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Dr. Donald “Skip” Mondragon on Maybe You Don't Have to Muscle Through

What happens when the thing you've always relied on to get through hard things stops working?

I loved getting to reconnect with Dr. Donald "Skip" Mondragon, who I first met at SpeakFest in Savannah. Skip is a retired Army colonel, physician, national wrestling champion, author, husband, dad, and grandfather. But in this conversation, he opened up about something much more personal: his experience with depression and learning that he couldn't simply "muscle through" it.

Skip shared the story of the day he found himself under his desk, finally realizing he needed help. We talked about the signs he hadn't recognized, the importance of asking for support, and the small things that helped him begin to climb out of that dark place.

In this episode, we talked about:

  • The "tough guy" mentality and why pushing harder doesn't always help
  • Recognizing the signs of depression
  • Asking for help and finding the right support
  • The role of sleep, movement, sunlight, laughter, and gratitude
  • How our breath can help us slow down and respond differently
  • Processing trauma and finding your "battle buddies"
  • Why we don't always see what's happening inside ourselves


Connect with Dr. Donald "Skip" Mondragon

One thing I took away from this conversation is that strength doesn't always look like pushing through. Sometimes it looks like admitting you need help.

And if the first call doesn't work, make another call. Find another person. Try another approach.

You don't have to do it alone.

Adventure on.


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1 SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Adventure Paradox podcast.

My friends, I have had a long hiatus in live recordings.

So long, in fact, that the guest before me, who is one of the few

guests who I've ever met in person, and he is so much fun in

person.

Oh my gosh, it's the incredible Dr.

Donald Mondragon, but he goes by Skip.

Skip, I'll give you a formal introduction and a not so formal

introduction in just a moment.

But first, how are you?

And where in the world are you tuning in from today?

SPEAKER_05: I'm doing very well, Kat.

I'm so delighted to be here.

I'm coming from the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

SPEAKER_01: Love it.

And just to give folks a little insight into how we met, how did

we meet?

Where in the world were we?

And what month was that?

SPEAKER_05: We met at Speakfest in Savannah, Georgia.

We were both speaking there, vying for that prize and rooting

for one another when we got up on stage.

And we say in Spanish that uh somos simpaticos, that there's

this heart-to-heart connection.

And I think we both felt that as we talked, as we rooted for one

another, as we filmed one another and had that opportunity

to get to know one another better.

We had this kinship, this heart-to-heart connection, somos

simpaticos.

SPEAKER_01: Somos simpáticos still to this day, even if we

are not heart to heart in the same room.

Oh, it was such a gift.

And when we dropped this podcast, I will drop some of the

videos because you were there with your wife.

I was there with my husband.

We did some really funny videos together at SpeedFest competing

for that$10,000 prize.

I haven't released any of those, so I will release those for this

podcast interview.

And we had to reschedule a few times.

I had a move going on.

This is my new podcasting studio.

If you're watching this on YouTube, here we are now in

Alta, Wyoming.

I have so many incredible things to share with you about our new

space.

But now I want to give you a more formal introduction to Dr.

Skip.

I'm gonna say Dr.

Skip, because we were in the top three of the speakers at

SpeakFest competing for a$10,000 prize.

And what he has to share is so important, so powerful, and so

apropos in today, because today we are dealing with a mental

health crisis.

So Dr.

Donald Skip Mondragon is an advocate for men, although women

get a lot from his conversation too.

One just wanted to share that.

He's an internal medicine specialist, retired army

colonel, national wrestling champion, father of five adult

children, and grandfather of six grandchildren.

Best of all, he's been married to Sherry for 45 years.

We're definitely gonna want to tap in on some of those secrets

to long-term success in marriage.

Again, very appropriate for our times.

But he is the author of Wrestling, Depression is not for

wimps, lessons learned from an amateur wrestler's fight to

triumph over depression.

Okay, Skip, let's get right to it.

