Episode 542 Timothy Wienecke Learning to Feel Like Yourself Again After the Military Transcript

This transcript is from episode 542 with guest Timothy Wienecke.

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: You ever notice how strange it feels when life slows down after getting out of the military? You get a job, maybe a family, things look fine on the outside, but something still feels off, like you’re not totally sure who you are without the uniform. That’s where today’s guest, Timothy Wienecke comes in. He’s in the force veteran who now works as a counselor to helping other veterans make sense of that.

[00:00:24] In between space, the the stuff that nobody really prepare, prepares you for when you get out. We’re gonna talk about what masculinity actually means, why connection matters more than we think, and how to start feeling like yourself again. Before we get started though, I want to take a second to highlight the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation.

[00:00:46] They’re building a permanent. Memorial in Washington DC to honor those who served, supported, and sacrificed during the global war on terrorism. To learn more about this memorial or to get involved, uh, visit GWOT [00:01:00] memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:03]

[00:01:16] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Timothy, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:19] Timothy Wienecke: Hey, thanks for having me, bud.

[00:01:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, no problem. Hey, before we kind of get into, you know, kind of everything that we’re gonna talk about today can you give the listeners just a little bit of background on, on who you are and kind of what got you into doing what you’re doing today and, and kind of military background, all that kinda stuff.

[00:01:35] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. So I, I think service has been important to me, my, my whole life. My therapist pointed this out when we were talking about it and kinda stuck with me. I started in student government in third grade and continued all the way through college, and so it’s always been important and been very people motivated.

[00:01:52] Right. So did college came outta college during the economic crash in oh five. Couldn’t get any traction. Denver was [00:02:00] one of the first cities hit, and so I started looking at the military as a viable option. By then, I had a few buddies that had gone in and some of ’em were getting out, some staying in, and got the advice to go enlisted into the Air Force, picking a job instead of going officer in the Army or Navy not picking the job. Still think that was really good advice. Right. So I went in at 27. I barely made the line for the cutoff for going, for going, and so I was Everybody’s uncle, right. Old man wanky back then, if you can imagine.

[00:02:30] Scott DeLuzio: No, I, I can, I actually was on the older side too, when, when I went in, I, I think I was 24, so, you know, I, I wasn’t quite 27, but I, I was, I was up there, there, there, I think there was like one or two guys that were older than me in my, my basic training.

[00:02:44] Timothy Wienecke: yeah. The only guys that were as old as me were guys coming into the guard.

[00:02:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

[00:02:49] Timothy Wienecke: Um, and so like the Air Force saved my life though. Before I was going in, man, I was working crap temp jobs. I couldn’t get any traction on anything. Couldn’t even afford a new pair of shoes. Shoes had holes in ’em. Air [00:03:00] Force saved my life, man.

[00:03:00] And I, a lot of people have a lot of complicated relationships with their service, and I have mine as like anybody, but I’ll always be thankful for that. And so I went in as an intelligence analyst, which is super boring. Anybody who’s ever worked it can tell you that secret is not always interesting, it turns out. But it did give me some really wonderful opportunities. I got to go to Korea, stationed at Osan Free. Then I got to go to England for two years before buying a personnel, a lot of beer to get back to Colorado for my last year in And through that time, I found that I was a decent operator, but I wasn’t gonna be a good one.

[00:03:36] Right? To do like the code stuff, you, you really have to have a little sprinkle of autism to be really, really good at it. And that’s not a drag on autistic people. Like that’s, it’s a useful thing to have

[00:03:46] in that environment, right? But I’m people focused so I could do it. I was smart enough to do it, hated it.

[00:03:52] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:53] Timothy Wienecke: So naturally I did all of the Air Force stuff, right? I really liked being an airman. I liked taking care of people. And [00:04:00] so in Osan is where I started volunteering as a sexual assault response volunteer. So if you’re in the Army, it’s like a sapper, I think is what you all used to call it. I dunno what to call it now.

[00:04:09] Scott DeLuzio: Okay. Yeah, I’m not sure what it is. Yeah.

[00:04:11] Timothy Wienecke: And that was great. Osan at the time had the largest problem of sexual assault in

[00:04:15] all of the Air Force because it’s a perpetrator’s dream, right? Everybody’s, it’s first term airman, everybody’s drunk. It’s bad

[00:04:21] if you’re, if you’re a bad guy, it’s where you wanna be. And so I got lucky though. I went to England and I was at a small base there.

[00:04:28] And so I was one of the only people doing that work there. And then the Air Force got in trouble. This was back in like oh 10. And so I think this is when the academy had it. Its big hoopla around the ring and the we got two drill instructors that had been assaulting trainees.

[00:04:44] And so we made national news and the military always loves making national news for these things, right?

[00:04:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:04:48] Timothy Wienecke: Um, but they ended up launching the bystander intervention program, which was great. Basically, they went from doing slides around, Hey, did you know that rape was bad? Maybe don’t be a dick and don’t rape, or we’re gonna get you in [00:05:00] trouble. Those slides do great things like everybody already knows that.

[00:05:02] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:05:03] Timothy Wienecke: And they went instead on, Hey, sexual assault is a violent crime, 70% all violent crime or witnessed at some point. If you witness something, why should you care and what should you do? And so the joke is, I got to spend two years training over 3000 airmen, 15 guys at a time to punch rapist. Great job. Favorite job I’ve ever had. But it was during the training for that that the PhD. There were three PhDs that designed it.

[00:05:27] And since I was in the England English Theater, like they came out and did the training, which was great. And one of ’em pulled me out for a lunch and was like, Hey, what do you do? And I’m like, oh, I do. I do intelligence work. You’re doing the wrong thing. You should be doing this kind of work. You should look at that. that was the nudge I needed to move into more clinical work.

[00:05:43] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:05:44] Timothy Wienecke: And so I got outta the Air Force. I was 32. I kind of had my like six month like transition on a couch, trying to figure it out and then sorted out getting into a graduate program for counseling. It was a great time. Uh, I got my teeth kicked in [00:06:00] pretty well, which needed.

[00:06:01] It was a big, big transition from going from direct military speak to a bunch of counselors, talking nice to each other. And while I was in grad school, I continued to do the interpersonal violence work. Did some trainings, worked crisis lines. But the thing I’m proudest of during that time is I built out cholera of the time. Colorado’s most successful veteran transition program that we had. So, PAVE was a national program. We were one of their pilot schools and we took a program that had two people that were like work studies on a college campus that would help whoever came in that they could catch to every single veteran that signed up for classes, getting an orientation and a mentor. And that really changed things for a lot of guys and it was a really good time. From there I went back to doing clinical work, launched a veterans program, it went okay and then started up my practice ’cause I got tired of having bosses between the military and college campuses. And it’s not that people are dumb, but at least my mistakes I can clean up

[00:06:53] Right,

[00:06:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, I, I de I definitely get it. And I think a lot of, a lot of folks who are coming outta the [00:07:00] military just kind of done taking orders and want to just run their own run, run their own show, and if, you know, if it fails, that’s on you, and if it, if it succeeds, well also on you. And so you, you can you, you’re the master of your own destiny, I guess, or, or however that, that phrase goes.

[00:07:18] And, and, and you can control it. And, and so that’s kind of a nice, like freeing feeling when, when you’re, you’re able to take control of something and not have to rely on someone else dictating what it is that you do or not do, or, or whatever.

[00:07:33] Timothy Wienecke: yeah. I mean, a key component to good therapy is focusing on what people can impact, right?

[00:07:37] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:38] Timothy Wienecke: And so if you’re the business owner, you can impact all of it, which is terrifying.

[00:07:44] Great.

[00:07:45] Right.

[00:07:45] Like all of a sudden you’re not like getting payroll in, you’re looking at whether payroll’s gonna go through, which is always super fun. But since then, it’s been 10 years now clinical practice specialized in working with guy men, veterans, and first responders. I’ve also been an educator. I’ve been a professor for counseling. I just [00:08:00] got done presenting at our state conference on masculine issues and it’s been a wonderful rod. Man. I wouldn’t do anything else.

[00:08:06] I’m

[00:08:06] really glad I found the work.

[00:08:08] Scott DeLuzio: No, it’s always good hearing from folks who have gotten out of the military. A lot of times you hear these horror stories of, of this transition, like they, they don’t know what to do and they, they feel lost and they’re just floating around hopeless and ain’t pointlessly and they just don’t know what to do.

[00:08:25] But it’s great to hear, you know, somebody who has kind of figured out what it is that they wanna do when they grow up in

[00:08:32] Timothy Wienecke: Well, I a, I had a 10 year advantage on everybody else.

