50 - Live Interview with Laverne Friesen

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is a podcast for male survivors of sexual abuse and assault, whether as a child or as an adult. Know that you are not alone and the abuse was not your fault. My name is Mike Chapman. I'm a certified recovery life coach and also a survivor. Let's find hope and healing together.

[00:00:28] And welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. I'm your host Mike Chapman. I'm so glad you could be here with us today. And as you know, we record these live and if you'd ever like to be part of our audience in future recordings, you can find out more information on how to do so at fullerlifeconsulting.com slash live.

[00:00:53] And we do have an audience with us. A reminder to the audience, you can be as anonymous as you would like. Feel free to put your Q&A, any questions you have into the chat.

[00:01:05] And we will only state your name if you specifically type it along with your question or comment. And with me today as a special guest is Laverne Friesen, who is from Canada.

[00:01:20] And he is on a mission to raise awareness on the harmful effects of the stigma that surrounds mental health, something we all deal with.

[00:01:29] After surviving a prolonged mental health crisis, he was pulled back from the brink of suicide by the love and presence of his children.

[00:01:37] In an incredible journey of post-trauma growth, Laverne has triumphed over the effects of being raised in a cult, experiencing childhood sexual abuse, abusive relationships, and a traumatic career in law enforcement.

[00:01:53] With an unwavering commitment to personal growth, he has transformed his life after trauma, heartbreak, and a career-ending psychological injury.

[00:02:03] Now, as a personal growth mentor, Laverne is eager to share the profound lessons he learned.

[00:02:10] His enthusiasm for personal growth radiates every time he speaks, inspiring and empowering others to embrace their own journeys of healing and transformation.

[00:02:21] So, welcome Laverne. And we're going to start out like we do most episodes with four questions.

[00:02:29] Now it's time for four questions, that part of the podcast, when we get to know our guest a bit better by asking a few questions. Let's go.

[00:02:37] So, Laverne, welcome. And for four questions, what is your favorite food memory?

[00:02:45] My favorite food memory is a cliffside restaurant near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

[00:02:53] Oh, nice.

[00:02:54] And when I got married in 2014, the bridal party and all the groomsmen and the parents, we all went to that restaurant for supper and it was sunset.

[00:03:07] And it was just the most amazing experience.

[00:03:11] Oh, nice. Very nice. And you had a destination wedding, which seems to be, yeah, that seems to be a thing nowadays.

[00:03:18] So, what is your favorite Christmas or holiday memory?

[00:03:23] Two years ago, my now former partner and I took our children to some cabins in the Rocky Mountains.

[00:03:33] They're quite remote. They're about 35 kilometers off the highway.

[00:03:37] So, that's probably, I don't know, 20, 22, 25 miles, rough guess, something like that.

[00:03:44] No service out there, no internet, just wood heat in the middle of winter.

[00:03:50] And we had the most amazing time for three or four days.

[00:03:54] And children are much happier when there's no electronics around.

[00:03:57] So, it was great.

[00:03:58] Right. Yeah. And you get to spend some quality time and no screens.

[00:04:03] So, yes, back to basics.

[00:04:06] And, yeah, I enjoyed that.

[00:04:09] Anytime younger, if we went to a place, no TV and anything like that.

[00:04:13] And, yeah, you had to entertain each other.

[00:04:16] And, yeah, so that's key. That's wonderful.

[00:04:20] One of the coolest things about it was we did lots of hiking around there and lots of wildlife tracks in the snow.

[00:04:28] And I got to show the kids.

[00:04:29] And I'm not that great of a bushman or that experienced of a bush person.

[00:04:33] But I was able to point out a bunch of tracks.

[00:04:36] And especially, like, the bobcats or the lynx, you know, they're just huge cat tracks, right?

[00:04:42] So, the kids thought that was pretty cool.

[00:04:45] Right. Yeah.

[00:04:46] I vacationed with my wife, Mountain Cabin, a few years ago.

[00:04:52] A co-worker of hers let us use his mountain cabin.

[00:04:55] And we wake up in the morning and we see these huge bear prints outside.

[00:05:01] And, yeah, sure enough, one morning I came out with coffee.

[00:05:03] And, yeah, there's just a bear just walking down, just doing his thing.

[00:05:07] It's like, okay, all right.

[00:05:10] So, yeah, it's good to be communing with nature for sure.

[00:05:16] And that's, I don't know, something very peaceful and calming, as long as the bear doesn't actually decide to commune with you.

[00:05:26] Yeah.

[00:05:27] Yeah, with bobcats and so forth.

[00:05:29] Yeah, but it's, yes, being part of nature like that, it's very cool and leads to lots of wonderful memories.

[00:05:36] And now, what is your favorite church or house of worship memory?

[00:05:42] My first, my favorite church memory was when I was five or six years old.

[00:05:48] I knew, like I know in the bio, it says I grew up in a cult and very strict and harsh.

[00:05:54] Some, a lot of memories that I had to deal with and heal later.

[00:05:58] But when I was five or six, I was, there was a Christmas program.

[00:06:03] And a lot of the kids would come up and recite a poem or something Christmas related.

[00:06:08] And I had never spoke into a microphone before.

[00:06:13] And so, I thought I had to put my mouth right into it.

[00:06:17] And so, I put my mouth right against it and started talking.

[00:06:21] And it sounded like I was shouting.

[00:06:23] And it surprised me.

[00:06:25] So, I jumped back.

[00:06:26] And then I just started laughing because everybody else was laughing too.

[00:06:31] Wow.

[00:06:31] And I had people actually come up to me like 15 years later.

[00:06:37] And they still remembered that from when I was just a little kid.

[00:06:41] So, that was definitely the funniest memory I have, for sure.

[00:06:45] That's nice.

[00:06:46] That's nice.

[00:06:47] And do you have any favorite scripture verses or any inspirational quote that has helped you on your spiritual journey?

[00:06:55] And what about it speaks to you?

[00:06:59] Yes, I do.

[00:07:00] And my favorite quote is, there's no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone.

[00:07:09] And it's so true.

[00:07:11] And it helps me stay focused when I'm struggling or having a hard time because I know that if I look at it the right way and I find the lesson or I just know that it's shaping me to become a better person.

[00:07:27] Right.

[00:07:28] And no pain, no gain.

[00:07:30] Yeah.

[00:07:31] Yeah.

[00:07:32] A hundred percent.

[00:07:32] And the absolute worst times of my life have made the biggest positive impact on my life as well.

[00:07:41] Right.

[00:07:42] I think so many of us deal with those times where you're struggling and it's difficult, but you come out so much stronger as a result of going through that.

[00:07:57] And it's how we grow, how we mature, how we become stronger people going through those things.

[00:08:04] Yeah, for sure.

[00:08:06] I like that quote.

[00:08:08] So from there, I would love to hear more about your story.

[00:08:12] Yeah.

[00:08:13] And a lot of stories we jump around.

[00:08:15] I know my story.

[00:08:16] I jump around timeline, tell however you'd like to tell it.

[00:08:19] I might interrupt with some questions here and there.

[00:08:21] And then as much story as you want to tell.

[00:08:25] And then also closer to where you are now, what your healing journey has looked like, what things have worked for you and what things that you've tried have not worked well for you in helping your healing journey.

[00:08:37] And then what you're doing now and anything else you'd like to share.

[00:08:43] For sure.

[00:08:43] So I grew up in a cult, very fundamentalist type religious group, very strict, very authoritarian.

[00:08:54] Are you able to share what type of cult it was or what the group was?

[00:08:58] Yeah.

[00:08:59] If you don't want to, that's fine.

[00:09:01] Yeah, that's fine.

[00:09:02] It's an extreme form of Mennonite.

[00:09:06] Okay.

