The central theme of this discussion revolves around the profound psychological challenges faced by individuals transitioning from military life to civilian existence, particularly in the context of mental health struggles and the search for identity. The speaker articulates the harrowing experiences that led to feelings of depression and self-sabotage following their departure from the armed forces, exacerbated by the abrupt loss of routine and structure that had previously governed their life. They recount a journey through various coping mechanisms, including gaming and unhealthy habits, which ultimately served as distractions from their underlying issues. A pivotal moment of realization occurs when the speaker engages with a structured program that resonates deeply with their past military experiences, sparking a transformation marked by personal accountability and the reclamation of self-worth. This episode profoundly explores the complexities of navigating personal trauma, the influence of societal expectations on masculinity, and the significance of finding purpose in the aftermath of a significant life transition.

Links referenced in this episode:

• 5M
• GTA 5
• 75 hard
• Andy Frisella

Takeaways:

• The psychological ramifications of military service can persist long after leaving, requiring conscious acknowledgment and healing.
• Experiencing a lack of structured routine can lead to significant mental health challenges, including feelings of depression and lethargy.
• Engaging in fitness and disciplined programs can serve as a crucial means of reclaiming one's identity and purpose after a tumultuous phase.
• Social connections and shared experiences can play a vital role in navigating mental health struggles, providing support and understanding.
• Creative expression and content creation emerged as pivotal outlets during periods of darkness, facilitating personal growth and transformation.
• Confronting and naming negative internal dialogue can empower individuals to overcome mental health challenges and reclaim their narrative.

The exploration of the speaker's life post-military service reveals a tumultuous journey marked by mental health challenges and existential questioning, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The speaker candidly shares experiences of depression and the disorientation that ensued after leaving the structured environment of the military, which often precipitated a crisis of identity and purpose. The transition from a regimented lifestyle to the unstructured nature of civilian life is portrayed as a significant factor contributing to feelings of inadequacy and self-sabotage.

Throughout the discourse, the speaker reflects on the complexities of navigating emotional wounds and the societal expectations that often accompany masculinity. This introspection leads to an articulation of the struggles associated with mental health, including the allure of escapism through activities such as gaming and binge-watching, which served as coping mechanisms but ultimately exacerbated feelings of isolation and lethargy. The speaker’s narrative is underscored by a profound realization regarding the necessity of confronting one’s vulnerabilities and the importance of reframing internal dialogues that perpetuate negative self-perceptions.

In the latter portions of the episode, we witness the emergence of an ‘inflection point,’ a pivotal moment that prompts the speaker to seek out more structured approaches to life, thereby fostering a sense of accountability and purpose. This evolution culminates in a message of hope and resilience, encouraging listeners to acknowledge their struggles and pursue paths that lead to healing and personal growth. The episode serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of community and the sharing of one’s journey to foster understanding and support in the realm of mental health.

When you talk about, like, wounding and the areas that we struggle, you know, I.

I had a good career, but it was a very challenging one because I was.

Yeah, but it's not.

Not in the sense that, you know, I didn't.

I never deployed.

I never, you know, I was never in a combat zone per se.

And you know, I have my own reservations about that.

But, you know, I was, I was instrumental during COVID I, you know, had to.

I experienced military life in a way in which like every day was like a challenge to my very being to push me to.

To make me realize things.

But of course, you know, I had a lot of ego as well, so I chose not to acknowledge them.

And what I didn't realize was that this is what was really wounding me as a person so much.

So to the point where, like, after I left, you know, I struggled mentally.

Like, I.

Vague.

I remember.

I remember having like, moments where I genuinely felt as though I was.

Again, don't like to use the term loosely, but I genuinely believe I was depressed, very low energy, didn't want to get out of bed, got to the point where I was just like continuously getting in trouble for like, really silly things like turning up to parades late, you know, missing details because I, like, in my mind I was so fogged and so veiled.

I also got injured during training because I'm.

I'm quite a fit guy, like normally.

And so I got injured like properly for the first time.

And that just completely sapped my.

My whole like create, I guess, like ability to transmute that energy because that's also what fitness is.

So I'm a massive advocate for it because all that pent up energy was just like, it was just here, it was just sitting, it was festering.

And as a result, the byproduct of that was I just became this very like, lethargic, like, just didn't give a shit, you know, got very low and my vibration started to attract more and more of that.

But then I became a victim to circumstance.

You know, that didn't stop me from actually having a pretty good career and having the, you know, the reinforced beliefs that, you know, you're a good medic, good with people, etc, because innately that's who I am.

Like a healer.

Right.

And those are.

Yeah, those are aspects of myself that were sort of like, sort of separate.

