Left Of Greg 091 Dr Colleen Richardson

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All right, we're in, man. We are, we are, we are on here. We are going. So, we will go ahead and get started. So, Dr. Colleen Richardson, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you hopping on here. For everyone just listening, we're recording this on like a Sunday evening, but I think it's a good, it's a good time and place for the topic of discussion. So, Colleen, I know you're Chief of Psychology at the VA, but you got a whole bunch of other experiences I'd love to jump into, but first I just want to say thanks for coming on and joining us on here.

Yeah, thanks for having me, you guys.

Yeah, so it'll just so so everyone knows, I'll kind of start off with how you and I met actually. And we met in Salt Lake City, Utah. My friend Tyler Bruce, we called him Blue, he was a Recon Marine veteran. I'd worked with him, I didn't know him in the Marine Corps, but I worked with him afterwards as an instructor at a training facility. And he committed suicide. It was, obviously, we'll get into all the everything that goes in with that.

But then during this process, I linked up with your husband, who is his former platoon commander, who's a Recon Marine as well. And a whole bunch of folks that were coming in from the funeral, and then we kind of linked up in Salt Lake City, and then we were all hanging out and talking, got to go through this. So the first thing, like I said already plenty of times, is thank you for being there for one, because it completely changed the experience. I think it turned, it allowed us to learn a lot while we were there, having you there. And through our discussions, I learned all about what you do, and you have a very, I think, a very unique perspective when it comes to a lot of this mental health issues.

Not only because you're Chief of Psychology at the VA in Dallas, so you're literally dealing with it every single day, but you have your own experience. You're a Naval Officer, you're a psychologist in the Navy, you deployed to combat, attached to combat units with Marines, right? Of all of all people. So you have that experience of, your own combat experience, that you have your own military experience, your husband, again, was a Marine, a former Recon Marine. And then you're doing this, so you kind of have this very, very unique perspective is the only way to really describe it because you have your own things that you have to deal with while you're helping others, while you have a family, while you have a husband who's completely insane, who I love to death, I would take a bullet for. He's a great, great guy. And, and I, I, I called your guys' relationship, finally, after like meeting both of you and talking, I was like, "Oh, wait, this is, this is like in that movie Step Brothers where Will Ferrell's dating his psychiatrist or whatever." Like, "That's your relationship." And you guys are like, "Yeah, pretty much."

So yeah, and, and so one of the things I kind of want to get into is, first of all, just to kind of, from my perspective on how we talked about this while I was there, is that there's been other guys that I know who have committed suicide. And this is obviously a huge issue. Everyone knows that it's something, 22 veterans a day kill themselves. The numbers are out there, the discussion is out there, but it's still going on, and it's still happening. So a lot to unpack here, in in our conversation, but I kind of wanted to sort of start around with your experiences and maybe some of the common things that that you see. And then I can relate that back to kind of what we all went through dealing with with Tyler.

Because like I said, I've had other friends that committed suicide and I couldn't go to their funeral. I could have, meaning it wasn't like it was out of the realm of the possible, but I made excuses for being too busy and not wanting to do it. And I realized that was me not wanting to kind of face the issue. And with Blue, Tyler, it was so different to me because on the surface, right, just like we all do, well, he had a family. He's got a wife, he's got two little boys, he had a good job, he was making stuff happen, and he was always positive. He's so much fun to work with. He was just a great guy. And, and I know, and Greg knows that that doesn't necessarily mean... right? You don't know what that other person has. Which is amazing, because that's one of the quotes that Blue, Tyler, used to say, is, "Hey, when you're dealing with someone, you don't know what that person's going through at the time." And that's incredible, because how does a guy who had that outlook then be the same guy that commits suicide?

So, I don't know. It's kind of tough already right now. I figured it'd take a little while to get to the tough parts, but we're, we're... what is it that you see most from your experience? We talked a little bit about this, but what are the things that we need to focus on that we're not focusing on? I guess we'll start there.

Yeah, you know, the whole, the whole thing is, I think we all, no matter what happens, like we're all just baffled by it, right? I mean, I'm still trying to get my head around this whole thing. I mean, it's been a couple weeks, and Brian and I have sat down, and we're like trying to piece together a puzzle, and piece together this puzzle, and we're like, "Okay, so this makes sense." And we're like, "No, that doesn't make sense. Hang on, let's, let's try this again." And we start just kind of combing through everything we know, and it's like this investigation. And we just never find the resolution to something, like a story that's going to make us feel any better, or a story that's going to say, "That's why that happened." I mean, they're just, that doesn't exist.

I think, I think the first thing is just destigmatizing mental health, right? I mean, when I first joined the military back in 2006, I mean, people called me the wizard, or like, because I was the person, you know, to be embedded with these Marines. You know, I got the nickname, "the sorceress," right? Because everyone was, the idea...

Yeah, the sorceress, right.

...The sorceress, right, that was the big joke. The idea was, you know, "If we come see her, she's going to make us disappear and we'll never go back to our unit because, you know, nobody wants to come seek mental health help and we don't know what they're going through, and we don't understand." And, and so there's this stigma that surrounds just seeking help in the first place.

And then, you know, when I took over Wounded Warrior Battalion in 2000, late 2008 and all of 2009 and 2010, these men, and there was one female attached to the unit, but these men were like, "Hey, Doc, I got an appointment with you at three today." And of course, you know, my first thought was, "Oh God, HIPAA." Like, "I'm not, should I nod and say nobody sees me?" But I started to notice that because the company commander and my first sergeant and the battalion commander and the XO were like, "Hey, go, go see her. You need to talk to somebody. It's okay to talk about these things." That's when people started coming to my door and it just literally was not a big deal anymore.

But when I first walked into that battalion, I mean, the looks on everybody's face were like, first of all, I've already seen the looks, right? I was a female with an all-male unit. Like, "Oh God, here she comes again, and she's an officer." Like that's what I felt when I walked in that battalion, I'm like, "Oh, I'm the only female. Damn." You know? And so there was that piece. And then as they kind of just started to embed myself again and, you know, just be my normal everyday self, people started coming in my door and asking me questions and, you know, I had guys that were that would, you know, really try to ruffle my feathers, and I didn't really care. I'm like, "Say whatever you want. You're not going to phase me in the slightest at this point."

So I think one is that there's that stigma that's associated with seeking mental health help. And then there's this what I always refer to as kind of like this, for some people, an identity crisis, or a shift in who we are, right? So I think Brian, you and I talked about this a little bit. If you consider your whole life and every aspect of it a pie, and every piece within that pie at different moments in your life gets a bigger percentage, right? So when you're in the Marine Corps, you know, like 50% of that's probably, "Oh, Semper Fi," right? There's a big chunk. And then maybe if you're married, a little bit of that is your husband. If you have kids, your father. And if you go to church, you're, you're a godly man. So every piece gets a percentage.

And I think those percentages change, but then when you lose the piece altogether, what happens? Like what do you fill that with? Right? So 50% of your life for 20 years, four years, plus you add combat in there, which makes it a little bit, you know, it's like adding toppings. I guess so that one...

Yeah, I know. It's a good way to put it.

...You, you lose that slice. Like, and so what, what do I replace that slice with that's going to be just as good, just as tasty, just as meaningful for me? And I think that's where people start to shrivel, right? And then you add other things. You add civilians who, you know, sometimes really understand and comprehend some of the things that we've been through. And then there's like, "Yeah, what a hierarchy, a structure." "No, no, no, I mean, just do whatever you need to do, and just, you know, show up." And we're like, "What? Like, you don't show up on time and isn't there something you want me to do today?" So there's no structure.

And then you have relationships on top of that, right? You get married for the first time, and or maybe you've been married, and you've got this pie piece that's now missing, and you're trying to redefine who you are. And your wife is like, "Well, I can," or your husband, whoever it is, "Well, I didn't change, so what's wrong with you? Why can't you just adjust?" And so you have that, and I think there's just a culmination of so many different things. If you're not good at filling that piece back in, I think that's where people really start to struggle. And they're, I mean, I, I think being a Marine and doing those things, I don't want to say it makes you like a man, but it makes you, it makes you a somebody, right? I mean, you're important. You're in the Marine Corps and your best friends are there with you. And you're even like Corpsmen, right? I brag about Corpsmen all the time and our medics. I mean, here are 19, 18-year-old kids responsible for saving the lives of grown ass men and females and women. And they don't even have a doctorate, they don't have a medical degree. I mean, they went to a school C school, they went to hospital Corpsman stuff and got all their training, maybe their, you know, Delta whatever. But they're putting in chest tubes. They're, you know, I've had some, this is kind of gross, but suck the blood out of the mouths of their Marines to save their lives. I mean, that's incredible stuff, right? Then they leave and what do we, what do we do? "Yeah, thanks for your service."

Yep.

Well, and that's it. And then we kind of leave them hanging. So there's that. There's all those things that just kind of culminate, and then you try to redefine who you are, I think, and that's, that's a really tough thing to do, I think. And pardon my French, I know I say a lot of bad words.

You know, that, that's, you brought up a number of good points. And and it, you started with kind of saying, trying to make sense of these situations. How do I, how do I make sense of it? And, sorry, it's, it's really, really hard. You go through that range of emotions, and like it goes from anger to sadness to anger again and all that stuff. And you just, you, you want it to stop. You want it to help, but like you don't know how. So now you're like this angry bear with these, you're like that, that, you're like a bear with these claws and you're batting around this little rabbit you gotta smash. You know, you can't do that.

So, and and since there is no factor, and we all want this moment to go, "Oh, it's because of this, it's because, you know what, he wasn't being medicated properly by the VA and they weren't taking care of him." Well, okay, that's kind of an oversimplification of these issues, right? It's a very overs, it's a huge oversimplification. And and trying to find that is really, really difficult of what, you know, what it is and put our finger on it.

