How to create change in the wake of trauma

Hamish Williams and Kyle MacDonald speak with Corban Mita about how he challenged his own behavior to better his mental health. In doing so he confronted his own childhood trauma and learned how to break the cycle of abuse. Callers shared their own experiences about what works and where to reach out to for help.

With thanks to NZ on Air.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Ed be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good evening and welcome to the Nutters Club, the show
that talks about your mental health every Sunday night and
Monday morning and try to see if we can't help
you out along the way. My name's Amish Williams, and
a very good evening to you wherever you might be
listening around the country, around the world. Just before we

(00:54):
kick off tonight, I just wanted to a little bit
of a personal note just say very sincere condolences to
the family and friends of Peter Lester, the wonderful sailor
and sailing commentary. Now, if you've ever listened to the
show before, you might have picked up but I'm probably
somewhat of a sailing sick event of which it would
be quite true to say, and one of the great

(01:16):
experiences of my life. Actually last year was well in
Barcelona at the thirty seventh America's Cup. I actually got
to host Peter on one of the tables at the
rawn New ze On Yacht Squadrons gala dinner, and so
they're sort of like, well, you're a media person, you
can look after the other media person. So there I was,
and it was really the first time that I'd ever

(01:37):
spent any personal time with Peter and just wanted to
say he let you know if you've ever wondered, you
won't be surprised if you've ever heard his kind voice
on there. Lovely guy, very humble. In fact, that particular night,
the racing had been going so late that he had
literally run across Barcelona off straight off one of those
inflatable chase boats, across a couple of busy roads in

(02:01):
order to come and be one of the panelists at
the event that night. So sail well to your next
Hurrie and Peter, you will be missed by many. Okay,
moving on tonight on the show, it's very much your
show tonight, So we want to have your calls, we
want to have your texts, and the conversation around tonight

(02:22):
is around one of the harder things that you have
to do, and that's change and when we have to
figure out when to enact change in our life. Now,
one thing that I would hope never to change is
my psychotherapist. He's your psychotherapist as well. He's Carl McDonald
he's here in the Auckland studio with me Icyle good
evening curea why has changed hard for us? And why

(02:44):
do we hate it so much, especially when it has
something to do with our own personal lives.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Because we're creatures of habit Ultimately, I mean, it's easier
to do what we've known than what might be even
better for us. I mean, you know, look at you know,
most people at some point struggle to maybe lose a
few kgs or change a you know, a habit like
drinking or having a few choky pickies after nine o'clock
on a weekday night, or whatever those habits might. It's
hard to change because what we know is what we

(03:11):
know and doesn't make much sense rationally when we think about, well,
why would you do something that causes you pain? Why
is that hard to change? Because we're creatures a habit inertia.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
So that's what we're going to talk about tonight is
very much around being able to make those changes in
our life and especially to try and benefit our mental health,
because ultimately, when it comes to our mental health, having
to address whatever the issue is in our life, sometimes
the issue actually might be me.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, and having the ability to reflect and notice and
take feedback and make those connections. That adds a whole
other layer of complexity to making those changes, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
It does. Indeed, Well, we are going to kick this off.
I've actually got a call that I recorded earlier today
with one of our incredible guys, name's Corbyn Meter and
he lives over in the Gold Coast. So we're going
to take break and we come back. I'm going to
play that call for you, Cole and for everyone listening,
because Corn Corbyn is a young man, very young man,

(04:16):
been his early twenties, and he has gone down this
road of enacting massive change in his life where he
realized he was the problem, if you like, and his
behavior needed to change for the better, for his mental
health and for the health of his relationship. So it's
an incredible chat. He's a really awesome guy. We're'll take

(04:36):
a break and we come back. We'll play that call
for you. Excellent Nuts club now on News Talks.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
'd be joining me from the Gold Coast is Corbyn?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Meeter Corbyn. Good evening to.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
You, good evening, Hamus, Thank you for hitting me on.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
Hey, no worries, Corbyn. Look just for a start, tell
us a little bit about yourself. You know, where are
you born and where did you grow up? And how
did you end up on the Gold Coast and so, yeah, grew.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
Up in Master Them with the small channels are known
as the wided upper bottom of the North Island for
the hour away from Wellington.

Speaker 6 (05:14):
Grew up.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
With a family. There was a little bit of dysfunction
when I was a bit younger, with my parents splitting up,
but evidently my mother found another partner, and yeah, and
my wife sort of, I don't know, it's quite fruitful.
I was a high directive young boy to be a

(05:40):
little bit disruptive when I was younger, and then I
got a bit of direction in my life through martial arts,
and I thought I looked up to my stepdad a
lot because he didn't come from a lot. He had
a very traumatic childhood and he sort of treated me

(06:02):
the best he could. And my mom, my mom loved
me so so much. One loved me so so much,
cared for me. And when I was when I was younger,
experienced probably a lot. I did experience a lot of
form in my life. I went through a sexual assault
at a very young age and that sort of formed

(06:22):
me in a certain way because it happens. It happened
at a Catholic school, and you know, it instilled these
beliefs into me about religion and you know, because this
stuff shouldn't happen. And also at that young age, I
experienced a lot of domestic violence with my real father,

(06:42):
who's not with us today anymore. He peacefully the parted
us and he was you know, he was he was
in the church's will. So very young age, those seeing
those situations unfold sort of it gave me a belief
of like, you know, I'm going to distance myself from

(07:05):
religion or not, that it's not anything to do with religion,
and stilled those beliefs that, oh, they're not really good people.
And so I grew up going through college going into
meet that. In college, I was I was quite introverted
and quiet in some some cases, I didn't like to

(07:26):
communicate a lot. And then going through college I sort
of found my voice a little bit. And I remember
talking to my mum's about the sexual assault that happened
at a at a at a young age, and she
didn't know anything about it. So then we obviously went
through the process of you know, going to counselor and

(07:49):
talking about it and getting it out, which was which
was good. It was so much weight with it off
my shoulders that had been carrying for a lot at
a young age. And from that point on I sort
of left that in the past and didn't really reflect
back on it. That makes sense, I was sort of
the traumatic stuff that happened. It was like a blank mean,

(08:11):
I blank men in my mind, and I don't put
a lot of attention to it. I was I thought
it's going I don't need to worry about it. Or
then on my partner and I were going through through
like a rough point in our life, and I started
to know that if I wasn't treating the right way

(08:32):
and that I probably needed some out. And then that's
when my mother sort of pointed me in the direction
to you know, go to like a counselor a family
counselor that we had, and so I started to do
a lot of work with her and at this men's
speep of changeability and yeah, I've had all I've had

(08:55):
the most development from that point spiritually within myself. I've
grown a lot as a human being and a lot
more confident. And you'd never catch me speaking on the
podcast or anything like that. You know, I tried doing
my best when people reach out now. So yeah, now
we're over in the Goldie. We moved over here to

(09:17):
creating new life and a new journey and sort of
move move from the mother hen and just see where
we go from there.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Tell me Corbyn, you know, and having to challenge yourself
to want to change what was the hardest part of
that journey for you.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
The hardest part for me to change was probably going
into an environment where you don't know a lot of
people and you're going in there by yourself and there's
a lot of you know, anxiety obviously leading up to
that point because you're going through internally. I was going

(09:59):
to say, well, I don't hit my partner, you know,
because at that time I thought, you know, I thought
abuse was physical abuse and wasn't in tune with emotional abuse,
all these sexual abuse, all these other types of abuse.
You know, it all comes under abuse. So when I
was going there, I was like, well, I don't have
my partner, I don't need to do this, I don't

(10:20):
need to do that, And that's sort of my ego
getting them away. And when I walked through that front door.
It was. It was very confronting. I remember everyone was
sort of quite quiet and a little bit nervousful. Everyone
was nervous to open up a bit.