[00:08:34] Right. So if, like, I was in my thirties by the time, hopefully I’d figured something out by then.

[00:08:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. Well, you know that you did have that going for you, but you know, there are still those people, I mean, they, they enlist when they’re 18. They get out when they’re, you know, in their late thirties and then it’s like, oh crap, I didn’t even think of what, what’s next? You know?

[00:08:53] Timothy Wienecke: Well, there’s a reason why we make up a significant portion of the homeless population.

[00:08:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I mean, I am sure that’s, that’s part of it. [00:09:00] And you know, there’s, I’m sure there’s other issues too that, that that go into it. But you know, so with the work that you were doing while you were in the military you know, especially around some of that, that fun stuff that you got to do, quote unquote fun stuff that you know, basically punching the guys in the mouth and, you know, all that kinda stuff.

[00:09:19] I mean, I know that’s not exactly, that was more tongue in cheek, you know, the way you were phrasing it. But you know, it makes me kind of think about like kind of. The definition of, you know, masculinity and how that has changed and evolved over the years. And where it may have seen like a, you know, macho thing or, you know, masculine thing to be that dick, like you put it like, you know, way back when where now it’s like, no, the guy who actually stands up for people who need the support and, you know, need that kind of help.

[00:09:51] Like, no, that’s kind of more of the masculine side and, and that’s, that’s what we’re, we’re looking for. And I, I think that’s probably the the lessons that you were trying to get across to the folks that you’re [00:10:00] teaching. Right,

[00:10:00] Timothy Wienecke: Well, so it was funny, the reason I make the joke about punching Rapist is that it was very different training Air Force members and training college kids, right.

[00:10:10] So the Air Force guys were hard to convince to pay attention, right? They’re like, Hey man, I don’t want trouble. I don’t know what’s going on.

[00:10:16] I don’t know who she’s here with. Like, why should I care? And then you talk ’em around like, Hey man, if it was your sister, would you care? Like if it, like, wouldn’t you want somebody to help you out if you were in a bad situation? We’ve all made mistakes. It’s not their fault. And then like, okay, cool, I punch him.

[00:10:28] No, man, you can’t punch him. You’re gonna go to jail.

[00:10:30] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:10:31] Timothy Wienecke: let’s talk about what to do, get on a college campus, talking to college kids about it. And that was an entirely flipped conversation for the most part. They’re like, no, man, I’d love to help, but I’m not getting punched for anybody.

[00:10:39] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:40] Timothy Wienecke: And I was like, Hey man, you don’t have to get punched.

[00:10:41] It’s okay. Like,

[00:10:43] here’s some things to do. And it’s just like a lot of the military training, right? It’s about knowing what to do in the crisis, and it changes things for people in drastic ways.

[00:10:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:10:51] Timothy Wienecke: I think the, the masculinity question is, it’s a really wonderful time for the conversation finally. So when people [00:11:00] had been talking about masculinity in any kind of frame for the last 10 years, they’ve been doing it pretty poorly. It’s either people saying that John Wayne is the only way to be a man.

[00:11:09] Scott DeLuzio: Ready?

[00:11:10] Timothy Wienecke: Be John Wayne, or you’re not a man. And if we need to put women and everybody else back in their boxes to do that, then that’s worth it. Like that’s what we should be doing. Or there is no gender masculinity is toxic. This isn’t something we should be doing. And in the last year or two, we’re starting to see guys like Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, a number of other masculine people coming forward and talking about what guys need, how these things can be channeled well, right.

[00:11:39] So I, I like Reeves as four traits of masculinity.

[00:11:42] Men tend to be more sexual. We tend to be more physically aggressive. We tend to be less risk adverse for physical danger, and we tend to be more status driven,

[00:11:50] right?

[00:11:51] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:52] Timothy Wienecke: they have been largely channeled in toxic ways. You know, we’ve got the Andrew Tates of the world turning everybody into little [00:12:00] automatons of just Assholery, right? But all of those also have positive channels. By just acknowledging that they’re in us and that they’re things. What I find is most guys really identify with two of those and they’re like, yeah, one of ’em. They’re like, yeah, that’s me too. Like I grew up in this culture. And then one of the for just does not resonate with them at all.

[00:12:19] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:12:20] Timothy Wienecke: Right? So when I say a masculine trade, I mean it like I like men are taller than women, right?

[00:12:25] Everybody gets that. If I go to A-W-N-B-A reunion, I’m the short person at six one in the room, right?

[00:12:30] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. Exactly.

[00:12:33] Timothy Wienecke: And what that also does is it leaves room for guys to recognize that they also tend to have feminine qualities. It won’t be as if you’re a guy and you’re identified as a guy. It won’t be as many as the masculine traits and that’s great. But I’m a counselor. I talk about feelings all day. That’s pretty feminine, right?

[00:12:49] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:50] Timothy Wienecke: Just ’cause I can throw a guy around and do all the other stupid things that I do for fun doesn’t mean that that nurturing isn’t in me.

[00:12:57] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:12:58] Timothy Wienecke: Right? [00:13:00] And I think that as we have those conversations and we allow the bandwidth. For people to look at themselves, look at their drives, look at what they want without shame, then they get to pick how they channel it, and they get to have purpose with it, and that’s where the beauty happens.

[00:13:14] That’s when connection happens. That’s when we feel connected to people and things based on our responses and what we have in us. It’s

[00:13:22] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:22] Timothy Wienecke: better time in the world.

[00:13:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I, I think that’s something that we’re definitely lacking in the world. You know, connecting with each other. You know, as great as the internet is, I mean, this conversation right now wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for the internet. Right. But it also it also disconnects us in a lot of ways.

[00:13:40] I mean, social media does allow connections to take place, but it also dehumanizes people because. You’re looking at a screen when you’re reading those words or, or watching that video or whatever. And, and it’s, you know, it’s a screen, it’s a, it’s a device that’s in your hand and it’s not a person sitting on the other side of the room that you’re, you’re [00:14:00] physically talking to.

[00:14:01] And, and it’s, that’s not the right way to, to look at things either. So, so building those, those kind of connections, I think that’s, that’s something I think we, we need some more of. And it, it probably goes to, you know, talking about some of the mental health issues that we have, if, you know, a lot of times folks end up isolating themselves, but they may be fooling themselves and saying, oh yeah, no, I’m, you know, I’m connected to people.

[00:14:26] It’s just, you know,

[00:14:28] Timothy Wienecke: I’m on a discord. I gotta talk to people every day.

[00:14:30] Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. But it’s, it’s not exactly the same, is it?

[00:14:34] Timothy Wienecke: No, the way I like to frame social media out is social media is to connection as cotton candy is to food,

[00:14:43] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:14:44] Timothy Wienecke: right?

[00:14:46] If you’re, if it’s part of a meal and you’re doing it and it’s fun, that’s fine, but you need to be around people who care about similar things to you.

[00:14:54] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:14:54] Timothy Wienecke: And whatever that is, it really doesn’t matter what you build community around, but [00:15:00] social friction matters for feeling safe socially. Like I gotta be able to look you in the face and know that like, I might hurt you, you might hurt me, and we’re choosing to spend this time together anyway.

[00:15:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. Yeah. There, there is that possibility. You know, and if I, if I start mouthing off and being a dick, like

[00:15:19] Timothy Wienecke: Or just saying the wrong thing. I mean

[00:15:20] like emotional hurt.

[00:15:21] Scott DeLuzio: Okay. Yeah, no, that too. Yeah.

[00:15:23] Timothy Wienecke: Right. Like, I don’t know about you man, but I’m 45. I’m not throwing punches anymore.

[00:15:26] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:15:27] Timothy Wienecke: Like,

[00:15:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I’m, I’m not too far off and yeah, I, it’s been a while.

[00:15:31] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about it. I, so for my podcast, I, I talk a lot to guys and at the end we always talk about their masculinity. And of course for most of the veterans violence that like, that physical aggression is in there

[00:15:42] somewhere as part of their masculinity. And it got me thinking about like, when the last time I was punched in the face was, was like 20 years ago.

[00:15:49] And I’m like, oh man, I don’t think I could, I think I’d get dropped. Now. I don’t think I’ve got the, like, like this jaw is not, not tough anymore. I don’t think I’ve, I’ve gotten pretty soft.

