Vince, Gina, and Nicole challenge conventional leadership norms and examine the role of parental guidance in young men's lives.
Hosts: Vince, Gina, and Nicole
Topic: Non-traditional forms of leadership, the importance of understanding and managing mental health, and the complexities of family dynamics.
Discussion Points:
Redefining Leadership:
Personal Growth and Continuous Work:
Family Dynamics and Self-Discovery:
Vince's Personal Struggles and Evolution:
The Impact of Parental Decisions:
Preparing for College and Life Transitions:
Mental Health Awareness and Communication:
Future Planning and Decision-Making:
Closing Remarks:
Contact Information:
Email: info@causewaycollaborative.com
Social Media:
End Note:
Causeway Conversations emphasizes the collective responsibility to guide and support young men, advocating for patience, understanding, and active involvement in their development.
Vince Benevent...: Welcome to Causeway Conversations where we help young men get their lives on the right track through mentorship, coaching, and therapy. If your son is stuck, you found the right support.
Nicole O'Brien: Welcome back to our next round of Causeway conversations. So shall we segue?
Vince Benevent...: Let's hear it.
Gina Benevento: All right. My question is, tell me something that you learned about yourself in the last year.
Nicole O'Brien: (singing) okay.
Vince Benevent...: Deep sigh. Deep sigh.
Nicole O'Brien: [00:00:30] I feel like there's so many things.
Vince Benevent...: I've learned many things. You go first.
Nicole O'Brien: Me go first?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah.
Nicole O'Brien: Okay.
Vince Benevent...: I need to think about it.
Nicole O'Brien: I have learned so many things the past year. So, one of the things that I have learned is that leadership can look in a variety of different ways. I remember talking to my astrologer, and she was reading my chart and telling me a little bit about what was upcoming for the next year and things like that, [00:01:00] and the leadership role that I would be taking on. And to me it was like, that's not me. I am not a front and center, shine the light, loud person. And she said, "Why do you think that that's what leadership is?"
Vince Benevent...: That's a good question.
Gina Benevento: That's a great question.
Nicole O'Brien: And I said, "Because that's what I know leadership is." And she said, "Well, think about it." She's like, "Being graceful is leadership. There are other ways to be [00:01:30] a leader that aren't loud." And so, part of what I've learned is that I inhabit and embody leadership qualities, but they don't necessarily look like what we've been socialized to understand leadership to look like. And so really being able to lean into what leadership looks like for me is something that I'm continuing to learn.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: That's a good answer.
Gina Benevento: That's brilliant.
Vince Benevent...: Wow, that's brilliant.
Gina Benevento: I need to have a better answer for my own question because I feel like-
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, mine is nowhere near as good as that, by the way. I'll give you mine. So I've been doing a lot of [00:02:00] personal work for many years, and I would just say one thing I've learned, which was reaffirmed even this very day, that work is constant. And just when you believe that you've arrived in one way, there's five other things you need to mop up that came behind you. So I've grown and changed, but I think the only constant is that I'm going to continue to grow and change for as long as I am doing this. This life thing, that is.
Gina Benevento: I actually didn't have an answer to my own question. I feel like I'm going to [00:02:30] prepare better next time.
Vince Benevent...: Maybe you don't have to.
Gina Benevento: I'm still learning. I feel like I learned some ugly stuff about myself that I don't love.
Vince Benevent...: Like what?
Gina Benevento: Like my need to control things. Like if I put all the pieces in the right place, then all will be good. And that's actually not how life works.
Vince Benevent...: No. It's also a lot of pressure.
Gina Benevento: It's a ton of pressure.
Vince Benevent...: It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself.
Gina Benevento: Yeah.
Nicole O'Brien: We got some big ones here. Oh, shit.
Vince Benevent...: We're just firing right out-
Nicole O'Brien: We're going in.
Vince Benevent...: Firing [00:03:00] right out of the box.
Gina Benevento: No kidding.
Vince Benevent...: Yeah.
Gina Benevento: All right. So we're going to talk a little bit about you and your story.
Vince Benevent...: Sure.
Nicole O'Brien: One of my favorite topics.
Vince Benevent...: Sure.
Gina Benevento: It's mine too, baby.
Nicole O'Brien: Got the peanut gallery over here.
Gina Benevento: We still talking about this? So want to talk a little bit about how you got to where you are and how you got to who you are actually, I think is more, a better question. So that as we think about your story and other [00:03:30] young men that might be going through, which we've learned through our work, are going through very similar things. It's quite common, but not a lot of people talk about it. So I appreciate you being brave enough to share here. But if you could tell us a little bit about how you got to be Vince Benevento of 2023.
Nicole O'Brien: Version number?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah.
Gina Benevento: Version, yeah. What are we on? 5.0? 7.0?
Vince Benevent...: And I think that, so that's important. We joke about the stuff sometimes, but Vince of 2023 is very different than Vince of 2018, is very different than Vince of [00:04:00] 2012, is was very different than Vince of 2006. So I'd like to think that the trend line is up in the right kind of ways, I guess. But I mean, it's been a little constant sort of state of personal evolution just based on how things have gone.
So I think the story really starts with my own personal struggle. So I was a guy who had both severe mental health and severe substance use issues, and still struggle with those issues to this day. And I think that to know me and to know how I think begins with [00:04:30] the constant sort of effort required to manage myself and show up in the world well. So I was a guy who had mental health and substance use issues.