Speaker 7 (10:35):
So, yeah, when we confront ourselves, you know, for our
for our own behavior and we want to change, it
can sometimes be really hard, you know, looking looking at
what we see. For you, how how was that experience
and what have you noticed in yourself that has changed

(10:56):
in your life now?

Speaker 5 (10:59):
So for me, communication was probably the hardest hardest, but
for me to open up to my partner and not
let these little events or these little micro events happen,
and that obviously builds up through the weeds, and the
weeks come months, and then I'll just have then out there.
And so something that my partner and I do regually

(11:22):
now is just checking in and communicating and live in
this masculine role of feeling right, you have to be
the head of the head of the family. You don't
talk about your emotions and you don't open up. You
carry a lot doing that, and I feel like when
you talk about it and release it, you're caring it

(11:44):
as a collective now, so you're not the main bearer
of all that weight and that's hurted me a lot.
That's hurted me a lot through training, communicating with people
at work, my friend group, even children that I trained
backing into for martial arts. It just hurted me a lot.
It's really made me a better person. And now I

(12:08):
don't feel embarrassed to talk about my story. That was
one of the things I always thought, like, how are
people are going to judge me? You know, how people
are going to do this? But I don't really care
to be there now because a lot of this works
for myself and I'm not fixated on other people's opinions.
So I live by this phrase like consistency builds momentum,

(12:31):
and I've sort of walked from my life with that mentality.
And it's the more I speak about it, the more
these opportunities come to me. And yeah, it's just been
quite fruitful. You know, I feel alive. I feel alive now.
Sometimes you might feel attacked when people say you need
to get help or you know, you need to do this.

(12:53):
That's like coming from a child state when they say
you need But I tend to talk about my emotions
with partners that I use eye statements a lot. Now
I feel and you're sort of owning that when you
when you feel that emotion. But yeah, just take the
first step and walk through the door. You meet a

(13:15):
lot of great people from all walks of life. And
when I went to my first menus group, I felt
so empowered going there because the information I was learning
and I wanted to go back and learn more because
I just wasn't aware about emotions and how to be

(13:35):
in tuned with emotions and how to have awareness and
all of this stuff. And yeah, so it's uncomfortable, but
uncomfortable's goods because you always developed from that stage.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Fantastic.

Speaker 7 (13:50):
Okay Corbyn meets her talking to us tonight from the
Gold Coast over there, and Ossie Corbyn, thank you so
much for your time this evening.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Thank you hamous Oppressure.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
That was a phone call that I recorded earlier today
with Corbyn over there in the Gold Coast in Australia.
What an extraordinary young man, Cole.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah absolutely. I mean, as we were talking about while
the course playing, it's clear he's done the work.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yes, yes, and look that he could just hear how
you know, I don't even want to say if he's proud,
it's more like when I was talking to Corbyn, I
got the feeling that he was relieved.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, and also just really accountable. Yes, you know, a
high degree of self responsibility, which I'm sure we'll talk
about tonight is actually one of the cornerstones of making
those changes in any relationship where you feel, oh you
behave you may not have been up to scratch.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
So the topic tonight that we'd like to hear from you, oh,
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the phone number,
is what is some of the changes, the big changes
that you've had to make in your life for your
mental health. Now you've heard Corbyn, and it could be
actually that it could be another you know, you've got
a partner there who might have actually been part of
this as well. But also so you know, when it

(15:05):
comes around living with abuse, is that's something that you
have had to live with and how did you go
about changing that in your life? Were you the abuser?
Corbyn admitted to being it in his own words, he
was being emotionally abusive, but he addressed it. He addressed

(15:28):
it and as we also heard right back in the
start of his childhood, he was the one being abused
as well, which is often the case.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Right, Yeah, Unfortunately that often is and we could talk
a bit more about that too, because it's really important
that we understand where those behaviors come from without making
excuses exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
We're not about making excuses. We're about understanding how things
actually work and then what we can do about it.
And when we say we, I mean us. I am
to be able to make positive change, change, alter and improve.
That's what it's all about. And so that's what we
want to hear about tonight from you guys, your experiences.
You're in sight undred eighty teen eighty is the number

(16:10):
we when take a break and we come back, come
to your calls, come to your texts. All tonight you're
on the Nutters Club. This is the.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand Air on Newstalk Z'B.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Welcome back to the show. My name's tam Mish Williams
and in the studio with me tonight have got psychotherapist
Carl McDonald and we're talking about change, about the ability
to be able to make change in our lives and
also to living with the effects of abuse and how
do we go about either a getting away from the
abuse or b stopping it, especially if you're the one

(16:45):
doing it. And as our caller just before Corbyn was
talking about it, it was incredibly hard, as you would imagine,
for him to be able to have to take that
self examinatory look at himself and his behavior. But he did,
and he's a much happier bloke for it, and got
to say a very insightful one at that text message

(17:06):
I've gotten here just says, hi, Hey guys, I lived
with my narcissistic brother last night. He gas lit me
and instead of me defending myself, I took the bait
and I remembered some of the helpful steps online on
how to deal with that type of personality. What was
my response, you might answer. You might ask the answer, nothing.

(17:31):
I was silent and I walked away. It extinguished the
potential argument right there in its tracks. Very proud of myself. Well,
I think we could say that Texter, We're very proud
of you too.

Speaker 8 (17:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Absolutely, it's hard thing to do.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, So look, let's talk about that, because that's a
good that's a good example of being able to change,
you know, because often when somebody does bait you, and
let's let's be fair we've all been in those all
in those situations. Now, when we really need to manage
our emotions, what is a What are some of the
ways that you can actually go about doing that? You know,

(18:09):
when you know someone is angling to get a rise
out of you.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Well, actually you hit the nail on the head in
terms of what I think we need to put front
and center with all of these conversations tonight about how
to change and how to change bad behavior relationships is
emotion regulation. So the connection between trauma and being abusive
gas lighting physically emotional abusive in relationships as an adult

(18:36):
is emotion regulation. That what trauma does is it really
damages our capacity to regulate emotions. And most of the
symptoms of trauma can be understood as being symptoms of
emotional dysregulation. Right, And of course, when someone's baiting us,
what they're trying to do is wind us up, They're
trying to get us disregulated, and it's you know, it's

(19:00):
gas lighting, it's a bullying tactic. But again, how can
we understand that. Well, one of the things that people
who experience distress and sometimes fled out of control that
they do in relationships is Missouri loves company to make
someone else feel bad, because then I don't have to
feel so bad, right, And it's not necessarily that conscious.

(19:23):
But one of the things is that if we're feeling
wound up, winding somebody else up can strangely be quite relieving.
Not saying it's good morally. Of course, we can have
all sorts of judgments about it, but this is how
this stuff often works. And of course what's also really
important with these things is to consider the role of control.
So we know that control is central to any kind
of relationship that can appear abusive. Control central because when

(19:47):
we've experienced a lot of trauma and a lot of difficulties,
being in control as a way to try and feel safe,
even if that's in control of somebody else.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
So to exactly what happened in this example from the
text was denying that the person the ability to be
able to do that.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Absolutely, they didn't pick up the all. As we say,
the attempt to wind them up bounced off. And it's
really hard to do, but it's incredibly effective because what
you're doing you're not letting it get in, or at
least you're not letting the other person know that it
got in. Turn on your heel, walk away whistling a
happy tune.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Do you run the risk of you know, sort of
angering as someone who's looking for a rise out of
you and denying it and to them, yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Look potentially, and of course it's important to stay safe.
But in fact, actually we can predict that one of
the things that might happen in these situations is the
other person remains upset because they haven't been able to
sort of give it to somebody else, right, they haven't
been able to whind somebody else and you know, have
a bit of a laugh at somebody else's expense. But
we ultimately have that choice about how we respond. And again,

(20:54):
when we come back to emotion regulation, one of the
things that's really hard is to keep that sense of
control over ourselves going by being able to observe and
monitor and make intentional choices about what we say and do.
When we're disregulated, we tend to just react, right. But
the more we can practice being able to regulate and
monitor our self responses and that's where all that mindfulness

(21:17):
stuff comes in. Group approaches are a great way, as
Corbyn talked about, to learn that in a practice kind
of environment. The more we're able to make choices about
how we respond.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
How popular are a group group counseling sessions? Is it
something that's quite quite readily available around the place? There
still are?

