[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host. Today's guest is JD Danny McCabe. Danny grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a middle childhood of a very large family. From an early age, he was independent and a practical realist. This first time author began writing his diary as a historical journal of events in the demise of his marriage that evolved quickly and came without context. Danny was encouraged to share this personal and unbelievable voyage. In rediscovering himself by the many people who witnessed and heard of his journey firsthand, he is blessed with two beautiful adult children. JD resides in the Charleston, South Carolina area. Enjoy the show. JD, good to see you. My friend Drew, good to see you again.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: And I thank you for having me on your podcast. I appreciate it.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: It's my pleasure, man. So I'm thankful for Hannah Larue for introducing us. I always like to thank the individual who introduced me to my guests.
The beautiful thing is, whenever I'm referred to somebody, I always let them know ahead of time that my first criteria is they got to be good human beings. So that's always a good starting point. And Hannah was spot on introducing me to you. So thanks for coming into my life, man.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Likewise. Right back at you, sir.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: So, you know, JD, and I'm sure you can attest to this, when we're growing up, many people tell us that life is linear. If you do all the right things and do them in this order. A plus, B plus, C plus, D. Hey, things are going to be great. Um, it's not malicious. It's also not true.
I believe I did everything the right way, and I had my share of derailments. So, you know, ultimately, there's an external circumstance that pulls in front of us that kind of gets in the middle of one of those letters, and we've got to make a decision. And sometimes we don't even see that.
But when we do come to that point, those crossroads where we go to make a decision, um, you know, we. We are one of two men. I mean, the man number one I talk about is the man who's got a ton of blind spots and never sees that possible opportunity. But then there's man number two, or number three, where something's in front of him. And if you're man number two, you see something, but you still see it as a barrier that life's doing something to you. And you're a victim.
You're man number three, where something came in front of you and it was an opportunity for you to say, hey, you know what? This can make my life better. Life is. Is handing something to me, giving me something, and I'm going to take it on and make myself better. If you could reach back as far as you need to go and find that defining moment, that was either the tap on the shoulder or like, I needed the two by four upside my head to wake me up. Where you say to yourself, Jen, JD, it's an opportunity, man. I'm going to take this on and make it. Make a better life for myself.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I am sorry. I am sitting here smiling. I got a couple of. Couple of comments. Before I answer that.
I've got a visual of my father in my head right now. Tell me, as a young boy, he said, keep. Keep your head down, keep your nose clean, work hard, and everything will be okay. You know?
So the big blind spot for me, you talked about a two by four in my book. I talk about a Mike Tyson punch. You know, I talk about the Mike Tyson overhand and. Right. That I didn't see coming.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's more powerful than the two x four sometimes.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I try to. Try to be brief, but 17 year marriage, it was relatively stable, or at least I thought so at the time. And my perception of it at the time was happiness. And then I. The wheels started to come off. And everything she was accusing me of doing, she was actually doing. So the. The big defining moment. And there was a lot that clouded. I was. As I. As we talked before we hit record, I was probably number two for a long time, just because. And because of the complications of her alleged autoimmune disease. So my being in the medical and pharmaceutical field, knowledge is power, but it can also be dangerous, man. Where I. A lot of what I started to see, I attributed to an autoimmune disease, which we would later discover that she doesn't have. So the defining moment was when we had separated. I'm sitting in my condo, not my condo, but my attorney's condo. And you got an attorney going back and forth. And she made the accusation that I gave her sexually transmitted herpes.
That was God's reaching down, punching me in the face, slapping me in the face, whatever, saying, son, your marriage is over. Because going into that, I had no idea what was going on in the marriage. I had no idea what the real issues with were. I was hoping that we can continue to try to work through it, yes. I was going to move out for a little bit just so we could clear the air, but I had no idea any of this was coming.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Lord helped me to see it coming. It was that aha moment. I'll talk about the transition from two. It was the transition from two to three where I wasn't certain what was going on to where I was like, okay, I see it now. Everything you've been accusing me of doing, you've been doing. And I didn't. I wouldn't. I never fell into the victim mentality. I immediately saw it as a tremendous opportunity. An opportunity I knew. I had no idea how long the road was going to be, but it was an opportunity to rebuild myself a couple of things, redefine myself as a father and reestablish my identity as a mandehead that she hollowed out from me, took from me, her and her and her mother.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: So I saw it as a gift. That's why the truly. That's why. That's why the book's titled the third gift. Because the first two gifts to my kids, the third gift was that depth of her evil and greed that she was going to try to pin all of her transgressions on me, but ultimately would be what set me free emotionally. Now, the road was dark for five years from there on out, with legal proceedings and all sorts of stuff, but I knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel, and this time around, it wasn't a train.
