Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! | Dark Humor Conversations On Mental Health, Trauma & Society
If you live with mental illness — or love someone who does — and you’re tired of sugar-coated wellness talk, this show is for you.
Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! (AKA “BTMHOOI!”) is a candid mental health podcast with dark humor and lived-experience truth. We tell it like it is, so you don’t have to.
Hosted by Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) and frequently joined by co-host Tony Medeiros (“IndyPocket”), we have brutally honest conversations about serious mental illness, trauma, and the real-world systems that shape mental health. Topics include schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia spectrum psychosis, psychosis, bipolar disorder, BPD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction recovery, religious trauma, psychiatric medication, disability, good therapy, bad therapy, psych wards, and practical real-world coping — plus relationships, family dysfunction, work, creativity, and society.
You’ll hear:
- Lived-experience perspective from someone navigating psychosis, relapse, parenting, and recovery in real time.
- No-BS conversations about what helps, what doesn’t, and what the mental health stigma gets wrong.
- Dark humor and honest storytelling that educates and humanizes instead of sensationalizing.
- Interviews with everyday people, professionals, and notable guests, because mental health struggles don’t care who you are.
This show is for anyone trying to survive therapy, meds, trauma, and everyday chaos — or trying to understand a loved one who is. If you want language for what you’re experiencing, conversations that don’t flinch, and a judgment-free vibe with some laughs along the way, you’re in the right place.
We’re not your therapists — we’re fellow passengers on “The Struggle Bus,” sharing what we’ve learned the hard way and refusing to suffer in silence.
Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! | Dark Humor Conversations On Mental Health, Trauma & Society
CTE, Hyperbaric Therapy & The Hidden Toll Of Olympic Bobsledding | William Person
Olympic bobsledder and mental health advocate William Person opens up about repeated crashes, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), and the terrifying mental fallout—panic, memory loss, “lost years,” and suicidal thinking—in this conversation with host Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) and co-host Tony Medeiros (“IndyPocket”). He explains how hyperbaric oxygen therapy changed his life, and why athletes need better concussion protocols, treatment options, and real support around racism, trauma, and brain injury.
William shares how going from track and field to Olympic-level bobsledding came with repeated head injuries, dementia-like symptoms, and feeling completely disconnected from time, reality, and the people around him. He opens up about leaning on caffeine just to function, losing friends to suicide, having his struggles minimized, and trying to navigate life while his brain and mental health were falling apart.
We also get into how hyperbaric oxygen therapy works, why it’s still treated as “experimental” despite powerful results, and the financial barriers that keep most injured athletes and everyday people from accessing it. William’s vision now? To build a wellness center where people with CTE, brain injuries, and serious mental health struggles can get real treatment instead of being dismissed, overmedicated, or left alone until it’s too late.
In this episode, we talk about:
– What CTE actually is and how repeated sports injuries can slowly destroy the brain
– How hyperbaric oxygen therapy works, what it felt like, and the changes he saw in his brain and daily life
– The financial and systemic barriers to getting hyperbaric therapy and other innovative treatments
– Suicide in the athlete community and how many people are suffering in silence
– His vision for a wellness center focused on athlete mental health, brain injury, trauma, and real recovery
Donate to William’s GoFundMe for CTE Recovery Therapy for Athletes and Veterans: https://gofund.me/9f3f3f476
Follow William on TikTok for updates on CTE recovery and hyperbaric therapy: https://www.tiktok.com/@hyperbarichealing?_r=1&_t=ZT-91qgIucMuKb
If you want to be a part of a supportive community, hop on our Discord “The Struggle Bus” and share your journey (link below)
Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! (AKA “BTMHOOI!”) is a candid mental health podcast rooted in lived experience: schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia spectrum psychosis, BPD, PTSD, trauma recovery, coping skills, and dark humor that helps make serious mental illness more understandable and human.
Hosted by Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) with frequent co-host Tony Medeiros (“IndyPocket”), we cover psych wards, psychiatric medication, disability, religious trauma, good therapy, bad therapy, and practical real-world coping — plus the societal and relationship issues that shape mental health every day. The goal isn’t just “fighting stigma.” It’s education, clarity, and honest conversation.
We interview everyone from everyday people to public figures, clinicians, and professionals, because mental health struggles don’t care who you are. If you’re willing to share your story or expertise, we aim to offer a safe, judgment-free space where you can speak openly — and still have some fun while doing it.
New episodes drop every other Monday at 6am EDT.
Want community and support? Join our Discord, “The Struggle Bus”: https://discord.gg/emFXKuWKNA
All links (TikTok, YouTube, Streaming, etc.): https://linktr.ee/BTMHOOI
Podcast cover art by Ryan Manning
...Hey everybody. It's your favorite podcast, hopefully. It is Beat the Mental Health Out of It, aka Bottom Hui with your hosts, Nick, aka the defective schizo effective. This is Tony Indy Pocket. And today we have a very special guest with us. If you want to introduce yourself, we'll move kind of right into the to the process.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh, my name is William Person. Um, if you know me from the Midwest growing up as a kid, they called me Bill, so they mean to me Bill Person. Media the media slowly changed my name to Will. And I I never met another Will before in my life before they did that. So eventually I went from Bill to Will. But um, yeah, I was a track runner. I uh I went to when I left high school, it's kind of like this. If you want to keep running track, your only option is to go to college. There's no other track circuit for you to run. And so that's what I did. Uh matter of fact, it was the only reason I went to college. Uh I didn't I didn't think I was smart enough to go to college, to be honest. And uh same. So yeah, so I I I took the the sports made me do it, and I realized I actually I'm just as smart as everybody else. I just wasn't um I guess I guess I was encouraged to go, but didn't believe I could do it. That's kind of how it works. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I started with track, and then eventually that track led me to um World College, of course, and then I was doing like football movies for a while. Like um I started with like Jerry McGuire. So if you watch that movie, yeah, you'll see me uh running up and down the field with um football. I did five different football characters. Did you really? Okay, cool. Yeah. So I just really and you see somebody on the field running fast, that was just me. They had these other, yeah. They had these other guys that they brought in who were just smashing each other. And I was like, but luckily enough, I didn't have to do any of that stuff. But Right. Yeah, but then but my real background is mental health. Uh when I left college, the first job I took was at the San Joaquin County Mental Health Department, and it was the first mental health facility west of the Midzipa River. So everybody flocked there for it with extreme behaviors. Yeah, so I saw all the basic stuff like depression and you know the all the bipolars and um, you know, like paranoid, all the different schizophrenia things. But then we also had people who come through there for uh who were criminally insane, and they'll come through for wow. So they'll come through with us and we'd be evaluated, you know. And then of we also had the people who had lobotomies back then were still alive. And so I got to see a lot of those people. Yeah, that was spooky right there. That was just real flat effect. They're just like mu like walking zombies. Like if you want to see a real zombie, that's really what that looks like. Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's incredible. I don't I don't know anybody who's seen. Have you seen that? I mean, he's a he's been in the field for years, and I don't know anybody who's seen that.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Yeah, I was reading some of the stuff that you guys do, so I figured you probably might get a kick out of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up because I honestly I didn't know you had that background.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, that was that's what I was doing. And so, matter of fact, um, when I joined Team USA, like for two years prior to that, I had opened the first ever independent living transitional housing program for the state of Utah. So they opened me as a pilot program. And so I was doing that for a while. And um, here I am telling all my young men. Thank you, thank you. You know what? Yeah, absolutely. Right now I think back to doing that. I was probably 27 when I presented the program, or maybe 28, but I was 28 years old, and these it was an inpatient program, so these young men looked at me like their father, you know. And I think back now, I was less than 10 years older than some of these kids. You know, I was I was a kid myself, to be honest. Like I but now that I think back, I'm like, wow, I was doing what? But back then I was just another day, you know, just another thing that I was doing. So mental health was really my background.
SPEAKER_02:Is that what you went, what you uh got your degree in?
