Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 20: How do you cope with the loss of a parent when you're a teenager - Ryan Gallagher
105 Plays4 years ago
Ryan Gallagher is a firefighter from Burlington in Canada. When he was just 16, Ryan’s father died as Ryan himself was performing CPR.
Ryan talks about how he never really 'coped' with what happened, just getting on with his teenage life, doing his usual things.
It was only when he was a little older, and started drinking, that he realised alcohol made him feel 'better,' and he started using it to avoid dealing with difficult feelings around his father's death.
Having used alcohol and food to prop himself up through several years, Ryan now has a wonderful attitude to his mental health, which he describes as getting out of his head and creating his own story.
He has the most wonderful, down-to-earth tips for anyone trying to cope with unhealthy habits. In his podcast Mental Edge Lifestyle he aims to show anyone struggling that "they're not as different as they think." That whatever you're going through, there's always someone going through the same, and that there is a way through it to a brighter part of your story.
I loved Ryan's honesty, his ownership of his problems, and his acceptance that he is the only person who can change the things he doesn’t like about his life. It takes work, and it takes time, but you have what it takes to do it.
I hope this episode helps even just one family to start to understand how to approach the emotional challenges that come with the death of a parent. I’d love to hear from you if it has, or if you have any suggestions for future topics on the Teenage Kicks podcast. Just email me on teenagekicks@gmail.com, or you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @iamhelenwills. I appreciate every message, and love to hear from my listeners.
Where to get support with teen mental health concerns
Where to connect with Ryan
What next for the Teenage Kicks podcast?
We started this conversation with a great insight into what it takes to become a firefighter. I'm now thinking it would be fun to have some careers-based episodes on the podcast! What do you think? Let me know if that's something you'd like to see.
More teen mental health resources
There are lots more episodes of the Teenage Kicks podcast – do have a browse and see if I’ve covered anything else you might find useful. And if you have a suggestion of something you’d like to see talked about on the podcast please do email me on teenagekickspodcast@gmail.com I have loads more fabulous guests coming up to help families navigate some of the most complicated – but wonderful – teenage parenting years. I’ve also got some posts on the blog that might he
Recommended
Transcript
Ryan's Story: Loss and Impact
00:00:05
Speaker
My story is very interesting because it's 16 and I lose my dad and I just continue on playing hockey and doing things and never really dealt with that day. Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager. Every week I talk to someone who's been through something difficult as a teenager but come out the other side in a good place and has made a real success of their life.
00:00:35
Speaker
Are you worried about a child who's lost a parent?
A Life-Changing Moment: CPR and Loss
00:00:40
Speaker
My guest today is Ryan Gallagher, a firefighter from Burlington in Canada. When he was just 16, Ryan's father died as Ryan himself was performing CPR. We're going to talk about exactly what that did to Ryan at such a young age and throughout his teenage years.
00:00:59
Speaker
how he coped with his father's death and how he eventually came to terms with what had happened.
Mentorship Through Mental Health
00:01:07
Speaker
Ryan is now a mental health advocate who helps people through mentoring and peer support programs and charity involvements. I know he's going to have some really helpful insight for those kids and their families.
00:01:22
Speaker
Ryan's a father too, so I'm thinking he understands mental health from the point of view of both the teenagers listening to the podcast and their parents. So Ryan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm really pleased and I'm so delighted to be talking to someone from Canada. This is my first. Oh, great. That's awesome. It's exciting.
Journey to Firefighting: Volunteering and Training
00:01:45
Speaker
So first of all, I'm going to ask you, you're still a firefighter, right? I am, yeah. I'm a firefighter, six years now, full time. And before that, I was five years as a volunteer. So we volunteers kind of in our area. So I took, I did that and then made the step into a full time firefighter. So yeah, six years full time.
00:02:05
Speaker
Amazing I'm thinking that must mean quite a lot of training or is that what you did as a volunteer? Yeah so as a volunteer you would get certain training and there'd be certain nights where you'd have to be at the station and train to kind of keep your skill set up and then when you got hired you'd go through a recruit class. Mine was 16 weeks before you get on the trucks and then leading up to that it took me
00:02:29
Speaker
eight years to get hired so I was applying every year when I finally decided that's what I wanted to do for a living and I was just working odd jobs and then and then I would pick away at courses I do rescue courses you know on weekends rope rescue hazmat water rescue just to build my resume and then start applying to departments and stuff like that and then
The Allure of Firefighting and Community Service
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, so if anyone's listening that wants to be a firefighter, there's no right or wrong way to get hired. You'll go to stations and talk to people, and some people get hired first try, some people are 15 years, 10 years, those eight years. Yeah, some people have a bunch of schooling. Some people have a career before that, we're teachers, we're whatever, and then... Yeah, I was gonna ask, what were you doing for a living while you were volunteering?
00:03:16
Speaker
So I did, I was in sales. So before that I did like your typical landscaping jobs. And then I got into sales. I was doing industrial sales, selling industrial equipment, just not far from where I live. And then I was working with Pepsi, stocking shelves and going into grocery stores and doing all their pop orders for them, while picking away and building the resume on the side.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so this was a passion it must have been for you to volunteer and work so hard to get there. What was it about firefighting that attracted you?