Right.

Anyways, when I, When I left the army, the pandemic hit and you know, one.

One kind of.

I won't go into too much detail with what happened there, but throughout that time period.

I went through a very like, you know, they call like the dark phase.

Very dark phase.

I went from being like in a, in a state of existence where everything was governed by law, order, routine.

And even though I'm, I struggled with it at times, at least I knew.

At least I knew like, okay, 0, 700, you're up.

0, 800 is first parade, work detail until 12, lunch from 12 till 1.

Muster parade at half one work until five knockoff.

I had a routine, but then I went from literally having that routine to nothing at all.

And you know, I find myself like gaming until like the early hours of the morning.

It's actually kind of funny, right?

It's funny how the psyche, the subconscious mind tells you what you are craving.

Because I used to play GTA 5 role playing servers, right.

Are you, if you're like familiar with that, like the 5M servers where you basically create characters that take on the roles of like the non playable characters.

And I had two, I had two characters specifically.

One was an EMT medic, like doing all like the paramedic stuff and interacting with other players.

You know, he's basically helping our healing and all that stuff.

The other guy was like an LSPD police like SWAT officer doing all like the, you know, the, like the Rambo stuff.

Yeah.

And I just, you know, I didn't realize it at the time, but I.

Was like, sorry, Wild man esque.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

I mean it's, it's, it may sound a bit lame or whatever, but I, I realized, I realized in hindsight, like that's what I was craving.

I was craving like that order, the elements that I believed made me who I was because I mean, I was a, like a medic in the army.

Right.

And those are two aspects that were now split.

And I was trying to like find a way to reconnect with that, but it was very detrimental because again, the server only came to life at like 11 at night because they're in America.

So I'd spend like literally the entire night until the early hours of the morning just playing on these characters.

So much so to the point where I got so invested.

I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up and genuinely feel like I had to go and clock in for my shift.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, it was, it was bad.

And then like the spiral like descended into you know, like chronic porn usage.

I'm happy to like speak openly about this, you know, because I feel like a lot of guys need to also be able to vocalize These things in order to heal.

But, yeah, like, porn addiction, binge watching, Netflix.

I let myself go for the first time ever.

I was like.

I was.

I've never been, like, fat, but I was like, skinny fat.

Just let myself go.

Stop.

Going to the gym was just eating crap, like.

And I think that's also where I started to feel like maybe I didn't want to be here anymore.

You know, I would, like, I literally have thoughts.

I literally have thoughts was like, okay, well, I'm driving.

What if, you know, oh, here's a Tesco lorry pulling out.

What if I just floored it to 80 and just yank the wheel left?

You know, it's like, it got that specific right?

And then I was like, okay, no, something's not right.

Like, something's got to give.

And then so I'm kind of like, just like, giving, like, my.

My backstory here.

But there's a point.

There's a point, I promise.

That's where I guess, like, I saw, like, the one positive benefit to just doom scrolling on TikTok, because that's what I was doing as well.

I found.

I found a guy called Anthony Pashon named Anthony Pashon.

We're actually mates now.

He was showcasing himself doing the 75 hard program by Andy Frisella.

And I just, like, fell in love with this.

With this program because it just like, emulated military life, right?

Very regimented, very structured.

If you fail any of the criteria, you start from day one.

You have to do this for 75 days, right?

And so I attempted it, and I failed.

Then I attempted it the second time.

Got to about, like, day 60 something.

I think it was like, day 64.

And like a moron, you know, one of the criteria is you have to take a progress picture every single day.

I was absolutely just.

I was just destroyed, man.

But then, yeah, like an idiot, I didn't take the cell.

I didn't take the progress picture.

I was like, yeah, I was right.

I was gutted.

I was like.

I was like, recording this on Instagram and everything, and people like, oh, you did so well.

What happened, bro?

I was like, yeah, forgot to take my progress picture.

Damn.

But then, third time, this is also when I started to step into the creator role and, like, get more into, like, you know, videography, content creation, all that stuff.

I did it.

I did it for the first time because I was keeping myself accountable by making an Instagram reel every single day without fail.

You know, there's some days where I'd be like, my.

My girlfriend's House, Are you good?

And, yeah, dude, it'd be.

I'd literally be like, hanging out with.

And I was like, I haven't made a reel yet.

And at the time, I didn't have.

I didn't have my laptop, so I had to come back here.

I'd be like, driving home at like 2 in the morning, you know, across London to get that reel out.

Because, like, no, I've made that promise to myself.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think that's where a big turning point kind of came around for me.

It was like, oh, so you actually can keep promises to yourself?

