Episode 470 Sheridan Taylor Surviving Suicide and Finding Purpose Transcript
This transcript is from episode 470 with guest Sheridan Taylor.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And today my guest is Sheridan Taylor. He’s a Canadian army combat veteran of 17 years, a former corrections officer and a suicide survivor. And Sheridan is a passionate writer who covers topics like mental health, addiction, the stigmatization of mental illness.
And today we’re going to talk about these issues and learn ways to reduce the harm that they do to us. As individuals and to our society. Um, but before we get into all that Sheridan, uh, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.
Sheridan Taylor: Thanks, man. Good to be here. Good to
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, let’s take it back a bit to your time in the Canadian army.
Uh, tell us a little bit about your experiences there, how it What shaped your, you know, your experiences and kind of what took place throughout your time in the military?
Sheridan Taylor: Uh, wow. Yeah, I, uh, [00:01:00] I entered late. I was in my early 20s when I got in. Um, but that’s where I grew up. Like, that’s where I matured and grew up and became a person worth being. Um, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t have the best example set. It’s no fault of anybody’s, right? It’s just, it’s perpetuation of we, we do what we’re shown and we teach what we know, you know?
And that’s just the Alright, so it wasn’t until I, you know, um, cowboyed up enough to, to follow my dreams and, uh, you know, signed a line, put my hand up and stepped forward and all the, you know, the hula stuff that, um, I began to, uh, actually become who I could be, instead of settling for who I was, you know, what your, your army has, like, be all you can be, I think it was, I don’t know if they still do that or not, but that’s, you know,
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: and
Scott DeLuzio: That, that was actually, as you were saying that, that’s exactly what I, what came to mind is like, Oh, so he was being all that he could be in the Canadian army.
Sheridan Taylor: Right, you know, and that’s, that’s what, so yeah, I learned, [00:02:00] I learned, you know, all kinds of, you know, all the awesome cool stuff that we learned in the army, right? I learned, you know, the importance of, you know, um, aspiration, of trying to be better, of seeking responsibility, you know, improvising, adapting, overcoming, teamwork, um, I learned how to be a father.
In the army, um, I wasn’t a father in the army, um, but I was a junior, what you guys call, NCO in the army for a long, long, long, long, long time. Um, I was injured at one point and, um, I couldn’t, I couldn’t go put on courses that would, you know, lead to, uh, to promotion. Most of that was too damn stupid to just do what I was told by the medical professionals so I’d get better.
And then I push too hard and get worse and just, anyway, so I learned, you know, how to be a father, not to be a dad, because I learned, um, leadership, and I learned that, you know, my troops are not going to do what I tell [00:03:00] them to do, because I’m not doing what, you know, sergeant’s telling me to do, I’m doing what he’s showing me,
Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.
Sheridan Taylor: my troops would do what I showed them, and if I show, if I want them to be a certain kind of soldier, then I, I better fucking be that soldier for them.
Right? Um, and that, that came into play decades later, when I became a father, and began to realize that, um, I was setting an absolutely terrible example, and my kid was going to grow up to do what I was doing, and not what I was going to tell him, so I better start making changes. Um, ah, the army. I missed it every, I missed, I missed parts of it every single day.
I missed a lot of it every single day. Yeah. I, I, I, I, it’s a weird thing. In a way, I regret my service. I regret, I despise what my country has become and how it’s thrown away what I, all the ideals that I enlisted for. Um, but, I don’t regret [00:04:00] the good I did. I don’t regret, um, who I became, what I learned. I don’t regret, you know, um, responsibility, sacrifice.
You know, I, I miss my brothers every day. And I don’t call them.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: You know, I miss them every day. We never talk. When we do talk, they say the same thing. I miss you, man. I miss you, too. We never talk. So, I got a buddy, like three of them live in town. They live in town. I don’t know what else to say. We never talk, but I miss them. You know, I got to do a lot of really cool, cool stuff. I knew that When I would get up in the morning, when I woke up, I knew that no matter how much the day may suck, or how boring big parts of it are gonna, or whatever, I knew that, I knew that there’s gonna be something cool happen today. I’m gonna do something cool, you know, jump out of an airplane, blow something up, [00:05:00] I’m gonna do something cool. And I’m gonna do it with some really cool guys, and a couple assholes, and it’s gonna be alright.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I remember when, when I was in basic training and we, we got on the 50 cal range and we were learning how to shoot that. I got, I got down behind the gun and I got ready to start shooting. I was like, holy shit, they’re paying me to do this. I was like, I would go and pay to do this someplace like any other time.
I would have go and pay to do this. Um, But they are actually paying me to learn how to do this? Hell yeah. This has got to be the best job in the world.
Sheridan Taylor: I had a realization a couple days ago, I was sitting there, I just didn’t, you know, um, I don’t know, something mundane, folding my kids laundries, I don’t know, something super boring and mundane and housewife y, and um, I realized, my country used to give me grenades! What are you thinking?! And then you would give me, you would put me in charge of people, Lunatics just like me, younger, and put me in charge of them and give them grenades. What the fuck [00:06:00] are you guys thinking? I miss that, you know, like, you gave me grenades, like that’s giving a, you gave a chimp a, you gave a chimp a grenade, what are you doing?
Scott DeLuzio: And everyone, everyone like made it out, like we somehow survived all that. Like I, I, yeah, I, I didn’t belong having a grenade in my hands, you know? And then I could point to quite a few other guys who probably didn’t belong to have a grenade in their hands either. And, uh, yeah, we. Somehow we came out with all of our limbs attached, too, you know?
Sheridan Taylor: of us, yeah, like,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: I got out when I was in my, uh, my mid, I was medically discharged in my, in my, my early 40s, so there’s a period of, like, a 40 something year old, 16 year old with grenades, like, what are you,
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: weapons.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: I miss the army.
Scott DeLuzio: So, so you talked about that, uh, you know, getting out. Um, how was that, that transition period for you getting out, you know, that, that, uh, with the medical discharge? A lot of times that is, uh, [00:07:00] unexpected and you don’t really have the prep time to kind of, like, hey, what’s next? You know, what am I going to do when I grow up kind of thing?
Sheridan Taylor: Yeah, it was devastating, honestly. Um, first of all, um, I, with, hmm, no names, no pastoral, right? If I
Scott DeLuzio: Sure.
Sheridan Taylor: but, um, I’ve been injured quite badly for a while, and my battalion, um, the third battalion of my regiment, uh, Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, we were, um, not criminals or anything, but we do, we do what we do.
And, um, so, yeah. is necessary to accomplish the mission, not necessarily what, you know, is written down in regulation by, you know, each I dotted and each T crossed,
Scott DeLuzio: Sure.
Sheridan Taylor: And so, um, I was still serviceable in many, many aspects, but there were others where I wasn’t. So, I was just moved around in positions where I could be employed, right?
Like, at one point, um, even though I was a very [00:08:00] junior NCO, I was being employed in these senior, like, one of the most senior NCO positions in my, right? Just move me around and keep using me to my best of my advantage so that, you know, The battalion has troops on the ground. I’m not going bananas and everyone like just, you know, we’re family, right?
