Episode 16: Corey Hirsch
Hello, I'm Jessica Samuels. Welcome to A Way Forward presented by Beam Credit Union. This podcast is produced on the ancestral, traditional and unceded territories of the Okanagan Zilliqa people. My guest today is Corey Hirsch. He's a former NHL goaltender, a Stanley Cup winner, an Olympic silver medalist, and a mental health ambassador and advocate.
Jessica Samuels:His story is of someone who from all outward appearances was at the top of his game, but he was not. And in fact, he was struggling so significantly with his mental illness, he almost didn't make it. But he did. He asked for help. And he's here to let anyone who's struggling know that it does get better.
Jessica Samuels:Beam Credit Union is proud to sponsor today's episode. With deep roots in BC and a commitment to your financial journey, Beam believes wellness, mental and financial starts with support you can count on. Cory, thank you for being here. And I say that on two levels. Thank you for being here on the podcast.
Jessica Samuels:And thank you for being here with this message. It's an incredible story, an important story to tell. And I really appreciate you being here to tell it.
Corey Hirsch:Well, and I appreciate you being able to allow me to tell it because if there's nobody to hear it, then we have nothing. Right? So it's a mutual respect. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Jessica Samuels:Very true. Thank you so much. So let's go back to I read an article that you wrote in 2017 in the Players Tribune. It's called Dark, Dark, Dark. There's actually eight darks.
Jessica Samuels:But we'll talk a little bit about that. It was such an emotional read. It took me a little bit to get through it. I don't mind telling people that. I can't imagine what it was like for you to write it.
Jessica Samuels:Can you tell me what brought you to the point to write that article at that time?
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of factors that I always considered telling, obviously my story. All have a story to tell, but with mine, I was going to initially write a book is what I was thinking of doing and going out that route. And it was taking a bit of time and I hummed and hawed on it when I met another player, another player in the National Hockey League who was in a rehabilitation center in Arizona at the time where where I was living. And this player was an active player at the time. I'd been retired for fifteen years at this point.
Corey Hirsch:I'd met him and I was through a mutual friend and just thought, I'll take him for coffee. He's in a rehabilitation center. You know, he must must need a friend or somebody just to talk to. And so I took him to Starbucks and we went and we sat there and I just had never really told anybody but close friends and family my story. Nobody really knew.
Corey Hirsch:And then with him, I just figured him being in in a treatment center, you know, for addiction, I I figured I'll just tell him because usually addiction and mental health go hand in hand. So I figured out just maybe maybe he could find something, some common ground in it. And so I I started telling him my story and I told him all about it and he looked at me, you know, dead straight in the eyes. He says, oh my god, that's exactly what I've gone through. And his mom had to resuscitate him twice from fentanyl overdoses.
Corey Hirsch:So it was at that point I went, okay, you know, here's a person that's almost died twice from addiction with fentanyl overdoses, whom and who knows how many other times. I didn't realize that there was other people out there like me at the time. And it was that moment the light bulb went off and it was like, oh my God, there are thousands of more people out there like me that need to hear the story we're hiding our mental health issues, who knows how many were successful at overdoses or suicides, right? So it was at that point I just went, okay, I gotta get my story out there. And the wheels just kind of got in motion.
Corey Hirsch:The universe just kept putting people in front of me, put a lady named, you know, Catherine McAuley and Lana Quinn in front of me randomly. I met Lana at a funeral actually of an old coach of mine. And it was just, it was like a month after I had met this player, who I won't say the name, but due to privacy, but it was almost as if, and then they put me in touch with the NHL, who put me in touch with the Players Tribune, and the story just got rolling. Lana was almost the same story. I was just sitting there beside her and we were talking and I just spewed my story to her.
Corey Hirsch:I don't even know why, I just did. And she put the wheels in motion and the Will A Players Tribune article came out, and that article is still probably is one of the most clicked on articles in Players Tribune history in sports publishing. That that includes Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, you know, all these great athletes. And here's mine, Corey Hirsch, you know, kid from Calgary. And my article hit just as hard.
Corey Hirsch:So that's kind of the long winded answer, but that's how it all happened. Yeah.
