988 - The Helpline

The scariest part about depression isn’t always how loud it gets, it’s how normal it can feel to carry it alone. Zac and Matt slow things down for a solemn conversation on men’s mental health, why so many of us stay quiet, and what those “I’m fine” answers can hide after divorce, heartbreak, or years of trying to be the strong one for everybody else.

We dig into the statistics that stopped us cold: suicide rates, the massive number of men reporting mental health struggles, and the much smaller number actually getting counseling or therapy. Then we get personal, because numbers don’t capture the real moments the ones where you’re sitting in the dark, convincing yourself you can’t call anyone because you don’t want to be a burden. We challenge that lie head-on and talk about how pain doesn’t disappear when you vanish; it gets handed to the people who love you.

We also unpack the coping habits men lean on, from dark humor to grinding through the day, and where that sense of unworthiness can start: childhood pressure, religious shame, and online “be perfect” culture that keeps moving the goalpost. If you’re struggling, we want you to hear this clearly: you don’t need to have the right words, you just need to reach out. If you’re in the US and you need immediate help, call or text 988.

If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more men can find it when they’re searching in the middle of the night.

Transcript

Why Men’s Mental Health Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back to the Divorce Seeds Podcast. I'm Zach. And I'm Matt. We're here to help you along your journey. Um, today's episode is probably going to be a little bit of a solemn one. Um, it's currently July 1st, which means that we've just finished June. Uh, and I don't know if you guys know this or not, but June is men's men's mental health month. And we just kind of want to touch on that for just a second. There's some startling statistics that we've come across about uh the amount of depression that men have that goes untreated or unrecognized, and the the rate of suicide amongst men compared to women, uh, because of the fact that we just tend not to talk about it. So we want to dive into that and uh give you guys some some statistics. I'm stuttering. It's hard to say. Some statistics. Yes. So

The Suicide Statistics That Hit Hard

SPEAKER_00 1:00

that being said, um, the first one I want to I want to talk about is in 2024, 48,824 people died by suicide in the United States. That statistic works out to about um 22.8 deaths per 100,000 for men versus 5.9 uh deaths per 100,000 for females. So almost four times as many deaths for men by suicide versus females. Um I I think that's a kind of a staggering statistic. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It's both surprising and not surprising at all. I I wish it was less surprising. I mean, you and I sitting here right now today both dealt with this. Oh, yeah, I s I mean I still do. It's you know something I seeked help for and and struggle with. Not necessarily the suicide part, but the the depression, like the all the triggers that took me to that place. Um something I still deal with daily. Yeah. And obviously I have better days than worse days, but for the most part, it was seeking help that got me to realize that there's better things out there than ending it all. That permanent solution is only for you, not for everybody else around you, not for everything that you've worked for, not for everyone you love. It's a permanent solution to a problem that you're only gonna deal with for a while.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

It's not permanent,

Depression, Therapy, And Transferred Pain

SPEAKER_00 2:40

a permanent solution for a temporary problem. Yeah. Um, I I like to say that emotions are kind of like energy. You know, the the law of conservation of energy says it can never be created or destroyed, it can only transfer forms. Uh, I I think that uh emotions are kind of like that. So sadness is one of those emotions that if you end up taking your own life, your sadness didn't go away. Right? You didn't end it, it got transferred on to the people you love, the people around you that care about you. It went to your friends, your family, your loved ones, and then they have to carry that sadness. So it's not like it it went away. Yeah, it just got transferred on to other people. And I think that's something that we we need to work on as men, is trying to figure out outlets for the sadness, whether that's talking to uh a therapist or talking to your buddy at the bar or you know, a co-worker that that asks how you're doing. You know, we gotta get rid of the stigma of we're gonna just be a stoic man and and and just accept that this is part of life and we're just gonna deal with it on our own terms.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Um I think that's a very detrimental way of thinking for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Uh you know, there's uh there's a video that's uh that goes around on Instagram from time to time, and it's you know, four guys they're playing some kind of video game. I don't know if it's CSGO or what they're playing, but in any case, one of the guys is in chat and he goes, Hey, if I was going through something, would you guys be there for me? And the chat explodes with all this laughing and ha ha about, you know, I absolutely would not be there for you. I hope you call me so I can ignore your phone call. And they just go on this rant about how they wouldn't be there and they all joke about it. The reality is that person actually picked up the phone and was in trouble and needed someone to answer that phone. Any one of those guys would pick it up and it'd been there for that person. Yeah. And we joke about it all the time because dark humor is something we all treat our problems with. Believe me, I love dark humor for that very reason. I use it all the time at work. All day, every day.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

