Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 123

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. My father, suicide, gatekeeping information from other family members, being unable to escape what I saw 2. I ran from an active shooter and now I feel like a pussy 3. How do you reassure your family about the possibility of death in dangerous occupations 4. My wife and I are worried about the risk to your high school son if he plays football Enjoy

Good morning, everybody. Probably listening to this on a Friday, if you're listening to it the day that it came out, which you know is going to be a Q&A. It's actually going to be Fall Out of Friday number 123. Numbers are getting up there. Doesn't feel like I've done this 123 times, but here we are. First question today is a little bit heavy, and we're going to start with that one and maybe trend towards happier. I don't know, less heavy towards the end. It's a tough one, though.

So here we go. Full out of Friday, 123. Enjoy. Close now. All right, people, here we go. Like I said in the intro, first question here is a little heavy. Spoiler alert or perhaps a warning. We're going to be talking a little bit about suicide and some pretty graphic details that this individual sent me via email. I think it's important to do so.

I think this topic is critical. And I don't think anything gets solved or made better by shying away from it. So I'm just going to dig into it and I'll give you my thoughts and we'll move on to something perhaps a little bit less heavy. I never thought I'd have to write to you again. I messaged you back in April or March about my struggles with depression in the Army. I ended up almost killing myself on April 3rd and got med boarded out the end of July. I have been home about a month and I've been doing really well until three days ago. My dad has been dealing with mental health problems for a few years and they got bad a few months ago.

He's also an alcoholic. And it got bad the other night. At around 1145, he went into the garage and shot himself with a 9mm through the soft palate of his chin. I heard the gunshot, which didn't sound like a gunshot. I heard the door open and close. My dogs go crazy. And then our gate in the house is open.

There was a weird moaning the entire time. My mom went downstairs to calm the dogs down and started screaming for me, so I rushed downstairs. There was a super long trail of blood going from my garage to my front door, which is about 40 to 50 yards. I went the wrong way initially, and my mom screamed from the other direction, so I turned around, and he was leaned up against a wall, completely covered in blood and struggling to breathe. I tried to assess him while he was sitting up, but his airway was obstructed, so I laid him down, and then I saw the bullet hole in his mouth.

his face was i don't know how to explain it it just wasn't a face anymore there was severe swelling his jaw was fractured in half blood was pouring from his chin and his mouth i realized he was already dead and it was just his body trying to get oxygen so i said my goodbyes my mom was on the phone with 911 during all of this and she could not communicate like she forgot her name her phone number and her address so i took the phone from her and i told her to say her goodbyes i talked to dispatch and then went into our garage to unload the gun. There was obviously blood everywhere. There were teeth and a part of his jaw on the ground as well.

And then, on my way out, I slipped on a pool of blood and ate shit, covering myself even more in blood. Dispatch laughed, and honestly, I did too. And then there's the sheriffs. And then the sheriffs got there and declared him dead on scene due to exposed brain matter. It took about 24 hours to get the smell of his feces out of my nose. and the hazmat crew cleaned up the following morning but missed some and there was a lot so i've spent the last few days cleaning and recleaning my sister lives upstate and didn't see anything my mom saw the body and part of the trail of blood but remembers almost nothing i saw everything every

handprint every smear every breath every moment his hands made or every movement his hands made before he went limp i remember my mom's scream i can still see the blood on the walls and on the floor I close my eyes and I'm back there again. I'm gap keeping a lot of information and making sure my family doesn't know the worst detail is because they're struggling with the minor things. The blood doesn't bother me and honestly, him abandoning us without saying goodbye doesn't bother me either. What bothers me is that I couldn't save him and I know that it's my dad's blood and not just blood. I just adopted a lot of responsibility and already feel like I'm drowning, having to talk to family and tell them because my mom is struggling to, having to comfort her and comfort my sister. It's a lot

to say the least. How do I get through this? I'm not sure where to start besides just starting. Whenever I ran into a problem, I would call him, and now I can't. I'm not suicidal anymore, and people are worried I am, but I can never put someone through what I've just gone through. Thank you for letting me talk things out. Fuck, like I said at the beginning, relatively heavy. I believe the title of your email, which I cut out, and for people who don't know this, I actually, what I do is I cut and paste the emails so I can't accidentally read names. And what that means is I lose the subject matter in the email. But I'm pretty sure this one was my suicide attempt caused my father to take his own life. It was something to that effect.

