May 19, 2023 • 39 mins
As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, Ray Roberts continues where he left off in episode 1 as he shares his mental health journey. Stay tuned for episodes 3 and 4 featuring Cliff Avril and Doug Baldwin, coming later this month.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Big Raised Garage Grind. I want to
bring awareness and my voice to something that's meaningful and
purposeful more than just who's the best football player, who's
the best football team? The intersection between life, football and
mental health. When you need help and you ask for help,
you're operating from a position of power. When you need
(00:21):
help and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness.
Now here's your host, Seahawk's Leason Ray Roberts. What's up, fam?
Welcome back to the episode two of Big Rays Garage
Grind Mental Health Edition, and the conversation continues with my
guys Mike and Mike talking about my journey through the
NFL and the impact on my mental health and how
(00:43):
I dealt.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
With have this nice career, nine years, ten training camps,
been through some battles, even got a couple of receptions
off this alignment with some global receptions. Some yack after
that and life after football? Man, what is that like?
I think a lot of guys really don't realize how
hard that transition is from being a dude on every
(01:05):
Sunday that's relied upon to all right, what do I
do now?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Well, that's a good way to start at Mike, because
retiring is hard, Like this is like one of the
only sports where you don't normally retire at your own will.
It's something an injury or you get cut or you know,
something like that. And for me, I had had two
knee surgeries. I had a plate and ten screws, and
(01:29):
my leg and a screw and my ankle, like all
this stuff that I'd had over my career, broken all
my fingers and all this stuff, and it just got
to the point where man, I was hurting. In training camp,
I was hurting, and so I would get to the
training room. They had an intern they assigned to me.
I get to the training room at about six o'clock
in the morning just to get my body warmed up
(01:49):
to practice the first practice in training camp. And then
after that practice, I would get on the golf cart
to get back to the locker room because I just
couldn't walk back to the locker room. And so I
did this whole dance song and dance for all the
training camp that that last year, and then I went
we played I think Cincinnati in a preseason game, and
(02:11):
we were having training camp up in Saginaw, Michigan. Which
is maybe like a two three hour maybe a two
hour drive from Detroit. And dude, I could not get
out of my bed after the thing we played on
like a Thursday or Friday, and we had to be
back up in Sagonaw the next day. I couldn't even
get out of the bed to get to my car drive.
I'm just stuck in the bed. Just to put my
feet on the ground. Made my whole entire body hurt.
(02:34):
And so I finally made it back up there, you know,
like you know, you guys are familiar with me coming
in hot. So I'm flying up the up to Saginaw
and coming in hot because I'm running late to everything,
and I go right to our team doctors, and I'm
just like, yo, man, like I don't know. My body
is hurting, like you know, and I need something, like
(02:56):
my knees are hurting. And so they're like, well, if you,
if we, you know, take some pictures of your knees
and stuff like that, you know, maybe we can, you know,
give you some pain medicine and all this other kind stuff.
You're probably gonna if you keep playing, you're probably gonna
have to need replacement all this stuff. And I'm thinking
like wow, like that's not what I thought they were
gonna say. Yeah, And and so long story short, I
(03:17):
just got like this bottle of Viking and it was
just like if you need more, you know, come back
and get it. And so my middle son, Slade, was
still just a kid yet, hadn't had my third son yet.
And I started thinking that night in my room like, man,
if I get addicted this stuff addiction runs in my family,
that I'm never gonna be able to just toss the
(03:37):
ball with my son, like like I'll just be this
broken down body that can't do anything. And so I
called this is at the night before the first practice
after the first preseason game, I called Matt Millan and
Marty marningwag who's the head coach at the time, and
Matt Millan was a GM AND president, and I said, hey, man,
I think I'm going to retire. And they said, well,
what do you mean you think you're going to retire?
And I said, well, if I'm on the line at
(03:58):
eight o'clock in the morning, then I probably didn't sleep
well with my decision. So I'm gonna keep playing. But
if I'm not on the line at eight o'clock, in
the morning, you may never see me again. And I
slept until noon, got in my car, packed it up,
hit the horn going past the football field practice field.
Been back to Detroit one time.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Did somebody wave when you hit the horn?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Robert Porchet defensive man, because he's the only one that
kind of knew that I was dealing with, because he
and I were like team captains. And so I'm just
like Mike, I just don't know if I mean, uh, Rob,
I don't know if I can uh, if I can
keep doing this, you know, and uh and so yeah,
so I left the left the pills, left everything and
just went home. And then and then uh, after retirement. Man,
(04:40):
it was an unbelievable battle. Like just depressive, the just
depression just set in, Like didn't really kind of know
who I was and what value I brought to anybody.
And I always prided myself on being like the smartest
dude in the room. Of course, you know, went to Virginia,
so we think we're the Ivy League of the public schools,
and so I always felt like I was the smartest
dude in the room. I was prepared, and then I
(05:01):
wasn't you know, and so here I would just get
from the bed to the couch, the couch, back to
the bed, watch sports center, go back to the couch,
go back to the bed. That's all I was doing.
And uh, and you know, my wife at the time
didn't know what to do, didn't We didn't have all
these resources that guys have now. And I found myself
in the room, pillow over my head, closing all the
(05:24):
blinds in the middle of the days, just dark as
I can get it, and just sleeping all day long
and not knowing what to do or how to do
it or whatever. And I heard my son's probably slave
at the time. It was my middle son, little kid,
and I heard him tell my wife at the time,
I just want my dad back. And then it just
(05:46):
something about that just kind of got me going again.
So I got up, and believe it or not, I
was reading newspaper. Nowadays, no one does that, And and
there was this article in there about this master's program
at the University of Washington for if you want to
be an athletic director. But there's a lot of things
within the in the course that I think I was
drawn to, like diversity, ecuent inclusion, people have access to education,
(06:09):
like all that kind of stuff. Wasn't really looking to
be an athletic director, and so I'm like, I'm gonna
go do that and so uh and so that's what
I did. That's what kind of got me up and going.
But the depression and stuff never really went away. I
just found my own ways to manage it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I guess what, did you know that you were dealing
with depression at the time, or did you just think
that you're just in a funk and somehow, some way
I'm gonna climb out of it. Then you see this
program and that was your way of getting out.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, so yeah, I would not have at the time.
I would not have been telling people like, yeah I was.
I was tougher with depression. I just I thought I
was weak. I thought, like, man, like, just get your
ass up and go do something, you know, like like
why can't you get up? Like why are you stuck on?
Like I thought I was just stuck on like like
you know, football is over, Oh my god, Like it's
like you just lost like your best friend or whatever.
(06:55):
And uh, and I just couldn't And I was thinking
I couldn't have a life outside of football, you know what.
I'm say, and so there's something about me being weak
and all that, and so then that made it even
worse because it's like, I'm not a week dude. I've
accompted a lot of things. I've come from, like some
crazy you know life, and you know, built myself into
this person. I've been places no one has ever been before,
and all these other kinds of things. But I could not.
(07:16):
It was like I was in a wet paper bag.
I just could not fight my way out of it.
It's like it was just sticking to me everywhere. And
so it came across more as like what the hell
is wrong with me more than it does like somebody
tell me I was. I was suffering depression like I
never not at that time. I didn't go anywhere to
get any medication or anything like that. It was just
(07:38):
like I was just trying to power muscle through it
like you have like you're trained to do as an athlete,
like if lift more weights. I remember going to the gym,
I'm just like, well, I'll just keep lifting. I'm like retired,
I'm still bench pressing like five hundred pounds, and I'm
like why am I doing this? Like you know what
I'm saying, but it was just trying to get back
whatever it was that I thought i'd lost that made
me who I was.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
You said you didn't really know who you were when
you were all right, which is something a lot of
athletes go through. Yeah, they've been playing the games since
they were kids, and that defines them. But you had
other roles that defined you at the time. You were
a dad, right as you mentioned you, you were a husband.
You know what you were going through affect your ability
to perform those roles.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well, I would say that there were times where my
wife would probably you know, was like managing the house
all by herself, you know, like trying to get kids
off the school, trying to We had just built this
house over in Redmond, so it's a fairly new house,
nice big house and everything, and so she was trying
to manage all of that by herself and at the
same time trying to figure out what the heck is
(08:35):
going on with me and neither one of us really
knowing what was going on or how to deal with it.
And the NFL didn't have these places you could call
into and talk to folks, and mental health wasn't a
big movement back then, like it's like you're crazy, Like
they're gonna put you in a crazy house or something
like that. You know. So I would say that probably
for her it was really hard to see because I
(08:57):
met her in college, you know, so she knew like
this big per personality of a person that I am,
and all the things I've accomplished, and the road with
me all through the NFL and all that kind of stuff.
And now to see me not being able to get
out of the bed, you know, had to be tough.
And then when my kids are probably just too young
to know, like I know that my you know, my
middle son was just like I wasn't doing a plan
(09:20):
a whole lot with them, you know what I'm saying.