And what you just said is is huge about that identity and and purpose too. Like you just said everything you do when you're in the military or law enforcement or or like health care, any one of those fields where everything you do is for a purpose. Like it sounds stupid, but you know, going to that formation, cleaning your room a certain way, it's all a purpose. So when that rug gets taken out, that's the big thing. Is that even if you have a great job and can do all that stuff, it's different because, you know, not everything has a purpose and some of it's just, "Hey, this is what we got to do." And some of it's, you know, and, and and when you lose that, like you said, you gotta find it somewhere.

Mine right. Yeah, it really is.

Yeah, it really is. And but my question to that is, Colleen, and I don't, you or Greg maybe can help answer this, is why is it that we always see, we, meaning people who, all people? Because, you know, veterans don't have a monopoly on mental health issues, right? We, we all got them. But why is it that that in so much with military and law enforcement, it's a huge one. Why is it that we always go to, "Well, suicide's always an option?" Like, why is that even an option on the table? And and that's what is, I don't get, because we all have that dark humor where we joke about this stuff and I'm all good about joking about this stuff, that's how you... I mean, you saw me when I was at the, we were all hanging out. I was like, "Hey, I'm going to talk for a second, and some weird stuff's going to come out and I'm going to think it's funny and you might not." Like, "I'm horribly immature in these situations and I don't know what to do with my hands." Like, "Just going to put them right here and say stuff."

But, but we, we joke about stuff, but like, why is that the first thing that comes, not the, why does that come to our mind so quickly? And I don't know if you have an answer or if Greg or you want to put it, because like...

And if I could just pile on just before Colleen, before you jump in on that. The, the idea, Brian, I think that you're all over on this one, is, sorry, still at work. If, if you take a look at our argument, Brian, with sometimes talking about motive. Dr. Colleen really hit on, when you were talking about your pain and both of you were at the same very painful incident. When you started talking about the story, "Why might this have happened?" You know, that story was for us. That story was for you, okay? Because what you were doing is you were trying to create a motive so you could say, "Hey, listen, this wasn't a monster. This wasn't an accident. This was somebody that I loved. This was a father and this was a husband."

And it reminds me of that gosh damn around Christmas time they always show that Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that claymation character, and they answer certain questions and the kids all go, "Oh, that's why he wears a red coat. Oh, that's why he does it." What has to happen is we're craving that organization again. We're saying, "If it happens to him, that could happen to me." And that scares the out of us. And that's, that's where I like to start because Brian, when you, that I don't know how many times I texted you on that weekend, but I felt what you were feeling. I feel it now. My, you know what I'm saying? I, I don't know how to go on without breaking up because all those other people that that have committed suicide are now in the room with us, right? Right, right now. And it's really, I apologize for my language, and it's really hard going on because I want, I want somebody to step up and go, "No, it wasn't you." To let me off the hook. Do you hear what I'm saying? "Hey, you are a good enough friend. It's okay." And, and man, that's the toughest part for me right now, Brian.

Yeah, yeah, I know. And and I think I even said that when I was there in Salt Lake, I said, "If if Blue, that's why it was so scary to me, because if Blue could do it, well, so could I." Like, "Then that scared the out of me." Like, it's a question...

So if you think about ourselves, right, Brian, I know you have a daughter. Greg, do you have any kids?

Yes, ma'am. They're all your age, though.

So I think about like there are certain things I probably won't say or do in public to my children, but I might say or do them behind closed doors because we have that image that we present ourselves to up front, right? Like everyone knows me as, you know, Dr. Richardson, and I'm so squared away. When the door shuts, I'm like a mess sometimes. Like I'm a hot mess and my poor husband's like, "Oh my God, and she's the shrink in the relationship." You know, I think there's that public self and there's that private self. And so many of us are truly afraid to share who that private self really is.

So yes, Blue, and again, he's one of many and it's I'll never understand it no matter how many years I've done this. But what we saw up front is who we all knew him as, but what did his private self, what do all of our private selves really look like? And who are we truly honest with those feelings about, right? I mean, I think most of us would admit that, you know, suicide is something that's crossed everybody's mind. It's not that we're going to do it. That's not that we have a plan, but we think about these things because unfortunately it's an option, which like you mentioned earlier, why, why is this an option?

And I think Sergeant Wilkes, he had done a Facebook Live and we'd finished, I don't know if y'all had ever seen that after Tyler's funeral, and he, he asked questions, "Why? Why is this an option? People need to know this is not an option anymore." And I, I love that, you know, I think, you know, the VA has got this velocity that we're trying to go to zero. And at first I was like, "Wow, how do we get to zero? You know, we can't control people." But I think he kind of hit the nail on the head for me when he said, "It's not, it shouldn't be an option. Stop making it an option there."

And I think Brian, you somebody started this analogy when we were talking about Tyler and we were doing our kind of, I would say like a little process if you will.

Yeah, it was great. It was cool. It was really cool.

And I've had the opportunity to do a lot of those and I love those, but you had somebody had said some, oh, Z, Z had said, you know, "If you think about carrying a pack, right? If you put the pack down, none of us are going to let you stop right there. And you said, right? We're going to take those weights out, make your path lighter." And you compared it to like going through mental health issues and I was like, "Damn, that is powerful and that's the best analogy I've ever ever heard." And I told you guys, like, "I'm stealing that." "Yeah, that's mine." You know, like that was, that was awesome. And I think everybody needs to realize that, right?

So we leave the, the Marine Corps. I left the Navy. When I came back from deployment, my, the battalion that I was with, a shock trauma platoon, I got involuntarily extended or voluntarily extended, however we wanted to call it. So I stayed a couple extra months for the regiment. And I was one of one coming home. And I remember getting home and just being like, "Oh, like, where do I go?" Yeah, there's one of these men for a year. And man, they made me feel safe. And, you know, I knew no matter what happened, they were taking my body home regardless. But then I came home and it was just me. And my first experience was in Target. I just went in to get a stick of deodorant. And I was standing there looking at the deodorant sticks and this guy like rushed behind me and I went to reach for a weapon and I'm like, "Oh," and I just ran. I think I just dropped the deodorant on the floor and ran out to my car and was like, "Oh God, I'm having it. It's one of those things." And I started to panic.

And when you come home or you leave the Marine Corps and you don't have, you feel like you don't have anyone to carry your pack or unload it, that's really hard to to deal with. But I, but I think we all have it. We just maybe don't want to share that my pack is too heavy, right? How many times in the Marine Corps or my husband, you know, I've heard him tease, "Well, that chick can't carry her own pack, she shouldn't be here." I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to carry my own suitcase." You know? Like, "I better not ask him for help because..." Yeah, so we think we have to carry our own pack and our own weight, but that's fine when it's like a legit you're humping a bag, like, "Suck it up and hump your pack." But mental health problems are not something we should suck up and hump our packs on our own. We have to ask for help.

No, that and that that's true. And one of the things I brought up when we had, Greg, we had this great discussion right at Blue's wake, I mean, literally in the other room we all went in there and we kind of like Colleen kind of led a little discussion sort of. And it just came, it was very natural and organic and it was like really good. And I, I feel selfish even being like, "Hey, like I'm really glad I had that experience," because I'm looking at his wife and two boys. So it's, it's that's right now, like in the back of my mind this whole time, which is making it so difficult.

But one of the things like, like you just said, is that in one of the things I brought up is like, "Look, you don't know when you have a problem. If we all knew when we had problems, like we, we, we would, we would maybe it wouldn't be this bad because, you know, because we're so used to just, 'I can handle it. I'll do it. I'll do it all day long. I don't give a I got I can throw more weight in there, let's go, baby, I can see it.'" Like, you know, it, it, because we do that, we don't realize. And I've shared this story on here before. I told you guys about, it's like when I had those behavioral health scientists that were like, "Uh, Brian, you're completely insane." And I'm like, "What?" And I had to learn like, "Oh, maybe I'm the problem."

But, but you don't know because what our baseline is, because what we think of is normal is so far outside of what's clinically, when we use the term normal, we mean in a clinical sense of normal being able to, you know, normal behavior for your environment and social norms and everything. Not like, "Hey, you're odd or weird." But what our baseline is, and I think that's part of it. And and this goes into how identity can can be difficult because then who do we identify with? Who did I always take jobs with? Who did I always go work with? Even at the Marine Corps, who was it? It was all, I've always worked for the U.S. government for the last how long in some form or fashion with military, with military veterans or something. Why? Because I, I can, I feel okay there. Like that when we, even though we...

Normal there, right?

Yeah, you feel normal. And even though we, we rip on each other and we make fun of each other constantly and it's all, you got to be able to hang. Like part of that is what allows us to, I can say whatever I want and no one's going to look at me and be like, "Brian, that's really strange." Like, in fact, they're probably going to try and top that. So that's part of it.

And and one of the things I, I told you that I luckily I, I was, you know, just trying to figure this out as I went along, you know, for the last decade, right, is I became friends with people who had normal, healthy relationships that had nothing to do with the military, they had no. So it took me out of my comfort zone. And but the thing is, you know, we always talk about, you know, "Hey, let's get comfortable being uncomfortable." We learn that in the military. We have a training to where you have to go through rigorous training. Well, I look at it no differently. Like, "Well, if you're going to apply it there, you have to apply it to everything." And and I don't know if that kind of helps or makes sense or or how guys do that and deal with that identity issue, because one thing...

Sorry, no, no, Brian, you, you, and listen, I'm like rambling, rambling, coherent though. You're making all the sense in the world. You're hurting, man, and it's coming out, and this is the place that it needs to come out. I want you to think about our own evolution as humans. Take a look at how big our visual field is now. So the problem that exists with that physiologically is we also see ourselves on a grander scale, and we're such egos, the egotist, and we have such a fragile ego system. We now put ourselves in an environment, right? And there's this fragile Faberge egg that we built around us. And then we've got to go back and tell our husband or our wife or our kids that we didn't get that contract. We've got to go back and we've got to tell them, "Hey, we've got to take that, that flight to that shitty hotel, Brian, to do that contract just to pay the light bills because things aren't going well."

