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In this bonus episode as part of our series on mental health, previous guest Wyatt Harris shares his story of dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts from a young age. With the help of professional therapy and meds, Wyatt is enjoying today and looking forward to a bright future.

Transcript

Trent Manning: 
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manny let’s have some Welcome to the real birth text podcast, mental health series. Today, we’re bringing the second episode in the series, featuring previous guests sharing her stories of dealing with mental health challenges. Our goals with this series are to let the real turf tax community know that you and your loved ones are not alone in facing mental health challenges. To decrease the stigma around talking about mental health and to encourage people to seek help and support. Today, we’ll be talking with one of our favorite newcomers to the industry. White Harris. While it will be letting us in on his experience with depression. And what helped him move from his darkest days to being able to enjoy his wonderful life career. And family. All right, looking back. What were some of the early signs you were struggling?

Wyatt Harris: 
It’s hard to figure out how to tell this story. Because I’ve struggled with my whole life. Like, since I was a young, young. Various forms of mental health issues, I would say the depression started being a thing probably when I was an early teenager. And it’s. We’re looking back from where I am now and thinking, wow, I was depressed that whole time, it was chemical, it was not the same thing going on with everybody else, you know? The intrusive thoughts. From a very young age. I’ve experienced with like suicidal thoughts and stuff Pretty often and as I got a little bit older around the time of my first golf course jobs that stuff all continued, but as I worked more and grew up more, the hopelessness, of approaching adulthood, it really got, got to me When I first started working at the four seasons, I was pretty sure. I was like 210 pounds, for me, that was pretty big at the time. And that’s because in the previous years, it was basically a kind of compulsive eating stemming from all the feels weird to say, but all the depression, for years leading up to that, I think about that, just the way that I ate so much and the way that I just didn’t see any future, and I look back now and I think that whole time I had a lot of options, there’s a lot of stuff I could have done to change my life and make it better, but what the depression does is it sucks you into this hole. It gets you all spun up and into this fatalistic, place where it’s like, my life sucks. This all sucks and it’s not going to change. There’s nothing I can do to change it. And it’s just going to perpetually, go downhill from here and there is no future. How I felt for a long time, from early teenager to recently, I just turned 26 probably until the past few years, the attitude in my head was I’m not going to be around that long and I’m not going to do it today, but eventually I’m just going to turn the switch off,

Trent Manning: 
Oh, wow.

Wyatt Harris: 
you know?

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
That’s how it was like, I’m going to stick around and see what happens for a while. But eventually I’m, you know, I’m going to go get the shotgun,

Trent Manning: 
Well,

Wyatt Harris: 
As a kid, that’s what was going on with me. And as a freaking adult to I can say. Once I got to where I work now. I probably told you I was on the crew and I took a spray tech position at the four seasons here. And job was the worst possible thing for my brain. Because of what I was going through because of the hopelessness and nothing’s ever going to change, this is never going to get better. I’m never going to do anything, combined with all the time behind a wheel, you know, eight, 10 hours just driving this machine. My brain was just rotting on that thing. And there were times where I was just at work. I would just start crying. Because I just hated my life so much, so, you would see me, spraying a green and you have no idea that what I was thinking about at that moment was going to my car and getting my gun and shooting myself in the head.

Trent Manning: 
Wow.

Wyatt Harris: 
That’s where I was at.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah, no, that’s terrible. What kind of helped you move from that point to where you are now?

Wyatt Harris: 
That can be explained to sort of the next stage there, which is, my wife, basically what made me decide to. To get help. And prior to this point, I had done a little bit of therapy which was helpful.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
And I advise anybody to just try it, it’s profoundly helpful to pay somebody, to listen to your problems that is trained in, more optimal ways to respond to them. You know, like it’s very, very helpful.

Trent Manning: 
Would that be in, say that? I do want to say if you try a therapist and you don’t like that therapist find another therapist, there’s a lot of therapists out there. And there’s a lot of really, really good ones and find one that works with your personality.