And I'm going to start there and with this very small portion. of a sentence that you wrote. And that is what bothers me is that I couldn't save him. Neither your suicide attempt nor anything that you did caused this or would have saved him. There's really nothing that I think that you could have done or that anybody could do once somebody gets into a place that they are committed to take this type of action. Could you have removed his firearm if you knew that he even had one to begin with? theoretically, yes, you could have. Would that have stopped it? Maybe it would have stopped it that night. But in the end, people who are that committed are going to find another mechanism

to achieve the end state that they're looking for. The first thing that I would recommend that you do is to try to give yourself a little bit of grace and realize that what happened is not your fault. Your father chose to take the actions that he did, and that is not your fault. That is not anybody else's fault. And based off the email that you have already sent in, what I would say is the backpack you're carrying is very, very, very, very, very heavy. And you don't need to put any additional weight into that or onto yourself. So perhaps start there. I can understand why people would be concerned, you know, if you had expressed suicidal ideations in the past and then being this close to it. I'm really glad that you're not in that place and that you're at a place where

you realize you would never want to put somebody through this. You mentioned that you're gatekeeping information from extended family. You know, I'm not an expert on this by any stretch, but I would say, in my opinion, that's probably a good thing. I'm sure they obviously know that he took his life, and they may know how he took his life. But even just the details of the email that you sent in, the description, the smells, the things that you saw, the sounds, the movements of the body, their life is not going to be made any richer by knowing those details, and it might actually cause them to struggle a little bit more. Everybody's different, obviously.

I think most people would probably be satisfied with knowing that somebody took their own life by shooting themselves. If there is a family member that for whatever reason wanted to dive into more details, I guess you could do it on an individual basis. But I think the gatekeeping of information is probably a good idea. It just is not going to enhance their life anyway. It's not going to help them understand what happened anymore than they do right now because what took place took place.

Nothing can take that back. And you have already seen the impact that experiencing those things has had on you. Why would you want to put that onto somebody else? Again, I'm not an expert, but that's what my initial opinion lands on the gatekeeping. As for your mom and her inability to, you know, her phone number, where she lives, all that stuff. very classic symptoms of shock that shouldn't surprise you. What I would say is be cautious with your mom because even though she may not remember what she saw right now in the moment, her body, eyes, ears, nose, probably uptook, but maybe

hasn't processed yet the information that those senses brought in. And that could come crashing down on her at some point in time. So keep an eye on her is what I'm saying. And for you, you are struggling with what you saw, knowing that it was your father's blood and just not somebody's a random person. Not that it would make it any better. This is a very traumatic experience for somebody to come upon. And maybe it's worth the time to explain. TVs and movies.

movie, TV and movies. I'm not so sure when it comes to death, how well they have served anybody in the world in the way that they portray it, where death, you're alive and then boom, death is instantaneous. And certainly there are times when that's the case. When it comes to a ballistic nature, people taking their life with a firearm or people being shot with firearms, my experience is that it's the exact opposite of what is portrayed on TV. And it's almost always what you are describing in this email. It's not instantaneous. Oftentimes, it's very protracted.

Your father was alive for a period of time, obviously, to travel that distance. And, God, I mean, there's no way, there's no way to gently land around this. It probably was extremely painful. what you encountered with the twitching of the body and the body's gasping for breath. Not uncommon. As you identified, your father had left, depending on whatever your beliefs are. You know, it was at that point your father had passed. The human body is an amazing machine.

