Grim Drive

This episode of the Grim Drive Podcast, where we explore mental health through the lens of professional sports and athletes, recaps the first 10 episodes of the podcast.

Creating something new, or attempting to learn a new skill, is hard work and often not glamorous in the beginning.  Creating a podcast is no different.  We discuss the learning curve behind starting The Grim Drive Podcast and some of the mistakes we made along the way so far.  We have also been vocal in several episodes about how success is never achieved without a lot of help, and that is certainly the case with a podcast.  We take some time to thank the people who have helped make The Grim Drive Podcast happen, including Dmitriy at The Geaux Network for producing the podcast, Cody Brackett who edits our videos, Tom Nguyen at Revive Digital Design for creating the grimdrive.com website and helping us navigate the podcast hosting process, and Julia Joy Sweeney +Christina Berlinguet at CJPR for helping us with social media and public relations. We also thank our logo designer, who goes by the name Design_13 on 99 Designs and does fantastic work.

We then discuss our approach to selecting which athletes and topics to cover, by delving into what connects and separates the concepts of mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness.  We believe these are all important concepts that need to be covered equally in order to educate listeners to a full range of helpful information, without fixating on just mental illness or just mental health.

We wrap up by discussing our key takeaways from the first 10 episodes, including the intriguing topic of why we chose to focus on Dak Prescott, as well as why someone like Alex Smith is able to show resilience through his own recovery process. At the tail end of the episode, we discuss how listeners can engage with us online, as well as how listeners can connect with mental health providers in the community.  Getting help is always a hard step, and it can also be stressful and confusing.  We provide some insight from our perspective as licensed clinicians in order to make the process easier for those listening to find the right help.

*The Grim Drive Podcast is a way for people to learn about mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness, through the lens of sports. We want to do our part to further reduce the stigma associated with mental health by highlighting the athletes who have shown strength through vulnerability, spoken up, and spoken out.  We want to provide listeners with mental health education, to raise awareness and reduce risk, maximizing the path to mental fitness.

As a reminder to listeners, please click subscribe on Youtube!  If we get to 100 subscribers (we are close!) we can get our own custom URL, which makes it easier for people to find us and learn more about the helpful information we cover on this podcast.

This episode of the Grim Drive Podcast, where we explore mental health through the lens of professional sports and athletes, recaps the first 10 episodes of the podcast.

Creating something new, or attempting to learn a new skill, is hard work and often not glamorous in the beginning.  Creating a podcast is no different.  We discuss the learning curve behind starting The Grim Drive Podcast and some of the mistakes we made along the way so far.  We have also been vocal in several episodes about how success is never achieved without a lot of help, and that is certainly the case with a podcast.  We take some time to thank the people who have helped make The Grim Drive Podcast happen, including Dmitriy at The Geaux Network for producing the podcast, Cody Brackett who edits our videos, Tom Nguyen at Revive Digital Design for creating the grimdrive.com website and helping us navigate the podcast hosting process, and Julia Joy Sweeney +Christina Berlinguet at CJPR for helping us with social media and public relations. We also thank our logo designer, who goes by the name Design_13 on 99 Designs and does fantastic work.

We then discuss our approach to selecting which athletes and topics to cover, by delving into what connects and separates the concepts of mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness.  We believe these are all important concepts that need to be covered equally in order to educate listeners to a full range of helpful information, without fixating on just mental illness or just mental health.

We wrap up by discussing our key takeaways from the first 10 episodes, including the intriguing topic of why we chose to focus on Dak Prescott, as well as why someone like Alex Smith is able to show resilience through his own recovery process. At the tail end of the episode, we discuss how listeners can engage with us online, as well as how listeners can connect with mental health providers in the community.  Getting help is always a hard step, and it can also be stressful and confusing.  We provide some insight from our perspective as licensed clinicians in order to make the process easier for those listening to find the right help.

*The Grim Drive Podcast is a way for people to learn about mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness, through the lens of sports. We want to do our part to further reduce the stigma associated with mental health by highlighting the athletes who have shown strength through vulnerability, spoken up, and spoken out.  We want to provide listeners with mental health education, to raise awareness and reduce risk, maximizing the path to mental fitness.

