Mental Health In USAF Special Warfare
EPISODE 27
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WELCOME TO THE TEAM ROOM! JOIN US AS WE DELVE INTO THE WORLD OF MENTAL HEALTH. MINDSET IS EVERYTHING, SO LISTEN UP AND LEARN HOW TO KEEP YOUR MOST VALUABLE TOOL SHARP AND READY.
INTRO
Intro 00:03
You listening to the ones ready podcast, a team of Air Force Special Operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience as well as a decade of selection instructor experience. If you're tired of settling and you want to do something you truly believe in, you're in the right place. Now here's your host PJ Team Leader, jujitsu lover, meme enthusiast, and dad joke aficionado, Aaron love.
Aaron 00:27
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, and most importantly, anonymous free advertising pages. Welcome back to the Ones Ready podcast. You were here in the team room with the entire squad. We've got a good one for you today. As always, before we start, we just want to say thank you to everybody that's out there and engaging on the Instagram account on the Facebook page, following us on Apple podcast or Stitcher or Spotify, wherever you can find podcast, wherever you're commenting on the YouTube section, getting together with those other like-minded individuals and making your way through this journey with us. Hey, we appreciate it. Thanks for the support. We couldn't do it without the four of us and without our little team but outside of that we've got a bigger team that helps us out as well. Getting the word out about Air Force Special Warfare and getting you guys some awesome some awesome discounts. Again, we don't get anything from it because we aren’t allowed and we always do what we're supposed to. But if you want some sweet coffee, go check out AlphaBrewCoffee.com, go over to Eberlestock.com and check out their awesome packs and their complete line of outdoor stuff. And then as always Strike Force Energy. If you want some of that small portable energy that you need, you can just throw it in a pocket, throw it in one of those sweet packs that you just got, and then press out. Go ahead and check it out. Follow us on our Instagram, you can check us out at onesready.com or check, I'm sorry, the website onesready.com or you can check us out on the Facebook page. And again, follow us on on Apple, give us a review. Leave your comments. Go ahead and follow and subscribe to make sure that you don't miss any exclusive content we're trying to put out as much as we can for you guys here in the in the quarantine and as we get back to our new normal. So, thanks again. We appreciate you guys and now we're going to jump straight into this one. We've been talking about this one throwing it back and forth between the four of us because it's something near and dear to our hearts. And that's mental health. So, we have all struggled at least, you know, I know I have throughout my career with certain aspects of mental health, here and there. So, we really want to touch on that. And we really want to start diving deep into how can you prepare yourself the best mentally, because I know for me, everybody focuses on you know, physicality. How many pushups can you do? What's your run time? Are you mobile? Are you feeling good, all that other stuff, but a lot of times, we neglect that mental health aspect and I want to open it up to you guys. Is that a true statement? Do you think that people are just kind of like nugging through life? You know, Peach, I'll throw it over to you for that one. But, you know, how do you think people could focus better on their mental health just as a baseline?
MENTAL HEALTH BASELINE
Peaches 02:46
I mean, I think as a as a baseline, it is a, you need to be in the moment being able to reflect on your own feelings and an overall mindfulness That's pretty much the simplistic way of putting it. But I mean, for me, I know that I find a bit of meditation when I go run, I don't listen to music, I just listen to the pain of my breathing and how out of shape I am and what a piece of crap I am. I go for a run or something like that. And it kind of puts me into a meditative state, which is why I don't wear ear pods or anything like that. But I think as we start getting smarter in mental health and in the brain and how it works, I think mindfulness and being reflecting on situations, your reaction to situations and being able to step back objectively and look and go, Okay, I'm not in the right mind space right now.
Aaron 04:06
No, I was just going to say I was just on Justin Lace podcast where we talked about this, he had a whole episode on it. So, if you haven't heard that, go check out its podcast number two where he talks about mental health. But being in some of those spaces were the number one thing you have to do is go, Hey, I'm not right now and being able to admit that to yourself and have enough he calls itself love or having that developed self-sense to say, Hey, I do not feel right now and I need some help. Go ahead. Brian. What were you going to say?