And I knew that there was an opportunity to reestablish myself again. As I said, as a man and as a father, it's unbelievable.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: You know, you talk about being. You didn't see it coming. I call it blindsided. And I often wonder, why are we men sometimes very often blindsided? It's probably because we don't expect the worst out of people. Right. We go in expecting the best out of people, and that's more likely than not why we're blindsided. So during the course of this, I know you had some major dark times, and if you feel up to talk about it, I know it's public. The whole idea of being involuntarily placed somewhere, that was powerful. And that hit me hard when you told me that story.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, I mean, and that was. That was six, seven months prior. This is. This is when the identity piece was stolen. Right. And, yeah, perfect example of. It's a classic example of gaslighting and the projection piece. But they hollowed me out, broke me down and got me to the point of, you know, losing my family again. The devil attacks your strengths and turns it into a weakness. And the thought of losing my family was like, you know, and there's other things behind it, and it's all laid out in the book. But long story short, I was involuntarily committed by my family practitioner, who when he asked me, if you lose your family, what would you do? And I said, I don't know what I would do. I never said I would kill myself. I never had suicidal ideations. But the interesting thing is, drew, that accusation of her herpes accusation led to so many discoveries. I discovered hidden prescription drug addiction to multiple pills, amphetamines, benzos, you name it, went back at least five years. I discovered massive infidelity that she pretty much had contracted every STD out there. And then I would later discover, as we moved through the court system, that two days before I was involuntarily committed, she was writing letters behind my back to my psychiatrist and to my practitioner at the time. And those exact letters are in the book. So my coming out of an involuntary commitment after nine days, your head is just. You talk about blurred and clouded. I couldn't see. I focused on the next day, of course, the next day, keeping my head together for the sake of my kids and keeping my head together so I could maintain my job.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: And two months after I got out of the psych facility is when I was promoted into the position that I have today. Believe it or nothing, you know, the grace of God, the strength that he gave me to continue to keep going. And it was also at a time that my father's health started to decline. My daughter was alienated from me. She wanted nothing to do with me. She's so. Again, yeah. So I was blurred. And that's why when the third gift, when our accusation was made, that was the good lord above going, all right, son, you've had enough.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: That was it. That was it.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: I'm going to give you that. I'm going to give you the start of a truth.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Unbelievable. So before that third gift, were you actually.
You wouldn't consider taking her back? You didn't? I hope not. Well, you never know. I mean, I've been. I've been there. So not. Not there where you are, but in this situation, where still you're thinking a reconciliation. So where was your head at before the third gift?
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That's a great question. And I was. I can visualize it today. I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting to go in and meet with the attorney. She's in another car.
I don't mind admitting I was still in love with her.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I I'm not surprised. I get it, man.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Because I had no knowledge of why I ended up in a psych facility. I was still believing that perhaps it was me, you know? She began to paint a picture that I had mood issues, I had anger issues, which, yeah, of course, at times, I would never put my hands on her physically. I was smart enough to remove myself from a situation whenever something would happen.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: But that would later get spun on me. Oh, you left the house for a couple of hours. Now you come back, and you're calm. That's when she started to spin the whole bipolar, manic depression type stuff. But, yeah, I was still hoping it would separate for a while. We'd continue therapy so that I could figure out what the hell was going on in our marriage. And again, I leaned back on just my love for the family unit of and what we built and the confounding factor that we had. 17 years of reasonable happiness. Yeah, there was no discord, you know?
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I get it. I get it. I really do.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: But again, I appreciate being on your podcast, and I appreciate being on all the podcasts I've been on, because I've been on with some therapists that have helped me gain some insight into what I would struggle with. Because after we separated, divorced and all that, I'm like, how did she keep it all together for 17 years? Yeah, I not see this. And they were very clear that her first victim was her father.