Because my narrative was, well, you never keep the promises to yourself.

Like, you never keep the promises to yourself, therefore, you're good for nothing.

Loser.

Yeah, you might be a good medic, but then what are you outside of that, you know?

And it's like I realized, like, this is how these behaviors were manifesting into my 3D, because I would literally find anything that I could, even if it meant subscribing to a video game, to latch onto that state of thinking, that paradigm.

And then once I started to do something to break the shift, I feel like this is where everybody, everybody, like, even I say everybody.

But then I also would say specifically men.

Nowadays, every man goes through a moment in his life where he will question his own mortality, he will question his meaning on Earth.

He will go through a dark space where nothing makes sense.

But then something will come to the fore in the.

Presenting itself as, like a creative skill, an idea, you know, seeing like a program that just resonates with the soul point.

You make that connection, that soul connection.

You know what I mean?

I call that an inflection point.

Right.

Because that now allows you to hit that point and be like, right, I either commit to this thing and see where it goes.

I don't know anything.

Like, I'm going in completely blind, but I'm going to see what I'm made of.

Or I stay here, I orbit around that point.

And then you'll have to just basically navigate that same trajectory until another inflection point comes, if you're lucky.

Because a lot of people get so caught up in the veil and then they're in permanent dark mode.

Yeah.

But, yeah, that was like essentially my.

My dark phase.

And then a lot of light and good came from that because from the videography and the editing.

Why, we can't come to that video editor, can we?

Before we get on to the good bit, can we just.

I just want to go over some things on the dark phase because so.

Because.

Just so that I don't.

Yeah, go ahead, Go ahead.

So I love that idea of the.

The inflection point.

I think that's really interesting.

There are, in recent years, we've had this sort of societal transgression against what it is to be a man and sort of what it is to have, like, a purpose and a meaning.

And it's been bastardized and it's been completely and utterly distorted in a negative manner.

And the whole point.

And it's very incredibly wrong and amoral.

But the whole point of what you've just said, I don't know if it is exclusively the masculine drive, which isn't just for men.

It's for anybody.

Because, you know, obviously you're more aware than probably I am.

The masculine and feminine sort of dichotomy of life, the masculine drive is to find a point of purpose.

And it is to bring meaning to yourself and to those around you.

And it is exceptionally vital for the individual.

And it's also exceptionally vital for the society is how the society benefits.

Because the whole point is that you spread those fruits with the people around you and you bring everyone up.

And there are.

There are recounts of men who were in, like, mental hospitals during World War II, who literally just got out of bed and went and drove ambulances and things like that during the war.

And.

Which is phenomenal.

So a lot of.

Not really necessarily, it's another tangent.

But a lot of people will talk about the difference.

The difference in therapy between men and women and how men actually don't really.

They don't need therapy as such, in the sort of traditional sense.

It's.

They need to be.

Feel like they're imbued with a sense of meaning.

And that is their therapy.

And I always think sport, that's therapy for men.

Because in this.

I think sport is therapy for men.

And I think television and drama is therapy for women.

And I think it's something.

I don't know.

I just have this idea.

And obviously I'm generalizing, but I'm.

I don't.

I'm not gonna emphasize that idea too much.

Cause I think there is some truth to it.

There's something about being exposed to something that allows you to sort of separate yourself out and watch people channel their own internal sort of life events and put.

And project it onto sport or onto their own.

The television that they're watching.

It's sort of.

It's a different.

I don't know is.

I haven't quite fully formed the idea.

But anyway, going back to Just one little thing I thought I wanted to say is you should definitely, because obviously Tom and, and men's mental health get someone on the podcast who's like a, A corn expert in sense of, like, helping men overcome corn addiction.

Because I feel like that would be something that would be really.

I had, I had a guy on who was, it was pretty decent, but there's, there's must be loads of them, and Tom could get in contact with someone, so that.

Just another little thing that I thought would be interesting if, if you're interested in telling Tom.

Keep that load, man.

Yeah, exactly.

And I just want to, I just want to sort of go back to the beginning of what you said, which is, what was it about?

When did the sort of depression kick off?

During the.

Or the.

Not depression, but the sense of feeling low and feeling down, for lack of better terms.

What do you think it was?

Where did that originate?

Because I think I didn't quite get that bit.

When you, when you were talking was.

Did that only occur after you left the army, or was that, did that start during it?

No.

So from the time that I was a little boy, so I, Yeah, it.

We'll go, we'll go, we'll go deep.

So I had, I had, you know, I, I, I, it's, it's much less significant now.

I had a very deep father wound.

Mom and dad divorced when I was two years old.

