September 16, 2025 • 49 mins
Guest Hamish, a 47-year-old biotechnology graduate from Auckland, has shared his deeply personal journey of battling addiction, depression, and grief. Sharing his story with Hamish Williams and Psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald on The Nutters Club, he sheds light on the complexities of mental health and the transformative power of vulnerability, community, and self-reflection.
Born in Hong Kong and raised in West Auckland, Hamish excelled academically and professionally, earning a degree in biotechnology from the University of Auckland. However, beneath the surface of his outward success, he struggled with unresolved grief following the death of his mother at age 20. Hamish revealed that he never processed this loss, which contributed to years of depression and addictive behaviors.
Hamish’s addiction reached a breaking point which led to marriage counseling, individual therapy, and participation in a 12-step program, which he credits as life-changing. “I had never experienced an environment where I could say anything, share anything, and be emotional without judgment,” he said. The program helped him develop true friendships and embrace vulnerability, which he now sees as a cornerstone of his recovery.
Despite his struggles, Hamish has found purpose in sharing his experiences to help others. He openly discusses his mental health challenges on platforms like LinkedIn and has supported individuals in crisis, including a colleague contemplating suicide. “If I can help even one person, then what I’ve been through isn’t all for nothing,” he said.
Hamish’s recovery has been marked by significant milestones and he now focuses on building healthy habits, such as regular exercise, therapy, journaling, and spending time with his children. He also emphasizes the importance of sitting with emotions and finding meaning in life, drawing inspiration from Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning.
While Hamish acknowledges that recovery is a lifelong process, he is beginning to rediscover a passion for life. “I’m starting to develop a purpose again,” he shared. His story serves as a powerful reminder that mental health challenges do not discriminate and that vulnerability and connection can pave the way to healing. That even in the darkest moments, there is always hope.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk said B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Greetings and welcome. I'm Hamish Williams and you're listening to
the podcast version of The Nutters Club, a radio show
broadcast on news Talk Said B that talks about mental
health and shares some helpful tips on how to live
with your own. The show is broadcast live on Sunday
nights on news Talk Said B, right across New Zealand
and around the world. We started way back in two
(00:44):
thousand and nine and since then we've always been about
real people sharing their stories in their words to help others.
Joining myself and psychotherapist Kyle McDonald this week was our guest,
forty seven year old recovering addict Hamish not to be
confused with me, despite having it a great first name.
(01:04):
Hamish talked about his journey with pornography and drug addiction
and how unresolved grief was central to that behavior. Learning
how to manage his emotions has been critical to his
recovery as well as his mental well being. Let us
know what you learned from the chat with Hamish on
any of our social media platforms just search for the
(01:24):
Nutters Club enz. Where were you born? Where did you
grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Quite bizarrely, I was born in Hong Kong, spent my
first two years there, but then my parents moved back
to New Zealand and grew up in West Auckland.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So both your parents were key with yeah, yeah, yeah,
and so Hong Kong just bought for.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Work for Yeah, my family lived up there for eight years.
Dad was working for the Hong Kong colonial government at
the time, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Ended up coming back and growing up out West yep.
So where did you go to school?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I went to school on Henderson.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Henderson, right? Was it Henderson High?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Liston College?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Listen?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Good Catholic boys' school.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah? H okay, all right, yeah, Liston College? Okay? And
how was school for you? Was? What were your younger
years like growing up in Henderson and going to Liston?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah? School was I found school easy? To be honest, Yeah,
I kind of breezed through school. I was a little
bit different in that Liston was a very rugby dominant school,
whereas I was more into my individualistic and sort of
extreme sports and things like that. So while while my
(02:38):
classmates were sort of playing rugby and partying on the
weekend's eyes away sort of down central North Ireland, kayaking, snowboarding,
all sorts. Yeah, so yeah, school was a bit strange
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well was strange about it?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I just I guess I didn't really feel like I
fitted in at school, and if I look back, I
didn't really develop any sort of strong friendships sort of
sort of through that school period. There's there's very few
people that I keep in contact with from from that
period of my life.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And when you're sort of saying, you know, you went
and did like, you know, the snowboarding, the kayaking, I
mean all of those, you can go and do those
with other people. Was that your was that your experience?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah? No, I definitely was doing them with other people,
but I was doing with people older than me. It
wasn't it wasn't sort of people the same age as me.
So yeah, I guess in some respects that that kind
of made me grow up a bit faster kind of thing.
And I was I was, yeah, and I was just
different from the people I was at school with. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It it's interesting, right because we end up being who
we surround ourself with. And you know, if you if
you hang out with older people. When you're, you know,
a teenager, you probably are going to mature a bit
differently compared to just having a whole bunch of teenage
brains in the same room. Right, yeah, absolutely, So how
did that influence you in terms of what you wanted
to do post high school?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So? I actually didn't know what I wanted to do
high school. So I took a year off, works in
a cafe, went snowboarding for the year while I sort
of decided what I wanted to do, and then ended
up deciding to go to your University of Auckland and
studying biotechnology. Biotech.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, so not a not a particularly easy walk in
the park subject, not that anything is at university, Like,
I've got to be honest, right, I mean, it's it's all,
it's all picked your heart, but biotech, you know, you've
got to really be onto it. So what was that?
What was that sort of experienced life? You a number
of number of years of study, right, you know, I
really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Like, so biotech is molecular biology and chemical engineering. I
enjoyed the the theoretical aspects of it. I actually ended
up taking after the first year, I had a range
of things happened. My mother passed away during that first
year of university when I was twenty, and that kind
of threw things up in the air a little bit.
(05:07):
So I actually went and I went down to the
Hawk's Barn. I started studying wine making for three months
and then decided I missed the theoretical aspect of biotech,
so I ended up coming back to Auckland to finish
off my biotechnology degree.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You say, you know, when your mum died threw things
off a bit. Yeah, talk to me about that. What
did that look like for you? What were those what
was that experience like in terms of what was getting
thrown off?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, I'm still I guess what I've realized and seeing
a therapist, which I've done for many years, but I
never I haven't processed the grief from that, and that
some twenty seven years ago, and that kind of leads
into other parts of my story in terms of or
(06:00):
I believe leads into other parts of my story in
terms of addictive behaviors and depression and things like that.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Okay, so let's let's kind of, you know, talk about
that from from when you started to actually see that
the not processing that grief. Then when did you start
to understand that maybe you were responding to this differently
to what people expected you to. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So, so it was a really strange time in that
as a as a twenty year old, I was the
one only only family member that ended up speaking at
the funeral. My father didn't, my sister didn't, my aunt didn't,
(06:45):
and I at the time, I didn't really think of
that sort of as unusual, and whereas now I look
back at it and realize that like that, being lumped
on somebody that's twenty years old and who's just lost
their mother was probably quite unusual, and it's probably also
(07:07):
a reflect of how I reacted to the situation. And
that's essentially I think what I've what I've learned, or
what I learned through my upbringing was don't don't express
your emotions. Emotions were bad and they weren't to be
(07:30):
talked about. That's taken me a long time to realize
that the issues with that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And yet here you are, twenty years old in a
highly emotive environment, being the only one from your family
to front in front of everyone you know after your
mother's passing. I mean, like you said, you know, that's
a that's a huge amount of pressure. Do you remember
do you remember anything that you said on the day,
like sort of how you went about delivering it.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I remember. The main thing I remember, and this again
sort of speaks to my upbringing, is that that I said,
I don't even remember being told I was loved by
my family members, But I said, my mother never said
that she loved me, but I knew that she did
(08:24):
through her actions and through things she would say, Like
so she was always nervous when when I would go
away and do my extreme sports, but she'd sort of
say she'd just tell me to be careful, or and
she'd tell me not to tell me tell her what
I'd actually done when I was away doing those things.
So it was through sort of actions and I guess
(08:47):
sort of more obtuse ways of saying it, that she
showed that she loved me.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
HEYMSH. When you're talking about the addiction, when you're talking
about the depression, the effect that this was having on
your life became more prominent when you were in your relationships. Yeah, absolutely,
so talk to us about it. At which point did
you decide that you know you needed to do something
about these addictions and how and and these these are
(09:17):
you know, the depression, how it was affecting you and
what did that look like. Yeah, so with the with
the pornography, that that came to a head right at
or just before the birth of our first child, particularly
difficult time. Yeah, my wife, and my wife thought that
(09:42):
I stopped using pornography and all that I just got
better at hiding it.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
She found it just before the birth of our first child.
So instead of being able to enjoy motherhood and parenthood
and all that sort of stuff, we're thrown into We're
essentially thrown into marriage counseling because she was incredibly hurt
by by sort of her discovery that I was still
(10:06):
sort of usingography. I ended up going into well, yeah,
we're both doing couples counseling and I was doing individual counseling.
And then that's when I first went into a twelve
step program, so SLAH six and Love Addicts Anonymous, and
(10:26):
we'll go to that two to three times a week
for about I went for about three and a half years.
So yeah, and it was just it was definitely at
that point, definitely making life unmanageable just because of the
hurt that that had caused the and more so the
(10:47):
lying about it and the distrust that it created in
our marriage. So that's that's that was probably the Yeah,
before that, it was kind of bubbling away. She was
aware of it at sort of at times and things
like that, but it didn't cause a major impact. But
that's when it caused a significant impact.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
When you go along to group therapy and you know
you're as you see, going to Slaw Sla Sla Slaw.
