Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Tell You Why He Left

00:00:00.000 classes in session. Hey, and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session, guys, you just get me today.

00:00:09.660 You just get me. But I'm going to try to talk about something. A lot of people have asked me

00:00:15.120 to talk about it. I've done it a little bit in different ways. I've done a tick talk about it.

00:00:20.600 I'm going to see how it goes. It might not be the easiest thing in the world for me to do,

00:00:24.700 but I think it's important that I do. So you get to know a little bit more about me

00:00:28.640 and about the family. First of all, I'm almost talked my mom into doing a podcast.

00:00:35.740 It's very exciting. She's almost there. She's almost there. We just need the perfect outfit.

00:00:40.800 This podcast is actually going to be about my dad. And a lot of people ask me about where is he? Why

00:00:49.860 don't I talk about him a lot? And I've done a few different things here and there about him.

00:00:53.860 But I think it's important that I do this TikTok for a whole bunch of reasons.

00:01:01.380 And for me, maybe it'll be a little bit cathartic.

00:01:04.340 I talked a little bit about it on my last podcast, but I think it's important.

00:01:08.460 So my parents got divorced or got separated when I was three.

00:01:17.800 Now, you have to understand that when I was three, like as I got a little bit older,

00:01:21.340 I thought the reason why they split up was because, honest to God, my mom liked figure

00:01:27.400 skating and my dad liked mash. When they split up, my dad became a very present parent in the

00:01:36.240 sense that he was at all my baseball games. He was at all my school functions. He was present

00:01:41.780 in that way. He made sure that whatever money was supposed to be paid, we talked every day,

00:01:46.440 but he was never there and what I mean by that is there was a an emotional wall that I never

00:01:54.860 understood as a kid that I just thought was who he was and then and then later who I was

00:02:01.080 as a result and I and I just thought that that was my way of being so I was a very emotionally

00:02:09.200 limited I know you guys have heard me tell stories before about my dad and about us being

00:02:15.880 out together. And he never really, he wasn't a big expression guy, right? He told a very long,

00:02:23.240 long, long story, very methodical. Maybe that's where I get my stories from. But he wasn't very

00:02:31.820 much in touch with the emotion. So when my dad wouldn't get upset, he wouldn't get angry,

00:02:35.980 he wouldn't laugh. There was nothing big. In retrospect, obviously, there were some serious

00:02:42.360 mental health issues. And when it comes to his side of the family, it's clear as day that there

00:02:47.680 was some serious mental health issues. I'm not going to go through all of their different things,

00:02:52.080 but I remember as a kid, when my parents got divorced, my mom would always come with me

00:02:57.120 to my grandparents on my dad's side. She would always come with me to that house

00:03:00.640 to Christmas or to whatever birthday stuff, whatever we were doing there.

00:03:06.080 And my mom, I'd never want to go. I'd never want to go. There was like this feeling in the pit of

00:03:10.960 my stomach or I just wouldn't want to go. And I would become an adult. And I mean, an adult in

00:03:17.080 my thirties before I realized some of the stuff that went on in that house and why I felt the

00:03:23.340 way I did. And I didn't know, and my mom didn't know. But my dad always battled with that to the

00:03:30.020 point where one time he, we were at his friend's house and I was playing with his friend's kids

00:03:36.200 and they were playing cards. The adults were playing cards and the kids, and I heard my dad

00:03:40.140 laugh. And when I heard my dad laugh, I lost my, like a big kind of guttural, big laugh. I lost my

00:03:46.720 mind. I lost my mind. I called my mom. I said, dad's drunk. My dad wasn't drunk. He didn't even

00:03:52.040 have, he had a drink in front of him. My dad was six, four, about 300 pounds. And my dad gets on

00:03:57.500 the phone. He goes, Ange, I haven't even had a drink. I'm not drunk. And I said, but I heard him

00:04:03.160 laugh. And my dad ended up driving me home that night because I was adamant. I was adamant.

00:04:10.140 And it's those moments when I look back and those stories get retold, I'm like, Jesus, what was going on with him?

00:04:20.180 And back then, you got to know that this would have been a long, before people talked about mental health, before people really talked about depression.

