004 "Men's Mental Health Panel"

In this special episode of Sparey Sessions, I sit down with three incredible advocates for men's mental health: Mr. Sparey, TouchpadWarrior, and TheNoobishDad. Together, we explore the realities of being men in today's world, the challenges many face in silence, and the power of connection, vulnerability, and community in healing.

Throughout this conversation, we discuss loneliness, masculinity, emotional expression, fatherhood, friendship, gaming communities, and the barriers that often prevent men from reaching out when they need support most. We also explore what it means to create spaces where men can be honest about their struggles without fear of judgment.

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING / TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

This episode contains discussions of:
• Suicide and suicide attempts
• Suicidal thoughts and ideation
• Military trauma and military-related mental health challenges
• Depression
• Mental health crises
• Emotional distress

Viewer and listener discretion is advised. Please prioritize your wellbeing while engaging with this content. If these topics are difficult for you, consider watching with support, taking breaks as needed, or returning when you feel ready.

https://988lifeline.org
https://regiment.gg
https://www.stackup.org

✨ Disclaimer: This video was recorded during a live Twitch broadcast. Portions of chat engagement and community interaction have been lightly edited for pacing and clarity.

📌 Watch live & join the Sparey Squad on Twitch:
👉 twitch.tv/spareystreams

📍 Connect with our guests:
🎮 TheNoobishDad:
twitch.tv/thenoobishdad

🎮 TouchpadWarrior:
pillar.io/touchpadwarrior

💙 Subscribe for more Sparey Sessions — I bring you real talk with creators, leaders, and folks who make the internet feel like home. Next week we’ll explore how connection shapes our stories, healing, and creative lives — hope to see you in the chat!


#MensMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #SuicidePrevention #VeteranMentalHealth #MilitaryMentalHealth #GamingCommunity #WorldOfWarcraft #WoWTherapy #SpareySessions #MentalHealthMatters

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, welcome to Sperry Sessions with the unofficial Wow Therapist. The conversation you're about to hear was recorded while streaming, so there may be some interruptions due to engagement with chat. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, please note that today's conversation includes discussions of addiction, military trauma, and suicide. While this episode focuses on resilience, recovery, and help, some topics may be difficult for some listeners. Please take care of yourself and step away if needed. If you're struggling, please reach out for support. Text or call 988 to get started. We have the illustrious Mr. Sperry, we've got the newbish dad, and we've got Touchpad Warrior. So, guys, um, to put you on the spot, I am going to ask that you just give a little bit of an introduction of yourself, um, and just, you know, what a conversation like this means to you. Um, and if you should so please, your background with World of Warcraft and how the community has kind of changed things for you. So, Mr. Sperry, uh, you are on the top of my screen, so I'm going to start with you first.

SPEAKER_07 1:13

Ooh, on the spot. I mean, most of you guys know me obviously as Sperry's helps. Um, if that's not clear. Um, which apparently it's not because we were doing a dungeon once and someone's like, is this like a mother son thing? Like Mr. Sperry said. That's my wife and late. Um, but yeah, I've been playing WoW for about a year now, I wanna say. It's been since sometime last summer. Um, I started on a feral Druid. One of the hardest classes, I think, to play. Um, and then for midnight I switched over to the Demon Hunter trying out the devourer, so it's been fun. And um, as far as the whole mental health thing goes, I think it's definitely you know very important for every man, every woman, even about obviously um conversations today is about men in general, but um I think it's something that we all struggle with, and um it doesn't matter what age, um for me, my biggest struggles were when I was young, like teenager age. So yeah, it's very important to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Thank you so much, Mr. Sperry. Noob, how about you go next?

SPEAKER_08 2:23

Hi, my name's the Noobish Dad. I've been playing MMO RPGs for a little over 20 years now. Uh recently started playing World of Warcraft a little over a year ago. Uh, before that, I played games like RuneScape and other mostly just RuneScape, if I'm gonna be honest with you. Like that game just consumed me. Uh, ended up going a little try there. My group Iron Man team quit, so I was like, oh, you know, we'll try World of Warcraft. I ended up starting on Hardcore Classic as my first go-around, and then the War Within went on sale and kind of gave that a go and really fell in love with retail. Uh I made a rep paladin, I'm the guild leader of noob's inc. Uh that's really about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Thank you, thank you. And Touchpad Warrior, if you wouldn't mind.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Hello. My name is Touchpad Warrior. You can call me Will, you can call me Justice. Any of those things work totally fine. Uh, even uh Ginger Bitch is totally fine as well. That's totally okay. There's no wrong, wrong names, I've heard them all. Uh I've been playing World of Warcraft for about 21 years. So since I was 13. Um, and that's all I've been doing with my life. No, I'm kidding. Uh I was a chef before, in case people didn't know about that. So there's a lot of stresses going on with that whole atmosphere.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Um, and food in beverage industry and all that kind of stuff. Those the no-no, different stresses, different things. Um and yeah, that I I play on a touchpad. That that's it. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah. Oh, um, well, I'm very excited to have you with us. Um, all three of you. I think the a lot of what I've noticed about the the gap between general mental health care and mental health care specifically for men is that even when you have men that are comfortable talking, talking about things like mental health, vulnerability feelings, things like that, it's just not necessarily it's not always as helpful, I think, as it can be for uh women who are co-regulators and things like that. Um and I'm interested to see kind of what your experiences have been. So now that we know a little bit about you guys, um, I do want to jump right in to kind of a background of what it's been to grow up in, well, in this country, in whatever your, you know, family of origin was like, I want to hear about what messages you were hearing about men, about feelings, about mental health. I think all of us kind of grew up in the day and age before we had a lot of like highlights and highlighted conversations in mental health. Um so we've seen a lot of change in this world. I'm interested in what your experience was like. Um, so I am gonna kind of round Robin this. If you have thoughts on this, I would love for you to jump in. We've got a couple of talkers, you know. I chose you for a reason. So jump in and then we'll just kind of pop around. First thoughts on like what it was to grow up as a man and what messages you heard around what feelings should look like, shouldn't look like XYZ.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

I can jump straight into it. Unless you would like to do, but by all means. No, go ahead, send it. Yeah. Um my parents had me pretty late, brief history. Uh my mother had me at 40, so different generational gap going on with that. Um with such my grandfather was in the military. He was a pilot. So my father was a military brat. He also echoed those things how he was raised from 1950 to 1970, with those same traits. But fast-forwarding into you know 90s, 2000s. So a lot of things I heard was if you're gonna soak, go to your room, I don't want to see it. Things like that. Um don't cry, you look like a pantsy. Like toughen up. All those kinds of things always toughen up, toughen up, toughen up, toughen up. Um with such that does obviously have a domino effect onto somebody trying to grow up and understand emotions. On the opposite side of the coin, my mother was actually very caring understanding. She was a typical Canadian, kind of like happy, like, oh, it's okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Like, so it was very interesting having both those. So luckily enough, that did, I feel like, help round me out for like understanding emotions because my mother was catering towards if I would cry or something would happen, and understanding able to acknowledge my emotions. My father was like the stereotypical standoffish. But surprisingly, I was able to actually curve him to understanding mental health, and he actually even went to go see therapy for the first time when he was 65.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

So he actually like what what I learned in that atmosphere, I was able to put back onto him to help his recovery journey happen.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Wow. That was very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Hell of a step and very rare.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

I was gonna say that you don't see that often as somebody in the field. I'm like, wow, somebody that generation and a man like choosing to come to therapy is he was like, crap, I have emotions.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

I was like, Yeah, you do. Oh I actually taught him to cry for the first time when he was like 50. Wow, that was very interesting. Sorry. Yeah, oh maybe. I don't know. I don't date. Yeah, you got a wife for that. Hold on. No, seriously.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

But jumping on that, oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

That was that's pretty much it. Um, so like that's the things that I grew up with and how I kind of adapted around.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, no, I I think it is interesting because we do have um a cult like a couple cultural things. As you said, you were Canadian, um, Mr. Sperry jokingly about like your dad, but like for those of you who don't know, Mr. Sperry's parents were born in Ukraine and his first his first three siblings were born in Ukraine as well. Actually, they were born in the USSR um before it disbanded. Um, but yes, so like share a little bit about what that was like. I know I'm not I'm not trying not to put you on the spot, but like explain a little bit what your household was like, Mr. Sperry, before we move on to noob.

SPEAKER_07 8:16

Um I think it's very similar in a sense that like men are just sort of taught to not show emotion. Um we just kind of do our thing and don't complain about it, don't talk about it, don't show especially negative emotions. I mean, you just kind of you're just here to, you know, as a man, you're here to provide. And that's it. That's what I hear a lot. Like, men just provide and we just, you know, our opinion doesn't matter. Um but like the Russian culture in general, I just like they don't smile in pictures. Like my my parents' wedding photo is just a bunch of people like stoic faced, like zero expression on their feet.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

I just thought I had you know CBS. I thought that was the whole thing. And I guess maybe a Russian.

SPEAKER_06 8:59

Yeah, yeah, maybe so funny.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

I remember seeing those pictures when we were dating, and everybody is just like and I was like, What happened? And he was like, That was my parents' wedding. And I was like, Oh, it's a beautiful photo. He said they had to they had to learn how to smile in pictures when they moved to America. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. Um, but yeah, I remember uh once I got my license, my father-in-law said, Oh, so you work with those crazy people? And I was like, Well, Pop, you are those crazy people, so let's talk about that for a second. Uh surprise, you're my first client. Surprise! Oh my gosh. But anyway, yes, moving on, Noob, tell me a little bit about your history and uh what you had experienced growing up.

SPEAKER_08 9:47

So, growing up, my parents were separated before I was even born. Um so we had the split custody uh kind of thing, and I saw my dad maybe like once or twice a month. Uh so I didn't really have like a big male influence, but it was really pressured me to be the male. Like growing up, it was always like, Oh, you're the man of the house, you need to look out for your mom, you need to do this. And um naturally they they had uh my brothers growing up, so I was the oldest of four brothers. Um, not really having uh that male influence was like I felt more comfortable in a Victoria's Secret than I did going into like a sports store, you know, uh kind of situation. And really just that pressure of like be the man of the house when I didn't know what being a man entailed, really. Like I didn't like what what do I do with my hands kind of situation. Um and it didn't really click to me till I got to like high school, of course, like horror bones and everything like that, and uh you know, wanting to play like football and the objective of football is pretty much tear the other guy across from his head off. And I didn't have that mentality growing up, you know, so I got pounded all the time, yeah, you know, um, and really just that struggle of like not knowing how to handle certain situations and just kind of going with the flow of mom's different boyfriends and you know trying to figure it out basically.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's tough because like even here, I mean this was something that um I I think deserves a mention before we got rolling, disaster five ever is in chat and he was talking about like the cultural differences. Like, I know a lot of like the black and brown communities, they have very similar to like what Mr. Spare grew up with, where like mental health doesn't exist, like it's actually a farce, and like you you don't have the luxury of thinking about how you feel. Um, and I my grandmother this was a social worker, and uh she worked a lot with like refugee communities, and I remember having conversations with um just a couple people that she had been working with, and she said something that like really stuck with me, and I think that this is the way that people view men often is like, yeah, like isn't it crazy that like people are they have to put so much energy into surviving that they don't have the luxury to think about how they feel or what's important to them. And I think people often look to men, like Mr. Sperry was saying, about like the the providers or like people like making basically like making the uh the wheels of society turn, so to speak. So having a pillar to lean on. Yeah, a pillar to lean on, exactly. Yeah. So I'm interested, like when it comes to your idea of like masculinity or like traditional gender roles, like tell me how that all plays into what you feel you're allowed to feel. Like, do we agree with the way that we have kind of like delegated certain roles to certain people? Obviously, gender roles have been changing quite a lot in the past like decade. Um, but like how staunch is your own idea of where you fit in society, and how does that impact your own understanding of your mental health and your your feelings in general?

