May 6, 2025 • 36 mins
On this episode, Dr. Jay opens up about his personal healing journey, reflecting on the lasting effects of childhood trauma, the void left by his father’s absence, and the identity challenges that followed his football career. He speaks candidly about the power of vulnerability, the necessity of strong support systems, and the ongoing pursuit of emotional freedom. Through this conversation, Dr. Jay reinforces the idea that healing is a choice—one that requires intention, self-awareness, and patience—and invites listeners to reflect on their own path toward restoration. Tune in and join the conversation in the socials below.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Just Heal with Doctor J, a production of
the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome to Just
Heal with Doctor J. I'm your host, Doctor J, powered
by the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. So today's
episode is a little different. It's just me talking about
(00:23):
the inception of the Just Hell bro Tour. How I
got to this space of being doctor J and just
sharing a little bit about my story and sharing about
my healing journey. About almost twelve years ago now, at
the age of thirty one, I had my second suicide attempt,
(00:46):
which was a drug overdose at my godmother's house. And
I'll kind of take a deeper dive than what I
normally have when I have spoken about that day, I
often asked what triggered it. So when my parents divorced
(01:07):
at the age of thirteen, my dad not only divorced
my mom, but you know, he divorced us and me,
being his only son, I felt that my world had
had come crashing down because my father was everything to me,
phenomenal athlete, phenomenal pastor. The man is singing, Oh my god, man,
(01:29):
my dad can sing. And I love to hear my
dad sing and love to hear and preach. But when
my parents divorce, I found myself without a role model,
without an example, without somebody that I looked up to,
and the man that I looked up to I no
longer looked two and not knowing that when I fell
(01:53):
into a depression, that it was a depression at the
age of thirteen. Growing up in the south of Mississippi,
you know, no one knows what mental health is. No
one knows what depression is. In fact, they called it
the Monday morning blues. I often heard the elders talking about, Oh,
that boy has the blues, or he has the blues.
(02:16):
Little did I know I had the blues at the
age of thirteen, and that blues wouldn't be identified until
I was in my late twenties and early thirties. And
being a kid who was the oldest, who felt that
I had to protect, that I had to look out
for my sisters and mothers. I became a surrogate father
(02:38):
to my sisters and at times a surrogate husband because
my mother looked to me for strength. I knew God
at an early age, so my mom looked to me
to pray to cover her thirteen years old, operating in
the role of a man while still trying to be
the little boy. And football was everything to me. Football
(03:04):
was how I cope. It was my safe place. It
was the place that I allowed myself to roam because
I can put that helmet on and I can be anybody.
I mean, you can put that helmet on, man, and
you can just turn into a monster. And the thing
about football, you can't be reprimanded for the pain that
(03:26):
you dish out. So for me, it was a place
that I was able to just release all of the anger,
the anguish, the bitterness, to just the pain of my
father leaving. Because I couldn't believe that my father left
my mother after fifteen years of marriage. Couldn't lead that
(03:49):
my father left his family after fifteen years of marriage.
That was hard for me, and I spent the majority
of my adolescent years trying to find myself. So my
mom remarried a guy, my stepfather, and the day that
he came home, and you know, she was like, Hey,
(04:09):
he's moving in, and I get it because she didn't
want to raise three kids by herself. And they began
dating and later got married, and when they got married,
he became very physically abusive towards me. He wanted to
show me that he was a man of the house.
(04:30):
I remember one day I was walking around the house
with my shirt off. He's like, only one man walking
around his house with shirt off, that's me. It's like,
all right, okay, dude, you know just I You know,
I fourteen years old kid, So it's like, you know,
every fourteen year old boy walking around the house his
shirt off. So one day he grabbed me by my
(04:53):
neck and choked me until I passed out in front
of my sister. And my sister that scared her because
they didn't know if I was dead or alive, because
if they called it putting you to sleep. And I
wake up and I'm looking up at him and not
knowing what happened. I just remember him choking me in
and I'm blacking out. And I had a close friend
(05:16):
that I had begun sharing like how my stepfather treated me,
and just you know what he would do to me
at night, coming in the room, beating on me and
telling me how much he's going to make me a man.
All of these things really drove me to a very
dark place to where I began contemplating suicide at the
age of fourteen. So I later moved into the house
(05:40):
with my friends, which was a white family, the mar
family that took me in, and I didn't want to
go back home, so I lived with him for the
past two years of my high school years. And I
fast forward a little bit, I moved in with them.
I resented my mother, and not because of her decision
(06:03):
of who she chose and married, but I resented her
because I wanted my mother to identify me, even in
her own pain. And today, at forty two years old,
I can look back and say I can understand why
she didn't see me her son and pain because she
(06:24):
was trying to navigate through her own pain. And I
think there are times when we don't understand why our
parents make decisions. But I think as we age and mature,
it doesn't change the decision that they made, and it
doesn't change the impact that it had on our lives
at that time. But I think when you look introspectively,
(06:46):
introspectively it allows you to look with a lens of grace.
And grace doesn't mean it didn't happen. Grace means that
what you once felt, you don't allow it to whole
weight to what happened, and it took time to get
through that. And I went on to college and played football,
(07:08):
had a great collegiate career, and then became a free
agent and spent you know, a couple of years in
Arena League. And after things ended with football, I found
myself lost because again, football gave me identity, it gave
me belonging. And any man that's been in the locker room,
(07:31):
whether it's basketball, football, baseball, soccer, I don't care what
it's sport it is, every man would tell you when
it's over. It's not the sport we miss. It's the
camaraderie that we miss, because for most men, it is
the only time that they would get to experience what
being in a family is like. It is the only
(07:54):
time that they would be seen. It's the only time
that they're going to feel encourage, that they want to
feel love from their coaches, from their teammates, and for
many of us young men, it's the only time many
of us have had a consistent male voice or male
figure in our lives. So I didn't know what to
do because I'm like, how do I navigate in the
(08:17):
real world in life? Because I was so used to men,
and not just these coaches patting me on the back.
