059 - Part 2 of 2 - Dusty's inspiring mental health journey. (Dusty Horton)

Warning: this episode includes conversation about suicide.  This episode may not be appropriate for anyone sensitive to the topic of suicide.  If you are having suicidal thoughts, please know, SUICIDE IS NOT THE ANSWER, help is available.  A super easy way to get help in the United States is the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, Just TEXT or CALL 988.  Please get help.  This world needs each and every one of you. 

HELP. IS. AVAILABLE.   Text 988 or Call 988.

The is the 2nd of our 2 part series with O.G. BMX pro Dusty Horton.   In this episodes Dusty shares his mental health journey including his childhood experiences, struggle with perfectionism, numerous serious injuries, alcohol abuse, incarceration, losing his driver's license, thoughts of suicide, and thankfully for Dusty (and all of us) his path to recovery and balance through trauma work with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. 

Dusty also takes us through how cycling is playing a role in his path to recovery and how his relationship with his bike has changed.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy: https://ifs-institute.com/
Somatic Therapy:  Harvard Medical School
Yin Yoga: https://yinyoga.com/yinsights/what-is-yin-yoga/
How to manage your perfectionism: Harvard Business Review (HBR)

Dusty Horton's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dustyhorton/

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Transcript

Josh: 0:00

Greetings to the Mountain Cog podcast audience. I hope you're having a great day. What we're about to delve into here is part two of our two-part series with the OG BMX professional rider, dusty Horton, and in the first episode, which we very much enjoyed and hope you did too we get into Dusty's, or got into Dusty's background. In BMX the cool bike cities riding these days, some cool new bike companies we learn about the 22, have lots of jokes, fun stories, got to know Dusty a little bit and it was a really fun episode. We definitely enjoyed recording it. Hope you enjoyed it as well.

Josh: 0:37

In this second part, we delve into some more serious content, and that content really is. Dusty shares with us his mental health journey, and so there's a warning that comes along with that. This podcast does include a discussion of suicide, with the intention of aiming to help promote understanding and support. However, it can be sensitive for some listeners. So if suicide is a topic that is sensitive to you or anyone that's in the earshot of this podcast, suggest that maybe you don't listen to this podcast, and if you need help or if you're thinking about suicide, it's not the right answer.

Josh: 1:13

There's plenty of options to get help. One of the key ones is you can contact, if you're in the United States, a crisis hotline and all you have to do is either call or text 988. Once again, call or text 988. Suicide is not the answer. Please reach out and get the help that you need by calling or texting 988, if you're having those thoughts, and we'll go ahead and dive into this part two and we're going to learn all about Dusty's mental health journey, which is quite interesting and quite inspiring. So thank you all for listening and I hope you're having a great day. We're going to calm down on the jokes here. Let us tell you or let us listen to your story. Back story.

Mike: 2:12

Sure yeah, what do?

Josh: 2:14

we add time wise, so we're about 50 minutes, but we usually go about an hour. But we can go as long as you're comfortable.

Dusty Horton: 2:19

We're at 50. 50.

Josh: 2:21

Perfect.

Dusty Horton: 2:22

Okay. So yeah, I mean I think you know I'd like to talk a little bit about my history, just as it relates to cycling and how we're not in any hurry man, just take your time. Thank you. In whatever way I can, that would hopefully help some other people.

Dusty Horton: 2:43

Yeah, provide some hope, really ideally, to some other people. And so you know, just in the interest of that, you know a little bit more candid history and kind of where I came from and how I ended up in Tucson and how I ended up riding bicycles in the first place and just sort of. I've had a pretty transformational last year and I'd like to talk a lot about that kind of journey and shift for me which has really put me into a space that I hope everybody who goes through anything like I've gone through can feel someday.

Josh: 3:20

You can get into. Yeah, exactly so.

Dusty Horton: 3:22

I grew up as we talked about in Milwaukee and I want to be clear. I'm going to talk about things that happen like in my family, but there's no blame. This is just stuff that occurred and, to be super clear, like I don't hold any of these people.

Josh: 3:41

You know how many grudges.

Dusty Horton: 3:42

Yeah, I don't. Thankfully, I've been able to work through a lot of that stuff.

Josh: 3:46

Right on.

Dusty Horton: 3:47

Yeah, but you know I grew up or, excuse me, let me back up so my parents met in rehab, didn't date. My mom wanted a child, didn't want anybody involved. Finds a cute guy in rehab, sleeps with him, doesn't tell him he's pregnant. He finds out later, tries to be involved. She cuts him out. Okay, so I grew up just with a mom and the understanding that like well, things just didn't work out with my dad and so like that's why you just have a mom, right, and so so you had no relationship with your dad growing up at that point.

Josh: 4:33

No relationship you didn't know that he had tried to at that point, didn't know that he had tried to be involved and wasn't allowed to Right Okay.

Dusty Horton: 4:39

Yeah, and so that's how I grew up, and so you know, your normal is your normal right. And so I grew up with just a mom and what I felt like was a relatively loving family, like a grandmother who cared for me and a grandfather and aunts and uncles and cousins and all this stuff and, you know, felt relatively grateful for my situation. But what I didn't realize is that my mom, who was drinking, you know, in and out of rehab and drank for the first five years of my life, wasn't physically or emotionally available to me at times, especially early, early.

Josh: 5:20

You know early childhood times, when you needed it, exactly, exactly.

Dusty Horton: 5:24

And so what I realized through the years is like oh, that set me on this path of like figuring out that I need to get a connection. You know, the way that I can generate attention from my mom is by excelling, and that's you know what. It took me a few years to figure that out, but, like, by third, fourth grade, I was a straight A student all the way through high school. Oh well, and that that was just how I knew to operate, because that was effective, right, right, yeah, and so that that sort of set the standard for, like how you operate. And I had a grandmother who was very OCD, so, like, you clean things a certain way and you, you know, you wash the floors on Tuesday and you wash the windows on Thursday, and you know, is my office driving you crazy?

Josh: 6:16

right now? Not at all.