Speaker 3 (21:38):
I mean here in New Zealand there has been one
that's been running for a really long time called Essentially Men,
which is a fantastic group program of people out there listening,
and I'll double check in the airbraker. I do think
it runs in other centers as well. It's a really
well accepted way of doing lots of different kinds of therapy,
but when it comes to learning about relationships and particular
men learning to manage emotions and anger differently, it's quite

(22:01):
a common approach. So, for instance, if people are called
ordered to a domestic violence program, which is obviously the
more severe end of what we're talking about, that will
genuinely be groups. In fact that it's almost exclusively group programs.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Okay, Well, look, I would love to hear about anyone's
experience if they've done any group therapy before. I mean,
we had a bit from CORPORHMU, but I'd love to
hear from you tonight. Oh eight one hundred and eighty
ten eighty is the number, or you can flick us
a text on nine two nine two. I've got a
text here from Susie. Great and Susie says, evening, Hamish
and Kyle Evening Susie. She's One of the hardest parts

(22:33):
of change was accepting peace that simple things are okay,
like cooking, watching Netflix, reading music, talking walking. I had
so much abuse, violence, stress and chaos with drugs, drunken parties.
I mistook it for excitement. Yeah, but it wasn't. So

(22:57):
having peace in your life was hard.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Now it's good because change is hard getting used to
something new, even if it's better for us. And you
know what, I really rade piece. I love a piece
for life.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
I think it's often though, you know, you do hear
people say it's the little things that count, right, Yeah,
And actually those little things are actually quite big. And
you know, we talk about this in terms of what
are the basic pillars of your mental health. You need
to have well, you need to be getting some sleep,
getting some exercise, and making sure that you eat good food.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
And from the point of view of what the text
is pointing out, which I think is really important for
people have come from a background of trauma, being able
to find that stability and structure is actually really hard emotionally,
but it's a really good task to actually set yourself
that stability and structure because what that creates, of course,
is safety.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
And we sometimes don't realize that, you know, that can
be so hard just to be able to make that
change in your life, to consistently be you know, going
for a run or getting that walk in, especially when
your day is really busy, right, because.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
If you're emotionally dysregulated, a lot of the time you're reactive,
so you're reacting to what's in front of you. It's
hard to stick to plan, so it's hard to stick
to structures. It's a really classic sign of trauma. And actually,
you know, it sounds really dull, and you know, we
often say they're the boring things, but that structure is
actually about creating safety. It's often the first step for
people recovering from trauma is get that safety in place

(24:23):
for yourself.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
So when you say safety, are we're talking about basically
having like a schedule, like actually a consistent schedule.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeap, controlling what you can control, making things predictable, making things,
you know, what might even feel a little bit boring,
but actually, what that creates is it helps us to
regulate our emotional state. You know, it helps keeps us calm.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well Corbyn said it too, he said, you know, consistency
builds momentum. Totally, why s guy? Okay, we're going to
take a break. When we come back, we'd love to
hear from you, so your experiences with being able to
enact change when it came to what you had to
do for your mental health. But also too, if you've
been someone who's been able to live through abuse, or

(25:04):
perhaps you've been someone who was abusive that's been able
to change that your life. Would really love to hear
about those experiences tonight, And I'll tell you why is
because actually when we talk about change, and this is
the reason why we share these stories on the show,
I want to hear about you who have actually been
able to do it for yourself or you know someone
who has, because there'll be a lot of people listening

(25:26):
tonight who will think about how much they would like
to change, what they would like to change, but they're
not sure how to go about it. Your experience could
be the start of helping somebody else with that change.
So give us a call. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty
mex Soon Nutses Club now on News Talks. I'd be hey,

(25:50):
welcome back to the show. My name is Samish Williams
and psychotherapist car McDonald here in the Auckland studio tonight
we are going to go straight to the lines now,
a tony. Good evening to you.

Speaker 9 (26:03):
Hey mate, how are you?

Speaker 5 (26:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Good? Thanks calling in.

Speaker 9 (26:08):
I just so you're talking about abuse and all of that,
and yeah, that's a strange thing to say from men's
point of view that I uptered seventeen years of abuse
and until I finally got out after I was almost

(26:34):
almost died from my hiding, I got from my ex
partner's new supply. So if you know what a new
supply is, you'll understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Gotcha, yep.

Speaker 9 (26:48):
So n'ss justic abuse.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Well, then it comes in many forms, Tony. And you know,
I don't think you're alone at all. You wouldn't be
alone of being mean. Are the receivers of abuse as well?

Speaker 9 (27:04):
Yeah, but it doesn't seem to be recognized.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Mate.

Speaker 9 (27:06):
You know, I didn't know that I was being abused.
It was not only the narcissistic abuse, it was their
physical you know, what's all part of the narcissistic abuse,
the mental abuse, the I guess I've only discovered this
since leaving the relationship and going into really bad places

(27:28):
and being up seeing psychologists and all that. Who figured out,
you know, actually, this is what's happened to you, mate?

Speaker 2 (27:36):
What was that process?

Speaker 9 (27:42):
What was the process like?

Speaker 10 (27:43):
For me?

Speaker 9 (27:44):
It was it was a bit traumatic and it was
eye opening. It made me realize a lot of things. Also,
it was how would you put her?

Speaker 5 (28:02):
It was.

Speaker 9 (28:04):
It was educational all at the same time, because you know,
I didn't know about these things. I was always accused
of being a narcissist. I was always accused of cheating
on her. I was always accused of doing this that
the other, and all these things.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
And.

Speaker 9 (28:24):
True to form with a narcissist was projecting what they
were doing onto me by accusing me of it. So
it was really eye opening. And I got given a
list one day of this is how your relationship will
go if you are with a narcissist, and it was

(28:49):
about twenty things listed on it, and from start to
finish it was like some it was like they've been
sitting there watching my relationship.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
The whole time, and field like when you saw that,
because it was it relief for when you know, to
talk to me about the emotions that you went to.
You understood that.

Speaker 9 (29:10):
It was kind of embarrassing to be that I was.
So he's easily and abused and manipulated and.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
All that, but you managed, you managed to step away,
you managed to you know, make that change for yourself.

Speaker 9 (29:30):
Well, I had to leave the relationship. Well, you know, yeah,
I had to leave after I got the crap beaten
out of me basically, and and the threats to my
safety and my life and all of that, I just

(29:50):
had to get out.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Well, I'm glad that you did, and very very courageous
of you to be fair Tony, because you know, that's
really really hard to do things in those kind of situations.

Speaker 9 (30:02):
Oh, it was horrible, it was hideous, and I'm still
trying to deal with it now. And this is you know,
you a year and a half, okay, and it's still
still leading me up and I'm still trying to sort
it out. You know, there's there was so many levels

(30:22):
of abuse from there, including sexual abuse. You know that
it's just it's just hard to believe.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, it's still pretty fresh. But you know, given given time,
it sounds like you know, you're you're already seeing a professional.
And you said you've been seeing a psychologist.