Brian 04:34
Yeah, I agree with Peach 100% on the running thing. I do that every single week I have to just really long run just to clear my mind about all the things that have happened throughout the week. And I listen to like audiobooks and stuff like that just to keep some noise and thoughts in the background. And it helps me self-reflect just the types of books that I listen to our books about that kind of same mentality and just a little bit of introspection. As on to the offer author and what they're talking about. But yeah, just being able to have that run in clear mind with no other interaction other than my own input into my, my body, whether I'm pushing myself or whatever, you kind of lose that other sense of all the noise and everything else going on, and you think about the things that have happened throughout the week. But the other thing that I was going to say about the mindfulness part, you know, when I was younger, I really didn't know anything about being mindful. And that's a kind of a new term that just emerged, I guess, last decade. But when I was younger, I was like, I don't know what to grasp onto. I don't know what mindful means. I don't know who I really am. Because, like, you know, I like the thoughts of this person. You know, Peach has all these great thoughts. Aaron has all these great thoughts. I don't know which thing to grasp onto. And, you know, make my own. So, as you're continuing through throughout, you know, your journey through Special Warfare. I'd say take you know, someone that you like for one person or another person Because people always talk about a mentor and how you should start living your life after a mentor. I never had that specific person that was like, I want to be exactly like this person. But I did have a lot of people that I like certain things from. So just grasping that whatever attribute you're talking about, and then implementing that into your life and trying to make that part of your mindfulness and some of the ways that you change your, your mindset, I think is important to do.
Aaron 06:29
Yeah, and that's interesting. I should have put out a disclaimer at the beginning of this. We're going to talk a whole lot of feeling words in this podcast, we're going to talk about mindfulness and being present and really trying to get yourself into a good mental state. So, if you're not already up for it, you better get up for it. You better find your inner Sensei, and we're going to go on with what those kinds of things lay forward. So try this one's for you, man, like you just took over a new job. It's highly stressful, especially with some of the news that has come out recently. I am sure that your stress is absolutely through the roof. So for you What's one thing that you like to focus on for your mental health that you like to really, really drill into as your baseline? Like your basic food group?
Trent 07:10
Well, I mean, I think we should leave food and beverages out of this for a minute. Otherwise, I don't want my flight doctor listen to this and understand what I really do. It's just like everything else, right? I have a list of things that I do in the list of things that I really care about. And I know personally, if I spent too much time worrying about myself, and not like Brian said, like reaching out and then thinking about other things, I could be doing better and using some of the tools that other people present to me and how they get through things, and finding ways to purge that stress. It's that's when it all goes downhill for me. So right now it's, you know, I make a priority list. I do what I can and then you know, there's always tomorrow and I kind of during times of high stress, just adopt that, you know, California surfer. Hey, man, it's going to be okay. You know myself talk is exact opposite have Peaches were like he's like your mind is like hey man, it's going to be alright you know you do what you do. But also maintaining the honesty right? Like there's a balance to it is making sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and trying as hard as I can, but not absolutely crushing myself to the detriment of like my home life and all that other stuff. So I try to relax, I come on here with you guys. I was telling you guys earlier this is one of the best parts of my week every week is when I get to shoot the crap with you guys. And then I reach out to you know, one of my things is, especially right now I FaceTime with old teammates, family members. And that helps me connect with the person that I used to be and things that maybe I forgot, that I was trying to do when I was younger, and kind of refocus and refactor myself into being the person I want to be.
Aaron 08:47
Yeah, and not to go off on a huge tangent, but that this quarantine and this entire scenario that we're dealing with in these weird times that we live with, it actually does have a pretty good unintended second and third order consequence. I don't know how many text messages calls or FaceTime. So I've got four people that I haven't talked to in a long time. And they're just like, Hey, man, I'm just checking in on you, how are you doing up there? And it's, it's actually like a beneficial thing to link up as a human. And granted, it's through technology. So it's not kind of like that tribal thing, but Peaches have you been talking to other people and trying to get through this thing as well. Like, if you've been talking to people from the past and stuff.
Peaches 09:19
Yeah, I've been talking with people from the past. When you mentioned, you know, reaching out to people I couldn't help but think about you know, Chris Rush that committed suicide, you know, two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Yeah. Because, like, I mean, I have his cell number. Like what? Yeah, I can't tell you when the last time I talked to him, you know, and I feel guilty about that. Would it have made a difference? Like, Probably not. I genuinely am like, Man And I didn't even know he had retired, you know. And so, to get back on track a little bit, though, yes, I have been more proactive about reaching out to people. There's probably some people within my family that would argue that I haven't been. Yeah. But it's another one of those things is that, hey, I'm on, you know, just like everybody else in the world right now. We're on a lot of Zoom meetings, we're on a lot of telecoms, that it's just like, gosh, do we really need one? Do we really need to do this too? I just want to be off the phone or out from behind the computer. So yeah, that's part of it for me.
METHODS TO KEEP YOUR MIND RIGHT
Aaron 10:40
Well, if there's anybody that's been dealing with this madness, it's Brian, you know, Brian, even you know, literally in in the middle of the hospital dealing, you know, with this stuff, and that's, you know, highly stressful. How are how are you dealing with that stress? What are some tools that you've been using, like no kidding, day to day do you do you take some breaks Do you take five minutes to yourself and take some big deep breaths to reach out to your friends, I agree with Trent like, it's been great to get on here and see you dudes because, man, you're my tribe. So it's good to talk through it with you guys. But Brian, how are you dealing with it? day to day? Do you have any just minor tips?