Dusty Horton: 6:17

No, like I, thankfully like the. The stuff everywhere was never a problem for me it was like how you clean things? Was important, Like how you yeah exactly and so so, for whatever reason, right, like these things that you pick up from childhood, right and so. So I had this essentially idea or belief. I mean, really belief is like core belief, sort of even beyond consciousness, right, like a subconscious belief that to be worthy, to get the connection, the, the, the the television that I needed.

Josh: 6:58

You need to excel.

Dusty Horton: 6:59

I got, I got to perform right, and so, and, and, is that a perfectionist kind of outcome? Then it's part of it.

Josh: 7:05

Yeah, for sure it's the opposite of what you and I have. I'm sorry I got to stop.

Mike: 7:12

No jokes is great man. Some of this stuff is heavy.

Josh: 7:16

So it's it's it's important to have balance for sure.

Dusty Horton: 7:19

Right, and that's if. If there's anything I've learned that I want to impress upon anybody, it's it's balance, for sure. So, so, yeah, and and so, in that, like growing up in this environment, with you know, in suburban white America, in the middle of west, with a middle class household, and you had every toy that you wanted, and you know, I got a Nintendo on my 10th birthday and a 13 inch TV for my bedroom.

Mike: 7:46

Nice, it's so sweet. Yes, yeah, exactly.

Dusty Horton: 7:50

But I didn't have, like, a parent who is emotionally available, right, and so so you're living in this life, that stuff people all over the world idolize, and you're miserable and you don't know it, right.

Mike: 8:03

It's your normal.

Dusty Horton: 8:04

That's my normal Right and so I. And the other thing is I was always and this is probably related to that rambunctious like bouncing off the walls energy every day ADHD style probably.

Mike: 8:19

I don't know I wasn't given it a name.

Josh: 8:21

It used to be childhood, now they call it ADHD. Yeah, childhood.

Mike: 8:25

I didn't get diagnosed but maybe I was too old but rambunctious, that was a word rambunctious for sure.

Dusty Horton: 8:31

So so by five. And my mom actually grew up. She was a gymnast and a diver.

Josh: 8:36

And so.

Dusty Horton: 8:37

So she threw me into gymnastics at five years old. She's like you're jumping off the couch and landing on your head. You need to learn how to crash. So she throws me into gymnastics, and so so, from five to 12, I did gymnastics, and as a gymnast, right, because now you give me an identity and I need to perform seven years Right, and so I'm yeah, I mean you're going to state and regionals and you know you're, you're competing and you're doing all this stuff.

Josh: 9:01

Right, that's a heavy, that's a heavy lift.

Dusty Horton: 9:02

Yeah, I mean it's at the end of it by 12, it was five days a week, five nights a week right yeah at 12, right. And so I had this weird genetic knee disease called Osgood schlotters. And you know growth spurt. And so when I was going through puberty I couldn't do gymnastics anymore. And the doctor said you know what? You should ride a bicycle. Bicycle, be really good for you. They're almost therapeutic.

Mike: 9:30

Yeah, be therapeutic, right, you can't do gymnastics anymore.

Dusty Horton: 9:34

But you should ride a bicycle and you take a 13 year old, 12 year old kid who's a gymnast, that's used to flying off stuff and doing flips and jumps and you put him on a bicycle right.

Josh: 9:46

What's going to happen?

Mike: 9:49

What's going to happen? Wow, what a good combination.

Dusty Horton: 9:52

So that's, that's how I got into BMX. I mean, I like thought it was cool as a kid and, like I said, was jumping off curbs and stuff. But at that point I was like, oh, this is my new identity really, this is my new career, right?

Josh: 10:04

And 13, like this is who I'm going to be.

Dusty Horton: 10:06

I'm going to be a good student and I'm going to ride BMX, yeah, and thank God for the community, because there was, like, I mean, bmx in the early 90s was relatively dead and there was a community in my suburb of Milwaukee of kids that rode BMX and without that, like, I probably would have been in jail at 17 instead of 27.

Dusty Horton: 10:28

So, like, without that, I would have had a much rougher childhood. So that's that's what drives me to continue to promote cycling in general, but specifically, like the action sports communities are so supportive and such a good community and that was where I found really a connection that I just didn't have that at home in the same way, and so it was like this, really rewarding, you know, passion, right, and so it just took off for me and so I started riding BMX you know, 12, 13 years old and and rode for years and through that time really damaged my body, like you know, from from 13 and I quit. I'm doing air quotes here for the people that can't see I quit quit riding BMX professionally when I was 24.

Dusty Horton: 11:23

So I made it from like, really, 13 to 24 were my good years and then, like, my body gave up at that point. So so, just in that short period of time, I had had three knee surgeries, two ruptured spleen, ruptured kidney, broken back. Oh, all from BMX to right ankle surgeries. Well, foot I shattered my calcaneus, had to have a plate put in the hell.

Mike: 11:49

What's the hell's?

Dusty Horton: 11:49

the calcaneus Sorry heel bone.

Mike: 11:52

You break it both, you have a hurt.

Josh: 11:54

Shatter yeah, how do you shatter a heel bone, jesus? What to tell me about that crash?

Dusty Horton: 12:03

I was trying to get my key chain here, which is the plate that was in my that's what holding my heel bone together.

Josh: 12:10

That was the plate. That's awesome. You still have it, yeah, yeah.

Dusty Horton: 12:14

So it's, you've taken it out of it and it's a key chain. Now you take it out.

Mike: 12:17

I just made it a key chain, I just put it on my key ring, but that's what was holding just everything in your heel while it was healing my heel bone together.

Dusty Horton: 12:24

Yeah, it was literally never seen a piece of titanium calcaneus.

Josh: 12:30

I got to take a rabbit hole real quick when I was learning Arabic. I was, I used to chew on guitar picks all the time. I always had a guitar pick in my mouth and I was taking a listening test and the and the listening test started faster than I expected and it surprised me. And you swallow the guitar pick, and I swallow the guitar pick Yep, so like this guy. So like three days later I look down and there's the guitar pick Yep, yep, nice. And so I'm like, well, I can't just let it.