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Well, the first requirement is having a beard. So as far as masculinity goes, and you can see there's consistency here in this panel. Um so we all got that checked off.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Must have beard.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Masculinity done. Yep, that's that's it. Sorry, I just wanted to take that one little tidbit. Somebody else go.

SPEAKER_08 13:39

No, it's it's it's ironic that you kind of bring this up because I'm a stay-at-home dad. So, like, you know, 20 years ago, this was like what I do now is what's frowned upon. Yeah, like what do you what do you mean? Um, and and really, like, uh, it was kind of unfortunate how I became a stay-at-home dad. It wasn't by choice, it was because I got hurt. And my wife was like, Well, I really am tired of being a stay-at-home mom. Like, can I go and do my own thing? You know, and I was like, Yeah, I'll be home with the kids and I'll make them breakfast and I'll take them to the bus and I'll pick them up and I'll deal with all the appointments. Um, that is not for the week, mind you. For any stay-at-home parent, whether it's mom or dad, it is a hectic day. Yeah, like it is a full day. Yeah. Um, phone calls and appointments and everything like that. Uh, I used to, you know, I jumped on airplanes for a living and I swam in oceans and I climbed mountains and I climbed telephone poles, and I will tell you what, this is way more stressful. All right. Listen, this is this is something else. Having to, you know, take uh teachers call you or other parents call you.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 14:50

And uh, you know, it it was definitely a a big like reality check too. And it took me some a good while to get adjusted. I've been a stay-at-home dad for a little over two years now, and it's still like you know, what's the insurance login information? I don't know that stuff because like my wife handled that. Like, who's the pri what doctor do I go to for this? Or what do you mean I have to sit on hold for 45 minutes while I make dinner? And you know, it it there's a lot of different things, and I always give my wife uh some crap now. I tell her I'm her assistant because she still gets all the emails forward to her, and I have to reply back to her emails for stuff like that, you know. Yeah, but um it's definitely that different, you know. I said I didn't really have a male influence growing up, so I've been kind of just striving to do what the opposite of what my dad did, basically. You know, like hey, if he would have done this and I'm doing the opposite, I'm winning today. That's that's a W of my book. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So uh really just you know being more accepted and just trying to live in that five-foot world and kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Talk about the five-foot world because you actually gave me that that advice one time when I was going through it, and it has really helped me on hard days. So explain the five-foot world.

SPEAKER_08 16:16

So, five-foot world is something I learned while I was in the military, I was in the army, and basically the five-foot world is like if you can't touch it, don't stress about it. Like, you can't when especially like being in a combat zone, you can't stress about what's going on at home because your mind has to be on the mission at hand, and it's not just you, it's your battle buddies and the other people around you. So live not being able to uh stress about, like, oh, I have this doctor's appointment in two weeks, I need to make sure I'm there on time. That's two weeks away. Yeah, worry about the now and what you can touch, you know. This guy, like if you can't physically touch it and you and it's not in the now, like it's okay, it's gonna be there, you know. It's just one domino at a time, and really like if you're not in control of that situation, it's uh it's okay to kind of stake a step back and realize, like, okay, well, I can kind of put this off to the side and worry about that at a later time. I need to worry about what's going on and what's around me right now.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah, so like time delegation, or like don't worry about the things you can't control immediately.

SPEAKER_08 17:25

Exactly. You know, you can't control that there's a 45-minute wait on when you call your internet service provider and you're stressed out about that, right? Or you can't control the fact that like one of your co-workers called out of work and there's more work for you to do today. It's out of your hands. There's no reason for you to sit there and stress about that while you can just uh just do what you're supposed to do. Yeah, that's all it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, I think like a lot of the the ways that like anxious brains work is when you get the uh kind of like the rush of stress hormones, they're looking for something to to meddle with. They're looking for a job, and sometimes the job that they want to work on is not right in front of us. So I love that five-foot world. Um, sometimes the way that I'll say that is like you can only and this is for you, Touchbad, especially since you were a chef. I'm like, you can only cook with the ingredients on the table. So, like, if you don't have the ingredients to make a certain meal, you better make a different meal. You you just can't.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

It sounds like I'm going to the store and we're gonna go pick up the exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

We gotta go get the things. So I'm a hobby chef and I like to make a lot of things, and Mr. Sperry loves what I make, but he's like, dang, every time you get an idea, you get inspiration, it's like a hundred dollars at the grocery store because you need some sort of very specific We can just blame that on inflation right now. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's the market, babe. It's not me.

SPEAKER_07 18:47

The other day she said, I need potatoes from Sicily or something. Cyrus.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Cyrus. I was making Greek, I was making a Greek meal, and I'm like, I guess we'll just have to do red skinned because I can't sort the ones that are.

SPEAKER_08 18:59

So these rusted Idaho potatoes are gonna do just fine. All right.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

You're pretty much fine. Nobody's gonna tell the difference. It actually works.

SPEAKER_07 19:09

I don't think they have Cyrus potatoes, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

There's like a blessing and a curse from being a chef because uh my lady doesn't cook, I cook, right? Yep. Like that, hey, talking about gender roles.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Hey, here we are.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Not the dynamic of this household. Um and so like she'll be doom scrolling TikTok, and then I swear her TikTok algorithm knows when she's hungry. So like her feed will start changing from like humor and DD to food, food, food, food. And then she'll see something and she looks over at me in bed and I'm like, you want me to make that for you, don't you? She's like, please. I was like, okay. And then so, like, that's an $80 uh grocery visit because we don't have blueberries and that many lemons to make those blueberry lemon bars. Uh so now I have to go to the grocery store and do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yep, now I've got to do all of this. Yeah, and sometimes you just get that random whim, and you're just like, oh man, I really need I always make really pretentious food. That's why I'm a hobby chef because I could not do it for real in the environment. I I would love to own a restaurant, but the stress is is out of control. Um so speak more about it.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

That's a whole different topic.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

I was gonna, yeah, tell me more about like how you've noticed the ebb and flow of your stress in different seasons of your life. Like I am interested in that because there are a lot of people that like find themselves in uh you know, in the food industry. That's one of like the things that I have experienced as well. And I think that there is a similarity in gaming that it's very there's like a lot of camaraderie where like you can absolutely berate each other when you're busy or when you're struggling, and then it's all love afterward. And I feel like there's a there's an understanding there, and I think that there's an understanding among men that I've seen figure it out where like we're just gonna sit and we're gonna tease each other, but that means like, hey, I love you, and like I'm here. So, like, tell me more about what the crossover's been like for you with that.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

So, really weird was I joined a hardcore guild when I was like 13, and those all people that were obviously older than me that were college. So they were organizing and doing things basically kind of how a kitchen did. It was like it was that hardcore of doing a rating atmosphere, but I was 13. I was just getting into the game, I had no idea what was going on.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

But if they took me under the wing and they taught me those things. So eventually I did end up being a rate leader and all that kind of stuff over those years. I didn't realize how much of that experience carried over into being in a kitchen.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

So when I went to culinary school, um, I was also surprised at the youngest, uh, like 18 in that class.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

And there were people that were uh ex-military, that were uh previous like restaurante owners, all those kinds of things. And I was able to manage my staff, my crew, better than they were. There was like chef meetings being like, I can't get them to do what they're doing, like they're a wall and blah blah. And they're like, Will, do you have problems with this? And I was like, No. Um, and it's because I did delegation, it was because I did everything that I did in World of Warcraft and transferred it into the So it's like, hey, if you would like to do this certain recipe this day. First come, first serve. You tell me that you want that, you get prior. Because you want to dedicate time to find out what we're doing the next day, you get first choice. If whatever you guys don't want to do, I'll do it. I want to make sure you guys are happy. If you need to go for a smoke break, need to go shit, totally fine. Just let me know so I can cover you afterwards. If you can't come up that day, like make sure to communicate that with me. Totally fine. I will never be mad at you for those things. Just communication is key. And so that's how I raised that team around that system so I didn't have those difficulties.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Now, when it comes into the stress aspect, I thrived off that so much. I loved it. Uh, there's still days where like I sit there and I'm like kind of sad, I'm not in the kitchen anymore. Um, I remember watching the first episode of the bear and my lady, she was trying to sleep, and she heard that if anybody knows that first episode of the bear, like the high stress, I almost teared up because I saw that and I missed it. And like she was like, How can you watch this? It's like this is so stressful, just first hearing it. I was like, I loved that. Um that that stress kind of built you up to be stronger and an adrenaline rush almost. And so I thrived off of it. So I kind of like it when there's too many things kind of in rotation, too many splates, uh splates. I'm dyslexic, too many plates spinning at a time. Yeah, uh, I thrive for that juggling aspect.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Um it wasn't really a complication. I I just enjoyed it, but I feel like that's something else in my head.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

So I think that there is something about I I don't even think that this is specific to men and women. I think that this is there are certain personalities that they feel more calm in high stress environments because they're it they're the field of vision gets smaller. I think when you have less that you are responsible for and you just have a lot like a concentrated amount of stress in one silo of your life, you don't have to think about anything else. I think that's why a lot of people enjoy gaming, they enjoy um sports, they enjoy things that challenge them, they enjoy like the mental stimulation um because of that very thing. And I think um, you know, there have been a couple people who I've been speaking to recently that are like, yeah, like I I I need to do this because if I'm left alone or if I'm left to think too long, then it's just not good. Like my my brain has the the space to go into the scarier, darker corners of my brain.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Have you like almost if it's too quiet, that's when it starts to surface.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 24:22

It's a same thing in the military, it's a purpose, direction, and motivation. You isolate all those other outside things so you can focus on the tax at hand. You kind of could go forward with the mission.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, wasn't worrying about launching when cooking for 3,000 people. Probably that much.