Brian 11:12
Yeah, so I think just kind of like Trump just going back to what john was saying the important things is to reach back and focus on those things that were your goals and kind of where you're, you're headed right now. Because as you continue to, you know, have a career and go to work or whatever they're going to, people are going to pull you in a certain direction, they want you to go in, and they're going to lead you down this path and you're like, well, how did I get here? Is this really important to the things that I'm trying to accomplish right now in my life? So again, talking to people that you have in the past is really important, but like you said, Aaron, I've been really jobbing out trying to finish out this PA school. I worked like 100 and freaking something hours last week, finishing up ER stuff and still working my other rotations. But the hospital is still open. We're still seeing patients over here and everything. So and then also just for you guys that are listening out there, my wife is also pregnant. So that's another thing that we're kind of dealing with and then the move in a couple weeks, and then you know, the podcast and the other stuff, but there's always things that are going to be pushing you in a certain direction or pulling you again, I think the biggest thing for me is figure out what my priority is at different times throughout the day, you know, when I'm at work, and I'm trying to do my see patients and do that kind of stuff. I'm, like, 85% into that mindset, and maybe I'll see a text message from you guys or from whoever else, you know, pick up something from on the way home or something like that. But 85% of the majority of my focus is on one thing at a time so I can do the best job that I can on that and then when I come home, you know, I set aside my time for my kids and they all have this, I'm going to pay attention to you, I'm going to play with you, I'm going to, you know, read books to you and just do everything that I can and tried my best to just put my phone aside, not be distracted and just focus on those things. And I think being able to because I'm a pretty, like, I want to accomplish this goal, these are the things I have to do today. And that makes me feel good. At the end of the day when I lay down my, you know, lay my head down my pillow, I'm like, Alright, I got all this stuff done. And if I didn't get it done, then I'm like, crap. You know, it goes through my head, like how am I going to accomplish this tomorrow with all the stuff that I have to do? So, you know, keeping that focus on each thing really helps me get more accomplished than if I were to just try and do everything at once. And those are some of the things as far as dealing with the stress. Specifically, working out is the only thing that I can really do that helps take away my stress. I wake up at like six o'clock, five o'clock, whatever. I have to In the morning, you know, run, row, whatever just do something to get my mind off of all the things that have to do.
Aaron 14:08
the most well here and you it led to a kind of hit home with me for one of those things, we have a tendency to take on so much right so we work in school and deployments and all this other stuff, everybody that's getting ready to come in the pipeline out there, you got the same thing you're training to try to come into a new career. We've got the Coronavirus and the quarantine and the uncertainty of where we are and add in all the all these other things and a lot of times we just ignore it, ignore it, ignore it until it blows up. And that's the biggest I'm a huge problem guy with that. Like, I will just be like okay, cool. I'm going to put my head down. I just got to get through this next day. You're not really fixing anything. You're not really admitting to yourself, like hey, I'm really starting to get worn thin mentally and you don't seek help. That's what I wanted to talk about with you, Trent. So there's always been a stigma about you know, seeking out mental health in the military and I know throughout, you know, the four of us for our combined You know, whatever it is 70 years of experience and stuff. We've seen a lot of different organizations, and we've seen it evolve a lot. Do you still think that there is and keep it about assessment selection? Do you think that there's a negative stigma attached to somebody that will say, hey, I need help in the mental health arena?
Trent 15:18
When would when they're in assessment selection, that type of thing?
Aaron 15:21
Yeah, absolutely. Like, do you think if somebody raised their hand, we're like, Hey, you know, not during an event, not caring for a ruck, but if they were, you know, hey, I've been away from my family. And this is this is a big change. And I'd really like to talk to somebody I know when I went through INDOC that would not even be tolerated. Like that would not even be a thing. They'd be like, Oh, you're feeling sad? Why don't you go ahead and drop with your feelings? So how do you feel that that stigma has changed for you and your world today?
Trent 15:49
Well, I know you know, I'm a cone sympathizer. So I was trying to talk to about all this stuff. We try to encourage them to talk amongst themselves and to realize that what they're feeling is normal. I mean, we've talked about this before, like that roller coaster of emotions that you go on in the beginning. And like, you know, when I was at the prep course, if a student walks in was like, Hey, man, I'm freaking out, I have all these things, you know, we try to walk them through and I wasn't like, You're the worst cone that's ever existed, get out of my office, if I ever see you with a break, I'm going to punch you in the face type of thing or whatever. I have. Well, we'll talk about personality disorders later. But I think we address it a lot more. And I think our generation of guys going through what we went through and seeing the evolution of how we view mental health has helped a lot you know, I'm pretty sure most instructors do it if a guy comes to them is like, Hey, man, I'm just dealing with this thing and they're a performer, but they're having these, these issues where they just can't focus everything in their brain, or they're having all these fears and all this other stuff and they think they're alone. And when what it comes to is they sort of feel this isolation where they think it's not normal, or they're think that they're the only one going through it. From what I've seen most, most instructors and most our teammates, once everybody understands that this is what they're all going through together, are willing to reach in there and help them and if they reach out for help, you know, everybody's going to rally around them, you know, not like, performance, like, hey, like, I'm going to push you on this run, but hey, man, this is normal. It's all cool. Focus on you need to focus on and if you ever need to talk, you know, we can talk to everything.