Gina Benevento: Can you talk to me a little or talk to us a little bit about when you started to realize that that was a thing for you or when you started struggling?
Vince Benevent...: Sure. So late nineties, early two thousands, so going back 20 plus years, but I was a stereotypical meathead jock in high school. Go out on the weekends, get shit- [00:05:00] faced, hang out, chase girls around. That was sort of what the people I did, did.
Gina Benevento: I always wondered if we went to the same high school, if we would've loved or hated each other.
Vince Benevent...: I think we would've been in very similar circles personally.
Gina Benevento: We probably-
Vince Benevent...: I think we probably would've been in each other's, we probably would've found each other no matter what.
The big precipitant at that point was the dissolution of my parents' relationship. So my father was a closeted gay man who was having a relationship for seven years with a guy [00:05:30] who was his best friend, at least in the eyes of the family, was his best friend, who was my godfather and was in our life daily. And so that information first came out as accusations of infidelity by my mother to my father in not so kind and not so endearing ways, as I'm sure you can imagine. But the irony then was I had chalked it up to my mom's issues and her own shit, and framed her as a woman who [00:06:00] got it wrong and a liar, and somebody who was trying to defame my dad. When in truth everything she said was 1,000% true.
And so there was a tremendous amount of personal identity stuff that came up for me as a result of that. There was a lot of lack of trust, mistrust, distrust, lack of clarity, just around what is right in the universe, in order. And when you get mixed signals like that and overt lies like that, it's hard to know which way is up or down. [00:06:30] So I mean, I can remember being 17, 18 years old, and I would get out of school out on a Friday and not come home until Sunday.
Gina Benevento: Just not come home?
Vince Benevent...: Just go out and get fucked up for 48 hours straight and just drag my ass in home Sunday night at eight o'clock to drag my ass into school the next morning. And that's how my junior and my senior year high school went.
Gina Benevento: So you were completely unchecked?
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah.
Gina Benevento: By your parents-
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah.
Gina Benevento: ... in terms of authority figures or-
Vince Benevent...: I think there was so much shame on behalf of both my parents, really, most [00:07:00] specifically my dad, that the ship was very loose at the time and they just let me basically do whatever the fuck I wanted. But I think in me came this upswelling of anger and chaos, really. The chaos that was present in my life at the time I think manifested itself in terms of my head and my headspace. And so I'd covered enough ground prior to that, in the years prior to that to be on track to go to a good school and get recruited to play football. So I had some semblance of a future to [00:07:30] hold together. But I mean, the last semester of my senior year, I was getting fucked up every day and never going to class-
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: ... ever.
Gina Benevento: Every day?
Vince Benevent...: Every day.
Nicole O'Brien: And you graduated?
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah.
Nicole O'Brien: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because at that point they would just push you along. And I saw that. I've seen that now over the course of the last dozen years doing this work. But I still finished. I still graduated, and then I went to college and did my freshman year, basically got fucked up every day my freshman year. And then I really [00:08:00] bottomed out summer after my freshman year. So I'd basically been on like a two-year bender, and came home and just cratered. I think there was a proper detox process that manifested itself for me for sure, from substances. And I became severely, severely, severely depressed, bedridden depressed.
Nicole O'Brien: Where were you going home to? You said you were going home.
Vince Benevent...: So I was living with my dad, but my sister and my brother were living with my mom. So there was this true [00:08:30] split family situation. And it fucked me up dramatically in ways that I didn't understand at the time, but I've only understood in therapy that I've done for the last two and a half decades since. But-
Gina Benevento: It's an investment.
Nicole O'Brien: That's right.
Vince Benevent...: The gift that keeps on giving. And so came home from college, became really severely depressed, but then made a series of decisions that didn't help my case and really hindered my progression. I quit my job. So I did things that [00:09:00] felt good in the moment, but didn't play well for me longer term.
Gina Benevento: And who was, I want to say, overseeing you? Who was, your parents?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, so this goes back to the previous taping around making decisions in the best interest of your kid versus making decisions that pay homage to his happiness. I was living with my father and I think he was trying to support me, but supporting me to him looked like letting me lay in my bed and fucking sleep all day, because that was comfortable for me at the time.
Gina Benevento: [00:09:30] By the way, let's not just skip over the fact that your father is also a human who was working through his own own shit at the time.
Nicole O'Brien: Yeah.
Vince Benevent...: Of course, of course, of course.
Gina Benevento: And I just feel like parents need to hear that because we don't oftentimes give ourselves enough credit. Well, I think it could be a pendulum swing either way, but just to give yourself a little bit of grace to say, "I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before."
Vince and I were bickering about something, little Vince, and I was like, "Vince, I've never [00:10:00] done this before." And he's like, "What? What have you never done?" I was like, "Been a mom to a 12-year-old who's going through puberty. I don't really know what's going on in my house right now." And so I think that we need to sometimes give ourselves the credit to fail and mess up.
But anyway, so your dad's doing the best he can and he's letting you make decisions that maybe are for your happiness, but not in your best interest?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, and just isolate. It's all the stuff that we talk about [00:10:30] like isolating myself from my friends. My buddies would come to the house to see what's up, and he would send him away.
Gina Benevento: And just say, "Vince doesn't want to talk"?