I was around and stuff, I was being a good dad,
and we're doing things together. But there were just times,
I think where they could tell like, man, Dad must
be sick today, so he's not doing whatever. So I'd
just be stuck in the room, head under the pillow,
lights out. I'd take blankets and cover up the windows,
just wanted to be as dark as I could possibly
get it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You know, were there any moments along the way that
where maybe the lowest or the most difficult that you know,
told you that, like, I need to go ask for
some help.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I think at the time, we were doing like some
marriage counseling, and I mentioned it to this one dude
I was meeting with, and it just kind of I
got it wasn't the reason I was there, so it
didn't become part of the conversation. But I didn't I
didn't know what anybody could do about anything until, you know,
(10:11):
around this kind of stuff, until probably I had been retired,
So this must have been like two thousand and ten
ish is when, you know. I retired in two thousand
and one, So twenty ten I started going like, well,
maybe I should talk to someone about this stuff. And
so we're in Virginia and the dude was trying to
teach me this mindfulness stuff. I'm like, an, it ain't working,
(10:33):
Like it's not helping me. I don't know how to
do that. I just could not do it. And because
I wasn't into the medication stuff, and so then I
took some medication and not knowing that it takes a
while for it to kind of build up to start working.
So after like a couple of weeks, it didn't feel
like it was working. So I stopped taking medication. So
then I never came back to it until recently, when
(10:55):
I just hit the bottom of the bottom. You know,
in this whole journey.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
What did the bottom of the bottom look like?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, probably I've dealt with the depression off and on
since I retired, and then probably about maybe a year
and a half before the pandemic started, I started having
like these panic and anxiety attacks, and so I would
you along the way, I got divorced, so my kids
lived with their mom, and I would tell my kids
(11:25):
I'm coming over to do whatever, play video games or
hang out or go get food or whatever. And I
would start to put my clothes on and all I
would just get fixated on the doorknob and then I'm
just like, man, I'm not gonna be able to go
out this door. And that was weird. It's like, man,
what's happening? Like like why can't I just go out
the door. And so then I'd called Beth and be like, hey,
can you just tell the kids like I've got sick
(11:47):
or whatever. I can't make it because I could not
make myself go out the door. And then my chest
was like super tight, I couldn't breathe, a sweat and
all kinds of stuff and so but I just kind
of muscled through it, you know, and then I outs,
We'll say, maybe March of this year. It just all
kind of came to a head, dude, and I was
(12:10):
crying all day and night. There were times where I
didn't know what to do, but I needed to get
like some type of adrenaline rush, and I would just
could get out the door and I get in my
car and just drive and and tell this story before,
but one time I just needed this, Probably like three
or four o'clock in the morning. I got in my car,
(12:30):
windows all the windows down, music blaring, sun roof open,
and just took off on four or five north to
five North, just driving, driving, drive and driving. And then
I look up and I'm at the Canadian border and
the border was closed to like to if you weren't
commercial cars, and uh, but that's the only way I
could turn around and come back. And so I pulled
(12:53):
pulled up to the gate, and the dude was like,
what are you doing? And I'm just like, uh, this
is a weird story, dude, but I just needed to
go for and I ended up here and he goes,
where are you from. I'm like, Woodenville. He goes, what
that's at least a two hour drive, like you just
ended up here. I'm like, yeah, dude, I can't explain it,
Like I just was driving, looked up you guys were here.
And then so he'd let me go through, and then
I had to explain the same thing to the to
(13:15):
the US customs coming back through. But I would have
moments like that, and then I would have It was
really weird because I would have moments where I would
go for the drive and then I get home and
I couldn't get out my car, and so I'd just
be sitting in the car and I just fall asleep
until I could get out. And so like sometimes it'd
be if I went for a drive at four or
five in the morning, it might be seven or eight
(13:36):
in the morning when I wake up. And a few
times my neighbors were like, hey, man, you okay, Like
I saw you sleeping in the car, and I'd be like, oh,
just long trip. I just just got back home. I
was tired, just fell asleep in the car. Mind you,
my front door is maybe fifty yards from the car,
so I'm sure. They were like, Okay, something's going on
with this dude. You can't walk fifty yards to your
front door. And so I just kept having moments like that,
(13:58):
and so then one night, dude, I just completely lost it.
I was punching walls, punching the doors, I mean, fighting
the pillows, like I was just trying to do anything.
I just had this urge to throw everything out the window,
even though I didn't, but I just I just there
was so much pent up energy. And then I was
just crying and didn't know what to do, man like,
and and so I called like the NFL hotline thing,
(14:19):
and that kind of helped a little bit. That kind
of was trying to give me some direction, but it
was just too much for me to deal with at
the time. And so then the next day I tried
to get to this place in Colorado. It's a residential place,
and my insurance with Special Olympics wouldn't pay for me
to do that type of treatment outside of the state.
(14:42):
And so then I just went nuts again. And and
my ex wife Beth, to her credit, great woman, she
has shown me a tremendous amount of mercy and grace
and forgiveness. Ended up contacting Sandy Gregory, who used to
work for the Seahawks, and then Sandy knew someone into
(15:03):
NFL Trust and then they told them about this place
in Michigan, Manchester, Michigan, right outside of an arbor called
the Eisenhower Center, and they have a program called After
the Impact, which is specifically for NFL players. And so
I said, okay, well I'll go there, but if one
more thing goes wrong, then this is just going to
(15:26):
be my life for the This is who I'm going
to be. Sure enough I get to the airport. This
is like on a this is in May, so it's
like on a Thursday or Friday. They're like, how when
do you want to come. I'm like I want to
be there as soon as I can get there. They're like, okay,
we'll put you on the Red Eye on Monday. On Sunday.
I'm like, okay. Get to the airport and the ticket
(15:48):
had Ray Roberts on it, and my legal name is
Richard Ray Roberts. So the dude at the gate was like,
you're not going to get through security with this, and
I was just like, I'm like, it's on my license.
He's like yeah, but it doesn't have Richard or Ritchie
or anything on the ticket, and so this dude has
no idea what was going on. But inside of me,
(16:08):
like it was like a freaking rage in war because
I'm like, I got to get to this place. So
I pulled this dude to the side, and it took
everything not to like physically put my hands on his face,
and I just said, hey, look, man, like I need
to be on this flight, Like my life depends on
me been on this flight. So whatever you can do,
do it, just I just have to get on this flight.
(16:30):
And he goes, okay, mister Roberts, let me see what
I can do. And so you know, he did everything
against what he was trained to do to get my
legal name on a piece of paper that was a
ticket for me to get on that plane. And because
if that guy had not done that and I had
missed the flight, I probably wouldn't I wouldn't have hurt myself,
but I probably mentally emotionally wouldn't have been in a
(16:51):
place to be sitting right here today. It just would
have been difficult because I would have given up trying
to get help, and it just would have it just
would not have been pretty but able to get to
uh the Eigenhauer Center and then after the Impact program
and uh it was a tremendous Uh good call on
Sandy's part, good call on best part, and uh to
get me there. And and thanks to that flight attendant
(17:14):
or that that that flight dude that got me there.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
What was that? What's that program?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Like?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, the I'm gonna be honest with you. When I
first looked at the pictures on the website and stuff,
it's like a lot of older folks, and so I'm
thinking to myself, like, well, I'm not that dude. You
know what I'm saying, Like, I don't I don't have
a walker, I don't mean like all these other gus.
I wasn't really up for it.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
But then they send me some some other pictures and
I talked to a couple of dudes that had had
been there before. And essentially it's a house on about
four or five acres and in the house has six
rooms and there's six guys there at the time. And
then they bring all the therapy to you, so recreational therapy, uh,
cognitive therapy, one on one counsel in, physical therapy, UH,
(17:59):
like the any type of therapy you can think of that.
They they brought it all to the house so you
didn't have to leave the house to get the therapy,
and you're in a very relaxed, uh environment, So it's
not very it's not like an institutional hospitals. You're in
an actual house, right, and so it was It's really cool.
It was really cool that way. Funny story though, they
(18:21):
hadn't upgraded their website and so they had a different
house on the website. So this brother's like rolled me
up to this house and I looked at him. I'm
holding on to the door. I'm like, yo, dude, like
what's going on? And he's like, what do you mean?
I'm like, this is not the house. Was it bigger
or smaller than you saw? It was just made different
than the one I saw was white and this house
(18:41):
is like brown and brick. Dude. I was just like,
I'm like, hold up, man, like I'm already skinnish, you know,
because your brain and stuff is all over the place.
And I'm just looking at this dude. I'm like, dude,
like what are we doing? And then he's like, oh,
we're here. I'm like, no, we're not. He goes, what
do you mean. I'm like, this is not the house
that's on the website, and he's like, oh no, man,
this is like we change how a new house. I'm like, okay, bro,
(19:02):
Like I'm already in this place, and if you're about
to do something, it's about to go down because the
fight thing in me was ready to go. Bro, it
was ready to go. And uh but nah, but but
that's where it was. And uh, the program was tremendous.
It's uh. The thing that was really cool about it
was that you were with dudes that had similar stories.
(19:23):
Even though you had different challenges, you kind of spoke
the same length. These are all athletes, are all former
NFL football players, yeah, and different all different age groups.