Jessica Samuels:Well, and it is a long answer, but I appreciate it because what I notice is most significant in that response and also as part of the story is that you talked about it. So you told in this instance where you met this player for coffee and you told your story, and then you realized you weren't alone and he realized he wasn't alone. And then, you know, you tell it again. And I really feel like that's at the heart of the crux of you of you speaking and telling your story. So now let's go back to 1994 for people who who don't know your story, or maybe don't know the details of your story.
Jessica Samuels:What was happening for you?
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, so I have obsessive compulsive disorder. It manifests in a lot of different ways. In 1994, was rolling right along in life and OCD is a little bit different than something that's trauma based or depression or anxiety. OCD for me was like something in my brain just broke, like two wires disconnected. I started getting repetitive thinking, deep, dark thoughts that weren't true and my rational brain, my irrational brain were fighting each other.
Corey Hirsch:And the way OCD manifests, most people think it's hand washing and cleanliness and organization and all that. I did everything in my head. Everything was mental compulsions for me, so you couldn't see it, right? So I was able to hide it very easily because you couldn't I didn't have any outward outward things where people would notice, oh, there's places or whatever, organize or anything, any one of those. I did everything in my head.
Corey Hirsch:So I had a, you know, and I'm not afraid to say this, it's so manifest in a lot of men and a lot of people with your sexual orientation, your sexuality, it can go after that. And mine was thinking that I might possibly be gay, which today, you know, it's not a big deal. I don't care anymore. Back in 1994, that would have, you know, thrown out my NHL career, would have been a big news thing, big thing. So kind of attacked it that way.
Corey Hirsch:Now the content of it is typically, it doesn't matter, right? It's OCD attacks, whatever. But I went on to their thinking, you know, giving people HIV to like all sorts of different things. That's how it manifested for me when I was none of those things, but your rational and irrational brain. It's hard to describe.
Corey Hirsch:It's like the best way to describe OCD is you're driving down the road, you get a thought, two lane traffic, one's coming this way, one's coming. We all get that thought, well, what if I accidentally just my wheel into that lane? Well, it'd be chaos, things would happen. Well, a rational normal brain would go home and go, that was a silly thought because you would never do it, but it's just a thought. And the OCD brain like me would go home, I would think about it, I would never want that to happen ever to the point where I would just stop driving my car.
Corey Hirsch:Right? Like, it would get to that point where 20 fourseven, that's the only thought I'd be able to have. That's OCD, so mine manifested a little bit differently, and there's thousands of ways that OCD can manifest. There's harm, religious, sexuality, cleanliness, but people only think that it's cleanliness. It's got a wide variety of things.
Corey Hirsch:The other thing about OCD that I need people to understand is that people are like, Oh, it's cute. You're clean. You're that. Most of my friends that have obsessive compulsive disorder before they were diagnosed have made a suicide attempt. That's how debilitating it is.
Corey Hirsch:But the thing about OCD that I wanna tell people out there is that no matter what it has, it also has the best gains once you do get diagnosed. So that's kind of, you know, again, another long winded answer because there really is no short winded way to say any of this, but that's OCD, that's how it manifests. But to also know that it's one of the most treatable, not curable, but it's very treatable once you're diagnosed.
Jessica Samuels:Okay. So the diagnosis came later. I mean, in these moment, in the throes of, we're talking about 1994 and you were managing these thoughts trying to and from what I'm hearing from you, worried that you're going to embark on these actions or have these things that you won't have any control over. How were you? How were you managing?
Jessica Samuels:Mean, on one hand, you're hoisting up the Stanley Cup. But it's interesting. Well, and that's the whole point that you weren't. So you're hoisting up the Stanley Cup, and you're really, really, really troubled.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, well, let's say every time you get, and again, it's just a thought, we have millions a day, but when you get hit with an OCD thought, it's like getting hit with a taser gun of anxiety. It can be crippling, it can be debilitating. And then your brain is is fighting truth versus non truth. Right? You know, I was I you know, still to this day, 53 years old, I'm a heterosexual man, but my brain was trying to tell me something else.