Mike: 13:02

So yeah, so you washed it off and I watched it now, josh.

Josh: 13:05

So I wore it for like, for like a decade. I wore it as a necklace.

Mike: 13:14

I don't have it anymore, but you wore the digested guitar pick and I was like that went through my whole body.

Josh: 13:20

Sorry, it just reminded me of that story.

Mike: 13:22

I don't know why, but it's something that was in your body.

Dusty Horton: 13:28

Yeah, that you now have again. It came out All right, keep going.

Josh: 13:34

I didn't mean to tell a great story and worth the rabbit hole.

Mike: 13:38

So you broke a lot of your. You did a lot of damage to your body.

Dusty Horton: 13:41

A lot of damage.

Mike: 13:43

Nine years.

Dusty Horton: 13:43

Yeah, and, and I 11, whatever.

Mike: 13:45

Yeah, amazing, you had time to ride because you were healing half that time.

Dusty Horton: 13:48

A lot of the time I was healing, yeah, and so so you know what, what I can now look back and say, like, why do I do that Right? And thanks to the work I've done recently and identifying and healing some of this trauma, I can say, oh, like that's I was. You know, if I didn't pull the trick, I wasn't worthy right, or somebody wasn't going to love me or somebody was pushing the same thing, the same thing that drove you to get straight.

Josh: 14:17

A's the same thing that drove you to clean a specific way drove you on the bike Exactly exactly, even to the point of bad injuries.

Dusty Horton: 14:26

Exactly exactly Right. And so, and in the culture and this is, you know, in a lot of our culture and I don't want to like demonize BMX or action sports or anything, but we have this mindset, especially in America, of like, tough it out, man up, and so you'd have an injury and you'd have two months off because you're doing PT and rehab and all this stuff, and like your friends are like, are you riding soon? And you know, like you push right. And even if, like I remember, for years I worked at DK while I was riding for them and had knee surgery while I was working there, and even there, like and it wasn't them, but it was me like they'd get a container of bikes to unload and I'd be hobbling, like you know, trying to get bikes out of the container with my jacked up knee, like pushing myself because that's what you're supposed to do. In my mind, right, that's what I'm thinking. Is I got to do this or these people won't love me?

Josh: 15:29

Man up, get back on the ice.

Dusty Horton: 15:31

Right. And so we have this push right to not honor what our body needs, right. We have this push to honor what society wants us to do, or even like these things that we think we need to do, which are made up from childhood because we didn't get the shit we needed then right. And so we're operating often in this, you know, very unconscious way. And so that's what it was, was like I just would if my body would keep moving, I'd try the trick again and it worked. It was relatively successful. I got sponsored and I certainly wasn't like X Games level pro, but you know I rode local contests and got paid to ride for DK doing shows and a couple other small companies doing shows.

Josh: 16:20

If you got paid to ride a bike, you were doing well yeah.

Dusty Horton: 16:23

Yeah it was. I mean I was grateful to have all the opportunities I had. For sure it was yeah, and had my body not sort of really tried to give out then at 24. When I was 24, I had my third knee surgery and carpal tunnel surgery on the same day and at that point my doctor, my orthopedic doctor, was like if you keep doing this, like you're going to have knee replacements when you're 35.

Dusty Horton: 16:48

And if you quit now, you might make it to 40 before you have your knee replaced. You know, and the mindset then was like you can't heal this stuff right, like you're just you're ruining it and it's screwed forever right, which thankfully I now know is not the case and you know.

Josh: 17:03

so a few the science has advanced since then a little bit, right, yeah.

Dusty Horton: 17:08

Well, it's more about even the people recognizing like the body's ability to ability to heal on its own right. And that's you know. You think so much about doctors, right, like, is them getting you the hell out of your own way?

Mike: 17:25

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Josh: 17:25

Like they're not healing a bone.

Dusty Horton: 17:27

They're putting a cast on there, so you don't mess with it.

Josh: 17:29

Putting a cast on there so the body can heal it.

Dusty Horton: 17:30

Exactly.

Mike: 17:31

Exactly Right. Stays in one place.

Dusty Horton: 17:33

Yeah and so so what happened for me? I was, I was really grateful to like have those experiences and ride and and and get to travel. I mean I like got to see both coasts the same summer, like touring across the country, really incredible times. And yeah, I'm so grateful, especially DK like did so much for me Even when I quit riding professionally. Dk continued to support me for 15 years like given you know, send me frames when I needed them, or send me, you know whatever.

Josh: 18:04

So yeah, really really incredible team.

Dusty Horton: 18:07

Yeah, like I love those guys and to see them still doing well and supporting like Tucson BMX and you know there's a lot of a lot of love for those guys.

Mike: 18:17

Shout out to the DK. So you're in the van. Like you know, you hear about the pros in the van doing the tours, so you're. You're one of those guys. Had the bike and making the tour and the rounds with DK.

Dusty Horton: 18:28

Yeah yeah. The biggest, like most well known tour I went on was there's a company called Props in the nineties and 2000s that did BMX videos and they had a thing that they spoofed road rules from MTV and they made a thing called road fools. It took like 13 guys and put them in a bus and like King of the what's this?

Mike: 18:52

What's the skate one, now King of the road? I'm not familiar, sorry, okay.

Dusty Horton: 18:57

Yeah. So this was like, you know, just put a bunch of guys in the van and film, like, and so it was like this introduction to like seeing what BMXers look like not just on the park but also traveling. And so they did a continuation of that called megatur, and in that they had a like groups of teams go and then they were like meet up at different places.

Dusty Horton: 19:17

So I got, I got to be on the first megatur, which was like really amazing, you know, for me at that time like that's really cool and, yeah, super awesome, so that that was like really great part of my life, but also was sort of the start of, like, this continual downhill, of like not listening to my body right, continuing to let it deteriorate. And so I was. I was really making a lot of sacrifices to live that life in that way and not to say that, like to live that life, you have to make the sacrifices I made. I was making those because of the trauma that I had, right.