Speaker 9 (30:40):
Was that right, Yeah, yep, psychologist. So I kind of
got cut off after twelve months because they see, see
will fund your your rehead for twelve months. And then
so twelve months is up, and then they said, oh, well,
you know, we're going to send your later down and
see somebody else and we'll get a report back to

(31:03):
see whether you need any more help or not. And
it was twelve months after it happened, and was really
traumatic time for me, to be honest. And I've gotten
through that process and that was probably three months ago. Now,
you know, February was February. This year was a year,

(31:25):
and they cut me off. Took like two months to
get to go and see somebody, a month or so
to do the process, get the reports are sent through,
and I haven't heard it think since, And in the meantime,
I'm just stuck in limbo with no psychologist, no help nothing.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Have you have you had any contact with acc about that?
Have you chased them up at all? I assume you
probably have.

Speaker 9 (31:50):
A Yeah, the person I saw that did my reports.
He said, look, I need to get this done really
as quickly as possible because we need you back, to
get you back to getting the help you need. And
I wrung them and I in, We've got liverport and
all this, and I've heard nothing for you know, in

(32:13):
good six or eight weeks now.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
So i'd really suggest that you consider talking to one
of the A C C advocate systems but services rather
because look, my understanding, and I might be wrong about this,
but my understanding is that these assessments shouldn't interrupt people's care,
so that if you know you've had to, you know,

(32:36):
stop or reduce your treatment while this process is underway,
that that's actually not okay. And there's a couple of
different lines. There's there's a c C Advocacy dot org
dot nz is one option. There's also a place called
our A S a S dot co do INZ. If

(32:56):
you just google a C C advocate, these ones will
come up and they might be a good place that
they don't charge anything and they help people make sure
that they're getting everything they need from a c C.

Speaker 9 (33:08):
Yeah, will you thank God for one seven three seven, mate?
Because you know.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
I'm glad to get that you've been using that.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (33:18):
Yeah, it's been or have been able to have a
far from my friends and family. But I'm trying not
to burn them too much with it because it's it's
it's not nice things for them to hear.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
And that's why having a professional is really helpful in
these situations. Okay, Tony, we've we're going to rock and
roll here. In fact, actually I believe it or not,
we've actually got a fire alarm going off here. So
I think I'm getting told that we're going to have
to high talent out of the building. Okay, I'm so

(33:56):
sorry that, Tony, thanks very much. That's all right, all right,
all the best. H Okay. So I'm just going to
get some some clarity here and we're we're just gonna
we've got to go. I've got to walk out the door.
There is a fire alarm here at sid B. This
is us probably done for the night at least for now.
Back soon.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Maybe this is the Nutters Club. Thanks to New Zealand
on Newstalk.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
ZB Welcome back to the Nutters Club. Yes, we are
back in the building. We had to jump out of
the show about fifteen minutes early before the before the
midnight news, because there was a fire alarm here at
news Talks hed B.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
It was all very dramatic.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
We had two appliances. You can't call them trucks because
apparently that's not the right terminology.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
We had lights going off and the safety mechanisms. We
had to go down the stairs. We had to go
down the stairs. We came out. Two trucks were there. Oh,
probably there would have been about maybe ten, about ten yeah,
fire officers there or with their helmets.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
On and got a lot of kit carrying the giant
xes and.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Utility belts of all sorts of things. I didn't know
what they did.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
My white card, because you know, you have a swipe
card to get into the building. My swipe card became
a critical piece of the evening because they had to
use it to get down to the basement to make
sure that the cars were on fire.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Probably better to use the swipe card than some of
those axes they were holding.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well, I don't know. That would have been quite dramatic,
wouldn't it. Yeah, could have been, you know, a bit
of fun on a Sunday night anyway, now being a
Monday morning. But hey, look, thank you very much to
the New Zealand Fire Service. They turned up. They were
great though, very nice. Blake's had a bit of a
quick chat, very prompt.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
I mean they're not very far away, of course, it
is around the corner, but still they were here blick
at spot.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
And all all five of us from said b we're
out there in the security guard.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yeah, and that's it. And I can confirm on the
back of your weather outside it is cold.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yes, it was actually quite chilly out there.

Speaker 5 (35:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
And also tell you like, I'm not I didn't bring
a jacket or a jersey or anything. I'm literally just
in a shirt standing out there. And the guys said,
they said to us, we were out there going, oh,
you guys working quite late, aren't you, We said, would
doing live radio? And I said, O what stations? He'd
been like, oh, we listened to ZIP. I was like,
good on here. So there you go. It's always nice
to meet a fan. It is nice to meet part

(36:18):
of the audience. Anyway, We're fine, the building is fine.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
And everything's fine.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
It's just yeah, we just had to jump outside into
the middle of the cold and here we are. Okay.
So first out we were talking about change and about
the change and also too experiences of living with abuse,
and it was really quite a hard topic to talk about.
But Tony who called was our last caller before we

(36:42):
were evacuated, and to be fair, I was sort of
struggling because Tony was just such a great caller. But
we had flashing lights and everything going off in the
background here.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
We didn't have any choice.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Sorry, it's quite dramatic, but look, someone's texted in here
and just said, Kilder, I can understand Tony's journey. I've
been there. I broke away from the narcissistic environment, but
it's part of my trauma. I'm not one to seek help.
I've learned that talking to about my trauma isn't helpful.
I don't need to tell others my journey. To express

(37:13):
my trauma is to me would be me as littering.
I've isolated myself from society. I grew up in a
warrior world, and I deal with things as best as
I can myself. I may not be one hundred percent,
but who is? But who is? I now prefer my
own company. I walk alone and I'm living my best life.
So Kyle, I didn't want to ask you about that,

(37:34):
because you know, some people do struggle to talk about
you know, they're they're trauma.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
They've completely understandable.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, And so then when someone says, oh, you just
need to go and talk to someone about it and
that'll be part of your healing, and you're like, well,
hang on, sorry, it's the last bloody thing I want
to do is go and talk to somebody about it.
It was pretty damn horrible. I don't want to go
back and relive those memories. What would you say to
someone like that who is clearly still being affected by

(38:03):
the trauma, Yeah, but doesn't want it, doesn't want to
do that talkie talk.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
But well, how I think it actually happens is that
people reach a point where they're unable to not deal
with the trauma anymore. So what tends to happen, you know,
in a broad sweep of things, If stuff happens in
our childhood that is traumatic and damaging to us, in

(38:29):
some way, we find a way to cope and we
carry on. The human beings are kind of amazing like that.
It may not be the most functional way of carrying on.
We may bury it, We may engage in behaviors that
may not be that helpful for us, but we find
a way to survive, and then at some point it
catches up with us. Some people that might be in
their teens, you know. For someone like Corbyn who decided

(38:49):
to turn and face it in his early twenties, good
for him. Sometimes it might take till your fifties. Sometimes
we can get quite a long way through life before
it reaches the point where we feel like we actually
don't have any choice but to deal with it. So
when people say, you know, I don't want to go
along and be forced to talk about my trauma, I
can honestly say, in twenty five years, I've never thought
then you want to talk about their trauma. I mean,

(39:10):
you know, often you ask lots of awkward questions in
the first appointment, but if people don't want to say,
that's fine, they don't have to say. What tends to
happen though, as you end up in therapy because you
feel like you actually have to talk about it, it's
often people feel like it's actually just sort of spilling
out of them for the first time. It just needs
to come out, needs to be said, needs to be addressed,
and they can be really painful, but you know, there's

(39:32):
a natural process to these things Hamish in sure.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
And so the idea is that actually it gets the
point where people feel that they have to do something.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, and that may not be for a lot of people.
In fact, I would say for most people, it's not
going back into the nitty gritty. It's not going back
into going and then this happened, and then this happened.
It's actually about understanding, well, what was the impact of that,
you know, when those things happened when you were eight,
what was what's been their lifelong ripples? How can we
now understand the difficulties that you have and validate and

(40:05):
have compassion for the struggles that you have with this
information that now helps us see the whole picture.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Okay, let's get the conversation going. Amazingly, we've had people
actually holding on their calls since we went outside, so.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Well, I guess they had no reason to think other
than they were holding right.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Well exactly, but let's go to Maria. She's been very
patiently holding Maria. Good morning to you.

