Welcome to In the Seams, a podcast by Broken and Mended with your hosts, David Heflin and
Timothy Gunnels.
Hello, this is John the editor here.
This is just a bit of an advisory to let you know that later on topics including mental health issues,
self-harm and suicidal ideation will be discussed by the hosts.
So if you're sensitive to that and don't wish to listen to that, perhaps maybe listen to a different episode.
But also if you or anyone you know are going through these issues, first of all, talk to somebody.
You're not alone and there will be people there around you that will be willing to help.
And also the suicide hotline phone number is in the show description.
But please reach out. Again, you're not alone.
Okay, now onto the episode.
Well, I want to welcome you back to In the Seams and I know it's been a long while since we've had this show.
I'll give you a brief explanation of that.
But basically Broken and Mended has just been very busy and there's been a lot of urgent things that we've had to take care of ever since the Christian Chronicle article came out in June.
And we have seen our ministry grow in the states, but overseas as well.
Over a hundred different support groups now in Kenya and East Africa, along with a little bit more moderately growing amount of groups here in the states.
And I've just barely been able to find time to breathe.
As much as I'd love to be able to do this podcast more regularly, it has not been possible for me this past year.
So I thank you for your understanding.
But I do hope that it can be a little bit more regular with it going forward.
And part of the solution that may be to share the hosting duties a little bit.
And I'm going to be doing that today.
And so I want to introduce you to our co-host, Tim Gunnels or Timothy Gunnels is here with us.
And he may be with us in the future some in this role as well as we come up with some things that we'd like to talk about.
And Tim has been with us before, had him on the podcast sharing his story in an interview format.
But this is a little bit different role.
But, Tim, hello and want to give you opportunity just to kind of remind people about who you are, a little bit about your involvement with Broken and Mended and a little bit about your ministry and other respects.
David, thanks for inviting me to be in the chair beside you to co-host this important podcast.
I've been able to come along on the board with Broken and Mended since first being interviewed and really am seeing the growth that's happening and excited about that.
It's one of those things that's challenging.
The reason we're growing is because so many people are struggling.
Yeah.
So many people are dealing with the issues that we're going to be talking about.
And, you know, the fact that you and I are doing this together, a lot of it has to do with our own journeys with chronic pain and illness.
And we we really seek to minister to other people.
And it also helps us, I think, for being honest to really help other people to talk about it.
That's right.
But I am a college professor for Amherst University, I teach Bible leadership and ministry, undergraduate through doctoral courses.
It's all online, thankfully, which has been a blessing to me in a very varied ways.
Also, I preach for the Southside Church of Christ and Shelbyville, Tennessee, and married and have four children.
My oldest is married and is a nurse and got him all the way down to eight years old.
So a lot going on.
And we've got some chickens and a dog and maybe be getting some goats soon.
Oh, wow.
A lot of things happening around the Gunnels house and in ministry.
And I just want to say a little bit more just in direct relation to Broken and Mended since the podcast and since the Christian Chronicle article.
I have just been contacted by so many people to talk about things and a lot of them have been men.
And I know that's something we're going to be talking about today.
Yeah.
And I can identify with a lot of the things that we'll be discussing and not just from a personal standpoint, but also from those discussions.
So I look forward to this conversation we're going to have.
And I hope it's helpful.
Thank you, Tim.
You know, yes, and so that's a good segue into talking about our introducing our topic.
And we are going to talk about men and really the stigma of chronic pain as it relates to masculinity or feeling manly and those those sorts of things.
And and I want to say if if you're one of our female listeners, we certainly don't want you to turn this off.
I think a lot of women, especially that have loved ones that also are dealing with chronic illness and chronic pain that are men desire for men to be able to find more help and for them to be able to open up.
And maybe this could also be something you share with them if you listen to this podcast and think it would be helpful to your male friend or loved one, whatever the case may be.
But we feel like we need to talk about this issue. And part of the reason is in chronic illness and chronic pain ministry circles, you know, you will find that they are predominantly female.
And, you know, and there's there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons for that, I think.
But it got me to thinking about why that was and why it seemed that men in general tend to avoid, you know, a support group like we're trying to do.
And even online support groups, you know, even places where the support group is mainly just interacting and social media, you will still find that men don't inhabit those spaces as nearly as much as women.
And some of those ministries, and I won't name any names, but they're a little bit they seem to be more intentionally geared toward women.
And I think sometimes that leaves men feeling left out.
And so maybe we can bring a little balance to that and broken and mended.
I think probably predominantly we still have more women than men. In fact, I'm certain that we do involve a broken and amended.
But I think we're a little bit more balanced than maybe some other ministries in that regard.
And I think that's because, well, I'm a man and I started the ministry and, you know, Tim being a man and, you know, we're speaking out about it.
