Pat McNamara Overcame Depression After Retiring from the Military | Joe Rogan

When you retired from the military, was this, did you envision yourself doing something along these lines? Like teaching tactical stuff or? Oh man, I went through some rough patches. As most guys do, right? Yeah man, man it was... Phew. No, I morphed into who I am only in like the past six or seven years. I retired in 05. I got hired before I even retired by a corporation to do training stuff. And I kind of fell, I was almost falling into that rut of accepting mediocrity. Plus what I didn't know is that I had depression. I didn't know that because you, no idea, which is common, especially in like the spec ops world, guys retire because you've been there in units with guys, with the same guys for a long, long time. And you've, there's a level of intimacy there that can't be replicated with another human being. And then when you retire, you miss that camaraderie, that connection. So I had working for a corporation. I had a really bad relationship. I was living in the bonus room of my garage. I'd lived there for five years because I had an ex who was on chemistry, prescription meds, go big pharma. And so the neuro receptors were freaking gone. I mean delusional and it was real bad. And then I started boozing with depression. And it didn't even occur to me that dude, you got a fucking problem, man. It didn't even occur. I guess, which is common with a lot of guys, but I had an epiphany. A lot of things happened at one time. My local cops saved my life. They said, bro, you need to get the fuck out of there. And a bunch of things happened all at once. This was in 2013. I didn't want to leave because I had little kids. So I didn't want to, I was going to stay there and just wither away. And I almost capitulated to darkness. But I got up, before I went to sleep one night, my kid is sleeping with me and I'm hammered. And it's like eight at night. And I had an epiphany. I said, you know what? I can't do this and I will not. I remember saying this to myself. I will not be defeated. I will not be defeated. And I put my running shoes by the side of my bed and some shorts, set my alarm clock, got up early next morning and went for a run. A la Forrest Gump. And I pound the pavement for about 10 or 12 miles. And I'm not a runner, you know? I like to run. I like to sprint. And when I came back from the run, worked out in my driver for about an hour. And my local cops came. All happened at the same time. And they came and said, hey bro, get the fuck out. Kids be all right. You need to do this and that. And then I started kind of figuring out reevaluating my path in life. Oh, back up a step. I also got laid off from this corporation. And you know, with a guy in the military, you don't ever think about job security. And when I retired, I'm working for a corporation that was mostly made up of retired military guys. So you get laid off and you're like, what the fuck am I going to do now? What does that even mean? Getting laid off. I don't know. What am I going to do? So all that shit happened at the same time. It was like this massive spiral of bad events. And man, I was able to, I was able to rekindle my own fire. Because I recognized, all right bro, you still got an ember. You still got this. All you need to do is just nurture that ember, turn it into a flame. Turn that into a flame and then just start adding wood. Add wood, add wood until it becomes just a perpetual blaze. Which led me to this thing that I tell people now, you know, is that you got to keep the blaze alive. I've got that on t-shirts even. Because I like to kick people in the ass who are willing to sustain their own fire once they get that ass kicking. If they can't keep their fire going, then it's not worth it for me, you know, to keep kicking them in the ass. But yeah, so ever since that point in time, you know, getting laid off, the depression, the booze, and I was able to rediscover me and rebrand and pretty much start from scratch. I mean, I had to start life all over again when I was 48 years old. Wow. You have the whole thing from scratch. And I discovered like social media and all this stuff because I met a gal and I'm married to her now and she's probably the best person, one of the best human beings I've ever met, you know, all around human being. So she was able to help me with that and said, hey, you need to do this. You need to get this social media platform or that on. And so it's detonated pretty well considering I've been on a short amount of time. But apparently, the message is resonating. Yeah. So, well, it's genuine. It's a genuine message. That's why I picked up on it. Oh, right on. Yeah. But I love that you figured your shit out. I love that. That's my favorite thing when, I mean, look, everybody's prone to mistakes and prone to depression and people are prone to hitting rock bottom. Yep. Your life can go down a series of bad roads and you find yourself in a bad relationship or a bad job, a bad situation in life. And it's very, very difficult at that moment to have faith and confidence that you can readjust, reconsider and re-engage. And that's what you did. That's awesome. I love that. I love those kinds of stories. I love when people get their shit together. And I think that helps me help other people who are ashamed. You know, because I could relate. Yeah. And I don't sit down with them and pat them on the shoulder and say, hey, bro, I was there too or anything like that. I don't even share with them, but I empathize. And sometimes that's all it takes. You need empathize and you just give them just a little bit of the right advice. Just a little bit. Not too much. Well, oftentimes people just need momentum. They need one good day. Right. You need one good day. That's why I said to that one guy, just come to the gym one day. If you have one good day where you eat clean, you drink a lot of water like you did, you got that day, you woke up, you put your shoes on, you went for a run, you worked out your driveway, you got a good day. That's sometimes all you need to do and decide. This is what I do from now on. I have good days. Tomorrow's going to be another good day. And then I'm going to force myself into another good day. And the next thing you know, I've got some momentum. Right. You got some momentum. You could change everything. I've felt, many times in my life, I've felt like I could slip the wrong way. And I just, I see it. I see the dark hole and I go, fuck that. And just go the other, go the other way. The problem is when people fall into that dark hole, they think that that defines them. But it's, it doesn't. Right. It doesn't define you. It's just you right now. You could be totally different tomorrow. You're a human being. You can think you can adjust. And there's so much inspiration. It's one of the beautiful things about your Instagram page and many, many other Instagram pages is that you can take, if you curate your feed correctly and you don't follow a bunch of knuckleheads, you can go to your Instagram or to whatever social media platform you like. And you can go and check out a lot of cool shit. Oh man. And you feel, you feel good about it. You get fired up and you want to do good with your life.