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Chris Coulter

@pappacoult28

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💗👼 MG 💗 ZT SJ
TheMentorWell.com
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I run a mental health company.
Some days I think we talk about mental health too much.....not for the reason you're expecting.

Here's what I've watched happen in boardrooms, school gyms and living rooms.
Someone says the words "mental health," and the air goes out of the room. Eyes drift. Shoulders drop. Even people who care do a small internal sigh.

I used to think that was resistance.
It isn't. It's fatigue with a phrase.

"We all have mental health" is true.
It's also useless.
It's the "we're all animals" of wellbeing.
A sentence that includes everyone tells you nothing about what to do next.

We won the awareness fight.
Most people know this is real now.
And then we kept running the awareness play, at people who are already aware, and called it progress.

That's why it feels like too much.
It isn't the volume. It's the altitude.
The conversation never comes down far enough to be useful.

I wrote the whole argument today, including the part where I stopped hiding behind the safe version of my own story.
When you hear we have a "Mental Health" speaker coming in today, where does this land for you?
Curious whether this lands or annoys?

See article in comments by @pappacoult28

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2 months ago

This bittersweet article about Maddie on Substack.

Thanks for supporting, if you're interested

Link in comments by @pappacoult28

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3 months ago

My latest on Substack.
"Experience Teaches. Learning Follows. Everything Else Becomes Regret"

Link in comments by @pappacoult28

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3 months ago

Happy 26th birthday, Maddie
Gone too soon.
You continue to leave your mark on the world.
I miss you and love you always.
Thank you for continuing to inspire me

Love Dad xo by @pappacoult28

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3 months ago

A workshop built for the conversations that keep going sideways

I want to tell you about something I built specifically for our parent community.

It is called "10 Days to a Better Relationship with Your Teen."

Five live sessions.

Forty-five minutes each.

Spread over ten days so you have time to actually try things at home between calls.

It is a live room with other parents who are dealing with the exact same things you are, working through real challenges together.

Here is what we will cover:

How to stop an escalating situation before it blows up. How to build more trust with a teenager who has stopped letting you in.
How to have a real conversation instead of the same argument on repeat.
Practical things you can try tonight, not eventually.

You bring your biggest challenges. We figure them out together.

Most parents who show up tell me the same thing afterward.

They did not just learn strategies.

They realized they were not alone.

That the closed doors and one-word answers and walking-on-eggshells feeling is not a sign they are failing.

It is just parenthood right now. And it is workable.

There will also be more laughter than you're probably expecting.

Because parenting a teenager is equal parts hard and absurd, and sometimes that is the most useful thing to remember.

This workshop is available exclusively inside the When Something Feels Off parent community.

If you're already a member, you will find the details inside.

If you are not a member yet, the link below will take you there.

Spots are kept deliberately small. This is the only way this kind of work actually works.

[JOIN WHEN SOMETHING FEELS OFF]
Link to group in comments

I will see you inside.

P.S. If you know another parent who needs this right now, forward this email. The right person showing up in that room changes the room for everyone.

Join When Something Feels Off today. by @pappacoult28

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4 months ago

Eleven years in.
Last week still knocked me flat.

Not dramatically. Nothing happened.

My mind just got quieter than usual.
The anxiousness came back.
Things I normally finish sat unfinished. The resentment I carry toward certain people moved closer to the surface than it's been in a while.

That's what a rogue wave looks like from the inside.

No warning.
No obvious cause.
Just everything slightly harder than it was the week before.

I wrote about it.
About what eleven years of grief actually looks like when you stop pretending it follows a timeline.
About antidepressants and why I'll likely always be on them and why I think that needs to be said plainly.

And about the one distinction that changed everything for me.
Moving forward with grief. Not without it.

Link in comments by @pappacoult28

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4 months ago

My mom passed away on February 26th.
Carol Francis Coulter.

She raised three boys who were anything but easy.
She caught for me in baseball until I threw one too hard and almost took off her breast.

She helped Maddie learn to sail. She held things together without making it look like holding things together.

When my mom told Maddie she would not be able to do all the same things with the younger grandchildren that she had done with the older ones, Maddie looked at her and said:
"It doesn't need to be the same stuff Grandma. You'll just figure it out."

My mom loved to tell that story after Maddie passed away.

Both of them are gone now.
Both of them make me better at being here.

Grief does not make you weaker. Not when you let it become purpose.

They are my accountability angels. You honour their memory in how you live. Not in the big gestures. In the daily ones.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

And if there is someone you have been meaning to call, do not wait.
Not another day. by @pappacoult28

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5 months ago

Eleven years ago today, I lost my daughter Maddie to suicide. She was 14.

For most of those years I tried to get back to who I was before that night. Last year I finally stopped trying. I was never meant to go back.

Grief restructures you.
Spiritually. Emotionally. Physically. Financially.

There were stretches when getting out of bed felt like a victory. But something always pulled me back. I like to think that was Maddie.

What I couldn't have predicted is that eleven years later, her memory makes me smile. Inspires me to keep building something she'd be proud of.

I built The MentorWell for her. With her.

Today I wrote about what eleven years taught me. About grief. Purpose. Mistakes I'm grateful for. And why this anniversary feels different.

If you're carrying something heavy, this one will help. Link in comments. 💜

We miss you Maddie.
We love you.
And we're still going, because of you.
Dad xo by @pappacoult28

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6 months ago

For more than nine years after I lost Maddie, I was trying to get back to the person I was before she died.

Last year I finally stopped.

I finally realized I was never meant to go back.

Before that shift, her memories brought sadness, guilt, regret. Today they make me smile. They make me laugh. They inspire me.

April 11th is 3 days away. Eleven years without her.
If you're carrying something you haven't been able to put down, this one's for you. 💜
https://www.thementorwell.com/blog/nine-years-trying-to-get-back-maddie-finally-stopped by @pappacoult28

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6 months ago

Grief doesn't get smaller.
You get larger around it.

Over the last ten years, hundreds of parents have found their way to me carrying the same questions. Parents who have lost a child. A spouse. A parent. A sibling. Someone they didn't know how to live without.

The questions are almost always the same.
When does the pain ease?
What do I do with the guilt that won't fully go?
How do I honour who they were, without losing who I still am?
And the fourth question. The one almost nobody asks out loud. But that anyone who has been inside a loss this deep has been somewhere near.

I answered all four honestly in this post.
Not with platitudes, but with the truth.

Because that's the only thing that actually reaches someone who is living this.

This is the post I wish had existed when I was inside it.
I'm putting it here in case it finds the right person today.

If you know someone who is carrying this kind of grief: a parent, a friend, a colleague who lost someone they loved, share this quietly with them. It doesn't need to be loud to reach the right person.
💜
Link in comments.

In memory of Maddie Coulter · June 28, 2000 — April 11, 2015 by @pappacoult28

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6 months ago

This is Episode 2 of the Inbox Diaries. What strangers around the world share with me that they don't share with anyone else.

It's raw. It's personal. It's scary.

https://www.thementorwell.com/blog/inbox-diaries-episode-2-i-havent-told-anyone-at-work by @pappacoult28

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6 months ago

Every week, strangers tell me things they haven't told anyone else. The Inbox Diaries shares the patterns inside those messages, because the silence parents are keeping at home and at work is costing more than any of us are willing to admit.

This is Episode 1. A new one lands every week by @pappacoult28

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7 months ago