#19 | Part 1 Tom & Joe - Mental Health Awareness Week! Overcoming Obstacles + Personal Stories

0:00:00 - Speaker 1

It's actually a good thing, because it really highlights that it can affect anyone at any time. Even if you're in a board meeting, you could literally just crash for no reason.

0:00:06 - Speaker 2

You're thinking why we started talking. The cameras rolled and I literally was just like it's just the two of us today which we're going to talk about tons of different things, but one in particular is going to be Mental Health Awareness Month, something that's very close to our hearts and something which I know is going to get a lot of publicity in the time, and rightfully so. Mental Health Awareness Month is one of the biggest things going and I think it's so important especially for us to talk about it on our platform and promote it so people can get the help they need. I just wanted to start off and talk about Mental Health Awareness Month. When did you start talking about your mental health? We haven't actually discussed this before.

0:00:50 - Speaker 1

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think probably I remember doing a Facebook post which Jamie Clements who we're going to have on Coming on soon.

0:01:01 - Speaker 2

Yeah, I can't wait for that one.

0:01:02 - Speaker 1

I think he messaged me on Facebook around. I think it was 2018, so around 2017, 18 time, which seems a lifetime ago I put something out on facebook, basically like saying about my journey and the sort of the my coming out.

I guess you could say, as I think, talking about it so openly and the feedback I got from that one was pretty, um, really unexpected. I don't really know why I did it. I just sort of felt like it compelled to write something because I've been struggling for so long and I'd obviously seen something online, like either a friend of mine doing it, and the feedback I got was like wasn't the reason why I did it, but it made me feel listened to just by putting something out there, and that was what started my journey into, I guess, where we are now. Do you feel like it helped you at the time?

0:01:38 - Speaker 2

so like getting that off your chest it did.

0:01:40 - Speaker 1

It did in some ways, I think, um, it made it worse to begin with, because it's like ripping off the band-aid. I feel like you just sort of make everything public and it's out there for the world to judge you for. And back then I cared. I mentioned a couple of podcasts, um, prior to this one, I felt like I worried so much about being judged for coming out and saying something because not all of my friends had done that. And then, on the back of this facebook post, jamie messaged me, basically saying how he'd been struggling for years as well and how he was thinking about coming out and talking about it openly. Um, so I guess you look at our paths we've gone down.

They're both very similar in the sense, we've both gone down the wellness track um so it helped me in some ways. Um, made it worse than others, but I guess it helped me down this, making me accountable for my mental health. I guess you could say, and I think that's probably why I've ended up doing the things I've done for a living, and I guess, doing this now, For those of you who don't know Jamie Clements, he'll be coming on the podcast soon.

0:02:29 - Speaker 2

I'm not sure whether you'll see it after this episode or maybe two after, but Jamie's a breathwork specialist insanely talented about what he does. He specializes in everything breathwork. So breathwork for anxiety, breathwork for ADHD, all different types, and how you can use it to better your mental health, and we're so excited to have him down. And obviously someone whose journey kind of starts at a similar time to you as you said. Going back now. So that was, how long was that? Now Six years.

0:02:57 - Speaker 1

No more. Yeah, about six years ago, about six, seven years ago, wow.

0:03:12 - Speaker 2

How do you reckon your friends, family members, mental health understanding has changed since that time toward me? Or just in general, to be honest, I feel like since sorry, I feel like since I posted stuff, I feel like a lot of my friends have been a lot more comfortable, in a way, talking about their problems.

I'm not sure if it's just more comfortable talking about with me or just talking about in general, but I do see a trend of when some person gets the not the ball rolling, that's a bad way to say it but gets everything going, everyone seems to be like he's done it or she's done it. Maybe we can start doing. Have you spotted?

0:03:32 - Speaker 1

anything? Yeah, no for sure, I think, um, that for me it's gone two ways. I think the company I've kept has changed. I've tend since then I've tended to a bit like me and you and how our relationship sort of grown since, despite our, you know, we aren't from the same friendship group, we obviously play rugby, but we're sort of worlds apart in age and where we've grown up and stuff. And yet the company I keep has definitely changed since then. But to answer your question, I feel that Certainly my family have looked at me and gone. That'll explain his behavior prior to the coming out so.

I think maybe my friends and family could look at me and gone oh, that'll explain his behaviour prior to the coming out. So I think maybe my friends and family could look at me and think OK, that's why he didn't attend this or didn't come to this party or didn't want to come to this gathering with our friends, and that's why he might have left early, because he didn't say goodbye to anyone, that kind of thing. It explained my behaviour better. So I think maybe they understand me more. And secondly, I think my friends who prior to a bit like Jamie, seeing my thing not that I inspired Jamie to come out and talk about it, but certainly seeing me helped him maybe pluck up the courage to do it.

