Speaker 1: We're back. I'm Drew McCarry and I'm David Roth and
Speaker 1: coming in September a new site we have built together
Speaker 1: called defect or defect Her, and we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: new podcast to go with it, this very podcast which
Speaker 1: has the name The Distraction. It's out right now every
Speaker 1: rust get your podcast at such her, Spotify, Apple, Go
Speaker 1: listen right now to The Distraction everywhere. It's out right now.
Speaker 1: Go listen to see By full disclosure, I went to
Speaker 1: see a therapist by myself and I didn't even tell. Okay,
Speaker 1: dead ass, she's still mad about that. I'm not mad.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at you because I don't think it's funny,
Speaker 1: and I had to find a way to convince myself
Speaker 1: that I was not the reason why he had to
Speaker 1: seek therapy. Dead ass. Hey, I'm Cadine and we're the Ellis.
Speaker 1: You may know us from posting funny videos without boy
Speaker 1: and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait,
Speaker 1: I make you need derby most days. And one more
Speaker 1: important thing to mention, we're married, Yes, sir, we are.
Speaker 1: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 1: life's most taboo topics. Things most folks don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about through the lens of a millennial married couple.
Speaker 1: Dead ass is a term that we say every day.
Speaker 1: Where we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth,
Speaker 1: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We're about
Speaker 1: to take Philow's off to a whole new level. Dead
Speaker 1: as starts now. All right, So this story time is
Speaker 1: gonna span over about ten years very quickly. All right.
Speaker 1: I retired from the NFL. I get back. I'm stopped
Speaker 1: feeling like myself. Kadine and I are planning a wedding,
Speaker 1: but I'm at odds with not only my wife, when
Speaker 1: I'm at odds with myself. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I feel like my identity has been ripped from me.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer playing football. I want to get into TV, film,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to do it. So when
Speaker 1: feeling lost, I felt like I was losing myself. So
Speaker 1: I had to get very depressed. Um. I used to
Speaker 1: go into bathrooms at times. It would just be me
Speaker 1: in the bathroom by myself, and I would cry, and
Speaker 1: I would hear k at the door like yo baby,
Speaker 1: all right, and I would mask it and I would
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I'm glad, I'm just using the bathroom,
Speaker 1: but inside I would be hurting. Fast forward nine years.
Speaker 1: We've been married nine years. I've always found ways to
Speaker 1: mask that feeling and not ever show my wife or
Speaker 1: show anybody that was going through it. Until last year
Speaker 1: we were going into the fall. It was around this
Speaker 1: time exactly last year. I used to leave go to
Speaker 1: the gym in the morning, and I would tell K
Speaker 1: I was going to play basketball, and I started seeing
Speaker 1: a therapist. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell my mom,
Speaker 1: I didn't tell my dad, I didn't even tell my wife.
Speaker 1: I went and I saw a therapist for about three months,
Speaker 1: and it was the best decision I ever made in
Speaker 1: my life, best decision for our marriage. Oh child, things
Speaker 1: are going to get easy. Keeping your head up, right, job,
Speaker 1: things are going to get easy. Yeah, oh, job things.
Speaker 1: I remember Marvin Gay used to saying to me, that's
Speaker 1: my joint right there, man. Absolutely, it was appropriate. Song.
Speaker 1: I think you got to keep your head up, man.
Speaker 1: You've got to keep your head up, man. Mental health
Speaker 1: and wellness is all about getting your head straight. I
Speaker 1: think it was particularly important that we talked about this
Speaker 1: because within our community. There's a stigma around it, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think more and more within the past couple
Speaker 1: of years, our generation have been in tune with the
Speaker 1: fact that things have been off for a very long time. UM,
Speaker 1: some deeply rooted issues that you know, our people have
Speaker 1: been dealing with, and it's kind of just been glazed
Speaker 1: over for a while. So today we figured we bringing
Speaker 1: somebody who knows about this. This is their profession, um psychiatry,
Speaker 1: forensic psychiatry. Actually, um dr Amani is in here talking
Speaker 1: to us today about mental health issues and ways we
Speaker 1: can kind of navigate around it and how we can
Speaker 1: extend our helping hand to someone who may be in
Speaker 1: need of some attention. So, Dr Emmani Walker, are you
Speaker 1: are going to have exactly when she started talking when
Speaker 1: we came in, I was like, she's that from the
Speaker 1: l A area. You could tell like you never lost
Speaker 1: that New York nos at all. It's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here with Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me kind of introduce yourself to our guests. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: So my name is Dr Emani Walker. Um. I am
Speaker 1: a forensic psychiatrist. So I trained as a psychiatrist and
Speaker 1: then I did additional training in forensic psychiatry, which is
Speaker 1: where the law and psychiatry meet. So um ideal with
Speaker 1: a lot of patients who just got out of the
Speaker 1: state mental hospital. They're fresh out of jail. So in
Speaker 1: l A that would be like twin Towers. And I
Speaker 1: see patients who have had issues with mental illness, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times those issues of mental illness have
Speaker 1: precluded or maybe even caused some of the crimes or
Speaker 1: really caused the crimes that they committed. So I do that.
Speaker 1: I'm also the chief medical Officer of Gateways Hospital and
Speaker 1: Mental Health Center, which is a psychiatric hospital here in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles in Echo Park. And because I'm Jamaican and
Speaker 1: I like to have all the jobs, yes, nice, so
Speaker 1: I UM. I also am dr Imani on Married to
Speaker 1: Medicine Los Angeles, which airs on Bravo Network, is airing
Speaker 1: now or so. Season one aired and it ended it
Speaker 1: in I believe the end of April, so we are
Speaker 1: actually in pre production. We're about to start filming the
Speaker 1: next couple of Nice all the jobs, and I have
Speaker 1: other jobs too, but I don't really want to overwhelm
Speaker 1: y'all listeners. I knew you had a lot of jobs.
Speaker 1: You from New York, from your husband and you Jamaican. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta at least have about That's how
Speaker 1: it is. And I need to catch up on TV
Speaker 1: because Val and I have been so out of the
Speaker 1: loop with television. So I watch You have to Be
Speaker 1: the Loud House. Three kids. I don't watch TV. Preschool prep, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all. I remember going to Yogabba Gabba and they
Speaker 1: were like raves like when my when my son was
Speaker 1: that young, I was like, what I have won one? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so he's twelve going on thirty five, but okay, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not like so many of these kids now, they like,
Speaker 1: as my mom would say, they lost their age paper
Speaker 1: because they don't know how they are. They think they're
Speaker 1: so grown. Yeah, he can't even do He's like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh word, ok full disclosure. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what it would have been like to have a mom
Speaker 1: who's a forensic psychiatrist, Like, you can't lie to that person.
Speaker 1: You could probably she could. She probably read him to
Speaker 1: do that. Are you able to read bullshit? Absolutely? I'm sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: But it's also interesting because he like we talk a
Speaker 1: lot about you know, speaking of the topic of mental health,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about our feelings, which isn't something
Speaker 1: that I mean, I don't want to characterize all Jamaicans
Speaker 1: and people of Jamaican heritage, but we really didn't like
Speaker 1: love in a Jamaican household was done, was shown by well,
Speaker 1: I provided these things for you. We talked about this.
Speaker 1: We talked about this in our marriage right, like right exactly,
Speaker 1: And so what do you want right right? Like oh
Speaker 1: you want to hug now? Like all right then, like
Speaker 1: all right, like okay, cool, like okay, off you go. Um.
Speaker 1: But I really when I knew when I became pregnant
Speaker 1: with my son that I wanted to break that mold.