I was thinking about lunch. No, when you're going to slah,
you know, it could be very confronting. You know, suddenly
you know you're there in front of other people who
some who would be at different stages of their recovery.
(11:27):
What was that experience like for you to you know, actually,
there was no there was no more hiding. This is
you know, this is now an open room full of
adults and people actually being brutally honest. You know, I'm
glad you asked that question, Hamish. For me, it was
life changing because I had never experienced an environment where
(11:50):
I could say anything, share anything, be emotional and have
that validated isn't probably the right word, but heard by
other people.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And then there might have been things that I wasn't
comfortable to say, and then somebody else would go and
share one of their experiences and I would hear and
it was essentially what I was thinking, but I was
too ashamed to share it. And I'd literally never experience
that in my life before. So that experience was truly
(12:24):
life changing for me. And coming back to what I
said earlier about me not carrying any friendships from my
sort of college years, I realized sort of after that
time in a twelve step program and being able to
share and be vulnerable, I actually started to develop really
(12:45):
true friendships after that because I started to take that
into their aspects of my life and be vulnerable and share.
Whereas I think before I looked quite intimidating in terms
of like, yeah, just because I seem to have everything
together and going on, so I actually can't. I can't
(13:07):
thank the twelve step program and what I got out
of it enough.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, I'm really interested in what some of those changes were,
you know, were like for you. So is there are
there any comparisons you can think about, you know, in
terms of not the addictive behavior, but just general hamish behavior,
you know, like things that you that you did after
you'd gone through the twelve steps, that you maybe didn't
do what you did differently before you had done them.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah. It probably the biggest example I can give is
so I have I ended up having, like my mental
health got so bad that I needed to take four
months off work. And my boss was amazing about it.
He didn't like basic people thought that I had a
(13:54):
terminal illness or something like that. They had no idea why.
As a way, when I came back to work, I
didn't want to have one hundred conversations with my wider
team about why I'd been away, let alone with the
wider organizations. So what I did was I actually I
booked a meeting for the first hours back at lunchtime,
(14:14):
and I got up in front of one hundred people
who I'd never told that I battled depression, and I
explained and I came out and I said, I've got depression.
I actually just tried to commit suicide a few months ago. Ironically,
my first suicide attempt was when I was taking four
months off to work on my mental health. And I
(14:37):
explained what I explained my lived experience, So what suicide like?
What depression and suicide felt and looked like for me.
And then I tried to relate that to some of
the science and things one of my best mates of
psychiatric doctor, so I checked things. Yeah, yeah, so, And
(14:58):
I wouldn't have done that, like I wouldn't have shown
that level of vulnerability before if I hadn't sort of
been to it through a twelve step program.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
That is incredible. What I really would love you to
do as much as you can. You can you describe
to me being in that room and how people were
responding to that, because, like you said, you know, you
disappeared for four months, right, and they go, oh, you know,
wonder what he's got, you know, And I can only imagine,
(15:27):
you know, people speculating about this, that and the other,
and probably out of concern and to a degree, right,
but also too unanswered questions and then the absence of information,
people make up their own stories. So when you're in
that room and you're telling people this and being more
vulnerable than you've ever been, even at your own mother's funeral,
(15:50):
what were the looks on people's faces? What was their
responses to and after the meeting, tell us what people
came and said to you.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, there was, there was lots, there was a lot
of head nodding and like. So when I sort of
shared about a particular thing like people, I could see
people crying. Ye, that seemed like And then they came
up to me afterwards and said that they'd either experienced
that themselves or that they needed to have a conversation.
They think they needed to have a conversation with a
(16:18):
friend of theirs because I talked about what some of
the signs and behaviors were to look out for and
somebody that might be battling a mental illness. So it
was incredibly rewarding and I didn't really care whether it
if it only helped one person, But I guess, and
that's part of the reason I'm on the show too,
is I've been through some horrible things, like mentally horrible,
(16:41):
not physically horrible, but I've been through some horrible things,
and I guess it's a passion of mine to try
and use that to help to help others.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So how other people respond to sharing that kind of
information like you did to the hundred people, That's that's
one thing. But how did you feel after you had
spoken to everyone that day, when you went home that night?
After you know, you'd had a bit of time just
to decompress, after having been as honest as you were.
(17:14):
How did Hamis feel?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It was incredibly freeing. And that's what I find whenever
I share, So I openly share on LinkedIn. I I like,
I've had a drug addiction. I've been battling a drug
addiction for the last five years. I've told a number
of people both that I've worked with for a long
period of time. Plus also like I told my auto
(17:38):
mechanic that fixes my car, and and and then he
shared with me how how his daughter had been battling
or battles anorexia, and he shared how it was some
of the best, Like he sent us to an expensive
clinic and all that, and and now she's, I don't know, yeah,
he said, better kind of thing, and she's she's not
(18:00):
struggling with that anymore. And I find that beautiful. When
when I can, I guess when I open up and
then somebody else opens up back. And I've literally had
people contact me from overseas when that I just know
off LinkedIn and things like that, when when their son
committed suicide and I've spent many hours talking to her,
(18:21):
I had. I had a next colleague called me when
I was in Kansas in the US and he was
literally going to commit suicide. And I spent three hours
talking to him. And I'm not I'm not claiming credit
for him not committing suicide, but he is still alive
and he was pretty adamant at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, and Kyle, sometimes, you know, when we're when we're
feeling at our lowest, we really just need someone that
we feel that we can trust enough to talk to
and that can can make the difference.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, yeah, and so often the problem when we're in
a lot of pain is that we've we've withdrawn from
the world and we're trying not to think about it,
trying not to feel it, and they're so busy avoiding
it that actually we don't end up doing anything particularly
helpful with how we're feeling. Right talking like we you know,
endlessly talk about on the show. Anything you can do
to get the words out is going to help. And
(19:12):
as you say, Hamish and Hamish, actually talking to someone
who you have a pretty good bet or a pretty
good hunch is going to understand because they've been there,
enables people to open up and trust more quickly.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
What are the things that when you talk about this,
that you've learned, that you reflect on that you want
others to know.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, that's a good question. I guess what jumps. The
thing that probably jumps to mind first is it's not
whatever that behavior. So I referred to it as negative
coping mechanism. That's not the problem, like my drug use
or my pornography or whatever. Exercise at one point was
(20:01):
an addiction for me. That wasn't the problem like that.
The problem was that I didn't like dealing with emotions.
That I didn't know how to deal with emotions because
essentially sort of my upbringing, i'd refer to it as emotion.
I was emotionally neglected. I wasn't taught how to deal
(20:22):
with emotions. I didn't like, they weren't encouraged. I just
learned to suppress them. And so when I felt uncomfortable
at something, I would go to one of my addictions,
which started off as pornography and things like that. But
it's taken me a long time to realize that, Like
it's probably only the last sort of five or six
(20:44):
years and I'm forty seven now that I realized it
wasn't the addiction. There was a problem, is what I
was trying to deal with. A sort of an author
and somebody that I really like is gabble Matte, and
he talks about addicts are just trying to like they're
just trying to soothe the pain or addresser anxiety or
(21:08):
something like that. It's not like addicts aren't bad, good
or bad. They're just trying to deal with something, not
a moral failing. Yeah, yeah, So what do.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You do differently now? When you know, when you have this,
you know life is still going to happen regardless of
whatever you've you've gone through, right, So instead of reverting
to any of the addictions, what do you do now?
That's still a work in progress. So weekly I see
(21:39):
I see a therapist. I'm doing psychodynamics psychotherapy. I also
aim to attend sort of two to three Narcotics Anonymous
meetings a week. I need to get a sponsor and
need to start working the steps again.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
So there's a variety. And I guess it's also getting
comfortable with experiencing my emotions and sort of sitting with them,
which I just I got back from rehab about six
weeks ago, and one of and it was my third
stint in rehab. One of the things I've realized it's
(22:22):
at times and like they give you a lot of
time and space and you get bored and I but
that's done on purpose, and that it gives you time
to sort of sit and fail and experience things. Because
you don't have your phone. You can't be doom scrolling
or distracting yourself. You've just got to sit with yourself
and yeah, to a certain extent, gays at your naval
(22:46):
and get comfortable with yourself. So I've learned a lot
through that sort of process, Kyle.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I mean there's something to be said about actually just
taking time for self reflection. I mean mindfulness is the
other way that we refer to it, right.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And boredom is important. I mean boredom.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
I think actually often a lot of times is that
discomfort we feel when we have to spend time with ourselves.
And if you it's one of those paradoxes, isn't it.
If you if you find that that's uncomfortable, you should
probably do more of it, because actually it's really important
with good company for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I don't know, I'm not someone who ever feels particularly bored.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
No, I can imagine that it's not really in your nature,
is it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No? No, I mean it's it's just but it's one
of those things too though, right, Like I would still
say that, you know, you take time to think about
your situations because I like planning. Yes, so you know
that that's kind of where I'm always going. But is
that Is that the same for you now though?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Hamish?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like, you know, how are you responding different leader things
and what are some of these different pathways and that
you're you're learning because you know, by a chemist, you
know you've got to have a process, right, There's got
to be some way to make it all fit together.