0:04:30 - Speaker 2

Maybe seeing someone who's very similar to him in many ways, no-transcript, whatever is, you don't drink, yeah, and I feel like a lot of friendship cultures, a lot of after work cultures. Rugby is heavily revolved around drinking. Going to the pub, I feel like with you when we're like go out for food and you're like, oh, I'm like first time I'm not drinking. You have people like myself are like cool man, yeah, sure, but then you have a lot of people who are like oh, mate, you're so boring like this.

Why are you not drinking like you're such a loser? How have you been able to deal with that? Uh, nobody talks about this. Briefly I think four or five episodes ago, but I'd like to actually go into it in more depth because I'm struggling with a lot of that.

0:05:29 - Speaker 1

Yeah, when I was, when I was probably your age and upward. I mean, I've never. I've never had a. You know, I have drunk it parts of my life. I've never not been a completely sober individual. I've had parts of my life where I like I have done. I just choose now not to because I feel like I'm so much better off for it mentally and physically. I just don't. I never enjoyed it.

I did it because of the social pressures that came with drinking, particularly during sort of your back end of school years and I didn't go to university.

But I know university is rife and which obviously you experience, and obviously rugby culture, which is, as everyone knows, rugby culture is so big on drinking and I think, being around that when I was in my sort of early 20s, when I was probably at my worst in terms of my mental health, I really struggled to be around people who, one, were doing it and two, maybe wouldn't understand why I didn't do it.

So I think, whereas I think now maturity, call it, or just life experience, or just not really caring what people think about me anymore, I can be around it and it really wouldn't bother me and for those closest to me, a bit like yourself or my friends through rugby, who still invite me out, knowing if I don't go there. One one they won't be offended. And two, if I do go and I'm not drinking, I won't be judged for it. Even if they make a couple of comments here and there, I don't really care anyway. So I've learned to brush it off, not let it bother me, and also, if their opinion of me is changed by the fact that I don't drink, they they're not worth having in my friendship group anyway. So it's a bit of a win-win for me. I don't really care, but certainly when I was your age it definitely bothered me more than some people.

0:06:50 - Speaker 2

It is massively so I think I'm awful when I do drink In what sense? With my ADHD. I feel like with my ADHD drinking almost like fuels. It's like pouring petrol on the fire and it's just completely blows up my symptoms of adhd completely blows me up. The next two days I feel very erratic.

I can't focus properly and alcohol always stems that. If I like change my routine and it's annoying because I would like to go out. And you see, like my friends who will go out and they'll drink a lot and they'll come back and they'll be like fine, go again the next day, bit hungover, but they'll be able to work. I go out, I'll drink the exact same amount, if not less. I come back, I wake up the next day, I'm like super depressed, I'm really stressed, I'm anxious about the night before. I can't works and I start getting anxious about that. It's like this endless cycle.

0:07:39 - Speaker 1

You see the um it was dr alex george mentioned this. He said that the the the link between alcohol and ADHD and just how fierce those two things are and how they should be mixed if not, I'll send you the link to it.

0:07:50 - Speaker 2

It's fascinating.

0:07:51 - Speaker 1

So he mentioned it was a very small clip from a longer video I must be on the stomp cast and he mentioned how ADHD, when the link to alcohol, is massive.

So we'll check out and probably put the link in the video, but that was a massive one. So I feel like it's a very common thing for people with adhd who suffer with it badly, and the link between that and alcohol and the, the effect it has on your brain and the chemistry behind that and the after effects and the days that follow, even weeks that follow, is massive and maybe that's why I've, since meeting dr mark rackley we had on here, which was just the most fascinating interview ever since that's happened, I feel like I tick a lot more boxes than maybe I previously gave thought to. So maybe my um, I'm not labeling myself as that or diagnosing myself as adhd, but I feel like I tick a lot more boxes. So maybe that's why alcohol doesn't agree with me either. So, um, yeah, I sort of stumped on your question there a little bit, but I feel like it's a really linked thing.

0:08:37 - Speaker 2

Adhd yeah, it's hard, yeah, it's very hard, yeah, yeah it's one of those things where you kind of want to feel normal but then you can't and that's kind of an annoying thing where it's completely out of your control. But if you're not feeling normal, you have different aspects which in the way you think or in my case, the way I think is very different to the way other people think. So there's a lot of benefits to it, there's a lot of negatives to it. But almost feeling like not a social outcast because negatives to it, but almost feeling like not a social outcast because that's the wrong thing to say, because I have some amazing friends and they're they're always very good with me and stuff.

If I do go through those things, but it's like not being able to do what the average person can do really messes with my head and I think that's one of the things which is very misunderstood on the adhd side of things and why it's so important that adhd will be a big topic coming into the mental health awareness month and coming on to the mental health awareness month, we just talked about ADHD.

