Dear Me, Lets Have An Honest Conversation

The most avoided, hardest, and honest conversation you can have....is with yourself.

Transcript

 I probably, I probably thought about this episode the most out of, uh, any other episode and I, uh,

thought about if I should do the episode. Um, to be honest, uh, point of the episode would be, um, me kind of just being honest with myself. It's not, uh, something I wanna do, not something, uh, yes. It's not something I wanna do. Um, to hear myself say anything. It's, it's real. And it's one thing to say it internally, it's another thing to hear it externally.

Uh, me listening to myself on the silent struggles of. What men face with mental health. Just watching my words was, who is that? That doesn't, that doesn't look like me. That doesn't feel like me. I can't believe I'm talking so vulnerably, so comfortable. Um, people message me after saying how great the episode was.

Some strangers as well, how necessary the episode is. And, uh. A friend of mine told me, you know, I'm giving like some people some power, if you will. It's, it's not, it's not, it's not my intention. Um,

just, I don't know. I don't, I don't even know how to start. I. I know what I wanna say. This is one of the only episodes. I did an outline before. I'm doing it with, uh, a raspy voice 'cause I'm getting over something with my throat as well. But I wanna do it now while I'm in this moment to be as honest as possible.

Oh. To be honest, I'm kind of miserable. I don't even wanna say kind of, I'm miserable. Uh, I'm really debating if, if I have functional depression with a lot that's happening in my life, that's around my life, that's essentially affecting my life. Uh.

I'm not diagnosed that self, self-diagnosis. Um, but I, I come up with that because I, I had my first therapy session in little over a year now, and in that session she asked me if I have any plans of hurting myself or anyone else. And I don't, but I've only heard that question asked to people who they think has depression.

Again, that's just from my observations, that's not any experience. 'cause I couldn't say I was again, ever diagnosed with depression. Um, I told my therapist that I, uh, that I feel bad for myself right now. Um, I didn't, I didn't, uh, I. I didn't want to admit that to myself that I, that's how I feel because I would just try to fight through it.

Try to fight through it, try to fight through it. I have my wife fighting depression. Um, I have my kids that they still need, you know, a father and everything, and I'm doing my best for them and to provide, but like.

Since September, things have been pretty tough of last year. The last four years has been very tough and I had to deal with a lot of stuff kind of on my own. Uh, people could say you have your partner, but when your partner needs you more than, than anything you. You wanna provide for your partner, and that's can be in support, that can be in sacrifice, that can be in anything needed.

And when people say to me, you're strong, you're strong, you're strong. One of the reasons I I say I'm so strong is because I always tell myself like, X, Y, Z won't defeat me. This mindset won't defeat me. I won't let this win. Uh, I won't even let it sink in. I'm tired. I'm very, very, very tired. I've been wanting to take a break from work for over three years now.

I've never had any thoughts of taking a medical leave, but I can't. I can't take, I can't take the leave. I have to provide for other people, and that means me just. Putting up with it, putting up with the sacrifice, uh, living in, you know, disappointment in a lot of moments and just kind of just getting so used to that, that it wasn't, as you heard in the early episodes in my podcast, that I said, I need to institute self care.

I need to, I need to make me a part of the equation. I'm so used to putting everyone above me. I don't, I don't know, I don't wanna say, oh, that's what dad does, or That's what a man does. I just feel like that's what I do. I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do. That's what I witness people doing. I witness my parents having tough days and they're gonna work every day.

No extra vacations, no extra sick times. You go in. That's what I do. I just go in. But it's, it's tough. It's real tough right in my, for me right now too. Every day I wake up saying, oh, I wanna call out. But I, I go in, I think of every day about the next day off. Like holiday answer to one extended weekend a month doesn't feel like enough really, just to be really honest and really fantasizing about just getting away for a little while and just being in isolation.

But I. I don't have anywhere where I feel like would be what I'm looking for. I've thought about, which is kind of weird, just checking into the mental hospital as like an, a way to get away without inconveniencing anyone, and also kind of being comfortable doing that. But I don't want to be around anybody.

I, I, I just want be home by myself. For like a week at minimum, and just do nothing. Just lounge and just relax. Just rest. Just rest my mind. Rest my body. Just, just have some me time. I spend all my time for everybody else. Oh. You can't do that. I'll step up. Oh, you made a mistake. I'll take care of it. Oh, you need me to take that off your plate?

I'll put it on my plate. And I just don't know how many plates I have right now, but I know it's too many and I know I can't continue to take all these plates, especially if they have plates that, and many times I don't feel like I have a choice what to take in. F It really frustrates me now with that, that I'm just like, my gosh, I really can't just, I can't just catch a break.

I can't, I can't just relax. Not truly.

I, I don't, I, I, I, when people, people hear me say like, I struggle with gratitude, and for me to feel like I have my wife struggling and me thinking about myself, it's. I feel selfish, but at the same time, I'm, I'm, the mindset is like, when do I get to think about myself? When, when, when, when, when do I have that chance?

