Born Blind, Battling Chronic Pain, and Finding Purpose with Daniel Hodges

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Imagine being told your entire life what you would never become only to spend your life

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proving everyone wrong today I'm joined by Daniel Hodges president and co-founder of

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pieces of me foundation Daniel shares his journey living with blindness chronic pain

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anxiety suicidal Ideation and how turning pain into service helped him create hope for

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others Daniel welcome to the show.

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I'm very excited for our conversation

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Thank you.

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I'm excited to be here and have this conversation with you.

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Well, I don't want to waste any more time.

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I just want to turn the microphone over to you and have you tell us about your journey.

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Absolutely.

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So as you mentioned, I was born blind.

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I've got a little bit of vision in one eye and nothing in the other.

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And I was also born with a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos, which had some

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weird complications attached to it, some structural abnormalities in my femurs and hips

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all the way up into my pelvis.

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And I had a lot of joint involvement as well, where my joints are prone to fracture

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dislocation.

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other things like that.

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So when I talk about chronic pain, it's a lot of times, lot of times quite severe.

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I've had surgeries all over my body just to try to keep things in some level of

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homeostasis.

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And, you know, it's been a battle of trying to figure out, okay, how do I, how do I go and

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maintain a fulfilling life while also

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not pushing myself beyond what I can reasonably handle.

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And while I was growing up, my parents, the school district, none of them had a real solid

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idea of what to do with a kid who could barely see.

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So we focused on maximizing eyesight and trying to give me the largest print possible,

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which I could use to a very limited degree.

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But for all it did to purpose as I was, you could say functionally illiterate.

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And I ended up actually missing grades seven through 11 completely because the system just

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fell through.

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Um, and knowing these things and many others that we'll probably get into led me into a

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path of advocacy and trying to make some doors open for other people because I knew what

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it meant to be.

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counter that.

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I knew what it meant to have professionals say, well, he'll never be able to lose cane

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chairs.

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And, you know, he'll never go to college.

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He'll never have a family.

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He'll never blah, blah, blah.

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And I knew what it meant to be denied jobs that I was qualified for because somebody

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couldn't imagine doing something without their sight, without even letting me say, hey,

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there's alternative techniques.

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There's assistive technology.

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There's ways to do this.

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And then also,

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being in a situation where when my ex-wife and I had our first kid, we actually had to

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fight to keep custody of her while she was dealing with cancer because the hospital and

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some other professionals couldn't imagine how blind people could successfully parent.

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We ended up keeping custody.

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My daughter ended up eating her cancer.

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All of that ended up, quote unquote, all right, but it still took a toll and...

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It did eventually lead me to ask, okay, how can I turn these things into a powerful force

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for good?

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How can I turn, as you said, my pain into the purpose?

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And ultimately I was led to law school when a couple of mentors said, hey, you know,

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you're a great advocate, you're smart, you're...

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Particular how you know, what would it take to get you to think about loss going on to

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myself?

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I am broke and I worry about access and I worry about chronic pain and all of these other

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things but eventually I did what I had to do and Said okay.

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I've got two people Who don't know each other who brought this to me and Within 48 hours

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of each other and so this can't be a coincidence

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Nope, prayed about it.

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Just put it out there at the end of a terrible anxiety spell.

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I started to watch one door after another open.

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know, first there was how am going to even pay for the LSAT, let alone anything else.

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And then that funding came through and then it was, you know, how am I going to get money

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for applications or how am I going to get money to

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go to a lot of schools?

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How am I going to get past some serious academic gaps in my transcript that were a

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byproduct of mental health meds?

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How am I going to explain that away?

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How am going to get Voc Rehab to do what they're supposed to do?

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And over the course of the next year, I saw one door after another, after another open

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until I found myself in Baltimore.

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studying law school and less than a year after that, I found myself in the midst of

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another really bad mental health episode that we'll probably get deeper into.

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And that's when the inspiration to start Pieces of Me started because as it so happened,

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God found me in a very vulnerable, very raw place and gave me an assignment that

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Frankly, I might not have been really enthused about had I been feeling more solid in my

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life because, mean, who starts a nonprofit while they're in between their first and second

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year of law school?

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Not to mention, you know, all of the other stuff I had going on.

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But the other things just to get the basic bio out of the way are, you know, for anyone

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who cares, I will be referencing

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faith throughout this because it's part of my journey.

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If you're curious, I do happen to be an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of

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Latter-day Saints.

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That doesn't necessarily represent my organization's view because we are inclusive.

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I work with people from all kinds of faith traditions and no religious beliefs at all.

