EPISODE SIX

Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore there may be some minor grammatical errors.

Dougie Jackson  

Hi there, my name is Dougie Jackson, and this is tickety boo, the podcast that aims to be candid and concise about the anxieties and traumas we all experience the podcast that says it’s okay not to feel okay. We start episode six of our show with Andy Griffiths, our resident therapist talking about the stigma attached to the misconceptions associated with and the downright discrimination felt by people who suffer from mental health issues.

Andy Griffiths  

The stigmas around mental health are still there and not changing. We’re more aware of mental health, but are we actually doing more to deal with it? I just don’t think we are. And I think it’s the shame, the perceived shame about not being strong enough, let’s just grin and bear it crack on with things keep going. These are huge factors contributing to our mental health and definitely account for why so many people find it difficult to say I’m struggling.

Dougie Jackson  

So even although the spotlight has been focused on mental health issues for some considerable time, we’re still not getting on top of our problems. If you’re toiling at the moment, and you’re feeling alone, listen closely. And if you’re currently well, please pay even closer attention to what Andy has to say.

Andy Griffiths  

If you’re listening to this podcast, just now, go into your phone, maybe look at your WhatsApp messages, or your recent calls or your text messages and just scroll down to the fourth person and then scroll down to the eighth person. Because the reality is one in four people in this country at some point in their life are going to struggle with a mental health problem. And hopefully that’s just going to get you to see how close to home this is. This could be your brother, your sister, your auntie your uncle, you know, colleague, it’s a lot closer to home than we realise, especially in the world we’re living in at the moment

Dougie Jackson  

strikes me the big question is why do we clam up when we begin to have problems? When depression starts its downward spiral when anxious and disturbing thoughts take over 24/7 why is it that we cease to communicate with other people?

Andy Griffiths  

It’s a difficult one. I know when I found myself in the midst of an emotional crisis, I didn’t tell anyone, I convinced myself I was the only person on the planet feeling like that. And when you feel alone, completely preoccupied with your own thoughts, it’s very easy to go well I better not tell anyone because they might think I’m strange. But the reality is you’re not alone. There’s so many more people that are struggling than you realise. And the amount of times I’ve spoken to people in the last year I get it. I’ve been there as well. I spoke to a chief exec once of a very big organisation. And he made the brave decision to say to his board, I’m struggling. I’ve been getting therapy, I’m struggling with anxiety and depression. And in this room, suddenly these hands go again, er, I’m on medication. Yeah, I’ve had this and I’ve had that. And it was like this sudden, pressure release in the room where everyone went sigh. And it gave permission for everyone else to say, I’m struggling as well. 

Dougie Jackson  

Alright, so how do we break down those barriers? Where are we going wrong? And what is it we need to do that we aren’t currently doing?

Andy Griffiths  

It doesn’t need to be this massive intervention. A conversation can save a life, a large proportion of my sessions. We don’t get near hypnosis. We just talk I listen. And the amount of people and you go Yeah, I understand. That’s okay. Yeah, I can see why you’re struggling with that means you’re human.

Dougie Jackson  

Okay. So it’s not an intervention, but it is a process. Walk us through it through the stages.

Andy Griffiths  

Something’s not right. telling somebody about it. Somebody listening and making you feel like you’ve been understood, then you feel like I’m now doing something about it. You know, you have a plan. The relief there. I can’t explain it to you. Just saying to somebody, you know what, I’m not in a good place at the moment. The power behind that is absolutely incredible. But we have got to get beyond this. I can’t tell people that I’m struggling that has got to stop. And that’s down to all of us to recognise, you know, it’s not just down to the person that’s struggling with mental health to put the hand up. It’s us as a community of friends, families, relatives, you know, employers to go, how are you doing? And it doesn’t need to do this at all, let’s go down and psychoanalyse this. It’s how’s life, what have you been up to? How’s the family? Do you want to go for a walk? Or a cup of tea? 

Dougie Jackson  

Okay, it strikes me that knowing what to do is only half the answer, though. What about recognising when somebody needs a hand? What sort of signs should we be looking for?

Andy Griffiths  

I’ve got a great acronym for warning signs. It’s called warm chaos, start with a W withdrawal, withdrawing from our friends, our family participation in events, A anger, disregard for personal safety, just not caring about themselves anymore. R recklessness. M mood changes, swings in moods, you know, that’s just not like that person, they’re acting differently, you know, these are all indicators that something could be wrong. They may be talking about suicide, you know, or suicidal thoughts, hopelessness, feeling like they’ve got no control over the situation, there’s nothing they can do. In the current climate, anxiety, poor sleep, nightmares, agitation, overwhelmed, I just can’t do this anymore. You know, everything’s too much. And then the classic substance abuse, drink, drugs, all the rest of it. Generally, there are lots of signs that somebody is struggling, don’t get me wrong, people sometimes go through to great lengths to hide this stuff. But we all need to be more vigilant.

Dougie Jackson  

So it’s not about becoming a therapist, it’s not about trying to fix somebody else’s problems. It’s about listening, we need

Andy Griffiths  

to care more for each other, we definitely need to look out for each other and have each other’s back.

Dougie Jackson  

But what if you think that person is truly struggling? What do you do next?