We’re just, we’re taking care of family, right? But I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming for about two years before, um, before I got discharged and I was hiding from the, from the, you know, the medical system. Battalion was hiding from the medical system. Medical system was kind of doing one of these things as much as it could, right?
We’re all just kind of like, you know, we’re This is working great. He’s doing great. We’re all doing good. Nothing’s going bad. Then I got dumb and and I couldn’t hide. I couldn’t be hidden and beat
Scott DeLuzio: Caught up, caught up with you, right? Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: there was a lot of stuff happening there. I’d already gone from being super, super fit and athletic.
I was never the strongest or the fastest or the whatever, right? But I was always in the top, you know, [00:09:00] percentages, right? So, um, I took great deal of pride in, in my physical, my physicality and I lost that for a while. Couldn’t even walk for a little while. Spine damage and, and knee damage and, um, So, I started struggling with, you know, identity issues like, who am I if I’m not, if I’m not John Rambo and James Bond, who am I, right?
Like, you know, um, and that started affecting all kinds of things, um, and I didn’t have the, the emotional intelligence to be able to deal with feelings and thoughts at the same time, right? Um, so I was having to deal with a lot of like, a lot of that, and then the actual discharge when it came, even though Looking back now, I can recognize fully that that was totally for my own benefit, like, that is my entire sheet of command.
Saying, hey, you’re really, really, really dumb, and if we don’t get rid of you, you’re gonna kill yourself or worse. So what we’re gonna do here, [00:10:00] like, we’re gonna protect you by making you not allow, not allow you to do this anymore to yourself, at least not on our dime. I recognize that now, but at the time, it was betrayal.
I was kicked out of my family, my only family I truly loved, right?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: So I was you know, but so I had that you know So loss of identity and loss of family and all that grief that goes along with that grief. That’s a bitch It’s an emotion that we’re we’re not taught how to deal with at all
Scott DeLuzio: Right, and a lot of times people associate grief obviously with death and that’s 100 percent applicable, but that’s not the only grief that we experience in life. Like, you know, losing that identity, you had to grieve that, you had to grieve the loss of that, that family that you had, right, the, the, um, the, the, The brothers that you were serving with, the guys that you, that, that were, were there with you, um, you know, even though, you know, one’s just across town, you still don’t see them often, you know, they might as well be in China, you know, [00:11:00] at that point, right?
Like it could be anywhere. And, uh, you know, and that’s another thing too, you brought up, and I wanted to, One of the reasons I make a point of this is, we do that a lot. I don’t know if it’s a guy thing or whatever. I know my wife, she’ll talk to people, she’ll be, you know, on the phone, she’ll be, you know, texting people, you know, messaging with, with people that she hasn’t seen in years, but she, you know, just wants to keep in touch with and all that.
And, you know, a lot of the guys that, that I serve with, I’m, I’m the same way where we, we get in touch every once in a while, like, you know, we may wish each other, you know, Merry Christmas or, you know, something like that. But, um, So that we don’t really, we’re not really, you know, in, in touch all the time.
Um, you know, a lot of us that we’ve moved to different parts of the country and all that kind of stuff too, but, um, still what the f we, we have the technology, we certainly could do it.
Sheridan Taylor: I guarantee you if anyone of your brothers show up on your doorstep tomorrow [00:12:00] morning say hey, man I got me a place to crash You’re like, yeah, come on in!
Scott DeLuzio: Come on in. Yep.
Sheridan Taylor: know, you get a phone call, you know, hey, meet me at this grid at this time, bring a shovel and a rope and some tarp, all
Scott DeLuzio: Ask no questions.
Sheridan Taylor: You’re there, right? You’re there. You’re nervous,
Scott DeLuzio: Yep. Yeah. A little nervous. Cause I know some of these guys, right. And, uh, I’ll be there. Sure.
Sheridan Taylor: right? But talk to them? No, that’s crazy.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. I mean, but, but when we do talk. It’s as if we, we picked up where we just left off, you know, it’s like no time has passed at all. And that’s, uh, that’s kind of a cool thing too, um, is that we were able to do that and it’s not like awkward or weird or anything. We, we can, we can pick it back up. So, um, anyway, I just wanted to make that, that point because, uh, You know, you’re not the only one if you’re listening out there that, that, uh, has trouble with this.
We all do. Um, so, so after getting out, getting out, you kind of struggle [00:13:00] with all that stuff that you were just talking about. Um, where did that take you from there?
Sheridan Taylor: Well, I needed a job, right? Strangely, right? Um, for a lot of reasons, um, eating, one of them, but, um,
Scott DeLuzio: good. Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: um, but there were some conditions, as there always is, right? Because life is life. Um, my wife, at the time, my wife of about, not quite two decades at that point, um, um, was struggling with her own, uh, depression, um, which I wasn’t aware of, and I was batshit crazy at that point.
Um, just. decades of stress kind of built up and not having healthy coping mechanisms and um, I was batshit crazy and she was, um, she was deeply, deeply unwell and we were just um, We were two people living very, very alone together, desperately, desperately wanting each other, unable to bridge that gap. Um, so she was dying. She was, at that point, her eating disorder was [00:14:00] killing her. Um, so, uh, so I got out in 2012 and she died in 2014. Um, and there was an overlap where I was on, like, uh, using up all of my leave.
from the army, and I was working as a corrections officer at that time for several months. I needed a job where, um, I wouldn’t be away from her, um, especially not for like a six month stint. I needed a job where I could, you know, and of course at the time I only believed I was capable of being a weapon. I couldn’t do anything other than that, right?
I’m only good for violence, right? Um, and it’s only when, so I was comfortable, so I needed, I needed a job with extreme high cortisol so I can feel normal in the office. Abnormal circumstances. So, you know, applying to, you know, law enforcement, things of that nature, paramilitary things was, um, was just, it was, it was a default, right?
Click, let’s do that. Um, I was too bananas to pass the psych evaluation for most law enforcement agencies. [00:15:00] And I agree with them now. Um, um, but I was lucid enough and functioning enough and intelligent enough and all the stuff enough, all the good stuff enough to be a corrections officer and for my province, right?
Um, what you guys call a state. Um, and so I did that. Um, and that was a terrible mistake for me, um, and for most people. Uh, it doesn’t matter which side of the bars you’re on. Jail isn’t good for anybody. It just isn’t. It’s just, It’s all awful. It’s just awful for everybody, everywhere, all the time. It just is.
Um, so, transitioning out of the army was, was just awful in absolutely every aspect of my life. Um, I was trying to replace that brotherhood identity with, uh, with corrections, um, which is not possible. You can’t, you can’t go back. Something is gone. You can’t. So, none of that worked out well. And I was, as I [00:16:00] said, Completely lost in trauma and undiagnosed ADHD and depression and anxiety and flashbacks and ugly and awful.
I wasn’t drinking at least. By the way, I’m an alcoholic. Or at least I was.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Sheridan Taylor: Um, I was a dry drunk for decades. I didn’t drink for decades, but I didn’t deal with the underlying issues, so what we call a dry drunk. Um, and I lived in terror of alcohol for decades. Um, and then, yeah, my wife was dying day by day.
