting their private pay practices. Also, thank you so much for your book. I've had so many students share with me how relatable it is, how you even sharing some of your own early associations with money and your conflict with making money, but being financially secure really sort of spoke to an inner voice that they had.

So really appreciate you bringing, bringing a voice to these topics that are really under discussed and absolutely impact our quality of life, our ability to show up for our families, for ourselves and absolutely impacting our pelvic health. 

Doug: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me in and I look forward to our next conversation.

Lindsey: Thanks for listening to another episode of OTs and Pelvic Health. If you haven't already hop onto Facebook and join my group, OTs for Pelvic Health, where we have thousands of OTs at all stages of their pelvic health career journey. This is such an incredibly supportive community where I go live each and every week.

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