SPEAKER_08 24:36

Um, no, not at all. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah. No, I think purpose is a very interesting thing that you bring up because I think that that is something that is uh something that like everybody needs is like the purpose and motivation. And there's a lot of people when they feel listless, um, can get into a really dark place. And I think that uh there is more and more opportunity because we're it's a different type of survival, right? Like we're not necessarily like working the ground and building communes and like trying to hunt and forage for our food. Um, but now we've got like a lot of access to certain things, but we also have a lot of access to information overload that can be really exhausting. Um, we have uh sometimes so much access to each other, and it's very easy for like the comparison thing to to come in. Actually, I am interested in that because as a woman and speaking with other women, we deal with a lot of insecurity around comparison, and it's like immediate, like it's so hard to shut down. It actually we have to like unlearn the um the comparison reflex because we're all we're automatically like noticing things about each other. Tell me what men's experiences like with that, because I don't hear men dealing with that as much, and I'm curious to know like if there is something like that for you guys, or if it's just like a non-issue, if it you notice different things, like tell me more.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

I think, and I can't speak for all men, um, we don't care. Uh okay. I I I personally live by the aspect of comparison's thief of happiness. Oh, it really is. Like if you start to compare, yeah, yeah. Then you're just kind of bowling yourself down. Yes, there's no point in that.

SPEAKER_05 26:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

A lot of dudes, or at least a lot of my male male friends, it's like, hey, are you alive? Sick. Good job. Um, that that's pretty much enough of a hand wave and a shake.

unknown 26:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Good to go. Maybe you like a beer. You can have two dudes that don't know each other sit him down with a beer in front of a TV. We're probably satisfied. Not many words will be shared. We're probably okay. And that's it's almost like the the silence of suffering. It's just like, I just want to decompress, I just want to relax, don't worry about anything. Uh, in comparison, it's like the comparisons that would be toxic would be uh comparison for how you are the supporter provider for your family. So like fathers could end up being like, oh, well, how much do you make? Oh, did you get that raise? And then there's like the bragging aspect that can happen in suburban neighborhoods. Yeah. Uh so it's like, oh, well, I made uh six figures this this month. It's like, how are you doing, Tom? And then that becomes like a toxic trait of doing such. Definitely a scenario. Um, that can happen. I don't deal with those people.

unknown 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

So, like, that's not something I worry myself with. They can fuck off. Uh, kind of like I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Love that for you. I'm gonna keep on moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

I was like, you do your thing, Bob. You can go fuck yourself. Um I don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_08 27:42

Um, so like the equity guys the PE guy on TikTok that does all the private equity skits and gloats about how much money he's makes. I don't know if you guys have ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I've never seen those.

SPEAKER_08 27:54

Oh yeah, it's exactly what Touchpad's talking about. The guy's like, oh yeah, we stayed in the Hamptons right now for a summer house. And it's like, oh yeah, go fuck yourself, buddy. I don't give a shit. Like I'm here for a good time right now, man.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

I grew up around uh both those aspects. I'm not gonna dox myself of where I live. Um but definitely where we play Gunshot or Firework is right now, and where I initially grew up until I was eight. And then my father got inheritance to move us into a rich area. So I got to see both aspects because we're actually like on the in-between line between those two cities. Like we didn't move very far. Um, I enjoyed hanging out with the people in my current area more than I did up there on the hill. Because I'd go to a party in my 20s and they'd be like, Yeah, like we'll take the yacht out this weekend and we're gonna go do this, this, and this. And it was it was bolstering, it was like bragging on their end. It wasn't like they were just bringing it up in casual conversation because I'm not gonna be financially humiliating towards somebody if they're happy about the have a yacht. Um, but also they didn't know exactly who was in the room that they were talking to to maybe comprehend that it could come off a certain way. And also they were young, so like, yeah, they're excused. That's fine. I don't hold any grudge towards them. Um, but it was interesting, like seeing and growing up with those two aspects.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Like back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

What have you uh have you noticed the same in your lifetime? I mean, what a first of all, what a beautiful relief that must be to not have it automatically like pop into your brain. Um, but yeah, I definitely wouldn't know what that's like. And I'm thinking about another teaching that I've heard about how men's brains and women's brains are a little bit different. And um, there is this man, if I could have anything, I tell me if this is true for you. What I've heard is that men compartmentalize naturally and have a nothing box where you can truly just think about nothing, you can turn your brain off and just like not think about anything. And like in my experience, and I don't know if any woman has experienced that bliss, but like we're not able to do that. Like, the the closest thing to nothing that we feel is like just kind of letting all of the thoughts generally float around our brain. Um, and yeah, so tell are you able to just like turn your brain off?

SPEAKER_08 30:07

Like nothing, but more like a daydream, kind of just vibe out and be like, oh yeah, that one time I went fishing. Like, what if I or like what I'm planning stuff, like non-stress environment. Like, I'm not there's times where I just kind of like, okay, I'm just vibing right now. Like nothing, it's it nothing can bother me at the moment. Like, I I I can shut out and and be okay. Um, but yeah, I can I could probably sit there and just like silence and not say a word and not really stress about things. That's pretty normal, okay for myself.

unknown 30:48

Mr.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Snorry's getting some some irritating.

SPEAKER_07 30:54

Yeah. Um but the nothing boxing, I've heard that too, obviously. But like I think for me personally, I would have to like intentionally be like, okay, like I need to not think about anything. Like, I have to be in a certain setting. Like, like later today, we might be sitting by a pool. Who knows? But like, if that's where I am, I need to intentionally not be worrying about the a hundred things on my to-do list and like stressing about all like like Noob was saying, like, those things are not within five feet of me. Like, I need to not think about those things and not stress about them, even though you know I've already worked 50 hours this week, and I could probably put in 10 more hours to maybe try to catch up or like work on the house or you know, do the gardening stuff.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

There's always something you could be doing.

SPEAKER_07 31:37

Yeah, there's always like I need to be productive in some way, like I'm behind. I you know, I can't keep up with this, and like just that always being in the back of your mind if there's always something that could be done, um, and like just hanging out by the pool is unproductive and a waste of time. So it's like I think those times are important to actually be like, oh yeah, we should do that, like just turn our brains off and do nothing for a little bit. Yeah, even today, like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 32:07

Oh no, just we got an invitation to the pool, and I was like, my first instinct was like, No, we have too much to do. And then I was like, no, I I need time by the pool.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah, I need to relax.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Um, yeah. The the worry about like things you could be doing, sadly, that's how I fall asleep each night. I don't know why that helps knock me out, not a clue. I'm like, oh well, I have this, this, and this, and this and this. I'm like, calm down, hold on.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

And in the past, I want to say like five years, I've been doing the practice of like I get caught up in doing something because I am a workaholic. I I do like to work a lot. And also because of the field that I am now, because I'm a full-time concentrator, it's like, yes, I could always be doing something. Yeah, it's not just like there's no clocking in for work and clocking out where your brain can differentiate, like, work mode is off now and you can relax. Right. It's always on. That's a whole nother problem. So I've tried to practice the past five years. Um, hey, shut up. Yeah. Like, I'll just go outside and I'll just sit there and I'll just look at nature. And as soon as my I catch my brain trying to catch something, it's like, well, you should be mowing the lawn right now. It's like, no, just look at the tree. That's a nice tree. Look at that cloud. That's a nice cloud. And like just trying to actually practice myself to do nothing.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Those are really great. Uh oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 33:22

Oh, I just I think we want to like default to what's familiar to us. So it's like, what's familiar to me? It's like what you were saying earlier. Um, you know, I miss the stress of the kitchen. Like, that's familiar to you. Like, that's where that feels natural to you to be in that environment. And um it almost back to like what Noob was saying earlier about like being home with the kid and like trying to figure out breakfast. Like, I relate to that so much. Like that's stressful. Like, when um when maybe Sperry was like six months old and we were introducing real food to her, I was like, I don't know what the hell to make her. Like, easy, just cut up an avocado, and I'm like, like, okay, and so it's like yeah, it was so new to me and like so foreign to me to be like taking care of a six-month-old child, and like I just remember like being so stressed out in the first like year of well, even before she was born, but like the first year of Baby Spray's life, I was like, I don't know how to do any of this, none of this is familiar to me. Like, it's stressful, but like I'd rather be stressed out at work because that kind of stress is different and it's familiar to me, so it's like you know, you're almost like this word, you at least know what you're doing at work, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

And then the uncomfortability, uncertainty is what draws more scare. And then we end up backing off, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:46

Yeah, just recently we um we kind of like lost our daycare um that we had because our daycare provider ended up getting a different job, and we're like, that's cool, and we're trying to figure out what to do, you know. Do we find somebody else? We ended up settling on, well, Sperry's gonna stay home in the morning, I'm gonna go to work, and then I'm gonna come home from work and she's gonna go into the office and work a little bit. And um, I thought that was the best solution, but at the same time, I was so stressed out thinking, like, what am I gonna do with my child for like a few? Like, that doesn't seem normal to me, like that's unfamiliar. I'm not necessarily comfortable with that. I mean, like, I've learned to okay, yeah, we can just do this and this, whatever, but um, yeah, it's just that navigating that unfamiliar territory, I guess, of like, oh, I have to take care of my kid. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

It's just you're a man, so you're supposed to know how to do that ahead of time before actually doing the task. Yeah. So that that's your job. You're supposed to know. It's like doing Mythic Plus or doing a raid, right? It's like you were supposed to know before you were here. Yes, not right now. How dare you? The audacity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

How could you not know? Well, the what you said when you said like the unknown, it kind of like produces like more scare, as you said. Um, I do want to talk about fear and how that like plays into the stress that you feel because I feel overall that the one of the differences in the stress and the pressures of life is like women are allowed to be afraid and men are not. That is not a true statement from where I'm sitting, but I'm wondering how much that impacted your reality and what you felt was true. Like, do you feel like that is something that maybe contributed to how you processed fear? Because like I'm thinking with like Mr. Sperry, I know that because I'm your wife, I have a little insight to your life, and I know that you deal with per perfectionism in a lot of ways, and like I think a lot of that is like the fear of not being enough, the fear of like not um hitting the mark or whatever the case may be, like just wanting things to be really good. Um, but I think anger is usually the men's wheelhouse. That's what a lot of men that I have spoken with are comfortable with and are uh well versed in. I've had men tell me the only thing, the only emotion I'm familiar with is fear or is um anger, but anger is secondary and usually there is like fear or sadness or grief or something at the root of that. And so I'm wondering what your own relationship with fear has been. Um, and if you think that there is a little bit of like the connection that I'm drawing, like, am I right or am I wrong? Because I'm not a man, so tell me tell me from where you're sitting what you think.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

As you mentioned, uh like how there's a root problem, I would say almost um instead it's the first step gets skipped. So in having that that sadness and that fear, because a lot of us grow up in an atmosphere where you're not taught to have those emotions, you end up skipping that step, and then it goes into anger.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

On my end, I and this is shocking as a big red bearded man. Um, I have never thrown a punch at somebody, I've never gotten in a bar fight, I have yelled at two people my entire life. Like actually, a full yell. The first person was my mother. Whole nother conversation another time.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Wow. Your kind, sweet, emotionally responsive Canadian mother.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