Vince Benevent...: "Vince isn't up talking to anybody." And I mean, guys will come back two, three, four times. By the fifth time it's like, "All right, well fuck it. Maybe he'll call me when he's ready." I mean, those guys are 22, they're figuring their own shit out.
Gina Benevento: Exactly.
Vince Benevent...: They got girlfriends-
Gina Benevento: Also, props to them for showing up to come see there.
Nicole O'Brien: Yeah.
Vince Benevent...: I mean, I had friends that I had built pretty strong relationships with over the years, and definitely people coming to show their face, but can only be sent away so many times before you say, "Fuck it."
Gina Benevento: [00:11:00] Right.
Vince Benevent...: And I would do the same thing. I mean, it got so bad that I was absolutely having thoughts of ending my life, no question. And was hospitalized. I was hospitalized the summer going into what would've been my sophomore year. Now, it was a little bit of strategy in that there were, I had a therapist who I started to see and I fucking hated, but I saw him anyway because I was so depressed that I was having thoughts of ending my life. So that's information that would probably lead one to wanting do therapy.
Nicole O'Brien: Did you share that with [00:11:30] either of your parents and that's what got you to therapy or was this something that you did on your own?
Vince Benevent...: It was more that I knew but didn't share it. And then pretty quickly within my therapy that came out. And then when that came out, steps were taken and mobilized to put me in the hospital. So I was sent to the hospital with the hope of returning to school in August. This is like the second week of fucking July. Poor planning by all parties involved. I wouldn't draft up a similar framework for some of the guys we work with, [00:12:00] but suffice to say I went to the hospital for 10 days. They kind of recalibrated my meds and kind of sent me on my merry way.
And a month later, I tried to go to college and I locked myself in my room for four days, and didn't eat and didn't come out. So my parents came up and got me-
Gina Benevento: And everybody was on board with you going back to college?
Vince Benevent...: I don't know who "everybody" was at the time, but sure. I guess both my parents and my therapist that I was seeing. I then went home and took med leave for the full year. And that was really just the beginning of my struggle [00:12:30] with mental health, at least by name and out loud, because when I reflect back on my life, I've had issues with mood and my emotional stability for all of my life since I've been child. I didn't have any clinical services in place, or anybody to evaluate me, or put a label or a name to it, but we can put a lot of labels and names to it, I would imagine. And so I just skated through.
Nicole O'Brien: What did you do during that year? That year of medical leave?
Vince Benevent...: I began to develop my causeway approach to [00:13:00] how to get your ass back to school without knowing it. So I did what we recommend these guys do. So I got a job. It was a shit job. I worked at a deli around the corner from my house. I worked at, I remember, the Savory Cafe.
Gina Benevento: There you go.
Nicole O'Brien: All right.
Vince Benevent...: And I made sandwiches and coffee at the Savory Cafe. I worked 40 hours a week. I had a full-time job for the whole year, and I took two community college classes. I think I took one in the first semester, and then I took maybe two in the second semester, and then transferred [00:13:30] them up and went back to Wesleyan following year. But didn't really learn shit, didn't really process anything, had a blip on the radar.
But I've told you this story and there's some true significance here for me. I guess I had a mini existential crisis when I was 19, and a lot of those reasons are easy to understand. I had a dad who just came out, a mom who you don't get along with and you barely see, who's a woman scorned for, again, fairly obvious reason, [00:14:00] totally justified. But I don't trust my dad. I don't have a relationship with my mom, really. I'm split from my brother and sister.
And oh, by the way, reflecting back on my previous year of college, I have no idea who the fuck I am. I detested my conduct. I don't think I was honest enough or brave enough to say that out loud. So all the substance using, fuck around bullshit I was doing only made me feel terrible about myself. And yet, I didn't [00:14:30] know another way of socializing. So when you go to college, aren't you supposed to drink and chase girls? Isn't that what we do, particularly as a meathead fucking football player? And I didn't know any other identity. I didn't know there were any other options really for me that existed.
And I think I had a moment of clarity and took the blinders off for a while, and got really fucking depressed about what I saw in a way that scared me and confused me. But ironically enough, when I went back to college, I just [00:15:00] put the mask back on and kept going because it was so much fucking easier than being honest with myself about my place in the world, and who I was, and who I had become. And maybe most specifically, the work that would be required to undo all of that.
Nicole O'Brien: Inner work is no joke. It's not for the faint of heart.
Vince Benevent...: Sure. So that was 19. I was 19 years old. And-
Gina Benevento: So what changed for you when you said, "I started to develop," what [00:15:30] is now the Causeway model? When you took the year off, what changed that made you want to do that versus when you were in bed and didn't want to talk to your friends that were coming to visit?
Vince Benevent...: My active favorite quote is, "You got to hate something to change it." And I think that's very apropos for the situation. I don't think anything changed. I certainly didn't, other than I fucking hated my situation. I was so sick of sitting at home in my bed when my [00:16:00] buddies were off doing fun shit, and going to college and having a grand old time. I hated my circumstances by comparison and felt like any step was a step. And so I was willing to take it.
And I think what also changed was I got humbled really fucking hard. I had been sort of a decorated student and athlete for most of my life, and to be the fuck off kid who's now home in the neighborhood, seeing your friend's parents at the grocery [00:16:30] store asking you why you're not playing ball in college is a very, very humbling experience.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: And so, I think that right sized me in a productive way. But I think it was very easy for me to slap the mask back on of this tough, macho, fucking bullshit guy and just press on and keep going. And I wasn't ready to do the personal work required to ultimately be a different version of myself at the time.