Because when we were in the process of rescheduling, you

said, I'm in a really hard time right now.

I can't do an interview right now.

And your vulnerability, we were chatting about this before we

started recording, just saying, hey, I'm not in a good spot was

so powerful for me.

In fact, it was part of what helped me recognize like, oh,

you know what?

I could pause.

I'm going through a major move.

I could pause my recording studio.

Like, maybe it's not a good time.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for that position to see myself as you were able to

see yourself.

Could you tell us just a little bit more about what that moment

was like?

And then I want to go back to maybe your plane crashing origin

story and depression in the past.

But can we start with that moment, please?

SPEAKER_05: Sure.

In July, I visited Colorado, my hometown, Denver, where I'm

originally from.

And I was there to honor my last living aunt, who was very dear

to me as very influential in my life and the life of my family,

particularly when we were younger.

And so was there for her memorial service and the

spreading of her ashes.

And so got home for that and spent time with my mom, who just

turned 94, with some of my siblings, my oldest son and his

wife, cousins.

And so I had a great time while I was home.

And then right down the hills of that, we traveled to upstate New

York for my wife Sherry's 50th high school reunion.

First one she's ever been to.

So I'm meeting some of these friends she's talked about.

We visited the gray site of her parents, spent time with her

sister, her brother, and one of her nephews, had a great time,

but got home, and then I sunk into a depression.

I have dealt with major depressions since 2013, and

hence my book, Born Out of My Own Experience.

Place I was in was the lowest I had been in a matter of years.

And I knew from that place and having been there before, I'm

not going to stay here.

And I will come out of this.

But it was a dark place and a low place, and haven't been that

low, as they said, for a matter of years.

So I was struggling with that and talked with my counselor,

certainly with my sweetie and with others, knowing it's just

going to be a matter of time.

I've got to work out of this, I've got to process through

this.

And I knew it was on the heels of a lot of things, the deaths.

It was not just the death of my auntie, but it was also the

death of two cousins.

One of my aunt's daughters, and then another cousin.

So it'd been three deaths boom, boom, boom, in short order in

the family, and then this trip, and then coming home, and things

just seemed to pile up, and there I was in that dark place.

SPEAKER_01: So powerful.

And I read your book.

Highly recommend this book, everyone.

We will drop the link in the show notes.

You are gonna want to check this book out.

But what you just shared with me, and what it reminds me of,

is one of the most poignant definitions of depression I've

ever heard was by the incredible Robin Williams.

May he rest in peace.

And I believe he said, My depression, clinical depression,

when I'm in it, I'm stuck on the couch.

And if someone says, Listen, there's a wand on the table

within reach of the couch, you just have to reach over and pick

it up, wave it over your head, and your depression will be

lifted.

He says, I am so depressed, I cannot pick up the wand.

And your book talking about that first real plane crashing moment

of being underneath your desk.

And I think I just want to, before you tell that story, I

want to reflect on the reality, those of us who struggle with

depression, it reminds me of those of us who struggle with

recovery.

Hopefully, the recovery is not a struggle, but the addiction,

we're never cured.

Like there's always going to be something with us saying, oh,

maybe it'd be better that way, or we can have dips.

So we have tools, spiritual tools, we have resources, we

have fellows, a counselor, perhaps medication, exercise,

different things to stay healthy as a horse, if you will.

But even then, there can be moments.

I would love to hear your thoughts on it, but mine is that

it has to be something beyond all of that.

All of that helps, but there's something else that pulls us

through.

So, anyways, I'd love to hear you touch on that and also tell

us that story of that plane crashing moment when you were

under the desk, especially for men speaking to some of our male

listeners.

SPEAKER_05: Yes.

I was the chief of department at Eisenhower Army Medical Center,

and there had been some problems in my department that I had

taken personal blame for.

And so I had been spiraling down for a period of months.

And it came to a head on April 14th, 2014.

I got early to my office as I normally did, first one on the

floor, typically.

