Circle of Trust

5-putt anounce establishment of Foundation

5-Putt announced the Movember challenge in may

Disco Ball announced adopt a highway

Disco Ball went over annual posting awards

Disco Ball named the next HIM Coupon reciepient

Disco Ball COT:

May is Men’s Mental Health Awareness month, so I wanted to talk to you all about the importance of Men’s Mental Health.  Toby was originally supposed to give this COT, but his family needed him more this Saturday morning.  Toby did ask that I put these two especially important phone numbers out.  Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-82554, and the Addiction Hotline 1-800-662-4357.  If you or someone you know is struggling, please use these resources.

Unfortunately, Goo Nation has given Men’s Mental Health a bad rap. Some of us were brought up or told that getting mental help, counseling, or therapy as a man makes you weak, a pussy someone that cannot be trusted to take care of his family. We have all heard the Myths of Depression…… Depression = Weakness, A man should be able to control his feelings, Real men do not ask for help, talking about depression won’t help, Depression will make you a burden to others.  Let us break these myths down…. Depression = Weakness…. Depression is a part of life, everyone at some point in their lives suffers from depression, it is not a weakness it’s a simple fact of life.  A man should be able to control his emotions, every single one of us has gone through a point in their life when emotions took over, whether it was when you got married and you couldn’t contain your joy, you lost someone in your life and you shed tears, this wasn’t something you controlled it just happens, its part of being alive, being human…. Last week I had to put my 14.5-year-old Lab down, I cried like a baby, not because I chose to, but because at times emotions are what you need…… Am I less than a man for crying?  Fuck no it makes me human.  Real men don’t ask for help, Gentlemen let me tell you something, only a real man has the balls to ask for help, only a real man can admit he needs more than himself to get through situations.  Those that refuse to ask for help are only hurting themselves, and those they love by trying to take on more than is possible.  Talking about depression won’t help anyway…. Come on how the hell can you heal if you don’t expose the wound.  Depression doesn’t just go away, nor can you drown it in alcohol or something else.  Talking is the only way we can heal.  Depression will only make you a burden on others…. Okay so you are telling me that holding it in, being a shell of yourself, isn’t a burden on others…. Lashing out at those you love somehow to feel less burdened?  Those that love you WANT to help, WANT to be your support system.  Let me ask you something if you break your arm you go to the doctor, get it reset, get help to heal it, and you make it through it, you move on.  If you decide not to get help on a broken arm, one of the following happens, our arm never heals, it heals deformed and possibly causes permanent damage, or you possibly lose your arm…. Mental injuries don’t have to be a single traumatic event, or have a singular source, they can build up over time but just as a broken arm, it takes help to heal it correctly.

So, there is this guy I’ve known all my life.  Smart, educated, works out regularly, has a great job, a wonderful family… Well, a few months ago things started changing for him.  A lot of life situations started popping up, in every aspect of his life.  Family, work, friends, you name it, and different things were popping up.  He was dealing with them the best he could, but he wasn’t paying attention to how those things were affecting him mentally.  He just thought it would go away, so he buried his feelings, his mental challenges, said to himself “fake it until you make it” and went about his life hiding the struggles.  His work started to be affected, he was physically there for his wife, but mentally he wasn’t the husband he should have been.  He was trying to be a good father, bought his kids things when he traveled, spent time with them, but he was short fused, got overly frustrated or annoyed by everyday kids’ things.  Again he said to himself, this will pass…… But it didn’t he became more withdrawn emotionally with his family.  He was struggling to keep up the lie to people that didn’t even know. I’m.  He recognized this, but again just kept thinking he would snap out of it…… that is until one day a “Come to Jesus” moment presented itself, actually there was two of them within a couple hours.  The first he had said goodnight to his daughter, she went off to bed to have her mom read her a bedtime story.  She returned to dad a couple minutes later and gave him another hug.  Said “Daddy this is a hug so that you are not sad anymore” …. This little girl is 4 years old, she recognized that this guy wasn’t hiding shit, she recognized he was struggling in some way.  The second event was a couple hours later.  This guy went to take a shower, after he finished, he found his wife crying on the bed.  He asked what was wrong… She replied with “I don’t feel I make you happy anymore, I feel like we are growing apart, maybe it’s you don’t love me anymore, but I cannot carry on like this anymore” ….  This guy left his bedroom, went downstairs and broke down into tears.  He was lost, he was struggling, and he didn’t know what to do about it.  He was about to lose everything.  Over the next few days, he made two simple posts to his workout group.  The first was “does anyone know a good counselor” The second a few days later he asked, “Is anyone up that can talk”.  The support he got from this “workout” group was overwhelming his buddies were texting/DMing him left and right.  He followed trough with his inquiries, took the advice of his buddies that had knowledge and started professional counseling.  Monday will be a month of weekly counseling, and this guy is getting better every day, healing his mental injuries.  If you all haven’t figured it out yet, this guy is me…… I was hurting mentally; it took me hurting and almost loosing my family to truly realize it.  I was struggling, and I was weak cause I thought I could handle it myself.  I almost lost my Wife; I almost lost my kids before I woke up and realized I needed help.  Now I am stronger and getting stronger each day.  I am becoming a better Husband, better father, better person.  I made a choice to heal myself mentally.  If you are struggling, or know someone that is, seek or encourage those people to talk to someone.  It doesn’t have to be professional or official help but look around you there are a ton of men here that are willing to listen, willing to lend support to you.  Mental health is important, take care of yourself and others.  Lets be the group that shows what a real man is.

Happy Camper led us in Prayer