00:04:27.600 My grandma was manic, so they talked about that, but they kind of talked about it like she got it when she got old, which wasn't the case.

00:04:34.380 And then it was kind of also kind of swept under the rug.

00:04:36.740 Nobody really, you just kind of dealt with it, you didn't talk about it.

00:04:40.140 And my dad, looking back, his mental health was constantly at risk, I think. And that laughing and me responding to that. Can you imagine today being so shocked that somebody could laugh hard? You thought they were intoxicated by simply that.

00:05:02.220 so I think about that a lot and as I got older my dad ended up moving to Florida he got a really

00:05:09.360 good job in Florida and so I would visit him he'd fly me down every March break with my friends and

00:05:16.460 I know some of my TikToks share those ridiculous stories but he'd just he'd take care of us right

00:05:22.760 he'd take us wherever we wanted to go he'd make sure you know he was just the kind of dad very

00:05:28.540 service driven. You know, we'd sit and watch TV and he would click the remote control back in the

00:05:35.960 day when we all watch TV, like it was a freaking sport. We'd never see more than 30 seconds of

00:05:41.320 anything. But I remember also when I was about 16 years old, you guys are going to understand when

00:05:47.200 I get to the end of the story, where I'm going with all this. I was about 16 years old. I became

00:05:52.260 aware of why my parents got divorced. My dad was unfaithful. My mom made him make a choice.

00:06:00.860 My mom says to this day that if she made him, she gave him an out and in giving him the out,

00:06:09.300 she kind of, she hoped that he chose us and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. But she said,

00:06:15.700 listen, if this isn't for you, just don't be here when we get back kind of thing. And he wasn't.

00:06:18.960 And that's how that ended. But my mom never bad mouthed him. She never talked horribly. And to be honest, they stayed very much friends. And my mom still says, to this day, your dad was always looking for something, something else to make him happy.

00:06:35.780 Now, could it have been another person?

00:06:37.660 Sure.

00:06:38.060 Could it have been buying something?

00:06:39.460 Could it have been driving through and looking at bigger houses?

00:06:42.240 It was like everything he did was externally driven to fill something that I think we as

00:06:51.060 a society now see as being a level of, you know, I would say depression.

00:06:58.220 That would be my guess, right?

00:06:59.920 And it obviously can only be a guess because he wasn't diagnosed until much later.

00:07:05.720 So I remember sitting beside him when I was 16 years old, and I was kind of angry with him. And I was angry with him because of these walls he'd built. And I was angry with him because I didn't have the relationship I wanted. And I was angry with him because he didn't seem too affected by it.

00:07:20.560 And then I caught myself as we're watching TV together. I was rubbing my feet. You know how you cross your legs and your feet are together and you just move your feet? A lot of people do that. Tons of people do that.

00:07:33.400 I noticed him and I doing it the exact same way and I internally freaked out because I'm like

00:07:43.140 I haven't been raised by my dad he's been in my life but there's no way I picked up that habit

00:07:47.840 that's like a genetic predisposition to something and I freaked out because I looked at my dad and

00:07:53.960 how cut off he was and how he was always searching and how I didn't feel connected I'm like I'm

00:07:59.680 going to grow up to be just like that. That's just who I am. I don't have, I felt like at 16 years

00:08:06.220 old, I didn't have a depth to myself, if that makes any sense. And in retrospect, guys, I was

00:08:13.800 gay. I just wasn't willing to admit it. And I wasn't, you know, I had no idea at the time.

00:08:21.940 And it was just a level that I didn't tap into. And when I tapped into it, I realized, oh my God,

00:08:26.780 I have all this emotion. I have all of this, which thank God. But I had to wait till after

00:08:31.360 a pretty traumatic thing happened to me to really jump into that. And as he lived in Florida,

00:08:38.940 I would see him twice a year. He would come up at Christmas. I would go down on March break kind of

00:08:42.600 thing sometimes in the summer. But for the most part, we talked on the phone and that was our

00:08:47.080 relationship. Now, when I was about 24, he lost his job. And when he lost his job, my dad's job,

