Meghan Beier, PhD: This podcast is going to start with an interview with Tyler Campbell. Tyler received a football scholarship to San Diego State University. In 2005, while attending San Diego State during his junior year, Tyler was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and became one of the first individuals to play division one college football with this disease.
After graduating in 2009, Tyler moved back to Austin and was awarded the honor of becoming an ambassador for the National MS Society. He’s an entrepreneur and he specializes in delivering empowering, inspiring, and motivational messages of confidence and self-worth. He coined the phrase, “TC Speaks” and travels the country, sharing his testimony with youth, colleges, and businesses.
This episode has a lot of really important topics and very important themes that you’re going to hear discussed in a more academic way by Dr. Bhattarai and Dr. Williams, later on. Some of the things that I want you to pay attention to are how he got diagnosed. What others’ reactions were when he got diagnosed and the support that was helpful to him, as well as the support that he was looking for, but found missing. Finally, he also talks about some really vulnerable topics like mental health and sexual dysfunction, which are very common in multiple sclerosis, but often unasked, unspoken about, and overlooked in the medical community.
This is a really great topic and such a great interview. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tyler Campbell.
Thank you so much for being here. I’d love to just hear a little bit about, who you are and your journey with MS.
Tyler Campbell: Yes, ma’am. My name is Tyler Campbell born on an amazing day, October 26, 1986. A fantastic day in history. Might I add? Um, but yes, uh, I am, um, I’m a native Texan, a diehard Texan born and, and, uh, in Houston, Texas raised in Austin, Texas, and, um, born into somewhat of a family, uh, with a football background, my father [00:05:00] and mother great people.
My father’s name is Earl. My mother’s name is Renee and, um, just great dynamic parents. My dad just happened to be an NFL Hall of Famer and a Heisman trophy winner, Earl Campbell. Right. And so, um, I fell in love with football, Meghan. That was like my first, everything sports, everything, it wasn’t pushed. I didn’t come from a family that pushed.
If it were up to my parents, my father did not want us to even play football, wanted us to find, uh, another avenue. But I think the greatest thing that my parents showed me, my father showed me, um, was male love. I had a father who was very open about giving us kisses on the cheeks. I had an older brother, um, wrapping his arm around us and telling us that he loved us, um, very much kind of going against the grain a lot of times for at least an African American household.
But I was shown that and I thought that’s kind of how everything operated. So, I come from a family that had love in the home. Very much love in the home. During my middle school years though, um, I, I went through a school system that’s predominantly white. And as I was getting older and in my teenage years, I started, um, actually isolating myself more.
I did not know how to handle the emotions of being different. And, um, that kind of started that little aspect of mental health for me because although I came from a home of a love. Parents, very open about their door being open and coming to them for anything. Um, I went through a phase. Feeling like nobody could understand me, um, which I’m sure is what so many others in adolescents go through.
And it’s an interesting dynamic because with males, um, we are often, uh, just as much, if not more emotional. As women are. So yeah, you’re talking about a young man and his adolescents who really should have spoken more up about what he was dealing with.
But I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was 21 years old at San Diego State University. I went through the ranks and had learned to internalize a lot of my emotions. Starting at middle school level. Um, I played football. My parents did not want me to do that. I just, I said that because I didn’t want people to think that it was forced. You came from a home of love of football, provided a free avenue of education, which if I didn’t want anything else, I felt it was my duty to pay my family back by making it to where they didn’t have to pay for my education. That was important to me.
I woke up one day, a month after my 21st birthday. After playing Brigham Young, BYU, uh, University in a football game last game of the season in May. And I flat out, woke up and I could not walk. I could not talk. And I had paralysis down the right side of my body.
And yeah. After going through a phase of doctors, not understanding at the school what was going on. And I was sent to a neurologist in LA Jolla, California spinal tap, MRI, uh, within about two weeks’ time, I had a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and had no idea what that was as an African American male, very cultured on things to look for very cultured on sickle cell, um, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and cancer.
This MS. Thing. Nobody knew, but I was fortunate to have a mom who was a former registered nurse. And so she had heard, didn’t know all about it, but had heard of the neuro term or this, this autoimmune disease. MS gave me a voice that went against the grain of that young kid who had internalized a lot of emotions, had withheld a lot of what I was feeling and for whatever reason, my voice is what has allowed me to not be succumb to this disease. It is something that has been therapeutic for me. When handling this disease and I don’t know how it happened, Meghan. It goes against the grain of that 12-year-old, a teenage boy, a young man growing up into adulthood in college that goes against the grain.