And once her father passed, she turned her sights on me.
And then once I was out of the picture, she'd go after the kids, and, of course, they have nothing to do with her today. But, yeah, I've received tremendous enlightenment from being on, you know, platforms like yourselves, and it's fantastic. But, yeah, I was.
I was still in love with her, hoping we could reconcile, figure out what the hell the problem is.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
That is a gift. That third gift is unbelievable. And it's a thank you card.
Oh, my gosh. So, at what point did you start thinking about writing a book? Cause I give you credit for not keeping this all to yourself. Many men don't share the story for a variety of reasons. People really need to hear our story, because there's other. We're not the only men going through what we're going through. Now, as amazing as your that the specifics in your story is, I'm sure you thought you were the only guy in the world going through this stuff. Yeah.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: At the time, I had no idea, you know, but it was my. I only stress female therapist because I want people to realize it wasn't a male therapist telling me to write it, but it was a female therapist. When you're done, you need to. You need to write a book, because there's not enough books, if any, about men on the other side of the equation.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Very true.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: And I, you know, I've obviously become very educated throughout this process, but, you know, I've learned, drew, that emotional and psychological abuse is split 50 50 between men and women.
There is. It does not discriminate by gender. Now, the physical abuse, obviously, that's more heavily weighted towards men. And I've told people, hell, I would have preferred the physical stuff. You can see it coming.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, it's interesting. You say it's even the. It's more swayed to the women's side. I've been. I've spoken to a couple men who've been on the receiving end of physical abuse, and in talking with them, they haven't reported it. So I'm thinking that. I know, though, that the numbers of men being physically abused by women are a lot higher than reported because men feel embarrassed to report it. Because I've been diving into a lot of the data that's not out there in public, and many men are not going to admit certain things because of sign. It's perceived as a sign of weakness.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Well, and I've heard that people have asked me, what barriers did you have to even write in the book? I said I had none. I had no hesitation whatsoever to write the book. For me, it was an embarrassment.
I would define it as this. It was shame. But the only shame that I felt was shame on me. How did I not see it?
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yep. I understand.
Yeah.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: You know, myself to be fooled when I was. Consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy. Right.
So that. That was. That. That was the shame that I. That. That I wrestled with, you know, for the longest time. But again, I was dealing with a master manipulator. I used to.
And again, I used to use the words. I allowed her to take my identity. And a couple of female podcast hosts said, you've got to stop saying that. Yeah, you didn't allow anything. You're dealing with a master manipulator. And on top of all of that, all the other discoveries, I would also discover that she had been poisoning me with arsenic, that I had been chronically.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Exposed to arsenic at insult to injury. Jd, you know, that's another yeah. That's amazing. But I'm all, you know, the way I was able to get through that shame that you talk about is forgiving myself for not having the evil tools in your case that she had. Really. It is a for. It's got to be self forgiveness.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And good. You talked about at your opening, you know, being introduced to good human beings and all that, as a good human being, which I consider you to be. I consider myself to be.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: You. We cannot comprehend.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: No, no. People not.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: And malice doing, especially someone who purported to love you.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: And then you go and that. And then. And that's. I struggled with that, too. So the subtitle of the book, my dance with the devil, that's no joke. I didn't. I didn't write that subtitle to grab book sales. It was.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: I was literally dancing with the devil.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Unbelievable. All right, well, now your fog has lifted, and you are on a trail to do good in the world like you've always wanted to. Now you have a lot of content to do even more good in the world. Tell me more about the book, what you want people to get out of it. What is your reason for putting the story out there?
[00:16:29] Speaker B: I mean, part of it is obviously entertainment because it is very salacious. There's something in it for everybody, from medical to legal to a little bit of. A little bit of sexy stuff in there. When my kids read the book, first of all, their comment to me, and I didn't write the book without their consent, but their comment to me was, dad, you kept so much from us. And I said I had to.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Had to.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Of course, my daughter said, why did you have to put the sex stuff in there? And I said I had to put sex stuff in there for context. You know that your mother thought she had infected me. Your mother was. It's the only reason she played that card, but she thought she infected me. But at the highest level, what I want people to take away, anybody that's going through a difficult time, which we all face it in one form or the other, this ain't heaven. And we all have.
