How High Functioning Men Hide Deep Pain

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You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat.
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Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us.
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And now your host, Aaron Thomas.
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I'm trying out a new mic, so hopefully it works.
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If it doesn't, I'm going to go back to my old one.
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Uh but you know, trying to evolve, trying to see what works, uh, what doesn't work.
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And so uh today, uh podcast, we're gonna be talking about what did his life looked like before anyone called it a mental health problem.
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So it's a different kind of conversation that we're having today.
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We're not talking about what happens when a man finally breaks, we're talking about everything that happened before he broke.
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Uh everything that happened before he became depressed, everything that happened before someone called it anxiety, everything that happened before he needed therapy, everything that happened before they started screaming mask uh toxic masculinity, everything before they started screaming he's a narcissist or has narcissistic traits.
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So before someone finally asked the question, hey man, are you okay?
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I want to have the conversation of what did his life look like, and I want to make a preference, like right here, right now.
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One thing I would not do with this episode is make it sound like every hardworking, angry, private, or stressed man secretly has a mental health issue.
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I'm having this conversation because I want to have the conversation about behavior, and a lot of men's behavior deserves curiosity to ask questions, to try to figure out what's going on before a crisis forces you to try to explain.
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So let me just get that out the way.
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Because at the end of the day, you are still accountable for your actions, for your words, for how you treat people.
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Sometimes I think that we recognize men's mental health problems way too late.
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We recognize them when the marriage is falling apart, when he's drinking too much, when he's angry all the time, when he stops answering his phone, when he loses his job, when he can't sleep, when he starts doing reckless stuff, when he's sitting in somebody's office, or when he's in the emergency room.
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Tragically, everyone's standing at his funeral talking about they had no idea he was going through what he was going through.
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And maybe that's the problem.
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Maybe we're looking for the breakdown instead of learning how to recognize the buildup.
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Because that man didn't become overwhelmed Tuesday morning.
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There's something that happened before Tuesday.
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And so today I want to ask the question what did his life look like before anybody called it a mental health problem?
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Maybe he was the dependable one.
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And that's where I want to start having this conversation.
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Because we have this picture in our heads of what struggle looks like.
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We think somebody who is struggling can't function, but there are a lot of men out there functioning extremely well while still hurting.
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He goes to work, he pays the bills, he coaches the team, he cuts the grass, he takes the kids to where they need to go.
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He shows up for church, he answers everybody else's phone calls, helps everybody moves, makes everybody laugh, and because he's productive, everyone assumes he's okay.
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And maybe even he assumed that he's okay.
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But nobody ever taught him that functioning and being healthy aren't necessarily the same thing.
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You can't get things done while something inside of you is falling apart.
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And that's something that I understand.
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There have been seasons in my life where movement became my medicine.
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Keep moving, keep accomplishing, keep helping, keep working.
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Because when you're moving, you don't have to sit long enough to hear everything inside of you.
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And people reward that.
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The world rewards that.
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Man, you're killing it.
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Man, I see you always working, taking care of business.
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I don't know how you do everything that you do.
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And you're smiling, but internally you're thinking, neither do I.
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I'm just functioning.
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I'm just trying to figure it out.
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Maybe before anyone calls it mental health problems, they call it hard working.
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Think about that.
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A lot of times men aren't working 70 hours a week because he loves working 70 hours a week.
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Maybe the work is the one place where he feels valuable.
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Productivity is where he got his identity.
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Going home meant being alone with his thoughts.
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Sitting still makes him uncomfortable.
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So he works and works and works, and everyone celebrates the grind.
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No one asking what he's running from.
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And please understand, I want to be very careful here.
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Hard work isn't a mental illness.
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Discipline isn't a mental illness.
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Wanting to provide for your family isn't unhealthy.
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But what we have to become mature enough to ask ourselves is why can't I stop?
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What happened emotionally when I don't accomplish something?