You know, if we're having a bad case and somebody goes, you know, what's going on? I was like, just just let's just end it. Like this is the worst day ever. It's awful. And it's it's it's kind of a way to elicit a response that is both sympathetic but also a little bit comical to kind of blow off that pressure valve a little bit to release that steam that you're having, you know. So many of us are just afraid to become someone else's burden. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

As a man, you're afraid to become a burden to another person.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Oh, I say that all the time. If I get one of those demyelinating diseases to where I can't like function as a human being anymore, I I'd I'd tell everybody all the time, just take me up back and put one in my head. Like, I just I don't want to be a burden to anybody. If I can't wipe my own ass, I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, I'm I'm guilty of saying the same things.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

One of the statistics that I thought was actually pretty interesting is that men 75 and older actually have the highest suicide rate amongst men of any age demographic, with uh the 25 to 44 pulling up next and then the 44, 45 to 64 pulling up last. I don't want to speculate as to why that is, but I think some of that comes down to I think it kind of will speculate.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Like it, yeah. I think that comes back to men not wanting to become a burden. I mean, the 75 plus, I mean, how many people just are afraid to ask for help?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Right. And I think that's that's kind of where we've come from this whole time. It's like it's okay to ask somebody for help. It's okay. You're only a burden if you allow yourself to be a burden. Like becoming a burden is more of a mental

Dark Humor And Fear Of Burden

SPEAKER_00 6:45

situation that you have to go through than whatever you're gonna put on a loved one.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Right. I I think overcoming your fear of becoming the burden is harder than just asking them for help. Because a lot of times if you're struggling with something, asking for help is the easiest way to get an answer for it.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Right? It really is. Do it all the time with with Chat GPT. I'm like, hey, I I need to know. I found an oil filter. I was cleaning the garage today. I found an oil filter from a car that I had had, you know, 10 years ago, and I was like, took a picture of it, said, Hey, what's what's the oil filter? What car does this go to? Uh, and it gave me an answer, right? Yeah. Uh it's kind of some the same thing with sadness or or anger or any of these other negative emotions that we I hate to call them negative emotions. I don't think there is a negative emotion. I think all emotions can be used in a positive manner.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Right. I uh it sadness leads to grief, leads to healing, which uh a full circle becomes you become stronger at the end of that. Yeah. But if you don't ask the question, if you don't ask for help, if you don't like seek out somebody to talk to, then you you don't ever allow that circle to to complete.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah. So interestingly enough, my my therapist had recently talked to me about reoccurring habits and a mindset and this feeling of not just depression, but just unworthiness. And it causes me anxiety. It causes me to be upset with myself and not give myself grace. Everybody says, give yourself grace. I'm like, what aisle do I pick that shit up on? Because I'll buy two boxes of that tomorrow. Let's go. Just dump it all in the cart. Check it out now. Um but learning how to sit with that is something that I'm working on.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah. Do you think that this comes from uh being cheated on? Do you think that the this feeling of unworthiness comes from your past relationship with your life?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But I don't think that's where it started. That feeling of worthiness or that feeling of like needing to be perfect, right? Yeah. That that's an idea from childhood, from birth, to be a man, to do the right thing, to always be that strong person, to always be doing the right thing, to not mess up, to not stumble. I think it has a little bit of a religious overlay. Yeah. Um, because I was raised in the church and I was brainwashed.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