She ended up being bipolar, many depressive, and alcoholic, and that drew into divorce. Yeah, take that, Mary. Yeah, that'll do it. But I have to understand that like who she was, yeah, which this should show that healing process.

unknown 38:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

How I talked about her when I was growing up was different than who she became. So I differentiated who my mother was in raising me to who she ended up becoming. Yeah. Because I can't control who she became, and also that was a mental illness.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Yep, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

So, like, I'm not gonna hold that anguish, that hate towards her for who she was, because she did raise a kind, caring, loving man.

unknown 38:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Total bitch. Yes, yeah. That's two different people in my head. Two things can be kind of mom and there's Sherry. Two different. Um, so I think a lot of men end up skipping the understanding of their emotion, and that's what goes into anger.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

So it is the root problem, but I think because they don't know how to define it is what ends up going into the anger.

unknown 38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 38:55

Like we don't even recognize that it's happening. Like we don't even know it's there.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 38:58

Nah, you're just and you're just mad. It's like there's no there's no ladder, there's no meter, it's one or the other sometimes. Like there's no build-up, it it just happens, you know. Uh I can I can kind of relate to like touchpad growing up, my mom was a drug addict. And uh she got the oxy cotton pan thing was happening in the late 2000s, you know. And um what had happened was is that my dad and my brother's dad had like conspired to set up my mom, and I didn't know about this till like later in life, just so they could both stop paying child support.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 39:36

And like, so like finding that out later in life, you're like, the first thing I wanted to do was to go kick my dad in the dick. Yeah, like what like who what kind of person are you to do that? Like, you know, um, but I I was I was growing up also, I was also mad at my mom, so it's like yo, you're choosing this over me and this over my brother. Like, what what are you doing, you know? But like now that I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and can kind of like retain myself a little bit better. Sometimes the loudest voice in a room isn't heard, yeah. Um, and really just having that conversation um when I became older and having talking that to her, you know, and just kind of both of us like talking it out and kind of hashing it out, but having a civilized conversation was definitely way more helpful than 16-year-old me yelling at my mom for sure. You know, so really just it it's hard to like catch yourself when you're mad or when you're angry. Um it's really hard to but you have to you have to kind of you have to do that sometimes, and really it's better to talk it out than yell it about it, in my perspective, you know, that that fear because it fear can easily escalate into anger very fast.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Uh Mr. Svery, what are your thoughts on that? On the whole fear, anger connection and how that plays into the pressure that you feel.

SPEAKER_07 41:10

Yeah, I think you know me. I'll you know, I'll get frustrated about something that seems like like nothing, and then I'll be like, why am I frustrated? Or like why am I lashing out? And then I have to like think back and be like, sometimes it is like I'm just tired. Um, sometimes it is like a deeper root emotion like fear or something like that. And um, and I think before I never knew how to deal with that, and um, you know, you just grow up pushing those emotions down for so long that all you do see is the frustration and anger come out. Um but like of course being married to a therapist, I've somewhat learned um how to at least go back and like be introspective and be like, okay, why am I feeling that way? Um what caused this? You know what I mean? And then like like New was saying, like talking about it before it gets to that point of being frustrated and like as soon as you do feel that feeling of fear or whatever it is, um, talking about it first and recognizing it first and dealing with it before it becomes something bigger.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Yeah, yeah. Um when it comes to like some of the the pressures that we've been talking about and all of that stuff, um I'm wondering, do you think that they're mostly internal or external?

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Like I would say external ends up becoming internal.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

So I I agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Yeah, so like you end up you end up seeing a situation, a problem, a complication. And then because we don't know how to handle that, that's what creates the anomalies. Like if this is the idea or the new thing that's come up as a complication, then it stretches off to being 15 possibilities.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

And then trying to prepare or teach yourself as you're trying to understand it, what outcome is more likely? What can I prepare for? What's the the best solution I could possibly do for this? And then also, even though we don't have control over that, it's oh man, I took the wrong path.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

I prepped for the wrong thing. So we end up often bowling ourselves down for not being perfect about that scenario.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah. Yeah. I think um one of the things that I uh will usually talk I work mostly with couples, and um I try to highlight the feedback loop of like women struggle with the the fear of abandonment normally, and then men typically deal with the the the insecurity of not being enough, like uh because of this the social messages that we've grown up with of like, okay, like um I'm supposed to provide, and like I was just talking to um another another streamer in the community that is navigating a breakup and like talking about like look there's something that happens where women will be sad or will be upset or will be whatever, and their partner will say, Oh, if I I were enough, I should be able to make this stop for her. I should be able to make the pain go away. I should be able to fix her problem. I should be able to write things. And so you're trying to fix and and write her world. And what she's hearing is I'm only loved if I'm fixed. And he doesn't want to deal with me at my worst. So he's trying to make this convenient. And he's trying to make me fit into a more, you know, tangible place in his life or whatever. And so this feedback loop starts. Yes, absolutely. And so um, yeah, I think it's interesting just like the interplay of that and how it's like I'm trying to be helpful, and now what m many people don't realize is like men are very sensitive to the rejection reflux. Uh and I don't I don't think that that always like happens to be highlighted as much because you know, you're supposed to be, you know, tough and brush your shoulders off and try again. And I think even in like the the dating culture, like there's this idea that men are just supposed to keep shooting their shot and like not be bothered, and like the whole like men are dogs narrative of like, you know, they're just gonna knock on one door and if that doesn't work, they're gonna go on to the next one. But I don't think that that's truly the case of what's happening internally, like if we actually think about it. Um, and so got that dog in them, exactly. So I yeah, I think that it's it's something to to talk on when it comes to what's actually happening and how you're perceived, because I think at the end of the day, it is important that men feel like valued and respected and appreciated. And I don't I don't think that is there's always space for that in the societal like narrative that we take part in every day, in the script as it is as it is. Um what do you think are okay going for it?

SPEAKER_03 45:50

There's two things you mentioned um that I wanted to brush up on. And that was one was uh how like the communication of oh if I was enough, right? It's because a lot of men think fix and so like what's the easiest way to fix? So like it's trying to solve the problem instead of understanding your partner's problems, yeah. So a lot of that ends up being the scenario on their communication. Yeah, it's like oh well I can fix it, I can fix it, it's fine, let me just fix it real quick. And then you're happy now, right? You're happy that I do a good job. Yeah, you want results. Yeah, it's like I can do the results, I can do the results, I'm sorry, instead of understanding the emotions, yeah. So it's more so wanting to be with your partner and understand where they're coming from to help them heal and get through something instead of bandage fix.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

Um in the dating world, I think it's uh a lot of men will feel like they are like different toys that are sparkly in the aisle. And like so a woman would walk down the aisle thinking which toy that they would like, and so it's always comparison. So it's like, oh well, I I need to make sure I'm the strongest one in the room. I need to make sure like I have the kind the nice car, I need to make sure I have the most money made. So that way, the nice aisle look. Yeah, nice one. My lady carved mine, so like that's all hers. 11 years together now. That was the first thing she I asked her. I was like, if there's something I could change about my appearance that would make me seem more attractive, what would that be for you? She was like, I want to date a Viking. I was like, Okay, well, you're a hairstylist, so it's all your job now. Make it happen. That's that's what I grew in.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

The fact that your partner is a hairstylist makes so much sense to me now. Um it's nice hair. Yeah, I was gonna say, your hair and your beard have always been like on point every single uh video that I see. So it makes sense, yes.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Um so I I feel like that's how a lot of men end up receiving themselves for those two aspects. Uh yeah, how to heal that is communication, which ends up being the most common way of healing anything is communication. How bizarre.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

How bizarre.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

As a therapist, you would know. How bizarre, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of men just don't even know how to communicate. And that sucks because they might have grown up in a toxic masculinity world where no, you don't talk, right? No, you don't need to talk. Do the job. Nail, hammer, do the job. You don't need to speak to me.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yes, be productive. Yeah, when you talk about communication, um, that's something else that I wanted to to talk about was that like it is I would say far and above more challenging for men to articulate a feeling word. Um, I've seen this across the board. There's been research about just the way that we're able to connect like our feelings to the words that we're saying. I find that men have more physical awareness of like where they're feeling things. Like I I know Absos and chat. I'm I'm very, very lucky to have a successful dual relationship with one of my clients, actually, who is very active in our our Twitch community, um, which is not typical. If you want more information on how that works, I do have a video on my TikTok about ethically like how we make this happen. Um, but often in session, I will say, Where do you where are you feeling this in your body? Um, how is this feeling to you? Because that is a lot more within the vernacular of men when it comes to the emotional dialogue rather than like, oh, like I was feeling um, you know, my therapist says that to you what the hell is. I'm telling you what. So it's like, where do you feel this in your body? I think that that is more on the radar rather than all of these like intricate little, like I feel like there are certain people, if I get a feelings wheel out, then they're gonna they're gonna like storm out of my office because they're just like, don't show that wicked wheel to me. I don't care about the feelings words, I don't want to do this. The feelings wheel has created more male trauma um than most of the things that we've talked about today, I feel so um, but yeah, tell me what that has been like. Like, have you had that visceral reaction of like, don't ask me what I'm feeling, don't ask me what my emotions are? Because like it's almost an irritant when you're trying to, you're trying to get the results, you're trying to do the thing, you're trying to talk about the feelings, you're trying to communicate, but it's like sometimes it's very, it's such a like something that's so ambiguous by nature, it's hard to quantify. Like, okay, how am I accurately describing what it is that I'm feeling in a physical way? Like, does does that sound familiar to you? Do you have similar frustrations with that? Is it just something that I have missed the mark on? What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 50:33

I don't personally think it's not, so somebody go for it.

SPEAKER_07 50:35

Yeah, yeah, I can't always name my feelings like right away. I have different size and grunts, you know, they're like depending on what sound comes out of my body. Like you might be able to recognize, like, oh, he's frustrated, oh, he's stressed, he's he's whatever.

SPEAKER_03 50:48

Um that's really funny. That's what my dad does. Yes, I can tell by the tone. I'm like, I'm like, okay, what's bothering you?