We all have to pick up our crosses. We all have to endure our pain, but is to recognize that you'll get through it and that there's purpose to it. And on the other side, and I've tried to tell people this, adversity is a gift. Adversity is a tremendous gift. We don't see it at the time, but I would say I've got three things out of. Out of my journey so I want people to take away hope, faith, you know, God, because. Has become more of a priority in my life.
And to your earlier comment, when you're going through adversity, it's about a mindset shift. It really is.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Got two roads. You can go down that man number two road or the victimhood road, or you can look at this as a tremendous opportunity for redeemed sense of self and a redeemed.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: And I take three things away from my journey. Gratitude.
Even more selfless than I was before.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: And humility.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: And you talked about the linear focus on life, and we all want to believe that. That it's. It's in our hands, it's our plan, you know, to an extent, is you have to put in effort, but, you know, he will put you where he wants you.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: And so, for me, that's. That's what I'm still trying to figure out. You know, what. What does he want me to do with the book? What is the message that he wants me to deliver?
So forth, so on. But I will say that any proceeds from the sale of the book, and I've been fortunate to sell maybe a little over 13,000 copies, that all of them are going to support. All the proceeds are going to support various nonprofits.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. JT, I want to get back to one thing. When you talked about getting that promotion from the organization you're with, they stuck with you.
They supported you. And not just stuck, they supported you. And you don't hear much of that in the corporate world, if you'd like to shed some light on that, because I do want to give them credit. As much as I talk not fondly of my corporate experiences, I do give them credit for standing by you. You care to talk a little about that?
[00:19:30] Speaker B: I'd love to talk about it, and I think I touch on it in the book, actually, more than touch on it. But truth be told, Drew, they had no idea what was going on.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: They were a select, select colleagues that I trusted, knew what I was dealing with in my marriage. But I would go to. I mean, I used to be a pretty good sized boy. I used to be 200 5255 with the arsenic and all that stuff. And then the stress of them with the arsenic poisoning, I lost, you know, 45 pounds in less than two months.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: I'd show up at meetings, and then folks that didn't know me real well were hesitant to come up and ask, which is the other thing I want to mention to your listeners, if you. Even if you don't know somebody, if you see pain in someone's eyes or you feel like, are they okay?
I appreciate it when complete strangers would ask me if everything is okay, you okay? But I had a lot of people that once the book came out, like, said, oh, my God, I thought you were dying of cancer. So they had no idea.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: The way we shrouded my nine day in a psych facility because they take your phone, and I'm off the grid for nine days, and people at work trying to get ahold of me, customers and whatever is we might now. Ex wife concocted a beautiful story because she's a genius, wicked genius. But she said that I was being evaluated for Lyme's disease and that's. I was having neurological issues. And da da da da da. And so nobody. Nobody. But again, when the truth came out, when the book came out and others started to ask, I started to share with them what was going on, but they would have stuck by me either way.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Either way. Yes, yes.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I didn't even think twice about putting the book out. Obviously, I wrote the book under a pseudonym, but, you know, a lot of people that I work with that have now read the story, but I had no hesitation to put it out. I'm not good for you. Not embarrassed by any of it. And again, it's to maybe offer others some hope and a little bit of inspiration to hang on. There's a reason for this. You may not know, and it's in. You'll find out when he wants you to find out what the purpose is. But there's a purpose to all of it. Yeah, that's a great question. But they had no idea what was going on with me, other than my boss telling me, you know, you can go buy a smaller suit.
I was broke. I was broke.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Well, yeah, in many ways than one broke. I get you, man. I'm telling you.
There was one more thing I wanted to ask you, and it slipped my mind, but that's the way I don't edit this stuff out either. I'm totally authentic. So. I totally forgot. I was going to ask you. But the audience certainly has gotten the essence of JD McCabe, and they're going to want to get in touch with you and audience.
So what JD said is he's got. For, if you are on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or threads, his handle on those is the third gift, which is the name of the book. T h e t h I r d g I f t reach out to him. That's how you can get in touch with him and buy the book, please.