[00:09:07] So there's only about 20,000 of them in North America.

[00:09:12] And there's probably, you know, several hundred thousand Mennonites.

[00:09:15] So I grew up very rural farm, experienced a lot of childhood violence at home with a violent mother.

[00:09:23] And I was, you know, 30 years later, I discovered that I was the scapegoat child.

[00:09:28] But when I was growing up, I just couldn't understand why I got violent punishments for things that my siblings didn't get punished for.

[00:09:36] Or for things that I hadn't actually done and just got blamed for them.

[00:09:40] And it took me a long time to realize that.

[00:09:43] I was sexually abused.

[00:09:45] And then I experienced a very deep abandonment wound after I had informed my parents.

[00:09:52] And then I was brought back there and abused again.

[00:09:54] And I'll touch on that kind of later in the story, I guess.

[00:09:58] When I was very young, a police car drove by our house, lights and sirens.

[00:10:05] And we're, like I said, quite rural, never saw the police an hour from town.

[00:10:10] And it actually scared me.

[00:10:12] I was young enough that I was scared.

[00:10:14] And I went inside and my mom said, oh, he's going to help someone.

[00:10:19] And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

[00:10:21] I want to be a police officer.

[00:10:23] And I was told that I couldn't be a police officer because the church my parents belonged to believed in non-resistance or non-violence.

[00:10:30] And so even if I was trying to help people, I wouldn't be able to carry a gun.

[00:10:35] So I kind of switched gears a few years later, started telling everybody that I wanted to be a paramedic just to kind of mask it.

[00:10:44] But I always knew that I wanted to be a police officer or get into law enforcement.

[00:10:49] I moved away when I was 17 to an aunt that hadn't been a part of that church.

[00:10:56] And then I started when I was 19.

[00:10:58] I worked in a large trauma hospital as security because I wanted to figure out if I wanted to do law enforcement.

[00:11:04] I wanted to be a paramedic.

[00:11:05] I did that for a few years.

[00:11:07] And then the decision was pretty easy for me.

[00:11:10] I didn't want to be a paramedic.

[00:11:12] I got into law enforcement when I was 27.

[00:11:15] I got onto a highway patrol unit, a very busy highway.

[00:11:18] I loved it.

[00:11:19] And at the same time, I became a volunteer firefighter.

[00:11:23] And what I didn't realize is I was getting validation from how much I could do for other people or how much I could do for society.

[00:11:32] Then while I was there, I spent five years in that highway patrol posting in that small town.

[00:11:38] I started to burn out.

[00:11:39] I was starting to get emotional, but I thought I was burning out because I couldn't get a transfer.

[00:11:44] I got a job offer from an old acquaintance to go work in the oil field in northern Canada as a security and safety contractor.

[00:11:53] And the money was twice what I was making working for the government.

[00:11:58] So I jumped on that opportunity and I was enjoying it.

[00:12:02] But during that time, my then fiance, who is now my ex-wife, was pregnant with our daughter.

[00:12:10] And then after our daughter was born, I didn't like having to go away from home all the time.

[00:12:16] And I would be expected to go away, you know, two to three weeks at a time.

[00:12:22] I wasn't enjoying it as much, but it was still really good money.

[00:12:26] And then she got pregnant with our son.

[00:12:28] And I knew that I couldn't stay away from home for two kids at home.

[00:12:33] So I came back.

[00:12:34] I found a law enforcement job in a city near where I grew up.

[00:12:37] Actually, we came back here.

[00:12:39] Our son was born.

[00:12:40] I thought I was living the best life.

[00:12:43] I was married.

[00:12:44] I had kids.

[00:12:45] We had a nice house in a new neighborhood.

[00:12:48] I had a good job.

[00:12:49] And I was in the best physical shape of my life.

[00:12:51] And so I thought I was living the dream that, you know, that was the goal.

[00:12:55] That's what you wanted.

[00:12:56] Right.

[00:12:56] And in March 2017, I was involved in an incident with probably the most irrational individual

[00:13:04] I've ever dealt with.

[00:13:05] And to make matters worse, he posted pictures of me on social media and then filled the comments

[00:13:11] with veiled threats towards me.

[00:13:13] Wow.

[00:13:13] But the worst part of that was I knew where he lived.

[00:13:17] And he lived just around the corner from me.

[00:13:21] And as an active dad with two young children, I was worried.

[00:13:27] And a week after the incident, I saw him again while I was on duty in a marked patrol vehicle.

[00:13:34] And he never saw me, but I still experienced my first ever anxiety attack.

[00:13:40] And in my career, I had never really learned about mental health or mental injuries that much.

[00:13:46] And so I just did what I always did.

[00:13:49] And I just let time erode the emotional charge from that incident.

[00:13:53] About two months after that, I was assigned a task that I didn't feel capable of completing successfully.

[00:14:03] But my management team told me that I was the only one that could do it, which put a tremendous amount of stress on myself.

[00:14:12] And as I alluded to earlier, I got my validation from how much I could do for everybody else.

[00:14:17] So I was giving everything I had at work to do this project and make sure it was done properly.

[00:14:26] And then I would go home and I would try to be the best dad, the best husband that I could be.

[00:14:31] And I was never taking anything for myself.

[00:14:33] I was never, I stopped kind of, I stopped looking after myself.

[00:14:37] And then over the summer months, there were a few seemingly innocuous incidents that just triggered me.

[00:14:45] And my mental health started to decline even more.

[00:14:49] And it started with increased irritability.

[00:14:52] And then I would start getting angry.

[00:14:54] And then eventually I would experience bouts of rage.

[00:14:57] And it would take two to three days sometimes for me to calm down.

[00:15:01] And so my ex-wife was trying to convince me to see a therapist.

[00:15:06] But the stigma I had around mental health was so strong.

[00:15:11] I was so scared of how I'd be perceived.

[00:15:15] It took her two months to convince me just to see a therapist.

[00:15:19] Wow.

[00:15:19] And that's common for men, yeah.

[00:15:22] There is that stigma that you mentioned.

[00:15:25] And so a lot of men just don't go because they think, well, all these ladies are crazy.

[00:15:30] And everyone's going to hate me or whatever.

[00:15:32] And so they put off getting help.

[00:15:35] Yeah.

[00:15:35] And all the things to do to take care of your mental health, you can hide, you know, going to see a therapist.

[00:15:41] That's something nobody would necessarily find out.

[00:15:44] So in November of that year, I finally went to see a therapist.

[00:15:49] And within minutes of walking into her office, she said, you need to take a break from your work.

[00:15:54] You need to leave work for a while.

[00:15:56] So I went to see my doctor.

[00:15:57] I told him what she said.

[00:15:58] And he's like, well, how much time do you need?

[00:16:00] I said, I don't know.

[00:16:01] I have no idea how this works.

[00:16:03] And so I picked a date three weeks in the future just before a course that I was supposed to go on.

[00:16:11] And I came back to work.

[00:16:13] I didn't feel any different.

[00:16:14] I didn't feel like anything had changed.

[00:16:17] I had often wondered if I should take more time, but I really wanted that course.

[00:16:22] And so I came back to work.

[00:16:24] Work still sucked.

[00:16:25] It was still the same.

[00:16:27] Nothing had changed.

[00:16:28] But I just, I kept pushing.

[00:16:30] I kept working hard because that's what I'd always done.

[00:16:33] Just shut up and work hard.

[00:16:35] And then around December, December, early January, my shift supervisor left.

[00:16:41] And then my management team told me that they weren't going to fill the position, but I was already the de facto leader.

[00:16:49] And so I, once again, I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to prove that I was a leader

[00:16:56] because I wanted them to promote me into that position.

[00:16:59] And where I live in Alberta, the government, they follow what's called the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program.