Got to my office, unlocked the door, turned on the lights, and

stepped inside.

Then everything came crashing down upon me.

I had had it.

I just couldn't take it any longer.

I locked the door behind me, turned off the lights, closed my

blinds, turned off my phones, and then I crawled under my

desk.

And for the next four hours, I was laying under that desk on

that muskie carpet, asking myself, Skip, what are you

doing?

Skip, how did you get here?

You're a tough guy.

You're a colonel.

You're a combat veteran.

You're a national wrestling champion.

You're a tough guy.

How did you get here?

And then these scenes flashing through my mind, death,

destruction, and so many different scenes from the past,

not just from my military career, but from before, and all

of these scenes come floating through and agitating on this.

And then slowly I began to put the pieces together and what had

been going on the 10 months before isolation, uh, social

withdrawal, blue mood, loss of poor concentration, the loss of

uh the decisiveness, my loss of confidence, my uh poor libido,

the sex drive in the toilet.

So many things here that hit me, and then this anhedonia, what we

call in medical terms anhedonic, just this loss of joy of life.

It's like going through life in black and white.

And I describe it like I was in this deep, deep, deep, deep dark

hole, my head in a fog, slogging through a foot of mud.

There we go, you know, suck a bite up above.

That's what it felt like.

And finally, I couldn't understand your depressed.

SPEAKER_06: Go idiot.

SPEAKER_05: Wow.

I crawled out from under that desk with a little flicker of

hope.

And later that afternoon, I was in the office of a clinical

psychologist who confirmed the diagnosis of major depression.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, I just want to point out, I was counting them

for you.

You had nine.

Easier if I do it this way.

You gave us nine things leading up to this depression.

Nine that you could clinically say, oh my gosh, I have all of

these things going on.

I've had all of these things going on.

And I think a piece of the story, and correct me if I'm

wrong, but the way I remember it, is that you called to see

this clinical psychologist, psychiatrist.

You finally realized, like, uh, oh my God, light bulb, this is

what's happening.

Like the dim light in the dark depression.

This, wait, this is the diagnosis.

I need this help.

And they were like, we can't get you in till next week.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I called down to my primary care clinic and

said, because they had an embedded clinical psychologist

there.

And they said, Well, he can get you in next week.

So I scheduled the appointment and I sat there for about five

minutes, maybe I don't know, a few minutes.

And I thought, gee, I don't want to wait till next week.

So I called the chief of the department of behavioral health.

Being a colonel, I could call the chief, another colonel.

I knew each other by first name, explained briefly what was going

on.

He said, Let me help you here, Skiff.

Let me take care of this for you.

He made an appointment for me to see the clinical psychologist

that afternoon.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

I think part of why I find that story so important, especially

for those who may be struggling who are listening, is that first

call, if it doesn't go through and you're really not doing

well, you've got nine reasons not to wait another week.

Make the call again.

Maybe it's the voice in your head saying, No, you're not good

enough.

You'll have to wait, you'll just muscle through it.

Muscle through it.

Let's talk about that though, because depression, you can't

muscle through it.

SPEAKER_05: That was my modus operandi.

See, I was the tough guy.

And tough guys, what do we do?

We suck it up and we push harder.

In fact, we have that saying in the army, be all you can be.

We even have a saying in wrestling.

Gut it out.

You know, so this whole tough guy mentality is what helped

propel all this, helped me be in denial because that's how I

lived my life by just pushing harder.

When things got tough, I would just push harder.

And the harder I pushed, the more I spiraled down into that

deep dark pit.

And so I was in this where I couldn't see what was in front

of me.

I equipped with my brothers and family because I was coming out

and into recovery.

Gee, if I'd only been my own doctor, I would have diagnosed

myself so much sooner.

Yeah.

You know, it's right there in front of me.

All those cardinal symptoms.

I could not put the pieces together.

I could not see it for myself.

And I'm a trained physician.