Corey Hirsch:Right? And you just get into, it's called brain lock. It's almost like you just get into a fight where one side is rational, one is irrational. And it's, again, it's debilitating. Anxiety, it's anxiety fueled, it's crushing.
Corey Hirsch:And I wasn't functioning. Off the ice, I was I was, you know, stopped hanging out with my friends, stopped doing, you know, things around the rink. Really, only sanctuary I had was on the ice. That was where, you know, my brain was occupied and and that's where I felt like I was safest. But the minute I stepped off the ice 24 a day, seven days a week, man, I was I was in torture.
Corey Hirsch:Like, was that those thoughts were just never ever leaving. They were automatic almost.
Jessica Samuels:And you talked about you have friends who had have have thought about or actions, you know, thought about committing suicide. And you are one of those people as well. In the midst of that, you had a very significant incident where you were going to you were going to do
Corey Hirsch:it. Well, yeah, absolutely. And we need to let people know that people that are thinking suicidal thoughts. There's nothing wrong with that. Please come forward, let us know.
Corey Hirsch:We're ashamed to tell people that we're having these thoughts and that's what we're going through, but that's actually what keeps us prisoner. What we do is when we shame people for having these thoughts, we make them feel worse. Hey, you know what? It's okay you're having these thoughts, there's a better solution out there. There's a better answer.
Corey Hirsch:We can get you some help with this. And to stop shaming people for feeling this way and thinking this way. Like I say, it's not the solution. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm saying that we all, from time to time, things happen.
Corey Hirsch:We get a bit sad, but don't be afraid to tell somebody that you're having suicidal thoughts, please. Don't be afraid to tell somebody and reach out, look, I'm not thinking properly or these things are going through my mind, and reach out for help. There is a solution, that there is hope, that there is help, that it is available. If we can encourage people to come forward rather than shame them for thinking these things, no matter how, whatever it is, we can help you. And that's, yeah, we keep ourselves prisoners because of our own thoughts.
Corey Hirsch:There's a
Jessica Samuels:better way it goes back to what we were talking about before of not talking, right? And it's that layered stigma. I mean, a mental health issue, having a mental illness, whatever it is, there's stigma associated with that. And then associated with, you know, thoughts of suicide or, or, or having a plan. What I really hear from you and all the things that you're saying is, is talking to somebody.
Jessica Samuels:Turning to somebody and saying, Hey, this is what I'm doing. And this is what you did.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, well, it's it's because we think our thoughts someone else is going to judge us for them or someone else is going to but, but you know, they are what they are, but they also keep us trapped as a prisoner in our own brain because we think that we can't talk to anybody about this. Who's going to listen to us? Especially with OCD because some of your thoughts out there can go right off the deep end, but that's what it does. What we need to do is encourage people to go see their doctor, to go talk to people because they've seen it all, they've heard it all. Please open up to a doctor, open up to somebody.
Corey Hirsch:If somebody comes and opens up to you, the best thing you can do is listen and not judge and lead them to a professional. You might not understand as that person that they've opened up to, but the greatest gift you can give is to lead them to a professional, right? And there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Mental health is something that affects us all. We all get sad from time to time.
Corey Hirsch:We all get anxious from time to time. We go through struggles at time to time. But man, when you open up and finally let it off your chest, it's like an elephant falls off your back.
Jessica Samuels:And is that what it was like for you when you finally opened up to the team trainer?
Corey Hirsch:Well, yeah. Well, what it was was I was But I got to the point where it was suicidal again, where, you know, the option was I didn't really have a choice, you know, but my OCD made me, I had two choices. Well, I could either end it or I could open up to somebody. So OCD didn't really give me a choice, right? And I chose to open up to somebody because I didn't wanna go the other route.
Corey Hirsch:But we don't want people to get to that point, right? Early diagnosis is the key. It's like cancer. You wanna get diagnosed early. It's easier to treat.
Corey Hirsch:It's easier to fix. Same with mental health. So don't wait, you know, go get the help. So that's what I did. I ended up, you know, opening up to a trainer and, you know, there's three years of my life gone because I tried to hide it and I tried to, and I stayed sick, right?