Is that the same kind of approach you're taking for
dealing with your mental.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Health trying to Yeah, I mean it's a constant, it's
it's it's like I say you said before, it's kind
of work in practice. So I guess some of the
things that that I'm trying to put in place is
like regular exercise, eating well, where get a catch up
(24:18):
with friends?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That's so social interaction. Don't you get sleep? A hay
Mashon Kyle The classic one here is right, just hypothetically,
let's say that a certain rugby game doesn't go the
way that you wanted it to, it would be fair
that you might have a drink or two to be
(24:40):
able to soothe the disappointment, right, that would be.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It may very well happen from time to time, from
time to time. Who could say yeah, from time to time.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
But you know that that that is a that is
reverting to something that for some people would potentially be
an addiction because that's how they had They respond to
an emotional response. When it starts having a negative effect
on our life, that's when we know that we actually
really need to take act.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
It's all about consequences, and I mean we have to separate,
for instance, with alcohol, and obviously, you know drug use,
the physical health issues separate from the addiction. So drinking
alcohol isn't great for your health, full stop, and the
more you drink, the.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Worse it is for your health.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
But it's also possible to drink alcohol socially on a
regular basis and not actually develop an addiction. And you know,
you will hear this from people who've been in AA
for a long time, and they'll they'll talk about those
annoying people who can drink alcohol and not develop a
problem because it is really annoying if that's not you.
But the negative consequences and the problem of course is
(25:48):
that for people who are in the grip of an addiction,
well they're not very good at spoiling the negative consequences
because that's where the denial kicks in. So we need
other people to be able to help us at least
challenge us what those are.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
But also too, the thing that you said, Hamish in
the first hour which really stuck with me, was you
talked actually about when you able to be honest with
other people, you know, whether it be in front of them,
you know, when you told your coworkers or when you
went to a support group. Actually, just how life changing
that is when actually when we are accountable and honest
(26:25):
about our actions and also about the impact to be
able to have a better effect for us. I mean,
when we articulate a life experience, right, that's usually very
good for us because we can actually understand our own story,
our own experience. But second of all, it can be
really helpful for other people.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, completely agreeing. I find being sort of honest and
open about it makes life so much easier and in
my experience it often opens the door for somebody else
to share about something that they've been experiencing. Our family
members been experiencing things like that, and that's real gift
(27:08):
because sometimes you question when you're in the when you're
in the depths of depression or addiction or whatever, it's like,
why am I going through this? And for me being
able to share about it and potentially like like, I'm
not a professional, cale's the professional, and I direct people
(27:30):
towards the appropriate help. But lived experience and sharing your
lived experience. Don't underestimate the value of that of doing
that to people.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think also to your story is very you know,
your story is a really great example of the fact
that you know, mental health and the challenges that we
go through does not discriminate. I mean, you summed it
up to us perfectly when you were saying, you know,
from the outside looking in, you know, you had a
successful career, you know, educated, doing great, you know why kids.
(28:04):
You know, on paper you could look at it and go, wow,
Hamish is doing awesome. Yeah, but life hasn't lived on paper.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
No, No, it's I mean, it's a real it's kind
of a real paradox in me and that like what
society defined is success. And what should have made me
happy didn't make me happy. I was absolutely miserable. I
literally tried to kill myself. I'm medicated. I'm still medicated.
(28:33):
I've been medicated for twenty years on a variety of
different medications for the depression, which I just like to
in terms of that, I'd like to say to look,
you should never be ashamed of needing to take medication.
It's an important part, along with counseling and therapy as
well as lifestyle factors to help get you out of
(28:54):
that hole whatever that those demons that you're sort of
battling with. But yeah, on paper, I everyone. No, I'm
not going to be so arrogant as saying everyone wants
to be me, but it's like, and even now to
five years of addiction, my life to people that don't
know me, well still looks good. But my last five
(29:15):
years it was a slow form of suicide for me.
I was literally taking drugs to try and kill myself,
and I did end up in hospital when I see
you once and almost did kill myself. And it was
only just recently that I realized I've come that close
to dying as a result of my drug use.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
We you are now, do you actually see yourself? You
see that you know that you've got a future, You
see that this is something that you know. Life is
not easy, but it is worth it.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I'm getting that back slowly. Like I've been probably for
five or six or six or seven years, I've been
relatively indifferent to living. It's my children that has sort
of been my anchor and staying here for them and
not wanting to perpetuate sort of I don't know issues
(30:09):
on them, but yeah, I'm starting to develop I guess
a passion and purpose for life again. I read an
amazing Booktor Frank by Victor Frankel, Man Search for Meaning,
and I found that really helpful.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
What was it that was helpful in it? What was
what did Victor So?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Victor Frankel was a psychiatrist, and he went into the
concentration camps and so he got to he got to
understand firsthand, like what how you define purpose? And he
actually created a whole sort of new branch of psychotherapy
called logo therapy. I think it'sh yeah. So, and I've
(30:49):
just found that fascinating in terms of his understanding his
own personal battles and his search for meaning well.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Come to logo therapy in a moment. I'd like to
hear about that, But a couple of texts I want
to read to you first. This one is from Brent.
Brent says, I have to retire to bed for work,
but thank you so much, Hamish. You've inspired me with
your courage to face my challenges involving depression, anxiety, addiction
and grief. You seem just like me, intelligent, educated, articulate
(31:19):
and respected, yet plagued by internal struggles. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This one here from Kristin. Kristen says grief is an
extremely personal issue. I lost my dad in nineteen ninety four,
still carry him in my heart, so to my mum.
This year I lost my great niece's beautiful twenty six
year old husband of suicide. Admit August my fifty three
year nephew to an incurable brain tumor. You, a young man,
(31:50):
have your battles, hold on to life and find beauty.
This one from Colin says, forty years sober and I
still remember those raw emotions during early recovery. One thing
that helped me was when something happened that hit me emotionally,
I learned to ask myself how much does this really
matter to me? If it wasn't worth getting drunk over,
(32:13):
I would throw it out of my mind. Wishing you
all the best, Tamish cheers, Colin. And this is a
question for you, and this is this is from Kristen
again in Christmas says, all good to talk about experiences,
though does it help? And I think that's a great question.
Is that you know we can ask the say, well,
(32:35):
we're talking about it, but in your terms, you know
we have talked about this, it did help? Why did
it help to be able to talk about it and
share that with other people, whether it be co workers,
whether it be in a support group.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
What was it about that that was helpful? Yeah, so
a couple of things. For me, I guess part of
it is about sort of being authentic to myself and
being vulnerable and open that that's probably a big part.
And also taking my experience, which I wouldn't like, I
(33:10):
wouldn't wish on anyone kind of thing. And and if
that can help somebody else and I don't, I don't,
I don't care if it only helps one person, then
to me, what I've been through it isn't all for
nothing kind of thing like I don't I don't want
anyone to look into the depth of despair and think
(33:33):
that they're so worthless and think that everyone else will
be better off without them if they kill themselves. It's
an awful place to be. And Yeah, I've had a
number of people reach out to me and share things
with me and and experiences. Will reach out to me
(33:54):
in a time of need, and I've directed them to
somewhere appropriate or shared my experience, and from what they
tell me, it's helped them.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Kyle, when it comes to it, logo logo, logo through
what is logo therapy and how might we recognize that
and anything that we're talking about in today today mental health?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Yeah, so, I mean Victor Frankel's book Man sich Chamani
is one of those ones that's probably on every psychotherapist
reading list. I read it a long time ago, And
logo therapy is probably not one that people would talk
about a lot these days. But existential therapy, which was
He's recognized as being one of the sort of the
first writers about. Existential therapy is very much something that
(34:39):
people practice and it really is this idea that Actually
it's our struggle to find meaning in life and how
hard that is at times to find meaning when we're suffering,
but that ultimately finding meaning and we talk about this
a lot on the show. Actually finding ways to connect,
to do something purposeful, to live our values is what
(35:00):
we should alway striving for in terms of deeper satisfaction
and connection, but that when that goes missing, we also
get ourselves into trouble. And therapeutic approach it's about helping
people find find their way back to meaning and also
recognize that some of the ways we get ourselves in
trouble is through not embracing the sort of the richness
of our mortality, you know, I mean, what makes life
(35:22):
meaningful is the fact that at some point it stops.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is true unavoidably so well.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I mean, look, as we've talked about here on the
show before, is that at the end of the day,
life is just a collection of memories. So we do
our best to try and make the most of the
good memories and let go of the not so good
ones in the hope that we can kind of get
to a good conclusion.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
And of course what Rankell brings his experience of being
in the Holocaust, being in concentration camps at World War Two,
and recognizing that even an incredible suffering, we can still
find meaning and that actually sometimes bearing suffering and finding
a way to live with pain is part of life.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So what's has take on it that? Basically, you know,
if you can, if you can find meaning and purpose
in a Holocaust concentration camp, then well it exists everywhere. Yeah, interesting,
interesting concept. Yeah, I M I must put that on
my my to read list.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Go on. Then, yeah, it's a short book. It's a
short it's a short book. It's a short book. It's
intense reading.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Though I guess I guess he didn't need a lot,
It didn't need to draw in a lot to be
able to make his point. Then perhaps there's something to
be said for that for for writers of indeed, Yeah,
in general, I'd labor it to the point, done and
dusted like it. So, Hay Mass in terms of you
know where, where you've been and where you're going, what
is it that you're doing differently now? For you know
(36:46):
your own your own mental health and and your own
day to day life than you were doing five years ago.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's it's building some good habits so it's getting back
into counseling and and having a willingness to do kind
of the deep, difficult, sort of challenging work. My therapist
sort of tells me, make sure you've got something good
planned for after each session, because they're hard sessions. I'm
(37:16):
digging up stuff that I've been trying to hide for
well all my life. I'm trying to get back into
in a non addictive way, into healthy exercise habits. So yeah,
exercise regularly, healthy eating, journaling, meditation. Not so much meditation
(37:38):
does my head in. But I mean different things work
for different people.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Absolutely, absolutely, So when you talk about that, you know,
we say, hey, you know, what's something you know, something
positive that you could do after a therapy session. What
does that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Spend time with my kids, get to the gym, spend
some time in nature, go for a walk, catch up
with a friend over just just something I enjoy so
really really gay, could be cooking things like that, just
whatever whatever gives you joy, which can be that can
be a really difficult thing. Just touching on that when
(38:15):
when you're in your depth of depression. Some people think
depression has been sad for me. My experience of depression
is a feeling of nothing like, nothing like things that
previously brought me joy or enjoyment. I have no feeling
about it kind of thing. I just don't feel anything
(38:36):
about anything, so and that can be really challenging and
hard when you when your motivation is low, you're trying
to do these healthy lifestyle factors and things like that.