As a reminder to listeners, please click subscribe on Youtube!  If we get to 100 subscribers (we are close!) we can get our own custom URL, which makes it easier for people to find us and learn more about the helpful information we cover on this podcast.

The post Episode 10.5a: Recap of 1-10 first appeared on Grim Drive.

This episode of the Grim Drive Podcast, where we explore mental health through the lens of professional sports and athletes, takes a look at Barstool Sports + Masculinity.

Every 10th episode, we plan to go a bit outside the box to cover something we find interesting that relates to sports in some way but may not focus on one particular athlete example.  For this episode, we chose to cover the topic of masculinity.  Barstool Sports is a company created in 2003 with the tagline “for the common man, by the common man” and the concept of masculinity is woven, not only through their company motto, but also their content, fanbase, and the focus of criticisms from their detractors.

We attempt to cover a full range of variables with regard to what Barstool Sports creates, while taking the first step towards what will become a multi-episode dialogue on the topic of masculinity.  Masculinity is a subject that we are passionate about due to our combined 20+ years of work as mental health clinicians, most of which have been working with male clients.  This topic is very nuanced, often misunderstood, and covered mostly in the media these days from the angle of “toxic masculinity”, a term we choose not to support, which we discuss in detail during this episode.

*The Grim Drive Podcast is a way for people to learn about mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness, through the lens of sports. We want to do our part to further reduce the stigma associated with mental health by highlighting the athletes who have shown strength through vulnerability, spoken up, and spoken out.  We want to provide listeners with mental health education, to raise awareness and reduce risk, maximizing the path to mental fitness.

As a reminder to listeners, please click subscribe on your podcast listening platform and rate+review the podcast if possible, we really appreciate all feedback, so much that we are offering a pair of FREE Celtics tickets to a game in 2021-2022 for one lucky person out of all who write an HONEST review for us in the first three months of 2021. You can enter to win these tickets by taking a screenshot of your review and submitting that through the “contact us” option on our website at GrimDrive.com. The contact us option will ask for your name+email address and will provide you with the option to upload the screenshot file.  MAKE SURE you take the screenshot of the review BEFORE you submit it, if you wait until after you submit your review you will no longer be able to see the review to take the screenshot.

Barstool Sports episode related links:

• https://www.revolt.tv/2020/7/7/21316222/barstool-sports-nigger-podcast
• https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1057061
• https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/1400318/in-honor-of-barstools-16th-birthday-what-are-the-top-16-moments-in-barstool-history
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3960576/Saturdays-boys-Barstool-Sports-grew-local-Boston-paper-media-empire.html
• https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/ny-barstool-sports-portnoy-racism-20200706-6qoawvrjbnce5cygbknhlp2wwe-story.html

Toxic Masculinity:

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-addiction/202001/men-will-be-men-the-troubling-origin-toxic-masculinity
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-race-good-health/201902/mental-health-among-boys-and-men-when-is-masculinity-toxic
• https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/traditional-masculinity-american-psychological-association/580006/
• https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/toxic-masculinity-history/583411/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity
• https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf
• Atlantic:
  • https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/toxic-masculinity-history/583411/
  • https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/the-miseducation-of-the-american-boy/603046/

The post Episode 10: Barstool Sports + Masculinity first appeared on Grim Drive.

This episode of the Grim Drive Podcast, where we explore mental health through the lens of professional sports and athletes, takes a look at Hayden Hurst + Suicide Prevention.

As a part of our last episode, we discussed how a post-game on-field moment between Dak Prescott and Hayden Hurst showed similarities to the one line tweet about depression from DeMar DeRozan…namely that one line or one short back and forth dialogue with a handshake and a verbal agreement to collaborate can have a profound impact on educating fans to the importance of mental health, further removing the stigma and encouraging more people to open up and get help.

Hayden Hurst is someone who has shown incredible strength through his willingness to be vulnerable and to also show that vulnerability.  Embracing emotion and reaching out to friends and family when we are struggling with mental health challenges can be daunting, often due to our own shame or fear of burdening those people.  But as Hayden Hurst has shown, opening up to family in particular often eases the pain, clears the path to get the help we may need, and ultimately can strengthen the bond we have with those people.