And I think that does give an opening for people, other men, to come and speak to us like you just shared and to share the struggle a little bit.
And so along with our own personal experience, we did a little reading in preparation for this topic.
And I'm going to mention those sources, although I'll put the the direct links in the show notes.
And so you'll be able to go and read these if you want.
Fair warning on these first two, I'm going to mention they are lengthy and they're academic, but they were interesting.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being.
The second one was Pain Research and Management.
And then we looked at a couple of other more informal blogs that seem to agree with the research, but maybe was not as resourced or as detailed as those.
LiveThePain.org and Pathways.Health were those sources.
And as I said, we will put that in the show notes and we'll say to thanks to Jim Dow.
Jim's one of our board members and he is our treasurer, but he looked at these articles ahead of time and culled them together for Tim and I to read.
So I want to thank him for that.
I didn't actually have to go and find these.
And there's probably more to read out there for sure.
But this was a good start for me.
As I mentioned, two of them more academic, two a little bit less formal.
But there was substantial agreement about some of the unique challenges for men with chronic illness and chronic pain.
And so, Tim, I'm going to hand it back over to you for just a moment.
And I want you to share, if you would, from your experience with chronic pain in relation to being a man, particularly, have you found it easy to connect with other men over this issue or to share with other men, even what you're going through?
Or has it been more isolating for you as a man?
And I'll speak to my own experience in a moment.
David, it has been more isolating.
And when I first began dealing with it on a more profound level, I think I shared in the podcast I was on as a guest, I started having pain issues many, many years ago.
But sort of be honest with you, I sort of wrote them off and thought, well, you know, and because they were flares and I didn't understand that concept and they would sort of come and go and maybe a month of pain and then it would just go away for a while.
And I was like, well, you know, I don't know, maybe I did something or even wrote it off as getting older, even though when I was having those problems, I don't think I was old.
But when I when I really went into this two year flare that was intense and the pain was overwhelming.
I was also taking care of my parents and their home and my dad's was on a walker and he was going around and here I am complaining about more pain than him and it started to bother him.
And I just started to shut down on that. I just I didn't want to I didn't want to open. I didn't want to open up around him.
And my mom has dementia and it would just be upsetting to her. And so I'd get up and do things for him in the morning.
And I just had to hide my pain. That's the way I felt about it. And that even starting each day felt very isolating to get into that.
And then having to pull back on some things that I had previously done, like traveling, speaking different places and that sort of thing that began to be a problem.
I am thankfully I'm able to get a little bit more back into that, but I've learned to pace myself.
And this online platforms are a blessing, you know, to be able to do that.
Sure. And I have to necessarily get on an airplane. But going to church, which has always been obviously a big part of my life
and trying to talk about it. If people ask me how I was doing and I'm wearing braces and that sort of thing.
And I began to notice people avoiding me that maybe had come and talked to me before.
They didn't want to talk about even though I didn't necessarily want to talk about my pain. Right.
It's like, well, I don't know what to talk to Tim about evidently when I go over there. I'm not sure.
Because some of the things that maybe we talked about before, I bet he can't do anymore.
And so that that became really isolating. But it was it was tough for church to be a place of isolation when it had always been a place of support.
So I think, as you know, and just to be raw and honest, I don't really like sharing that much personally on on social media.
And I had been on Facebook, but on Twitter, I started sharing some things about pain and and you actually reached out, you know, to talk about that.
I guess it's X now, not Twitter. I can't get you. Yeah, I keep calling it Twitter. It says Twitter on my phone still.
But and other people would would reach out. So and it was men, you know, men that would do that.
There's an occasional woman that would do it. But it is very isolating.
Love my brothers and they concerned, you know, got three brothers and they're concerned about me.
But my sister always would listen more than my brothers, you know, to it.
Even though they had some of their own pain issues, I think sometimes men don't like to talk about with each other, which makes it more isolating,
not opening up, not being forthcoming about it, I think really adds to the to the isolation.
So it is hard to connect with other men.
And and I want to say another thing about this because of the podcast and because of the article and also conversations with family members, female family members, not male family members.
They begin to talk to other women whose husbands, sons, you know, fathers were having chronic pain issues and they wanted those men to call and talk to me just to have somebody to talk to.
And maybe one out of 50 called the women would call. Right.
I get a lot of calls from from women who are concerned about the men in their life and they they want, you know, and I'll send links to things, you know, hey, have them call me or whatever.
But it's it's very difficult for the for these men, anecdotally speaking, you know, in my experience, that's what we're talking about for them to let their guard down and be open and honest about about things.
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's unfortunate.