Probably the best thing I can say in terms of
that is call a good friend and somebody that somebody
that will just come and I can't say that word
(38:58):
just talk rubbish with you, but not ask you about
how you're feeling or why you're feeling like that and
things like that. Somebody that will just literally just yeah,
talk rubbish and tell your jokes and whatever. And that's
probably one of the best things I found sort of
get me out of that negative headspace, because when you're
in that, like all you're doing is thinking about You're
(39:20):
in your inside your head, and you need to get
out of it. You need that connection. I think of
community or friendship or relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well. Community and connection is something which comes up quite
regularly on the show, and the absence of it will
quite literally make you unwell. And so you know, you
bring that up, it very much demonstrates that's the core
of what you need and what you're doing. And it
sounds to me like, you know, when I ask the question,
(39:48):
what is it you do that you look forward to,
it sounds exactly like that's what you're doing. You're engaging
in a bit of community and connection.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean one of my revelations of when
I was trying to deal with my addiction, or when
I was trying to deal with how is feeling of
my depression and I went to addictions like pornography and
drugs and things like that, is I was trying to
make myself happy. I was trying to bring myself pleasure.
(40:18):
But what I actually learned and being vulnerable and open
and honest about where I am at with life and
if that's helpful for other people, or doing things for
other people, like people that you care for, whether that's
your partner with, that's your children, where they're act, your friends,
and doing things selflessly with no expectation that you're going
to get anything back. I've actually found that that's actually
(40:40):
what gives me true joy in life. I think doing
things selflessly for other people that you care about, not
just for anyone, and it can be simple, Like I've said,
I've bought homeless people food and then sat down had
a chat with them on the side of the road,
and that's literally can be the highlight of my day.
Like just doing something simple like that for somebody sounds
(41:03):
again like that community in connection. Yeah, sitting down and
having a with some of it. That doesn't get much
more to the point to that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Hey, welcome back to the show. I got your text
message here from Judy. Thanks Judy, Judy says, thanks, Hamish.
As you are talking, it feels like you are walking
in my shoes. I'm battling depression, PTSD and anxiety and
I've had some very dark places of late. I'm getting help,
(41:32):
but still I feel this journey is so slow. I'm impatient.
I want to fix this now, Judy. So you know
that's that's very real, right, Kyle, you know it's wouldn't
it be wonderful if these experiences, you know, depression, PTSD,
anxiety in Hamish's case, you know, talking about addictions, being
(41:55):
able to actually just fall like a switch and make
these things that make us feel so very uncomfortable go away.
But it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
No, but it does work, right, Yeah, no, it does.
And we have to be really careful when we talk
about what working means. You know, particularly with PTSD, what
I often say to people is that you know people commonly.
In fact, it's one of the it's one of the
features of PTSD have memories or experiences that are intrusive
(42:25):
in some way that they can't stop thinking about, or
come into their mind in a way that feels out
of control. The aim with PTSD is not to rebury
the trauma. The aim with PTSD is to turn those
experiences into ordinary bad memories.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Right. We all have bad memories.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
We all have things that happened in our past that
aren't traumatic but don't particularly want to think about, and
we might occasionally remember them. But when we do, we
can stop thinking about them and we can choose not
to think about them. And that's the difference. And so
that the acceptance piece really is that our story will
always be our story, but we can over time learn
to relate to it differently. Same with anxiety, really, I mean,
(43:01):
you know, some people who experience anxiety in particular situations
find that they continue to feel that way, but that
actually the quality of feeling it is different. It has
less control over their behavior. They're better able to make
choices and they can sort of tolerate the feeling better
and that over time it fades. But it does take time.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
When we say, you know the expectation of well how
much time then? Now, how long is it going to be?
I mean conversation I had with somebody, you know, one
time about someone who'd actually been in rehab and someone
who clearly did not understand how addiction and rehab works.
And they said, oh, well they're fine now they went
(43:44):
to rehab, so that's all behind them. They don't do
any of that stuff now. But it's not like that,
is it. So how do we understand the timeline and
the process? I mean, I've already said tonight when it
comes to grief that you know, there should be no timeline.
You do it in your own time, your own space.
You know, for you hamershits, it's a lifetime of going
through it and for some it will be. So how
(44:06):
do we actually know that things are getting better? And
what sort of measures can we use? It seems that
time when it comes to mental health is a really
poor one.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
Well, it's the question people of my job hate the most.
How long is this going to take? The honest ads
are most of the time is I honestly don't know.
What I can say is that most people will feel
better after a handful of sessions, and for things that
have been with us for most of our life, you know,
childhood experiences. We're talking a year or two of therapy
(44:38):
to really shift those things. But when it comes to
what does the process look like and how long does
it take to change, it's a wabbly old road. I mean,
I think one of the things that's really hard, and
particularly if with addictive patterns, is by its very nature
we want things done. Now, that's the addictive thinking, right,
But actually what we have to be able to do
(45:00):
is keep zooming out, whether that's with the assistance of
a therapist or perhaps with a twelve step group, and
to think to ourselves, are we getting better on average
over time? So yes, there might be the blips and
the relapses and the stumbles along the way, But if
we zoom out to one month or six months, are
we doing the behavior less? Are we causing ourselves less problems?
(45:20):
Are we having more good days than bad days? Are
we getting those new habits established, and you know, on average,
are we getting better how much?
Speaker 2 (45:30):
What do you use as your measures? You know, like,
like I said, time seems to be a very poor
one when it comes to mental health. So what do
you be used is your your milestones or your your
points of reflection to actually understand you know, where you're
at and how things are going, if they're getting better,
if they're getting worse.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Yeah, I'd say awareness and understanding. So sort of sort
of over time, through therapy and reading, et cetera, I've
understood why I am the way I am, and I'm
better able to articulate it, and and that that in
(46:10):
itself gives me a sense of peace as I sort
of unpicked those layers and so, as I was saying,
when we're off here, it's like the bit about that
I never really experienced the grief with my mother. I
literally only just discovered that a couple of weeks ago
with with my therapist kind of thing. And I'm i'd say,
(46:30):
I'm kind of excited about mildly excited about working on
that kind of thing. And it's just it's another layer
that I've sort of peeled off the young in. So, Yeah,
time isn't time is time isn't a good measure, but
it also just how do I put this? I'm getting
more and more comfortable with sitting with my emotions and
(46:52):
talking about them and feeling them. So I'm seeing changes
in behavior and like, like, I've been trying to get
clean from drugs for probably three years now, and it
wasn't until this sort of last one where I hit
my rock bottom. I wanted to go to rehab for
(47:13):
ninety days. I was willing to give up all drugs,
all substances, and whereas like three years ago, I just
wanted to give up the harm, the problematic drug kind
of thing. So that's to me, that's kind of real
progress and change and my thinking and my perspective on it.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
When you recognize that change, how does that make you feel?
You know, when you actually you can look at that
and you go, ah, I understand that. Now, what does
that do for your thinking of yourself?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Quietly proud, yeah, quietly proud like yeah, people like well,
other people, let alone yourself. We're all incredibly complex beings.
And the more you understand about yourself and your behaviors
and how that influences how you behave and or how
(48:08):
you react and respond. Yeah, I don't know. I just
find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I think that that's that's the thing too, right, is
that we have our own our own measure of success,
you know, and what that looks like for everyone will
be different. But I think, you know, it's the feeling
that we can all share in common. It can be
that that feeling of pride and you know, to be
fair well done, thank you, because you know, it's it's
(48:36):
really really hard to want to actually first of all,
tackle and make this change in behavior. But you know,
saying that yep, ninety days, I'm in, let's go. You
know that that takes a hell of a lot of
willpower after a long time, you know, of used, especially
when you're talking about years. So yeah, I think that's fantastic.