Wyatt Harris: 
I was going to say that too. If I had stuck with the one I had long-term or if I kept going to therapy, I probably would have switched to a different one. Just like everything else under capitalism, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to be any good. From that point, when my daughter was born, when it was getting bad. You know, the day-to-day the grind. Have, you know, first of all, the late stages of the pregnancy and the birth, and then the early, the months of it, that spiral that depression sends you into. There’s a lot of, what did I do here? Like, I’ve completely messed up my life and now there’s no going back. You know, it’s more of like, Wow. I’ve really done it this time. Now everything I ever wanted to do now it’s really never going to happen. And that’s all depression. Like my life is great, you know, it really, it really, it really is. And I meet and I need that. And I would tell you if I did but it got to a point where we’re trying to take care of this baby. And my wife needs her. And something would happen that just shut me down. I would just be like, this, I was too much. These four things that happened today were too much. Now my brain is done. I am now I’m not depressed. I’m now in the pit and I want to die and I can’t function,

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
the next three hours. Or more being completely useless and terrible while you’re trying to deal with this bait. I, it got to a point where I was like I have to do something here and I have to be able to be functional or this is really going to go downhill, and, uh, my how should I say that? I guess, I’ll say without talking about anybody else’s medical situation, somebody I know went on an antidepressant and it made a huge difference with them and it was visible. And then they described it as being really, really helpful. And I certainly wasn’t opposed to. I’ve, I’ve certainly experimented with my fair share of psychoactive substances in my life. So I don’t have any opposition to, to trying anything. When that person’s close to me described it that way, I was like, well, I’m just going to go to my doctor and see what they say. And I got on an SSRI and it’s been profoundly helpful. I was, I was amazed. It’s you mentioned you’re on one, so I, I maybe it’s the same for you or maybe you’ll delete that part out.

Trent Manning: 
Oh,

Wyatt Harris: 
that okay if I say that?

Trent Manning: 
Yeah, no, it’s totally fine.

Wyatt Harris: 
Anyway

Trent Manning: 
to hide.

Wyatt Harris: 
I found it just stabilizes everything. It makes the lows less. Maybe it makes the highs less high. I don’t know. Mostly it makes the lows way less low it’s stabilizes your mood. That’s been my experience with it as it feels like there’s rebar through my brain, it’s less likely to just start disagreeing operating up there in fall. You know, mood wise, it just holds it up and up. So that stuff just doesn’t affect me as much which I personally need, and it’s made a huge difference after the first month of letting it, start working. I noticed, you know, home situations, I’m less likely to get freaked out or angry work situations too. It’s like actually honestly like a work situations, something’s not working right. And now we’ve got to figure out why, that’s way less emotional I’m way better at staying detached and just being real calm about things. Just let’s just figure this out. Which is not how it was before at all. I would get freaked out. So that’s how I got to where I am now, which where I am now, I would say is better. I don’t have as many intrusive thoughts, certainly suicidal thoughts, stuff like that. Don’t get as low. I can tell you it was real bad coming from where I was the kind of stuff that was going on in my brain and to not have it.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Yeah,

Wyatt Harris: 
It’s a really dramatic difference. And it makes me think like, wow, this was just neurochemistry the whole time. Are you kidding me?

Trent Manning: 
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s the thing with your brain. You can’t turn it off, you know, is this constantly going and. The more, you try not to think about something that you shouldn’t be thinking about. The more you think about it.

Wyatt Harris: 
Yeah.

Trent Manning: 
At least that was my experience.

Wyatt Harris: 
Absolutely. I have an extremely obsessive personality, so I mean, my brain would just get going in circles about a wide variety of stuff. And then it would eventually wear itself out because like you think in my job that I had, when I was a spray tech, it’s just 10 hours or eight hours of thinking.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
You know, so I would just sit there thinking about all this stuff and my brain would just get fried to the point where it just wouldn’t function anymore. Cause it was metabolically expensive to do that essentially. And then that it’s almost like that left at susceptible. Almost like stress turf, I guess. Yeah.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Being alone with your thoughts is not necessarily a good thing sometimes, especially when you’re in the state of depression or whatever you have going on at the time.

Wyatt Harris: 
Well, that’s kind of why I said in our first podcast, like, that’s what I like about this job too. It’s just challenging all day. It keeps your brain occupied all day, which is very helpful for me.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Yeah. No, I understand that too. What did you learn from going through your struggles?

Wyatt Harris: 
That was not normal. I mean, I guess it’s hard to explain. I don’t know that I’ve learned anything. I guess I’ve learned that I needed an SSRI

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
I mean, I’m sure I’ve learned other things. There’s stuff that’s particular in me, I guess it was helpful, but like

Trent Manning: 
it was helpful to talk to the people. Correct.

Wyatt Harris: 
yes, helping. At that point to talk to someone who was paid to talk to me by

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
I’m not affected by any sort of stigma. I don’t care about that at all. Maybe that’s partially generational. But I don’t have any complexes about, I can’t talk about this because people are going to think I’m less than that. You know, that’s not a, that’s not a thing for me. And besides I choke people for fun. But like for me, the issue is more, it’s not like, oh, people are gonna think I’m weak. It’s more that I’m sensitive to the emotional labor that I’m asking other people to do by listening to my stuff, especially when it’s one thing to tell your friend, Hey, I’m really stressed at work and I’m worried about this, and I’m worried about that. And that’s taking care of your mental health. So to anyone that’s, I mean, you gotta understand where I’m coming from is I was 15 years old and I was thinking one of these days, I’m going to get the shotgun and go behind my house and blow my brain out. And I would think about that, all the time.