I was used to men being a support system, and
that's what makes it difficult for men to navigate this
life mentally and emotionally, is when we don't have the
support of male camaraderie. I'm grateful for black women. I'm
(08:42):
grateful for the sisters that undergird and support me. Every
last one of my managers that been black women. Publishers
have been black women. Black women have always supported the
work that I've done, but more than enough. I'm often
looking or for At that time, was looking for male
guidance because I didn't know how to be a man.
(09:05):
My father left when he was thirteen, so I had
no idea what that was like. And my first suicide
attempt came at twenty two twenty three when I the
packers brought me up to work out, and I had
been a few times and and Ted Thompson was someone restless,
(09:30):
God rest his soul. He's no longer here. But I,
you know, was just trying to figure out, you know,
when they didn't sign me, and then it's like, hey,
we'll bring it back for bring it back as a
camp body back then, you know, uh, you know, they
will sending the NFL Europe and they was like, well,
(09:53):
go play Arena League. And I did that and did well,
and I just found myself, man, just feeling like, you know,
you feel like you just toss around. You don't feel
value because you go from being whether you're a star
player or not. You go from being a significant role
player in whatever system that you in in the collegiate sport,
(10:17):
and then when you're in the pros man you just
trying to find out where you fit in. And especially
if you're not drafting and you're free agent, you're just
trying to get in and stick. So I got brought
in for a couple of coffee and it's just like
and it had nothing to do without didn't perform where
they told me you did. You perform where you did
everything with acts. It's just you don't fit the system.
You didn't fit. At that time, they were still wanting
(10:39):
bigger running backs and I wasn't that big back, you know,
And so them telling me that it wasn't that I
couldn't play football, I heard something different. I heard my
father not warning me. And this is the thing about trauma.
(11:03):
When you have not processed it everything sounds like the
pain that you experience. So though they were, you know,
sending me home, it was as if Dad was leaving
all over again, because it felt like rejection, though it
wasn't that. And my first suicide attempt happened after that
(11:25):
because I was dating a young lady and she was like, well,
what are you gonna do? Now? You're not gonna play.
They're not gonna sign you. You know what I mean,
what are you gonna do? I'm gonna go pursue my career. Man,
that broke me once again. I didn't. I had no support,
and life went on and I kind of found a
way to just kind of muscle through. I was slit
(11:46):
my wrists the first time, and I didn't really want
to die, but I didn't want to be here, if
that makes sense. Sometimes there's this oxymoranic thoughts that we
had when you battle with suicidal ideation. You don't like life,
(12:11):
but you're just trying to find out a way to
live without the pain, and you find yourself existing. And
so I did that. I just exist for the number
of years, and at thirty one, I got into a
argument with my father and I was just at a
place where I was just you know, I was just
(12:33):
turning thirty one and just trying to figure life out.
You know, I felt a shift happening within my body
internally at thirty and you know, I didn't know what
that was, but I felt myself wanting more, but I
didn't know what more looked like. And we get into
this argument and it's called with he and my mother,
(12:53):
and I'm kind of talking about it. From my experience
is that man, you don't call me. I feel like
I'm out here alone. I'm living in Houston, just trying
to figure it out. I have no males that are
like checking on me. I got seven uncles, Like I'm
just really crying out for help. And he says to me,
here we go again. And it made me pause because
(13:22):
I'm trying to really grasp I'm your son. What do
you mean? Here we go again? Here we go again.
This is a depression thing and all this like, you know,
you got to get over this divorce thing. You know,
this is old and that happened years ago, no matter
if it's something has happened ten years or fifteen twenty years.
When pain happens and when you experience it in the
(13:48):
manner that you experience it. It can leave a mark
on you that no amount of washing powder, no amount
of bleach, no amount of anything that get can get
that stain out, because that's what it feels like, feels
like a stain that you can't remove. And when he
(14:08):
said that, I was triggered immediately and say, you know what, man,
I'm sick of this dude. And I was living with
my godmother and you'll see her in some future episodes
and we'll get to sit down and talk about our journey.
My godmother's white. So I'm living with my godmother and
she had me move in with her because again I'm
(14:30):
trying to figure my life out. She's like, hey, you
need to stay with me until you can get yourself together.
And I'm in the kitchen and when my dad says
is I tell my mom? And I said, this is
the last time that y'all want to hear from me.
And that night, I made up my mind. I was
going to take my life. Now. I was considerate because
(14:53):
I live with my godmother, so I couldn't shoot myself
because I didn't want her to find a mess. I
could not leave her with that scene. So I overdose
on pills that I was taking for back pain for
a back injury that I had in football. I had
(15:15):
injured my L four and L five. I had a
bulging herniated disc. So I took hydro Codon. I took
what was it? It was a medication that a lot
of athletes, Uh, it'll come to me that we take.
(15:37):
It's like an ib profen, It'll come back to me.
But it was like advill talanol. It was man like.
It was like six different medications. Nice. It was a
bunch of pills, and most of it was for pain.
(15:59):
Because again, and I wasn't somebody who was addicted to
the man's But I knew what to do in order
to leave silently, so I get off the fall. My
mother says to me that night, Jay, Please don't do this.
My mother says to me, She says, if you take
your life, Jay, A mother's a believer, so am I.
(16:21):
She said, do you know, Jay, you could possibly end
up in hell. Son. Don't you do this? I said, Mama,
I don't care where I end up at, just as
long as I can get rid of this pain. Many
times people don't understand individuals who struggle with suicide or
suicidal thoughts. It's because in their mind they think they're
(16:42):
trying to end their life. But we're just trying to
end pain. But you end your life in the process
of ending the pain, because to live it's painful. So
I get off the phone. My mom is crying. I
hang up. I said, man, f this, I'm done. And
(17:07):
I went in there and took every pill that was
in that cabinet and went in the bedroom and just
laid down underneath the bed and out. Don't remember anything.