00:03:52
Speaker
I think the unknown of it. So I was never like a nine to five person. I couldn't just go and sit at the desk with any emergency services. You have no idea what the day is going to bring. You know, you know that you start at this time and you typically finish. So we're 24 hour shifts. I'll start at 7am one morning, finish the next day at 7am. Wow. And we would have our days laid out in terms of what we're supposed to be doing for training. Um,
00:04:19
Speaker
But you never knew when a call was going to come in. You never knew what that call was going to be. And also the community side of it too. Everybody kind of looks at.
00:04:28
Speaker
Firefighters like oh great. They're here fire fire fire firefighters, you know, they're they're awesome They're great people so that community side of it I get jumped right into the charity aspect of it and I was just able to To talk to different people in the community and and grow bigger relationships So it's pretty neat and it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to do that But I wasn't sure
Influence of Father's Death on Career Choice
00:04:50
Speaker
And I'm not sure if part of it, when my dad passed away, which I know we're going to talk about, led me into that. And it was funny because my mom always said, hey, you should get into firefighting. You'd be really good at it at the time. I was like, nah, I don't know. And then at 22, I kind of started going, huh, maybe, you know, maybe I should.
00:05:08
Speaker
because I actually went to school originally for communications. So I'm doing a podcast now and actually kind of using some of my schooling. I went to school for editing and the communication side of stuff because I thought I was going to be a sports broadcaster and be on TV and be like an NHL commentator. So that was my other one. Yeah. So it's kind of weird, which I think
00:05:33
Speaker
as a lot of kids will listen to your podcast and even parents. I think that I'm very relatable in that sense because you have no idea what you're going
Resilience and Learning from Challenges
00:05:43
Speaker
to be. You think you're supposed to go down this path and then life takes you this way and it all in the end will work out the way it's supposed to work out.
00:05:50
Speaker
oh my god you know what there's a nugget already i'm gonna i'm gonna copy that one and put it right in the beginning it's just absolutely right and i've got teenagers at the moment who are just going through the whole what on earth will i do with my life and i keep saying just do things that make you happy it will come along don't panic right now my daughter's 15 um don't panic it's not it's gonna happen it's going to work out okay
00:06:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, you're supposed to have hiccups. It builds that resiliency that I'm sure we'll talk about. If life was just everything was handed to you and it was easy, then everyone would just be the same. That's why we're all unique and we're all different because we all have our own story and our own reason why we went the way we went and why the way we are.
00:06:37
Speaker
That's the way I look at it. But it's tough when you're in it, when you're young and you're like, oh, you know, I think I want to do this and it's not working out. I'm not getting the grades. I'm not doing that. You just got to keep pushing through.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and just trust in the process. Goodness. I've had so many people say just trust in the process. It will get to where you need it to be eventually. But I agree with you. It's really hard. But in terms of you being relatable, I can just imagine a tonne of 16-year-old boys thinking, yeah, firefighting or sports commentating or producing.
00:07:11
Speaker
And that's because my hockey career didn't work out, which most I'm sure, at least where I am, most kids want to play in the NHL. So. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Amazing. Oh, look, you know, we could talk, this is a different podcast. We could just talk about how you just, how you, how your life choices work out and how to trust in them. We could do that separately, but we are here to talk about something a little bit tougher.
Childhood and Early Anxiety
00:07:36
Speaker
And I'd love to explore first briefly what life was like for you as a child and a young teenager before your dad died. Yeah, life was good. I was lucky. I had two great parents, obviously still have my mom, and they were great. They did everything. I also have an older brother. We grew up in Burlington, so just outside of Toronto. I was born in Toronto, moved there when I was two, so I just say Burlington.
00:08:06
Speaker
And it was good. You know, typical play street hockey every day outside, get called in for dinner, go back outside. Like it was nonstop. We had so much fun growing up, pool in the backyard, cousins coming over the whole bit. And my parents were great. It was, they never pushed us to do anything we didn't want to do. So for example, like I said, I played hockey and I was like, do you want to play hockey? I learned how to skate when I was two. And I said, nah, I'm going to play when I'm seven years old.
00:08:33
Speaker
So at seven I said I'm ready to play hockey and they put me in hockey like it was just that kind of relationship of just do whatever you want to do obviously and and we'll support you and they were type of parents my brother swam competitively so five in the morning he's at the pool back there four in the afternoon so they would take him one would take me to hockey
00:08:55
Speaker
so my childhood was great but for whatever reason since you've asked me this I had I guess you could look at his childhood anxiety when I was in grade two my my parents would drop me off for school and I would chase the car down the street I probably had a record of sick days in grade two at my public school I just for whatever reason couldn't uh I couldn't
00:09:17
Speaker
be without them at certain points for some reason. And then they thought, okay, we'll put them on. The doctors tried to put me on Ritalin, which basically numbed me and my mom's like, that's not my son. Like I'm not looking at my son, took me off that. We'd go to the rinks and I'd have to know where they were standing, where they were going to be. And then, and then I just kind of
00:09:38
Speaker
I guess grew out of the shell I was in but I was super fun and loved to have fun outside of the academic world and and at the rink but I just for some reason like I needed to know where my parents were at all times and then one day it was like okay we're gonna be standing over here while you play hockey and I went whatever that's how I remember it it was just
00:10:00
Speaker
All of a sudden, and there's a piece right there for maybe there's parents struggling with kids that had something similar to this. For me, I just flipped a switch and it was, I was off and running. Yeah. Like you were ready. Yeah. Captain of a bunch of hockey teams and fast forward. Now I'm a mentor in the fire department, peer support, my told advocate talking to you right now, right? I just kind of blossomed, but it took me a while.