[00:15:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:16:00] Yeah. Yeah. It’s been, I mean, yeah, it’s been a while. I, you know, it probably part of my guy brain is, is like, like, no, man, you got this. Yeah. You, you could definitely, you could definitely handle it, you know, but in reality, probably not,

[00:16:14] Timothy Wienecke: Well,

[00:16:15] guy brain’s pretty dumb around it, right? Like,

[00:16:17] uh, Rhonda Rousey back when she was undefeated in the top of her field of beating people to near death, 60% of American men thought they could take her in a fight,

[00:16:26] which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Like

[00:16:29] any combat vet knows, right? If you’re trained, that’s more important than you, how big you are.

[00:16:33] Scott DeLuzio: right,

[00:16:33] Timothy Wienecke: right.

[00:16:34] Like if it’s not training Yeah. The bigger guy usually wins check.

[00:16:36] But training wins every time.

[00:16:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And. She’s got way more time for training than I ever will have. So, yeah, no, she, she’d whoop my ass.

[00:16:46] Timothy Wienecke: A hundred percent.

[00:16:47] Like and good four, like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

[00:16:50] Scott DeLuzio: I, I would just be like, you know what? You win, I walk away.

[00:16:52] Timothy Wienecke: Which just cracks me up. Think about that. 60% of us guys, six outta 10 guys you meet in that moment in time [00:17:00] thought, well, yeah, it’s a woman. I could still take her.

[00:17:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that, that’s, it’s kind of crazy. But you know, it also might just be part of like, I don’t wanna admit that I think a woman could beat me up, you know, that, that kind of mindset and you know, look, there could I probably hold my own against most women? Yeah. Probably. Not against her or people like her, you know,

[00:17:25] Timothy Wienecke: Well, I imagine for you, you could probably hold your own against most people even, right?

[00:17:31] Like, you’re a big enough guy, you’re competent enough. I’m a big enough guy. I’m competent enough. Um, where that comes from is that status tick that we have as guys.

[00:17:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

[00:17:40] Timothy Wienecke: So it’s, it’s important to acknowledge it because it gets, it gets a bad rap

[00:17:46] that guys are status driven, but it’s kind of baked into us.

[00:17:49] Scott DeLuzio: it is. Yeah. And, and that’s one of the, the four things that you mentioned too, is the status. And, and that’s, that’s just a, a thing we have and, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a status [00:18:00] like, you know, you’re a CEO or you’re a, you know, whatever your, your job title is. It, it’s, you know, the dominant in person in this situation that, that could be a status as well, winner, loser, that, that type of thing could be status too, right?

[00:18:15] Timothy Wienecke: When it goes into what masculinity becomes over the lifetime.

[00:18:19] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:20] Timothy Wienecke: So when we’re young, our masculinity is the privileges we show up with. Right? Are you big, are you charming? Are you athletic? Where are you naturally capable And that’s what you trade on for masculine status. So women, because of the period, because there’s a biological marker of when things change for them, most cultures have a understanding and tradition around like, oh, this hap this age.

[00:18:43] You’re a woman now.

[00:18:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:45] Timothy Wienecke: And everybody kinda accepts that men do not have that moment in time. So almost every culture up until very recently had traditions that said you went through some kind of test that you could possibly fail

[00:18:58] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Hmm.

[00:18:59] Timothy Wienecke: to become a [00:19:00] man, which means masculine status has to be earned and it can be lost.

[00:19:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:19:06] Timothy Wienecke: And that’s why we tend to respond to status loss, like women respond to violence. It, it is more emotionally arduous for men to take a status hit. Doesn’t excuse bad behavior around it. That’s not what I’m saying,

[00:19:18] but it’s why we get so reactive.

[00:19:20] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. And you know, I, I think part of that, like, so we, we identify with, you know, maybe whatever status is or, you know, a lot of these other traits that you’re talking about, but also, you know, through that military service talking about, you know, veterans and stuff, you know, there’s that, that transition period where, where you have this status of a service member, a, you know, whatever branch you are in, you know, that there’s something sense of purpose, sense of meaning, that that is tied to that.

[00:19:51] And then when you get out you know, not everybody was like you and just kind of figured out what it was that they, they wanted to do you know, relatively quickly. And, [00:20:00] and they, they kind of lose that identity and, and then they’re sitting there scratching their head thinking like, what the hell am I, you know, what, what do I do with myself now?

[00:20:08] Where, you know, where’s my sense of self-worth or purpose or meaning in, in life really?

[00:20:14] Timothy Wienecke: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:15] Scott DeLuzio: That’s, I, I think, where some guys start to spiral and, and kind of get a little bit lost at, at that point. Right?

[00:20:22] Timothy Wienecke: it’s incredibly jarring.

[00:20:25] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm,

[00:20:25] Timothy Wienecke: So the, maybe you’ve heard this adage before about the mail kid on the aircraft carrier talking to the president. So president’s torn an aircraft carrier, right? Floating city comes across the lowest guy on the ship who’s the mail clerk,

[00:20:40] and he says, young man, what do you do on the ship?

[00:20:41] And he says, I got the most important job on the ship, sir. Oh yeah. Tell me about that. Well, if I don’t deliver this, we don’t turn. If I don’t deliver this, we don’t need, if I don’t deliver this, the guns don’t fire. I have the most important job on the ship, sir. The military is incredibly good at making everyone feel connected to the mission,

[00:20:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:58] Timothy Wienecke: no matter how asinine the work.

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] No matter how stupid the dumb games your commander making you play, it’s good at convincing you that this is in service to something more important than you

[00:21:08] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:10] Timothy Wienecke: is, right? I don’t, I don’t think the military’s blowing smoke when it’s doing this.

[00:21:13] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:21:14] Timothy Wienecke: It also that sense of community, right? So I did, I did intelligence work, man, which was always shift work.

[00:21:21] So I literally spent half of my life those years with the guys on set with me, with the same eight people for the most part weird hours, at weird times. And you get very intimate just because of the proximity with each other. And guys that like, we vote very differently,

[00:21:38] right? We don’t have, we don’t share a lot of values. They still have space on my couch if they need it,

[00:21:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:21:44] Timothy Wienecke: right? Those are my guys. And the military is really good at that because it’s kind of a shared, it’s a little bit like trauma

[00:21:50] bonding, right? Like we’re all going through the same kind of crap together. And then for that masculine status, particularly since it’s usually young guys that join, it’s one of the [00:22:00] only things that everyone agrees that once you’ve signed up in your uniform, you’re a man.

[00:22:05] Now it’s one of the only universally accepted like, okay, now, now you’ve got that masculine status, you’re,

[00:22:12] Scott DeLuzio: Right. It’s, it’s kinda like our, our ERAS test, if you will, like, like what you were, you were saying, like generations before have had various tests and this is kind of like one of those things. It’s not for everybody, but it, it is one of those things that once when you’ve gone through that you can say, yep, I’m a man.

[00:22:30] You know?

[00:22:31] Timothy Wienecke: Well, and it’s been, and that really works out for, well, for a lot of guys. Like I got two guys that are former special forces

[00:22:36] operators who are now stay at home dads. Do you think their masculinity could take that hit if they had have done that other job being those

[00:22:43] guys?

[00:22:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah,

[00:22:46] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. Prob probably have a harder time with

[00:22:48] it. For, for me, being a guy who talks about feelings all day, if I didn’t have the status of being a former uniform, it might be harder for me to do and not feel a way about.

[00:22:58] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. [00:23:00] Yeah. And, and so. These, these guys get out and, and I’m saying guys, ’cause we’re, we’re talking a lot about masculinity and so sorry to the ladies who might be listening to this, but this is kind of, kind of for the boys today, I think, you know, kind of

[00:23:14] Timothy Wienecke: Well, for transition stuff, it’s pretty, that’s pretty unisex. It’s the same

[00:23:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. That, that’s true.

[00:23:18] That’s true. But yeah, and I, I guess, you know, some of the other stuff too, like, you know, there, there’s other mental health issues that, that might come from service in the military. It doesn’t necessarily have to be combat trauma. You know, there’s, you were talking before about sexual assaults and, and things like that.

[00:23:35] And that, that there’s a lot of stuff that can be universally applied regardless to, to whoever we’re, we’re talking about.

[00:23:42] Timothy Wienecke: get talked about a lot, but one of the highest suicide rates for veterans coming out are non-combat deployed marines.

[00:23:49] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:23:50] Timothy Wienecke: And it’s because they joined the Marines to be a rifleman and then they didn’t get to be one,

[00:23:54] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:23:54] Timothy Wienecke: and then they get out. And one of the other things that happens is a lot of [00:24:00] times when we go in, most people, I would say when they go in, are a little lost.