Trent Manning: 
Wow.

Wyatt Harris: 
That’s where I’m coming from. So for me to just talk to my friend about that, that’s a lot to ask if my friend,

Trent Manning: 
Well, and especially at 15 and your friends, probably not mentally prepared to handle that either.

Wyatt Harris: 
no, in any adult you’re going to talk, but it there’s no difference between the thoughts at 15 and the thoughts that, you know, when I was 22, I keep that. I can’t just talk to people about that.

Trent Manning: 
Right?

Wyatt Harris: 
It’s so much to put upon them and you need a professional. And not just so that you don’t feel bad about making someone else do that labor, but just so that they say the right things or something approximating a right thing, When you pay somebody who’s a professional, you don’t have to worry about that because you’re compensating them for the service that they’re doing, you know, and, for the listeners, I guess that don’t have the extreme stuff that I was going through. Yeah, it’s good to talk to your friends or your coworkers or whatever. Like it’s okay to be like, Hey, I need a break today. We should talk to each other in that language. This is too much for me right now. I can’t do this, and you should but you got to get help it’s valuable to get professional help too. I think that’s probably always going to be worth it.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah, I would agree. And I think it’s important to get to know your coworkers moment more personal level, and you know, whether they want to discuss their problems or not is pretty easy to tell if something’s eating on a one day or. And just asking them, you know, what’s going on today? You okay. Anything you want to talk about?

Wyatt Harris: 
Yeah. And if we’re talking about work, which. on this podcast. It’s recognizing that certain stuff, fries, your brain, as equipment texts, one thing that I find really mentally exhausting at work is trying to find parts.

Trent Manning: 
Oh, Yeah. Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
Yeah. I always try to recognize that, just because you weren’t. Getting after it physically, you fried your brain a little bit doing that. I mean, you were just in there for an hour or you talked to 10 different people on the phone and you get a break dude,

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
chill, chill out for awhile. That’s the kind of stuff that culminates in burnout, And not thinking that it has an effect, it’s not just your body. It’s your brain.

Trent Manning: 
Well, Yeah. look, as a lot of us are demanding on ourselves you know, we have our expectations, our superiors have their expectations and then. All those expectations. Some guy on the crew does something stupid, you know, and you’re like, oh, okay. You know, I got this, I got this, I got this. So it was pretty easy to get overwhelmed. I think in her industry.

Wyatt Harris: 
Yeah. The brain, it’s just an order. That consumes energy, just like the other ones. And we should not assume that if you have something eating at you emotionally, that’s subtracting from the same energy bar that fixing this green mower. Does you know what I’m saying? So like, if you’ve got some crazy stuff going on at home, You’re already 80% drinking. We have 20% to do your job with, you know, in my opinion,

Trent Manning: 
Right, right. No, it makes sense.

Wyatt Harris: 
It’s all taxing. you can’t compartmentalize your life like that. It’s the same brain, you know? And I think we all just have to recognize that. And I think that’s kind of what you’re saying before. When something seems off with somebody, you gotta take that into account,

Trent Manning: 
That’s kind of what I was getting at no matter if they tell you what’s wrong or not, is you realize they have some kind of issue. I do think it’s nice to ask them if they want to talk about it, but if they don’t want to talk about it, at least, you know, you’re going to lay off. Take it a little easier on them that

Wyatt Harris: 
exactly. Lay off on him. That’s not the time to increase the.

Trent Manning: 
yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I’m gonna, to be honest, I hadn’t always been there because, you know, 15 years ago it was go, go, go. I don’t care what you got going on. We got to get stuff done. So that’s part of getting older, I guess. What is life like for you?

Wyatt Harris: 
Good. And I never thought it was. I want to live,

Trent Manning: 
That’s awesome.

Wyatt Harris: 
I think I’ll be alive in 10 years and I’ve never been there before.

Trent Manning: 
That’s an awesome, I’m happy for you. That’s really, really good.

Wyatt Harris: 
I think I might get better at my job.

Trent Manning: 
I don’t care if you get better at your job, I want you to be alive in 10 years.

Wyatt Harris: 
And I, I think I might do other stuff too, you know?