SPEAKER_07 50:54

Well, what's what's just yeah, my dad used to pick on me all the time because I would just walk into a room and sigh, and he's like, Well, why are you sighing? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what you know what feeling I'm feeling right now and what's causing me to sigh. But it's like as soon as I walked into a room. Um, but yeah, like I need more time, I think, to process um what those feelings actually are, and that's why, like, say if you and I were having an argument, I don't I can't have a conversation and communicate that to you right away because I don't have the words for it yet. I just have you know, something I feel in my chest, like you were saying, where is it in your body? Oh well, I'm feeling something in my chest. I don't know what it is. And if I try to have a conversation with you right now, I'm in my quote unquote lizard blank brain, and I'm just gonna have frustration come out or you know, whatever, anger. Um, because I don't I don't know. I don't know if I'm angry, I don't know if I'm upset, I don't know if I'm hungry. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

I think the most successful argument we ever had was it was like a knockdown drag out. We were like supposed to leave to go drive to see one of my friends, and we were heading out the door, and we like stopped because we were arguing so bad, and we sat down at the table, and I said all the things that I needed to say, and like he still was just sitting there, and I that's like punishment to me. Silence is like punishment because I'm so anxious to get the conversation resolved, but I was I said I recognize that you need time to think about this, so I'm going to go to the bedroom, and when you're ready, and not for anything freaky, because I know we have D-Gens in the chat, uh, but I said, I'm gonna go. Basically, I was like, I'm just gonna give you space, and when you're ready, then you can come and talk to me, and then I I will wait until you're ready. And I just like literally went and like texted my friend. I said, Hey, by the way, we had to have a fight and we're not coming, but we'll figure it out and it'll be fine. Um, and she's also a social worker, so she totally understood. Uh but yeah, I was like, that was probably the last time we had a really bad, um, like harsh, I don't know, like there had been so many arguments before then that were like really incendiary, and that was like the last really bad one because I was like, oh, come on, idiot. He just needs a second to process, and like he's not trying to punish you. He does want to resolve this, he does love you. Like, just give him a second.

SPEAKER_07 53:20

Well, speaking of pressure too, like I remember marriage counseling where like, you know, we did marriage counseling before we got married, and it was like a prerequisite to like our pastor to even do the ceremony. Like, we have to take a look at the colour.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

He would not marry us without we're gonna cover these topics, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 53:36

And like one of the things we talked about was like, okay, you know, women communicate like this and they want to talk things out right away. Men usually need more time to figure things out, and there was like this pressure to be like, okay, how much time do you need? 10 minutes, 15. You know, like we had to hammer out a time like right then and there. And so then there's this expectation that, like, okay, 15 minutes has gone by, you need to be ready to talk about this. And I think I like early on, I realized I'm like, 15 minutes still isn't enough for me. Like, sometimes I do need like an hour or two, like to you know, get out of the house, go for a walk, do something that's not talking about that situation, that issue, um, and then come back to be like, oh, like this is you know, this is what was happening, this is why I was feeling that way. Um, but there's like that that pressure to like talk it out ASAP, and so then that almost like made it worse. Um, because now it was forced to be in a conversation I wasn't ready for.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 54:31

Being in being in that, like that mindset, I f I feel like it's always like jargled or in my my my head, where I like it's 20 of me are having a conversation with the one person in front of me, my wife, and they all want me to say something out loud, and it's like gibberish. Yes, you know, and it's sometimes of just like stepping away from that situation and processing and picking out of the 20 voices in your head what you want to say, you know. It's uh and and that time, like depending on the situation, it could be a 10-minute situation, it could be a three-day situation, you know, of just like I've been there, I've been married, I've been with my wife for 20 years. We don't have the utmost shunshiny rainbow perfect relationship, just like everyone else, right? Yeah, there's ups and downs, of course, and uh, you know, it it it's it's it's hard to like take that step back and be like, I just need to not say anything right now and just kind of process this for a second. And yeah, uh, but it it does feel like garbled up in my head is the best way I can describe it.

SPEAKER_07 55:48

I think what's important though is like even if you are feeling that way and you need time to process, you eventually do go back and talk about it because like growing up, my family was like we would have these crazy feelings, we'd have these fights, and then nobody ever talked about it. We just like went our separate ways, yeah. Like an hour or two later, we're feeling better, we kind of calm down or whatever, but we never talked about it, and so then, like, just an hour later, you just act like nothing ever happened and everything's fine, it's more of a vent than a solution, yeah. And so then, like I hate that carries into the rest of your life, it carries into your marriage or whatever, other relationships. And so, like, I remember having a hard time like with Sperry. Like, I don't know, I'm not used to talking about these things after we have a fight or having that resolution. I'm used to just like two hours later pretending like everything's fine, and meanwhile, she's like been torturing herself for two hours thinking I'm still mad at her, but like I'm not anymore.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Yeah, yeah, very interesting. Uh Melissa, my partner, uh, and I she's the one that does we call it the timeout method. Yes. Because she learned that from her father, because her father was very aggressive and auto man. Yeah. Um, so she learned the timeout method. I had to learn the timeout method because of her. Yeah. Because that was more of the like, okay, let's talk about it. Like, let's go through like what we're thinking and feeling, and that's okay. And she's like, no, I'm just gonna go to this room and I just need to process. So like she needed a carpent uh goddamn, I keep getting the word wrong. Carpentalize? That's not right.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Compartmentalize.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

Putting things. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yep. Yeah, dyslexia's a bitch. Um so I had to learn that method because of being with her. Uh and I was like, oh, okay, I get it. Every everything's jumbled on the head, and like you can't you don't want to say like the wrong thing right away because we're having the conversation right now.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

And so now that I understood that, it's like, okay, I can be more understanding about other people that have these solutions uh for this dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Yeah, and this is this is not a specifically like men issue, but like the lizard brain that Mr. Sperry was talking about when your like fight or flight is activated. Uh, I remember one time when um it was another time when I was like giving him space. And do you remember the space when you're like afterwards? You were like, the crazy thing about the lizard brain is you can tell when you're in it, but you can't get out of it. He's like, like, I didn't want to be mean to you. I didn't want to be talking to you like that, but I literally couldn't stop myself. Like, I could not, everything that came out of my mouth was just mean. And I was like, it takes reps, like it really does. And in that moment, it was like, I know that that's not how he feels about me. Like he's he loves me and he's like still trying to work things out, but he's just like activated right now. He's stressed, so yeah.

SPEAKER_07 58:21

I think that's part of why sometimes I need more time because I'm like, I don't want to talk to you like that. I don't want to be mean to you. I don't know what else to say right now. Yeah, and so then I'm like quiet, and you're like, Are you even listening to me? Are you even hearing me? I'm like, Yes, I just everything that's popping into my head to say is not good. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Yeah. Um so I am interested because of so Wednesday I posted a uh I posted a video um about men's mental health and just like talking about how I don't know how to help everybody. Um, but I do know that like sometimes you have to be the person to talk first or you have to be willing to sit in uncomfortable silence. And it was just really highlighting the gap in men's mental health and that there's a disproportionate amount of men in the overall suicides suicide statistics. And so um one of the themes that I was seeing is that men don't trust that they are actually safe to talk about their feelings. Men say that they need men, they don't need women, they don't need therapy, they don't need any of that, they just need other men, and they don't think that they're taken seriously, or if they share their feelings, that they're going to be weaponized. And I think there's a lot of truth in all of those statements. I think that there is a serious issue because of some of like the social messages that we've grown up with, um, the individual experience. I think sometimes men just aren't taken seriously. Uh, and I think we've talked about some of the challenges of like being able to articulate in the right way what they're feeling. Um, but I do think that men do need guys like to just like uh touchpad was talking about, let's just go have a beer, stare at a TV, and just chill. And that is sometimes more healing than going to an hour of therapy. Uh that's that's why like there's like golf, like leisure activities. I'm just like, I don't know anybody. I mean, this is unfair. This is my own personal bias because I would never choose to just get up and just like go golfing. But like I think that the men thrive in the social atmospheres where there's some sort of peripheral activity. There's an activity that the focus is primarily going to, and then the socialization is happening happening secondarily. Um I think that takes a lot of the pressure off of like how to having to talk to one another and like having to know what to say and all of that stuff. I think you guys do really good with like a primary objective, and then the socialization comes secondary, um, as like an aside to that. So tell me about like what you've noticed in how loneliness comes into play, or what advice you would have to listeners that feel that way, that feel isolated, that feel like they can't trust people with their feelings, or they don't know where to find people to talk to. Like, I'm a therapist, I obviously know the route to get to me, but like there are a lot of men in this world that are just alone and uh feeling very skeptical or suspicious of the people around them.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

I think a lot of it is um we isolate ourselves. That's kind of the point. So it's like I don't want to be somebody else's burden. I don't want to add something else to something, or I also don't want to, I'm not ready to start or process my emotions is another like major difficulty. It's like no, I nah no I'll just delay it. It's fine. I don't need to touch that whole bag of worms. Like, not now. Like maybe tomorrow. We can do it tomorrow, it's fine. Delay, right? Um, and then the isolation, that's why we end up doing those tasks, like, hey, let's go shoot pool.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

And then maybe after, maybe after a little liquid curvature, oh hey, you know what? Life sucks right now. It's like, oh shit, Steve. Um okay, what's going on? Like, talk about it. And like they feel like they can open up because they have the activity to focus on. And they feel more safe because they're a little relaxed and calmed down. It might take like an hour into shooting pool, but you might get a word out every once in a while. And that's that's some way of like tiptoeing or taking baby steps towards that recovery.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:25

I uh I so seeking uh personal experience here, I was diagnosed with PTSD for my time in the service, and I was getting mental health, and uh is a psychiatrist or psychologist that prescribes you medication or whatever, I forget which one it is. Yeah, um they uh they set me up as an appointment to meet with this this woman, even though I had a male mental health person kind of helping me at the time. Um, I hated her to the to to like I I could not get a conversation out because every time I would talk about how I was feeling about something, she would try to relate and interrupt me. I was talking about my time in my deployments, and she would bring up like her son. And it's like, lady, I'm not here to talk about you or your son right now. I'm talking about me to where like guys, I feel like have that personality where we can just like sit back and really bite our tongue and just say, like, yeah, dude, like that sucks. And like that other dude gets it, like, oh man, he he's relating to me on a real level right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

We just said like the most basic thing, it's almost just agreeing was like understanding 50 different terrible things we're dealing with right away. It's like, you know what? You don't gotta say damn things, eating your eyes, like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:40

You know, uh like it, but like trying to talk to like I find it way easier to talk to men than it is women, uh, especially when it comes to feelings, just because personal experience was saying all women do this, a lot of women take things out of context, in my experience, and they take things to a whole nother level or out left field, and to where men are like, yo, wait wait, wait, what do you mean by that? You know, like and um it it it's just and that's just my personal experience again, too. It's just I have a much easier time um like just communicating with men. Um, and my biggest advocate for mental health is like myself, really. Like, I didn't have anyone for like my like being feeling empty or whatever. Like, I had to be my own voice for it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