00:10:23
Speaker
I think kids are just sometimes ready for the next thing. My son wouldn't play football for years and years and years and my husband lost football, soccer, I guess you'd call it, and he just wouldn't do it and every time we enrolled him he just stood in the middle of a foggy pitch and cried and
00:10:40
Speaker
and we didn't know what to do and of course we just stopped and now then one day exactly the same thing he was just ready and he loves football and now that's what he does so I do think that that is a nugget for parents actually just you know just
00:10:54
Speaker
wait for the right time and they kids will come to whatever they need to come to eventually for sure and that goes back to that whole trust the process that you talked about and and like my wife's a sports psychologist now so she works with athletes on like their mental game and she sees a lot of parents that are still pushing like my kid is this good my kid is that and it's like this is that's your dream yeah that might not be their dream so let them figure that out on their own i have a three-year-old
00:11:22
Speaker
that i would love for him to play hockey more than anything and early on i got him on skates and he kind of liked it and then most recently in the mornings he grabs his mini stick he goes i'd like to play hockey right so i didn't push i didn't say we gotta go outside we gotta shoot a fake we gotta shoot balls and pucks i just i know he's only three but it was just whatever you want to do you want to read a book you want to hold a hockey stick yeah whatever yeah
00:11:46
Speaker
You've got to let them figure it out, but guide them, but don't push. Yeah, and just trust them. I think that's right, that's so good. Excuse me, I'm kind of putting it off because I think this is going to be a difficult question. Are you able to talk to me about what happened to your dad?
Coping with Father's Death: Initial Reactions
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Yeah, so it's one of those things that
00:12:10
Speaker
You know, you don't remember a lot of things in your life maybe here and there that, you know, sometimes you can't remember what you did yesterday, but I can remember September 21st, 2000, like it was yesterday. So I'm a 16 year old kid in high school. We had half day of school that particular day. I had football practice at like four o'clock. So I went home at like noon. My dad's there.
00:12:37
Speaker
complaining about a bit of pain in his in his arm and his shoulder thought it was just he had back issues for like many years so he was recently doing some physio stuff so he thought maybe he just kind of overdid it my mom happened to come home she was working at the high school that I was actually at she came home for lunch kind of the whole bit we chatted and then my dad said I'm good I'm good it all went away so she went back to work
00:13:01
Speaker
couple minutes later he's in the kitchen he's staring out the window I'm behind him and he goes call an ambulance call your mom and hits the ground so he had a heart attack in front of me so yeah that was like one of those so I called my mom she comes right racing back
00:13:23
Speaker
And then next thing I know I'm on the phone with dispatch and maybe this is partly why I ended up going the fire route, you know, subconsciously years later. And then I ended up giving him CPR and, and paramedics fire showed up, fire showed up first. I happened to know the firefighter. He was a hockey coach that I played against and I just left the room.
00:13:42
Speaker
And they worked on them in the kitchen. They worked on them on the front lawn, like on the stretcher, in the ambulance, and then left. And now knowing what I know why it took so long to get to the hospital. And then the doctors, when we got there, basically said he had passed and said there was nothing that I could have done to save him. They said all the equipment in the world that could have been there, the blockage was so big.
00:14:10
Speaker
that that was the end. So for whatever reason, two weeks before that he had checkups, he was what we thought a relatively healthy guy. Now we come to learn my, so he was 51 at the time. My uncle, so his dad at 55 died of heart attack. And then my great grandfather, my dad's dad, he died when my dad was like seven.
00:14:31
Speaker
So there's probably some sort of history there. Yeah, so it was tough. And of course you're 16 and when that happens and they tell you there's nothing you could have done, you know, you don't believe that. So that was a tough one. And that's not the end of, that's not a full stop, is it? It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have done anything. Oh, right then, that's fine. That's not an answer, is it?
00:14:59
Speaker
No, it doesn't work out that way. And my brother was at school. He was at Sheridan College at the time. So police came and dropped him off at home. And so of course, you're crying when you see him. And you're thinking, oh, I'm sorry. I wish I could have saved him kind of mentality. So yeah, that was a tough one, I guess, for whatever reason I was placed in that situation. And so I believe it set me up for the next
00:15:28
Speaker
10 years of my life, 15 years, whatever you want to call it, navigating that at 16 without a dad. Yeah, tough. Yeah. Well, we will go into more detail about that because I want to know what happened after that, but I just wanted to ask, did you know what you were doing with CPR or were they talking you through this on the phone while it was happening? Yeah, they talked me through it, but I kind of had like,
00:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things, I just reacted, called my mom, like I said, hung up the phone, got right on 911, talked to Dispatch, and she just walked me through it. But I had already started the chest compressions, so it was just... Yeah, like an instinct. Yeah, yeah, so it was just a different, it was obviously a different day, not something that you'd ever want anyone to go through or experience.
00:16:25
Speaker
Like I said, this is going to sound weird. I wouldn't change it if that makes any sense. I wish I could have him here, but me being there, I was supposed to be there if that makes any sense to you. Because I think it set me up, like I said, for a lot of things. I'm going to get you to tell me why that makes sense because I'm pretty confident by the end of our conversation it will.
00:16:54
Speaker
um so what happened to you on that day after after all this happened and your dad has died and you've been told this and you're all presumably back at home what happened next um it the rest of the day was just kind of a blur it was uh it was just different i had a really good support system around me a lot of friends um from high school was stopped by my mom was really good too it was kind of like
00:17:20
Speaker
do what you need to do. Looking back, I don't think she's dealt with it still the best, but she really pushed a lot like, you guys do what you need to do. You need to go out today with your friends. Well, she obviously handled all the funeral stuff.