It turns out that I'm I was the oldest dude
there about ten years, so I was like the o
G in the place.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But uh, but it was nerve racking at first because
you're like, you know, you're not sure what these dudes
are going through or what they're going to think about,
what what you what you're going through and all the
comparing and all this other kind of stuff. And I
just decided like it's either now or never, Like I'm
either going to go all in and get this mental
health thing close to right and functional, or I'm gonna
(20:00):
be this dude that's sleeping, you know, coming up the
windows with towels and blankets and sleeping in the dark
and all those kinds of not being able to engage
with my kids and all that kind of stuff. There
was nothing in between. It was either this or that,
and at the time it was everything was just black
or white. And that's another trauma response, you know what
I'm saying, Like, when you start thinking in black and white,
like it's either you live or die, that's a trauma
(20:21):
response thing. And so that's kind of where I was
going into this thing. But I just decided to just
get treated like training camp, and I said, I'm gonna
They gave us this little book of resources and coping
skills of practice, and I said, I'm gonna do this
twice a day in the morning and in the afternoon,
and then I'm gonna do every anything they asked me
(20:42):
to do, I'm gonna do. I'm just going all in.
And then my number one goal there was because here
I couldn't get out the door, and that kept me
from saying my kids, like honestly, like you know, we
do the radio show, we do the pregame, post game show.
And sometimes when I was coming in hot, it's because
I was having to talk myself out of my apartment,
open the door, walk down the steps, get in the car,
(21:02):
start the car, leave the parking lot, make it to
the first red light, get to the second red light,
get to the freeway, get to five twenty.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Like you.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I had to talk myself all the way to to
the to the show or to the stadium and uh.
And so I just decided with this thing, I'm just
I'm just gonna go all in and just do do whatever.
So I practiced it just like two days and just
did every single thing that they asked me to do,
and just just really attacked it and didn't really care
about what other people there thought about my journey. This
(21:32):
was my journey. And so it was a little freaked out.
And we had like these different therapists come in and
this one recreational therapy, the lady came in. It's like, oh,
I need to talk to you, like what are the
things you like to do like the fish or ride
the bike or da da da da dah and I'm like,
I like to draw and paint, play the bass guitar,
like all this other kind of stuff, and now she goes, yeah,
So like on the weekends, we take you guys to dinner,
(21:53):
or we take you to the movies or whatever, but
if one of you guys don't feel like going, then
nobody goes. And then I'm like, okay, wait a minute,
I'm the dude that can't get out the door, you know,
and you just told me that, and so now that
it made me feel even more anxious. And so I
had told myself when I got there that I was
going to go out the front door every single day,
but this was like the first weekend I was there.
(22:14):
And so this is what really turned the tide for
me a little bit. Was I came out, We're all dressed,
ready to go to this movie, and there was this
one dude there who's like the normal jokes that you
would have in the locker room. Hey, I'm older, dude,
you know, bad feet, all this stuff. I walk out
in my little hocus and he goes, ah, look at
(22:35):
raised shoes, like those shoes the old diabetic dudes wear.
And I just started laughing. And they were just like,
and they're like, what's going on? I said, Well, first
of all, I'm the oldest dude here. Second of all,
I'm a Type two diabetic, and third I have on
these Holka shoes, you know what I'm saying. And so
it just felt like the locker room because you would
get that type of and like and it just that
(22:56):
then like helped me just bring it down a little bit.
And I knew I was in a familiar place. And
it's weird because you would think like maybe it was
embarrassing or whatever, but honestly, it was the thing that
kind of like brought my intensity of like what I
was feeling down enough to then I felt comfortable around
these dudes because I knew that they got it, you
(23:16):
know what I'm saying. And so that's kind of how
that's how how that journey started. There were there anything
sorry for?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Were there anything that you guys found that you guys
all had in common into maybe background stuff what you
were going through after the NFL that you guys were
able to all bond through.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well, the one thing that you're bonded to is that
the things you have to unlearn that are not healthy
in your everyday life playing professional football, and that is
like physically you can get through anything, and physically is
how you get through anything. So that's why I think
(23:52):
that's just probably a correlation between domestic violence and stuff
and the NFL, because you're just trained to use your
physical self to overcome a lot of things. And then
this idea around this mentality that you just have to
be tough and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and uh,
you know, don't cry, don't have any kind of emotion, lift,
(24:15):
get bigger, stronger, faster, and everything will be okay. And
when you're not playing football, that don't work. You know
what I'm saying, just does not work, you know, And
so you have to really untrain yourself, uh to uh
you have to untrain some of those habits that were
good for what you're doing or for that arena, but
(24:36):
not good for outside of that. You know. Some of
it is like the resilience and stuff like that, but
like some of the more physical tough it out, you know,
be a man strong, like all that kind of stuff,
UH com mand can put you in a bad place,
you know. So like even you know, part of my
dealing with this uh mental health stuff and anxiety and
depression and panic and stuff. It's like I just kept thinking, like, Okay,
(24:59):
today I'm gonna be a strong enough to defeat it.
And I couldn't, you know. And so it didn't matter
if I came out and ran at fifty three years
old and two hundred and eighty pounds and round a
four or five forty. It was going to be running
a four to two forty.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
It's like it's still fast, and I just there's no
way I could defeat it, you know. And so that's
that was the language where we had a lot of
conversations around like when the therapist would say, what, why
don't you just do this, It's just like, man, like,
that's just not even my DNA to think of it
that way, you know, to try to think through it
or talk about my feelings or process with somebody. It's like, no,
(25:33):
just let me hit somebody harder, or let me run faster,
or let me score touchdown or you know, let me
you know, just get that exhilaration of going into the
visiting UH stadium and it's you against the world like
that kind of like that's the kind of stuff you
kept drawing on to defeat this stuff and that just
that just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
During this whole process, Man, you've been like vulnerable, and
I think that's extremely hard for people to do, especially
people that come from your arena. The number nine, number
ten pick in the draft. You know what I'm saying.
You get to this place and it sounds like that's
something you had to do to gain all the stuff
you got from that program. How hard was it to
be vulnerable? And once you did that, you start seeing
(26:13):
progress at a faster rate than you expected.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, I think I've always been a person that when
I'm comfortable, I can be vulnerable. Like That's the reason
I chose the people that I chose to help me
with this production, because you guys are people that I
know that I can trust. I know that I can
trust you guys with my story. I know that I
can trust that you guys are gonna handle it the
right way and treat it like, you know, kind of
(26:36):
like a gift that you've been given that you're gonna
cherish like that. Like honestly, like when I was thinking
about doing this, I wrote down a lot of people's names,
and I was like, these are the dudes that I
need right here, and so when I feel comfortable, I've
always been that way, and probably it was weird. I
never saw my dad cry until his mom passed away
(26:57):
and I walked into the room and my dad was crying,
and I just held him. I was a young dude
and I just held my dad, And it's something in
that moment told me it was okay to cry, even
though I'd only seen him cry one time. And so
I've always been a dude that could share my emotions
and things when I'm comfortable. If I'm not comfortable and
I think that people are gonna joke it or it's gonna,
(27:17):
you know, get dismissed or whatever, then I just kind
of swallow it and just kind of deal with it.
But I think the thing that was motivating me the
most is that my number one goal right now is
to be the world's greatest dad. Period. That's the only
thing when I wake up in the morning, when I
go to sleep at night, that is my goal is
to be the world's greatest dad. And I could not
do that if I did not get myself in a
(27:39):
place where I could show up for them, because you
can't be great at anything if you don't show up.
Showing up is the first thing. So that's why I
like it. Sometimes I hear like people talking about these
participation trophies and things like part of participation is showing up,
you know what I'm saying. And there's a lot of
people that don't show up, you know. And so I'm
cool with participation trophies even if you didn't play, because
(28:00):
she showed up every day in practice, that's half the battle.
And so to be a great dad, I had to
be able to show up, and to be able to
show up, I had to just I just had to
put all of it on the table and just just
open myself up, expose myself, like to as emotionally to
all these other dudes that were there that would like,
I mean, it's some big dude dudes muscles and plays
like huge dudes there, and but I was just like,
(28:23):
you know what, man, like I probably never see these
dudes ever get in my life, but I'm gonna see
my kids every day. And so I got to I
got to do this for I got to do this
so that I can be the dude I want to
be for my kids. And so once I did that,
it just seemed like and not that I didn't have struggles,
and you know, I still had days that were tough,
but I had to start finding ways to count the
little winds, you know, because I was in that I
(28:43):
showed up in that black of white space. It was
either this or that. And you know, I remember I
was there for four days and I had my first
one on one therapy session with this lady and and
I was frustrated, like, man, I'm trying all these skills
and nothing's helped working with me. I'm putting my face
in the cold water, taking cold showers, going for walks,
all this stuff, and the anxiety is still just killing me.
And she just looked at me and as like, dude,
(29:04):
and you know that's my word, dude. I say dude
all the time. Dude, you've only been here four days.
And I was just like, yeah, you're right, and so
let me just like dial it back a little bit.