[00:17:07] And it basically dictates what law enforcement should focus their traffic enforcement efforts on for each month.

[00:17:14] And in February, that is distracted driving.

[00:17:18] And I'd been a first responder for several years.

[00:17:21] I had seen firsthand the consequences of distracted driving.

[00:17:26] Right.

[00:17:26] So, and I was trying to prove that I was a good leader.

[00:17:30] So I rallied my shift.

[00:17:32] I said, hey, let's focus on distracted driving.

[00:17:34] Any spare time we have, let's do this.

[00:17:38] And so we did.

[00:17:40] And we spent a lot of time on it.

[00:17:43] And about halfway through the month, I began to feel off.

[00:17:47] And I felt that I didn't, I, it's even now it's hard to explain it, but I just felt off.

[00:17:52] I felt something was wrong, but I felt that every person I dealt with was abrasive.

[00:17:58] Everybody I dealt with seemed like they wanted to argue.

[00:18:01] And so I changed my focus to just making it through the month.

[00:18:05] I just, I was just trying to make it to March.

[00:18:08] So when March 1st came around, I was done.

[00:18:12] I had no energy.

[00:18:13] I was apathetic.

[00:18:14] And I just started driving around, drinking coffee all day, not working.

[00:18:19] I would go find a parking lot and just sit there for hours and just zone out.

[00:18:24] Eventually, it became quite hard for me to work or sleep before work shifts, before work days.

[00:18:31] And I ended up, I started taking up to five times the recommended dose of a sleep aid just to try to get to sleep.

[00:18:38] And the most I could get out of it was about two hours.

[00:18:41] Wow.

[00:18:42] So I would either fall asleep for about an hour and a half to two hours, or sometime during the night, I would fall asleep and then wake up.

[00:18:52] And just, I would lay in bed and ruminate about how bad my life was becoming.

[00:18:59] And, you know, even right there, like if you can't sleep, you're supposed to get up, do something, read a book.

[00:19:05] But I would just lay in bed and ruminate because I didn't even have that.

[00:19:08] That's a basic tool for mental well-being.

[00:19:12] And so I would lay in bed ruminating about how bad my life was.

[00:19:18] And I started to feel like my world was closing in around me.

[00:19:22] I was starting to become, have less emotions or feel less emotions.

[00:19:29] And I started to feel like I was trapped in like darkness and I couldn't see any light or any hope.

[00:19:37] But eventually I began thinking about suicide and I would, I would start planning suicide while I would lay in bed.

[00:19:46] But I was saved by my three-year-old, then three-year-old daughter.

[00:19:51] And she had been sleeping in her bed during this time.

[00:19:55] And during the time that I was struggling, every single night she would wake up, she would come to bed and she would crawl in beside me.

[00:20:03] And she would tuck her head right into my armpit and just like get in really close to me.

[00:20:09] And she would fall back asleep.

[00:20:11] And so every night as I lay in bed thinking about how horrible my life was, I would feel her body.

[00:20:18] I would listen to her breathing.

[00:20:20] And I knew that I had to find a way to fight on, but I didn't know how.

[00:20:24] And at this time, the stigma was terrifying because now it involves suicidal thoughts.

[00:20:31] And now I was terrified of what would happen because suicide is so stigmatized.

[00:20:37] And in my career, I've worked with a couple of really amazing people who were involved in peer support.

[00:20:44] And they'd always said, if you ever struggle, reach out.

[00:20:47] But I never did.

[00:20:49] And the closest I came was starting to type a text message at three in the morning.

[00:20:53] But I never did because I was too scared.

[00:20:56] And so I deleted the message.

[00:20:58] And in hindsight, I know that he would have helped me.

[00:21:01] I know 100% he would have helped me.

[00:21:04] But I believe the reason that I didn't send that text message was because I'd never heard his story.

[00:21:10] I didn't know 100% for sure that he actually understood what I was going through.

[00:21:16] And that's why I tell my story in so much detail.

[00:21:20] Part of the reason is, and I want people to know that I understand.

[00:21:25] Right, exactly.

[00:21:26] So in desperation, I went to the one person in my life who I thought would understand and who I thought would help me.

[00:21:34] But the message wasn't received.

[00:21:36] And I blamed myself.

[00:21:38] I had a lot of shame.

[00:21:39] I thought I was broken.

[00:21:40] I thought I was unworthy.

[00:21:42] And so I blamed myself for that.

[00:21:44] But a few days later, I went back again.

[00:21:47] And I just laid it out how bad it was.

[00:21:49] And this person looked me in the eye.

[00:21:52] And they said, I know.

[00:21:54] And then they walked out of the room.

[00:21:55] And I know alone.

[00:21:57] That was my rock bottom.

[00:21:59] But every night, my daughter was right beside me sleeping.

[00:22:03] And so I knew I had to find a way to fight on.

[00:22:06] So now we're at May 2018.

[00:22:10] And I somehow had been approved to go on a course.

[00:22:14] So I went on an instructor's course down to Colorado.

[00:22:17] And I should have been having the time of my life.

[00:22:20] But halfway through the course, I started dreading coming back to work.

[00:22:25] And that's all I could think about was coming back to work.

[00:22:28] Shortly after I got back, though, I ran into an old acquaintance of mine who was a firefighter.

[00:22:34] And he didn't know that I was struggling.

[00:22:37] And I never told him.

[00:22:38] But having a conversation with him, we chatted for about two hours.

[00:22:42] It sparked some hope inside me.

[00:22:45] I found hope again.

[00:22:49] And the craziest thing about this all was that I was seeing a therapist this whole time.

[00:22:54] Once a month, I would go in and see a therapist.

[00:22:57] And I knew it wasn't helping, but I didn't know why.

[00:23:00] But part of it, a big part of it was I didn't trust her.

[00:23:04] Because I think men in general, when you haven't learned vulnerability,

[00:23:08] you're very scared to be vulnerable.

[00:23:11] But I was also lying to myself what I was going through.

[00:23:15] And I was self-stigmatizing.

[00:23:16] And so she could have never helped me anyway.

[00:23:20] And she just told me, she's like, you just need a new job.

[00:23:23] That you just need a new job.

[00:23:24] Everything will be fine.

[00:23:25] And so an agency near me posted a position.

[00:23:30] And I applied for it.

[00:23:31] And I got it.

[00:23:33] To this day, I wonder how I got it.

[00:23:35] Because in my mind, I was rock bottom, depressed and anxious.

[00:23:40] But I think it shows how good we can hide it.

[00:23:45] How functioning we can be when we're at our worst.

[00:23:49] Right.

[00:23:49] But before I left, the last couple of months at my work, I was very volatile in the office.

[00:23:56] And I'd never been volatile before.

[00:23:59] I was always very professional, bringing up concerns.

[00:24:02] I remember on one occasion, I yelled at three supervisors and a manager with a whole bunch of

[00:24:09] coworkers in the office.

[00:24:10] And I'm like, I can't take this anymore.

[00:24:12] This place is bullshit.

[00:24:13] Right.

[00:24:14] And nobody reached out to me.

[00:24:16] Nobody reached out and asked if I was okay.

[00:24:19] And there was lots of signs.

[00:24:21] And I thought I was screaming for help with my behavior.

[00:24:25] I thought I was screaming for help.

[00:24:28] But people tend to be too scared.

[00:24:31] And they're scared of what the answer might be.

[00:24:33] So they just ignore it.

[00:24:35] And I was in a meeting once where I started crying in front of people when I brought up some concerns.

[00:24:40] One of my managers was there.

[00:24:43] And nobody, nobody asked me if I was okay.

[00:24:47] And so when I resigned my position, the manager that had seen me cry, he came to me and he said,

[00:24:55] we've just kind of left you alone.

