Getting Open with Chris Hawkey

and stories around mental health. And then last week we sat down with General manager Rick Spielman and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Miller to talk about their emphasis on mental health within the Vikings organization, as well as to hear a little bit about Andrew's personal story with depression. Today, I'm really excited to chat with Chris Hockey. Now, some of you may know him from kay Fan's Power Trim

morning show. He is the lead singer for the Chris Hockey Band, So he does a lot of stuff here in the Twin Cities, a lot of stuff around the Vikings organization, but he also has a very personal story around mental illness that he wants to share in order to help normalize the conversation and break down the stigma around this topic. So let's take a listen. Chris. I know that you have shared your story around mental health before. I think it was back in twenty seventeen, you did

a really impactful interview with Carolevin's Jana Shortle. For those of us who may not have heard that interview maybe aren't familiar, can you share a little bit about your experience with mental health and specifically depression. Yeah. I grew up in a very small town back on the borders of Ohio and Indiana, and really, especially when I was growing up, there wasn't much of an emphasis on mental health and what was going on. If you were a

nervous kid, you were a nervous kid. If you had little quirks and little picks, that's just part of who you were. And I had OCD in just a terrible way, just terrible all the way until honestly, until I was about twenty five. At specific points in my high school years, I had to do things four times. It was really really debilitating. Once I found a way to sort of

conquer that. As mental illness does in a lot of times, a lot of ways, it just manifested in different ways, you know, my anxiety levels increased because the OCD was what I was doing to kind of take away the anxiety of the situations I was in. So the anxiety got worse, the depression got worse, and it really just got to a point where I knew that I needed to find someone to talk to. I needed to find help to deal with all the different demons I was

fighting daily in my head. And that was a huge change in my life to the positive to first admit it that I needed help, and second to go actively find it. So when you use these words like OCD and anxiety and depression, were those things that you were able to identify or I guess label at that at the point that you first started dealing with them, or how did you kind of come to figure out this is what I'm dealing with and how did you cope

with that? It's a great question. We I had no idea what was I hate to put it this way, but it's the way I would have put it back then. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had a legitimate, literal compulsion to do things four times and I didn't know why. I thought there was just something broken within me. I didn't tell anybody. It was a secret, a giant secret. I didn't tell my dad, I didn't tell my closest friends. I didn't tell my girlfriend.

It was it was obvious in some ways, you know, when she was leaving, I had to give her a kiss four times before she could leave. I had to check the house to make sure the doors were locked four times before I could leave. But I didn't know why I didn't. As I got away from the small town and went to college and got a little more worldly, I found out, you know, the names for the different things they've been afflicting me. But even then I didn't have any idea that there were ways to quote unquote

fix it. And also there was a stigma to it that hopefully things like you're doing and things like we're doing here today are taking away because one of maybe the hardest hurtle, the highest hurtle between being who I was and being well was being able to talk to people about it, being able to admit that this was a situation I needed to deal with, and and and to having to admit that I wasn't strong enough to do it myself. So it took me a long time to find out what my issues were, and a lot

longer than that to admit what my issues were. When you did kind of get to the point where you were able and willing to admit the things that you were going through, what was that like for you? There were different spots on the journey for me with that. When I was able to overcome the greater part of the OCD, the obsession, the obsession compulsive, that was a like the like the clouds cleared away and the sun finally came out moment for me, it was a life altering,

life changing moment for me. It was it was being freed from the bird cage in a way that I can't even explain the joy that I felt when it came to the depression and the anxiety. That was a whole different journey for me to admit to myself that it was more than just needing to drink more caffeine or needing to see the sunny side of things, or to stop saying to myself, Hey, stop being down, what

is your problem? You got a great life learning over time that first of all, there are reasons for it, and second of all that there are ways to help yourself. That was a long journey for me, but each step along the way, as trying lexapro for the first time and seeing that there were benefits to that. Finding a

therapist who actually helped me was a big thing. And I say it that way because I saw two therapists that I didn't quite click with before I found one that I did, and for I've been told that's pretty quick. I think the biggest issue that a lot of folks have is that you try one therapist and you're like, well, that didn't work, and then you're done, and that's not the way to do it. I hear a lot these days, especially that people are trying zoom therapy with different doctors

and such like that. I just think that's wonderful. What a great way to explore relationships with different therapists and find out if they're the right one for you before you commit to the long time, hard work that you

need to commit to with one person. And so it's it's been a lot of different steps on my journey, but each time, um, you know, again, as I said, the OCD thing was the big sun coming out moment, but it got a little sunny or each step that I took, and you know, one of the weirdest things about that is when I realized that I didn't have to be happy every day, and that I was never going to be happy every day. And as silly as that may sound to somebody who isn't one of us,

