We All Go Into Combat Everyday, and November Is Time for You to Triage
It's okay for us to focus on our health. In fact, we must.
November is Men’s Health Month. All clichés aside, men can be particularly resistant to seeking help and acknowledging health concerns, particularly where mental health is concerned. Especially among lawyers, I think this is fairly accurate – as long as we’re feeling “okay” and able to function at a basic level to get your work done, we tend to ignore and simply work through many health issues which tend to accumulate over time, including stress and anxiety. And although anxiety and stress affects most lawyers, regardless of gender, November is a good time to open up about how these and other issues impact men’s health distinctly, and how we all might contribute to some overall improvements.
In service of these goals, and because I understand the impact stigma has on open discussion of pragmatic solutions, it may be helpful for me to share a bit about my own personal experience with mental illness. I cringe as I write those words, but from a clinical standpoint, I can’t ignore my historical diagnoses. And frankly, I’m no longer afraid or ashamed of them. If my experiences help a single person to have a better understanding their own well being needs, my mission has been accomplished.
I was forced to address my mental health for the first time when I was deployed to Iraq as a sergeant in an infantry battalion. I had enlisted after graduating from the University of Tennessee for three reasons: I knew I wanted to go to graduate school of some type (the decision for law school would come later), and the GI bill provided a realistic route to that; I was sick of living in Memphis, Tennessee, but had no practical way to move somewhere else (I’m very big on practicality); and finally, because I saw the opportunity to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience that would expose me to more than I could ever imagine. I was not at all in favor of our government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, but I also saw that I could have a positive impact on the lives of others even if I disagreed with the mission we were deployed in service of. And you know what? I was right. Enlisting as an infantry soldier was the best decision I’ve ever made, and I saw directly the positive impact my work made in the lives of Iraqis and Americans alike (cynics aside).
The downside of being an infantry sergeant patrolling the farmlands outside of Baghdad in 2005 and 2006 was the regularity with which I came face to face with threats to my life in the form of Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. Over the course of a year in Iraq, my Humvee managed to be something of an IED magnet. I was incredibly fortunate in certain ways – despite my truck sustaining 5 separate direct hits, neither I nor any soldier in my truck was ever hit with shrapnel or sustained a physical injury as a result of these attacks. But after nearly a year of patrolling uncertain whether the next turn in the road would turn fatal, I had a traumatic night I will still never forget.
As we left the protected environs of our firebase, for nearly every second of our twelve-hour overnight patroll, my mind began to mentally envision my truck being blown to smithereens. Although I was able to make it through the night without completely breaking down, I knew that I could not do that again the following night, as was planned. I knew that I would be a risk and hindrance to my brothers, and would be unreliable if needed in any critical situation. I was forced to talk to my squad leader, tell him that I had to go back to Baghdad and see someone about this. This was the entrée to an eventual (and unsurprising) diagnosis of PTSD and the ensuing efforts to move past this mental health albatross.
Law school and my legal career was partly a response and a challenge to the things that were saying I was broken. So I channeled much of the energy and anxiety associated with my PTSD into something that at least felt purposeful.
Over the years, and with the help of two amazing therapists, I was able to feel normal again, and to understand how I had been impacted by my traumas, and that instead of something being “wrong”, PTSD is actually a pretty normal reaction to what are distinctly abnormal traumas.
As I continued in my legal career, however, I didn’t even notice the slow crawl and creep of anxiety and crippling stress until I had been practicing more than 8 years, when I realized that I hadn’t really had much fun in my entire time since leaving law school. And I suddenly realized that my stresses and experiences as a lawyer in Big Law were just as difficult to process as the trauma I’d experienced in combat. In fact, in many ways, the stresses of lawyering were much worse.
I first discussed this when speaking in January 2022, and I was somewhat surprised at the reaction: numerous people reached out to thank me, because they felt for the first time that their experiences had been recognized as valid.
Let me be clear: Lawyering in Big Law is a really hard fucking job – in many ways harder and more stressful than engaging in direct combat. It takes a lot of effort to keep going, and many of us forget the toll that it can take to keep up with the pressures of BigLaw.
You’re not crazy for thinking that, and you’re not weak for acknowledging that your work might have a negative impact on your health. It’s important to understand that the term “healthy lawyer” doesn’t have to be an oxy moron.
And the recognition of November as Men’s Health Month is a great opportunity for us as male lawyers to check in with ourselves, recognize and acknowledge that we’re not invincible. In fact, the only way we can appropriately care for our clients, our colleagues, our families, and contribute to making our communities better places to live is to take a pause to take care of ourselves, including our mental health and overall well being.
The idea of triage seems particularly helpful. Simply taking an honest assessment of what’s going on, so that we can prioritize our work where it will have the strongest effect. We can’t do everything at once, but this November we can pause and just triage ourselves.
In retrospect, my time in Iraq was incredibly difficult, but it was the start of an entirely new way of living for me, and the work necessary to truly understand the impact of that anxiety on my health was made me stronger than I ever could have been if I’d remained in denial trying to say everything was “okay.” I know now with certainty that the only way to truly “level up” in life is to truly understand where we’re at and to be intentional about where we want to go. I hope that this post helps you on that path.
If you’d like to talk about how to find more purpose and direction in your work and personal life, set up a free consultation today: https://calendly.com/legalsage/initial-consultation