[00:24:57] So they knew they were just not dealing with it, which is literally the worst thing they could have done.

[00:25:03] Because all I wanted to do, all I wanted was somebody to care enough to hold some space for me.

[00:25:10] Because I was totally lost at what I was doing and trying to get help.

[00:25:15] So I started the new position.

[00:25:18] So I went from a city to a rural municipality and much quieter, much more peaceful, much more beautiful scenery, which was nice.

[00:25:29] And I was under less stress.

[00:25:31] But I still felt off.

[00:25:33] Like something felt off.

[00:25:34] And I didn't know what it was.

[00:25:36] And then within a couple of months of that, me starting that position, I went on a camping trip in northern British Columbia, way off the Alaska Highway.

[00:25:46] We were about 10 miles off the highway, just straight into the mountains.

[00:25:51] Very remote.

[00:25:52] And I thought that would be the reset that I needed.

[00:25:56] Because nature heals.

[00:25:58] You reset when you're out in nature.

[00:26:00] But instead of getting any type of reset, I just spent the time worrying about bear attacks.

[00:26:06] And I came back and I'm like, man, I thought time healed everything.

[00:26:10] I'm still off.

[00:26:12] Like what is going on here?

[00:26:14] And then about a month after that, on October 30th, 2018, I was the first on scene to a multiple vehicle collision.

[00:26:23] I got out of my patrol vehicle.

[00:26:26] And this couple comes up to me and they have two small children who are crying.

[00:26:31] And the children are fine physically.

[00:26:33] They're just upset and they're crying.

[00:26:36] And as soon as I saw them, I couldn't talk.

[00:26:39] I was scared that I would start crying.

[00:26:41] My mind started racing.

[00:26:43] I mumbled something to them.

[00:26:44] They seemed happy.

[00:26:46] And I went off to check on everybody in the collision.

[00:26:49] And there were three vehicles involved.

[00:26:51] And I didn't even see the third vehicle until I walked up to it.

[00:26:55] So I must have been experiencing tunnel vision of some sort.

[00:26:58] I found a lady that was trapped in the vehicle.

[00:27:01] I couldn't help her.

[00:27:02] I couldn't even talk to her.

[00:27:03] I just kind of patted her on the shoulder because I couldn't talk.

[00:27:07] I would just – my lump – the throat – my throat would get a big lump and I couldn't talk.

[00:27:12] And in the backseat of her vehicle was a daughter just a little bit older than my own daughter crying.

[00:27:18] And I wanted to say something to her.

[00:27:21] And I couldn't.

[00:27:21] I couldn't help her.

[00:27:23] And so I stood back and I just kind of watched, pretended I was busy.

[00:27:27] And I was terrified because I believed I was broken.

[00:27:30] I believed that I was like broken.

[00:27:33] And the fire department got there fairly quick.

[00:27:36] And I stood back and I watched a firefighter that I knew.

[00:27:40] I was friends with him.

[00:27:41] And he was so poised and professional.

[00:27:44] And he was good at his job.

[00:27:45] And I was watching him.

[00:27:46] And I'm just like, man, that's who I am.

[00:27:48] That's who I'm supposed to be.

[00:27:51] What's happened to me?

[00:27:52] I'm broken.

[00:27:53] And so after that shift, I went home and I tried to find a therapist that would actually help me.

[00:28:00] And I found a psychologist that specialized in seeing first responders and specialized in trauma.

[00:28:08] And the day of my first appointment with her, I cried for the 20-minute drive to her office because I knew I was going to get help.

[00:28:18] And my appointment was for an hour.

[00:28:20] And I sat and cried in her office for two.

[00:28:23] Wow.

[00:28:24] And during that time, she reached over.

[00:28:27] She put her hand on my knee and she said, you're not alone.

[00:28:29] And it was very powerful.

[00:28:31] It was very comforting.

[00:28:32] But I didn't actually believe it.

[00:28:34] And so I started therapy regularly.

[00:28:38] And I just embraced it.

[00:28:41] And I learned so much about myself, so much about who I was,

[00:28:45] how to reframe my thoughts.

[00:28:47] I had a catastrophic thinking style, which, of course, most people with traumatic childhoods do develop that negative inner voice,

[00:28:56] that catastrophic thinking style.

[00:28:58] And about six months after I'd started therapy, then I went to the courthouse here.

[00:29:05] And there was a retired policeman there.

[00:29:08] And as soon as he saw me walk in, he left the conversation he was in.

[00:29:13] And he came and grabbed me.

[00:29:14] And he's like, hey, I need to talk to you for a second.

[00:29:16] So we go into this little room.

[00:29:17] And he's like, what's going on?

[00:29:19] And I was still struggling with the stigma around mental health.

[00:29:23] And so I feigned ignorance.

[00:29:25] And he said, listen, man.

[00:29:26] He's like, I have PTSD.

[00:29:28] I know that something's going on.

[00:29:30] And sorry.

[00:29:32] I get hit with emotion every time I talk about that.

[00:29:35] That's right.

[00:29:36] And then he explained his own story and how he had got through and how he had battled.

[00:29:41] And hearing his story and knowing that he reached out simply because he had gone down the same path that I was on was nothing short of a hug from heaven.

[00:29:53] It was amazing.

[00:29:54] And that's when I knew I wasn't alone.

[00:29:57] And that's when I began really having hope.

[00:30:01] And so the power of just peer support is incredible.

[00:30:05] Just someone knowing that somebody understands and wants to help is amazing.

[00:30:10] Probably the most profound insight that I got during therapy was during an EMDR session.

[00:30:19] And EMDR is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

[00:30:23] Right.

[00:30:24] And so she asked me what was bothering me the most in my life at that time.

[00:30:29] And I explained it to her.

[00:30:31] Then she asked me to feel the sensation in my body, how I felt when I thought about it.

[00:30:36] And then she asked me to tell her when the first time I had felt that feeling in my life.

[00:30:43] And it was the second time that I was sexually abused when I received that abandonment wound.

[00:30:49] That was the first time I remembered it.

[00:30:51] And so we did the whole session with the eye movement.

[00:30:55] And at the end of the session, she asked me, she said, tell me something good that came from that.

[00:31:01] And the answer was instantaneous for me.

[00:31:04] And it was, I'm a better dad today because of that.

[00:31:08] And when I realized that I could take the worst incident of my life and transform that into something that meant so much to me today and have gratitude for that, that's life changing.

[00:31:22] Because when you have just little crappy daily events, you can reframe that into something positive.

[00:31:32] And that was life changing for me.

[00:31:35] A few months after that collision that triggered my healing journey, the firefighter that I watched that I was so jealous of, of how good he was.

[00:31:47] A few months after that collision, he died from suicide.

[00:31:50] Wow.

[00:31:51] Wow.

[00:31:51] So you never know who's struggling or how they will show it and or how fast it'll come on.

[00:31:58] Here I thought I was broken.

[00:31:59] And yet in the whole scheme of things, maybe I wasn't the broken one at all.

[00:32:04] Right.

[00:32:05] Right.

[00:32:05] But I do know full well, I'm very grateful for that.

[00:32:10] I had help with my demons.

[00:32:12] I had a three-year-old angel who visited me every night.

[00:32:16] And in 19 years of public safety, I worked with five guys that died from suicide.

[00:32:22] Those guys didn't get help with their demons.

[00:32:25] And I did.

[00:32:26] Right.

[00:32:26] So I'm one of the lucky ones.

[00:32:29] Right.

[00:32:30] Right.

[00:32:31] Yeah.

[00:32:31] Yeah.

[00:32:32] Going back, you mentioned your story of abuse.

[00:32:36] You didn't give a lot of details.

[00:32:37] Was it a family member or someone from the church who was abusing you?

[00:32:42] It was someone that was several years older than me.

