Dr. Steve Poulter is back for Part 2 of our conversation, and this time we go straight to what he calls the hidden engine behind so much male anxiety, isolation, and anger: shame. Dr. Mills and Dr. Poulter break down how shame takes root early, why men often externalize it in ways that damage relationships, and why “anger management” is often really “shame management.” Plus, Dr. Poulter shares practical ways to get out of the “invisible/disrespected” spiral and explains why naming shame—especially around trauma—can be the turning point that finally lets healing (and even marriages) move forward.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Let's talk about the Maro, Let's talk about it, Let's
talk about the man Hero.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Then welcome back to the mail room with doctor Jesse Mills.
Doctor Mills and is always joined by my producer and
voice of John Q Public.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I like to freshen up the new year with a
one hundred year old references.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Wait, Jordan Q Public, I'm not sure if this will
take that, but you're looked pretty good in a three
piece suit in a fedora, and knowing you're collecting habits,
you probably have a steamer trunk full of suits and
has from the Titanic, so you could probably pull off
a Jordan q Public look.
Speaker 5 (00:44):
Yeah, I veered towards early twentieth century, so yeah, I'll
take that.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So everybody, we got Steven Poult back by Command performance
repeat Indiana super Fan, and I won't go through too
much of his intro because we hit it so hard
on the first time. But retired law enforcement seminary graduate,
which we didn't really talk about in the last episode,
so you're gonna have to give us. You gave us
a yeah, a shocking story about your first day on
(01:10):
the forest in La but we got to hear some
stories about how you got from the seminary to be
a licensed to clinical psychologist. But you focus on men
and the people who love them and their mental health.
You take great care of the patients that I send over.
So welcome the heck back, doctor Polter. It's an honor
as always, Oh.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
Doctor Jesse, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Talk to us about this.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
How did your work in the seminary lead you then
from there to a clinical psychologist?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
You know, it's interesting. I want to be in helping profession.
I always had a spiritual leaning, if you will. My
father's Jewish when you converted to being Lutheran when you
married my mom in the fifties. I always found I
want to help people in some way or fashion. I
went to Fuller Seminary over in Pasadena, and I worked
at church on the way out the valley. I was
one of the youth pastors, and I found that a
(01:55):
lot of the guys coming in talking about their spirituality.
I did feel equipped, you know, and there's guys that
you're preach very gifted, but I didn't feel equipped to
really deal with people on a grassroots level, and I
thought I got to go further, and that's what got
me to go to psychology, and I thought I could
reach more people in this venue than the one I
was in.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's a big job, well service driven life, I mean,
from law enforcement to seminary. That background, obviously you have
this gene in there that you want to help people.
And we really talked a lot about your modern masculinity
in the books you've written in that field, and I
think that gives us a framework to dive into. One
of the most profound things I've learned from you was
(02:35):
this concept of shame. And you use this not as
kind of what we think of as as shame, but
really almost as a framework for all of the badness
that we harbor inside of us. And you can be
ashamed by so many different things. You can be a
shamed by a bad grade. You can be a shamed
by denting defender on your dad's car when you took
(02:57):
it out when you didn't have a license. But you
can also carry shame about decisions you made or things
that people did to you that make you who you are,
and the pain and the trauma that you carry in
your book Shame Factor, which again I cannot recommend highly
enough I think it should almost be mandatory reading for
any man that's trying to find his way in this world,
(03:17):
which is.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Basically any man.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, but you use the concept of shame to define
this male experience and also just how it influences his relationship.
So just kind of tell me a how you got
into using this as a flashpoint and really as a
metaphor for as you talked about in the last episode.
I mean, this is one of the three things that
drives the majority of people into your office, between shame, anxiety,
(03:41):
and isolation. So, as I said on that show, I
think shame deserves its own episode.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
So here it is. Yeah, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know, doctor Jesse Robert Bli said, if you're going
to therapy and you're not making progress, you feel you're
wasting your time, you probably not talking about your shame.
That was a fastball between the eyes. That was the
first time I've heard that term. This is why I
was in seminary and I'm thinking, it's not sin if
you will like you've done something wrong.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
Guilt is an action.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Shame is the veins in a marble table or the
grains and what it's inside of you. You know, it's
not an action, it's a feeling, it's a state. When
I first heard that, he said, if you're solved, your
clients talk about shame. Now that a lot of guys
see me.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
I don't have any shame.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I go okay, So we kind of talk, walk to
the back door of the building, if you will, and
all of a sudden you realize, yeah, his father committed suicide.
He's embarrassed. That's a form of shame. That's embarrassment. You're
embarrassed about your family, that's a form of shame. I
want to go back to this doctor Jesse by age frivate.
The experts say you either are competent on one end of
the scale, or you feel inferior reading, writing, and arithmetic.
(04:49):
And when kids leaning further toward inferior, that's where shame
starts to take a root, like there's something wrong with
you versus competent. I can read, I can write, I
can dress myself. That keeps shame from taking rooting your why.
The second piece is how your parents spoke to you. Now,
that has to be permissive or passive, but many guys
are spoken very harshly and they felt like there's something
wrong with them. They take that on as that harshness,
(05:11):
as if they're defective, inferior.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
No, we don't. Adolescens you get bullies.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I've never met a bully who doesn't have a shame
factor active, whether he was beaten by his dad or
something terrible. Now we get in our twenties, get the
guy that's stealing, selling drugs, or doing something very risky.
It's a way to offset this I don't feel good
about myself. It goes into toxicity, which is really untreated masculinity.
You know, it's a dark side. It's a shame factor
(05:38):
as its full tilt, you know, doctor. I have one story.
The shooter in the Mandalaid Bay grew up in Locker Center,
not on our street, but he was in the area.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
He was my sister's age.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
His father got arrested by the guy for bank rubber,
like the ten most wanted.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
You just see him in the post office, yeah, of course,
And the day his father got arrested.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
After that, the family left the area with an month
and we never saw him again. And when the shooting
came down, when I heard his name, I was like,
no way, it's so and so. And it turned out
that he admitted that he resented authority what they did
to his father. Women internalized shame. Men externalize it. That's
why it's so dangerous. It's one of things I've learned
(06:18):
as a policeman. Mass shooting is whatnot. Men externalize it.
