Pressure Relief
Opening the Hydraulic Lines of Agricultural Mental Health
I often make no sense until what I say begins to make sense, so hold on to your knickers; I’ll get there…eventually.
How do you celebrate a half-birthday, and for a newsletter, that’s not a person but a thing?
I don't know, but if I could, I’d buy it a celebratory burrito, probably at the most midwestern Mexican food joint in Grand Forks, Paradiso, because that’s where you dine for your birthday in this town because it’s free, and so are the chips but the dinner’s extra.
Since the birthday burrito gatekeepers would likely decline a free burrito for a newsletter that can’t talk and can’t provide proper identification, it will have to settle for a simple happy half-birthday. It’s been an incredible six months, and the next six will be even better because some changes are coming.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! Oh, look out, you rock and rollers.
Did you know that David Bowie struggled with massive bouts of depression?
You wouldn’t expect it when he and Mick Jagger cranked out video gems like this:
I hope I didn’t lose you there. See what I mean? Looks like a happy guy, right?
The sneaky thing about depression is we get very good at covering it up.
It’s no secret that we have mental health issues in America. The chart from Gallup below shows that depression rates had risen for quite sometime before the 2020 bat virus pushed sadness into high gear:
Some people are talking about it, but when it comes to agriculture, mental health usually gets brushed under the rug. It’s not something many of us want to discuss, but we must discuss it.
The authorities are catching on because the number of studies related to farming, depression, and suicide has increased, as seen in this chart:
Over the past few years, mental health in agriculture has gained much attention in the academic world, which is wonderful. Addiction circles say the first step to solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, so we’re on the right track. But there must be a bottleneck somewhere because farm suicides have risen by over forty percent in the last two decades.
A forty percent rise in suicide. Farmers end their lives at a rate three and a half times higher than the general population.
The worst part of such a shitty statistic is hardly any farmer ever talks about it.
I get it. It’s depressing. Many of us are depressed already, so why would we want to go down that road?
So, we bottle it up.
Mental health has garnered more media attention in the past few years. It seems there’s something mentioned or written about in many farm magazines, so some people are talking about it, just not the ones who need to be, and that’s farmers.
Why is it so difficult to discuss mental health for those of us in agriculture?
Why is it so hard to reach out for help in our hour of darkness?
We are human beings just like the rest, so why do we find it so hard to ask for help when we’re struggling?
I feel ya. Talking about the things that bother us, make us feel inadequate or insecure, or keep us up at night is not easy. It’s uncomfortable and can even be embarrassing because, as farmers, we’re taught from a young age to be tough, to suck it up when things get challenging.
In this newsletter and my writing on Medium, I’ve been very open about my mental health struggles.
Seven years ago, my thirteen-year career fell apart, and I had to start life over in my early thirties and then do it again when I found myself bankrupt in my late thirties.
I’m not even forty, and I’m twice divorced and have had to learn to deal with living two hours away from my four children and trying to be a good dad to them while at the same time being estranged from their lives and struggling with the knock-on effects like depression, addiction, and bad decisions.
It’s been a bitch, but I’m still plugging away. No matter how difficult, uncomfortable, or embarrassing, I managed to discuss it, ultimately leading to my escaping it.
Honestly, it’s the only reason I’m still here.
We find it honorable to suffer in silence for multiple reasons.
Our parents might have told us to suck it up when we felt sad or scared.
We think others have problems and don’t want to bog them down with our troubles.
We often look around at all the things we have and wonder why the hell we are depressed in the first place when, on the surface, it appears we have it so good.
Why are we feeling this way?
The story doesn’t seem to align. It doesn’t make sense, so instead of talking to somebody about it, we bottle it up and stuff it down deep where we hope the feelings won’t be able to see daylight.
When we repress our emotions, they eventually find their way to the surface, where we push them down harder while the pressure mounts.
Remember that scene in National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation when Chevy Chase’s character Clark tours Hoover Dam with the fam-dam, and he spots a leak coming through the stone wall?
Clark tries to plug the hole with chewing gum, but more water comes out of another hole right next to the first, so he plugs that one, and another hole with even more pressure opens up, and on and on.