Josh: 20:00

I mean to draw a parallel that our listeners might recognize. You know we had the Air Awareness podcast and we talked about Gracia and Scander leaving scootering. Yeah, you know, part of it was just the. I mean, these kids were flying 30 feet in the air and if they didn't land right on a scooter with, you know wheels, this big right? You know the boys are both riding BMX now and then they've transitioned very successfully, I think, to BMX and they're like oh my God, this is so much easier. Yeah, you got a 20 inch wheel versus like a two inch wheel or three inch wheel, but it was, I mean, gracia was getting hurt, like, like, seriously hurt a lot, and he was like 13 years old, right, and so he was like dude, I can't keep doing this to my body. I'm done.

Mike: 20:37

So he stopped, whereas you kept going yes, I didn't have that thought, yeah.

Dusty Horton: 20:42

Right, that thought of like I should stop this is hurting my body and I had a lot of friends like that and I was like you guys are idiots, Like BMX is awesome.

Josh: 20:50

I'm on the megator. We're talking about totally yeah.

Dusty Horton: 20:52

Yeah, whatever ideas you got. So so that was it was. It was also a time where I really just was not listening to my body and, and you know, quit, quit riding 2004, when I was 24 or 25, something like that and took about four years off and I might. My weight when I was riding was probably like I don't know, 180, 175, something like that, like back then, and and in four years I went to 235.

Josh: 21:24

Oh, wow, Wow. And you're like what? 511?

Dusty Horton: 21:26

510. 510. Yeah.

Josh: 21:28

Yeah, just to put it in context.

Dusty Horton: 21:30

Yeah, so I went right, right Gained you know 50, that's heavy. Yeah, 55 pounds.

Mike: 21:36

For not riding.

Dusty Horton: 21:38

Well okay, all right, yeah, you know, and, and so what? What happened was when I didn't have riding Right, what? I didn't know this then, but I can look back, you know.

Josh: 21:49

Hindsight, hindsight's always 20s one.

Dusty Horton: 21:51

Right, I can look back now and see like, oh, I didn't have that outlet, and so the thing I love about BMX, and like that I think every cyclist knows, is that it's creative right. Like, even riding a bicycle down the sidewalk is creative right.

Dusty Horton: 22:08

And so I didn't have a creative outlet and I didn't have an exercise outlet, and so I'm sitting on the couch eating pizza and drinking because my mind is going crazy, right, and so I used to demonize the drinking and think like, oh well, like I got alcoholic parents and so I must be alcoholic and you know all these, you know stories and whatever, and at the end of the day, like my existence was like miserable, you didn't have an outlet. Yeah, and so without an outlet and living in this space of just being relatively miserable and like getting heavier and heavier and more and more uncomfortable and like for me, with bad knees already, bad back like the extra weight just kills you, Just awful, awful.

Dusty Horton: 22:56

So it really got to a spot where it was bad. I mean, I ended up in, like I mentioned earlier, jail at 27. So I quit riding at 25 and by 27, you know DUI and multiple assault charges and you know drinking nonsense, right?

Josh: 23:12

And.

Dusty Horton: 23:12

I ended up spending 10 days in tent city and like a month in Tucson, yeah, so it was really, which is not a fun place to be.

Josh: 23:22

No, a tent city. That was not a good experience. Was it a summer or a winter?

Dusty Horton: 23:27

It was summer. I lucked out and was on so many psych meds at the time that they wouldn't let me in general population. So I got put in the infirmary which actually had like an adjustable bed and air conditioning. Yeah, it was. I got better.

Josh: 23:43

Lucky.

Mike: 23:44

Yeah, yeah.

Dusty Horton: 23:46

Lucky going to jail.

Josh: 23:47

I was in jail, but it was a good. It was a good jail.

Dusty Horton: 23:51

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as the worst jail right.

Josh: 23:53

Yeah, for sure.

Dusty Horton: 23:54

Right Comparison, anyway. So so, yeah, just really struggled during that period of time and eventually, like something in my mind said you need, you have to. Well, you know what it was the losing your license and having to be on a bicycle, you know that was Like you didn't have an option. Yeah, yeah, so I had a bicycle and I was like wait, I used to ride these things and like, do tricks. You know it's four years ago, right, but like in your mind, 100 years ago 100 years ago.

Dusty Horton: 24:22

Yeah, 27,. Whatever I was thinking, anyway. So, yeah, so I was riding bicycle because I didn't didn't have a license and so so then I like called up DK and they sent me a 26 inch dirt jumper, because they made dirt jumpers for a couple of years, right. So they sent me a 26 inch dirt jumper and I was like this is perfect. And I still had my old, like contest BMX bike, right? Yeah, like I'd never gotten rid of that thing. I was still in the garage.

Dusty Horton: 24:45

But I got this dirt jumper and I started riding around, jumping off stairs and stuff like that, and slowly, over the next couple of years now you know it's been over a decade like just kept riding more and more and more and more and more. So I had this experience of getting back on the bike and movement right, and movement is so key. So just doing that like really radically changed my life. Already I was still struggling with all of this childhood stuff and you know, years of drinking and all these other things that were going on, but I started to feel a lot better with movement and, thankfully, like was able to quit drinking for a few years, on and off, with different, different modalities, and so that was always helpful, basically getting me to a spot where I could function in society again, right, not ending up in jail Netflix has got this new series called Blue Zones.

Josh: 25:42

It's four one hour episodes and I can't remember the guy's name. You can look it up. It's been out for a couple of months now, maybe longer, but it looks at, he goes and analyzes where there are populations of Centurions so those are people that have lived to 100 years old and like high populations of Centurions and like one of the common threads between all of the. There's four different sites One's in, one's in California, one's in Costa Rica, one's in Japan, one's in one's in.

Josh: 26:16

Italy, and the common thread between all of them is movement Totally.

Dusty Horton: 26:21

Oh really.

Mike: 26:22

So I didn't mean to take you off track, but it's like there's something about that.

Josh: 26:25

Like you have to keep moving your body.

