March 5, 2025
The Weight of the Unspoken: A Journey of Healing
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Welcome to Episode 2 of the Knucklehead Chronicles Podcast, where Terry opens up about his ongoing journey with cancer and mental health. This episode delves into the unique challenges men face regarding mental health, especially when compounded by a cancer diagnosis.
Terry shares personal stories and reflections, taking listeners through his experience of dealing with depression and anxiety, originating from past personal relationships and familial revelations. The discussion emphasizes the importance of self-work and therapy in overcoming mental hurdles.
Join Terry as he navigates these complex emotions, offering insights and encouragement for those facing similar struggles. By sharing his vulnerability candidly, Terry aims to inspire himself and others to take control of their mental health and find healing.
00:38 - Welcome to the Cancer Chronicles
01:07 - Men's Mental Health Matters
03:16 - The Impact of Family Secrets
08:12 - Coping with Loss and Grief
10:38 - Facing a Cancer Diagnosis
13:17 - The Importance of Doing the Work
16:32 - Addressing Mental Health Issues
17:20 - The Reality of Emotions
18:08 - Time to Heal and Move Forward
WEBVTT
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Music.
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And what's going on? Happy, I don't know what day this is. I think it's Wednesday.
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I'm not, I'm never sure what day it is.
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Welcome to another episode of the Knucklehead Chronicles podcast presents the Cancer Chronicles.
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This is episode two. I'm your boy, I'm Terry.
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So I'm doing this to chronicle my journey with cancer.
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I'm still getting used to that term, being a cancer patient and all that.
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It still hasn't really sunk in.
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But tonight's episode, I think, is going to be pretty good because tonight I
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want to talk about mental health and how it affects men.
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And, you know, men's mental health, I know it's a month in the year,
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I'm not sure which month it is, that focuses directly and totally on men's mental health.
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My mental health is in nowhere, in no shape form where I need it to be.
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I have some things that I deal
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with on a daily basis that I dealt with before I got my diagnosis and how the
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diagnosis has intensified since my diagnosis.
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Now, a few things before we get into that.
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Is that, one, you know, doing a Google search.
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I mean, it's simple Google searching and trying to, you know,
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get information for the show, for this episode.
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And I was Googling earlier and I put in men's health cancer, right?
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And one of the things I read, because it gives you, you know,
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now with Google, it gives you an AI overview of, you know, the subject that you typed in.
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And so I put it in, and the first thing it said to me was that men with cancer
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can experience a range of mental health issues, you know, depression,
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anxiety, fatigue, which I have all three of those things.
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Depression, as defined with Google, is a common mental health condition that
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can cause feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of activities.
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Anxiety is defined on Google. It can be elevated and it means cancer.
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Fear, as defined in Google, can result in discovery of cancer.
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And the future uncertainty, which
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is one of the things, I think the future uncertainty is the biggest one.
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But before we get into that, though, my mental health goes all the way back
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to when I was 17, starting from there.
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And if anybody who has watched this episode or watched me,
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watched the podcast, I've talked about this several times, to where,
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you know, at 17 years old, I found out that the man who raised me wasn't my biological father.
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Now, I will tell you, finding that
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out at such a late stage in my life was definitely a hard pill to swallow.
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And so when I got into the dating world, that particular thing was really a
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factor in how I dealt with people, how I dealt with women.
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And a lot of the issues that I had or have stemmed from that particular moment in my life.
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Now, being at that time, I'm 49 years old now, and those things still affect
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me as far as my mental health.
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Now, my father, my stepfather, Walter, that's my brother's biological father.
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Now, he's not my bio dad, but he's the man that raised me.
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He's the one I see as my father.
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When I talk about my dad, that's who I refer to because he was the one that
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raised me and gave me all the best morals that he could until I was 17 and then I decided to rebel.
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But, you know, through all this time, you know, I used to be like, okay, I'm too old now.
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My second wife, Katrina, will tell you. My last wife, Melissa, will tell you.
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I said the same thing, is that, you know, I really don't care.
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He didn't want me, you know. Because for years, I always thought that one particular
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gentleman was my father, but they kind of found out through ancestry DNA that he was not.
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And so the man that is my father, and he knows this, this young man.
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So I'm hoping whoever watches this that knows me, knows him,
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you know, let him know that I'm not upset with him. I just want to understand.
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I just want to understand, you know, I put up on Facebook a couple months ago, maybe last month.
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But I put up the video of Will Smith in the episode, the iconic episode of The
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Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when Will's dad came and he left him.
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And he asked Uncle Phil, he said, why don't he want me, man?
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And that was the most iconic line in TV history.
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And so that particular dad was feeling a way. And I was like,
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OK, well, why don't he want me? What do I do? You know.
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But the truth is, you know, there are some things with my mother when she was younger.
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I'm not really sure. I'm 49 years old. I have no idea of what happened.
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I just know that this man is my father.