Speaker 1: And I it's easy for people, and I always say this,
Speaker 1: people do what they know. They don't do necessarily what's best,
Speaker 1: because what's best requires for you to sit and evaluate
Speaker 1: yourself and a lot of people don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: even me sometimes. So when I had my son, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, we're gonna say I love you, We're
Speaker 1: gonna give you, know, family hugs, We're gonna do all
Speaker 1: these things. So back to my point, we talk about
Speaker 1: our feelings a lot and so we I have always
Speaker 1: loved to um, I guess examine characters and movies and
Speaker 1: books and TV shows, and so he actually asked me, like, Yo,
Speaker 1: can we see the Joker? And so we did, and
Speaker 1: I was concerned. I was like, well, wh'll go? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm his mom. I didn't know if it was gonna
Speaker 1: be too scary for him. But it was so dope
Speaker 1: because I got to sit with him and he was
Speaker 1: next to me and explained to him like, Yo, this
Speaker 1: is this diagnosis, that these are these symptoms, and like
Speaker 1: you know, and at the end of it, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to give anything away. But because today that was
Speaker 1: debating if we should take our son who's here waiting,
Speaker 1: We're like, should we take him to see that? I
Speaker 1: don't know what I what I would say to him
Speaker 1: before you go and after you go? Is that what
Speaker 1: was so beautiful to me about the movie. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some scary parts in it, but it is the story
Speaker 1: of one person who's mentally ill and knows them mentally
Speaker 1: ill and wants the help but can't get it. And
Speaker 1: it's so sad because usually you see the reverse, someone
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't want the help or doesn't know they need
Speaker 1: the help or you or because of storytelling, you'll see
Speaker 1: someone who it's like, oh, I don't have my meds
Speaker 1: and then it just precipitously like turns into like him
Speaker 1: and that's not what happened. And so it was so
Speaker 1: beautiful as a psychiatrist for me to see that they
Speaker 1: handled this one person won't like the joker is a
Speaker 1: real person. But what I mean, but this one character
Speaker 1: story worry the way that it really does occur in
Speaker 1: real life. It's very slow, and it can be confusing
Speaker 1: to the person that's happening to and people that are
Speaker 1: around them when you deal with severe mental illness like that,
Speaker 1: which is what I primarily won't. Yeah, I mainly only
Speaker 1: deal with that. Of course, how do you think mental illness?
Speaker 1: Why did it become such a stigma in the black
Speaker 1: community because you hear it a lot. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember before I even thought about going there, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing no fucking therapy like that. My exact
Speaker 1: words was, that's white people ship. That's the first thing
Speaker 1: that came out of my mouth. And then it took
Speaker 1: me ten years and almost feeling like I was losing
Speaker 1: my mind to say, you know what, the value might
Speaker 1: need to see somebody. So I think we really have
Speaker 1: to go back to you know, slavery. So we've we
Speaker 1: have collectively been in this country for four engine years
Speaker 1: and not only were we brought not only were we
Speaker 1: brought here and then had to hopefully live through the
Speaker 1: Middle passage. Right, So now we now we land here.
Speaker 1: Now how we're like whipped beaten. We're interacting with people
Speaker 1: who we don't have a like language. Like I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're both brown, but I don't know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm saying. Now we're forced to
Speaker 1: speak a language. We are beaten into submission and maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes death, and we are told by the people that
Speaker 1: quote unquote care for us not to complain. Right, And
Speaker 1: so you have to look at where we started out
Speaker 1: in this country. That doesn't mean that's how it was,
Speaker 1: you know, in our homelands in Africa, whatever that may
Speaker 1: have been. But we collectively as a people, for African Americans,
Speaker 1: for African Americans, we hold trauma so close to our
Speaker 1: heart that it becomes pathologic. That's true because you've we've
Speaker 1: been told for hundreds of years to not complain, not complain, right,
Speaker 1: not complaining white folks and also complain, like complaining about
Speaker 1: your feelings is white people should And again this is
Speaker 1: all indoctrinated into you know what our slave mass has
Speaker 1: told us, like you got you got clothes on your back,
Speaker 1: you got they're not good clothes. You got food to eat,
Speaker 1: it's not good food. You should be happy to just
Speaker 1: be alive. But that's not that's just surviving, right, And
Speaker 1: we've been surviving for four years as of this year,
Speaker 1: and I am happy to know that in recent years,
Speaker 1: like I would say, maybe over the past three to
Speaker 1: four years, black folks, we have been talking a lot
Speaker 1: about mental health and we've really been pushing ourselves to like, yo,
Speaker 1: if you've got an issue, like go find somebody. And
Speaker 1: it's been nice to see psychologist, psychiatrists, other mental health
Speaker 1: clinicians come up with resources to make it available. But
Speaker 1: sometimes here and here comes the critique. Right, So two things.
Speaker 1: One is that sometimes I see mental health disguised as
Speaker 1: wellness disguised is spirituality, Like yeah, you don't feel good,
Speaker 1: go take a bath? Is not you know, like you
Speaker 1: get a bath bomb not if you're clinically depressed, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not helping. Um the other thing that I
Speaker 1: really one of the reasons why I thrust myself into
Speaker 1: the spotlight because really I'm kind of a loner and
Speaker 1: I really don't like attention like that. But I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, like I'm just gonna put myself out
Speaker 1: there and be on a reality show. Um. But that
Speaker 1: being said, I what I'm seeing are is that we're
Speaker 1: talking about it, but we don't have now the vocabulary
Speaker 1: to be able to know, Okay, this person you're having
Speaker 1: these symptoms. Let me see if this cluster fits into
Speaker 1: depression or maybe it fits into bipolar disorder. What what
Speaker 1: does bipolar depression look like versus clinical depression? So now
Speaker 1: is the time for us to really arm ourselves with
Speaker 1: the vocabulary and the words in order to speak what
Speaker 1: we have going on. Right, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times two people are concerned about the words or the label.
Speaker 1: I think stig around things like that. But before we
Speaker 1: even touch on that, I want to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit about your journey why why become a psychiatrist? Tell
Speaker 1: us about how we arrived here and about you know,
Speaker 1: what motivated you to become a mental health professional. So
Speaker 1: I I'm the product of two very in highly intelligent people.
Speaker 1: My father, my biological father, and my mother. My biological
Speaker 1: father was essentially abandoned by his father when he was
Speaker 1: four and according to my mother, UM, he was found
Speaker 1: a like four years old, um by himself because he
Speaker 1: was collecting bottle caps to catch them in for food
Speaker 1: because his father was an alcoholic and wasn't you know
Speaker 1: this was He's from upstate New York, so this was
Speaker 1: an upstate New York. My mother is Jamaican. My my
Speaker 1: grandmother is half Chinese and half Jamaican. So long story
Speaker 1: or we ended up tracking down our Chinese relatives, and
Speaker 1: the Chinese side of our family are the ones who
Speaker 1: have bipolar disorder, whereas the Afro Jamaican side of us
Speaker 1: that's where the anxiety comes in. So my father, I'm
Speaker 1: the I'm the I'm the child of an addict. My
Speaker 1: father was an addict, UM, and he's not any longer.
Speaker 1: He was an engineer and he's still an engineer, and
Speaker 1: he's doing really well for himself. But when Crack came
Speaker 1: on the scene, you know, right, it was hit hard,
Speaker 1: It hit hard, and it was not taking it's taking
Speaker 1: everybody my prisoner, right exactly. And my mother's brother or
Speaker 1: my uncle. He had drug issues as well. So even
Speaker 1: though I'm an only child, my mother at various points
Speaker 1: in my life and my during my upbringing took care
Speaker 1: of my three cousins, so I was never really like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm the only child, but I'm I have like everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody every uh West Indian slash right. So the other
Speaker 1: side of it is that my grandmother, who is Jamaican,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until maybe a few years ago, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of sat and thought about, you know
Speaker 1: how she used to behave I'm like, oh, grandma was bipolar.
Speaker 1: Like she would go from super chill and like love
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden she would like flip
Speaker 1: out like I mean but like snap, like yo, like
Speaker 1: why are you throwing things at us? And then she
Speaker 1: would be like all right, and it was like anything
Speaker 1: is fine, right right. And you know what's funny, growing
Speaker 1: up in the black house, you just say, oh, that's
Speaker 1: just a black that's just her. Because my grandmother's um
Speaker 1: she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, which we figured out now
Speaker 1: speaking to my aunt, was that my grandmother was definitely
Speaker 1: clinically bipolar. Same thing. She would be perfectly fine will
Speaker 1: everything be fine and then just be like really down
Speaker 1: And if you come in here she spats out, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, what what happened in the last five minutes?