And now with COVID, it's the deployment that never ends. And again, we don't process it equally because our visual field is such a, so much larger that since we've evolved, that now that even though I turn off the lights in my room and I've got blackout curtains to try to sleep and I try to make it 20 degrees cooler inside, I close my eyes and I still see everybody. I still see the potato farm with the dog grabbing the intestines and dragging it down the road and the, you know, hear the screams and the gunshots and all that other stuff. So, Brian, we don't get that break and you don't get that break. So what do you do? Remember what we say when we're on the road, Brian, "Push those emotions down, deeper down with the brown." It's passing me that bourbon. It's the worst possible thing to do. One, we're with a co-conspirator who also, who also becomes, right, they call it an enabler. Yeah, you see what I'm saying? So the downward spiral is coming. Nine Inch Nails is, is like the background every time I'm walking around, I'm hearing Reznor playing in the background. That's not healthy.

Yeah, so there's a couple things. So one, so I want to address something that you mentioned earlier. I'm going to get that in a second. So first of all, I think you have to realize that it's honest to God, like it's okay not to be okay. It's okay. You're not going to be the Brian or the Colleen or the Greg or whoever that exists, it again, prior to the military, you're just not. That guy's not coming back. Just like if that guy got in a horrible car wreck when he was 17 years old, he's not going to be the same guy after that car. Things are going to change. And I think we have to be okay with that and realize this is that identity piece, right?

So I was a college athlete. I know, hard to believe, you met me and saw how tall I am. I was a college basketball player.

Yeah. I thought you were making that up when you told me that because you're like, "I got to Google this chick."

I was a college basketball player. My whole life I mean, all over the country playing basketball. This was who I identified with. I was a college basketball player and, you know, like 2% of me was like, "Okay, I have to study so I can have a good enough grade so I can, you know, go to college." But when college ended, I was like, "Oh shoot, doctorate, that sounds great. Let me just jump right into grad school." I mean, I had no plan for my life, but it's a small comparison to what we experienced in the military, but it's still this identity, right? And so then I had to redefine who I was at, at, you know, 21 years of age, and then went to grad school and had to redefine myself again. I want to join the military. And then I found the old Colleen, right? The Colleen the basketball player who had a really potty mouth back then, and my mom was thrilled when I became a sailor because it all made sense to her at that point. [Laughter]

So then I joined the military and found me again. Like, found the athletic side of me, found this chick who was used to hanging out with all dudes, like my whole life. I love hanging out with the guys because I could just put on a pair of basketball shorts and go play ball and we had a great, just fit right in. And then that left. I'm like, "Oh crap, I got to, well, I have to be this professional." You know? So there's that. I think there's that identity piece again that kind of just keeps popping up, coming up. And it's taken me a lot of time. It took me years to just tell myself like, "It's okay that I'm not who I used to be. And it's okay that I'm not normal anymore. And it's okay that I laugh at really absurd things, and some people will understand and some people just won't." So I think there's that piece.

But you had said something earlier that struck me. You said something about, "And here I am, this guy that's just angry and sad and mad and depressed." And so we've, we briefly mentioned this at the funeral and I didn't really articulate it well at all. I was like, "Oh crap, they asked me a smart question. I have to pretend I'm intelligent here for a minute," right? We talked about the stages of like grief, right? So I don't even think I gave her name but Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, right? She talks about the stages of grief and she talks about denial and anger and bargaining and reasoning and acceptance. And everyone's like, "Okay, so I'm going to be mad and then I'm going to be okay and then I'm finally going to go to acceptance," right? I'm like, "Yeah, I wish it worked that well." And people have asked me since then, "Well, what's the time frame, Doc? When should I go from the beginning to the end?" I'm like, "Ooh, yeah, there's no time frame." Like, just when you think you're doing great, you're back at anger again. You're back at denial and you're back at bargaining. It's, it's such a complicated emotion, grief is, right?

And this is the one I probably have the hardest time with in therapy because I can't fix dead, right? There's nothing I can do with that. I can't bring it back. With PTSD, I'm pretty confident because I'm like, "Listen, I've seen so many people be successful. I can help you with this." But I can't bring your spouse back, right? I've left sometimes, "Man, I sucked today. Like, how do I, how do I help somebody?" But I think sitting with them and, and this is where we struggle, right? Like you guys said, "I just want to shoot that bourbon down there and get shoved those feelings down." I'm a nine-year-old, so that my car the other day, I said, "Honey, you need to talk about these emotions." She goes, "No, I don't. I'm just going to shove them way down deep." I'm like, "Oh God, oh geez, this is the worst thing you've ever, what have I created?" Yeah, my husband and I are like, "Oh crap." You know?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's because think about how conducive that is to a combat environment, right? Yeah, if, if we're on a patrol and bad happens and I'm sitting here crying over you and I've got three other people I have to triage still, no, I've got to turn those emotions off and I get really good at it. And after a while when they start to creep in at all the weird opportunities in my life, like, you know, somebody in, TV, you see the little Zoloft commercial or whatever, the rain starts coming from the cloud. Like, "Oh my God, yeah, you know," I'm like, "What the hell? It might be right over this." You know? And then the big stuff, like I've had ten suicides from patients, from Marines, from friends, and I just kind of sit there now. I'm like, "Oh, oh crap, when will this hit me? What will this come out?" Like, right? I mean, we just, we've gotten so good at turning it off to take care of everybody else and not to feel it ourselves so we can keep functioning, it's not a good thing.

No, and it's, it's, it's hard to communicate it too. You know, I, I, we always, Greg and I always put everything back to training, right? And we always say training changes behaviors. And your everything you learn in the military, I mean, literally there's more training built in than people even realize. Like there's some of the things that you do, you don't know why you're doing it, but you're, it's done because someone in the past learned to do it that way and said, "Hey, we have to do this every single way this time." Right? So it's a constant, constant training environment. So you always have these tools available to you to use for different situations. And, and we don't ever get training in this.

And, and when this specifically happened, when I found out with about Blue, it was on like a Thursday night. I didn't get it to like went Friday morning or something when I woke up and I was like, "Hey, Blue died." Like, and everyone's getting tech, going back for like, "Wait, what happened?" Like, and I was like, "No, like he killed himself." And like, "You got to be kidding me." And I wanted to put my hand through every wall in this office right here, just extremely angry.

Here's the thing, that Saturday, we already had a little staycation plan at a hotel down in downtown San Diego because my wife like has not been out hardly at all during COVID where I've still been traveling. So like I take it for granted. So we'll take her and the little one, we're just going to, because they have a pool with deck that we can go out. It's open. You know, we can go out, hang out in the pool, wander around down by the pier, do everything. You know, a little staycation for the night. So I want to focus on having fun and do that.

So I did that. I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm reading through all these texts literally two feet from my wife, going, 'I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to wait till Sunday to process this. I'm just going to go ahead and set the phone down.'" So we go down there Saturday and we check in. And then we go to the pool and I've got snacks and stuff for the little one and she's all excited. She just wants to get in the pool so bad. And the hotel is not doing the best job of handling this whole COVID situation. They're just basically telling you like, "Hey, you can't do this. Hey, you can't do like, but they're not really setting you up for success." So it's kind of confusing. Like, and so I, this person's coming up telling me one thing, "Hey, you got to make sure this." While this other guy comes up behind me, "Hey, you can't bring outside food in here." So I'm getting this and it just, I immediately go to red and I'm like, "I'm taking this and I'm throwing him off this rooftop and and I know it's not going to end well, but for like a good minute, I'm going to feel really, really, really good because I'm going to take it all out on him."

And so my wife sees me and she tells, she can tell I'm getting amped up and but she doesn't know what's going on in my head. So she thinks it's just because of what they're saying. So she's doing, they're like, "Hey, you're overreacting. What's the problem?" So I walk away, I go sit down and I'm like, I just sit here. And she comes up and same thing's like, "Brian, like this isn't a big deal. We can just do that." And so she's now coming at me like, "Why are you getting so upset? You're overreacting." I'm like, "Babe, stop." I was like, "Hey, remember Blue that I worked with down in Georgia? I tell you, 'Oh yeah, yeah.' He killed himself the other day." So that's kind of what I'm dealing with right now. And she's just like, "What the? Why didn't you tell me? Like, you're a, what, you should have told me." And I'm like, "I didn't want it to ruin today." And she's like, "Well, look what's happening." So I was like, and and we were able to, you know, calm down, bring back the situation now once I told it. But like that's the thing. It's like, I don't know if it that's the the, you know, the Irish Catholic upbringing as well. It's like, "Nah, we're just going to push it down. We're just going to, we're just not going to talk about it. We're going to be fine. Yeah, we'll be fine." And then we'll get, we'll get an argument later about it and then never talk it again, talk about it again.

It's just like Skymirizi, too, right? At the bottom of the medication that they're going to put you on, it, it has all these warnings: dropsy, a vaginal yeast infection, you're going to have a horrible headache. And, and what the problem with the Kübler-Ross is that they don't tell you, one, it's not going to come in order, and it's not going to come all at the same time, and it's not going to dissipate in any manner that that makes any sense, and it's going to be different for everybody. Well, think about that, if you were going to go to a doctor and that was his prognosis or her prognosis to you, you'd choose a new doctor. But isn't that what this is?