SPEAKER_00:No, actually, no, I did it the hard way. Okay, okay. I did my associate degree. I was here for the hard way. Yeah. Yeah, I did my associate degree um in at Delta College in California. And then when I finished that, I had committed to UC Berkeley for track and field. And so just by hands, I wound up uh hyperextending my knee at a track meet. And uh all the other schools, like everybody stopped calling because they knew I had committed to Berkeley. But then when Berkeley came around, they was like, you know, we'll pay for your school, but not your housing. And housing was so expensive back then.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, still out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I wound up at Weaver State University up in Utah, and um, they still gambled on me coming in, and um, and you know, the injury was fine, and um and I competed for uh two years for those guys and finished up. But really, I was taking electrical engineering when I got there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow, okay. Oh, wow, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I was in my final.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're a pretty intelligent guy, bro. If you're going for engineering, but I quit because I was like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00:I'm in my last year, I got two quarters, well, we had a quarter system, we had three left. And I was like, I don't want to sit behind a desk the rest of my life. And I just so I was already taking uh sociology and psychology as a minor, so I just took a bunch of credits just to finish up with uh sociology. So yeah, but I did it the hard way. I did it to, you know. But but any not nothing I learned in college prepared me for anything I did after school, to be honest. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's a it's a fair amount of truth to that. Yeah. I mean, that's a whole nother conversation. Yeah, going to college these days, but okay, so led you out west, came, brought you back a little more in the Utah area. How did you end up in mental health then?
SPEAKER_00:Well, when I was doing my internship for sociology, I okay, so you did an internship. Yeah, I wanted to be a I thought I wanted to be a parole officer. And um they they took me out on I was doing ride-alongs with the parole and probation office, and I noticed there was there were children on probation, like 12 and 13, and I was like, what? I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. And I just we're yeah, and we're in Utah, so I'm thinking like everybody in Utah is supposed to be little angels, but you know, it was compared to so far. Wow. Yeah, absolutely, but it's not the truth. It was and so like I was I was so I guess enamored with that field that I wanted to just kind of help kids, so that's what I kind of uh wind up doing. Yeah. So I did I didn't do parola probation, I just I stuck with the the mental health side and uh really just working with um people with the you know conduct disorder kids and and this one place I was working at, it was in Phoenix, and what I learned is like these kids did really good in the program. They made the program so much money. There's not this is not the one that I own though. And so every time they sent a kid home, there was no they didn't invest back into that community, so that kid went right back into the chaos. That's so that kind of brings it full circle.
SPEAKER_01:That's incredible, Will. Yeah. I love knowing that background about you.
SPEAKER_00:After I left Arizona, I went back to Utah. I was training at uh BYU at the time. And they were doing trials graduation? No, no, yeah, it was yeah, after graduation, yeah. Okay, okay. I have done a few things since I left college. This was probably um six years after I left school. So I was 23 when I left school. So about five years later, because I'm about 20. Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01:I got you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So uh NBC was holding tryouts for um the 2002 winner link was coming up. They needed more push athletes for the bobsledders. And so somebody called me and told me about it. And man, I I really didn't want to do it, like I was thinking. I remember this thing when I was a kid called um it was the wide world of sports, the agony of defeat is what it was. Yep. Yeah, man, it's they see the skier wipe out, then you see the bob say wipe out. And I was like, that looks kind of violent. I don't, you know. But I was thinking, maybe I can go and pick up a sponsor. This is my last couple years of track. Maybe I'll pick up a sponsor. And so I went for it, and when I was there, NBC was hosting his tryout. These had all these hot lights on us, and I didn't know what I was doing. So I watched the first like um probably 30, 40 people go through the tryout. And then when it was my turn, what it really was, it was kind of like, you know, you have a treadmill, they put it on the highest elevation. They had some bobsled handles like fastened to the handles. So I have to hold these handles, and it was hooked up to a computer. So what they do was punch in 10 miles an hour, and the faster I run on this thing, the quicker it gets to 10 miles an hour and they time it. So you know, I watched the first, like I said, 30, 40 people go through. So when it was my turn, I did what was normal. I just, I'm a sprinter, so I just took off running, and uh, when I finished this bobster driver, his eyes were like size of all like that. Huge. You know, and I can't that he had the cot cameras around me, and uh, he's like, hey, um, if I offer you 50 grand for the next three months, would you race on my team? And I said, sure. You know, I get well, I gave him the educated answer. What I really told him is if it's a fair price, yeah, if not, we can renegotiate later. You know, at that time I owned a company, so I like I didn't really need the money. So uh, but for 50 grand for three months, I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh I would say so. You know, um, yeah, but I wound up, you know, that was on a Wednesday. I went to the bobster track on that Sunday, pushed the sled for the first time. A couple things happened. When I as soon as I got to the bobster track, one of my old teammates from college saw me getting off the truck. He was like, Will, I've been calling you, man. Where you been? I've been trying to get you to come race on my team. And then his driver, he panics again. He pulls me to the side and said, Hey, brother, uh, don't leave me. I'll get you more money. So when I told the other guys, man, he's gonna pay me a lot of money. He was like, What? Like, I was like, You're not getting paid? They was like, No. I was like, Man, you guys getting ripped off. But the truth was, there was no money in the sport. This guy, he didn't have any money. He, matter of fact, Bobsled, our Bobsled at the time, National team was built by Jeff Bodine. This guy he builds race NASCARs. So our sleds looked like NASCAR. Slays shaped and you know, look like race cars. This guy's sled was looked like a spaceship, had a little bubble on it. And uh, no matter how fast I pushed this guy, the women beat us to the bottom of that hill. And uh quickly, yeah, quickly learned he was kind of full of it. He didn't have money, he didn't have sponsors, and but by the time I figured that out, another team picked me up, and I wound up racing from the time I did the tryout to the race was like eight days, and I won a I won an international medal and uh it was a Mercos Cup. Yeah, Mercers Cup.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so NBC kind of ran that story, and you know, it was something different, it was fun, and I never made the national team for track and field, and so it gave me another opportunity to scratch something off that bucket list before time to retire. Yeah, and so and it and it actually I was able to do that, so that was a blessing. Yeah, so that's kind of I got tricked. The real short answer is I got tricked into the sport. That's the real answer, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And of course, you ended up having some very serious uh some traumas. Traumas from it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've had uh seven crashes that I can remember. I I'm not quite, could be more, but I remember at least seven of them. Um but yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Can can you, for our listening audience, we've said C E CTE a couple of times. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what a CTE is? Let's see if I can pronounce it today. Uh is it cerebral traumatic encephalopathy?
SPEAKER_00:Is that no it's chronic chronic traumatic chronic traumatic encephalopathy encephalopathy. Yeah, there it is.
SPEAKER_01:There it is. Yeah. I couldn't have gotten there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Some days I can't even say it close. I can't say it at all. But but I even struggle with small words on some days. So but Really? Okay. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well no normally, but like I I think I've hit that threshold with the chamber where like I'm so clear right now, I'm back reading, writing again, and uh well, yeah, reading and creating. For a while I couldn't read very well. I couldn't do math in my head anymore. Simple problems, you know.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, it's it's definitely been uh all of that is caused by that the CTEs, those those brain injuries.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the best way to explain CTE is if you look at all the NFL players who began committing suicide or who began murdering other people, and actually there's a huge connection with our military, uh, and this one just just is disgusting. I hate to even say the number. It was sixty three, sixty, four hundred people veterans. Wow. And the next year it was a little bit higher, and then the following year it was a little bit higher. And so for the last two years, they haven't released the numbers. So for three years in a row, we lost 20,000 veterans to just suicide. And and I don't even know if that counts for the ones who drink themselves to death. You know, because usually with with uh CTE, people who uh self-medicate, that's usually how it gets you. Yeah. If you drink already an alcohol drinker, it's gonna get you. If you're doing meth or cocaine, it's what's gonna take you out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so it it's it's just uh it's an awful disease, it's very slow and progressive. For me, it started with um, I had these random cloudy days. And so I thought it was diabetes or sugar problems. And uh doctors always they always told me I was wrong. Uh I was traveling with a glucose meter, just checking it myself because I didn't believe them. Because I've seen people with diabetes and low blood sugar, it looks just like it. Sure. Sure enough. But the but the truth was it took for my teammates to start taking their lives before we kind of was able to connect the dots. And uh, like it's so many of us with the same symptoms. It just depends on how bad it is. Like some of them go all the way up to Parkinson's, then you know you're not functioning. Yes, tons of suicide attempts, uh, strokes, seizures. Man, it's just so many of them. I even found an ALS, uh, a guy who died from ALS, he was a slider, Olympic slider. Wow. And uh so yeah, it's it's really awful stuff.