Speaker 1: No one said anything to you, And I honestly just thoughts,
Speaker 1: and I thought that that's just how black grandmothers are,
Speaker 1: exactly what I thought me too. And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: one of my other relatives was actually clinically diagnosed with
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder. And I know, all this is genetic, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm like trying to figure it out because family history,
Speaker 1: like when I see a patient, is really important. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, like what's going on? And then I
Speaker 1: was like, hold on, grandma's bipolar. Um I and I
Speaker 1: will freely admit I have anxiety and depression. I had
Speaker 1: a series of panic attacks over the past two weeks,
Speaker 1: like I will, I will claim it, I will say it.
Speaker 1: And is that like a chemical imbalance or yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a chemical imbalance. No one really knows why panic occurs
Speaker 1: when it happens. What what what we do know or
Speaker 1: what we believe is happening, is that there was a
Speaker 1: stressor like a stressful situation. So I'll use myself an
Speaker 1: example that that never I didn't deal with properly, and
Speaker 1: then my brain decides, let's freak out now that that
Speaker 1: event was like a catalyst for it, but it may
Speaker 1: not happen in that moment, right, and so that's why
Speaker 1: it's so important. And then I'll get back to why
Speaker 1: it became a psychiatrist. But that's why it's so important
Speaker 1: for us to deal with our issues pretty much. Not
Speaker 1: I know you can't always deal with issues right then
Speaker 1: and there, but it's important to deal with your issues
Speaker 1: period because they will they like the reckoning is coming.
Speaker 1: I learned that from my psychiatrist that Cadine gets she's
Speaker 1: so jealous even now, the fact that I didn't tell
Speaker 1: her that I went to see a psychiatrist, she gets
Speaker 1: so mad at me. I'm over that now that in
Speaker 1: that moment though, because I felt like his problems were
Speaker 1: like my problems, which is which is what I don't
Speaker 1: understand that. But for me, I just I was feeling
Speaker 1: like I need to do something for myself. I did
Speaker 1: not feel like myself. I didn't want to tell nobody
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to have to explain it. And
Speaker 1: then what I didn't want was for her to feel
Speaker 1: like I made my husband have to see a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I thought we spoke about
Speaker 1: everything what happened, right, and that's what I was worried about.
Speaker 1: So I went and saw on my own. But one
Speaker 1: of the first things that I've learned from was dealing
Speaker 1: with things in real time. Yeah, it's it's because I
Speaker 1: don't and I don't a lot of times because I'm
Speaker 1: a doctor, right, and I mean, being from New York,
Speaker 1: I'm like, nothing is scam me, so whatever. And but
Speaker 1: apparently there are things that I don't realize are bothering
Speaker 1: me because I've built up such a defense, right, a
Speaker 1: tolerance like I mean not like at this point, nothing
Speaker 1: like if you grew up in the eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: in New York, not like whatever, like you want to
Speaker 1: bust the train. We see mentally ill people every day
Speaker 1: on the train, and it's normal to us. It's just normal,
Speaker 1: like the people screaming and grabbing stuff and throwing stuff,
Speaker 1: and you don't even blink anymore. You're just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the a train, right, right exactly. But one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons why I became a psychiatrist is
Speaker 1: because so we were talking a little while ago, like
Speaker 1: we're all from New York, and I grew up on
Speaker 1: a hundred nineteenth street and Lenox, which was different than
Speaker 1: a hundred eighteen and I'm different from d Like it
Speaker 1: was like going like I never went on those blocks,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know nobody, Like the
Speaker 1: geography was different, just like what's going on? But on
Speaker 1: one nineteenth, like that was our community. And so whether
Speaker 1: you were gainfully employed, whether you were a whine or
Speaker 1: whether you were crackhead, like we all everybody knew each other.
Speaker 1: Everybody took care of each other. If my right, everybody
Speaker 1: looked out like I remember one time. This was when
Speaker 1: I was older and my car got told and like
Speaker 1: you know, like older Poppy was like yo, like your
Speaker 1: car got told like earlier, right, like your car got told.
Speaker 1: Like I try to stop them, but whatever whatever um
Speaker 1: crackheads hood elves like very I mean, that's not what
Speaker 1: they know. That's what they are elves. They will do
Speaker 1: anything for anywhere between two and five dollars and anything,
Speaker 1: and it's like they know that. It's like they tapped
Speaker 1: into everybody's house. So you could be thinking to yourself,
Speaker 1: like man, I really wish I had it, and they
Speaker 1: just pop up like I got it right here, I
Speaker 1: have I got you exactly. So I just when when
Speaker 1: I did my residency program, I was at first I
Speaker 1: went to Temple University in Philadelphia, and then I transferred
Speaker 1: out here to Harbor U c l A. Those are
Speaker 1: pretty much hospitals that um serve like the inner city,
Speaker 1: and I just basically felt like I had found my
Speaker 1: calling because I got to see black and brown folks.
Speaker 1: I got to see, like, I mean, it was different
Speaker 1: because in New York it's like it's you know, West
Speaker 1: Indians and Caribbeans, and especially if you're dealing with like
Speaker 1: people who speak Spanish, I hear it's different Central America
Speaker 1: him mostly so. And I still don't know Spanish. I
Speaker 1: only know like bodega Spanish, which I'm not going to
Speaker 1: repeat here, wish right um. But I felt like I
Speaker 1: really could make the biggest difference with people who society
Speaker 1: didn't care about. And those were the people I grew
Speaker 1: up around, like right, like who cares about a crackhead?
Speaker 1: Like we did? No one else did. And so when
Speaker 1: a lot of my colleagues went off to you know,
Speaker 1: like more cushier positions. I not only wanted to stay
Speaker 1: with the folks that looked like me, but I kind
Speaker 1: of doubled down and was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna work with, like people who are in prison and
Speaker 1: people who are incarcerated, because unfortunately, we're systemically disproportionately, you know,
Speaker 1: unfairly but sometimes fairly. I'm not I'm not gonna everybody's right,
Speaker 1: everybody's innocent, but I wanted to deal with the people
Speaker 1: who society not only forgot, but we're afraid of. But
Speaker 1: I do have a question because this is what I fear,
Speaker 1: and this is what I've seen working in the inner
Speaker 1: cities as well. It's called the school to prison pipeline.
Speaker 1: And for young black boys in particular, they're quick to
Speaker 1: label young black boys. And I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: moms say today, boys, you know, don't be acting crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, don't be acting crazy because if they label you,
Speaker 1: I can't help you. And I hear that all the time.
Speaker 1: And these moms are single moms. I'm a single moms,
Speaker 1: and their boys are dealing with whatever issues and sometimes
Speaker 1: it may not even be mental illness. Some of them
Speaker 1: just may have behavioral issues because dad's not around. But
Speaker 1: the first thing that happens is the label a d D,
Speaker 1: A d h D. You need to get medicated. And
Speaker 1: then once they get medicated, I've noticed that if they
Speaker 1: have an issue, the police are called immediately and once
Speaker 1: they were arrested as young as six or seven years old.
Speaker 1: Now you're in the system. Now you're in special ed.
Speaker 1: And for my brother, my brother works in the District
Speaker 1: seventy school in Brooklyn, which is where a lot of
Speaker 1: the special kids go or alternative schools where a lot
Speaker 1: of kids who come out of prison or come out
Speaker 1: of roup poemes go to. The school majority was labeled
Speaker 1: as specially at kids young and could not get that
Speaker 1: label off even if they were fine after that. Like
Speaker 1: how does the parents navigate if you have a childhood
Speaker 1: you think may have issues, Because that's what I fear
Speaker 1: as a dad with three black boys, I don't want
Speaker 1: my boys to have a label. Labels are very important,
Speaker 1: like you said, and when it and when it comes
Speaker 1: to kids who feel like they don't have like they
Speaker 1: don't have anybody to talk to, and it may not
Speaker 1: be their fault. Their mother might be working three or
Speaker 1: four jobs, like the lights, that's what that That's what
Speaker 1: I dealt with at Prototype and I first started Pope.