00:17:39
Speaker
But what did it do to me? At the time, nothing. I didn't think it did anything to me, because my mum just said, do you want to talk to somebody? Kind of early on the first month or so, I was like, no, why would I want to talk to anyone about something that happened to me again? 16-year-old me. No, why would I share stories with a stranger? Yeah, I get that completely. I hear that from other kids. My own kids, when they've needed support and counseling, they haven't wanted it. They want to talk to me.
00:18:09
Speaker
They don't want to talk to someone they don't know or draw pictures of how they're feeling, you know, all the psychology tricks that get used on kids. I totally understand that. Yeah. And so at the time, nothing really happened to me that I, that I could notice. And then fast forward years later, it's kind of when things got a little bit rocky, but
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, another, if I could say or give an opinion or advice, talk to somebody other than your parents because your parents want to say things, right? They want to say something to you. They want to give you advice because they're your parent.
00:18:45
Speaker
And sometimes it's not always right advice. That might not make any sense, but you want to talk to someone that's just going to listen. Because I think it's hard for a parent when you see your son or daughter struggling to not say, do this, this, this, this, and this. This is what I did. That's not what you need to hear. You just need to talk.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly it. Have someone sit there, right? Yeah. I would assume, I think that's why my mum was like, do you want to talk to someone? Because I think if I just put all this on her, she would have said, well, why don't you go try things? Why don't you do this, right? And then I'd get mad, I'm sure, and it would just snowball. So you got to have conversations with
Open Conversations on Mental Health
00:19:23
Speaker
people. Yeah. I'm feeling sad because as a mum, the thing you want most is to fix your children when they're hurting. And when it's impossible to do that,
00:19:34
Speaker
Oh my God. And you know that actually your child isn't going to share all of that with you. They need to share it elsewhere. That's just the hard, that's just hard reality, hard truth, but they're not going to tell you everything and you can't fix it. And it sucks. It really, really does. But you're right. And so was there anybody that you felt able to talk to at the time?
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah. Like I said, I had a good support system of friends. I kind of just went on, um, and didn't, didn't talk too much about it. And at the time, so I was in grade nine and we had actually had two other people they had lost. Uh, one had lost his mom. I had been friends with him since like kindergarten, lost his mom to cancer a few months before. And then another guy, a good buddy of mine at the time, uh, lost his dad in a trained around like a,
00:20:25
Speaker
train accident yeah so it was a tough because we had a pretty tight group so it was a tough year and I think at that age too it's it's just one of those things you just hang out in a group and it's like
00:20:38
Speaker
do we share this? Do we talk about this? Right? We're 16. Is this something, or should we just go play street hockey? Exactly. You'll talk about what? So we're having on Friday night. Yeah. So it was never really, never dealt with at that time. I don't think kids that age know how to talk about it. I think it makes them very uncomfortable. And I think they don't have the mental maturity, the emotional maturity to know what to say, what to ask.
00:21:06
Speaker
how to express themselves or even how to help I just think but you know I think that having friends around who who kind of get it even if they don't maybe that is important in its own way it's not it's not dealing with it it's not talking about it's not kind of bouncing off the walls as you said you really needed but it is still comfort to have people around you that you know still see you as the same person as they did yesterday
00:21:34
Speaker
For sure. And I think knowing, it wasn't talked about much, but I'm sure I could have leaned on those people. And to your point, teenagers don't know how to deal with it. They might not understand how to talk about it, what to say.
00:21:50
Speaker
You don't need to say anything. I think you just need to be there and listen if someone wants to talk to you. But at the same time, I don't think people in our age and older than young adults still don't know how. I think that's why I'm doing what I do because mental health, being an advocate and ending the stigma is because people don't know how to talk about it. Yeah, that's so true. And so you've talked openly about what coping mechanisms you used
00:22:20
Speaker
kind of get through your dad's death.
Confronting Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism
00:22:24
Speaker
Can you remember the first time you used alcohol to cope with your feelings or how did you get into drinking? So yeah the biggest one I used was alcohol but I didn't start I didn't I waited till I was 19 that my first drink because that one it was that's when it was so it was interesting so my story is very interesting because at 16 I lose my dad and I just continue on playing hockey and doing things and
00:22:51
Speaker
and never really dealt with that day. And then I think when I turned 19 and I, and you know, you still, you have your bad days like we all do. And from, you know, 16 to 19, I probably had a bunch of bad days and I didn't realize it. And then when I had my first drink, which people that, that drink and experience that feeling will be able to speak to this like, Oh,
00:23:13
Speaker
wow, I feel better, right? I'm a little bit easier going, I'm a little bit, and I was always an outgoing guy and loved to be the life of the party, but I think not dealing with my trauma really put me at a
00:23:30
Speaker
disadvantage, I guess you could say, when it came to drinking. I would consume more than most people at a party. I was always fun, but I had to be the most fun. I fit in, but I was still trying to navigate all of that stuff. It was an interesting time.
00:23:47
Speaker
And then, yeah, I just, I became like a Thursday or Friday night to Sunday kind of drinker. Would never ever go to work drunk or anything like that. I would just use it to get through. And if I was happy to just sit by myself and drink.