Most importantly, reaching out for help can save lives.  Suicide numbers have been getting worse over the past 30+ years, and males are up to four times more likely to end their own lives.   Suicide prevention is so key to educate people regarding mental health and how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe when there is the presence of intense, often invisible pain.  

As a reminder to listeners, please use caution when listening to this episode.  This topic is particularly difficult for people to discuss, and listening to it being discussed is no different.  We encourage you to call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline to get help if you or a loved one are struggling, at 1-800-273-8255.  We also encourage listeners to check out The Hayden Hurst Foundation website for more information on suicide prevention at https://www.haydenhurstfoundation.com

*The Grim Drive Podcast is a way for people to learn about mental fitness, mental health, and mental illness, through the lens of sports. We want to do our part to further reduce the stigma associated with mental health by highlighting the athletes who have shown strength through vulnerability, spoken up, and spoken out.  We want to provide listeners with mental health education, to raise awareness and reduce risk, maximizing the path to mental fitness.

Hayden Hurst episode related links:

• https://www.haydenhurstfoundation.com
  • Mission: The Hayden Hurst Family Foundation’s mission is to raise awareness of mental health issues in children and adolescents by funding mental health services and programs through donations and fundraising events.  

• ESPN daily podcast with Mina Kimes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/16e2UTE2392c5CrXxX8QeE?si=d5aXfHPJQjiXU-d4tpy5Iw
• https://www.espn.com/blog/atlanta-falcons/post/_/id/35338/hayden-hurst-uses-his-attempted-suicide-story-to-make-a-difference
• https://247sports.com/Article/Hayden-Hurst-mental-health-struggles-South-Carolina-Atlanta-Falcons-147383002/
• Outside the Lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQl-n2cLTKs

Suicide Prevention:

• http://www.riversideunified.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_580721/File/Departments/Special%20Education/Psychological%20Services/SUICIDE%20PREVENTION%20INTERVENTION%20HANDBOOK.pdf

***Disclaimer on MH tips: Particularly with suicide prevention, anyone struggling needs to get professional help.  A good place to start is by calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255

Suicide Prevention:

• –  Numbers are UP, especially among men
• –  Warning signs:
  • Talking about wanting to die or kill themselves
  • Looking for ways to kill themselves, such as searching online or buying a gun
  • Self-inury
  • Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live
  • Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
  • Talking about being a burden to others
  • Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
  • Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly
  • Sleeping too little or too much
  • Withdrawing or isolating themselves
  • Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
  • Displaying extreme mood swings
  • Abuse/trauma
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    What to do:
    – Be aware of the risk factors
    – MH issues, trauma, sub ab, loss, suicide contagion (read below)
    – Get a risk assessment 

– Develop a safety plan:
– Connect to supports in home/community – Identify healthy coping strategies
– Provide after hours resource numbers
– Suicide contagion:

– “Suicide contagion is the exposure to suicide or suicidal behaviors within one’s family, one’s peer group, or through media reports of suicide and can result in an increase in suicide and suicidal behaviors. Direct and indirect exposure to suicidal behavior has been shown to precede an increase in suicidal behavior in persons at risk for suicide, especially in adolescents and young adults.”  – From HHS.gov

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Other things to consider:

– Recognize that emotional pain can be treated too, just like physical pain…if it was physical pain, we would seek treatment, it’s important to do the same with emotional pain

– Pain is the body telling us we need to change something or something is off balance or a threat to the system as a WHOLE

– Recognize that when someone attempts suicide, but thankfully, does not end their life, their reflection is often how much they wanted to LIVE in those final moments, a regret about their decision to self-harm sets in, and a desire to LIVE becomes powerful

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• –  Get HELP, call the suicide prevention hotline to get help if you are struggling: 1-800-273-8255
• –  Talk to a family member or friend if you can, and remember that PART of YOU will try to convince you that this will burden them, but that is NOT how it plays out on reality. Test this out, if you had a friend ask you for support, would you feel burdened? Really think about it. NO, you would feel empathy for them, you would feel proud that they trusted you for support, you would feel positive that you can help your friend get to a better place in their lives. That doesn’t sound like burden to me

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The post Episode 9: Hayden Hurst + Suicide Prevention first appeared on Grim Drive.