Andy Griffiths  

Get help tell them to go and talk to their GP or the Samaritans, if you think they’re a danger to themselves, or to somebody else, then you know, you need to let somebody know, you are worried about that person. And we all have a responsibility for that, you’re better off to say, I’m worried about them. And it’s a false alarm than sitting on your hands not doing anything, and then God forbid, something happened. And that’s a difficult thing to do. But it’s the right thing to do. If we saw someone limping, or they had a cut, and they were bleeding, I hope you wouldn’t just walk past you go, Okay, do you need help. But because we have mental health, we don’t have a sign on a head or a flashing light going, there’s something wrong there. We don’t get these calls to action. So we have just got to care more for each other. I think some people have a fear of I don’t know how to handle that. If they say no, my world’s falling apart, as if they feel like they’ve got to have all the answers to just listen to the person. And then if you feel, you need to get them help. 

All right, my friend, you’ve acknowledged that you’ve been down this road on a personal level. So I have to ask, who helped you? Did somebody stop and ask you how you were doing? How did this play out for you? And how did you finally beat your own anxiety and depression demons? 

Back in the day if you’d approach me and gone Andy, Is everything all right? I very probably would have said, of course it is. I would have lied. I think I was definitely acting erratic. At the time, there was a few things going on. I was desperate to speak to someone. But the weird thing is, if you’d asked me what was wrong, I wouldn’t have been able to say, well, you know, I’m really struggling with my emotions. I’ve been having these panic attacks. I’m very disturbed by some of the thoughts that keep coming into my mind. I’m not sure what to do. I could have probably gone to something wrong, but I don’t know what it is. I can remember sitting with a GP. And I’m like, this guy is going to get on top of this. He’s going to ask the question, and the floodgates can open. And we never got to that point, you know, who’s like, what seems to be the problem. I just feel a bit up and down. I’m not sure what’s going on, scribble a prescription, take these. And I actually left the doctors surgery feeling quite deflated. He’s told me to take these things. But he hasn’t told me why am I feeling the way I’m feeling what is going on, psychologically, that’s causing me on a physiological level to feel so awful? Why am I having all these panic attacks? Why do I feel when the phone rings that I want to hide. If he said to me that your anxiety levels are too high, you’ve got a fear disorder. And a lot of the responses you’re having are actually quite normal when you’re in that state. I just had no strategies to deal with what was going on. And that’s the problem because that’s where you start to get this learned helplessness. Nothing out there can help me nothing anyone can do or say is going to help me. I’m completely on my own.

Dougie Jackson  

What about medication? Did your GP offer to put you on any drug treatments SSRIs like sertraline, or anti anxiety meds?

Andy Griffiths  

Most of this medication is trying to suppress stuff. And the problem is with anxiety and unwanted emotions suppression is actually part of the problem. What we need to fix our mental health. Or to restore our mental health is to change stuff, whether that’s our response or the way that we look at it, or the strategies we’re using. And the problem is when you get into that situation of nothing seems to be working, or nobody understands me that leads you down in to depression.

Dougie Jackson  

So what can we do to counteract these dark, horrid feelings? Drugs, therapy, CBT exercise? What do we do? What can we do?

Andy Griffiths  

We all have emotional needs that need to be met. Part of that is been understood, been accepted. And the problem is, when these aren’t met, we head off into excessive anxiety, deep depression, and lots of other behaviour traits. So imagine, feeling like you’re completely isolated. Nobody understands why you suddenly become agoraphobic and you don’t want to go out of the house, or you’ve got a fear about your health. Or you’re struggling to go into a social situation, or you have an X amount of panic attacks a day, and you can’t understand why you’re having them. And nobody in your mind, cares or understands because they’re going on with their life. That is a slippery place it is that downward spiral from there really, depression is a very clear demonstration of our needs not being met. So you know, somebody with depression will feel like they’re isolated from the world, they could live in a city of 1.6 million people, you step outside the door, and there’s interaction everywhere. But depression. It’s an interesting one, when we isolate ourselves, or our mental health, it’s almost like we put ourselves on this island, there’s water with sharks around it. And then way over there, there’s this island, and all these other people enjoying their lives, living a normal life, who will never understand or acknowledge that we’re over here, struggling, but it’s the way that we’re feeling and thinking that put us on the island, we isolate ourselves. And that is the problem.

Dougie Jackson  

All right, my friend. It’s the million dollar question, how do we build up our self esteem, but how do we get over that island and reconnect with the human race? 

Andy Griffiths  

Well, we have to take this back to our sense of belonging, we need to feel we’re part of a community and we have a part to play. Most people with mental health conditions behave as though they’ve kind of been kicked out of the tribe, you know, the tribes over there, we’re stood over here, looking in with this kind of warped perspective of what’s really happening. And that creates a lot of pain, you know, we need to feel like we’re learning. And we’re developing because that helps us feel grounded and real. And without our self esteem struggles. This is why it’s really important to set ourselves challenges, we have to have interests, hobbies, because when you’re learning and challenging yourself, you’re walking down the path of meaning in life, and everyone has something of value, you know, something they can do, even on the most basic level, help somebody else talk to somebody else. I often say to my clients, you know, do some charity work or volunteer an event because it gives them a sense of meaning, you know, a purpose, a belonging. And that starts to create change. And this is going back to this sense of community that we’re talking about, which has been an issue during COVID because our sense of community has been completely severed. I would argue that a sense of meaning and belonging is as essential as food and water. We starve without it.

And that is where we’re gonna have to leave it for this episode. Next time on tickety. Boo, though,

we’re quite simple, really. You know, we need to talk to people we need to get out in the sunlight. We need to eat healthily. And we need to do stuff and generally, life is a lot better when we’re doing that.

Dougie Jackson  

If you have any questions, suggestions, stories, or helpful information, or if you have a media request, please contact us by email on [email protected].