00:08:55.120 by the way, I used to tell everybody my dad typed for a living because I remember seeing his office

00:08:59.320 when I was a kid. And I remember just seeing this typewriter in his office. That's how old I am,

00:09:04.000 folks. And I thought that's what he did. And I didn't understand, right? Now, as I got a bit

00:09:08.760 older, I understood he sold and he became the North American sales manager for regulators and

00:09:15.620 rectifiers, which was a part of an alternator. I'm just trying to imagine what that job would

00:09:21.840 have been like. Now, do I know he took pride in his job? I don't know. He never talked about it,

00:09:26.380 guys. He did it and he did it well. He did it well enough to get this job in Florida.

00:09:31.820 And he got paid very well. And I think for a lot of men, my dad included, they derive a lot of

00:09:37.740 their identity. They derive a lot of their sense of wellbeing from their job. And especially when

00:09:45.240 we don't make it a priority for men specifically to understand their emotionality, to be in touch

00:09:53.420 with their emotionality, to be able to verbalize it, to be able to connect with other people in

00:09:58.720 a real way. And men just end up saying, well, my job is to make X amount of money. I make X amount

00:10:04.940 of money. I can give it to my family. My daughter goes to school. She gets what she needs, all that

00:10:10.340 kind of stuff. And that's their whole identity. And then he lost his job. He got fired from his

00:10:14.680 job. I never really understand the full story, but he lost his job. And in that moment,

00:10:22.140 I think he lost, well, I know he lost his identity. Where else was he deriving it from?

00:10:29.200 If he didn't know how to form an intimate relationship, if he didn't know how to talk

00:10:34.060 about how he felt, if he didn't have extra sort of curricular things that drove him and he was

00:10:41.320 passionate about. I'm pretty sure he wasn't passionate about a regulator and a rectifier.

00:10:45.740 Heaven forbid, I'll always remember those terms. And by the way, I've seen the operating floor,

00:10:50.360 so I know exactly how they're all made. But if that was his identity, and then it was stripped

00:10:55.620 away, and the way that he lost his job, he kind of went head to head with the boss's son-in-law,

00:11:01.440 and that never plays out. One of them had to go, and it was going to be my dad. And then when he

00:11:07.360 went, he was, guys, I guess he was my age, which is kind of crazy. And when he was a bit older than

00:11:19.660 I am now, you know, he was pushing, well, no, he was exactly my, oh, wow. That's crazy. I'm sitting

00:11:31.200 here thinking about why I was doing this podcast today. And I just realized this would have been

00:11:36.020 the age. So when he had a very high-paying job, he got fired from that job. Once he gets fired from

00:11:42.600 that job, he can't get another one. And when he can't get another one, I think the depression he

00:11:49.900 dropped into was all-encompassing. Because whatever, let's say, level of mental uncertainty

00:11:59.120 or mental health issues he dealt with before that he could mitigate by having a really good job and

00:12:04.200 serving this particular role. He no longer had it. And when it evaporated, he just fell into

00:12:11.140 a depression. Now, here's the problem. He was in Florida. He had a new wife. Of course, I wasn't a

00:12:16.100 fan. He had a new wife, but I had no idea. My mom had no idea of how bad it had gotten, right? He

00:12:25.240 was unemployed for about a year. And maybe at that time, you know, money was a situation. Maybe at

00:12:32.260 that time it was more of a breaking point about whether they could keep the house like I don't

00:12:37.540 know I don't know any of those things because I wasn't privy to that um I do remember I that year

00:12:44.860 when he couldn't send me a plane ticket I didn't go like he couldn't buy it because he didn't have

00:12:50.440 money and i regret that obviously um i didn't go and the following summer

00:13:01.240 um he and i'm gonna be careful with my wording here he decided to leave this world um

00:13:11.560 Um, and at this point I can see it as a reflection, apparently, um, I'll come back to sort of what

00:13:23.680 happened there because when I found out, I remember I was at a Blue Jay game, um, with a guy I had

00:13:29.540 been seeing. Yes, a guy I'd been seeing. And we came back to my house and everybody was at my

00:13:35.880 house. My mom, my mom, my uncle, my aunt, I pulled in and all these cars are in the driveway. I'm

00:13:41.960 like, what's going on? I come in and I look around and everybody's quiet and just looks at me. And

00:13:47.060 Adam was with me at the door and he's like, my mom's like, Adam, you should go home, you know,

00:13:51.660 because he was going to come in. He's like, okay. And so he goes home and I'm looking around like,

00:13:55.480 what's going on right now? And everything got real quiet. And I thought something,

00:14:00.360 first I thought something happened to my cat, which you think the whole family comes over for

00:14:06.360 that. And then I thought something happened to one of my grandparents, my grandpa specifically.