Then we got asked a question the other day by a listener and we actually thought it was probably the best question we'd ever been asked and it was which mental health issue do you think is most misunderstood and why? And Joe and I mentioned this before and we were both like we could talk for ages on stuff. But if we're going now from your point of view, if you're listening to this as well, comment below what you think is most misunderstood. We'd love to talk about it, love to hear other people's views, but for the time being, what would you say is, if you had to pick one, I think they're all quite misunderstood yeah, it's a really hard thinking.

0:10:02 - Speaker 1

It's a really hard one, I think. Um, I think anything involving this is gonna be a bit of something like a cop out, like I'm sitting on the fence slightly, but I think anything involving young people can be always misunderstood, because you can always link it back to teenage hormones and the fact that, like you know, when you were in your early teens suffering with adhd, how old were you when you got diagnosed?

0:10:20 - Speaker 2

like properly diagnosed 15. Okay, so you. I was quite late you were quite late.

0:10:26 - Speaker 1

So I think during those sort of pre-pubescent years into your early teens, you might have mistaked a lot of the characteristics you have of adhd now on just being a pre-pubescent teenager and being a bit erratic and being a bit immature, which you can put down to being a teenager.

So I feel like anything involving young people is so much more difficult to diagnose because you can link so many different sort of attributes of that one thing, whether it be ADHD or bipolar, and you could say, oh, it's just them being a teenager, unless it's really really obvious and they do have, say, autism, for example, which the stages of autism are quite easy, glaringly easy to see if it's extreme autism autism, for example, like being nonverbal, but if it's something quite acute it's different.

But if you are adhd and you are a 13, 14 year old boy or girl, your parents might just think you're being a spoiled brat and actually they are screaming out for help without being able to vocalize that so I feel like fully understand yeah massively so and it's not being spoken about as much as it is now, 20, 30 years ago than it is now. So that's a bit of a cop-out from my end, but I feel like probably something like bipolar or even, for your sake, adhd in teenagers yeah, bipolar is big.

0:11:34 - Speaker 2

I think bipolar is massively misunderstood, because I feel like I suffer from a lot of bipolar symptoms in a way where it's like one minute I'll feel amazing and then the next minute I'll be like don't talk to me yeah I don't want to be here anymore yeah we've had that a couple times, actually recording for those people. You guys won't know, because things will be edited and stuff, but for a few episodes.

Nothing's edited yeah, a few episodes ago, um, I sat here and I was like super excited to do the interview. I was feeling great. We started talking, the cameras rolled and I literally was just like, and I was just quiet, I couldn't think nothing was going on. And joe looked at me and you looked at me like halfway through, like you're right, and I was like, yeah, yeah, I don't know what's going on. But then joe led that, because jo, joe can spot when I do these things and it's very rare that it happens and that it's caught on here but just the fact that it does happen there was no rhyme or reason for that to happen Just shows all these things are like very misunderstood. I don't know why that happened.

It could be bipolar of some kind. It could be, you know, overly stressed about things before but overly stressed about things before. But I think it's very interesting it could happen to anyone at any time I've.

0:12:50 - Speaker 1

I was on cloud nine when we came in here and I just crashed completely as soon as the cameras went on. I think that's that's twofold one, I think, is it's actually a good thing, because it really highlights that it can affect anyone at any time and there's no particularly realm or reason as to why that happens. Even if you're in a board meeting, you could literally just crash for no reason you're thinking why, there's seemingly.

I've had the same breakfast as yesterday, woke up the same time, went to the gym at the same time, but for whatever reason that day you just had a bad one and you just crashed for every reason.

Secondly, I think that there's so much overlap with, um, the diagnosis of things as well, which which can again make it really confusing so that is so confusing there's so much overlap with, with, with things, and I see, basically mental health and this again might be controversial unless you are so acutely over here, somewhere in the autism spectrum, for example I feel like mental health is basically it's not linear, it's one line of something and you're just somewhere in between and you might have a couple of uh, characteristics of, say, someone who has autism or adhd or bipolar, whatever. But I feel like we all just tick a few boxes and it just depends how extreme you are of that thing. So I feel like we all just tick a few boxes and it just depends how extreme you are of that thing. So I feel like in your case you might not be bipolar, but your case of, or your version of, adhd just has those characteristics of that thing.

So as long as you're able to normalize yourself and just go okay, some days I'll be better than others. Some days you're way higher than anyone else could be, if that makes sense I would far rather be like you than I would be just level, the whole time, flatlining the whole way through life and you have to take the rough with the smooth, and on the good days, know that you'll have worse ones, and on the good days it's great.

But then you know that in the on the near horizon, you might have a bad one. But I feel like it's just taking the rough with the smooth and on bad days just maybe being accountable for that and also letting those around you, like myself or Meg or your parents closest to you, go around having a bit of a wobble today. Just be aware of that, and if I seem a bit flat, it's nothing to do with you, I'm just having a bit of a bad one.