It will fight to survive. And that instinctual breathing and the twitching super common. Very hard for people to wrap their head around. and it can leave a very deep mark, especially when it surprises them when you see that because you think it's just going to be this passive. I mean, passive isn't the best word,

but this very crisp setting where you arrive at it, and it's like, well, fuck, this is what it is. And then that's not what it ends up being. It can be very, very sloppy, which is a super non-articulate way to put it. But I just, when it comes to situations like this, I think maybe being more blunt, is a little bit better.

So everything that you saw is, I think, probably more often than not the norm. It's not going to make it any easier for you dealing with it. What I'll say is this, everything that you're talking about where you're having, closing your eyes and you're right back in that moment, you had an experience, you know, where you, the smell stuck with you for a long period of time. All I can say to you is this. There are people out there who absolutely specialize. and talking with somebody like you and talking with somebody who has survived traumatic events.

And you're not going to go talk to somebody and you're going to be okay in an hour. That's not going to be the case. It may take you a very long time to unpack this and actually reframe how you think about this. You're never going to be able to forget any of the things that you saw. That's not what therapy does, at least in my experience. Everything that you wrote down in detail, you will remember for the rest of your life. But you can change how those memories impact you. And you can reframe how you think about those things.

And I really hope that you can find a way to give yourself some grace and not blame what happened on you or not blame yourself for not being able to save this person. You opened with, you know, your dad had been dealing with mental health problems for a few years and he was an alcoholic. So imagine being in the throes of a mental health struggle. You're in a valley and then you throw alcohol on top of that, which is obviously a depressant. You know, I don't know a lot of people to include myself that would make good decisions. in that moment. And none of that is your fault. I'm really sorry that you had to experience something like this. Very few people actually do. And it leaves a mark. And like I said, you know, everybody has a cup. And right now it sounds like you are pouring from your cup,

your emotional capacity to care for other people, to gatekeep information, to make sure that everybody else is doing okay. You need to guard against your and make sure that your cup doesn't run empty. Because if it does, all the things that you described are not going to, they're not going to reemerge their heads in a good way. And like you opened the email with, your own struggles with depression. Imagine if you were to slide back into that, and then these things resurface. It's the last thing that I would want for anybody. So you need to be very, very proactive. I think it's very honorable what you're doing and trying to be, you know, the glue or the pen that holds this together for your family. But make sure you are taking the time

for yourself and go talk to somebody. Find somebody to talk to about these things until you can reframe them in your own mind and they are having less of an impact than they are right now. You said in your email you don't know where to start other than to just start and I think that's the best thing that you can do. Try to make it to the end of the day. Every day, do the best that you absolutely can and then have some empathy and grace for yourself. And if that doesn't work, wake up in the morning and try to make it to lunch. Go sit down in a room, lay down for a bit, take an hour, recompose yourself, give yourself some rest, and then make it to the end of the day. So do the best you can, but chunk your days or your weeks into the shortest period of time

that you can tolerate and then build upon that. So build that momentum in a good direction. and you have to give it some time. I mean, this is obviously super fresh, so it's going to be the most difficult to deal with. But I think all the things that I had talked about, the things that you could do for yourself will help in the future. And that's it. I hope that that helps.

Incredibly sorry that you'd have to live through this and experience this. And I wish you the best. Please reach out and let me know how things are going. All right. Number two. I was in flight school at NAS Pensacola on 6th December 2019. when a Saudi flight student decided to shoot up the aviation pre-flight in-dock building on base.

You know, I just realized I said that the first question was a heavy one and we were going to lighten it up from there. I obviously am a liar because I forgot what the second question was. So who the fuck knows where this week's episode's going, but we're on the ride together. I, as well as many of my peers, happened to be walking in that morning just as he began shooting up the place. I was in my service, Charlie's, which I'm going to have to look that up, as we had to wear dress uniforms on Friday morning to go check. check in for the day. I only say this because I didn't have shit on me as a weapon, not even a knife. I consider myself a capable, physically, and mentally fit guy. I like to train hard in the