Women internalize it, eating disorders, depression, anorexia, bulimia, all that,
where men will externalize it very aggressive as a way
to offset it, to push it out. I always tell guys,
let's start with the fact that you don't feel good
about yourself inside. When did that start? And Doc, I'm
(06:40):
telling you it goes back to elementary's from first, second,
third grade. Something happened and then they internalize it and
just kept it going.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
You just said so much there.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I mean, just even the idea of the difference between
how men and women process shame and and manifest is huge.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Hey, Doc, this is the other thing. It's mortified me.
In twenty eighteen, the public sure fact check me on this.
Ninety percent of all murders in this country gunpoint murders
aren't either by ex lovers, divorce, the romantic deaths of
that nine eighty eight percent of women stunning and the
other there's not one mass shooter. They use the definition
(07:17):
of five people or more who's a woman in this
country as of today. So it goes back to that
premise that men externalize shame and they take it out
in society.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
They blame it. That's when Robert Bliway's talking about the
father figure.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You've got to deal with the father figure in society
or you you're going to be self destructive to the
greater good.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
So how do you recognize that? You know? How do
you how do you see somebody?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
You know, if you're a teacher, if you're a coach
and you're not a therapist, you don't have the tools
and the education that doctor Stephen Bolter has, but you
have access to a kid that's obviously suffering shame.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
How do you address it?
Speaker 6 (07:53):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I love football and baseball and these coaches who really
connect with these boys. When a young man feels like
he's cared for, he's going to be better. So many
coaches say it boys lives, they really do. They don't
even know it. And doctor, these are the three things
I've realized with men. Three things they want to feel understood,
which means being seen accepted. I'm okay as I am
(08:15):
and number three, feeling loved. When those three, that pillar,
that triangle's out there, you get shame, that rage that
I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me. And
I don't believe in anger management. I believe in shame management.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Who like that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
All anger management is manifestation of untreated shame. I've never
not seen that true.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Wow, And guys, this.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
Is terrible spousal abuse.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
While as the police officer was, this is before nineteen
ninety two when they change the laws where the victim
had to prosecute the perpetrator, or now the police can
do it. The police can come in and say, okay,
you're going with me. And I think that has cut
down the desk by probably fifty percent. Wow, that's my sage.
Shame talks it.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Let's talk to me. It's out of control.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's like a house of no thermostat you're someplace here,
a guy raging like where la x two weeks ago.
This guy's raging at the counter. And my daughter says me,
he's externalizing his shame.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And who you taught her? Well?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Oh, thank you, Julia. Yeah, and you know she wasn't wrong. Yeah,
I thought this guy is gonna go polestal. I mean
going do clear right, Let's go back to the coach.
Those three things about being understood, accepted, and loved. One
thing gang members have in common. I learned fatherless sons,
and that funds the rage and emotionally funds it. I mean, guys,
ever met your dad do versus san Quentin? You know, well,
(09:34):
my dad got murdered. It was relentless, the bloods of
the crypts and talks to these guys doing like, what
are you doing here?
Speaker 6 (09:41):
You're white? Yeah? The guy goes you ever meet your dad?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Met my dad.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I've never met a guy who really knows his dad.
So that's doctor. That's her shame is and we don't
want a candy coat it. But I also want to
get extreme. I find that the join of my practice.
We're gonna get to the shame factor. Do you want
to change your life? Let's pull that out by the roots.
If something's not working, let's start there. As an ideology.
Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
The idea that anger management should be redefined as shame management.
The person that's on the receiving end of whatever that
reprogramming is going to look like has to be able
to be vulnerable I mean it almost sounds like, you know,
I'm not ashamed of anything, I'm just mad.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Right, how do you tell the guy that's angry that's different?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, but how do you tell the guy that's angry
that what you're really doing is you're suffering from shame,
because then you're asking him to be vulnerable, which got
him in this mess in the first place because nobody
loved him, nobody respected him. He was isolated, he didn't
have a father figure. And now you say, no, look,
if you just go to anger management classes, then every
corporation that's what we do.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
When we have a.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Ins front of employee, employee, we send him to anger management.
But really, I got to start thinking about this as
a supervisor and director of multiple different divisions, I got
to start thinking about the people that I'm referring to
anger management that hey, let's talk about the shame that
got you to this level of anger.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So, doctor, have a guy in my office in the
fall couple's therapy because I think he hits his wife.
I could smell it, you just know, and he starts
yelling and I put my hand up. He goes, what
you're scaling her? What do you mean Linda tell him
and she starts something. He goes, I had no idea.
It's like he's emotionally drunk. That's why I talk about
(11:44):
emotional sobriety. He's like the blackout doc. You know, neurologically,
there's that part of the brain shuts down. It just
goes automatic. And he scares his wife. He said, that's
a first time in his life that paused. He's I
was just talking loudly. No, he was raging, feeling power.
And I think I always tell guys that when they
say I feel disrespected. Uh ah, No, No, you feel invisible.
(12:05):
Big difference, because if you felt visible, you wouldn't be angry.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
You feel seen.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
But this whole thing about shame and man one of
the best kept secrets, I.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Believe it's a terrible secret to keep. I mean, that's
something that needs to be out there. But now you
brought something else. Do you just every time you say something,
you bring up something else, which is the idea if
you if you feel disrespected, I love what you said.
It is an invisibility. It's you think I'm working so hard,
I've done so much. You know, I'm putting in over time.
(12:37):
Nobody cares nobody cares. Well, I always say, but you know,
and this is where I may be wrong, So I'd
love for you to correct me. I always say, Okay,
well they may not, but but you know, the intrinsic
drive for you to know that you're making a difference
should be enough. But how do you tell somebody that
feels disrespected or now that we're going to say invisible,
(12:59):
how do they deal with that if they're never going
to get it from their partner or from their employer,
what are the steps to get that guy out of
that pit?