Corey Hirsch:But the time that when I opened up to a trainer and got a psychologist got diagnosed, just it meant the world. It meant to change my life. Right.
Jessica Samuels:And you mentioned something earlier about how your particular thoughts manifested. And it's a different world today. I'm wondering, the topic of mental health and struggling and not doing well from an NHL perspective, or even a high performance athlete, or even as a male in the community where I mean, we're thinking about how stigmas manifest around these things. At that time, you know, we're talking 9495 here, things were not as far along as they are now. You told someone you got a diagnosis, you were still living with this though.
Jessica Samuels:How was that environment for you? Did other people on the team begin to know? Did you continue to open up?
Corey Hirsch:No, no, I went I went to see a psychologist, got diagnosed and I knew, but I still didn't want anybody else to know that I had a diagnosable mental health issue. There was another twenty years. So I was diagnosed in like 'ninety seven. 2017, the article came out. So twenty years, I didn't tell anybody, close family and friends, right?
Corey Hirsch:Why? Stigma, same thing. Yeah. Same reason, stigma. And then I got to a point where as I got older, it didn't really matter anymore, right?
Corey Hirsch:So I just didn't It was nobody's business but mine until I wanted to start really trying to help people and make a difference. But yeah, twenty years from from diagnosis, I mean, we're just now in the last probably ten years where people are starting to feel comfortable coming forward. If everybody felt comfortable coming forward and it was a non issue, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
Jessica Samuels:100%.
Corey Hirsch:There's still a stigma attached to it. It's twenty years from diagnosis before I felt comfortable enough to tell my story, right?
Jessica Samuels:And then you came out with a subsequent article as well the next year. And so talk about kind of that follow-up piece.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, was called You're Not Alone because that's what I learned. You're not alone. It had a million hits in under an hour, my article, right? It was like it went viral. It just showed me that there are way more people out there that struggle than don't.
Corey Hirsch:If someone tells you that they don't struggle at all or they don't have a story, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think they're telling you the truth. We've all got struggles. You know, we don't come here to Earth to just have an easy we're here to learn lessons and we're here to go through stuff. You know, those are my beliefs and some harder than others, but we all got stuff that we go through. Right?
Corey Hirsch:Nobody Well, unless you're Tom Brady, I mean, he's he kind of.
Jessica Samuels:You never know.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah. But you know, I'm wondering what kind of deal he made because kidding. But yeah, I mean, you know, a dog, even a man like Tom Brady divorced. Right? Mean, we all go through struggles.
Corey Hirsch:Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah.
Jessica Samuels:In your position, you went on, of course, to retire and you were in a position of being a coach. I don't know if you were talking about what you were growing through, but how did that change you in the way that you related to players or your colleagues? Were you reaching out? Did you have that capacity? Because all this time, you're still managing your OCD.
Jessica Samuels:You're still managing and doing the best you can to be your best self.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah. And I don't want people to think that I'm by any means cured. Every day I work at it, right? Like every day I'm doing meditations or I'm doing whatever I need to do, finding new ways to stay healthy and stay on top of it, right? So that's just what it is.
Corey Hirsch:It's like having diabetes. Well, guess what? You're going to have diabetes. It's not curable, but it's treatable. You got to manage it.
Corey Hirsch:Mental health is very similar to that, in some cases. It's other cases, people go through ebbs and flows. But as far as coaching in that, you know, I don't think it really affected how I was as a coach or any of that stuff. What I will say is that I loved coaching, I loved broadcasting, I loved playing, but what I do today is what fulfills me as, you know, I'm a keynote speaker and I I go out, I speak to corporations, kids, high schools, whatever. And that's what fulfills me.
Corey Hirsch:Right? And when someone comes up to me and tells me that, you know, I may have helped them or or helped their child, that that's bigger or better than any win I ever got at any hockey game I ever played. Life to me is about service, helping other people. It took me a long time to learn that, it really did, until that article came out, that that's what you find out. Life is about helping each other, right?