They have their reasons, but a large, A large reason of why I ended up feeling the way I did was because my narrative was all I wanted to do was spend time with my dad, you know, even when I was growing up here in the UK and like, he's got a successful business and everything like that, he remarried and whatever, and they would go on their own trips and everything like that.

That's fine.

But whenever we would spend time, I always felt like I was being, like, almost like, conscripted into the war that he was still fighting.

And that made me feel very insecure in my.

The, the war was just like, oh, you know, your mother left and okay, I took you around away, and like, you know, she's bad.

We are good.

Come back to us, you know, you know, kind of like switch over from the dark side to the, to the Jedi, you know?

Right.

But yeah, you know, without going into, like, the gory details of that, I want to give you the depth, which was basically.

Now, in hindsight, I can see, okay, that's what was called a father wound, because there's also the absence of a father.

I mean, I, yes, and no, because I also have my stepdad here who I have a fantastic relationship with.

But at the core of it was, is like from those experiences I started to create a belief within myself that I needed to be this like iron fortress of a human being.

So if, if there was anything that like was even remotely hinted that I could be a little bit flawed, I like immediately rejected it with such prejudice.

But the problem is what you give attention to manifests.

And so that's when I started to like essentially self sabotage, right?

And I would like freak out, like fully just be like, what kind of.

A man am I?

And all this stuff.

And that just gave, you know, again, that's when it would give rise to like the depressive thoughts because I would always do tasks like half fulfilled.

I would start turning up late to like, events and you know, things.

Right.

I mean it didn't do all the time, don't get me wrong.

But it was just whenever those moments had, it then started to anchor that belief of, yeah, yeah, see, you're useless.

Yeah, see, can't do shit.

Yeah, see.

And so, so that's when I started to feel like, yeah, I mean, you tell yourself something enough times, it becomes a narrative and then those, that narrative then shifts your paradigm and then that paradigm then, then sort of governs the way in which you respond or react.

And I started to feel like really low.

I started to feel really like unconfident within myself.

Even though despite other people saying, well, you know what you're doing, you're actually very switched on.

Like what?

Like, like what?

And I used to just kind of like not believe it because I just felt like, ah, well, they're just saying that because they want me to feel better or they're just saying that, you know, there's always an excuse when you're in victim mode, you know, always an excuse.

You could literally win the, the lottery and everyone would be like, oh my God, we're so happy for you.

And you just create some, some excuse to just psych yourself out.

Yeah.

So that's kind of the main reason that sort of took me there.

You know, I would explore absolutely everything, but then we'd be here for like six hours.

But, you know, that was like the main thing, right?

It was just like this limiting belief that came from the fact that I just felt as though I wasn't worthy enough for my dad.

Felt like I had to almost be like a double agent in the relationship that I had between my mother and my father.

And that then began to like sort of manifest within me.

So I was literally like my own double agent.

I would do something really good and empower myself and then immediately seek to sabotage it because I was like, nah, this can't be real.

Dreams only happen to people who are successful and cool and not you.

You're not worthy.

So, yeah, it's all well and good, you know, you managed to, like, perform that osce and lead that medical exercise perfectly.

But we now need to tip the scales back.

So guess what?

You're going to be late for muster parade.

You're going to get pulled up or disciplined or whatever it is, because, yeah, you don't get to be consistently good.

That's what the narrative was and that's what led me down that mental decline.

Yeah, I was speaking to a girl on my.

I was speaking to a girl on here a couple weeks ago and we were talking about ocd and we were.

And she was saying how OCD completely sort of wrapped her.

Completely constricted her life to the point of.

OCD is a really, really awful disease.

Actually.

It's.

I think it is.

It is.

Yeah, it is.

I used to have it.

Yeah, no, well, I was gonna say.

I think that makes sense.

I.

I think.

And I.

I did as well.

Growing up, to be fair.

Not in the.

There's sort of two forms of ocd.

There's primarily the.

The contamination type, which is.

Or the.

The.

The ritualistic type.

So turning on lights 50 times, becoming.

Literally, it's more of a.

It's an external manifestation of restrictions that just keep growing and growing and growing until people.

Because some people end up in awful positions.

And then the.

Oh, yeah, sort.

Yeah, literally.

And then the other type is more mental and it's internal dialogue.

And just from what you were talking, it sounds a bit like that.

And it is.

Like the way I overcame my sort of obsessive thoughts was I had to put a name on the voice in my head.

I had to, like, sort of create a character.

And I had.

It sounds quite sort of juvenile, but actually it really worked.

And I just used to go, here's such and such.

He's piping up again.

And I.

Because what's so awful is obviously, as you're well aware, every time you feed the sort of.