Speaker 1: Of the boys were with single moms, and these were
Speaker 1: not you know the stigma of the single mom who
Speaker 1: don't know what she's doing. She's out here chasing all
Speaker 1: of these men. No, I'm talking about educated black single
Speaker 1: moms with three four jobs. They have different kids, or
Speaker 1: they have two to three kids, and they're trying to
Speaker 1: balance get to this practice, get to that like this,
Speaker 1: and they may only see their kids maybe two hours
Speaker 1: a day if that, in the morning, getting them ready,
Speaker 1: and then at night to make sure everybody's in the
Speaker 1: bed before she goes out to her job again to
Speaker 1: work the midnight shift. And I watched this and so
Speaker 1: many of these boys when I speak to them, they oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed early with Okay, so let me let
Speaker 1: me talk about that a little bit too. So recently,
Speaker 1: I was in Baltimore. This was I think two weekends ago,
Speaker 1: and actually so myself and my mother went to go
Speaker 1: speak at a gala that was um benefiting a a
Speaker 1: school out there called Keys and Powers. And it was
Speaker 1: so awesome to see this school had kids, all black kids.
Speaker 1: It's Baltimore, and they had two psychiatrists on staff who
Speaker 1: were there like all day every day, they would do
Speaker 1: home visits. They would the kids could actually like, you know,
Speaker 1: to go tell their teacher, like I need to go
Speaker 1: speak to somebody now, and so it's like at different
Speaker 1: points during the day. I think, you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I think that the way that just like my approach
Speaker 1: to mental health and mental wellness, especially black and brown folks,
Speaker 1: has to be different than what I was taught, which
Speaker 1: is which was mainly by wife folks. We also have
Speaker 1: to take the initiative and change the programs that we're
Speaker 1: essentially putting our black children into your You got to
Speaker 1: consider your your population. You got to consider your audience.
Speaker 1: In this case, the audience are black boys. We as
Speaker 1: black folks, we are. Culture is just different and how
Speaker 1: we relate to each other. So that's one thing, but
Speaker 1: the one the second thing that I want to reiterate,
Speaker 1: which I've been reiterating ever since the study came out.
Speaker 1: The CDC came out with the study, Did y'all hear
Speaker 1: about that where it showed that black fathers are actually
Speaker 1: the most they're the most involved out of everybody, And
Speaker 1: the metrics were you know, um giving them bass, doing
Speaker 1: a homework with them, cooking for them, putting them in bed.
Speaker 1: So there are single mothers absolutely. But and even though
Speaker 1: that study showed that a lot of those black fathers
Speaker 1: weren't in the home with the mother, they still weren't INVOLVD.
Speaker 1: So I've been really really just pushing that because it's
Speaker 1: a truth. It is important. I mean, it's also important
Speaker 1: because the narrative creates. The narrative ultimately creates the laws. Exactly.
Speaker 1: It was like, if you want people to fear black men,
Speaker 1: you have to create this narrative that black men need
Speaker 1: to be feared, and then you create laws that will
Speaker 1: help people feel safer when black people are around, which
Speaker 1: is how it's how we ended up getting mass incarceration.
Speaker 1: That's why if you smoke crack, you can get twenty
Speaker 1: five years, but if you do methanmpheta means, then you
Speaker 1: get five years. You know what I'm saying, Like, there's
Speaker 1: certain rules and laws created based on the narratives. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. That's what made me afraid to
Speaker 1: go see a therapist, and that's what make me afraid
Speaker 1: to take my kids to see therapists because I would
Speaker 1: be afraid that they would get labeled and then end
Speaker 1: up in that prison. When he went to a therapist,
Speaker 1: was that was your therapist black? Yes? I chose that
Speaker 1: for myself because I wanted someone that can relate to
Speaker 1: my struggle, you know, I didn't. One thing I've learned
Speaker 1: throughout life is that you really can't blame people for
Speaker 1: what they don't know, you know, like if they don't know,
Speaker 1: they really just don't know. And I learned that from
Speaker 1: one of my friends. He was, um, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the politically correct term is, but his dad was bracial.
Speaker 1: His dad was white. But I don't see, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Nowadays, you don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: So we were walking around King's Plaza and they were
Speaker 1: about five of us coming from football practice, and the
Speaker 1: cops pulled us over. This during the time of stopping.
Speaker 1: First cops put us with what y'all doing? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm like, we ain't doing nothing, and like you can't
Speaker 1: walk in groups or five in the in the mall.
Speaker 1: So then they detained us, and they detained us and
Speaker 1: called our parents and his dad who came who was white.
Speaker 1: It was just like, what were you doing? Right, and
Speaker 1: he was like, I wasn't doing anything. And his father
Speaker 1: legitimately said to him, so, you're telling me the cops
Speaker 1: are just gonna come and just start harassing you for
Speaker 1: no reason. And I was sitting there looking at him
Speaker 1: like another in Brooklyn. I don't think he know his
Speaker 1: son is black? Also, right, that's okay, you had sex
Speaker 1: of the black woman and made a black child. Let's
Speaker 1: just say it. And all this time passed and you
Speaker 1: and you live in this country. I'm not surprised, but
Speaker 1: I'm just like, word, if you wouldn't you would have
Speaker 1: heard the conversation. If you you'd have been so mad.
Speaker 1: I know your mouth was open. Yeah. I was like
Speaker 1: really like do you not see what goes on? And
Speaker 1: he was just like And honestly, I feel genuinely sorry
Speaker 1: for him because he felt like he could like push
Speaker 1: your son away from that, like almost like you're not
Speaker 1: like you're not black, your dad is white. You know.
Speaker 1: I always told you pull your pants up, do this, dude, this,
Speaker 1: And I'm just like he literally was doing noth man
Speaker 1: but but just walking around and his mom is Nigerian.
Speaker 1: Even though he was white, he's still darker than men skin,
Speaker 1: so he's more brown skin, right, So it was just like,
Speaker 1: all y'all come over here, and I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: his dad really don't get it. So when it came
Speaker 1: time for me to pick a doctor, I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to pick a doctor who might not get the struggles
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, because you just don't get it exactly.
Speaker 1: I recently was talking to somebody um and she was
Speaker 1: saying that she has a therapist and this woman is
Speaker 1: white and she loves a therapist, and she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, and I asked. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: is it a problem like with certain things? And she's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, she's she is cognizant enough to let me finish.
Speaker 1: And if there's something that I don't understand, she doesn't understand,
Speaker 1: like I'll explain it. But for me, I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: we're paying about an hour, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like back to the I'm like, we're paying about an hour.
Speaker 1: Like I ain't got time to explain what the kitchen is,
Speaker 1: and that is on the back of your head, you know,
Speaker 1: like I can't, Like I don't, I ain't got time
Speaker 1: for that. Like, so let's just let's just you know, right,
Speaker 1: let's just do away with like, you know, the let's
Speaker 1: just do away with the pleasantry and let's just get
Speaker 1: to the right. So how do we do that? How
Speaker 1: do we encourage, like you said, not wanting to characterize
Speaker 1: all Jamaicans per se, but just within our community of
Speaker 1: black folk, how do we now, say, encourage someone who
Speaker 1: you feel like may just need to speak to a
Speaker 1: therapist or maybe dealing with a mental issue. Are there
Speaker 1: any kind of um tactful ways to finess that and
Speaker 1: suggest to somebody that they seek help. So I think
Speaker 1: that for most people, and this isn't just for people
Speaker 1: who are severely mentally, A lot of people lack what's
Speaker 1: called we call it in psychiatry insight, so they don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of insight into their mental illness. And look,
Speaker 1: I will freely admit that's me too. It's hard to
Speaker 1: be objective with yourself, right. So I've been clearly in
Speaker 1: a state of anxiety all year and then recently had
Speaker 1: these series of panic attacks, at which point my mother
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, you gotta find a therapist like you
Speaker 1: over here whiling like this is this is ridiculous, and
Speaker 1: I'm and even in the back of my mind I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'll be all right, like I could figure this out,
Speaker 1: like Okay, things are cool now, Like I'm straight right.