I certainly strongly suggest you do so.
JD, I could talk to you all day, my man. I do have two final questions for you and give you the opportunity to sit down with young seven to ten year old JD and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Brian, that's a great question. For me, it always comes back, and I don't know why, but it always comes back to relationships, right? So as a young man and as the young JD, if I could go back, and I wish my parents would have said this to me when I was getting ready to walk down the aisle, I wish my father said, son, you sure you're ready to do this? I would say, do not put an age on getting married. Yeah.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: 27, 28, 29. Matter if you're not ready. You know, first of all, a couple things. If you're not in a good spot, nobody else, you cannot rely on anybody else to make you happy.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Good advice.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: It's on. It's on you. Your happiness and your emotional well being is on you. Somebody certainly can make you happier. But if you're not grounded in yourself and you don't love yourself, then you're not ready to move into relationship. So I was not at that spot. I was not looking for validation, but for me, I mean, I was fairly confident, whatever. But for me, I'm like, eh, 28, everybody else is married. We enjoy hanging out with each other. Da da da. Let's just do this. But I will tell you, and I've been an open book, no pun intended. As I'm driving to the church, I'm like, yeah, am I ready to do this?
[00:24:04] Speaker A: So you did think about it.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I did think about it. So I would say anybody in a relationship, or thinking about a relationship, male, female, doesn't matter. Make a list what you did with your daughter as she heads up to college.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Take a list of must haves and make a list of deal breakers.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: I love that deal breakers are so important.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: JD, what do you want? I never did that with her. I never.
Wonderful relationship that I am in now. Yeah, for four years. It's a long distance relationship and maybe that's why it's working out so well. But who knows? I had an extensive. I didn't read them off to her, but I had an extensive list of must haves and deal breakers.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yep. Hey, stand by. Stand by those, man. Stand by those. All right, so now you have an opportunity to sit down with young JD, the young businessman entrepreneur. And you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah, this one is, I think this one's pretty simple. Follow your passion.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Follow your passion and the money will come. And I've told my kids that, you know, as they were studying and getting, you know, they're both college graduates now, both gainfully employed. And even, even if you're not an entrepreneur, you're in the corporate world, which I your disdain for it a little bit. But again, look at those fields or where you're passionate and follow that and the money will come. The money will come if you decide to start your own business again. I've got a couple of brothers that have done it again. Follow what you're passionate about and expect peaks and valleys, expect to make mistakes, but if you're committed to your vision and your purpose, then nobody can stop you.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Love that. Love that. So a couple of things, I'll clarify. The disdain for corporate, for me. I fully admit that I'm 100% accountable for my behavior in those situations. So I know I caused some stuff, so that stuff's on me. And the second thing is that, yes, you mentioned my daughter. She's going off to college. You have some good news about your daughter. I'd love to. If you want to share the news.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: For those of you that have read the book or decided to pick up the book, my daughter Katie. So it's my favorite chapter in the book. When she came back into my life, chapter 19 titled hi, daddy. When she, you know, recognized that she needed to talk to me, she needed to ultimately live with me, she caught, we connected. And then the next week she's like, dad, can I come live with you? And I'm like, absolutely, no questions asked. But, yeah. So that was a, I don't mind telling you, let me think about this for a minute. It was nine years ago to the wow. That I was manipulated out of my house with my ex wife, using my daughter as the weapon to get me out of the house.
So she got married last Saturday, May 4. May 4. And so I couldn't be prouder of both of my kids and the choices that they made in spite of the tremendous adversity that they had dealt with for five years. They had every excuse to go off the rails, and they didn't.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: I congratulate you and your daughters for being wonderful women and congratulate you for being the father you are and the man you are. Jd, no one deserves to go through what you went through. You've turned this into a positive, and I commend you for that. And I want to thank you for coming into my life. There's a reason why Hannah thought we should meet a keep doing what you're doing. You're a great human being, my man, and let's keep in touch. I love what you're doing.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Absolutely. Right back at you. Drew. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, sir.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: It's my pleasure too.
Take care of yourselves, everybody.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live? Or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at the prophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at
[email protected] I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