(48:57):
That's it for this episode of The Nutters Club, thanks
to our guest Hamish as well as psychotherapist Carl McDonald.
If you liked what you heard and think it might
help someone out there, then please share this episode on
your own channels or with family and friends. And if
you ever want to be part of the show, then
give us a call or text when we broadcast live
on News Talk set B eleven pm Sunday nights, New
(49:21):
Zealand standard time. Check out Newstalk SeeDB dot co dot
nz for local frequencies or a link to the live stream.
A big thanks to New Zealand on Air for their
ongoing support and making the show. Take care and remember
life isn't easy. It is, however, with it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
For more from news Talk set B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk said B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Greetings and welcome. I'm Hamish Williams and you're listening to
the podcast version of The Nutters Club, a radio show
broadcast on news Talk Said B that talks about mental
health and shares some helpful tips on how to live
with your own. The show is broadcast live on Sunday
nights on news Talk Said B, right across New Zealand
and around the world. We started way back in two
(00:44):
thousand and nine and since then we've always been about
real people sharing their stories in their words to help others.
Joining myself and psychotherapist Kyle McDonald this week was our guest,
forty seven year old recovering addict Hamish not to be
confused with me, despite having it a great first name.
(01:04):
Hamish talked about his journey with pornography and drug addiction
and how unresolved grief was central to that behavior. Learning
how to manage his emotions has been critical to his
recovery as well as his mental well being. Let us
know what you learned from the chat with Hamish on
any of our social media platforms just search for the
(01:24):
Nutters Club enz. Where were you born? Where did you
grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Quite bizarrely, I was born in Hong Kong, spent my
first two years there, but then my parents moved back
to New Zealand and grew up in West Auckland.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So both your parents were key with yeah, yeah, yeah,
and so Hong Kong just bought for.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Work for Yeah, my family lived up there for eight years.
Dad was working for the Hong Kong colonial government at
the time, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Ended up coming back and growing up out West yep.
So where did you go to school?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I went to school on Henderson.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Henderson, right? Was it Henderson High?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Liston College?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Listen?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Good Catholic boys' school.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah? H okay, all right, yeah, Liston College? Okay? And
how was school for you? Was? What were your younger
years like growing up in Henderson and going to Liston?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah? School was I found school easy? To be honest, Yeah,
I kind of breezed through school. I was a little
bit different in that Liston was a very rugby dominant school,
whereas I was more into my individualistic and sort of
extreme sports and things like that. So while while my
(02:38):
classmates were sort of playing rugby and partying on the
weekend's eyes away sort of down central North Ireland, kayaking, snowboarding,
all sorts. Yeah, so yeah, school was a bit strange
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well was strange about it?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I just I guess I didn't really feel like I
fitted in at school, and if I look back, I
didn't really develop any sort of strong friendships sort of
sort of through that school period. There's there's very few
people that I keep in contact with from from that
period of my life.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And when you're sort of saying, you know, you went
and did like, you know, the snowboarding, the kayaking, I
mean all of those, you can go and do those
with other people. Was that your was that your experience?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah? No, I definitely was doing them with other people,
but I was doing with people older than me. It
wasn't it wasn't sort of people the same age as me.
So yeah, I guess in some respects that that kind
of made me grow up a bit faster kind of thing.
And I was I was, yeah, and I was just
different from the people I was at school with. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It it's interesting, right because we end up being who
we surround ourself with. And you know, if you if
you hang out with older people. When you're, you know,
a teenager, you probably are going to mature a bit
differently compared to just having a whole bunch of teenage
brains in the same room. Right, yeah, absolutely, So how
did that influence you in terms of what you wanted
to do post high school?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So? I actually didn't know what I wanted to do
high school. So I took a year off, works in
a cafe, went snowboarding for the year while I sort
of decided what I wanted to do, and then ended
up deciding to go to your University of Auckland and
studying biotechnology. Biotech.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, so not a not a particularly easy walk in
the park subject, not that anything is at university, Like,
I've got to be honest, right, I mean, it's it's all,
it's all picked your heart, but biotech, you know, you've
got to really be onto it. So what was that?
What was that sort of experienced life? You a number
of number of years of study, right, you know, I
really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Like, so biotech is molecular biology and chemical engineering. I
enjoyed the the theoretical aspects of it. I actually ended
up taking after the first year, I had a range
of things happened. My mother passed away during that first
year of university when I was twenty, and that kind
of threw things up in the air a little bit.
(05:07):
So I actually went and I went down to the
Hawk's Barn. I started studying wine making for three months
and then decided I missed the theoretical aspect of biotech,
so I ended up coming back to Auckland to finish
off my biotechnology degree.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You say, you know, when your mum died threw things
off a bit. Yeah, talk to me about that. What
did that look like for you? What were those what
was that experience like in terms of what was getting
thrown off?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, I'm still I guess what I've realized and seeing
a therapist, which I've done for many years, but I
never I haven't processed the grief from that, and that
some twenty seven years ago, and that kind of leads
into other parts of my story in terms of or
(06:00):
I believe leads into other parts of my story in
terms of addictive behaviors and depression and things like that.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Okay, so let's let's kind of, you know, talk about
that from from when you started to actually see that
the not processing that grief. Then when did you start
to understand that maybe you were responding to this differently
to what people expected you to. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So, so it was a really strange time in that
as a as a twenty year old, I was the
one only only family member that ended up speaking at
the funeral. My father didn't, my sister didn't, my aunt didn't,
(06:45):
and I at the time, I didn't really think of
that sort of as unusual, and whereas now I look
back at it and realize that like that, being lumped
on somebody that's twenty years old and who's just lost
their mother was probably quite unusual, and it's probably also
(07:07):
a reflect of how I reacted to the situation. And
that's essentially I think what I've what I've learned, or
what I learned through my upbringing was don't don't express
your emotions. Emotions were bad and they weren't to be
(07:30):
talked about. That's taken me a long time to realize
that the issues with that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And yet here you are, twenty years old in a
highly emotive environment, being the only one from your family
to front in front of everyone you know after your
mother's passing. I mean, like you said, you know, that's
a that's a huge amount of pressure. Do you remember
do you remember anything that you said on the day,
like sort of how you went about delivering it.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I remember. The main thing I remember, and this again
sort of speaks to my upbringing, is that that I said,
I don't even remember being told I was loved by
my family members, But I said, my mother never said
that she loved me, but I knew that she did
(08:24):
through her actions and through things she would say, Like
so she was always nervous when when I would go
away and do my extreme sports, but she'd sort of
say she'd just tell me to be careful, or and
she'd tell me not to tell me tell her what
I'd actually done when I was away doing those things.
So it was through sort of actions and I guess
(08:47):
sort of more obtuse ways of saying it, that she
showed that she loved me.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
HEYMSH. When you're talking about the addiction, when you're talking
about the depression, the effect that this was having on
your life became more prominent when you were in your relationships. Yeah, absolutely,
so talk to us about it. At which point did
you decide that you know you needed to do something
about these addictions and how and and these these are
(09:17):
you know, the depression, how it was affecting you and
what did that look like. Yeah, so with the with
the pornography, that that came to a head right at
or just before the birth of our first child, particularly
difficult time. Yeah, my wife, and my wife thought that
(09:42):
I stopped using pornography and all that I just got
better at hiding it.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
She found it just before the birth of our first child.
So instead of being able to enjoy motherhood and parenthood
and all that sort of stuff, we're thrown into We're
essentially thrown into marriage counseling because she was incredibly hurt
by by sort of her discovery that I was still
(10:06):
sort of usingography. I ended up going into well, yeah,
we're both doing couples counseling and I was doing individual counseling.
And then that's when I first went into a twelve
step program, so SLAH six and Love Addicts Anonymous, and
(10:26):
we'll go to that two to three times a week
for about I went for about three and a half years.
So yeah, and it was just it was definitely at
that point, definitely making life unmanageable just because of the
hurt that that had caused the and more so the
(10:47):
lying about it and the distrust that it created in
our marriage. So that's that's that was probably the Yeah,
before that, it was kind of bubbling away. She was
aware of it at sort of at times and things
like that, but it didn't cause a major impact. But
that's when it caused a significant impact.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
When you go along to group therapy and you know
you're as you see, going to Slaw Sla Sla Slaw.
I was thinking about lunch. No, when you're going to slah,
you know, it could be very confronting. You know, suddenly
you know you're there in front of other people who
some who would be at different stages of their recovery.
(11:27):
What was that experience like for you to you know, actually,
there was no there was no more hiding. This is
you know, this is now an open room full of
adults and people actually being brutally honest. You know, I'm
glad you asked that question, Hamish. For me, it was
life changing because I had never experienced an environment where
(11:50):
I could say anything, share anything, be emotional and have
that validated isn't probably the right word, but heard by
other people.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And then there might have been things that I wasn't
comfortable to say, and then somebody else would go and
share one of their experiences and I would hear and
it was essentially what I was thinking, but I was
too ashamed to share it. And I'd literally never experience
that in my life before. So that experience was truly
(12:24):
life changing for me. And coming back to what I
said earlier about me not carrying any friendships from my
sort of college years, I realized sort of after that
time in a twelve step program and being able to
share and be vulnerable, I actually started to develop really
(12:45):
true friendships after that because I started to take that
into their aspects of my life and be vulnerable and share.