it's it's ever. You know, if you spend a lot of your time to press it, and with anxiety, a lot of people tell you, hey, buck up, man, let's see a little zip in you. Come on, let's go snap, snap, what's going on? Why are you so sad? You've got a great life, You've got a great family, and you hear that a lot, and you're like, you're right, I don't I don't know why I'm like this. I should

be happy every day. When you realize that the gray is where most people live most of the time, it takes the pressure off and you don't try to force yourself to be happy, because what do you do when you're force yourself to be happy? You make yourself more depressed. I like that Earlier you brought up the idea of the stigma, and of course that's a lot what we're talking about with this series, breaking down the stigma, normalizing

the conversation. Why do you think there is such a stigma around mental illness, and do you believe that that stigma is more prevalent in men for one reason or another. The second half of that, for obvious reasons. It is hard for me to answer because I only know it from a male perspective, But I really believe so, you know, and this was I guess more from my research that I've done throughout the years. But there is a whole

lot of you got to be the strong guy. You got to buck up, man, you gotta get up and go to work. That's part of the deal. Yeah, today was a bad day, but guys have bad days and you just got to be strong and get through it. So I definitely think there's something to that. But I think also, you know, just the words themselves mental illness.

For for a lot of people, and even for me, there's not much differentiating that between being depressed or having anxiety and being committed, you know, I mean, they sort of all seem the same. When you label something as a mental illness, it sounds really devastating and really debilitating and really on the edge, I guess. So I think that's the biggest stigma. Maybe the wording around the understanding around what mental illness is is colored by the words themselves.

I like the word anxiety because I think that really puts a pinpoint on how so many of us feel. Depression is a very gloomy word, a very dark word, but again it's right on the money because that's where you're at when you're depressed. So there's a stigma to it.

But the weird thing about that stigma to me is when I did the interview you spoke about with Jannah Shortle, when I wrote my song Happy and started really walking out into the public and talking about what was going on, I realized very quickly that there are way more of us than there are of people who don't deal with something like this, And so that stigma can be erased just by looking around and talking to people and realizing the guy in the cubicle over and the lady on

the bus with you, and your neighbor they're probably suffering in some way as well. So if we all talk to each other a little bit more, I think the stigma goes away, and you go from being ashamed of it to being not proud, but a vocal advocate for yourself and for other people. Because you say you want to walk around to people. I say, yeah, I hear you. I feel where you're coming from. I feel the same way. Here's what helped me, what helped you. It creates community

in some ways. There's probably going to be a lot of people listening to this interview who are familiar with you in one way or another. Right So, there might be familiar with your with your stage presence as the lead singer of the Kree Hockey Man. They might listen to you having so much fun on kay Fan's Power Trip morning show. You know, they might be familiar with you being silly and having fun with Aaron and Vikings connected,

or maybe all of the above. But I think some people might say, how can someone who has that much fun and is that vibrant of a personality, is that much going on in his life? How are you able to still have that sham be happy even though you're also dealing with a level of depression. I think you'll know what I'm saying when I say this. You become a pretty good actor. You know, from a very young age, I hid the OCD, which again I can't overstate how

debilitating it was. I learned to hide that, and you become a good actor. But also again I think that's another thing going back to the stigma that we were talking about. Every person's depression, every person's anxiety, every person's OCD affects them in different ways. As I've gotten older and gotten more of a handle on my issues and the medicines have, I've found the correct medicines to help

fill in the holes that I needed to fill. It's been easier for me to be more up than down, but I legitimately do give myself permission to be down and said on days when that is how I'm feeling, I remind myself that is not a permanent thing, and

I remind myself that there's always tomorrow. And when I talk to somebody who's having a really bad day, that's the number one thing I try to get across to them is if you're having a really bad day, like it's one of your worst days, do your best to go to bed as soon as you possibly can hit that reset button. That overwhelming fix of most things is going to sleep and waking up again the next day.

And there's always a next days. So I find that knowledge to be really comforting, and a lot of times that knowledge that tomorrow is going to be better, and then maybe even later today is going to be better. Is the thing that gets me out of my spin, as I like to call it, out of the gray and into the sunshine. So I'm a pretty happy guy almost always. That's real. Um, sometimes I'm acting. I wanta lie. Is music cathartic for you? Is that healing for you?

Because obviously music is a big part of life. Does that play any role on the mental illness that you deal with? Absolutely? I can. I can legitimately say music has saved my life a bunch of times. Um. You know the loneliness that I felt as a young man with everything that was going on inside me, and how weird I felt, how odd I felt. I found bands of every different stripe and I'm you know, I'm an old dude now, so I'm talking the eighties, but I'm talking.