Dusty Horton: 26:28

It's one of the most fundamental things for sure at this point. Yeah, so I'll get into that in just a second. But the basic premise was like oh okay, I can't be static, right? I had this idea that I was so broken, that my body was so broken.

Josh: 26:45

I shouldn't. You were done, I couldn't run. Sit on the couch, no movement, yeah.

Dusty Horton: 26:51

I'm walking the dog, you know, once a day, and that's it right For half a mile or something and that's yeah, I'm not doing anything else because my body's broken, right. And well, it turns out you've got to move a broken body to get it to heal. So that's what happened. And so I had some really good sort of physical success there, right Started, feeling better in the body, ended up going back to college for a couple years, pursued a couple degrees, dropped out again like just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do.

Dusty Horton: 27:21

But I worked in IT my whole life, on and off, you know, working with computers, and so got a job at Apple, actually at the local Apple store in Tucson, and worked there on and off for almost eight years. The problem there was the same problem that I had in BMX, which was the same problem that I had in high school, which was the same problem that I had at home, which is that if you don't perform, you're not worthy. And so it was this intense struggle to compete and to be the best and to win and to do the most sales and to do the fastest repairs and to be the best, you know, leader.

Mike: 28:02

Exactly.

Dusty Horton: 28:03

So I spent eight years like killing myself and no, you know, I don't blame Apple, right, that's their culture and I chose to be a part of it and felt, you know, miserable after eight years. You know, like didn't know that I wouldn't have like said it that way, but really was like just not honoring what I needed for sure and was thinking like this is the way you provide value to yourself. Yeah, it is that you kill yourself at your job, right Yep.

Josh: 28:33

You're not supposed to do that.

Dusty Horton: 28:36

Shit. So so, thankfully, I threw a long series of events, decided I wanted a more regular schedule and got in with another company and I did the same thing there. And this is working for a small company online IT company and had the same drive. You know, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be a leader, I'm gonna be the boss, I'm gonna be the director, I'm gonna be whatever. Right.

Dusty Horton: 29:06

And so within I mean a couple of years. I was senior director of the entire customer success department. Like you know, half the company reported to me like and I was making more money than I've ever made. Like bought a house, had two dogs, got a girlfriend. Like my life is everything it should be. I'm successful. I have a senior director title, right, and I wanna kill myself still right, which is, you know, and I haven't mentioned that this session and I, you know I shouldn't have.

Josh: 29:46

Just dropped an honest like that. Yeah, said that out of the blue Cause somebody else listening, you know it's a serious topic. Yeah, for sure.

Dusty Horton: 29:54

And I should have mentioned like that's been part of my life, like my whole life has been suicidal ideology at times, right, like when things get bad enough, right. That's the answer, you know in the back of your head. Yeah, yeah, and so I'm constantly.

Josh: 30:10

Just for listeners. That's not the answer. There's lots of options for help and we'll put some links in the show notes. If you're feeling that way, contact one of the links in our show notes and they can talk you through it and help you through the time that you're going through.

Dusty Horton: 30:23

Yeah, I think no. Thank you, josh, that's yeah. It's so important because it's it's. It does feel like the answer in the moment. It feels like your only truth. It feels like you're normal, right, like that. This is the only thing that could be the answer, and that's the truth, there's always better answers. It's just in that moment right and so you, you do get through it.

Dusty Horton: 30:47

But you know, I had spent, you know, most of my life on and off, feeling like that's an answer, that if everything else continues to go the way it's been going right, that's. That's always an answer at the end of the road, and so, especially being presented with that in my own mind, as a solution when my life externally is the best it's ever been, broke me. I mean, there's there's no other way to say it Like I really was in this spot where, okay, I've done it, like I'm the American dream right, I don't have a kid or a picket fence or whatever but like I got.

Dusty Horton: 31:34

I got all the other stuff I'm supposed to have. Right that I grew up.

Josh: 31:37

And I don't feel complete.

Dusty Horton: 31:39

That is such a wild thought and I feel like I want to die yeah yeah, right, wow. And so one night I like not even an argument with my girlfriend, but I had. I was feeling miserable and I asked her to leave and locked myself in my walk-in closet and just felt miserable. And and I had.

Dusty Horton: 32:04

I have, thankfully, a lot of great friends and some super incredible supportive people in my life, and always have, and so you know that if I didn't have all those people in my life, you know that's that's the support that's that's kept me here, and so I had been talking to this guy that had been doing this particular modality of therapy called internal family systems, or they call it IFS for short, and I'd like looked into a little bit and I you know the idea is that you have an internal system of parts that comprise you, the entity right, and so, rather than it's a radical shift from the idea of mono mind, I'm dusty, I am this brain. Right Now you're saying, well, no, really dusty, it's like a lot of these little different parts and these parts you know, let me say it this way, have you ever felt like somebody asked you to go out? It's eight o'clock on a Friday night. I mean, this is maybe, you know, middle-aged men talk here, but you know it's eight o'clock on a Friday night.

Mike: 33:13

And you're like it's eight o'clock man.

Dusty Horton: 33:15

Eight o'clock. I'm not going out right now, but there's a part of you.

Josh: 33:20

It's like hell, yeah, that's like let's go right, let's pre-game.

Dusty Horton: 33:25

And that that's if I would encourage anybody to explore that for yourself.

Josh: 33:31

Yeah, you have different mental states.

Dusty Horton: 33:33

Yeah, yeah, if you've got parts right. And so I had like heard a little bit about this. And so I'm sitting in my closet, miserable, and had this sort of like, struck with a thought and it basically I was feeling like very angry and very upset that I had cultivated the world I was supposed to have, and it didn't make me feel okay. And I'm sitting on the floor in the closet and this thought strikes me who's angry? Like out of the blue, that thought came into my head.

Josh: 34:13

Which part of dusty is angry?