00:14:11.100 And I'm like, what, what? And then my mom came closer to me. I go, I don't want to talk. Like

00:14:15.340 I literally backed away. I'm like, I don't want any part of this. I don't want to. And I was

00:14:18.700 laughing going, get away from me. What are you doing? What are you doing? And my mom told me

00:14:23.800 that my dad had passed and she very quickly told me how and guys I like before I had been so angry

00:14:36.540 with him and I kind of thought what would it be like if he wasn't in my life it really wouldn't

00:14:40.500 matter to me like I had all those horrible thoughts as a kid right like oh he doesn't even really want

00:14:46.620 to be. And then as I figure that out or whatever, I pretty much just crumble. I cry for a very long

00:14:56.340 time. And then I'm just numb. Absolutely numb. And I sit at my kitchen table. My mom calls my

00:15:02.740 best friend. And my best friend at the time, Natalie, came over. And I remember she sat across

00:15:08.540 from me at that kitchen table for, guys, five hours. And we sat in dead silence. We didn't talk

00:15:16.900 about it. We didn't talk about anything. We just sat there. To this day, I always, you know, when

00:15:24.480 I speak to her, I always remind her of that very, very beautiful support that I didn't even know I

00:15:31.040 needed in that capacity. And so all of this happened. I took time off work and I'm like,

00:15:35.880 I don't want to go anywhere. I was just, I was angry. I was sad. And my mom had told me how it

00:15:46.320 happened. I'm not going to delve into that here, but let me just say that it was uncharacteristic

00:15:51.220 of my dad. My dad is the kind of guy that he took my mom to see The Exorcist. And when they showed

00:15:58.020 the blood, the needle in the neck and the blood spurting in the movie, my dad, six foot four,

00:16:02.620 300 pounds passed out. So that's who my dad was. So for him to do what he did in the way in which

00:16:09.960 he did it, all I could think at some point is he was in, he couldn't have been in his right mind.

00:16:16.860 If he was in his right mind, he, he would have passed out first, right? He would have passed out

00:16:23.140 first. Um, and you know, the rest of the summer was painful. And then I go back to school. I have

00:16:32.360 to go back to university. I go off to university and I was in my third year and I go back to

00:16:36.900 university and it's just, everything's just hard and I'm angry and I'm hurt and I'm upset,

00:16:44.300 but I don't talk to anybody about it, which again, heaven help me guys, was such a reflection of who

00:16:50.280 he was. And as I struggled through that semester, I end up, and I said this in my podcast, I end up

00:16:58.900 meeting kind of coincidentally an anglican minister i'm not religious at all and i i was

00:17:05.060 doing an interview for a school project and i sat down with her and ended up spilling everything

00:17:09.060 like just everything um my mom took me to a therapist at some point but i didn't really

00:17:14.180 vibe with her but this person i just everything that was in my head i i spilled to her uh i have

00:17:24.420 no idea why to this day she was brilliant she helped me through in many many different ways

00:17:30.420 um i'm gonna give you one way she told me to write him a letter in my left hand because at

00:17:34.980 this point i was angry i was angry at him purposely choosing or i thought purposely

00:17:40.900 choosing to leave me how freaking self-involved was that um and i still at that point you gotta

00:17:48.260 know it's 25 it's a long time ago it was like what 20 years ago and i still didn't and i didn't

00:17:54.340 get it. I didn't get it. And I blamed him and I was angry. And I was angry that eventually I found

00:18:01.400 out he was, he saw a therapist, he was heavily medicated with whatever they gave him at the

00:18:07.940 time. And at some point he just decided to stop taking it all. And that's when this happened,

00:18:12.120 which, you know, nowadays we have such open, or we try to have more open lines of communication.