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Who am I when I'm not producing?
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Because if resting makes you feel worthless, you might need to have a deeper conversation about what work has become for you.
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And I'll tell you this moving from Texas to California, I was always in things.
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I was working, I had multiple jobs, doing a lot.
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Coming into California, I have been humbled.
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Humbowed because uh I don't know anybody.
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I'll I'm gonna have to build from scratch, but I also realized that I was busy because I didn't want to have the tough conversation with myself about where my life was going, about what I was trying to do, what I was trying to accomplish, uh, what God was uh trying to show me uh on this path or on this journey.
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So I was overworked, and now I have to sit in the discomfort of quiet, and for the first maybe three weeks it has really kicked my butt because I've had the audacity to think that I had it all under control, and then the move helped me realize I have never had an under control, it was just the movement of what I was doing in Odessa that made it seem like everything was great, but when you remove that from me, I was like a lost child.
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But I think it was a humbling experience that God wanted to teach me because for some odd reason, we sometimes, and when I say we, I make myself a God, and I am a horrible God.
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I suck at trying to do and be what God wants me to do and be.
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And you come to that realization, once you get stripped from all the things that you think you're doing and doing well, he'll take it away from you, and you'll realize you were running from what he was trying to teach you.
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And there's that different lessons for different folks, and I'm still in the process of learning what God is trying to teach me in this season, but I also know that I needed, I needed to be pulled out of Texas.
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I needed California to humble me, to help me mature, to help me grow and get better, to help me trust in God and not in my feeble attempts to be a God.
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I was pulled from Texas.
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This is one of my lessons, I feel, to show how little trust I had in God, in his power, and how much trust I had in myself and my assumed power.
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And once that is stripped and you realize how powerless you are and how powerful God is, you want to get the power from the source.
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And the source is God, it's not you.
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Because the power you think you have can be taken away from you at any given time in this world.
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But the power that God gives you, there is not a thing, there is not an entity, there is not a country, there is not a people that can take it away from you.
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And that, my friends, is what you what I would call maturity to be able to see, to understand, to grow, to be aware, to learn and relearn, to know that you might have jacked that up.
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But regardless of if you jack it up or not, you can still fix it.
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It is still fixable, and that's the beauty.
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Maybe before anyone calls it anxiety, they say that's just how he is.
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He's always worried, always preparing for the worst, always checking everything twice, always thinking 10 moves ahead, always feeling like something is about to happen.
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And maybe he's he's being called responsible or he's just preparing himself, but inside his mind never shuts off.
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And I'll tell you right now that that is not normal.
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To constantly live like dangers around a corner will wear you out.
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Sometimes the body is sitting on the couch while your mind is standing guard and no one sees that, or maybe before anyone called it depression, they just called him angry.
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I saw a Facebook post on that.
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I think my buddy Tay posted it.
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Uh, but he it was just saying a lot of people are saying this these men are angry, but what if that man is depressed?
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So the conversation that men need to have is sometimes the emotion everybody sees isn't necessarily the emotion that's underneath.
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Because a lot of people see irritation or impatience or snapping at wife and kids.
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They see the road rage, the frustration, and everyone says that man has an anger problem.
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And maybe he does.
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But also let's be clear.
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Struggling mentally doesn't mean excuse hurting people.
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Your pain doesn't give you permission to create pain for everyone else around you.
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Accountability still matters, but accountability should make us curious.
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What's underneath this anger?
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What is he grieving?
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What is he afraid of?
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Does he feel like a failure?
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Is he overwhelmed?
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Does he feel trapped?
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Does he feel worthless?
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Unloved?
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Not enough?
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And the most hardest question a man can answer is, does he know how to name those emotions?
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Because it's not anger.
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It could be sadness, frustration, it could be hurt, it could be pain.
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The crazy part is are the only emotions a lot of men think they can show is anger.
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And eventually, everything comes out sounding like anger.