Nicole O'Brien: So when did that happen? So if you go back to school, you [00:17:00] put the mask back on, when did the mask come off and how did it come off?
Vince Benevent...: Well, I actually got sober when I was 22. I stopped drinking when I was 22. That was very, very hard as a guy who drank very heavily for a very long time, and again, sort of built my identity and my foundational social life around that. But it only came off in part because a lot of the same machismo and misogyny and I think emotional wall [00:17:30] stayed up. I didn't trust people still. I didn't know how to have relationships still. I didn't really make progress, I think, in terms of doing personal work and becoming a balanced man, probably, if I'm married to this wonderful woman for 17 years or 15 years and I've known her for another two, probably until about six years ago, honestly.
I think when I think back to meeting G and the early parts of our relationship, I was still a pretty version of myself. [00:18:00] I think I had the right intentions and wanted the right things for us, for our family, for our life together. But that stuff didn't really changed until the last couple years, honestly.
Nicole O'Brien: You must have seen that in him though when you met.
Gina Benevento: Oh, yeah.
Nicole O'Brien: Right?
Gina Benevento: Yeah. I knew the [inaudible 00:18:16].
Nicole O'Brien: Right? But you saying that it hasn't totally shifted until six years ago though, you saw through that mask [00:18:30] and saw what was underneath it.
Gina Benevento: Or did you take it off for me?
Vince Benevent...: I don't know. I mean, I'd be interested in your experience, but I think the real answer is we hit a rough patch six or seven years ago. And I think what we had built was at stake maybe. Maybe that's a little overstated, but probably not. I think we arrived at a place in our relationship maybe seven or eight years in where we didn't really like each other and we didn't communicate well. And [00:19:00] I think we both acknowledged, I'll speak for myself. I would say that I acknowledged that I had to make serious changes in order to arrive at a place that our family would feel good about. And I think-
Nicole O'Brien: You both did.
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, I think we both did, but I don't want to speak for you. Right?
Gina Benevento: I had to make changes too.
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, so only out of operating from a place of what was truly in the long-term best interest of my family did I feel a real, honest, authentic sense of motivation to dig in and really do [00:19:30] this work. And it was horrible. It is absolutely horrible and so hard. Now, I'm glad now obviously, but it required far more energy, effort and far more willingness to be wrong than I could have ever imagined.
Gina Benevento: Not to mention you're raising three kids at the same time.
Vince Benevent...: And working a million hours a week.
Gina Benevento: And working full-time, running a business.
So can you, based on what you're describing, it sounds [00:20:00] like there's been, it sounds like, I'm your wife, I know, but I'm posing the question, I guess the right way. As a moderator would. It sounds as though you've had two pretty significant bouts of, I don't know if bouts is the right word, but times that you've been depressed. 19 and-
Vince Benevent...: Let's say 35, 36.
Gina Benevento: Yeah, 35 ish. Walk me through kind of the differences, right? So what symptoms were you experiencing? What kind of issues were you working through as a result of the depression that you're feeling when you were 19 years old? Because I imagine it's similar to what [00:20:30] a lot of our clients are experiencing and what the parents are seeing.
Vince Benevent...: So 19 for me was, I believe, driven mostly by substance, not mostly. There were a lot of sort of confounding and contributing factors. So there's a significant substance component because I was an active user and had been for a long time. So that obviously influenced my mood and probably kickstarted my depressive cycle. There was issues around my family system. There's a fractured family system, and a divorce, and marital infidelity that I was processing [00:21:00] and all these different pieces that were hard to hold for a 19-year-old kid especially, but would be hard for anybody to hold.
And I think part of what we preach to guys now is daily structure, daily purpose, daily schedule, daily regimen. That did not exist at all for me because I pulled all the bricks out one by one and really eliminated all that support structure. Put it this way, if either one of you laid in a dark room for a month and didn't do shit, [00:21:30] if you weren't depressed before, you would be after.
Gina Benevento: Yeah.
Nicole O'Brien: Yeah.
Vince Benevent...: For sure.
Gina Benevento: So is that what it looked like?
Vince Benevent...: At the time, yeah.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: There was periods where it was really that. I mean, there was probably, before I went to the hospital I was probably in my room with the shades drawn for like two or three weeks, eating a meal a day.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: And it was dark. It was really dark.
Gina Benevento: And your dad would check on you?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, he'd check in on me, make me-
Gina Benevento: Give you your space?
Vince Benevent...: ... make me some pasta, whatever, and do what he could. But what he decided was, what he endorsed [00:22:00] for me was not the right course of action. I don't hold him accountable for it. I don't blame him for it. I think ultimately there's a lot of things that I could and should have done that I didn't. But that was really it. There was some precipitants that were really significant, and then there was the absence of a plan, and structure, and activity that could have counterbalance some of it that just didn't exist.
Gina Benevento: So lack of engagement in all pro social activities?
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah.
Gina Benevento: Lack of motivation-
Vince Benevent...: Isolation from peers and friends, no relationship [00:22:30] with a significant other to kind of stabilize or provide support or balance, and really just not waking up at the same time, laying in bed, barely sleeping. Am I sleeping? Am I not sleeping? I don't even know what fucking day it is. Doing everything wrong. Imagine a script where you did everything wrong. I literally made a script and did everything wrong. Now, maybe that helps me get to the right answer sometimes now, maybe. But I pressure tested doing everything wrong as much as you could possibly, [00:23:00] and did that.
