Latest / The R4R Podcast: Road to Zero / Losing a son | What I wish I knew | Andrew Logan

Transcript

Losing a son | What I wish I knew | Andrew Logan · The R4R Podcast: Road to Zero

0:00
Thank you for coming Andrew, I appreciate it All those from all
0:04
the way up from Orange. I want to start this
0:08
conversation with some of your words from November last year.
0:16
We are heartbroken over the loss of our beautiful boy, but we are
0:20
determined to remember him as he was.
0:23
Sensitive, handsome man who was greatly loved by his family, his
0:28
friends from Orange, Joey's, South's and beyond.
0:32
He touched many people in his life.
0:36
Yeah. Did I say that?
0:39
November 12, You posted it on your account.
0:47
There's a lot of stuff that I look back on, you know,
0:49
particularly the eulogy that I gave, and I was so shocked and
0:55
and stunned at that stage that I the eulogy really wasn't that
1:00
great. There's a lot of things I wish
1:01
I'd said, but that there that you've just read.
1:06
I think that encapsulates him really well.
1:10
Yeah, it's a good way to put it. Tell me about Johannes.
1:15
Oh wow. Well, Johannes was one of those
1:19
people that you really had to know well to understand him.
1:25
He was he was a, you know, he was a deep pool and on the
1:30
surface he looked like a a big strong guy who played footy.
1:37
And you know, was, was that guy, that that guy that you saw on
1:41
the footy field, you know, tough and hard tackler and, you know,
1:45
aggressive and goal oriented and that sort of stuff.
1:48
But when you got to really know him, when you scratched the
1:51
surface, you found that he was deeply sensitive.
1:55
He was very interested in other people.
1:57
He was a great protector of younger kids and, and people who
2:03
might have been weaker in some way.
2:06
He was a great listener. A lot of his mates came to me
2:10
after the funeral and said, you know, he sat with me when I was
2:13
home seeker. He sat with me when I was having
2:15
a hard time. And, you know, he talked to me
2:18
and he'd listened to me and he looked after me, you know, those
2:22
were the and that was, that was him.
2:24
You know, he was a, he was a good writer.
2:28
He had a great appreciation for, for art and he was a good visual
2:34
artist. So there were things about him
2:36
that, you know, on the face of it, when you saw him playing
2:38
footy for South or playing footy for Joey.
2:40
So you just wouldn't have realised that he had those
2:42
depths to him. Contrasting, yeah, personality
2:45
in a sense. And how much do you remember
2:50
about the day that you found out Johannes had died?
2:56
I remember it. All and it was it was a really
3:02
I, I can't shake that feeling that he slipped through my
3:07
fingers a bit. He'd come home for the weekend.
3:11
He was home in orange, the orange rugby 10s were on and and
3:14
he came home because he had a lot of mates travelling from all
3:16
over the place to play in that. And he wasn't able to play
3:19
because he was contracted. But he still came home to see
3:23
his mates and, and catch up with a whole lot of people and he had
3:25
a good time. And I saw him a couple of times
3:27
over that weekend. And, and I was meant to see him
3:30
on the Sunday before he went back to Sydney.
3:32
But things sort of clashed and I didn't see him.
3:35
And then but I was going to be in Sydney anyway.
3:37
So I was hoping to catch up with him on the Sunday night and I
3:41
didn't, he was tired and he said, Oh no, I'll catch you in
3:44
the morning for coffee. So we arranged to have coffee at
3:47
6:30 AM in Coogee before I got on a plane to go to Queensland.
3:53
And he went to work and he texted me about 4:30 in the
3:57
morning and said, oh dad, I've slept really badly.
4:00
I'm not going to go to work today.
4:02
I'm going to just try and get some more sleep and then I'll go
4:05
to training tonight and I'll catch you later in the week.
4:08
And I went, oh OK, no problem, that'll be fine.
4:09
I'll catch you in a few days when I'm back from Queensland.
4:13
So I went down to Coogee myself, had a coffee at about 6:30 and a
4:17
quarter plane to Queensland. And that night I just gone to
4:24
bed in Queensland. I'd been had dinner with a work
4:28
colleague. He was also a massive rugby
4:30
league fan. And I remember saying to him at
4:34
about 8:00, oh, Johannes hasn't called me after training.
4:37
They must have got a flogging, You know, they must have given
4:39
him a belt. And he hasn't called me.
4:41
And I went to bed in a hotel later that night and just as I
4:44
turned out light, I literally reached out and turned out the
4:47
light and my phone rang and it was Johannes flatmate, saying we
4:52
haven't seen him today. He didn't go to work.
4:54
He didn't go to training. His keys and his wallet are
4:59
here. His car's here and we're worried
5:02
about him. And so we rang Waverly police.
5:05
I rang Waverly police and we got a call back about an hour later.
5:12
And he had already been found earlier that day at the bottom
5:18
of the cliffs of Coogee. And I suspect he was probably,
5:25
he may have already died by the time I was having coffee that
5:30
morning in Coogee. And I was literally staying in
5:34
a, in a H150 metres up the road from his apartment.
5:39
So, yeah, when I say he, I feel like he slipped through my
5:41
fingers. I, yeah, that's, I, I missed him
5:44
in that way. And that's what happened on the
5:46
day. And then I had to get back the
5:49
next day from Townsville, which was a, a really long trip.
5:52
It was a yeah, it was a very, very hard day.
5:59
I just, I mean, when I was looking back through all the
6:04
work you've done since, and we'll get to that later, I
6:08
couldn't help but have emotion boiling up in myself because
6:16
there's similarities in a sense. I lost my dad to suicide.
6:20
And like you say, there's sliding doors, moments almost
6:25
where what are things? We're just a tiny bit different.
6:29
What would have happened? But Andrew, I can't.
6:33
I've got 3 kids and I've got a son.
6:37
I can't imagine the pain that you must have felt at that time.
6:49
It, it wasn't even, it wasn't even pain.
6:52
It wasn't pain for a few weeks. It was just out of shock like,
7:01
you know, footy players and boxes you, you talk about having
7:04
your bell rung. You know, when you get a hit in
7:06
the head, not quite enough to knock you out, but it you know,
7:09
you get that vibration through your head, you know, and your
7:12
body and you get that metallic taste in your mouth and you sort
7:15
of swaying on your feet a bit. You know, it was that it was, it
7:19
was just a hit. It was a visceral hit to the
7:23
guts. It was just, and I just spent
7:26
the next couple of weeks just trying to stay on my feet and,
7:32
and operate, you know, just get through the day, just get up and
7:38
do the things that needed to be done.
7:40
And some of those were really, really hard, you know, and I was
7:45
really fortunate to have some good mates support me through
7:50
some really difficult times. You know, he, he died at Coogee
7:53
and I thought it was really important to go up to the cliffs
7:57
at Coogee before I got to a point where I couldn't do that,
8:01
you know, and I and so my, my ex brother in law came up with me
8:06
and I'll be forever thankful for him for doing that because, you
8:10
know, that was something that I needed to do in those first
8:13
couple of days. And I wouldn't have had the
8:14
strength to do it if he didn't come with me.
8:18
And I had a couple of mates of mine, Tim Birch and Todd Smart,
8:22
who were old footy mates who drove me out to lead him to the
8:27
coroner's court where I had to go and view him after he died
8:31
and identify him. You know, and those, those
8:35
people in those times just did things that were so valuable.
