We're All a Little "Crazy"

Terry Badger III was a 13-year-old athlete with so much promise. He’d hit 300 foot home runs, and already been clocked throwing the ball 71 mph as a young pitcher. He and his dad would play ball every day after school, hitting fly balls to each other. Terry would text his parents every morning “I love you”…& after school “homework is done, ready to practice.” That was, until one day, his mom went out to run an errand and his dad never got the after school text. Terry’s mom found her son in his room, lifeless, after a suicide. But there were no signs in their car ride from school home together. They discovered a video where Terry blamed how he felt on the bullies at his school - bullies he called out by name, who called him things like “fatass,” told him he looked like he shopped at the Goodwill store for all his clothes, made fun of all his haircuts. He said in the video “I hate my life” (because of them). 

Daren, Theo, and Eric had on Dr. Mark Allen, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist who specializes is youth athletics. Together they discussed why these incidences of bullying are occurring more than ever, why we are losing more kids than ever to suicide where bullying is a main ingredient, and some steps that may be able to be taken to reverse these trends. This is an episode for anyone with kids to listen to, and even for parents to invite their kids to listen along with, as of the guests shared their own form of bullying they experienced as kids to normalize how common these scenarios are & encourage discussion.

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This has been a challenging season for Memphis Grizzlies star, Ja Morant. The number two overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft is in his fourth season at point guard for the Grizz and each year he’s improved. His team is currently ranked second in the Western Conference, poised for a serious playoff run. But this season has not come without its controversy. 

Ja, his father, and his best friend have been involved in a number of courtside altercations - including one with NFL Legend Shannon Sharpe and another with Indiana Pacers players. After both episodes, the Washington Post wrote an article about a case involving Morant last summer, where it’s alleged he punched a teenager after an altercation in a pickup basketball game. The teenager claims that Morant flashed a gun at him, but Morant and his representatives have held strong to the story that he was acting in self defense. There’s not been enough evidence to bring charges against Morant.

Then, over the past month, Morant was at a strip club after a game in Colorado, and flashed a gun while broadcasting his visit on Instagram Live. Ja voluntarily went to mental health counseling after the incident, for what we have since learned was approximately two weeks, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver retroactively suspended him for eight games. The short suspension had Ja out of counseling and back on the court in a short period of time, following the incident with the gun and the revelation of the help he was getting - causing many fans and pundits to question: did Ja have enough counseling over enough time, to get the help he appears to believe he, himself, needs?

This episode Darren and Eric had on Dr. Andrew Pleener, an Integrative Psychiatrist with an MD who was trained in the traditional medical model and decided to form his own practice out of Florida - Regional Psychiatry - where some of his clients are professional athletes. The questions of “How much counseling is enough?” and “How do you compare different forms of counseling one to the next?” were discussed along with a number of other important topics related to the modalities Ja says he learned while inpatient. With Darren’s expertise in media and Eric’s in Sport Management, the trio had a very interesting discussion that shed a lot of light on this Morant story and how players, leagues, and even fans and media can better handle these situations with public figures and their help seeking, after we hear about their questionable behaviors.

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Calvin Ridley, drafted by the Falcons in the first round in the 2018 NFL Draft out of Alabama had an incredibly promising start to his career. However in October of 2021 he chose to take a leave of absence from the game he loves, for mental health reasons. Later in 2022, the NFL announced Ridley would be suspended for betting on his team - in a parlay - on a popular phone betting app. The incident came well after his leave of absence for mental health, when he describes the dark space he was in, but that didn’t stop the media and fans from chastising him, claiming he “used mental health” as an excuse to try to wash over his “gambling habits.” This week, over a year later, Ridley published a piece in The Players’ Tribune, to talk about his traumatic past, the therapy he’s been through, and to try to explain why he’d even press the button to bet on his own game & team. The background gave Theo & Eric a chance to talk with addiction expert, Surrogate to the White House, Dr. John Rosa about the brain’s reward system, and why we often cope with emotional pain in maladaptive ways - even when it’s momentary. Theo dove into his own problem gambling to compare his situation to Ridley’s. Darren was in SXSW for this episode but his role as a reporter in the space of sports gambling was referenced often.