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This man has reached out to my ex-wife messaging her. I think he was trying
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to holler. I'm not really sure. I don't know.
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But he reached out to her, talked to her, until he realized that she was attached to me.
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He cut her off or blocked her on Facebook, which is wild to me.
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Like, you would talk to someone, a total stranger about me, but won't talk to
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me. You got my phone number, you know, all that, and you won't talk to me.
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I said all that to say this, is that that has affected my mental health.
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That's before the diagnosis, right? Right.
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Because, because of that, I raised my daughters a certain way.
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I was not in their life because of what he did to me, because I did not know
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how to be a father. I didn't know.
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You know, you hear a lot of men that are not in their children's lives,
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and they give you all kinds of excuses.
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One thing I will never do on any episode of any podcast, anything that I ever
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do, will never give you an excuse. I was a piss poor father.
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And I can't really blame people, but I do blame him to a degree because had
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he just been a part of my life, I would have known how to be a father.
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But that's a precise point. This is not a petty rant. This is not,
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I'm not going to do that. Right.
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But I will say this, it was, it's hurtful.
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And the truth is, I walked out a lot of hurt through my life because of that
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and not uttering the words and not saying what I felt and all of that.
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That thing was what made my mental health what it is.
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Now, is it up to me to fix it? Absolutely it is. I can't because I know he's
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not going to fix it. I know he's not going to step up.
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But I've had people in my life who came forward and said to me,
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well, this is what you should do.
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This is, you know, you should reach out to this, you know, give me all kinds
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of resources. I've done all those things.
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I made, you know, those of you that follow me know that I just lost my grandmother,
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who was, you know, outside of my mother, that was my heart, right?
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And so my grandmother, rest in peace, Grandma, you know, Grandma Maggie,
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when she passed away at the funeral, my cousin FaceTimed me at the burial site.
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And I found out later through my ex, nobody reached out to me,
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reached out to my mother and told her that he was actually at the funeral.
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He was at the funeral, was at the burial site, at the repass, the whole nine yards.
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But he picked up the phone and called me one time. No.
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Now, that hurt.
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Now, I've gone through a lot of things in my life.
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Lost my mom, grandma, things of that nature.
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Being married and divorced three times, all of that. And it just compounds the mental health.
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Now, there are some days that people that know me for sure know that I walk
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in a deep state of depression 85% of the time.
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The other 15%, I'm chill. I'm laughing. I'm joking.
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I can crack jokes with the best of them sometimes. But deep down,
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though, it's one of those, it's one of those, you have to laugh to keep from
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crying type situation. That's me.
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And people, some folks that really, really know me know that I walk in more
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hurt than I would ever speak, right?
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Now, having those issues and then going through my third divorce last year,
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losing my family, losing all kinds of stuff, that is compounded.
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Everything's on top of each other. It just compounds, right?
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And it doesn't get any easier.
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And so then on Christmas Eve, I get the worst diagnosis I could possibly ever
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get, even though pancreatic cancer is not a death sentence.
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By no means or stretch of the imagination, pancreatic cancer is not a death sentence.
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However, if you let certain things get to you, it will. and this is what I'm
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learning even though I'm going through,
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I'm going through everything now,
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I absolutely understand that if I stop doing certain things,
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like if I stop doing this, if I stop interacting with people, if I stop,
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this eventually will kill me because I will lose my lack.
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I will lose my passion for doing anything else.
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But it's so hard, though, dealing with mental health and dealing with different aspects.
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And, you know, you feel like you're burdened on people because you're going
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through certain situations.
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And you feel like with certain folk, you're walking on eggshells and everything
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they say to you is an attack.
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That's because it's a mental issue. It doesn't have anything to do with what
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people have said to you or what they have done to you.
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It's simply because there's some things that I personally have not dealt with.
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And that's the reason why I always feel like I'm always being attacked from people.
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And a lot of times people are not attacking me. It's just, that's the way I assume or take things.
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Some people say shit. I'm sorry.
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People say stuff. And yeah, it's outright attack. It's a sneak dis. It's whatever.
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Or what's the word? Is it gaslighting? Is that the word they use?
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But sometimes it, some people genuinely don't mean you any wrong.
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But because of different situations, mental health, that affects people.
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My mental health affects me. and it affects me in a way where,
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I'm going to, I function in depression, barely, but I function in depression.
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And I just being this, that's being a hundred percent real.
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And I know that there are people that's going to watch these reels,
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going to watch this short, and it's going to watch this video,
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listen to this podcast and see me comments.
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And I say, you know, we wish you the best.
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And I appreciate all of those comments. I really do.
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And there are some days where I can read those comments or I can,
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you know, People will inbox me on Facebook and they'll tell me,
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we wish you the best, we pray for you, this and that.
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But what I realized through all of this is that I have to do the work.
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And I have to be honest with anyone who's watching this is that,
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oh, listening to this, is that doing the work isn't a bowl of cherries.