8:40
And, you know, if I, if I learned one thing out of it all,
8:45
there were people who just stood up for me and for us.
8:50
And in many cases, they weren't the people I expected, you know,
8:55
the people I expected in a lot of cases didn't turn up.
8:58
And the people I didn't expect did turn up.
9:01
And it was, it was beautiful. And it really, it really made me
9:07
see who was important in my life.
9:10
It's, it's funny, these conversations, how much they
9:15
kind of unlock memories. My dad passed 16 years ago and
9:22
so I was 18 at the time and I I don't know if I regret it but I
9:28
had the choice to see his body in the casket and I chose not
9:32
to. I don't know why tough.
9:36
Tough thing to do at that age. Yeah, just I think I don't know
9:40
if I wanted it to be true, even though obviously it was.
9:44
But another thing that he reminded me of that I'd
9:47
completely forgotten is, yeah, I went to the place where he died
9:51
within within the week. I don't know what I was looking
9:55
for. I think I wanted a ghost or
9:58
something to come out of the trees and say everything's all
10:01
right or say, you know, I just had to be there and just had to.
10:05
And it was just silence. What was it like for you to
10:11
stand where you thought that Johannes stood?
10:17
Oh, it was hard. It was so the walk up there was
10:21
just, yeah, without over, over egging it, you know, it felt
10:27
like walking to the gallows. It felt like Christ must have
10:31
felt walking to the cross or something.
10:32
Like it was just the hardest steps I've ever taken.
10:40
But, you know, getting up there, it was a huge outpouring of
10:45
emotion. I was, it was probably the first
10:50
time since I got the news that I really just broke down and, and
10:55
I probably needed to. And it was in really stark
10:59
contrast to seeing him. You know, when I went to when I
11:04
had to go and see him, that was I, I was stealing myself for
11:12
that. I thought that was going to be
11:13
really incredibly hard. And actually it was very
11:17
peaceful. And I think the reason that it
11:20
was so peaceful was immediately that I walked into the room
11:23
where he was, it was just very clear that his spirit wasn't
11:28
there. It was just a very empty
11:31
feeling. And I, and I, it, it, it wasn't
11:35
him there, you know. And so those were really
11:41
formative experiences in the, in the grieving process.
11:44
I think, you know, feeling that his, the spirit of him was
11:48
somewhere else and, and that spirit could still be with us in
11:52
some way. You know that the spirit of him
11:55
wasn't out at Lincoln. Yeah, it's it's funny you
11:59
mentioned the the spirit and and the body.
12:03
I remember when my mum passed. I think learning from making I
12:10
lose the word looser, the mistake of not saying my dad's
12:13
body. I sat with my mum's body for a
12:14
little bit in the hospital and, yeah, peaceful is one word for
12:23
it. It's bizarre is another word
12:27
because something that you see, yeah, have seen so many times,
12:31
light up, get angry at you. It's just, yeah, like there's no
12:40
other word for it really than the spirit that is no longer in.
12:49
One thing that I've always found really hard to comprehend is the
13:00
the fact that my dad called me before he passed or he died and
13:08
he was in so much pain. Obviously Johannes, you think
13:15
texted you shortly before. What kind of state was he in?
13:26
Well, I only got a text. So, you know, it's sort of, it's
13:31
really difficult to, to put any feelings onto, onto what was a,
13:38
what was a pretty brief exchange.
13:41
If I looked at him in the days and weeks before, there's
13:46
nothing really that I saw that made me worry.
13:53
The only thing that probably concerned me was, you know, I'd
13:57
had AI had a really big work week coming up and had a lot of
14:00
travel in it and that sort of stuff.
14:01
And I've been preparing for it for a little while.
14:05
And so I felt like I was pretty distracted by that.
14:08
And so I just lacked that presents that I wish I'd had to
14:14
be able to maybe pick up on something.
14:19
But he mean, he did all the things he normally would have
14:22
done when he was out. He on the Saturday night, he
14:27
sent me a photo of him with one of my mate's sons that he was
14:34
out drinking with. And he'd often did that.
14:35
If he ever ran into somebody that I knew, he'd send me a
14:38
photo, you know, he texted me and asked me for a bit more
14:42
money. There was nothing.
14:47
The only thing that I think sort of made me pick my ears up a
14:51
little bit was that he, he slept in really, really late on the
14:56
Sunday, like till 2:00, and he had to get back to Sydney.
15:02
And he was staying at his mum's place, but she was away with his
15:07
sister on a water polo tournament.
15:08
So he was staying there on his own.
15:11
And, and he didn't get up till about 2:00.
15:13
And that was really unusual and unlike him.
15:15
And I just wondered later if maybe he sort of knew that that
15:22
was the last time he was going to sleep in his own bed or
15:25
something. I, I don't know.
15:27
It's a lot of speculation around it.
15:29
And it's easy to speculate about a lot of things.
15:31
And I try not to do that too much.
15:34
You know, something that people say a lot when I reflect on
15:38
those things is, oh, you mustn't blame yourself.
15:41
And I don't beat yourself up over it.
15:43
And I and, and I don't at all, I don't beat myself up over it.
15:48
I don't blame myself because I know that I did the best that I
15:53
could at the time with what I knew.
15:56
Probably the thing that's got me out of it is just how little I
16:01
knew. And that's probably what's been
16:03
the driver for me to try and share some of what I've learned
16:07
since with other parents, because I just look back now and
16:11
realise I knew nothing. Yeah.
16:14
And I want to, I want to get to that.
16:17
And I one thing I kind of find quite remarkable is how not, and
16:26
is how much I went through all, all your stuff on on your page
16:32
and we'll put a link in the show notes for other people.
16:34
And it's amazing how you kind of healed in not in public, but for
16:41
others maybe not healed, but you've been processing this
16:45
publicly. That's a better way to put.
16:47
It Yeah. I wouldn't say of how healing is
16:50
is going to be a long ride, but yeah, yeah, definitely
16:53
processed, yeah. And I think it's worth following
16:58
that journey for a little bit because something that was quite
17:03
profound to me is you kind of got onto it really quickly.
17:07
You, you, the, the, the really important.
17:12
I mean, you realise that not enough people ask for help, but
17:16
rather than add another beat to that drum that is continually
17:22
being made, you asked for help from your network.
17:28
You said I need you guys to text me every day a quote.
17:33
Get up you fat bastard, and exercise.
17:38
Yeah, yeah. And I've still got a couple now.
17:45
I still get a few even April. And I was, I asked for help in
17:48
December for 30 days and in April the next year, I've still
17:52
got a few who follow through. One of my mates, A bloke called
17:56
Hamish Monroe, he's still, still every few days and God bless
18:01
him, he's just been there the whole way.
18:03
But yeah, I was it, it, it, it was an amazing thing to do.
18:08
I just did it on the spur of the moment because I, I knew I
18:10
needed help. I just, I knew my instinct told
18:14
me that that if I didn't get moving, that grief was just
18:23
going to overwhelm me and I wouldn't be able to get moving.
18:27
And I just knew that if I got out and did something, some sort
18:33
of activity exercise, that I would I'd get through it
18:37
eventually or get through the worst of that early stage, you
18:42
know. And so I, yeah, I just asked
18:45
people. I just said, you know, just send
18:49
me a message every day. And those of you that can come
18:52
and do Federal Falls with me, which is a, a track near Oranges
18:57
Trail, It's really just a good loop.