At 35 it just didn't look the same way. I have a wife, and a house, and three kids, and dog, and a bunch of employees, and all the things. So ironically, I was probably just as depressed because stuff was pretty bleak over here for a period, and none of the support bricks came out. So me being depressed at 35 was like, I didn't talk a lot. I was grumpy as shit. I didn't sleep at all, that was the one thing. [00:23:30] And G will say, I mean, I was sleeping like an hour or night for months, months and months and months.
Nicole O'Brien: I wouldn't be alive.
Gina Benevento: No, it was bad. I was also, I was smiling only because there was a part of the period where we had sold our house and were transitioning to another house. And the new house wasn't finished yet so we were living in my parents' basement. And again, lovely experience of course, but also when you're living somewhere else for months and you don't have your own space, that didn't help.
Vince Benevent...: No. No, we [00:24:00] call that, "No, thank you." Call that, "No, thank you."
Gina Benevento: "No, thank you," indeed.
Vince Benevent...: And I love my in-laws and they're phenomenal. And, "No, thank you." But ironically, that actually kind of jolted me a little bit.
Gina Benevento: I think so.
Vince Benevent...: It kind of jolted me a little bit because I was in their house, and so I had to behave well, even if I didn't want to behave well. And even if we were fighting like animals, I had to tuck it in. And so that necessitated me to-
Gina Benevento: Certain behaviors.
Vince Benevent...: Certain structures and certain parameters that [00:24:30] didn't allow me to lay up in my room all day long, didn't allow me to act out in ways that maybe I otherwise would have. So there were checks and balances that supported me through that. I think staying at your parents' place was definitely one of them, but really just the infrastructure of life, in addition to the fact that I had been on a mood stabilizer for 20 years from the previous incident that was kicking in my system at the time where it wasn't-
Gina Benevento: Right, previously.
Vince Benevent...: ... wasn't there prior.
Gina Benevento: That's a good point.
Vince Benevent...: So it's hard to know how much the meds actually took the top [00:25:00] off and made it better than it otherwise could have been had I not been on them. We did change my regimen during the second period too, so we added some stuff and subtracted some stuff, but I was medicated which probably helped a little bit.
Nicole O'Brien: So what would've, because you've mentioned this before, the hiding in plain sight was kind of like that 35-year-old time period. What would I have noticed about you that would've triggered me to say, "Oh, he's in a bad place, he's depressed"?
Vince Benevent...: Well, I mean, my guys approached me, so people were [00:25:30] definitely taking notice.
Gina Benevento: Oh, yeah.
Vince Benevent...: I mean, I had guys coming up to me at work and pulling me aside almost every other day like, "Dude, are you okay? You look fucking terrible. What is wrong with you?" I was like, "No, I'm sick." And I was, I got physically sick.
Gina Benevento: You did?
Vince Benevent...: So I had basically walking pneumonia for like three or four months because I wasn't sleeping and I couldn't shake it. And so I just had this cough. I was walking around with a hacking cough. I had bags under my eyes. I lost like 15 pounds. [00:26:00] I stopped working out. Anybody who knows me know I worked out every day-
Nicole O'Brien: I can't even imagine
Vince Benevent...: ... for like a million years. It's fundamental to me as oxygen. So that would be stuff that you picked up on.
And I just think I was kind of sullen and melancholy. I wasn't an asshole. I wasn't flying off the handle, I didn't have the fucking energy to. But I mean, the ironic part, I didn't miss a second of work, not a second. And I was working differently than I do now. I was working long days, long shifts. I remember the [00:26:30] first day back from the new year, I hadn't been in the office yet. It was literally 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM, 14 appointments straight every hour on the hour. And I remember saying to the God of the universe, "Just fucking kill me. Just take, just honestly, I'm not-"
Gina Benevento: Like, "How am I going to do this?"
Vince Benevent...: "There's no possible way I'm going to make it through this day. Please figure out a way to get me through this day." And that feels [00:27:00] now like a different life, honestly. It feels like 1,000 years ago in a world that I can't even imagine.
Gina Benevento: You did a really good job concealing it from the kids and not letting, it was really important to you that you didn't let it impact them. And you didn't want your depression to kind of leak over into their lives.
Vince Benevent...: Well I was-
Gina Benevento: And I imagine that was difficult.
Vince Benevent...: No, it was easy actually, ironically.
Gina Benevento: Why?
Vince Benevent...: Because I was so disgusted with myself and so ashamed with [00:27:30] myself for how I felt and the way that I was unable to bounce back, that it was paramount for me to model for them that I was okay.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: I never wanted them to question, "Is there something wrong with my father?" Or, "What's going on with Dad?" So I, every ounce of energy, every ounce of free energy that I had went in the name of concealing all that bullshit from them so that they wouldn't have to experience anything as a byproduct.
Gina Benevento: [00:28:00] Now that our kids are a little bit older, would you do it differently?
Vince Benevent...: Probably not, only because they were small. And so I think they lacked understanding. And when kids are... Obviously, I don't know very much about kids development, but when they lack understanding, they feel things. They can't articulate it, but they can feel it. So I think my 12-year-old is walking around behind us now. I would absolutely talk to him about it now at 12 years old-
Gina Benevento: Oh, yeah.