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I go, this is where I always joke.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Okay, I'm want to be a psychologist right now, Okay,
I go, will you ever complimented growing up? No?
Speaker 6 (13:15):
Never?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And we come to your baseball games? No, And you
come to your graduation. I've gotten a lot of no's.
It's heartbreaking now to get married, hoping she's going to
fix that, And I go, she can't fink, it's not hers,
it's yours. It's working. You can see yourself. I'm like,
go take care of that little boy inside of you.
I'm not I always some I can touch you feel here,
(13:38):
but there's a belief in you that you're not valid
and bringing home paychecks wonderful, But what you really want
from your wife?
Speaker 6 (13:45):
She has no idea. You're speaking French and she speaks English.
There's no translation.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I just want to know how you how you give
that guy the tool? Then to say, okay, that's happened.
I love what you said in our last episode. You're
in the valley. Yeah, you just keep going. But how
do you get out of that invisibility so that that
you feel that the relationships you have now are worth
of you and respect?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So I asked them what would be invisible look like
with your wife? What would that look like today? And doctor,
that's our trail out of the Grand Canyon, what does
that look like today?
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Because if they're present, they're not raging. When they're raging
in their.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Back some other drama always tell you, let's come back
to this present moment. What can she do in the
present moment that would feel like you're being seen and
you're not invisible? Cheer drops, yeah, charger drops, you know,
and they like, yeah, maybe when I come in the house,
we said hello, boom, okay, let's do that, and like
three or fourth and simple always go break it back?
Speaker 6 (14:46):
What can we do right? Now you're reacting to your past,
not the present.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Your wife loves you, she adores you, but she can't
fix That's not her job, that's yours.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
That's why you're with me, that's why we're here.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And growing up, I remember thinking most of the guys
on our street and we never saw our dads.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
We weren't orphans. It just kind of fatherless. I don't
anybody to feel that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
My dad was gone from age fifteen to twenty five,
and that was a tough time.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
I was left taking care of my mom.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
And I thought, I want to help men be the
best self. When that man walks in my office, is
I all I am? Is a pacheck? No you're not.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
No, you're not ask her what she would stay at
your funeral. We've done that in the office, and they're
blown away.
Speaker 6 (15:29):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Damn yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
Away this violence.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
They wanted me to speak it on that school shooting
down in Texas a few years ago, about why the
police didn't go in, why I wanted to wait an
hour and a half, And I'm not quite sure what
it came out criminally, but I know emotionally, a lot
of the parents are single moms and they felt the
men did protect them. And I told the dean of
the college down there, we got to talk about that.
(15:57):
He looked at me, like, how we're not touching that.
If that's really what's happening, These women filling like men
didn't step up. That's the prices in a lot of ways,
guys seeking care of themselves.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Yeah, fatherless sons.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
And I always tell guys you didn't have a dad,
you get someone in here, and like Robert Bla says,
a day you forgive your dad, it's a day you
enter adult with.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Now, that's an.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Eight mile walk, eight miles uphill out of the Grand Canyon.
It could be done. It could be done. And that's
doctor what I would tell guys. Start thinking about that.
And the other day Stanford graduate, I'm not doing it. Okay,
I go, but your life's not going to move very far.
You're driving with a handbrake on. Yeah, I know, I
throw a lot out, Doctor with the shame factor.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But that's it. I mean, I think actually gave us
some actionb item. So so we got to get to
this segment again where you're probably gonna be okay, and
I'm going to give you another scenario. Yeah, and see
if this guy is going to be okay and different,
different setup than we had on our last episode. But
you're just a thirty two year old guy. He's coping
with the history of sexual abuse he suffered as a teenager.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And say it was an older person.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It was maybe a teacher or was a coach and
coerced him into his first sexual experience, and he trusted
and liked the person a lot, and the person swarmed
to secrecy kind of a stockholmy kind of thing that
he can never divulge. They had this relationship, but he
was able to move on person completely cut ties with
his coach, but still carries this shame, blames himself for it.
(17:25):
Still probably hasn't processed this relationship. Now that's fifteen years
in the past. So it's going to be a two
part are you going to be okay? One is is
he going to be okay? And two is how do
you counsel somebody with a history of sexual abuse to
help his partners help him deal with that past experience,
because then it becomes again part of the shame that
(17:46):
he carries. But then the other people in his lives
are going to absorb some of that shame, I would imagine.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
So how do you do this?
Speaker 6 (17:56):
This is a terrible analogy. You know Aaron Hernandez from
the Patriots.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah, it's starting off terrible. Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Part of why they say is documentary. The documentary that
he committed suicide. He could not deal with sexual abuse, right,
he just could not have that publicized. And I tell him, Man,
when he comes in and we talk about it, I go,
you are eighty percent home. Wow, you're a mile twenty
two of a twenty six mile marathon. Brother, You've got this.
I think in the Penn State guys, they're all in
(18:24):
their thirties. Doctor, it's very interesting, he said thirty two.
Jerry Sananski. Yeah, yeah, to Bockle, I find a lot
of guys at least ten years in between the incident
and really talking about it and helping them is that
they can enjoy their partner and not bring the perpetrator
and putting that on the shelf again, your bookshelf behind
their doctor.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
I love the bookshelf.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, put it on the bookshelf.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Please, if you didn't listen to the last episode, listen
to get the bookshelve of analogy. That's amazing to chapter
a book in your life, but it's there, always will.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Be there, but you don't have to keep rereading.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
It, and don't make the other people read it for
you either.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
The factor. He's in the office on to give a hug. Right, brother,
you have done the unthinkable, right, you confronted it.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
One of the things that we don't actually talk about
in men's health. But the number of men that are
sexually abused by same sex or opposite sex people, it's
almost as high as women that suffer this as girls.