Um, I got to the point where, you know, I’d wake up in the morning, um, or we’d go to work and wonder, like, okay, am I, you know, Am I coming home to her or her corpse? You know, every night falling asleep. What am I waking up to? And then one morning, one morning, I walk into her bedroom because she was late for her appointment and she was dead.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm.[00:17:00]
Sheridan Taylor: It was quiet, it was peaceful on the one hand, on one, and you know, me and our three dogs, so all living things that she loved most were in the house with her, but she was alone in the bedroom when it happened. I don’t know what happened. That was, that’s, that’s not, anyway, so Yeah, all in all, just, just awful, and every transition was Awful.
Scott DeLuzio: Big shit sandwich is pretty much what it was, right? I mean, um, like you, you hit all, I think all the boxes of all the, the shitty things that can happen. Um, you know, in, in that, I mean, I mean, fortunately you had a job, but it wasn’t the best job, right? It wasn’t, you know, I mean, you got, you got out of the army for physical, you know, uh, medical conditions, right?
And then you go and take a job that Requires physical condition to be kind of, kind of high up there. Um,
Sheridan Taylor: Yeah, and here’s the thing, right, like, [00:18:00] I was so, so deeply lost in illness, um, I didn’t feel pain.
Scott DeLuzio: okay.
Sheridan Taylor: experience pain. My spine is not connected properly. But I was so, so lost, I was squatting 400 pounds.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: Like,
Scott DeLuzio: You shouldn’t be doing that. Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: I fractured bones and didn’t notice. I, uh, I could walk around in, um, I forget what the Celsius, Fahrenheit, uh, change is, but like, uh, minus 40 degrees Celsius, I could walk around, and did, often, barefoot and shirtless, in, in, you know, uh, mid, mid shin deep snow, for half an hour at a time, just, I didn’t experience sensation, because I was been working so hard for so long to not experience emotions, which [00:19:00] are nothing.
So for those of you who are listening and don’t know what an emotion is, here’s a quick, here’s some, here’s some science for you coming from a grunt. Um,
Scott DeLuzio: You’re gonna break it down easy for us.
Sheridan Taylor: so it will be in, it will be in the language that I know. There will be some vulgarity and, uh, and you know, people like me who, who know what the color of crayons taste like.
Um, so that’s the reason why they gave me a helmet, right? Um, so emotions. are just feelings in our body. They are nothing more than um, sensations, reactions inside our body, our nervous system, which is our mind, to external stimulus. How do we know when we are hungry? Our body tells us. How do we know when we’re tired?
Our body tells us. How do we know when we’re angry? Our body tells us. Pelvis, heart races, muscles tense up, jaw clenches, eyes squint, I’m a fierce, scary, angry man, [00:20:00] right? How do I know when I’m sad? My body tells me. My eyes begin to leak, and my shoulders droop. And how do I know when I’m happy? My body tells me.
How do I know when I’m horny? My body tells me. How do I know I’m feeling anything? My body tells me. Well, I was feeling a lot of things I didn’t want to feel, called emotions. Because, uh, gross, right? Emotions are a weakness, right? If you’re meant to have emotions, they’d be, fucking issued to you troop! Uh, you’re wrong, Sarge!
I had them all along! Um, but my army, the army didn’t do it to me, my upbringing did. As kids, I was taught, like, um, it’s changing a little bit now, I think. Maybe it’s too far out of the way, but as a kid, you know, don’t be sad. Don’t be scared. It was weakness. Don’t cry. Right? Well, I learned that if I, not, not, no, the behavior, I didn’t learn to sit, you know, the, the behavior was bothering my adults because they were emotionally illiterate and unintelligent.
Um, love you, dad. Um, but fourth [00:21:00] generation vet, by the way, so we have stuff. Um, but yeah, I learned like, if I cry, right. If I, if I exhibit feelings of fear or sadness or loneliness or whatever, it will make the adults around me angry, but I can’t stop feeling what I’m feeling, so I mean, there is something inherently flawed with me.
I am not just doing bad things, I am a bad, I am a bad thing. That’s a lesson that we’ve been teaching our children for generations, right, and it gets reinforced in certain ways. fields, right? Well, first of all, just being a man at all, right? Men are, you know, in Canada and North America, you know, you’re allowed to feel four things.
Hungry, tired, angry, and horny. Anything other than that is a weakness. We make you feel everything, but you can’t exhibit this behavior. You can feel angry, but don’t let anybody know. Be demure. Be a lady. Be a rape victim. That’s what we teach our women. Way to go North America. But, [00:22:00] um, so yeah, I didn’t know how to cope with any of it.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: So I was able to do the, by suppressing emotions for so long, I numbed myself to everything from here down as best I could. So I could do superhuman things at the time. I missed that part. I don’t miss being crazy. I like being, you know, Functioning. I like not terrifying my children. That’s cool. Right, but um, I do miss being able to be Wolverine.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. And so you’re putting your body through the ringer. Um, not just in the army, but also in corrections, right? You’re, you’re doing things that your body should not be doing because it’s broken. The body is broken. Not you as a person is broken, but you know, your, your body physically, um, needs rehabilitation, needs time to rest and heal and recuperate.
Possibly even some surgeries I would imagine along the way to fix some of these things. Um, right. But you weren’t [00:23:00] allowing any of that because I mean from neck down, you were pretty much numb. Right. And, and you’re not feeling the things that You should be feeling, um, right. Because of society, because we’ve, and it is the same thing here.
I mean, I don’t think the, the borderline between our countries really makes a difference. I think it’s the same, same situation, um, where, where we still have, uh, you know, people who are, are taught, well, be a man, you know, suck it up, deal with it, um, rub some dirt in it, you know, you’ll be fine, that type of, of mentality, but that’s not.
That’s not helpful. At all.
Sheridan Taylor: And there’s time and a place, right? There’s what’s called like the functional disconnect, right? Adult humans do this, right? Like whether you’re a troop and you have to go do something stupid, scary, dangerous. Oh, look Hey, that guy with the machine gun is shooting a lot of bullets at me. I gotta go attack him Okay, well, I guess i’m gonna go do that.
Turn off the fear or use the fear or whatever, right? Like [00:24:00] Disconnect, right? Or you’re a paramedic or a nurse and you got to deal with something awful, right? Or you’re just a mom, right? And your kid, uh, hurts themself in some awful gross way. You don’t have time to freak out
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.
Sheridan Taylor: kid, and you don’t want to scare your kid, so you’re doing, keeping the comics, they shut off everything, take care of the child, Then, you know, go have a fucking breakdown in the, in the, in the pantry, right?
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: right, well, with the functional disconnect. And it’s great, especially in trades where you, you have to face danger and stress and stuff. But no one teaches you to turn it back on, to reconnect, right? So, and this is terrible for cops and paramedics especially. Because they’re just going from firefight, like, to firefight, to firefight, right?
It’s just stress, distress, distress, distress. Crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis. So, it’s turn off when you put the uniform on. Essentially, and then they never get to turn it back on and then they’re at part how and then that becomes default, right? It’s anything with truth that’s been too long in a, in a theater of like actual combat, right?