You don't you fuck up Jesus ain't gonna love you no more, you're not gonna get back.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, fire and brimstone kind of ideas. And I think all of that combined is where I start to feel this. And I don't think I'm alone in other people having those same kind of thoughts where they feel like they have to be perfect, right? You have to have the right car, you have to make enough money, you have to have the right things and the right women and the the right house, and you know, you have to have the right furniture. It's like you're constantly being told you have to be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

That kind of kind of goes back to that episode we did about the manosphere.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Uh and and the grifters that are trying to uh sell you this idea of utopia that you'll never reach because you know they're always there's all they're always moving the goalpost, right? You're always one step away from perfection. And it's one of those things that wisdom doesn't come from knowing all the answers. Wisdom comes from not knowing the answers, screwing up, learning from your mess up, and then growing. Yeah, that's how you that's that's what true wisdom is. Like nobody's born with all the answers.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

One of the fastest ways to get the answers is to ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, literally.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Like if there's ask questions, ask for help, ask chat GPT, ask your your buddy that you play online games with, ask your buddy you sit next to the bar at, you ask your community, ask the anybody anything, most likely you're gonna be able to find an answer. I mean, kids nowadays Google that shit, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Like some of the things I've read recently say that kids don't even know how to use a computer anymore. So I don't know how accurate that is. Um, but I mean that's one of those things that like you need to find the people you can talk to. They're out there. I know they are. Shit. If it's us, it's us. Like, talk to us.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

We're we're happy to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, you can send us an email, divorce dudespodcast at gmail.com. Anytime we'll we'll answer it. Um, we're starting to get on socials, so we'll be on there. With you can DM us. But there are people that will listen. Whether or not you want them to try to help or not is up to you. We do this, you've mentioned this, I think I've mentioned this before that not all problems are solving problems, some of them are venting problems. Before you make the the ultimate decision, right? Run it by somebody.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Jesus. Anyone.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, talk to anybody. Like when I when I was in that situation and I was sitting on that couch and I had a Glock in my hand, I was asking the universe for help. Like I was sitting there in kind of the darkest day of my life, hoping that I could just like somebody was listening and and out there that would would help me, and I was I was so alone. And then like I was speaking it out into the universe, and then that song came on the TV. Yeah. Like it it there was a there was a response.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah. I wish I wish

Perfection, Religion, And Feeling Unworthy

SPEAKER_01 12:45

I would have known that there was someone I could just call. Okay. There's if you have if you think you have nobody, and I don't believe that to anybody. I think you can find a coworker, you could find a parent, you can find anybody. Yeah, you talk to a bum on the street about what's going on. Literally, they'd be probably happy to talk to you. But if you need someone to communicate and get you help, etc., there is a phone number, a suicide hotline. Yeah. And it's 988 if you're here in the States. If you live in another country, please f look it up. Know that number. And know that if you're the person getting the phone call from a friend who's having problems, you don't have to have the answers. Right. Just talk to them. Release that energy. Be there for them. Yeah. And also give them that number so they could talk to someone who actually knows what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So this is this is kind of like what brought this episode up is that I was the guy that withheld calling somebody because I didn't want to burden somebody with what I was going through. Right. I didn't want the stigma of, oh, he's not the guy with the answers. Because I was usually the guy that people would come ask things, like ask of me for things. Like I prom at work, they would come to me, I would sort it out. The idea that I was gonna call somebody and not have the knowledge for the answer that I was seeking was kind of beyond me. Which was it was ridiculous thinking. Like I I've grown up so much since that day because I've I've paid attention to like my mental health, and I've talked to other people who have also struggled with theirs, and you know, the stories are all the same. But one thing that I wish that I would have known at the time was that it's okay to to talk to somebody about it. Absolutely. Right, because I I didn't want to burden somebody, I didn't want to be the the problem, I didn't want to like have people look at me like there there's just a stigma that comes when you talk about your mental health that is ingrained in most most men from an early age, which leads back to generations previous to us. I think it's it's changing a little bit now. I think it's becoming I mean, we have a mental health month now. Who fucking knew?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