[00:32:46] He was in his youth, his teens.

[00:32:50] His family was part of the church.

[00:32:53] Everyone in my age group knew what was happening.

[00:32:56] Everyone in my age group had told their parents.

[00:32:59] And it continued to happen.

[00:33:01] And the parents did nothing to stop it.

[00:33:04] Yeah.

[00:33:05] This guy abused apparently a lot of the children in the church.

[00:33:09] He did.

[00:33:09] Yes.

[00:33:10] And so I found out in years later that two of the preachers in our church and one of the deacons

[00:33:17] had abused him as well.

[00:33:20] And so that specific church has covered up a ton of sexual assault.

[00:33:25] And I suspect that might be a reason for it.

[00:33:28] They also believe that they're the one true church.

[00:33:30] And so if they're the one true church, the only church that God is going to allow into heaven,

[00:33:36] you can't invite the police in to investigate some of your members for sexual abuse because that goes against your perfect image.

[00:33:45] Right?

[00:33:46] Wow.

[00:33:47] Yeah.

[00:33:48] And so much when I've been doing this podcast, that would fit in the category of institutional abuse.

[00:33:56] That it's not just one person, but they represent the institution.

[00:34:02] And the institution is going to circle their wagons and protect the institution instead of caring for and taking care of the victims.

[00:34:11] Which, when it's a church specifically, they should be taking care of their flock.

[00:34:18] I mean, Jesus left the 99 to go to the one to take care of them.

[00:34:23] That's the model.

[00:34:24] And so many churches like your own would circle the wagons, protect the institution at all costs, no matter what the cost is.

[00:34:33] And yeah, it happens again and again.

[00:34:37] And I'm a survivor of clergy abuse as well.

[00:34:42] So I get that for sure.

[00:34:46] Yeah.

[00:34:46] So that was kind of my first introduction to healing without realizing that was what I was doing.

[00:34:54] In my teens, I had a lot of anger and rage towards him and towards the church in general.

[00:35:00] Right.

[00:35:01] When I was about 19 or 20 years old, I realized that it didn't serve me to have that much anger.

[00:35:08] And somewhere along the line, I was able to release that anger from my life.

[00:35:13] And I don't know how I did it.

[00:35:14] I don't remember that.

[00:35:15] I just decided that I shouldn't be living with anger.

[00:35:18] And I still didn't heal the trauma, but I somehow got rid of the anger.

[00:35:22] Right.

[00:35:23] And over time, especially after I got into law enforcement, I began to realize that he was a product of his environment.

[00:35:32] Exactly.

[00:35:33] When I had that understanding, I was able to start to forgive him a little bit.

[00:35:38] And he died at he was 39 or 40 years old when he died.

[00:35:42] And when I heard the news, my first thought was, oh, man, that's way too young.

[00:35:48] Like, that's that's sad.

[00:35:49] Right.

[00:35:50] And then, you know, in the years following that, I heard much more about his circumstances.

[00:35:55] But when we're able to find forgiveness for somebody else, it has nothing to do with them.

[00:36:01] It has everything to do with our own healing.

[00:36:04] Exactly.

[00:36:05] And I've had to find forgiveness for a lot of people in my life.

[00:36:10] And I wasn't.

[00:36:11] So even into my 30s, late 30s, if I was talking about my mom, I would get angry.

[00:36:19] I would have a physiological reaction.

[00:36:21] And I wasn't able to ever let her touch me because my body would shudder if she touched me.

[00:36:28] So that's that inner child wounding.

[00:36:30] I did an exercise on forgiveness about two years ago.

[00:36:34] And that Christmas was the first time she touched me and I didn't have a reaction.

[00:36:40] And she wanted to hug me.

[00:36:42] And normally I would have kind of shied away from that.

[00:36:45] But I wanted to see how it worked.

[00:36:46] And I let her hug me.

[00:36:48] And my body didn't react.

[00:36:51] And since then, I've worked on a lot more forgiveness towards her.

[00:36:55] And I can sit and chat with her now.

[00:36:59] And it's not necessarily a really comfortable conversation that flows.

[00:37:04] But it's not really uncomfortable for me.

[00:37:07] And so for me to find forgiveness for her has only enhanced my life.

[00:37:16] And I found a lot of forgiveness for my dad as well because I used to have a lot of anger towards him for enabling her abuse.

[00:37:25] Right.

[00:37:26] But my dad...

[00:37:27] She was physically abusive to you?

[00:37:29] Yes.

[00:37:30] Right.

[00:37:30] Very physically abusive.

[00:37:32] Like, tie me down and beat me type of thing.

[00:37:35] Wow.

[00:37:36] And you mentioned you were the scapegoat of the family.

[00:37:39] Yeah.

[00:37:40] Yeah.

[00:37:41] Yeah.

[00:37:42] I got a lot of beatings, a lot of violent beatings.

[00:37:46] Even today, with all the forgiveness I've found, I have a hard time finding happy memories from my childhood.

[00:37:53] Wow.

[00:37:54] And I think a lot of them, you know, were me maybe dissociating from trauma.

[00:38:01] But I've done a lot of work on healing with my dad first.

[00:38:05] And I actually was able to forgive him a lot sooner because I started to understand how he was manipulated by my mom.

[00:38:13] You know, I had to give him some grace for that.

[00:38:15] And he's done a lot of work on himself, too.

[00:38:18] So our relationship has improved over the years.

[00:38:21] And, you know, it's only really been in the last couple of years that we're comfortable having conversations with each other.

[00:38:28] And so he had been asking me some questions.

[00:38:33] And he had asked me if he thought I had childhood trauma.

[00:38:37] I would make myself small.

[00:38:39] And I'd say, well, everybody has childhood trauma.

[00:38:41] We all have trauma that we have to deal with and heal.

[00:38:44] And then a mentor of mine told me, she said, he's reflecting on his life.

[00:38:50] He wants to know the truth.

[00:38:51] And if you don't tell him the truth, you're going to regret it.

[00:38:56] And so I wrote him a letter.

[00:38:58] And it was a long letter.

[00:39:00] It was like five pages typed out.

[00:39:01] And I invited him for coffee.

[00:39:04] We went for a coffee.

[00:39:05] And I read him this letter telling him, explaining to him how horrible my childhood is or how traumatic it had been.

[00:39:14] And when I finished reading the letter, he said, thank you for that.

[00:39:19] It's all true.

[00:39:19] And then he told me that he wished he had believed me when I told him I'd been sexually assaulted.

[00:39:29] And he was able to release that guilt from 30, 36 years earlier because I was willing to take that step and be open with him and tell him that I came from a place of love and forgiveness.

[00:39:43] But I wanted him to know.

[00:39:44] And because he'd done that work and I took that step, he was able to rid himself of all his guilt that he had carried for all those years.

[00:39:53] And now that only improved our relationship.

[00:39:56] Now we go for coffee frequently and we have long chats.

[00:39:59] And it's been a great experience for both of us.

[00:40:02] But it took us it took me 43 years to have that experience to be able to build that relationship with him.

[00:40:08] But I'm glad that I have it with him now.

[00:40:12] After I came out of my mental health crisis, I started seeing therapy within about a year after I went to a therapist, a year and a half later.

[00:40:21] That's when I got divorced, my ex-wife and I separated.

[00:40:25] And that led me down a whole other journey of self-discovery on who I was.

[00:40:31] I had always been somebody that got my validation from how much I could do for everybody else.

[00:40:37] And what I didn't realize was that everybody was stealing my energy.

[00:40:42] And that was quite a process to realize that I might have been involved in some really abusive relationships as a, I guess, an A-type personality.

[00:40:54] You know, I was very, I was a very confident person at work, very confident individual.

[00:41:00] But my personal life was completely the opposite.