Peaches 17:35
That's one of the things that, you know, a lot of people look at other people, especially if you look at junior guys, at their seniors, right? They look at them, and they think, okay, they've got to potentially have their stuff together. Right, and they're not, you don't have any issues. And I had somebody that the silverback Adams You guys know who he is? He said to me one time there's, there's people that have gone to therapy and there's or counseling. And then there's people that haven't gone yet. And it's nothing to be ashamed about. If you're going through a hard time, maybe there's a death in the family, maybe there's sickness, maybe your kids are sick or not well, or whatever it may be. Like, it's okay. And everybody goes through it.
Aaron 18:29
Well, and I was thinking about this when we were getting ready for the podcast, and it dawned on me when we have a shooting problem. Like if we have a problem on the team, we're like, Hey, we want to be better shooters, we will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a government contract to bring in the world's best shooter. If we want to go jumping, we will go we'll take the entire troop TDY and we'll spend millions of dollars to do the world's best jumping taught by the world's best SMEs. Mental health is the only one where our guys and kind of the military in general shies away from bringing in the subject matter experts. Which is somebody to talk to, to help you through this problem. So it's like we have a problem. You're like, Hey, I'm having an issue. And for whatever reason, mental health is still that arena where we're like, Alright, no, I got this one by myself. You wouldn't do that with shooting. You get laughed out of the team room.
Peaches 19:17
You're right. But we also have kind of done that somewhat with the POTFF initiative that so calm I think it was 2012 is when it got initiated. And I mean, these are oftentimes these not just the counselors but the strength and conditioning coaches and stuff like that they are collegiate level or even professional level. People that have you know, they left their normal field where you would think like, why would somebody ever leave this to come work with us? And it's because they it's a mind shift, the kind of mindset that we have. It's a lot different than your collegiate level athlete. So you're pro athletes, because in a way it was explained to me is those athletes, they rely on their skills, they don't necessarily need to go into the gym or go into a counseling session to try and get better because they're like, I'm just going to focus on playing ball. And that'll work for me. Whereas us, even when we get injured, or we're not doing well, mentally, or whatever, we are still going and crushing ourselves or trying to make ourselves better, or, hey, there's an appointment, I need to go. And that's where the challenge is on leadership to go like, hey, got it, you want to go and I want to send you, let's maybe sit down for a little bit or why don't you go talk to us, you know, this, so and so counselor?
Brian 20:48
And I think in us in that same arena, you know, when we're looking back on the question that your answer as to Trent, you know that the team is the biggest asset that we have to kind of look at the those problems that you may be having. And I tell the guy I used to tell the guys back INDOC all the time, like if you see a guy you should know a person well enough to when they show up in the morning, and they look a little bit different their hair is kind of messed up, there's kind of staring off into space and something's just off about them, you know, like, Hey, dude, are you right? Like what happened last night? What kind of conversations Did you have, especially if you're like an element leader, team, leader, whatever, and those kind of positions you should be going around and visiting people and knowing people you should know, you know, their brother's name, where they're from their favorite... like just enough about them because you guys sitting around, you're going to be taping gear, you know, telling stories about whatever's going on in your life. But you should always know each other because it's a super high stress environment, where you're really being put through the fire together with these dudes and it's just constant stress. You don't have time, really to process anything that's going on back at home, you know, whether it be whatever, you know, the death of a loved one or a babies or whatever is happening back home, you don't have a lot of time to just think about it and you wish that you could have been there because you're you didn't know it was going to happen and you're in, INDOC in selection you're just trying to get through. So there's a lot of things that really, team is the first line and you shouldn't really have to go up to the instructor. And that shouldn't be your first line, I wouldn't recommend that. But I'd recommend just talking to one of the older people that are on your team that maybe have been through some of that stuff and get their advice. And then, you know, approach together that way. We know like you guys have talked about it, you're helping out but of course, if you have any real problems, anytime an instructor will definitely talk to you and go through because I've been through, you know, that whole conversation with a lot of students that were having trouble where they were scared and realize that we're also trying to get you through a selection. So we're trying to be non-biased and everything. But we're we have to evaluate the stresses that you're Have you gone through at the end of the day? That's our job. So we want to help you out the best we can we don't want anybody to, to end up doing something that they're going to regret later.