Speaker 11 (40:28):
Yes, good morning. I thought I would bring in because
I hope to be an inspiration for other people who
might be struggling with with traumas or or difficult times
in their life. You know that there's always hope and

(40:48):
there's always there's always help, you know.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Has that been your experience, Maria.

Speaker 11 (40:57):
Yep, definitely. Yes. It's taken me thirty years to go
around in a full circle back to where I was
in the beginning. I became very unwell and I have
several illnesses, and I had to It took me a
long time to accept the fact that I was a

(41:18):
sick person due to childhood trauma and various things outside
my control. And I guess that part of the hardest
part is, you know you have no control over over
you know you I wish you did, but you wish

(41:40):
you could wave a magic wand and everything would come
be hunky dory and come right. But it's not like that.
You have to go through that a journey, no matter
holp difficult it might be. But I found my journey
was less difficult with counseling. A sec helped me, friends,

(42:06):
I joined a church well, so I had spiritual help
and yes, and I found although it was a long
hard road, you know, my journey was successful. And now

(42:29):
I can look back on things and see how far
I've come and that's my journey.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
That's the most fantastic part, isn't it, Maria, when you
can actually, I guess, look in that figurative rear vision
mirror and actually see where you've come. Because at times
I would imagine, you know, does it feel that you
did it feel insurmountable? Did it feel tough?

Speaker 11 (42:50):
Overwhelming and emotionally difficult too? You know?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
And when you were in those moments, Maria, and you
know we all have them, what was it that worked
for you to be able to find that strength to
just continue on and take one more step?

Speaker 11 (43:08):
Well, truly, you know, goods on a piece, you know,
having face, you know, and having that face to know
that everything is going to be all.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Tune out, all right, fantastic. Well look, you know, as
as we always say here, you know, if it works,
keep doing it. Yes, good on you, Marie. And I'm
so happy to hear that you know you've got to
where you've got today. And I can hear a lot
of gratitude in your voice, by the way, thank you,
And I think that that the person that you know,

(43:45):
you can give gratitude all sorts. But you know what,
don't you discount what you did there. That's an amazing
piece of work. You're an incredibly strong woman, and I
just take my head off to you.

Speaker 11 (43:55):
Well done, thank you, thank you very.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Much, all the best, and thank you for sharing your
story with us tonight.

Speaker 11 (44:01):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Go well yeah, that that that's incredibly hard. And I
think you know, you know, having faith and whether or
not it's a spiritual faith or it's faith in the
hope that that things will get better, it is what
will carry us through and we do need and as
we always say, hope is the key to life.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well, and there's a reason why human beings have had
spirituality and religion for as long as we know we've
been walking around, right, because it does help to feel
a sense of meaning and connection beyond us. But of course,
well we often talk about on this show is you know,
it also provides a community.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Without a doubt, without a doubt. Not the text message
I've got here, This is quite an old one, but
I will read it. This one says, Hi, guys, I'm
currently making a lot of changes in my life. I've
had a short term counselor through my GP. She's helped
me work out goals around my mental health and well being.

(44:59):
Number one, it's finding a new counselor. I got the
ball rolling on that last week. But one of the
both hardest paradoxically simplest things I've learnt through my recent
counseling is setting boundaries. I have struggled to say no
my whole life. I've only been doing it for about
three months or so, but saying it no is not
only empowering, but far easier than I ever thought it

(45:21):
would be. Some people in my life have not responded
well to my new stance, but I don't care. I
came to the realization that the people who love and
respect me will respect me more for setting boundaries, and
those who can't respect my boundaries went Really my friends,
and thank you to Tony for sharing some of your
story with us. I spent twenty years with a narcissist

(45:44):
ruling my life. I finally escaped to their families, so
I've got minimum contact at the moment because of family situation,
but they were the first. Okay, well, thank you so
much for that text, and nice to see some more
love there for Tony, which was he was a great call.
And again thanks very much for getting in touch to night.
We are going to take another break. When we come back,

(46:06):
we'll still be here. The fire alarms are done for tonight.
So back after the break here on Another's club, Nutters Club,
now on News Talks. It'd be welcome back to the show.
We are getting your call thick and fast, so I'm
just going to continue on with them. Let's go to
the lines. Linda, good morning to you.

Speaker 10 (46:26):
Yeah, idea, I was wondering, could I ask your psychologists
a question?

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yes, you can, Kyle here, Okay.

Speaker 10 (46:36):
I want to know whether do bully sense those that
have been through it before without us telling them, or yeah,
it is some sign that we're giving out that I'm
giving out the year that they pick up on and

(47:00):
I'm not aware of it. I know this sounds complicated.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I don't know what she's talking about. I get it.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
It doesn't sound complicated. In fact, I was. I was
just being thoughtful about how to answer it because the
honest answers. Maybe because I think that we have to
be really careful when we try and understand what happens
between people who bully and those that they bully. Because
it's also really important that we don't try to think

(47:27):
about it as you know, our fault or as quote
the victim's fault, because it isn't. Let's be really clear
about that upfront. But I think what is true is that,
you know, people look for what's familiar, and if people
have grown up in situations where they've experienced a lot
of trauma, unfortunately, that which is traumatic, whether that be

(47:48):
an abusive relationship or someone treating them poorly, can feel
normal to them. You know, one of the things that
I think it's a horrible, horrible statistic or study, but
you know, the strongest predictor, for instance, of someone being
sexually assaulted in adulthood is having experienced sexual violence in childhood.
Now that's not to say that that to blame, but

(48:11):
it is to say that, actually, something happens with our
ability to respond and understand to trauma and to abusive behavior.
That means that we aren't as good at protecting ourselves sometimes,
and that's the sort of the horrible reality of it.
So the answer to your question is maybe having said that,
you know, bullies, will people be bully people who've never
had an experience of trauma before too. So it's not

(48:33):
quite that simple. But has that been your experience?

Speaker 10 (48:38):
Yeah? Well mine was, I mean I had a controlling mother,
and even when I married and grew up and had
my three children, I was not allowed. She had so
much control over me. And my husband allowed it because
he was sort of like anything for peace. I wasn't

(48:58):
even allowed to name my food child the middle name
that I wanted to use. But and down through the years,
I mean I had, my husband was fine, but he
was anything for peace, you know. And every now and
again someone would come up into my life and you know,

(49:23):
give me a hard time. But then my husband got
ill and I got ill, and he had a friend
that lived not far from us, and he gave me
a real hard time. He kept calling me unworthy, and
I kept I started to stay away from him when

(49:46):
I saw his car coming, and sometimes he would come
twice a day and that because he lived close by.
And when I saw his car coming, I would just
go to the bedroom and find something to do that.
And then one day my husband came to the door

(50:06):
and said that this pe and wanted to talk to
me about something that I thought was going to be harmless,
but it wasn't. He gave me a real bollocking and
he kept calling me unworthy all the time. And this
is within a spiritual faith. He was part of the

(50:28):
same thing as you know, faith that I was in.
And yeah, I started sobbing and he never stopped, and
he just kept going and my husband stood there and
let it happen because he I think he thought I

(50:51):
could stick up for myself, but I can't.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
It's a horrible thing to have said to you, Linda,
to be fair like I mean, nobody wants to be
He wants to be talked to.