But what I found is the ability to utilize my voice, totally reshaped my life and totally reshaped my outlook of multiple sclerosis. It gave me something that I never had at any point in my life. And I grew up with stage fright.
Meghan Beier, PhD: Very different than what you’re doing now, because you’re putting your voice out there every day.
Tyler Campbell: You, I tell people all the time, if you knew the 12-year-old, if you knew the 21-year-old, uh, Tyler Campbell, that’s not, that’s not it. It’s totally different, honey. Very different.
Meghan Beier, PhD: So it’s interesting to me that you said you got, um, diagnosed relatively [00:10:00] quickly for most people, especially Black men, because many people that I talk to or that I’ve worked with, especially individuals in the African-American community, um, they go years before getting diagnosed.
I know I was in grad school. I’ve only been working in the MS field, you know, a little over 10 years now. And I was taught even only 10 years ago that this was a white woman’s disease. And I think many times what I hear from people is that they automatically, especially if they’re older, they assume that they’re having a stroke; those symptoms are put on other things. I wonder, have you heard that from others?
Tyler Campbell: Yeah. I think my first awakening to it was when I finally got to Scripps LA Jolla Memorial hospital and the way in California, very beautiful place. I just went there for the wrong reason. You’re supposed to go see the seals. I went to go see a neuro.
Um, as soon as I walked in my first ever appointment, I walk in, I’m dragging my foot. I’m dragging my right arm. There’s MS written all over me, or at least there’s something wrong with this guy. If you’re walking down the hall and I take my seat. And an elderly white woman looks to me and she says, son, what are you doing here? And I said, ma’am, I have no idea. She said, you’re too young to be here.
And I think that was the first like moment where I was like, when I got diagnosed. Started looking it up. And then I reverted back to what this lady had told me. I was like, that’s why she was saying it because I did not fit. And so for me, the first thing I wanted was to find someone who looked like me, Meghan, the first name that I found was Montel Williams, but I was in California.
I’m a college student. I have no parents around I’m on my own. Montel Williams is doing talk shows on daytime TV. I’ve got class. I’m not going to what I’m saying is I knew I’m not going to meet Montel Williams.
And. I couldn’t find another Black male just to tell me that it was going to be okay. I just needed someone that didn’t look like the elderly white woman, no offense, she was kind. For me and my own psyche. I just needed like how my father would tell me yo, it’s going to be okay Tyler, things are going to be, that fatherly figure. That’s kind of what I was looking for. I didn’t have it in my own father. He didn’t have multiple sclerosis. I didn’t have an uncle. I didn’t have it.
And so I tried to find it. I never did. And I think. In the wakenings of those moments. That’s when I understood that I have to do something because I didn’t want anybody else to have to figure out MS. Alone, through hardship, through bumping your head through all this trial and error. And I felt there was a need automatically.
And I’m 21. I am, I felt the need automatically to at least lift a voice to make it easier for somebody else. I was raised, like you, always try to help somebody. You always try to be a blessing to someone else. You always try to open another door. Those are just the way the things I was raised. And so this fit that mold because when I went through that sadness and I did, I had hard times, tough times crying tears, why me? Um, erectile dysfunction at 21. Um, all these other things from a male’s perspective that I was dealt and I just needed a shoulder to lean on and crying. And I never found that person that looked like me.
And so I said, okay, I’m not going to find that at least right now, in this time in my life, but why should somebody else, i.e., Black male or white male or anybody else, why should they have to go through. Or not be able to find someone that they can identify with?