I've treated how many patients, referred how many patients

couldn't see it.

SPEAKER_01: It's so powerful.

We can't see our own shadow.

SPEAKER_05: No.

SPEAKER_01: The only person in the room we can't see is us.

We see everybody else, but we don't see ourselves, right?

Oh, I got a good joke for you.

Okay.

I'm not a doctor.

I have no patience.

SPEAKER_00: I thought you'd like that one.

I thought you'd like that one.

But I think the other piece of that, I was just thinking, if I

bring it around, like I'm not a podcaster, I have no guests,

right?

SPEAKER_01: Like you can podcast by yourself and you can be your

own doctor, even say tired or you're no longer working with

patients.

We are always our first patient.

We are always our first guest to hear, to mirror, to deeply

understand and be true to.

And I think people listening, if they get nothing else out of

this, maybe they've never struggled with depression or

understood any of these feelings that you're experiencing.

I heard Sandra Bullock, she was getting interviewed for

Practical Magic 2 and all the things coming out.

And she said, if you live long enough, you're all going to

experience the same things.

You'll experience loss at some point.

You'll experience pain.

You'll experience love, you'll experience all the beautiful

things too, right?

We get to experience them all.

Like this is life.

This is what we train for.

SPEAKER_05: Yes.

SPEAKER_01: What has your experience of pulling yourself

out of the hole and then writing a book about it to help the next

guy or gal?

What has that experience been like?

And forgive me, I don't have the book here because I passed it on

to somebody who really needed it.

But I feel like you had sort of a list of things as you started

to kind of take some steps out to pass on to the next guy.

SPEAKER_05: Sure.

Well, first it was taking that major step of admitting I needed

help.

And so, as Kat is saying, if you're there, don't suffer one

more day in silence.

Go get help.

Admit that you need help.

If you're in crisis, call 988.

If you're a veteran or if you're a military member, 988 extension

one.

So get help.

You are never ever truly alone.

So that's the first step.

You may need professional help.

Certainly, I would recommend that.

Be evaluated by a professional.

And so I had the A-team.

I had my primary care doctor helping me.

I had the clinical psychologist whom I saw regularly.

I was seeing weekly there for several months.

And then a psychiatrist helping me.

And they worked so beautifully hand in hand and took such great

care of me.

I had a support system.

I had my sweetheart.

I had an extended family who were far away and friends who

rallied around me.

Once I opened up and explained what was going on.

And then the hospital staff there again, once I opened up

and said what was going on, were again so supportive.

So I had a great support system.

But there were other things that I learned that were beneficial.

Obviously, first thing the psychiatrist said, we got to get

your sleep.

And that was one symptom that I didn't mention, Cat, was my

insomnia.

It got to the point where if I would get one to two, I would

long for two hours of uninterrupted sleep.

If I could get that on a good night when things were at their

worst, I was grateful.

The insomnia was so horrible.

And he said, we got to get that on track.

So they worked to get that on track first.

And the first time I got seven hours of uninterrupted sleep, it

was like bliss.

It's like, oh my gosh.

It was amazing.

Getting the sleep there.

It was getting back and maintaining the exercise

routine, eating that healthy diet.

It's what I tell people if things are bad for the body,

they're bad for the brain.

And so an easy way of thinking about it.

If that nutrition is bad for the body, it's bad for the brain.

If your activity or lack of activity, more often than not,

if it's bad for the body, it's bad for the brain.

Lack of sleep.

If it's bad for the body, it's bad for the brain.

So easy ways to think about that is stay active, eat a nutritious

diet, and get your sleep.

But the other things is sunlight.

See, I had gotten away from in that withdrawal and in that

morose place that I've been.

I wasn't getting out in the sun like I normally did.

I wasn't sitting out on my deck.

I wasn't going for early morning walks.

I wasn't being out there drinking my coffee, doing things

where I'd normally be out in the sun.

I'd even closed the sunroof off in retrospect what I noticed in

my car.