Speaker 10 (50:59):
You like that, I know, and I have to put
up with them because we both go to the same
food faith. But I won't talk to him anymore. What
I should have done, and I could kick myself, is
when he started to get me upset, I should have

(51:21):
just said I've had enough of this and walked out
of the room. But I didn't. I go into what
I call a freeze mode.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Gotcha.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Yeah, that's a trauma response. So you've spotted that really well,
and it is unfortunately something that is actually you know,
people often talk about the fight flight response, but actually
freeze is often more common, and it's one of those
ones that's really awful. Because I'm sure you know this
from experience. What we can also end up doing is
looking back and kind of going, I wish i'd done something.

(51:52):
I'm so silly I should have done something. It's likely
actually you're in an automatic response. You are quite literally
the deer in the headlights at that point, and that's
an automatic learnt trauma response.

Speaker 10 (52:04):
Well, I've got to, you know, if he starts on
me again, because I I don't speak to him. There's
plenty of people, you know, in our congregation, and I
don't need to. But if he if he starts on me,
my husband died. It got to the point where I was.

(52:29):
He got me to the point where I was planning suicide.
And but then I thought, I can't do this. My
husband's not well and so I can't put him through that.
You know, it's not my husband, but my husband didn't
stick up for me. That was what I needed, you know,

(52:52):
I needed him to say, hey, settle down, you know,
leave her alone. Yeah, that happened.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
I'm glad that you've that you've come through that, and
but you know, let's just be very clear. Nobody deserves
to be talked to like that. And it's it's it's
not justifiable or worthy. And you know what you say
that you kind of felt like you don't have a choice.
I'd like to say, you're always able to tell somebody no.
And now that you've had a bit of reflection on that,

(53:21):
if he ever does do that again, I hope that
you'll you'll find, you know, the courage to stand up
to him, because Dad will scare the hell out of
him because he won't be expecting it.

Speaker 11 (53:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (53:32):
I even thought about putting a note in his leaderbox
and telling him what I thought, because I can. I can,
I can convey my points better on paper than not
I can when I'm being attached.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
You know, Oh it's a.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Good that's a good piece to a good thing to know.
And I actually don't think there's anything particularly wrong with
that in terms of sometimes you know, here's the thing,
here's the thing, Linder. Sometimes writing it doesn't mean that
you have to deliver it, but being able to sit
and write it out on the piece of for first
and then have it there. Look, Yeah, that can sometimes

(54:13):
just be a really cathartic experience and very healthy.

Speaker 10 (54:17):
And I just think, just stay out of his way,
and that because my husband's gone, he was friends. He
was my husband's friend, and yeah, I sort of learned
the hard way too, because when he started, when I

(54:38):
would walk in the room, he would focus on me,
but picking on me. And so after a while I
decided I was just stay out of his road and
let my husband be friends with him and get on
with it, and I just go to the bedroom and

(54:59):
do my thing whatever. But then this particular day, my
husband came to the door and said that this person
wanted to talk to me about something and that that
would have and I thought, well, this will be helpful.
It was some advice that he was going to give me.

(55:21):
Didn't turn out to be there at all. It was
to tell me how unworthy I was.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
And yeah, well you've again, you've you've come through it
really well there, and I think you've got a good
plan going forward. I've got to take a break, Linder,
But it's been great chatting with you. Thank you so
much for calling in.

Speaker 10 (55:41):
Okay, thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Go well. Yeah, and I think that we can all
recognize abusive behavior when we see it, but sometimes how
we respond to it isn't isn't so clear.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Right, And sometimes how we respond to it can be automatic.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Yeah, exactly, all right, We've got to take that break
back soon. Here tonight on the Nose Club.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Be welcome back to the show. I've got a couple
more text messages here, in fact, quite a few coming
through that are all very interesting. This one set is
speaking from experience of being a victim of narcissistic abuse
from both my upbringing and subsequent relationships. As it tends
to go, I would recommend victims to educate themselves on

(56:30):
the disorder and its effects, which runs on tracks through
YouTube videos. There is an invaluable help out there online,
real help and healing. What do you think to that, Guyle,
we can go and have a bit of a cursory look.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, so that was our first call tonight, wasn't It
talked about narcissistic abuse and it's another way of understanding
what happens in abusive relationships. So, in short, narcissism is
one of those things a lot of people have heard
about these days.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Narcissistic personality disorder is a particular diagnosis and it's a
very extreme diagnosis. But narcissism is this idea that actually
we can but people can behave in a way that
is selfish and without empathy and without care or concern
for the other, and obviously in a relationship, that's not

(57:20):
the kind of person you want to be with. No,
So it's another way. It's another lens for looking at
what happens in an abusive relationship. And you know, there's
a lot of stuff online and often people can find
it incredibly validating to look at that and kind of
go oh, I recognize this, and so it can be

(57:40):
another gateway in to start to think differently about what
our experience is. So, yeah, if it sounds like it's
something that sort of has ringing some bells for you,
jump online, have a look.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Let's go straight back to the lines. Ronda, good morning
to you.

Speaker 12 (57:55):
Good morning. A very interesting topic you're talking about tonight. Yeah,
I just want to share what I've been through as
a child on it through well types of trauma was
a coromotional, spiritual name it. I had it ready chattered
in my life. I froze a lot as a as

(58:19):
I was developing. As a baby, I was I was
called a doormat and I just wouldn't respond to now.
I was too scared, and at school, I was too
scared to learn too scared to use my nitiative and
as a result, I did not do one at school,
left school with no certificate. I eventually went into nursing,

(58:43):
and again I had difficulties coping with any formalst truth
because I was still having to cope with what had
happened in the past. But what helped me and then
one was faith, definitely learning to pick up those that

(59:04):
did hurt me. That was, and learning to love myself
to comfort myself.

Speaker 6 (59:12):
And also.

Speaker 12 (59:15):
I went through counseling, and you know, it's like a therapy,
went to different groups, different types of therapies. It all helped.
But I think in the end, doing what I was pationate.

Speaker 8 (59:30):
To do, like.

Speaker 12 (59:34):
I ended up doing peer supports remind them body because
because I've been there, I was able to go, you know,
help others that are going through difficulties in their lives
and just walking with them and focusing on people's strengths

(59:55):
and their patients and encouraging them to pursue those things
that really helped them, and also to talk about what
they felt they needed to talk about, whether it be
trauma or current situation or what I hope to achieve
in their lives. So all those affectors how but yeah,

(01:00:20):
it affected me physically as well, affected my nervous system.
I had to have surgery and the doctors couldn't understand
why I was in that fight flight mode through most
of my young aderhot life. My sympathetic nervous system overreacted

(01:00:42):
and that was a result. I've been living in fear
as a child and as ad a lesson, I literally
lived in fear. Somehow I managed to get through it,
but did affect me.

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
Physically and.

Speaker 9 (01:00:58):
My ability to.

Speaker 12 (01:01:00):
Be able to progress in my career pathway. It effected
that in a big way. I was diagnosed as having depression, bipolar,
name it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:12):
I had it all.