So yeah. It's funny that you talk about like being interrupted or being like basically somebody trying to relate to you, because like I've even done it to you guys in this session, like that is such a different part of communication, is like women are natural co-regulators. So I'm like, oh yeah, like let me connect that, like let me show you the evidence of like this time that I remember. But it's so important that we have conversations like this because if you hadn't said that, like that's such a good reminder to me of like, yeah, like just shut up and let people talk. Like, it's so good, and that's what people need more than anything. People don't normally need advice, like if anything, advice can be incredibly detrimental to them being able to like build some some self-trust and empowerment of like, no, usually people know what they need, they just need a place to dump so that they can like have space to move on and do more. Um, so no, I'm so glad that you said that because it is it's important to people that are very well intentioned to know like what helps and what doesn't help. Um, and I was actually I wanted to hear more about your experience of that because you shared that you were um willing to be very open and very candid about your own experiences. So uh this actually I'm gonna I'm gonna open up the stream on my phone because I do uh lots of drinks, small bladder. I want you to give a little bit of a history. About your experience in the military and you did you were very open with me that you did have um uh uh suicide attempts and I and then you've had this walk of long walk of recovery and what that looks like every day with your family. So if you wouldn't mind giving a little bit of a background, I am going to hop up and take this moment, but I'm gonna be following you on my um mobile while you do. So please share a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:24

All right, let's travel back through time real quick. Uh so I joined the military in 2009 and joined the army. Uh went through, you know, normal basic training at Fort Jackson, went to AIT at Fort Lee, and then uh when I was in AIT, they're like, hey, who wants to jump out of airplanes and get paid the extra 150 bucks a month? I said, Yeah, sure, me. Um, so I ended up being stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home to the 82nd Airborne Division. Um, ended up getting to my unit the week of like Christmas of 2010. I'm sorry, 2009. And um wasn't able to go home for Christmas because the unit was already on leave at the time, and I was told that we were going to take leave sometime like in February, basically, is when I would be able to go home. And I was like, because I hadn't been home in six plus months yet, and I was like, okay, that's fine. Um, well, January in 2010, there was an earthquake in Haiti, and we were the global response force to that, so we had boots on the ground within Haiti in Port-au-Prince within like 18 hours, and gut-wrenching hard truth is I would rather go back to Iraq 10 times over again than go back to Haiti for another 90 days. Haiti sucked ass. Um, mentally, physically, um everything. Um, as soon as I got off the plane, we there was this horrible, horrible, horrible stench. Um, and I asked one of my sergeants, like, yo, what does that smell? And it's like, oh, they're burning bodies over there. And it's like you look over in the night, you put your night vision on, and it's like, holy shit, like, there's this pile of like people just like their dead bodies just getting burned. And um we got off the airplane and we got all our stuff situated. And how Port au Prince is set up is like there's a port for like the boats, the airport, and then there's this big field, and we were in this big field with all our staging trucks, and within like maybe like two or three hours there, a firefight ended up happening with the United Nations and local militia on the other side of the wall, and we weren't allowed to engage at all because we weren't being fired upon, so we had to sit there and kind of watch and hear kind of what was kind of going on without being able to do anything because we're there as a humanitarian mission, not as a combat mission. So that was kind of like a what the fuck moment for me for sure. Uh, the next morning we roll out, and our job was to go to basically where the embassy people stayed at and provide security for that. And I remember there was this kid, there was like Haiti had like no food, no water, no electricity. I was probably there on like day three or four after the earthquake had happened, and I was in my gun truck, just kind of like sitting on the passenger side with my doors off, so I can like get out easily and accessible. And I threw a kid a bottle of water, and he was probably like between the ages of like eight and ten. And I watched this kid get pumpled to the ground by grown men for a bottle of water, and I went to go get out of my gun truck to go help that kid, and I got quickly pulled back in um and told that like, hey, you can't do anything, like that's not your fight, you know, and it's like holy shit, like what do you guys mean? Like, we're supposed to help these people, and like this kid's getting pummeled to the ground right now for a bottle of water. Um that was like my first like maybe eight hours in country at the time. I just witnessed all of that, so that was pretty pretty intense. Uh where we got to our OP, by the time we got all our units set up and everything, there was probably about two to three hundred of us. Uh by day five or six, there was about five thousand of the populace below us, so we were severely outnumbered um and overwhelmed by the populace, the people just needing like medical attention and food. Um, we were limited to one liter of bottle of water a day and one MRE a day. We didn't, I never, it was probably like 60 days in before I actually got like a shower. Wow, to be honest with you. It was a pretty rough environment. Um, we never had like a hot meal the whole time I was there. We would uh the boat, the navy boats would bring in from via helicopter like water and food and rice. Um, and then they started using transportation trucks as well. But I'm sorry, I'm getting off track here. Before the Navy got there, they were using transportation like moving trucks, like U-Hauls to transport bodies to locations. They would unload the truck of bodies, rinse it out, load it up with rice and water, and take it off. Like, that's the kind of like conditions that country was in at the time. Um, I was 19 years old, and there was a lady that was on a mountaintop that was had a broken leg who was pregnant. So I had at 19, I helped a woman give birth as a soldier. I was with the Red Cross. That was something uh I never expected to happen. Um, shortly after we uh because we had to make sure that she was stable enough to move. Um shortly after that, we were gonna load up in our vehicles, and like a firefight ended up breaking out, and we were having to rush this lady who just had pushed out a baby, and as a freshborn baby, we're running her between moving vehicles to get her to a naval boat so she can seek medical attention. Wow. Um, it was a very, very wild time. I'll say that. I will say that like if you look back at it, like the news did not cover anything there just because it was so dangerous. And like I said, I would go back to Iraq like 10 times over again before going back to Haiti because fast forwarding a little bit now, going to 2011 when I was in Iraq, Iraq, we had like four hot meals a day. We had a movie theater, we had showers, we had a way to like talk to family, we had a mission. Um, but being in Haiti, we didn't really have that. We were just there to help, but no one knew how to help those people, essentially. Um so, you know, and then so I had Haiti under my belt, and in Iraq, I started off in this very it's called Al-Assad Air Base, it's in Iraq. And that place was like the Marriott, like it was a massive place, never got mortared, never got attacked. Like I said, had a movie theater, it had midnight chow. We had like cold coffee and stuff like that, hot coffee, and um it was um it sucked, like you're in the desert, yeah, you know, like it's hot. Um, but as we kind of developed into our rotation there, we got told to move to VBC Liberty, which is just right outside Baghdad. And my as I was part of the advanced party to go, so I was in a Chinook helicopter. Those of you don't know, that's the helicopter with the blades in the front and the back that you see in the movies. And we're about to land, we get told, like, hey, one minute, we're like, okay, cool. Uh, next thing I know, the helicopter is like flying straight and just kind of like veers off sharply, and you just hear the gunners on both sides just unload. You're like, what the going on, you know? Um we get we get to the ground, and as we're trying to we're getting yelled at, like, move your fucking asses, like go, go, go, go. We're like, where do we go? I don't know where the fuck I'm at. Like, where do you want me to go, bro? And they're like, get to the bunkers, and as we're running, mortars are like hitting that where the helicopter was trying to land, we're like, oh shit, we're this is fucking bad dad now. Like, we're in the fucking thick of it, boys. Like, holy shit. Um, I get set up, my bunk, you know, a couple hours later, and I'm trying to sleep, and the next thing I know, uh, the C RAM, which is like a minigun that shoots the mortars out of the sky, is right outside my tent, and no one told me that. So I'll hear at like two or three in the morning, like scare the living hell out of me. Yeah. Um, so go through Iraq, you know, we did our normal missions and stuff like that. Um, spent Thanksgiving in a bunker, you know, wishing I had my granny's pudding, you know, but that was about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:30

Um, probably eight months to a year later, um sitting at home, um where we have this huge, huge training exercise coming up. Like it's us and this other unit. And um I wasn't doing okay. Like when I drank alcohol, I drank to blackout. Like, I didn't give a shit about like what my chain of command said, yeah, or anything like that. Like when we came back from Iraq, we were we were doing some PT and my sergeant code's like, Oh, y'all need to drink some more water. I said, the only water I drink is the ice by cup, like being a Mr. Cool Guy, because I turned 21 in Iraq, so I felt like I was making up for lost time, yeah. Right, and um, you know, uh we we but we have this huge training exercise coming up, and wife's like, you know, hey, like why don't you go have a couple of drinks and unwind before you go to the field for like a week or two? Um, I said, Yeah, you know, that sounds great. And a couple drinks turned into like a whole Sailor Jerry's bottle within like five hours. Yeah. And the emotions just really hit that day. Um, and I I tried to kill myself in front of my wife. I just wasn't getting the help that I needed, was kind of hiding how I was feeling. Wanted to, you know, be there for my homies and my battle buddies, but really just kind of wasn't right. Like, I didn't really give a shit about like what my sergeant said. Yeah, I didn't give a shit about showing up to work on time. I would show up to work drunk, I would drink during duty. Um, and uh so my wife, instead of calling the police, my wife called my friends, my battle buddies, and they're like, We can you know, he can go crash at my place and he can sleep this off. And one of my buddies is like, nah, he needs help. Yeah, like this isn't this isn't Jake. Like, we he needs help. And so they took me to my chain of command, they took me to the hospital, like it detoxed, and um, you know, get on suicide watch. And um for anyone who's been in the military, suicide watch is really, really bad. Like, so we had this field training exercise, mind you, that I still had to be a part of, um, but wasn't allowed to carry a weapon, wasn't allowed to hold a knife, wasn't allowed to jump into the exercise. So being a paratrooper and being told that you're not allowed to jump is like telling a paladin not to be able to use divine storm. Like, it was just you know, really, yeah, not a good feeling, right? Um, and you have to have somebody with you at all times. Um, but through all of that being on Suicide Watch, I never actually got mental help. They sent me to like the Army Substance Abuse Program, and um, so it was like alcohol substance abuse and things like that, and but I never really got mental help till like a couple months later, uh, until I was filling out like a survey, probably my one-year checkup after my deployment, and it was like in the past 30 days, have you tried to kill yourself? And it's like, ah, fuck. I gotta check yes here, you know. And um, you know, so I told to pull the PA aside, I'm like, hey, you know, I just wanted to let you know I had to check yes here for my incident that I had, and he was like, What incident? And I was like, Oh, great, so I gotta spill this whole story out now. Um, and he he but again, you know, he he sat down with me and um he he made sure I got some help, and we were kind of going through the things, and he was like, Do you do you want to kill yourself? I was like, at the time I did, you know. Um, but I'll be honest with you, when I went in the hospital, there was this like either Delta Force or Special Forces medic that was on duty there. He had a beard, but he I could tell his ID card was military, but he had it flipped backwards because there's like a civilian cat card and a military cat card, but they're pretty different. And this is gonna sound pretty rough and evasive, but as I'm sitting there, like IV trying to sober up, he he kind of comes in and he was like, Hey, look, man, I'm not here to judge you. I've been in your shoes, I know how you feel, you know, but I'm I'm just here to talk to you real quick. I was like, Okay, you know, what's up, man? And he was just like, uh, are you married? I was like, Yeah, you know, I'm married. Like, you got kids? Like, yeah, I got kids. And uh he's like, Do you want another man raising your kids besides you? I was like, no, what? And he's like, okay. He's like, Do you want another guy fucking your wife? He said it just like that, and I was just like, fuck no, like, what do you mean? He's like, then don't let it happen. I was like, okay, damn, like, all right, I got you, you know, and that was really like the wake-up call to like he's like, go get help. Like, I know it sucks, like what you've experienced sucks, you know, but like killing yourself doesn't fix that issue, it just creates more issues, and I was just like, damn, all right, you know, and um been kind of my own mental health advocate since that conversation in that hospital, to be honest with you, yeah. Um definitely um was an eye-opener for sure, and um I just kind of have that mindset if I ever feel down now, to be honest with you. Like, I know it's it's pretty uh rough to think of that, but when you're the but like when you're 18 or when you're 21, you know, and you you think you know everything and you don't, and um you think you're immune to everything and you're not. Um you think you're the strongest and you're not, you know. So really just kind of go back to that and really think like that mindset, like, no, I don't want another guy raise my kids. No, I don't want my wife sleeping with another man. Like, let's let's talk to somebody, let's figure this out. Let's let's go for a walk. Let's you know, let's listen to some music. I like to build gundams and listen to lo-fi music now. That is like my zen, you know, um, playing video games and things like that. And um really like just like on my journey with like PTSD and things like that, it's really just kind of I I'm I'm sitting here and I'm literally petting a rock this whole stream talking about this, and it's just that's what I'm doing. Um, you know, I I don't really drink, but like socially, and it's like one or two drinks at the time now. Um you know, I I've learned to kind of what messes with me and what doesn't mess with me. Um, as far as like red flags go, I should have known there was a red flag when there was a time where I was home between Haiti and Iraq, I was home on leave, and I live in Southwest Florida, and Southwest Florida has a big uh Haitian population. And somebody I was at the mall and somebody was speaking Creole, which is their language, and like the next thing I know, like I was on that mountaintop, and I could like feel the breeze on my face, and I could smell the ocean, and I could feel the weight from my my chest rig and my weapon, and I could feel sweaty, but I was like in the mall, like I was just like in civilian clothes, and it was it's just happened for like a split second or two, and I was like, Oh god, that was like a weird feeling, like you know, but I didn't mention it to anybody. Um, and my second red flag would be like my first night when I came home from Iraq. I was stepped outside to have a cigarette and have a drink with my wife, and someone started up their motorcycle. And when they that motorcycle started, it popped. I I was on the ground, like in the ground, like I was face dirt, like what's going on? Where are we at? And my wife just kind of staring at me. I was like, ah, you know, I was just getting morted like a week ago, that's no big deal, you know. Like just kind of brushed it off. Um, like that's just a like they talked about like the adjustment period, right? So I was like, ah, it's just an adjustment period. That adjustment period just never faded for me for a while. So um, but I am doing a lot better. I don't think about killing myself every day. Uh I did seek mental health. I did, I I did, I was on medication for a little bit. Um if you're I I wouldn't be opposed to people trying medication for sure. Um, if that works for you, that's great. Um me personally, I'm on the fence about it. I think some of my best content was when I was on medication, to be honest with you. Um, but like in the same time, like there's also well there there's withdrawal, there's withdrawals that you have from it. Um for men with SSRIs, it's really hard for them to function sexually. Yes, you know, 100%. Um and uh, you know, when a guy can't cross the finish line keeping this as filtered as process, you know, um that kind of messes with your you know, it it can't it can kind of mess with your partner's mental state, like, oh, does he not think I'm attractive anymore, or something like that? And it's like, yeah, no, no, no, honey, it's not you, it's the meds, you know? So it's like, do you do you pick being happy or do you pick making you know having a good sex life? You know, like that one of those two, yes, you know, and as a guy, you're like, oh, I can last like 45 minutes. This is great porn star status, you know, but like for women that can mess with them mentally as well. Yeah, so it's something that to take into consideration.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:40