Whereas I think before I looked quite intimidating in terms
of like, yeah, just because I seem to have everything
together and going on, so I actually can't. I can't
(13:07):
thank the twelve step program and what I got out
of it enough.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, I'm really interested in what some of those changes were,
you know, were like for you. So is there are
there any comparisons you can think about, you know, in
terms of not the addictive behavior, but just general hamish behavior,
you know, like things that you that you did after
you'd gone through the twelve steps, that you maybe didn't
do what you did differently before you had done them.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah. It probably the biggest example I can give is
so I have I ended up having, like my mental
health got so bad that I needed to take four
months off work. And my boss was amazing about it.
He didn't like basic people thought that I had a
(13:54):
terminal illness or something like that. They had no idea why.
As a way, when I came back to work, I
didn't want to have one hundred conversations with my wider
team about why I'd been away, let alone with the
wider organizations. So what I did was I actually I
booked a meeting for the first hours back at lunchtime,
(14:14):
and I got up in front of one hundred people
who I'd never told that I battled depression, and I
explained and I came out and I said, I've got depression.
I actually just tried to commit suicide a few months ago. Ironically,
my first suicide attempt was when I was taking four
months off to work on my mental health. And I
(14:37):
explained what I explained my lived experience, So what suicide like?
What depression and suicide felt and looked like for me.
And then I tried to relate that to some of
the science and things one of my best mates of
psychiatric doctor, so I checked things. Yeah, yeah, so, And
(14:58):
I wouldn't have done that, like I wouldn't have shown
that level of vulnerability before if I hadn't sort of
been to it through a twelve step program.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
That is incredible. What I really would love you to
do as much as you can. You can you describe
to me being in that room and how people were
responding to that, because, like you said, you know, you
disappeared for four months, right, and they go, oh, you know,
wonder what he's got, you know, And I can only imagine,
(15:27):
you know, people speculating about this, that and the other,
and probably out of concern and to a degree, right,
but also too unanswered questions and then the absence of information,
people make up their own stories. So when you're in
that room and you're telling people this and being more
vulnerable than you've ever been, even at your own mother's funeral,
(15:50):
what were the looks on people's faces? What was their
responses to and after the meeting, tell us what people
came and said to you.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, there was, there was lots, there was a lot
of head nodding and like. So when I sort of
shared about a particular thing like people, I could see
people crying. Ye, that seemed like And then they came
up to me afterwards and said that they'd either experienced
that themselves or that they needed to have a conversation.
They think they needed to have a conversation with a
(16:18):
friend of theirs because I talked about what some of
the signs and behaviors were to look out for and
somebody that might be battling a mental illness. So it
was incredibly rewarding and I didn't really care whether it
if it only helped one person, But I guess, and
that's part of the reason I'm on the show too,
is I've been through some horrible things, like mentally horrible,
(16:41):
not physically horrible, but I've been through some horrible things,
and I guess it's a passion of mine to try
and use that to help to help others.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So how other people respond to sharing that kind of
information like you did to the hundred people, That's that's
one thing. But how did you feel after you had
spoken to everyone that day, when you went home that night?
After you know, you'd had a bit of time just
to decompress, after having been as honest as you were.
(17:14):
How did Hamis feel?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It was incredibly freeing. And that's what I find whenever
I share, So I openly share on LinkedIn. I I like,
I've had a drug addiction. I've been battling a drug
addiction for the last five years. I've told a number
of people both that I've worked with for a long
period of time. Plus also like I told my auto
(17:38):
mechanic that fixes my car, and and and then he
shared with me how how his daughter had been battling
or battles anorexia, and he shared how it was some
of the best, Like he sent us to an expensive
clinic and all that, and and now she's, I don't know, yeah,
he said, better kind of thing, and she's she's not
(18:00):
struggling with that anymore. And I find that beautiful. When
when I can, I guess when I open up and
then somebody else opens up back. And I've literally had
people contact me from overseas when that I just know
off LinkedIn and things like that, when when their son
committed suicide and I've spent many hours talking to her,
(18:21):
I had. I had a next colleague called me when
I was in Kansas in the US and he was
literally going to commit suicide. And I spent three hours
talking to him. And I'm not I'm not claiming credit
for him not committing suicide, but he is still alive
and he was pretty adamant at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, and Kyle, sometimes, you know, when we're when we're
feeling at our lowest, we really just need someone that
we feel that we can trust enough to talk to
and that can can make the difference.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, yeah, and so often the problem when we're in
a lot of pain is that we've we've withdrawn from
the world and we're trying not to think about it,
trying not to feel it, and they're so busy avoiding
it that actually we don't end up doing anything particularly
helpful with how we're feeling. Right talking like we you know,
endlessly talk about on the show. Anything you can do
to get the words out is going to help. And
(19:12):
as you say, Hamish and Hamish, actually talking to someone
who you have a pretty good bet or a pretty
good hunch is going to understand because they've been there,
enables people to open up and trust more quickly.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
What are the things that when you talk about this,
that you've learned, that you reflect on that you want
others to know.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, that's a good question. I guess what jumps. The
thing that probably jumps to mind first is it's not
whatever that behavior. So I referred to it as negative
coping mechanism. That's not the problem, like my drug use
or my pornography or whatever. Exercise at one point was
(20:01):
an addiction for me. That wasn't the problem like that.
The problem was that I didn't like dealing with emotions.
That I didn't know how to deal with emotions because
essentially sort of my upbringing, i'd refer to it as emotion.
I was emotionally neglected. I wasn't taught how to deal
(20:22):
with emotions. I didn't like, they weren't encouraged. I just
learned to suppress them. And so when I felt uncomfortable
at something, I would go to one of my addictions,
which started off as pornography and things like that. But
it's taken me a long time to realize that, Like
it's probably only the last sort of five or six
(20:44):
years and I'm forty seven now that I realized it
wasn't the addiction. There was a problem, is what I
was trying to deal with. A sort of an author
and somebody that I really like is gabble Matte, and
he talks about addicts are just trying to like they're
just trying to soothe the pain or addresser anxiety or
(21:08):
something like that. It's not like addicts aren't bad, good
or bad. They're just trying to deal with something, not
a moral failing. Yeah, yeah, So what do.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You do differently now? When you know, when you have this,
you know life is still going to happen regardless of
whatever you've you've gone through, right, So instead of reverting
to any of the addictions, what do you do now?
That's still a work in progress. So weekly I see
(21:39):
I see a therapist. I'm doing psychodynamics psychotherapy. I also
aim to attend sort of two to three Narcotics Anonymous
meetings a week. I need to get a sponsor and
need to start working the steps again.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
So there's a variety. And I guess it's also getting
comfortable with experiencing my emotions and sort of sitting with them,
which I just I got back from rehab about six
weeks ago, and one of and it was my third
stint in rehab. One of the things I've realized it's
(22:22):
at times and like they give you a lot of
time and space and you get bored and I but
that's done on purpose, and that it gives you time
to sort of sit and fail and experience things. Because
you don't have your phone. You can't be doom scrolling
or distracting yourself. You've just got to sit with yourself
and yeah, to a certain extent, gays at your naval
(22:46):
and get comfortable with yourself. So I've learned a lot
through that sort of process, Kyle.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I mean there's something to be said about actually just
taking time for self reflection. I mean mindfulness is the
other way that we refer to it, right.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And boredom is important. I mean boredom.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
I think actually often a lot of times is that
discomfort we feel when we have to spend time with ourselves.
And if you it's one of those paradoxes, isn't it.
If you if you find that that's uncomfortable, you should
probably do more of it, because actually it's really important
with good company for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I don't know, I'm not someone who ever feels particularly bored.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
No, I can imagine that it's not really in your nature,
is it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No? No, I mean it's it's just but it's one
of those things too though, right, Like I would still
say that, you know, you take time to think about
your situations because I like planning. Yes, so you know
that that's kind of where I'm always going. But is
that Is that the same for you now though?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Hamish?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like, you know, how are you responding different leader things
and what are some of these different pathways and that
you're you're learning because you know, by a chemist, you
know you've got to have a process, right, There's got
to be some way to make it all fit together.
Is that the same kind of approach you're taking for
dealing with your mental.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Health trying to Yeah, I mean it's a constant, it's
it's it's like I say you said before, it's kind
of work in practice. So I guess some of the
things that that I'm trying to put in place is
like regular exercise, eating well, where get a catch up
(24:18):
with friends?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That's so social interaction. Don't you get sleep? A hay
Mashon Kyle The classic one here is right, just hypothetically,
let's say that a certain rugby game doesn't go the
way that you wanted it to, it would be fair
that you might have a drink or two to be
(24:40):
able to soothe the disappointment, right, that would be.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It may very well happen from time to time, from
time to time. Who could say yeah, from time to time.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
But you know that that that is a that is
reverting to something that for some people would potentially be
an addiction because that's how they had They respond to
an emotional response. When it starts having a negative effect
on our life, that's when we know that we actually
really need to take act.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
It's all about consequences, and I mean we have to separate,
for instance, with alcohol, and obviously, you know drug use,
the physical health issues separate from the addiction. So drinking
alcohol isn't great for your health, full stop, and the
more you drink, the.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Worse it is for your health.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
But it's also possible to drink alcohol socially on a
regular basis and not actually develop an addiction. And you know,
you will hear this from people who've been in AA
for a long time, and they'll they'll talk about those
annoying people who can drink alcohol and not develop a
problem because it is really annoying if that's not you.