And it's something again we don't talk about because of
the shame factor, and especially if it's a heterosexual relationship.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
Yeah, you know, and a fourteen year.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Old boy you think, hey, this is you know, every
fourteen year old boy. You should be proud that you
know some adult is.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Coming on to you.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And and I think that's part of the the zeit guys
thinking well, who wouldn't want this? And it can devastate guys.
And and Aaron Hernandez thing is a very Whether or
not that's that's true, Chris, we'll never know, but but no, right,
but the idea is there that the shame of a
history set of abuse, if that led to some of
his not only gang activity and murderous behavior, but also
(20:22):
who is his suicide because he didn't want to reach
to that.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
It's pretty powerful.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
And doctor, what you just said about the sexual abuse.
People used to.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Say was one out of four men, doctor, I'm at fifty,
going towards seventy percent. Now, yeah, women at least three
out of four. Right, I'm not bucking full, but something
that's crossed the line.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Across the line. Yeah, yeah, that's shame factor. Another since
we started the show and talking about the twenties, there
there was a classic It was a rape case against
Fatty Arboicle Jordan.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
You know, Daddy Arkl was.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
Right, so Virginia Ye, yes, the actor the case.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, so you know that the trial it was sort
of the trial of the century is I think it
was in San Francisco, and he basically took the rap
because you know, he was morbidly obese and he actually
had complete impotence. He was unable to get an erection
and therefore couldn't necessarily commit the crime he was accused of,
(21:21):
but was too ashamed to admit that he actually didn't
have the sexual ability to have an erection, to perform,
to have a rape conviction against him. It took forever
for that to come out because he was almost willing
to take take the rap for a crime that did
not go down the way that he may have been
(21:41):
framed into saying it did, because he's too ashamed to
admit that he had erected out his function.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Wow, Doctor, that got taken out the Shame Factor book.
That story is astounding.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
His career never recovered.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
No, he was.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
He's one of the biggest stars.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
On the planet now, Rodgers. I mean he was one
of the great comics in the early twenties twenties.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, and Doc, I tell guys, you want to change
your legacy and your family deal to Shame Factor because
she cannot tolerate exposure. That's when you're eighty percent of one.
A guy talked about what happened to him exposing that secret.
There's so much freedom in that. It's like trying to
describe watermelon and you never tasted it. Yeah, there's freedom
(22:24):
from that disclosure. It's all being up the closet and
realized that it was a yellow rubber raincoat, not a
monster inside of you.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Wow, Doc, shame cannot tolerate exposure.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
That's not only the listeners with Okay, well, so you
know we can't end the show on tragedy.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Tell me, yeah, you got to tell.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Me one of your best your you, your infectious enthusiasm
is it's I mean, I'm feeling it, you know, through
the mic, through the zoom, other than having to suffer
through the shame of the USC jersey as your back drop.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Next time's got Dodgers, please.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Go to the Dodgers on the other wall.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You can't believe that I'm glad that I'm glad this
is radio so they can't see you in your your
framed Trojan's Wall of fame here. But but tell me
a story. You know what is one of your successes
where somebody you knew needed your help was dealing with
the shame of could be anything we talked about, Yeah,
where you felt the corner turned that that the guys
(23:24):
that are listening now that are dealing with this. I mean,
I think you're blown away so many minds and have
helped so many guys already in these two episodes.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
But give us a give us a home run, Steve.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I'm gonna tell you eighty percent of the guys now,
I'm gonna go to hire. Ninety percent of the guys
that come in the office to talk about their marriage
is failing or something's wrong. We talk about shame. It's
the Dodgers and the tenth Any of the World series.
It's a miracle because things change. Logs mow down the river.
They never knew and their partner's speechless because they see
(23:57):
this guy in there. They always knew what's in there.
I've never not seen at work. Wow, Now how he
got here is brutal. How he got here, doctor, it's horrendous.
I've never not seen it work. Once you expose it,
you're good to come out of it and you will
save your marriage.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Eighty percent that don't come back because they won't admit
the shame factor.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Yeah, because I don't want her to see them defective. No,
she knows. It's like, yeah, no secrets, but she loves you.
But you push it away. Could you think you're unlovable?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Right?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
Own it?
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Right?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
And one guy came in his mother molested him. Doctor.
That's been the hardest one. The hardest cases.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You wentn't in the same sex, but when your mother
it just it's it's off that level of incest. It's
hard because they won't. They can't trust their wife. On
some level, it shows up, and when they let it go,
their marriage revives. It comes back, It comes back from
the dead. Until every guy listening it works. Open that closet.
You won't survive, you hum it clothes, but you'll do.
You'll change your life, and you open it.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Steve, you're you're an emotional surgeon. I mean you cut
somebody open. I mean it's it's sort of a lot
of surgeries I do. You got to take things apart
before you put them back together, sew them up, those
last stitches, and you put a bandage on so much
that you say goes into That is what you do,
emotional surgery.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Yeah, man, doctor, thank you. I want to talk to
you more about this. Yeah, every weekend.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
We're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I like the idea of you and I just kind
of touching base every every so often.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Absolutely lastly, to your point, Doc, no one talks about
the recovery. To get the recovery, you got to open
the book. Yeah, you can put it back on the shelf,
but open the book. But doctor, it works. That's why
I tell you, guys, this works.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Stephen Poltzer, Ladies and gentlemen, from the mean streets of
La to the Chushian confines of a couch in Brentwood.
You've done it all. Thanks so much for sharing your
time and parting your wisdom and taking great care of
guys here in La and points beyond. I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Thank you. Doc.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Let's let Long Transits take us out on that soulful
stratus caster that we know and love, and we'll see
you next time in the mail room with doctor Jesse Mills.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the maro. Let's
talk about it. Let's talk about it a maro.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Let the mail Room with Doctor Jesse Mills was a
production of iHeartRadio. It was executive produced by Jordan Runtogg.
It was edited, mixed, and mastered by Beheid Fraser, and
the theme was provided by Long Transit. If you like
what you heard, please subscribe and leave a review. For
(26:47):
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This program is intended for educational and informational purposes only.