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This week Darren returned, having met 2X MLB All-Star Shea Hillenbrand, while both were at the Super Bowl in Arizona. Shea’s been through hell and back after his MLB career - flying on his way to his first All-Star game, wondering “why do I feel so empty if I’m supposed to feel so happy after all I’ve achieved”? It was a theme we saw a lot of this week. Two public figures were lost to suicide: Kyle Jacob’s, husband of Kellie Pickler, whose song he’d written for Lee Brice had just gone platinum the day before he was found in his house. We then learned of the suicide of Billionaire Thomas H. Lee at 78. Lee was an icon of the private equity world, and had been struggling recently to raise the same kind of capital he’d been able to at the prime of his career. He was still worth $2 Billion at the time of this death. Darren, Eric, & Theo invited Shea on to talk about that common thread of chasing the “things” - like money & awards, that seem to never lead to finding true happiness or peace of mind. 

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Lindsay Clancy was a resident of Duxbury, Massachusetts, one of the nations wealthiest towns. She was a respected nurse, mother of three young children and appeared to have been in a loving marriage. All that came crashing down on January 24th of 2023, when she allegedly killed her three young children and attempted suicide at the family’s home. But what could drive a woman who seemed to have it all, to do such a thing? We’ve since found out that Lindsay was suffering with postpartum depression, was in and out of a psych ward, and between the months of October of 2022 - January of 2023, had been put on no fewer 13 different medications for her mental health. Eric and Theo had on US Gold Medalist in Swimming Samantha Arsenault Livingston - who also gave birth three times and suffered major postpartum depression and suicidal thoughts after the 3rd, where doctors tried to prescribe her meds right away. She refused. The crew also had on Dr. Achina Stein to talk about how practitioners prescribe, how 13 meds are even possible to take over the course of 4 months, and what other treatments and modalities could have been used to manage a case like this. We don’t know all the details, but this episode was made so that more will understand the possibilities that can occur when mental health, medication, and even psychosis are each possible factors in impairing one’s judgment and actions.

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This week, Eric and Theo had on two guests to discuss the Tyre Nichols tragedy: NFL Veteran, Reggie Walker, and Integrative Mental Health MD/Writer/Author/Speaker, Dr. Carolyn Ross. As Theo and Reggie are both survivors of childe sexual abuse, and Dr. Ross (who lost her son at 29, the same age Nichols was when he died) focuses on trauma from many angles, the group discussed the vicarious trauma experienced by so many who watched this tragedy on video: from mothers to other victims of all types of abuse, persons of color to those who have been taken advantage of by authority figures. The group discusses how individuals become triggered, what happens in the brain when triggering happens, and why it often prevents us from compromising and making progress around social issues.

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Despite all we have seen from Antonio Brown (especially the most recent episode related to private photos and videos he shared of the mother of his children), our media, and our social media continues to act like each new "event" is a shock, and its own new train wreck. This episode features one of the most respected psychologists in the world, Dr. Steven C. Hayes, the inventor of ACT Therapy, to discuss the behaviors we are seeing with Antonio Brown through a mental health lens. Is it possible to hold people accountable for their behaviors, condemn their actions that hurt others, but still have compassion for their situation, so that collectively as a society, we can move this conversation forward in a productive way? We must - because the current narrative and the language being used is hurting way more than it's helping.

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Not since 9/11 have we seen folks from around the country/world, so connected based on a shared traumatic experience. The Damar Hamlin incident on the field in Cincinnati took a hold of our hearts and minds - and the focus was understandably on his physical health and recovery. But we as a society need to talk about the shared trauma that touched all of us. To do so, we invited on two guests: Super Bowl Champion, CBS College Football Analyst for CBS, and mental health advocate, Aaron Taylor, and surrogate to the White House on the mental health and opioid epidemics, Dr. John Rosa. This is a seminal moment that we must use to educate around how trauma impacts us all.

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Darren, Theo, and Eric bring on guest, Dr Jennifer Hartstein to discuss why the Holiday Time - this past month - in particular seems to have been hard on so many people around the globe. Dr. Hartstein is a frequent contributor to NBC, the Today Show and many news outlets because she has a very tangible and pragmatic approach to mental health and the struggles we all face. Darren, Theo, and Eric get real about each of their own Holiday struggles, which prompted the discussion topic for this week's episode - as well as some of the challenges we all may be facing as the New Year approaches.

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