Meghan Beier, PhD: Absolutely. And I think you are that person. I mean, I’m, at least I’m seeing you out there, sending this message to many people and, and being a voice that other people can look to. And, you know, it’s interesting, you said that you had some mental health symptoms or some sadness that you started to experience in high school, and then, you know, once you were diagnosed, And I think I heard you say that you are working with, a psychologist or therapist. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Tyler Campbell: Yeah. Uh, it goes totally against the grain. Um, I come from a culture, um, not only to be a male cause we are very machismo. We don’t need help. Right. We’re good. Right. Um, and then, uh, from, from our cultures, like we have a saying, what goes on in this house stays in this house and it is one of the most things that somehow was brought to a level of, yes, that’s awesome saying, but in all actuality, it’s one of the worst things that you could say. Because then you’re, you’re eliminating yourself from seeking help and attention. That is much needed from a different perspective. A lot of times people hear this, they don’t understand that, my wife is a social worker. My [00:15:00] wife comes from a background of seeing a therapist. She started seeing one, I believe when we were in college together, she’s a, she’s a former track athlete. Um, I met her in college and so, um, I’ve seen my wife go through the therapy process. From the time we were dating until all the way through.
And when I started seeing that there was an added need. Um, that my wife couldn’t fulfill. There’s some things in my past that, that 12 year old stuff that has taken like about six or seven months now of therapy to finally kind of catch up and I’m learning the process, why there’s a lot of things that I had to get through, um, to ultimately be able to help my disease and the way that I carry it.
And so, um, MS. You know, there are some things that, yes, you’re going to dig into physically for and mentally for your MS. But what you’re going to find out is okay. There are triggers for you. There are stress there’s way to stress that we are carrying. And we all know that stress is one of those big underlying things that trigger relapses.
We know that. Um, so why not dive into a lot of where that stress comes from? Because all the MS did was add on to the added stress. So what if we can alleviate, those unaddressed stress points, those unaddressed triggering points that have never been dealt with for years and years and years before MS even came to the building.
So that’s kind of where I encourage people to try to get a grip on those things, because that’s the way to stress that you can leave and, and close doors on certain things that have been left, open and unaddressed. You know, and it’s, it’s not easy. Meghan, it’s painful. I don’t want people to be under the facade.
It’s, I’ve cried many tears about it. There have been, uh, tough conversations I’ve had to have with in my marriage. I still go through counseling for erectile dysfunction through this day. Um, but through that process, it’s made me more open. I’ve learned how to eliminate certain aspects and people out of my life that quite frankly don’t need to be there.
And it’s made me, and my wife have greater levels of communication, especially about the sexual dysfunction stuff that I’ve been battling for, uh, 13 years now. So it’s, it’s an ongoing process. I’ve never made it, but there’s a lot less stress in my life. When it comes to the disease, just because of things I’ve had to eliminate from 12 year old, 13 year old Tyler.
Meghan Beier, PhD: I have a few follow-up questions. Let’s start with this one, which is, you know, I. I’m really impressed and blown away that you’re willing to talk about the erectile dysfunction. I think that’s fantastic because we know that 90% of men with MS experienced some sort of changes in their sexual health and up to 85% of women, maybe even more.
And. Many people don’t even talk about it, right. That doctors sometimes are afraid to talk about it and bring it up. I’ve even worked with some of my own patients who it took several months for them to bring it up to me. So I, I just think it’s great that you’re putting that message out there.
What do you think is important for doctors, mental health providers, people who work with the MS community? How can they make this topic more open and accessible and something that we can be open and vulnerable about?
Tyler Campbell: Yeah. Uh, so again, uh, trial and error, right? Um, it happened to me at 21. No disrespect to neurologist at that given time at all.
But the one thing that I say is make it a forefront conversation for males and females, because we’re, we have those conversations about optic neuritis possibilities. We have those brain fog, type of conversations. We have the fatigue, uh, you know, a lot of the big things. The big agenda is the, the drop foots, the paralysis, the equilibrium’s, the, the pain, um, the tremors, we have those types of things.
This thing is just as much important I feel as all of the others. So, so go ahead and mention that. The figures that you’re talking about, I had never known any of those figures, but they are prevalent for male and female. And if it’s happening to females, yes, it’s happening to males too. And you you’ve pointed that out and vice versa.
So I was experiencing all of my stuff at 21 and where I went wrong is thinking that it’s only me with my MS and where my lesions are. I guess that’s what’s. But it’s actually more prevalent in a lot of male and females, but I never heard that Meghan. And so my advice would be to add the dysfunction, add the, um, the, the loss of feeling the numbness, add, add all of those things, because we know they’re taking place in other parts of the body.
Please address those things. I remember I cried tears, Meghan, to my mother, I was, I had a really bad relapse, um, that, that took football away from me. And I cried on my mother’s. My mother laid at the foot of my bed. I was, I was, I couldn’t move and I was crying and I told her mama, like, I, I can’t feel nothing.