Jessica Samuels:Yeah, it definitely is. And I'm thinking about you speaking to communities and to young people. And you've talked a lot about it during this interview of just have the conversation, just tell somebody. Like, how can we really encourage them to do that? Because it feels like it's easier said than done.
Jessica Samuels:I mean, and again, no comparisons, but you were an NHLer, top of your game. And certainly the pressures of who you were supposed to be were significant. But people feel degrees of pressure in every day of their life. And so we have some people listening right now, whether it's OCD or something else, or they don't know. They don't know what's going on with them.
Jessica Samuels:How do you take that first step? How do you overcome the anxiety of revealing and being vulnerable and saying I need help?
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, that's a great question. What I've learned on my travels and speaking circuit and all that is that it's just as important, if not more important, to be that person that says, Hey, you can talk to me. So it's one thing for the person to reach out, but if they don't feel there's someone that they can talk to, it's difficult to come forward. See, and that was me. I didn't feel like there was anybody I could talk to.
Corey Hirsch:I wanted to, but I was like, okay, if I talk to the coach, okay, well, that's gonna get me fired. If I talk to a teammate, well, then my teammates are going to wonder if I do it. That's where I get the message out there that it's more important even then for the person to reach out to be that person that says, hey, you can tell me anything. I'm not going to judge you. Look, I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna refer you to somebody I know that can help you.
Corey Hirsch:That to me is even more important. And then if you don't have that, well, first step is usually your family a doctor or somebody along those lines, even a nurse friend. If you have a friend that's a nurse, I think we all have a friend that's a nurse or somebody in the medical field, right? They've seen it all. You can't even imagine what these people have seen, right?
Corey Hirsch:That they've heard it all. So those are the people that are good to open up to because they're also trained in that and they're trained in where to go. So how do you get someone to open up? Basically to let them know that no thought or nothing you're going through has not been seen before. Know, like this is something that we all deal with.
Corey Hirsch:You know, there's strength in numbers. That's why me telling my story and being able to use my platform, people like, woah, that's the same as me. Right? There's a common ground. There's a familiarity.
Corey Hirsch:You don't feel alone. When I was going through, I remember sitting there, laying there going, I'm the only one in the world that's going through this. Like, I'm the only one, right? And it's so isolating and alone. What I found out was there's millions of people out there like me.
Corey Hirsch:So to let people know that whether you're thinking of suicide, whether you're thinking of self harm or harming others or anything like that or whatever, or whatever it may be, please step forward, tell somebody, because that's how we're going to get you the help. If you don't tell anybody, we don't know. It's not written on your face, right? We need people to talk. We need people to to say something.
Corey Hirsch:And that's probably the biggest thing we can tell. And then being somebody that somebody can talk to, man, that's a gift.
Jessica Samuels:Oh, I wanted to ask you that if you're a coach or a fellow player or a loved one, whomever, how do you show that support? Like what was really supportive to you as you went along in this journey that you're on in managing your OCD?
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, what's been supportive to me is just, you know, I've learned how to communicate when I'm not doing well. So if I'm having a bad week or a bad couple days, I'll be like, hey. I'm I'm not I'm struggling here. I I need to just check out for a couple days or a couple hours. Right?
Corey Hirsch:And then if my buddies haven't heard from me in twenty four hours, I have a group of people that they'll be like, Hey, what's going on? What are you doing? Haven't heard from you in a few days. You doing okay? They'll check-in.
Corey Hirsch:Like, we check-in on each other, right? Buddy check. We do all sorts of things like that, right? So I've also learned that me communicating my struggles really helps a lot too, because then people are understanding. I've had times where I've, you know, fallen, you know, or whatever, started to struggle a little bit, didn't make an event or a meeting and I call and I just say, you know what, I'm struggling a little bit with my mental today.
Corey Hirsch:I'm gonna be there. People are understanding when you don't just show up, people are like, okay, what's going on? Right? Like communication from both sides is imperative. And one thing too is that when I'm struggling and I'm around my friends to let them know I'm not doing well is important because if I don't, they'll think that maybe it's them.