Aaron 23:10
Right? Well, on the flip side of that coin and Trent I'm going to throw it over to you. So let's say you are on that team, you are at A&S you do notice that your friend is down, he hasn't been acting, you know, he or she hasn't been acting correctly. What would you do? How would you engage with that friend to kind of open up that because it's awkward. It's awkward to look at one of your brothers and be like, Hey, man, I could tell something's wrong. Like, let's have this conversation. So what do you think that your piece of advice would be to somebody that sees their friend or their teammate kind of struggle?
SEEING A TEAMMATE STRUGGLE
Trent 23:37
Well, I think this is this goes back to you need to have that relationship before something goes wrong. When you get into basic training, when you go through prep when you get in as you all need to be talking to each other anyway, recognize that you're all on the same team. You're all going through the same you're all having the same experiences. I mean, it's just be straightforward about it. It's you don't think You might not get a lot of traction, being aggressive or anything, but just, hey, what's happening with you today? There's something wrong. What do you need, you know what I mean? And, and just move forward from there and just have a normal conversation with them like they're a normal person, because I think a lot of it is, you know, you join the Air Force, and especially when you join these career fields, and you have a lot thrown your way and you might feel like you've lost who you are a little bit. Man, if I was our teammate, you just come out of mud at the bro level, or whatever it is, as Amanda would say, I guess the chick level. I think we can say that now. Just be a good friend. You know, be a good friend and a good teammate. If nothing changes, as far as interpersonal relationships, once you're, you're in that environment, the stressors change a lot, but being a good person, being a good teammate, being a good friend, you know, that's Just who you should be anyway, especially if you're trying to get selected as looking out for your teammates and your friends.
Peaches 25:05
I do want to stick up for the instructors a little bit though just in the way that you guys and I can't I can't speak for myself because you guys were at, you know, a base level A&S and stuff. So you see a lot of people you hear a lot of excuses you hear a lot of this is going on with me, you know, I my knee hurts or this, you know, some of it is 100% legit. The other part and they can't continue 100% legit and they can't continue through, right push through. Then you get some of the others that are Hey, my knee hurts. It's really bad. But guess what, you just got done doing a six mile run. Right? Probably not that bad. You just trying to avoid the afternoon pool session. You know what I mean? So like, I noticed that a lot of the instructors or cadre can be what would seem cold, but that's because they hear it all the time just excuse after excuse and that probably wears on you and so you become to be a little bit skeptical of what people are saying.
Brian 26:24
Don't be that guy that cries wolf if you're one of the team members because we know those people that just constantly every single time you know it's Thursday there's water con or whatever. And I brought this up in a separate podcast but they always look for the rhythm in the whatever is going to happen so Thursday all right, I feel like I'm going to throw up or I have a fever, I'm coughing and I couldn't sleep last night or whatever, they bring up some kind of thing and they know that it's going to be a hard day so they try and get out of the more difficult events so we know those guys, but for the most part we have a decent track after like the first week or two on, you know, this guy's a good performer and he's kind of acting weird. This might be an actual complaint so and you get that after you know, you've been an instructor for a while, but it is hard to tell sometimes you know whether or not a dude is taking it seriously, at the end of the day, you're just kind of like, Alright, you have a couple options here, train, quit or seek medical. And if you seek medical so many times and miss enough events, then you're going to be kicked out anyways. So yeah, there's a couple of things on that.
Aaron 27:28
Yeah. So it's always that fine balance and it's building a muscle, right? We always talk about resilience. We talk about resiliency, that's one of I know for sure AFSOCs number three priorities right? One, two, and three, you know, resiliency is one of those, it's in there. But resiliency is a muscle and it doesn't get better. It doesn't you don't get better at being resilient, unless you do it. So we understand that everybody going through as you may have never worked out that resiliency muscle before you've never maybe put yourself in such a stressful situation that actually does impact your mental health in a way that it could be bad, but before input from you guys, especially Peaches. I just want to stick up for the A&S instructors. Listen, we've heard this song and dance a million times, we'll help you out if it's for real, but if it isn’t for real, we pretty much know exactly what that looks like.
TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY / POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
Peaches 28:17
Taken it back to mental health a little bit. What do you think, you know, traumatic around traumatic brain injury and in post-traumatic stress disorder plays in mental health.