The sensation that you get from.

Maybe this isn't quite relevant to you, but someone with ocd, the sensation that they get when they complete a task, that sense of relief is such an addictive feeling, but it just compounds the issue.

Obviously.

I'm not saying anything new.

This isn't new.

Ground, but it just makes the thing worse.

And then it makes the stim.

The.

Then the feeling that you get if you don't do something grows, but so does the feeling, the, the positive emotion that you feel after you do it.

And it sounds like you were just getting in this spiral where this voice, you know, this, this voice in your head, this little devil thing sat on your shoulder, was just sort of whispering things to you all the time.

And it was just.

And you know, I completely get it and it's.

It's absolutely awful.

And this, this.

The, the.

The.

The.

Just before we go back to you, the girl I was speaking to said the way that she overcame it was she had to be courageous and she had to just sort of sit with it and go, I'm not going to give you.

I'm not going to give in.

I don't like using the term giving, but you know what I mean?

I'm not going to go with what it is you want me to go.

I'm just going to challenge it.

So, I mean, to be fair, you literally just did say that you used to have ocd.

Can you align with that sort of devil voice?

That was just 100%.

I mean, even, even to the point where I like gave it a name.

So mine was Travis.

Travis, Nice.

Travis.

Yeah, that's Travis.

And the funny story, I'll give you the quick tldr and the Trevor.

Not.

Not quite.

This is Travis.

Yeah, yeah, that's Trevor, but no Travis.

So Travis.

Travis came from.

When I was in school, actually.

I was in year six.

Yeah, I was.

Bearing in mind my name.

My name is a.

Is a.

Is a Hindi Indian name.

It's very hard for people, especially when you look at the, the.

The spelling.

People over here, like, lose their minds.

They're like, what, Sravan?

Scriven?

Sravan.

They call me all sorts of stuff.

Literally my peer group.

No, bro, literally.

And you actually want to know something really quickly?

Just a quick, quick, quick sort of like sidestep.

Yes.

Someone used to call me Scriven.

Like S, C, R, I, V, E, N.

How Right.

Is a bit too far.

Funny thing is that's a bit.

Yeah, it's a bit of a piss take.

Right.

Completely.

I'm a big.

I'm a big.

I'm a big believer of like, names mean things.

Right.

Names are part of identity.

So if you don't know someone's name, like I would deliberately take time to learn someone's name.

Right.

Yeah, of course.

It's easier with like the Anglo English names.

But then if someone's got like an Italian name and there's like a little bit of like a, you know, like a inflection in, in the pronunciation or whatever, I will make sure I learn that.

Yes.

So anyways, the whole Scriven thing, it's hilarious because I connected with a guy from Dan Co's community in Cortex.

His name is Christo Scriven.

And he was like, that's.

That's wild.

Like how you know that that's become a thing.

It's like the name that people falsely called you is literally my last name.

I was just like, like, lol.

We're going back to the, the whole like, Travis thing.

So Travis was the name that my friends gave me.

And a big part of like, I guess my inner shame was because I got so embarrassed about my name.

I also got.

I was.

I also went through this phase of like, wanting to like, renounce my identity and like, you know, deny the fact that I had like, Indian heritage.

And I was just a bit of.

A bit stupid.

But then I was like, no, just call me Traps.

My name's Traps.

My name's Trapper.

I went so far to the point why I think, bro, I even had my name changed by Deep Pole.

I had it included into my name.

So Shravan, Travis Alopi.

And then I just kind of became like my name, my moniker.

But then as I started to become more and more myself again, or actually rediscover, and I've started to go by this name again.

My.

My birth.

My birth name.

And I've.

I've since then removed Travis.

What I realized was Travis the manifestation.

Yeah, RIP Travis.

Right, the.

But the thing is, Travis was the manifestation of all the repression, all the depression, all the angst, the hates, the self loathing.

Travis was like the alter ego essentially, who was also like the boisterous, like, army lad.

Yes.

I was never that guy.

That's not who I was.

But it's like, like, I mean, look at me.

Do I look like the tablet guys?

You know, let's.

Let's lads get the pints in, like, you know, all that stuff.

Not who I am at all.

And, and I even had, you know, my mother and a few people.

Travis is.

Travis is.

Travis is a fucking weapon.

Sorry, excuse my French.

I don't know.

No, it's all good.

But yeah, he's.

He's an absolute weapon.

Right?

And then.

And I was like, okay, you know what?

It's time for Travis to go, because that's never who I was.

It's not who I want to be, and that's not the vibration that I want to be vibrating at.

And since then, I've done a lot of the inner work, a lot of work to understand myself.