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It isn't because, you know, when you start to do the work, you have to start
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to look inward because you can't blame people.
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You can't blame other folk for your mess, right?
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And that's one thing that us as humans try to do. We try to blame other folk
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for our mess. We can't do that.
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That's our mess. You know, those
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are our things that we have to deal with personally, but we won't. Why?
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Because we depend on everyone else to fix our stuff.
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You know, there have been 49 years I've been on this planet and I've been married three times.
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And I can tell you that I have gotten to the point where I have I have stood
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and waited hoping that someone else will fix my mess.
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But now I'm in this process where I'm dealing with cancer.
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You know, I'm on the verge of proverbial death here. I mean,
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you know, if one thing goes left, I'm out of here, right?
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But at the same time, I want to fix my mess before I leave here because I don't
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want anyone else to feel the pain of what I've gone through and refuse to work on.
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If you are listening to this podcast right now, if you got stuff that you are
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dealing with, deal with it.
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Stop depending on other people. This is for me, too. I want to be clear when
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I say this. This is for Terry, too.
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This is not just for everybody else.
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This is for me. This is my healing journey. This is what I do to heal.
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And when I say stuff to you guys and I say, hey, you should do this,
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I'm saying I should do this, too, because it's totally on me.
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Right? And I want to make sure that I'm giving story times,
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I'm giving you guys transparency and realness that will affect you to where
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you have no choice but to work on yourself. And this is for me too.
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I've got to get back into therapy. I really do. Because when I was working for
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the state, I had a therapist.
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She was so far away. I got lazy and so I stopped doing therapy.
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But I have got to get back into therapy because I'm going to lose this battle
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if I don't. I'm just being 100% transparent.
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If I don't get back into therapy, I'm going to lose this battle.
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I'm going to lose it hard, right?
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So I'm telling you who are listening to this, watching this video,
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listen, if you do not do the work, I can promise you whatever it is is going
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to take you all the way out of here.
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And in your case, it might not be physically. It may be mentally take you out
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of here. It may be emotionally taking you out of here.
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But if you don't do the work, if I don't do the work, it's going to take me all the way out of here.
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But there, at the same time, there are certain things that, you know, I can't flow with.
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You know what I'm saying? And that's another episode.
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But right now, men, if you are watching this podcast, if you are listening to
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this podcast, and if you have issues, trust issues,
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love issues, attachment issues, whatever the issue is, that is a mental health issue.
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And we have to work on that.
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Now you, we, W-E, we, we, we, like they say in French.
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We have to work on those issues because what is not fair is for everyone else
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to deal with our mess because we don't want to deal with it.
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It's easier to let everyone else deal with our mess than us to deal with it. It's kind of crazy.
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So, listen, mental health is real.
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Functional depression is real anxiety is real the fear is real okay.
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But all that you know I think about
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you know I've made mention of The Matrix the movie a few times in my history
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of this podcast and one of the things that just came into my head was kind of
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like remember when I remember when Neil first got freed and he went into The
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Matrix for the first time and he came out.
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He asked Morpheus, he said, I thought you said it wasn't real.
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He said, your brain makes it real. Right?
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I can tell you that every emotion, everything that you're going through,
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your heart makes it real.
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And as long as your heart is beating, you're going to feel those things.
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So it is time. It is time for us to do our work. It is time for me to do my
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work. It's time for you to do your work.
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And let's get past this because there are certain things, there are certain
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things in my life I know for sure right now in the midst of all of this that
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I'm probably not going to get through.
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There are certain things, there are certain aspects of my depression that I
00:18:33.091 --> 00:18:40.411
probably won't get through because there's so much scar tissue under the surface.
00:18:40.631 --> 00:18:44.831
It doesn't have anything to do with one person, but there's a lot of scar tissue
00:18:44.831 --> 00:18:47.731
behind the surface and it's not as easy.
00:18:48.251 --> 00:18:51.031
That's going to take years and I don't think I have years, but it's just,
00:18:51.091 --> 00:18:54.671
you know, there's certain things I'm just not going to get through. I already know it.
00:18:55.771 --> 00:18:59.991
But we got to try. We got to try because there's other things in this life,
00:19:00.251 --> 00:19:07.951
there's certain aspects of this life that we have to make good on and just making
00:19:07.951 --> 00:19:09.451
sure that everything else,
00:19:09.631 --> 00:19:15.331
everybody else in our life is not affected by our mental health and our mental issues.
00:19:15.971 --> 00:19:20.811
So this is episode two of the Knucklehead Chronicles podcast presents the Cancer
00:19:20.811 --> 00:19:22.511
Chronicles. Listen to me.
00:19:23.071 --> 00:19:27.251
If you have enjoyed this podcast, If you'd like to listen to my voice or what
00:19:27.251 --> 00:19:31.951
I'm saying, or you want to follow the story time, listen, join me on piebean.com.
00:19:32.431 --> 00:19:38.071
Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Please leave comments and interact with the podcast.