I never give myself that chance. I never get the ability to take that chance, and I just feel like I, I deserve it. Like, I don't need a lot. I just, again, just want some isolation. Uh. I want my wife to get better. I want her to be back to the way she was. I'm tired of the dark cloud over her and over the house and just her, her.

She's nothing. She's nothing like the person that she was.

It's one thing to see it happen one time. It's another thing to see your wife go through this several times for long periods of time. Then to be going through it while pregnant, where our pregnancy right now, it doesn't feel,

doesn't feel like the moment it should be. Feels like something we're waiting to get over with. Like we're excited to have the twins, but the high pregnancies is just another thing on. Life that at least for me, I just would like to check off and say one less thing. It's kind of weird for me to, to look at my paternity leave as my break that I want from work.

In a sense. I feel like I'm taking something off my plate, although I'm pointing on two new things. That's probably tougher. Yeah, I don't, I don't have a, a mandated schedule for a little while. I can come and go, wake up, sleep, whatever. Just have a lot of liberty that I feel like I want. I feel bad 'cause I'm always thinking about what's the next day I could take off?

Should I take a week off? Should I just wait till the kids are here? Should I wait for something else? But what I do know is I, I have to use vacation. I just don't have the liberty to just go, um, many ways. I kind of respect that from my wife. She's like, I'm just gonna take it. I just don't think I'm in that position to do that.

I have too, too many. Too many things I'm supporting to be, to be in an an analogy, I feel like I'm just the foundation and I enjoy being the foundation, but it's tough to be the foundation. If you think of it like this, the foundation supports the structure. When the structure crumbles and collapses on top of the foundation, the foundation still supports it.

It doesn't have a choice. It's, it's, it's placed there to hold it up no matter what. Be dependable. It's only when the foundation begins to really start to crack that you, you get a little worried and I don't know, I feel like I'm cracked, but then I feel like I can. I can just fight through it like I always do, which I know I can't do, but I just don't feel like I, I just want to, right now, I just feel like I just wanna just soak this in.

I just wanna relax. I just feel like I should relax and I, I realize if the person isn't doing well, the titles, the person holds won't do well if the man is not doing good. The husband's not gonna do good. The father won't do his best. My kids are gonna say, I'm doing great. But again, I think about going away for a little while, all the time, but I don't want to go away 'cause I don't want to leave my kids.

I am angry all day, whether it looks like it or not. I'm, I'm boiling small things. Make me seep out some of my frustrations. Justify it or not, doesn't, doesn't make sense. And I got mad at Avery the other day. He's been having a lot of poop accidents and he's seven. And it's been frustrating because he went through the potty training, he was well, and then he, he regressed.

He was okay. Maybe he's regressive 'cause of Blair and then no, he continues to regress and then he goes up a little bit and he comes back, he goes up, he goes back, he goes up, he goes back, he goes up. And it's three years of this and we're doing everything. We talk to pediatricians, we try support systems.

We try taking away something. We try punishment, we say punish, we learn punishment's not the way to go. We try encouragement, we try rewards, we try, just keeps coming back. And so the other day I got mad. And it was four time in a row of him telling me as I'm about to put him on the bus, and one day he went to school like that and we wasn't aware and got a call from the school for him to do that almost the next week.

My first thought was, they're gonna think we're horrible parents. Like, what are we, what are we doing here? I'm asking you, I'm checking you. You are not telling me. For me to have to pull your trousers back and then look and see, oh, you got a friend going with you to school? No, we gotta shower. So for him to do that and knowing that he had all the time in the world, and it wasn't until I said, put your shoes on, that he tells me, oh, I have to shower, that I, I get frustrated and I get mad and I yell at him and I tell him, just gotta stop.

And then after I stopped yelling at him. I thought about it and I said, I said, is it me? Am I failing you? It's gotta, it's gotta be me. It's gotta be me failing you somehow. What am I doing that's not, that's not helping you with this? And I really thought about it. I was like, I shouldn't, shouldn't be mad at him.

I should probably do a better job teaching him somehow, some way. And so I changed their approach a little bit. After that. And, and when I got to his school before we walked in, I kneeled in front of him because one thing is I like to do is if I feel like I'm wrong, I want to talk to him about it. I want to tell him I'm wrong, and he always says it's okay.

And I always tell him it's not okay. It shouldn't be acceptable to, to be talked to, you know, in the, at least if you feel you're wrong, you should tell 'em. That's how I feel. I wasn't raised that way. We. We just move on. And then times kind of presents itself as the healing mechanism. But I don't think that's the way I wanna raise my kids.

So I tell 'em, no, this isn't right. This isn't acceptable. This isn't, this isn't how you, you should be taught to. And then I said, Avery, do, do you feel loved? And he said, no.

I respected his honesty so much, but that that broke me. I signed him in. I told him he was loved, and I drove home crying.

I got home, joined the work meeting. Thank God for cameras needed. Nothing needed to be on, and I cried. I got the phone call to pick up my wife from her treatment, and I cried on the drive there too.

That's probably the first time I could say I cried. Something that really impacted me emotionally that wasn't a death, and I don't even know when I felt so bad for him, and I see. I put a lot of my emotions in him and me feeling bad for him just was another reminder to myself how I feel bad for myself.