I've had the exact same experience since I've been in chronic illness, chronic pain ministry where wives or mothers or, you know, good friends of female friends of male people who were suffering, you know, hear about broken amended, get excited about how it might help them.
And yeah, and I and at first I expected that I would be hearing from that male family member or friend.
I basically just have a wait and see approach now. I don't necessarily think that they're going to reach out because they most of the time they don't.
And they prefer to suffer in isolation. Well, I don't know if they prefer. It's just what they know. And they don't know how to do that.
You know, and just know that. Yeah. Yeah. It's their experience.
You know, for me, I had one pretty big blessing early on with when I was first of all, you know, as I think about my lowest point of my struggle, which kind of planted the seed for broken amended is back in 2016, I felt isolated from everyone.
So it wasn't just for men. It just was a horrible time and I didn't know how to talk to anyone about it.
Early on, I had a male friend, a good friend, a church member older than me who had suffered with the same disease, ankylosing spondylitis, you know, just you know what I have.
And he had suffered with it to a great degree, much, much more than I have even, you know, by far to this point.
And it's partly because they didn't really understand the disease very much when he he was diagnosed with it in the early 80s.
Anyway, his name's Joe and Joe was a person who was always willing to share.
He was looking for people even before I got sick.
He was looking for people to, you know, to share his experience with that would listen.
And so when I got sick and I had the trouble, he was there for me, would come and pray with me and encourage me.
And so I maybe was spared just a little bit of that isolation because I the one person I really knew that was going through the same thing happened to be a man and had been looking for that same type of relationship as well.
And so I was very thankful for that.
Certainly, though, with men in general, I, you know, I have learned that there's just a few that I can talk to and share with that understand.
And one of them, again, is Jim, who, as I mentioned, is on our board and Jim, the reason why he understands, at least to a certain level, is because his mother had chronic illness and for his entire life.
And she actually was one of the charter members of Broken and Mended.
And he was so grateful for this ministry to come into her life.
She's going on to be with the Lord now.
And but Jim's another person I know that I can say, man, I'm hurting today.
I'm sorry. He doesn't have to say much.
He just says, I'm sorry, I'm praying for you.
And that's a meaningful interaction for me.
But but in general, yes, I've experienced some of that isolation and difficult time, you know, talking to other men about it.
And I do think it's because men just they don't know what to say.
And if they have their own problems, they don't know how to talk about it.
And yes, you know, it's just a it's just a struggle to be vulnerable.
They want to fix it.
And they can't fix this.
Right. Yeah. So that's always kind of hard, I think, for men.
Well, let's let's let's move forward here and talking a little bit about the issue as it relates to male health and male strength with masculine identity, how those things go together.
I've got a quote here from one of our sources.
It's a really long one.
And so I won't I won't repeat the name of it.
But here's it's it'll be listed in the show notes.
Masculinity is embodied through acts and capacities such as physical activity, physical functionality, bodily changes, strength and endurance.
You know, I can think about my experience growing up.
A lot of us can, you know, and and, you know, having, you know, friendly competitions or unfriendly competitions sometimes with our peers, physical contest, you know, or talking about how much we could bench press or how much we could do this or that.
So physical activity and physical challenge and competition that's tends to be a part of masculine identity from very early on.
And these losses that we experience through chronic illness and chronic pain, they can affect our ability to play with our children physically or to take care of our wives.
There's the issue of sexual intimacy, which comes into play not only with the disease, but maybe the medicines that we take bodily changes, you know, you know, some men because we lose muscle mass, we can put on weight, you know, fat, in some cases the other way.
Right. People can can lose a great deal of weight because of what they're going through.
And there's just loss of strength and endurance and all this can really strike a blow to the male sense of male sense of identity.
And so we're thinking about this again is in terms of our experience, the research backs us up.
But we're also want to be able to share some of our story and how chronic pain has impacted our sense of worth and masculinity.
You know, first of all, I have to say that I don't know that.
I mean, so growing up, I was involved in a lot of things, none of what I was decent at martial arts.
I was not very good at football, but I played it for 10 years.
You know, I don't know if I thought of those things as part of masculine identity or not.
I'm not your typical man's man kind of guy.
I'm not out there hunting all the time, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
I enjoy a good book.
You know, so that part hasn't been affected as much by by chronic illness and chronic pain.
So I don't know how much my masculine identity was tied to that to begin with, though I can relate and understand why it is for some.
But I will say this when I first got sick and I started with a hip injury and I actually injured both my hips and talk one day.
I was very involved in talk one day. I was taking that with my boys and enjoying that very much.
And I was also training for 10 K, which I did eventually run.
And when everything kind of just fell apart and I had to give up all of that stuff, you know, because of my my health issues,
especially the martial arts had to go almost right away because I was just tearing up my hips every time I tried to, you know, throw a kick.