00:19:38.251 --> 00:19:40.891
Interact with me. If you have any questions, email me.
00:19:42.091 --> 00:19:46.591
MichaelHeadChroniclesPodcast at gmail.com. Interact with me and I will see you
00:19:46.591 --> 00:19:49.931
in episode three. Episode three is going to be on Timo Day, which is Friday.
00:19:50.151 --> 00:19:53.631
That way you kind of can see what the inner workings is and what I go through
00:19:53.631 --> 00:19:56.111
on Timo. days, which is fun.
00:19:56.571 --> 00:20:00.491
So looking forward to episode three. You guys have a great rest of your evening
00:20:00.931 --> 00:20:02.871
or day, and I will see you next time.
00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:36.574
Music.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:31.120
Music.
00:00:32.843 --> 00:00:38.023
And what's going on? Happy, I don't know what day this is. I think it's Wednesday.
00:00:38.323 --> 00:00:40.103
I'm not, I'm never sure what day it is.
00:00:40.943 --> 00:00:46.723
Welcome to another episode of the Knucklehead Chronicles podcast presents the Cancer Chronicles.
00:00:46.823 --> 00:00:49.283
This is episode two. I'm your boy, I'm Terry.
00:00:49.723 --> 00:00:56.163
So I'm doing this to chronicle my journey with cancer.
00:00:58.003 --> 00:01:03.863
I'm still getting used to that term, being a cancer patient and all that.
00:01:03.943 --> 00:01:06.203
It still hasn't really sunk in.
00:01:07.203 --> 00:01:11.583
But tonight's episode, I think, is going to be pretty good because tonight I
00:01:11.583 --> 00:01:16.763
want to talk about mental health and how it affects men.
00:01:16.763 --> 00:01:21.323
And, you know, men's mental health, I know it's a month in the year,
00:01:21.423 --> 00:01:30.323
I'm not sure which month it is, that focuses directly and totally on men's mental health.
00:01:31.303 --> 00:01:37.523
My mental health is in nowhere, in no shape form where I need it to be.
00:01:37.523 --> 00:01:41.283
I have some things that I deal
00:01:41.283 --> 00:01:50.743
with on a daily basis that I dealt with before I got my diagnosis and how the
00:01:50.743 --> 00:01:58.283
diagnosis has intensified since my diagnosis.
00:01:58.563 --> 00:02:00.923
Now, a few things before we get into that.
00:02:02.433 --> 00:02:06.573
Is that, one, you know, doing a Google search.
00:02:06.713 --> 00:02:10.793
I mean, it's simple Google searching and trying to, you know,
00:02:11.013 --> 00:02:13.373
get information for the show, for this episode.
00:02:14.693 --> 00:02:21.233
And I was Googling earlier and I put in men's health cancer, right?
00:02:21.333 --> 00:02:25.953
And one of the things I read, because it gives you, you know,
00:02:26.033 --> 00:02:30.473
now with Google, it gives you an AI overview of, you know, the subject that you typed in.
00:02:30.473 --> 00:02:36.033
And so I put it in, and the first thing it said to me was that men with cancer
00:02:36.033 --> 00:02:39.593
can experience a range of mental health issues, you know, depression,
00:02:39.733 --> 00:02:42.933
anxiety, fatigue, which I have all three of those things.
00:02:45.033 --> 00:02:49.273
Depression, as defined with Google, is a common mental health condition that
00:02:49.273 --> 00:02:54.193
can cause feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of activities.
00:02:55.353 --> 00:03:03.073
Anxiety is defined on Google. It can be elevated and it means cancer.
00:03:03.593 --> 00:03:07.213
Fear, as defined in Google, can result in discovery of cancer.
00:03:07.693 --> 00:03:09.713
And the future uncertainty, which
00:03:09.713 --> 00:03:16.533
is one of the things, I think the future uncertainty is the biggest one.
00:03:16.533 --> 00:03:22.993
But before we get into that, though, my mental health goes all the way back
00:03:22.993 --> 00:03:27.353
to when I was 17, starting from there.
00:03:27.673 --> 00:03:31.673
And if anybody who has watched this episode or watched me,
00:03:32.273 --> 00:03:36.673
watched the podcast, I've talked about this several times, to where,
00:03:36.833 --> 00:03:44.453
you know, at 17 years old, I found out that the man who raised me wasn't my biological father.
00:03:44.453 --> 00:03:47.493
Now, I will tell you, finding that
00:03:47.493 --> 00:03:54.853
out at such a late stage in my life was definitely a hard pill to swallow.
00:03:56.033 --> 00:04:03.373
And so when I got into the dating world, that particular thing was really a
00:04:03.373 --> 00:04:06.333
factor in how I dealt with people, how I dealt with women.
00:04:06.333 --> 00:04:16.093
And a lot of the issues that I had or have stemmed from that particular moment in my life.