Dusty Horton: 34:15

Yeah, but I didn't like have that language even then. I'd sort of heard about this thing but I didn't know anything about it. And this thought came in who's angry? And something in that misery and willingness to like look for any answer. There was this separation in me. It felt like from the angry part, yeah. And so I was able to like see this part of me that was very angry and felt very hurt and I intuitively sort of just said, well, why are you angry? And it told me that the world is scary right, like the world isn't gonna necessarily give you what you need. You gotta do stuff right to get what you need. And so it's like constantly worried that I'm not gonna do something correctly and then you won't love me.

Josh: 35:10

So we've talked about this in a different context. Right, I tell you, like some days at work, like on Monday I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get fired, and on Tuesday I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be the CEO, and then Wednesday I'm gonna get fired again, and hopefully on Friday end at the CEO.

Mike: 35:24

So I could have a good weekend.

Josh: 35:26

A good weekend. On Friday I left thinking I was getting fired, so I had a shitty weekend. But I can definitely relate with the and you can play some days. I think I'm the best dad in the world, the best husband in the world and some days. I'm like Jesus, I got some work to do. The world is ghostly Exactly right. That's the different parts of me.

Dusty Horton: 35:42

And totally right, and we have like dad parts and we have work parts and we have like friend parts, right so? There's yeah, I really like I can't say enough about this particular modality. For me it was really life changing. But that thought that came in and just said who's angry? And giving me that separation like immediately enabled me to have compassion For the part of you that was hurting, for the part of me that was hurting Wow, that's fascinating, that's super cool.

Josh: 36:12

I've never heard this concept before, so that was really like I hope, which to me is the key right.

Dusty Horton: 36:17

And so you know, the more I've studied this and I mean having grown up the way I did and haven't been in and out of AA for years, and having studied a lot of spiritual approaches and I found this and it was like oh, this explains everything, so much, so much yeah. Right, like in a way that's super succinct and really approachable and it's experiential. It's not like a therapy, you just it's not talk therapy, it's experiential therapy. So it's very visceral for me.

Dusty Horton: 36:53

Very much in your body, and so that basically was the shift that happened for me, and that was New Year's Eve of 2022. So that was almost a year ago.

Josh: 37:05

Oh, that was not that long ago, Right right.

Dusty Horton: 37:09

And so, just in this last year, started like didn't know, I was traumatized, like I was like until if you had asked me a year ago what my childhood was like, I'd be like oh, my mom did her best. Yeah, like she did, that's true, yeah, for sure. And that's also an insufficient answer. Like I, was severely damaged by the situation. The situation right and not. There's no fault in that. That's just the truth of the situation right. Like she couldn't do any different because of her upbringing right.

Josh: 37:42

So there's no, there's no blame.

Dusty Horton: 37:44

But that's where I ended up and I didn't know it, and so until this year, right. And then I'm finding out like, oh, okay, so like I really did have a pretty traumatic childhood and I didn't have the support that I needed then and now I can look at these really maladaptive behaviors that I've generated over the years and actually have compassion for them and know that they come from a place of, like me, trying to feel safe in the world right To feel connected with the rest of humanity, and so all that work basically opened up a connection to the body, and so through IFS, that really a big part of the prompt is like okay, you might be, you're feeling the part that feels like it's gonna get fired, right, yeah, right, where do you feel that in your body?

Dusty Horton: 38:37

is the prompt right?

Dusty Horton: 38:38

That's the question, yeah, and so you get quiet and still, I know exactly where I feel it and you say okay, I feel it right here right, and so well, you can actually, and the idea in IFS is that you could just talk to that part, so you can ask that part like hey part, why do you feel like you're gonna get fired, what?

Dusty Horton: 38:56

And? And my experience is, when you're still, it will talk back to you, it will tell you what it needs and what it feels like, and so that's how I figured out like, oh, I was really traumatized as a kid because I didn't have that connection that I needed, because when I would ask those parts, those questions, I would get clear answers of times when I didn't have kind of support that I needed. I have this memory of, maybe when I was three years old, my mom had a party at our house apartment and she passed out in the party and the neighbors put me to bed. She had passed out in my bed and the neighbors put me to bed in her bed. Yeah, yeah, and I I remember Going into my room to shake her to like wake her up, and she wouldn't wake up.

Dusty Horton: 39:45

Yeah and I, and then I, you know, went back into her bedroom and I remember like the bed was huge and scary and the neighbors weren't nice and you know, it's just. It was a very unsettling, unsettling experience, right, and like that's continued to like be in my mind, like why Would I, why would I have to keep living through that? Yeah right, well, because it hasn't been processed by my body. So that memory lived in my body for years and years and years, decades. Yeah right, because I never could process it. Nobody at that time who is emotionally regulated came to me and said hey, I realize this is a really terrible situation. Your mom is really sick and she's got so. You know, I know this isn't ideal, but let me be with you and, yeah, with you while you're crying like I didn't have that right and that's again, there's no blame on that, but that's just the situation. And so you end up with this stuff stored in your body. Yeah, it's effectively where it comes.

Dusty Horton: 40:50

And then you have things like IBS and arthritis and you know all these ailments that manifest based on the chronic illnesses right are mostly all based in trauma, and so so as soon as I started the trauma work, I had been IBS, ocd, irritable balsam irritable bowel syndrome yeah, ocd, anxiety, depression, ptsd right, like you, any. Yeah. Yeah, arthritis right, all of them. Degenerative disc disease. Gluten intolerance not celiac but couldn't eat gluten without feeling super sick. I started trauma healing this year and within like three or four months I stopped wearing glasses. My vision wasn't terrible, but it like got way better.

Dusty Horton: 41:40

No kidding, yes, Could start eating gluten, hadn't been able to eat spicy things my entire life, like I used to make the joke that mild sauce a Taco Bell was too spicy, or like ketchup is too spicy.

Josh: 41:55

We live in Tucson, by the way. Right, we live in Tucson.

Dusty Horton: 41:57

Yeah, I've been here 20 years. Yeah, so, and that's Now. Now I can eat that stuff like it's just like I'm not gonna eat it. I'm not gonna eat that stuff. Like it just doesn't in a year in a year doesn't aggravate my system. Now it there's. I want to like Lay this on I'm not well, right, like I'm still, and, and we had, yeah, I'm still healing, right, and we had this conversation earlier, right, we've got these mic stands, yep, and, and we're navigating around the mic stands and I lean towards the mic Rather than articulating the articulated arm towards my. I'm like, hey, duffy.