And and so that was a big sense of loss and big sense of loss of connection with my boys that I was hoping to share.
My father and my brother and I had taken martial arts together when I was growing up.
And so that was something I really enjoyed and was enjoying with them. And that was hard.
I think other times, too, where I couldn't throw the ball with my kids, you know, because my shoulders were hurting so bad.
That was hard and disappointing. So the financial burdens that I brought to the family as the husband and the father, the provider, you know, was was hard.
My wife having to go back to work primarily because of my health issues.
And so I don't know if I saw it as much in terms of masculine identity, but I certainly saw it in terms of my roles in the family, which are related to masculinity.
Right. Husband, father. And it made me feel gave me a sense of guilt as I dealt with these things.
And, you know, so that's that was kind of what my experience has has been with that.
And I, you know, today, I think I've accepted these limitations and I've tried to communicate with my family when I had some limitation, whatever that limitation might be.
And for the most part, they've been I've been able to communicate it and they've been able to hear it.
But certainly it was difficult adjusting to limited roles in areas where normally the husband and the and the father would have been expected to perform and and to be able to do.
So what about you, Jim?
Yeah, I can identify with a lot of those things and I echo a lot of the concerns as far as martial arts goes.
I've never done that, but I've got a son who is second degree level for black belt.
Oh, wow. That's way up there.
He's been doing that for a while. So he's about to get to look to a third degree.
He's got about six or seven more months where he gets there.
And I was when I first started taking him to Taekwondo, I almost jumped in with him and they were offering for us to do that.
And I was feeling good. I was about to start that.
And that's when I started having all these major aches and pains.
And, you know, then it actually got to the point where I couldn't drive him there, that my wife had to drive, drive him there.
And I went for a while where I couldn't even go.
When I got to the point where I was my wife had to drive almost everywhere for a couple of years, I didn't feel like I could even ride in a car to go see, you know, my in-laws, that sort of thing, because it was more than a couple of hours just because you get so stiff.
You know, you know, hey, let's stop. We've been riding for 15 minutes. I need to walk around.
You know, you don't. And so all that plays into your sense of worth.
And when you can't even drive or my son's age and he's 13 now, but I remember going to the rheumatologist and saying, you know, I just want to feel good enough to throw the football with my son.
You know, can we just get to that point?
And I grew up three older brothers, all super athletic, super strong guys.
I was kind of a late bloomer.
I like sports, but didn't really get into it in high school because I was just a skinny kid, you know, and a little get a little bit bulkier later.
And, you know, as an adult was able to enjoy some things and, you know, hunted and fished fished with my granddad and my dad and.
But I am more of a book guy when it comes to it. I like marching through the woods. I like the hiking part more than running for him.
I really end up but getting to the point where you felt like you just had to sit on the couch all the time or you couldn't just go.
I always with me.
One way it affected my marriage is I always just sort of took care of things like if there's something that need to be, you know, there's an era needs to be run somebody's got to do something.
You know, if there was something outside that need to be done, if there was something had to be carried or lifted, I could always do that.
I could typically just pick up whatever I felt like picking up.
And even though I wasn't a muscle bound guy, I think I just had some natural strength that was genetic.
And when I got to where, you know, lifted 10 pounds and I felt like I was breaking my back or something, you know, that was really debilitating, I think more emotionally than anything.
And just feeling bad about myself and feeling like I was letting everybody down.
I know that I apologize to my family all the time for being a failure and failing them.
And they were very gracious and said, you're not a failure. You know, you're you're still providing for us. You're still doing different things.
I wasn't providing everything I would like to provide, but they were very gracious.
But I I just felt like I was supposed to do more. And in some of the articles we looked about, I see a lot of that, you know, just want to do more.
I want to be the provider. I want to be the masculine one.
And it's not that we're less masculine.
It's just how we have viewed ourselves, I think more than even how others have viewed us is it just becomes a very disheartening.
And we have to work through that and come out on the other side, realizing that our worth is not tied to our physical makeup and our physical ability.
And we're not defined by pain and we're not defined by illness.
There's so much more that can be done.
I was just I know we're going to get into some scriptures later, but I'm thinking about Jacob.
You know, God names him Israel.
Yeah.
And Jacob, God basically cripples Jacob.
Right. I mean, he's he's limping for the rest of his life.
I wrestle. He's got that hip out of socket.
And Jacob was very weak spiritually and I think emotionally and mentally for so much of his life until really after some of those interactions and after he deals with some some trial where he may have caused trial before.
Now his father in law is causing him trials and that sort of thing. Right.
I love at the end of Genesis that he's he's leaning on his staff, worshiping God.
And I don't know what it is about that.