SPEAKER_02:But and you never hear about this stuff. No. You only hear the glory of of getting to the Olympics. You don't really hear some of the aftermath.
SPEAKER_00:So When I started, like I filed a class action lawsuit to get everybody help. Never asked for money, I just asked them to take care of the guys who needed it. And I said the number one thing above all, warn the new generation before they get in a slit, right? So they're still fighting me. You had to fight me on that for it. Buff's like, no, uh if we know what this is now, anybody who does this sport should understand, like every athlete I spoke to and every athlete that they spoke to is deal they're dealing with it, you know. So that's what's that's what it's really about, it's transparency.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm a big football fan. So I know that they've put in a lot of the concussion protocols in football, and they're they've started to take that very seriously. You referenced some of the killings, you know, people murdering other people who who've had these same kinds of things you're talking about happen to them. Would those kind of protocols are they in place for the Olympics?
SPEAKER_00:They're putting one in place right now, but because we can't agree on the terms, it's not official yet. I gotcha. So what they want to do is now mention the word concussion. And I think they would put it into the membership package, like kind of as a wavered thing. But the problem with that is, is like my first crash, I knew I had a concussion because I had vertigo for seven days, and I knew my uh my breakman on that day, he had a concussion because he was knocked unconscious. This happened on live TV. This was two weeks before the 2002 Winter Olympics. It was you know, it was live TV. Treatment for concussions in America is the problem. Like, all they always tell us, if you get a concussion, just don't go to sleep for the first few hours. Right. That's the only treatment. And so if that's the only treatment, like I think back to every injury I ever had, that's a treatment plan. Like you get ice, then you get heat, right, then you get relax, take it easy, get yeah, get ultrasound, yeah. But you're always doing something physical to fix that injury, you know, and you usually have a physical therapist who helps you through that stuff, you know. Right. Matter of fact, at the very end of it, you normally you have like if you tear a muscle, you you're gonna get a scar tissue in there. So what they do is uh they take we they take the elbow like this, and they just they at the Olympic train stream, they give us this white towel. We know what that means. That means they give you here, bite this. Because they're gonna dig in that muscle and they're gonna break the scar tissue up, right? And so for every injury I've ever had, there's a treatment plan. For the concussions, the only treatment you get is don't go to sleep for the first few hours. And I believe that is the problem. That's the problem. Because your brain, yeah. Yeah, I think your brain does the same thing with any other injury. Like you get a concussion, all the fluid and blood rushes there to protect it. But how do you remove it? Like, there's no process to remove it. And so whatever other injury, they go in there and they dig it out and they, you know, they force it out. So for me, when uh Joe Namus started speaking about uh using hyperbaric oxygen to reverse his symptoms, I was in that chamber for one hour. And when I came out, I was looking around. I didn't recognize this place because everything was like in 3D. All the colors were vivid, and I was like, oh my god, like whoa. So I realized I probably hadn't been seeing colors for a while. And then the crazy part is that salesman came over to me and he saw me because my glasses were slightly tinted. I kept taking them on and taking them off, and he's like, What's wrong? I said, I don't think I need my glasses. And he's like, Oh, you're one of those. And I was like, Ah, okay, he's gonna try to sell me this machine, but you know, I had just bought a house in the Midwest. I say, I don't have$20,000 laying around. Uh but that guy was right. Some people get that kind of quick relief, and some people need like two sessions a day for 30 days. Okay, for me, okay, for me it's fast. And uh, like matter of fact, my cloudiness that I had for 20 years was gone within one hour. And it lasted for six days, then I went back at the end of that next week, and then it lasted for about nine days. So then I had to buy one. So that then I bought this thing back here. So this thing right here is my lifeline.
SPEAKER_02:So can can you tell us uh some of the like what is physically happening? What is the hyperbictic chamber doing that gives you those those good out the relief? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm glad you asked me that because this is a good time to explain it, because I just found another way of doing the same thing, but naturally. Okay. Yeah, what it does is like um it makes your body think it's seven to nine feet underwater, minimal. Depending on what pressure chamber you have. I have a small pressure, I have like a 1.3, but there's a like a 1.5 or 1.6, and then it goes to 2.0, then a three point oh is what you find in the hospitals, right? Okay, okay. I'm using a the small Smallest amount of pressure possible. So what it does, it makes your blood is more like a gas when it's under when it's that low underwater. And so now it's a gas. So now it can get through all the blockages and go where it needs to. So if you're rich and you have a stroke, they tell you to get in the hyperbaric chamber. Because it'll it'll get past all the blockages and send blood where it belongs. And that's really the science behind it. Now, a couple weeks ago I was interviewed by some uh British pilots, right? Um they have the same issues as as well as our American pilots. And they what they told me before we even discussed hyperbarics, they said what their pilots do, they it's illegal to deep sea dive in the UK. So they go to some island somewhere, and when they go there, he said they go down to the bottom for a long time. He said they just stay down there for a long time, and when they come back up, oh, then they're just better. Every time you get in a chamber, it's called a dive. Because it simulates the exact same thing. It's doing identical. And I had never heard that before until last week. But it's the same thing. If you're a diver, go get in that water, it's gonna heal, it's gonna heal that brain if you go down far enough. You just gotta be lower than seven feet.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that's what I was gonna say. So this this chamber makes you feel like you're seven to nine feet submerged, right? Yeah. So when diving, I mean, you can go way deeper than that. If you're deeper, will the effects last longer? Do you do you know? Yeah, I believe. Okay, because you know, it's I I imagine it'd be a lot easier to access a chamber than it would to, you know, dive consistently. So I'd like to wondering, like, okay, if you're gonna put the time in to travel to dive, if since you can go so much deeper, I didn't know if that would have a longer feedback.
SPEAKER_00:Matter of fact, for me, normally I usually uh if I go about three to five weeks without getting that chamber, I get a little cloudy again. And then I start to struggle with words and stuff again. But I went and tried a higher pressure chamber about six weeks ago and I only did one session, and I did it for half the time, only 30 minutes. I haven't been cloudy anymore. Like I had a really bad migraine about uh last Thursday, right? Typically what I do, I I, you know, I usually don't tell many people about it at first. Like I was always against like any type of drugs. I was a counselor, you know, and then I was also on that list of people, you know, the United States anti-doping agency. They're the ones who follow like uh Barry Bonds, uh Lance Armstrong. Okay, yeah. Yeah, they have to know where you are 24 hours a day, man. So like I was a no-drug kind of person. Like, you know, I told all the athletes, if you do anything stupid around me, we're gonna get in trouble for I'm gonna be the snitch, just so you know. So don't do it around me. And so you know how it is. You an American, as well as you cross those oceans, anything you do over there, now that was an international incident. Like, I don't want anything to do with that. So um, what I did is like whenever that migraine is about to come, if I use a little THC, it'll stop the migraine from kicking in all the way. And so last Thursday, I was like, you know what? I don't want to smoke. I hate smoking. I'm gonna stand my ground today. So that was on Thursday. It kicked in on Friday, it was there Saturday, and by Sunday morning, about 4 30 in the morning, I got up and I crawled to the ER. Now I'm getting an IV drip, you know, because I ignored this the signs. And I and I was just being stubborn. That's just what it is.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you you have a belief that you didn't want to lean into the to the drugs, right? Well it kind of helped save my life because it really did.