Speaker 1: But what I would say, the best thing that someone
Speaker 1: can do is just to be consistent and be persistent.
Speaker 1: Like essentially, it's like listen, like you're going through these issues,
Speaker 1: and I know it's hard for you to see them
Speaker 1: as issues, but I remember when you were like this,
Speaker 1: or I know you could be happier, and you might
Speaker 1: say that you're happy, but you're not at your best potential.
Speaker 1: And it really takes a lot of time for some people.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh word, okay, I'm gonna see a therapist then,
Speaker 1: but that's not most of us. And you really just
Speaker 1: have to just kind of keep being persistent and they
Speaker 1: might yell at you and be like yo, leave me alone,
Speaker 1: like I'm cool, but knowing that someone has taken the
Speaker 1: time over and over again to keep telling you, like yo,
Speaker 1: I care about you. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: I see these changes in you, like I really want
Speaker 1: for you to be the best person that you can be.
Speaker 1: That is something that's going to resonate with the person
Speaker 1: that may need help. And it's a fine line. I
Speaker 1: feel between taking on those problems, Like I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: someone who's in a relationship with somebody and how I
Speaker 1: had to realize that this was his fight at one
Speaker 1: point and not it wasn't me. I wasn't the cause
Speaker 1: of it per se um. So how would you encourage people,
Speaker 1: particularly in relationships, to say, you know, or is it not?
Speaker 1: It's not your fault per se but you do notice
Speaker 1: this and you don't want to make it about I
Speaker 1: don't want to make it about me. Although I did
Speaker 1: Loki feel like Dan, what was I not doing to
Speaker 1: prevent him from feeling this way? Because naturally you kind
Speaker 1: of take the onus on you if if my partner
Speaker 1: is not happy or if he's in like a slump,
Speaker 1: it's my fault or I didn't do something or did
Speaker 1: something to make that happen. So how do you encourage couples,
Speaker 1: you know, or people within relationships to just kind of
Speaker 1: not take that on them? So I'm sure you guys
Speaker 1: have heard that. You know, when you first meet somebody,
Speaker 1: you show them your representative right, and obviously you all
Speaker 1: are not representatives, but you may be representing your you
Speaker 1: may be representing your mental wellness still because you're because
Speaker 1: you're still representing your mental wellness to yourself. And if
Speaker 1: you can't admit you have an issue, you're not admit
Speaker 1: it to nobody else. So there are going to be
Speaker 1: I mean all kinds like I don't how old were
Speaker 1: you when you got married, So twenty seven years, almost
Speaker 1: three decades of things happen to you before y'all got married,
Speaker 1: And it didn't mean that he didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it with you, But he may not have even
Speaker 1: known the words to talk about it. He might may
Speaker 1: not have even known what was going on. I've been
Speaker 1: that person, like in the bathroom, like in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: just like what is wrong with me? I did not
Speaker 1: want I knew what problems I had. I did not
Speaker 1: want to talk to her about it because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to come across as weak. I'm the man, I'm
Speaker 1: the leader. I've been the light in my family and
Speaker 1: in my community for so long. How could I then
Speaker 1: say to my wife I have a problem, because then
Speaker 1: it's like I've relinquished all my power and strength. Because
Speaker 1: my strength, as I felt like my strength is as
Speaker 1: a man, was to take on the brunt of all
Speaker 1: of my family's issues, so that my wife could be
Speaker 1: at peace. She gave me three beautiful boys. She shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to deal with a fourth boy. So any issues
Speaker 1: I got, I should deal with on my own. That's
Speaker 1: how I felt, right, And that's the side because and
Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm gonna say as well, all respect,
Speaker 1: you don't know women like that then, because we love
Speaker 1: to take care of things. And if we know that
Speaker 1: our exactly and if we know that our man needs help,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, yeah, I hear you. I hear you.
Speaker 1: I definitely hear you. And I'm not saying like, well,
Speaker 1: therefore that it's you. It's not it's not your issue,
Speaker 1: it's not your problem. Societally, that's how we, Oh, I
Speaker 1: raised black man, so I admit we we talked about
Speaker 1: this all the time. I let society tell me what
Speaker 1: the American dream was supposed to be, and I fell
Speaker 1: for it hook line. And even even how when I
Speaker 1: got the let me this is exactly what happened in
Speaker 1: my life. I graduated from high school, got to college,
Speaker 1: got a degree. Boom, Oh, I'm in the NFL. I'm
Speaker 1: making money. Boom. Let me buy some stuff. I got
Speaker 1: a girl, Let me buy a house. I got to
Speaker 1: get married. I got to prove to everybody how successful
Speaker 1: I am. Then im twin. Everybody else is ramping you up,
Speaker 1: like hyping you up to do it, And then it
Speaker 1: was lonely yo when I when I got cut, I
Speaker 1: was engaged, I had bought property, my wife was about
Speaker 1: to have a baby, and I was by myself because
Speaker 1: all those people who were like, you should be doing it,
Speaker 1: should be doing that, they were gone. And I spent
Speaker 1: nine the first nine years I spent my marriage trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out in my own head because society
Speaker 1: also told me if I put that on my wife,
Speaker 1: then I'm weak. I gotta I gotta handle that. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't even just my society, my dad. When I
Speaker 1: watched my father deal with what he dealt with in
Speaker 1: our in our family, like he was laid off. My
Speaker 1: father only has an associate's degree, but he understands mainframeing,
Speaker 1: so he's always able to keep a job and make
Speaker 1: really good money. So he got laid off, and he
Speaker 1: was laid off for about six months one time, and
Speaker 1: he never let my mom know how he felt or
Speaker 1: if things ever got bad. Anytime I walk in the house,
Speaker 1: Hey what's up, bro? Everything was fine? And then he
Speaker 1: used to tell me, He's like, it's not your mom's
Speaker 1: responsibility to know what goes on here. I'm the man.
Speaker 1: I have to do with this. I'll find a way.
Speaker 1: So I put that on myself because I felt because
Speaker 1: I watched my mom walking around that reads anxiety though,
Speaker 1: because that's me. Dad breads anxiety. Because I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: a little, a little side note, and I just because
Speaker 1: I've really been trying to tell people this. We as
Speaker 1: black folks, Like, yes, I like shiny things too, okay,
Speaker 1: Like I I save up for all that stuff. It's
Speaker 1: there's a difference between wealth and being rich. I saw
Speaker 1: I forgot what what comedians said, like, oh it was
Speaker 1: Chris Rocky. He was like, the wealthy dude is the
Speaker 1: one signing your check, right. But then on the flip
Speaker 1: side of it, rich being rich is loud and wealth
Speaker 1: is quiet. And similarly, strength to me is quiet. You
Speaker 1: don't have to like, you know, proclaim and like take
Speaker 1: on every like oh I'm cool, I got because that's
Speaker 1: going to bring anxiety. So I'm I'm guessing, almost guaranteeing
Speaker 1: that when all that stuff happened to you and you
Speaker 1: were pregnant and you know, y'all were engaged and then
Speaker 1: you got cut. You probably were just like somewhere trembling
Speaker 1: because it was like, you know, what am I going
Speaker 1: to do? That's that's exactly That's on top of that.