No, but that's like one of the real things that people don't talk about enough. That like I will have I will have conversations with people on my couch and they'll be so dancing around the subject, and I'm like, can we just be very candid about a very natural human thing that most people in a relationship or some outside of a relationship will experience? Like all of the ways that medication affects you are important to talk about, and all of the ways that the conversations that you've had, like I mean, thank God for the guy who talked to you and put it plainly, because there are people who have been battling battling suicidality for years that maybe that would have unlocked something for them, you know. Make it plain, show the results.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:27

I don't know if that would have been the same response for like a poly couple, though. Like, you know what I mean? Like handle that situation, you know. Like, oh, they're curious for it. Yeah, like, oh yeah, I want that, you know. Um, it'd be a little different story than mine, right? You know, but um it it really, but what that guy he was an experienced person, and I think he could read a room very well, yeah. And I wouldn't be able to pick him out today, to be honest with you. Uh, if he came up to me and told me his name, I wouldn't know who he was. I was so out of it. Um, but um, but yeah, no, I I think to that, you know, if things get rough or if I go into a dark place, that's like the one thing I, you know, definitely keep in the back of my mind. It's like, okay, let's sit back for a second, let's go back to that five-foot world and like let's let's think about this for a second, you know. So sorry, Twitch chat, that got a little dark there for you, by the way. I know we went from like one extreme to another, and I've been talking for a very long time. You're good, and I need some water.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:32

Yeah, go for it. No, that's that's the point, and uh, you know, heavy disclaimers here. I've got I've got warnings all over, so uh everybody's been we're not doing any kind of censored conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:43

Um and also thank you for sharing.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:45

Thank you so much for sharing.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:47

I realize talking about it really helps too. You know, um yeah, you know, um top definitely talking about it really did help. Um one but It going back to like do you talk to a female therapist or do you talk to a male therapist? It's really what you feel comfortable with.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:08

Personally, some men do feel more comfortable talking to women. Um, I will tell you firsthand experience, my wife and I, we were in marriage counseling um shortly after my deployment to Iraq, and the marriage counselor sided more with me than my wife because the marriage counselor was also a military spouse. So she had a hard time relating to my wife in trying to understand where my wife was coming from. And from a husband perspective, I was like, okay, this isn't gonna work out, let's try a different approach, you know. Um, but like I could have easily been like, well, you know, the therapist said we need to do this, and you should listen to the therapist. That's not always the case.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:58

Yeah, I agree. Um, I think that a key, like a key component to the what you shared was your battle buddies, how you know one was like, Oh, he can he can come and sleep it off and all that stuff. Uh, but I think a a big one was the one that was like, this isn't him, this isn't him, and he needs help. And so I think that goes back to like the community and the people that are around you and people who understand like the red flags and who know who you are and who you're not. Also, I love that um Touchpad has some furry visitors to check in.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:28

Yes, yeah, they always have to stay around me. So I was like trying to not be dismissive or anything uh or like walk away from camera, but I can hear you guys all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:35

Oh no, you're good.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

It's like hey, come over here.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

Yeah, you're totally good. Um, no, I just think it's it's really illuminating what you shared. And I think even on top of men's mental health, I think like military health is also that's a whole other conversation for another day. But I think so many people will say, you know, thank you for your service, but we don't often think about the details of what you experience when you're serving. So seriously, thank you for being so transparent in what you've experienced and just like giving us some more insight to that world because some most of us live very privileged lives and can't even imagine what that might be.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:14

A lot of you know, a lot of people think that like I want just this for everyone's kind of chatter um perspective, too. A lot of people look at like military, oh, you're gunslinging, you're gung-hole, and you're shooting people down. The first half of what I mentioned, I did not fire a single round. I was not in a firefight was all what I witnessed with my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:34

You know, and that's what I suffered from is not being able to do anything while I was there. Yeah, um, TTST comes in many different forms. Uh, I'm sure uh touchpad can tell you he's had nightmares of ticket machines fucking going off because I've had that happen too in the restaurant side or I've had nights where I've screamed it in the middle of the night like calling out orders.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:55

Oh, like hey, hey, hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay. You haven't worked in three years. I'm like, oh crap, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

Well you're right.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:07

No, but um, that wasn't me being a combative soldier, that was me being a humanitarian soldier, and that's what I witnessed, you know. Um, so keep that in mind because like I got called all different kinds of names when I've tried to speak out about this, like, oh, you're just some kind of baby killer, and it's like what you know, the opposite we've learned today that you're a baby deliverer, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um definitely was a wild ride for sure. So um, and um definitely a learning experience. Um definitely being my own advocate for mental health though, after what that medic said to me in the hospital. Um and when I feel like I can't being a stay-at-home dad, I definitely had a negative mental mindset of like I'm no longer the male provider, I'm not working, like what do I do? I did seek out some mental help. And um, you know, they asked, like, hey, would you prefer a male therapist or a female therapist? You know? Um, and I I I spoke to people and made sure I was good. And one of my um my homework from a mental health uh for my therapist was to actually have lunch dates with my wife like once a week, even if it was just like fast food, like getting out of the house and spending time with her, and it was in a parking lot eating like a Wendy's burger or something like that, and that really helped me a lot because I was just the stay-at-home dad that just stayed at home, right? And I just was so hard on me mentally, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:45

Um, I I love hearing what really worked and what helped you because I think that that's like the disparity that we're seeing is there's so many there's recognition that we're kind of uh we've got our hands tied, we don't necessarily know what to do uh when somebody is struggling. Um, I want to circle back to the very beginning, to the top of the session, uh, when touchpad you were sharing that you had a large role in being able to help um your grandfather like start to recognize or your dad um recognize, like, oh, I actually have feelings and I should also probably talk to somebody about this. So being a man who is outside of the mental health profession, but has helped people realize, specifically men, like, hey, how do I actually recognize and you know navigate this kind of stuff? Would you mind sharing a little bit more about what that looked like and how that went um as we kind of finish up our session? Like, how do we learn from that?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:49

Yeah. Um, so the biggest thing was like what warning signs are happening. So understanding his past, obviously, I would hope so. I was a son, I came from his balls. Yeah, um, so like I understand him, right? And a lot of my strengths were being quiet and observing. Like that that's been something that I've always been good at. Always like break things down, engineer's kind of mind of like, okay, how does this function? How's this work? Even when it comes to personality traits. So in understanding how my dad grew up being a military brat, and like how he processed things and the era in which he grew up, I was seeing those signs without him noticing them. He was demonstrating those signs. And I was like, okay, can I poke at this a little bit without being abrasive or like trying to just direct into that angle? And so it was like little things like hey dad, like how was work today? And like just letting him actually talk about his day. Just any kind of m miscellaneous mundane thing. If I could find like a quiet moment where he was tinkering in the garage, I would like go work with him. Kind of like the shooting pull scenario, right? Or going bowling. It's like, hey, like, can I just tinker with you? Like, can I learn something about this? And then in those moments of quiet, he would bring up things from the past from him. I was like letting him just have the space where it was his son that he could talk to and not his wife. And so that's like what kind of helped teeter towards that.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:11