00:24:08
Speaker
But I did this for years and it went on and off. Like I would, uh, I would fluctuate in weight. I would overeat. Like I got up to 235 pounds, uh, which is, which is heavy. I'm like 185 now and healthy and happy. Uh,
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, so that was my main crutch. I would just I'd just drink to kind of because there'd be days where you'd go back and if you don't deal with it, you go back and go, why me? I'm a good person. Why did this happen to me? You know, but then you have a drink and that changes it.
00:24:39
Speaker
Well, it kind of just presses pause on everything. It numbs everything, it relaxes you, it makes everything serious, a lot less important for a while. Is that what you were doing, do you think?
00:24:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. 100%. And then too, as you get older, that was the thing to do. You go out and party, right? So you think, that's true. Everyone else is doing it. So there's nothing wrong. And there's nothing wrong. If you want to have some drinks, have some drinks. That's fine. But make sure you're mentally strong and dealing with your crap. And I wasn't.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah, but did you get to the point where you were not drinking because you were partying with friends, you were drinking alone because it made you feel better? Yeah, I think so. I think that was the way it was working and then, and my story's interesting because I still will have a drink or two here and there, but I've really, and we can get into that, I taught myself
00:25:43
Speaker
or I worked on myself on how to understand that, do I just wanna have this drink because I wanna have this drink or do I need this? That's why I made the difference and the different connection. Yeah, and when you decide it's because you need it, what do you do then?
00:25:59
Speaker
And there is times like that when I still get down. And I can tell, because I've put so much time and effort into my own mental health, I can tell when I'm going down that slope. So I actually will notice that my diet, my eating will change if I'm slowly, or I get a little bit burnt out, my workouts will change. And it's normal, it's human nature.
00:26:26
Speaker
And then randomly, I was like, I think I'll have a beer tonight. And my wife is very good at being like, well, do you just want to enjoy it or do you need it? And I was like, actually, maybe I need it. So I'll go for a walk. I'll go for a drive. I'll go and visit my dad. OK.
00:26:42
Speaker
I think that's interesting. And I understand that because I've worked on my own relationship with food and alcohol over the last few years. And there is definitely a distinction if you stop and think about the beer that you're fancying between how much you fancy a drink just to enjoy that drink or in a social setting or because you're eating something lovely and beer goes really well with it or wine goes really well with it.
00:27:12
Speaker
And the other side, which is that actually, no, God, I'm just feeling like alcohol would improve my situation right now. And that's the point, isn't it? Where instead of having it, you go do something different. Yeah. I was fortunate if I found the healthy coping strategies that would allow me to not
00:27:35
Speaker
use alcohol as a crutch and but still be able to have one or two here and there and I mean unfortunately like talking to people in the podcast world and interviewing people that have been through stuff and everyone has their own stories there's been some the people I've interviewed have gone down a really really bad path with alcohol drug use that you know
00:27:55
Speaker
they almost lost their lives several times because they couldn't get out of their own head because of something that happened to them. And now to this day, they can't touch it. They can't have any of that. But they worked on that resilience piece and brought themselves back and realized this can't be in my life in certain steps.
Therapy and Acceptance
00:28:15
Speaker
I'm interested by that actually, it's a healthy attitude to all the things that come at you in life and a healthy attitude to all the things that you can do with your life rather than an all or nothing approach.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when I first started going to talk to somebody about everything that happened. It was like, here's what I drink kind of thing. And that's the key too. If you go talk to somebody, be honest. When they're like, okay, do you use drugs? Do you use alcohol? Yes. Okay, one drink. No, don't lie. Don't lie to yourself because you're not going to help
00:28:50
Speaker
They're not there to tell you no, no, no, no, no. Don't lie to yourself because the only way you're gonna get better is if you're honest, open and honest. So I just said, here's my lifestyle right now. And I was an athletic guy, but I was just eating and drinking and putting on weight. And he said to me, you're not an alcoholic. You're not dealing with what happened to you at 16 years old when I told him kind of a blurb. And it was almost like,
00:29:17
Speaker
Oh, wait a second. You're right. I didn't, I don't talk about this. This makes sense. And then you start to kind of open up and it goes back to, I talked to someone who has really doesn't know me and has no, not going to give me advice or really an opinion. They're just going to sit there and go, let it out and let's go. Yeah. Was that a relief for you when that person said you're not an alcoholic? Did you think you were?
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, oh, you know what? And I said to my wife, I'm going to go get help because it was breaking our marriage. That was 2014.
00:29:51
Speaker
And to put all this into perspective, I had started my dream job, fire, bought a brand new house and got married that same year. So talk about, I got it together. This is like society and my thought of like, look at me and I'm broken on the inside. And that's reality of some of this stuff. There's a lot of people out there that they look like they got everything together and they're struggling, right? So when I finally said,
00:30:20
Speaker
Okay, I got to go talk about this. Then it was just like off and running. So you allow yourself, you forgive yourself, you forgive yourself for that day that you couldn't help your dad. You forgive yourself when you do have another drink because you don't, you're just doing it for enjoyment now. But for a while you beat yourself up and you beat yourself up.
00:30:39
Speaker
So yeah, and then it was just talk therapy is what worked for me. It doesn't work for everybody at all. I encourage
Self-Care and Healing from Trauma
00:30:45
Speaker
people that when they do go find a counselor and first time it doesn't work out, fine. Keep going. Yeah.
00:30:51
Speaker
totally refer you, right? You're not offending them when you say this, look, we didn't, this didn't mesh. We don't know. Yeah. It meshes the right word, isn't it? Or click. I, I, I totally get that. You need to feel like that person gets you, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with just, you know, I'm going to, can you refer me to somebody else? I'll go find somebody else. Uh, and then other people, medication works for them. Yeah. Um, just simple exercise, meditation, whatever it is, but you have to get a starting point and then work.
