The impact of Bipolar Disorder on children: A Personal Perspective - Interview with Kerrie Atherton

In this episode of Stories of Hope Worldwide, host Kerry Atherton interviews Joel Kleber, host of The Lived Experience podcast, about growing up with a parent who struggled with mental health.

Joel shares his defining moment of awareness at the age of seven and his traumatic experiences with his mother in psychiatric care. The episode focuses on the impact of parental mental health struggles on children, highlighting the need for support and understanding.

[00:00:00] Parental Mental Health Effects Children.
[00:03:15] Foster care and family struggles.
[00:08:39] Bipolar disorder.
[00:08:57] Parental Mental Health.
[00:13:02] Father's rejection issues.
[00:14:43] Coping mechanisms and masks.
[00:19:02] Harmful psychiatric ward experiences.
[00:20:28] Inner vows and survival.
[00:23:16] Foster care experiences.
[00:26:03] Overcoming complacency in childhood.
[00:29:04] Mental health funding and awareness.
[00:31:49] Electric convulsive therapy and mental health.
[00:35:02] ECT treatment controversies.
[00:38:15] Self-care strategies.
[00:41:10] Negligence in Mental Health Profession.
[00:44:10] Forgiveness and self-care.
[00:48:13] Childhood trauma and development.
[00:50:12] Dealing with trauma.
[00:53:26] Mental health and children.

Big thanks to Kerrie for taking an interest and you can learn more about her here - https://storiesofhope.com.au/