SPEAKER_00:It did, you know. But I feel like a hypocrite because I told people so many years if you do this stuff, you're stupid, you know, and then it comes back to save my life, man. It's like, oh, what the hypocrisy of this all, man.
SPEAKER_01:It's just Well, let's be real though, you're using it for purely medical relief. Like you've got some pretty severe symptoms, man. So you know, it's a very different application.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is. Once the once the once that migram subsided, I've been clear as a bell ever since. Like, no cloudiness, no anxiety, no anxiousness, no reason to get back in that machine right now. And and I think it it might have all started happening because I use a higher pressure. That kind of goes back to answering your other question about that. And people telling me if I use a higher pressure chamber, it'll probably stop me from having to go backwards sometime. But like Joe Namer, when he started his out, he said it reversed his symptoms. You know, and a lot of other people tell me it reversed their symptoms. But for me, I normally got three to five weeks of going without it, and then I'm gonna feel the I'm gonna feel the difference. But lately I haven't. Like I feel like I'm back to normal. I don't know if this is permanent or if it's short term. I I don't know yet.
SPEAKER_02:So your your chamber is a 1.3, right? Yes. And and since we're trying to figure out how to feasibly help all of these individuals, can you tell me what does that cost?
SPEAKER_00:I bought one from a storefront because I know I was afraid of the technology. I didn't know um exactly how to do everything. And then you start doing the research on it, and they'd be like, oh, people die in these things, and uh so you get nervous, you know. So I bought from a yeah, I bought from a place with a storefront. And so I paid this one here, it cost me um between 18 and 20,000. Uh that one. Yeah. Um, but the the metal ones that are the hard chambers or the the ones I need for this facility I'm trying to open, those, those might run me almost a hundred thousand, fifty thousand, depending on which ones I get. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let's put that in perspective. I mean, so you're you're paying 18 to 20 yourself for, you know, a treatment that you can use perpetually, right? You can continue to use it. I mean, think about prescription medication. I was on medication for my mental illness for years that it was 900 a month. And that was when covered by insurance. But if that's something you can continue to access and use whenever you need it, it's right there. And if it really takes care of it, even if temporarily, that's a killer resource. I love that there is that available.
SPEAKER_02:What is it is there enough doc documented efficacy that insurance companies help with that? I'd ask that.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's that's the thing. Like, but there's a there's enough studies out there. If they wanted to pay for this thing, if they if they weren't gonna get the bill, this technology has been around since the 1800s. If they didn't have to pick up the tab, this would be something. Matter of fact, there's a company called uh treatnow.org. They helped military people get treatment. They reached out to me and asked me to be one of the spokespeople to help so we can get it, get it on legislation in California so that insurance will start to pick up these tabs. So these things are around in most people's neighborhoods. If you type in hyperbaric oxygen or H B O T and near me, you'll find there's people around who have these things. They're in chiropractors' offices, they're in people's homes. But yeah, they're gonna charge you probably 200 bucks an hour what it costs out this way. And so for me, I'm probably almost 500 hours inside that chamber. So 500 times 200 bucks. I've got my money worth on this thing. Matter of fact, I think people aren't getting the treatment who, when they learn about it, they keep saying, like, I can't afford it. I can't afford to do. What if I need um 60 sessions in 30 days? That's why a lot of people aren't getting help.
SPEAKER_02:And insurance won't even cover those kinds of sessions where you go to someone else's.
SPEAKER_00:No, um it's a lower pressure, so it's not a medical device. Once you get to three atmospheres, 3.0, then they consider that medical grade. So if you have burns or if you get the bends or something, they'll put you in there. If you have bed sores that won't heal, they'll put you in there. This thing does a lot. They say cancer can't live in an oxygenated environment. So this thing oxygenates all your cells. It saturates your body with oxygen. So, matter of fact, there was a guy, he was uh the University of Cougars football coach, right? He was he had uh melanoma cancer. They gave him four to six weeks to live. So they started him on chemo and none of that stuff was working. So he tried to do something traditional. And this was all on ESPN about a month ago. And then next thing you know, you see him climbing into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Now his numbers are normal. These things have a lot of different things at it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, applications. Do you know if like the Cancer Association is actually researching the effects of these chambers on cancer? Because if that's the effects that's happening, I mean, good lord, that seems like a at least a great step in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00:You would think so. However, a lot of the new age doctors, they're putting their cancer patients through these things before chemo, during chemo, and after chemo. But old school doctors, you know, they're still doing the old thing, just chemicals, chemicals, chemicals, you know. And usually the chemicals is what kills you, you know, the cancer is a little bit of a chemical. Yeah, I mean, we're chemo. Chemo's poison, right? And you have to be careful because I think it's only this one medicine that if you take it, you can't do uh oxygen with it because it'll stop your heart. So there's some chemos you cannot mix with it. So you always have to make sure if you're doing chemo with uh hyperbaric, make sure you talk to your doctors and make sure you do your own research because a couple of them that don't mix with it, it's fatal. But it's like there's only very few things that you can't use these things for. If you already have holes in your lungs, of course, or problems and things like that, COPD type stuff. Always do your homework. Don't take this information from a guy on the internet. I'm one guy with a chamber telling you my experiences.
SPEAKER_01:I I appreciate that approach. Uh, we try to take the same thing. You know, we people share their experiences, but that doesn't mean it's going to work for you. It's just an idea, it's an option. So if it's okay, I would like to actually transition kind of over to the more mental health side of these effects and things you've gone through. I it sounds like for years, these negative effects from your concussions and things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Can you explain some of the uh more of the symptoms that you had a bit in more detail and how that affected your daily life? And you can go into relationships, you can go into whatever you're comfortable with, but I I would appreciate to know how did this affect you on the daily.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll give you like some of my red flags. Like those are just like so pathetic. The first one, I was traveling a lot, so um, I started having these panic attacks. Like I didn't know where I was at. And it's the middle of the night, so I'll jump up and I'll hit the light switch. And I'll just kind of look around, and you know, the pictures on the wall always did let me know where I'm at, you know. Like the worst ones, I guess if you feel I'm in Europe, like especially in the uh Eastern European countries, they have all those weird pictures. So when you walk, the eyes follow you, you know, it's like that. Like in the spooky old spooky, yeah, they have those. And then if I see the painted brick walls, I know I'm at the Olympic Training Center. So I I was always that was my um go to. I turn that light on, look at the walls, I know where I'm at. But that was your grounding. Yeah, but I rationalized it. I was like, you know what? I travel so much, I represent my country, that's why I don't know where I'm at. You know, so I rationalized it, you know. That I because I I got a great life. I'm traveling, you know. But the other one, I was uh I hadn't seen my friends in a while, so we I went back to Salt Lake City and uh we was out shooting some pool and my buddy said, Hey man, it's your your girlfriend over there, your ex-girlfriend. And I look and I was like, Yeah, she's pretty, but I don't know her. And then she runs over and she jumps in my arms and I catch her, and I'm like, uh-oh, I guess I do know her. Well, yeah, I wasn't recognizing faces anymore. And uh, I didn't know it, but you know, as an athlete, I'm thinking, like, you know, you know, we we're arrogant, man. We just like, you know, we got these muscles now, we ripped to shreds, all the ladies just love us, just stupidness, you know. But the truth was, I I wasn't I wasn't recognizing faces anymore, and that plagued me for a long time through my rest of my life. Yeah. Wow, that would be a wake-up call for sure. Nah, I was just like, I just the I just so many ladies love me. I I guess can't keep up with them. But no, man, I was I was suffering, man. I was suffering and didn't know it. And um, like when I first left the sport, my last race was January 2006. So we won the U.S. National Championship. It was my final race. And um, so I left when I left there, I went straight back to Hollywood. And people asked me, How old are you? I automatically said 28. But I was 36th when I won that last title, and I turned 37 that summer. So I'm walking away every time people ask me that, I'm thinking, wait a minute, I'm not 28. And I'm not lying to them on purpose, but I lost some years somewhere. Do you recall that gap or just the details of time? I I don't have an honest answer for that because it gets a little bit worse. So when my symptoms kicked in at its worst, like every night before I went to bed, I um I would take a thermos, a coffee, or a bottle of Coca-Cola and put it on the nightstand. Because I knew in the morning I don't have any energy. I can't, I'm not gonna be able to get up. So if I didn't have that caffeine there, like I began to live off of that stuff. So once I wake up, I automatically didn't know what the real day was, and I know I didn't. Whatever day I said it was, I know it was a lie. So I had a little daily planner next to the bed. And so I'll look, I'll find a day. Okay, today is Monday, okay, cool. And then I have to figure out what month we're in. I always thought I was in January or August. So I got in trouble so many times because of that. So what I did is I had a big eight-foot whiteboards. I put them in my living room wall, I had three of them up, and then I sectioned them off. I had one for um docs appointments, meetings, and dates. Because sometimes, like some young lady asked me out on a date. And so let's say today is Monday. And she's like, hey, let's uh meet me for dinner on Tuesday. I'll be like, yeah, sure. To me, Tuesday's like a month away. I can't see Tuesday, it's so far away. And the next day is Tuesday. Now they're calling me, hey, I'm here. Why aren't you here? Like, what do you mean? I'm like, what are you doing there? Like, I did I agree to that, but I learned like if you say, if today is Monday, we both know it's Monday, if you say meet me tomorrow, I'll be there. I'll be there like clockwork. But uh there's a gap. There was some there were some things that were missing.