19:00
And people showed up, you know, and it was amazing.
19:02
Like, you know, one day I had five of Johannes's mates come
19:06
and do it with me. These 18 year old, 19 year old
19:08
guys just came out and smashed it out with me.
19:11
I had a mate from Queensland who was visiting his mum in
19:14
Bathurst, an old footy mate. He drove over and came and did
19:17
it with me one day, you know, I just had people turn up and it
19:21
was the, the, it, it, it taught me that if you ask for help,
19:27
people will show up. The hardest part is asking.
19:32
But once you ask, people show up for you.
19:34
And people love to be asked for help.
19:36
They love it makes them feel like they've have a purpose.
19:39
And everyone wants to feel they have a purpose, you know?
19:44
Another thing that, and I think the reason people help is
19:47
because almost everyone's been through something and you found
19:52
it that way too, where people would say, hey, I've been
19:56
through this, I've been through that.
19:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a lot of people.
20:03
Yeah. That's probably something else.
20:05
Actually, now that you mention it is.
20:07
People talk about their own grief and they compare, you
20:12
know, They go, Oh well, you know.
20:16
I lost my mum, so I sort of know how you feel, but oh, but it's
20:19
not the same, you know, oh, it's not as bad as what you're going
20:22
through. And what I learned is it's
20:26
nothing is as bad or as good or anything.
20:28
It's not relative, you know, the grief that you feel in yourself
20:32
for whatever you are going through is real and it's not
20:36
comparable to anything else and it doesn't need to be.
20:39
It's relative to you, yeah. You know, the grief that I'm
20:42
feeling is the same grief that you felt when you lost your mum
20:45
or the same grief you felt when you lost your dad.
20:47
Same grief I felt when I lost my mum, same grief somebody else
20:51
feels when they lose their husband or you know, it's it's,
20:55
it's all the same. And I think, you know, it just
21:01
deserves to be treated with that sort of kindness.
21:05
I agree. I I it's maybe something that
21:09
having kids taught me is watching my kids blow up at the
21:14
slightest little thing. It's like, well, hold on,
21:17
Relative to them, this is a big deal.
21:19
That's right. And it's like they're in.
21:22
Yeah, but the hardest moment of someone's life is the hardest
21:27
moment of their life. They only know how to deal with
21:29
it, the tools they got in it. Yeah.
21:33
Look, there are objective things that are quote unquote harder in
21:37
a sense, but it it's it's almost pointless to compare because you
21:43
don't know what you don't know. You can only operate on what you
21:46
got. Exactly.
21:47
Yeah. Yeah.
21:49
You, you kept the. It's funny.
21:51
One of the things that came to my head was when you said about
21:55
you wanted to keep moving, otherwise you thought the grief
21:58
would overcome you. There's a story that sticks in
22:01
my mind about the what is it, the bulls or the cows that run
22:04
away from the rain versus the bulls or cows that run towards
22:08
it? When, when, When you run away
22:11
from it, you stay in the rain a bit longer because it passes.
22:14
Over you, I say. And towards it, run through it,
22:17
you still get wet, but yeah, it it just lingers for a little bit
22:20
less time. And it's comment to you that you
22:27
kind of ran towards your pain, your grief, to help process it
22:33
for yourself. But very quickly in the journey,
22:37
you shifted a little bit your tone.
22:39
It was less comprehension, less understanding too.
22:44
I want to help someone like Johannes, like myself.
22:50
I want to help them before it's too late.
22:55
Yeah, I guess that that tone shift probably happened around
23:00
the time that I started because I wanted to understand, you
23:04
know, I wanted to understand what took him to that place, you
23:08
know, what drove him to that feeling of having no way out,
23:12
you know, what, what led him to that.
23:15
And so I just started listening to things and reading and, and
23:19
you know, audio books and podcasts and, and then I would
23:24
mention a book in a podcast or something, I'd get it and read
23:27
it and, and it, it just became immediately obvious to me how
23:33
little I knew about the risk factors and how poorly informed
23:39
I was. And it, and it really shocked
23:41
me. And I just my immediate thought
23:45
was, my God, there are other parents out there like me who
23:50
have the same ticking bomb in the background that he's going
23:54
to go off one day. And they, they are not aware of
23:57
any of the circumstances around it.
24:00
Just like we weren't, you know, and I just wanted to do whatever
24:05
I could, what little I could to, you know, if I could shift one
24:11
or two people a couple of degrees off that path and they
24:15
ended up not crashing into the wall at the end.
24:18
That's that was success, you know, that's what I was after.
24:22
And I loved one of the examples they used.
24:25
I said to you before we started recording, you've got this
24:29
beautiful way of painting pictures with your words,
24:34
stories. You mentioned it briefly on the
24:37
phone, how you saw all the roadsides coming.
24:42
Yeah. But then when you turned around.
24:47
Yeah. They were showing something
24:49
different. Yeah, I, it was an image that
24:53
came to me early and it stayed with me.
24:54
It was. And I, I remember saying it to
24:57
somebody one day they were asking how I was and I said, I
24:59
feel like I've been driving down a a long road and looking at the
25:05
road signs going past. And now I'm at the other end and
25:09
I'm looking back and all those Rd signs say something different
25:12
on the other side. And it what it was, was a
25:17
reference to all of those things that I observed in Johannes
25:21
along the way, but I had no framework for understanding what
25:24
they were. And when I looked back, I
25:28
suddenly realised, oh, that thing, that thing, that thing.
25:31
Those were all little indicators that there was something wrong
25:35
and I just had no framework or knowledge to be able to make
25:40
sense of them. Yeah, there's one example you
25:46
use and I'll and I'll introduce it with my own example.
25:51
A few months before my dad died, we had somewhat of a falling
25:58
out. He'd done something.
26:01
He was, he was having an affair. And I told him that I was
26:07
disappointed. That's what I said to him for
26:12
almost no other reason than that it's what felt like the right
26:15
thing to say. I think watched enough TV shows
26:18
and movies to to feel like that. That is what is said in this
26:22
moment. When you're 80 and you think you
26:24
know it all. Definitely.
26:26
And I definitely regret it, not because of the outcome, but
26:29
because that's and it's shaped me.
26:31
I don't if I wanted him to be part of my life, I should have
26:36
found a way to deal with that there and then and move forward.
26:40
However, we wanted to move forward, but there was a moment
26:45
where, yeah, I applied a thing and I didn't pay any attention
26:51
to the pain that he was probably feeling.
26:54
At the same time, you told a story about a certain car troop
27:04
and there's a bit of humour in this.
27:06
Yeah, a certain car troop you are driving with.
27:08
Yeah, yeah, I picked him up. I always try and I still do
27:14
wherever possible. I try to drive my kids back to
27:17
boarding school. Couple of reasons.
27:20
One, because it's a few hours in the car that I get to spend with
27:23
them. And two, because I want them to
27:27
always feel like somebody cares enough to take them to school,
27:31
not just Chuck them on a train. That said, my middle boy AJ is
27:36
on the train on Monday just because logistics didn't work.
27:39
But you know, wherever I, wherever I could, I tried to
27:42
drive them back. And I picked Johannes up one day
27:46
to take him back to school and he got in the car and he chucked
27:49
his airports in and, and didn't say anything.
27:55
And we drove out of town and drove out of town and got to
27:59
Bathurst and still hadn't said a word and kept going and got
28:04
nearly to Lithgow and still hadn't said anything.