All I remember is I don't know if I was
(17:28):
unconscious or not. I just remember standing between a dark
place and I can see the darkness and I can
see myself, so it's like two worlds. And I can
hear the voice of God saying, you gotta make a decision.
And I can remember God speaking to me saying, but
(17:51):
you gotta give this to me, and I'm saying to him,
I don't want to give this to him, because I
don't know what you're gonna do with it. Again, I
don't know whether I was unconscious when this is happening.
By it, this is happening while after I took the pills,
and my godmother finds me the next day, because I
(18:14):
never came out of the room. And when she came
and found me, like, I have no idea how I
survived this, because there's number of people that have odd
off pills and painkillers and different things and have never
woken up. And I come back to consciousness, I have
(18:38):
no idea what is going on? And she was like,
what did you do? What? She was just taken aback
and I told her, I said, I took all of
these pills because I don't want to be here. And
I just remember her saying, Jay, why would you do
this in my house? And I remember that day. Man,
(19:01):
look at my godmother like, man, I don't think you know. Man,
it's pain. I'm only giving you parts of the story. Man,
it's just the abuse, the rejection. I had a aunt,
(19:22):
aunt Bessie, that devil lived to be about ninety five
years old. I don't know why devils live a long time.
Lady was a devil. Man. I'm bestied in like dark
skinned kids. And my parents sent me to the family reunion.
(19:44):
They didn't go. They sent me with my aunt and uncle.
Nobody defended from me, and Bessie had a feel day
with my little black behind. I was as you to
see chocolate brother. So it was a chocolate kid and
growing up in Mississippi to a fair skinned lady who
(20:06):
hated dark skinned children. And this stays with me because
oftentimes people are like, oh my god, you're so handsome,
so beautiful, and you're hearing it from me. I don't
see what people see. I'm just being honest. I just don't.
And here's why. And I shared this story with my
(20:26):
godmother because I had one encounter after another that would
cause men to any emotional pain that would scar you.
So by the time I was thirty one, I felt
like I lived to be fifty because it was just
compounded pain. So we at the family reunion house full
(20:48):
of kids, everybody's eating pizza. I grabbed my piece. If
Bessie said, you're gonna sit your black ass right out
there with Penny. You can't eat in my house. I'm
eight years old, and I said, huh. She said, you
cannot bring your black ass in my house. Sit out
(21:11):
there with Penny. Penny was a dog, Penny was midnight black.
I can still see the little boy today sitting on
the step eating the piece. And nobody came and said, bestI,
you're wrong. And I set out there ate my piece,
(21:31):
and I was crying because I couldn't understand what was happening.
And I also couldn't understand why nobody said anything. So
when people asked me about my healing journey, and when
they asked me about the way that I speak in
the passions, because I've lived it, and I've lived the
(21:55):
pain of experiencing rejection and abandon and not understanding why.
And so when that happened, and I'm telling my god
mother in real time, I said, nobody likes a dark
skinned man, and she says, Jaye, what are you talking about.
My dad's fair skinned. I always felt either like me.
(22:18):
So when he said here we go again, trigger trigger, trigger,
trigger trigger. So when he says that, I hear Bessie,
I hear my stepdad beating me. I hear all of
these different events because most of the times we're suffering
because of memories. And that's why if you don't get healing,
(22:44):
the memory will continue to continue, continual, continuously to cause
more anguish and pain. So my journey to being where
I'm at today forty two because I survived, has been
a journey that I am happy to share with others
because it wasn't easy because to heal the man, I
(23:10):
also had to go back and rescue the eight year
old boy that Bessie told. And I'm telling you it,
I neverget when Idris, a close friend of mine, used
to manage Idris, and I never get when Idris did
Daddy's girl and all of a sudden, you know, he
was like this, you know phenomenon, right, this dark skinned
(23:32):
brother who had a role that wasn't a villain, he
was a dad, and all of a sudden that he
was everywhere, and all of a sudden, like dark skinned
men were back in and it was just like, I
was like, this is crazy. Like I remember this white lady,
it was like, oh my god, you're so beautiful. And
black women's like my gud could never hear that because
I never stop hearing Bessie, sit your black ass out
(23:53):
there on that step. So I'm sharing this because I
want my podcast to be not just a place where
we come and talk, but I want it to be
a place where we come and unpack, a place where
(24:14):
there's deep introspection, moments of reflexivity, moments of processing, but
then there's an opportunity to free yourself because the reality
of it is, no one is coming to save you.
(24:38):
And my godmother said to me, you cannot live in
my house if you don't go to therapy. You've got
to get some help. Now, I don't know if a
lot of people will get the opportunity to have the
godmother that I have to advocate for me, because most
of us are trying to advocate for ourselves, because how
(25:01):
do you advocate for you when you don't have an
agency of advocacy. Many of us don't come from environments
that are encouraging us to become better. In fact, the
pain is perpetuated through what we see on a day
(25:22):
to day basis. So what I'm hoping is that through
just here with doctor j this podcast, the interviews, and
the things that you would hear me share, and just
this moment of not transparency. This was a moment of
vulnerability because I don't know what you'd do with what
(25:43):
I share. Transparency is what I share that I'm okay with,
you know, as suicide. But vulnerability is telling you what
Bessie did at eight because somebody's father see this. Oh
I knew there was something about him, like you know,
but when you understand that your vulnerability is your superpower
(26:10):
and that you're okay with what you're releasing. No one
can ever hold you hostage with what you release because
it no longer holds me hostage. I'm not behind bars
with Bessie. Does it come to my mind often? Absolutely,
Even at forty two years old, I still hear Bessie.