SPEAKER_02:That connection of the information.
SPEAKER_01:And at this at this point, you didn't tell people you were struggling with this, you were kind of trying to manage it on your own. Am I right on that? Well, I I try to tell people.
SPEAKER_00:And you tell somebody, man, I go in a room, I can't remember while I'm in here for, I can't remember this, I can't remember that. Most people say, Oh, I do that too. Especially if you're talking to the older generations. They were like, Oh, I do that too. Downplay it. Yeah, they downplay it, my thing. Yeah, and and I think that's why a lot of people don't get help. No other athlete, including myself, we couldn't come up with the words to describe. Like, I was literally at doctors' offices and to explaining them, and they never checked my brain, not one time. They always check my blood, get the lab work back. Oh, it's you're great, you're 6'1, you're 220, you're lean. Like, you're fine. No, I'm not fine. Something is not right. And and I I was convinced it was diabetes for many years. I was so far wrong. And it took for my teammates to start taking their life before I can kind of figure it out. And even then, I still didn't figure it out.
SPEAKER_02:So I know you had a couple of friends who have met an early demise more than a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00:More than a couple, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So were you guys in communication and were you all talking about these symptoms and sharing?
SPEAKER_00:No, not until I filed the case. Any other team I've ever been on, you know who you can trust. Bob Sutton is a really cutthroat sport. You know, it's one of those sports they did things to me. You know, I filed complaints so many times, and uh they just got in trouble for it. I filed complaints going back 2003, 2004, and they just got an external audit done um in 2022, and then another updated one came out about four months ago, five months ago. And it's still actually listening up. They told me it was the good old boy system, but they said, but it's getting better. But I didn't believe them because at that time my ex-girlfriend was um she was a hurler for the German Olympic team. And so I traveled with the Germans. Like I showered in the women's locker room. Like, how could there still be racism back at home on our Olympic teams? I didn't really believe it. They weren't always the best people.
SPEAKER_01:So you know, you had friends who committed suicide, and it sounds like several. Um and then can I ask if you ever struggled with ideations?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, every day of my life. Well, no, when I was struggling, when I say my life, I meant like as in that time when I was struggling with the stuff. See, I was a counselor, and so I I taught hundreds of people one technique that I really stuck with. Let's say today is Monday, and uh I always go with Monday because I'll scramble them days up. I know it's actually Tuesday today, right? I'm on top of it now. So let's say let's just say it's Monday, and I'll tell I'll teach people like if suicide is a good idea today, it's gonna be a good idea tomorrow too. So when you get to the next day, and you still everything still look crumpy, you know, messed up and nasty. Well, if it's a good idea today, it'll be a good idea tomorrow. So you just keep moving that day for you. And so when I was on that floor struggling, like, I mean, I was I was begging for death. I was praying for death every night. Just um I had I knew what it does to the families, like it leaves that trauma behind. And I didn't, I'm so close to a lot of people, and I didn't want to leave that trauma. And um, and then once I figured out what this was, then I was too stubborn to take my life at that point. I'm like, these fuckers, excuse my language, did this, and they don't want to speak and uh take care of the people who are dealing with it, then I would like there's no way in the world I'm gonna do it now. But back then, like I wanted to die, but I every night I was praying for it. I was like on the floor, and um like I just kept waking up and I was pissed off every day that I woke up. I'll be honest about it. So I'm no I was no stronger than anyone else. I just didn't want to leave that for my family. Um, and that that's the truth of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much for sharing that. I um, you know, I struggle with that myself every day. Have for years. Um attempted myself three times, almost completed twice. And my grandmother committed suicide, and I my mother and I found her when I was 16. And the reason I share that is because I would not have the perspective of the devastation that somebody doing that has. Because I guarantee if I didn't know what that felt like, I'd have done it by now. Yeah. I would have killed myself years ago. I appreciate that you, if nothing else, found a reason to stick around to advocate for what happened to you. I imagine at this point you found other value in yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I just I like the narrative of I'm just gonna go make sure those fuckers don't forget me. I love yes. If nothing else, just be, you know, cantankerous enough to be a thorn in their side to make change.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's that's what at this point is really about change. But the the irony is I forgot how awful they were to me. There was a white athlete who reached out to me. He said, Will, have you seen this uh email floating around? I was like, No. He said, Remember those things they were doing, all that racist stuff you were dealing with? I was like, Yeah. Yeah. And I actually I didn't really remember. Like, let me give you an example. One time we we had training campus in Canada. Um, and so in the world championships, just that prior season, I was the breakman for Stephen Holcomb, uh, who actually took his life at the Olympic Training Center in 2018. Any Olympic medal was won after 2003 by the men, it was him. So he let me stay with him. And so in the world championships the year before, we won these uh Verizon team phones. Everybody had this, the national team, we all had the same phone number except one digit off. And so uh it's time for training camp for the next season. So I called the office and said, hey, you guys can fly me up to Canada for camp. It was like, no, we're not gonna fund you. I was like, what? I'm the number one breakman or number two at the worst. Based off the world championships, I'm like, you have to. Like, what do you mean? So they didn't. But Stephen Holcomb, you know, he was a nice guy. He was like, hey man, I got a room already out of suite. Just come up, you can stay with me. So I get up there, I'm staying with him. He was my driver at the World Championships just a few months before. No big deal. A few days later, one of the other drivers comes to me and he said, Hey, Will, the coach's name was Tuffy. He said, Tuffy said, We're gonna move to a new hotel. The Federation's gonna come and pick up the tab, and you have to find somewhere to stay because you're not gonna be able to stay with everybody. And I was like, What? He's like, I don't understand either. So I called the coach from my phone, right? He doesn't pick up, I call again, he doesn't pick up. A couple days go by, maybe four or four more days. That guy comes to me again with the same story, and he tells me the same thing. He said, Hey man, I don't know why I'm in the middle of this. I'm uncomfortable. You know, he was, you know, he wasn't um condoning it, but he was just he was passing the message. And so I tried to call the coach from my phone. He didn't answer. He said, Here, try my phone. So I call from his phone. Coach picks up on the first ring. And I was like, Oh man. I was like, Tuffy, what's going on, man? And he says, Well, they said I won't have a place to stay. Like, what's going on? He's like, Yeah, he said, each driver is getting one funded push athlete, is what he told me. I said, Tuffy, I've been here for a few weeks now. Is that the story you're sticking to? And he got kind of quiet, stuttered a little bit. He said, I'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do. So a few weeks later, we move over to the new hotel. They gave me a room, no big deal. They didn't cover my flights, no per diem money, no nothing, you know, but they at least covered the room. I had a new roommate, and I saw that guy the year before, he was like the track janitor. He like cleaned the track and made sure the ice was smooth, right? And I said, Hey, was your your airline uh ticket expensive? Because you guys, tickets the last minute, you know? He's like, no. He went, he told me he went to the first training camp. He finished dead last, is what he said. He said, then he got injured, so he's laying around at the Olympic training center just healing up. He said, the coach Tuffy came to him and asked him, did he want to go to Canada? He was paying for it. He's like, hell, what have I got to lose? And I'm just thinking, what the, you know, and so it was things like that, you know. And um, matter of fact, the next Olympic year, um, I go to camp, I'm up there. Uh the previous season I had got a I got rear-ended, so I missed part of the season. But I rebounded, I came up there. And uh the craziest thing, once again, on day number one, I had the fastest push time. On day number two, I had the fastest push time. On day number three, the assistant coach comes to me. He says, Hey, Tuffy said, um, you can't push with the national team anymore. And I was like, why not? He said, Because you had a car accident last year, so you didn't have any international races. And I said, Well, is that the only reason? He said, Yeah. I said, Well, go back and check your records. I had 10. I came back, I had at least 10 last year. And he said, Oh, you did? I said, Yeah, but they still made me practice with the women. So it was just like these bizarre things that they kept doing to me. And he told me, he said, Don't worry. Um, he said, Don't worry because coaches know how well you're pushing. I said, I know they do. That's why you guys are kicking me out again. You know, he said, No, your numbers are in the books. And I checked the books a couple days later. I originally my numbers were in that book, and then they started to cross them all out. These guys are what they were, you know. And like I I filed complaints, and you know, it's on some stuff, some stuff you just learned. Like, I stopped filing complaints because the USOC really never helped me. They'll be like, okay, we'll make them apologize, but they never make you whole, they just keep, you know. So that's kind of my situation. But I had forgot about all that. Like, I just didn't remember because the way this thing works, it starts to strip your memory of things, and I just never remembered how awful they were to me until somebody reminded me. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So I how kind of a bit outside this, but how did that affect your mental health or being a victim of blatant racism?