00:04:16.913 --> 00:04:23.213
Now, being at that time, I'm 49 years old now, and those things still affect
00:04:23.213 --> 00:04:25.373
me as far as my mental health.
00:04:26.573 --> 00:04:34.133
Now, my father, my stepfather, Walter, that's my brother's biological father.
00:04:34.133 --> 00:04:37.453
Now, he's not my bio dad, but he's the man that raised me.
00:04:37.553 --> 00:04:40.833
He's the one I see as my father.
00:04:41.053 --> 00:04:47.753
When I talk about my dad, that's who I refer to because he was the one that
00:04:47.753 --> 00:04:53.833
raised me and gave me all the best morals that he could until I was 17 and then I decided to rebel.
00:04:55.367 --> 00:05:02.707
But, you know, through all this time, you know, I used to be like, okay, I'm too old now.
00:05:03.667 --> 00:05:08.127
My second wife, Katrina, will tell you. My last wife, Melissa, will tell you.
00:05:08.207 --> 00:05:12.867
I said the same thing, is that, you know, I really don't care.
00:05:13.267 --> 00:05:18.747
He didn't want me, you know. Because for years, I always thought that one particular
00:05:18.747 --> 00:05:23.167
gentleman was my father, but they kind of found out through ancestry DNA that he was not.
00:05:23.167 --> 00:05:30.127
And so the man that is my father, and he knows this, this young man.
00:05:30.247 --> 00:05:33.267
So I'm hoping whoever watches this that knows me, knows him,
00:05:33.927 --> 00:05:39.987
you know, let him know that I'm not upset with him. I just want to understand.
00:05:40.527 --> 00:05:48.327
I just want to understand, you know, I put up on Facebook a couple months ago, maybe last month.
00:05:48.827 --> 00:05:55.747
But I put up the video of Will Smith in the episode, the iconic episode of The
00:05:55.747 --> 00:06:00.127
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when Will's dad came and he left him.
00:06:01.167 --> 00:06:04.167
And he asked Uncle Phil, he said, why don't he want me, man?
00:06:04.167 --> 00:06:07.307
And that was the most iconic line in TV history.
00:06:07.987 --> 00:06:12.167
And so that particular dad was feeling a way. And I was like,
00:06:12.267 --> 00:06:14.647
OK, well, why don't he want me? What do I do? You know.
00:06:15.587 --> 00:06:23.927
But the truth is, you know, there are some things with my mother when she was younger.
00:06:26.007 --> 00:06:30.087
I'm not really sure. I'm 49 years old. I have no idea of what happened.
00:06:30.407 --> 00:06:32.427
I just know that this man is my father.
00:06:32.867 --> 00:06:38.747
This man has reached out to my ex-wife messaging her. I think he was trying
00:06:38.747 --> 00:06:40.687
to holler. I'm not really sure. I don't know.
00:06:41.587 --> 00:06:46.607
But he reached out to her, talked to her, until he realized that she was attached to me.
00:06:49.827 --> 00:06:54.647
He cut her off or blocked her on Facebook, which is wild to me.
00:06:54.787 --> 00:06:58.967
Like, you would talk to someone, a total stranger about me, but won't talk to
00:06:58.967 --> 00:07:01.667
me. You got my phone number, you know, all that, and you won't talk to me.
00:07:02.147 --> 00:07:06.587
I said all that to say this, is that that has affected my mental health.
00:07:06.587 --> 00:07:09.307
That's before the diagnosis, right? Right.
00:07:10.833 --> 00:07:14.853
Because, because of that, I raised my daughters a certain way.
00:07:15.193 --> 00:07:19.913
I was not in their life because of what he did to me, because I did not know
00:07:19.913 --> 00:07:22.613
how to be a father. I didn't know.
00:07:22.993 --> 00:07:26.173
You know, you hear a lot of men that are not in their children's lives,
00:07:26.193 --> 00:07:27.973
and they give you all kinds of excuses.
00:07:28.273 --> 00:07:32.653
One thing I will never do on any episode of any podcast, anything that I ever
00:07:32.653 --> 00:07:36.213
do, will never give you an excuse. I was a piss poor father.
00:07:37.033 --> 00:07:43.273
And I can't really blame people, but I do blame him to a degree because had
00:07:43.273 --> 00:07:48.293
he just been a part of my life, I would have known how to be a father.
00:07:48.473 --> 00:07:50.753
But that's a precise point. This is not a petty rant. This is not,
00:07:50.793 --> 00:07:51.973
I'm not going to do that. Right.
00:07:52.733 --> 00:07:55.813
But I will say this, it was, it's hurtful.
00:07:56.453 --> 00:08:06.553
And the truth is, I walked out a lot of hurt through my life because of that
00:08:06.553 --> 00:08:11.533
and not uttering the words and not saying what I felt and all of that.
00:08:12.673 --> 00:08:18.353
That thing was what made my mental health what it is.