It's been around for 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah, who fucking knew?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

And I'll tell you what, I've been around for 40 of them, and I don't remember hearing about this until recently. I mean, maybe the last five or six years did I even know that this existed.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

I I think COVID brought it out. I think that the the pandemic actually started making people look at this because of the fact that there was such a high suicide rate. Yeah. Uh I think that 23 and 24 were some of the highest in recorded like statistics, like where they've actually tracked it.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah. As we were preparing for this episode, I was doing a little research myself and trying to get some of these numbers, and they're they're crazy numbers, but we they they they label it as mental health, right? Right. Those of men in the United States who seek mental health is about 20% of men.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

And and that number stood out to me, and I was like, wow, that's that's a pretty good number. I'm really glad that 20% of men are out there, you know, getting the help that they need. And then I looked at the percent of people who complain that they have dealt with mental health issues. And those could be depression, thoughts of suicide. There's there's a whole list of those that don't get help. That number was 77% of men in the United States. Yeah. Little bit of math, all of a sudden we find out that's 97% are out there raw dogging it. Having issues. Yeah. That means there's 3% of people out there that have quote unquote not had mental health issues of some kind, which I call bullshit. That sounds like a hundred percent of us have dealt at some point in our lives, and maybe, and maybe we got through it, whatever it was. But at one point or another, every single one of us have had that moment where we're like, this moment is fucked. I don't know what to do. How do I move past this, whatever that situation is, and didn't seek help.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah. So I I have a statistic here. The treatment gap between men and women. Uh so it says among people age 12 and older with depression, only 33.2% of males reported receiving counseling or therapy in the past year, compared with 43% of females. So there's a full 10% less men from the age of 12 to you know old um who are actually seeking help for this. Yeah. Uh which I think is is terrible because I don't mean it says nearly half of the females that have dealt with depression are actually seeking help for it. So there's either a friend group or a parent or somebody who is realizing that they need help who is saying, Hey, you should probably go seek help, talk to somebody about this.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Versus the the men who are, like I said, we we've said before, brush it off, walk it off, put some dirt on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

It's such a stigma, absolutely. And we got to get rid of that. We gotta get rid of the stigma that asking for help or talking to someone is somehow makes you less than it doesn't. It it takes a lot of work and it

Who To Call Before You Break

SPEAKER_01 18:50

takes a lot of power to ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

I think that once you do and you actually go through it, you're stronger on the other side. Oh, absolutely. You're not weaker from asking for asking for help. You're you're actually you're coming out a a better human being, a a better person, more capable, stronger mentally, stronger emotionally than you were prior to this.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Because now you understand how to handle these this anger and this sadness and this anxiety and terror, and you're not having to just try to figure it out yourself, which is the worst part. Yeah. I mean, it's like trying to do your taxes without a piece of software. Like I don't know what the fuck this is. Like, what does this mean?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I don't specialize in that.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

No. I don't I don't think there's some people that have gone to school for many, many years that specialize in it who will claim that they're experts, but at the same time, like they kind of have a textbook understanding of it. Um, but I don't think anybody's really truly an expert in how to deal with these emotions. Um, that's that's on each individual to figure out for themselves. Absolutely. One of the ways to do that is to talk to somebody about it, not to make rash decisions, uh, to sit back and process what you're going through before jumping the gun. That's a terrible fucking analogy.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

That is a horrible analogy. But I've I have been there. Yeah. Glad that I didn't. It's it's also important to remember the way that I got over it isn't necessarily the way that you got over it. Correct. And the way that we got over it isn't gonna be the same way that someone else gets through it.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

But you can talk to someone else only to find out. I mean, we knew each other for years and didn't know that either one of us had gone through either of these things. Correct. And we started talking. I don't even remember why we started talking about it, but we brought it up. I don't even know what reason.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