Vince Benevent...: ... and be transparent. [00:28:30] And we talk about it, and he knows about my anxiety and my depression, and those are conversations that we have. He has his own issues with anxiety too, and we talk about that stuff. But I-
Gina Benevento: What'd he tell you the other day?
Vince Benevent...: Remind me.
Gina Benevento: You were sharing with him that you were experiencing some anxiety.
Vince Benevent...: Oh, yeah.
Gina Benevento: And you asked him like, "From one guy to another."
Vince Benevent...: Yeah. I was just talking to him and I was just saying, I think I was telling him, "We got some moving pieces at work, and I'm trying to make some personal changes and be a little bit healthier." And so I said, "I'm feeling kind of anxious about it," [00:29:00] and here's what I'm doing and here's why I'm doing it. And I said, "What do you think? What advice would you give me?" And he said, "Well, it sounds like you're doing the right thing. Just take the next step." But we talk about that stuff.
Nicole O'Brien: You have raised-
Gina Benevento: Good stuff.
Nicole O'Brien: ... some stellar little beings.
Vince Benevent...: Oh, we're trying. We're trying.
Nicole O'Brien: Seriously because-
Gina Benevento: By God's grace.
Nicole O'Brien: ... it's interesting too, to hear your story because, and to hear how you talk to your kids about it now, how you had that conversation. And when [00:29:30] you were growing up, and again, it's not about blame or anything around that with parents, but imagine what would've happened if you had the ability to do that with one of your parents.
Vince Benevent...: Oh my gosh.
Nicole O'Brien: To be able to say, to be able to articulate, and even if you couldn't, have a space where they could kind of be in that with you in a way that allowed for you to talk about it.
Vince Benevent...: And ironic, I mean, my dad's a social worker. My dad's a social worker [00:30:00] and went to school to get that training, but it just wasn't the same way. It wasn't woven into the vernacular.
Gina Benevento: No, it wasn't.
Nicole O'Brien: Back in the day.
Vince Benevent...: It wasn't something that people talk about. Mental health discussions were for fucking crazy people.
Nicole O'Brien: Yeah.
Gina Benevento: Yeah.
Vince Benevent...: I mean, my grandfather, rest his soul, was a, he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and was hospitalized many, many times, tried to kill himself.
Gina Benevento: And did you guys talk about that?
Vince Benevent...: Never. Never.
Gina Benevento: What?
Vince Benevent...: Never. Never. I [00:30:30] didn't know any of it. I think, in fact-
Gina Benevento: When did you find out?
Vince Benevent...: In my twenties.
Gina Benevento: Oh, so this was after you had your own diagnosis then when you found out?
Vince Benevent...: I think it was not only after my own diagnosis, but maybe after he had passed or-
Gina Benevento: Oh, wow.
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, when he was older, for sure.
Gina Benevento: Oh, wow.
Vince Benevent...: If not after he had passed.
Nicole O'Brien: So it wasn't talkable in the family?
Vince Benevent...: No, no.
Nicole O'Brien: There was this little rule around-
Vince Benevent...: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Gina Benevento: How-
Vince Benevent...: He had a suicide attempt when I was like 10 years old.
Gina Benevento: Oh, whoa.
Vince Benevent...: And I [00:31:00] only came to find out about it, again, after he had passed, after maybe when they were working through the affairs of the estate. I don't know.
Gina Benevento: Wow.
Vince Benevent...: But it was information that just wasn't talked about.
Gina Benevento: How often when families are coming in through the center, do you see that that lack of communication is paralyzing the progression?
Nicole O'Brien: It's kind of at either extreme. So it's either there's this lack of connectedness, [00:31:30] and communication, and information flow, or there's an over-involvement, enmeshment and too much information flow.
Gina Benevento: Pendulum swings one of two ways.
Nicole O'Brien: Right. So I see both those extremes in the families that come in. What we try to help them with is getting a balance between the two. The balance of, we were talking about this yesterday, balance of autonomy and connectedness.
Gina Benevento: Yes.
Nicole O'Brien: Right? Being able to allow for their son to have [00:32:00] some sense of autonomy and agency that's age appropriate while at the same time still being connected to the family.
Gina Benevento: The whole.
Nicole O'Brien: Right? And that's a fine balance, especially when you're at one extreme or the other. Would you agree with that? Over the years the parents you've seen are at either extreme or?
Vince Benevent...: It's interesting. I think the majority of the parents who come in are fairly savvy about mental health. We are a multiple times per week kind of model. If you're sending your kid to us, [00:32:30] there's a good chance that, one, this is not the first time he's encountered therapy before. Most guys have started with something prior to us and we're the second, third, fourth experience they have with therapy as they kind of crescendo upward in terms of their need. As such, the parents are more savvy, more aware. It's also a very well-resourced community. And so people are smart. People have done their homework. People are kind shopping what's out there. And I think it's not as though they're openly [00:33:00] discussing it with their kids per se, but I think they're knowledgeable of the subject. They probably had some preliminary discussions or some exposure to it, and certainly way more so than was sort of standard fare back then.