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I love that interactive work, but for me, my personal faith is my North Star.

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um I think that's about everything of the bio and I'm joining you from East Texas if you

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care.

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So that's kind of me in a nutshell.

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Awesome.

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I love just hearing about your background here and it opens me up.

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m There's so many different ways I could go with this.

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So I'm going to start with one of my first.

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I'm just curious this like you said you missed grade 7 through 11.

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How did that impact your confidence and identity at that time?

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It impacted me significantly, not only by virtue of the academic things that I missed out

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on, which fortunately I was able to make up for, but you think about how much you learned

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about studying at that time.

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You think about how much you learned socially at that time.

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And by the way, because I was the guy who was wearing glasses that were as thick as my

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finger before then.

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I didn't have great social interactions before then.

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was somebody who dealt with exclusion and bullying and name calling, et cetera, et cetera.

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So I went from that to almost complete isolation from my peer group for years.

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then, you know, trying to figure out, okay, how do I, how I fit in?

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You know, how do I...

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how do I make it work as somebody who very obviously can't see and doesn't have great

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social skills and somebody who had never been around someone who was blind or visually

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impaired at that point?

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And finally, for my 12th grade year, I did get to go to the school for the blind.

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So I got some of those questions answered, but I think the social aspect.

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is the part that really gets overlooked when you talk about that five-year period.

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Yeah, for sure and I could see that so kind of adding in the mental health side of things

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here Would you say that?

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The mental health struggles that you deal with have they always been prevalent or was

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there something that kind of set them off like, you know, the just Like something in life

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that just like clicked and like okay.

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Well now I'm gonna All of a sudden you saw anxiety or suicidal ideation kick in

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Yeah, so I had what you could reasonably consider to be some level of anxiety all the way

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back as far as I can remember.

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mean, every kid deals with different things that they're afraid of, but this was more

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than, um, more than just that.

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And then when my parents separated, was seven, eight.

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I was eight when my parents separated and, um

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There was definitely some trauma in that, particularly in the way that it happened, that

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led me to start really struggling.

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And as it happened, the separation of my parents and me being uprooted from Ohio to Idaho

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and then me experiencing my first real episodes of bullying all happened within several

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months of each other.

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Idaho was not a good place for me.

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in that regard or really any other.

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And so that was a struggle for a while just trying to, again, figure out who am I and is

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my identity, is my potential actually tied to my ability to see?

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And if you go back to that period, 7th, 8th, 7th, 11th, yeah, that's when the depression

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really started to get worse.

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That's when the ideas about self-harm started to come in and eventually I was in my mid

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teens when it went from being, I could think about doing this too, I was actually actively

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self-harming and figuring out ways to hide it from anyone around me.

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And that's an extremely scary place to be too.

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Like an extremely scary and dark place to be.

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Because I've had things happen in my life where um I didn't quite get to the self-harm

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phase, but I did get to the point where I knew what I was going to do and how I was going

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to do it.

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But I look back now and it's like, it's just hard to explain that state of mind of where

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you're at because...

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It's like when you're in those depression, dark moments, don't, it's like your mind

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doesn't understand what it's really doing.

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In my mind, was, can I drown out this mental pain that I'm dealing with and somehow the

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option of replacing it with or covering it up with physical pain somehow became the

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answer.

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you know, it's like,

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It became a real uh crux that I got stuck on and wasn't able to quite break for any length

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of time for probably close to a decade.

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It's just the mind really does work in mysterious ways.

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It does.

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Go ahead, you're fine.

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ahead.

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I was gonna say like, sometimes like we have to go through that dark, I feel like with me

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I had to go through that darkness though in order to get to where I'm at today and in

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order to admit that like I had a problem and needed proper help.

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Absolutely.

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And, you know, I...

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I eventually started to...

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at least find some equilibrium in my late teens.

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And by that point, my ex-wife and I were dating and she had her own mental health

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struggles.

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so that season of my life, was okay.

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We're at once, we're each other's stronger supporters.

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There was real empathy, but at the same time, one person's

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mental collapse could very easily lead to the others.

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And so I look back on that time and I'm like, man, it's a miracle that, you know, it

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didn't get any worse than it did.

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But I remember, I remember the first time that my ex-wife saw me having a full blown panic

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attack and she knew that I had them, but she had never witnessed them in person.

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And I think she was picturing, you know, maybe a crying spell, maybe a little, you know, a

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little quivering, whatever.

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What she ended up witnessing was something that pretty closely resembled a grand mal

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seizure.

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It was, you know, that bad.

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eventually I reached out, tried to find help.

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went through some different therapy options and actually ended up on several medications

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that frankly didn't help.