[00:24:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:06] Timothy Wienecke: For a lot of guys, if they’re honest about it, they’re like, yeah, it was the military or college and college didn’t make sense to me. So I don’t know. I let the army send me somewhere and oh, goody, here’s where I got sent.

[00:24:14] Scott DeLuzio: Right? Yep.

[00:24:16] Timothy Wienecke: It’s an outlet to kick a decision down the road

[00:24:20] because once you’re in the military and you’re in uniform, you’re no longer making decisions about your life. You’re making decisions about how to handle your life. You go where you’re told, you’re with who you’re told to be with.

[00:24:31] You don’t have to think real hard about those things, and

[00:24:34] so we get out 8, 10, 4 years later, we’re behind our peers who have been making those decisions because we don’t know how,

[00:24:43] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:45] Timothy Wienecke: and it’s hard.

[00:24:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I feel like there’s, there’s some, maybe some gaps in the current. Approaches to dealing with some of these [00:25:00] things, like, you know, some of the, the therapies that that might be offered may not be, they might be good for certain things, certain specific conditions, but I feel like there, there might be kinda like a, a bigger picture type thing that we, we need to start looking into, because I don’t know if it’s always just a one thing that is, you know, causing someone to need some sort of therapy and, and maybe that one type of therapy isn’t appropriate.

[00:25:31] Maybe, maybe there needs to be something else,

[00:25:33] Timothy Wienecke: what I notice with, and this is just a veteran thing, but it’s also very much a guy

[00:25:37] thing. We don’t go to therapy until everything’s on fire.

[00:25:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Timothy Wienecke: And the last thing that’s like really important to us is on fire. And we’re like, fix this. And you’re absolutely right. It’s, it’s a whole life.

[00:25:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:50] Timothy Wienecke: And the other thing that happens is the military, since it tends to pull in people that are lower socioeconomically in the background, they’re people that show up with struggles.

[00:25:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:26:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:26:00] Timothy Wienecke: Like anybody who served has met the guy who came from absolutely nothing to the point where he didn’t have hygiene.

[00:26:06] And the military had to spend thousands of dollars on dental for the guy because like of how he grew

[00:26:12] up, we all remember that guy.

[00:26:13] Right? And that’s one of the beautiful things about the military is that it’s a way out for some

[00:26:17] people, but that means they’re going back into the civilian world to the same places with the same skillset of poverty. And the military absolutely doesn’t teach money management. Just walk, walk by barracks and see how many mustangs are in that you lot like

[00:26:36] Scott DeLuzio: At 30% interest or something stupid. Right.

[00:26:39] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. The other thing around the, the mental health care and the, and the medical issues around it is the military’s medical system is drastically different than what civilian life needs. And it has to be. I, I think military medicine gets a really bad rap, but at the end of the day, it does its job very well, which is, get me back to [00:27:00] my mission.

[00:27:00] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:01] Timothy Wienecke: I don’t care about my long-term health. I don’t care about the consequences. Get me back to the guys that need me.

[00:27:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:27:08] Timothy Wienecke: Right. And in that environment, that makes sense. Right? I don’t think I’d wanna change that.

[00:27:16] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:27:17] Timothy Wienecke: However, that means you’re racking up a pretty big bill for when you get out.

[00:27:21] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right,

[00:27:23] Timothy Wienecke: And we are bad at engaging medical systems because we’re used to like, well, I’m not dying.

[00:27:29] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:27:31] Timothy Wienecke: Like, I’m fine.

[00:27:32] It’s

[00:27:33] Scott DeLuzio: And, and, and you don’t wanna be seen as the guy who’s, who’s. The slacker or whatever, who’s going to medical instead of doing whatever the job is trying to skirt out, out outta work or, you know, somehow get around doing it. And so you don’t wanna be that guy, so you just don’t go. And that just kicks the can down the road.

[00:27:53] And I, I think, you know, at our, our age, you know, both kind of mid forties, you, you [00:28:00] realize that that catches up to you and there’s really no going back on some of that. Right.

[00:28:03] Timothy Wienecke: Some of it, what I will say is it, it’s very, it’s been interesting to me, right? My dad was in the trades and he was a, like, he was a hard party and biker,

[00:28:11] right? So he had a lot of miles on him, is how he would put, it’s not the years, it’s the miles. And I look like he looked in his early thirties right now.

[00:28:21] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:22] Timothy Wienecke: It’s those miles and it’s that ability to engage in a system more broadly that helps us.

[00:28:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:28:27] Timothy Wienecke: I think there it was, for me, it was hilarious, right? So I’m organizing all these things for veterans coming out. I, as part of the orientation, it’s, Hey, how, like, what, what’s hurt? And who’s helping you figure out where you’re getting care? And if you need disability, like how did the military break you? I didn’t serve in combat and the military broke me. How did it break you? Right.

[00:28:50] And I did that for a year, and finally one of the guys I was helping, he’s like, oh, well, so what, what’s your stuff look like? Oh man, I don’t need it. I’m good. I’m just helping you guys.

[00:28:56] Scott DeLuzio: Right?

[00:28:57] Timothy Wienecke: And he’s like, what the, [00:29:00] are you serious right now?

[00:29:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that, and that’s the way it goes because again, the military’s really good at placing the mission or something bigger than yourself you know, ahead of your own needs. And so, of course, you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna help those other guys and, and do all those things and, and help them meanwhile, neglecting your own stuff and not taking care of it, even though you know damn well you should be, you’re just not going to.

[00:29:26] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah.

[00:29:27] Well, and some of it goes down to the thing with the military that’s very good, and it’s also just culturally masculine in America is we don’t value ourselves as much as we value everything else.

[00:29:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no,

[00:29:38] Timothy Wienecke: our list of priorities, we’re we’re pretty towards the bottom. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:42] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I, I remember, you know, even, even myself when I was joining the military, this was post nine 11. We were in Iraq, in Afghanistan. We’re, we’re doing all those things. I, I joined as an infantryman. Basically when I got off the bus at basic training, they, they said, it’s not a matter of [00:30:00] if you get deployed, it’s when you get deployed, you know, you’re going to at some point.

[00:30:03] So, you know, that that mindset was there, that it was like, Hey, I, I’m here. I signed up to do this job. I know that it’s a dangerous job. I know that bad things can happen. It, it’s in the news all the time. Bad things are happening to you know, these, these people who are being deployed. And it’s like.

[00:30:19] Alright, well, that’s what the country needs and that’s what I’m gonna do. That, that was, that was the attitude that I had going in. Of course, you know, being younger than I am now and not, not having a family and all that, that kind of stuff, that, that kind of help, you know? Yeah. And, and then you start adding those other responsibilities and it’s like, okay, well you gotta start prioritizing what, where are you really willing to make those kind of sacrifices?

[00:30:43] Timothy Wienecke: Well, because all of a sudden it’s not just sacrificing you.

[00:30:45] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:30:46] Timothy Wienecke: Right.

[00:30:47] And I don’t think other clinicians would disagree, right? Everything needs to be self motivated, but I don’t think that’s true. Everything needs to be connected.

[00:30:56] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:57] Timothy Wienecke: Our motivations need to be in [00:31:00] connection to people and things that are important to us to be any kind of happy.

[00:31:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:31:04] Timothy Wienecke: And the prob the main problem with that is when folks get outta the military, the military is very good at filling all of those needs in one place with one thing, which makes a very sharp focus, but an incredibly brittle

[00:31:21] set.

[00:31:21] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:22] Timothy Wienecke: ‘ cause all it takes is something tapping it sideways

[00:31:25] and your family falls apart.

[00:31:26] You know, I think there’s a lot of moss where it’s what a divorce, a rank was the joke,

[00:31:31] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah.

[00:31:33] Timothy Wienecke: And so what happens is, is guys are used to just having that in their pocket, then they get out and they expect their work to do all that heavy lifting for

[00:31:41] them. And civilian work most of the time does not do that heavy

[00:31:45] lifting and nor should it.

[00:31:49] I think it would be really healthy outside of combat situations for that to be the focus of things.

[00:31:54] Nothing else should be that mission driven.

[00:31:56] Scott DeLuzio: right. Right.

[00:31:58] Timothy Wienecke: and so that’s where a lot of [00:32:00] guys struggle. There was a stat a few years ago, and I don’t know if it’s still true or not, but the average length of employment for a veteran’s first job was six months before they were either terminated or quit, and it’s because they get into the job and they want it to feel like it did before and it won’t.