And, and then the other thing is you're trying to make order out of chaos, which humans have to do. And everybody that's coming at you, they're not coming at you, Brian, it had nothing to do with you, but you can't see the forest for the trees. So the problem is that we're not having these type of discussions. What we're having is we're having, "Oh, poor me," discussions. And don't get me started on some of the stuff veterans, God bless all veterans everywhere and forever, but veterans say, "Okay, well, hey, my friend died, though. No one's pain is as bad as mine. You've never met anybody that was as cool as my friend. And therefore this..." We got to stop that, too. We got to stop the exclusive club stuff, saying, "Only these guys get in," and, and, "Hey, you know what, you, you were a special guy and you had a delta at the end of your stuff, but guess what, you didn't get a Purple Heart, so you ain't," and, and, "I've got the CIB and you're..." Does that sound familiar? So are we not setting ourselves up for failure? And cops are no different. The only difference with a cop is a cop is out there most times on his own or on her own. And, and the thing is that the cop's got a three-minute QRF. You get what I'm trying to say? The quick reaction force is, is the siren away. You can hear that siren coming. And many times we didn't have that luxury. But the problem is I think we're part of our own problem, setting that bar so high every day.

Yeah. So one of the, one of the things, you know, we talk about to kind of when we do, you know, we put it in the sense of a threat analytics, right? If I'm going to identify something and mitigate something before it happens, I have to, you know, have sensors. I have to process information. I have to categorize it and operationalize it. So the way we look at it is, you know, a lot of things are come down to what's called a signal to noise ratio, right? There's a lot of noise out there, but what's, what's the pure signal that I need to look for, right? What is giving me the best information? So I'm curious because you have, you know, all of this experience. So you have this all of this information that you've collected, right? And specifically because you've been involved with mental health for so long and you have your own mental health issues and your own experiences in your own life. What is there, like, because we always try to, how do you operationalize information? How do we take all these discussions that people are having, everything we know, and then use it effectively to mitigate something, right? So what's to you, what's that pure signal? What are the things? Because there's always some things that are indicators and and some things that that that aren't. There's always usually some type of like trigger event that sets it off, right? But but their cup was already full at that point. So like what, what, I mean, we always try to the takeaways of it are like what are some common things that that you've seen that you go, "Look, here's some of the things that that really need to be discussed that we aren't discussing." Do you have any of those? Or or...

Wow, that's a really great question. I mean, there's so, there's so many. There's so many answers to that question. I'm not even sure really how to formulate a great response.

I'm kind of putting you on the spot here. I didn't, I didn't give you these questions. I was really good at that.

No, I, I, no, because, you know what? This is why I like Brian's too much, my medal, because damn, this guy like, he's really thinking about this stuff. Like, you're really, you're thinking outside the traditional evidence-based psychotherapy. You're trying to take what everybody is doing and getting an answer that's going to work. And I think it's going to be different for everybody, right? So I think this is what why you've been successful. One, you're, you're open, right? You have insight. That's huge, right? People can't look inside themselves and go, "Wow, maybe she's right. I am a little up and I really need to take a peek at that." That's a problem if you have an insight. Like I always tell people, "When you get some insight, come back and see me. There's nothing I can do until you kind of want to take a look inward and realize that you're not perfect," right? So I think there's that piece.

I think there's the, there's some education that goes along with it, right? And I think it's, this is what I always say, like in the military, when you go to boot camp, right? There's a reason when, because you're screwing up, right? And you're just, you feel stressed. A lot of people just feel an extreme amount of stress when you're at boot camp. We all look back now and laugh our asses off and, "That was nothing." Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're like, "I was like ready to pee myself and that sergeant screamed at my face and, 'Oh God, just don't pass out.'" You know? But there's a reason. And I tell this to all my guys and girls. I'm like, "There's a reason they make you shower and shave at certain points in the day and they tell you when you're going to eat." Because honestly, if they didn't, you wouldn't do any of those things. You would be so stressed and so overwhelmed, you would forget to do the basics. So that's the number one thing I tell everybody when they come to therapy. "If you're not doing the basics, you're wrong. Start with the basics. Shower, shave, and you better be working out. I don't care." Like I can barely do a thing these days because of all those surgeries, but I walk, you know, my husband's like, "Get your ass out of bed. Let's go." Like, "Fine." You know, I walk four miles a day or whatever I could do.

So basics, right? Educate yourself and be open to the education. You know, I, some people are like, "Oh, I love so-and-so. She's got all these things on PTSD and how to use this." I'm like, "Great, is it working for you?" "No." "Find something else." Right? What works for me is not going to work for Brian. What works for Brian is not going to work for Greg. So you got to do what works for you as long as it's a healthy coping strategy, right? So, okay, so back, so the basics, education, doing what works for you if that means a culmination of various things, right? I wish there was a prescription to give everybody and say, "Right, but it's you're going to get this and if you just do this, you're going to be fine." But there are so many things in our life from childhood to military to whatever that has caused us to be who we are today. Again, if we can't take a look at that within our own selves, I, I can't force you to do those things, right? It takes a little while. I think that's, you know, besides having working with folks whose spouse has has passed away, I think that's the other piece I struggle with in therapy is getting people to have insight and taking a look at themselves because I get to the point where I'm like, "Just look inward. Like what is wrong with you? Can you not see what I see?" They're like, "Can you not see what I see in you?" I'm like, "Well, yes, I can see that. I know I'm up, but I'm talking about you today," you know?

So I think the other piece too is, is taking a look inward and being insightful. And then you have to just keep trying things. I think in the military quitting was never an option, right? I mean, for most of us, it's, it in law enforcement, it's not an option. What happens when we quit? Bad things happen. So why do we think that we should quit now?

Well, yeah, no, and and that's why I always go to, it's, it's amazing, you know, if you, because I, I try to, we've taught some, took our skill set and, you know, Greg was asked to by the U.S. Army a while back, "Can you do something like this for suicide prevention?" We went up to Joint Base Lewis-McChord up in Washington where they had like, I mean, they were at like the panic 911 stage of people were killing themselves left and right up there. And we, we did some good and because we took it just from a training perspective. "Hey, this is how you look for things. This is what, this is what you, you need to do and this is, this is kind of how you can do it."

But I kind of forgot a little bit where I was going. Oh yeah. So, but one of the, you know, one of the things is that, looking at each other like that and looking at yourselves, right? It's an external and an internal skill set. So, so you have to kind of put that mirror up sometimes and figure out, you know, what is it that I'm doing. And, and the problem is, just like you said, is everyone wants that prescription of, "Here's what you need to do, and this is bad and this is good." But it's kind of a, it's just a gray area, you know? Like, like, "All right, alcohol is not good for you. Becoming dependent on alcohol is really, really bad for you." But if a bunch of guys can have a glass of bourbon together and that allows them to open up and talk about some of the things that they otherwise wouldn't, then why is that a bad thing? And but the problem is we then get, it's like the same folks or there's a lot of people doing different like, testing different therapies with psychedelics and stuff like that. And they go, and when I finally get to them and ask them about it, I'm like, "Well, that experience allowed them to open up, but, but that's not what they got the benefit from. They got the benefit from continuing on with this program that they had." So, so just back to what you said, this is an everyday thing. So if I can work on something just a little bit and, and we, people talk about the stigma of talking about it. When, when I talk about mental health, it's no different than when I talk about your physical health or your food, what your nutrition, what are you eating, what are you ingesting? Okay, what are you doing for a workout? What are you doing for your mental health? It's the same. And they, they all feed into each other. So you can have that, that, that positive feedback loop of all of them working together to kind of to kind of get it. So it's not one thing. But that makes things really complicated, right?

We, like you just said, me making sense of Blue's thing was like, "What the? Like what?" Like I kept saying, I must have said, "What the?" a thousand times that day when I found out because it was just like, "What, what is it?" And I, I'm sitting there knowing, Brian, you know, it's not one thing. Like I'm telling myself like, "You know, there is no one answer, there is no one thing." But when we make sense of it that way, it becomes oversimplified. I mean, and, and I, I get it. And one of the things that that Blue's dad said at the service was, you know, "It's, it's like it's no different than being shot in combat. He was shot in combat, but it just took him ten years to bleed out." And that was really, really powerful. And I know why he said that and what he was doing. He was justifying for his own religious beliefs of that because he was, his son committed suicide, that went against their religion. And that's horrible that he even feels the need to do that. I mean, really, like why? Like you don't have to do that. Like you, this is, he was hurting, he was hurting, his rock was too heavy, he couldn't carry it and he collapsed on the weight of it. And, and that's what happened. And so these are, these are complicated issues, but I always try to go, "Well, we're good at solving hard problems. I love trying to solve hard problems. It's one of the funnest things in the world to do. So how do we solve the problem?" And I, I don't know where, I didn't really have a point to all that. I was just bringing up some of the issues that that come up during these times when we're trying to sense make and problem solve. How do I figure it out? And, you know...

You know, Brian, I'm sorry, Doc, go ahead, please. So I was thinking about, Brian, when you said like, "I talked to people about mental health problems like I talked to them about nutrition." Okay, rewind a few years when you first did that and people were like, "Yeah, well, yeah, we're gonna, I'm gonna change the topic on here." Like, I'm so used to being like, "Oh, you know, Brian's like, 'I like going places with you because you can just talk to everybody.'" I'm like, "I know. I feel like I'm doing a clinical interview sometimes." Like, "Oh, and I don't mean to. I just, I love to talk to people about like, 'Hey, tell me about your family. So you married? Cool. Like, where do you guys live?'" And I know a lot of people at first like, "Um, are you gonna stop me on Facebook or something?" Yeah, well, and I know sometimes my husband's like, "Yeah, that's just what she does." You know, I'm like, "Oh." So I think it's so second nature to us. And that's where I want other people to be too. I want people to, it wanted to be second nature that, I mean, how many of us just sit down like, "Oh yeah, I've been 30 pounds since I got out of the Marine Corps." And we talked about how, you know, how fat we are, this, that, it's just second nature. We don't even think anything of it. But the second we start saying about, "Man, you know, I've been so depressed lately. Like I'm just struggling. I'm struggling to get out of bed. I'm struggling to shower." Nobody wants to talk about that. They start getting real uncomfortable.