00:18:18.660 The problem was back then, not only does people not talk about mental health issues,

00:18:23.720 everybody kept it from us. So his wife didn't tell me. Nobody told my mom. It was like we were

00:18:30.240 completely in the dark and then this happened. So there was all of this anger towards them for not

00:18:35.760 telling. There was anger towards him for doing what he did. There was resentment and blame for

00:18:43.000 me. I didn't go see him. I didn't do this. What if I would have called him more? And you just,

00:18:48.720 like there's no way unless you've gone through it that you can understand the depths of blame

00:18:58.780 that you can shift and maybe your brain has to shift it i was much happier in anger

00:19:05.300 it's much much more lovely place to live during that but you shift it so much because there's

00:19:13.500 no possible way you can live and think, what if? So this Anglican minister sat me down and said,

00:19:21.400 listen, you can't live there, but how about this? How about you write him a letter and tell him

00:19:27.100 what he's missing? Tell him who you are. Tell him why you're angry. Tell him what you wish you would

00:19:34.760 have had. Tell him what you're never going to get to have because he wasn't here. And so I sat down,

00:19:41.340 I wrote this thing with my left hand and, uh, I'm right-handed by the way. So the, the job of this

00:19:47.180 little experiment is to write something with your other hand, because it's supposed to trigger,

00:19:51.440 it's supposed to get in contact with your, you really have to think about every word, right?

00:19:57.620 It's not subconscious. It's a very, very conscious act. So I wrote it. Um, I tucked it away and I,

00:20:06.820 I kept going back to this woman for that year, um, in order to sort of firmly plant myself

00:20:14.360 somewhere. I didn't know what I needed from that, which is interesting. I didn't know how to resolve

00:20:22.040 it. Sometimes I still don't know how to resolve a choice that a parent makes. I think I understand

00:20:29.920 it more now. I think I understand that kind of unhappiness and that kind of desperation and that

00:20:37.200 kind of lack of any sort of drive or any sort of place of being. Did he think that he didn't

00:20:47.380 matter besides the paycheck he put on the table? And I think about, not just about my dad, because

00:20:56.320 I think about a lot of young men and men in general who are never taught to develop that

00:21:03.100 other side, who are never taught their value outside of that because it's not a part of

00:21:09.040 their education. It's not a part of their socialization, which we have to change. Have

00:21:14.620 to. It doesn't mean mental health gets changes across the board as soon as we, but it means that

00:21:19.980 at least people can talk about it. And as that's all happening, I'm still trying to struggle and

00:21:27.240 figure it out and struggle and figure it out. And I, and I remember that following year,

00:21:33.920 and here's some interesting parts of who I am. That following year is when

00:21:41.200 i went to york university i i graduate i mean i graduated western went to york university

00:21:51.460 and met people and met a community where being a part of the lgbtq everybody used the term partner

00:22:00.760 so i thought everybody was gay and it was brand new and and we were all on strike and we were all

00:22:05.660 walking. And I realized that the, I don't know if I even realized I was gay in that moment. I

00:22:15.540 realized I didn't want to live the way he lived, but I didn't see an avenue out. I didn't feel like

00:22:24.680 I was struggling with, like I was sad that he passed, but I, I didn't feel like I was struggling

00:22:29.220 with any kind of depression, but I know, I know I was struggling with how do I connect?

00:22:36.040 How do I connect? And why am I not connecting as big as other people are?