I wasn't getting sunlight, which again is very beneficial in

certain pro hormones, certain things that we need there.

So getting out in the sun, laughter.

And so I talk about laughter.

One of my favorite verses, Proverbs 17, 22, a merry heart

doeth good, like a medicine.

A broken spirit drieth up the bones.

So laughter and promoting laughter, finding ways to

generate laughter.

And so I've learned that the importance of that.

Gratitude is the other thing there.

And one of the things about depression, it brings you into

this negative place where everything becomes negative.

Old grudges, you can become bitter.

Things that you think that you have forgiven now begin to rise

up.

At least they did, certainly did in my life.

And so now things that I thought, gee, decades ago and

years ago that I thought I had worked through with people began

to bubble to the surface.

Why is this coming up again?

I thought I had dealt with that.

And now you're wrestling with that again, and having to

forgive, having to work through those things.

Why is that?

Because everything is in this negative state.

And so forgiveness and dealing with bitterness and because

bitterness and unforgiveness, resentment, these are poisons to

the soul.

And they impact us not just psychologically, but they impact

us physiologically in very negative ways.

And so had to work through dealing with that and gratitude.

And the way I like to put it is what you appreciate appreciates.

And so the more grateful you are, the more gratitude you're

going to have.

So those were some of the things that now I teach on and talk

about, and how when you do these things, whether it's gratitude,

laughter, these type of things, how they can do things for your

body, how they calm the nervous system in terms of how they uh

dampen the sympathetic nervous system, lowering the blood

pressure, lowering the heart rate, lowering cortisol, but

then how they also raise things like testosterone, how they

promote healing, how they accelerate healing.

And so all these things are well documented.

And so, again, things that we can do and incorporate into our

daily life.

And the simplest thing that I talk about in terms of calling

this, and you certainly practice it and understand it, Kat, is

something we carry with us, and it's so easy to do, and that's

breath.

Because what happens when we get anxious, what happens when we

get perhaps angry and ramped up?

SPEAKER_06: We get more shallow with our breathing, and just by

simply now we calm our bodies, we calm our nervous system, but

we also

SPEAKER_05: Also, by doing that, allow us to engage our frontal

cortex rather than the more primitive part of our brainstem.

And so it allows us now by calming ourselves to now engage

the frontal cortex so we can make more rational decisions.

And so that simple act of it.

And so again, something we take with us every place.

And so again, you're going into a meeting, and you know it might

be a difficult meeting.

You're gonna have a difficult conversation, you get cut off in

traffic.

You can either get angry and do this kind of thing, or you can

again, we have those choices we can do.

And we carry that with us wherever we go.

SPEAKER_01: Totally so good, so powerfully.

Before our interview, I pulled some spirit cards, and those

listening first reveal that we are making some horse adventure

spirit cards for the holidays.

And this is the one I want to share with you, which I pulled.

When I feel blocked, emotionally distressed, or overwhelmed, I

turn to my breath.

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03: I totally pulled that one from miracle now.

SPEAKER_01: And then the other one I pulled, Skip, is I can

change my patterns when I change my mind about them.

And I think so much of your story and what you just talked

about as you began the unraveling of healing was the

little things, like, oh yes, wait, I haven't had sun.

I closed my sunroof.

And you probably don't remember that day that you used to have

it open and then you decided to close it because the sun just

felt too bright, or you just felt like, ugh, you needed to be

in the funk.

You just didn't even realize it because you couldn't see

yourself until the changed your perspective about it.

And you were like, right, what are the things I need to do as

my own patient to get better?

I need sunlight.

Ways I can get sunlight when I'm on the road, opening my sunroof,

right?

Like the perception of what we think we're doing to make

ourselves better.

Oh, I feel so sad.

I'm gonna get myself a cupcake, right?

My original life coach who I got certified through her

integrative life coaching program was the incredible

Debbie Ford.