Speaker 1: Not only was I trembling, but I also made poor
Speaker 1: life decisions because at this point I had no one
Speaker 1: to reach out to and I had no way to
Speaker 1: get out of this funk. So I started to make
Speaker 1: decisions that I felt like would get me out of it,
Speaker 1: and they were impulsive, impulsive decisions, and I put blame
Speaker 1: on people. And I always put blame on the people
Speaker 1: who were the closest to me. For example, in Michigan,
Speaker 1: nobody said I want to live in Michigan, but he
Speaker 1: felt like if he wanted, if I was gonna be
Speaker 1: good impulsive decision, I had to show her that I
Speaker 1: was serious. I had to show her that I was
Speaker 1: the man. I had to show that I got it
Speaker 1: brought at home. Then when we were struggling financially and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, I blamed her for the fact that
Speaker 1: I brought the house and I didn't even But these
Speaker 1: are the things that if I, if I would have
Speaker 1: just been open to speaking to someone, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: and not for nothing. I always say this, from fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty you think you know everything. From twenty five
Speaker 1: you know you know everything. From twenty to thirty you
Speaker 1: start to realize, you know what. I ain't know ship
Speaker 1: all that time. And it was until about thirty that
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to start fixing all of
Speaker 1: the things that I was doing in my twenties. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until I saw a therapist and I started opening.
Speaker 1: Now we have arguments. Right in the past, we have argument,
Speaker 1: I'll shut down. I ain't gonna that. It ain't bonding.
Speaker 1: Now it's like, listen, baby, everything he learned from that therapist.
Speaker 1: Now he's going through like a whole series of like
Speaker 1: completely points change good that it does. Remember in the
Speaker 1: in the in the grocery store, there's football Saturday. I
Speaker 1: like to just relax and watch football. I don't I
Speaker 1: work a whole lot. This is the one day that
Speaker 1: I don't wanna have to do nothing. We had family
Speaker 1: and guests coming over. She's like, baby, he can we
Speaker 1: go to Costcos. So now I'm in Costcos on football.
Speaker 1: Rather than getting upset, which I normally did, guy set
Speaker 1: went with her I just said, listen, can you just
Speaker 1: explain to me why we're in definitely had a therapist
Speaker 1: voice too. I was like, don't try to hit me
Speaker 1: with that voice. I've learned from my therapist that how
Speaker 1: I asked my questions is more important than the question
Speaker 1: I asked. That's that's true. So I've learned to take
Speaker 1: I'm still getting used to that though, because when he
Speaker 1: should be saying it to me all come and stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, Yeah, why are you talking to me
Speaker 1: like that? Like you're patronizing me At this moment, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to We're still trying to figure it out because
Speaker 1: the therapy was so great for me. It made me,
Speaker 1: it made me, but husband made me a better father,
Speaker 1: better business partner. Um, I'm able to see things differently
Speaker 1: in the world because I'm able to share, you know,
Speaker 1: And you start to realize, like one of the one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons why I really want to go
Speaker 1: to therapy, it's like I'm going to be forty four
Speaker 1: in a couple of months and yeah, and and there
Speaker 1: are values that I came up with when I was
Speaker 1: like six that I still hold this day, like don't
Speaker 1: cry crying as weak? Why who told me that nobody.
Speaker 1: It's just something that I just have internalized. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense, but to this day, if I shed it here,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, look what you're saying. Oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's six year old self looking at you, like right,
Speaker 1: like together, right, get it together. And so there are
Speaker 1: things that I'm like, look, I need to undo these
Speaker 1: things because I can only do but so much. But
Speaker 1: I still have these like really kind of strange internalized
Speaker 1: values that I came up with when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And frankly like because my biological father like abandoned me
Speaker 1: and my mom and so he said he had abandonment
Speaker 1: issues too, right, so he right, he couldn't talk about it,
Speaker 1: so he was like, I'm out right, but he was
Speaker 1: also you know, had drug issues. But these are the
Speaker 1: things that I concocted, like these values I concocted when
Speaker 1: I was like seven years old, which I still have
Speaker 1: and they're dumb. Which it's crazy, this feel I can
Speaker 1: see being draining just on you too, taking on everything
Speaker 1: and people unloading onto you. So how do you refuel
Speaker 1: after this? Like, if you're going through something, how do
Speaker 1: you keep yourself from maybe not trying to like self
Speaker 1: diagnose or does that even help you to do that?
Speaker 1: You know what? Quite honestly, I don't really take it home. Okay,
Speaker 1: yeah I can. I'm great at compartmentalizing, probably to a fault, um,
Speaker 1: But I think more so than anything that I'm just
Speaker 1: so happy to be able to help them, and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy too that they're able to share their stories
Speaker 1: with me that I'm just really, I just feel so
Speaker 1: so grateful. You've heard of people who have been in
Speaker 1: therapy forever. It's really no endpoint because life every day
Speaker 1: is different. Thing's always come at you. So it's not like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did it, although for some people, like when I've
Speaker 1: been in therapy was like, Okay, I'm ash, but I
Speaker 1: felt like that, Yeah, I went for three months and
Speaker 1: I felt like I'm good. Like I feel like I've
Speaker 1: I've learned some tools to manage my life right, and
Speaker 1: there may come a time where you might need to
Speaker 1: go back or or you know or not. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I've dealt with therapy. But as far
Speaker 1: as unwinding, I mean, I a lot of times like
Speaker 1: I listened to I listened to a lot of music.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately in l A we don't get a lot of
Speaker 1: like reggae and dance. Fall out here girl, come by,
Speaker 1: come by a house. My neighbors are probably like, what's
Speaker 1: going on over there? We played all everything, especially bring
Speaker 1: it out here because there's no culture out here for exactly.
Speaker 1: But I've just learned certain my coping. My coping skills
Speaker 1: are like going to sleep, getting in the bathtub, um,
Speaker 1: going to the beach, like and in l A, we
Speaker 1: take it for granted that like the beach is like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's all It's gonna be there, right. But I went
Speaker 1: to my son begged me like a a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: like Yo, can you please take the day off? And
Speaker 1: I was like yes, So we went Yes. So we
Speaker 1: went to Venice for a couple of hours and it
Speaker 1: was just like I was like, oh my god, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I needed. So it's important to know, you
Speaker 1: know what what your coping skills are, and those are
Speaker 1: some of mine. Well before we let you go, because
Speaker 1: we can't take up all of your time today, I
Speaker 1: would love to. I'm having a great time now. I'm
Speaker 1: having a great time too. I feel like I'm actually
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in therapy right now, talking to you,
Speaker 1: but I'm asking for three tips for people dealing with
Speaker 1: a partner that may have mental health issues. Um. I
Speaker 1: posted about mental health on my Instagram and we had
Speaker 1: tons of comments for people asking me, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, how how much is it? How much do
Speaker 1: you deal with until you say enough is enough? My
Speaker 1: partner is going through this, I've been trying to stick
Speaker 1: it out. What do I do? Do I get them
Speaker 1: a therapist? Do I take them with me to therapy?
Speaker 1: What do I do? What are three tips you would
Speaker 1: give someone who they think has a partner that may
Speaker 1: be dealing with mental health issues? So I think the
Speaker 1: first thing is obviously to talk to that person. You know,
Speaker 1: you use your words, UM, explain to that person what
Speaker 1: they see and like you were saying a little while ago,
Speaker 1: it's how, especially for black folks, is how you say,
Speaker 1: because if your tone is wrong, it's like no, I'm right.