[00:32:16] Scott DeLuzio: Right. It won’t. Yeah. And I, I heard another one, I don’t know if it’s similar or related to the same study that you’re talking about, but within the first two years after getting out, about 80% of veterans have already gone on to their next job. Again, whether they, they quit or were fired or, or whatever. Like that’s a crazy number, like 80%.

[00:32:35] Like that’s, that’s not like an insignificant amount that that’s most people who, you know, within two years and two years is not a lot of time to, to be working any kind of job. You know, of course you may get out and it’s like, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I need to pay the bills, so I’m gonna just find something to do.

[00:32:54] You know, basically anything just to get a paycheck right now, and then over time you start to figure out what you want to do [00:33:00] and then you move on. I can understand that and, and that that could be where a lot of that comes from, but I don’t know if it is, you know, it, it’s,

[00:33:08] Timothy Wienecke: So I think the, it’s gotten a lot better since we were in

[00:33:12] like when did you get out?

[00:33:13] Scott DeLuzio: 2011.

[00:33:14] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah, so we got out around the same time. It was 2012, and so now the programs for folks transitioning out are much more robust. The problem is that the guys getting out aren’t in a place to pay attention yet.

[00:33:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

[00:33:26] Timothy Wienecke: Right.

[00:33:26] They’re just like, all they know is that they’re done with the military and whether it’s because they can’t do it anymore because of an injury, whether they’ve served their tournament, it’s time to do something else or because the military real was not a good

[00:33:38] experience for them and they’re ready to go. That’s the focus and thinking about the future where you’re still in uniform is incredibly difficult.

[00:33:45] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And.

[00:33:46] Timothy Wienecke: And so,

[00:33:46] Scott DeLuzio: a lot of times the, the information that they’re giving to you, it, it’s like you’re drinking from a fire hose. ’cause you just get so much information all at once that it’s like, there’s no way I’m gonna remember all this stuff too.

[00:33:57] Timothy Wienecke: Well, it’s just like anything else in the military, right? [00:34:00] Like give them all the information that they could possibly need and expect them to know it go.

[00:34:04] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Right.

[00:34:05] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. It doesn’t work out long term.

[00:34:07] Scott DeLuzio: No, it doesn’t. No.

[00:34:08] Timothy Wienecke: I, I think that was my favorite part of working on the college campus is there were plenty of guys who were not gonna be college guys that came,

[00:34:15] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:34:15] Timothy Wienecke: the GI Bill paid their bills for a minute and they’re on, they’re on a campus where everyone there is trying to figure out what they wanna do when they

[00:34:23] grow up, right? And we also had one of the few offices where our retention rate wasn’t as important.

[00:34:32] So when you get onto a campus, every service there is designed to keep you on that campus until you graduate. Ours was just serving the veterans

[00:34:40] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:34:41] Timothy Wienecke: right. And what that meant is a guy might come in for a semester or two and then figure out this isn’t for him.

[00:34:46] And then we turn him on. The fact that some of the unions have it set up where when you go in for your journeyman, for your electrician, for the pipe fitter, that you get to use your GI bill to pay your bills while you’re not making any money as a journey on your way up as an apprentice, [00:35:00] right? We can turn ’em onto those programs.

[00:35:02] It was our jobs to help ’em find those programs. And so if you’re getting out, even if you don’t wanna be a college person, find a university in your area that’s got a robust and good veterans program and help let them help you make that turn. ’cause otherwise you’re gonna do what I did, which was sit on a couch, drunk day, drinking for six months trying to figure it

[00:35:23] out. And that’s a crap way to do that.

[00:35:25] There’s better ways, I promise.

[00:35:26] Scott DeLuzio: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you’re, you’re probably not the, the most clearheaded as you’re thinking about what it is that you wanna do with your life as you’re, you know, sitting on the couch day drinking. And in and of itself, that’s not the best decision, you know?

[00:35:39] Timothy Wienecke: No. Well, for me, I, I thought I, I really did enjoy doing the, the bystander training

[00:35:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:45] Timothy Wienecke: Like, I had a lot of fun connecting with guys on that. It felt very purpose driven. It felt very aligned. Like I’ve been getting like different social justice awards since I was 20 years old. And so I felt like I found my thing, like I can talk to men about this.

[00:35:57] It’s important for men for this. Let’s

[00:35:59] [00:36:00] go. But I got really burnt out doing the advocacy work because, so when you’re working a crisis line, you’re literally talking to people on the worst day of their life every time someone calls.

[00:36:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:36:09] Timothy Wienecke: And then you don’t get to hear the end of the story. You hand them to the resource and you pick up the phone for the next person.

[00:36:15] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:16] Timothy Wienecke: And that repetition really burnt me out. And there just isn’t a lot of justice in that world. The people like to rag on the military for it. The US justice system is not particularly better. It just has different problems in the military justice system around sexual assault. And so you don’t see a lot of justice either.

[00:36:33] Scott DeLuzio: You’re right.

[00:36:35] Timothy Wienecke: And so it took a while to figure out how to go about doing something different. And then I was like, well, wait, what if I could just help people figure out the story? So I still see guys in the worst month of their

[00:36:45] life, I just get to watch ’em, turn it around.

[00:36:49] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I, I gotta imagine that that would be difficult to only see just the, the worst part of it and never seen the conclusion. It’s almost like watching a movie and then [00:37:00] stopping it like three quarters of the way through or, or halfway through or something. And, and not knowing how any of that ends.

[00:37:07] It’s almost like a itch you can’t scratch, right?

[00:37:09] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah, it’s a lot like what happened to the drone guys,

[00:37:11] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:12] Timothy Wienecke: right? So the uniform drone guys got hosed where it needed to be a uniform firing

[00:37:17] the weapon, but it was contractors that would fly it around to get there.

[00:37:22] So literally they might have a day where like four different occasions, they’re watching up close feeds of what their button push is doing. And then they’re being traumatized by that, but they feel like they aren’t allowed to be traumatized by that because they’re in an air conditioned building somewhere far away.

[00:37:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:37:40] Timothy Wienecke: And it’s that same kind of thing where if your whole day is horror, it’s gonna wear on you. It’s

[00:37:45] gonna cause problems at some point.

[00:37:47] I,

[00:37:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that kind of, that kind of job has to be pretty high turnover. I, I would imagine you know, it’s

[00:37:56] Timothy Wienecke: so a lot of it has to do with whether it’s trained well or not.

[00:37:59] Scott DeLuzio: oh, [00:38:00] okay.

[00:38:00] Timothy Wienecke: And so there’s a, there’s a distinct difference that happens in the brain when you have empathy instead of

[00:38:06] sympathy. So they took MRIs while they showed people stories. And when someone sympathizes, it’s, oh my God, imagining me there. I really need to get you outta the situation.

[00:38:17] You poor person. Let me, I’m, I’m now invested in needing to get this out that puts them into a fight or flight space.

[00:38:26] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:38:27] Timothy Wienecke: Like emotionally and in in brain

[00:38:28] chemistry. If it’s empathy of I see you suffering, I’m so sorry that’s happening to you, I’m here. It releases pleasure hormones. It releases connection hormones, and so a lot of the training for you new counselors is making sure that you know how to regulate and accept the systems that exist to be in empathy instead of sympathy

[00:38:50] or you will burn out.

[00:38:52] You

[00:38:52] cannot be in human services and constantly be in sympathy trying to fix everybody’s problem. For them. It doesn’t work.

[00:38:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. [00:39:00] Yeah, no, I, I get, I, I think that makes sense. Yeah, I, I get that. I, and you know, we were talking a little bit before about, you know, kind of connection and I dunno if we necessarily talk communities, but you know, like. Not isolating, getting, getting involved with something in a, in a group or you know, other folks with similar interests, whether it’s whether it’s an activity that you’re doing or, or some other hobby or, or, you know, could be it could be a veteran group, like A VFW or American Legion that, those types of things or, or whatever.

[00:39:32] But being involved with somebody somewhere at some point, I, I think is probably one of the bigger things that, that folks can do to help themselves when it comes to their mental health. And, I mean, I’m sure there’s other things that they can do as well, but, but having that, that community, that connection kind of what you were talking about before gives you somebody else that you can, like, Hey, I, I need to be there for [00:40:00] that person. Or, you know, they, that person might need me, so I’m, I’m gonna be there for them and I’m gonna, I’m gonna show up for, for those people. You know, yeah, sure. Your, your family could be that group as well. But I feel like there, there’s probably something outside of that as well, that for, for many people anyways might be the thing that might be the thing that they’re missing maybe.