Um, no matter how, how [00:25:00] amazing you are as a human being or, or, or, I don’t know how dumb you are, you have no fear, like at a certain point you can’t turn it back on
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.
Sheridan Taylor: and then, but here’s the real problem, right? You can’t, not experience your emotions because they’re just synapses in the brain. Synapses?
Synapses? Whatever. Fucking, you know, synapses in the brain opening and closing in a certain sequence and allowing certain neurochemicals and hormones. I think it’s the same thing. I’m not sure. Neurochemicals to, you know, move up and down the nervous system. That’s all emotion is. It’s just synapses, synapses, and neurochemicals.
So you will experience them whether you want to or not. You will. And what was happening with me is I would suppress, depress, depress, and then you can’t shut off one emotion, right? You shut them all off.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.
Sheridan Taylor: Progressively, right? You [00:26:00] numb everything until you’re just numb. So I would go through periods of depressive episodes where, you know, days and nights on end where I wasn’t experiencing any emotion.
I couldn’t even feel love for my child.
Scott DeLuzio: Mhm.
Sheridan Taylor: I couldn’t experience any emotion. And then I would have periods of complete Nothing but emotion. I couldn’t do anything but feeling. It would explode out of me. Usually in rage, I was taught, as a man, right, I’m allowed to be angry. Anger is useful. Anger is manly.
Anger, I can be angry, right? And anger is helpful. Anger is a powerful, it’s a useful tool, right? It’s like a, but rage is not, right? Anger is, you know, a well aimed round. I accomplished my goal, right? Anger, right? Why do I get angry? Because something needs to get fucking fixed! Right? Fix it, right? Anger, good.
Rage is a grenade with the pin pulled and the spoon gone. It’s nobody’s friend. It harms everyone. And I was having explosions of rage all over the damn place, on [00:27:00] everyone around me. Um,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it’s indiscriminate. It, it, it doesn’t matter, if you’re in the general vicinity, you’re getting attacked.
Sheridan Taylor: yeah, like everyone’s, everyone’s getting it, right? And so, that all had to stop. So I had to learn how to, you know, I had to learn what emotion, everything I just said, I had to learn all that over and over and over and over because I would do good for a while. So, all right, let’s back up. Let’s back up to 2016, two years after my wife’s death, um, my first wife’s death.
There’s a new woman in my life for a very brief period of time, much younger, astoundingly beautiful, um, obviously not that bright, or at least not very bright, but terrible taste in men, clearly. Um, right, a man twice her age, uh, with a psych profile that thick saying he’s bananas. That’s Mr. Right. But anyway, we’re still together.
But um, yeah, [00:28:00] and uh, there’s uh, there’s the little man. The little man is now booties on the ground, right? He’s, he’s, he’s here. Uh, the first, my first, you know. Offspring. And, uh, and I realized that he’s in danger.
Scott DeLuzio: Mhm.
Sheridan Taylor: There’s a threat. And I was trained from infancy to eliminate threat. You can’t eliminate it, run from it, but get rid of the threat. And now the thing that I love most in the entire universe, or there are two things I love in the universe. I guess three would be a dog. Um, so, but this thing that I love most, is in danger, and I’m the danger, so, threat,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: eliminate threat, so, um, for those of you who, um, trigger warning, um, we’re about to discuss [00:29:00] suicide, briefly, and not in great detail, but we’re gonna talk about it,
Scott DeLuzio: Sure. I appreciate that, uh, little warning.
Sheridan Taylor: yeah. We lose, we lose our best fucking humans every day. And it’s bullshit. So we’re going to talk about it very briefly just for a second here. Because I can’t stand it. I can’t stand. I can’t go to any more funerals. And our world is not so good that we can afford to lose good humans. We don’t have enough as it is.
Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.
Sheridan Taylor: Um, I’ll let you know when we do. Uh, so to eliminate the threat, the most obvious solution was to kill myself. That was the most obvious solution. Um, so that ideology wasn’t a complete stranger to me. I’d experienced it previous couple years prior because my plan when my first wife died [00:30:00] was to get rid of everything that I owned and then go at the time to Syria and fight until I died. Um, I couldn’t until I got a home for all three of her dogs, because they were very much her dogs. Um, but all three dogs had to go to not just the right home, but the same home.
Scott DeLuzio: Sure.
Sheridan Taylor: You ever try and find a home for three damn dogs?
Scott DeLuzio: That’s not easy, no.
Sheridan Taylor: The right home for three dogs?
Scott DeLuzio: right.
Sheridan Taylor: So, you know, enough time went by while I’m getting rid of everything I owned. Um, you know, clearing the debts for, for action. Um, That my colonel wife, Danette, came into my life and saved my life by taking over my life and getting pregnant. So, thank you, dear. Appreciate that. Um, but yeah, kill myself. But the problem with that is, if I do that, I’ll never see him again. And that was un [00:31:00] unbearable. And I’ll never see her again, and that was unbearable. And most, most unbearable to Master Corporal Goddamn Taylor was the fact that I’m throwing away my responsibility. I’m shirking. my responsibility, my duty, right?
So, duty kept me, duty to my daughters kept me alive, duty to my kid, my wife kept me alive, the army kept me alive, duty, responsibility. Um, so, I sabotaged the attempt unknowingly, but I sabotaged, um, and then, um, removed myself from that immediate location, picked up my telephone that I had And I reached out to, uh, to a therapist, to whom I’ve been incredibly, incredibly rude just a week prior.
And I asked for help. And because she’s a much better human than I was, she helped.[00:32:00]
Scott DeLuzio: Well, so there’s a lot to unpack there, I think, from, from this here, right? Um, so you eventually did get in touch with this therapist and, and helped in, in what way did the, the therapist, were they able to help you in, in terms of, um, helping you see things more clearly? You know, what, what, in what ways were they able to help you out?
Sheridan Taylor: oh, and in every single conceivable way, honestly, um, First of all, by explaining, by teaching, by, by teaching, like, um, explaining why I was having these reactions. Why I was behaving in this way. why I thought these thoughts, which ones were accurate, which ones were less accurate, which ones didn’t reflect the shared reality at all, you know, you know, which, um, explaining the relationship between, [00:33:00] uh, thought, behavior, feeling, explaining, um, and then helping guide me to change all of it
Scott DeLuzio: Mm hmm.
Sheridan Taylor: through, um, you know, through teaching and talk and Exercises and, um, all of it, explain, the biggest thing for me was an understanding because we all think we know what mental health and wellness is and we all think we know what mental illness is and we’re, almost all of us wrong. We, we, unfortunately, North Americans, if not the entire world, learn from Hollywood. And Hollywood, I have noticed, is populated almost entirely by dumb people. only on their own gratification.
Scott DeLuzio: And probably have their own mental [00:34:00] illnesses to top it off.
Sheridan Taylor: There’s a reason why they can’t get enough attention, right? Says the guy who went on a podcast to get some attention. Um, not too judgy. But, um, but yeah, a lot of things that we learned are just flat out wrong. Not necessarily because they’re intending to do it. You know subvert or whatever, but it’s what they thought like John Wayne movies. I love John Wayne movies I grew up in John Wayne movies.