gym and I shoot my pistol frequently. Before that day, I would have told you I would run to violence, not away. But when I turned the corner in the hallway and heard rounds popping off and shell casings hitting the floor, I turned and ran with the rest of my peers. I have thought about this moment every day since. When it came down to it, I didn't stay to fight or try to find those wounded to help them. I turned and I ran like a bitch. Instead of confronting the shooter, I ran around the parking lot in relative safety and comfort, making sure people didn't go into the building in my weak, spineless attempt to feel like I was doing something. At the time, one of my best friends was trapped inside the building, hiding, and one of my peers who was on duty was bleeding out

and crawling out the front door to alert PMO what was going on. I don't know what PMO is, actually. Obviously, it's easy to look back on situations with all the info that you didn't have at the time and critique what you did. But the bottom line is I heard shooting. New people inside were likely shot, and I ran to save myself just like everyone else. My question is, what would you have done? And because I think I know the answer, and it'll likely make me feel worse,

how can I shape and force myself into being the kind of person that doesn't, doesn't tuck his tail and run like a pussy. Like I said, I train hard, I am proficient in shooting both pistol and rifle. I conceal carry everywhere, parentheses, not an option on base, but I can't shake the feeling that I know I have already once run in the face of violence. What will happen with my wife and kids in town when I need to be there, when I need to be ready? I can never change what I did. How do I make sure it can never happen again going forward?

Sorry for the long email. If you take the time to read this, then thank you. Well, first and foremost, why don't you take a wrap off and give yourself a little bit of a break here? You're really proficient at shooting both pistol and rifle, and you conceal, carry everywhere that you go except for when you're on base. So you didn't have a viable weapon system to use against somebody who did have a weapon system. It sounds to me like when you entered the building, you didn't know how many people were shooting. You heard gunshots. you had no understanding of the size of the enemy force that you may be facing you had no

understanding of what their armament and capability may have been you were at a place in time where you had distance and space which allowed you to make the decision that you did so I actually don't know what you would have expected yourself to do in this situation it's really easy to say, or when you have, you know, when you write here, because you think, you know, the answer to what you think I would have done, or your question specifically was, what would you have done? And because I think I know the answer, and it'll likely make me feel worse, you actually don't know what I would have done. And I don't know what I would have done in this situation either. Active shooter situations are really fucking gnarly. We've got a lot of data to show that they are extremely, extremely dangerous and

deadly. If you have a weapon, well, there's a couple things. One, if you don't have a weapon, let's say you're actually in the room and you see somebody come into the room with a weapon. Your options at that point in time are very limited. The worst option would be just to hit the floor and cower in place. Depending on who the person is and how they're behaving, you may have a better chance of survival and saving other people.

if you actually close the distance with that person and can actually wrap them up and prevent them from aiming effectively with that weapon. In the course of doing so, are you risking losing your life? Yes, you absolutely are, much like you are if you do nothing. But it also could allow other people to join you in that action and then overwhelm that shooter before the shooting can even begin. Now, that's like a pie in the sky perfect case scenario. For that scenario to play out, you would have needed to be in that room. You would have needed to understand exactly what was happening. Instead, you came down a hallway and you heard gunshots.

I don't know what I would have done in that situation because the safest way to engage an armed threat is to be armed yourself. Hapazardly running towards an unknown threat may not necessarily be the best idea. You had almost no information at that time period. And if you had rushed down the hallway and gotten shot in the head and fallen down dead, having never been able to actually even change the behavior of the shooter, that wouldn't have bought you anything either. So even though you would have run towards the sound of the guns, you would have died having accomplished nothing. Going with the group that you were with and providing yourself more space and distance probably was the better call in that situation. what I would say. And again, I don't know exactly what I would have done. It's so easy to say, oh, like, because of my military background, I'd fucking run to the sound of the guns. And I don't

care about any of that shit. I'm always going to go in and get involved and try to stop it. And the reality is, if you don't have the tools or the training to make a positive impact, that may not be the right case. And it's really easy to sit here and say, oh, yeah, that's what I would do. and then throw yourself into that environment and super limited information. You actually don't really know what's going on. It's not, I mean, I can see myself going in the other direction. Now, what I probably would try to do if I went in the other direction, and I already know that getting armed or arming yourself in this situation would have

been impossible for you. That's, I mean, that's how I would think about this situation. Let's say if I were to transpose this to a grocery store and I walk into a grocery store and let's say for whatever reason I couldn't conceal carrying that source of my my gun is in my car. If I heard something like this happen, I don't know if I would rush directly at the person. I might likely, and I probably would, go back to my vehicle, arm myself, so it's at least a level playing field, and then go try to have as much impact as I possibly could.