I still say that devil lived a long time. It's like,
(26:33):
why couldn't my grandmother live to be ninety five? I
love my grandmother. My grandmother lived to be like I
think eighty, and Bessie outlived her, and I'm just like, how,
But you know, you hear that often devils live a
long time. But Bessie suffered in a lot of years.
And I'm not saying she suffered because of what she
did to me, but it wasn't a good life or
(26:57):
towards the end. But I'm hoping that you have a
good life beyond whatever your experience is. And I'm hoping
that this podcast provide a channel of relief, also provide
an outlet, provide space, and provide perspective. So I just
(27:24):
wanted to sit down and kind of give you my
story how I got here, my Healing journey has been
ten plus years. Some of you have come to know
me through the jessel bro book, through the tour, through
my speaking engagement. Some of my clips have gone viral.
Some of you, this is the first time you're meeting me.
This is the first time that you're hearing of doctor J. Barnett.
(27:46):
I didn't just pop up today with an honorary doctorate.
This was earned. I'm a licensed family therapist. I did
the work and I'm still doing the work. But I'm
hoping you take the journey to join on this community
by subscribing to Just Heal Doctor J and you begin
doing the work because the answer lies within you. And
(28:10):
the reason the answer lies within you because everything we need,
God has already placing us. We just have to choose it,
because healing is a choice. So I just wanted to
sit down and just chop it up with you. Would
share a little bit about who I am, and I'm
hoping that this podcast breeze life. This podcast, we will
(28:37):
not discuss current topics. We will have deep conversation with
individuals that will provide healing. Through that dialogue, some of
them will get healing just through the conversation. You will
meet everyday people that are navigating their healing journey. And
I'm excited about this opportunity to share and to lend
(28:59):
my voice. It's across the country and across the many
different channels that social media has allowed us, and with
black effect and iHeart media, I'm excited about this opportunity.
So again, I'm doctor j Barnett, mental health expert, and
(29:21):
thank you for tuning in to Just Heal with Doctor Jake.
And remember, healing is a journey. I really mean that
it's a journey. Some days you will feel like it
is some days you want. However, wholeness is the destination
(29:41):
and that's what I'm hoping that you can aspire to.
I want to ask you what does healing mean? What
does healing mean to me? You know what I've always wanted.
This is easy for me. It's one word freedom. I've
always wanted the emotion freedom. I cannot remember at any
(30:05):
time in my life that I've ever been happy ever,
And I've had some great moments that people look at,
Are you not happy at that moment? No? No, No,
I've had great games. I've got championship rings, i got
my college jersey, retired I've got some accolades that a
(30:28):
lot of men were like, Yo, man, I wish I
could have done some things like that. None of that
stuff made me happy. I've always desired to be free
in my emotions, and I've always desired to be free
in the way that I felt because I didn't have
a voice as a kid. My dad left. Man like
everything felt on me. Like I was working at fourteen
(30:52):
to help my mom out. My childhood was robbed. I
didn't have a teenage life. So I've never been able
to just be so, whether it was being on for
my sisters or being on for my mother. So for me,
healing is freedom. It's being liberated from the things that
(31:15):
have once caused pain and the things that has once
held you captive. So for me, healing is a liberation.
Last question, what would you tell that eight year old boy? Oh,
I would tell that eight year old boy, They're gonna
love you. At forty two, Man, they gonna love you.
(31:35):
I would tell that eight year old boy, Man, you're
the most beautiful thing man I've ever seen. Boys don't
hear that beautiful. And I'm not talking about aesthetically and
from a visual but just they're the essence of their being.
(31:55):
I was a very precocious kid, very aware. You know.
My parents knew that I was gifted, which is what
people see today, because you can't become what you are not,
and my family sees who I am, and they saw
(32:16):
this because I was speaking to two and three hundred
people at the age of nine at one time. My
parents incomes through my speaking as a nine to ten
year old feenom young preacher. So when I look back
at the eight year old boy, I have an understanding
(32:39):
now of why he went through great pain, because great
calling comes with great pain. Anyone that God has chosen
to do something great. Man. I hate to say it, man,
but that pain is something that you cannot avoid. But
I would say to that eight year old boy, is
(32:59):
that the value you hold? You have no idea, But
if you keep going, which I did, you'll see the
beauty and who you're going to become. And I will
also tell her they old boy. Man, I'm proud of you. Man. Man,
I'm proud of you because when my parents advoice, everybody
(33:24):
called my mother and told her he's going to jail Mary.
Because everybody knew how much I loved my father. They
knew how much. They was like, oh yeah, he ain't
gonna make it. And out of fifty six grandchildren that
my grandmother had, there's only one doctor. And here's the
(33:46):
other part of that. My grandmother used to call me
doctor J. When I was a kid. She saw it.
She used to tell everybody, y'all can say whatever y'all want,
but that boy is special. My grandmother wrote me a
letter every month in college for three years until she passed.
(34:07):
And you know what my grandmother wanted for me to
do is smile. At the end of every letter. She
used to say, smile, child. And when I look at
my degree and I see doctor J, I smile because
she saw it. And she used to send me one
hundred dollars in a letter from her social Security check.
(34:27):
It was how I paid my phone bill. My phone
bill was thirty six dollars. In college, I was on scholarships.
I had to pay for my place, I had to
pay for my phone bill. And she believed in me
like nobody. I mean, my grandmother had fifty six grandchildren.
She had eight boys and three girls, and I, like everybody,
she said, that's my favorite. She said something about this
(34:53):
kid because I was treated different than every other kid.
I was left out, I was overlooked. That's why I
relate to the story of David a Lot and Joseph.
But isn't it interesting that the cope that they hated
on became the very thing that got used to unite
(35:15):
all of the cultures together because it's a representation of
all the different cultures and languages and different barriers. And
sometimes those who are overlooked are the ones that God
has chosen. And I remember time being mad because I'm like,
I'm different, But today I'm like, I'm glad I'm different.