[00:40:21] I don’t know if

[00:40:22] Timothy Wienecke: It’s the thing that almost every American’s missing right now.

[00:40:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:25] Timothy Wienecke: And I think for veterans it’s harder because we had it,

[00:40:28] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:29] Timothy Wienecke: whereas most 19 year olds don’t. Half of guys under 25 can’t name a best friend.

[00:40:36] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:40:37] Timothy Wienecke: And so that the comment about, well, family’s probably good, but it’s not enough,

[00:40:43] is 100% accurate.

[00:40:46] That no point in human history where we ever designed to be in a singular like household, right? If you, if you look at how this meat sack is wired, it’s wired to be on the planes doing [00:41:00] hunter gatherer stuff, which means I’m supposed to be in a group of 20 people that are entirely interdependent on each other,

[00:41:05] Scott DeLuzio: Mm.

[00:41:05] Timothy Wienecke: and my system is regulated for that. The things that trigger the pleasure and purpose and everything in me are wired for that. And now you and I are talking on a screen and are likely never to meet in person,

[00:41:17] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah, no, and that’s true and I’ve, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people that I have never met in person, and it’s all been through, you know, virtual talks like this and, you know, folks who tune into this and they either listen or, or watch this interaction. They likely will never bump into either of us either.

[00:41:38] And, you know, and so they, they may, they may have listened to many episodes of, you know, your podcast, my podcast, whoever. And they may feel like they start to know the person a little bit because they’ve heard them talk and heard some of their stories and, and got to know, know a little bit about their, their background and, and who they are.

[00:41:57] But it’s different than [00:42:00] in the same room or in the same place where whatever it, it, the location happens to be. And actually having real conversation with them, making actual eye contact. I mean, I’m looking at a camera right now. I mean, you’re, you’re on the screen, but you’re kinda like off on the side.

[00:42:15] I’m looking at a camera and so, you know, I got like one BDI looking at me with a blue light next to it and like, it’s not really the same thing. Right?

[00:42:24] Timothy Wienecke: No, and it’s, it’s funny ’cause like I, I always feel hypocritical. ’cause at this point in my practice, I’m only doing telehealth. I don’t have an in-person office anymore.

[00:42:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:32] Timothy Wienecke: But my big push for my colleagues when I do education events is our job as clinicians is individual. We’re there to help get people the things they need and the tools they need to build the connected

[00:42:44] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:45] Timothy Wienecke: But we shouldn’t be the connected life as a clinician. We’re not supposed to be. The only way we can do the job is if there’s some distance there.

[00:42:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:42:52] Timothy Wienecke: And everybody’s struggling with, this isn’t a veteran issue, man, people are having a really hard time. And it’s because in the fifties we came [00:43:00] up with this idea that the nuclear family had to be the centerpiece of every world. And it, it largely isn’t like they’re, your family is your family and they’re incredibly important. And if you don’t have family or you’ve been in a space where you don’t have family, you know how painful that is.

[00:43:15] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:17] Timothy Wienecke: Your family can’t be an island, nothing good happens. And so there’s kind of two different kinds of connection, right?

[00:43:25] There’s intimate connection where like you and I are friends. I, I’m one of the people that you can come to and talk about when you grow up. Like, man, I’m, I’m really ashamed of this. I did a bad thing.

[00:43:37] And that intimacy means that you can come talk to me about it. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna be happy with you, but we’re close enough that you’ll talk to me about it.

[00:43:45] Then there’s community connection, which I think the military is a fantastic example of everybody there is doing something that matters to you. All the people doing that with you matter to you, and there are a lot of ’em you don’t like. Like one in 10 people you meet in the world, you’re not gonna

[00:43:58] like. And that [00:44:00] counts. And so community is just, I’m around people doing something similar that care about a similar thing. I don’t have to, like everybody here, I just have to show up to do the thing. And it doesn’t matter whether that’s pickleball, doesn’t matter if it’s a soup kitchen, doesn’t matter if a vf, if it’s a VFW, it just means people will notice if I’m not here

[00:44:18] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:44:20] Timothy Wienecke: and that matters.

[00:44:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, it does. And I think that that could go a long way when it comes to that mental health you know, the, the issues that we are having. And you’re right, I don’t think it’s necessarily just a uniquely veteran issue. I think it kind of applies to all of society. And I gotta imagine, you know, a few years ago, COVID probably didn’t help all of that, when everybody was just kind of isolating away from everybody.

[00:44:49] They,

[00:44:49] Timothy Wienecke: man, it’s supercharged it and we’re still struggling with it. So like, I’m, I’m a big geek, right? I like Dungeons and Dragons and the like, and

[00:44:54] my whole role within my friend group was wrangling the nerds, right? Like, I’m the social one. So I would get everybody

[00:44:59] together [00:45:00] to play the stupid games together. Now my introverted nerds won’t be wrangled. They’re like, we’ll, go get dinner, man. But it’s too, it’s too much to be around, more than like one other person.

[00:45:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And so I think we, we maybe as a society have just gotten our, our tolerance for people has, has been lowered, you know, the, like the, the groups of people, like even, even amongst friends like you were saying. It’s, it’s just reduced and, and we’ve like, well, we manage without them for a period of time.

[00:45:28] And I, I guess I can still do that. And, you know, I don’t, I think we, we’ve managed to, you know, it’s kinda like I can get by, you know, you know, I’m a little short on cash, but I, I can get by with you know, you know, say you know, just being a little cheap here and there and, you know, I, I can get by, but it’s not gonna be as good as it, it could have been if I, if I was you know, had, had my pockets full of cash.

[00:45:53] Same idea with, with the, the friends, like we, we’ve gotten by without ’em. For a little bit. So do we really need [00:46:00] them? You know, that much anyways.

[00:46:01] Timothy Wienecke: and then the trepidation of the social friction.

[00:46:05] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm,

[00:46:05] Timothy Wienecke: Right. So machines remove social friction, and they’ve done all kinds of different studies on it, but one of the ones that’s the most interesting to me is they go into big companies and they turn off their email in a division for a week to see what happens.

[00:46:20] Scott DeLuzio: hmm.

[00:46:21] Timothy Wienecke: Productivity goes up.

[00:46:24] Scott DeLuzio: Interesting.

[00:46:24] Timothy Wienecke: It’s because middle managers have panic attacks about clearing their inboxes.

[00:46:30] Like I’m, I’m not exaggerating that I

[00:46:31] work with those guys. It’s terrible. There’s just this constant flood of things that they’re supposed to be organizing and it never stops. And so they literally have 10 seconds to pick where this task goes in their team versus having to walk, get up, walk to the other cubicle and look at the guy in the face and say, Hey, I need you to do this, where all of a sudden he has to think and get a response for the request.

[00:46:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:46:59] Timothy Wienecke: And [00:47:00] lo and behold, task it organized better when you have to do that. I.

[00:47:04] Scott DeLuzio: Interesting. Yeah.

[00:47:06] Timothy Wienecke: also nerve wracking, right?

[00:47:07] ’cause then that middle manager’s like, oh man, he’s gonna be pissed when I ask him to do this.

[00:47:11] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, but that, to that point, you’re, you’re gonna start thinking a little bit more about who you’re assigning those tasks to. And if you’ve always been given all the tasks to Bill, and Bill’s getting overloaded and he’s burning out and, and he’s, you know, just because it’s easier just to fire off the, the email to Bill and, you know, just, just send it and you’re not even really thinking about it.

[00:47:35] But if you’ve gone over to Bill’s desk 10 times in the last, you know, six hours and, you know, keep dropping stuff on his desk, you’re gonna be like, you know what, maybe I should give it to somebody else and, and give Bill a break a little bit here. Right?

[00:47:47] Timothy Wienecke: Well, and it gives Bill a chance to advocate for himself,

[00:47:49] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:47:50] Timothy Wienecke: where in an email, like I reply to an email that doesn’t feel like much.

[00:47:54] Scott DeLuzio: Right. That’s true.

[00:47:56] Timothy Wienecke: And, and so the big thing that I find is that the guys that [00:48:00] are living in isolation, they’ve lived there so long that the social friction is painful. Like for them to go back into the world and go back into community is painful.

[00:48:11] And so they come up with all these excuses of like, oh, those people aren’t for me. Oh, they won’t like me ’cause of this. Yeah, some of ’em won’t. You are absolutely correct and you won’t like some of

[00:48:20] them. That is 100% correct. In fact, there are hobbies that you can have that you won’t wanna talk to any of those people about anything but the hobby and still have a great

[00:48:28] time. Right. You need to get out there and feel what that’s like again, and build up some tolerance, build up some resistance to it. I just did a I had the guys from Next Level University on my podcast to talk about motivation and like, ’cause they’re super amped, right? Their whole thing is like getting top performers to be better performers.