Speaker 12 (01:01:15):
In and out of hospital, that sort of thing, because
I did try and commit suicide a couple of times
as well attend to suicide. I mean, so, yeah, I
went through the storm. But I feel now that I've
gone through to the other side, I just focus on

(01:01:36):
doing the things that I like to do, that I'm
interested in, and trying to focus on the positives and
people that do abuse. Not that I've had that problem,
but people come to me and they're very negative. I
keep reminding myself, this doesn't belong to me, it's their
problem and try and meet them. But I keep this

(01:01:59):
owning negativity that might come my way.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
That's fantastic rather and I think you know, being able
to be to understand that people's negative behavior is actually
their problem. It's their issue that they need to go
and do the work on, not you. That's probably the
biggest piece of insight I can take away from what
you're saying. All Right, Ronda, thank you so much for

(01:02:25):
your call. We have got to take another break. When
we come back. We've got David and Read on the line,
a whole bunch of texts coming through. Continue to give
us a call if you like. We've got a freeline there.
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty back shortly. Welcome
back to the Nudders Club. Do you know what, Cole,
We've just received a lovely text.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Go on, you should read it out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
It's not particularly long. It just says, doing a great
job guys. Oh thank you, yeah, thank you. Can I
just say, and I mean this because I'm a big
proponent of this. I actually think that more people need
to do. This is just actually, if you think someone
is doing a good job in your life, can you
please tell them because they probably don't know I agree,

(01:03:04):
and they probably are wondering. And I can tell you
a really good time to tell people. Tell people on
Sunday night. Yeah, because it's sometimes it can be a
really hard time of the week for people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Okay, I think of it as advanced manners. Yeah, don't
say you please and thank you, but sometimes you could
say thank you and I really appreciate it and you're
doing a great job. It's like an advanced manners, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
No one's going to say, well, sorry, what are you
telling me that for? I mean, unless you're my kids,
in which case I usually turn around look at them
blankly and they go, what do you want?

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Yeah, suspicion.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
It does produce a lot of suspicion in me. But yeah,
whenever they bounce and with big smiles, or I get
a phone call, hey, how's a week going? That was
the one I'm getting, I'm like, how much is this
going to cost me? Anyway? Kids love them, Let's go
to the lines. David, Good morning to you.

Speaker 9 (01:04:00):
Hi, Mission Carle.

Speaker 13 (01:04:01):
I was born into a very happy family. My dad
was spoody in the half when I was born. Mum
was twenty six and a half. I had a sister
and it's still alive, and so was my mum. That's
it was a year and five months older than me.
And a brother was born when I was like, he's

(01:04:24):
a year and nine months younger than me. So sister
year five months older and brother year and he's still
alive to right. So and it was a happy family everything.
But when I went to Kendy, I don't know if
it's after the first time I went or when I

(01:04:44):
was told I was going to. It might have been
after the first time I went. I remember crying, going
under bed, under Mum's beard and crying uncontrollably. I don't
want to go to Kendy, you know. And I don't
know why. I think school kids get like that with school,
but I was really like that with Candy. And I
don't know if, as I said, whether it was after
the first time we're going or not, but actually try

(01:05:08):
traumatized me. I didn't want to leave because Mum would
I will let me do housework with her, and you know,
dusting and housework and everything, and it was really good
vacuuming and I really loved working with Mum. She was
singing to me. It was really good, and I just
didn't want to be separated from Mum and go to kindy,
you know. And then I remember the boys they were

(01:05:32):
they had these Charlie things and they wouldn't let me on,
and they were older than me slightly, and they were
quite they were bollowing me a bit. And I remember
the school. The kindy teachers were worried about They said,
why does he paint everything black? And I said, because

(01:05:54):
all the other kids took the other crowns. And it
wasn't that. It was because I was obsessed. There was
dark blue crowns and black crowns, and I was always
trying to get the black one rather than the dark
blue one. I got obsessed. I wanted to draw it,
and I wasn't wanting to deal. Carli just so painted
everything black, and I wanted the black color rather than

(01:06:15):
the dark blue, and I confused them both, and I
realized that the black was so different, and I was
drawing everything black, and and actually my sister said that's
a satan's color, and so I had black tigs. It
was it was my favorite color. And I still like
black clothes and everything, and I and she said, that's

(01:06:37):
that's the devil's color. And I've always liked black tags
and black things, you know, black clothes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
And well, you know, you know who else likes black clothing, David.

Speaker 13 (01:06:47):
Johnny Ketch, Johnny kenyone.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Who's represented New Zealand and sports.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
It's exactly what I was going to say, Kyle.

Speaker 13 (01:06:58):
Quickly, what so what happened also school? I was above
average when I went, I was the as I was
I was I went. I think I went into into
Premierre two quite quickly. But there was a kid that
I don't even remember what he looked like now or anything.

(01:07:19):
He threw my threw me on the head, back of
the head, really suddenly before the teacher came into the class,
and I never really told him, and I told my
sister I had a massive lump on the back of
my head. But years later see I also fell down
the bank when I was ten and a half down

(01:07:40):
and blood came out of the back of my head.
I went unconscious, and I remember after that, I didn't
finish the mass exam at the end of that year,
and I was always finishing maths jam slow. But what
happened also when I was fourteen going on fifteen, I
was juedo flipped massively fast onto the back of my
head on hard ground on the school rugby field, and

(01:08:06):
the guy just did it for no reason. And this
is the thing that there there. Actually I couldn't do that.
I was getting really good IQ tests and everything. I
couldn't even do the IQ tests after that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
You know. Yeah, it's a good point you bring up, David.
And that's what I want to ask, you know, to
ask you Carle is just to sort of say, sometimes
those you know, there's childhood bullying and examples that David's
talking about here. The fact that David can remember these
as clearly as he can from when he was so young,

(01:08:38):
that is a clear state sign that they were traumatic. Right, Yeah,
that yes, is the short answer. And I think that
what we always look at, and I mean David sort
of touched on a few of these things and has
over the years touched on a number of these things,
is we also have to always look at the picture
around what it does it's happening. What kind of support
was available. Did the person feel like there was someone

(01:09:00):
they could talk about and when they did talk about it,
did they respond positively? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
All those things that we understand, and if it was
overwhelming and stressing, did they get support at the time,
and so on. So there's a lot of other factors
that can predict how traumatic these things are. But yes,
as a good rule of thumb, if the memory is
vivid and clear to the point where actually it feels
like it's happened yesterday, it's probably a traumatic incident.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Right there we go and that and that, And because
it's the so is it because you know, the human
brains trying to make sense of it, because it hasn't
ever had to experience anything like it before.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
Well, in short, I mean trauma is a is actually
a disorder of memory. You know, when we experience something traumatic,
our brain isn't able to file and process the experience
in quite the same way, and so often it gets
kind of stuck. And so in a way it becomes
more vivid and more memorable in the neutral sense of

(01:09:56):
the word than in everyday event.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Okay, David, thank you so much for the call. We
are going to take a break. When we come back,
we'll try and mop up the last of our calls here.
Even coming in the second fast night, it's been great.
Even if we did get turfed out of the building
for fifteen minutes. Anyway back shortly here on the Nuthers
Club Nutters Club, well on News Talks, it'd be hey,

(01:10:19):
welcome back to the show. We'll go straight back to
the lines read. Good morning to you.

Speaker 6 (01:10:24):
Kia Hamous and Kyle Cura.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:10:27):
I just want to thank you guys, especially you Haymoss
over many years.

Speaker 5 (01:10:33):
You know, you have been there.

Speaker 6 (01:10:36):
Giving my mental struggles ying and yang good and bad
right from before the d I could phone you.

Speaker 5 (01:10:48):
And be a morning or an asshole, and.