Transcript

0:00

When she was in the psychiatric boards for example, it was all about you know bring my kids to me, bring my kids to me, bring my kids to me. And like they would want to do anything to just shut her up. So they'd take us to the psychiatric and we wanted to see our mum don't get us wrong. But um you know we'd be taken to the psychiatric board by the case worker or the social worker and they'd just walk us through there and leave us in a room with our mum after she's at ECT and she's drooling on her face. Then she gets up and then she starts grabbing us and goes I want you to introduce you to people and starts walking us around a psychiatric board. It introduces us to people that have cuts in their arms or just you know scary looking people and there's no context and the nurses and stuff just allowed us. Welcome to another episode of Stories of Hope Worldwide. I'm Kerry Atherton and I'm your host and today's guest is Joel Kleber. Welcome Joel. Thanks for having me Kerry. Joel you're the host of the podcast The Libd Experience. And today we're going to be talking about mental health and one in five well the statistics are that one in five struggle with mental health. But today we're really going to be focusing on what happens to a child when a parent is struggling with mental health. And that's something that you and I both have in common and and as I've shared on your podcast as well I too grew up in a household where my mum struggled with mental health. But for you, you were seven weren't you when you had a really defining day in your life and you discovered about your mum for the first time. Yeah thanks for having me on Kerry. Yeah absolutely. So I called the moment of awareness. I think everyone has that when they realize that they're parent or their situation or they understand a bit more about reality than having let's say a child in a way. And basically what happened was I had no idea about my mum's bipolar at the time really. And then what happened was we went to school and then during school everything was fine. She made our breakfast and took us there. And then basically I think it was the principal came to the classroom with a couple of police and basically pulled me out to the principal's office. Which wasn't a bad time getting pulled out of class by two police. That's a pretty good thing for your reputation when you're a young kid. But basically sat me down in office and said your mum's in hospital and you're gonna have to go to the police. And you sort of think well what's wrong you know broken leg or broken arm or something like that. But he wouldn't really tell me so he just basically said you got to go up these people. And you know you leave school they put you in the back of the Divy Van. You think it's a bit of a novelty at the time but they put you in a Divy Van and took us to the local human services office in a shopping centre in a place called Mirabuka. Which is a pretty rough area in Perth. People will know if you know Mirabuka will know. And then you get taken to this human services office with my younger sister. And then basically you're in there and you sit down and you still don't know what's going on. And then you know this older gentleman you know really old suit. You know the horseshoe haircut. Some guy not much not a really sort of friendly looking bloke for a kid. And then basically he says you know look your mum's very unwell. You know because you've got no family over here and no one to take care of you. We've tried to make contact with your dad but you know he can't come back quickly. You know you have to go stay with this lady which is pretty much it. And then next thing you know you're in this strange lady's house. He was in a suburb called Beachborough. It wasn't too far away from where we lived but it felt like a mile away. So yeah you and then all of a sudden this lady's home as a foster care. And that's pretty much it. We weren't really told what was wrong with our mum. You know your reality changes like that. So you know you go to school with everything thinking it's okay. And then end of the day you're not at home. You're not in your bed. You're at some strange lady's house. And you know our dad was informed of it. Our dad was working in Saudi Arabia at the time. And it wasn't easy to sleep. You can't sleep Saudi Arabia straight away. So there was not much he could really do. At the time we didn't know that. At the time we think he didn't want he didn't want to come back. So that was very hard. Yeah you know in the space of a day you know your reality and your world view. Just completely shifts. And then from that moment on I sort of thought well. And you know you sort of lose all your your innocence and your your naivety. Being a kid you know when you're a kid you generally carefree. You know you're playing with your mates and stuff. There's no responsibility. You think money grows on trees. And you know you got food coming out here. Like it's it's you know your reality is you know really really you know you're just focusing on being a kid. And then from that moment when that happens you're getting all these things thrown at you. And no one's explaining anything to you. And once the excitement I guess a bit wears off you sort of. You know you're in a strange home in a strange bed. And you don't know what's really going on. And that was it. So within one day that happens. And you know that story I've shared with you know I think Nine News or something did a story. And on the line but yeah it's pretty full on. And it's not something that I would think would be overly common. But to say that wouldn't have happened to people. You know I think it would have happened to a lot of people as well similar situations like that. Well we didn't talk about it did we. And I guess you get you just think that what goes on in your house is normal. And sometimes you know you're told to keep secrets. I mean I don't ever think that my parents said don't tell anyone that your mum drinks. You know but at the time I didn't realise my mum was an alcoholic. When she was locked in the bedroom every night. And was showing displays of emotional deregulation. But you think you kind of I didn't invite people home. And you just I kind of knew something wasn't right. But what about you looking back now you can see the signs I read that things weren't right. But at the time you you did you realise anything was wrong with your mum. Not really because that's you're right. What you said that's all we knew was we just knew her. It wasn't until after she went to hospital the first time then I realised she wasn't the same as other people. And I used to go to my friend's house a lot. And they used to have you know the nuclear family of a mum and a dad. And you know the dad would go to work and the mum would my mum would go to work as well sometimes. But it was more of a really nice environment. Whereas my place when I look back and it was pretty interesting. But you know you're right I didn't know anything different about it. She never told us about her condition at all. She never tried to explain it at all. And she basically once we did find out about it. Or once we knew what was happening she just basically said don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone at school. All that sort of stuff she was very embarrassed by it. But in hindsight it was a very selfish thing to do. Because we know we were exposed to such a significant trauma at seven. And I've been told before that as well there were incidents. So she was taken away in psychiatric wards and stuck before the age of seven. I just have clear memory of the one from seven. There were incidences before like you know my dad told me just after I was born she was manic. She had this little Suzuki mighty boy. And I was in the baby capsule in the seat and she was driving somewhere and she flipped the car. These sorts of things and then at the age of four you know she tried to commit suicide. And was in a psychiatric ward and stuff like that. So these are things that happened before