28:06
And I was starting to boil a bit, you know.
28:08
And because you're a parent and you've got all the stresses that
28:14
come with parenting and you've got other things going on around
28:17
work and all that sort of stuff and under pressure, and you're
28:21
taking time out of your day and you think you should be
28:23
appreciated for doing what you're doing.
28:25
And when they don't talk to you, you start getting irritated.
28:28
And so I said to myself, well this kid doesn't talk to me, by
28:34
the time he's to Lithgow I'm going to go to the train station
28:37
and put him on a train. And he didn't say anything.
28:40
So we got to Lithgow and I turned around and drove around
28:44
through Lithgow to the train station and he had his head in
28:47
his phone and didn't realise what was happening.
28:49
And I got out and walked over the road and bought a ticket and
28:51
came back, gave him the ticket and said and he said well what's
28:53
going on? And I went mate, you can not
28:55
talk to me on the train just as easy as you can not talk to me
28:59
in the car. So see you later and it saves me
29:04
a 2 hour round trip as well. So you know, I'll catch you and
29:09
I'll put him on the train. And at the time I thought it was
29:14
a bit of tough love that was necessary.
29:17
And the further I get away from it, even before he died, you
29:22
know, I just realised it was completely wrong.
29:24
I just completely, it was just the wrong thing to do.
29:28
And I just realised that he was he was struggling.
29:34
You know, that was the reason he wasn't talking was not because
29:38
he was being rude or arrogant or anything like that, because he
29:41
wasn't that sort of kid. He was a good kid.
29:43
So I should have been coming at it from that point of view and
29:46
going this kids a good kid. Why is a good kid feeling so
29:52
silent? Why is he not able to speak up
29:54
or engage? And the answer I would have got
29:58
would have been he's daunted by going back to school, he's
30:04
homesick, he's sad about leaving home.
30:06
You know, he was a real homebody.
30:07
He loved being at home. And he, and it would have been
30:12
obvious to me that he was struggling.
30:14
So, I mean, at the time, we butted heads about it for a few
30:18
weeks after that. And that was probably the
30:19
biggest falling out that he and I ever had after that.
30:24
And we didn't ever have anything like that ever again.
30:27
But I regretted it. And it was, I told that story
30:32
because I felt really strongly about the realisation that I'd
30:36
come to that he was a good kid who was behaving badly because
30:40
he was under pressure and he needed help, not because he was
30:44
a bad kid behaving badly. And I think a lot of parents we
30:47
we make that mistake. I've made it as recently as
30:52
yesterday, like my my son's five and he's, I feel like they're
30:58
all trying on new shoes, they're trying on new personalities all
31:01
the time. And he's picked up a habit that
31:03
I don't think is a good one. And I was like getting a bit
31:07
harsh on him. As as harsh as you can be on a 5
31:10
year old. But that lens, no, no, hold on.
31:14
Jimmy's a good boy. He's a good kid.
31:16
This isn't anything that needs to be nipped in the bud early.
31:21
This is just this is just a natural ebb and flow or
31:24
something that just needs to be observed or at different angle.
31:28
I think it's a really useful angle.
31:32
I think the other thing that came out of it for me was what
31:35
did I demonstrate to him? And what I demonstrated to him
31:39
was if you don't do what I want, I'm going to punish you.
31:44
And I'm not present and available for you in a Safeway
31:49
for you to talk to me. There's no safety here.
31:53
There's no security here. You either do what I want or you
31:58
will be unhappy about the outcome.
32:00
And that's just the that whole set of assumptions and practises
32:07
and behaviours that I was demonstrating are just all
32:13
counterproductive. You know, really for, and if
32:16
we're talking about suicide as the ultimate outcome, the
32:22
ultimate expression of of sadness and hopelessness, then,
32:27
you know, those sort of things start with showing boys that
32:31
they are unsafe, that the place they are in is not going to
32:38
treat them well fundamentally. And, you know, that's just
32:44
fortunately, I, you know, that that example sticks with me
32:47
because I only did it really the once.
32:49
Yeah. But yeah, that's why, that's why
32:53
I shared it. Yeah, and it kind of leads into
32:57
something that is part of your journey now, which is stuff that
33:03
you want other parents to know, I guess Not just about, you
33:09
know, the behaviour that we can have with the kids, but about
33:13
what their kids might be going through or where they're at and
33:18
things to look out for. Yeah, I mean, I, when I started,
33:24
I, I wasn't sure who I was talking to.
33:26
I wasn't sure if I was talking to the boys themselves and boys
33:29
and young men themselves or whether I was talking to the
33:32
parents. And it became increasingly clear
33:34
that I was talking to the parents.
33:37
You know, there's, there's some people out there doing amazing
33:40
work with boys and young men. You know, if you've come across
33:44
Tommy Herschel, find your feet. Find ya YA feet ithinkwehave.org
33:52
and Tommy's a legend and and the stuff that he does is just
33:55
amazing and I could never hope to connect with boys and young
34:00
men on the level that he does, you know, and he does work in
34:03
schools and NRL clubs and all that sort of stuff, I think.
34:07
Jake Traboyevich mentioned it. He spoke with Benny just.
34:10
Recently, that's right. Yeah, Correct.
34:12
Yeah, Jake would have done that so.
34:14
And Tommy's the Northern beaches guy, so.
34:17
Fly. Together.
34:18
Yeah, that's right. Exactly.
34:19
But so my point is, you know, there's guys like that that are
34:22
just doing incredible work with boys and who relate really well
34:26
to them. And the contact that I was
34:30
getting, you know, the feedback and the messages and stuff that
34:33
I was getting was all from parents saying I've got two
34:39
boys, I've got three boys. They're, they're footy players,
34:41
they're 16, they're 17, they're 18, they're in high school,
34:44
they're at boarding school. They're, they're all these
34:47
similarities with what we went through with Johannes.
34:51
And they're saying we don't know, we don't know what to do.
34:55
We don't know if there are any risks present.
34:58
We we just don't know what. What can you tell us?
35:01
What can you tell them? What can I tell them?
35:04
Well. What would you tell yourself?
35:10
What I would say as a broad brush stroke before we got into
35:15
the detail is listen to your intuition, but not necessarily
35:22
your anxiety, right? Every, every parent's got
35:26
anxiety. We're all worried about our kids
35:28
every minute of every day, right?
35:30
Don't listen to the worry that's ever present.
35:34
Scratch that away and look underneath for the intuition.
35:38
And if your intuition is telling you that there's something a bit
35:41
off, then it's pretty likely that there is.
35:46
And that's the stuff that you need to be looking at.
35:50
And I, I look at it as a, as a four lane highway, right.
35:58
So imagine you got a four lane highway heading off into the
36:00
distance, and on the left you've got beaches and beautiful parks
36:05
and it's all lovely on the left and on the right you got a big
36:08
Cliff. And lane one is normal life, you
36:12
know, you go through life, everything's pretty good.
36:17
Not too many dramas. Occasionally you move into lane
36:19
2, something happens that's bad, you know, and you deal with it
36:23
momentarily. But then you get back into lane
36:25
one. Everything's good.
36:28
If things are get chronically bad, you end up in lane three,
36:32
you know, anxious, depressed, feeling like a burden, and you
36:38
don't come back from there very easily.
36:40
You tend to spend a lot of time in lane 3.