You know, running headlong into an ambush just so you could say that you ran handlong into an ambush is fucking stupid. The point that you would want to have here or the impact that you would want to have would be to either stop this or to save people's lives. So the best thing that you probably could have done this situation was since you already had space and distance would be to increase that and get on a phone and try to get a higher level of response there as fast as humanly possible. I wouldn't fault you if you ran towards the sound of the guns. But the better move instead of running directly towards the sound of the guns is to go that way and then flank them and then have a plan. You didn't have the ability to necessarily do that.

The people in that room when it first started were actually probably the only ones that had the opportunity to stop it before it began or shortly after it began. But they would have to act almost immediately. The rest of you just didn't have the information to make a good decision. But you could let a higher level of care or a higher level of response know what was happening. You could inform them to the best of your ability as to the situation. Beyond that, I mean, I don't know necessarily what you would have expected of yourself. you know guns are great until you get in a gunfight and you don't have one you know there's there's really no way around that uh could you possibly have rushed in there and jumped on the guy from

behind yes you possibly could have um and and who knows how that would have played itself out but you didn't and you're being extremely hard on yourself because you found yourself in a tactically advantageous position and instead of choosing to engage you chose to retreat which is not a term or maybe withdrawal, right? We can reframe that a little bit. You chose to withdraw and do what you could on the outside of the building. I suspect if you would have been armed, something different would have happened. I suspect you probably would have driven forward and engaged the shooter. Problem with military bases is even though people and maybe people listening to this don't realize, it's not a lot of guns on military bases. Most of that shit is locked up at all times or the military police has them. But like in the, uh, Where are you on flight school? There are fucking guns at flight school. You guys aren't rolling around there with ARs and M4s ready to go. So the person in there who had the gun is the only fucking person who had a gun.

I think the situation would have been totally different. It's obviously had an impact on you. So what I would say is double down on your training. I would go seek out some force-on-force training if I were used, some ammunition type stuff, maybe even some paintball stuff, where you can actually wargame some scenarios that have consequences. And by that, I mean it's painful if you get shot. And you can test yourself in those environments. I think those are very good to start building up that inoculation against stress

and to really drill down on those immediate actions that you are going to take. But the biggest thing in all of this is, you need to give yourself a little bit of a break. You're not a pussy and a variety of other words that you use to describe yourself. You get caught in an ambush. You know, the number one thing you need to do to get out of an ambush and survive is to maneuver. You did maneuver. You weren't armed. And now you're second-guessing yourself because you didn't rush into a shooting with just your bare hands.

Which, and again, I'm not saying I wouldn't. Like, if it was at my school, if it was at my kid's school and I didn't have a gun on me, yes, I'm fucking going in. If it's at a grocery store and I don't have my gun on me, I'm going to get a gun. Because I always have them near me. Why it wouldn't be on me? I'm not sure. But I would go arm myself and then handle the threat.

But to assume that just because. as in my background that I would run headlong towards a shooter unarmed and have to cover a substantial amount of distance with very little information, all you're doing is making this hard on yourself. So hopefully that little bit of a debrief and breakdown helps you a little bit. That's not really any right or wrong when it comes to this situation. You do the fucking best that you can. And with the tools that you were equipped with at the time, like I said, man, you were on the receiving end of an ambush. And that's not the place that's awesome to be The best place when it comes to be when there's an ambush is on the initiating end.