[00:41:04] And I was, I was a pushover.

[00:41:06] I didn't even realize what boundaries were.

[00:41:08] Right.

[00:41:09] I didn't know.

[00:41:10] Abuse happens so much like that and affects the survivor in that same way so often.

[00:41:17] We tend to be people pleasers, codependent, lacking boundaries because the abuse took away the boundaries.

[00:41:27] Yes.

[00:41:27] And that, yeah, you learn, okay, you need to please this person or they're going to hurt me.

[00:41:31] So all those things are just drilled into our heads.

[00:41:35] And so you have a lot of those unhealthy coping mechanisms.

[00:41:39] And it takes time to deprogram yourself from those things and to get healthy.

[00:41:46] And I know churches and workplaces love codependent people because they'll give them all the work.

[00:41:52] And, oh, you want to do more?

[00:41:54] Fine, I'll keep piling stuff over on you.

[00:41:56] Yeah.

[00:41:56] And then you get burned out because you're trying to please them.

[00:42:01] And yeah, it's empty for sure.

[00:42:04] But yeah, it's contained.

[00:42:06] We used to have a thing called, we would call voluntary overtime.

[00:42:10] And I would be in the office for an hour, maybe two hours after my shift, just trying to catch up.

[00:42:17] And that's just me giving so much of myself.

[00:42:21] And when I started learning about myself and started boundaries and stuff, people that I worked with were like, you're leaving right on time.

[00:42:28] Like, what's wrong?

[00:42:29] I'm like, screw this place, man.

[00:42:31] I got kids at home.

[00:42:32] That's what's important to me.

[00:42:34] Or I'm going to go take care of myself.

[00:42:36] Like, I'm not giving anything extra.

[00:42:39] And I used to think it was selfish not to give anything extra.

[00:42:43] I used to think it was selfish to take care of myself first.

[00:42:48] You know, go for a walk, go to the gym, whatever.

[00:42:51] So yeah, that was quite the experience for me.

[00:42:55] And then COVID happened kind of right around that time.

[00:43:00] And that became pretty stressful at work, trying to be a work in law enforcement as a single dad.

[00:43:05] And I would often have my kids if I was working a day shift.

[00:43:10] And so there was a lot more pressure to come home safe because I couldn't rely.

[00:43:16] I wasn't married anymore.

[00:43:17] I couldn't necessarily rely on my ex-wife.

[00:43:19] And I was involved in several violent incidents where I was rammed or people tried to run me over.

[00:43:26] And so that all took its toll on me.

[00:43:29] And then the whole George Floyd thing happened.

[00:43:33] And tragedy should have never happened.

[00:43:37] But a lot of people jumped on that bandwagon.

[00:43:40] And so what happened, my experience from that was we received an influx of complaints against us.

[00:43:48] And most of them, well, for me, all of them were frivolous.

[00:43:53] But that takes a toll.

[00:43:55] It takes a bit of a toll.

[00:43:56] So it's just kind of another nail in the coffin.

[00:43:59] And then in July 2022, I was getting pretty stressed out.

[00:44:04] There was a lot of stuff going on.

[00:44:07] And I came into work one day.

[00:44:09] And the silliest thing ever, I got a poor performance review because of all my sick time,

[00:44:15] which here that's illegal to do that.

[00:44:18] But we had had mandatory COVID isolations.

[00:44:22] And that's what all my sick time was, was these mandatory.

[00:44:26] Like I was not supposed to come to work, but yet now I'm getting written up for it.

[00:44:30] So I went to have coffee with that same retired police officer that had come to help me and let me know what was going on and tell me his story.

[00:44:41] And so we had coffee together.

[00:44:43] And he leans over the table and he looks at me and he's like, admit it, dude, you're done.

[00:44:48] You're done.

[00:44:49] And I kind of knew he was right.

[00:44:51] And so I drove home or drove back to the office at the end of my shift.

[00:44:55] And I packed up all my personal belongings.

[00:44:58] And the next day I went to see a doctor and she said, you need a minimum of three months off work.

[00:45:04] And I went to see my psychologist and she said, it's time for you to think about doing something happier.

[00:45:09] And so that was kind of how my psychological injury presented, just kind of accumulated stress over time.

[00:45:19] During that time, about four months before I went off work, I had started dating a lady and I had been doing a lot of work.

[00:45:29] I'd been on this personal growth journey, trying to figure out who I was, become a better person.

[00:45:34] And my healing journey had taken a surprise spiritual twist that I hadn't seen coming.

[00:45:40] But I'd met this lady.

[00:45:41] And when I first met her, she seemed odd to me and I couldn't figure it out why.

[00:45:47] And then I realized she was healthy.

[00:45:49] She had done healing work.

[00:45:51] She wasn't the type of person that I was normally attracted to.

[00:45:55] I was normally attracted to someone that might have been mirroring me to try to seem more like me, to be more likable, right?

[00:46:03] And she didn't do that.

[00:46:05] She was normal.

[00:46:06] She was healthy.

[00:46:07] She had boundaries.

[00:46:08] And so for the first time in my life at the age of 41, when I met her, the first time in my life, I received unconditional love from another adult in a relationship.

[00:46:23] Right.

[00:46:25] And so I was in that relationship with her during that time of me being off work, not knowing if what was going to happen.

[00:46:35] My future was completely uncertain.

[00:46:37] And just having her there with me and that love and support was absolutely phenomenal.

[00:46:43] And we had a really good relationship.

[00:46:46] And then several months ago, she ended that relationship.

[00:46:49] And that came as a shock to me.

[00:46:53] And it's not my story to share, but she felt it was the right thing to do, even though she was heartbroken.

[00:47:00] And I was heartbroken.

[00:47:02] And so for the first time in my life, I decided, you know what?

[00:47:05] I know what I should do and I'm going to do it.

[00:47:08] And so I did everything that I knew I should do.

[00:47:12] And I let myself feel the pain of that heartbreak.

[00:47:17] And something surprising happened.

[00:47:19] I began to heal my inner child.

[00:47:22] I began to see that it wasn't adult me that was hurting from this.

[00:47:27] It was my child, the inner child that was hurting from this breakup.

[00:47:31] Yeah.

[00:47:31] And I was able to transform so much of my life because of healing my inner child.

[00:47:38] And I became the happiest that I've ever been.

[00:47:42] Meanwhile, like many people would have been like, oh, you should be grieving your breakup.

[00:47:45] And I'm like, no, this is awesome.

[00:47:47] Like, I've been able to do healing work.

[00:47:50] I feel so good.

[00:47:51] Yeah.

[00:47:52] It was a catalyst for you to look in.

[00:47:55] And yeah, stuff came out.

[00:47:57] I like to say I'm stubborn.

[00:47:58] I need the hard events to trigger my healing, right?

[00:48:03] Now I don't know for sure if that's true because I am more aware of how I feel and I question it more.

[00:48:12] I like to say so if something bothers you and it doesn't make sense why it's bothering you because your adult version is like this doesn't make sense.

[00:48:21] But if you think of it from the point of a child and it makes sense, that's your inner child crying for acknowledgement or crying because it hurts the inner child.

[00:48:32] And so realizing that was such a profound realization and realizing that I could actually heal myself and sit with my pain and release it and release pain that had been stored in my body for 40 years was so profound.

[00:48:50] And it's changed my life.

[00:48:52] And actually that's how I ended up becoming a life coach or I call myself a mentor because I've been through it and I've experienced it.

[00:49:01] And I decided that I really had this obligation to share my knowledge that I had gained with the rest of the world.

[00:49:09] I had to help other people.

[00:49:11] And I've believed for several years that my purpose here is to help others.

[00:49:17] And so I developed a course to help other people.

[00:49:21] And I just wanted people to buy it and I wasn't going to touch it.