Yeah, right.

You cannot, we have to have uncomfortable conversations in order to get people in the front door. And I think what we're seeing is a majority of veterans who are committing suicide, now this is not the case with Blue, but haven't even come in our front door yet. And those are the men and women for me that I'm like, "Please, like, come see us, come let, let us help you," you know? And if you find one therapist and you're just not happy, you genuinely give it a go and it's not working out, get another one. Don't ever give, make that your, "I didn't like her, I didn't like him, and it didn't go well." Find another one, right? I mean, don't just stop there. You have to keep pushing. It's easy, I get it, it's easier said than done. You know, I mean, there's a lot of times we all are just like, "I'm done. Like I can't do another second of feeling like this." You know, I think that there's that hopeless piece that's what I think gets people as they feel like there's no hope left, and that's, that just breaks my heart.

I think one of the things we have to acknowledge is that a lot of coppers, a lot of first responders, a lot of ER folks, a lot of military people had problems before they got into the military, before they got into their job in this exact point. That's a good thing. That's one thing. Okay. And guess what? We can't know some of that and, and that hurts sometimes.

I think the second thing that that, I'll go back to, life doesn't come with warning labels. I can get warning labels on any kind of drug and it says when these things, my throat starts getting restricted, this, that, and the other. The symptoms of suicide are so vast that when they ask us, "Well, just give me three," I, I can give you three, but it's going to be three thousand and then three million because everybody's so different. And, and, you know what, again, back to the ego, if you guys remember the film, I'm sorry, I'm a film buff, that was at Albert Brooks' film, Defending Your Life, and Pavilion, you remember that?

Yeah.

Nobody wants to go to the past lives pavilion and be Albert Brooks because he was just a tribesman that got eaten by a lion. And, and the female next one on one side was Joan of Arc and the person on the left was, you know, saving lives. And, and so nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that sometimes we're not that guy. We're not that Jason Bourne, you know, because we're kind of built to be and we're built up to be. And then all of a sudden we had this, this amazing life that was given to us, whether it was a stressful incidence of the cop or having the baby in the back seat or saving a life in combat or just living through combat. And all of a sudden we come back and now things are what they call normal. And it's not normal. We're still craving that. We're still looking for those electrochemical neurotransmitters in our lives. And sometimes we associate in bad ways, Brian. Sometimes, you know, Doc, you, you, we're cross-addicted and codependent. We're still out there racing against the fear trying to get the adrenal cortex pumping. And then we want to take a little too much alcohol. And then we don't want to tell war stories, but we do. You know? So sometimes I'm just saying we're our own worst enemies and we have to acknowledge that.

100% agree. Yeah.

Yeah, and, and you know the experience of of going there and meeting Blue's family and the platoon that he was with and all these other folks that came out. It was like, you know, it's, it's, it's so hard because, you know, I saw that because I went there. I'm like, this is, of of all the people that I know that have committed suicide, I am more like him than any one of those people. So what, what the? Like, and that's what, you know, we brought up earlier. I was scared. But, you know, I'm sitting there and he, you know, trying to tell stories to his wife and maintain composure and talk about how great he is and was. And then, you know, we're leaving and his older brother is like, "You know, I wasn't the best older brother." And I'm like, "Dude, stop." Like, "Yeah, you are. Like, don't." Like that, we all start blaming ourselves and going, "What could I have done?" And that's really, really, really hard because, like I always say it, like, "No one can kick my ass like I can." There's not a person in this world who's going to be harder on me than me. Well, I also know how to use that as as for good, right? I know how to to do that. But you sit there and go, "Why didn't I see something? I was just texting with him two weeks ago. Why didn't, why didn't I, you know, see how he was doing other than just it was kind of, he was asking for people out here and he was looking for guys that he had some job for." And we were, you know, the normal talking back and forth on text messages. But why didn't I just say, "Hey, brother, like, are you handling everything good? Are you good? You want to talk for a couple minutes?" I didn't know to do that. So, so now I start blaming myself like, "Oh, I could have done something about this." And, and I know that I couldn't. But it's, it's still that that helpless feeling.

So I kind of wanted to get, you know, your opinion because like I said at the beginning, you have such a unique perspective on on this stuff from all of your experiences. So I always like to get whenever we have a guest on or someone talking about especially something mental health related is what, what do you do, Colleen? Like, what is your things that you do to cope with this? Because you're carrying a bigger rock than anyone I know. And I'm, I like 100% think you're an amazing, amazing person for what you do. You have your own struggles and issues that you have to deal with. And even though you have that and your family and your kids and your insane husband who's like a grown man-child, you're still going in and and helping other veterans. And how do you do that? Like what, how, how are you able to do that?

Well, honestly, some days I do it well and some days I suck. I mean, I mean, you know me, I'm just, I'm just too honest. Like some days I struggle. Like I really struggle. And I have to sit down with Brian and tell him like, "I'm super depressed. Like I'm not doing okay." And I have to be very honest with him. I think helping people, though, like what happened with Tyler and and being able to be around all of you, it gave me a sense of purpose. I mean, that, that is what makes me go. I mean, knowing that maybe that day I said one thing or two things that touched the lives of somebody there to go, "All right, you know what, that shrink's okay. If she's okay, maybe there's another one out there that's kind of like her, and I'm going to go, I'm going to go do it now."

I try to do me. I do a horrible job of doing me, really, because, you know, I have three girls and I want to be super mom and I want to be super doc and I want to be super wife and I want to be fit and I want, I want all these things. Like I want my pie to be so full that I can't handle it anymore. And that's my problem is I overdo it. I have to be the best at everything and that sucks. It's a, it's a really like you said, I'm really good at kicking my own ass. I need nobody's help in that department at all. But honestly, like it's the basics. I have to, if I am not in bed by like ten, shame on me. Like that's kind of me kicking my own ass. Like, "Get your ass to bed. Get your butt up at five o'clock in the morning, go for your walk and don't eat like, Colleen." Because when you eat like, I feel like, right? Like I literally am what I eat.

And I think the other thing is I have to learn like relationships are important to me. They're huge. They're, they're who I am. And if my relationship with my husband is not going well, I'm not doing okay either. So that's a big, I know that for me, right? And so we've gone to like eight million marriage seminars in our life. And every time there's an opportunity to go to one, like, "Oh, sign up, sign up. Let's learn something else about ourselves." And, you know, we laugh. He's like, "You hear in pink and I speak in blue." And I'm like, "Yeah, I just can't decode whatever the hell it is you're saying." You know? So we've laughed about that for years, but he's learned like I need words of affirmation and I need quality time, right? And I've learned that I'm a very alpha female. I know, shocking, right? But I have to respect him as as the man and the husband in my life that I have to make sure that he realizes how important he is to me. And so when he feels that, I get what I need and he gets what he needs and I'm happy, right? Because now I'm super mom and I'm looking like I'm a great wife and I'm going to work every day and, and I hope to God like I'm changing what I need to change to make health care better for our veterans, specifically mental health and taking care of our providers so that they can take care of my guys and my girls. But I have to do the basics. I have to take the own, my own advice that I give to everybody else as far as like processing all the stuff that I've seen and done over the years. I've really sucked at that part because I'm almost afraid to tell people because the people I talk to are the people that are already traumatized. So if I start, I mean, I'll never forget, I shared one story with my husband eight years ago and not even realizing what I was saying, I was telling him about a therapy session that I had. Obviously, I didn't share confidential information, but he just like zoned out and I realized I triggered him and I've never, again, like, I totally triggered him. Like, "Oh God." And then he started crying. Like, "Oh God, oh God." Like, "What did I just broke?"

I know.

I was like, "I screwed him up further." Like, you know? But I think for me personally, I, my mom said this to me the other day and it was listening to her talk to me that really, when I hear other people say to me like I feel like I have really good insight as long as you say to me. I'm like, "Oh yeah." She's like, "You just build up a wall around you. You don't let anybody in. That wall never comes down. Then when it's down and somebody hurts you, it goes like bigger and bigger." I'm like, "Oh yeah, like I really do." Like I have a wall so big and so tough that your death's not going to affect me and what you share with me is not going to affect me. And after 15 years, how can it not, right? I mean, yeah, it's triggering for me, some, some things. You know, but yeah, it's basics. All those things I said in the beginning, I must do. And I'm crappy at doing them, but I, I, I've started to realize when I start going downhill a little bit. Yeah. And even my husband's like, "Hey, like, you're not doing what you need to do." I'm like, "Oh yeah, yeah, I did eat like sugar for like 12 days straight. It's probably not good for me." You know, knowing just complicating factors too, right? Yeah, pain, right? So we have all these mental health issues and then you have something like pain. I think I shared with Brian, you know, I've had two neck surgeries and I've, I don't know how many, ten screws in my neck now and a couple plates and all this other fun stuff. So that's another source for me that adds to the mental health, right? So knowing that I can't work out like I used to, I can't CrossFit or run triathlons, it's redefining who I am all over again, right? Here I am now trying to be this woman who's like a super power walker. That's so exciting. No, it sucks. You know? So you're trying to cope with that, which was my coping mechanism to mental health, right? So and I know a lot of our veterans suffer from chronic pain issues and that's debilitating and of itself.