And then that just just even just the way she
spoke to me just kind of put me in a
place where, Okay, let me just I'm just how I'm
gonna attack this thing every day and and so that's
what I did, and it was just then I just
(29:24):
started learning and growing and like really understanding the different
concepts and like really what my little thing was. And
there's this you know, concept around cognitive distortions where like
the evidence says one thing, but your thoughts are saying
another thing. And it's weird because I look at myself
as like, you know, divorced away from my kids. To me,
(29:46):
that is probably like one of the greatest, the biggest
failure in my life. Never felt in anything except for
my marriage, and so then I just have always felt
like I was a bad dude, you know. And so
even all this other stuff I've done, work for radio
scholars here with kids trying to get education, doing the
work with special Olympics, mentoring people, all this other kind
of stuff, but the person that I kept saying was
(30:06):
this dude that just ruined it for everybody. And so
those are the thoughts I always had in my head.
I had to defeat those thoughts. And not until I
got there did I even understand what that, what cognitive
distortions are, and like what do you do to combat
those and how do you speak you know, how do
you speak to them to in a way that you
kind of it's like you're detective, You're like looking for
the evidence that says that that's not the case. And
(30:27):
there's all types of evidence there, you know, like all
the dudes that were there, like, dude, like, I don't
even know how you how do you even think yourself
that way? Because you're like, you're helping us do this thing,
and you're doing that thing. You have this great spirit
and personality and all that, and I'm like, yeah, but dude,
all I see is this bad dude. I just see
this bad dude, and like, I just have to find
a way to defeat these negative thoughts in my in
my head. And then and then there was this other
(30:50):
concept around reframing so that you so like one day
I was just it was hard, and I just stayed
in the bed for about half the day, covered up
the window and everything. And so then I was mad
because I'm like, gosh, dang it, this is not what
I wanted to do. This is not where I came.
So I got up. I still made it to all
my sessions. I went for like a four mile walk
and everything. And then when I met with a therapist,
(31:12):
I was still mad at myself because I slept half
the day and she goes, well, ray like you can
reframe that, And I'm like, well what does that mean?
She goes, Well, you might have slept half the day,
but you still made it to all your sessions, right,
you still went for exercise, you know, all these different things,
so you won the day, like you had to count
all these small victories. And then that became my thing.
Like I knew right away those are the two things
(31:33):
that were going to help me get out of this thing.
Was reframing things and then also challenging all these negative thoughts.
So even to do that, like I would get up
every morning and I would just write the same list
every morning, like I'm a good dude, I'm a good dad,
I'm good at my job. Here are the people that
loved me. All your names were on it, like you
know here all you know, all these people. Like I
(31:54):
would write the same list every day, I could show
you that the thing where it was the same thing
every day, and just to kind of reprogram my thoughts
to this more positive space. And and those are the
two things that really helped the reframing and challenging these
cognitive distortions.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
How do you maintain the good space that you're in
right now?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, the good thing that came out of it was
first of all, like really letting you guys know, because like, honestly,
this is this is like my support system, like when
I come to do the games and things or what
I'm arguing or following you on Twitter, and like, you know,
even though we debate, you know, we have different opinions sometimes,
Like that's kind of what helps me kind of stay afloat.
(32:36):
But there were two dudes that I really connected with
while I was at the Eisenhower Center, and we text
each other every single day, every single morning. And then
we're because we all know each other's journeys, I can
just say, hey, man, like that thing is on my
back today, and then they just start going like okay,
like you know, do the reframing thing, challenge your thoughts,
(32:56):
you know, look on page whatever in that book, like
this is what that thing. So we just kind of
stay with each other that way. So then it's like
you guys are probably gonna laugh when I say this,
but you get momentum. He loves that word.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
He hates that word. So that's why you finally bought
a little bit of moments.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, yeah, so you get a little momentum and so
then it just be kind of like, so like one
day I started this thing like, Okay, every Saturday, I'm
gonna go for a hike just to kind of get
out into nature, put the world behind me everything. I'm
just gonna go for these hikes. And so I started
doing that. And then one day I went and came back. Dude,
I was just feeling so full of energy everything. Got
(33:35):
back to my apartment and was just like, dang, I'm
here all by myself. I ain't got nobody to come
home to. Blah blah blah. It ruined the whole day.
It ruined Saturday, and then all day on Sunday. And
then I talked to my therapist. He goes, well, how
could you have reframed that? And I said, well I
could have said, like, man, I put in a good
day hiking, I'm gonna go home, kick my feet up,
have a cold beer, watch some college football. Da da
(33:55):
da da da da da. And so the next week
I went, uh think Discovery Park. I walked freaking the
whole park, and about a mile before my car, I
started going, Okay, I'm gonna go home, kick my feet up,
like I'm gonna have a cold beer. I'm gonna watch
some football, I'm gonna see what my kids are doing.
And it completely changed the whole dynamic. And so then
(34:15):
that made me a believer. And that so I'm constantly
reframing and I'm constantly challenging thoughts, and now that has
become the automatic come to go to versus the automatic
negative thoughts. As soon as I start to fill it
or start to have a little cues that it might
be happening. One of the cues is that I start
uber eating a lot, way too much, and then I'll
(34:38):
go like, Okay, something's going on, and so then I
start challenging what I'm thinking and that it's just like
learning the skill in training camp, Like it took me
going through there. I was there for thirty two days,
and so it took me all thirty two days to
really understand what is be like learning a route or
like when you first started writing or doing radio show,
like you have to find the rhythm, Like Okay, now
(35:00):
I got this, I feel good doing it where it
becomes automatic, and so now it's more automatic than it's
ever been, you know, So that kind of helps me
stay in the lane that I need to be in.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
So You've shared a lot with us, man, and that's
not easy to do, so we thank you for sharing
that with us. But if there's one guy listening right
now who's in a place that you were in and
is looking to get out and use all the tools
that you did, what would you say to that person?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, I would say first is to contact that the
NFL hotline for players, and then I would start to
really think about contacting the Trust. The Trust. The NFL
Trust has a lot of resources. One of them is
this Eisenhower Center in Manchester, Michigan, which is a if
(35:47):
it's to the place where I was, you need to
get to that place, I would go to that place.
The NFL is doing a better job now of vetting
therapists in your area. Whereas before they would just give
you a list of like fifty people and it was
up to you to try to sort through there and
figure out who fits and who doesn't fit and all
this other kind of stuff. Well, now they're starting to
have like certified therapists when they've done interviews with them,
(36:09):
ask the questions, all this other kind of stuff, So
there's a shorter list for you to go through. Uh,
And then I would say, man, like, Uh, reach out
to people that you know and trust and care and
let them know, let them know what's happening, because they
may know someone that knows somebody that knows somebody you know.
But don't feel like you have to be at it Alan,
because man, there are a lot of dudes that are
(36:30):
struggling in silence and in isolation. I mean, some of
the stories that some of these guys were telling while
they were there, I mean, it just breaks your heart,
you know what I'm saying. And to know that, like you,
I'm sure they probably listened to me said, but to
feel like you're doing it all by yourself, You're not
in You're not in it by yourself. Like even if
(36:51):
you even if you know how to get in touch
with me, if you live around here, Like I'm the
nick Sabing for recruiting around this stuff. I'm telling because
because it's it's important to me that people know. You
know that it's okay to not be okay, that is
okay to have the feelings that you have. And it
(37:11):
doesn't mean that you're less of a person or less
of a man, or that you're weak or whatever. You know.
I think one of the good examples that this has
come that has come out of this is for my kids,
uh to know that And this is what I told
my son Price, you know, Mike Uh, is that when
you need help and you ask for help, that you're
(37:33):
you're operating from a position of power. When you need
help and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness,
and so U and so don't ever be afraid, feel liberated,
feel encouraged, feel inspired, feel comfortable, you know, being uncomfortable
and then asking for help, because if you don't ask
for help, things tend to just get worse and worse
(37:55):
and worse and worse. And that would be the last
thing that I would want. If I knew that someone
was struggling and they were doing it all alone and
it came to like a really horrific end, it would
be really sad for me to know that maybe if
they had reached out to me, I could have helped,
or maybe I should have paid more attention, or you know,
(38:17):
you know, there's certain things that people do or whatever
that can maybe give you clues into what's maybe going
on in their life, Like those types of things, you know,
being a friend of people, reaching out to people, letting
just people know where you are, what you feel, what
you need, you know, those types of things. And then
if you're a person that is receiving that from someone, man,
you got to you gotta handle it with like kid gloves,
(38:38):
you know, because it can be one small smirk or
something that will tell that person like that they're not
feeling what you're saying, or they're dismissing what you're saying,
and that could and that could mean the world of
difference the other way. So just treating with soft gloves,
not feeling like you have to fix anything, but just listening.
And then if you do have something that you can
(39:00):
offer it up, but if you don't have anything, just
be there to listen like that. That is a huge
skill that this country or most people history don't have.
Everyone's just waiting to talk, waiting to respond, and sometimes
we just need to listen to people. And so, uh,
if you know someone that's that's and then that's struggling
with this mental health stuff, just be willing to listen.
(39:20):
Thank you guys for listening to the second episode of
Big Raise Garage Grind Mental Health Edition. I want to
thank Michael, Sean Duger and Michael bumpus for coming along
on the journey, and we look forward to bringing you
guys more content and continuing this conversation. Thank you for listening.