We were at Keeneland and we had had some set several drinks.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, we uh did have several drinks. You were you were number one of three tailgates I went to that day.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, and then I was like, You've been divorced, I've been divorced. Yeah. And then we started talking, like, you know, yeah, let's do a podcast. We started discussing like what it would be about, and you know, I brought up the idea of divorce dudes, and we started talking about our our pasts and realized that they're almost the same. They kind of line up.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah. Yeah, and we talked about some of the struggles afterwards, and we were just sitting there vibing, and only to realize that both of us had had that moment where we thought permanent solution.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Temporary problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Um glad neither one of us did. I'm glad every person who has ever said that moment and walked away from it. I'm glad you walked away from it. You're better here for it.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah. Um there was a there was a post that I saw on Reddit. Um We go to Electric Forest, uh, which is an EDM festival up in Michigan,

A Real Loss And The Cost

SPEAKER_00 22:05

and there was a post from this past one that just happened last weekend uh about a kid who had uh he was like twenty something years old, had wandered off in the middle of the night, had called the police on himself, um, had told his friends that uh he wasn't feeling right, and everybody just kind of, you know Yeah, they thought it was substance. Yeah, you're on drugs, you're you'll you'll feel better in the morning, and they all went to bed, he disappeared. Yeah, he'd he drove off in the middle of the night and they found him the next day. But I remember seeing that post early, early in the morning when they woke up and realized he was gone, and his friends were like terrified because they remember him saying something about how he's not right and that he had called the cops on himself. And you could just you could sense in that message that they posted on Facebook the fear of what what they might find. And then it was six or something hours later that he had confirmed that he had taken his own life out in the the woods of Rothbury, Michigan. And the way they were posting about that afterwards, you could just you could feel the heartbreak that they had gone through. Um goes back to what I said earlier, is like that that sadness isn't destroyed when you when you take your own life.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah, it was passed to a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

And then it's carried with them for the rest of their lives. So I just encourage everybody to like don't make a rash decision. Uh I I know that in the moment that can seem like the only answer. And it can seem like this solution will take care of all the problems. They only take care of the problems for you. Yeah. And and those problems they they manifest themselves into others, into sadness, into heartbreak. And they don't go away. They never go away. The the people that love you carry that for the rest of their lives. So if you're having these these thoughts, if you're having these struggles, definitely seek somebody to talk to. That's that's kind of just the point that we want to make with this, is that um it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yeah, reach out to your community. Yeah, we just want to we want to bring awareness to it, um, to the fact that there is actually an entire month devoted to this. It's June, which is also Pride Month. And I'm sure that there are some there are many people, many people that are in the LGBTQ community who also need to hear this.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Because they have definitely had these issues come up in the past. I know for a fact that there's a ton of them. We had one on the the podcast uh last week, yeah. Who has also had these same emotions. So uh reach out to somebody, reach out to us, divorcedudes podcast at gmail.com. Um hit us up on our socials whenever we find they're coming. I promise they're coming. Uh they'll be up by the end of this month. We'll be on YouTube and all of the social media.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

You finally get to see our faces. I'm not looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

And all the dogs. Listen. Oh, the dogs. Our faces are ugly, but we got three cute dogs sitting down here in the basement with us right now. Um, the the chaos is asleep, so that's nice. I'm not gonna wake her up. She's terrifying. I have nothing else to say except we love you guys. Find some help if you need it. Uh, don't try to handle these problems on your own. Uh it's overwhelming.

Final Reminder And A Quote

SPEAKER_00 25:45

It's it's always better to have somebody to help you through them.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Um, and I think that Matt has a quote uh he read to me earlier that actually fits this episode very well. Yeah, it's it's a powerful one.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

And of course, I lost it because I was looking at all my quotes. There we go. It says, I didn't open up to be saved. I just wanted someone to sit beside my darkness without making me feel guilty for having it.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah. Yeah. You're you're never a burden. No. I've I've said it before, those that matter don't care. Um, and on that, I I think that we're gonna wrap this up.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yep, we'll see you until the next time.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Divorce dudes out.