But the negative consequences and the problem of course is
(25:48):
that for people who are in the grip of an addiction,
well they're not very good at spoiling the negative consequences
because that's where the denial kicks in. So we need
other people to be able to help us at least
challenge us what those are.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
But also too, the thing that you said, Hamish in
the first hour which really stuck with me, was you
talked actually about when you able to be honest with
other people, you know, whether it be in front of them,
you know, when you told your coworkers or when you
went to a support group. Actually, just how life changing
that is when actually when we are accountable and honest
(26:25):
about our actions and also about the impact to be
able to have a better effect for us. I mean,
when we articulate a life experience, right, that's usually very
good for us because we can actually understand our own story,
our own experience. But second of all, it can be
really helpful for other people.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, completely agreeing. I find being sort of honest and
open about it makes life so much easier and in
my experience it often opens the door for somebody else
to share about something that they've been experiencing. Our family
members been experiencing things like that, and that's real gift
(27:08):
because sometimes you question when you're in the when you're
in the depths of depression or addiction or whatever, it's like,
why am I going through this? And for me being
able to share about it and potentially like like, I'm
not a professional, cale's the professional, and I direct people
(27:30):
towards the appropriate help. But lived experience and sharing your
lived experience. Don't underestimate the value of that of doing
that to people.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think also to your story is very you know,
your story is a really great example of the fact
that you know, mental health and the challenges that we
go through does not discriminate. I mean, you summed it
up to us perfectly when you were saying, you know,
from the outside looking in, you know, you had a
successful career, you know, educated, doing great, you know why kids.
(28:04):
You know, on paper you could look at it and go, wow,
Hamish is doing awesome. Yeah, but life hasn't lived on paper.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
No, No, it's I mean, it's a real it's kind
of a real paradox in me and that like what
society defined is success. And what should have made me
happy didn't make me happy. I was absolutely miserable. I
literally tried to kill myself. I'm medicated. I'm still medicated.
(28:33):
I've been medicated for twenty years on a variety of
different medications for the depression, which I just like to
in terms of that, I'd like to say to look,
you should never be ashamed of needing to take medication.
It's an important part, along with counseling and therapy as
well as lifestyle factors to help get you out of
(28:54):
that hole whatever that those demons that you're sort of
battling with. But yeah, on paper, I everyone. No, I'm
not going to be so arrogant as saying everyone wants
to be me, but it's like, and even now to
five years of addiction, my life to people that don't
know me, well still looks good. But my last five
(29:15):
years it was a slow form of suicide for me.
I was literally taking drugs to try and kill myself,
and I did end up in hospital when I see
you once and almost did kill myself. And it was
only just recently that I realized I've come that close
to dying as a result of my drug use.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
We you are now, do you actually see yourself? You
see that you know that you've got a future, You
see that this is something that you know. Life is
not easy, but it is worth it.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I'm getting that back slowly. Like I've been probably for
five or six or six or seven years, I've been
relatively indifferent to living. It's my children that has sort
of been my anchor and staying here for them and
not wanting to perpetuate sort of I don't know issues
(30:09):
on them, but yeah, I'm starting to develop I guess
a passion and purpose for life again. I read an
amazing Booktor Frank by Victor Frankel, Man Search for Meaning,
and I found that really helpful.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
What was it that was helpful in it? What was
what did Victor So?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Victor Frankel was a psychiatrist, and he went into the
concentration camps and so he got to he got to
understand firsthand, like what how you define purpose? And he
actually created a whole sort of new branch of psychotherapy
called logo therapy. I think it'sh yeah. So, and I've
(30:49):
just found that fascinating in terms of his understanding his
own personal battles and his search for meaning well.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Come to logo therapy in a moment. I'd like to
hear about that, But a couple of texts I want
to read to you first. This one is from Brent.
Brent says, I have to retire to bed for work,
but thank you so much, Hamish. You've inspired me with
your courage to face my challenges involving depression, anxiety, addiction
and grief. You seem just like me, intelligent, educated, articulate
(31:19):
and respected, yet plagued by internal struggles. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This one here from Kristin. Kristen says grief is an
extremely personal issue. I lost my dad in nineteen ninety four,
still carry him in my heart, so to my mum.
This year I lost my great niece's beautiful twenty six
year old husband of suicide. Admit August my fifty three
year nephew to an incurable brain tumor. You, a young man,
(31:50):
have your battles, hold on to life and find beauty.
This one from Colin says, forty years sober and I
still remember those raw emotions during early recovery. One thing
that helped me was when something happened that hit me emotionally,
I learned to ask myself how much does this really
matter to me? If it wasn't worth getting drunk over,
(32:13):
I would throw it out of my mind. Wishing you
all the best, Tamish cheers, Colin. And this is a
question for you, and this is this is from Kristen
again in Christmas says, all good to talk about experiences,
though does it help? And I think that's a great question.
Is that you know we can ask the say, well,
(32:35):
we're talking about it, but in your terms, you know
we have talked about this, it did help? Why did
it help to be able to talk about it and
share that with other people, whether it be co workers,
whether it be in a support group.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
What was it about that that was helpful? Yeah, so
a couple of things. For me, I guess part of
it is about sort of being authentic to myself and
being vulnerable and open that that's probably a big part.
And also taking my experience, which I wouldn't like, I
(33:10):
wouldn't wish on anyone kind of thing. And and if
that can help somebody else and I don't, I don't,
I don't care if it only helps one person, then
to me, what I've been through it isn't all for
nothing kind of thing like I don't I don't want
anyone to look into the depth of despair and think
(33:33):
that they're so worthless and think that everyone else will
be better off without them if they kill themselves. It's
an awful place to be. And Yeah, I've had a
number of people reach out to me and share things
with me and and experiences. Will reach out to me
(33:54):
in a time of need, and I've directed them to
somewhere appropriate or shared my experience, and from what they
tell me, it's helped them.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Kyle, when it comes to it, logo logo, logo through
what is logo therapy and how might we recognize that
and anything that we're talking about in today today mental health?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Yeah, so, I mean Victor Frankel's book Man sich Chamani
is one of those ones that's probably on every psychotherapist
reading list. I read it a long time ago, And
logo therapy is probably not one that people would talk
about a lot these days. But existential therapy, which was
He's recognized as being one of the sort of the
first writers about. Existential therapy is very much something that
(34:39):
people practice and it really is this idea that Actually
it's our struggle to find meaning in life and how
hard that is at times to find meaning when we're suffering,
but that ultimately finding meaning and we talk about this
a lot on the show. Actually finding ways to connect,
to do something purposeful, to live our values is what
(35:00):
we should alway striving for in terms of deeper satisfaction
and connection, but that when that goes missing, we also
get ourselves into trouble. And therapeutic approach it's about helping
people find find their way back to meaning and also
recognize that some of the ways we get ourselves in
trouble is through not embracing the sort of the richness
of our mortality, you know, I mean, what makes life
(35:22):
meaningful is the fact that at some point it stops.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is true unavoidably so well.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I mean, look, as we've talked about here on the
show before, is that at the end of the day,
life is just a collection of memories. So we do
our best to try and make the most of the
good memories and let go of the not so good
ones in the hope that we can kind of get
to a good conclusion.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
And of course what Rankell brings his experience of being
in the Holocaust, being in concentration camps at World War Two,
and recognizing that even an incredible suffering, we can still
find meaning and that actually sometimes bearing suffering and finding
a way to live with pain is part of life.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So what's has take on it that? Basically, you know,
if you can, if you can find meaning and purpose
in a Holocaust concentration camp, then well it exists everywhere. Yeah, interesting,
interesting concept. Yeah, I M I must put that on
my my to read list.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Go on. Then, yeah, it's a short book. It's a
short it's a short book. It's a short book. It's
intense reading.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Though I guess I guess he didn't need a lot,
It didn't need to draw in a lot to be
able to make his point. Then perhaps there's something to
be said for that for for writers of indeed, Yeah,
in general, I'd labor it to the point, done and
dusted like it. So, Hay Mass in terms of you
know where, where you've been and where you're going, what
is it that you're doing differently now? For you know
(36:46):
your own your own mental health and and your own
day to day life than you were doing five years ago.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's it's building some good habits so it's getting back
into counseling and and having a willingness to do kind
of the deep, difficult, sort of challenging work. My therapist
sort of tells me, make sure you've got something good
planned for after each session, because they're hard sessions. I'm
(37:16):
digging up stuff that I've been trying to hide for
well all my life. I'm trying to get back into
in a non addictive way, into healthy exercise habits. So yeah,
exercise regularly, healthy eating, journaling, meditation. Not so much meditation
(37:38):
does my head in. But I mean different things work
for different people.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Absolutely, absolutely, So when you talk about that, you know,
we say, hey, you know, what's something you know, something
positive that you could do after a therapy session. What
does that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Spend time with my kids, get to the gym, spend
some time in nature, go for a walk, catch up
with a friend over just just something I enjoy so
really really gay, could be cooking things like that, just
whatever whatever gives you joy, which can be that can
be a really difficult thing. Just touching on that when
(38:15):
when you're in your depth of depression. Some people think
depression has been sad for me. My experience of depression
is a feeling of nothing like, nothing like things that
previously brought me joy or enjoyment. I have no feeling
about it kind of thing. I just don't feel anything
(38:36):
about anything, so and that can be really challenging and
hard when you when your motivation is low, you're trying
to do these healthy lifestyle factors and things like that.