Trent Manning: 
Yeah,

Wyatt Harris: 
So that’s how I’m doing, how I’m doing, how I’m doing is I I feel really lucky to have a beautiful daughter and fuck amazing wife My friend’s coming over later and we’re going to train some jujitsu in the garage and that’s going to be cool.

Trent Manning: 
okay, awesome. Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
that’s where I’m at. And that’s all I’m worried about.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. that’s, all.

Wyatt Harris: 
that’s

Trent Manning: 
I love it.

Wyatt Harris: 
I used to be worried about a bunch of crazy shit, but

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
now I’m good.

Trent Manning: 
What motivates you to share your story?

Wyatt Harris: 
Well, everyone else was talking about it. There was some stuff on Twitter, on the turf Twitter, some people were posting some things about it and, I retweeted something Matthew, right.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
That’s Matthew. Yeah. In the chat, he posted a very poignant voice message actually, which was cool to hear his voice, you know, saying that. And so he talked about his experience, having a mental breakdown when he was younger. And I thought, I’m just going to say this because I don’t have any problem talking about this at all. And. You know, mine went pretty hard that post I made. I was glad when some people finally responded to it, I was pretty much just like, it may have come off weird, but I just wanted to kinda put it in terms of we’re similar. All of us in this group, here’s, what’s going on. I do this job. We all do this job. We have the same experiences every day. But here are some experiences that I have. And I talked about some, I have some pretty extreme experiences in my brain, you know? And so when we see people around us that are, just like us, but this is what’s going on with them, I guess the motivation is to meet. This needs to be a mundane topic to talk about, you know, it’s great to, make your Twitter post and, share the mental health hotline number and stuff. But this shouldn’t be like a special thing. This needs to be a mundane topic that we talk about with each other and with ourselves, you know, it’s just a health issue, and,

Trent Manning: 
Yeah, we talk about all the other health issues.

Wyatt Harris: 
I come to work. I complain about my back.

Trent Manning: 
Like everybody goes to work and complains about their back.

Wyatt Harris: 
And if it’s a more extreme thing, you should feel comfortable talking about that too, because I’m going through it. Or I went through it

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
and more or less, like all of you, at least in terms of what we do at work. I mean, so it’s not weird.

Trent Manning: 
No, isn’t Emily, not weird. And I think, I mean, just the fee that spoke up and the group proves that it’s not that weird.

Wyatt Harris: 
And it did feel kind of weird to talk about it because of the tone of what we talk about in the group typically. So we don’t have to talk about this forever, but it’s good for us to just put the statement out there. This isn’t weird. Okay. If you guys, someone needs to talk, it’s all good. Some people are probably like, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you know, good for you.

Trent Manning: 
Well, yeah, exactly right. Good, good. for them if they’ve never experienced anything like that. But I think the other important thing is just the awareness of it. So if one of your coworkers or a family member, or whoever goes through something like. Maybe you’ll have a little bit better idea of how to handle it.

Wyatt Harris: 
The assumption is that no one else around you is going through. But that might not necessarily be true. That was very surprised to hear you to hear what you said,

Trent Manning: 
Yeah.

Wyatt Harris: 
I guess, you know, so.

Trent Manning: 
I mean, I think everybody. Not everybody, but a lot of people probably look out there and say, I guy has everything going on. Or that gal has everything and they have the perfect life and all that. But most times that’s not the case.

Wyatt Harris: 
Yeah, there’s something happening.

Trent Manning: 
Yeah. There there’s something going

Wyatt Harris: 
I can put it this way. Like I said, the generational thing earlier, but pretty much everybody that I know, like all my friends and my age. They’ve all got something going on. wife is at her own struggles. Pretty much all of my friends have had their own, whether it’s anxiety, problems, depression, or other stuff so this is a very mundane topic for me, It’s amazing how many people are going through stuff, you know,

Trent Manning: 
Right. You have? Yep. No, I agree.

Wyatt Harris: 
I guess it’s not amazing.

Trent Manning: 
That’s the one way to look at it.

Wyatt Harris: 
You’d be amazed, I guess is a better way to say it. Like how common it is

Trent Manning: 
Yes. I think it is very, very common. You have anything else you wanna share? Talk about.

Wyatt Harris: 
No, just take care of your brains, everyone. And if you’re thinking about crazy dark stuff with any regularity, probably not normal. Probably go see a professional about that.

Trent Manning: 
There you go. I like it. Thank you. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story with us. Thank you for sharing your story. They. It can be challenging to find a good therapist. Gentlemen through insurance hoop, trying to find someone who’s not a good fit for you. But it’s worth it. Just do it. And it will change your life. And also getting medication can end your life. So don’t be scared. There’s people out there that can help. And is worth seeking them out. We’ll talk to you and exxon thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.

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