And it’s worse this [00:20:00] time than it was before I said, things are like spasming out, down below my belt. I don’t like how in the world do I explain this to a woman? If I ever want to get married, it’s like, I’m already, so I’m already just off of dysfunction. I’m already downplaying what my future could be.
So there goes, there goes added stress. Right. And so, um, but I w I would’ve maybe been a little bit more prepared. Had I known that this happens to everybody. Number one. So if it happens to everybody, at that age, you know, you think you’re young, you forget that as a male, you’re going to get to that point anyway, with all the, with all the erectile dysfunction commercials, we’ve seen them, all, all those things, things it’s going to happen to you.
Okay. It happens to everybody, but, um, it’s just happening to you a little bit earlier. So, so you get a hold of it on it now and address it now. Um, you’re on, in your late forties, early, like trying to regress back. Um, so get a, hold on it now, like those are the types of things, the types of learnings, uh, the type of psychology help.
I never knew about any of that stuff. Yeah. That’s why I said, I figured it out the hard way on my own, and I got there, but, but it’s, it needs to be a discussion. I feel like in all the other symptoms and all the other things that may not work as well as they used to before.
Meghan Beier, PhD: Right, right. Yeah. So it’s almost like knowing that that’s potentially coming from MS.
And that there are things that can be done about it. Right. Cause I think there’s a fear there from many people that I talked to, that this is, this can’t be addressed or we don’t know how to address this. And that’s just not true. Right, right. Um, so how did you find the therapist that you’re working with?
Tyler Campbell: I love it. Okay. So again, the beautiful thing about it, having open communication, no matter where you are, if you’re dating. Um, if you’re trying, if you’re just a single, um, your communication outlet is key, um, about what you’re going through, whoever that person is that you can trust. Confide right.
Confide. And so for me, again, my wife, I’d always seen her go through the therapy process. So, um, it was one of the psychology websites. Meghan, it’s like, you can pop out a psychologist anywhere. I don’t know if it was psychology today. I don’t know if it’s it’s it’s psychology something. Um, and I found, long story short. I found a list of psychologists. But then as a Black male, I opened up and started asking some of my Black male friends who I knew were married that were in my circle, never bought up therapy a day before in their lives. Right. And then I had one friend who his, he had just lost his sister. So he’d gone through grieving counseling and I say, wow, how’s that being? And he said, you know, obviously being great. I said, who’s your therapist. And he recommended his. And his eyes were opening up. Like, wow, you want to go see one? He had never seen one until the grief was too much. So that was, and so we, so it actually deepened our friendship, which was dope. And then my wife simultaneously, we researched on the psychology website that she gave me and, uh, narrowed it down, researched the one, my friend gave me, seeing what his ratings were. You know, you do your homework, just like you would have doctor your homework and watch this. I knew what I wanted. I wanted someone who wasn’t a too old. Um, and, and, and Meghan, I wanted a minority. I not necessarily Black, not necessarily, uh, had to be Black, he’s not Black.
Um, but I wanted somebody who was a minority, um, because then they, they, they could offer their own advice as well. From that perspective on shaping my world, they understood my world and what I was playing in. And it, wasn’t hard. It was not hard. There are more people seeing therapists around us, but for some reason you never talk about it. Cause I guess people think you’re, you’re cuckoo for cocoa puffs or something’s wrong with you. Right. And so that’s how I found it within my own, within my own friends. And in my own wife.
Meghan Beier, PhD: I love that. I love that. Did, did your therapist know anything about MS before you met him? Is it a him?
Tyler Campbell: Yes, it’s a him. So he had heard of the disease. Didn’t have an MS patient, but he had heard of the disease and, but he learned more about what it can do to the body through me. Right. He knew it was auto immune disease dealing with brain and spine. Okay. So that’s the base level of where he was now from there.
Obviously he’s done more homework about since acquiring me to make our sessions more.
Meghan Beier, PhD: So finding somebody to, that’s willing to do a little bit of that legwork to figure out, you know, what you’re going through for any of the things. I mean, it doesn’t even just have to be MS, but anything that they’re not experienced with, you want somebody that’s open to that and
Tyler Campbell: And do your, do your homework. If the first one doesn’t work, it’s okay to try another and another, it is just like our MS stuff. Um, if the first neuro doesn’t work for [00:25:00] you, please go get another. And what you’re encouraged to do, um, long story short. You, you, you will find what you were looking for, Meghan, you will find what you’re looking for.