36:43
And then if something goes particularly bad, you know, you
36:47
start getting really poor sleep. Or if you're an older boy or a
36:51
young man, you might start drinking or using some drugs or
36:54
whatever. And then you're in lane 4 right
36:57
next to the Cliff, and it only takes the smallest thing to bump
37:00
you off the edge. So what you're trying to do is
37:05
see when boys get up into lane 3, which is all of the stuff
37:12
around that leads to suicidal ideation, you know, suicidal
37:18
thoughts and headed off before they start dipping into some of
37:25
the risk factors for action. And what you got to know about
37:30
boys and young men is right through the early 20s, their,
37:36
their frontal cortex is underdeveloped.
37:40
And so naturally their appreciation of consequences and
37:45
their ability to understand risk and their ability to make
37:50
quality decisions is not great anyway, just in boys from when
37:55
they're 15 to when they're about 22, you know that that ability
37:59
is not fantastic for a lot of them just because their brains
38:02
growing and developing. So when you combine that with
38:05
things like anxiety and lack of sleep and so on and so on, you
38:10
start piling those things up, it gets bad really quickly and they
38:15
become very impulsive. They lack the ability to
38:19
appreciate consequences of their actions, and that's dangerous.
38:24
I think you've laid it out really well about how to just
38:28
observe the different, I guess, lanes that someone might be in
38:34
and what they can do to help push back to that left lane.
38:39
Yeah. Yeah.
38:41
How are you going now? Because we are.
38:45
Is that? Six months.
38:47
Yeah, 5 and a bit 5-6. It'll be 6 on the 10th of May.
38:54
So how how the process unfolded for me and grief is very
38:58
individual as you know, you know, it's, I wouldn't presume
39:03
to say that this is how it should unfold for anyone else.
39:05
But for me in the early stages, as I said, it was just pure
39:13
shock. And it took me a few weeks to
39:15
really start feeling it. And then I just, probably every
39:21
few days I was having a bit of a breakdown and then I'd get
39:24
through a couple of days and then I'd have a bit of a
39:26
breakdown and the space between those got longer.
39:32
And I just find that now I'd probably go a week or a week and
39:37
a half without really feeling that sad.
39:41
I can sort of distance myself from it and be fairly logical
39:45
about it. But then every now and again,
39:48
you know, somebody close to me will ask the right questions or,
39:53
you know, say the say the right thing and I'll say the right
39:55
thing because it's it's important to feel it.
39:58
You know, people make you make you cry and they go, oh, jeez,
40:03
I'm sorry, you know, oh, sorry, I said the wrong thing.
40:05
And yeah, no, no, that's I'm feeling what I want to feel.
40:09
You know, you've touched the thing that I care about the
40:12
most. You know, last night I was, I
40:17
was having a chat and. Person I was with just asked a
40:22
few really, really insightful questions actually.
40:25
And it just really got me. And I and I, you know, I had, I
40:30
had to cry for 10 minutes, you know, questions about Johannes,
40:38
you know, what was he like? What did he, you know, when
40:43
certain things happened, what, what did he do?
40:45
How did he, how did he deal with certain situations?
40:47
You know, they were just talking about him.
40:49
And talking about him is it's a bittersweet thing, You know,
40:55
it's, you know that it's going to make you sad, but the payoff
41:00
is he's alive for those moments you're talking about it.
41:03
So, you know, you want people to talk about him.
41:07
And we always talk about him. You know, we, we talk about him
41:10
in the same way that we always did.
41:12
And we laugh about him and we laugh at him.
41:16
And yeah, we, we do all the same things that we used to do.
41:22
And we miss him, you know, but it's, it's, it's an important
41:27
thing, I think, for people to know.
41:28
And I'm touching on grief, which is not really my subject outside
41:33
of lived experience, but. Your grief is your subject.
41:35
Well, yeah, what I would say to people who are around people who
41:40
are grieving is ask the questions about the person.
41:49
Don't feel like you're going to upset somebody.
41:51
You know, we actually want to talk about the person.
41:53
We want to talk about them. We want to talk about what we
41:56
loved about them and what they were like and all those sort of
41:58
things, you know, and, and if we look like we're getting upset,
42:02
we're not. We're just in touch with the
42:04
thing that we care about the most.
42:06
Yeah, I, I agree, especially if you're close to that person.
42:11
If you're, if you like, you can ask the question.
42:14
I think you just got to. You just got to go with your
42:17
gut. Yeah.
42:18
And yeah, look, it'll become clear if you shouldn't be
42:22
talking about it. Yeah, I mean, you're talking
42:25
about it. But I've seen it too many times
42:27
where people are almost waiting, waiting to be asked.
42:30
And when you unlock that door? Yeah.
42:33
It's it's lovely because, yeah, like you say, they get to relive
42:40
something that they hold so dear.
42:42
And yeah, it's not, it's not, not not even close to what that
42:46
like we wish we could have, but it is, yeah, it's all we got and
42:51
we want to savour it and make the most of it.
42:56
You know, at my dad's funeral, he had a three volley salute and
43:00
one of the boats from the Navy, he came up and he gave me some
43:04
of the bullets. And in the eulogy I gave, there
43:07
was a quote. To live in the hearts we leave
43:09
behind is not to die. And I had it on my key chain.
43:13
I've still got it just around the house and it just reminds me
43:20
like I think about my dad every day, think about mum every day
43:23
no matter what. But it's just so nice to have
43:26
little things that prompt you out of the blue.
43:32
How does Johannes feature in your day to day at the moment?
43:42
Well, day to day, yeah. I mean, I'm the same as you.
43:46
I think about him all the time and and he's with me all the
43:49
time. The time of year at the moment
43:54
is tough because it's early footy season and footy season
43:58
for our family and for me with my boys was always just such a
44:05
it was a joyful time. You know, it was a we launched
44:08
into footy season. We used to go and we'd have,
44:12
we'd have a day right where we'd set aside early season and go
44:15
and buy footy boots. And it was like a big day,
44:18
right. Today we're going to go buy
44:19
footy boots Friday. Yeah.
44:21
And even when I stopped playing, I was still, I was just as
44:23
excited Go and buy footy boots for them, you know?
44:25
Yeah. And that was a big, a big thing
44:29
that we used to do. And footy season's always been a
44:31
huge thing for us. And, and you know, when Johannes
44:35
was in the 1st at Joey's and then when he started playing at
44:37
South, it was just every, everyone in the family was so
44:43
invested in what he was doing that, you know, losing him, We
44:49
didn't only lose him, we lost all of that.
44:51
You know, we lost all of that connection to those communities
44:54
and that sort of thing. But so we, we, we still, we
45:00
support Souths a lot just because, you know, his flatmates
45:05
are still or one of his flatmates are still playing Liam
45:09
Le Blanc and some of his good mates, you know, Tom Fletcher
45:13
and John Grey and Maddie Humphreys.
45:15
You know, those are all good mates of his that are that are
45:17
playing. And so we try and support those
45:19
guys because that makes us feel close to him.
45:21
And that's that's just a thing that that we love to do and and
45:27
it keeps him alive for us. But I it little, it's just
45:32
little things, you know, little, little things that people say
45:36
and little stories that come up along the way that that make us
45:40
laugh about him, you know, and remember him.