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But like I said previously, sadness comes out of anger, fear comes out of anger, embarrassment, loneliness, shame comes out of anger.
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And then everyone deals with the anger while no one addresses the wound.
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The National Institute of Mental Health lists anger, irritability, and aggressiveness among symptoms that may occur when mental disorders are in men.
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That does not mean every angry person or every angry man has a mental disorder.
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It means we shouldn't automatically stop our curiosity at he's just angry.
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Maybe before anyone called it isolation, they said he's just been busy lately.
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He stopped coming around, stopped answering his phone, stopped going to the gym, stop showing up for church, stop calling his boys.
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Because men can go for months without talking to somebody.
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Because sometimes we'll say, I'll hit him up next week, and then life happens, and he pops into your head, and you're like, Oh, I'll hit him up next month, and then eventually you never hit him up.
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But that's where the importance of brotherhood comes in at.
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Reaching out to a friend who you haven't seen at the gym or at church or around, who hasn't reached out, who hasn't tried to call you.
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The brotherhood is so important because it's not just checking on somebody, but it's asking the serious question of, no, seriously, how are you doing?
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And then being quiet long enough to listen to that man's answer.
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And isolation is something that I deal with a lot.
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I'm a very self-sufficient person, so I don't want to need anyone.
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Knowing that I need people, I don't want to need anyone.
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And so sometimes when life isn't working out the way that I think it should work out, I definitely pull back, I definitely stop coming around, I definitely stop reaching out, I I disappear.
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And I don't think that is a good thing, but it's a thing that I do, it's a thing that I'm working on because I know I need people and I know people need me.
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So what if somebody is calling what a man have uh substance misuse?
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Everyone is just saying he likes a drink, and maybe he does, but maybe he's also discovered that alcohol is one of the few things that make his brain quiet.
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Getting high is the only time he stops thinking.
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But no one asks, what are you trying not to feel when you're sober?
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Again, it does not mean everyone who drinks has a mental health problem because we can't diagnose people from behaviors alone.
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But what we can say, or what I can say is increased alcohol or drug use can accompany mental health difficulties and is something worth paying attention to, particularly when it changes from someone's normal behavior.
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So as men, as wives, as girlfriends, as moms or dads, or brothers or sisters, we need curiosity without judgment and accountability without shame.
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A hundred men, over a hundred men daily kill themselves in the United States.
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You don't need to judge.
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Be curious about be curious about his behavior.
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Over 40,000 men a year die in the United States alone from suicide.
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Don't judge.
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Be curious about his behavior.
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Because men also go through things.
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I wasn't really gonna get into it, but there's a lot of people that have empathy and sympathy for the mom who killed her kids because she was going through something, and people recognize that.
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But when men go through something, people don't recognize that.
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He's a monster, he's a bad person.
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There is no sympathy or empathy when it comes to a man and his mental health issues, but a mom can kill her kids and people raise almost a million freaking dollars because they feel for this person.
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But I would question if that was a man and he killed his three kids, what would the reaction be?
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And that is what the issue we're having in America is.
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A hundred plus men are dying every single day, and no one bats an eye.
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We're walking through life like this is just a normal thing, and we're losing fathers and grandpa and brothers and husbands and friends, because there's no sympathy or empathy for men in their process of trying to figure out life, and that is one of the issues that we are facing, and it's not going to go anywhere, no time soon.
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Maybe before anyone said he is struggling, everyone said, Well, he's the strong one.
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And this one hits me as well.
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Because strength can become your prison.
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If everyone knows you're the strong one, eventually you start believing you're not allowed to need anybody.
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You're the provider, protector, the fixer, the person everyone calls.
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So, what happens when you need somebody?
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A lot of men don't know what to do when they need somebody because a lot of our identity is built around the one being needed, that when it's time to need something from someone, we don't know who to go to.
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And I talked about this in my recent podcast.
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Being needed can start feeling like being loved.
