Speaker 0 (0s): Welcome to the Tim Heale Podcast. If you have the time, you can not only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows and you'll find the links in the description below. thank you.
Boom. I'm in the room. Good evening everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Everyday Conversations, Regarding, Mental Health, all mental wellbeing. And yeah, thanks for being there.
Now this evening, you know what the show's all about. It's all about taking the Stigma out of mental health, mental wellbeing. Now you are here 'cause there's nothing on the telly. And I'm coming to you live from the old Heale Manor and I'm your host, Lord Heale.
Now I'm still looking for guests. I'm still after guests, UK based guests. If I can get them to come on the show and have a chat about a different aspect of mental health or mental wellbeing. So you've noticed that we've now moved to a Wednesday from Thursday. There's a few reasons for that. Thursdays is a fairly busy day for me and I don't get time to, to prep the show and, and it's all done at a rush.
So that's why one of the reasons. Another one is we're coming up, hopefully I'll have the new motorbike soon and I'll come onto a little bit about motorbikes in a bit. But we're all going to have a look at tonight is gonna look at sort of an overview, maybe look towards suicide, death, and bereavement.
I had a chat with somebody not so long ago about this subject. Now what I would say is it's a, it's a difficult one to approach, but we will approach it. Evening Keith, welcome. If there is anybody else there out there, give us the old thumbs up and what's the name? Stick a comment in, let us know where you're watching from, where you're, you're getting this from and, and we'll try and include you in the chat.
If you've got any questions or any comments, pop them in the chat as well. Oh, good evening, Catherine, welcome. Now, I dunno whether you heard the, the advert for Mary Curie, that's, that's trending at the moment on, we get it on some of the, the commercial radio stations. It's on gold at the moment. They play it on gold quite a bit and it's such a depressing, so depressing.
Why, why somebody like Mary Curie come up with such a depressing advert for bereavement now Bereavement. Yes, it is, it's painful. It, it, it's something that happens Naturally, when somebody dies, you've got the initial shock and then you go into, for want of another word, bereaving, grieving, grieving process.
But what you really want to be doing is instead of mourning the loss is celebrate the life that that was Because the person, I mean, they'll still there, they'll still be there in your heart. Although they're gone physically, you still have your fond memories of them. You still have all of that.
You'll still have what they were and yeah, you miss them, you miss 'em a lot. I still miss Dave and Sandra. I mean now it's, it's, it's getting on for 17, 18 years ago. So, and we're still In fact bro. And I had a chat about 'em this evening over the dinner table.
So we still talk about, about them. They're still in the hearts, but is Mary Curie advert is, I dunno what it is about it, it's, it just seems that it's, it's trying to put somebody into an even darker place. I dunno whether you've heard it, but it's, yeah, it's, it's a really miserable advert and I'm sure they could do something much better with it.
So. yeah, that's still in your memories and that's important. It's, it is important to, to grieve obviously, but also you need to move on. I mean, we lost Harry again on for, I guess this year will be three years. Still think about him, still miss the old phone calls, But life does move on and those that's left behind are left to pick up the pieces.
So I said I was gonna talk a bit about a motorbike. Now for me, I've had a little bit of a dark mood recently. I've got, I've mentioned it a bit before. I've got my tinnitus is so, so bad at the moment. It's just, the only way I can explain it is remember when you go into a really noisy environment, you go into a nightclub and it is boom, boom, boom, boom.
And you come outside and your ears are rigging and it's, it, it tends to be really loud for me at the moment that is 24 7. There's no let up for it. I've got different apps on, on my hearing aids where I can, I can introduce some different noise to try and counteract it to take my brain away from that noise. But it's there and it's wearing, it's difficult to get to sleep.
If you wake up during the night, it is difficult to get back to sleep. Coupled out with a a, a rheumatoid flare, a rheumatoid flare. I mean we've got it just about under control, but I do occasionally get what they call a rheumatoid flare and that's a real bit of inflammation in a joint and the pain is excruciating. And, you know, the, the way I cope with it is, is I take I for proof for it, but when that is coupled with the tinnitus, it does put a odd suicidal thought into your head of wanting to just to end it all just to have it stop for five minutes, just get some respite from it.
Now I will say that I'm not the sort of person that will go and take my own life, put that out there. And I'm sure everybody on occasions thinks about taking their own life and how to go about it. And I've thought about that. And for me, one way I could do it is, is ride my motor bike into a brick ball about a hundred miles an hour and the thing that puts B off doing that is a ride, a motorbike off.