45:42
You know what it's like. Yeah, and I mean, I might be
45:46
pulling the curtain back a bit on how, what would you say how
45:52
silly I am? But we've got whenever we see a
45:56
feather, we call it agg. That's my what?
45:58
My what My mum wanted to be called as a grandma.
46:02
We've got little like quirks like that where we we pretend we
46:08
allow it to be for the moment that we think they're around.
46:12
You know, the GG put that GG there to say hello.
46:17
You know, we we take a little bit of I knew you had something
46:23
recently where you big S supporter now that you play like
46:28
I feel like every this is. Wordle.
46:31
Middle age man plays Wordle What?
46:34
That was just extraordinary. Yeah, we, I was sitting with
46:38
Johannes, sister Abby and Abby and I were at a cafe.
46:41
I think we're in Manly. And it wasn't very long after he
46:45
died. It was, it was in December,
46:46
maybe around Christmas or something.
46:49
And yeah, we're sitting there doing Wordle and.
46:53
And so Johannes was a rugby player.
46:55
He went to league and went to play for the Bunnies and Wordle.
46:59
That day when I was sitting there doing it with Abby for a
47:03
laugh, we just, we said, oh, we, you know, Hannis is with us
47:07
today. We should, we should put rugby
47:09
in. So we put rugby in and we got
47:12
the U and the B and the Y and say the next word we put in was
47:18
Bunny and that was it. So yeah, we got it in two that
47:24
day, which is one of the very few days you've ever got it in
47:26
two. And the 2 words were rugby
47:28
Bunny, yeah, which was just extraordinary to me, you know.
47:33
And we see that stuff a lot. We see, you know, we keep an eye
47:36
a bit like you guys. We we look out for bunnies all
47:39
over the place. Yeah, and I think it is what you
47:41
make it. Yeah, we had a fella on before
47:46
Murray who spoke about how he messages his his wife passed and
47:50
he messages his wife on Facebook often.
47:55
And it's just little, little things we do to keep the ones we
48:00
love alive. Because I will chat to my
48:05
parents all the time when I want to make a decision, I'll consult
48:10
them. I'll think about what they would
48:13
have said and I don't know when I I feel like that's another
48:18
thing. It's just normal.
48:20
You just want, you just want, want him around.
48:25
Yeah, absolutely. And I look at who knows,
48:30
everyone's got their own views about spirituality and and that
48:34
sort of thing. But I, I definitely feel him
48:39
with me. You know, he had this way of
48:44
answering the phone or greeting you when he opened the door.
48:49
And he'd, he'd say, hey dad, but he'd sort of run the 2 words
48:53
together and say, yeah, hey dad. It's just like this little hey
48:57
dad. And that was his, that's what he
49:00
said. You know, whenever he answered
49:01
the phone, he opened the door. And, and I hear that
49:06
occasionally, you know, like I just you get a feel that he's
49:09
around. And I hear that little Hey, Dad,
49:13
you know, isn't my mind playing tricks on me?
49:17
Is he with me? I don't know.
49:18
I don't care. You know, it makes me feel
49:21
better. And and I just love tuning into
49:23
him from time to time, you know, And and I know he's I know he's
49:30
with us. I know that, that, you know, the
49:32
spirit that I spoke about that was absent when I went to see
49:35
him at Lincoln. Yeah.
49:39
That spirit didn't disappear. It's just it's around us, you
49:45
know, and with us, I don't think people don't.
49:48
We don't lose people that we care about that much.
49:51
Yeah, we love that much. Yeah, they either.
49:54
Yeah. Like, it depends what you buy
49:56
into, depends what you believe, but it is ultimately what you
50:00
make it at the end of the day. It's.
50:05
Yeah. Like the same way that whatever
50:07
you've been through is yours. You know, your grief is your
50:09
grief. It's like your relationship with
50:12
whoever's past is your relationship with them.
50:17
I, I feel like there's just something that jumped out to me
50:22
and like that bloke I spoke to before, he relied a lot on
50:29
religion in his time. And our Ferrari is not
50:33
religious, but we try and champion everyone's positions on
50:41
how they get through things. And often spiritual can be such
50:46
a, a North star for people. And I don't know whether it is
50:49
for you, but I just want to because I think it also kind of
50:52
connects you with your journey from grief to or still grief
50:59
through grief to trying to help others.
51:01
And the quote you said was in our sleep.
51:04
Pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart,
51:10
until in our despair against our will, comes wisdom through the
51:14
awful grace of God. You've learnt so much through
51:20
this, haven't you? Oh.
51:23
Yeah, it's been without question the most formative event of my
51:31
life, the most unwanted formative event of my life also.
51:37
But yeah, I've, I've learned. I've learned so much not just
51:44
about about suicide and and the thinking and so on that leads up
51:49
to that, but about people, about relationships, about
51:54
friendships. Yeah.
51:57
It's been an extraordinary period of time.
52:00
And with all that knowledge, it seems like you're really
52:03
channelling it into movement that is tasked with teaching
52:12
people to say, hey, it's not a I'm not OK.
52:16
Yeah, I want boys to be able to say that boys and young men to
52:19
be able to say, hey, I'm not OK. And and that just that phrase
52:23
came out of how do you give them something that is just simple
52:29
and easy to say. But what I realised, and that
52:34
was early on when I sort of felt like maybe I was talking to
52:40
boys, but when I realised I was talking to their parents, then
52:43
it became how do you give parents an A better
52:53
understanding of how they show up so their boys can say that,
52:59
you know, how do you as a parent observe the signs?
53:02
How do you as a parent connect better?
53:05
How do you as a parent provide a space that's safe and quiet and
53:11
allows boys to talk when they're ready so that when they are
53:15
ready they can say, hey, I'm not OK?
53:20
And what do you, what do you envy?
53:22
I mean, you're still early, early in this piece.
53:26
What do you envision down the road with this I guess goal of
53:31
yours to help create that language but also create that
53:35
behaviour? I don't really know.
53:39
I've, I've got a lot of conversations going with people
53:43
who are involved in mental health in all sorts of ways.
53:48
I've got a lot of respect for everybody who works in, in the
53:53
space. You know, there's, there's some
53:54
amazing initiatives in the space.
53:58
There's very necessary research going on.
54:01
Black Dog has just released a really great report into teens
54:06
and screens, which is, you know, how social media use and so on
54:10
effects kids and there's some really interesting conclusions
54:12
in that. So that sort of research, that
54:15
sort of formal education and awareness is everywhere.
54:24
I think the risk with a lot of that is that it becomes
54:28
overwhelming for people and people just switch off.
54:33
I had some conversations early, a couple of journalists early in
54:39
the piece who rugby league journalists asked me did I think
54:42
that the NRL should have a mental health round for
54:45
instance. And I said no, I don't think
54:48
they should. And they said well, don't think
54:51
it's the NR LS responsibility. And I said well no, I don't
54:53
think it is their responsibility.
54:54
I think it's there's an opportunity for organisations
54:57
like the NRL who are very influential to do things, but
55:02
having a mental health round I think reduces it to a slogan and
55:06
I don't think that's helpful. Ultimately, the responsibility
55:13
rests with parents. And the really obvious, the
55:25
really obvious dynamic that parents are asking about and
55:29
saying they have difficulty with is connecting.
55:31
How do we connect with our boys in a way that they feel safe and
55:35
that they can actually talk to us?
55:37
And I think maybe, I think that in some ways probably comes with
55:45
broadening the circle of people that boys are connected to.