Josh: 42:34

You can move that towards you to be comfortable and you're like no, no, no, I can't be comfortable, right?

Dusty Horton: 42:38

Like I need to accommodate everybody else, right? That's the mindset your whole life.

Mike: 42:42

Your whole life, right yeah, so 40 plus years so 40 plus years.

Dusty Horton: 42:46

So there's a lot of that and it still comes up all the time and and, and there's still, definitely, times where it feels completely overwhelming. Um, in the last few months, I lost a girlfriend, the girlfriend that I had last year. Um, we broke up and she moved out. My dog died.

Josh: 43:04

Oh, jesus 14, and you know old and whatever, but you still gotta put him down.

Mike: 43:09

Yeah, it's still your dog.

Dusty Horton: 43:10

Yeah, totally. And then I I bought a, my first condo ever last year and I bought a new air conditioner this year because I didn't want it to go out in the middle of summer, and so I got one installed in like May, and then in August it died.

Josh: 43:24

That's a big deal in Tucson, by the way. For y'all it's like a hundred this year was especially Right gnarly super hot. Yeah, how do you buy a brand new air conditioning. It died in like four months. Yeah, four months. Hopefully that's not a warranty, but yeah it was yeah, I didn't have to pay anything.

Mike: 43:37

But I still pay me.

Dusty Horton: 43:38

I have to have like four or five days with a Like window, air conditioner and like block rooms off. You know which it's.

Josh: 43:47

First world problems.

Dusty Horton: 43:49

My problems are very minor these days, but but comparatively 110 degrees outside.

Dusty Horton: 43:54

Like all these things going on in the last few weeks and you know, and I get to like be in this space where it's really tough and also I don't want to die like I'm grateful for the experiences I'm having and getting to like be present with them and actually live through the grief of the dog passing and and that kind of stuff, and so so it's it's just a very Very this. This whole year has been such a different experience with life and and cycling has been so key in that because I've gotten to change my relationship with my bike in the last year and even when I switched to a 22, a big motivation was also, in addition to the reducing pain was to literally slow me down. It was actually a method to make things harder, so I wouldn't want to do as many tricks, because tricks are harder on a 22. And I'm still getting hurt. So even this year I've still gotten hurt.

Josh: 45:05

I can see it on your thumb right now.

Dusty Horton: 45:07

Yeah, I've got a lot better my relationship with the bike, so I'm not throwing myself on the ground like I used to. I'll go to the skate park I'm going every week and go have a game of bike with the kids and they're doing all this crazy stuff and I'm like, oh, I got to do the crazy stuff because they're doing it and I can't lose the game of bike. I'm 40 something years old and smashing myself on the ground, which is fine if my body felt okay, but with my history, my body doesn't feel okay getting thrown on the ground.

Josh: 45:37

Just for our listeners bike is kind of like horse if you're playing basketball, you do a trick. If the other guy can't do the trick, he gets a letter in the first one to spell the word bike loses.

Dusty Horton: 45:45

Exactly. Thank you so much.

Mike: 45:49

When you're at the park, though, you are riding big, and there's consequences for those big tricks.

Dusty Horton: 45:56

Sure.

Mike: 45:56

So you're still like OG, I guess, and still throwing down these awesome tricks. So that's cool, thank you.

Dusty Horton: 46:02

I appreciate that.

Mike: 46:03

Where is your head now? If you've, you know, back to the walking closet locked in. You seem like you are in a great place, mind and body, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but in a better place, like because of this.

Josh: 46:16

You're speaking openly and try to help others on this podcast right now, so that's got to say something.

Dusty Horton: 46:22

Yeah, I mean I'm really in the best spot I've ever been in my life, by leaps and bounds, like all the other. I mean, I've done talk therapy since I was 13 years old and I've done, you know, all other modalities of like different kinds of recovery and addiction stuff and all sorts of different stuff and all of it helped and all of it gave me additional pieces of information.

Mike: 46:49

Sure.

Dusty Horton: 46:50

But none of it addressed the trauma recovery, the core root stuff that I really needed to address, and it was IFS, internal family systems and somatics, which is really just the, you know, accessing the body. So so today my routine is, you know, I have an IFS therapist that I see regularly, I have a somatic experiencing practitioner that I see regularly that helps him process stuff through the body, and then I do yen four times a week. Yeah, yeah, yen is the most incredible thing. If your body is sore or achy or tight, yen is just incredible.

Josh: 47:33

This is long form where you hold I do yen sometimes, or you hold the poses for three, four minutes three to five minutes.

Mike: 47:38

Yeah, and, by the way, will Bissell that's the type of yoga that he's doing.

Josh: 47:43

Yeah.

Dusty Horton: 47:43

He's teaching. Yeah, he's teaching yen. I just saw him this weekend and he said he's still teaching classes about once a month. Good for him.

Mike: 47:51

Yeah, very cool. So those three things.

Dusty Horton: 47:54

You mentioned the IFS, somatics and yen yoga. Yeah, and that's that's, like you know, after a year of doing these different things I also did earlier this year I did ketamine therapy, like I've done, a number of different modalities to like try to boost the processes of going along.

Mike: 48:11

But you have to put the work in. I mean, this is not just sitting there, but you take the initiative and to do this work Right and therapy.

Dusty Horton: 48:19

Right, and that's, that's what's generated this thing that works for me now. Right, like through a year of on and off and trying different things Like these are the things that work, and it's not. I shouldn't say a year, right, it's been like 30 years of trying to figure out what's wrong with me and not knowing and going to doctors and them saying like, oh, you're anxious, you're depressed here, take this pill Right.

Mike: 48:45

Yeah, so I have a friend who yeah, those are excellent points. Over 30 years you've developed that and now just recently kind of honed it in yeah. So, going back to, I have a friend who called it's not a blue and he said hey, how are you doing? I'm like good, I'm just checking in and you know it's his brother's checking on other people. You know what?