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so I mentioned earlier that my transcript was a mess going into law school.

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And the reason was I had, you know, made it through the first couple of years of undergrad

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and then tried to do the psychiatric route and

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The medications resulted in no less or no fewer mental health symptoms, but I was sleeping

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like 18 hours a day.

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I was completely numb and I was an absolute bear to be around.

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you know, that's, it didn't turn out to be the answer I hoped it would be.

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Yet I've heard that well, I have some um personal experience with like medication but

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you're not the only person that has told me that medication did not really help for them.

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I guess so I feel like when it comes to like antidepressants and SSRIs and stuff like it's

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very hit or miss.

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So

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I'm trying to think.

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So you mentioned, you can correct me if I heard this wrong, you mentioned you kind of had

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a mental health crisis during law school.

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What did that look like behind closed doors?

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Yeah, so I had uh a really bad one during law school and it wasn't when you would expect

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it to happen either.

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I had made it through all of the first set of finals and all of the pressure and all of

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the cold calling, all of that.

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I did okay with that.

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I had...

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I had mentally prepared myself for that, but it was the external stuff.

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There was a situation with the kid's mom where she ended up nearly dying due to a, I'm

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just going to call it medical mockup, prop practice, because it was a situation involved

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med mal.

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And, um, that ended up resulting in her and the kids being suddenly back in Idaho.

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Um,

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within a few days of all of this happening.

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So I'm like, okay, I've got six weeks left this semester.

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And I went from seeing my kids whenever I wanted to, now they're across the country from

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me like that.

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And then there was a situation where I had been thinking about, you know, trying to move

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on and I had fallen for somebody and had prayed about it, fasted about it.

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um, felt really strongly that this situation was going to work out.

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And the long and the short of it is she prayed about it, had a different answer and my

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inability to

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Our inability to reconcile that ended up in not only us ending up in different places, but

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actually ended up dissolving the friendship because we were just in a place where moving

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forward wasn't tenable.

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so, you know, it wasn't as much about romantic rejection as it was me saying, okay, I felt

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like I had a strong spiritual impression here.

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What happened?

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know, have I lost my ability to follow the inspiration that I feel like I'm getting?

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And that's where it got really scary because I'm like, if I can't rely on the Holy Ghost

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to, um, to make it through this haze, if I'm operating truly on my own, I'm so screwed.

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And that's where I started to really go downhill and

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I was traveling at the time.

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I had a plan to go, I was going to go see my kids.

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They were visiting Utah and then I was going to go, um,

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hang out with my cousin, Christie, and her parents in Arizona.

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And then if I didn't have an answer as far as why things were happening the way that they

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had, or more importantly, what I was supposed to do with this experience, I had a plan to

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go back and do what I was going to do in Maryland.

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And in the midst of all this, I found myself

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Um, I found myself dealing in prayer one night and said, I can't even try to pretend like

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I'm grateful tonight.

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I'm not, I'm not grateful for anything right now.

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And I want so badly just to go home.

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And, um, I knew I wasn't going to do anything that night, but I'm like, I would just

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assume not wake up tomorrow.

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And if that's not going to happen, if you're going to give me another day.

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please give me a purpose to go with that.

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Give me some insight as to what I'm supposed to do.

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Give me something to do that is going to put all of this in perspective.

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And that answer didn't come the next day or the day after.

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It actually happened when I was in Arizona on the last stop of my trip.

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I was sitting there with my cousin, Christie, talking about

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some of the things she had been through with her daughter being born with an unexpected

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limb difference and not having the help she needed and with her own battle with chronic

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pain.

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I said, know, Christie, these stories have something strong in common.

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You know, there's real threads we can pull on here to try to create a holistic solution.

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And I'm not doing this by myself, but if you're in...

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We can make a nonprofit next to try to work on these things.

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And fortunately, she's like, yeah, let's do it.

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And from that moment, um

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It's like the cloud lifted just enough to get me excited about something again, to be

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completely safe by the time I got on that plane from Phoenix back to Baltimore.

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um To focus on, okay, I still can't make heather tales out of any of this, but I know that

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we're here to do this work.

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so even when...

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I had to have surgery a few weeks later, even when I lost the use of multiple fingers that

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fall, even when COVID hit and just life kept happening.

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I've had kind of that anchor to rely on and say, okay, I know what I'm here to do now.

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Yeah, that's so cool.

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I feel like it's always in our kind of darkest moments where we find that passion or that

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piece of life that we're missing.

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And yours like came during when you're having this chronic pain and this mental health

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crisis.