[00:48:48] They’re ridiculous. And the whole episode series about grit, building up grit to do the things you need to do and to follow up with that, I realized that we never talked about tolerating rejection.

[00:48:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:49:00] Okay.

[00:49:00] Timothy Wienecke: If there’s something you want in the world and you don’t have it, odds are you’re gonna have to deal with other people to get it.

[00:49:05] Which means you’re going to have to deal with people rejecting your requests. And that hurts. Like being rejected on any level is not comfortable or good,

[00:49:14] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:49:15] Timothy Wienecke: right?

[00:49:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. But if you don’t ask, the answer’s always gonna be no. Right.

[00:49:20] Timothy Wienecke: percent.

[00:49:21] Scott DeLuzio: I.

[00:49:22] Timothy Wienecke: to get comfortable asking, you gotta ask for the smaller things first. You gotta do some things to take care of yourself. So that’s the other thing is all of a sudden with veterans come to like bring it back around to the guys getting out. They’re used to the military and everybody taking care of them while they do the mission, and now they have to figure out how to take care of themselves and participate in the family’s care,

[00:49:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:42] Timothy Wienecke: which is a big transition.

[00:49:44] Really hard to do because you’re gonna suck at it, right?

[00:49:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:49:47] Timothy Wienecke: Like if you’ve never done kid drop off because you were often deployed. You don’t know all the foibles and all the BS that happens at kid drop off,

[00:49:54] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:49:55] Timothy Wienecke: and that’s gonna be really uncomfortable. But the only way to get [00:50:00] comfortable at something is by being uncomfortable in it for a little while,

[00:50:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I, I think we’ve all experienced that to some extent. If we’ve served in the military, I mean, I don’t know anyone who was like, you know, I was, I was totally comfortable in, in my training, my basic training or whatever. Well, I don’t know, maybe Air Force, I don’t know. I’m just gonna,

[00:50:18] Timothy Wienecke: camp, man. It’s okay.

[00:50:19] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:50:21] You guys are out there playing Frisbee and, you know, but, but no, it’s, I mean, it all joking aside, you know, even the Air Force, I’m, I’m sure it wasn’t, you know, a, a cakewalk every day, you know, and I’m, I’m sure you had some, some struggle going through some of that, and it was uncomfortable, but it transformed you into who you became as, as far as your, your military career.

[00:50:42] Right?

[00:50:43] Timothy Wienecke: well, my basic story was really interesting. So I finished up my Bachelor studying sociology because no one told me that’s a terrible degree to get. And my last paper I did was on how basic training

[00:50:53] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:50:54] Timothy Wienecke: right? Like how do they break people and rebuild them? And then I go into basic, and there’s [00:51:00] another college educated guy that’s about my age as a guard guy. And he is having an incredibly hard time through basic and making everybody’s life hard because he’s not getting on board with the program, right? Everybody usually has one in every unit where

[00:51:11] there’s just some guy that can’t get their head wrapped around

[00:51:14] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:14] Timothy Wienecke: And he was just, it was his ego. He was like, I’m older or I’m educated.

[00:51:18] This is stupid. And it was a wonderful thing to watch because it let me choose. To join,

[00:51:25] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:26] Timothy Wienecke: right? Yeah. No, I know exactly what they’re doing and I can still experience it and learn what I need to learn here.

[00:51:34] Scott DeLuzio: Gotcha.

[00:51:35] Timothy Wienecke: still, I can still have all this stress disruption. I can still gain the skills that basic training is supposed to be getting me to go be an airman. And so his example was really useful ’cause I’m sure I would’ve struggled with that otherwise if he hadn’t have made it so miserable in that struggle.

[00:51:47] Scott DeLuzio: Well, right, and it was kind of a blessing in a, in a way because you, you’re able to see it suck for somebody else and you’re like, well, shit, I don’t want that for me.

[00:51:57] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. They made a really good lesson outta that [00:52:00] guy.

[00:52:00] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Exactly. You know? Thanks so much, dude.

[00:52:03] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah.

[00:52:04] Stay on that struggle bus. I’m not getting on

[00:52:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. You know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll watch from afar and, you know, yeah. There’s probably some group suffering that that took place, I’m sure in, in some, some cases, but

[00:52:13] Timothy Wienecke: Well, and, and kind of coming back around

[00:52:15] to the, to the veterans transitioning out. Right? The same thing happens when you get out.

[00:52:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:52:20] Timothy Wienecke: And so that’s why being around other vets that are further ahead than you matters, getting a little bit of mentorship, talking to people to normalize just how crap this feels sometimes and how good it feels sometimes, and how weird that both of those might be happening at the same time, on the same couch, right?

[00:52:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:52:37] Timothy Wienecke: Getting around guys who have been there that can like help you avoid some mistakes, validate some of the struggles, and give you some room.

[00:52:45] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:46] Timothy Wienecke: If you go through it by yourself, you know you, you can probably do it right. You’re a competent guy. If you’re listening, you’re trying to get better. You’re listening to this, but why? Why

[00:52:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:52:57] Timothy Wienecke: hurt yourself?

[00:52:58] Scott DeLuzio: [00:53:00] Right. Yeah. I mean, so many people have gone through the same. Situation that you’re in, and if you can learn something from them so you don’t make the same mistakes and waste your time doing those things that they had already done, and they prove that they don’t work. And so it’s like, well, shit, just like, don’t do that.

[00:53:20] Like let, let’s find some other way to

[00:53:24] Timothy Wienecke: Hey man, I get you don’t have anything to do at noon, but maybe don’t day drink.

[00:53:28] Maybe Maybe that’s not gonna help as much as you

[00:53:31] think it’s,

[00:53:32] Scott DeLuzio: know, maybe putting together your resume that might be a little more productive use of your time or, you know, you know, looking for the jobs or, or whatever the case may be. You know, applying to schools or, or whatever. But yeah, sometimes you, you gotta, you almost need to have someone to just kick your ass in the right direction and, and get you on

[00:53:52] Timothy Wienecke: Uh, that’s, that’s what I do miss about the Veteran’s Office, man. Like, I eat worse. I work out less are super nice, right? They’re great. I, I love my, [00:54:00] my peers and my colleagues, but when I go get a bacon cheeseburger and eat at the desk, no one pats me on the belly and ask me how it

[00:54:06] Scott DeLuzio: Right,

[00:54:06] Timothy Wienecke: right. Like, like I miss those guys like a little bit like,

[00:54:10] Scott DeLuzio: a little too nice. I, I

[00:54:11] Timothy Wienecke: yeah.

[00:54:11] Scott DeLuzio: know, the, the, the folks that you’re with now, you

[00:54:13] Timothy Wienecke: yeah.

[00:54:14] being around that community also normalizes it. I like What are some of the questions you think some of those guys have that I can get, because I’m feeling a little scattered on it right now.

[00:54:23] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. You know, I, I think one of the things I, I think that folks are, are missing is, like, I, I know from the conversations that I’ve had sit you know, the experiences that I’ve had myself and, and experiences that other folks have had, you, you often do understand that, hey, there’s a problem here with something.

[00:54:47] You know, whe whether it’s a transition and not knowing what you’re gonna do with your life or, mental health issues or you know, all sorts of of things. Eventually you recognize, hey, there’s a problem. But a lot of times the ego gets in the way and it’s like, [00:55:00] you know what? I’ll be fine. I’ll figure this out.

[00:55:02] Not a big deal. And, and until, like you said, until everything is like on fire and it’s out of control, that’s when you’re like, oh, geez, I guess I should go talk to somebody and get some help. Right? But a lot of times I, I think it’s, it’s kind of, I don’t know if it’s a, the right way to say is a fear of the unknown, but just not knowing what to do.

[00:55:22] You know, there’s, there’s option, there’s things out there, but it’s the unknown unknowns, I guess, maybe is a better way to put it. It’s like, I just don’t know what to do or, you know, what’s that first step? What do, what do I do when I’m, when I’m stuck, when I’m feeling like I just don’t know what to do next.

[00:55:43] Timothy Wienecke: So one, if you’re newly out, you can still go to a base and every base has the family center and part of that center is gonna be a transition assistance and all that fire hose that you were getting while you were just trying to out process [00:56:00] that you didn’t catch. There’s someone there that knows

[00:56:02] it, that if you show up and ask questions to, they’ll answer it. And that’s a resource that’s gonna be available to you.