No, no, it is. And this goes into, um, kind of all the contributing factors, right? And how we say, there is no, it's the same thing we always teach with anything we do, is there is no golden piece of the puzzle. There, it, it just doesn't exist. And, and so, um, like you just said, and we, we talked about this too, is everything from, you know, I have, let's say you have some, you're not sleeping well, which leads to some hormonal imbalance. And then you have an old injury from football, you played 20 years ago, and now you can't back squat what you used to. Like all of those things individually are not a big deal and you can handle just fine. When they're all piled on, and then now you've got, "Hey, work's drying up. Hey, this is going on." And, and you always, you said it, you know, and we always talk about it, you know, any training program and you'd say, "Go back to the basics." You know, what is that routine that you have every day? Where's the, I had to tell my wife that same stuff because she's like total badass, like works for a really big company, she sells, like she's, uh, she's, same thing, she's an alpha female, which is, you know, part of the reason I'm attracted to her, right? And, and she's a performer. And I had to be like, "Look, you need to take 10 minutes for yourself in the morning. You have to get up, go either, I don't care if you sit in bed and scroll through Instagram, go have a cup of coffee. You have to not be involved, and you have to let yourself, like you need to give you that time." Because I'm looking from the outside and then she's doing the, "You're the one with the issues." And I'm like, "I know that that's, that's why I can talk about them because I, like, I, I've done the same thing." You know? And, and I think, um, you know, managing our expectations is really hard to do and I've slowly gotten better at it a little bit as I get older, but, you know, managing that, "Okay, well, what am I, you know, I can't get down on myself." So, so maybe it's been a couple days since I've slept well and now I've got this, now I've got this, "Well, you know what, then I got a lot of my plate, so I need to take something off." Like, "Hey, babe, you got to do this," or, "You know what, that's not getting done today. It's just not. And I'm not even going to think about it because otherwise it's just going to burn me out." And if you can manage those expectations, that's what the very, very limited, like low-calorie tactical level thing I think you can do that I've noticed that helps, but, you know, like you said, 100% right.

100% I would agree with you hands down on that. That's an awesome way to put it. Absolutely.

Well, I can, I can put it really, I can articulate it right now. [Laughter] No, no, you want me to go do it? Oh, well, that's a different story, Colleen. That's for someone...

Like my mother said, literally told me the same, she said, "I put my wall up." And then she said, "And why do you think you have to save the world and do everything?" I'm like, "Because I'm superwoman." She's like, "No, you're not like you are." I'm like, "Oh, I'm not." And my husband's sitting there like, "I'm like, name you people." But I think those conversations are helpful, right? I mean, they're just helpful to hear people give you, I don't know. I don't, I don't get feedback often. I'm usually the one giving it. So to hear it, it's kind of refreshing. Yeah, it's refreshing to hear it. I mean, it's hurtful because you're like, "Oh my God, am I that big an idiot?" Like, "Okay, check. Note to self." You know?

But for our readers and viewers and listeners, Brian, again, I, I just want to take it back to street for a minute. You know, for anybody watching or listening right now, Dr. Colleen Richardson, Brian and I, if we all went around like Eeyore, "It'll never work, we're all going to die." You would know right away where the problem, you know. But, uh, I would guarantee that if we do go back to the basics and for everybody that's a student of human behavior pattern recognition analysis, in the anomaly is where the danger lurks. So we have a most likely course of action and a most dangerous course of action. And if you're up close and personal and you notice that there's a change, because both you and Colleen, Brian, were just taking a segue and talking about the insider threat, the internal problems, right? But we have to sometimes, you know, look up and out and see the external problems. And so I would caution that it's going to be a coalesce, coalescing of these cues that you're going to look and you're going to say, "Wow, that's odd. You know, he or she is not like that. They're usually on time. They're missing the gym, they're doing that." And, you know what, if you see that, that might be the school shooter. That might be the person that's going to commit suicide. That might be the road rage that's coming. Say something. We all everywhere in the government says, "If you see something, say something." But nobody educates us on that. They just put up yet another sign. I'm saying that this is a good chance on a Sunday night to sit around the campfire, not in Texas, it's already too hot and Brian, no pun intended with California burning it. But for our readers and listeners and observers and watchers at home, do something about it. If you see somebody and you think that they're at risk, you got to say something because if you don't, it's going to be too late. We're going to have another one of these discussions and then somebody's going to do a challenge to bring attention to something that, you know, 22 people dying a day from this one issue, there's plenty of attention. It's just we're not moving the dial. We need to move the dial. We need to save a life here and there.

You know, I think the other thing is too, don't be afraid. I mean, talking about suicide doesn't make somebody suicidal, right? I think that's the other thing too, is people are kind of, "Well, I mean, he'd probably laugh if I asked him that." Well, so what? Let him laugh. Let him laugh. But ask, you know? And, and if you don't know what to ask, you don't know what to say, at least know where to go, right? I don't know everything either, do you guys? But I sure as hell will know somebody who knows somebody who knows where to go to get it, right? The Marine Corps is a very small place, you know, and if, and if we, you know, if I don't know somebody who knows Brian, he's going to know somebody who's going to know the answer to my question or my problem. And that's really how the world operates. Somebody's going to know it. We just got to find the right person who does. But I think we need to, we need to start discussing it more and it's got to be destigmatized in a lot of ways, too.

Yeah, the VA, what a great thing. Colleen, the VA did a great thing. I'm in Gunnison now where there's only 6,000 people. It's in the middle of nowhere. And they set up these remote locations where you could come in and that regional approach is working. There's people that need help that are getting the help and I want to, you know, shout out for the VA. Brian and I are huge proponents. Now, used to be a time where where we weren't the biggest fans and a lot of good has come over the last few months and years.

Agreed. I mean, what we've done with telemental health, seeing you in the home, anywhere, it's, you know, as long as it's within the states, I mean, you can get it all to help anytime you want. We've got a 24/7, 24 hours, seven days a week line that you can call. I mean, we've done some really good things and we're just going to keep going in that direction. And as long as I'm at the helm of some ship with it, that's my plan for sure.

Thank God you are. Yeah, no, and and we, we've kind of brought that up before too, is that I, I like having folks like you on, Colleen, too, because, you know, everyone, speaking of stigmas, what's the stigma of the VA? It's this awful place that kills people and this, and you're like, that's not true. Like it's just not. It's just, it's the whole, "This is not true at all." I go and first of all, most of the people that work at the VA are veterans themselves. So you're likely talking to someone who can relate to you better than any other health care you go to. And and same thing I always tell people like, "Go get the same, go make an appointment somewhere in a private network or do whatever. Let me know how it costs. Let me know, uh, when you can get in and see somewhere." Let me know, you know what I mean? "Agent Orange or burn pits." Everyone's like, "Huh?" You and we're like, "Oh man, you had a stir, my man. Like that sucks." You know, like, "We know what you're talking about when you start saying stuff like that."

Yeah, no, that, and that, and that's the other thing is that you get, I think it's there, they have a better grasp on what's going to be affecting you. So a conversation that you have with the doctor on the outside, they're just going to be like, "Yeah, that's, no, it's not a big deal. Like that can happen, blah, blah, blah." Where a VA doctor goes, "Oh, you know what, why don't we check you for these three other things or why don't you go see this?" Because they know what, what, what else that could mean. And I, I, I've done both and I'm, I'm telling you like, and part of it's just because the VA built a new facility right near me and everything. And I'm in San Diego, so there's a huge presence there. Obviously, in those bigger areas, you usually get better care. But that's, that's no different in private side, either, right? Of, you know, I mean...

Oh, I mean, it's just like in the military, right? You've got the Jason Bournes of the military, those, those folks. And you've got the not so great folks that are in the military. You got bags, right? Yeah.

Right. Where you go, you're going to find a variety of people. I mean, you've just, it's not an excuse not to keep coming. But like you said, I mean, everybody I train, like that comes through our training programs, I try to hire. Why? Because we train them to take care of veterans. And so now they know the history of the veterans. They know military culture and confidence. We teach it to them. We, we make sure they understand Marines or Marines or troops. They're not soldiers or a joke. Like we try to get all this stuff embedded in their brains as to how, and then just like you said, you know, if you've been exposed to Agent Orange and we're looking for these particular things. So absolutely, you know?

Yeah, and, uh, I mean, kind of the the other thing kind of to to, I don't know, I know we've been talking for a while about about this stuff, is that, you know, I, I'm a big fan of everyone's trying to, "We want to raise awareness or we want to do this." And there's nonprofits out there and there's people posting stuff on social media and it's good. Like, I, I get it. But like people know what the problem is. All right, it's now, it's, it's no. My whole thing is, no one's coming to save you. It's up to you. It's up to us. Like I look at, you know, our nation is built on people who serve our country, whether that's military or government, whatever. Like, it's all about service. That's what has gotten us out of tough times. That's what has got us through the Great Depression and World Wars and all these different issues, uh, social issues. You know, it's because people serve and they try to do the right thing. And, and it's no different here. And a lot of those are veterans and veterans have built this country and made it what it is. So we have to help ourselves and help each other. Like, it's the whole, you know, you, if you're listening to this and you're law enforcement, your veteran, you're the health worker, what anyone, like, you have to individually reach out to your own friends and say, "Hey, are you good? Hey, what's going on? Hey, you can reach out to me." Because that's the only way. It's just, it's, there's no, the all the processes are in place. Like all the health care is there. Uh, the nonprofit stuff is there. There's already stuff out there. It, it just at a very individual level is focusing on ourselves and just my contacts, my buddies that I know that I text with on every weekly basis anyway. Like, just if everyone just did that, we are like the whole veteran community is connected by just a couple degrees of separation. Like you said, like, I didn't know anyone, I didn't know your husband, I didn't know anyone in their platoon, but it was my buddy George, who was also a Recon Marine, is literally in Salt Lake City who linked them. And then once that link occurs, now we're linked to this huge massive network. So it's, if something catches fire, it'll spread quickly. And I, I think that's kind of the way I look at it.