But if I survive, I'm gonna be an even more wreck than I am now.
Speaker 2 (8m 57s): So,
Speaker 0 (8m 58s): So I'm not likely to do it. So that's the sort of, that's where this dark this comes from for me. Now I know there's an awful lot of people out there. I haven't got what they call full on p PTSD. I've got mild, little bit of mild PTSD. And what sets it off for me is, I dunno whether you've ever smelt dead in dead and decaying bodies is there's a particular smell to it.
And that's, that throws me back to, to some scenes that I saw when I was in Kosovo And that occasionally plays on the, on mine. I don't, don't often get it, but yeah, occasionally you get that with a death and it's not, it's not pleasant. And it just takes us back to that time that I had to witness some of these mass graves. Not nice, not clever, but that triggers off that, that memory.
So for me that is a little bit of mild PTSD, just remembering that and having a little bit of a, a moment a a maybe not a, not a nightmare, but it just relives it. Which, which ain't all that good. It's not clever, it's not funny, but It, it, it it's something in the past that you can't change. So the way to deal with it is, except what's happened and put it to the back of your mind, it's over it.
You can't do any more to you. But for loss of people, that sort of thing, that sort of trauma plagues them and they can't, they, they found it really difficult to deal with. And the best way of dealing with that is to find somebody that's been through that sort of thing. Somebody that was with you at the time and talk it through. And more often than not, that's a good way of dealing with some trauma, particularly battlefield trauma.
I mean we've been on patrol where, where we've had guys that have been blown up and having to deal with that in the aftermath of all of it and, and dealing with it at the time. Nowadays when that sort of thing happens, there's, there's a, a process in place called trim and, and it, it, it, it takes about three months to go through this process, but it does, it does deal with it, it does look after that aspect of, of trying to eliminate
Speaker 2 (12m 9s): The
Speaker 0 (12m 10s): Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder later down the road because you, the sooner you deal with deal with a trauma, the sooner it could be dealt with. And it doesn't have to be about through trauma. Lots of people that I know, lots of people that I've spoken to, they've carried childhood trauma with them all their lives and it hasn't been dealt with until it's got out of hand.
Speaker 2 (12m 46s): Now
Speaker 0 (12m 47s): A childhood trauma could be lots of different things. Lots of lots of children see stuff that they shouldn't see And that can have an effect on them. For instance, a child where a parent has died suddenly that could be a trauma that they've carried with them all their lives.
They blame themselves for it, they blame themselves. But that, that because their parent has lost their life. And it's even worse if, if the parent has taken their own life and the child then bottles it all up and thinks that it's their fault that they've done it,
Speaker 2 (13m 43s): That
Speaker 0 (13m 45s): That can really have a devastating, devastating effect on somebody that they carry with them for a long time. Somebody just out walking a dog comes across a dead body in, in the woods or somewhere that can be a traumatic thing that trigger something. And quite often that sort thing is never dealt with.
I dunno, you you see it, I forget the case, but, but somebody found somebody that had, that'd been been murdered, reported it and everything like that, had given a statement and that's it. Job finished, don't wanna see him again. But then that person has got that trauma of seeing that that dead body And that can trigger all sorts of things.
So what they should do in that particular sort of incident, they should be trimmed
Speaker 2 (15m 2s): Because
Speaker 0 (15m 4s): What you see there are ways of dealing with it and
Speaker 2 (15m 11s): The,
Speaker 0 (15m 11s): The way that the military do it is if there's a traumatic incident kicks off, there's a team that's that's mounted that goes in 72 hours after the event, they get all the details of what's happened and everybody that's involved, whether they're directly involved or indirectly involved and they assess them, they talk to 'em, whether they there's a an individual brief for somebody that's more susceptible to it or, or, or somebody that's, that's so close to it.
You'll have a, a group debrief and then you'll have a, a whole group brief and everybody's assessed. They're told that it's not unusual to have their sort of feelings. It's not unusual to to, to replay it in your, your mind several times it's not unusual to lose a bit of sleep, but over time those symptoms die down and go away or should do so the team come back in at the 30 day point, they recess everybody again to see how they've been, see what, see what has changed, whether they've got back to normal routine or whether they're still struggling.
And anytime during that, that first period they can be referred on to see specialists and then the team will reassess and anybody does need pointing in the direction of professional help. They do that and then the team will come back in at the three month point, reassess everybody again. And hopefully that's everybody's back to normal.
That's a quick way of dealing with a traumatic incident And that generally has been proved to prevent post-traumatic stresses to order settling in and any, any time during that period or after that period, people are struggling with it, then they can get professional help.