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What do you feel, ah know, going through these hard times, but what,

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What do you feel like gave you the strength to carry on building this nonprofit?

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I think because it came from...

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because it came in the moment that it did.

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And because it wasn't the first time either, you know, I mentioned earlier that the

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mentors who said, Hey, you know, go to law school.

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Um, that came in the midst of an anxiety attack.

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I, know, in 2017, when that happened, I was six weeks out from, or seven weeks out from,

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you know, hip and femur surgery.

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And I had,

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pushed myself hard enough to the point where I had actually torn a tendon in my opposing

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foot.

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And then I had gone through a five day stretch where I was so anxious I could barely eat

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anything.

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I ate like two meals over that five days.

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And that's the moment where the mentors come and say, you should go to law school.

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And my response is, I'm getting my butt kicked right now already.

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But you know, that's, um that's

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That tends to be when the revelation finds me is when I am, I guess when I'm desperate

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enough and beaten down enough that I'm ready to listen.

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Yeah, I think that goes for me too.

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It's like, it's like how far down in this rut do I have to be before something hits me in

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the head and feels like no, this is this is the route you're taking.

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Like you're going to do this, you're going to push through this and this is what I want

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you to do.

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So you're not alone in that aspect.

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It's just.

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I guess like the reality is a lot of times it just sucks that you have to get to that

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point in order for something like that to click.

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Yeah, and you know, I have

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off of

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I have one of those brains too where, you know, I have the kind of ADHD where either my

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mind is going to be working on something productive or it's going to be tearing itself

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apart.

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There really is no in-between.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, and I'm the same way.

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My mind is often telling me, know, things tearing me apart and it's just something I've

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learned to live with.

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One thing that I love is that you've kind of mentioned like, you know, turning pain into

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purpose.

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How do you do that without minimizing the pain itself?

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You know, um...

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I guess it really came to a point where I asked myself, how does my relationship with this

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pain best serve me and then by extension best serve others?

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Um, I have never, at least not for quite some time, been the kind of person who reads the

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scriptures in such a way that I would come out and see everything happens for a reason.

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But I do, um, I do read the scriptures in such a way that I, you know, it was okay.

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You know, there is the ability to turn really awful things into something good.

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And we may or may not have that ability, but God certainly does.

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And so a lot of times it's relying on him and saying, okay, what can I do with this?

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Or what are you going to do with this or whatever the case may be.

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And sometimes it's, um,

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Sometimes it's saying, okay, you there are people that I need to forgive and turning that

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into training for professionals as part of that forgiveness process.

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Sometimes it's giving myself grace and saying, you know, I can only do what I can do and

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my best that day is good enough.

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And sometimes it's reminding myself that

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It's okay to acknowledge that having a shoulder that's out of place and you can't get it

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back in or, um, you know, not being able to sit up because your hip is, you know, has just

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recently operated on or whatever, know, having to come into crawl up three flights of

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stairs after having an Achilles surgery, you know, it's okay to acknowledge those things

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suck because they do, but just

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trying not to stay there because that was my hardest thing um growing up and for a lot of

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my early adulthood was not allowing myself to acknowledge the difficulties in life and

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then learning to say, you can't just not acknowledge it.

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You have to acknowledge it.

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It will tear you apart if you don't.

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But you don't have to stay there.

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You don't have to linger in that moment.

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You can say, OK, this is really hard.

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And I don't understand all of the things that go into this.

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But I know enough to keep trying.

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And I know enough to do what I can with this and try to turn it into something good.

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I absolutely love that, especially the piece where you said to acknowledge it.

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Cause it's like, I feel like that's the, the problem that a lot of people have is we go

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through all these difficult things in life, but we don't acknowledge that they're

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actually, we're actually going through them.

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We just try to push through in hopes that everything will be better.

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But sometimes I feel like without acknowledging it, I don't know if there is a way to.

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always get through it.

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I hope that makes sense.

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I feel like acknowledging the issues you're going through is an important piece to carry

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on.

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Yeah, and it's so funny because I think we often forget the fact that when we

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When we acknowledge these things, oftentimes they lose the upper hand.

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lose their, a good chunk of their power.

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Once we acknowledge and say, okay, I see you, I feel you, I know you're there, but um

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you're not the complete picture.

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So, you know, move on.

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And sometimes that's easier said than done.

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You know, I think it's important to say, you know, even though I had this

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story that ended in a lot ways back in 2019, 2020, that doesn't mean, you oh, start a

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nonprofit and mental health struggles go away.

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Not even a little.

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But I do have more tools in my tool chest now than I had back then for sure.

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That's that's an important piece.