Aaron 28:30
Well, the chicken call or the pot calling the kettle black, I was going to say the chicken comes before the egg doesn't make any sense. But I mean, check your subjects black. You're the man. You know, you're the personal experience guy. And that's when I definitely I can say that I've had my bell rung a couple times I can say that I've definitely been I've definitely impacted terra firma, probably harder than I need to. I can tell you just you know through those mild experiences and nothing like nothing like you've had in your career, but listen, when you have a TBI or when you have some sort of thing, like when you have those insults to your to your brain piece, your synapses fire differently. You have things that operate completely differently inside your brain. Your brain gets rewired electrically, when you kind of do those sorts of things. And unfortunately, that's the nature of the business, kicking off seven or eight Gustaf during a firefight or being too close to an explosion or being too close to a breach. Or sometimes, like during combat and you get your bell rung, somebody punches you in the face a little bit too hard, or you know, sometimes you do have a hard landing. And those things are different. The most important thing is knowing your baseline, when you start acting outside of what your baseline is, and you can start correlating those things like I never I'll tell you, there are times where I will no kidding blank out and I'll just be like, hey, what was I talking about? Okay, cool. And then I'll figure it out that has that has come to me later in life. That is not a thing that I've always done. Like, I'm usually a pretty organized guy. And I can trace it back to a couple different events where I was like, okay, There was a slight change there and mental health is no different. If I start reacting way high and write for something that really doesn't matter, I'm not a road rage guy, but I've definitely heard it described where there was a distinct point where a guy did not care about road rage. And then for the rest of his life after a certain event, he just 100% would like fly off the handle when he was in traffic, specifically San Antonio traffic because it's terrible. But what I mean, this is this is obviously in your lane because I have a feeling that you had some studies done on you know, you've been a test case at one point I seem to remember were you wearing the like the Elon Musk Neural link. What were your experiences?
Peaches 30:45
Yeah. So my experiences Yes, I've hit IEDs and stuff like that. And obviously, think you guys were there for my jump accident, but most of my symptoms in terms of memory loss, speech impediment. Couple other things really only started materializing out two years ago, maybe three years ago. And you mentioned the baseline, which I think is fantastic, because now everybody's getting a baseline. I didn't have a baseline, my baseline that I took was six months ago. So I'm already like, I'm already screwed up. And there was, you know, as I'm sitting down with, with the neurologist, and you can go in through, you know, three hour testing where it's all puzzles and everything like that. I mean, I'm getting worked. And it's things that I'm that I know, like, yeah, this is going to be easy. And then it's not as I'm actually trying to work through it. And those are things that I recognize and sometimes they're frustrate Sometimes they're not, it's just Hey, I know that it is the reality of it. And I'm working through it. And people like you guys and my family, they know I have it, and they with it. I'm fortunate that it hasn't triggered any kind of depression, anger issues. I've always been a really laid back guy and I've continued to be that person. So I'm good.
Aaron 32:27
was going to ask if you notice an emotional shift or whatever, because the cognitive shifts and doing puzzles and complex stuff like that shared like we all you know, some form or fashion of degradation there, but I was going to ask if you had any, you know, emotional, any emotional shifts, but that's, that's awesome.
Peaches 32:41
I mean, I if I had to identify an emotional shift, it would just be probably my patience is shorter than it normally is. Or that I remember it being but then I talked this, you know, some of my buddies that are like, No, dude, you're still pretty patient.
Brian 33:02
I think on your baseline as a person, you've always been just that relaxed. You know, from the first time that I met you so you know, that kind of plays into your baseline was pretty chill. Yeah, you know, being a little bit more agitated than normal. Maybe that brings you up to the normal San Antonioian level.
Aaron 33:23
Alright guys, I want to I'm going to close it up. We got two more. Two more questions here. So we'll hit the first one and I want to hear answers from everybody and then we'll kind of do the same thing with the second one. We'll start off with Trent. Trent, going back all the way through your career. If you can narrow it down to one mistake for your mental health. One mistake that you've made. What would that be? So put yourself back in a young, beautiful, moisturize Trent kind of mindset. And what is the one thing you wish you knew about mental health to avoid.
MENTAL HEALTH MISTAKES TO AVOID
Trent 34:01
I think we've discussed it a little bit already, things sometimes take a little while to rise to the surface. So don't just because you feel good after an incident or after something else, and you think you've put it behind you, and you've ignored it enough where it you've sunk it to the bottom of your river, it'll come back up. So, you know, like, there's a time and a place to push that away, and, and move forward. But don't pretend like it's not coming back. Okay, because it will come back and don't pretend like you're not going to have to deal with it. Because if it comes up on its own, you have to deal with it. And other stressors tend to bring that stuff back. It's not the best time to deal with some of that stuff that you've you should have dealt with as soon as you could. So just dealing with that stuff as soon as possible. As soon as you have that that bandwidth. You know, you get home or whatever it is, and you have that time you have those resources to get after it instead of denying those resources. I know one time You know, my commander said go to mental health like he told me like you should probably go. And I went over there and they were like, no one can force you to talk to us. And I was like, okay, later, you know, looking back, I might have been like, it might have been a good time to. You know, but, you know, I was I was, you know, a younger dude. And I was I was very confident and, but I, it wasn't something I wanted to deal with at the time. And, and, you know, from my experience, it's not something that you ever want to deal with. But you have to deal with it to get past it. And to get back to normal for my experience.