Speaker 1: First of all, you need to lower your tone. Lower
Speaker 1: you take the base out of your boys. You always
Speaker 1: think exactly right, exactly so just you know, say, make
Speaker 1: sure that when you convey how you feel that you
Speaker 1: take on a non accusatory tone like you know what
Speaker 1: hey like, I think you might be having some issues,
Speaker 1: and I'm here to talk about them if you want to,
Speaker 1: But I just want to make sure that somebody you
Speaker 1: know who loves you dearly that I'm I'm seeing some
Speaker 1: changes and I think, you know, it might be a
Speaker 1: good idea for you to see somebody. And again, that
Speaker 1: person may not be open to it. They might, but
Speaker 1: they might not. I like that one. So number one
Speaker 1: I got start with using your words, but in a
Speaker 1: non accusatory tone. I got that, So don't just go
Speaker 1: out there pointing stuff out like you need therapy. Number
Speaker 1: two is if the person still isn't willing to go,
Speaker 1: that might be the time to maybe bring in like
Speaker 1: a relative or intervention, but not in but like maybe
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm making this up, maybe you married
Speaker 1: to the person and you want to talk to like
Speaker 1: their close cousin. Try a third party. Try a third party,
Speaker 1: because that because you see that person every day, and
Speaker 1: so that person who might be struggling might be like, well,
Speaker 1: you can't objectively you know what I'm saying, look at
Speaker 1: me like that. So if it's if it's another person,
Speaker 1: they could be like, you know what, I kind of
Speaker 1: feel like these are the things I'm seeing too, or
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I think it's a good idea to
Speaker 1: go with someone the person knows before you jump in. Fine,
Speaker 1: absolutely outside and outside help, because then they might be like, nah,
Speaker 1: that's when the defense comes up, right, And so I
Speaker 1: have try a third party as a conduit, familiar familiar
Speaker 1: third party number, to try a familiar keyword their third
Speaker 1: party as a conduit. At that time, you brought my
Speaker 1: sister in to tell me I was being mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to tell you directly that you
Speaker 1: needed therapy, so I told your sisters there you go
Speaker 1: and bushed me. But whatever, we all you know which
Speaker 1: we always get to all we mean and it's not.
Speaker 1: We just very factual and I'm very direct. Exactly sounds
Speaker 1: my tone devoutly like why you said it like that?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't think I said it no
Speaker 1: kind of way Jamaican. Maybe never think alsogether. Groups. Also,
Speaker 1: look if you look like a turtle, and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you look like a turtle, Like now, you man could
Speaker 1: be honest, right, you know what you look like when
Speaker 1: you left the house because you're start, you're moving. You
Speaker 1: won't say you know, you won't say nothing like hey, babe,
Speaker 1: you know you kind of look like a turtle. No,
Speaker 1: I'll come at able to look at this, lick at
Speaker 1: her like that to have to turn on that. All right,
Speaker 1: your money, you gotta give me one more though, one more.
Speaker 1: So we got started with using your words in a
Speaker 1: non accusatory fashion, a non accusatory tone, and then try
Speaker 1: a familiar third parties a conduit. What's the last one?
Speaker 1: I would say the last step would at that point
Speaker 1: seek outside help. And that could mean a therapist, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to necessarily be a psychiatrist, because mental
Speaker 1: health clinicians can be social workers, they can be psychologists,
Speaker 1: they can be marriage and family therapists, but just someone
Speaker 1: who makes it there purpose their career purpose, let's say,
Speaker 1: to help other people through therapy. No, this is perfect money.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you so much. This was fun.
Speaker 1: Speaking of my mental health is often very like draining
Speaker 1: and tiresome. I feel like we had a good time today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I definitely had a good time other than YouTube picking
Speaker 1: on me. I enjoy that's it. In fact, that's it
Speaker 1: coming speaking you know what I mean, hypothetically coming on
Speaker 1: my turnal nack, get my neck there you go, so
Speaker 1: imani if anyone wanted to find you, tell us here
Speaker 1: in your handles. If you have a website, blog page
Speaker 1: or whatever. Sure, so I'm dr imani um. And if
Speaker 1: you want to follow me on Instagram, which is where
Speaker 1: I primarily am, it's I'm at doctor, which is d
Speaker 1: O C T O R dot Imani. I am A
Speaker 1: and I I have a website with all kinds of information.
Speaker 1: My website is doctor d O C T O R
Speaker 1: dash Imani, I am A and I dot com. We're
Speaker 1: not leaving it. You can. Actually we have to do
Speaker 1: listener letters. Do you have time to perfect nay, mind,
Speaker 1: He's gonna stick around with us. We're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break, and we went to these listener letters. After
Speaker 1: we get to some ads, stay tuned. This for the record,
Speaker 1: there it is a win for the ages. Tiger Woods
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Speaker 1: Wood doesn't know who he is best in the history
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Speaker 1: if the story of Tiger Woods that the media has
Speaker 1: been telling, what if it's been completely wrong? All American
Speaker 1: Tiger is out. Now listen and stitch your Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: or your favorite podcast app. Alright, so now we're back
Speaker 1: for listener letters, and we have doctor and Mommie is
Speaker 1: still in the house with us because she's gonna see
Speaker 1: if she can give her a little two cents and
Speaker 1: some advice for these people writing into us that forensic
Speaker 1: sh'd be knowing knowing for real. Alright, first question, you
Speaker 1: want to go babe? Alright, I'll read this, want to
Speaker 1: go for it. Me and my husband have been married
Speaker 1: for nine months. He lost his job. I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: at home mom. Our son is five months old, and
Speaker 1: I know he's feeling down unless of a man because
Speaker 1: he lost his job. Damn. We have to move back
Speaker 1: to my parents house until we get back on our feet.
Speaker 1: What are some things I can do to his spirits
Speaker 1: up in this hard time. I don't want him getting depressed.
Speaker 1: So I think the first thing to do is to
Speaker 1: just always keep the lines of communication open because as
Speaker 1: we talked about, Black men in particular, will internalize everything
Speaker 1: and not speak up. And I know that this this
Speaker 1: person's husband may definitely be taking on a lot of guilt,
Speaker 1: may feel very ashamed. And when those two things along
Speaker 1: with depressed mood and then you have maybe this person
Speaker 1: might end up with decreased motivation. What you really want
Speaker 1: to look out for is that the person doesn't fall
Speaker 1: into a clinical depression, which doesn't mean that the person
Speaker 1: you know, what's what's the difference between just depression and
Speaker 1: clinical depression. So being depressed, which is kind of basically
Speaker 1: a colloquial term, is like, oh, I'm sad, right, having
Speaker 1: having clinical depres russion means that you have certain symptoms
Speaker 1: depressed mood. Um, you may have poor motivation, sleep changes
Speaker 1: either sleeping too much or sleeping too little. Issues of
Speaker 1: concentration which is always going to be poor, UM, low
Speaker 1: energy like fatigue, UM, having feelings of guilt or shame,
Speaker 1: losing interesting and usual activities. And for people when they
Speaker 1: get really really clinically depressed or really severely depressed, they
Speaker 1: might have start having feelings of having thoughts of suicide.
Speaker 1: So I'm sad, which is why it's important in this
Speaker 1: period of time for them to keep the lines of
Speaker 1: communication open because if he starts internalizing that, especially like
Speaker 1: having to move back, um move into her parents house,
Speaker 1: you know, you also might be dealing with their parents
Speaker 1: and then her his father in law. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: that's a lot. So I would say, you know, for
Speaker 1: someone like me who I have had clinical depression, I
Speaker 1: haven't taken medication, but what I do on I do
Speaker 1: certain things on the daily to prevent these things from happening.
Speaker 1: So I work out every day, like every day, whether
Speaker 1: it's going hiking or going to the gym, because that
Speaker 1: releases serotonin into your brain and that helps keep your
Speaker 1: mood elevated to the point where you don't get depressed.
Speaker 1: It's just important to make sure that he that that
Speaker 1: he's able to feel, know that he's loved, and know
Speaker 1: that it's not his fault because just like, look, I
Speaker 1: have clinical depression because my dad was clinically depressed. It
Speaker 1: I didn't step on a nail and got it right, right.
Speaker 1: This person lost their job, that's not his fault, right,
Speaker 1: And so it's just important for people to realize that
Speaker 1: because or his the people that are surrounding him to
Speaker 1: realize that, because if not, it starts people start to
Speaker 1: get resentful. Uh, he's funny. Remember what we talked about.
Speaker 1: He works, she's a stay at home mom. He's gonna
Speaker 1: start to feel first, he's gonna have resentment towards herself
Speaker 1: because I can't take care of my family. I have
Speaker 1: to move back into my wife's family's parents house. Her
Speaker 1: dad is looking at me. When I when I gave
Speaker 1: my daughter to you, it was under the belief that
Speaker 1: you were going to take care of her and yourself
Speaker 1: and your child. So I know that's going to hit him.