And that's the important part. It's, it's getting that professional help and if we could do that for everybody, you would see the, the back end of PTSD. But there are cases of Falkland's veterans still coming forward having had those problems and it's recognizing the symptoms, you know, I mean some of the symptoms are a lack of sleep.
You're drinking a lot more, you are a lot more irritable. You've got a very short fuse. If your behavior changes and people, you quite often hear people say you don't see him himself, he's not normally like that, then that could be one of the indicators that there's something not right. And if you do see somebody that you normally see that's generally fine and Jovi and all respite and they don't see himself and you've got the time and that's the key, having a bit of time to be able to go and say, are you alright mate?
And the normal life is yeah, I'm fine. Nah, are you really all right? You don't seem yourself And. that gives them an opening to, to open up and when they do start opening up, all it needs sometimes is just having these two is just to listen. You don't need to say an awful lot, just nod and the, and chip in occasionally if they starting to dry up a bit,
Speaker 2 (19m 21s): Encourage
Speaker 0 (19m 22s): 'em to open up a bit more and sometimes that's all it takes to help somebody and you generally find that you've done that, they tend to feel a lot better about it. And if they're still feeling a bit not themselves, then you can say I leave you thought about saying your doctor or, or having a chat with so and so or and it just helps prevent somebody going down that dark alley, that darkness that that sort of,
Speaker 2 (20m 1s): That
Speaker 0 (20m 1s): Horribleness that that sometimes envelops you, you feel that like there's, there's no way out, there's no help but there is, there's always help. There's always somebody out there to help and sometimes it might just be a stranger, it might be a professional. Go and see your doctor. For us veterans we are lucky, we've got veterans groups and for us that live down here in the south, we are extra lucky because we've got even more because there's so many veterans live in this area there, there's quite a few different veterans groups that are out there that can give that help.
And for me, something that takes my mind off of it is I've got a little beer egg bantam out in the toy shed here at the Hill Manor and I'm doing half at the moment now, lemme tell you a little story. There's inside the, the, the clutch housing, there's a, a primary drive chain that goes from the, the drive to the, to the back wheels and to the bottom of the, the the small end or the big end where the piston goes up and down, there's a chain that connects the two.
The chain was really slack and had about an inch, inch and a half of play on it, which made it, it didn't run particularly well. So I've ordered in the chain, the chain came But a chain didn't have a link in it,
Speaker 2 (21m 49s): Which,
Speaker 0 (21m 50s): Which is what was odd. So I got the old chain off 'cause that had a link in, popped that off and trying to get the, the new chain on just wouldn't have done of it. So I've ended up taking all the clash parts out, taking our clothes. So I'm thinking I can't get a front rocket off the back rockets off and there's all bits in me hands, I'm thinking what do I do with this? So I rung the people up and said, look, how'd you get this chain on?
Oh, we've sent you the wrong chain, there should be a link with it. Now you're telling me. So now, now I've got a new chain and the one with a link and so I've gotta go and fit that, but I've now got a load of dobie whatsits clu parts to get back in and they're on springs. And then I needed a, a special tool to be able to compress the springs to get the big ic pin to hold it all together.
So I'm waiting for that to come and I thought, well I'm at it, I might as well change the clutch so I've got some new clutch pads So that, that takes out, takes out a bit of stress or does it add to it, it certainly produces a few proofing syllables, but there you go. That's, that's a look at, at trauma.
Looking at, so we, we've covered a bit about bereavement And that, that awful Mary Curie advert on the, on the radio. I, I dunno why they've done it. It's, it's, it just doesn't seem good.
Speaker 2 (23m 43s): But
Speaker 0 (23m 45s): Yeah, there is, there is a way through it and if you do see somebody that's not themselves, then they're always, you can always chip in and ask 'em if they're okay. So until next Wednesday. So we go on Wednesday every week. Now I'm still looking for guests. I still would like to see some guests and that would be Brilliant if, if you know somebody that would like to come on the show and have a chat about anything to do with mental wellbeing.
The more people talk about it, the more people can talk about it because they see other people talking about it and it, it opens stuff up and it, it, it just, it's okay not to be. Okay. So that's, that's it for This week. I hope you've taken something from it. If there is anybody out there that would like to come on the show, you can find out, contact me in the description below and all the rest of it.
So until next Wednesday and I'll, I'll hopefully end shall aga on. So until then, TTFN Tatar For now.
Welcome to the Tim Heale podcast. If you have the time, you cannot only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows and you'll find the links in the description below. thank you.