Brian 35:37
Yeah, so biggest thing for me was just a lot like Trent was saying, you know, you have all this stuff that just gets bottled up, and you just seal it up, because you're like, I don't want to expose any weakness to all of my friends that are right here. You know, I want to I came here, and I've been crushing whatever push-ups and that every event that we do, I'm not, you know, always at the top or whatever, but I'm physically capable, and I don't want to be at the bottom because of my mental state is something that I can overcome. So my exposure, you know, first thing in the military. Within the first year, my, my team commander died while I was at in dock, and then my grandma died, you know, while I was at SERE, or about to go to SERE and you know, for me, that was a huge deal because she helped raise me and all that kind of stuff. And I never really dealt with those two things. I had never really seen anybody die before, when I saw my team commander die, but you know, dealing with those things, and not really talking about it, because I didn't want to, again, expose the weaknesses that I had. And the fact that you know, it affected me in the day to day life. And the biggest thing that I can pass on to you guys that are listening right now is that your experiences impact you the way that you let them impact you. So it's important just circling back to what Peach was talking about and beginning the introspection and just kind of meditation you think about the events that have happened. throughout your day, or the big things that have happened in your life, and you know, a lot of them are not going to be amazing or great things, but you let them impact you, however you want to let them impact you are you going to continue to spiral down or you're going to learn something from it, you know, like from my team commander, his sacrifice has propelled me to say, to push through any of the limit the pain and whatever is going on in my life. And I'm lucky enough to be here and have the things that I have my family and all that kind of stuff. So I got to keep on pushing through because, you know, he, he pushed it, he didn't have to deal with the things that he did, but you know, he kept on pushing through and, you know, you can let things affect you the way that you choose to and keep on going on with your life.
Peaches 37:53
We've covered in another episode, but the kind of way you react to things your mental health can change. The way that you react to certain situations. And going back to what I was talking about with mindfulness and taking a step back and look at objective really is, yeah, you may have reacted inappropriately in that moment. We all do it every single person. It's important to be able to take a step back and go, man, I shouldn't have yelled at my kid or I shouldn't have had road rage or man, I probably should have let that guy in front of me at the stoplight or you know, whatever. Name a situation that kind of irks you. Somebody cuts you off. All right, that sucks. Like, Hey, I almost crashed. But our let's just take a breather here real quick. And then and then move along today because nothing good is going to come out of getting fired up about it or, you know, doing something stupid. So I think being mindful of your reactions and being able to learn from them and acknowledge Hey, I didn't act correctly on that one.
Aaron 39:03
Yeah, for sure. And then for me going back, I think I probably would have started engaging in my mental health and engaging in no kidding what it means to be a mentally healthy person. Long before I ever had an incident. I can remember distinctly in 2012, I was very, very close to my grandma, RIP Grandma Kilroy. But, you know, there was a whole bunch of things that were kind of going on at that time, and she passed away at that time. And I just remember everything flooding in like a couple of bad things that happened on deployments, a couple of these other stressors, a couple of family lives. And at that point, I realized I was like, holy cow, like, I've been denying the fact that I need to get to get seen, just like we said earlier, resiliency is a muscle. And if the first time that you decide that you're going to work that muscle out, is when you're all the way at the end, like when you're in the biggest event that you're going to have mentally it's way too late. Brian and I you know, ole' CA, you know that the team Sergeant that we all had he always used to say you never rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. And if you do that, if you apply that to mental health, if you have something terrible that happens that death in the family, or if you're on deployment and you, you experience a tough loss, or like Peach was saying earlier, if you lose a friend to an event, and you haven't been training to deal with that event, how are you going to handle it, you're not just going to rise to the occasion and be okay. And then what happens if you take two or three of those in a row. At that point, it's way too late. And you're so far behind the curve that you're just never going to get out of there. And it can lead to some pretty dark spaces. And that's never good, that can seriously impact you. But you know, not only in your life, but in your in your pursuit to become the best AFSPECWAR candidate that you can be and, and then further on into the career field. You're going to carry those stressors with you all the way through the job. And that's what we're trying to avoid by getting in there on the ground floor and all those experiences with POTFF and having the POTFF teams that are there and having all these tools. You have to use the tools for them to work. You can't just say Okay, they're there. That's great. So we'll close it up here like guys, you know, what is what is resilience mean to you? You know, for me my techniques like for me to keep resilient, I really do try to meditate, I try to be mindful I have the calm app is great, not sponsored, it's just awesome. So I try to meditate, you know, five or 10 minutes a day, even if it's just to think about some stuff and try to get over and working out is great. Anything that you guys we haven't talked about before, whether that are handy resilience, tips or tricks that you guys like.