Speaker 1: Automatically as a man, I know it's going to hit him.
Speaker 1: One thing I would tell her to do is get
Speaker 1: on a routine of waking up, waking him up. Do
Speaker 1: the same routine you did. Why that is to remember
Speaker 1: when I was going through my moment, we used to
Speaker 1: get up together. When when I had just got back
Speaker 1: from the NFL, it was the same routine. I still
Speaker 1: got up. I had to go out and figure out
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. I'm not going to figure it
Speaker 1: out while I'm in Indy, while I'm in the bed,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I figured out I
Speaker 1: always found ways to try to make him know that
Speaker 1: he was to appreciate it to yes, exactly if he
Speaker 1: didn't feel that either, I knew for sure he was
Speaker 1: going to be like, damn, I don't have a job
Speaker 1: and I'm meking my parents my in law's house. We communicate, communicate,
Speaker 1: get him up in the morning, continue to move together
Speaker 1: like he's still working. You guys will be fine if
Speaker 1: you're spiritual. Prey on it, and you actually may find
Speaker 1: that now that you guys have some time, like reframe
Speaker 1: it that that's also important to Like it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, Yes, you're gonna look for jobs and
Speaker 1: all that, but now we get to spend more time
Speaker 1: as a family and during this short period, right instead
Speaker 1: of just being like damn, I sucked up, Like no,
Speaker 1: like you know what, you didn't This is not your fault.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, like now we're gonna like
Speaker 1: bond a little bit more because maybe the next job
Speaker 1: you'll be super busy and I won't be able to
Speaker 1: see you like that. So reframe it and use it
Speaker 1: for what it is about. Before we move on to
Speaker 1: the second one, get out your parents house during the day,
Speaker 1: just be there, take some walks in the park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, alright, question number two. Currently, I'm currently I'm
Speaker 1: in college in New York and my boyfriend lives in Texas.
Speaker 1: He comes up to visit me when he has time,
Speaker 1: and I always feel bad because I'm not able to
Speaker 1: travel as much due to being in school and building
Speaker 1: my business while in school. He's very supportive and all
Speaker 1: in all that I do, but we seem to bump
Speaker 1: heads a lot when it comes to the emotional health
Speaker 1: between us. I grew up in foster care in New
Speaker 1: York and he comes from a great family, full of love,
Speaker 1: and they've always welcomed me. I'm actually afraid of meeting
Speaker 1: them and taking that step forward because how I interact
Speaker 1: with people is very on guard and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to exist in that kind of atmosphere. My emotional
Speaker 1: health causes us to have friction a lot. And my
Speaker 1: question is, how do I explain that I'm not ready
Speaker 1: to move forward because I'm still dealing with trauma from
Speaker 1: my own family without making him or his family feel
Speaker 1: that I'm not interested in getting to know them. I mean,
Speaker 1: she explained, it's just say right, you say what you
Speaker 1: just said right now. Part of it might be that
Speaker 1: she's afraid to say it, which which I can understand too,
Speaker 1: But I would just start with talking, talking, talk to
Speaker 1: your boyfriend and say exactly what you said, like, say
Speaker 1: exactly what right, because if she was here reading it,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, what what you want to say? And
Speaker 1: if you're saying he comes from a great family full
Speaker 1: of love, that I feel like trying to go out
Speaker 1: their way to make you feel more comfortable. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: also you know, please, like whether it's through your school
Speaker 1: or elsewhere, like, get therapy because trauma, deal with that,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Like trauma is something like I say
Speaker 1: this all the time, like I can throw all the
Speaker 1: medications to somebody, but if they have trauma that is
Speaker 1: not resolved, you can do about that, right, And they're
Speaker 1: just going to keep making decisions that are like what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Because they don't know necessarily how to
Speaker 1: trust other people and a with other people in a
Speaker 1: meaningful way. So get you get therapy and just be
Speaker 1: honest with you with a man, and you know, if
Speaker 1: he wants to tell his family that like, because she
Speaker 1: may not necessarily need to tell his family that she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to. They're still dating, So tell your man
Speaker 1: like yo, like, I'm young, I'm working on myself. I
Speaker 1: want to get some therapy. But you know, as you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't forced to hear I got a lot of issues.
Speaker 1: I mean, she she, you're if you're listening, you already
Speaker 1: know what to do, and you're and you also explained
Speaker 1: it so eloquently. There's really nothing for me to say.
Speaker 1: This is why we can because she just took over
Speaker 1: the listener letters done and that was that was amazing
Speaker 1: that that's what she done. That's that's exactly sure. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be featured as one of our
Speaker 1: listener letters, email us at dead ass Advice at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. And we're going to move into moment of truth.
Speaker 1: You know, normally dr IMMANI we do a moment of
Speaker 1: truth where we kind of what's our takeaway from this
Speaker 1: whole episode, Like what did we gather from it? What's
Speaker 1: what did we learn from this episode? Do you have
Speaker 1: something to learn, babe? I've learned that mental health is
Speaker 1: a stigma in our community from four hundred years of
Speaker 1: the way we've survived in this country, and until we
Speaker 1: as a people unpack that acknowledge that we won't be
Speaker 1: able to move forward and feel better about mental health.
Speaker 1: So we have to as a people just understand why
Speaker 1: we are the way we are and deal with it right.
Speaker 1: And I've got a greater understanding, and I know that
Speaker 1: there is so much value in being able to just
Speaker 1: speak about things and holding things inside is never the
Speaker 1: route to do to go, especially because that's things that
Speaker 1: have been embedded in us for so long. But there
Speaker 1: is no embarrassment around that, and people shouldn't feel embarrassed
Speaker 1: say how they feel to know that there are people
Speaker 1: out there who are professionals that can legitimately help you
Speaker 1: navigate what you've been feeling. So don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: get some help. Can I just add a truth? This
Speaker 1: is why? Yes, So one of one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I also there's so many reasons why I became
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist, but one of the reasons why I wanted
Speaker 1: to become a psychiatrist is because, you know, as black
Speaker 1: people collectively, we are amazing, beautiful beings and we have
Speaker 1: been able to make it this far in the world
Speaker 1: and every and every walk of life we touch. We're
Speaker 1: still the trend setters. Were still you know, the people
Speaker 1: who are showing other people how to do things and
Speaker 1: if we can just get our mental health together. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, can you imagine? Can you we be like
Speaker 1: earth wind and fire covers, like like pyramids, you know,
Speaker 1: like shining and gold. It's exactly. It's so true. It's
Speaker 1: so true, so much. Thank you so much for all
Speaker 1: the best for season two, with your filming and all that.
Speaker 1: Um oh goodness, such a great time it was. You
Speaker 1: gotta have you back of course, any time, anytime, just
Speaker 1: calling me. I'm always down, and plus you are from
Speaker 1: New York, you know, at the very least we can
Speaker 1: keep key. Be sure to follow us on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm Cadeine, I am and I am And if you're
Speaker 1: listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review, share,
Speaker 1: subscribe to your friends, tell your family. All that good
Speaker 1: stuff and dead Ass is a production of Stitcher. It's
Speaker 1: produced by T Square and Dinora Penia. Our chief content
Speaker 1: Officer is Chris Bannon. Our associate producers are Kristen Torres
Speaker 1: and Trouble, our studio engineer and original music is by
Speaker 1: Brendan Burns and mixed by Andy. Christine's daughter. We'll back.
Speaker 1: I'm Drew McCarry and I'm David Roth. We have a
Speaker 1: podcast school right now. It's part of the stitchen. Ever,
Speaker 1: we're called Substraction. That's available everywhere. Getting a podcast at Stitcher, Spotify, Apple, Go.
Speaker 1: Listen right now to the Distraction right now. It's out.
Speaker 1: Do it, please m