Corey Hirsch:They might've done something wrong or whatever. It has nothing to do with them, right? We don't want people to feel uncomfortable around us when it has nothing to do with them. So I've learned to communicate on days that I'm not doing great. And that's a gift too.
Corey Hirsch:What you'll find is that there's more people out there that are understanding than not. Right? And it's all communication and letting people know.
Jessica Samuels:How does managing OCD look for you today? You mentioned earlier, it's not a cure. It's something you manage. You face it and do things every day to support it. Again, maybe with folks understanding exactly what it is.
Jessica Samuels:Talk a bit more about that. Yeah. About how you go through your your days.
Corey Hirsch:I have a therapist that when I start to struggle, I might not have seen her in a year, year and a half, but I'll give her a call and make an appointment right when I need it. I have a therapist like a doctor, you know, somebody that when I do start to struggle. Right now I'm medication free, but I'll get back on my meds if I need to. I have no issues with That that's something that I know that that I that I can and that I need to do if I need to do if things don't well. Exercise, you know, meditation, all those healthy things that we talk about.
Corey Hirsch:And I I know when I'm sliding is usually when I'm letting my physical health slide too, right? They go hand in hand. The other route, gone down the psychedelics route a little bit, and that's something still that remains to be seen for a lot of people. For me, it's helped me, but I'm recommending it for anybody or I know that it's helped me. I think it's a tool that in the future is going to be an outstanding tool for mental health.
Corey Hirsch:But, you know
Jessica Samuels:Well, it's interesting that you mentioned psychedelics because it is something that I hope to talk about on the podcast in the future. So I'd love to have you back to talk about that as someone who's experienced it. And of course, obviously, sides of it. But so that's that's you have a myriad of things that you do.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, so many.
Jessica Samuels:And utilize all the tools in the toolkit.
Corey Hirsch:That's and that's exactly it, right? Like with mental health, it's not one size fits all. There's a lot of different things for everybody, you know? And I believe there's a place for everything. I believe there's a place for psychedelics.
Corey Hirsch:I believe there's a place for therapy. I believe there's a place for medications. Right? We shouldn't pit one against the other. Medication saved my life at one point, right?
Corey Hirsch:So there is a use for it. Now I've gone and tried to go a little bit more of a natural route. So it's whatever works for you. You fight with mental health with every tool you have and the bottom line is is that we need people to stay here. Right?
Corey Hirsch:We need people to stay here. We need them to be here, not to do things to themselves that that take them out of the game. And whatever that takes for you to do, I am all for it. And I'll stand behind anybody that that that looks to get healthy and looks to get better. And every day, every day, I I look for a new way or something that's gonna help me.
Jessica Samuels:Corey, thank you so much for your time. As we wrap up, final thoughts, last things you want folks listening to know, listening and watching to know about you or OCD or just mental health in general.
Corey Hirsch:Yeah, no, just I appreciate what you guys are doing here because that's what it's all about is, you know, mental health is the same as physical health. There's no different. I don't know why we separate the mind and the body or they're they're, you know, my my brain is attached to my body last time I checked. So it's just a matter of encouraging people to get help and be that somebody somebody can talk to, right? I mean, that's a gift.
Corey Hirsch:That that's be nonjudgmental, and sometimes all you need to do is listen and say, hey. You can talk to me. And it's a a a beautiful thing. But thank you for having me. It's it's wonderful what you're doing.
Corey Hirsch:I always appreciate what you guys are doing, and, you know, it's a beautiful thing. And how many people you help is amazing.
Jessica Samuels:Well, many people you're helping is thank you for what you're doing. And I love that be that someone that someone can talk to. Thank you so much for your time.
Corey Hirsch:Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Jessica Samuels:If you'd like to have a look at the articles that Corey and I were talking about, you can do so at the A Way Forward podcast page at cmhaclona.org. And if you have any questions about this interview or other topics we may be covering, you can always email me at awayforwardcmhacolona dot org. Until that time, please do take good care. This episode is supported by Beam Credit Union. With deep roots in BC and a commitment to your financial journey, Bean proudly backs mental health conversations that help build stronger, healthier communities.