00:08:18.973 --> 00:08:22.713
Now, is it up to me to fix it? Absolutely it is. I can't because I know he's
00:08:22.713 --> 00:08:25.113
not going to fix it. I know he's not going to step up.
00:08:25.933 --> 00:08:31.693
But I've had people in my life who came forward and said to me,
00:08:31.773 --> 00:08:33.513
well, this is what you should do.
00:08:33.653 --> 00:08:36.933
This is, you know, you should reach out to this, you know, give me all kinds
00:08:36.933 --> 00:08:39.453
of resources. I've done all those things.
00:08:40.613 --> 00:08:46.933
I made, you know, those of you that follow me know that I just lost my grandmother,
00:08:46.933 --> 00:08:52.713
who was, you know, outside of my mother, that was my heart, right?
00:08:53.093 --> 00:08:58.413
And so my grandmother, rest in peace, Grandma, you know, Grandma Maggie,
00:08:58.813 --> 00:09:07.413
when she passed away at the funeral, my cousin FaceTimed me at the burial site.
00:09:08.073 --> 00:09:13.553
And I found out later through my ex, nobody reached out to me,
00:09:13.993 --> 00:09:19.593
reached out to my mother and told her that he was actually at the funeral.
00:09:20.253 --> 00:09:26.153
He was at the funeral, was at the burial site, at the repass, the whole nine yards.
00:09:26.293 --> 00:09:28.733
But he picked up the phone and called me one time. No.
00:09:29.013 --> 00:09:32.093
Now, that hurt.
00:09:32.513 --> 00:09:34.833
Now, I've gone through a lot of things in my life.
00:09:35.673 --> 00:09:38.753
Lost my mom, grandma, things of that nature.
00:09:39.473 --> 00:09:46.813
Being married and divorced three times, all of that. And it just compounds the mental health.
00:09:47.313 --> 00:09:51.633
Now, there are some days that people that know me for sure know that I walk
00:09:51.633 --> 00:09:56.733
in a deep state of depression 85% of the time.
00:09:57.533 --> 00:10:01.553
The other 15%, I'm chill. I'm laughing. I'm joking.
00:10:01.913 --> 00:10:06.273
I can crack jokes with the best of them sometimes. But deep down,
00:10:06.373 --> 00:10:11.153
though, it's one of those, it's one of those, you have to laugh to keep from
00:10:11.153 --> 00:10:13.373
crying type situation. That's me.
00:10:14.793 --> 00:10:20.353
And people, some folks that really, really know me know that I walk in more
00:10:20.353 --> 00:10:23.313
hurt than I would ever speak, right?
00:10:25.273 --> 00:10:30.213
Now, having those issues and then going through my third divorce last year,
00:10:30.453 --> 00:10:33.333
losing my family, losing all kinds of stuff, that is compounded.
00:10:33.333 --> 00:10:36.093
Everything's on top of each other. It just compounds, right?
00:10:36.553 --> 00:10:38.373
And it doesn't get any easier.
00:10:38.933 --> 00:10:47.933
And so then on Christmas Eve, I get the worst diagnosis I could possibly ever
00:10:47.933 --> 00:10:50.493
get, even though pancreatic cancer is not a death sentence.
00:10:51.113 --> 00:10:56.813
By no means or stretch of the imagination, pancreatic cancer is not a death sentence.
00:10:57.013 --> 00:11:03.173
However, if you let certain things get to you, it will. and this is what I'm
00:11:03.173 --> 00:11:04.633
learning even though I'm going through,
00:11:06.793 --> 00:11:08.333
I'm going through everything now,
00:11:09.582 --> 00:11:13.202
I absolutely understand that if I stop doing certain things,
00:11:13.322 --> 00:11:19.662
like if I stop doing this, if I stop interacting with people, if I stop,
00:11:20.182 --> 00:11:25.542
this eventually will kill me because I will lose my lack.
00:11:25.722 --> 00:11:28.602
I will lose my passion for doing anything else.
00:11:29.702 --> 00:11:34.522
But it's so hard, though, dealing with mental health and dealing with different aspects.
00:11:34.742 --> 00:11:38.462
And, you know, you feel like you're burdened on people because you're going
00:11:38.462 --> 00:11:39.282
through certain situations.
00:11:39.962 --> 00:11:44.882
And you feel like with certain folk, you're walking on eggshells and everything
00:11:44.882 --> 00:11:46.682
they say to you is an attack.
00:11:48.502 --> 00:11:51.942
That's because it's a mental issue. It doesn't have anything to do with what
00:11:51.942 --> 00:11:54.442
people have said to you or what they have done to you.
00:11:54.742 --> 00:11:58.842
It's simply because there's some things that I personally have not dealt with.
00:11:59.022 --> 00:12:05.262
And that's the reason why I always feel like I'm always being attacked from people.
00:12:05.522 --> 00:12:10.502
And a lot of times people are not attacking me. It's just, that's the way I assume or take things.
00:12:10.862 --> 00:12:13.582
Some people say shit. I'm sorry.