John Wayne man. John Wayne was the shit the Duke, right? Except everything in the movies was taught badly, you know, think with the Cowboys What a great movie teaching these kids don’t feel tough it up.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: Never apologize is a sign of weakness It’s not. It’s just being nice. It’s just being polite. Right? But that, that concept, right?
And then, you [00:35:00] know, and John Rambo. Like, I love Rambo! I am Rambo! Dammit! But, again, like this, it’s not that Stallone or Wayne or any of the, or anybody who’s trying to teach us the wrong stuff. It’s what they, we actually thought and knew at the time.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: and we’re still doing that. So I had to unlearn a bunch of things about what it meant to be a man, first of all, um, and then how to be a human more than just a man, right?
Understand that there are things in my body, this is what my anatomy does, my physiology does, my psychology does. This is what it does and there’s nothing you can do to change that until you actually sit down and try to change it. And you start with the behavior, because that’s the easiest to control and change.
Also easiest to know what’s going on, right? How do I know I’m behaving irrationally? Because I’m dragging some poor bastard out of his car through his window, right? He cut me off. And so I assume, you know, my immediate reaction, this guy’s trying to hurt [00:36:00] my kid. So now I’m chasing him through town to his driveway, which is safe for my kid.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: Right? Dragging him out. Allegedly, hypothetically, theoretically, this is happening. Too many police officers in the vicinity. Um, it wasn’t this time anyway. Maybe. Theoretically. But yeah, so how do I know I’m being irrational? Because I’m behaving like a fucking psycho.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: How do I know I’m irrational because I’m screaming at my two year old for no reason.
How do I know I’m irrational because I’m a lunatic. My behavior is saying This is, this is not okay, and part of my brain knows it’s not okay, but can’t stop it, can’t control it, can’t change it, and it just, so it’s, the stress levels keep working, and just, anxiety attack, flashback, racing heart, racing mind, can’t function, blackout drive, bananas So pay attention to that.
Learn how to recognize that when it’s happening [00:37:00] and stop it from happening. Then learn to recognize the signs of it beginning to happen. Being to recognize what the circumstances around me that cause and trigger this sort of thing. And then work on getting rid of those triggers. I couldn’t do it on my own.
I needed somebody, I needed a guide, I needed instruction. How do I do this? So, I learned that from, from psychologists. I learned that from my therapists. Plural, plural, plural. Um, and they helped, and then of course, you know, get to a point where I realize, you know, I’ve reached some level of, you know, stability, of regulation, right?
I can cope and function, but, you know, I’m still having these periods where I have extreme anxiety, right? Maybe it’s minutes, maybe it’s days and nights on end, right? And maybe I’m, and then, you know, I’m, I haven’t had a lot of the, you know, the Hollywood version of the flashback where you’re like physically, like you’re in that place again, right?
[00:38:00] You’re reliving everything that happened at that time, whatever it may be. Um, but there’s also a thing called an emotional flashback, which a lot of people don’t know about, where for whatever reason, um, something has reminded your mind. of an event from your past and you are experiencing all of the sensations and emotions of that time in the current moment even though they’re completely unrelated and the emotions you’re experiencing now are completely like that there’s you shouldn’t shouldn’t be like there’s no reason for them like this is the these are the wrong emotions for these circumstances this is an emotion this is a reaction from a war, this is a reaction from childhood, this is a reaction from a car accident, this is a reaction from a previous relationship, the emotions I’m having right now [00:39:00] don’t match the moment I’m in, I didn’t know that, I had to learn what that was, what an emotional flashback was, and how to walk myself out of that, right, and again, how do I do that?
I had to learn that by using the body, slow the heart rate, slow the heart rate, You’ve got, you can’t, I can’t consciously make my heart rate slow down, but what I can do is I can control my breathing.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: We’ve all learned that in marksmanship, right? Slow the breathing, we learned, you know, combat breathing, tactical breathing, you know, box breathing, whatever you want to call it, right?
Works. There are better methods, more effective too, if you want to learn them. Um, but, I had to walk all that back. This is the thing that’s happening. Ha physically happening and then recognize what was happening around me that could have caused that and learn to recognize where that came from like [00:40:00] why I’m having that reaction what was right and and we have this habit terrible habit human beings of you make me angry or this thing caused that and that’s not how it works we only it’s all in our own shit right I cannot make you feel anything I can do and say things With an intention of trying to make you feel something, triggering something in you, if you choose and you’re capable of controlling your reactions and thoughts and, and feelings and behavior enough, then I literally cannot do anything to make you angry. Like, I get to meet somebody like that, but I’m sure they’re out there, right? Um, like I’ve met some really smart, wise, intelligent people, right? But, but I cannot make, you can’t make me feel anything. I allow myself. to experience. I can pick, I got, if we take the moment to, Suck back for just a moment. I can choose [00:41:00] which feeling I want to go with.
Right? Do I want to punch this guy in the throat and watch him choke to death slowly? Yes. Is that the best option at this moment? Yes. Wait. Wait, no. No. Okay. So I’m going to go with.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, definitely no.
Sheridan Taylor: I’m going to go with. Um, oh wait. I’m going to go with humor because I’m being an idiot. Thanks. This is actually, I can, right, it’s an option, not that I’m a master at it by any stretch, but I had to learn all that. Psychologists taught me how to human better.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that’s one of the things through all the years that I’ve been kind of going through that similar journey, you know, going to talk to therapists and, and everything is that [00:42:00] maybe not every single session you have is going to be a gem where, where you you’re walking away, like with a whole new outlook on the world or whatever.
But every once in a while you get this. There’s one light bulb that goes off and it’s like you got no light bulbs on when you start, right? And then every once in a while like One goes on and then another one goes on and another and another, right? Sometimes it just takes time, right? And I don’t I don’t feel like I know that the VA here in the in the u.
s They a lot of times will be like well, you’ve been in therapy for this amount of time Obviously, it’s not gonna work for you if you’re still if you still need it. So let’s just not do it anymore It’s like to me. I’m like, what? What the fuck is wrong with you? Like, why would you just stop with that?
Right? It’s, it could be in the process of helping. Like you could be like, just about to make that breakthrough. And then they’re like, eh, let’s just pull it out from under you. And [00:43:00] now you don’t have it anymore. Or, or you won’t have it again for another six months or something stupid like that.
Sheridan Taylor: Who’s, who’s actually crazy here,
Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly.
You know, and then. Yeah. Uh, I won’t, I won’t go down that rabbit hole cause that w that could be a whole nother episode.
Sheridan Taylor: That’s more triggering than, than, than anything we’re going through, yeah. I, Vets and Affairs in Canada or the U. S. from the American vets I know, it’s the same entity. It’s bureaucracy at all costs, rather than,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So, so anyways, like, you know, those, those are the things that you’re looking for. You’re looking for those, those kind of light bulb moments where things go on. Like for, for example, um, uh, I, I was in a therapy session and my, my therapist was, was talking about the different, Coping mechanisms that you learn, you know, along the way.
And, um, I, I had an issue where I was carrying everything with me. Like I was [00:44:00] taking all of those coping mechanisms, including all the things that helped you survive in the, in the military, like being aggressive, being loud and, and, and, uh, forceful and, and all of those things. Like that was something I was.