Nicole O'Brien: It's absolutely more talkable now. Mental health, I mean, that's kind of the social, how the social landscape has evolved. When I think about when you were asking about the communication, and it's not necessarily surrounding specifically [00:33:30] mental health where you see that polarization of either over involvement or a lack of engagement. It can be around anything that the young man is encountering. So like-
Gina Benevento: So say more.
Nicole O'Brien: So meaning that I think we've talked a little bit about different archetypes and when there are families that come in, an archetype of an over-involved parent who wants to dictate everything that their young man does, and what career path, and all of that kind of stuff, versus the one that's totally hands [00:34:00] off.
Gina Benevento: Right. But we think about an over-involved parent, what are some things that that person is doing? Because as a mom, we don't always know. You go from caring for every single need that your kid has to, and as they start to fall off you're not really sure when you're being overbearing or not. So what are the things that you see overbearing or over-involved parents do that are the biggest red flags? Like, "Stop. Please stop doing these things."
Nicole O'Brien: Before we answer that. I think there's a bit of a contextual piece [00:34:30] to consider too. When we say over-involved parent, it's not a unilateral thing that happens that the parent is just over-involved. The young man is also operating in a way that organizes their parent-
Gina Benevento: Of course.
Nicole O'Brien: ... to be over-involved.
Gina Benevento: Good point.
Nicole O'Brien: So it's a relational dynamic that happens because a lot of times I think when we say over-involved parent, it might sound shaming or blaming, and that's not what the intention is. It is a relational dynamic. One of the biggest things that I see where there is [00:35:00] over involvement between a parent and a young man is a lot of parents that we see operate from a place of fear that if they aren't so closely involved with their son, the decisions he's going to make aren't going to be good.
Would you agree with that?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, no. 100%. I think, to me, over-involved parents are making decisions for the kid around matters that he should be deciding [00:35:30] for himself given his developmental phase, right? So like-
Gina Benevento: So 16 years old, three things that he should be in charge of that parents are...
Vince Benevent...: Academic process, his approach to his studies and his academic process. What he chooses to do with his extracurricular time outside of school. So, "Son, you need to do an activity." Okay, great, but the kid gets to pick which one it is based on his interest and based upon how he feels like that fits into his life. And then [00:36:00] I believe that a kid should also be able to choose who he spends his time with, so long as that doesn't infringe upon the rules of the household. So I get to choose who I hang out with, what I do after school and how I manage my academics.
Gina Benevento: At 15, 16?
Vince Benevent...: At 16. At 16. Because you're coming up against a driver's license. You're a sophomore, junior in high school. You are not quite getting ready for college, but moving towards that. And so should be orienting yourself in the world in preparation thereof.
Gina Benevento: So [00:36:30] now let's fast-forward to getting ready for college. Obviously more responsibility, more autonomy. Which ones are key that he should be?
Vince Benevent...: One of the things that I think parents get wrong is clamping down on their kid summer before they go off to school freshman year. I think parents view it as their job to restrict their kid from making shitty decisions prior to going to college. My [00:37:00] opinion is that that is the most fertile ground for assessing and evaluating your decision as a parent to send them or not. So it's not about the decisions that your kid is making, but rather how do you feel about those decisions and your investment in his future? Because in my opinion, I do think there should be a less is more approach for that summer in question, particularly with guys who we see who have issues with decision making. So get-
Gina Benevento: Let them figure it out when you're in close proximity.
Nicole O'Brien: Right.
Vince Benevent...: Bingo. Exactly. [00:37:30] Give your kid the runway. The summer is a blueprint and a dress rehearsal for freshman year. And so, "Hey, kid, guess what? Be home one o'clock, Godspeed."
Gina Benevento: Whoa.
Vince Benevent...: Or whatever. You pick a time and you make it reasonable for you. But I think, for me, it's not that he's going to do anything different the following freshman fall, right? He's going to go out till 4:00 AM, he's going to go out till 5:00 AM. The same dumb shit he's going to do that summer, he's going to do when he goes away in school that fall. So [00:38:00] take a bystander's lens towards it, assess it and evaluate it for what it is. And guess what? If you don't like what you see, then kill it and don't send him to college. Let him stay home and go to community college instead. And that's your right as his parent based on the information that you've gathered.
Now where it goes sideways is the parents who don't want to make their kid unhappy but want to bitch about the decisions that he's making. So I just want to bitch about the things that you're doing. "I don't like what time you're coming home. I don't like who you're hanging [00:38:30] out with. You had six beers instead of four. That's unacceptable." Okay, fine. And the only leverage that you have is the financial leverage over your decision to send them or not, in my opinion. And so if you care like you say you do about what's in his best interest, then clip it and don't send them if you don't like what you see.
Gina Benevento: So I think some parents don't think they have that decision making. Like, "I can just..." If I'm listening to this podcast, I'm saying, "You're telling me just don't send my kid to [00:39:00] school?"
Vince Benevent...: Exactly.
Gina Benevento: "Yeah, right."
Vince Benevent...: That's exactly what I'm-
Gina Benevento: "All his buddies are going." And so I know that we have moms who I've heard them say that on the phone, right? "Everybody's going to school. I have to send my kid."
Vince Benevent...: But then don't call me in November when he's fucking around in ways that are indicated by what he did already this summer.
Gina Benevento: So what things and clues would somebody have that would, red flags that would say, "Hey, listen, your kid is not ready to go to college. Save the $50,000 [00:39:30] and his safety, not in that order." So what are those red flags that then would lead to what you experienced, which was having to take a medical leave-
Vince Benevent...: Bingo.