SPEAKER_00:The truth is, I grew up in the Midwest. That's just the life you live as a person of color in America sometimes. That's just um I tell people all the time, it took for me to leave the Midwest to realize not all white men were racist. But it took for me to leave the country to know what it's like to be treated as a human being because I was traveling with the Germans and stuff. Like, matter of fact, I I remember there was things I was doing over there, I was like, I was afraid to do because in America I would probably be slaughtered for doing that. Like, and so it really messed up even my relationships, some of that racism stuff, because my girlfriend was a German, you know, and here I am, like still careful what I see and what I do around other people. You know, it's just, it's just it's just the life of being brown in America, you know. It's just kind of always been that way.
SPEAKER_01:I look at you and I wouldn't know you're struggling with CTE or any of those things. How difficult is it for you when people look at you and don't see your struggles?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I believe that's why the doctors were ignoring my cries, man. Like, I think that has a lot to do with it.
SPEAKER_01:Other than your words saying what you're struggling with?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you're you're uh you're exhibiting in every other way, like you're you're feeling like anybody else.
SPEAKER_00:There, like I said, up until this last two weeks, usually if I go three to five weeks without that chamber, like you can go look at some of my videos. Like I I'll struggle with try like trying to get words out. Some days my my speech still slurs a little bit. But the har the biggest part is like being able to get up off that ground and and get that darkness out of your head, you know, that's the hard part. I can't even say I was depressed. Like what I was is I was struggling with everything. I was lost in my own community. I'm cloudy, I'm afraid to drive my car. I I literally refused to uh register my motorcycle anymore at that time. I wasn't gonna get on it, you know. And I'm just I'm gonna tell you how crazy it is. At one point, when I was at my lowest, I lived in an apartment. Well, I refused to drive. So what I would do, I will just walk. There's some stores over here. Stores are right here, right? Some days I say, okay, what if I go the other way? What's on the other side? I couldn't figure it out, man. Like for as stupid as that sounds, it's the same thing, idiot. I just make two rights. Store. But I couldn't, some days I was like, what the hell is over there? You know, and I was afraid to walk that way to figure it out. So I just always went my way. Once it kicks in, guys, it's like it's it's very unforgiving. And like I said, and it's slow. And and I tell everybody, like, if your person you love was around, he had a car accident or sports or military, and he starts acting out of character, start to check that brain. That's what it is. Because it's not really mental health, it's a physical injury. Actually, yeah, that's that's fair. Yeah, it's a physical injury that will lead to mental health stuff. But it's a physical injury. I mean, there's still things I don't do anymore. Like, I don't work as a counselor anymore because uh I process slower. Uh uh like I used to be the guy, like if there was a riot, I'm the one they sent in.
SPEAKER_02:So tell some of our viewers, like, I know that there's not a lot of people that are gonna jump on board and say, oh, here's a hyperbaric chamber for you, here's a hyperbaric chamber for you, you know. What realistically can we do to get people informed, funded, and cared for?
SPEAKER_00:Well, informed is we're doing it right now. People like you, you know, we scratch roots, we're spreading the word. And just the same way I found it, like hopefully, like my TikTok channel is dedicated only to people who can find what I couldn't find when I was trying to figure this thing out. Like, look at this piece of paper. This is what you're dealing with. I got on my knees to thank God, like all the symptoms miss me. You know, and so nobody ever figures this thing out. Only the loved ones can see it on you. And the and every NFL person that's acted out lately who's taken his life or not, or or the military guys who've done the mass shootings, they everybody says the same thing. They just weren't acting like themselves. They, you know, they were gentle giant until they weren't, you know. Well, when that happens, something happened to them. Aaron Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think the connection is from CTE to that level of violence? I mean, obviously the inward violence meeting suicide, but when we're talking the outward violence, that's a whole different situation. What do you think the connection is?
SPEAKER_00:I was hearing voices tell me every day to take my life. Like, why would you keep living like this? Why are you here? You know, why are you still dealing with this? You don't have to deal with this anymore. You can end this now. You heard you heard audible voices, like you. I don't know if they were audible, but something was telling me all the time to end this thing. Gotcha. I I really can't say it wasn't like a command voice or something like that, but it was something telling me just in the world. Something told you. Okay. You don't why do you want to keep living like this? You know. But the uh the other side of that is let's say I was actually having a decent day. I go outside, there's everything's great weather, my brain is telling me, okay, it's a good day to die. You know, and so that's what this thing is. So imagine being a military guy and you're coming back with the same condition. I know it's the same condition because it's the same symptoms, and they got the same way we got it. Anytime something like they've been around the compression blast, it's the w it's those, it's those waves. The brain wants to expand, but it can't because the skull is stopping it. So it's just you know, it's causing concussion stuff. And so when you c have that keep happening and you look at the side effects, they're identical to what the NFL players go through, it's identical to what the hockey players are going to, it's identical to what what the um uh bobstetters are going to going through, I'm sorry. And um it's the same stuff. And so ironically, there's a tons of people around the country that are secretly treating some of these people. It's the same treatment. It's all the same treatment. Matter of fact, when I started this, this was only for athletes, my teammates. I said, Well, I got this little tiny house out here, it's in the middle of nowhere, I can get a couple chambers and let people come get this free treatment. That's all we need, you know. Then I saw the military people, and it's the same thing, and I'm like, oh my God. And then when I noticed we lost 20,000 soldiers in three years to suicide. That's 20,000 that we know about. That ain't the ones who probably drank themselves to death or who, you know, deal who who knows what else to themselves, but like it's well, how can we leave them behind? And there are agencies out there like treatnow.org. You know, they're they're out there right now trying to get this stuff where insurance will pick it up. Problem is insurance doesn't want to pay for it. My my major goal right now is to open up the first ever American Post-Concussion Wellness Center. And so I'm going to get more chambers, I'm going to get uh like all the all the different things that's geared toward brain health, and I'm going to treat the military soldiers and athletes for free. So it has to be a free thing, is what I'm shooting for. And uh, like if I want to open today, I could. So many investors are coming, like, hey, we're gonna make a million. Like, no, we're not. This is not for that. Like you can do that somewhere else, but this is gonna be a free service. If I can't provide it for free, I I won't provide it at all. Because that's just not what my goal is. So are you ho planning to do that grant funding? I'm gonna do everything I can possibly do. Like right now, uh my 501c3, I had a one when I was on the Olympic team and I stopped using it, so it uh expired. So it's being redone now and should be ready any day now. We also have a crowdfunding. A crowdfunding is one man with a chamber. Uh please donate to it. Like, that's where our seed money is coming from. That's where all the money is going back to getting the equipment to treat everybody. And um, like that's really all we're gonna be doing is just treating and treating. And uh I got a chamber right now, and uh this company they want to do a sponsorship with me, and it holds six people. If I'm open eight hours a day, that's 48 people I can treat if I get the sixth chamber person. From six chambers, yeah. So that's what we're doing. I just want to the same thing that saved me, I just want to pass it on. It's it's not about it's not a it's not a business for profit type of thing.