It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Diagnosis
or treatment. Consult your healthcare provider for any medical or
(27:07):
other related questions or concerns. The views and discussions aired
on this podcast are those of doctor Mills and do
not represent the official positions of UCLA or UCLA Health
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Let's talk about the Maro, Let's talk about it, Let's
talk about the man Hero.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Then welcome back to the mail room with doctor Jesse Mills.
Doctor Mills and is always joined by my producer and
voice of John Q Public.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I like to freshen up the new year with a
one hundred year old references.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Wait, Jordan Q Public, I'm not sure if this will
take that, but you're looked pretty good in a three
piece suit in a fedora, and knowing you're collecting habits,
you probably have a steamer trunk full of suits and
has from the Titanic, so you could probably pull off
a Jordan q Public look.
Speaker 5 (00:44):
Yeah, I veered towards early twentieth century, so yeah, I'll
take that.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So everybody, we got Steven Poult back by Command performance
repeat Indiana super Fan, and I won't go through too
much of his intro because we hit it so hard
on the first time. But retired law enforcement seminary graduate,
which we didn't really talk about in the last episode,
so you're gonna have to give us. You gave us
a yeah, a shocking story about your first day on
(01:10):
the forest in La but we got to hear some
stories about how you got from the seminary to be
a licensed to clinical psychologist. But you focus on men
and the people who love them and their mental health.
You take great care of the patients that I send over.
So welcome the heck back, doctor Polter. It's an honor
as always, Oh.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
Doctor Jesse, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Talk to us about this.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
How did your work in the seminary lead you then
from there to a clinical psychologist?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
You know, it's interesting. I want to be in helping profession.
I always had a spiritual leaning, if you will. My
father's Jewish when you converted to being Lutheran when you
married my mom in the fifties. I always found I
want to help people in some way or fashion. I
went to Fuller Seminary over in Pasadena, and I worked
at church on the way out the valley. I was
one of the youth pastors, and I found that a
(01:55):
lot of the guys coming in talking about their spirituality.
I did feel equipped, you know, and there's guys that
you're preach very gifted, but I didn't feel equipped to
really deal with people on a grassroots level, and I
thought I got to go further, and that's what got
me to go to psychology, and I thought I could
reach more people in this venue than the one I
was in.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's a big job, well service driven life, I mean,
from law enforcement to seminary. That background, obviously you have
this gene in there that you want to help people.
And we really talked a lot about your modern masculinity
in the books you've written in that field, and I
think that gives us a framework to dive into. One
of the most profound things I've learned from you was
(02:35):
this concept of shame. And you use this not as
kind of what we think of as as shame, but
really almost as a framework for all of the badness
that we harbor inside of us. And you can be
ashamed by so many different things. You can be a
shamed by a bad grade. You can be a shamed
by denting defender on your dad's car when you took
(02:57):
it out when you didn't have a license. But you
can also carry shame about decisions you made or things
that people did to you that make you who you are,
and the pain and the trauma that you carry in
your book Shame Factor, which again I cannot recommend highly
enough I think it should almost be mandatory reading for
any man that's trying to find his way in this world,
(03:17):
which is.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Basically any man.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, but you use the concept of shame to define
this male experience and also just how it influences his relationship.
So just kind of tell me a how you got
into using this as a flashpoint and really as a
metaphor for as you talked about in the last episode.
I mean, this is one of the three things that
drives the majority of people into your office, between shame, anxiety,
(03:41):
and isolation. So, as I said on that show, I
think shame deserves its own episode.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
So here it is. Yeah, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know, doctor Jesse Robert Bli said, if you're going
to therapy and you're not making progress, you feel you're
wasting your time, you probably not talking about your shame.
That was a fastball between the eyes. That was the
first time I've heard that term. This is why I
was in seminary and I'm thinking, it's not sin if
you will like you've done something wrong.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
Guilt is an action.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Shame is the veins in a marble table or the
grains and what it's inside of you. You know, it's
not an action, it's a feeling, it's a state. When
I first heard that, he said, if you're solved, your
clients talk about shame. Now that a lot of guys
see me.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
I don't have any shame.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I go okay, So we kind of talk, walk to
the back door of the building, if you will, and
all of a sudden you realize, yeah, his father committed suicide.
He's embarrassed. That's a form of shame. That's embarrassment. You're
embarrassed about your family, that's a form of shame. I
want to go back to this doctor Jesse by age frivate.
The experts say you either are competent on one end of
the scale, or you feel inferior reading, writing, and arithmetic.
(04:49):
And when kids leaning further toward inferior, that's where shame
starts to take a root, like there's something wrong with
you versus competent. I can read, I can write, I
can dress myself. That keeps shame from taking rooting your why.
The second piece is how your parents spoke to you. Now,
that has to be permissive or passive, but many guys
are spoken very harshly and they felt like there's something
wrong with them. They take that on as that harshness,
(05:11):
as if they're defective, inferior.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
No, we don't. Adolescens you get bullies.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I've never met a bully who doesn't have a shame
factor active, whether he was beaten by his dad or
something terrible. Now we get in our twenties, get the
guy that's stealing, selling drugs, or doing something very risky.
It's a way to offset this I don't feel good
about myself. It goes into toxicity, which is really untreated masculinity.
You know, it's a dark side. It's a shame factor
(05:38):
as its full tilt, you know, doctor. I have one story.
The shooter in the Mandalaid Bay grew up in Locker Center,
not on our street, but he was in the area.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
He was my sister's age.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
His father got arrested by the guy for bank rubber,
like the ten most wanted.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
You just see him in the post office, yeah, of course,
And the day his father got arrested.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
After that, the family left the area with an month
and we never saw him again. And when the shooting
came down, when I heard his name, I was like,
no way, it's so and so. And it turned out
that he admitted that he resented authority what they did
to his father. Women internalized shame. Men externalize it. That's
why it's so dangerous. It's one of things I've learned
(06:18):
as a policeman. Mass shooting is whatnot. Men externalize it.