Question three. Wow, I totally lied about the lightness of this episode. How do you reassure your family about the possibility of death when you worked your old job? I'm starting a career as a law enforcement officer and my girlfriend is terrified that one day someone will knock on our door and tell her I am dead. What can I say to her in order to ease these thoughts? I promised her it will be okay, but obviously I can't be sure. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Well, what are you doing promising her that it's going to be okay if you self-stated that you obviously can't be sure? There's another word to describe this and that word is lying.

So why are you lying to your girlfriend? Because the reality is you don't know. The law enforcement occupation is a very dangerous one. You're not going to be interfacing with people who are having their best day. You're going to be interfacing with people who are having really shitty days. You're going to be responding to emergencies over and over and over again. and you might find yourself in a position where you have to make the decision to take somebody's life. And you might encounter people who are hell-bent against you continuing on with the rest of your day,

and they're going to try to take your life. So let's stop beating around the fucking bush, and let's stop telling people that everything's going to be okay. We don't actually know that. Instead of asking, what can I say to her in order to help ease these thoughts, what I would say is, listen. Listen to her when she expresses. her concern. Listen to her when she talks about the things specifically in your career that are worrisome to her. And I think the best that you can do is explain to her why you want to do the

job that you are doing and the things that you are going to do to try to mitigate the risk. If I were you, if I was a law enforcement officer, this is broadly, right, I would be, and let's say I had a girlfriend and it doesn't sound like you have any kids, I would spend just about every second of my time that I wasn't with my girlfriend doing something with her, doing something to make me better at my job to statistically reduce the risk of somebody knocking on the door and telling her that you're dead. I would be shooting in my own time. I would be searching out training on my own time. I would be practicing every aspect of the occupation so that I would be as good at my job as

humanly possible and as ready for the challenge that's going to come on game day. That is likely going to come for you at some point in time in your career. I would rather be overprepared for that than underprepared any day of the week. and I think if your girlfriend saw you dedicating that time to your training to all the things outside of work that are going to make you better at your job, you know, perhaps it might round the edges a little bit on her worries and concerns. But that all starts with listening to her and understanding what it is that concerns her the most.

If she can't get over the fact that it is possible that somebody will knock on your door and tell her that you are dead, there may not be much to do there. I mean, she's ignoring a lot of the realities that that can happen if you're crossing the street, if you're driving to work. I mean, fuck, there's medical issues. People drop dead every day of the week. We're all going to die. Nobody's getting out of this alive. So even if you do all those things and you have a 20-year career and you never have to clear leather on your holster, it's probably Kidex at this point anyway, that doesn't mean you're going to survive. You know, you could. have that 20-year career, you know, it doesn't mean you're going to survive every other

aspect of your life. So it sounds like she's really front-site focused on that law enforcement career. And again, I'm not saying argue with her about that and be like, oh, my job's not damn. We're all still going to die and all this. Listen first, but have the conversations. She's being a little bit myopic, I would say, if she can't get over the danger specifically only to the Elio field and she is ignoring the rest of the dangers in the world that end people's lives. That's for you two to work on. But if she can't get over it, if she's not going to be able to get over it, if you reassure her that you're going to do everything humanly possible, and then she sees you doing everything humanly possible because you need to actually do both.

You need to tell her those things and then you need to actually do them because if you only tell her and don't do shit, then she's completely, I would say, justified in the worries that she has. you know, maybe it's good that she is voicing these concerns early on. Are they legitimate? Yes. Are they legitimate to the point where they shouldn't be able to be overcome? I don't think so. But for some people, maybe it wouldn't be. And then you're going to have to decide whether or not that struggle, stress, and frustration

is worth it in the long term with your girlfriend. But hopefully I gave you some good piece of advice on things you can do before it gets to that point. but if it gets to that point, you and only you will have a decision that you need to make. Last question for the day. I have a dilemma I was hoping you could help me with. My youngest son in October of 2021 began weight training. We had many conversations with him on doing it safely and ensuring he will be doing it without things such as pre-workouts and other PEDs, performance-enhancing drugs. But that is a whole other topic.