And then once he got like more opening about it, more talking, more used to like hanging out with the son and demonstrating how he grew up and some of those things. That's when I started like picking a little bit more. I was like, How are you feeling today? Like, like, what is your actual mood today? Like, what is making you feel this way? Like, what's causing these things to happen? Like, there were so many nights where he would for some reason his pattern is to lay down on the floor and enjoy his vodka while he watches TV.

unknown 1:35:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:36

He's a complete night owl. So, like, I would get out from my room after playing World of Warcraft and I would just sit there and watch Doctor Who with him. Like, just let him have time. And because those stories were showing on the screen, I'd be like, Hey dad, like, didn't you kind of deal with someone like this? And he was like, crap, I think I did. And like it started opening up those doors, right? Of being able to communicate those things. And the first brig big break for him was surprisingly when he was a little sloshed. And it was like, he was outside, he was by his Jeep. Uh, my sister was having this crazy party, and I just sat on the brick wall with him, and I was just like, Hey, you you you know you can cry, right? I'm getting teary, I think about this scenario again. Um I was like, what? Like, how you're my son, you're kidding, you're not supposed to be the one telling me this kind of stuff. And it was like trying to break that mold, trying to break what was supposed to work, what was you're supposed to be doing as this model, like as this person. You are a man, you were from the military, like military battle least. You've seen this stuff, you've done these things, you're doing a good job. Like, I want you to know you're doing a good job, but also it's okay to be not okay. And just starting to unravel that and like going through that healing process. And that's something he did not feel comfortable talking to my mother, his wife. I always refer to his wife because separation of who she was and who she became. Um and that's what really helped him unfold.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:58

Yeah. So it was like little by little, it was the the small erosion of the wall that I feel society is kind of like built around us. And that goes back to everybody in my chat will will laugh, but I always harp on reps. We need repetition because of the ways that our brains function and and learn and and automate messages and things like that. So um, no, I think that that's it's so good to hear the commonalities that I'm seeing is like, okay, we want something, we want some sort of like our primary thing that we're doing. So it's it's nice when we have some sort of like decoy topic, decoy subject, decoy focus. Um, that helps to kind of like put people at ease. I think about it, and this sounds so demeaning, but I swear that it's not meant to. Um I think about play therapy with children, how we access their inner working by playing and by like, okay, like let's build this thing and let's talk about a picture. And like you said, like likening his experience to what was happening on Doctor Who, like, oh, like let's make a connection, let's bridge the gap. A lot of it is connecting those dots that aren't necessarily connected. And also, like, I find the salient point was when you finally were like, hey, like, let me get all of this down, but like also you're doing a good job. Like, I think at the end of the day, that is a message that men need to hear more. And you know, I I recognize in my own marriage, like, Mr. Sperry does so much for us, and I am a words of affirmation person, and I even if I say how much I appreciate him to everybody, like he I'm so grateful that he lets me into these moments when I don't do well because that's the only way I I can improve, is he'll say, like, I've noticed that you've been bragging about me a lot, and like I really appreciate that. I love that, but I want you to know, like, you haven't really said it to me, like you haven't talked to me in a while. Like you've talked about me quite a bit. And I'm like, thank you for letting me in. Because as much as it sucks to hear that I'm not necessarily like doing a great job, like I want to look my husband in the eyes and tell him, like, I'm so grateful for you. Like, you do so much for us, and like you don't we won't hear it from anyone but me, you know? Like, who else is gonna be like, hey bro, great husbanding, you're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:29

Good job, big dog, give him a smack in the ass.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:32

Yes, exactly. Hey, big dog, exactly. Way to keep her happy, brother.

unknown 1:39:36

Good job.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:38

But like, I think that that's it's so critical. So I I really appreciate you sharing way more about that experience, and I think it's a beautiful thing to be able to help, you know, the other men in your family and the other men in your communities um in bridging the gap and getting over the stigma and things like that. Miss Ali Kat in chat, I can see you're talking about how much stigma stigma there is around men's emotions. Um, you know, hearing people say men need to always be stoic and never shed a tear. Um, yeah, it's absolutely it's it's important to know that it's okay to cry. But for those men that aren't natural criers, it is okay if you don't. And I think that that's something I'm learning as a therapist working with men, is sometimes you can express emotion without having to, but like I think that the thing is like not sh my therapist says don't shed yourself. Um, so it it doesn't there is no expectation. The expectation is you learn to connect the dots within yourself and process things, and yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:46

Just give them some eye drops and be like, there you go, you replicating your crying, like that helps.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:50

I think they have tier sticks in Hollywood where it's like a it's like a menthol y type where they just yeah, yeah. Here, I got a tear stick for you. Yeah, I know. Um, I can yeah, I could go on and on about that. Um any final thoughts before I ask the last couple of questions? Because we are approaching our end time here, and uh, I just want to make sure that I don't leave any stone unturned. This is a huge conversation. I think we can go on and on forever, but I have like two more questions for you guys before I I finish that off. Do you have any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_08 1:41:30

No, I don't think my go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:35

I feel like there's like a theme of like communicate, talk to somebody. Um, but also kind of what we talked about earlier, it's like some people aren't safe to talk to. And like what Noob said, like, you know, for him, that female therapist wasn't the right person for him. And that's okay. Find somebody else, find a male therapist. And if that male therapist isn't great, find a different one, um, and it's you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, there's nobody to talk to, and no one's gonna listen. Um, I'm you know, they feel alone, there's no one to talk to. I've tried talking to somebody and it was weaponized or it was just ignored, or they tried too hard to relate to me and didn't actually listen to me, or whatever. Um, you know, find somebody eventually you're gonna find somebody, and like there's different ways you could do that, either just you know, trying to find a different therapist or whatever. For me, that's hard. I'm like, I don't know who to talk, like I don't even know where to start with finding a therapist. Um, but like, what what do you like to do? Is it playing wow? Is it playing disc golf or golf or board games? Um do those things. You're gonna find other people that enjoy those things too. And from that, you're gonna make friends that you know, one of them might be safe, one of them might not be. You might you might try to talk to one of those people, and they might not be a good person to talk to. Your wife might be a good person to talk to about some of these things, but like Touchpad said, like your son, your you know, your brother, your dad, whatever. Like it can be anybody. Talk to somebody, yeah. Um, and keep trying until you find somebody that is a good person, a good, safe person to talk to that's can that can help.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:08

Yeah. I think that it's very hard not to try to protect yourself. Uh, and so I'm so glad that you said that. Uh, you were gonna say noob.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:18

Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, you know, um, this kind of leans towards the military side. Obviously, I have a bunch of military background. Um, besides 998, but like stack up.org is a great resource for help. Can you say that again? I'm gonna put it in in chat. Stack up, stack up.org. Um, they're all veteran, yep, just like that, and regiment.tg. Um, these are those are great resources. I got my regiment flag back here. Representing, you know. Um, they are they are awesome people. They're um, you know, they'll point you in the right direction. Um, they they they know what they're doing. Um stack ups raised, I think, close to like sixty thousand dollars for veteran suicide protect prevention last year. Um, regiment is kind of right there, right next to it. They have different resources for like VA disability, job placement, video gaming tournaments, things like that. They also provide veterans in need with gaming material so you're not feeling left alone. So definitely shout out to those.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:27

Thanks for that because uh I'm always looking for resources. Uh22 is a yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:33

My uh closing statement would be it's okay to not be okay. Uh there's no timer on healing, there's no requirement, there's no end date that you have to achieve this by. There's no deadline. Um, and oh shoot, I haven't prepped this three times in my head. God damn it. Well, it's gone. There was something just insert important thing that matters to you as the final slot. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:55

Yes, yes. Well, I'm uh you guys naturally, I was gonna say, what's the like what's the one thing that you would share with uh a man, any men that are listening right now, but I think that you've pretty much encompassed that and put a bow on it. Um I can't thank you guys enough. As I said, as a woman in therapy, there are so many ways that I feel um ill-prepared to help men in mental health. And a lot of the comments that I've received uh lately on the men's mental health content that I've been putting out uh really just makes me feel sad, I think. You know, not in a not in a like, well, look at me, I'm the best at being sad for men, but like like it really does suck that a lot of men feel so alone and feel um very, I don't know, like um villainized, I think, or just a stranger to their emotions. And my goal in having conversations like these are that we just help at least one less man feel that way and feel like they know where to go to. Um, I'm huge on the the Sperry Squad community. I love our Discord community. I talk very little there, to be honest. Um, we've got channels specifically to ask me things, but there's also our Proceed with Compassion channel that I'm a big fan of, which is for hard-to-cover subjects, and it's for anybody to come and share um frustrations or questions or just you know other symptoms of being human. And um there are many incredible people in our in our server community that some of them don't even play wow, they just love people and love having conversations about this. And I know that uh both of these creators with me, I know newbish dad and touchpad warrior, you're huge community-focused creators. Um, so share before we're done where to find you and how to connect with you, and uh we'll finish this thing off.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:52

What at first? All right. Oh yeah, go ahead. Um, my name is Touchpad Warrior. You can Google Touchpad Warrior at this point. Um it's a lot of places. Uh that's not like a oh look at me. Um, I found the thing, comparison to Steve Happiness. There we go. That was the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:06

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:07

Yes. Um deadass, you can't just Google it. Uh it's a very unique name, so it's pretty easy to find. Uh, but Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, what whatever you'd like. Uh, not those lewd websites that make jokes like, oh yeah, that's the other site. Doesn't exist. All right. Um but if if you'd like to join, you're more than welcome to uh my community space. Uh we've always made sure to focus on mental health. I've tried to do that for many, many years. We even have a dedicated channel for mental health and venting, just as somebody needs to get something off their chest, but it doesn't necessarily want to be in like too public atmosphere, like where it's in-chat and things like that. Um, and there's a lot of very helpful people in our community that have all different walks of life and all different experiences. Like newbish dad's uh stories about the military. We have a lot of uh ex-military that have gone through very similar brackets, and it can be a lot to go through and process. So yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:59

Uh the noobish dad on everything. Um, you can check out noobs ink guild in game. I have a create community in game, uh, discord.gg forward slash the noobish dad, TikTok, Twitch. Um, I'm probably not as active on Twitch and TikTok. Uh like Sherry said, I am very community focused. Uh recently I've been more community focused and content focused. Uh so really just trying to uh just make everyone just uh happy and feel safe place. Uh really just trying to create that positive atmosphere. Um, I love pushing myself, I love trying new things, playing different games. We have like community nights where we all play like Among Us or Rumble Party or scary games and we laugh and you know make fun of someone getting scared in a game. So was playing the backrooms last night and had to take their blood pressure medicine after that. So, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:57

Oh man, then we can find Mr. Sparry at the Sparry household.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:01

Um you'll only ever see me in Sperry stuff. As much as as much as some of her chat was like, when's Mr. Sperry gonna start streaming? It's it's the never. But uh yeah, you'll see me in her streams.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:17

I hope you enjoyed the sperry session. If you'd like to join us live, follow me on Twitch and add to future conversations. Talk soon. Thanks again for all your support.