[00:49:25] And then I started thinking about it a bit.

[00:49:26] I'm like, no, like I have to this has to be something that is coached or I'm at least present for people and guide people through this.

[00:49:35] Otherwise, it wouldn't have the same benefit.

[00:49:38] It would just be like reading a book or something.

[00:49:41] And so that's kind of how I got into coaching.

[00:49:44] And I really enjoy it.

[00:49:45] I do public speaking.

[00:49:46] I love telling my story.

[00:49:49] I know it helps people.

[00:49:51] It resonates with people.

[00:49:53] When I was struggling with mental health, it's interesting because even when I was struggling at my worst, I wanted to help people through mental health stuff.

[00:50:03] I needed to heal myself.

[00:50:05] And I was already thinking about how I needed.

[00:50:07] I wanted to help others.

[00:50:09] And so after I'd been in therapy for probably a year, I did a post on social media.

[00:50:16] And I call it my coming out story.

[00:50:19] And I wrote my story out on social media.

[00:50:22] This is what I experienced.

[00:50:24] And within 20 minutes, I got a message from a guy I hadn't seen in about 15 years.

[00:50:30] And he said, life has really sucked recently.

[00:50:33] It's been really hard.

[00:50:34] I've been staying off social media.

[00:50:37] I get on today.

[00:50:38] The first thing I see is you telling your story.

[00:50:41] And I started shaking because you are writing my story.

[00:50:46] I'm just not where you are yet.

[00:50:49] And since that day, so many people have reached out privately to me.

[00:50:53] They're too scared.

[00:50:55] The stigma of mental health is too strong.

[00:50:58] They won't like the post.

[00:51:01] They won't comment on it.

[00:51:02] But they send me a private message saying how much it means to them.

[00:51:07] And that has only fueled my passion.

[00:51:10] Because I know that there's people scared in the shadows suffering.

[00:51:15] And they need to know that this is going to be okay.

[00:51:18] There's hope out there.

[00:51:20] Yeah, that's the power of story.

[00:51:22] That's the overriding theme of my podcast.

[00:51:26] And even that firefighter who reached out to you and shared his story.

[00:51:31] The fact that he was going through PTSD.

[00:51:34] Someone that you admired so much.

[00:51:38] And then that inspired you.

[00:51:41] Oh, this guy who I think is all together.

[00:51:43] He's dealing with stuff.

[00:51:45] Wow.

[00:51:45] So it's okay that I'm dealing with stuff.

[00:51:48] And it normalizes it.

[00:51:50] And especially for men.

[00:51:51] Because we tend to not talk about our feelings.

[00:51:54] Not talk about things.

[00:51:55] It makes us look weak.

[00:51:59] And that's one of those things.

[00:52:01] They call it toxic masculinity.

[00:52:03] I don't like that term.

[00:52:05] But yeah, we're too tough for our own good.

[00:52:09] And it makes men not want to get help.

[00:52:13] And it's the power of story that reverses that purse.

[00:52:19] So men know it's okay to not be okay.

[00:52:23] It's okay to get help.

[00:52:24] It's okay to share your story.

[00:52:27] Because when you share your story, other men hear it realizing, oh, I can get help too.

[00:52:33] Yeah.

[00:52:36] And then they get healthier.

[00:52:39] And then they reach a point where they want to share their story to help other men get healthy.

[00:52:44] And they hear their story and it just snowballs.

[00:52:46] And that's so much the power of story.

[00:52:50] Yeah.

[00:52:50] Now, I do, before we continue, we have a few comments in the chat.

[00:52:57] I know we had one person say, Laverne, great job.

[00:53:02] You can say all that again early on in your story.

[00:53:05] Resonate with that as far as getting help and looking for help.

[00:53:10] And he's saying, yeah, I finally did that too.

[00:53:12] Discovering my new unknown adventure.

[00:53:16] Thank you for sharing.

[00:53:17] This inspires me.

[00:53:19] And then he continues later.

[00:53:22] He says, yeah, work performance and personal life pushover.

[00:53:26] I so hear you with that.

[00:53:28] And yeah, so many men deal with that.

[00:53:32] The workaholic, some of that's the people pleasing, the codependent behaviors from that inner brokenness.

[00:53:40] Yeah.

[00:53:41] Trying to fill that wound.

[00:53:44] Yeah.

[00:53:44] It needs healing.

[00:53:46] And yeah, that's so, so true.

[00:53:49] So please continue.

[00:53:51] I like, I love the public speaking.

[00:53:53] I love, I love getting out and just telling my story.

[00:53:56] That's when I get in a flow state.

[00:53:58] That's when I, my appearance changes.

[00:54:00] I think I kind of get a glow on.

[00:54:03] And so I feel that's might be my purpose is they say when you get in that flow state.

[00:54:10] My story.

[00:54:11] My story.

[00:54:12] There's so much more to it.

[00:54:13] Right.

[00:54:14] And you can't capture it all in an hour long podcast.

[00:54:18] One thing I realized recently though, was all those times I was screaming for help inside and not getting help where nobody asked me about it.

[00:54:28] That's actually a form of betrayal.

[00:54:30] Betrayal because I feel, you know, I'm in this workplace that I should be safe in.

[00:54:37] And when I'm, I think I'm crying for help and I'm not getting that help.

[00:54:42] It's a betrayal and it, it makes it worse.

[00:54:46] And my, when I went through my prolonged mental health crisis, I was crying for help so much with my behavior and my actions.

[00:54:54] I got my union involved.

[00:54:56] The union didn't want to help that much.

[00:54:58] That was more betrayal.

[00:55:00] In fairness to them, they didn't understand.

[00:55:02] I don't think they understood mental health.

[00:55:04] It is what it is.

[00:55:05] I believe that it's all to teach me lessons to learn.

[00:55:09] That's how I look at it.

[00:55:11] I'm learning.

[00:55:12] But there's a lot of little betrayals that were unknowingly committing.

[00:55:17] When all we have to do is be the person that somebody who's struggling for mental health would be willing to go to and confide in.

[00:55:28] And people are so scared because they think they have to have this wisdom or the right, the right things to say if somebody admits they're struggling.

[00:55:39] But you don't.

[00:55:40] All you have to do is to be, is be able to hold space for that person and allow them to feel safe in that space.

[00:55:48] And that will do wonders.

[00:55:51] And I think about my first therapy session with my psychologist where I cried in her office for two hours.

[00:55:58] She didn't say a lot.

[00:56:00] She just let me cry.

[00:56:03] Like when I walked in, she said, what's going on?

[00:56:06] And I started crying.

[00:56:07] And so really all she did was hold space for me.

[00:56:11] And I actually want to share a story, an example of that.

[00:56:15] Going through the prolonged, going through a mental health crisis gave me a lot of empathy for other people.

[00:56:22] Right.

[00:56:22] It gave me a lot of, I, you know, as a white guy raised on a farm, I didn't experience any stigma of any kind until I had my mental health crisis.

[00:56:32] And then I experienced it, you know, for two years and a couple of years after I would occasionally still experience a little bit of it.

[00:56:41] But it didn't bother me because I was confident in who I was.

[00:56:45] Right.

[00:56:46] There are people out there that experience stigma from the minute they're born.

[00:56:50] Mm hmm.

[00:56:50] So I became a lot more empathetic towards everyone.

[00:56:54] And one night at work, working out rural area, no traffic around.

[00:57:00] I stopped this vehicle for speeding.

[00:57:03] He was doing an excessive speed, pulled him over.

[00:57:06] And while I'm talking to him and I'm getting his documents or he's gathering his documents for me, I can sense that something doesn't feel right.

[00:57:13] I feel like he's having a like a hard time.

[00:57:16] And so I just told him, I said, listen, man, forget that I'm in a uniform right now.