In April, he dropped the news on us that he wanted to play football. He was going to play for his first time ever this upcoming sophomore year. At first, my wife was completely opposed to it. She struggles with anxiety and has fears of him getting seriously injured. We talked it through with him and ultimately made the decision to let him play. This summer, he went to all the team conditioning workouts and has now become part of the team. He loves playing. He is one of the smaller kids, which makes tackling a challenge, but he is quick and he has a very natural ability to read plays.

currently he plays as a wide receiver or cornerback. He played in his first scrimmage a few weeks ago, and he did really well. We were getting ready for his first actual JV game on Saturday, and we were excited to watch him play. Then the shit hit the fan on Friday night before. During the varsity game, one of the kids on his team had a seizure on the sideline. Medical attached an AED and began CPR until he was rushed to the hospital. As you can see where this is going, my wife freaked out, and of course her initial reaction is my son can no longer play football. my son is determined to still play and i am still okay with that i think if he wasn't all in on it my

feelings would be different things have settled down and at the moment he is still allowed to play am i wrong for still allowing him to play knowing there is a risk any thoughts that you can offer would be greatly appreciated uh interesting question because it ties in a little bit to the risk and the risk in what people pay attention to from the previous question. You know, the girlfriend was really just like, it's this job, it's so dangerous. Meanwhile, there are people who have catastrophic accidents everywhere. To keep this as simple as possible, here's what I would say. The person who had a seizure on the sideline, maybe do a little bit of research and figure out if that had anything to do with football,

or maybe they had a medical injury. somebody having a seizure on the sideline of a football game in no way shape or form can be extrapolated to that necessarily happening to your child um i mean i guess they were both playing the same sport but i would i would look more at the the medical condition of that individual before blaming it on the activity itself um i get it as a parent not wanting your kids to do anything because you're terrified that anything is going to happen to them. And what a shitty life that would be for our kids if we never let them do anything. So yes, is it possible that your son could get hurt at a football game? Yeah. I mean,

is it likely that he's going to have a higher incident of potentially concussions, traumatic brain injury, the things that come with the ballistic collision of two bodies? Yes, it absolutely is. Is it possible that he can get hit by a car on the way to school, walking to school or driving to school. Yes. Does your wife want him to go to school? Is she okay with him driving to school or walking to school? Because if she is, there's a huge blind spot in the risk associated with that versus the risk associated just because somebody had a seizure playing the same game as your son and assuming that it's actually going to happen to your child as well. I've said all that like I've already said before. I totally get this paralyzing fear of something happening to your kids. But we need to take a step back.

and objectively look at where the largest risks are coming from. There is a risk for your child playing football. But there's also a risk for you not letting him playing football and not allowing him to become the person that he wants to be and doing the things that he wants to do. And I'm not saying that he should go be a fucking professional base jumper as a sophomore in high school. That would be incredibly unreasonable risk.

But although the risk of injury exists for him in that sport, I think the bigger risk as parents is trying to shield your children from any and all risk because it's impossible. The only way we would ever be able to do that would be to put our kids inside of a bubble and like to feed them through that bubble somehow, keep them completely off the internet, never let them have friends and just lock them into a closet somewhere in the basement. And that sounds like child abuse to me. I would rather teach our kids to analyze, assess, and mitigate risk. And guess what? They suck at it, especially young men, from the ages of birth until about 40. And I still suck at it. And I'm 45 from time to time, which is why I have friends that I trust who can tell me when I'm being a totally fucking idiot.

And doing things that potentially be considered very risky because my nose is too close to it and I need to be a little bit more objective. Nobody wants to lock their kid away like that. So you are going to have to find a way to balance these risks. It sounds like your son understands what he is signing up for. It sounds like your wife and you are very, very caring of your son. And instead of talking about the risk associated with football, I would just ask you, you know, how much do you want to stand in the way of your child

and what it is that they want to do? And only you can answer that. I personally think the bigger risk is trying to protect them from everything as opposed to teaching them to deal with the risks that we all are going to encounter every day in our life. That to me is a much more valuable skill than trying to shield them from something that they may resent you for later on. And that is all I have for this Friday.