00:31:21
Speaker
through it and it takes a long time.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of work on myself. What do you think that actually you work on yourself for the rest of your life? It's just a skill that we never learned when we were kids. They don't teach that skill. You were talking about people you've interviewed who couldn't get out of their own heads. And I love that. I love that image. That makes total sense to me. What does it feel like for you to get out of your own head? How does it feel?
00:31:53
Speaker
I think, yeah, you're more in control of yourself. And when you're out of your own head, you stop. You stop thinking that. The world is against you and everybody's talking about you. Yes. Yes. That makes a total sense. And if teenagers are listening to this, they will all be going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they all do. Teenagers are paranoid. Generally, they all worry about what people think of them. Oh, for sure. And we're.
00:32:22
Speaker
I mean, social media doesn't help, which that's a whole other rant that I can go on. Yeah, if you get out of your own head and get out of your own way and kind of create your own story, and the people that are on the sidelines telling you like, you know, you're soft or you're this or no, you're fine, you're not that, then they're not on your team.
00:32:45
Speaker
At the end of the day, that's just you. And when people tell you, this is again, in my opinion, when people say to you,
00:32:54
Speaker
You know, I'm sure as a parent you want to say, you need to do this all the time. You need to do that or you need to do this or getting your own head. I need to do this for my best friend. I need to do this for my wife and my kid. No, you need to do it for yourself. So someone that's dealing with a mental illness, an addiction or trauma, whatever it is, you've got to be selfish.
00:33:20
Speaker
and it starts with you doing it for you. So I can't sit here, if I was in this mess and I had a son, and I say, I gotta do it for my son and my wife. Well, what does that do? You gotta wanna do it for you, because you'll never fix yourself or help yourself if you don't believe in that you're just gonna do it for you, because then the rest, when you fix you for you, the rest just falls into place.
00:33:42
Speaker
Right, yes, that makes total sense, yeah. I think also there's something about being when you're outside your own head that it feels like you can be more objective about your problems and look at them with a less judgmental eye.
Advocating Mental Health Education
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I think when you're out of your own head and kind of going down the path that you want to go and controlling the controllables and not sweating those little things that we all sweat, then you can look at somebody who's struggling and have that car and just be open with them. Hey, I've been through this.
00:34:18
Speaker
Do you need anything? And like we said, you're never to fix yourself completely. You're always going to go up and down because that's life. But that's the skill. That's life. Life's hard. It is. But it really does. Everything happens for a reason.
00:34:34
Speaker
I think mental health strategies ought to be a subject that teenagers take at school because once you've learned these things it doesn't make it easy but it does mean that you can reflect and you have the skills.
00:34:50
Speaker
to look at what just happened in your day because there will be more bad things happen to all of us in our futures just as there will be more amazingly good things and it's as you say about not focusing too much on the bad things unless you absolutely have to and when you do then it's about knowing that you have the skills and the strategies
00:35:13
Speaker
to get through that, however hard it feels. Definitely. Teenagers, well, I think anyone who's bottling something up and just not dealing with their feelings are going, no, it's just me, it's just me. Like, no, it's everybody. They say one in five people will have mental health problems. I think it's five in five. We're all gonna have something. I agree. Whether it's, yeah, the stats, like 12 to 19-year-old teenagers, it's like 3.2 million of them will have depression.
00:35:42
Speaker
Like the stats are crazy where World Health Organization's website, stuff they have. So like you're not by yourself on that. Yeah, no, it's pretty much normal. Yeah, but it starts with you to really fix it. Yeah. So I'm interested to know what you think about, because this happens with most of my guests who've experienced something tough as a teenager. Most of them didn't deal with it in a healthy way at the time.
00:36:11
Speaker
not through any fault of their own but for the same as you're describing that actually it's really difficult to deal with so you just box it up and get on with everyday life instead. Do you think there is anything that those kids could do when they are younger when they're actually in the process of experiencing that or shortly afterwards to
00:36:36
Speaker
to put themselves in a better place going forward rather than having all this angst happen to them and developing the unhealthy coping strategies and getting to the age you got to before you found a way to deal with it. Do you think there's anything we could do, they could do, their families could do to make it better at the beginning? If they realize they're in it, I think they gotta be honest with themselves.
00:37:04
Speaker
realizing like, hey, I'm in this, and then say to, you know, if they're afraid to talk about it, say to a trusted parent, look, I need help with this. Can we find the right person? It's like the teenagers that come and see my wife for sports psychology right there.
00:37:23
Speaker
It's a little, it's different. They need help with a skillset, right? But they're eager to get better at it. So why wouldn't you want to get better in your own personal life rather than, you know, just athletics, just using that as an example, but honesty, vulnerability, compassion, and accountability. Practice those, learn how to be honest with yourself. And then when you talk about it, have compassion for yourself and for others when they talk about it and be vulnerable. What I'm doing right now talking about it, that's vulnerability.
00:37:54
Speaker
and it feels good. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It doesn't make me soft. It makes me better, I think. And hold yourself accountable and others accountable around you.