00:12:13.982 --> 00:12:18.922
People say stuff. And yeah, it's outright attack. It's a sneak dis. It's whatever.
00:12:19.422 --> 00:12:22.462
Or what's the word? Is it gaslighting? Is that the word they use?
00:12:22.942 --> 00:12:27.602
But sometimes it, some people genuinely don't mean you any wrong.
00:12:27.802 --> 00:12:33.962
But because of different situations, mental health, that affects people.
00:12:34.542 --> 00:12:39.822
My mental health affects me. and it affects me in a way where,
00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:48.279
I'm going to, I function in depression, barely, but I function in depression.
00:12:48.439 --> 00:12:50.879
And I just being this, that's being a hundred percent real.
00:12:51.499 --> 00:12:53.999
And I know that there are people that's going to watch these reels,
00:12:54.219 --> 00:12:56.939
going to watch this short, and it's going to watch this video,
00:12:57.319 --> 00:12:59.199
listen to this podcast and see me comments.
00:12:59.319 --> 00:13:01.599
And I say, you know, we wish you the best.
00:13:01.779 --> 00:13:04.399
And I appreciate all of those comments. I really do.
00:13:05.739 --> 00:13:10.019
And there are some days where I can read those comments or I can,
00:13:10.239 --> 00:13:14.039
you know, People will inbox me on Facebook and they'll tell me,
00:13:14.059 --> 00:13:16.439
we wish you the best, we pray for you, this and that.
00:13:17.459 --> 00:13:21.679
But what I realized through all of this is that I have to do the work.
00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:27.159
And I have to be honest with anyone who's watching this is that,
00:13:27.199 --> 00:13:32.739
oh, listening to this, is that doing the work isn't a bowl of cherries.
00:13:32.739 --> 00:13:37.939
It isn't because, you know, when you start to do the work, you have to start
00:13:37.939 --> 00:13:41.659
to look inward because you can't blame people.
00:13:41.779 --> 00:13:44.079
You can't blame other folk for your mess, right?
00:13:44.239 --> 00:13:48.859
And that's one thing that us as humans try to do. We try to blame other folk
00:13:48.859 --> 00:13:49.799
for our mess. We can't do that.
00:13:50.319 --> 00:13:53.079
That's our mess. You know, those
00:13:53.079 --> 00:13:57.539
are our things that we have to deal with personally, but we won't. Why?
00:13:57.739 --> 00:14:00.459
Because we depend on everyone else to fix our stuff.
00:14:01.199 --> 00:14:05.899
You know, there have been 49 years I've been on this planet and I've been married three times.
00:14:05.979 --> 00:14:11.399
And I can tell you that I have gotten to the point where I have I have stood
00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:16.319
and waited hoping that someone else will fix my mess.
00:14:16.839 --> 00:14:21.659
But now I'm in this process where I'm dealing with cancer.
00:14:22.780 --> 00:14:26.120
You know, I'm on the verge of proverbial death here. I mean,
00:14:26.280 --> 00:14:29.900
you know, if one thing goes left, I'm out of here, right?
00:14:30.620 --> 00:14:37.540
But at the same time, I want to fix my mess before I leave here because I don't
00:14:37.540 --> 00:14:44.440
want anyone else to feel the pain of what I've gone through and refuse to work on.
00:14:45.140 --> 00:14:50.220
If you are listening to this podcast right now, if you got stuff that you are
00:14:50.220 --> 00:14:51.700
dealing with, deal with it.
00:14:52.680 --> 00:14:56.380
Stop depending on other people. This is for me, too. I want to be clear when
00:14:56.380 --> 00:14:58.520
I say this. This is for Terry, too.
00:14:58.800 --> 00:15:00.300
This is not just for everybody else.
00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:03.800
This is for me. This is my healing journey. This is what I do to heal.
00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:10.320
And when I say stuff to you guys and I say, hey, you should do this,
00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.460
I'm saying I should do this, too, because it's totally on me.
00:15:13.860 --> 00:15:20.220
Right? And I want to make sure that I'm giving story times,
00:15:20.420 --> 00:15:26.580
I'm giving you guys transparency and realness that will affect you to where
00:15:26.580 --> 00:15:30.780
you have no choice but to work on yourself. And this is for me too.
00:15:31.460 --> 00:15:36.060
I've got to get back into therapy. I really do. Because when I was working for
00:15:36.060 --> 00:15:37.960
the state, I had a therapist.
00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:43.920
She was so far away. I got lazy and so I stopped doing therapy.
00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:48.760
But I have got to get back into therapy because I'm going to lose this battle
00:15:48.760 --> 00:15:51.820
if I don't. I'm just being 100% transparent.
00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:55.400
If I don't get back into therapy, I'm going to lose this battle.
00:15:55.500 --> 00:15:56.760
I'm going to lose it hard, right?