(35:39):
Just here over Doctor J, a production of the Black
Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. And you can follow me at King J.
Barnett on Instagram and x and follow us on YouTube.
Just here, doctor J.
Welcome to Just Heal with Doctor J, a production of
the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome to Just
Heal with Doctor J. I'm your host, Doctor J, powered
by the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. So today's
episode is a little different. It's just me talking about
(00:23):
the inception of the Just Hell bro Tour. How I
got to this space of being doctor J and just
sharing a little bit about my story and sharing about
my healing journey. About almost twelve years ago now, at
the age of thirty one, I had my second suicide attempt,
(00:46):
which was a drug overdose at my godmother's house. And
I'll kind of take a deeper dive than what I
normally have when I have spoken about that day, I
often asked what triggered it. So when my parents divorced
(01:07):
at the age of thirteen, my dad not only divorced
my mom, but you know, he divorced us and me,
being his only son, I felt that my world had
had come crashing down because my father was everything to me,
phenomenal athlete, phenomenal pastor. The man is singing, Oh my god, man,
(01:29):
my dad can sing. And I love to hear my
dad sing and love to hear and preach. But when
my parents divorce, I found myself without a role model,
without an example, without somebody that I looked up to,
and the man that I looked up to I no
longer looked two and not knowing that when I fell
(01:53):
into a depression, that it was a depression at the
age of thirteen. Growing up in the south of Mississippi,
you know, no one knows what mental health is. No
one knows what depression is. In fact, they called it
the Monday morning blues. I often heard the elders talking about, Oh,
that boy has the blues, or he has the blues.
(02:16):
Little did I know I had the blues at the
age of thirteen, and that blues wouldn't be identified until
I was in my late twenties and early thirties. And
being a kid who was the oldest, who felt that
I had to protect, that I had to look out
for my sisters and mothers. I became a surrogate father
(02:38):
to my sisters and at times a surrogate husband because
my mother looked to me for strength. I knew God
at an early age, so my mom looked to me
to pray to cover her thirteen years old, operating in
the role of a man while still trying to be
the little boy. And football was everything to me. Football
(03:04):
was how I cope. It was my safe place. It
was the place that I allowed myself to roam because
I can put that helmet on and I can be anybody.
I mean, you can put that helmet on, man, and
you can just turn into a monster. And the thing
about football, you can't be reprimanded for the pain that
(03:26):
you dish out. So for me, it was a place
that I was able to just release all of the anger,
the anguish, the bitterness, to just the pain of my
father leaving. Because I couldn't believe that my father left
my mother after fifteen years of marriage. Couldn't lead that
(03:49):
my father left his family after fifteen years of marriage.
That was hard for me, and I spent the majority
of my adolescent years trying to find myself. So my
mom remarried a guy, my stepfather, and the day that
he came home, and you know, she was like, Hey,
(04:09):
he's moving in, and I get it because she didn't
want to raise three kids by herself. And they began
dating and later got married, and when they got married,
he became very physically abusive towards me. He wanted to
show me that he was a man of the house.
(04:30):
I remember one day I was walking around the house
with my shirt off. He's like, only one man walking
around his house with shirt off, that's me. It's like,
all right, okay, dude, you know just I You know,
I fourteen years old kid, So it's like, you know,
every fourteen year old boy walking around the house his
shirt off. So one day he grabbed me by my
(04:53):
neck and choked me until I passed out in front
of my sister. And my sister that scared her because
they didn't know if I was dead or alive, because
if they called it putting you to sleep. And I
wake up and I'm looking up at him and not
knowing what happened. I just remember him choking me in
and I'm blacking out. And I had a close friend
(05:16):
that I had begun sharing like how my stepfather treated me,
and just you know what he would do to me
at night, coming in the room, beating on me and
telling me how much he's going to make me a man.
All of these things really drove me to a very
dark place to where I began contemplating suicide at the
age of fourteen. So I later moved into the house
(05:40):
with my friends, which was a white family, the mar
family that took me in, and I didn't want to
go back home, so I lived with him for the
past two years of my high school years. And I
fast forward a little bit, I moved in with them.
I resented my mother, and not because of her decision
(06:03):
of who she chose and married, but I resented her
because I wanted my mother to identify me, even in
her own pain. And today, at forty two years old,
I can look back and say I can understand why
she didn't see me her son and pain because she
(06:24):
was trying to navigate through her own pain. And I
think there are times when we don't understand why our
parents make decisions. But I think as we age and mature,
it doesn't change the decision that they made, and it
doesn't change the impact that it had on our lives
at that time. But I think when you look introspectively,
(06:46):
introspectively it allows you to look with a lens of grace.
And grace doesn't mean it didn't happen. Grace means that
what you once felt, you don't allow it to whole
weight to what happened, and it took time to get
through that. And I went on to college and played football,
(07:08):
had a great collegiate career, and then became a free
agent and spent you know, a couple of years in
Arena League. And after things ended with football, I found
myself lost because again, football gave me identity, it gave
me belonging. And any man that's been in the locker room,
(07:31):
whether it's basketball, football, baseball, soccer, I don't care what
it's sport it is, every man would tell you when
it's over. It's not the sport we miss. It's the
camaraderie that we miss, because for most men, it is
the only time that they would get to experience what
being in a family is like. It is the only
(07:54):
time that they would be seen. It's the only time
that they're going to feel encourage, that they want to
feel love from their coaches, from their teammates, and for
many of us young men, it's the only time many
of us have had a consistent male voice or male
figure in our lives. So I didn't know what to
do because I'm like, how do I navigate in the
(08:17):
real world in life? Because I was so used to men,
and not just these coaches patting me on the back.