Using in my everyday life. I was using that with kids. I was using that with adults I was it didn’t matter who it was. It was just I was just being aggressive and And yeah, exactly. I was knife hand. I was I was like, you know do this Yeah, I was like a drill sergeant with you know, little kids and like that’s fucking stupid
Sheridan Taylor: my two year old was knife handing me when I realized what I was doing, because he did one of these,
Scott DeLuzio: and it’s like you’re look you’re looking in a little mirror, right? And you’re like, Oh shit, that is a terrible mirror to be looking into. Holy crap. So, you know, it kind of helped me like reframe my thinking and think of like a contractor who’s like working on a, you know, a house, building a house or something.
And, you know, they have their tool belt and those are the tools that they use pretty much every [00:45:00] day. You know, they’ve got their hammer, screwdrivers, they got, you know, other things like that on, on that tool belt. And they’re going to carry that around with them because it’s easier than going back to the truck every day.
You know, five minutes to go get another, you know, another tool, but they got it in their, the back of their truck. They got a whole huge toolbox with all this other shit that they don’t use on a daily basis. Maybe they use it once a week. Maybe they use it, you know, once a month, something like that. I don’t know what the frequency is, but, but they’re not going to carry all that stuff around with them because that would be a pain in the ass to have to carry all that, that stuff, that entire giant toolbox that they have in the back of their truck, you know, strap that shit to your back and then try to get anything done.
It’s not going to happen. Right. And so she’s like, you know, you can leave some of your tools in that toolbox and just carry some of the other stuff that you’re going to use on a day to day basis, carry that stuff around with you. I was like, holy shit, that makes sense. You know, it makes a ton of sense. So, but that was like one that I had been going for months to see this person.
That was one of those light bulb moments that went off and I was like, You know what? That makes a ton of [00:46:00] sense. I don’t need to be aggressive and, and super, super crazy all the time. I, I can, I can tone some of that stuff back, and I could, but I, I can go back to the truck and I could go grab that, that tool if I need it.
You know, if someone’s breaking into my house, yeah, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be right there, you know, bring it.
Sheridan Taylor: come on out, buddy, it’s your time, it’s your time, yeah, exactly,
Scott DeLuzio: I get to use that tool again, yeah! You know, it’s like,
Sheridan Taylor: I keep, he’s in my pocket, right? I put him away, I hang on to him, right? I spent a lot of time trying to kill that guy, kill that part of me, right? Which is impossible, that’s who I, that’s part of me, you can’t, I can’t kill part of me or get rid of part of me and be okay,
Scott DeLuzio: You can’t unlearn it, right?
Sheridan Taylor: Right? So, when I learned to make peace with, with my trauma, you know, my illness, whatever you want to call it, and let it be a part of me, but, like, so we sat down and had a talk, you know, my conscious, unconscious, subconscious, trauma, we had a big talk, and we all agreed trauma can’t drive anymore. Okay? He rides in the backseat between, [00:47:00] you know, conscious and unconscious, um, until we need him.
And then he has the wheel, but yet they get back, right? So, yeah, like that’s the thing, right? It’s what do I need right now? What’s, what, is this an appropriate level of emotion? Is this an appropriate behavior at this moment? Is this an appropriate emotion, appropriate level of emotion? You know, like, is this, is this what I should be doing right now?
Like, when my kid goes, Dad, you’re being a fucking dick right now, woo, that’s not what a two year old should know.
Scott DeLuzio: right. Right,
Sheridan Taylor: But well done, excellent delivery, um,
Scott DeLuzio: But put that in your back pocket until you’re, you’re much older.
Sheridan Taylor: yeah, but so, yeah, and the thing with therapy too I found was, um, I had this idea that it’s like, you know, it’s like a conventional medicine, right? I have a cold, I see the doctor, I take the medicine, I’m done, right? Right? Well, [00:48:00] um, I have PTSD. Or I have ADHD, or I have any fucking one of these D’s, right? Um, I don’t, the work doesn’t happen in just the hour I’m with my therapist.
That’s where I learn, right? That’s where I get my guidance, my feedback, positive, you know, corrective, right? That’s where I get my feedback, right? I learn. New Tools or old tools are reinforced, right? But the work has to happen 24 7. That’s the work. The doctor the therapist cannot fix me. The meds can not fix me.
Psychedels, hypnosis, equine therapy nothing can fix me except Me, what has two thumbs you gotta sort of don’t fucking shit out,
Scott DeLuzio: hmm. Yeah, exactly. This guy! Um, you know, but, but But you’re right. You, you can’t expect to go and, uh, you know, deal with a mental health issue the same way that you do, [00:49:00] uh, you know, a cold or a broken bone or something like that. You go to the doctor, you get a cast on, you know, your, your leg and, you know, a couple months later or however long later, it’s, it’s healed and you get the cast off and you’re good to go.
And,
Sheridan Taylor: there, even there, if we use those analogies, right? Because mental illness, right? I hate the phrase actually, because our mind is our nervous system. So any damage to our nervous system is our mind, and that’s what mental illness is. It’s a physical injury or illness, right? If we think about that, like, um, If you got shot or stabbed with a nail, step on a nail, okay, let’s get away from violence.
You step on a nail in your garage, right, now you got a puncture wound in your foot, right. If you don’t treat the puncture wound, now you’re bleeding
Scott DeLuzio: Yep.
Sheridan Taylor: for as long as it takes to heal. And it may not because what may happen if you don’t treat it and you keep walking around, especially [00:50:00] barefoot in your garage.
Why are you barefoot in your garage in the first place? But um, if you don’t treat it, now you get an infection. Now you have an injury and an illness and they’re making each other worse and they are affecting every aspect of your life. Now you’re catching colds more often. You’re tired all the time.
You’re getting stressed out easier. You’re a dick to everyone you know. It affects every aspect of your life. You can’t concentrate. You can’t remember. You can’t focus. You are falling apart because you stepped on a nail and didn’t treat the injury at the time properly. PTSD is an injury, a traumatic event, Or series of events, or, and here’s where it’s diabolical, we are such social animals. Humans are mammals and we are a group species. The [00:51:00] rugged individual is bullshit. I love Ayn Rand, she’s wrong. Okay, um, we need other humans. So much so that we are literally wired for connection. Motor neurons. How do children, any, any humans learn? Easiest? We watch and replicate behavior. Motor neurons. We are so wired for physical connection that our bodies release oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, all the feel good hormones if we are in skin to skin contact with another human for as little as, like, eight seconds. That’s why holding hands with someone feels good, that’s why we hug, that’s why you cradle your kids, we crave it, we need it.
Um, if you look at a traumatic incident, a big thing happens, it’s not even a bad thing, it’s a great thing, let’s say it’s a great birthday party surprise, right?
Scott DeLuzio: Mm hmm.
Sheridan Taylor: You and a couple of your buddies walk in, and your whole family [00:52:00] jumps out with party hats on, woo, surprise! Great moment, right? You and your two bed buddies go, right?