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I remember he's reminded me of a kind of a therapy story.

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I Remember when I started going to like heavy-duty therapy to overcome some mental health

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issues But I should use the word overcome because they're still there but my therapist

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looked me in the eyes and he's like Travis you're acting like You're treating these your

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anxiety and depression like they're just gonna be swiped away.

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That's not why we're here

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And I was like, what do you mean they're not going to be let go away?

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He's like, I'm here to teach you the tools so you have the right techniques to deal with

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them every day because they're pretty much stuck with them.

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And once I kind of grasp that persp- persp- perception, like I, it kind of clicked in my

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head.

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like, okay.

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Well, that makes sense.

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So.

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I stuck with them so I just have to learn techniques to keep pushing through.

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Yeah, and in my mind, it helps when...

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Hopefully you've got that good connection with the therapist as well, because you can't,

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know, some, some feedback has been less than helpful and some feedback has been life

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changing.

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And so I think it's important to figure out what tools work for you and keep trying until

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you find something that is resonating.

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Yes, yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

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And I want to kind of jump to your nonprofit here.

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We brought it up, Pieces of Me.

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As I was reading, you know, prepping for this conversation, I noticed that one of your

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main focuses is, was it reducing the stigma?

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Why, I'm just curious why stigma reduction is the area you felt to focus on.

32:48

stigma reduction is a really hard thing to speak about and stuff.

32:54

It's just because everybody's perspective I feel is a little bit different than everybody

32:54

else's.

33:01

Seems like a really cool but challenging thing.

33:05

Well, and I'm, you I'm definitely up for a challenge, so I think you're right though.

33:15

And the reason we went with that route is because

33:21

On one hand you have raising awareness, which is all right.

33:25

And on the other hand, you have action oriented things.

33:29

Um, let's go put in some Braille.

33:33

Let's go build a ramp, whatever.

33:37

And the problem is awareness that doesn't lead to action doesn't really do anything.

33:47

simple projects.

33:49

I'm going to build a ramp.

33:50

I'm going to put in braille.

33:51

I'm going to, you know, um,

33:56

do whatever one sort of thing, it's not replicable.

34:01

It's at least not on a, on an ever growing basis.

34:07

You know, if we focused on, we're going to use pieces of me money to go put in a ramp that

34:07

automatically limits how many structural adaptations we can fund.

34:21

The reason we sit in the middle with stigma reduction is

34:26

We believe that

34:30

Good information is the antidote to stigma.

34:33

So we have an awareness piece that is built on being transformative rather than simply

34:33

being informational and really edifying, really being a catalyst for change.

34:51

And so by virtue of that and by virtue of addressing the fundamental misconceptions about

34:51

disability,

34:57

The idea that accessibility is too expensive.

35:00

The idea that inclusion equals lowering standards.

35:03

All of those things that are tied to stigma.

35:07

That's in our mind, how you build a coalition where it's not just me and my small team.

35:15

It's a group of more and more people coming together and saying, we will offer what we

35:15

have toward this end.

35:24

We will meet people where they are.

35:25

We will call them in.

35:27

And we will actually show them how to become part of the solution in a way that makes

35:27

sense to them.

35:38

So.

35:38

um

35:41

If we find a business leader and we say, instead of just convincing you to let us build a

35:41

ramp, why don't we teach you why this is important and how it relates to your business?

35:55

And if we do that right, you're to go build their own ramp and do their own door opener

35:55

and do their own braille and do their own website and to tell everybody else why they did

36:05

it.

36:06

It then becomes sustainable.

36:08

It becomes scalable.

36:11

And that's how you achieve real social change.

36:13

At least that is the theory of the case for us.

36:19

that completely makes sense.

36:21

Because it's like, it's like you're not just going and saying, okay, well, you need to be

36:21

build a ramp for this, this, this reason, you're actually giving them the education needed

36:30

to help those people understand like why it's needed.

36:35

So you're, you're, yeah, I get where you're coming from now.

36:39

I love it.

36:40

Yeah, and we don't, um, I think it's important to say too, we don't speak in terms of

36:40

social mandates.

36:49

Do I believe that people with disabilities deserve to have a chance?

36:53

Yes.

36:53

Do I believe that access is a human right?

36:55

Yes.

36:57

But if we go into these conversations with anything that sounds like us versus them, we've

36:57

already lost the battle.

37:08

I am a...

37:09

uh

37:10

huge Stephen Covey fan.

37:12

And I believe that what made his career what it was, was his ability to bring in people

37:12

who thought they had diverging interests and find ways to show them a win-win proposition

37:28

that made one and one equal five.