I was used to men being a support system, and
that's what makes it difficult for men to navigate this
life mentally and emotionally, is when we don't have the
support of male camaraderie. I'm grateful for black women. I'm
(08:42):
grateful for the sisters that undergird and support me. Every
last one of my managers that been black women. Publishers
have been black women. Black women have always supported the
work that I've done, but more than enough. I'm often
looking or for At that time, was looking for male
guidance because I didn't know how to be a man.
(09:05):
My father left when he was thirteen, so I had
no idea what that was like. And my first suicide
attempt came at twenty two twenty three when I the
packers brought me up to work out, and I had
been a few times and and Ted Thompson was someone restless,
(09:30):
God rest his soul. He's no longer here. But I,
you know, was just trying to figure out, you know,
when they didn't sign me, and then it's like, hey,
we'll bring it back for bring it back as a
camp body back then, you know, uh, you know, they
will sending the NFL Europe and they was like, well,
(09:53):
go play Arena League. And I did that and did well,
and I just found myself, man, just feeling like, you know,
you feel like you just toss around. You don't feel
value because you go from being whether you're a star
player or not. You go from being a significant role
player in whatever system that you in in the collegiate sport,
(10:17):
and then when you're in the pros man you just
trying to find out where you fit in. And especially
if you're not drafting and you're free agent, you're just
trying to get in and stick. So I got brought
in for a couple of coffee and it's just like
and it had nothing to do without didn't perform where
they told me you did. You perform where you did
everything with acts. It's just you don't fit the system.
You didn't fit. At that time, they were still wanting
(10:39):
bigger running backs and I wasn't that big back, you know,
And so them telling me that it wasn't that I
couldn't play football, I heard something different. I heard my
father not warning me. And this is the thing about trauma.
(11:03):
When you have not processed it everything sounds like the
pain that you experience. So though they were, you know,
sending me home, it was as if Dad was leaving
all over again, because it felt like rejection, though it
wasn't that. And my first suicide attempt happened after that
(11:25):
because I was dating a young lady and she was like, well,
what are you gonna do? Now? You're not gonna play.
They're not gonna sign you. You know what I mean,
what are you gonna do? I'm gonna go pursue my career. Man,
that broke me once again. I didn't. I had no support,
and life went on and I kind of found a
way to just kind of muscle through. I was slit
(11:46):
my wrists the first time, and I didn't really want
to die, but I didn't want to be here, if
that makes sense. Sometimes there's this oxymoranic thoughts that we
had when you battle with suicidal ideation. You don't like life,
(12:11):
but you're just trying to find out a way to
live without the pain, and you find yourself existing. And
so I did that. I just exist for the number
of years, and at thirty one, I got into a
argument with my father and I was just at a
place where I was just you know, I was just
(12:33):
turning thirty one and just trying to figure life out.
You know, I felt a shift happening within my body
internally at thirty and you know, I didn't know what
that was, but I felt myself wanting more, but I
didn't know what more looked like. And we get into
this argument and it's called with he and my mother,
(12:53):
and I'm kind of talking about it. From my experience
is that man, you don't call me. I feel like
I'm out here alone. I'm living in Houston, just trying
to figure it out. I have no males that are
like checking on me. I got seven uncles, Like I'm
just really crying out for help. And he says to me,
here we go again. And it made me pause because
(13:22):
I'm trying to really grasp I'm your son. What do
you mean? Here we go again? Here we go again.
This is a depression thing and all this like, you know,
you got to get over this divorce thing. You know,
this is old and that happened years ago, no matter
if it's something has happened ten years or fifteen twenty years.
When pain happens and when you experience it in the
(13:48):
manner that you experience it. It can leave a mark
on you that no amount of washing powder, no amount
of bleach, no amount of anything that get can get
that stain out, because that's what it feels like, feels
like a stain that you can't remove. And when he
(14:08):
said that, I was triggered immediately and say, you know what, man,
I'm sick of this dude. And I was living with
my godmother and you'll see her in some future episodes
and we'll get to sit down and talk about our journey.
My godmother's white. So I'm living with my godmother and
she had me move in with her because again I'm
(14:30):
trying to figure my life out. She's like, hey, you
need to stay with me until you can get yourself together.
And I'm in the kitchen and when my dad says
is I tell my mom? And I said, this is
the last time that y'all want to hear from me.
And that night, I made up my mind. I was
going to take my life. Now. I was considerate because
(14:53):
I live with my godmother, so I couldn't shoot myself
because I didn't want her to find a mess. I
could not leave her with that scene. So I overdose
on pills that I was taking for back pain for
a back injury that I had in football. I had
(15:15):
injured my L four and L five. I had a
bulging herniated disc. So I took hydro Codon. I took
what was it? It was a medication that a lot
of athletes, Uh, it'll come to me that we take.
(15:37):
It's like an ib profen, It'll come back to me.
But it was like advill talanol. It was man like.
It was like six different medications. Nice. It was a
bunch of pills, and most of it was for pain.
(15:59):
Because again, and I wasn't somebody who was addicted to
the man's But I knew what to do in order
to leave silently, so I get off the fall. My
mother says to me that night, Jay, Please don't do this.
My mother says to me, She says, if you take
your life, Jay, A mother's a believer, so am I.
(16:21):
She said, do you know, Jay, you could possibly end
up in hell. Son. Don't you do this? I said, Mama,
I don't care where I end up at, just as
long as I can get rid of this pain. Many
times people don't understand individuals who struggle with suicide or
suicidal thoughts. It's because in their mind they think they're
(16:42):
trying to end their life. But we're just trying to
end pain. But you end your life in the process
of ending the pain, because to live it's painful. So
I get off the phone. My mom is crying. I
hang up. I said, man, f this, I'm done. And
(17:07):
I went in there and took every pill that was
in that cabinet and went in the bedroom and just
laid down underneath the bed and out. Don't remember anything.