You're listening to Big Raised Garage Grind. I want to
bring awareness and my voice to something that's meaningful and
purposeful more than just who's the best football player, who's
the best football team? The intersection between life, football and
mental health. When you need help and you ask for help,
you're operating from a position of power. When you need
(00:21):
help and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness.
Now here's your host, Seahawk's Leason Ray Roberts. What's up, fam?
Welcome back to the episode two of Big Rays Garage
Grind Mental Health Edition, and the conversation continues with my
guys Mike and Mike talking about my journey through the
NFL and the impact on my mental health and how
(00:43):
I dealt.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
With have this nice career, nine years, ten training camps,
been through some battles, even got a couple of receptions
off this alignment with some global receptions. Some yack after
that and life after football? Man, what is that like?
I think a lot of guys really don't realize how
hard that transition is from being a dude on every
(01:05):
Sunday that's relied upon to all right, what do I
do now?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Well, that's a good way to start at Mike, because
retiring is hard, Like this is like one of the
only sports where you don't normally retire at your own will.
It's something an injury or you get cut or you know,
something like that. And for me, I had had two
knee surgeries. I had a plate and ten screws, and
(01:29):
my leg and a screw and my ankle, like all
this stuff that I'd had over my career, broken all
my fingers and all this stuff, and it just got
to the point where man, I was hurting. In training camp,
I was hurting, and so I would get to the
training room. They had an intern they assigned to me.
I get to the training room at about six o'clock
in the morning just to get my body warmed up
(01:49):
to practice the first practice in training camp. And then
after that practice, I would get on the golf cart
to get back to the locker room because I just
couldn't walk back to the locker room. And so I
did this whole dance song and dance for all the
training camp that that last year, and then I went
we played I think Cincinnati in a preseason game, and
(02:11):
we were having training camp up in Saginaw, Michigan. Which
is maybe like a two three hour maybe a two
hour drive from Detroit. And dude, I could not get
out of my bed after the thing we played on
like a Thursday or Friday, and we had to be
back up in Sagonaw the next day. I couldn't even
get out of the bed to get to my car drive.
I'm just stuck in the bed. Just to put my
feet on the ground. Made my whole entire body hurt.
(02:34):
And so I finally made it back up there, you know,
like you know, you guys are familiar with me coming
in hot. So I'm flying up the up to Saginaw
and coming in hot because I'm running late to everything,
and I go right to our team doctors, and I'm
just like, yo, man, like I don't know. My body
is hurting, like you know, and I need something, like
(02:56):
my knees are hurting. And so they're like, well, if you,
if we, you know, take some pictures of your knees
and stuff like that, you know, maybe we can, you know,
give you some pain medicine and all this other kind stuff.
You're probably gonna if you keep playing, you're probably gonna
have to need replacement all this stuff. And I'm thinking
like wow, like that's not what I thought they were
gonna say. Yeah, And and so long story short, I
(03:17):
just got like this bottle of Viking and it was
just like if you need more, you know, come back
and get it. And so my middle son, Slade, was
still just a kid yet, hadn't had my third son yet.
And I started thinking that night in my room like, man,
if I get addicted this stuff addiction runs in my family,
that I'm never gonna be able to just toss the
(03:37):
ball with my son, like like I'll just be this
broken down body that can't do anything. And so I
called this is at the night before the first practice
after the first preseason game, I called Matt Millan and
Marty marningwag who's the head coach at the time, and
Matt Millan was a GM AND president, and I said, hey, man,
I think I'm going to retire. And they said, well,
what do you mean you think you're going to retire?
And I said, well, if I'm on the line at
(03:58):
eight o'clock in the morning, then I probably didn't sleep
well with my decision. So I'm gonna keep playing. But
if I'm not on the line at eight o'clock, in
the morning, you may never see me again. And I
slept until noon, got in my car, packed it up,
hit the horn going past the football field practice field.
Been back to Detroit one time.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Did somebody wave when you hit the horn?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Robert Porchet defensive man, because he's the only one that
kind of knew that I was dealing with, because he
and I were like team captains. And so I'm just
like Mike, I just don't know if I mean, uh, Rob,
I don't know if I can uh, if I can
keep doing this, you know, and uh and so yeah,
so I left the left the pills, left everything and
just went home. And then and then uh, after retirement. Man,
(04:40):
it was an unbelievable battle. Like just depressive, the just
depression just set in, Like didn't really kind of know
who I was and what value I brought to anybody.
And I always prided myself on being like the smartest
dude in the room. Of course, you know, went to Virginia,
so we think we're the Ivy League of the public schools,
and so I always felt like I was the smartest
dude in the room. I was prepared, and then I
(05:01):
wasn't you know, and so here I would just get
from the bed to the couch, the couch, back to
the bed, watch sports center, go back to the couch,
go back to the bed. That's all I was doing.
And uh, and you know, my wife at the time
didn't know what to do, didn't We didn't have all
these resources that guys have now. And I found myself
in the room, pillow over my head, closing all the
(05:24):
blinds in the middle of the days, just dark as
I can get it, and just sleeping all day long
and not knowing what to do or how to do
it or whatever. And I heard my son's probably slave
at the time. It was my middle son, little kid,
and I heard him tell my wife at the time,
I just want my dad back. And then it just
(05:46):
something about that just kind of got me going again.
So I got up, and believe it or not, I
was reading newspaper. Nowadays, no one does that, And and
there was this article in there about this master's program
at the University of Washington for if you want to
be an athletic director. But there's a lot of things
within the in the course that I think I was
drawn to, like diversity, ecuent inclusion, people have access to education,
(06:09):
like all that kind of stuff. Wasn't really looking to
be an athletic director, and so I'm like, I'm gonna
go do that and so uh and so that's what
I did. That's what kind of got me up and going.
But the depression and stuff never really went away. I
just found my own ways to manage it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I guess what, did you know that you were dealing
with depression at the time, or did you just think
that you're just in a funk and somehow, some way
I'm gonna climb out of it. Then you see this
program and that was your way of getting out.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, so yeah, I would not have at the time.
I would not have been telling people like, yeah I was.
I was tougher with depression. I just I thought I
was weak. I thought, like, man, like, just get your
ass up and go do something, you know, like like
why can't you get up? Like why are you stuck on?
Like I thought I was just stuck on like like
you know, football is over, Oh my god, Like it's
like you just lost like your best friend or whatever.
(06:55):
And uh, and I just couldn't And I was thinking
I couldn't have a life outside of football, you know what.
I'm say, and so there's something about me being weak
and all that, and so then that made it even
worse because it's like, I'm not a week dude. I've
accompted a lot of things. I've come from, like some
crazy you know life, and you know, built myself into
this person. I've been places no one has ever been before,
and all these other kinds of things. But I could not.
(07:16):
It was like I was in a wet paper bag.
I just could not fight my way out of it.
It's like it was just sticking to me everywhere. And
so it came across more as like what the hell
is wrong with me more than it does like somebody
tell me I was. I was suffering depression like I
never not at that time. I didn't go anywhere to
get any medication or anything like that. It was just
(07:38):
like I was just trying to power muscle through it
like you have like you're trained to do as an athlete,
like if lift more weights. I remember going to the gym,
I'm just like, well, I'll just keep lifting. I'm like retired,
I'm still bench pressing like five hundred pounds, and I'm
like why am I doing this? Like you know what
I'm saying, but it was just trying to get back
whatever it was that I thought i'd lost that made
me who I was.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
You said you didn't really know who you were when
you were all right, which is something a lot of
athletes go through. Yeah, they've been playing the games since
they were kids, and that defines them. But you had
other roles that defined you at the time. You were
a dad, right as you mentioned you, you were a husband.
You know what you were going through affect your ability
to perform those roles.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well, I would say that there were times where my
wife would probably you know, was like managing the house
all by herself, you know, like trying to get kids
off the school, trying to We had just built this
house over in Redmond, so it's a fairly new house,
nice big house and everything, and so she was trying
to manage all of that by herself and at the
same time trying to figure out what the heck is
(08:35):
going on with me and neither one of us really
knowing what was going on or how to deal with it.
And the NFL didn't have these places you could call
into and talk to folks, and mental health wasn't a
big movement back then, like it's like you're crazy, Like
they're gonna put you in a crazy house or something
like that. You know. So I would say that probably
for her it was really hard to see because I
(08:57):
met her in college, you know, so she knew like
this big per personality of a person that I am,
and all the things I've accomplished, and the road with
me all through the NFL and all that kind of stuff.
And now to see me not being able to get
out of the bed, you know, had to be tough.
And then when my kids are probably just too young
to know, like I know that my you know, my
middle son was just like I wasn't doing a plan
(09:20):
a whole lot with them, you know what I'm saying.