00:22:41.720 And then I met my first girlfriend and did I get rocked by her? Yeah, absolutely. But I felt

00:22:48.180 what it was to connect. And this story isn't talking about, I'm not saying it because I'm

00:22:55.260 like, oh, well, cause some people are like, oh, well, your dad died. So that's obviously why

00:22:59.060 you're getting, listen, it's asinine. It's asinine. But sometimes what a tragedy or something that 0.99

00:23:08.040 traumatic can do is shake your foundation enough to loosen whatever tight grip you thought you had

00:23:17.700 to have on your emotion or who you wanted to be or who you thought you should be in order to loosen

00:23:24.300 and that. And if you have, by the grace of whatever, if you have a moment where you just

00:23:31.260 get to be free enough and brave enough and the timing works out perfectly enough so that you

00:23:39.720 can carve out and you can step into who you were always meant to be. Now, being, listen, and again,

00:23:50.140 sexuality isn't the driving force. People are like, why is your sexuality? That's not the

00:23:57.360 driving force. You know what the driving force of humanity is? I'm going to be real, real clear

00:24:01.860 here, and I want people to listen. The driving force of humanity should be intimacy. How do I

00:24:08.920 and who do I connect with? How do I become vulnerable enough to achieve intimacy with

00:24:16.720 people in my world, whether they're friends, whether they're partners, whether they're family

00:24:21.400 members, so I can truly express who I am and I can truly listen to who they are. And for me,

00:24:30.880 that was with women. And when I figured that out and I felt that, and I felt that that was 0.55

00:24:38.120 something I could connect to, that changed everything. And it didn't change everything

00:24:44.360 because of who I was, you know, dating.

00:24:46.480 It changed everything because I wasn't him.

00:24:50.860 Now, don't think.

00:24:52.000 I don't think.

00:24:53.080 Sometimes. 0.62

00:24:54.060 I wonder if my dad was gay.

00:24:56.600 My mom says no.

00:24:58.400 But she goes, I don't know.

00:24:59.520 Maybe.

00:25:00.740 Maybe he couldn't connect.

00:25:03.620 Maybe he couldn't.

00:25:04.820 Maybe there was something stopping him.

00:25:07.580 Maybe that wasn't just, you know.

00:25:10.300 Because if we're all searching for ways to connect,

00:25:13.440 And when we can't figure it out, maybe that's the thing that stands in our way of being happy.

00:25:23.640 And if it stands in the way of that kind of fulfillment and that kind of connection, maybe that's at the root.

00:25:31.860 I'm not saying of all mental health issues, and please don't think I'm boiling everything down to one thing.

00:25:37.040 But I will say this.

00:25:38.900 I think the human soul, the spirit, the whatever you want to call it

00:25:45.140 needs to feel connected

00:25:46.660 and if they're not connected

00:25:49.640 I think there is danger

00:25:52.660 in that level of

00:25:56.400 isolation

00:25:59.260 that is so incredibly dangerous

00:26:02.500 that I think it leads

00:26:05.500 and it can spiral out of turn real quick

00:26:08.040 so when i talk about my dad and when i talk about what i saw that was missing and when i talk about

00:26:14.540 what happened to him and and how i could have or would have wanted to stop it when i talk about

00:26:19.960 all of those different facets that go into it the reason why i want to talk about it is a

00:26:25.120 going through trauma if you're paying attention as horrible as it is and guys it was

00:26:34.220 will shake something loose for you to step into something potentially more beautiful

00:26:43.580 because you're going to be so shaken you're going to let go of what you think and just do what you

00:26:51.660 feel and if we did what we felt more often without the expectation of somebody else without the

00:26:59.460 control of somebody else and the media and this and that, whatever. And we stepped into it. I think

00:27:05.740 the, the idea of being a whole person becomes a lot more achievable. And then we have to think

00:27:16.280 of how do we connect with people? And you know what I'm, I'm looking at today and I'm looking

00:27:23.860 at the anger and the animosity especially the anger and animosity focused towards well the

00:27:30.040 lgbtq community the trans community and the drag community my just this vitriol and all i want to

00:27:39.580 do is shake people and say all you need to do is connect with these people stop stop trying to

00:27:48.100 control who somebody is and start paving the damn way to allow them to figure it out. 0.87

00:27:56.780 I mean, that's it. You want to know the secret of life? That's it. That's it. 0.95

00:28:05.060 Find ways to be intimately connected with people. And by intimacy, I hope you guys understand what

00:28:11.580 I'm saying. I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about vulnerability,

00:28:18.100 and authenticity if you can find a way to sit in a room and be vulnerable and

00:28:24.820 authentic and then hear somebody else's vulnerability authenticity if we can do

00:28:31.840 that with more people so much fades away and melts away all that anger all that

00:28:38.920 animosity because you've stopped trying to control our only parameter should be

00:28:44.260 don't hurt anybody. Be who you are, don't hurt anybody. And I think if he could have talked

00:28:53.380 about that, if I could have known he needed to, if I could have known how to express it to myself,

00:28:59.720 if I could have had that conversation in my high school classroom, if he could have had that

00:29:03.140 conversation in his work, if his wife could have told my mom, if, if, if, if, if, if, all that guys,

00:29:10.000 the amount of ifs that roll around in my head are significant.