Dusty Horton: 49:06

I mean yeah.

Mike: 49:06

And I think that's really it was really special for him. He took the time to you know, and he did, and like he's like yeah, I do this every Friday. I call five people, make sure they're good. Dude, that's awesome. I thought that was really cool.

Dusty Horton: 49:17

Yeah.

Mike: 49:18

And so do you have any thoughts for people who might be sitting in a walk-in closet, locked in you know what? What's the first step they could take?

Dusty Horton: 49:27

Yeah, it's. It's tough because everybody's in a different spot, right? So I I spent years in in groups and recovery programs and therapy and stuff like that, so it was relatively easy for me to go out of the closet and like start to get connected with people. For a lot of people Cause I had I had intermittent care when I was a kid and so sometimes people were safe and sometimes they weren't. There are people who grew up where people weren't safe, never had.

Dusty Horton: 50:00

Yeah, good point and so so, like, what worked for me was working on building community. You know, I had this girlfriend and my job and that was my whole life, right, and I didn't have, I wasn't connecting to. I mean, I was your job was a stressor.

Dusty Horton: 50:16

Well, sure, but I mean in terms of community, right, and so so you know, we talked about, talked about this before the show, yeah, a little bit about tribe and and how important that is, and so, and that's the truth, right? So, other than movement, right, like tribe is the other thing that our, our systems really crave, and so creating community was, was a key piece for me. So getting out of that closet and getting connected with, in my case, my buddies who had, you know, talked to on and off for years, and then getting back into group spaces where those kinds of things were being talked about, was what was key, and that's what I would tell anybody is that there are group spaces where people are talking about these things.

Mike: 51:10

They're not alone.

Dusty Horton: 51:11

All over the place. Go on Instagram, look up Trauma Recovery, like. There's thousands of accounts of people talking about this and sharing and I started to look at that stuff and see how much of my own experience they were sharing. And they were.

Dusty Horton: 51:27

They were like telling my stories you know you can relate, yeah, and so you could really tell that they had gone through the same things. And so so it's out there and more and more people are talking about it and there's, there's just so much support and and that whole community knows that community is what's needed. So they're so welcoming. That's yeah, I my. I'm on Instagram, dusty Horton. It's a public account.

Mike: 51:54

We'll put the link, of course, for sure. Yeah.

Dusty Horton: 51:57

Like, if yeah, anybody's got questions, I'm happy to, so they can reach out to you.

Mike: 52:01

Absolutely, yeah, for sure, thank you.

Josh: 52:03

This has been awesome, man, you've like opened my eyes, I'm gonna. I'm gonna, you know for sure. Semantics and and and IFS thinking about the different parts of me, I've never heard that concept before, so that's something that fascinating you know, maybe I can get through those days where I'm the boss.

Dusty Horton: 52:17

I'm gonna get fired. I'm gonna get fired.

Josh: 52:19

I really appreciate you, you know. So we started out this podcast talking bikes and laughing and joking and and talking mental health and healing and and some real serious topics. I really appreciate you. You're you sharing your story? You know, if there's one person that listens to this that it like makes a difference for them.

Josh: 52:37

This was absolutely worth it. Yeah Right, If we were able to impact, if you were able to impact one life, that's a that's a huge deal. So thank you for being vulnerable and open with us and sharing this part. I think that's awesome. Do you have any final thoughts for us?

Dusty Horton: 52:52

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that and I feel the same way. The sentiment is shared, for sure. There's been so many people that have helped me through the years at different crucial points, and so you know, if this happens to be a crucial point for somebody and they hear the right thing, I'm, I'm super grateful. The the only thing I want to share is um, listen to your body. So your, your body's constantly telling you stuff you got to ache, you got to don't ignore irritation yeah.

Dusty Horton: 53:23

Pay attention to it, Listen to it Um and and I just want to thank uh all, all the people that have supported me over the years, um DK for years and and uh recently ditto um and premises park. I mean, I just can't say enough about Ian and premises. I was fortunate enough to know Ian before premises got created. Yeah, and then uh getting to watch them go through three different buildings and the different different versions within each building.

Dusty Horton: 53:50

And yeah, it's like so amazing and I there's a different, uh, a different alternate reality where I uh have run skate parks. Like that's been sort of this idea of like I always want to run a skate park but Ian's been doing it in premises for so long and and when you look at the numbers, like it just doesn't make any sense financially. So like I never went too far down the path, but I'm so grateful that there is a skate park and indoor wooden skate park that you can go when the weather's terrible and the ramps can change because they're wood and so it's it's always fresh.

Dusty Horton: 54:26

They're always building new stuff. Um, ian is just so incredible with kids. Like you just literally leave your kids there for the whole summer day and they're well taken care of. Like all of his staff is always incredible with kids, so they're just. I can't say enough about him and and how much he does for the community. Like he works a full time job and also does premises full time.

Josh: 54:49

Yeah, it's incredible, and puts on events.

Dusty Horton: 54:52

He does like all the maintenance on the building Like he's. He's so mechanic, like just so incredible.

Josh: 54:57

He gives back. Yeah, shout out to Ian, and if you haven't, been go go to premises.

Dusty Horton: 55:03

Talk to Ian come hang out with me on Saturday days, yeah Right up, right up, man.

Josh: 55:09

Well, again, thank you so much for for your, your openness, your vulnerability, for spending some time with us. It has been super educational and fun. Um, I've learned a ton and, uh, I really appreciate you, man.

Dusty Horton: 55:19

Yeah, Thanks for being here. Thanks Josh, Thanks Mike.

Josh: 55:21

Yeah, hello again, audience. Uh, we hope that you found Dusty's mental health journey as inspiring as we did. Um, thanks for listening and again, as a reminder, suicide is not the answer. Please, if you need help, reach out by texting or calling the national crisis lifeline at 988. Text or call the national crisis lifeline at 988. That number will work inside the United States. So, um, thanks a lot for listening. Get help if you need it and, uh, until next time. This is Josh signing off.