I was around and stuff, I was being a good dad,
and we're doing things together. But there were just times,
I think where they could tell like, man, Dad must
be sick today, so he's not doing whatever. So I'd
just be stuck in the room, head under the pillow,
lights out. I'd take blankets and cover up the windows,
just wanted to be as dark as I could possibly
get it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You know, were there any moments along the way that
where maybe the lowest or the most difficult that you know,
told you that, like, I need to go ask for
some help.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I think at the time, we were doing like some
marriage counseling, and I mentioned it to this one dude
I was meeting with, and it just kind of I
got it wasn't the reason I was there, so it
didn't become part of the conversation. But I didn't I
didn't know what anybody could do about anything until, you know,
(10:11):
around this kind of stuff, until probably I had been retired,
So this must have been like two thousand and ten
ish is when, you know. I retired in two thousand
and one, So twenty ten I started going like, well,
maybe I should talk to someone about this stuff. And
so we're in Virginia and the dude was trying to
teach me this mindfulness stuff. I'm like, an, it ain't working,
(10:33):
Like it's not helping me. I don't know how to
do that. I just could not do it. And because
I wasn't into the medication stuff, and so then I
took some medication and not knowing that it takes a
while for it to kind of build up to start working.
So after like a couple of weeks, it didn't feel
like it was working. So I stopped taking medication. So
then I never came back to it until recently, when
(10:55):
I just hit the bottom of the bottom. You know,
in this whole journey.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
What did the bottom of the bottom look like?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, probably I've dealt with the depression off and on
since I retired, and then probably about maybe a year
and a half before the pandemic started, I started having
like these panic and anxiety attacks, and so I would
you along the way, I got divorced, so my kids
lived with their mom, and I would tell my kids
(11:25):
I'm coming over to do whatever, play video games or
hang out or go get food or whatever. And I
would start to put my clothes on and all I
would just get fixated on the doorknob and then I'm
just like, man, I'm not gonna be able to go
out this door. And that was weird. It's like, man,
what's happening? Like like why can't I just go out
the door. And so then I'd called Beth and be like, hey,
can you just tell the kids like I've got sick
(11:47):
or whatever. I can't make it because I could not
make myself go out the door. And then my chest
was like super tight, I couldn't breathe, a sweat and
all kinds of stuff and so but I just kind
of muscled through it, you know, and then I outs,
We'll say, maybe March of this year. It just all
kind of came to a head, dude, and I was
(12:10):
crying all day and night. There were times where I
didn't know what to do, but I needed to get
like some type of adrenaline rush, and I would just
could get out the door and I get in my
car and just drive and and tell this story before,
but one time I just needed this, Probably like three
or four o'clock in the morning. I got in my car,
(12:30):
windows all the windows down, music blaring, sun roof open,
and just took off on four or five north to
five North, just driving, driving, drive and driving. And then
I look up and I'm at the Canadian border and
the border was closed to like to if you weren't
commercial cars, and uh, but that's the only way I
could turn around and come back. And so I pulled
(12:53):
pulled up to the gate, and the dude was like,
what are you doing? And I'm just like, uh, this
is a weird story, dude, but I just needed to
go for and I ended up here and he goes,
where are you from. I'm like, Woodenville. He goes, what
that's at least a two hour drive, like you just
ended up here. I'm like, yeah, dude, I can't explain it,
Like I just was driving, looked up you guys were here.
And then so he'd let me go through, and then
I had to explain the same thing to the to
(13:15):
the US customs coming back through. But I would have
moments like that, and then I would have It was
really weird because I would have moments where I would
go for the drive and then I get home and
I couldn't get out my car, and so I'd just
be sitting in the car and I just fall asleep
until I could get out. And so like sometimes it'd
be if I went for a drive at four or
five in the morning, it might be seven or eight
(13:36):
in the morning when I wake up. And a few
times my neighbors were like, hey, man, you okay, Like
I saw you sleeping in the car, and I'd be like, oh,
just long trip. I just just got back home. I
was tired, just fell asleep in the car. Mind you,
my front door is maybe fifty yards from the car,
so I'm sure. They were like, Okay, something's going on
with this dude. You can't walk fifty yards to your
front door. And so I just kept having moments like that,
(13:58):
and so then one night, dude, I just completely lost it.
I was punching walls, punching the doors, I mean, fighting
the pillows, like I was just trying to do anything.
I just had this urge to throw everything out the window,
even though I didn't, but I just I just there
was so much pent up energy. And then I was
just crying and didn't know what to do, man like,
and and so I called like the NFL hotline thing,
(14:19):
and that kind of helped a little bit. That kind
of was trying to give me some direction, but it
was just too much for me to deal with at
the time. And so then the next day I tried
to get to this place in Colorado. It's a residential place,
and my insurance with Special Olympics wouldn't pay for me
to do that type of treatment outside of the state.
(14:42):
And so then I just went nuts again. And and
my ex wife Beth, to her credit, great woman, she
has shown me a tremendous amount of mercy and grace
and forgiveness. Ended up contacting Sandy Gregory, who used to
work for the Seahawks, and then Sandy knew someone into
(15:03):
NFL Trust and then they told them about this place
in Michigan, Manchester, Michigan, right outside of an arbor called
the Eisenhower Center, and they have a program called After
the Impact, which is specifically for NFL players. And so
I said, okay, well I'll go there, but if one
more thing goes wrong, then this is just going to
(15:26):
be my life for the This is who I'm going
to be. Sure enough I get to the airport. This
is like on a this is in May, so it's
like on a Thursday or Friday. They're like, how when
do you want to come. I'm like I want to
be there as soon as I can get there. They're like, okay,
we'll put you on the Red Eye on Monday. On Sunday.
I'm like, okay. Get to the airport and the ticket
(15:48):
had Ray Roberts on it, and my legal name is
Richard Ray Roberts. So the dude at the gate was like,
you're not going to get through security with this, and
I was just like, I'm like, it's on my license.
He's like yeah, but it doesn't have Richard or Ritchie
or anything on the ticket, and so this dude has
no idea what was going on. But inside of me,
(16:08):
like it was like a freaking rage in war because
I'm like, I got to get to this place. So
I pulled this dude to the side, and it took
everything not to like physically put my hands on his face,
and I just said, hey, look, man, like I need
to be on this flight, Like my life depends on
me been on this flight. So whatever you can do,
do it, just I just have to get on this flight.
(16:30):
And he goes, okay, mister Roberts, let me see what
I can do. And so you know, he did everything
against what he was trained to do to get my
legal name on a piece of paper that was a
ticket for me to get on that plane. And because
if that guy had not done that and I had
missed the flight, I probably wouldn't I wouldn't have hurt myself,
but I probably mentally emotionally wouldn't have been in a
(16:51):
place to be sitting right here today. It just would
have been difficult because I would have given up trying
to get help, and it just would have it just
would not have been pretty but able to get to
uh the Eigenhauer Center and then after the Impact program
and uh it was a tremendous Uh good call on
Sandy's part, good call on best part, and uh to
get me there. And and thanks to that flight attendant
(17:14):
or that that that flight dude that got me there.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
What was that? What's that program?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Like?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, the I'm gonna be honest with you. When I
first looked at the pictures on the website and stuff,
it's like a lot of older folks, and so I'm
thinking to myself, like, well, I'm not that dude. You
know what I'm saying, Like, I don't I don't have
a walker, I don't mean like all these other gus.
I wasn't really up for it.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
But then they send me some some other pictures and
I talked to a couple of dudes that had had
been there before. And essentially it's a house on about
four or five acres and in the house has six
rooms and there's six guys there at the time. And
then they bring all the therapy to you, so recreational therapy, uh,
cognitive therapy, one on one counsel in, physical therapy, UH,
(17:59):
like the any type of therapy you can think of that.
They they brought it all to the house so you
didn't have to leave the house to get the therapy,
and you're in a very relaxed, uh environment, So it's
not very it's not like an institutional hospitals. You're in
an actual house, right, and so it was It's really cool.
It was really cool that way. Funny story though, they
(18:21):
hadn't upgraded their website and so they had a different
house on the website. So this brother's like rolled me
up to this house and I looked at him. I'm
holding on to the door. I'm like, yo, dude, like
what's going on? And he's like, what do you mean?
I'm like, this is not the house. Was it bigger
or smaller than you saw? It was just made different
than the one I saw was white and this house
(18:41):
is like brown and brick. Dude. I was just like,
I'm like, hold up, man, like I'm already skinnish, you know,
because your brain and stuff is all over the place.
And I'm just looking at this dude. I'm like, dude,
like what are we doing? And then he's like, oh,
we're here. I'm like, no, we're not. He goes, what
do you mean. I'm like, this is not the house
that's on the website, and he's like, oh no, man,
this is like we change how a new house. I'm like, okay, bro,
(19:02):
Like I'm already in this place, and if you're about
to do something, it's about to go down because the
fight thing in me was ready to go. Bro, it
was ready to go. And uh but nah, but but
that's where it was. And uh, the program was tremendous.
It's uh. The thing that was really cool about it
was that you were with dudes that had similar stories.
(19:23):
Even though you had different challenges, you kind of spoke
the same length. These are all athletes, are all former
NFL football players, yeah, and different all different age groups.