55:51
Any man knows that, you know, when you are in your late teens,
55:56
early 20s, you think your parents don't know anything.
56:00
And you know, I think we're all the same.
56:03
It, it's a, it's a story that's been told in various ways many
56:07
times. But the first time I heard it
56:09
was a rugby league player and I, it was someone in the, of the
56:14
ilk of Brad Fittler. I don't think it was Brad
56:16
Fittler, but it was someone along those lines years and
56:19
years ago. And he basically said, you know,
56:22
when I was 16, I thought my old man was an idiot.
56:25
And later on, when I was about 25, I was amazed how much he'd
56:29
learned in the last nine years. And I think that's true, you
56:34
know, and I think boys and, and young men, you know, it's one
56:38
thing for me to say to my boys, I'm proud of you, I love you.
56:44
I respect your effort. You know, I, I admire your
56:48
commitment, those sort of things.
56:49
But they expect that from me. If someone outside their circle
56:54
says it, you know, a, a, a family friend or a coach or a,
57:01
you know, just somebody that somebody else says, hey, I love
57:06
you, I respect you, I admire your achievement.
57:09
You're an important person to me.
57:11
You're an important person in my life.
57:13
That hits hard. And I think that's the sort of
57:17
stuff that they need to hear from a broader circle.
57:20
And I, I think our society's evolved in a way that we don't
57:23
have as many of those people around us, you know, extended
57:27
family and other people like that, that we had in the past.
57:30
Yeah, a network of role models. You can also work on the flip
57:33
side as well, Yeah. Like.
57:35
You know, like you say, that unique window where parents
57:39
don't know anything, you're not going to take feedback as
57:43
quickly as you could. But if somebody, maybe a that of
57:48
your friend, says you're being a bit of a, yeah, you know, bit of
57:54
a loony at the moment, pull your head in, you're much more likely
57:57
to take it on board. Yeah, that's true.
58:01
I mean, the guy that said it the other day that encapsulated
58:04
beautiful beautifully is a mate of mine, John Minto, who's an ex
58:08
Rabbitoh himself, you know, and and he said we were talking
58:12
about it the other day and he said, yeah, you have to show
58:14
boys how important they are to other people.
58:18
Yeah. And that was the, that was the
58:20
key thing, those 3 words to other people.
58:23
You can tell boys how important they are.
58:25
Mate, you're really important to me.
58:26
You know, I love you, all that sort of stuff.
58:27
But they have to understand that they're important to other
58:30
people. They already know they're
58:31
important to their parents. They know that.
58:33
And that actually comes with some pressure too.
58:36
But if they're they feel that they're important to other
58:39
people, then that becomes a real safety net, you know, it becomes
58:43
a real foundation that they can stand on.
58:46
Yeah. It's almost diversifying in a
58:49
way. So creating the layers to the
58:52
safety net, isn't it? Yeah.
58:53
Exactly. And you know, I talk about when
58:55
I talk about the four lane highway, what we're trying to do
58:57
as parents is set up a guardrail along that Cliff edge, you know,
59:01
so that they there's things that stop them from going over the
59:05
edge. Yeah, Andrew, where?
59:10
Because I know the people that will be listening to this right
59:14
now, they're probably parents. Where can they go or what?
59:19
What resources that first rung on the ladder that sets them off
59:23
on the journey on being equipped as as they need to be?
59:29
So the thing that was most impactful for me was a podcast
59:37
with a guy called Matthew Knock, who's a Harvard researcher.
59:41
He specialised in suicide for many years.
59:43
He's had lived experience himself and he did a podcast
59:48
with Jay Shetty and the link to that is in my bio on my, on my
59:52
Instagram profile. But I just got the transcription
59:58
of that and did a summary and a summary of the risk factors,
1:00:02
right. So there's think of it this way.
1:00:05
It's, it's pretty straightforward.
1:00:08
There are risk factors for suicidal ideations, suicidal
1:00:11
thoughts. And then it becomes a
1:00:14
progression. So people who sit with suicidal
1:00:17
ideation for a long time, if they then are also exposed to
1:00:22
the risk factors for suicidal action, they are more likely to
1:00:27
make an attempt. So what parents need to be doing
1:00:32
if they have concerns, is familiarising themselves with
1:00:36
those risk factors. And there's 3 or 4 risk factors
1:00:44
for suicidal ideation. Things like depression, anxiety,
1:00:50
lack of belonging, feeling like a burden, Those are the main
1:00:54
ones. Then there's a dozen or so for
1:00:58
suicidal action and they include trigger.
1:01:01
They're mostly triggers. So access to lethal means,
1:01:07
chronic sleep deprivation, use of drugs and alcohol, you know,
1:01:11
all these sorts of things. So what we're saying is people
1:01:14
who have those risk factors for ideation, if they stay in that
1:01:18
long enough, they progress to thinking about taking action.
1:01:22
And if those risk factors for action are present, that's when
1:01:26
kind of a catastrophe happens. And if I talk about Johannes in
1:01:32
practical terms, to give an example, he he'd always had some
1:01:39
level of anxiety and he put a lot of pressure on himself to
1:01:43
perform. And he was very conscious of
1:01:46
performing at a high level. You know, he's very goal
1:01:48
oriented and he was, he was a just a typical elite athlete
1:01:53
focused on performing and down on himself when he didn't.
1:01:57
So the anxiety was always present and then I think just
1:02:05
judging on some of the comments that he used to make to me and
1:02:08
things like that, I think he felt to some degree like he was
1:02:12
a bit of a burden on us. If I helped him out with a few
1:02:18
weeks rant or something like that, he'd he'd grumble and go,
1:02:20
oh jeez, I'm really sorry, dad. You know, that's, I know I
1:02:23
shouldn't be doing this. And I was like, mate, that's
1:02:24
what we do. We're parents, right?
1:02:27
But there was some level of burdensomeness and some level of
1:02:30
anxiety. So those are the risk factors
1:02:33
for ideation. And then he went to the GP for
1:02:38
help with sleep because he was having trouble sleeping.
1:02:41
So suddenly you've got anxiety, burdensomeness mixed with
1:02:44
chronic sleep deprivation. Young fella in the offseason
1:02:49
recovering from injury, having a few beers, don't know what else.
1:02:57
And then, you know, in the location where he is living
1:03:01
access to lethal means. So suddenly you start looking at
1:03:04
it that way and you can, the risk factors start piling up.
1:03:08
And this is what I mean when I said we didn't know anything,
1:03:11
you know, I just had no idea. I, he went to the GP, she said,
1:03:15
oh, you know, here's some medication will help with the
1:03:18
anxiety, Here's some melatonin to help with sleep.
1:03:22
If I'd known just those two and knew what I know now, I would
1:03:27
have just gone whoa, red flags. Massive red flags, because
1:03:31
anxiety mixed with chronic sleep deprivation is huge risk.
1:03:37
But I just didn't know. Didn't.
1:03:39
Know, and that's a lot of what you're trying to do now.
1:03:41
So what I would say to parents, back to your original question
1:03:43
is familiarise yourself with the risk factors at, at at the very
1:03:48
least, know what you're talking about, know what the risks are
1:03:52
so that you can start to recognise that stuff.
1:03:55
And when you're then talking to the GP, you know, you can say,
1:04:00
hey, anxiety, chronic sleep deprivation, I'm really
1:04:04
concerned about those things. What do we do about that?