Women internalize it, eating disorders, depression, anorexia, bulimia, all that,
where men will externalize it very aggressive as a way
to offset it, to push it out. I always tell guys,
let's start with the fact that you don't feel good
about yourself inside. When did that start? And Doc, I'm
(06:40):
telling you it goes back to elementary's from first, second,
third grade. Something happened and then they internalize it and
just kept it going.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
You just said so much there.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I mean, just even the idea of the difference between
how men and women process shame and and manifest is huge.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Hey, Doc, this is the other thing. It's mortified me.
In twenty eighteen, the public sure fact check me on this.
Ninety percent of all murders in this country gunpoint murders
aren't either by ex lovers, divorce, the romantic deaths of
that nine eighty eight percent of women stunning and the
other there's not one mass shooter. They use the definition
(07:17):
of five people or more who's a woman in this
country as of today. So it goes back to that
premise that men externalize shame and they take it out
in society.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
They blame it. That's when Robert Bliway's talking about the
father figure.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You've got to deal with the father figure in society
or you you're going to be self destructive to the
greater good.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
So how do you recognize that? You know? How do
you how do you see somebody?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
You know, if you're a teacher, if you're a coach
and you're not a therapist, you don't have the tools
and the education that doctor Stephen Bolter has, but you
have access to a kid that's obviously suffering shame.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
How do you address it?
Speaker 6 (07:53):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I love football and baseball and these coaches who really
connect with these boys. When a young man feels like
he's cared for, he's going to be better. So many
coaches say it boys lives, they really do. They don't
even know it. And doctor, these are the three things
I've realized with men. Three things they want to feel understood,
which means being seen accepted. I'm okay as I am
(08:15):
and number three, feeling loved. When those three, that pillar,
that triangle's out there, you get shame, that rage that
I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me. And
I don't believe in anger management. I believe in shame management.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Who like that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
All anger management is manifestation of untreated shame. I've never
not seen that true.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Wow, And guys, this.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
Is terrible spousal abuse.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
While as the police officer was, this is before nineteen
ninety two when they change the laws where the victim
had to prosecute the perpetrator, or now the police can
do it. The police can come in and say, okay,
you're going with me. And I think that has cut
down the desk by probably fifty percent. Wow, that's my sage.
Shame talks it.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Let's talk to me. It's out of control.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's like a house of no thermostat you're someplace here,
a guy raging like where la x two weeks ago.
This guy's raging at the counter. And my daughter says me,
he's externalizing his shame.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And who you taught her? Well?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Oh, thank you, Julia. Yeah, and you know she wasn't wrong. Yeah,
I thought this guy is gonna go polestal. I mean
going do clear right, Let's go back to the coach.
Those three things about being understood, accepted, and loved. One
thing gang members have in common. I learned fatherless sons,
and that funds the rage and emotionally funds it. I mean, guys,
ever met your dad do versus san Quentin? You know, well,
(09:34):
my dad got murdered. It was relentless, the bloods of
the crypts and talks to these guys doing like, what
are you doing here?
Speaker 6 (09:41):
You're white? Yeah? The guy goes you ever meet your dad?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Met my dad.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I've never met a guy who really knows his dad.
So that's doctor. That's her shame is and we don't
want a candy coat it. But I also want to
get extreme. I find that the join of my practice.
We're gonna get to the shame factor. Do you want
to change your life? Let's pull that out by the roots.
If something's not working, let's start there. As an ideology.
Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
The idea that anger management should be redefined as shame management.
The person that's on the receiving end of whatever that
reprogramming is going to look like has to be able
to be vulnerable I mean it almost sounds like, you know,
I'm not ashamed of anything, I'm just mad.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Right, how do you tell the guy that's angry that's different?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, but how do you tell the guy that's angry
that what you're really doing is you're suffering from shame,
because then you're asking him to be vulnerable, which got
him in this mess in the first place because nobody
loved him, nobody respected him. He was isolated, he didn't
have a father figure. And now you say, no, look,
if you just go to anger management classes, then every
corporation that's what we do.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
When we have a.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Ins front of employee, employee, we send him to anger management.
But really, I got to start thinking about this as
a supervisor and director of multiple different divisions, I got
to start thinking about the people that I'm referring to
anger management that hey, let's talk about the shame that
got you to this level of anger.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So, doctor, have a guy in my office in the
fall couple's therapy because I think he hits his wife.
I could smell it, you just know, and he starts
yelling and I put my hand up. He goes, what
you're scaling her? What do you mean Linda tell him
and she starts something. He goes, I had no idea.
It's like he's emotionally drunk. That's why I talk about
(11:44):
emotional sobriety. He's like the blackout doc. You know, neurologically,
there's that part of the brain shuts down. It just
goes automatic. And he scares his wife. He said, that's
a first time in his life that paused. He's I
was just talking loudly. No, he was raging, feeling power.
And I think I always tell guys that when they
say I feel disrespected. Uh ah, No, No, you feel invisible.
(12:05):
Big difference, because if you felt visible, you wouldn't be angry.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
You feel seen.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
But this whole thing about shame and man one of
the best kept secrets, I.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Believe it's a terrible secret to keep. I mean, that's
something that needs to be out there. But now you
brought something else. Do you just every time you say something,
you bring up something else, which is the idea if
you if you feel disrespected, I love what you said.
It is an invisibility. It's you think I'm working so hard,
I've done so much. You know, I'm putting in over time.
(12:37):
Nobody cares nobody cares. Well, I always say, but you know,
and this is where I may be wrong, So I'd
love for you to correct me. I always say, Okay,
well they may not, but but you know, the intrinsic
drive for you to know that you're making a difference
should be enough. But how do you tell somebody that
feels disrespected or now that we're going to say invisible,
(12:59):
how do they deal with that if they're never going
to get it from their partner or from their employer,
what are the steps to get that guy out of
that pit?
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I go, this is where I always joke.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Okay, I'm want to be a psychologist right now, Okay,
I go, will you ever complimented growing up? No?