37:32

And to me, that's what I want to do with accessibility.

37:35

I love reaching out to

37:38

business owners or faith leaders or whomever in saying, my job is to make what you're

37:38

doing even more powerful and impactful than it already is.

37:49

And here is the ingredient I have to offer towards that end.

37:53

And if what I suggest is not replicable, sustainable and relevant to you, in other words,

37:53

if it's not a win-win, we're not going to go forward until we find an option that is.

38:08

Yeah, completely makes sense.

38:10

Leads me kind of into my next question here.

38:14

How can organizations, schools, workplaces create environments where people with

38:14

disabilities genuinely feel seen and empowered?

38:25

The first thing is building, building a people-centric culture.

38:32

And what that means is get curious, have a growth mindset, uh build iteration into your

38:32

processes and really look at

38:50

your processes, policies, procedures from the lens of how do we take in strengthening

38:50

every person that's on the team or everyone that we interact with.

39:03

Because if you've got a fixed mindset as an organization, sure, I can come in and teach

39:03

you a couple of things or any other expert could come in and teach you a couple of things,

39:17

but it's not going to stick.

39:18

It's not going to create buy-in.

39:20

But if I walk into an organization who is hungry for new knowledge, who is always looking

39:20

at taking that next step or looking for that next edge, I can offer up some best practices

39:35

and it's going to integrate into what they're doing pretty much seamlessly.

39:45

This is all good stuff.

39:47

I love it.

39:49

I know I have a broken record and I say I love everything, but it's true.

39:52

Like I love hearing new ideas and different perspectives on things like it's because

39:52

things I never really think about.

40:03

What would you say, what conversations around, I'm going to kind of group these two

40:03

together.

40:07

I know we can separate them probably, but what conversations around disability and mental

40:07

health are we still too uncomfortable to, uncomfortable to have openly as a society?

40:19

I think the first thing is in both cases, em we're uncomfortable having really any

40:19

conversation around them.

40:26

that's, um that's going to change.

40:30

know, before we went on, before we got on there, we were talking, you and I about, you

40:30

know, me doing a training for some teenagers and me actively encouraging them to ask bold,

40:44

audacious, borderline offensive questions.

40:48

And the reason was because I.

40:52

I wanted them to not fear the topic and.

40:57

I think, you know, was middle health specifically there's.

41:03

There's such a fear of sharing something that is so vulnerable and so...

41:12

deep.

41:12

um It's heavy.

41:15

Some of the things we covered in the first chunk of this podcast were really heavy, dark

41:15

things.

41:23

And we can't skirt around that.

41:27

But we need to find a way to...

41:34

to be able to say, okay, in the right setting, in the right moment, we have to have these

41:34

conversations because hope dies in isolation.

41:51

very very well said.

41:54

I agree like I just feel I've ever since I felt that like started this podcast I feel like

41:54

the conversations like every conversation is important whether it's you know somebody who

42:07

wrote a book to somebody who really just wants to share their story and get it out there

42:07

and it's it's honestly very hard to be vulnerable because you don't want to

42:18

I feel like, especially the mental health side of things, for me, it's almost like you

42:18

almost feel a certain sense of shame when you start sharing your story, but at the same

42:33

time, it's like liberating as well.

42:36

It is.

42:37

I guess one more thing I would add on to your question that I think is.

42:44

really important is that, you know, pieces doesn't rank disabilities.

42:53

don't participate in the, you know, ordering of such.

42:57

And we treat bipolar or depression or anxiety or lupus or blindness.

43:06

We treat it all the same as being something that impacts people's lives.

43:12

sometimes really severely.

43:13

um We have always had the notion that we want to make sure that people understand this is

43:13

a place for you even if you're like, well, being depressed must not be as bad as being

43:31

blind.

43:32

Well, that's not really a helpful conversation to have.

43:36

Those comparison things are...

43:41

it, you know, invalidating and marginalizing.

43:45

And instead we need to say, look, you know, if you're struggling, how do we fix that?

43:50

How do we lighten that load somehow?

43:55

And oftentimes what you need, if you're going through a mental health crisis, or even if

43:55

you're just trying to sustain your mental health, it's similar to what you need with any

44:07

other equitable disability.

44:10

You know, maybe

44:11

Maybe some of the practical aspects are different, but the underlying philosophy, the

44:11

underlying infrastructure is very similar.

44:25

Yes, it is.

44:26

like, what was it?

44:30

Sorry, I just, I totally just lost my train of thought.

44:33

It'll come back.

44:34

Uh, so today, like staying grounded and keeping the hope within yourself alive as you're,

44:34

you know, pursuing this nonprofit and moving that forward.

