What do you get when you put the topic of mental health, a validation engineer, and a personal caregiver together? Answer: a gloom squad. Two Eau Claire ladies, Marie Wendling and Britt Hegenbart, tackle their mental health while chatting on their new podcast, Gloom Squad. Their conversational tone, friendly personalities, and calculated speaking errors make their audience feel like they’re in the room, having a conversation with friends over a cup of coffee.

It’s all in an effort to encourage the conversation about mental health. “That’s kind of the point of everything,” Wendling said, “is to talk about it, get it out there, and make it less weird to talk about … from that aspect, it’s easier to leave that stuff in, to make people feel more comfortable talking about it in general.”

The "Gloom Squad" hosts.

“People think it needs to be this big, deep, dark, depressing conversation,” Hegenbart added, “and I guess I wanted to kind of make it more accessible to people and make it less daunting to them. Like, you can really easily talk about these things and bring them to the forefront without it being embarrassing.”

These lines envelop the main goal of Gloom Squad: eliminating barriers surrounding conversations about mental health and disorders. Some of their conversations include breaking down mental health stigmas for Hmong men, how to raise boys to be mentally healthy, mental hygiene coaching, and exploring their own mental health struggles.

Wendling and Hegenbart also aim to make resources more available to those who need help, and they do this by shouting out a different, accessible mental health resource before each episode.

Gloom Squad can be found on Spotify and at gloom-squad.castos.com.