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Liz Unruh (Host): Hello listeners and thanks for tuning into the Well Within Reach podcast brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. I'm your host Liz Unruh, and I'm excited to have with us David McCleery, a veteran who has not only served our country, but's also deeply involved in our community. He's someone who's experienced firsthand the challenges that many face with mental health and has chosen to seek support through our outpatient Riverside Behavioral Health Program Pathways.

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Liz Unruh (Host): So thanks for joining us today, David.

David McCleery: Thank you for letting me here.

Host: Yeah. So we're going to talk a little bit today about your experience. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself, maybe introducing your service dog here and some of the organizations you're involved in?

David McCleery: I am. I'm David McCeery.

I am a Navy CB veteran. I did 14 years. I am medically discharged. This is Diesel. He is my service dog for mental health. And I got him through a training facility out at Mantino, named AVSDA. And we train our own dogs. They provide the training to us so that we train them so that we get them closer back and forth with us.

Yeah. Um, I am with many Veteran nonprofits. I help with Buddy Check 22. I am also with project Headspace and Timing. I'm also on the board of Project Sun. I am the co-chair for the Kankakee County Veterans Suicide Prevention Coalition, which we just started this year, and it's going great.

And then, I deal with a lot of the mental health with project Headspace and Timing. We do peer groups. I am a peer support specialist through them. I teach Mental Health First Aid. I do calm training, I do just everything.

Host: Yeah, you do. It sounds like you're very involved. Um, and we love to.

David McCleery: And this is my passion. I started school for it. I got my bachelor's through Liberty University, in psychology of military resilience. And I wanted to help others all my life. And I started out as a paramedic. And then when I hurt my back, I realized that wasn't my true calling. So when I switched over to psychology and it just stuck and it just been a passion of mine. So.

Host: Yeah. I think that's great. And I think all the work that you do with our veterans and to know that there's so many resources in our community for veterans is, is amazing to know. So what motivated you to seek help from the Pathways Program?

David McCleery: As not only veteran as men veterans, we pack a lot of things away. Everything that happens in life, traumas, incidents, everything we just push aside. And that's what I was doing. And I was packing it away, packing it away, and I packed it away for years. I thought I was doing good and then in August 18th of 23, I went and lost it all. I was fighting with myself to become one of the 22. And it was very scary and difficult. So when I cried out for help, we decided we'd go get help. I checked myself into Riverside. Spent five days there and while I was there, they told me about Pathways. And I realized that after talking to a lot of the nurses on the floor and, and stuff like that, I realized that it, I should check it out.

So I thought, well, I'll just check it out, see what it's like. And when I got here, the first person I met was Roger. And that just set the whole tone for everything. It was amazing how warm and welcoming it was so that's why I chose it. I did do other programs afterwards. But that one speaks the most to me. So.

Host: It's great when you click right away with staff and it's great that you were able to identify that you needed the help and that you got the help. I know a lot of times there's stigma attached to it.

David McCleery: Yeah. The stigma was the biggest one.

Host: Yeah. But making sure that you're getting the help you need to better yourself is definitely a really important part of mental health journey. When you started the Pathways program, what were some of the things that they did to help, you know, address those challenges and make you feel safe and secure?

David McCleery: I think what most of it was was the staff definitely, they all made you feel like you were a person. It wasn't like treatment, so to speak. It was more of, you were just hanging out with people that you got along with. So it was, nice to have that welcoming part in there. They gave you the tools that you needed to just help out with everything that was going on. So.

Host: Yeah. Are there still some tools that you learned during your time at Pathways that you use today?

David McCleery: I use a lot of the stuff that I got, the tools and I still have all the flyers and everything that they gave us. I still have them, I still use them. I pass them out to the other veterans. When I talk to other veterans, I give it to them. I've given them to my daughter. I hand those out and I preach it almost every day.

Host: Yeah. I think that's huge, especially with how involved you are with the community, being able to have those tools, not only in your own tool belt, but to be able to share them with others. I think that's really big part, of that, like I said earlier, the mental health journey is being able to share and grow with others as well.

Did you have a particularly big breakthrough moments during your time at Pathways or even during your time when you were inpatient?

David McCleery: There's a couple things that stand out and one of them is the staff. Roger was a big one because he let me know that I can't help others if I don't make myself strong first. And that wouldn't, that spoke a lot to me, because that's what I was trying to do. I was, trying to help everybody and just didn't care about myself. And so as we talked it got sunk in that I'm the foundation. If I crumble, then everything else crumbles around me. So I can't help others. So it made me realize that I have to prioritize myself first.

Host: Yeah, I think that's a great explanation. You can't help others until you help yourself. Um, make sure you set that foundation is definitely like a big part of knowing when you need help and asking for it is huge. So knowing that you were able to ask for help, is there any advice that you would give to your fellow veterans or anyone in our community that maybe is worried or about the stigma or they don't know if they're ready to start on their mental health journey. Is there some advice you would give them?

David McCleery: I try to tell everybody the same thing, is we need to end the stigma, that's the complete answer. But it's not weakness. It's not less than of you, of anybody to go get help. You would go get help if you were to go break your leg, you go to the hospital, you get it fixed. If you don't, it's worse. It's the same way with the mental health. It's not any different. Mental health is part of your whole body health and without that, you are not one. And that's why I tell all my veterans that, so.

Host: Yeah, I think that's the best advice you can give anybody. It's a big part of your health, not just a lot of people just think of, oh my brain healthy, my heart healthy, my arms, my legs. But no, like knowing that your mental health is there. Definitely a big part. Looking, ahead here because we're always looking ahead. Do you have any goals or things that you're looking forward to doing with either sharing mental health tools with other people or for your own personal?

David McCleery: There's a couple things that I've got. My biggest thing is I would love to have a veteran treatment facility.

But it's more of a couple weeks, 30 to 60 day treatment facility where we can get veterans in. And not have to worry about the pay for because it costs so much money to go to these other treatment facilities and not everybody can get VA pay or have regular insurance.

So if we can get them to go to these other facilities for either a reduced rate or a free rate, it would help everybody. Because everybody needs help. It doesn't matter if you can get the VA disability or what. So that's one of the big things and I want to do things for positives.

I've got some people that I've lost and that was one of the big things for me was the survivor's guilt. So I'm going to go out and do things for them now, where I've started to do that now. So, I'm naming the events after them and stuff like that just to keep their name still out there, so.

Host: Yes. I think that's really big. You know, remembering those that we've lost. And why we do the work that we do is very important. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, David.

David McCleery: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Host: Yeah, we're really glad that you and Diesel could join us today. And thank you listeners for tuning into the Well Within Reach podcast brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. For more information about our Pathways services, you can visit riversidehealthcare.org.