44:48

What does, what does staying grounded look like to you?

44:54

It um means a lot of self care for one thing.

45:03

I have a lot of conversations that are really difficult.

45:08

I go into rooms, either physically or virtually, and have interactions that could very

45:08

easily be and often are triggering.

45:19

So it's a matter of...

45:23

keep your things in perspective.

45:25

And similarly, you know, it's also about saying, okay, my best today is good enough.

45:32

If I'm dealing with a lot of pain or um if I'm struggling to do my best work to not let

45:32

that bad day defy me and to say, okay, I offered what I could, you know, hopefully there's

45:51

tomorrow.

45:52

you

45:54

And, you know, I guess what, what also helped was learning that I didn't have to be at 10

45:54

out of 10 that day to make an impact.

46:04

You know, some days I'm feeling like I'm at a four out of 10 and get off that call or get

46:04

off that podcast recording.

46:14

And somebody's like, wow, that was really awesome.

46:16

And I'm like, really?

46:16

I thought I sucked.

46:18

Um, I just understanding that.

46:23

It's a growth journey.

46:27

It's about leaving the best legacy we can, the best impact we can with the tools we have

46:27

and trusting that as we do that, the impact is going to happen.

46:39

The tools are going to grow.

46:42

Those things have a way of multiplying as we're faithful in offering up whatever we can in

46:42

service.

46:54

Fantastic I remember what I was gonna say now as you were talking I Liked what you said

46:54

about comparing ourselves to others.

47:02

I was I actually remember interviewing somebody and as they were saying something I Made

47:02

some comment and it was be comparing my story to theirs like no.

47:14

No, wait, you can't do that.

47:15

You can't compare your story like just because at the moment

47:21

My story sounds harder than what you went through.

47:25

That's not necessarily true because it's all different.

47:31

And so since then I have learned to not compare my story to others because we're all

47:31

dealing with some kind of crap along the same lines.

47:41

Yeah.

47:43

And I think content matters there too.

47:46

So I'm going to give you a quick story.

47:48

The best therapist I've ever had was very open with his own mental health struggles.

47:57

And more than that, so I walked into his office in Washington for our first meeting.

48:04

I'm dealing with severe chronic pain and I'm like, I'm tired of being dismissed.

48:12

by therapist and tired of being called grandiose, blah, blah, blah.

48:16

I walk in there kind of with a chip on my shoulder and I'm like, okay, do you even

48:16

understand what pain really means?

48:24

And he's like, he chuckles and he says, let me tell you a story about when I was playing

48:24

hockey and I got hit in another region hard enough that it shattered my cup.

48:35

And I said, okay, we're on the same page.

48:38

And it wasn't.

48:41

Um, it wasn't a comparison.

48:44

wasn't meant to be my pain is greater than yours, but it was a means of establishing

48:44

connection.

48:52

So I think, I think if it's, Hey, you know, I don't understand what you've been through,

48:52

but here's what I've been through.

49:02

And I think there's some similarities.

49:04

Can we build on that common ground?

49:06

We need more of that.

49:12

Yes, we do for sure.

49:14

It's a good way to put it though, it's finding that common ground.

49:22

Yeah, mean, I think...

49:24

what?

49:25

Nope, you're good, you're good.

49:28

If you have another thought, for it.

49:31

I'm just going to say, you know, if we're, when we're trying to establish rapport and

49:31

establish that connection, if we don't offer that we do have experience that is

49:47

tangential, perhaps not comparable, but tangential, we lose credibility that we otherwise

49:47

might've obtained, you know,

49:57

For me, it really mattered that my therapist had some level of understanding of my values,

49:57

my struggles, my questions.

50:09

It really helped his words resonate.

50:12

It really helped his message resonate.

50:16

um When I found myself in crisis in 2019, and he was contemplating whether or not he

50:16

needed to

50:28

you know, pull the emergency switch and have me committed that night because we had the

50:28

report we did, I trusted his judgment.

50:39

So I do agree the comparison.

50:43

If it's an us versus them, if it's a, my pain is better than yours.

50:47

That's bad.

50:49

But I really, I really hesitate to put forth anything that would bring people into having

50:57

Discussions about shared struggles.

51:04

Yeah, that's a great way to put it.

51:09

Just one last question here and then a couple follow ups.

51:12

I want to apologize if you hear my kids screaming in the background.

51:15

They're kind of really, really, really loud right now.

51:21

It's all right.

51:25

So looking back at the younger version of yourself who was underestimated and overlooked,

51:25

what would you say to him now?

51:39

You know, because I had...