RESILIENCE
Brian 41:31
The big thing that I want to just bring up as far as resilience is, you know, it is like a muscle and everybody has a separate threshold based on where they're at in their life. You know, as we are kids, we're pretty label as far as our emotions and all the things that are happening in our life. You know, my boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever breaks up with you and that's the end of the world. You know, as you move on later in life, you're just like, alright, whatever.
Aaron 41:54
What's the what's the Family Guy joke like they're nothing is more important than what's happening in front of these lockers right now in school.
Brian 42:04
But, you know, everyone has a different threshold and you can begin to build those muscles throughout your entire life and the amount of stuff you can carry. You know, I always thought my plate was full whenever I was 17, 18 I was like I have college. I have a part time job at JC Penney's and I have to go do whatever hang out my friends. Yeah, $200 on a cell phone bill and you feel like your plate is full. But as you continue to get older and older, your plate just gets bigger and you carry more stuff you don't stop carrying, you know, with all the stress that you have. So it's important to figure out what is really going to calm you down earlier in your life and isn't it shouldn't be something that's going to also harm your health. You know, like, smoking, alcohol, that stuff is not good for long haul. But yeah, just choosing those healthy habits that are going to carry you on through. And, you know, for me, it's also important to remember that you have a threshold, you can't go 100% for your entire life or for three or four years, no one can do that. And it's hard to know that when you're younger, you're like, I can do better than this guy. Well, maybe you can't do 100%. But I can do it. You know, we've all tried to do that, at some point in our lives, and we figured out like, No, we cannot go 100% at the turbo mode. Yeah. So know that you have to take a break and take a step back and you need some downtime every once in a while. And just realize what your threshold is, and try and figure that out a little bit earlier in life.
Aaron 43:45
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds like a great place to end. So hey, I know we go deep on the mental health aspect and kind of the resiliency piece of it. This is a huge, overarching topic that is, you know, invades everything that we talk about, both in normal life and in the Military and stuff. So go out and do your research, find those tips, those tricks, those little resiliency tools that you can use to help you in your, in your journey. And remember, you know, get there early, start working those resiliency muscles early as early as you possibly can. And that is going to help you throughout a lifetime. Because we're not just focused on A&S we want you guys to get in A&S be successful graduates your respective pipelines, and then go on with a healthy career as an Air Force Special Operator, you know, hopefully a long and healthy career. So, you know, without further ado, Brian will turn it over to you for some, some last thoughts and we'll close it up.
WRAP UP
Brian 44:36
Hi, guys. First of all, thanks for listening. You know, hopefully, hopefully, all of our stories that we told you guys are going to help you out and set you on the right foot. Like I said, in the beginning, you know, pull whatever thing you think might help you and you can implement in your life to try and get you through those stretches that you are going to face. You know, we are only telling you these things based on our personal experience. We're not you No mental health experts or anything like that. So don't think that any of our techniques are all written in books or anything like that we're not writing any books, we're not doing any of that stuff. We're just sharing with you our personal thoughts and experiences that we have and things that may have worked or didn't work for us. Like I said, we've, we've had a lot of trial and error and failures in the past where, you know, we didn't do the right thing. And we learned from it. So all those things are going to really let you, they're going to affect you the way that you let them. Just kind of like Peach said, make sure you're trying to practice that mindfulness and the things that are going on your life, just introspection of whatever it is going on throughout your day, and how you're going to let that affect you whether it's and then use your recovery techniques, whether it's running or just sitting there in the quiet room and think about the things that have gone on throughout your life. But that being said, we're always here for you guys, if you know you have any questions or if there's anything that you want to talk to us about. We will try and get to all the messages as soon as possible, we're still answering all the messages from email, Instagram, YouTube. So you guys keep them coming. And if you need anything at any point in time, we're always here to help you guys out. But realize at some point, you're going to have to take a knee and go into this with an open mind and continue crushing all of your physical goals. But keep in mind those mental goals just kind of like Aaron was saying, you know, don't forget about all the mental resilience portions and try to do something a little bit different and better each day. If you're super amped up and frustrated about whatever's going on in your life because the San Antonio traffic, then, you know, figure out a way to a different route or something that you can change about the situation because you're ultimately the canopy commander like we say, so you make your own decisions and figure out what you want to do with your life. We just try and tell you from our experience, what's what can be up ahead for you guys. So, thank you again for listening. Continue to drop comments leave us review if you're enjoying the podcast and a new shirt should be in real soon. So, check them out at the website onesready.com. There's a delay from shipping. You know the whole virus thing has been wreaking havoc on stuff. But check it out, go to onesready.com and we will catch you guys later go out there and earn each breath.
TLDR: Pay attention to your mental status. take care of business as needed. be honest with yourself and your teammates. take advantage of the resources available.
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