00:38:07
Speaker
and then and then I think everything will just fall it should fall into place hopefully but everyone's in a different situation but it starts again with you talk therapy would be a good one like I mentioned practicing gratitude getting into kind of meditation you don't have to be the person all the time you don't have to be on all the time that was my biggest thing right yeah I've heard that before as well it's because it's another distraction isn't it from the pain for sure and when the when you realize that the more
00:38:37
Speaker
people will come around you and you'll notice that they're the same as you. And that's okay. And then you create that safe space. You find those right people, you navigate through that, but don't bottle it up. Yeah, I think that is so important. You've just said a bunch of words though that I know my teenagers would just kind of roll their eyes at, meditation.
Teen Reflection and Pressures
00:39:06
Speaker
gratitude, you know, because I have actually tried to get them to do that when they've had lower moments, you know, just write down one thing, even don't write it down, tell me just one thing, I know your day was shit, I know, but just tell me one thing that was great about today. And they either, well, it's not that they can't think of anything, it's they won't think of anything. I think one of them once said to me,
00:39:32
Speaker
Spanish got cancelled. That was the one thing that was great about today. They couldn't think of anything better because they didn't want to. Their motivation for this stuff is quite poor, I think, in general. And I get it because they're very eye-rolly. They're very, what's the word, cynical. Teenagers are very cynical about the world around them.
00:39:53
Speaker
How do you make kids do that? Or how do you convince them to just take five minutes to sit and think, breathe in, feel the sunshine without going, God, this is rubbish, pointless. What do you think? I don't know the answer. Is there a way round that?
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you've been a teenager, so how was it for you? How would it felt if someone had said to you, you know, just take 10 minutes on a yoga mat and breathe deeply.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, at the time when my mom said you should talk to somebody who has kind of the same thing, I was like, nope. I think, yeah, I think we just need to paint a bigger picture for them and realize like, we got to slow down. We're our own worst enemies. Like I said, we're in our own head and we're so connected to technology and everything we do relies on our cell phones and what people think, right? And meditation, I just, you know, I use that as an example. It doesn't have to be sit there and breathe in and out, in and out. You know, it can be go sit on a bench.
00:40:54
Speaker
and stare at the water. It's the same kind of thing. It's just about slowing down your thought process and just forgetting about things for a little bit, writing things down. There's something for everybody to do, whether it's talking, whether it's meditation, whether it's journaling, exercise. But to get them to do it, from obviously going through what I went through, when you're in it, you don't know.
00:41:24
Speaker
I think it's just constantly having those conversations. Hey, remember that you could do this, this, this, and this instead of this. Yeah. And this being drugs, alcohol, or caring about what people think. So then it maybe gets in the thought process. Oh, I'm having a rough day. And my mom said I could do this, this, this, or this. So just those casual conversations and passing. They're not going to listen to you because you're their parent.
00:41:53
Speaker
No, I'm just thinking, as you're talking, I'm thinking about another guest I have in this series, Elizabeth, who, she said, don't have a million minute long conversation with your kids. Have a million one minute conversations with your kids.
00:42:12
Speaker
and don't be offended if they roll their eyes at you and leave the room because some of what you're saying if you're saying it a million times will stick and if you do it individually as you say casually in the moment and not major on it it won't feel like a lecture and so they won't deliberately tune it out some of it will just filter in and then maybe one day they will just
00:42:38
Speaker
exercise and think about their feet in their trainers on the road rather than what they've got to do next and what she said to him and why this and what homework is next or maybe as you say they will go sit in the park and just watch ducks
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a very good way to go. But even as an adult, we're talking about teens and they don't listen or they're in their own way and they my way or the highway mentality. But I think as adults too, we all still do it. Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
uh but having that like just approach it hey try this and then walk away instead of the lecture thing it's like that as an adult right okay this didn't work for me so what are my other ways that i can do this yeah right uh like in jobs and in work well that project wasn't good what was good about it what was bad how can we approach it differently yeah yeah totally and actually i think we also have to remember that with our own kids
00:43:42
Speaker
is no matter how many times they roll our eyes and make it very clear that they're not interested in anything we have to say, which they do, they do still want to improve their lives and they are, they're smart, they're not just sitting there absolving themselves of any responsibility for their futures, they are thinking about
00:44:04
Speaker
how they can do better at school, how they can do better with their friend. And so inevitably they will be thinking about how they can improve their own personal situation and reflect if that's what they need to do. I think we have to trust that as parents, it's easy to forget.
00:44:22
Speaker
For sure. And then they put teenagers put so much pressure on themselves or we do as a society, right? Because while I got to go to school or I got to get the scholarship and I got to do that. So if you look at it from that standpoint too, is they're just trying to better themselves. Yeah.
00:44:37
Speaker
But it's how they handle it. And I think a part of it is because they care too much what other people think, is if they don't get the scholarship, if they don't get the job they want, right, then they're a failure. They're not. Yeah, absolutely. And they need to do the thing that makes them happy. This is another common thread. They need to choose things that make them feel good.
00:44:58
Speaker
over the long term not that make them feel good and I'm doing air quotes because alcohol kind of makes you feel good but it makes you feel worse afterwards for sure yeah and
00:45:14
Speaker
You're going to fail at stuff. That's just a reality of it. But it's what you do afterwards that sets you up for success, right? You can always, even when you fail in something, you can always, always find a positive. It's there. You just got to look for it. And it might not seem like it at the time.