But when I when I read that, I think that is the most manly thing that Jacob ever does is worshiping God.
And he's doing it right there.
You know, he's he's in he's at the end of his journey on this earth and he's he's he's propped up on a stick.
Yeah. Worshipping God.
But there's something about that is so powerful. It's just a simple image.
And I that helped me to look at that.
You know, I can I can not feel good.
I can be bent over. I cannot do the things I once did.
But that does not impact my relationship with God or other people.
I can be a blessing to them.
I can be strong for them.
Maybe it's just by by conversation.
And so I.
I thankfully come out on the other side, not to say I never, ever feel sorry for myself or I never wish I could do more.
That would be a lie.
But for the most part, I think I've been able to work through that and realize there's such greater value beyond just our physical strength.
Yeah. Amen.
So I think it really leads us to the next thing is that belief that reaching out for help or talking about pain is not manly.
And the fact that you and I are doing this, we I think, David, if we're being honest, we're doing this to help other people.
It's not that we really just enjoy getting on here and talking about our struggles.
And we just need a platform to talk about ourselves and show that's not at all right.
If anything, I kind of want to, excuse me, draw back a little bit and not share some of that.
But I know that as men, we need to show that it's OK to to talk about things.
And that actually brings you strength.
And it is a it is a manly thing, not declaring ourselves as manly men.
But, you know, it's a manly manliest of all.
That's right. Yeah.
To be honest. I think honesty, I think, is the main thing.
So but there is this idea of I've got to be stone faced.
I got to have a stiff upper lip and just plow through.
So one of the articles we read and it was from pain research and management.
A clear pattern appeared where men were presented as being stoic,
tolerating pain and taking health risk, even when they led to increase pain.
Further, men were described as being autonomous and control, avoiding seeking health care,
not talking about pain and avoiding talking about the possible relation between pain and psychic well-being.
What's your response to that?
What do you think about that? I mean, this is this is research.
What do you think about this discovery, David?
I mean, I think that, you know, you know, first of all, there's a stereotype that I see played out constantly.
So in other words, it's a stereotype that's for a reason.
I mean, there's there's truth behind it.
And, you know, and a lot of times, you know, I hear a wife joking about how hard it is to get their husband to go see the doctor.
You know, they just don't want to deal with it. They want to acknowledge it.
And this is just talking about normal stuff.
We're not even talking about the issue of chronic pain, chronic illness,
which eventually is going to make you go see a doctor, you know.
And unfortunately, sometimes when we try to push that side, the harm from the disease and everything has already caused some damage to the body.
And I've known several stories, you know, you know, like that.
You know, it's it's hard for me to say something here.
I think that's unique to what we've been talking about already.
But it kind of fits the theme as we're thinking about, you know, the stoicism.
And there are some people who just more easily talk about, you know, things than than others.
And I know my mom and my dad may listen to this and I don't want to, you know, not shed a negative light on any of them, but to simply say that I'm more like my mom.
I've always have been and more willing to share and be open.
And I think that's been helpful to me, you know, over the course of any struggles that I've dealt with.
And my dad, again, you know, not wanting to get into his private life because he doesn't share that much about his struggles and never were just different.
Yeah, yeah, very different. But my brother, who's an Army Ranger, is just like my dad that way.
And my brother deals with chronic illness, too. He deals with chronic pain.
Yeah, he's got Crohn's and he is he will ignore that for as long as he possibly can until he can't get into it anymore.
And it's funny when we talk about broken amended and he's very supportive of what I'm doing with broken amended.
But we'll kind of joke sometimes about, hey, I'll have you come and just tell everyone to suck it up and move on, you know, because that's that's just kind of again.
Remember what he does for a living, you know, he's a yes.
Army Rangers about the toughest people on the planet that way, you know, and there's not appreciate the service.
Yeah, we do. And but there's not a lot of encouragement to open up and to share. And here's the thing I want people to understand by that, because you already alluded to it.
This is not about self-indulgence when we're talking about these things.
And if you refuse to open up about what you're going through, you're not just isolating yourself, but you're isolating others who may need to know they're not alone.
And this is not the way God created men to be. This is what our culture has done, the men and shaping them and twisted the idea of what a man's supposed to be.
And, you know, and it seems to be a tendency throughout many different cultures that men will act this way and think that that is what it means to be a man.
But we don't we don't see that vision of a man being portrayed in the Bible.
In fact, we see quite the opposite, don't we? And and so I want I want people to understand that sometimes our and this is, I know, kind of getting way toward the end, but maybe it all kind of works together anyway.
But, you know, this this view of being a man that we get from culture is not God's view of what being a man is. And God's view is the one that counts.