Like I feel bad for myself. I try to do the best I can for things and some things I can control, some things I can to things I can't control to just come back and then they come back strong and. It's just like, what am I, what am I getting? I'm trying so hard to do things. I'm trying really hard to be a good person, genuinely, and I just feel like I get kind of the shit end of the stick and over and over, over and over, over and over.

Sacrifice after sacrifice. Just continue to sacrifice until I think that's my identity is sacrifice. And I just felt bad for myself and I do feel bad for myself. Like Jesus.

When Avery got home, I, the first thing I told him is I told him how much he's loved. And I know kids can be like big emotions off of small things. And when I asked him, I said, why do you always not feel loved? And he said, only when you yell at me.

I said, okay, I get it. But I don't have, I never want to hear that again, that I'll make it my child not feel loved. I put all myself into my kids. I put so much into my, my, my wife. I put very little into me and yeah, I can just do what I normally do and just win, fight through how I feel right now, but I just don't feel like I should just feel like I should just sit and enjoy it.

Ironically, like there's a little pleasure in it because it's the first time that I'll be saying to myself like, you can, you can relax. You can embrace being tired. I will say the best thing, once Avery told me, even though it's been a couple days, I've been extremely patient with him, extremely patient, more patient than before, extremely present.

Gets on from school and my meetings, Hey, let's go outside. Let's play catch baseball. Oh, you wanna play tag here? Let's go. Oh, you wanna do that? Sure. And I think I should do that as much as possible with him, because that's one thing is I realized is that I think I've been fighting my mental state for so long to try to find moments for me that I can.

I realized that I wasn't really giving him true attention in the way that I think I should really sit. No phone. Just, Hey, how's your day? Oh, hey, you want to go outside? And a lot of times he ask me, can I go outside? Inside? I'm going, geez man, just wanna stay inside and just relax. And then I say, get off the devices, or what other, what other options am I giving them?

I did say when it got warmer, we will start going out more. It's gotten warmer and that's what we're doing, but

him to say again, I don't feel loved, and for me to see his face say that with embarrassment, but also see the pain a little bit in his eyes

for him to still. Look up to me in those moments, I can tell where he's just like, I, I'm gonna respect you. I'm gonna do what you say. But not, but, but when you ask him certain emotional questions like that, he mumbles and he didn't mumble. He said no, and he shook his head and everything. He said no. And he looked me straight in my face.

I.

Like, like I said, that that was very hard for me not to cry at the school. I cried on that way home. I, I cried real good.

Parenting is tough. It's the best job in the world. Toughest job in the world.

It's also one of the jobs that

people can evaluate you on and you evaluate yourself on it. Then the kids evaluate you on, you have, you have, you have a big responsibility. My friend said, men should talk more and open no more than this is, this is my way of doing it. Might be, it's not even, I don't even know. I think I have so many things.

I wanna say so many things I don't wanna say. 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want me to say it. I don't want to hear me say it.

I don't want to even, I, I'll tell you how my brain works. When my brain tells myself self negative, I, I overcome it. And then I, I've just been like this since I was, I was a kid. I remember as a kid, I, uh, asked for help, you know, a few times and. This is in a range of years. And I remember both times feeling like I was a burden for it.

And I told myself right there, like, you will learn to do on your own. You don't know how to fix that computer. You will learn to fix that problem. You don't know how to do this. You will learn to do that. And I think with that, it gave me the grit. It gave me the perseverance and the resilience to do what I do and continue to just have struggles and say, I will overcome it to.

I feel like if you really want it, you get to the top mountain, that's when it's the toughest, and then you, you get through it and then you have good days. But that's again, when you put yourself to go through the mountain, to climb the mountain, I feel I have 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 mountains on top of me. People pulling on my top.

John could take it. John could hold it. No questions. I don't even think, I don't even think it's considered. Maybe it's too heavy. Maybe it's too many. Maybe I don't wanna hold it.

I said to my wife the other day.

When was the last time you asked me how I'm doing?

And to be honest, I was mad at, I was so mad at her. She didn't even do anything. She had one tiny thing and because I was just so over the top, I was thinking about my own self that when she said that, it just was another of a, oh, you made an error on something or you're talking about yourself. What about me?

How are we gonna ask how I'm doing? My friend Greg asked me that the other day.

I ain't answering, but I Do you tell everyone how you truly doing and everything? I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if I'm gonna release this.

I thought about doing this, screaming, crying, yelling, calm, thought about what I would say, what I wanna say, what do I feel, what don't I feel, or what I, only thing I kept thinking is this would be good to, to see myself, see if I recognize myself. I don't feel it. Let's see if I see, when I look at myself, how I feel,

and also to do what people say that we should talk more. So this is me talking. I don't know if I'll do a lot or any episodes like this. Do know. I enjoy talking about the different aspects of being a man.

No witness that. Brings all you an education that I get from it. Learn learning about myself, learn about other people.

Just thanks for listening. This is Jonathan

from Times with that.