Remember that? No? Okay, go to Amazon and rent the movie. I’ll wait here.
Okay, are you up to speed?
Good.
Our emotions are like the water that Clark tries to suppress. The more we stuff them down, the more pressure builds.
Just like a hydraulic hose under the force of too many PSIs, that sucker will eventually blow and make a slippery mess out of everything. The same will happen to you if you don’t open up and talk about the shit that’s got your goat.
I get it. It’s not cool to open up. I know how it is.
One guy declined a corn order from our seed company after he read something vulnerable I had posted publicly about my mental health.
He said I should get out and do some manly things if we wanted to earn his business. I didn’t ask what masculine projects I could do that would alter his seed-purchasing decisions or why something like that gets factored into a seed purchase to begin with.
Either way, I’m not desperate enough to compromise my values in the name of a silly seed sale.
What manly things did he think would toughen me up?
Was I supposed to stand on a table and thump my chest to a Volbeat song? Maybe chug a bottle of whiskey and get in a bar fight? Fly to Africa to slay an exotic animal I could mount to the wall?
I don’t know, and I don’t care.
See? I’ve done my share of the manly things. For years, I took the tough guy approach and suppressed my feelings with a bottle of booze and a dope stick. I’m not proud of it, but I did what I had to to suck it up and muddle through.
Over almost forty years, one becomes an expert at burying emotions, but let me fill you in on a little secret:
It doesn’t change what you’re feeling inside.
It doesn’t make you more of a man.
Quite the contrary.
A real man opens up. He talks about his shit. A real man is vulnerable. He’s not afraid to spill the tears when they want out.
Are you uncomfortable yet?
Good. That’s where you must go to move past your baggage. You may not feel like going there, but believe me when I say it’s the right direction.
If you’re not ready, sneak out the backdoor. That’s cool with me. We’ll be here diving into and working on mental health, and you’re more than welcome to come back when you are ready.
No pressure.
No hard feelings.
I understand depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are not easy things to talk about, but somebody has to do it. While good-intended, the occasional article in magazines like Successful Farming or The Furrow won’t move the needle.
We must discuss mental health if we want to live happier, healthier, more fulfilling lives. We must go deeper.
That’s why I created a new publication under the Farming Full-Time conglomerate called The Stoic Farmer, where I will share long-form essays like this one that dive deep into the mental health mingweed.
We’re going to go where many of us are scared to go. We’ll hook up to the deep ripper and drudge up the things we’ve buried that were too hard to face.
The Stoic Farmer is going to go there. I feel like it has to be done. If it only helps one person off the ledge, so be it. Still worth it.
When you’re living through challenging times, it often seems the pain and struggles aren’t worth the hassle.
When it feels like you want the lights turned off for good, you must know there is a way out.
Take it from somebody who has wished for those lights to dim, someone who has stared down the gun barrel; talking helps.
Though not easy, it’s worth it.
Opening up isn’t some magical cure-all, but it is an excellent first step when struggling, and it’s too hard to get out of bed in the morning with the weight of the world smothering you.
At Farming Full-Time, I will still write about farming and agriculture and share all the exciting things about the industry. I’ll still goof off and have a good time rapping about diggers, diesel, and the dirt. Not much will change there.
Please think of The Stoic Farmer as an extension of Farming Full-Time, a place where it’s encouraged to go deeper, to get relative, and to heal. It’s a place where we can understand and help people.
Adding a section to Substack is new to me, but I believe Farming Full-Time subscribers automatically join the new Stoic Farmer page.
If it’s not for you, feel free to unsubscribe. That’s okay; as I mentioned earlier, I have no hard feelings. I’ll be there if you change your mind and decide you should return.
At The Stoic Farmer, the door is always open, so come in, grab a cup of coffee, and let’s see where this goes.
Adam, this is so good. I suffer from occasional bouts of depression and you’ve nailed it. My newsletter also had a half-birthday (Dec. 7th) but I forgot to celebrate!
Love your brave, vulnerable masculine voice. I often salute Bowie's: "Ch-ch-ch- changes." "Turn and face the Strange" is a brilliant way to live, right? Oh and thank you for farming.