Meghan Beier, PhD: I actually tell every single person that I meet with for the first time that if we’re not connecting by session two, you need to find somebody else tell me, and I will give you a list of people that are nearby, but the goal is for you to meet your goals, not for you to sit in my office. So I think it’s really important. Exactly. If it’s, if they’re not working for you, try somebody else, because there will be somebody that you connect with.
Tyler Campbell: I love that. That’s powerful. Thank you for being so open.
Meghan Beier, PhD: Truly my, my goal for people is that they get better. And if you are the reason, we know that the research shows that if you are not connecting or vibing with that person, then you’re not going to get better. A large percentage of what makes therapy work is that you feel connected and able to open up to that other person.
I know that you’re doing a lot of advocacy work as well. And can you talk about that?
Tyler Campbell: Yes, absolutely. Therapy has been so awesome for me because it’s gotten me to a place where it actually enhanced my gift. MS. Like I told you, I thought football was all that I had. The world of MS showed me that my gift is actually through speaking. And so what I tell everybody is please don’t, don’t wish to be like somebody else walk with what you are gifted with, and it will make more and more room for you in this world.
Um, so my gifts started out as being a support groups, uh, just being open and talking and having dialogue. And with that philanthropy came when I was in college. I had already started. I always had a heart to help other people. I had started with helping other, uh, elementary schools that were underfunded, um, with fundraisers when I was in college.
And when MS came into my life, I said, okay, I have a heart for kids, but my shift needs to be something that’s heartfelt and more personable. Um, and that’s when. I said, why don’t we start with MS. Uh, so I started working with the Pro Player Foundation, a foundation that was helping me in California. They normally help professional athletes. I didn’t make that, but I had a heart and I had, um, a willingness to serve. I have a voice, uh, not like most professional athletes. You don’t have to, I don’t have fear of a microphone. And I had a dad and a mother who were very supportive. Again, they didn’t know all about, we learned about MS together, but my family jumped behind me and I said, Hey, I want to, I want this my path of giving.
This is what I want to do, uh, to help other people. And so we start doing, uh, events and fundraisers, uh, to raise money and funds for research and MS. Um, some had been scholarship recipients within that for MS for multiple sclerosis. And I’ve been doing it for over 10 years. And it’s just evolved. It’s been a true blessing.
You find a cause near and dear to your heart. And, um, now I have a greater in depth, uh, evolvement because it had initiatives in place. As you say, educate, elevate, and collaborate, which is where we’re trying to raise more awareness, more education for the underserved in the minority communities. Um, the Latin X communities, the African-American communities, but everybody has a hole because there’s so much more learning that must be done.
You know, and so, um, yeah, it’s, I’ve taken what I have and I’m walking in it, not trying to be something different. I have MS. I love to speak. It’s nothing crazy. And you just take those things and work on them every day. Um, it that’s, that’s what my heart is. I just have a, I have a gift to speak, but a heart to serve.
And that’s all that we have.
Meghan Beier, PhD: So one final question. If people want to follow the work that you’re doing, kind of hear more about what you’re doing, where can they find you?
Tyler Campbell: I have a website: https://iamtylercampbell.com. And on social media, I am @tcspeaks32. Um, I also, Oh, I forgot about this, Meghan. Holy smokes. I also have a radio show. I don’t have a background in radio, Meghan. So I have a radio show, um, that’s every Saturday at 12:00 PM on a sports network, but I don’t talk anything about sports and I’m the number one radio show on Saturdays for the network. But it’s on 104.9, the horn FM. You can download an app called The Horn app on every device that you have, and you can listen and I just speak. About encouraging words. Of course, a highlight multiple sclerosis is cause it’s a part of my life, but my whole thing is, um, getting people to understand their self-worth.
Helping men to understand that it’s okay to be vulnerable and just diving into conversations in life experiences that I’ve had with the hope that it can bless somebody else. And, uh, that’s it.
Meghan Beier, PhD: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really, again, truly appreciate your time and energy being here and talking with me.
Tyler Campbell: Thank you for what you [00:30:00] do, because we need more people like you, um, because you got to open up to somebody.