And she had a whole chapter called The No Cookie Zone, which

is we have this culture that has kind of like bred us to be like,

oh, you get a prize, you get a cookie, you got a cupcake.

If you're good, I'm gonna give you candy.

And what a terrible thing to give our kids all this sugar.

You know, I mean, we could go down a whole rabbit hole just

talking about sugar.

But I feel like you had so many powerful mic drops.

And as I listed, like as you were going through all of your

symptoms, we counted over 10 of them, right?

And I know one of them was being a little bit overweight, like

not feeling your body because you'd had a bunch of injuries

that had taken you off the mat, put you on the bench, and then

call it the creeper had kind of snuck on.

And you're feeling different in your body, right?

Like just the oh, which is so much of my experiences of

depression, you're feeling different in your mind.

Your perception of everything is different.

Could you just say a little bit more?

Because we definitely have an obesity epidemic going on.

SPEAKER_05: Oh, thanks.

Thanks for reminding me about that, Kat.

So I'd had several injuries and surgeries that took me out of my

normal routine.

And with that, also some oral surgery that altered my diet, my

normal diet too, and with that, weight gain.

And I used to work out hard, and I do mean hard.

And one of the things I didn't realize in retrospective was

that I'm a component of anxiety.

And if you would have asked me before all that, was I an

anxious person?

I said absolutely not.

But I dealt with the anxiety by intense exercise.

And I would leave my office typically and go to the gym and

work out and get home late.

And Cheryl used to tell the kids, Dad will your dad will be

much better and feel much better if he goes to the gym.

And so this took me out of my normal routine, gained the

weight, but that body image, because I used to take pride in

how fit I was.

And on the fitness test, we used to have scales that would do

that.

And I like to score very high on that scale, and sometimes what

we call off the scale, and compete with the younger men and

took great pride in that.

I'm a tough guy, I'm a wrestler, this type of thing.

But you start getting the injuries and so forth, you can't

do that.

And that's certainly that change in body image.

It was like adding another layer, literally, of here's one

more thing that I'm struggling with.

Now this changed body image.

Now I can't exercise the way I want to.

Now I can't do that.

And oh, now I got this dunlapse lapping over the belt line that

I haven't had for a gazillion years now.

And it's like, oh man, look at this.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: Adding insult to injury.

SPEAKER_01: Insult to injury.

And I think again, coming back to our perception of ourselves,

our perception of what's possible, of change.

Like, I think age is so interesting because we only get

one one ten.

We only get 10 once.

It's the 11 in a day, one time, right?

And we're never gonna be 25 again.

But we can change our fitness age.

So, like those of us who know how to kind of do those things,

we can get really into these numbers and maybe to a fault,

you know, right.

Especially if there's something we need to change about our

perception of that.

Right.

We're going off on a tangent here, but I feel the silver

metal syndrome.

Have you heard of that?

SPEAKER_05: Yes.

SPEAKER_01: So, silver metal syndrome, just a quick

refresher.

What I'm referring to is on the Olympic podium or any top three,

the one who makes the silver, not the gold, they weren't the

best.

They were almost the best, right?

Struggles with what's called silver metal syndrome because

they didn't quite make it.

Whereas the bronze is like, hey, I made the podium.

I'm grateful, like that was awesome, right?

It's like, it's so interesting how we can get really hung up on

things that don't really matter.

They're not really what it's actually about.

And the medicine that you shared and the Dolly Parton, I feel

like we have a lot of spirits in the room from the other side.

I mean, she rest in peace working with us today, Skip.

But she said something to the effect of laughter heals things

other things can't.

unknown: Right?

SPEAKER_01: Like there's something about laughter, the

closest distance between two people.

And I can't remember who said that, but there's something

about it.

And I think the other thing is like the medicine, I'm a big

fitness enthusiast.

I'm a big enthusiast of getting to a healthy weight and

maintaining a healthy weight, which can sometimes be the

hardest part.