1:04:08
You know, and don't be fobbed off with just, oh, well, he's
1:04:11
some, you know, try this, try that.
1:04:13
Like you need to take those things seriously, but you can
1:04:16
only do it if you know what they are.
1:04:17
Yeah, and we'll definitely put the link to that podcast,
1:04:21
Matthew Knock, you said. Matthew Knock with Jay Shetty.
1:04:23
And then summary you did and. Then there's also, yeah, the PDF
1:04:27
is. There's a link to that on my bio
1:04:28
as well. Yeah, but I can give you the
1:04:31
links and you can. You can.
1:04:32
I will do it, yeah. Put them up, yeah.
1:04:34
How can people help what you're trying to do in their everyday
1:04:37
life, but also, is there anything you're trying to do
1:04:40
that we can send people over from our community that have
1:04:45
resonated with you? What?
1:04:46
What can we do to help? I mean, I don't have a
1:04:51
foundation or anything like that.
1:04:54
What I would, I'd say a few things to, to people and not not
1:04:59
so much how can people help me, but how can they help boys?
1:05:05
What I would say is connect with the boys, you know, not just
1:05:09
your own boys, because you're actually more influential to
1:05:12
boys that you're not the parent of and that's helpful to their
1:05:16
parents. You know.
1:05:17
So connect with boys and young men that you know in the
1:05:19
community and ask how they're going.
1:05:23
Give them be be one of those people that provides them with a
1:05:27
wider circle. The second thing I would say is
1:05:34
definitely familiarise yourself with the risk factors, as we
1:05:37
said, but I'd also say if you really want to do something
1:05:41
tangible and you want to do some work for an organisation that
1:05:46
actually makes a difference. And I know this because I've
1:05:50
spoken to people who have been on the phone to them and have
1:05:53
said that was the turning point for me, and that's Lifeline.
1:05:58
Lifeline. I've just got endless respect
1:06:01
for the people who run Lifeline and work for it.
1:06:05
They're poorly funded. They deserve much better funding
1:06:08
than they get and the work they do is on the ground.
1:06:13
It actually makes a difference to people who are in crisis in
1:06:16
that moment. And I would say to people either
1:06:20
if you want to really help, donate some money to Lifeline or
1:06:24
volunteer for Lifeline. And then as a parent yourself, I
1:06:32
often, and, and this was when I talk about parenting, please
1:06:38
don't ever let me appear to be an authority because I screw it
1:06:44
up just as much as all of us. And you know, I've learned
1:06:48
through bitter, bitter experience.
1:06:49
But what I would say is our instinct as parents is to give
1:06:56
advice and correction. And when boys and young men are
1:07:02
struggling, those are the two worst things you can do.
1:07:07
There's a another link on my bio which has got some notes for
1:07:11
connection and it just talks about how connecting with boys
1:07:18
through just positive contact and encouragement, No questions,
1:07:24
no advice, no corrections, just reminding them that you're there
1:07:29
for them. Send them a text, send them a
1:07:31
handwritten note, drop a note in their lunch box or in their bag
1:07:36
or whatever that says, mate, I'm proud of you.
1:07:38
I'm thinking of you today. I admire the effort that you put
1:07:42
into training or that project or whatever it was just simple
1:07:47
statements that remind them that you're there for them.
1:07:51
You're not judging them, you're not advising them, you're not
1:07:53
correcting them. You're just there and you're
1:07:57
there when they need you. I couldn't agree more from from
1:08:03
feeling it and from being on the other side where I've tried to
1:08:07
fix people's problems. The most powerful times are when
1:08:13
you literally just say oh mate I'm here for you and then
1:08:18
silence. You're so right, you know, a
1:08:22
mate asked me at lunch yesterday.
1:08:24
What's the best thing I could do with, you know, my, my son, hey,
1:08:28
what's the best thing I could do?
1:08:29
And I went, mate, I don't want to be flippant, but shut the
1:08:32
fuck up. And that's the best thing we
1:08:35
could all do. Sit in the silence, give them
1:08:41
security, safety, silence and let them talk when they're
1:08:46
ready. And it might take a while for
1:08:49
them to be able to organise their thoughts in their head to
1:08:53
a point where they can actually say something.
1:08:57
And it's our job to provide them with the space to do it, not to
1:08:59
try and prod them and pull it out of them and reach down their
1:09:03
throat and drag the words out. You know, I say one of the
1:09:05
things that I said in one of my posts, which was totally off the
1:09:08
cuff and so many people commented on it, was our job is
1:09:12
to get information out, not put information in.
1:09:16
And we spend so much time putting information in.
1:09:17
Here's some advice. Here's some correction.
1:09:19
Did you do this? Did you do that?
1:09:20
Here's a question. You know, shut up.
1:09:23
Yeah, give them space and safety to talk when they're ready.
1:09:28
And it might take a few guys, You might sit there in silence
1:09:31
and get nothing. It's not about us getting a
1:09:33
response. That's the other thing.
1:09:34
We're so wedded to getting a response, you know, and I've
1:09:38
done it all. I did it with Johannes.
1:09:40
I used to, I used to manipulate and probably bully him in a way
1:09:49
to talk and eventually just corner him into talking and, and
1:09:52
finally when he talked, I'd feel like, right, I've got him
1:09:55
talking. That's what that was the aim.
1:09:57
And it was totally not the aim at all.
1:10:00
It was the wrong, just the wrong way to go about it all together.
1:10:04
He might have talked, but he only talked because he was
1:10:06
cornered into a place where he had no other option but to talk.
1:10:10
And that was my frustration and my own ego and pride trying to
1:10:14
get him to do what I wanted to do rather than allowing him to
1:10:18
talk about what he needed to talk about.
1:10:20
Yeah. You know, and that didn't happen
1:10:22
all the time, but it was there were times when that's, you
1:10:24
know, I let my my own needs get in the way of the conversation
1:10:30
that should have been taking place.
1:10:32
I think this, this example you've just given is, is the
1:10:37
right example to wrap up on because you said that you admire
1:10:43
Lifeline, as do I incredible organisation, Andrew, people
1:10:48
like you are the people that I admire, people that put effort
1:10:54
in to improve the patch of grass that they're on.
1:10:57
But do it in a way that you're, you're doing this in real time.
1:11:02
You're allowing people in to see you come to your conclusions and
1:11:08
trying to help people as you go. And I, I'm sure you've had
1:11:14
people reach out and let you know that you're making a
1:11:17
difference. But I'm telling you mate, there
1:11:20
will be people that will be following your journey one step
1:11:25
behind you and they will get so much out of what you're trying
1:11:29
to do to improve your patch of grass.
1:11:31
And I've just got respect for you.
1:11:35
Well, it's very humbling and I appreciate it.
1:11:37
Thank you. Yeah, I've had a lot of people
1:11:40
reach out and say that what, what they've seen in my content
1:11:48
has made a difference to them. And, and that, again, is really
1:11:51
humbling stuff. I, I, I don't at all intend to
1:11:56
be an authority. I'm not a clinician.
1:11:59
I'm a dad who lost a son that he loved very, very dearly.
1:12:04
And I felt like the only way to make a difference in the wake of
1:12:11
that was to share some of the experiences where I got it wrong
1:12:17
and share what I'd learned so that other people could be
1:12:21
better. It's admirable and thank you.
1:12:26
Pleasure, Thanks for having me. No thanks for coming.