[00:56:09] If that isn’t available to you, most good. VFWs got a guy, right?

[00:56:18] Most American legions got a guy or gal. And not every university has a good veterans program. So if you’re shopping around for a university, call their veterans program. Don’t just apply for whatever school. See how it feels, ask ’em how the process goes. And if they just sound overwhelmed and busy, try another school.

[00:56:38] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:56:39] Timothy Wienecke: Right. But the big thing is, is those are three distinct options that you can have to not be alone with it. And that you don’t have to know everything.

[00:56:51] The the big thing that a colleague told me we used to do like a men’s group where I got together with a few other dude clinicians ’cause we’re a little different.

[00:56:58] Right. And I [00:57:00] like how he described the work. He was like, I think our whole job is convincing guys. They don’t have to hold it together all the time, but they’ve gotta hold it together most of the

[00:57:07] time. And so the problem is, is when you hold it all the time, you don’t pick when you drop it.

[00:57:13] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:57:14] Timothy Wienecke: You don’t pick when you need a hand. You don’t pick the thing that there’s a hand for, you blow up your marriage, you hurt your family, you hurt yourself. Whereas if you just decide like, I can be part of a community, I can show up, I can let these things, and these people give me information to give me some guidance. Lo and behold, life’s still really hard.

[00:57:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:57:41] Timothy Wienecke: But now you you put it down for a second and let somebody help you, so you’re more likely to hold on, well, longer.

[00:57:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure, sure.

[00:57:49] Timothy Wienecke: That’s the whole game.

[00:57:50] Scott DeLuzio: And you know, I think those, those three resources that you just mentioned and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put this in the, the show notes too for folks too who are, you know, [00:58:00] maybe a little scatterbrained as they’re, they’re listened to this and maybe didn’t quite remember everything. But, you know, those, those three resources I, I think are are good because most people, I think, can remember three things.

[00:58:12] And those are the, the things that will get you the, the help. It may not be necessarily the help that you need, but they’ll, they’ll be able to. Hm. Almost be like the traffic cop and, and like point you in the right direction and get you to where you need to go. Or, or almost like the, maybe even another example, like a general contractor where, where he’s, the general contractor is now going to say, okay, well we we’re gonna need the electrician, the plumber, we’re gonna need the, the roofer.

[00:58:40] We’re gonna need all those people and, and that’s what we’re gonna need to finish this job. And so they, they go and get those, those people together and they, they, they put ’em together and they do whatever work they need to do to finish the job. You know, that that person can, can direct you to the right resources, to the things that are unique and specific to [00:59:00] you and the issues that you’re going through.

[00:59:04] Timothy Wienecke: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:04] Scott DeLuzio: You may not know everything but I guess the point is you don’t

[00:59:08] Timothy Wienecke: y’all just feel better moving,

[00:59:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:59:10] Timothy Wienecke: right? Like we feel better in

[00:59:12] motion if we’ve got a problem and we’re moving, we’re at least doing

[00:59:15] something, even if that doesn’t end up being fruitful.

[00:59:18] Even if you go to A VFW and they’re just one of those beer and chili VFWs, which is nice, sometimes you need a beer and some chili.

[00:59:24] I’m not ragging on ’em, but not all of ’em are doing community

[00:59:27] service, right? So maybe you gotta go to a different one. But those guys usually know where the ones that are doing that stuff is.

[00:59:33] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And, and the, the community’s tight enough that, you know, people talk and, and you can, you can find out that information.

[00:59:40] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. I think the other thing that I would tell anybody getting out is give yourself a little grace that you don’t know yet.

[00:59:49] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:50] Timothy Wienecke: I, I think we always want to be the guy that knows. Like, I know what happens next. I know who I am, I know where I’m going. You [01:00:00] probably don’t right now,

[01:00:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right,

[01:00:02] Timothy Wienecke: and that’s incredibly normal. If you did, you’re wrong. I promise you’re wrong. There’s gonna be some stuff that happens outta that uniform that are, you’re gonna take in and you’re gonna be like, wait, I don’t, that was what the Marines needed from me and I was happy to give it, but I don’t need to do that now.

[01:00:18] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[01:00:18] Timothy Wienecke: Oh man, airmen do this. That’s really lame. Why would I do that? That way,

[01:00:24] whatever it is, there’s gonna be something.

[01:00:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I mean, look, just, just as a kind of an example I’ve had, this is going to be episode 542 of this show. I’ve had conversations with literally hundreds of people who’ve either represented a resource, a nonprofit, or some other organization, or have used resources themselves. And they came on the show and they were talking about it, and they were, they were doing something, you know, with themselves.

[01:00:49] And I guarantee you, I don’t know everything either. I, you know, I, I’m not even

[01:00:54] Timothy Wienecke: it, we’re not supposed to, Right,

[01:00:55] We’re supposed to know the guy I, I, I need to know the guy,

[01:00:58] Scott DeLuzio: right. Exactly.

[01:00:59] Timothy Wienecke: and I,

[01:00:59] get to [01:01:00] be the guy about my thing.

[01:01:02] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Right. And, and I can’t, I, I can’t even confidently say that I know all the guys to, to point people to. I know a lot of them, but not everyone. And, and so like, if you’re just.

[01:01:15] Dipping your toes into this situation. You’re like, I, I’m supposed to know everything. No, no, you’re not, you know, you’re, you’re supposed to know like a couple people who can help point you in that direction and, and literally be the traffic cop and, and guide you in the right

[01:01:28] Timothy Wienecke: at least being open to meeting them.

[01:01:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[01:01:32] Exactly.

[01:01:34] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah.

[01:01:34] Scott DeLuzio: And I think that, I think that’s great advice. Honestly, you know, boiling it down to just a few resources that, that people can keep in the back of their head and use those resources when, when things are getting a little heavy for them and they can’t carry it all on their own. I, I think that’s you know, as far as a takeaway goes, I, I think that’s, that’s as good as they get, you know?

[01:01:57] Timothy Wienecke: There we go, man.

[01:01:58] Scott DeLuzio: So, so before we wrap [01:02:00] up anything that you want to add or any any resources or anything that you want to share with folks that, that you know, where they can, you know, maybe find some information about what you do or, or anything like

[01:02:09] Timothy Wienecke: Absolutely. So after 10 years of clinical practice working with guys and the conversation shifting around masculinity, I started a podcast called American Masculinity. Don’t ask me how I got that. I can’t believe it wasn’t taken. But if you’re tired of the conversation either being people screaming about it, having to be like John Wayne. Or people telling you that you’re toxic because you’re aggressive. Come and listen. I’m having great experts on, we’re having deep conversations around the different aspects and different things that are going on in this country around men and boys and what they need and how we can grow. And it’s, for me, it’s been incredibly eye-opening.

[01:02:46] I’ve, I’ve been surprised at who showed up. I’ve been really lucky. I didn’t expect so many people to show up so soon that we’re coming from places of knowledge.

[01:02:53] But people are hungry for these conversations. People are worried about their sons. People are worried about what’s going on with guys who [01:03:00] aren’t stinking rich.

[01:03:00] If you’re stinking rich, white guy, life’s still pretty good for you. For the rest of us, there’s some things going on that we could probably be talking about and doing a little bit better on, and we can do it without lessening the things that other people need.

[01:03:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And help each other out. I think that’s

[01:03:17] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah, that’s it.

[01:03:18] Scott DeLuzio: kind, of the name of the game. So.

[01:03:19] Timothy Wienecke: Yeah. Be a good neighbor. Right.

[01:03:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Well, I, I want to, you know, thank you for coming on and I’ll, I’ll link to your show and ev all that, all that stuff in the show notes as well. But I wanna thank you for coming on the show and, and talking about this.

[01:03:34] I think, I think it’s one of those things that some people just kind of tiptoe around and you know, I, I wanted to address it, you know, kind of openly and, and just have a conversation about it. And, you know, there’s, there’s some stuff that you kind of open my eyes to and I, I think, you know, maybe some of the listeners as well.

[01:03:48] And you know, I, I think we’re, you know, as long as we keep talking and, and conversing with, with folks and, and helping each other out, I think we will, we will be moving in the right direction. So, so I do appreciate you coming on and [01:04:00] sharing all, all these resources.

[01:04:01] Timothy Wienecke: Thanks for doing for what you do, man. 500 episodes. You’ve helped a lot of people.

[01:04:05] Scott DeLuzio: I hope so. All right, thanks again.