Gina Benevento: ... and taking some time off of school?
Vince Benevent...: Bingo. And this is obviously a matter of importance to me-
Gina Benevento: Obviously.
Vince Benevent...: ... because of my own-
Gina Benevento: You're getting hot about it.
Vince Benevent...: No, it's not hot, it's just this is the work that I've done for a dozen years. And the clues. Is your kid failing classes spring semester in high school? If your kid is failing spring semester in [00:40:00] high school, that is not going to transcend, transition well to freshman year of college. He's going to do exactly the same shit. Okay? So if he's failing classes second semester senior year, that's a key indicator that you're up against it when he goes to college the next fall, number one.
Number two, blowing through curfew and not adhering to the rules of the household. If your kid says he's going to be somewhere at a certain time, at a certain day, he better show up and he better be there because that consistently demonstrates his ability to be responsible and communicative [00:40:30] or not.
Number three, the communication as I just mentioned, and that's probably the most important part. When you text your kid, how long does it take for you to get a response? Does he get back to you and let you know that he changed whereabouts, and he went from Jimmy's house to Johnny's house and Johnny's house to Steve's house? Or is he just allowing you to track him on his phone absent that communication?
The substance piece, is he engaging in substance use? If so, is it age appropriate developmental in a way that you're comfortable with? Is he the kind of kid who [00:41:00] goes out and smokes once a weekend with his buddies or has a couple beers with his buddies on the weekends? Or is it what I was dealing with or the kinds of decisions that I was making, which are far more indicative of addictive tendency and significant problems later on down the line?
Gina Benevento: So what were you dealing with? What did that look like for you?
Vince Benevent...: I mean, I was an active daily substance user before I went to college, so that's a pretty good indicator that I'm going to have a substance use problem. And oh, by the way, I did. So the information is right there. It's all right there. It's not rocket [00:41:30] science. If we, as you said on our last taping, "I have a responsibility to exercise the authority that I have over my children. Even if that makes them unhappy, that is my authority and my power to wield in their best interest." And as their parent, I can't control you. I can't control him when he's 18 years old. He walks out of this house at 18-year-old, legally and in the eyes of this household I can't control anything he does, but I can control what I do in response. I can [00:42:00] control if the front door's locked when he gets home. I-
Gina Benevento: Like your grandfather?
Nicole O'Brien: Yeah.
Vince Benevent...: Like my grandfather. I can control if the keys to his car, which is my car, are hidden. I can control whether his cell phone gets clipped. And I can damn sure control whether I pay his tuition bill freshman fall. I can control all those things and I will.
Nicole O'Brien: Boundaries.
Gina Benevento: Yeah, boundaries.
Vince Benevent...: Boundaries.
Nicole O'Brien: Clarity and expectations.
Vince Benevent...: Clarity and boundaries. Nice and easy.
Nicole O'Brien: I love that.
Gina Benevento: Well, we have covered a lot. Any parting [00:42:30] thoughts? Anything else you want to share before we wrap it on this one?
Vince Benevent...: Yeah, I'm going to restate one of the lines I just said. Exercise the authority that you have in the life of your child. The decisions you make are yours, not anybody else's, and they should be untangled from what makes somebody else happy or what somebody else's kid or parent is doing. Your decisions are yours and yours alone with respect to your relationship with your kid.
Nicole O'Brien: Damn, preach.
Gina Benevento: Preach.
Nicole O'Brien: I just want to thank [00:43:00] you, honestly. I want to thank you for your willingness to share the details of your life in that way.
Vince Benevent...: It's messy, girl. It's messy.
Nicole O'Brien: And you know what? Heather and I like to say to one another, "All parts are welcome." And that's-
Gina Benevento: Most of the time.
Nicole O'Brien: And I think it's really important though, for people to hear who you were because you were a Causeway guy, right?
Vince Benevent...: Oh, for sure.
Nicole O'Brien: So you know this intimately. And [00:43:30] to also now see the man you've become and how you have embodied the things that you want to teach these young men, you have to do that. It's one thing to do this work and to have a mask on, right? Eventually that's going to get old and it's not going to work. But you have to get to a place, I think, of embodying it to have the type of impact that the organization has had on young men and families, and particularly that you have had. So I just thank you for [00:44:00] your transparency and vulnerability.
Vince Benevent...: Super kind. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Nicole O'Brien: Way to receive that.
Gina Benevento: Practicing on receiving.
Vince Benevent...: Practicing that.
Nicole O'Brien: Going to beat you over the head with it.
Vince Benevent...: And that's a wrap for today's episode of Causeway Conversations. We hope you found our discussion on these important challenges, insightful and valuable.
Nicole O'Brien: And if you're looking for more guidance, support and inspiration, be sure to follow Causeway Collaborative on social media, [00:44:30] we're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where we share resources, success stories and updates. And if you want to reach us directly, email us at info@causewaycollaborative.com.
Vince Benevent...: And don't forget to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode of Causeway Conversations. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more.
Nicole O'Brien: For those who prefer a visual experience our podcast episodes are also available on YouTube. Just search [00:45:00] for Causeway Collaborative and hit the subscribe button.
Vince Benevent...: Thank you all for joining us on this journey of growth and discovery. Remember, we're here to support you and your son every step of the way.
Nicole O'Brien: And until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.