His views. Yeah, his view is what is truth. And and so I want people to understand that. And I want people to understand that you have people that you can help to while at the same time receiving help that you need, that we are created for mutuality in our relationships.
And yes. Yeah. So anyway, that's that's my initial thought to that. And that stoicism, that stoicism, I believe, is just going to call it what it is. It's a lie. It does not bring value into our relationship with God.
It does not bring value into our relationship with others.
I totally agree with that.
It's been interesting. Lately, I've had some conversations with some folks who who do struggle, men who struggle with with chronic illness and pain.
And they'll be pretty open about it, but they show a greater concern for somebody else, you know, some other family member, which I really don't have a problem with. And I appreciate them wanting to do that. And if it is just about greater concern for the other person and not deflecting your own issues.
And I think that comes back in this to the stoic mindset. Hey, you know, go help the other person over there. You know, I think we've seen those scenes even in movies where, you know, you got somebody who's totally messed up after a battle scene or something like, hey, go help the other guy.
You know, I'm OK. And go back over there and that guy's gone. Yeah, you know, because you didn't get the help. And right. We have to watch that. And I want to say something about that, even when it comes to to being a provider, being a husband, father, son, whatever, being a friend.
If we are in denial so much outwardly about what we're going through that we harm ourselves more than what do we have left? You know, what do we have left to provide? What do we have left to give to somebody else?
And so I would encourage men who are listening to this podcast, don't don't hold that in and not be open and honest about it, because we need to teach our children to be honest. We need to teach our children to share.
It's not about being a whiner. And I think that sometimes we get, you know, I'm just going to you're just a whiner or complainer. No, that's not that's not what we're talking about. It shouldn't be viewed that way.
It should be about honesty, building relationship, trusting and and mutually, you know, helping and supporting each other for sure.
You know, I appreciate you saying that. And I want to kind of move into, you know, talking about how this can play out and sometimes a dangerous way.
And talk about mental health for a moment. And I'll read a quote again. This is from the Pathways blog. So this is from our third source here.
This doesn't only affect physical health. And it's talking about that stoicism, you know, this is only affect physical health. It has an impact mentally. Stress of trying to keep up with their usual role can cause anxiety and depression, in turn fueling the pain and stress cycle.
And anxiety about letting other people see their pain can mean that men in this situation felt incredibly alone. And by the way, that becomes a dangerous situation. We'll talk about that risk factor in a moment.
But again, here, so if it's already it's hard enough to tell people that you're hurting physically, I'll tell you what's even harder for a lot of men. And I think this could apply to the general population of men and women, but probably even more so with men because of these factors that we're talking about.
And I think it's important for people to know that it is normal or should be normal anyway to talk about these things and to get help. I've struggled with depression because of my battle with chronic illness and chronic pain.
And it has been off and on. And sometimes it's better than others. I'm actually in a period right now where it's been a bit worse for these last couple weeks. I think I know some of the factors that were contributing to it that kind of led to kind of triggering it.
And I hate the feeling because you just feels I mean you see the little cartoon sometimes with the guy that has a cloud over his head everywhere he goes. And it just feels like everything that you're doing is under a cloud.
And even when it's a good thing that you're doing or should be a rewarding thing, you don't feel the reward that you would normally feel from that experience. And of course this can go as far as all the way to suicide ideation or ideation and it's not going to be a reward.
And even when it's a good thing that you're doing or should be a rewarding thing, you don't feel the reward that you would normally feel from that experience. And of course this can go as far as all the way to suicide ideation or ideation and that's the extreme end of that.
And it can go that way if there's no checks for it. There's no you know checking in with people who love you and in many cases you know counseling and even medication. And again it doesn't make person a weak person if they need medication to deal with either their physical or their mental health.
I've done I've dealt I've had a counselor and I've also taken medicine to help with depression and people need to know that that is a normal experience, especially the risk factor is higher with chronic pain chronic illness, and that it's normal to seek out help.
And this should not go on attended because of what it can lead to anything you would want to add to that.
I struggled with depression issues before I started dealing with chronic pain and had been on medications and been to counseling before that and when the chronic pain came in.
Boy that was like dumping a load of bricks.
Not just on your body but just on your psyche. Yeah, hey I'm on medication right now I'll openly admit it and I'll, I can say that because I've said it from the pulpit or breach.
I've talked about my pain. I've talked about.
I just couple weeks ago I said hey I'm doing really great but there's some pain that I always have you know I can.
I'm reminded that I'm alive by some of the pain I have and.
And you know what.
It has opened up conversations with men in particular who have struggled with some things that I think had I not been honest I would not have been helpful.
And so, I'm thankful that I have the gift of running my mouth disease.
Yeah, yeah right.
But no I've just never really gone you know I'm not gonna say what's on my mind.