SPEAKER_02:Uh are there any people interested in the research that might fund you to be able to do the research on the people you're serving? Because if nothing else, it kind of helps in two ways. If you're getting funded, but you're also proving efficacy in larger and larger numbers, because I mean that that's what that's what it takes to make change. Yeah, I mean, being a part of the behavioral health system, you yourself know that every year there's going to be different research that comes out and evidence-based practice. We all gotta adhere to what the the science of the day is. Maybe you could find some partnership there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh, I'm definitely open to suggestions. But the only thing that I won't do is take private money where I have to charge. That's the only thing that I won't do. It's just too expensive. People, people won't show up, you know, and it's too expensive. If you have to make a decision, if you're gonna pay rent or pay for this hyperbaric oxygen, I'm pretty sure you're gonna choose rent because you don't want to be sleeping.
SPEAKER_03:You have to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You have to. Like the first two times I tried it, they let me do it for free. And like, now I know this thing is work. I know it's not a placebo. I know I'm clear as a bell. Now I don't have$20,000 laying around to buy that machine. So I literally laid back down on the floor until my girlfriend at the time, she uh started talking to my dad, and the next thing you know, this money shows up. But I hit that same thing happen to me. I knew this thing was work, so my medicine was this machine, and now I can't afford it. And um, my dad saved my butt, and uh I I just couldn't have made it without it. You know, thank God for thank God for some parents for good dads. Yeah, I'm in that right there. He had been offering to pay for it, and I was just telling him no, I said no, I'll move some money around eventually, and I'll, you know. But think of this thing is so sneaky, and it's like I said, it's it's progressive and it's slow, and when it gets you, you never see it coming. You never see it coming. And that's why these guys are struggling so bad.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that needs to be a big part, a the message we're at least gonna put out there is that it's the people around the people that are suffering with it that you really need to be the ones to watch for this because you yourself are saying, I wouldn't, I wasn't gonna see it.
SPEAKER_00:No, well, I I don't know, dude I don't know if we talked about this, but when I bought the lake house, I bought it because I was confused and cloudy and and I was praying for death. Like I couldn't take myself out, so I was like, yeah, I'll get this place in the Midwest and I'll just go there and that'll be my spot till I go, right? And so I came back to LA, I closed out my apartment. It was a young lady who was in my life at the time. She's still in my life now. Um just in case she's listening, I'm not saying I got rid of you. She'd be mad at me.
SPEAKER_01:Gotta cover your bases, man. Yeah, I gotta cover them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. She's from New York, put it that way. And her and her family, they're on the phone a lot and they talk so loud. Like, and so right now, I'm like, I'm sensitive to noises and bright lights and smells, like perfume, it makes me puke. So she's on the it's during COVID. So she's on the phone with her family so much, and I'm just going nuts. I say, okay, babe, I'm going back to the lake house. I need some peace and quiet. And I said, we probably should just think about maybe moving on from each other, because who am I to tell you to be quiet in your own place? You know, and so I go back to the lake house and I'm just sitting over there. This article shows up called Sledhead, written by the New York Times, and that's the article that diagnosed me. But when I read it, I was like, man, all the symptoms miss me. They ain't talking about my teammate, they ain't talking about me. I literally got on my knees and thanked God that they all missed me. And so when I sent the article to her, she circled some things, and the first thing I noticed was noise sensitivity. It was the whole reason why I was over there in the first place. And then I went, oh my God, I went and looked at that list. I checked every box except Parkinson's that I can remember. And then I was like, oh my God, like, no, this is not diabetes. My doctors were right. And at the same time, my um teammate who took his life, who called me speaking gibberish, his autopsy report came out. And that's when I found out he was in stage four of CTE. Now this thing has a name. This thing has a name, and we know what it is now. And that's when I started being able to do more research and then find Joe Namath. But until I could start understanding what it really was, I did, I just thought it was diabetes. I didn't know this was sliding related. I had no idea. Every time somebody dies, if I hear about it, we just be like, oh, poor guy, and then we just kind of move on with our life. But I didn't know where all our days were numbered. Every athlete I spoke to, and every athlete that they spoke to, we all deal with the same, same stuff. It just depends on how bad it is, you know.
SPEAKER_01:What it seems like is you may have drawn a connection between CTE and you may have drawn that connection better than physicians and and and and people who were studying these things. Is this kind of a unique connection that you've drawn, would you say?
SPEAKER_00:Well, another article came out last year, um, another New York Times article. It talked about all the military pilots who got the same condition as us. He didn't say it, but eating this thing. I was like, it reminded me of something. When when I was racing, um, we used to take VIP people down the track sometime. One time we took Bob, we took the um fighter pilots. And because we pulled five G's, I thought they were pulling 15 or 20 G's, they only pulled six. And so now this story makes more sense to me because we took them down. I did six rides that day. They did one and they were rattled when they got out the sled. And I was thinking, I'm like, wait a minute, these guys are the best.
SPEAKER_03:They're the best.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they should have been able to take a nap on this thing. But no, they were rattled. And so this article actually outlined everything they're dealing with, and it's identical. I think it's the G-forces. Now, fast forward, if you go back to that New York Times article written about us, found out we were pulling 84.5 G's or spikes on that track of 84.5 G. On the sharp track. Yeah, those terms, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so that's why everybody brain is mush. Spikes of 80, and that track they tested it on is one of the milder tracks from Calgary. Like now, now put that on Lake Placid or Aldenburg, Germany. Like those man, I cracked a helmet on that track. We didn't even crash, just from the pressure. And that's why these athletes around the world are dropping dead. And so now that I'm I'm shining the light, like, hey guys, this is a global issue, this is not America. Americans. Now they they're doing everything they can to kind of keep this stuff quiet right now. You know, and now then they started trying to threaten me. Well, I say bully me, more bully than threaten. And so uh yeah, and some of that stuff is just coming from my lawyers, my own personal lawyers that I hired.
SPEAKER_02:Anyone in the World Health Organization that might be able to put you in touch with people who are studying this on a more global No.
SPEAKER_00:Um I just know of people that's already doing it. There's a lot of studies out there already. Just the regular people don't really know about it. But I'm definitely opening open to sharing that information with anybody who wants to come in and help. That's what it's about anyway. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Getting that network together of of people cross-discipline so that you can show, hey, look, this is a real issue that happens because of these brain injuries. You now run the risk of having someone either commit suicide or go on mass shootings or murder. In trying to put this together, it just seems like you mention it being a global issue.