51:45

those moments and then I had the moments where something inside of me told me I was meant

51:45

for more.

51:52

I would tell myself, don't listen to the doubters, but don't fall into the trap of

51:52

perfectionism.

52:02

Your best on any given day is good enough and just do what you can to make tomorrow better

52:02

than today.

52:10

And the rest will take care of itself.

52:17

fantastic make tomorrow better than today I really like that

52:26

And by the way of tomorrow, is it better than today?

52:28

Then that's okay too.

52:31

Just keep moving on an upward and forward trajectory overall.

52:39

Yeah, that's really all we can do.

52:42

It's what's the...

52:44

What is it?

52:45

Like 1 % better?

52:46

I think there's something about 1 % better.

52:49

I can't remember exactly how goes, but if you can be 1 % better each day...

52:56

em So, this is a very generalized question, but I love to hear the answers that I get.

53:05

What would you say is the biggest stigma when it comes to mental health?

53:11

I think the biggest one I see is that um there's still a thought out there that you can

53:11

just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and um just kind of fight through it.

53:28

And that's not just not how it is.

53:32

And similarly, there's this, again, discordance between physical pain and mental pain.

53:41

Anything that causes people to doubt whether they're heard is a bad thing.

53:49

Anything that makes people feel marginalized, I'm not here for.

53:55

So...

53:59

Yeah, I think that the biggest thing there is we need to honor the fact that even though

53:59

we can't see it, we can't feel it, we can't touch it, but we believe somebody when they

54:12

say they're struggling.

54:17

sometimes struggle looks differently for different people.

54:22

know, here we are, a couple of guys.

54:25

um

54:27

who are approaching middle age and we're in a demographic that is at real risk overall.

54:41

Men in our age range are much more likely to experience self harm or die by suicide than

54:41

the public thinks.

54:50

And part of that is because our crisis looks differently than what people think.

54:57

So I guess really at the end of the day, it's about assuming it's about saying, okay, even

54:57

if you look fine on the outside, what's really going on?

55:13

Yes, very well said.

55:14

I feel like there's so many people out there that you look at on a daily basis and things

55:14

just seem completely normal.

55:26

But what's going on on the inside?

55:29

You never, ever know.

55:35

So where can people find you in your work?

55:40

So we are Pieces of Me, that's P-E-A-C-E-S of me.org.

55:47

You can find me on LinkedIn, Daniel Hodges, JDMHA.

55:51

um Different cowboy hat, but you'll see me.

55:55

I'm on Substack, Daniel Hodges, JDMHA as well.

56:02

And I'll tell people, you can remember how we spell pieces.

56:08

by remembering two things.

56:10

First, we spelled it that way because we wanted people to understand that they're not

56:10

broken.

56:17

And real peace, at least in some part, comes by embracing who we are and the value we

56:17

bring to the world, regardless of our characteristics and circumstances.

56:28

And the second reason we spell peace is the way we do is because we don't believe you have

56:28

to burn something down in order to get your point across.

56:38

You know, we are firm in our conviction that access is a human right.

56:44

And we are equally confirmed in our conviction that the way that we're going to get to

56:44

where accessibility and inclusion are ubiquitous is by working together and being

56:54

peacemakers who create the best coalition possible to solve this together.

57:01

So, pieces, P-E-A-C-E-S of we.org.

57:08

oh Thanks Daniel.

57:10

And the last thing here is I feel like we covered a lot of ground here in our

57:10

conversation.

57:15

Is there anything you would like to add that we did not discuss?

57:23

You know, for, for those of you who are, um, out there with, with any sort of disability,

57:23

whether it be mental health or otherwise, again, I'm going to go back and saying your best

57:35

is good enough.

57:37

Your, your gifts, your talents, your contributions still matter.

57:44

And there is real power in serving in whatever way makes sense to you.

57:50

And if you're.

57:52

an ally or a family member, whatever, wanting to know, know, can I, can I make an impact?

57:58

Can I make a difference?

58:00

It seems so vast.

58:02

Offer what you can.

58:04

That's really all there is to it.

58:06

Just offer what you can and you'll be amazed the power that you hold by simply just giving

58:06

whatever you can.

58:21

Agreed and sometimes it's all we can do is just give whatever we can it goes back to not

58:21

knowing what people are going through and Daniel I want to thank you for coming on to the

58:34

show and making it work and being flexible.

58:37

I admire what you're doing and helping educate people on accessibility and Thank you to

58:37

those listening to Overcome with Travis White

58:51

If this resonated with you, please give us a follow and uh leave us a 5 star review.

59:01

Thanks again, until next time.