Hopefully you won’t pull the piece, but you know, what’s right? Right? Right? And the next thing you the three of you go like this,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,
Sheridan Taylor: right? Why? You’re looking at each other. determine if what you’re experiencing is being experienced by them, and therefore appropriate and okay. Or, are you screwing up and potentially going to get tossed out of the pack, or the herd, whatever
Scott DeLuzio: sure.
Sheridan Taylor: that is.
That happens, and any time a big thing happens, the first thing is witnesses all look around like this. Someone should do something, right? Yes, someone should, Right? We look that we are wired for connection. We need it. So, so,
Scott DeLuzio: we do. [00:53:00] You know, we, we do need that connection. Um,
Sheridan Taylor: we don’t let ourselves have it, as men especially. Tying it back to the not talking. Um, right? We, that’s why I paused. I’m so sad. We do this thing, mental illness, illness, right? Causes humans to isolate, to withdraw, while telling ourselves everyone’s leaving us. All too often. And, isolation creates mental illness. You can see it happen when you put some, a prisoner in segregation.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm hmm.
Sheridan Taylor: Three nights. You watch them begin to fall apart. We need each other, right? So, a traumatic event happens, okay? Maybe get some, uh, some rookie troops, uh, first firefight. This is traumatic. I don’t care who top you are. It’s not normal for most people. [00:54:00] Now, he does great. Now, let’s say he’s amazing, right? Like we’re talking like Medal of Honor. This guy, this guy’s like Medal of Honor mature. He’s amazing, right? And if training kicks in, instincts, reactions, you know, he’s, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s Audie goddamn Murphy. Right? And then afterwards, him and Sarge are like, hanging out and Sarge is like, yeah, and the kid goes, Who has the big reaction, right?
The freak out, right? And Sarge, because this is what Sarge was taught, goes, Suck it up, buttercup.
Scott DeLuzio: right.
Sheridan Taylor: Welcome to the fucking army. Well, that negative social feedback is quite possibly what creates the PTSD. Not the actual event. The negative social feedback, the feeling that I am wrong.
Scott DeLuzio: I did the wrong. Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: I, no, no, no, I don’t [00:55:00] think I am the wrong thing, right, about the childhood, right?
Because guilt is I did a bad thing and guilt is helpful because I don’t want to feel a bad thing. I don’t want to feel that way again, so I won’t do that again and I’m going to apologize and make things right, right? That’s a good, guilt’s good. Shame is I am bad, right? So, it’s possible. At that moment, you know, Sarge, doing what Sarge thinks he’s supposed to do, gives his kid PTSD.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: How do you fix it? POSITIVE SOCIAL FEEDBACK! You talk to people who get it. People you respect, people you know have been where you’ve been, people you, you, you trust. You, you, you find the balls to say, this is how I felt at this time, this is how I feel about it now. And you’d be honest, and open, and vulnerable, which is scary as shit, but you’re a tough guy so fucking do it.
And [00:56:00] then, let me ask you, tough guy. Let me ask you, if anyone has ever come to you, any brother or sister has ever come to you and been messed up, screwed over, sad, lonely, grief stricken, if they ever felt like a hammer bag of shit and come to you for sympathy and kindness and compassion, have you ever thought you’re weak?
Or have you thought, oh my god, I want to help you so bad, how do I help you?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: sure each and every one of you, maybe a couple of assholes out there, but most of you, like 99 percent of you, have gone, how can I help you? I feel so bad for you. What can I do for you? How can I make you, how can I help you feel better?
So if you feel that way about your brothers and sisters, and you know that they love you because they’re your brothers and sisters, as you call them, why do you not think that if you come to them and say, this is what happened, this is how [00:57:00] I felt, this is how I feel now? I don’t need advice. I just need to, I just, I just need to let it out.
What’s most likely going to happen. And they’re going to call you a pussy or they’re going to give you a hug.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: What would you do?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Same thing you just said. I mean, help him out. You know, what can I do to help where
Sheridan Taylor: what they’ll do for you.
Scott DeLuzio: I, and that’s a hundred percent true. Um, you know, anybody that comes to me and they’re like, I need help with something. Okay, well let’s figure it out. You know, that’s yeah. Right. You know, what, what is it you said before?
If, if some, Somebody, I, I, one of my buddies came, came to the door and they’re like, Hey, I, I, you know, fucked up, I need, need a place to crash. Alright, come on in. You know, like, I’m not gonna be like, Ah, jeez, you know, well, this, this week isn’t really gonna be, Uh, you know, can you come back next week? You know, it’s like, yeah, just, you know, go [00:58:00] live out on the streets for a week or something and then, you know, see if that makes things better.
You’re like, no, like, get your ass in here. Let’s, let’s figure, let’s sort it out and figure it, figure out what. We need to do to make things right for you, you know, um, yeah, you can stay here, but you know, obviously not forever. We’re gonna, we’re gonna sort things out to get it to the point where you can, you can get back out there and do the shit that you need to do.
Um, and I’m not going to look at it like it’s a burden.
Sheridan Taylor: No,
Scott DeLuzio: Like, like you’re like, Oh my God, I can’t believe this person came to me of all people. Like go some, go away, go someplace else.
Sheridan Taylor: thank you for coming to me.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for letting me help you. You know,
Sheridan Taylor: thought of me. Yeah. You thought of me
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: damn, Come on in and get the hell out from the beer fridge.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s probably not going to help situation right now. Um, so it’s, you know, let’s, let’s figure it out with a clear [00:59:00] mind. Um, But yeah, I mean,
Sheridan Taylor: reach out.
Scott DeLuzio: reach out. You’re not,
Sheridan Taylor: out.
Scott DeLuzio: you’re not a burden. Um, and I think the biggest takeaways here from, from what you’re, you’ve been saying is, you know, within your story, you know, you use that therapist to help you, you know, sort things out, figure things out more, more clearly, you know, be able to figure out how to deal with emotions, uh, and, and walk through life, not to, you know, Um, hypothetically, dragging people out of their cars, um, you know, not, not doing any of that kind of stuff.
Right. But, um, and being, being a, you know, a better father, a better, uh, husband, a better, you know, just a better overall human being for the folks who are in your life. By the way, that includes strangers, too, because you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have people who cut you off on the highway, you’re gonna have people in, you know, the grocery store who bump into [01:00:00] you, or whatever, and you don’t need to be choking them out, because they did that, you know, shit happens, and you just kind of, you know, Take it in stride and you deal with it.
Sheridan Taylor: to sleep. Go to sleep. Not
Scott DeLuzio: right, yeah. You don’t want That’s not a helpful reaction, you know.
Sheridan Taylor: Most of the time.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah, well And again, there are times when maybe that is a helpful reaction. When somebody kicks in your door and now they’re in your house and they’re a threat to you and your family. Yep, that’s a helpful reaction. And like I was saying before, you can go back to that toolbox and you can get that tool out really quickly and you can utilize it.
But that doesn’t need to be your default tool. You know, you, you can carry around.
Sheridan Taylor: like, not everything’s a nail, not everything’s a hammer. Sometimes you need a hacksaw. And you mix those two up, you’re not gonna achieve anything.