I hope I have a filter for what's appropriate what's not sure but I.
My trust is in God.
He's my strength.
If I can help somebody else by being open and honest about my own struggles, then I think that's much more valuable than, than putting on a tough persona.
I can be tough, trust me. But that's, there's a lot more to toughness even than physical.
And I think just being open and honest is a very, very healthy thing.
I was, I know that one in four people this is statistically proven one in four people in life go through a serious depression.
I mean that's a big percentage. It is.
I also and I got this email from the arthritis foundation this morning, one in four people deal with chronic pain.
So, 25% dealing with depression 25% dealing with chronic pain and I would, I would, I have no way of proving this but I'd say there's a pretty good percentage that hit both of those so.
Let's let's be honest about let's talk about it and it helps to talk about it, it actually release releases some pressure.
Yeah, and I think we need to be okay with doing that is also okay to choose who you talk to it about.
You know, you know if you, if you feel like someone's going to not respond in a helpful way you don't have to talk to those folks about it.
But you'd certainly should find somebody that's going to be helpful. Yep. Absolutely.
So, you mentioned this dangerous combination of factors for men and I, and part of what we're going to be getting into is self harm. Okay, and I want to talk about that a minute but I had a conversation with someone about a family member of theirs, who recently
committed suicide.
It was a man.
From all aspects very successful in every aspect of life, but he had dealt with decades of chronic pain due to an accident. As I had these conversations I could, I got the sense that just plowing ahead pushing ahead pretending like it wasn't there may have been part of his
pain. Sure. And so I am concerned about that. But the, this is another. This is from live the pain.org it's a, it's kind of lengthy quote but I think it's a good one, the mental toll of living with chronic conditions is significant and potentially dangerous if left
unaddressed. Here to men are affected by traditional ideals of masculinity, and the same way that men are expected to be physically strong and competent. They're also expected to be mentally composed and unshakable.
The shame of admitting mental and emotional struggles because of ongoing pain whether anxiety depression or grief forces men to manage their difficult feelings and emotions along.
Compromised physical and mental health on one side and a threat to their masculinity on the other. Men may endure fear loneliness and a slowly eroding sense of self. While the image they project to those around them may be that they're confident and coping well
they may be concealing deep pain fear depression vulnerability and loneliness. That's really why I mentioned that sad event before this because that to me it just, it's it's an example of this, someone not dealing with it in the right ways and trying to plow ahead trying to push ahead
trying to be strong and trying to put on this face that they actually would be stronger, we would be stronger to to talk about our whole self our whole being and deal with ourselves as a complete person with all the things we've got going on rather than just
sticking with that. So, given the already high rates of suicide with chronic illness protesting masculine appearances can can really be a life and death issue so how is it that we break the cycle.
Well, I want to start first at what we're doing is part of that what we're doing today and why David and I are being so open is we want to help break the cycle and the stigma of not of talking about chronic pain and illness, and what usually comes with it and
some mental health struggles. So, we need to be open, we need to be upfront about it. It's disease upon disease, and it's not anything we bring on ourselves. We don't bring on our mental illness.
Certainly there could be a time in somebody's life that they could through sin drug use that sort of thing I understand that but that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about dealing with chronic pain and physical illness that then just kind of erodes our, our
mental and emotional well being. And we have to deal with that and be open and honest about it. So, what are your thoughts on that day.
You know, I had a uncle, great uncle, and he struggled with chronic headaches I didn't know this until after he committed suicide. And one of the things I remember about Uncle Billy was that he was a person who was very open and talking about his
faith, more so than most people I knew in my family, especially on that side of the family. And so as a kid who had no, I had no frame of reference really for how suicide and depression and these things could be not how they could coexist with someone
else who had strong faith. And so for me I just didn't get it at all how this had happened. And I was reading something too about especially with headaches, chronic headaches are a great increase in risk of suicide.
And so, but again I didn't know the end of this as a teenager it was just perplexing to me that this had happened but now I think about it quite differently and I think about it as someone who, you know, who has dealt with, you know, chronic illness but also seen a whole lot of people go through
really debilitating diseases and to know as I look at Uncle Billy must have felt very isolated, very alone, must have felt like he had obviously no hope, no one he could turn to despite the fact that he had this presence of faith. And so again I want to emphasize that just because you have suicidal thoughts, you're dealing with severe depression does not negate the fact that you have real faith. If you didn't have real faith you might have given into it long ago so it may be helping you more than you realize.
That's right. Even in the midst of it. But I do know that Billy needed something else obviously as we look back on his life now and he needed some kind of intervention in some kind of way in which he could break that cycle of, and I think it comes to what we're doing right now, and that's talking about it, being open about it, finding people we can trust and love.