00:45:32
Speaker
when you don't pass that exam, when you don't get into the school you want, you don't get your job first. It took me eight years. I was a firefighter. I mean, you're a great example of just persevere and keep going with what you really want, or trust that you'll find what you really want much further down the line. I didn't find what I really wanted until I was in my 40s. But it comes, and you make a living, and you make a life in the meantime, and it's fine.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it doesn't seem like it's going to work out, but it will. And, uh, and that's, you know, I go back to the social media stuff. It doesn't always seem like it cause you're always looking at everybody that has this and that and the perfect body and the perfect stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Do they really.
00:46:18
Speaker
they really have all that yeah and actually even if they do are they happy with it i know people with so much money who are really not happy at all so you just don't know what's going on in somebody else's life unless you unless you're with them um ryan thank you for being so open and honest and i think um
00:46:40
Speaker
I think people actually will want to come and listen to your podcast. Tell me just a little bit about your podcast, Mental Edge Lifestyle.
Podcast's Goal: Open Mental Health Discussions
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, so Mental Edge Lifestyle is my podcast I started about a year ago. And I'm just, I do once a month, I release and I have a bunch of content that I banked at the start of it. So I'm slowly releasing it still once a month. And we're on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, probably anywhere you could find a podcast, I'm on there.
00:47:08
Speaker
And the idea behind it was just to have an open, honest conversation about mental health and share stories so people can see that they're not as different as they think. So I have people on that are in the financial world kind of giving that because we all stress about money. So just kind of laying it out on try this, try that. I've had
00:47:32
Speaker
psychologist on, a sports psychologist, I interviewed my wife, a naturopath talking about the gut and brain connection, a couple of professional hockey players, Theo Fleury, Clint Wallerchuk. And then mindfulness, a lot of counsellors have come on.
00:47:48
Speaker
So it's just the end goal of it is just to have people listen to it and hopefully pull something like, oh, that sounds like me. I should try this or, oh, that person. Okay. Just understanding that you're not the only person. And then you can find me on Facebook. I think it's mental edge L and then Instagram mental underscore edge underscore lifestyle. You can search me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
00:48:18
Speaker
No, that's great. I just have one more question for you, Ryan. If you could go back to the day after your dad died, what would you say to that 16-year-old boy, if you could? This happened to you for a reason. And you just got to figure out what that reason is. If that makes
00:48:44
Speaker
sense and like I alluded to before when I said I wouldn't change that as terrible and weird as that sound because I lost my dad yeah obviously I would do anything to have him back but it allowed me to learn about myself took me a little bit and now I'm able to openly talk about it and hopefully
00:49:09
Speaker
help people change their life, help them realize that they can change their own life just by little things here and there, little, little like, and now I get to talk to people like yourself about this kind of stuff. So yeah, trust the process. And if you're in something like that, you got to grieve it. You got to go through that process, which I didn't do. And you'll learn a lot about yourself and the people around you and who is actually there to support you.
00:49:37
Speaker
so yeah yeah there's a lot in there yeah be somebody uh that makes everybody feel like somebody oh god i love that that's perfect and what an amazing feeling that would be yeah absolutely i want to be that person ah love that thank you ryan thank you so much um it's been fantastic talking to you today oh yeah no problem anytime that was great
00:50:06
Speaker
Be somebody that makes everybody feel like somebody. Gosh I love that so much.
00:50:15
Speaker
I feel like I want to talk to Ryan all over again about careers planning. Actually let me know if that's something that you guys would be interested in because I started talking to him about becoming a firefighter and that was just as interesting as the story that I knew he was going to tell me. And so I'm wondering if there are kids out there who would love to hear from people in different professions about how they got started and how they decided what to do.
00:50:44
Speaker
Let me know, will you? You can email me. It's teenagerkicks at gmail.com. Anyway, I know we explored some things that we don't normally get into on this podcast, but actually I think there's a lot in there to extract for anyone going through mental health changes. I loved Ryan's honesty.
00:51:06
Speaker
I loved his ownership of his problems and his acceptance that he's the only person who can change the things he doesn't like about his life. It struck me that actually when we're feeling really down, it's really easy to blame, to think about who is at fault and who needs to do what to make our lives better.
00:51:30
Speaker
And my big take home from my chat with Ryan was that nobody needs to do anything. It is all about what we do ourselves.
00:51:43
Speaker
The other thing I like about Ryan is how down to earth he is. I mean when he said his own podcast is a place where people can see that they're not as different as they think they are, that just made total sense to me. All of us are going through some kind of crap and all of us will go through some kind of crap.
00:52:00
Speaker
at some point in our lives and he paints that picture where we're all dealing with utter crap. Frankly, none of us is unique in our particular set of emotional or real life problems. We just need to find the people who get us and then trust ourselves that we have the capacity and the strength to work through the difficult things that we'll inevitably face.
00:52:28
Speaker
I hope this episode has helped even just one family to start to understand how to approach the emotional challenges that come with the death of a parent. I'd love to hear from you, if it has, or if you have any suggestions for future topics on the Teenage Kicks podcast. Just email me on teenagekicks at gmail.com, as I said before, or you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at I am Helen Wills. I do appreciate every message.
00:52:57
Speaker
and I love to hear from my listeners. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you consider subscribing to the Teenage Kicks podcast or just giving me a rating and a review on iTunes. It really helps other people to find these incredible guests of mine and the amazing conversations we have about teenage life.
00:53:19
Speaker
There are loads more episodes, so have a browse and see if anything else strikes a chord for your family. And there are more parenting teens tips on my blog, Actually Mummy, so do head over there if you fancy a read. I'll stick a link in the episode notes. Thank you again so much for listening. Come back next week when I'll be chatting with another brilliant guest about the fun and games of raising teens.