00:15:57.160 --> 00:16:01.360
So I'm telling you who are listening to this, watching this video,
00:16:01.860 --> 00:16:07.260
listen, if you do not do the work, I can promise you whatever it is is going
00:16:07.260 --> 00:16:08.620
to take you all the way out of here.
00:16:08.980 --> 00:16:13.820
And in your case, it might not be physically. It may be mentally take you out
00:16:13.820 --> 00:16:15.560
of here. It may be emotionally taking you out of here.
00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:21.440
But if you don't do the work, if I don't do the work, it's going to take me all the way out of here.
00:16:22.582 --> 00:16:28.042
But there, at the same time, there are certain things that, you know, I can't flow with.
00:16:28.242 --> 00:16:31.802
You know what I'm saying? And that's another episode.
00:16:32.742 --> 00:16:39.482
But right now, men, if you are watching this podcast, if you are listening to
00:16:39.482 --> 00:16:43.882
this podcast, and if you have issues, trust issues,
00:16:44.722 --> 00:16:51.522
love issues, attachment issues, whatever the issue is, that is a mental health issue.
00:16:51.522 --> 00:16:53.882
And we have to work on that.
00:16:54.402 --> 00:16:59.582
Now you, we, W-E, we, we, we, like they say in French.
00:17:00.162 --> 00:17:06.122
We have to work on those issues because what is not fair is for everyone else
00:17:06.122 --> 00:17:08.422
to deal with our mess because we don't want to deal with it.
00:17:08.562 --> 00:17:14.462
It's easier to let everyone else deal with our mess than us to deal with it. It's kind of crazy.
00:17:14.902 --> 00:17:19.202
So, listen, mental health is real.
00:17:20.242 --> 00:17:27.122
Functional depression is real anxiety is real the fear is real okay.
00:17:28.442 --> 00:17:31.282
But all that you know I think about
00:17:31.282 --> 00:17:38.282
you know I've made mention of The Matrix the movie a few times in my history
00:17:38.282 --> 00:17:42.182
of this podcast and one of the things that just came into my head was kind of
00:17:42.182 --> 00:17:48.862
like remember when I remember when Neil first got freed and he went into The
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Matrix for the first time and he came out.
00:17:51.262 --> 00:17:55.642
He asked Morpheus, he said, I thought you said it wasn't real.
00:17:55.722 --> 00:17:57.842
He said, your brain makes it real. Right?
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I can tell you that every emotion, everything that you're going through,
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your heart makes it real.
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And as long as your heart is beating, you're going to feel those things.
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So it is time. It is time for us to do our work. It is time for me to do my
00:18:13.891 --> 00:18:16.031
work. It's time for you to do your work.
00:18:16.911 --> 00:18:21.011
And let's get past this because there are certain things, there are certain
00:18:21.011 --> 00:18:25.291
things in my life I know for sure right now in the midst of all of this that
00:18:25.291 --> 00:18:27.551
I'm probably not going to get through.
00:18:28.151 --> 00:18:33.091
There are certain things, there are certain aspects of my depression that I
00:18:33.091 --> 00:18:40.411
probably won't get through because there's so much scar tissue under the surface.
00:18:40.631 --> 00:18:44.831
It doesn't have anything to do with one person, but there's a lot of scar tissue
00:18:44.831 --> 00:18:47.731
behind the surface and it's not as easy.
00:18:48.251 --> 00:18:51.031
That's going to take years and I don't think I have years, but it's just,
00:18:51.091 --> 00:18:54.671
you know, there's certain things I'm just not going to get through. I already know it.
00:18:55.771 --> 00:18:59.991
But we got to try. We got to try because there's other things in this life,
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there's certain aspects of this life that we have to make good on and just making
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sure that everything else,
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everybody else in our life is not affected by our mental health and our mental issues.
00:19:15.971 --> 00:19:20.811
So this is episode two of the Knucklehead Chronicles podcast presents the Cancer
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Chronicles. Listen to me.
00:19:23.071 --> 00:19:27.251
If you have enjoyed this podcast, If you'd like to listen to my voice or what
00:19:27.251 --> 00:19:31.951
I'm saying, or you want to follow the story time, listen, join me on piebean.com.
00:19:32.431 --> 00:19:38.071
Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Please leave comments and interact with the podcast.
00:19:38.251 --> 00:19:40.891
Interact with me. If you have any questions, email me.
00:19:42.091 --> 00:19:46.591
MichaelHeadChroniclesPodcast at gmail.com. Interact with me and I will see you
00:19:46.591 --> 00:19:49.931
in episode three. Episode three is going to be on Timo Day, which is Friday.
00:19:50.151 --> 00:19:53.631
That way you kind of can see what the inner workings is and what I go through
00:19:53.631 --> 00:19:56.111
on Timo. days, which is fun.
00:19:56.571 --> 00:20:00.491
So looking forward to episode three. You guys have a great rest of your evening
00:20:00.931 --> 00:20:02.871
or day, and I will see you next time.
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Music.