Scott DeLuzio: No, exactly. Yeah. So use the right tool for the right job, I guess, is, is the key here to kind of take away. Um, I don’t want to wrap this episode up before we get a chance to talk about, uh, you have a [01:01:00] book, uh, can, can you tell us a little bit about your book? Um, and kind of what the readers can take away from it?
Uh, you know, where, where they can find it, all that kind of stuff.
Sheridan Taylor: Well, yeah, yeah. I never actually, I never, I never, I never pushed the book. Um,
Scott DeLuzio: No, you didn’t. And I, I, I’m, I’m going to push it for you. So give you a chance to do it. So go ahead and tell us all about it.
Sheridan Taylor: Uh, yeah, so, yeah, a few years ago, um, I was writing a bunch of stuff, uh, putting stuff on social media posts to try and remove stigma for, not just crush the old bastards like me, but most importantly for the younger people that I had taught the wrong shit to, right? So I was being very open about my struggles, mental illness, and recovery, and, um, I was also, um, engaged in, like, emails and even letters, because I’m that old, I actually write letters to people with, um, More details about my recovery and things I was learning.
And I was writing these emails to my son, and then sons, about how to be How to avoid what happened to me and how to be a man in the world, because I was pretty sure I’d be dead, one way or another, before I’d be old enough. Um, didn’t happen. Won’t let [01:02:00] it. But, at one point my wife pointed out that those all work together.
They’re, they’re just all different, three different streams going into the same river, and it’s a book. And so, uh, there was a great deal of, um, well, bullying. See, bullying means what she did, it was bullying. Um, it was straight up bullying. Um. But I put it together in a book and I found a publisher and I put it out there and, um, it’s just, it’s just my story.
Um, and, um, because it was written by a man with ADHD and PTSD and anxiety and depression and addiction and memory loss and all this stuff, it’s very easy for people to read because it’s very short and digestible. Um, but it’s very honest, it’s very blunt, it talks about a lot of awful, horrible, painful things.
Um, and it tells you some advice on how to Get, I got through what I got through, and maybe you want to follow some of the same path, find your own way through this and that, but it’s, it’s a guideline, it’s a roadmap back from [01:03:00] suicide, and, uh, so far I’ve only had a couple of people get back to me with negative, uh, responses, only one get back and go, um, Whatever, which I realized because he had the perfect life.
I love that guy. Um, but for most people, especially people with, um, trauma in their background or whatever, or someone they know who has trauma or whatever, um, it’s proven immensely helpful. I stopped counting the positive responses at 200 just because, you know, That’s overwhelming if I sit in it, but 200 people have reached out to me in some form or another and said to the effect that, you know, your book saved my life. I know what they’re saying, but I always have to, in my own mind, I gotta go, no, my, my story helped you find whatever it is you needed to find in you. To fix your stuff, but after 200 people saying, yeah, it’s overwhelming, so I’m not making any money off it because I cut the prices. I control the price and I cut the prices and so much that, you know, I don’t make, I make pennies. [01:04:00] But dude, I’m still rich. I’m so rich. 200 plus.
Scott DeLuzio: And I love how you just phrased that there too, because your view on being wealthy is not financial. There’s no dollar signs next to that, right? Making pennies on that. I mean, you’d have to sell a shitload of books to become financially wealthy, if that’s right. And, uh, you know, so it’s, it’s, it’s more.
Sheridan Taylor: I don’t sit in a lot, because then I’ll do this. And I don’t, I don’t mind crying, and I don’t mind me crying in public, but
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.
Sheridan Taylor: I’m also a tough guy. Look at my tattoos. Very tough.
Scott DeLuzio: but your, your view of, of this is how many people that have you been able to help? And, uh, you know, stopping at 200 means that there’s probably the 201st and 202nd and 203rd and so on. Um, you know, who, and not to count the people who just didn’t reach out at all.[01:05:00]
Sheridan Taylor: And then, each one of those people, how many people
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Sheridan Taylor: love them? That’s worse. Here we go! Here we go! Goosebumps and car and tears, dammit.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you know, and so that’s, that’s the thing is you, you help all these people, not just those individuals directly, but their network of people, their, their loved ones, their, their families, their people, the people in their lives, you, you’ve helped them, whether they know it or not, their life is better.
Now, because those folks are still around and, um, and I think as far as takeaways go, you know, with this episode for, for the listeners, um, you know, the, the people who are around you that you might feel, you know, even if you feel the same way that Sheridan, uh, was saying earlier, um, that, that I am the threat to these people and I don’t want them to have a threat in their lives.
And so I need to eliminate that threat. Well, no. Maybe you need to change [01:06:00] something about you internally, you know, change how you react to things and, and, and stuff like that.
Sheridan Taylor: who do you want to be?
Scott DeLuzio: yeah, who do you want to be?
Sheridan Taylor: And go be that person, right? I didn’t, I didn’t know how to be a dad,
Scott DeLuzio: yeah.
Sheridan Taylor: I knew what I was doing was wrong. So what did I do? I started acting like the person I wanted my kid to be. And you do anything long enough, it’s a fucking habit. So I was faking my shit so long, I became the man I want my kids to be.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s right.
Sheridan Taylor: do you want to be?
Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. And, and, and really think about that question. And, you know, that is not what any of us want to be. You know, we, it’s not going to help anybody. It’s not going to help you. It’s not going to help the people in your life. It’s not going to help anyone. So, you know, stick around, wake up tomorrow.
And, uh,
Sheridan Taylor: Yeah. I need you here to buy my book.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah, yeah, go buy the book because he needs a few more cents coming his
Sheridan Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. It’s called Not Okay. Okay. A [01:07:00] Roadmap Back from the Brink. You can get it on Amazon. If you don’t like Amazon for whatever reason, it’s in Barnes Noble. Apparently it’s on, um, it’s, it’s in like Barnes Noble bookstores.
You can get it, apparently, I’m told, through, um, pretty much all the online book platforms. Um, it’s on Audible and Kindle too, I guess. Yeah, both of those two as well.
Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Well, I’ll, I’ll put a link in the show notes, uh, to at least a couple of those places, uh, you know, where people can get the book. Um, and I’ll put the title in there. So at a minimum, they can Google it if they don’t like the platform I, I chose, um, to put in there, but, um, they, they can, they can find it, but, uh, Sheridan, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today, hearing a little bit about your story.
Um, and, uh, And your journey to where you are today. Um, I think, I think it’s really inspiring and you put a lot of great perspectives and I think there’s, there might be some light bulb moments in some of the folks in the, in the audience who are listening. So I appreciate you taking the time to come on and sharing your story.
Sheridan Taylor: [01:08:00] absolutely, and you can find me on the social medias if you need better clarification or whatever or just want to yell at me. You can call me names. Um, it’s cool. But it’s Sheridan Taylor. Taylor Sheridan wrote Yellowstone. Different guy. rich. I’m not. Different guy. Sheridan Taylor.
Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Well, I’ll, I’ll have all those links as well in the show notes, uh, as far as your, your social, so we, we don’t, we don’t start yelling at the wrong person.
Sheridan Taylor: Cut!
Scott DeLuzio: All right. Thanks again.