And I love this idea of reunions. Like I love this idea of getting folks together. I think the only problem we run into is like people like me. Like, "Where do we go? Where does health care people go?" Right? So we're a little bit more complicated. So that's the piece in my brain I have to think of how to to solve something like that. But Ryan and a couple of his buddies started a nonprofit. It's 100% nonprofit, called uh, Care, Combat Arms Reunion Experience. And the idea was to raise money and put together reunions and kind of, you know, not coming in there as a psychologist, but coming in there and starting this dialogue of, "Hey, how's everybody really doing?" Kind of like what we did at Tyler's funeral. And just kind of stepping in there and opening up this conversation and then kind of stepping out and allowing these, it was usually all men, men to come in and say, "Dude, are you really, like, are you really doing okay? Because I'm not. Like, I'm, I've just been struggling." And then, you know, I've done this a few times around my dinner table, you know, I'll get a bunch of Marines at my house for for obvious reasons. They all start talking and they're like, "So, Doc, what do you think about?" I'm like, "Well, let's talk about that." And they're like, "Okay, let's, give me somebody, get me a beer." Like, they're, I'm like, "Oh boy," you know. But they start it and they, you know, it's not obvious. I wouldn't do it that way if they came in to see me in my office, but I think when they're around a group of guys that they're comfortable with and these guys are finally all saying out loud like, "Hey, yeah, I know I'm like the chief of this and I'm doing that, but I'm not doing okay. Like, I'm, I'm not sleeping and and and I'm not doing this and I'm not doing that and I'm fighting with my wife all the time and I'm yelling at my kids." And then, you know, "I go to work and I put on this smile all day long and then I come home and I'm barely functioning." Again, I think those reunions and listening to their buddies realize that they're not okay. I mean, and if they are fantastic, then be that person, right?

I remember a First Sergeant I had who was like, you know, "I wasn't doing okay." And he talked to the Marines about this and the Marines were like, "Oh, you did what? You kicked so-and-so in the face. You kicked him in the chest and you did all this crazy stuff." But yeah, he would say, "I went through therapy and now look at me. I'm doing much better than I was." So he encouraged these men to seek assistance. And that's what destigmatized it for them and realized, "It's okay that I'm not okay." And my First Sergeant says so. So, you know, I see, I see the men look at, look at my husband like to him sometimes as to what I'm doing, like what he's doing. And, and I've noticed that more as the years have gone on, which I think speaks volumes. I don't even know if he realizes it, how much it volumes to who these men continue to love him and name children after him and go to combat with him. And I'm like, "Damn, like that's, I hope you recognize, I hope he recognizes that." But now that he's starting to like, "Yeah, I'm so messed up." They're like, "Me too." Like, they're all relieved that he's messed up too, you know? So I, I love these main things. I think they're killer. Shout out to him.

Because he, he does a great job. As soon as I met him and because we were all, some of us were talking, a few of us in a group text to make sure, "Hey, what arrangements need to make? Where do we need to go?" Uh, my buddy George was working on the paddle and doing that and stuff. "Hey, give me some quotes from Blue." All this different stuff that we were trying to do just in a coordination piece. So that's all I knew him from. I walked out but same thing, like it's just speaks to him being a leader and who he is as a leader. And it was very clear that one, all the men in the platoon respected the out of him. But he was a very gracious person. You know, I knew no one in this room and I walk in and, you know, he was like, "Sit down, man." And we, it's like we were talking like we, it was almost like we had served together. And that's the beauty of when you get these groups of people that have all gone through the same stuff, you can become instant friends or sometimes instant enemies. But like, you know, that's the thing. That's why like, I didn't know Blue that well, but when we work together, you just click instantly and then you're in that moment like he's your brother. Like it's not, "I'll do anything for them because we've had shared experiences and so we speak the same language." So it allows those conversations to to occur and and occur, you know, sort of naturally, I guess.

And Doc, one thing that I've noticed is over our last year in in-person training, pre and and during COVID, you know, training days, people don't understand how much real training takes out of you. It's like running a marathon, you know? And so at the end of the training day, nobody wants to go home. Why? Because they're still searching. They still want to learn something. So Brian and I added a component called the town hall. And the town hall is that Brian and I are going to run and we're going to go to the bathroom, wash our face and hydrate real quick. And we're going to come back up here and we're going to have a group therapy fellowship, you know, whatever you want to do. And then that goes and then in the hallway and then in the moment, and Brian and I have to go, "I got to go potty. We got to run out." But it's wonderful. It's wonderful because people are talking. When you're in those groups, they're more apt to bring up something. They're more apt to lay it out on the table. And it's not war stories 25, 35 years ago, 40 years ago when I started, it was war stories. "Ah, kid, you don't know what you're talking about. I'll tell you this and." And, and, you know, the, the, we got to the point where we said, "Okay, you got to have a big beginning, middle and an end to your war story and it has to come with a moral," you know? And it's time to save it because we if we we don't have time for that. And I'm so much happier that it is getting better. Those numbers are still shocking and we're not there yet, but it is getting a little better incrementally.

You know what's interesting too when you said that, it made me think of what would happen at the end of those trainings and then even at the end of like Tyler's funeral and that whole being together for three or four days. And it made, you know, when you're talking earlier, Brian, I saw you getting emotional. Made me think of, God, you know, we don't ever talk about as much like what happens after those things, right? So you, so even though it's a very sad and heart gut-wrenching event that we went to and the funeral that we attended, we're so kind of high, right? Like we're all hanging out, we're joking, we're back in that role, we're back, you know, laughing. And then what happens when we come home? Yep, right? It's like coming back from deployment and you're just, you're like an N-1 going, "Oh, okay." So I mean, you almost feel depressed because there's nowhere to go really from that but get down. And so I wonder if that occurs sometimes with your trainings and the town hall actually allows that not to occur for you guys because you are slowly taking them down. Yeah, um, from that high, "Oh my God, like I'm learning so much. This is awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Oh, the training's over." What do I do with all this stuff now, right? But you guys kind of bring them down and I think that's something that we didn't really talk about as much is we, I remember touching on it like, "What's going to happen next week?" We just talked about like denial, anger and all that stuff, but we never said, "Be prepared to hit the when you get home. Like you're going to hit the bottom of the barrel. It's going to suck and you're going to have to sit in those feelings for a few days, but I promise you'll start coming back up again." You know?

No, in your warning label. There's that warning label. It's, it's spot on. It's, it's tying it then to that action. And I know, uh, it was great. My good friend George Briones was, was there and he was like, as a Recon Marine, didn't know anyone involved in this and was there the whole time. It could help facilitate. So it's like became this naturally amazing kind of experience. But that was the whole thing at the end was like, "Look, like it's not just what's happening right now." You know, because George's whole point is like, "We get together for the wrong reasons. Like we can't have reunions at funerals. Like we need to be having these, you know, every few months. We need to be getting together and my family meets your family and my kids meet your kids and we do this and that," creating that that connective fiber because then we have that network and, and that was the whole thing. You know, because with Blue is like, "How many contacts do you think he had in his phone where he could have called any one of them?" Anyway, maybe. I mean, it speaks to the person that he was. He probably had 50 people that would have been like, "What do you need? Like money? Do you need me to come right now? I'll be there tomorrow morning or tonight?" Like, yeah, I mean, there would have been any one. So sometimes, but we don't go through that process of staying connected and doing those things together. And that was the whole issue is, and guys are immediately like, "Yep, no, we're going to start a communications plan and we're going to check in and we're going to do this and we're going to start this process." And and I know guys have already reached out to other people just because that weekend they're like, "Hey, man, like, I need some help." And so if that is what I, I want that to come from. I don't want it to be just another, that is another number, another statistic, another, "Hey, this is what happened." Like, no. Like that, we have to individually take the time to learn from them and go, "What is the one thing I can do either every day or every week or whatever to make sure I'm connected with people?" And, and I think, you know, that that started with that group of individuals and and that's what we need to do just like the whole, like the CARE thing you were talking about, the, these experience where we all get back together and it's a, it's really, really important. And this extends, and I, I mentioned it earlier, and I know because we're all, you know, military, Greg's military and law enforcement, so we kind of stay in that area. But like I said earlier, you know, we don't have a monopoly on this. Like it's these mental health issues are for everyone. Um, I think that because of the the extreme experiences a lot of us went through, like that's not doesn't mean you have it worse. To me that means you have more potential. Like you actually have potential to get to a level of resilience where you, nothing's going to ever get you down because you've been through that. So if you can work on processing it, learn how to use it, you're actually now going to be stronger and you're going to be able to help out people who who aren't as strong as you. It's very simple. Like I operate in a small team. Well, guess what? Biggest dude in the team was big stud college football player, he carried more ammo. Why? Because he was 230 and he was, he could. Like, why would he carry the same amount of weight as me? That doesn't make any sense. Like, like he has to carry more because he can. Well, well, it's the same thing with the mental fitness. Look, if I'm doing, if I'm handling it and I can handle more, come on, lay it on me, Colleen. Let's go. What do you, what do you need? And if we look at it that way, I think it'll help anyway.

It's a great analogy. You have all those more analogies, Brian. I love them. That's awesome.

They, they're probably stolen from somewhere. I haven't had an original thought or idea my entire life, so come at me.

I'm going to start writing these things down. Oh, those, those are so good. And you know, one of the analogies I used years ago was like mental health, right? So if you think about mental health as as an injury itself, right? If you fall off your bike and scrape your knee, you're probably going to be okay, right? There's your first little trauma. You fall off your bike again, you scrape the same spot, it's probably going to get a little bit bigger if you didn't take care of it in the first place. Yep. Here comes your fourth trauma. You fell off the bike again, you didn't take care of the first three times. This wound is now gaping. It's probably got an infection going on. That's how I would look at mental health is if you don't start addressing it from the beginning and say, "Okay, wait a minute, they warned me about this." I do think the military hasn't always done the best with saying, "Hey, we're going to send you up to war. People are going to die. You're going to do things that, you know, may or may not compromise you morally and ethically, but you have no choice because it's either you or them." Yeah, I mean, we don't always prep people for that. We just say, "Hey, listen, we're going to give you the best training. You're going to go in there and you're going to, you're going to accomplish all these badass things, and we'll deal with the rest when you get home." Holy, like, "Do you know what you've left us with?" Like, "We've got this gaping wound and I am trying so hard to bleed people back together, but we've, I've got, I need so many other things to do that with." You know? So I don't know, that's how I would see mental health is just the wound. We've got to attend to it from the beginning. Now, yes, okay, we didn't attend to your wound 15 years ago, but it's not too late to attend to the gaping wound that nowadays. It's never too late, right?