Speaker 6 (13:15):
Never?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And we come to your baseball games? No, And you
come to your graduation. I've gotten a lot of no's.
It's heartbreaking now to get married, hoping she's going to
fix that, And I go, she can't fink, it's not hers,
it's yours. It's working. You can see yourself. I'm like,
go take care of that little boy inside of you.
I'm not I always some I can touch you feel here,
(13:38):
but there's a belief in you that you're not valid
and bringing home paychecks wonderful, But what you really want
from your wife?
Speaker 6 (13:45):
She has no idea. You're speaking French and she speaks English.
There's no translation.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I just want to know how you how you give
that guy the tool? Then to say, okay, that's happened.
I love what you said in our last episode. You're
in the valley. Yeah, you just keep going. But how
do you get out of that invisibility so that that
you feel that the relationships you have now are worth
of you and respect?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So I asked them what would be invisible look like
with your wife? What would that look like today? And doctor,
that's our trail out of the Grand Canyon, what does
that look like today?
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Because if they're present, they're not raging. When they're raging
in their.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Back some other drama always tell you, let's come back
to this present moment. What can she do in the
present moment that would feel like you're being seen and
you're not invisible? Cheer drops, yeah, charger drops, you know,
and they like, yeah, maybe when I come in the house,
we said hello, boom, okay, let's do that, and like
three or fourth and simple always go break it back?
Speaker 6 (14:46):
What can we do right? Now you're reacting to your past,
not the present.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Your wife loves you, she adores you, but she can't
fix That's not her job, that's yours.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
That's why you're with me, that's why we're here.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And growing up, I remember thinking most of the guys
on our street and we never saw our dads.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
We weren't orphans. It just kind of fatherless. I don't
anybody to feel that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
My dad was gone from age fifteen to twenty five,
and that was a tough time.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
I was left taking care of my mom.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
And I thought, I want to help men be the
best self. When that man walks in my office, is
I all I am? Is a pacheck? No you're not.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
No, you're not ask her what she would stay at
your funeral. We've done that in the office, and they're
blown away.
Speaker 6 (15:29):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Damn yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
Away this violence.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
They wanted me to speak it on that school shooting
down in Texas a few years ago, about why the
police didn't go in, why I wanted to wait an
hour and a half, And I'm not quite sure what
it came out criminally, but I know emotionally, a lot
of the parents are single moms and they felt the
men did protect them. And I told the dean of
the college down there, we got to talk about that.
(15:57):
He looked at me, like, how we're not touching that.
If that's really what's happening, These women filling like men
didn't step up. That's the prices in a lot of ways,
guys seeking care of themselves.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Yeah, fatherless sons.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
And I always tell guys you didn't have a dad,
you get someone in here, and like Robert Bla says,
a day you forgive your dad, it's a day you
enter adult with.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Now, that's an.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Eight mile walk, eight miles uphill out of the Grand Canyon.
It could be done. It could be done. And that's
doctor what I would tell guys. Start thinking about that.
And the other day Stanford graduate, I'm not doing it. Okay,
I go, but your life's not going to move very far.
You're driving with a handbrake on. Yeah, I know, I
throw a lot out, Doctor with the shame factor.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But that's it. I mean, I think actually gave us
some actionb item. So so we got to get to
this segment again where you're probably gonna be okay, and
I'm going to give you another scenario. Yeah, and see
if this guy is going to be okay and different,
different setup than we had on our last episode. But
you're just a thirty two year old guy. He's coping
with the history of sexual abuse he suffered as a teenager.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And say it was an older person.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It was maybe a teacher or was a coach and
coerced him into his first sexual experience, and he trusted
and liked the person a lot, and the person swarmed
to secrecy kind of a stockholmy kind of thing that
he can never divulge. They had this relationship, but he
was able to move on person completely cut ties with
his coach, but still carries this shame, blames himself for it.
(17:25):
Still probably hasn't processed this relationship. Now that's fifteen years
in the past. So it's going to be a two
part are you going to be okay? One is is
he going to be okay? And two is how do
you counsel somebody with a history of sexual abuse to
help his partners help him deal with that past experience,
because then it becomes again part of the shame that
(17:46):
he carries. But then the other people in his lives
are going to absorb some of that shame, I would imagine.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
So how do you do this?
Speaker 6 (17:56):
This is a terrible analogy. You know Aaron Hernandez from
the Patriots.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yeah, it's starting off terrible. Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Part of why they say is documentary. The documentary that
he committed suicide. He could not deal with sexual abuse, right,
he just could not have that publicized. And I tell him, Man,
when he comes in and we talk about it, I go,
you are eighty percent home. Wow, you're a mile twenty
two of a twenty six mile marathon. Brother, You've got this.
I think in the Penn State guys, they're all in
(18:24):
their thirties. Doctor, it's very interesting, he said thirty two.
Jerry Sananski. Yeah, yeah, to Bockle, I find a lot
of guys at least ten years in between the incident
and really talking about it and helping them is that
they can enjoy their partner and not bring the perpetrator
and putting that on the shelf again, your bookshelf behind
their doctor.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
I love the bookshelf.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, put it on the bookshelf.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Please, if you didn't listen to the last episode, listen
to get the bookshelve of analogy. That's amazing to chapter
a book in your life, but it's there, always will.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Be there, but you don't have to keep rereading.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
It, and don't make the other people read it for
you either.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
The factor. He's in the office on to give a hug. Right, brother,
you have done the unthinkable, right, you confronted it.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
One of the things that we don't actually talk about
in men's health. But the number of men that are
sexually abused by same sex or opposite sex people, it's
almost as high as women that suffer this as girls.
And it's something again we don't talk about because of
the shame factor, and especially if it's a heterosexual relationship.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
Yeah, you know, and a fourteen year.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Old boy you think, hey, this is you know, every
fourteen year old boy. You should be proud that you
know some adult is.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Coming on to you.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And and I think that's part of the the zeit guys
thinking well, who wouldn't want this? And it can devastate guys.
