Mental Matters Hosted By Asekho Toto

Tammy Powder is a mental health advocate, author of Mamas Need Love and Compassion Too, and a mother whose daughter Ruby died by suicide after a long struggle with mental health. When your child is hurting, every instinct says to fix it — offer solutions, share your own experience, make the pain go away. Tammy used to be a fixer, and for years she believed that was love. But here's the problem: trying to fix someone's pain doesn't land as support — it lands as "I don't trust you to handle this yourself." Tammy learned that the hardest way possible, watching her daughter Ruby fight her own mental health battles before losing her to suicide. What she took from that loss has reshaped how she talks to grieving and struggling parents everywhere: you cannot climb the ladder for someone you love. You can only stand at the bottom and hold it steady. Expect to learn why trying to fix someone's pain shuts them down instead of helping, what the "ladder" analogy teaches about supporting a loved one through mental health struggles without taking over, why "I've been there, just listen to me" can make a child stop opening up altogether, how a single code word — "apple" — created enough safety for her kids to bring her their scariest thoughts, why suicide prevention needs to shift toward suicide awareness because the numbers aren't moving, how the suicidal brain operates fundamentally differently from a mind making rational decisions, why isolation quietly compounds grief for mothers especially, why honoring grief matters more than rushing to move past it, how to respond when a child says they're anxious or depressed without minimizing it, why parents have to refill their own tank before they can support anyone else, and what it means to "check on the gentle ones" — the kids who mask their pain best — and much more. This conversation will change how you think about suicide prevention, grief, and what it actually means to support someone you love.

In this episode of Mental Matters, Clegg shares his powerful journey of trauma recovery, mental health, purpose, and personal transformation after experiencing a life-changing accident. Clegg is a leadership development coach, CEO, TEDx speaker, and founder of Leadership Square. He explains how therapy, coaching, introspection, and focusing on his future self helped him overcome trauma and rediscover direction in his life. The conversation explores post-traumatic growth, conscious leadership, emotional healing, finding your purpose, and the importance of improving yourself before leading others. Clegg also discusses why many people become trapped in a “default future”—repeating the same routines without feeling inspired, fulfilled, or connected to their goals. If you feel stuck, are recovering from trauma, or want to become a more self-aware and purpose-driven leader, this episode offers practical insight and encouragement to start creating a different future. Keywords: trauma recovery, mental health, post-traumatic growth, finding purpose, conscious leadership, personal development, TEDx speaker, emotional healing, future self, leadership development.

Scottie Schneider is a West Point graduate, former U.S. Army officer, and founder of Ocóyái, an indigenous-guided healing community deep in the Colombian jungle. Most people wait for purpose to arrive — a sign, a moment, a calling that makes everything click. But here's the problem: Scottie says that's backwards. Purpose isn't something that finds you sitting in your room. He's lived the opposite of it — waking up at 1pm on a beach in Cartagena, buried in alcohol, unable to leave the room in one of the most beautiful places on earth. What got him out wasn't a program handed to him. It was a self-built anti-depression checklist, a 30-day contract with himself, and years later, a complete rebuild of his life around community, plant medicine, and what he calls sustainable healing. Expect to learn why purpose is something you go find rather than wait for, how trauma and daily habits work together to drive anxiety and depression, why alcohol is a normalized drug while others get demonized despite similar effects, what sustainable healing actually looks like day to day, why Western medicine is built to treat symptoms instead of root causes, how community and tribal living shaped human psychology far more than modern isolated life, why hustle culture becomes self-destructive once it ignores the body's basic needs, how to navigate purpose when you're financially trapped in work you don't love, and much more. This conversation will challenge how you think about purpose, healing, and what it actually means to take care of yourself.

Pamela Michaux is an author, survivor, and advocate for breaking generational trauma, whose story spans exile at age seven, years of physical and emotional abuse, and the courage to take her own guardians to court at twelve. Most people believe healing means erasing the past. You do the work, you move on, and the pain is supposed to disappear. But here's the problem: that's not how trauma works. Pamela spent years in what she calls "survival mode," unaware her mind had simply filed the pain away rather than resolved it — until becoming a mother forced it all to the surface. Her conclusion is uncomfortable but freeing: pain can become a comfort zone, love can feel like a threat, and real healing means learning to parent your own inner child while still building a life. Expect to learn why children raised around abuse often mistake love for a trap, what it really means to become "a prisoner of the past," why pain tolerance can be both a wound and a source of strength, how identity and belonging get complicated by racial rejection across cultures, why self-forgiveness feels harder than forgiving others, what the "steam pot" model of suppressed emotion reveals about burnout, why men are disproportionately affected by silence around depression, how the Adverse Childhood Experiences study connects trauma to addiction and suicide risk, why "vitamin N" — the power to say no — is something you have to actively build, and much more. This conversation will challenge how you think about resilience, forgiveness, and what it actually takes to stop surviving and start living.

Adam Tomlin is the host of the ACT OUT podcast, where he has spent years hosting honest, unfiltered conversations about identity, authenticity, and what it really takes to live unapologetically as yourself — while quietly working through his own diagnosis of ADHD and complex PTSD. Most people assume you go to therapy when you've hit rock bottom, or when something is visibly wrong. Adam didn't go for himself. He went because he was terrified of becoming the version of his own childhood that he swore he'd never repeat — and he didn't think he deserved to be there for any other reason. But here's the thing: it took nearly a year before he even considered that the healing might be for him too. What he found on the other side wasn't a cure, and it wasn't the calm, untouchable "Dalai Lama" version of peace he expected. It was something much more useful — a way to stay standing no matter what life throws at him. Expect to learn what complex PTSD actually is and why it often has no single "moment" you can point to and blame, how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy rewires the relationship between your body and your emotions, why external validation becomes a dangerous substitute for identity when you grow up without one, what "parentification" is and how being forced to grow up too fast quietly shapes the rest of your adult life, why so many men equate emotional control with suppression instead of regulation, how the idea of "boys being left behind" shows up in mental health funding and institutional support, why starting therapy for someone else can still be the doorway to healing yourself, what real healing looks like once you let go of the fantasy of being permanently "fixed," and much more. This conversation will challenge how you think about strength, fatherhood, and what it actually means to heal. Follow Adam Tomlin:Podcast: the ACT OUT podcast — https://www.theactoutpodcast.com/Instagram: @actoutpodcastLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adam-tomlin26YouTube: @theACTOUTpodcast