Meet the ‘Dutch Forrest Gump’ who’s walking barefoot across America to raise awareness for men’s mental health

Anton Nootenboom, recognized to many on social media as “The Barefoot Dutchman,” isn’t your typical file holder.

In 2019, he grew to become the primary and solely individual to make the 80-mile round-trip hike to Mount Everest Base Camp with out footwear. Two years later, he set the 2021 Guinness World Report for the longest barefoot journey after climbing 1,875 miles on the Australian coast. Now he plans to interrupt that file by strolling 3,000 miles from Los Angeles to New York Metropolis, totally barefoot.

“It sounds loopy,” Nootenboom advised Yahoo Information on day six of his eight-month journey, which started on Feb. 17. He even referred to himself because the ‘Dutch Forrest Gump’ when 30-plus individuals joined him on the primary mile of his trek in Santa Monica, Calif. The stroll is an extension of the #BraveMenTalk marketing campaign, in partnership with Barebarics barefoot footwear, which calls consideration to male psychological well being globally and raises funds for charities.

For Nootenboom, who served within the Dutch military for 10 years and accomplished three excursions within the Center East, it’s symbolic of the psychological battles many males face in silence.

“The roads are robust and each day is filled with surprises,” he stated. “I inform myself, ‘It’s only a part. This street will finish, and sometime the street shall be somewhat higher.’ It’s the identical in life: When issues get robust, it’s by no means the top. It’s only a little bit of a stretch, and finally you come out of it. I’ve wounds on my toes, and so they damage, however I do know the pores and skin will develop again harder than it was earlier than. That’s what offers me hope.”

‘The ache is value it for me.’

As he crosses the deserts, mountains and valleys of America to succeed in the Massive Apple, Nootenboom will cease in varied cities to convey academic instruments and assets to native communities. He desires to empower males of all ages to “not be afraid to inform your story.”

“The ache is value it for me,” he stated of the mission. “I would like this problem to talk to males, and say, ‘No matter life throws at you, bodily and mentally, you will get by it.’”

That’s a lesson he discovered the arduous means himself. After leaving the military in 2015, Nootenboom fell right into a deep despair and by no means felt comfy speaking to anybody about it. The isolation led him to almost take his personal life on the sting of a cliff in Australia, the place he was dwelling on the time. The incident grew to become a wake-up name for him to hunt assist.

“Being raised by the military to say, ‘Do not cry, man up!’ I did not really feel secure speaking about what was happening with me,” he shared. “With a number of resistance, I took the supply of getting assist and doing issues means out of my consolation zone,” which included remedy and meditation practices.

Nootenboom isn’t alone. Knowledge from Psychological Well being America reveals that over 6 million males undergo from despair every year, and most go untreated. That has grave penalties. In accordance with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, suicide is sort of 4 instances extra prevalent in males than girls — with 39,255 male suicides in 2022, in comparison with 9,825 amongst girls the identical 12 months.

Consultants inform Yahoo Information that males with despair go largely underreported as a consequence of varied stigmas and cultural norms that discourage them from searching for assist.

“Males are socialized to not present their feelings, and the one acceptable feelings embrace anger and frustration,” stated Ernesto Lira de la Rosa, psychologist for the Hope for Melancholy Analysis Basis. “This makes it difficult for males to overtly discuss their emotions out of worry that they don’t seem to be robust or that one thing is incorrect with them.”

He added: “If we encourage different males to talk about their psychological well being, it will validate and normalize that psychological well being is part of everybody’s lives, together with males.”

Nicholas Balaisis, a Toronto-based psychotherapist, applauds Nootenboom for utilizing bodily exercise as a means into the dialogue.

“Males typically like to assist with solvable issues, [but] psychological well being points will not be as simply solvable,” Balaisis defined, noting that long-distance working will be seen as a metaphor for the trials and tribulations all of us have. That gives a template for males to speak extra deeply about their “inside life.”

“Males specifically have to develop a relation to their very own interiority — ideas about themselves, impressions from relationships, hopes, goals, regrets,” he stated. “This occurs finest with others.”

The Dutch ‘Forrest Gump’

“After I went by some therapeutic, I discovered that I wasn’t alone in my emotions,” stated Nootenboom. “If there’s one thing I discovered within the military, it is to steer by instance. I needed to share my very own story within the hopes that it creates a secure house for others to be like, ‘Hey, if you are able to do it, then I can do it.’”

Throughout the day, Nootenboom walks barefoot with a trolley cart nicknamed “Bubba,” a nod to a personality within the 1994 movie Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks a few man who develops a cult following for working throughout the nation. At night time, he sleeps in one in every of two campers, each pushed by the marketing campaign’s producers who’re following his path throughout America.

Much like his record-setting Australian hike in 2021, he expects extra individuals to hitch him because the journey progresses.

“Sooner or later, it will catch momentum and extra individuals will begin searching for the place I am at and can be part of me for the stroll,” he stated. “I’ve little question there’s going to be a protracted stretch of street the place it is with a bunch of individuals. I’ll be just like the ‘Dutch Forrest Gump!’”

Nootenboom chooses to “solely look ahead,” regardless of the hills and valleys forward. Even when it feels unattainable, he hopes to encourage others to by no means “surrender when there are obstacles in your path.”

“I’m taking a look at a mountain with snowy peaks, and I do know I am strolling round these. Sooner or later, I will the Rocky Mountains and I’ll must face them too,” he defined. “It’s going to be painful, it’s going to be difficult, however on the finish of the day, you’re in the future nearer to reaching your goal.”

Observe Nootenboom’s (and Bubba’s) progress at #BraveMenTalk.