It turns out that I'm I was the oldest dude
there about ten years, so I was like the o
G in the place.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But uh, but it was nerve racking at first because
you're like, you know, you're not sure what these dudes
are going through or what they're going to think about,
what what you what you're going through and all the
comparing and all this other kind of stuff. And I
just decided like it's either now or never, Like I'm
either going to go all in and get this mental
health thing close to right and functional, or I'm gonna
(20:00):
be this dude that's sleeping, you know, coming up the
windows with towels and blankets and sleeping in the dark
and all those kinds of not being able to engage
with my kids and all that kind of stuff. There
was nothing in between. It was either this or that,
and at the time it was everything was just black
or white. And that's another trauma response, you know what
I'm saying, Like, when you start thinking in black and white,
like it's either you live or die, that's a trauma
(20:21):
response thing. And so that's kind of where I was
going into this thing. But I just decided to just
get treated like training camp, and I said, I'm gonna
They gave us this little book of resources and coping
skills of practice, and I said, I'm gonna do this
twice a day in the morning and in the afternoon,
and then I'm gonna do every anything they asked me
(20:42):
to do, I'm gonna do. I'm just going all in.
And then my number one goal there was because here
I couldn't get out the door, and that kept me
from saying my kids, like honestly, like you know, we
do the radio show, we do the pregame, post game show.
And sometimes when I was coming in hot, it's because
I was having to talk myself out of my apartment,
open the door, walk down the steps, get in the car,
(21:02):
start the car, leave the parking lot, make it to
the first red light, get to the second red light,
get to the freeway, get to five twenty.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Like you.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I had to talk myself all the way to to
the to the show or to the stadium and uh.
And so I just decided with this thing, I'm just
I'm just gonna go all in and just do do whatever.
So I practiced it just like two days and just
did every single thing that they asked me to do,
and just just really attacked it and didn't really care
about what other people there thought about my journey. This
(21:32):
was my journey. And so it was a little freaked out.
And we had like these different therapists come in and
this one recreational therapy, the lady came in. It's like, oh,
I need to talk to you, like what are the
things you like to do like the fish or ride
the bike or da da da da dah and I'm like,
I like to draw and paint, play the bass guitar,
like all this other kind of stuff, and now she goes, yeah,
So like on the weekends, we take you guys to dinner,
(21:53):
or we take you to the movies or whatever, but
if one of you guys don't feel like going, then
nobody goes. And then I'm like, okay, wait a minute,
I'm the dude that can't get out the door, you know,
and you just told me that, and so now that
it made me feel even more anxious. And so I
had told myself when I got there that I was
going to go out the front door every single day,
but this was like the first weekend I was there.
(22:14):
And so this is what really turned the tide for
me a little bit. Was I came out, We're all dressed,
ready to go to this movie, and there was this
one dude there who's like the normal jokes that you
would have in the locker room. Hey, I'm older, dude,
you know, bad feet, all this stuff. I walk out
in my little hocus and he goes, ah, look at
(22:35):
raised shoes, like those shoes the old diabetic dudes wear.
And I just started laughing. And they were just like,
and they're like, what's going on? I said, Well, first
of all, I'm the oldest dude here. Second of all,
I'm a Type two diabetic, and third I have on
these Holka shoes, you know what I'm saying. And so
it just felt like the locker room because you would
get that type of and like and it just that
(22:56):
then like helped me just bring it down a little bit.
And I knew I was in a familiar place. And
it's weird because you would think like maybe it was
embarrassing or whatever, but honestly, it was the thing that
kind of like brought my intensity of like what I
was feeling down enough to then I felt comfortable around
these dudes because I knew that they got it, you
(23:16):
know what I'm saying. And so that's kind of how
that's how how that journey started. There were there anything
sorry for?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Were there anything that you guys found that you guys
all had in common into maybe background stuff what you
were going through after the NFL that you guys were
able to all bond through.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well, the one thing that you're bonded to is that
the things you have to unlearn that are not healthy
in your everyday life playing professional football, and that is
like physically you can get through anything, and physically is
how you get through anything. So that's why I think
(23:52):
that's just probably a correlation between domestic violence and stuff
and the NFL, because you're just trained to use your
physical self to overcome a lot of things. And then
this idea around this mentality that you just have to
be tough and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and uh,
you know, don't cry, don't have any kind of emotion, lift,
(24:15):
get bigger, stronger, faster, and everything will be okay. And
when you're not playing football, that don't work. You know
what I'm saying, just does not work, you know, And
so you have to really untrain yourself, uh to uh
you have to untrain some of those habits that were
good for what you're doing or for that arena, but
(24:36):
not good for outside of that. You know. Some of
it is like the resilience and stuff like that, but
like some of the more physical tough it out, you know,
be a man strong, like all that kind of stuff,
UH com mand can put you in a bad place,
you know. So like even you know, part of my
dealing with this uh mental health stuff and anxiety and
depression and panic and stuff. It's like I just kept thinking, like, Okay,
(24:59):
today I'm gonna be a strong enough to defeat it.
And I couldn't, you know. And so it didn't matter
if I came out and ran at fifty three years
old and two hundred and eighty pounds and round a
four or five forty. It was going to be running
a four to two forty.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
It's like it's still fast, and I just there's no
way I could defeat it, you know. And so that's
that was the language where we had a lot of
conversations around like when the therapist would say, what, why
don't you just do this, It's just like, man, like,
that's just not even my DNA to think of it
that way, you know, to try to think through it
or talk about my feelings or process with somebody. It's like, no,
(25:33):
just let me hit somebody harder, or let me run faster,
or let me score touchdown or you know, let me
you know, just get that exhilaration of going into the
visiting UH stadium and it's you against the world like
that kind of like that's the kind of stuff you
kept drawing on to defeat this stuff and that just
that just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
During this whole process, Man, you've been like vulnerable, and
I think that's extremely hard for people to do, especially
people that come from your arena. The number nine, number
ten pick in the draft. You know what I'm saying.
You get to this place and it sounds like that's
something you had to do to gain all the stuff
you got from that program. How hard was it to
be vulnerable? And once you did that, you start seeing
(26:13):
progress at a faster rate than you expected.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, I think I've always been a person that when
I'm comfortable, I can be vulnerable. Like That's the reason
I chose the people that I chose to help me
with this production, because you guys are people that I
know that I can trust. I know that I can
trust you guys with my story. I know that I
can trust that you guys are gonna handle it the
right way and treat it like, you know, kind of
(26:36):
like a gift that you've been given that you're gonna
cherish like that. Like honestly, like when I was thinking
about doing this, I wrote down a lot of people's names,
and I was like, these are the dudes that I
need right here, and so when I feel comfortable, I've
always been that way, and probably it was weird. I
never saw my dad cry until his mom passed away
(26:57):
and I walked into the room and my dad was crying,
and I just held him. I was a young dude
and I just held my dad, And it's something in
that moment told me it was okay to cry, even
though I'd only seen him cry one time. And so
I've always been a dude that could share my emotions
and things when I'm comfortable. If I'm not comfortable and
I think that people are gonna joke it or it's gonna,
(27:17):
you know, get dismissed or whatever, then I just kind
of swallow it and just kind of deal with it.
But I think the thing that was motivating me the
most is that my number one goal right now is
to be the world's greatest dad. Period. That's the only
thing when I wake up in the morning, when I
go to sleep at night, that is my goal is
to be the world's greatest dad. And I could not
do that if I did not get myself in a
(27:39):
place where I could show up for them, because you
can't be great at anything if you don't show up.
Showing up is the first thing. So that's why I
like it. Sometimes I hear like people talking about these
participation trophies and things like part of participation is showing up,
you know what I'm saying. And there's a lot of
people that don't show up, you know. And so I'm
cool with participation trophies even if you didn't play, because
(28:00):
she showed up every day in practice, that's half the battle.
And so to be a great dad, I had to
be able to show up, and to be able to
show up, I had to just I just had to
put all of it on the table and just just
open myself up, expose myself, like to as emotionally to
all these other dudes that were there that would like,
I mean, it's some big dude dudes muscles and plays
like huge dudes there, and but I was just like,
(28:23):
you know what, man, like I probably never see these
dudes ever get in my life, but I'm gonna see
my kids every day. And so I got to I
got to do this for I got to do this
so that I can be the dude I want to
be for my kids. And so once I did that,
it just seemed like and not that I didn't have struggles,
and you know, I still had days that were tough,
but I had to start finding ways to count the
little winds, you know, because I was in that I
(28:43):
showed up in that black of white space. It was
either this or that. And you know, I remember I
was there for four days and I had my first
one on one therapy session with this lady and and
I was frustrated, like, man, I'm trying all these skills
and nothing's helped working with me. I'm putting my face
in the cold water, taking cold showers, going for walks,
all this stuff, and the anxiety is still just killing me.
And she just looked at me and as like, dude,
(29:04):
and you know that's my word, dude. I say dude
all the time. Dude, you've only been here four days.
And I was just like, yeah, you're right, and so
let me just like dial it back a little bit.