Yeah. It's, it's never too late. That, that's the whole thing is that if you're still alive, then it's not too late. And that's, uh, you know, it communication is a big thing. And a lot of times we don't know how to communicate it and we don't have a good way of of understanding how these things affect us to go, "I need to step in right now and lighten this load. I need to maybe take a few things off my plate before I get so overwhelmed and I go to a really, really dark, dark place." And, and we've been there and like anyone knows, when you get in those areas, you get in that dark place, God, it's brutal. And you're just, you know, it's like running through through a forest naked at night with no moonlight or something. I don't know. You're just like, you can't find your way out and everything hurts and it's uncomfortable and it's cold and it's miserable. And if you don't have that light at the end of the tunnel, like it, it's that, that's hard. So you got to do it before before you get to that dark place and, and that, I, I don't know, that's, that's always difficult for everyone to do. But no, I agree with you and I think, you know, speaking to, if you have younger listeners who are in law enforcement or EMS or healthcare or whatever, like, heed the advice now. I don't care about the 70-year-old guy that you're working with who's your training partner that's, "Oh, mental health, that's for the weak." like, "him." Like, "He's the one who needs more help than you will ever." You know what I mean? So respect him from an authority standpoint, but his opinion on mental health. Like, "Come in and see us, let us, you know, let us just give you the education that you need to say, 'Okay, maybe, maybe my training partner, you know, maybe he's old and doesn't understand that mental health is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength is asking for help.'" Because I mean, I mean, I hope this conversation impacts one person that listens to it and they go, "Okay, you know what, maybe they're right. Maybe, maybe there is a light in the tunnel and I just, I need to reach out to somebody." Because we know that suicide and somebody commits suicide, they affect at least on average 135 people. They've touched 135 people is what then the latest data looks at. Can you imagine affecting? I didn't know I had 135 friends, but apparently, yeah, yeah. Hurt myself, I have affected 135 people. That's a lot of freaking people, you know?

No, and one of the things that I can't remember, I think it was George who said it, maybe when we were there, is like, "You know, imagine if Blue could watch a video of everything everyone said about him." Like, you know what I mean? We don't tell each other enough like, "Hey, man, like I really appreciate you because of this. I think you're a stud because of this." You know, "What, what you did there was absolutely incredible." And I'm horribly guilty of that too, where I'm good at giving feedback to people, but like if I think you're doing really well and doing awesome, I just, I just don't say anything. Not a word. I just not a word. But but like I'll be super impressed, but instead of me going like, "Holy, that's incredible," just like, "Okay, that's good." Like, "Whatever." Like, but and, you know what I mean? And so we all have to do that. And it just that's a great point, but like no one wants to sit around and go, "Hey, Colleen, you know what I really like about you." Like, we're not, right? Yeah.

Not those types of people. We're like, "Hey, you, you suck. You can't run for." We want to talk, but in our own way, that is us giving affection to each other in the only way we know how. So it doesn't have to be some like lovey-dovey, "I'm this." It just, it's just being appreciative. And that's where a lot of folks come with like the mindfulness stuff and different different ways to cope with that. But, but man, just reaching out and be like, "Hey, like, just want to know, man, you're, you're a rock star." And like, I'll do it sarcastically to friends sometimes when they're feeling feeling down. You know, my, my, my brother told the story of, uh, he of when he was going, he was a Seal, he was going through Buds, and he was doing this and like he was having a horrible day and a time. And he called me up and he was going on and on and on. And the only words out of mouth was like, "Well, you know, you could just quit." And he's like, it hit him. Like, "You." But he's like, "That's exactly what I needed to hear." You know, it. And, and we were good at that. I know my buddy Ryan did that to me once, uh, in Iraq. We just, I mean, we had a horrible, horrible day. We just been shot at, blown up, all this stuff. I had so many close calls. And then we're getting on the truck at the end of the day and like we're back at our camp and like I'm just like, I'm down. I'm not feeling good at all. Like this is like, "I'm scared to death. Like this is horrible." Like, "I had more close calls that day than I'd have." And then, uh, my buddy Ryan looked at me and was like, "Hey, man, like, uh, you, you good?" I was like, "You know, honestly, man, like, you know, I don't, I seriously don't think I'm going to make it out of here alive." And he looked right at me and goes, "Brian, I completely understand what you're saying. I don't think you're going to make it out of here alive either." And like it was enough. I just busted up laughing. But it allowed me to take that step back and go, "Yeah, you feel the same way I do. I, this isn't just about me. We're all going through this. It's, it's chaotic. It's insanity. But that's what we're at right now. Take it one day at a time." And I just think it was like those little things can sometimes go a really long way.

100%. And I know we kind of all know like the other things that people say to each other too that's like completely inappropriate for your show. But, but it's like, you know what I mean? Like that, that's the stuff. I'm like, "Oh, I have to pretend that I think it's stupid and lame because if I don't then my husband will stop with the joke." So I'm like, "Yeah, you know." He's like, "You thought that was funny." Like, "Yeah, maybe."

Yeah. Well, I, I, I appreciate you coming on here, Colleen. I know I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I don't know, Greg, if you're always good at kind of bringing things back down from a, from a nebulous concept. I know I was all over the place. I don't even know where I am right now.

So are you, are you still alive? You know, no, I would say this. I would say, Doc, you bring a unique perspective that's welcome and refreshing. And, uh, Brian, I, I would highly suggest that we, uh, AAR and and take a triage on what we said tonight and set up a part two. Uh, Doc, if you'd be willing to do that. I think, uh, now we all have a starting point. We can talk more about our emotions and maybe, maybe about those things that we can do to move that dial in our community or or with our community meaning veterans and and first responders and coppers. So, uh, I, I like what I'm hearing. I, I think we're all hurting and putting it out there for other people to know that we're not Teflon, that it bothers us to, maybe that'll empower somebody that that needs to step up and make that phone call.

Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you so much. Like, I'm totally humbled that you asked me to be on the show. Like when you're a podcast, people don't like know anything. Right?

Yeah, we're actually not broadcasting live. This is just a green screen background right here. Frank is on the other side of my my screen right now.

No, no, that's why I had to text Brian when I was wrecking your, your husband was like, "Hey, you know, I talked to Colleen about being on there, coming on." I was like, "Yeah, I have a podcast." And I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm one of those guys." And he's like, "Loves podcasts." Like, "Oh, that's great." Always like, "You got to hear Joe Rogan." I'm like, "Okay, which one are we listening to?" I mean, we lit, this is what we do for like 20-hour car trips. He's like, "Put your earbud in." I'm like, "Good. He won't talk to me for 20 hours." But, "Yeah, listen to a podcast." I'm like, "All right, let's do it."

Yeah, I know. That's such a guy thing to do. It's like, "What I want to explain something my wife, I'm just, 'Hey, hey, listen to this conversation. What would you think? Would you think it's like, but is it something that like I've said to him a million times?'" Like, "Hey, you should think about that." He's like, "Okay, well, Kyle told me you, I should listen to this podcast." I'm like, "Well, that's what I've been telling you for like a year now."

I know. The podcast said it better. Like, whatever. Yeah, I like the way they said it. Exactly. Yeah. He's like, "Did you know that?" I'm like, "Yeah, I heard it. Like, I'm pretty sure I've said that a million times."

It helps to hear it from you guys, though.

And again, I really, and from you, Doc.

Well, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Like I said, I'm humbled that you all asked me and I'd love to do a part two and and it's been great. I mean, I love Brian, when I met you, I was just like, "Damn, this guy's like, he can talk about his feelings and his emotions."

Well, but it's only because we do this and Greg and I are just, it's, oh, we're always just like, "I have no filter." And I've had to like, I've had my wife tell me before, like, "Hey, like, you got to be careful. Like, we're out to dinner and you said stuff around people that like they didn't get it." And I'm like, "Oh." It was like, I made some joke about like naturally made some joke about traumatic brain injuries and stuff. Like, you know, "Yeah, but by that age, I'm going to be, I'm going to be drooling in a cup anyway, so I don't care." And they're all like, "Uh," and around anyone else that joke would have been fine, but like they were like, "Uh, what is this? Are you about, okay, you're okay." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm fine." And they're like, "No, you're not."

And hence the reason we need to do the part two, three, four. You don't understand, this is called free therapy for marriage. That's actually the name of the show. Yeah, because we're going to need a second opinion, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He's ugly too if you, if you don't. Oh, you mean a professional opinion?

If you, if, if you saw Ryan, you'd be like, "Uh, maybe Colleen isn't quite the..."

Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I, I appreciate you coming on, Colleen. And of course, I appreciate everything that you do. And I, I think, you know, the more we talk about this stuff, at least internally, maybe like you said, someone will hear it and go, "You know what, there's other idiots out there like me too." I'm, I'm good. Like sometimes that's enough, just knowing like, "Oh, I'm not in this alone. Everyone's just as screwed up as me." That alone makes you go, it takes that pressure off. Right? You, you get so unique.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, seriously, like somebody said that to me, they're like, "You're not unique." Like, "Yeah, like you're not the only one going through this." Like, "Yeah, oh yeah, good point." Yeah, that was helpful to hear. "Your, your pain is not any worse than anyone else's." So, and, and that's, that's, that's good. That's good to know. It is. Contact us, right? I mean, that's what we're here for.

Hey, man. All right. Well, thanks again, Colleen. Really appreciate it. And, uh, I always end it with everyone out there, don't forget that training changes behavior. Thanks, guys.