I would hear a song like calling on You by a band called Stryper, and it was like they were talking to me, and man, that saved me a lot of times. There was a song called I'll Be There for You by a band called Black and Blue that when I heard that, I was like, I hear you up there. Thank you. So in reality, at its very basic form, music has saved my life. It's been there for me. It's given me a way to communicate my feelings,

even before I knew I was doing that. I look at songs that I wrote when I was in my twenties, and I was saying things in my songs that I couldn't say to people in real life. So music coming in from other folks has made me feel less alone. Music going out of me has given me a way to communicate my feelings without having to look somebody in the eye and tell them, because for a long time

I couldn't do that. We've done several pieces of this series now, and something that's come up a lot in different ways in sort of this idea of a support system, whether that's family, only, friends, co workers. You know, probably looks different for everybody. What has that support system looked like for you in your life? Wow, it's been so important for me to be able to be honest with people, and it's been so cathartic to me to be there

for other people as well. So my support system grows, you know, not as much during these times we're not out very much, but I can legitimately tell you it grows at every show that I do with my band, because almost every show somebody would come up to me afterwards and say your song happy, That's how I feel. And immediately, you know, even if I never see that person again, that's somebody in my support system and I'm in there is as well. So it's grown exponentially since

I decided to come forward and talk to people. Before that, though, your best friends, the people who really listen when you're talking to them, those are the important ones. Those are the ones who you need to talk to because again I say it all the time, but they're probably suffering in some way as well. And when you know the friend I'm talking about, the friend who literally does listen to you, doesn't hear what you say, and then tell you how that affects them or how it relates to

something in their life. If you're talking to somebody and they're really listening to you, that's the person you can open your heart too. And it starts with the first person that you talk to, the first person that's willing to listen, the first person you feel comfortable talking to, and then that gives you the gumption to talk to

more people, and it goes both ways. I can't tell you again how for those If somebody's watching this right now and is willing to take that chance to talk to somebody, what you're going to find out is that person wants to listen, and it helps just to talk, even if they don't know the answers. In fact, they probably don't know the answers, even if they want to know the answers. That's not the point. But when they talk back to you, and then you talk to somebody

else and they talk back to you. Just having a community, my gosh, that helps so much. You're because you don't feel alone anymore. Man. That's the darkest place, isn't it. Yeah. And I'm gonna actually build right off of that question into the next one, and that is you mentioned not being able to go out a lot and stuff right now, You know these pasts basically twelve months, just a lot

of heavy stuff. There are people right who have dealt with mental illness or different challenges anxiety, depression, etc. For many, many years, and so it might be more difficult now, but they have a little bit of a toolbox or they know what's going on. But there's a large population of people who are dealing with these things for the very first time and maybe don't know what they are.

These feelings are scary, they're foreign to them. Would you say anything else to those people who are kind of experiencing these things for the first time during such a difficult time of life. Yeah, that is such an important point, and it's so valid because you do see that so often. In fact, I've had some instances as of late where I've spoken to people and found out just how overwhelmed in the therapists are and such with people looking for help.

Right now, I would say to anybody experiencing it for the first time, the same thing I would say to somebody who's been dealing with their whole life. And it's exactly what we talked about a little bit earlier. Do your best to be honest with people, with people that you care about that care about you. Again, great chance right now they're feeling the same way, but just talking to somebody about it, it's going to relieve so much tension. Once you open up a dialogue with people, you're gonna

say things to them you didn't even know. We're true, They're going to say things back to you and you're going to relate and didn't realize they were true to you as well. But this is this is not a small club that you have joined if you were experiencing this for the first time. There are a lot of us out there. And again, there are people like me. I'm fifty years old. I've been living with this most of my life and if I can help you, I certainly will. So please reach out even it doesn't It

doesn't have to be a professional. It can be just your buddy, and it can be a strange guy on the radio talks far jokes most of his life reach out. People are willing to listen. Well, Chris, thank you so much. Um. I just love the heart that you have for this. I know when I called you, I told you you know, I said, hey, Chris, this is this content that I

want to do. What do you think? And you were like, I'm in, Like you didn't even have any other questions, And I can just you know, hear that your voice and in wanting to share with other people. So thank you so much for being willing to share your story to help other people. That's a great idea and I'm so glad you're doing this. And I thank you for including me. And I literally just want to give everybody

a hug, you know. I just want to want to make everybody okay, including you and you and you and you and you and you, all of you. I want you all to be okay. Let's all be okay together. Thanks Chris, Thank you, Dear, big thank you to Chris, who, over the past three or four years has become especially passionate about sharing his story and also connecting with others

who have similar experiences around mental health. Big thanks to you as well for tuning in, and I encourage you to keep an eye on all Vikings digital platforms for upcoming Getting Open features.