And then that just just even just the way she
spoke to me just kind of put me in a
place where, Okay, let me just I'm just how I'm
gonna attack this thing every day and and so that's
what I did, and it was just then I just
(29:24):
started learning and growing and like really understanding the different
concepts and like really what my little thing was. And
there's this you know, concept around cognitive distortions where like
the evidence says one thing, but your thoughts are saying
another thing. And it's weird because I look at myself
as like, you know, divorced away from my kids. To me,
(29:46):
that is probably like one of the greatest, the biggest
failure in my life. Never felt in anything except for
my marriage, and so then I just have always felt
like I was a bad dude, you know. And so
even all this other stuff I've done, work for radio
scholars here with kids trying to get education, doing the
work with special Olympics, mentoring people, all this other kind
of stuff, but the person that I kept saying was
(30:06):
this dude that just ruined it for everybody. And so
those are the thoughts I always had in my head.
I had to defeat those thoughts. And not until I
got there did I even understand what that, what cognitive
distortions are, and like what do you do to combat
those and how do you speak you know, how do
you speak to them to in a way that you
kind of it's like you're detective, You're like looking for
the evidence that says that that's not the case. And
(30:27):
there's all types of evidence there, you know, like all
the dudes that were there, like, dude, like, I don't
even know how you how do you even think yourself
that way? Because you're like, you're helping us do this thing,
and you're doing that thing. You have this great spirit
and personality and all that, and I'm like, yeah, but dude,
all I see is this bad dude. I just see
this bad dude, and like, I just have to find
a way to defeat these negative thoughts in my in
my head. And then and then there was this other
(30:50):
concept around reframing so that you so like one day
I was just it was hard, and I just stayed
in the bed for about half the day, covered up
the window and everything. And so then I was mad
because I'm like, gosh, dang it, this is not what
I wanted to do. This is not where I came.
So I got up. I still made it to all
my sessions. I went for like a four mile walk
and everything. And then when I met with a therapist,
(31:12):
I was still mad at myself because I slept half
the day and she goes, well, ray like you can
reframe that, And I'm like, well what does that mean?
She goes, Well, you might have slept half the day,
but you still made it to all your sessions, right,
you still went for exercise, you know, all these different things,
so you won the day, like you had to count
all these small victories. And then that became my thing.
Like I knew right away those are the two things
(31:33):
that were going to help me get out of this thing.
Was reframing things and then also challenging all these negative thoughts.
So even to do that, like I would get up
every morning and I would just write the same list
every morning, like I'm a good dude, I'm a good dad,
I'm good at my job. Here are the people that
loved me. All your names were on it, like you
know here all you know, all these people. Like I
(31:54):
would write the same list every day, I could show
you that the thing where it was the same thing
every day, and just to kind of reprogram my thoughts
to this more positive space. And and those are the
two things that really helped the reframing and challenging these
cognitive distortions.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
How do you maintain the good space that you're in
right now?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, the good thing that came out of it was
first of all, like really letting you guys know, because like, honestly,
this is this is like my support system, like when
I come to do the games and things or what
I'm arguing or following you on Twitter, and like, you know,
even though we debate, you know, we have different opinions sometimes,
Like that's kind of what helps me kind of stay afloat.
(32:36):
But there were two dudes that I really connected with
while I was at the Eisenhower Center, and we text
each other every single day, every single morning. And then
we're because we all know each other's journeys, I can
just say, hey, man, like that thing is on my
back today, and then they just start going like okay,
like you know, do the reframing thing, challenge your thoughts,
(32:56):
you know, look on page whatever in that book, like
this is what that thing. So we just kind of
stay with each other that way. So then it's like
you guys are probably gonna laugh when I say this,
but you get momentum. He loves that word.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
He hates that word. So that's why you finally bought
a little bit of moments.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, yeah, so you get a little momentum and so
then it just be kind of like, so like one
day I started this thing like, Okay, every Saturday, I'm
gonna go for a hike just to kind of get
out into nature, put the world behind me everything. I'm
just gonna go for these hikes. And so I started
doing that. And then one day I went and came back. Dude,
I was just feeling so full of energy everything. Got
(33:35):
back to my apartment and was just like, dang, I'm
here all by myself. I ain't got nobody to come
home to. Blah blah blah. It ruined the whole day.
It ruined Saturday, and then all day on Sunday. And
then I talked to my therapist. He goes, well, how
could you have reframed that? And I said, well I
could have said, like, man, I put in a good
day hiking, I'm gonna go home, kick my feet up,
have a cold beer, watch some college football. Da da
(33:55):
da da da da da. And so the next week
I went, uh think Discovery Park. I walked freaking the
whole park, and about a mile before my car, I
started going, Okay, I'm gonna go home, kick my feet up,
like I'm gonna have a cold beer. I'm gonna watch
some football, I'm gonna see what my kids are doing.
And it completely changed the whole dynamic. And so then
(34:15):
that made me a believer. And that so I'm constantly
reframing and I'm constantly challenging thoughts, and now that has
become the automatic come to go to versus the automatic
negative thoughts. As soon as I start to fill it
or start to have a little cues that it might
be happening. One of the cues is that I start
uber eating a lot, way too much, and then I'll
(34:38):
go like, Okay, something's going on, and so then I
start challenging what I'm thinking and that it's just like
learning the skill in training camp, Like it took me
going through there. I was there for thirty two days,
and so it took me all thirty two days to
really understand what is be like learning a route or
like when you first started writing or doing radio show,
like you have to find the rhythm, Like Okay, now
(35:00):
I got this, I feel good doing it where it
becomes automatic, and so now it's more automatic than it's
ever been, you know, So that kind of helps me
stay in the lane that I need to be in.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
So You've shared a lot with us, man, and that's
not easy to do, so we thank you for sharing
that with us. But if there's one guy listening right
now who's in a place that you were in and
is looking to get out and use all the tools
that you did, what would you say to that person?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, I would say first is to contact that the
NFL hotline for players, and then I would start to
really think about contacting the Trust. The Trust. The NFL
Trust has a lot of resources. One of them is
this Eisenhower Center in Manchester, Michigan, which is a if
(35:47):
it's to the place where I was, you need to
get to that place, I would go to that place.
The NFL is doing a better job now of vetting
therapists in your area. Whereas before they would just give
you a list of like fifty people and it was
up to you to try to sort through there and
figure out who fits and who doesn't fit and all
this other kind of stuff. Well, now they're starting to
have like certified therapists when they've done interviews with them,
(36:09):
ask the questions, all this other kind of stuff, So
there's a shorter list for you to go through. Uh,
And then I would say, man, like, Uh, reach out
to people that you know and trust and care and
let them know, let them know what's happening, because they
may know someone that knows somebody that knows somebody you know.
But don't feel like you have to be at it Alan,
because man, there are a lot of dudes that are
(36:30):
struggling in silence and in isolation. I mean, some of
the stories that some of these guys were telling while
they were there, I mean, it just breaks your heart,
you know what I'm saying. And to know that, like you,
I'm sure they probably listened to me said, but to
feel like you're doing it all by yourself, You're not
in You're not in it by yourself. Like even if
(36:51):
you even if you know how to get in touch
with me, if you live around here, Like I'm the
nick Sabing for recruiting around this stuff. I'm telling because
because it's it's important to me that people know. You
know that it's okay to not be okay, that is
okay to have the feelings that you have. And it
(37:11):
doesn't mean that you're less of a person or less
of a man, or that you're weak or whatever. You know.
I think one of the good examples that this has
come that has come out of this is for my kids,
uh to know that And this is what I told
my son Price, you know, Mike Uh, is that when
you need help and you ask for help, that you're
(37:33):
you're operating from a position of power. When you need
help and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness,
and so U and so don't ever be afraid, feel liberated,
feel encouraged, feel inspired, feel comfortable, you know, being uncomfortable
and then asking for help, because if you don't ask
for help, things tend to just get worse and worse
(37:55):
and worse and worse. And that would be the last
thing that I would want. If I knew that someone
was struggling and they were doing it all alone and
it came to like a really horrific end, it would
be really sad for me to know that maybe if
they had reached out to me, I could have helped,
or maybe I should have paid more attention, or you know,
(38:17):
you know, there's certain things that people do or whatever
that can maybe give you clues into what's maybe going
on in their life, Like those types of things, you know,
being a friend of people, reaching out to people, letting
just people know where you are, what you feel, what
you need, you know, those types of things. And then
if you're a person that is receiving that from someone, man,
you got to you gotta handle it with like kid gloves,
(38:38):
you know, because it can be one small smirk or
something that will tell that person like that they're not
feeling what you're saying, or they're dismissing what you're saying,
and that could and that could mean the world of
difference the other way. So just treating with soft gloves,
not feeling like you have to fix anything, but just listening.
And then if you do have something that you can
(39:00):
offer it up, but if you don't have anything, just
be there to listen like that. That is a huge
skill that this country or most people history don't have.
Everyone's just waiting to talk, waiting to respond, and sometimes
we just need to listen to people. And so, uh,
if you know someone that's that's and then that's struggling
with this mental health stuff, just be willing to listen.
(39:20):
Thank you guys for listening to the second episode of
Big Raise Garage Grind Mental Health Edition. I want to
thank Michael, Sean Duger and Michael bumpus for coming along
on the journey, and we look forward to bringing you
guys more content and continuing this conversation. Thank you for listening.
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