Obviously support groups, we're going to promote that because that's what we do in Broken Amended. And, but I just say if you're having these thoughts, first of all I'm going to put a number for a suicide hotline in the show notes because that's important to get immediate help if that's going on.
But if a person wants to reach out to me or to Tim, because you're struggling with these thoughts and you know I'll just tell you our emails are real easy. It's David at BrokenAmended.org, it's Tim at BrokenAmended.org.
Don't be isolated. You know, reach out and we'll try to help you get connected to a wider group of support. But in the meantime, you can share your story with us and we'd be glad to pray for you and pray with you if we need to.
But breaking the cycle is defeating the stigma that we've been talking about. And we're, we're almost out of time and there's a few things I wanted to end with and Tim chime in as you will.
I want to push back a little bit on some of this, and we've been doing it anyway throughout our talk today, but I want to push back a little bit on this stigma or this masculinity and identity being tied to certain things that we can do physically, and push back on it from a perspective of what the Bible has to say about.
So just a few reminders. You know, first of all, we have a deeper identity than our gender, definitely gender is tied to identity. But we do have it something that goes deeper than that and it's being made in the image of God being created in God's image.
And that is an irreducible quality of our identity that no matter what happens to our physical body that that still remains true, and we need to hold on to that and understand that there is a deeper sense deeper mystery to who we are, then sort of gender, gender identity, as important as that may be.
And I want to say again that cultural ideas about gender are not necessarily biblical ones, people in the Bible cried out to God, and both physical and emotional anguish, all the time.
None of them were ever judged for being less than a man for that I'm reading job right now.
I'm telling you, he is not holding back.
You know, you go read the Psalms and they're not holding back either even Jesus and on the cross right my God my God why have you forsaken me. It was in this great display of weakness, giving himself over to be crucified.
And it's an epitome of shame and weakness that Jesus, in the end, won the greatest victory ever won, and that we owe him an eternal debt of gratitude because of it. And, and so these ideas about weakness or in what the culture says about it are not the same as God and with that I want to read
the first Corinthians 12. It's become one of my favorite ones since Paul talking about the thorn in the flesh which very well may have been a physical element. He says that this first Corinthians 12 reading from the second half of verse seven through 10.
Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself a thorn in the flesh was given to me, and messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself.
I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me, but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness for power is perfected in weakness.
Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may reside in me. I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions and pressures.
Because of Christ and listen to this last line, for when I am weak, then I am strong.
What a radical countercultural idea that Paul has to strength and, by the way, Paul was pretty tough.
In fact, you know in these articles that we read they articulated a reframe masculinity about what we're overcoming in our chronic illness and chronic and chronic pain.
And instead of them showing us to be weak they're showing giving us opportunity to show the opposite.
As Paul says when I am weak, I am strong.
And that leads to recognition that something even greater than physical strength is being developed in us as we suffer, I'm talking about this for Christians as Christians, if we are suffering faithfully with whatever we're going through, then something more valuable than all this
physical strength in the world is being formed in us.
Romans five, three through five, this is Paul again, he says, not only that but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope.
This hope will not disappoint us because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.
I would not trade my character for all the physical strength in the world.
And chronic illness and chronic pain has allowed that to grow in me. I've still got a lot of work to do character wise but God has helped that grow in me.
So, I didn't mean to fall into sermon mode Tim but I know you really understand anything.
I'm identifying with it. Yeah, anything you'd like to add as we close here.
I would say that.
Sorry for a little frog in my throat here but I would say that what you've said exactly right that's.
We can really deal with the greater part of ourselves. When we are honest with God we're honest with each other. And we can grow in ways that actually make this far stronger than we ever imagined.
And I think God for continuing to walk with me and I know you do as well and he will walk with all of us.
If we are open and honest and seeking, and we want to be here to help anybody who's suffering and and and just doesn't know where to turn us they're dealing with chronic pain and illness and thank you for listening.
Yeah, thank you for listening and being with us check us out on broken amended.org. Lots of ways we can get you connected and get you help.
Don't let your wife, just be the one that's trying to get you help that's not very manly so you need to, you need to reach out for reach out for help yourself and and that's okay and remember this alternate vision that in helping yourself this way you're also going to be able to help others who are struggling or suffering.
And the best thing I think is we look to what it means to be a man, and I know this is not particular to to men it's true for women too. But it's just what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is ultimately right that we, we suffer with and on behalf of others through our faith and with along with our faith in Christ that that is part of our calling and following Jesus and we, and that's a greater purpose of our life.
And that's a greater purpose that transcends all of this and can make some sense out of our suffering. So we got to sign off. And we again thank you for being with us, and we hope that this has been helpful to you in some way.
So, until next time.
May God bless you as you continue to walk with him.