Speaker 6 (01:10:51):
You would take it and give it back. And I
just want to say that I find you better than
pills in chemists.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Oh well, thanks Red, And you know what, Red, I
genuinely mean this as it's always great. And I was
to talk about, you know, callers like yourself who we've
had for many years. We do remember you. You know,
your name's become known to us. And at the end
of the day, although I'm just sitting on the other
side of a microphone, we're both people, right, and so
it is actually nice to make those connections and just

(01:11:23):
for a person exactly you are a person. You're read.

Speaker 6 (01:11:26):
Thank goodness, because we're the new AI.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
We wouldn't know. Well, I'll tell you what. There was
a list of things that came out the other day
and it was the top forty jobs that are going
to all be gone, and apparently media analysts, public relations experts,
communications specialists, and broadcasters were right up the top, to
which I thought, I thought, well, that's me smoked. I'm

(01:11:49):
going to help get.

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Yourself a podcast, get yourself a podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
I'm doing it. Read I'm doing it. But anyway, look, hey,
thank you for those kind of words.

Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
Yeah, go well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
And funnily enough, we were just actually when we were
standing outside and having a bit of a chin wag
with the with the fire department, I actually said that.
They said, oh, you got anyone listening at this time
of night, and I said, oh, hates, I said, you know,
and got more calls and we can get to hear,
which is exactly what's happening tonight. And they said, oh,

(01:12:21):
you know, some of the people that we're talking to,
and I literally just said this about an hour ago,
said some of the people that we talked to we've
been talking to for sixteen years, and readers one of them.
So thanks for calling into night mate. That's really really
put a smile on their face. Katie, good morning to you.

Speaker 14 (01:12:38):
Hi, Hi, how are you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
I'm good, It's been a very eventful night.

Speaker 14 (01:12:43):
Yes, yes, Spiral laughs. I just wanted to call and
make a point. I've been a surviarber of domestic violence,
broken ribs, toes, you name it, five years ago and
I've got a lot OPD relationship five years ago and
I received so minutes, so much help to different counts,

(01:13:08):
is different agencies, experts, everything, but a lot of those
experts they are also victims. So I felt instead of
being helpful to me, I was listening to their problems
rather than my problems or trying to get help to them.

(01:13:31):
So I founded the opposite. And the only thing that
I found that was really helpful me was time and
exercise and nature to get out exercise. But I've just
found I've struggled with finding out with them. So many
agencies and a lot of people, after they've been in

(01:13:55):
a situation similar to me, they think I'm going to
go and help, so they go and educate the ZELP
and they become in these roles, but all you hear
is about their trauma, and I've just found it quite
not helpful and so I've just decided to exercise and
just be a big girl and just say I can

(01:14:16):
get on with this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
It's a really good point, Katie. And for a start,
I just want to say, you know, well done for
you for getting out of out of what just sounds
like an absolutely horrific situation, but it was, you know,
and just happy to happy to hear. I mean, you
sound like a very bubbly person at this time of
the day, so you know, it's nice to hear your

(01:14:38):
warmth and kindness coming through. But Kyle, does it happen sometimes?
You know, when you know people are going through that
counseling that sometimes you know, maybe the peer to peer
that sometimes the sharing goes two ways and it's not
always helpful.

Speaker 9 (01:14:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
Well, it's one of the one of the I guest
criticisms sometimes of peer to peer support and if we
go with AA because that's the most common, well known
peer support service that we traditionally access, is that on
the one hand, it could be incredibly validating to hear
other people's experiences, can give you a roadmap, can help

(01:15:16):
validate and give you a sense of what sort of
things might work for you. On the other hand, everyone's
experience is different, and so one of the important things
that we know actually in all healthcare, but certainly for
mental health, is that people have a range of options
to choose from, and so yes, peer to peer support
can really work for some people. What's also true is
that coming and seeing a counselor or a therapist, where
actually those boundaries are in place and we don't talk

(01:15:39):
about our experiences so much, or indeed at all, can
be what other people need. Or sometimes actually just getting
really physical and doing exercise and changing your lifestyle and
habits can be enough to get your heading in a
different direction. So it's really important you find the thing
that works for you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
How does that sound to you, Katie?

Speaker 14 (01:15:59):
Yes, many, thanks, thanks, that's just my experience.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Thank you. No, I love Dutch. Yes, thanks so much
for sharing. Go well, okay, let's go to James. James,
good morning to you.

Speaker 8 (01:16:12):
Oh, good morning. I just wanted to talk about trauma.
It's it's like a powerful shock.

Speaker 5 (01:16:23):
It's like.

Speaker 8 (01:16:25):
I had just said, somebody pass away through when my
father passed away a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 5 (01:16:34):
Trauma.

Speaker 8 (01:16:35):
That's all right, that's fine, thank you. But the trauma
that came from her, I didn't really know what trauma
was until he actually goes through it. It was really strange,
just like the will stood still for wee while nothing

(01:16:58):
really nothing was you know, it was a problem. I
didn't really care about anything, didn't know where it was
to know what about time. Yeah, it's a very it's
a very strange thing trauma the way the way I

(01:17:20):
went through it though, I think Goodness said my family
really that a lot of them live overseas, right, so
they came and went, and so I'm still kind of
left if they're a little bit of trauma behind, if
you know what I mean. And it's it's really hard
because only for my father's stuff things like that, you know,

(01:17:43):
and that's a lot of trauma to deal with, and
I don't know what to do it at all, But
I'm getting through it, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):
It can't be quite traumatic going through all the stuff,
like you say, because ultimately what we end up doing
is engaging with memories.

Speaker 8 (01:18:11):
That's right, And then with the memories, did the set
memories aside and just say that stuff, you know what
I mean? There there's things that their memories and things
that are just stuff like a washing machine, fridge and that,
you know, what you do all that sort of stuff.

(01:18:31):
And I mean, it's not a very nice thing to
go through, but it's a part of the trauma, and
I think it helps for you to actually out dive
straight and deal into doers and and everything properly, you know,
and maturely.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
Yeah, although I also would say that if what you're
finding is it's bringing out lots of feelings, it's okay
to find someone to talk to about that, whether that
be a mate or a friend or someone who can
just you know, help help you with the stuff, or
whether that's someone more professional, you know, talking too account
that they are about what's being brought up by dealing
with all of this. Because you you know, I like
what you're saying about maybe I should just put the

(01:19:13):
feelings aside and deal with the stuff. And I'm like, well,
I think if that worked, you probably would already be
doing that. It's a nice idea, but one that's often
very difficult to do in practice.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
Also to James, you know, grief, which is what you'd
be going through at the moment. You know, your dad
only passed a couple of weeks back. Great grief takes
a bit of time, and so just just go easy
on yourself, don't put two higher expectations.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
And if the boxes of stuff need to be taped
up for a while, a few months, hell even a
few years, it's okay. They're not going to go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Do it at your pace, James. But most of all, mate,
thank you so much for calling in tonight and really
appreciate it and all the best for you. Know that
what will be I'm sure a tough wee while ahead
of you, but it will get better, Okay, Thanks very
much for calling. Okay, Well, that is pretty much brings
us to the conclusion of our show tonight. I just
want to think all of you what an outstanding contribution

(01:20:07):
you will made. And I think we've really learned a
lot about understanding the origins of trauma, how it affects us,
and what change can actually look like. And I've heard
a lot of amazing stories from you tonight about how
you've been able to enact positive change on your mental health.
So well done. It is possible, Okay, Cole McDonald, thank

(01:20:29):
you very much for being here, pleasure. Thanks very much
to our producers Boris and Jimmy. Thanks very much to
News Talks. HEB for letting us in the building, thanks
very much to New Zealand Fire Service for making sure
that the building didn't burn down, and thanks to New
Zealand on Air for the funding. Take care.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
Catch you next week for more from News Talk st B.
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on Iartradio.