And and Aaron Hernandez thing is a very Whether or
not that's that's true, Chris, we'll never know, but but no, right,
but the idea is there that the shame of a
history set of abuse, if that led to some of
his not only gang activity and murderous behavior, but also
(20:22):
who is his suicide because he didn't want to reach
to that.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
It's pretty powerful.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
And doctor, what you just said about the sexual abuse.
People used to.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Say was one out of four men, doctor, I'm at fifty,
going towards seventy percent. Now, yeah, women at least three
out of four. Right, I'm not bucking full, but something
that's crossed the line.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Across the line. Yeah, yeah, that's shame factor. Another since
we started the show and talking about the twenties, there
there was a classic It was a rape case against
Fatty Arboicle Jordan.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
You know, Daddy Arkl was.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
Right, so Virginia Ye, yes, the actor the case.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, so you know that the trial it was sort
of the trial of the century is I think it
was in San Francisco, and he basically took the rap
because you know, he was morbidly obese and he actually
had complete impotence. He was unable to get an erection
and therefore couldn't necessarily commit the crime he was accused of,
(21:21):
but was too ashamed to admit that he actually didn't
have the sexual ability to have an erection, to perform,
to have a rape conviction against him. It took forever
for that to come out because he was almost willing
to take take the rap for a crime that did
not go down the way that he may have been
(21:41):
framed into saying it did, because he's too ashamed to
admit that he had erected out his function.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Wow, Doctor, that got taken out the Shame Factor book.
That story is astounding.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
His career never recovered.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
No, he was.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
He's one of the biggest stars.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
On the planet now, Rodgers. I mean he was one
of the great comics in the early twenties twenties.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, and Doc, I tell guys, you want to change
your legacy and your family deal to Shame Factor because
she cannot tolerate exposure. That's when you're eighty percent of one.
A guy talked about what happened to him exposing that secret.
There's so much freedom in that. It's like trying to
describe watermelon and you never tasted it. Yeah, there's freedom
(22:24):
from that disclosure. It's all being up the closet and
realized that it was a yellow rubber raincoat, not a
monster inside of you.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Wow, Doc, shame cannot tolerate exposure.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
That's not only the listeners with Okay, well, so you
know we can't end the show on tragedy.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Tell me, yeah, you got to tell.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Me one of your best your you, your infectious enthusiasm
is it's I mean, I'm feeling it, you know, through
the mic, through the zoom, other than having to suffer
through the shame of the USC jersey as your back drop.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Next time's got Dodgers, please.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Go to the Dodgers on the other wall.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You can't believe that I'm glad that I'm glad this
is radio so they can't see you in your your
framed Trojan's Wall of fame here. But but tell me
a story. You know what is one of your successes
where somebody you knew needed your help was dealing with
the shame of could be anything we talked about, Yeah,
where you felt the corner turned that that the guys
(23:24):
that are listening now that are dealing with this. I mean,
I think you're blown away so many minds and have
helped so many guys already in these two episodes.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
But give us a give us a home run, Steve.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I'm gonna tell you eighty percent of the guys now,
I'm gonna go to hire. Ninety percent of the guys
that come in the office to talk about their marriage
is failing or something's wrong. We talk about shame. It's
the Dodgers and the tenth Any of the World series.
It's a miracle because things change. Logs mow down the river.
They never knew and their partner's speechless because they see
(23:57):
this guy in there. They always knew what's in there.
I've never not seen at work. Wow, Now how he
got here is brutal. How he got here, doctor, it's horrendous.
I've never not seen it work. Once you expose it,
you're good to come out of it and you will
save your marriage.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Eighty percent that don't come back because they won't admit
the shame factor.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Yeah, because I don't want her to see them defective. No,
she knows. It's like, yeah, no secrets, but she loves you.
But you push it away. Could you think you're unlovable?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Right?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
Own it?
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Right?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
And one guy came in his mother molested him. Doctor.
That's been the hardest one. The hardest cases.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You wentn't in the same sex, but when your mother
it just it's it's off that level of incest. It's
hard because they won't. They can't trust their wife. On
some level, it shows up, and when they let it go,
their marriage revives. It comes back, It comes back from
the dead. Until every guy listening it works. Open that closet.
You won't survive, you hum it clothes, but you'll do.
You'll change your life, and you open it.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Steve, you're you're an emotional surgeon. I mean you cut
somebody open. I mean it's it's sort of a lot
of surgeries I do. You got to take things apart
before you put them back together, sew them up, those
last stitches, and you put a bandage on so much
that you say goes into That is what you do,
emotional surgery.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Yeah, man, doctor, thank you. I want to talk to
you more about this. Yeah, every weekend.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
We're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I like the idea of you and I just kind
of touching base every every so often.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Absolutely lastly, to your point, Doc, no one talks about
the recovery. To get the recovery, you got to open
the book. Yeah, you can put it back on the shelf,
but open the book. But doctor, it works. That's why
I tell you, guys, this works.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Stephen Poltzer, Ladies and gentlemen, from the mean streets of
La to the Chushian confines of a couch in Brentwood.
You've done it all. Thanks so much for sharing your
time and parting your wisdom and taking great care of
guys here in La and points beyond. I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Thank you. Doc.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Let's let Long Transits take us out on that soulful
stratus caster that we know and love, and we'll see
you next time in the mail room with doctor Jesse Mills.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the maro. Let's
talk about it. Let's talk about it a maro.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Let the mail Room with Doctor Jesse Mills was a
production of iHeartRadio. It was executive produced by Jordan Runtogg.
It was edited, mixed, and mastered by Beheid Fraser, and
the theme was provided by Long Transit. If you like
what you heard, please subscribe and leave a review. For
(26:47):
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This program is intended for educational and informational purposes only.
It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Diagnosis
or treatment. Consult your healthcare provider for any medical or
(27:07):
other related questions or concerns. The views and discussions aired
on this podcast are those of doctor Mills and do
not represent the official positions of UCLA or UCLA Health
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