Like people get really hung up on the transformation journey.

But the whole point was to get there and stay there.

And similar to the journey of depression, the whole point is

not to go there again.

But if you end up there, knowing how to get yourself out to

maintain homeostasis and also knowing things are gonna come in

life because we live long enough, things are gonna come,

right?

Like we have food genes, we're gonna be hanging out into our

90s, friend.

Like this is just what's happening.

So, how are you gonna live your best life?

And I think so much of it, and especially for any veterans

listening, is processing trauma.

And we would be remiss.

This recording will probably drop in October, but we are

recording on September 11th.

And I'm really grateful to be speaking to a veteran.

Thank you for your service on September 11th to really touch

on dates and time and trauma.

Whatever happened, wherever you were, every single one of us has

a 9-11 story now.

This is just a point in time in our history.

And I believe we're at the 25-year anniversary today,

because it's 2026, right?

Is there anything you would say to someone who's like processing

a trauma on the day that they listened to this or are thinking

about a trauma, or maybe not knowing how to begin to process

a trauma?

You said you had all these thoughts, and as a veteran,

many, many do, from what I understand of things you'd seen

and things you'd done.

And what would you say about that?

SPEAKER_02: Let's say remember you're not alone.

SPEAKER_06: And the body keeps score.

SPEAKER_05: So some things we have to remember that things get

stored in our body.

And so there's this true physiologic change that takes

place that actually changes the conformation of our DNA.

And so with that, we need to do some things that changes this,

not just this.

And with this comes that first admission, I need help.

And because of that, uh getting help from trained uh

professionals, and sometimes that requires humility.

And some people say, Well, I just don't jive with a

counselor.

Well, then find another one, find another modality.

There's a variety of different modalities out there, different

things that can be tried and attempted.

Uh go to a different practitioner, find somebody you

gel with.

As I said, I had the A team taking care of me.

I had a fabulous clinical psychologist.

We're friends to this day.

And that experience that I had because we worked so well

together and had that therapeutic alliance made all

the difference.

And these people that took care of me, again, had such great

therapeutic alliances with them, knowing that they had my best

interest at heart and were taking such good care of me and

working together in conjunction with one another to make sure

that I got the care that I needed through all of this in my

last months there in the army.

And since then, you know, I've received great care.

So if you are dealing with trauma, understand we need help.

And we talk about it in the military.

We need our battle buddy.

You need battle buddies as you were struggling through that, to

walk through that, to process that.

So find those battle buddies that are trained to help you

work through that so you're not bearing that load alone.

SPEAKER_01: So powerful.

So powerful.

Thank you so much, Skip.

It has been so fun to get to hang out with you again.

I'm so excited I got to introduce you to our audience.

And people are gonna want to find you.

We will put all the links below in the show notes.

But for somebody who's listening, they're walking their

dog, they're in the sunshine, they're taking in the medicine

to take care of themselves.

How do you want people to find you?

Is there a website?

Where do they get your book?

SPEAKER_05: I think that the best place is to find me on

Facebook, just Donald Mondergon.

You'll see skip there.

I drop things and so forth.

That's the easiest place.

You can DM me, you want to contact me.

My book is on Amazon, is the easiest place you can find it.

Wrestling Depression is not for wimps.

And I'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to hear from men.

I love to help.

And Kat, again, thank you for all you do.

It's been delightful to spend time with you, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: Sending you all the love.

SPEAKER_06: Thank you, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.

And yeah, anyone listening, remember you're not alone.

Yes.

Remember, help is available.

Remember if you made the first call or you picked the first

card and it didn't work, pull another one.

Call another one.

Give it another day.

Try something else.

Because help is right around the corner and you deserve to live

your best life.

You don't have to do it alone.

So, hats off to you, sir.

Thank you so much for your medicine.

And until next time, friends, adventure on.

This transcript was automatically generated by the podcast creator and may contain errors. Aggregated via the PodcastIndex API.