SPEAKER_00:Like that's the article I just mentioned to you about the military, it's actually been scrubbed from the internet. Like, I could send you a link because I get it directly from the people who wrote them now. But when I first put it out, I took that article to my lawyers to show the connection. Like, help us find the connection. This is the connection. There was also a documentary producer from Hollywood who wanted to do a story about me. He normally just takes that content, he goes to these big money people, and they they they write a check for these stories, right? I warned him. I said, I I'm I'm not sure if I'm being paranoid or not. I said, but whistleblowers in America don't live long. But I said, I don't know if my life is online or not, I'm not sure, but just be careful you know where you go with this information. So he we signed a contract, he went to pitch this thing, and I I still have the email. He said, uh, Will, uh there's a lot of big forces up there trying to keep this information from coming out. Um he said only way we're gonna do it is gonna have to use private funds to do it. Because you know, anybody who's attached to the Olympics or sponsorships, they don't want that's the money kind of, they don't want to mess with it.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The next paragraph and quotations, he was like, this is not safe material. And so everything that I told him, I'm sure he ran into the same stuff. Um so I really watch what I do, where I go. Where I'm at, I don't post where I'm at until I leave. Um because I really thought that um once the other athletes spoke up, I was safe. Because I'm the lead plaintiff on this case. Everybody spoke up, so I thought, okay, I'm safe. But the one thing I forgot about, I'm the only one who can sign off on this case. So if I something happens to me, they'll get away with writing a check for$2.1 million that would only go toward evaluating athletes, not toward treating them. Now that target's kind of back on my back, because the last three court hearings, my law team is now standing with the defense law team. They're together now. And uh I'm by myself now, man. Yeah, I'm by myself. It's just public record, guys. Well, next court hearing is December 17th. Please come out and support if you can. But yeah, I'm the last man standing between the athletes getting help and no help. But I'm like, this is there's no, there's no care. And they tried to make it think like I'm crazy. They was like, well, we're just on this case was only ever about medical monitoring. So at the last court hearing, I produced the email they sent me. It says medical monitoring and care for life. I said, Your Honor, there's no care in this package. They just want to evaluate us, evaluate us like lab rats and not treat us. How could you not treat us? Would you take your child to a doctor who won't treat them? So that's what we're dealing with. And if you look at the military, the last three shooters we had that were military-based, they said the same thing. Their family said the same thing. They tried to get help, but there was no help. They wouldn't help them. They all said the same thing. We're all saying the same things, guys.
SPEAKER_02:It's standard operating procedures. Yeah. Mental health.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But the sad part of it is it's not really a mental health. If you just it's only one way to you gotta do something to get that fluid away from the brain. And for me right now, that's that's what does it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I see what you mean, that it's not technically a mental health problem. It's an it's the genesis that are the energy that Hey, I had a question for you.
SPEAKER_00:What you how were you when you got got um diagnosed with your mental health issues? 19? 13. 13. I was young. They give it to you at 13?
SPEAKER_01:Very young. Um my psychiatrist went out on a limb with this practice, and uh he uh got me diagnosed and I got treatment really young. And that's I think honestly what allowed me to be as successful with managing as I have been. Uh part of it.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of times they don't they won't give that until 18. They always try to do the most.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I was a rarity in that. Um and it was in so many ways. One of the best things that could have happened. One of the best things that could have happened to me was that I don't fully understand why they don't do that more often. I mean, I know some of the theories, I do, but to me, it it is absolutely a hindrance to treatment for it. And it's added, yeah. And sometimes they don't make it that long. So anyway, wow. Powerful stuff, Will. I mean, truly. I did not know a lot of that, so I'm so glad that organically came up. Um is there is there anything you want to leave our audience now, your audience?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man, we we really we just think we need seed money. We need to get started. We need the funds to be for starting this thing. All the money's going back to treating the people who need it. Please come join us. I see we're watching our athletes do these awful things, they're hurting themselves, they're hurting other people. I said, but this is not the population I fear. The population I fear is our military because I know what was being said to me in my head. I know what these other athletes are being said to them because they're killing themselves. Military are now, they have this condition and they're the best killers in the world. So they know on the courthouse steps. I said the same speech I said to you guys. I said, there's gonna be a wave of military veteran shootings, mass shootings coming, and we got to get ahead of this thing. And I also know how I got up off that ground and switched this stuff around, and we got to do something different other than just ignoring them. And if you start putting them meds in them, the meds don't work for what they're giving them. No, it's not. And all the founders it is not, it is not. It's made for people like you who have ahead of an imbalance and they need, yeah, it's not made for this. Matter of fact, even when I tried those those meds they gave me was a simple Zolop. I had a small prescription and I was ready to jump off the nearest bridge.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say I better throw you off. I bet that the other thing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, it was wor it was my problems seemed worse than they were, and I was already begging for death before that. So I'm just saying, we're just trying to get ahead of this thing, help me do it, help me provide this treatment. I promise you, I was in dementia. I guarantee you, some of your parents and your grandparents are in it. There's studies around this stuff for that too. Like, it brought me out of it. And if it brought me out, guys, this I'm opening to the public. This is a free service. I'm not accepting investors because I don't want to put a bill on this thing. It's gonna be free. So help me, help me do it. Just help me do it. And follow me. Yeah. Well, and it's ready now, like I can open tomorrow. I appreciate you guys for doing this.
SPEAKER_01:Like, thank you so much for sharing all of that. And I will um I'll share the article and do my part. And uh hopefully our listeners do the same. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Uh we'll have to keep an eye on your account. Let us all know if you do get something up and running. Yes. I mean, there'll be some lead time before we can put the episode out, but you know, maybe we add the addendum that you know you are up and running and it is at such and such place, or or maybe you get a fleet of buses and you just drive them all over the place. So let's get this shit out there, man.
SPEAKER_00:And it's so crazy. You can't go to kindergarten without the fear of being shot these days. Kindergarten, uh, movies, uh, you know, I it's all related, guys. It there, you know, it's and it's so simple. Like everybody should have access to it. Just doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01:We just love to know if this actually took off this treatment. If we have to draw and it will, I'll guarantee it.
SPEAKER_00:I just know where I was at, and I know I had the same condition as the rest of my athletes, and I know what they same thing as the military. We all know it's the same thing now. They even admit it it's the same thing. I'm gonna send you an article so you'll see it. So it's the same thing, it's the same treatment. It's that simple. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Thank you so much, Will. Um, this was really powerful stuff. Truly, it was. And I really appreciate you being willing to put yourself out there like this and and put the word out there. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for what you're doing, and thank you. We'll do our part with what we can do. So thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good luck. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, and we follow you on TikTok. Um, we'll we'll be keeping an eye on Albion.
SPEAKER_00:Just so you know, I'm I'm already doing it. Like, there's I have relationships with different people around the country where people I can send people for treatment. So I've already started. This is not like a we just now getting started. This is the first time we're gonna open it as a wellness center where people can just flock in and get the treatment now. Now I won't have to depend on them sending them out and try to find people who can treat these people. People are getting up off that floor now. We've been doing this. This is not new. We're already doing it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, again, thank you, thank you so much, Will. Um we'll be keeping track of things and post all of this and and get the message out there as much as we can, too. So thank you for joining us. Good luck in your ventures. We'll be keeping track. Guys, I I hope you got a lot out of that one. Very powerful stuff. So anyway, this is Bottom Hui, aka Beat the Mental Health Out of It with your host, Nick, aka the defective schizo effective. This is Tony Indypocket. And we're gonna tell you don't look to the bottle of the knife or the gun. Look to the soul you'll become. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much, Will. Thank you, Will. Thank you.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Umbrella
You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
Pete Holmes
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Marc Maron
Monday Morning Podcast
All Things Comedy
SmartLess
Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
Theo Von
Gold Minds with Kevin Hart
SiriusXM
Metaphysical Milkshake with Rainn & Reza
KAST Media | Rainn Wilson and Reza Aslan
Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast
Matt McCusker & Shane Gillis
The Mental Game by Brandon Saho
The Mental Game