Probably the best thing I can say in terms of
that is call a good friend and somebody that somebody
that will just come and I can't say that word
(38:58):
just talk rubbish with you, but not ask you about
how you're feeling or why you're feeling like that and
things like that. Somebody that will just literally just yeah,
talk rubbish and tell your jokes and whatever. And that's
probably one of the best things I found sort of
get me out of that negative headspace, because when you're
in that, like all you're doing is thinking about You're
(39:20):
in your inside your head, and you need to get
out of it. You need that connection. I think of
community or friendship or relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well. Community and connection is something which comes up quite
regularly on the show, and the absence of it will
quite literally make you unwell. And so you know, you
bring that up, it very much demonstrates that's the core
of what you need and what you're doing. And it
sounds to me like, you know, when I ask the question,
(39:48):
what is it you do that you look forward to,
it sounds exactly like that's what you're doing. You're engaging
in a bit of community and connection.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean one of my revelations of when
I was trying to deal with my addiction, or when
I was trying to deal with how is feeling of
my depression and I went to addictions like pornography and
drugs and things like that, is I was trying to
make myself happy. I was trying to bring myself pleasure.
(40:18):
But what I actually learned and being vulnerable and open
and honest about where I am at with life and
if that's helpful for other people, or doing things for
other people, like people that you care for, whether that's
your partner with, that's your children, where they're act, your friends,
and doing things selflessly with no expectation that you're going
to get anything back. I've actually found that that's actually
(40:40):
what gives me true joy in life. I think doing
things selflessly for other people that you care about, not
just for anyone, and it can be simple, Like I've said,
I've bought homeless people food and then sat down had
a chat with them on the side of the road,
and that's literally can be the highlight of my day.
Like just doing something simple like that for somebody sounds
(41:03):
again like that community in connection. Yeah, sitting down and
having a with some of it. That doesn't get much
more to the point to that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Hey, welcome back to the show. I got your text
message here from Judy. Thanks Judy, Judy says, thanks, Hamish.
As you are talking, it feels like you are walking
in my shoes. I'm battling depression, PTSD and anxiety and
I've had some very dark places of late. I'm getting help,
(41:32):
but still I feel this journey is so slow. I'm impatient.
I want to fix this now, Judy. So you know
that's that's very real, right, Kyle, you know it's wouldn't
it be wonderful if these experiences, you know, depression, PTSD,
anxiety in Hamish's case, you know, talking about addictions, being
(41:55):
able to actually just fall like a switch and make
these things that make us feel so very uncomfortable go away.
But it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
No, but it does work, right, Yeah, no, it does.
And we have to be really careful when we talk
about what working means. You know, particularly with PTSD, what
I often say to people is that you know people commonly.
In fact, it's one of the it's one of the
features of PTSD have memories or experiences that are intrusive
(42:25):
in some way that they can't stop thinking about, or
come into their mind in a way that feels out
of control. The aim with PTSD is not to rebury
the trauma. The aim with PTSD is to turn those
experiences into ordinary bad memories.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Right. We all have bad memories.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
We all have things that happened in our past that
aren't traumatic but don't particularly want to think about, and
we might occasionally remember them. But when we do, we
can stop thinking about them and we can choose not
to think about them. And that's the difference. And so
that the acceptance piece really is that our story will
always be our story, but we can over time learn
to relate to it differently. Same with anxiety, really, I mean,
(43:01):
you know, some people who experience anxiety in particular situations
find that they continue to feel that way, but that
actually the quality of feeling it is different. It has
less control over their behavior. They're better able to make
choices and they can sort of tolerate the feeling better
and that over time it fades. But it does take time.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
When we say, you know the expectation of well how
much time then? Now, how long is it going to be?
I mean conversation I had with somebody, you know, one
time about someone who'd actually been in rehab and someone
who clearly did not understand how addiction and rehab works.
And they said, oh, well they're fine now they went
(43:44):
to rehab, so that's all behind them. They don't do
any of that stuff now. But it's not like that,
is it. So how do we understand the timeline and
the process? I mean, I've already said tonight when it
comes to grief that you know, there should be no timeline.
You do it in your own time, your own space.
You know, for you hamershits, it's a lifetime of going
through it and for some it will be. So how
(44:06):
do we actually know that things are getting better? And
what sort of measures can we use? It seems that
time when it comes to mental health is a really
poor one.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
Well, it's the question people of my job hate the most.
How long is this going to take? The honest ads
are most of the time is I honestly don't know.
What I can say is that most people will feel
better after a handful of sessions, and for things that
have been with us for most of our life, you know,
childhood experiences. We're talking a year or two of therapy
(44:38):
to really shift those things. But when it comes to
what does the process look like and how long does
it take to change, it's a wabbly old road. I mean,
I think one of the things that's really hard, and
particularly if with addictive patterns, is by its very nature
we want things done. Now, that's the addictive thinking, right,
But actually what we have to be able to do
(45:00):
is keep zooming out, whether that's with the assistance of
a therapist or perhaps with a twelve step group, and
to think to ourselves, are we getting better on average
over time? So yes, there might be the blips and
the relapses and the stumbles along the way, But if
we zoom out to one month or six months, are
we doing the behavior less? Are we causing ourselves less problems?
(45:20):
Are we having more good days than bad days? Are
we getting those new habits established, and you know, on average,
are we getting better how much?
Speaker 2 (45:30):
What do you use as your measures? You know, like,
like I said, time seems to be a very poor
one when it comes to mental health. So what do
you be used is your your milestones or your your
points of reflection to actually understand you know, where you're
at and how things are going, if they're getting better,
if they're getting worse.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Yeah, I'd say awareness and understanding. So sort of sort
of over time, through therapy and reading, et cetera, I've
understood why I am the way I am, and I'm
better able to articulate it, and and that that in
(46:10):
itself gives me a sense of peace as I sort
of unpicked those layers and so, as I was saying,
when we're off here, it's like the bit about that
I never really experienced the grief with my mother. I
literally only just discovered that a couple of weeks ago
with with my therapist kind of thing. And I'm i'd say,
(46:30):
I'm kind of excited about mildly excited about working on
that kind of thing. And it's just it's another layer
that I've sort of peeled off the young in. So, Yeah,
time isn't time is time isn't a good measure, but
it also just how do I put this? I'm getting
more and more comfortable with sitting with my emotions and
(46:52):
talking about them and feeling them. So I'm seeing changes
in behavior and like, like, I've been trying to get
clean from drugs for probably three years now, and it
wasn't until this sort of last one where I hit
my rock bottom. I wanted to go to rehab for
(47:13):
ninety days. I was willing to give up all drugs,
all substances, and whereas like three years ago, I just
wanted to give up the harm, the problematic drug kind
of thing. So that's to me, that's kind of real
progress and change and my thinking and my perspective on it.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
When you recognize that change, how does that make you feel?
You know, when you actually you can look at that
and you go, ah, I understand that. Now, what does
that do for your thinking of yourself?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Quietly proud, yeah, quietly proud like yeah, people like well,
other people, let alone yourself. We're all incredibly complex beings.
And the more you understand about yourself and your behaviors
and how that influences how you behave and or how
(48:08):
you react and respond. Yeah, I don't know. I just
find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I think that that's that's the thing too, right, is
that we have our own our own measure of success,
you know, and what that looks like for everyone will
be different. But I think, you know, it's the feeling
that we can all share in common. It can be
that that feeling of pride and you know, to be
fair well done, thank you, because you know, it's it's
(48:36):
really really hard to want to actually first of all,
tackle and make this change in behavior. But you know,
saying that yep, ninety days, I'm in, let's go. You
know that that takes a hell of a lot of
willpower after a long time, you know, of used, especially
when you're talking about years. So yeah, I think that's fantastic.
(48:57):
That's it for this episode of The Nutters Club, thanks
to our guest Hamish as well as psychotherapist Carl McDonald.
If you liked what you heard and think it might
help someone out there, then please share this episode on
your own channels or with family and friends. And if
you ever want to be part of the show, then
give us a call or text when we broadcast live
on News Talk set B eleven pm Sunday nights, New
(49:21):
Zealand standard time. Check out Newstalk SeeDB dot co dot
nz for local frequencies or a link to the live stream.
A big thanks to New Zealand on Air for their
ongoing support and making the show. Take care and remember
life isn't easy. It is, however, with it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
For more from news Talk set B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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