[00:57:21] And from man to man, I just are you OK?

[00:57:24] And he just started bawling on the side of the road because he wasn't OK.

[00:57:29] And so I let him cry and I talked to him for a bit and I couldn't resonate with his with what he was going through because I hadn't experienced it.

[00:57:41] It sounded pretty bad, but I just held the space for him.

[00:57:45] And then I got him resources.

[00:57:47] I knew the resources.

[00:57:48] So I wrote out a list of resources.

[00:57:51] I'm like, here you go, man.

[00:57:52] Like, are you going to be good?

[00:57:54] And he's like, oh, I'm going to be good tonight, whatever.

[00:57:56] And off he went.

[00:57:57] And that's all you need to do is to be able to hold the space for them.

[00:58:02] And since then, that was the first time I ever did it.

[00:58:05] And since after that day, I did it many times afterwards, because when you're interacting with the public, there's so many people that are just struggling and you always see them on their worst day.

[00:58:16] But by me becoming this empathetic person, it really I think some people thought it detracted from my ability to work in law enforcement.

[00:58:28] Right.

[00:58:29] Because there's a stereotype.

[00:58:31] You've got to have this really tough image all the time.

[00:58:33] Right.

[00:58:33] The tough exterior, which I disagree with.

[00:58:37] Yes, you do have to be tough sometimes.

[00:58:39] But I think when you can show that human side, that's when you really make those deep connections that are long lasting.

[00:58:47] Right.

[00:58:48] And if you want to.

[00:58:48] Right.

[00:58:49] With law enforcement and the stigma as a law enforcement person with all the politics and so forth.

[00:58:56] I think someone like yourself who has that empathy and is really able to look at the person beyond just the crime or the infraction, whatever it is, and see the person there and see this is a human going through stuff.

[00:59:15] I think that's so key because a lot of the stuff that goes on, it's all mental health related.

[00:59:22] So the fact that you are more empathetic to that, I think, makes you a much better equipped officer of the law because you get what brings people to these things for sure.

[00:59:38] Yeah, I agree.

[00:59:39] I know not everybody agrees with that.

[00:59:41] It is what it is.

[00:59:44] I'm not in law enforcement anymore.

[00:59:46] And, you know, it's that thing.

[00:59:48] You don't realize how much poison you're drinking until you're not drinking it anymore.

[00:59:52] Right.

[00:59:53] I thought I loved it.

[00:59:55] I thought, you know, my favorite shift to work was night shifts.

[00:59:58] I loved being out in the middle of the night.

[01:00:01] That was my favorite shift.

[01:00:02] Now I go to bed early.

[01:00:04] I have a sleep routine that I follow.

[01:00:07] I would never be up past midnight.

[01:00:09] Right.

[01:00:09] So it's funny how your life changes, but I think life is about evolution and we need to evolve.

[01:00:17] One thing I really want to share, though, is there's always hope.

[01:00:21] There's always hope.

[01:00:23] And I in my story, I didn't find my hope right away.

[01:00:28] And when I did reach out for help, I was rejected.

[01:00:31] Everybody, anybody who's struggling should reach out because there is always somebody that will help you.

[01:00:38] And quite frequently, that is somebody that will be on the outer edges of your social network.

[01:00:43] It won't be somebody close to you.

[01:00:45] And that's something I found for myself.

[01:00:48] And I've heard stories from other men.

[01:00:50] And I have never regretted fighting through.

[01:00:53] I've never regretted it.

[01:00:55] About six months after I went into therapy, my daughter was in kindergarten.

[01:00:59] And they had a bring a parent day.

[01:01:03] And whichever student's parent showed up, that student was the classroom helper that day.

[01:01:10] And so I went for my daughter's day and I was there.

[01:01:15] And she was so thrilled that her daddy was there with her.

[01:01:19] And she was just glowing with excitement that I was there.

[01:01:24] And she couldn't contain her excitement.

[01:01:26] And so that was the first kind of big example of how grateful I was for fighting through.

[01:01:32] Last year, I got asked to do a speech at a first responders event on mental health.

[01:01:40] And so I'm writing this speech and I couldn't decide how to finish the speech off.

[01:01:45] And once again, my daughter came through for me.

[01:01:48] And she was nine years old at the time.

[01:01:51] And she woke from a nightmare.

[01:01:52] And she wanted cuddles with me.

[01:01:54] And so I go to her bed.

[01:01:56] And I climbed in beside her and I wrapped my arms around her.

[01:02:00] And as I did that, I started thinking back to all those nights where her presence had comforted me.

[01:02:09] And I was so filled with gratitude at just being there, being able to help her in her time of need.

[01:02:19] And it's such an honor.

[01:02:21] And it's a blessing to be able to do that and to be there for my children.

[01:02:27] Not a day goes by that I don't think about how grateful I am that I'm here to be here for my children.

[01:02:34] I know.

[01:02:34] I have children as well.

[01:02:36] They're all other adults now.

[01:02:38] But so much I felt I learned what God was teaching me through my children.

[01:02:43] So many lessons and helping me through very, very tough times.

[01:02:50] Despite my brokenness, they both turned out to be really cool people.

[01:02:54] And I love them both.

[01:02:56] And I'm proud of both of them.

[01:02:58] And that it's cool to see.

[01:03:00] But enjoy those children because it goes by in a flash for sure.

[01:03:06] And now to reach out, I know you've got a website, trueemotion.ca.

[01:03:13] You're in Canada, of course.

[01:03:15] And that's your coaching website.

[01:03:17] And I also started a small clothing line with the tagline stigma kills because the stigma around mental health kills a lot of people.

[01:03:27] And it's so ridiculous because we all suffer.

[01:03:31] Right.

[01:03:31] And so that was kind of the first step I did to help raise awareness around mental health and stigma.

[01:03:40] Right.

[01:03:40] That's wonderful.

[01:03:41] And we'll have all your other contact information, your socials in the show notes.

[01:03:46] And any closing thoughts?

[01:03:51] I just want people to know they're not alone.

[01:03:54] There's always a way out.

[01:03:56] There's always hope.

[01:03:57] If you don't get the help you need on your first try, keep trying because you'll never regret it.

[01:04:03] And if you're not suffering but you think somebody is, just go ask them.

[01:04:10] Be that person that they'll confide in and just, you know, all you have to do is hold that space for them.

[01:04:16] And whether it's a coach or a therapist, sometimes first time is not always a great hit.

[01:04:22] Or maybe they're with you for a season, but then you need something else, something deeper.

[01:04:28] And I know I was like third, well, overall, maybe fourth, maybe fifth, before I finally found someone who could really help me and dig deep and really help with my healing.

[01:04:43] So don't give up.

[01:04:45] Keep looking because the help is out there for sure.

[01:04:49] And thank you so much, Laverne, for being with us on the podcast.

[01:04:54] And we'll see you next time on the Healing for Male Survivors podcast.

[01:05:01] If you would like to learn more about my coaching with Polar Live Consulting, where I provide one-on-one coaching and group coaching, both with a focus on healing for male survivors, reach out to me at polarlifeconsulting.com.

[01:05:16] That is polar spelled P-O-L-A-R.

[01:05:19] I would love to hear from you.

[01:05:21] I want to hear your story.

[01:05:23] If you would like your story featured on this podcast, contact me via my website.

[01:05:28] If you like this podcast, please rate and review because that's how other people can find me.

[01:05:33] And I really want to spread this message of healing and hope to others.

[01:05:37] And remember, you are not alone.

[01:05:40] Healing is possible.

[01:05:42] And the abuse was not your fault.

[01:05:44] Let me repeat that.

[01:05:46] The abuse was not your fault.

[01:05:49] See you next time on the Healing for Male Survivors podcast.