0:14:31 - Speaker 2

It's funny how it happens this is the next part I wanted to come on is the most misunderstood thing, in my opinion, is anxiety, and anxiety is a weird one. We're not anxiety experts, but this is just from my subjective point. Statistically, anxiety affects 18.1 percent of the population every year and anxiety disorders are highly treatable. Yet only 36.9 percent of those suffering receive treatment. And it just comes back to a point where it's like I, I get anxious a lot. It's just. I think it's different between being anxious and having an anxiety disorder. How do you tell the two? And I think if you're a parent of someone, of a child who has that, is your child very anxious? Is your child got an anxiety disorder? Do you have an anxiety disorder or are you just anxious because work's tough, because financially you're struggling, socially you're struggling, and I think that's like incredibly misunderstood yeah and a very, very hard one to properly diagnose it is, it's.

0:15:34 - Speaker 1

I say I wouldn't say it's impossible to diagnose, because every or near enough, because I feel like everyone has, like everyone can be anxious, everyone has the capability to being anxious, and the anxiety, the levels of anxiety you feel in yourself are very similar to when you feel excited. So it's, it's, it's very similar chemically. I feel like some people just suffer way worse than others and it's also the, the um, your, the parenting of a child.

If your your child boy or girl, whatever, is suffering with it all the time and it's sort of not really conducive with what's what's around them. You know, if you go into an exam, you're going to be anxious, you're going to feel nervous and you're going to feel the butterflies in your stomach. That's very normal before your driving test. That's very normal. That doesn't mean you have the anxiety no exactly so.

Everyone can feel and experience anxiety. Everyone does through their whole life. No one goes through their entire life existing, which, well, I'm surprised those numbers are so low.

0:16:19 - Speaker 2

I think you said 17 point something 18.1 percent, 18.1 percentage people, that's like nearly a billion people, though still got a lot. Yeah, what do you? Mean a globally, you mean is it okay, fine, yeah, so I think I hope you know it's still.

0:16:32 - Speaker 1

It's still lower than I thought it would be, because everyone gets, everyone experiences it in their lifetime. However, it's like you say, it's a huge difference between feeling anxious and having anxiety disorder. Like you say, it's almost impossible to be able to distinguish between the two. Um, I feel like it's just the the how often it happens to someone that maybe will be able to determine, and maybe the the variables around them um aren't really conducive with feeling anxious. That maybe makes them feel that way, but like when you, you and I were sort of in our teens and early 20s. That's what you can decipher it.

0:17:03 - Speaker 2

I think it's kind of hard as well, because you have, just off the top of my head, you have like panic disorder. So like a panic anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, you have what's the other one, social anxiety, which I think is actually massive. I actually see that in a lot of my friends.

0:17:19 - Speaker 1

And.

0:17:20 - Speaker 2

I get that sometimes.

0:17:21 - Speaker 1

I'm like that yeah.

0:17:22 - Speaker 2

And you go into a social situation and you're really struggling. That must be really hard. I've actually seen a few TikToks. I'll try and find the link If I can find the link, I'll attach it below of this guy who has social anxiety and he sort of documents his journey. I've seen that and he, like, has to write things down on a piece of paper so if he goes to a drive-thru he'll have in. Oh, that's so annoying. What's that called? You know where you have the sun visor that comes down do you know what you mean?

0:17:49 - Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone listening knows what I mean.

0:17:50 - Speaker 2

He'll have writing in there. So when he goes to the drive-thru he takes it out and he goes hi, I'm so-and-so. Can I please order a Big Mac? And if he messes? Up like slightly on one word, or if the person taking the order is like can I get a different thing, can I get you something else? And he hasn't got it written down.

0:18:09 - Speaker 1

He's like panicking and then drive straight off and it's just like that's actually crazy to think about.

0:18:16 - Speaker 2

Is that's a proper disorder? But there can be again. There's spectrums to all these things. I think, that's the hard thing with anxiety and that's why, in my opinion, I think it's one of the most misunderstood and, arguably, one of the most difficult things to properly uh diagnose yeah, yeah, massively.

0:18:33 - Speaker 1

So, all right, guys joe here, hope you enjoy part one. Don't forget quickly to like and subscribe. Our stuff really really helps the page massively. Here's what you can expect to find in part two. Enjoy, all right, guys joe here, hope you enjoy part one. Don't forget quickly to like and subscribe. Our stuff really really helps the page massively. Here's what you can expect to find in part two.

0:18:54 - Speaker 2

Enjoy, people feel like they don't have time to do things, but it's when you're feeling good can you go and research it more. I'm a big believer in you have to actively go and sort these things. If there's a problem, figure out what that problem is don't limit yourself by what someone's told you.

0:19:11 - Speaker 1

You can push yourself and go further.