00:29:19.780 So when I see people not connecting, when I see, and I'm a teacher obviously,

00:29:28.160 so when I see students ostracized or limited or closed off and they can't find that way,

00:29:34.620 to me it is the most dangerous

00:29:38.680 to me

00:29:42.200 it is the thing that

00:29:45.820 limits everybody in our society

00:29:49.960 and how dare we, how dare we stand by

00:29:54.160 and magnify that ostracization

00:29:57.960 or ignore it

00:29:59.880 how dare we

00:30:04.620 And whether that is somebody in your family and whether that is somebody, you know, passing

00:30:10.220 on the street or a student you teach or a coworker, I'm not saying you can, and also

00:30:15.980 understand, I'm not saying you can save people.

00:30:18.400 I'm not saying that at all.

00:30:20.080 And I'm not saying everybody, this is the only issue in our society.

00:30:24.620 Look, none of what I've been talking about, it is, this is such, all my podcasts are subjective.

00:30:30.320 You got to understand, I've been rambling through this because it's a very hard thing

00:30:33.600 to talk about.

00:30:34.620 but it is such a subjective conversation about a particular thing and a lesson I learned.

00:30:42.120 So please understand, I am not trying to put this on everybody in the world that's ever had a mental health issue.

00:30:48.000 I am saying that taking a moment and trying to connect with a person is the most important thing.

00:30:56.520 And the only way we can truly do that is by figuring out, by sitting with ourselves

00:31:00.360 and understanding how to be authentic within ourselves

00:31:05.780 and how to take those risks, shake us to our core,

00:31:08.980 find out who that foundational person is no matter what.

00:31:14.660 And that is the most important thing you can do

00:31:17.560 and walk out to this world

00:31:18.900 and then make sure that when you see somebody

00:31:21.420 who needs that three seconds of your time,

00:31:24.960 you give it.

00:31:27.820 You give it.

00:31:28.760 and then understand at the end of the day that is the that is the most you can do

00:31:35.740 you can't save everybody i try to tell myself all the time there's probably nothing i could

00:31:41.300 have done you notice i still put that word probably in there i still can't help that

00:31:45.960 but you can't you're not everybody's savior but i think we have a responsibility

00:31:53.320 just to reach that handout. And I think the more that we can do that, the more that you can

00:32:00.960 understand that, the better the world gets, the less regret we have, and the more people

00:32:07.860 can start to feel as though, even if it's just that one person in that one day that you might

00:32:13.600 have reached out to, that changes everything. Well, thank you for sitting with me for this

00:32:20.680 very heavy topic. I, if you guys want to ask questions, I realized that this podcast wasn't

00:32:26.740 as linear maybe as I would have liked to. If you have questions, if you want me to talk about this

00:32:31.520 some more, I will. I can only talk about it from my personal experience. I have no problems talking

00:32:37.240 about the therapy that I've gone through. I have no problems talking about the, you know, the

00:32:41.980 different sort of tactics that I've used. Please ask away at all the questions. And I'll do another

00:32:49.740 sort of a part two of the podcast and maybe hopefully um this counts as a hand to some

00:32:58.200 people out there who are listening who maybe don't have the means to talk to somebody or don't have

00:33:03.100 the means and just need somebody for five seconds for three seconds to listen to what you have to

00:33:07.420 say and maybe talk about it just a little bit thanks for hanging out guys i will see you next

00:33:14.100 Tuesday. Same bad time, same bad station. Good night. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - March 07, 2023

The One Where I Tell You Why He Left

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