All I remember is I don't know if I was
(17:28):
unconscious or not. I just remember standing between a dark
place and I can see the darkness and I can
see myself, so it's like two worlds. And I can
hear the voice of God saying, you gotta make a decision.
And I can remember God speaking to me saying, but
(17:51):
you gotta give this to me, and I'm saying to him,
I don't want to give this to him, because I
don't know what you're gonna do with it. Again, I
don't know whether I was unconscious when this is happening.
By it, this is happening while after I took the pills,
and my godmother finds me the next day, because I
(18:14):
never came out of the room. And when she came
and found me, like, I have no idea how I
survived this, because there's number of people that have odd
off pills and painkillers and different things and have never
woken up. And I come back to consciousness, I have
(18:38):
no idea what is going on? And she was like,
what did you do? What? She was just taken aback
and I told her, I said, I took all of
these pills because I don't want to be here. And
I just remember her saying, Jay, why would you do
this in my house? And I remember that day. Man,
(19:01):
look at my godmother like, man, I don't think you know. Man,
it's pain. I'm only giving you parts of the story. Man,
it's just the abuse, the rejection. I had a aunt,
(19:22):
aunt Bessie, that devil lived to be about ninety five
years old. I don't know why devils live a long time.
Lady was a devil. Man. I'm bestied in like dark
skinned kids. And my parents sent me to the family reunion.
(19:44):
They didn't go. They sent me with my aunt and uncle.
Nobody defended from me, and Bessie had a feel day
with my little black behind. I was as you to
see chocolate brother. So it was a chocolate kid and
growing up in Mississippi to a fair skinned lady who
(20:06):
hated dark skinned children. And this stays with me because
oftentimes people are like, oh my god, you're so handsome,
so beautiful, and you're hearing it from me. I don't
see what people see. I'm just being honest. I just don't.
And here's why. And I shared this story with my
(20:26):
godmother because I had one encounter after another that would
cause men to any emotional pain that would scar you.
So by the time I was thirty one, I felt
like I lived to be fifty because it was just
compounded pain. So we at the family reunion house full
(20:48):
of kids, everybody's eating pizza. I grabbed my piece. If
Bessie said, you're gonna sit your black ass right out
there with Penny. You can't eat in my house. I'm
eight years old, and I said, huh. She said, you
cannot bring your black ass in my house. Sit out
(21:11):
there with Penny. Penny was a dog, Penny was midnight black.
I can still see the little boy today sitting on
the step eating the piece. And nobody came and said, bestI,
you're wrong. And I set out there ate my piece,
(21:31):
and I was crying because I couldn't understand what was happening.
And I also couldn't understand why nobody said anything. So
when people asked me about my healing journey, and when
they asked me about the way that I speak in
the passions, because I've lived it, and I've lived the
(21:55):
pain of experiencing rejection and abandon and not understanding why.
And so when that happened, and I'm telling my god
mother in real time, I said, nobody likes a dark
skinned man, and she says, Jaye, what are you talking about.
My dad's fair skinned. I always felt either like me.
(22:18):
So when he said here we go again, trigger trigger, trigger,
trigger trigger. So when he says that, I hear Bessie,
I hear my stepdad beating me. I hear all of
these different events because most of the times we're suffering
because of memories. And that's why if you don't get healing,
(22:44):
the memory will continue to continue, continual, continuously to cause
more anguish and pain. So my journey to being where
I'm at today forty two because I survived, has been
a journey that I am happy to share with others
because it wasn't easy because to heal the man, I
(23:10):
also had to go back and rescue the eight year
old boy that Bessie told. And I'm telling you it,
I neverget when Idris, a close friend of mine, used
to manage Idris, and I never get when Idris did
Daddy's girl and all of a sudden, you know, he
was like this, you know phenomenon, right, this dark skinned
(23:32):
brother who had a role that wasn't a villain, he
was a dad, and all of a sudden that he
was everywhere, and all of a sudden, like dark skinned
men were back in and it was just like, I
was like, this is crazy. Like I remember this white lady,
it was like, oh my god, you're so beautiful. And
black women's like my gud could never hear that because
I never stop hearing Bessie, sit your black ass out
(23:53):
there on that step. So I'm sharing this because I
want my podcast to be not just a place where
we come and talk, but I want it to be
a place where we come and unpack, a place where
(24:14):
there's deep introspection, moments of reflexivity, moments of processing, but
then there's an opportunity to free yourself because the reality
of it is, no one is coming to save you.
(24:38):
And my godmother said to me, you cannot live in
my house if you don't go to therapy. You've got
to get some help. Now, I don't know if a
lot of people will get the opportunity to have the
godmother that I have to advocate for me, because most
of us are trying to advocate for ourselves, because how
(25:01):
do you advocate for you when you don't have an
agency of advocacy. Many of us don't come from environments
that are encouraging us to become better. In fact, the
pain is perpetuated through what we see on a day
(25:22):
to day basis. So what I'm hoping is that through
just here with doctor j this podcast, the interviews, and
the things that you would hear me share, and just
this moment of not transparency. This was a moment of
vulnerability because I don't know what you'd do with what
(25:43):
I share. Transparency is what I share that I'm okay with,
you know, as suicide. But vulnerability is telling you what
Bessie did at eight because somebody's father see this. Oh
I knew there was something about him, like you know,
but when you understand that your vulnerability is your superpower
(26:10):
and that you're okay with what you're releasing. No one
can ever hold you hostage with what you release because
it no longer holds me hostage. I'm not behind bars
with Bessie. Does it come to my mind often? Absolutely,
Even at forty two years old, I still hear Bessie.
I still say that devil lived a long time. It's like,
(26:33):
why couldn't my grandmother live to be ninety five? I
love my grandmother. My grandmother lived to be like I
think eighty, and Bessie outlived her, and I'm just like, how,
But you know, you hear that often devils live a
long time. But Bessie suffered in a lot of years.