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So you keep carrying it.
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Your wife's problem, kids' problems, your family problems, your employee problem, your friend problem.
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Everyone gets a piece of you.
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And then when somebody asks, what do you need?
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you don't even know how to answer that because you've never asked yourself that question.
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And if you have asked yourself that question, it's been a long time since you've asked that question.
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And this is where I want to challenge the men listening.
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Don't wait until your life is on the fire before you admit you're getting hot.
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We've got to stop treating mental health like something that only exists once you're in crisis.
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Pay attention to yourself.
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How are you sleeping?
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How quickly are you getting irritated?
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Are you still enjoying anything?
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Are you pulling away from everybody?
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Are you drinking more?
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Are you constantly exhausted?
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Can you concentrate?
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Do you feel like you constantly have to be doing something?
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When was the last time you actually felt peaceful?
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Not entertained, not distracted, not busy, but peaceful.
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These questions aren't diagnosis.
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They're the check engine lights.
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And sometimes you need to look under the hood.
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So if a significant or distressing change persists, particularly for two weeks or more, the National Institute of Mental Health recommends talking with a health care professional.
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Don't do it on your own.
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Don't try to fix it on your own.
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Don't try to ride it out.
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And wives, friends, brothers, fathers, coaches, pastors, we have to work.
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We have work to do too.
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Sometimes a man who needs somebody to check on him isn't the quietest man in the room.
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Sometimes he's the funniest, the busiest, the strongest, the man everyone depends on.
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Stop assuming competence means peace.
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What has life felt like for you lately?
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Not you good?
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Because you already know the automatic answer.
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Yeah, I'm good.
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Ask something that requires thought.
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What's been heavy lately?
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What are you carrying that no one knows about?
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When was the last time you actually felt like yourself?
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Is there anything you're afraid to tell somebody because you think they'll look at you differently?
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These conversations matter.
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Research has consistently found that men are less likely to seek psychological help and expectation around self-reliance and emotional control can be a part of that reluctance.
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Been there, done that, still working on it.
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So maybe you don't need to tell me or other men, stop being strong.
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Maybe we can redefine what strength is.
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Strength isn't pretending nothing is hurt.
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Strength is having enough awareness to recognize something hurts and enough courage to deal with it.
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And if you're listening to this and think, hey Aaron, you're talking about me, then hear me when I say this.
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You don't have to wait until everything collapse to take yourself seriously.
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You don't have to earn the right to ask for help by suffering longer.
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Talk to somebody, your brother, your wife, your pastor, a counselor, a therapist, a doctor, somebody qualified to help you understand what's happening.
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Asking for help isn't abandoning accountability.
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Sometimes asking for help is accountability.
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You're saying something isn't right, and I'm going to take responsibility for addressing it.
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That's what strength is.
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Maybe the question isn't why did he suddenly fall apart?
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Maybe the better question is how long had he been falling apart while everyone else was calling him strong?
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That's the conversation I want us to have.
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Look beyond the crisis, the buildup, the man before the diagnosis, before the divorce, addiction, explosion, before isolation, before the suicide attempt, before the funeral.
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Because sometimes there were signs.
00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:57.920
They just didn't look the way we expected pain to look.
00:20:58.079 --> 00:21:04.559
And if you recognize yourself somewhere in this conversation, don't use this episode to diagnose yourself.
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Use it to become more curious about yourself.
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What has my life been trying to tell me?
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And maybe today is the day you finally listen.
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So if anyone hasn't told you today that they love you, let me be the first to say I love you.
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You are worthy.
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You are enough.
00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.440
You deserve the best that this world has to offer.
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.680
Do not give up, do not quit.
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The world does not get easier, but y'all get stronger.
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Y'all have a blessed week.
00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:33.839
Bye bye.
00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:36.960
Thank you for listening.
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Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:49.039
And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAboveTalent.
00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:55.599
And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle.
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We'll see you next time.