And I'm not saying she suffered because of what she
did to me, but it wasn't a good life or
(26:57):
towards the end. But I'm hoping that you have a
good life beyond whatever your experience is. And I'm hoping
that this podcast provide a channel of relief, also provide
an outlet, provide space, and provide perspective. So I just
(27:24):
wanted to sit down and kind of give you my
story how I got here, my Healing journey has been
ten plus years. Some of you have come to know
me through the jessel bro book, through the tour, through
my speaking engagement. Some of my clips have gone viral.
Some of you, this is the first time you're meeting me.
This is the first time that you're hearing of doctor J. Barnett.
(27:46):
I didn't just pop up today with an honorary doctorate.
This was earned. I'm a licensed family therapist. I did
the work and I'm still doing the work. But I'm
hoping you take the journey to join on this community
by subscribing to Just Heal Doctor J and you begin
doing the work because the answer lies within you. And
(28:10):
the reason the answer lies within you because everything we need,
God has already placing us. We just have to choose it,
because healing is a choice. So I just wanted to
sit down and just chop it up with you. Would
share a little bit about who I am, and I'm
hoping that this podcast breeze life. This podcast, we will
(28:37):
not discuss current topics. We will have deep conversation with
individuals that will provide healing. Through that dialogue, some of
them will get healing just through the conversation. You will
meet everyday people that are navigating their healing journey. And
I'm excited about this opportunity to share and to lend
(28:59):
my voice. It's across the country and across the many
different channels that social media has allowed us, and with
black effect and iHeart media, I'm excited about this opportunity.
So again, I'm doctor j Barnett, mental health expert, and
(29:21):
thank you for tuning in to Just Heal with Doctor Jake.
And remember, healing is a journey. I really mean that
it's a journey. Some days you will feel like it
is some days you want. However, wholeness is the destination
(29:41):
and that's what I'm hoping that you can aspire to.
I want to ask you what does healing mean? What
does healing mean to me? You know what I've always wanted.
This is easy for me. It's one word freedom. I've
always wanted the emotion freedom. I cannot remember at any
(30:05):
time in my life that I've ever been happy ever,
And I've had some great moments that people look at,
Are you not happy at that moment? No? No, No,
I've had great games. I've got championship rings, i got
my college jersey, retired I've got some accolades that a
(30:28):
lot of men were like, Yo, man, I wish I
could have done some things like that. None of that
stuff made me happy. I've always desired to be free
in my emotions, and I've always desired to be free
in the way that I felt because I didn't have
a voice as a kid. My dad left. Man like
everything felt on me. Like I was working at fourteen
(30:52):
to help my mom out. My childhood was robbed. I
didn't have a teenage life. So I've never been able
to just be so, whether it was being on for
my sisters or being on for my mother. So for me,
healing is freedom. It's being liberated from the things that
(31:15):
have once caused pain and the things that has once
held you captive. So for me, healing is a liberation.
Last question, what would you tell that eight year old boy? Oh,
I would tell that eight year old boy, They're gonna
love you. At forty two, Man, they gonna love you.
(31:35):
I would tell that eight year old boy, Man, you're
the most beautiful thing man I've ever seen. Boys don't
hear that beautiful. And I'm not talking about aesthetically and
from a visual but just they're the essence of their being.
(31:55):
I was a very precocious kid, very aware. You know.
My parents knew that I was gifted, which is what
people see today, because you can't become what you are not,
and my family sees who I am, and they saw
(32:16):
this because I was speaking to two and three hundred
people at the age of nine at one time. My
parents incomes through my speaking as a nine to ten
year old feenom young preacher. So when I look back
at the eight year old boy, I have an understanding
(32:39):
now of why he went through great pain, because great
calling comes with great pain. Anyone that God has chosen
to do something great. Man. I hate to say it, man,
but that pain is something that you cannot avoid. But
I would say to that eight year old boy, is
(32:59):
that the value you hold? You have no idea, But
if you keep going, which I did, you'll see the
beauty and who you're going to become. And I will
also tell her they old boy. Man, I'm proud of you. Man. Man,
I'm proud of you because when my parents advoice, everybody
(33:24):
called my mother and told her he's going to jail Mary.
Because everybody knew how much I loved my father. They
knew how much. They was like, oh yeah, he ain't
gonna make it. And out of fifty six grandchildren that
my grandmother had, there's only one doctor. And here's the
(33:46):
other part of that. My grandmother used to call me
doctor J. When I was a kid. She saw it.
She used to tell everybody, y'all can say whatever y'all want,
but that boy is special. My grandmother wrote me a
letter every month in college for three years until she passed.
(34:07):
And you know what my grandmother wanted for me to
do is smile. At the end of every letter. She
used to say, smile, child. And when I look at
my degree and I see doctor J, I smile because
she saw it. And she used to send me one
hundred dollars in a letter from her social Security check.
(34:27):
It was how I paid my phone bill. My phone
bill was thirty six dollars. In college, I was on scholarships.
I had to pay for my place, I had to
pay for my phone bill. And she believed in me
like nobody. I mean, my grandmother had fifty six grandchildren.
She had eight boys and three girls, and I, like everybody,
she said, that's my favorite. She said something about this
(34:53):
kid because I was treated different than every other kid.
I was left out, I was overlooked. That's why I
relate to the story of David a Lot and Joseph.
But isn't it interesting that the cope that they hated
on became the very thing that got used to unite
(35:15):
all of the cultures together because it's a representation of
all the different cultures and languages and different barriers. And
sometimes those who are overlooked are the ones that God
has chosen. And I remember time being mad because I'm like,
I'm different, But today I'm like, I'm glad I'm different.
(35:39):
Just here over Doctor J, a production of the Black
Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. And you can follow me at King J.
Barnett on Instagram and x and follow us on YouTube.
Just here, doctor J.
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com