seven. But I don't have any real vivid memory of them. This is just stuff what people tell me. But the seven one I bring up is because I do remember that very distinctly. And that's the sort of line on the stand. I go well I'm not a child anymore. I was more of an adult. So that was sort of the awakening moment. But yeah nothing was told to me. I didn't know any of any difference. Like my mom was a great mother to me. And you know really good household. We were very lucky at the time because this changed very quickly later on. Which I'll get to. But my dad at the time he was working in Saudi Arabia. He was only home two weeks a year. But he was on really really good money. So he had to work there because he couldn't get a job over here because he went to jail. So he had to go to Saudi Arabia. And was basically working for the Saudi Telecom over there. Making all the JCN networking stuff. So he was on really really good money. But he was sending all that money back. And you know we had a great lifestyle for a short time. But my mom's has no money management or awareness about anything. So she'd just spend it all that sort of stuff. So you know we had a really good middle income sort of life. Until that incident really happened. We didn't really know. There was no there's nothing really indicating otherwise. But from what I talk to my dad now and to other family members and stuff. There's a lot of stuff that happened before. So when I look back and go gee whiz I'm very lucky. I was very lucky to be here. Yeah absolutely. I'm just reflecting because I know exactly what you're talking about. Many days you know were uncertain for me when I was younger as well. And we probably I don't think we've mentioned the word yet. But we're talking about bipolar here aren't we? Yes bipolar disorder. So she was she was type one. So mom was more more manic. Yeah. As she got older she sort of tended to go be a bit more depressed. But when she was well she was a great great mother. But when she got really unwell and when she went manic. You know it was full blown mania. It was very very hard to bring her down. And every time she'd have to go to a psychiatric ward. She was always involuntary. She never went once voluntary. So it would always be an ambulance called or the police called. And that was really embarrassing when we were younger. Because we didn't have any family in Perth at the time. Which is silly by her because she's one of 11 brothers. She had 11 she's one of 11. So she had 10 brothers and sisters. And because she wanted to make it on her own. She decided to leave Warrnambool. Then go to Melbourne where she met my dad. But then because he went to jail and stuff he couldn't get a job there. They had to go to Perth which was a really silly decision. Because they knew she would get unwell. And then she was isolated over here. So if something happened to her you know you can't. You know he was over here and family's all over here. So our family didn't even know we were in foster homes and stuff. Until they ended up bringing us back when we were 12. They didn't even know we were in foster homes. Or she was in psychiatric wards and stuff like that. Which they told me later. So we had this period where we probably could have been helped. But we weren't helped because they just didn't know about it. And that was because of her selfishness in reflection on. In regards to her condition and being embarrassed. And she wanted to prove that she could run her household. But in hindsight that was a very very silly decision by her. And that put us at a lot of risk. And a lot of traumatic situations. Which I'm sure you went through as well. Due to your parent not really putting you. Or you know not speaking for your parents. But like you know for my mum. Even though she thought she was putting us first all the time. She was very very selfish in her actions upon reflection. Yeah my dad told me when I was older. That he used to go to work when we were little. And not know if any of us would be alive when he came home. And I think how terrifying for him to go off to work each day. Like that. With living with that kind of uncertainty. Yeah well I thought that as well. But that was in another country. Yeah well I thought as well you know. Look I didn't speak to my dad for a long long time. I only really connected with him probably like last year. Because I thought the same thing you know. You've got to. You chose a lady. She had bipolar disorder and you had two kids with her. And just because you can't get the job that you want in where you live. Means you have to go overseas. But you could have done Bricky's Labour. You could have done whatever. But you know with his career you wanted to do that. So he chose his career and thought he was doing the right thing. By you know leaving us there. But he left us with a really unwell. She was a great mother when she was really well. But when she was unwell and which he knew she would get unwell. It was a very very dangerous environment to live in. And you're right you know. How could you justify the parent being overseas. And leaving your kids there for a very unstable person. She was a great mother. Like don't get me wrong when she was well. But she didn't manage her condition well at all. Which led to regular hospitalisations. Yeah and you mentioned the word shame there. That would have been doubled for you with your dad being in jail. Oh look you know it was you know it wasn't too bad. That reason why we had to move from Melbourne to Perth was a very very smart man. But he's got very low emotional intelligence. But long story short it was a white collar crime. He was newly immigrated from over in Europe. And he was actually I don't know if you know the owners. There's a company called Midis Electrical. So Middendorf. So it's a Midis Electrical is a massive electrical chain. He was in business with these guys. And they basically screwed him over and he kept what he thought he was owned. And basically ended up doing nine months. You know done a little bit in Pentridge in Melbourne. In Coburg and then had because he was a white collar low-vis guy. Got moved to a farm. But he was just hard to get a job in the electronics communications field. So he had to move. Well he got a job with Siemens and Perth and then went to Saudi Arabia. But I think he ended up going overseas more just to get away from mum to be honest. So that's what ended up happening I guess. And he thought he was doing the right thing by sending money back. But you know with my mum was white collar. She had a big problem with money management. And you know staying well was a big problem for her. Yeah and as a counsellor Joel I counsel a lot of men and guys that have suffered rejection from their fathers. Do you? Oh yeah big problem. Yeah I was wondering if you can tell us about that. Like what kind of rejection issues did you suffer from? Oh yeah that's a good one. Very insightful question. I had a really big problem with rejection. And I mean I didn't put myself out there a lot of times. You know it was very hard to form a relationship with women. Because like I wouldn't put myself out there to go up there. Because if I got rejected it really really really hurt. And look it hurts anyone naturally to be rejected. But for me it really put me in a bad place. So to get over that rejection you know I drink a lot of alcohol and stuff when I went out. And I didn't want to do that because I knew I didn't have to. But that's what I had to do. I just never dealt with that trauma. But yeah you're right. You do. It was ingrained to me from a young stage. Our dad rejected us and chose his work over that. And it wasn't until last year I started talking to him about that. And he admitted to me he made a mistake. And I thought that's all good. But yeah I did. It does shape who you are. I'm a lot less risk adverse to things as well. So you know there's a few things. You know I'm in a job where I probably should. I ultimately want to do my own business. But I'm too scared to make that shit because of my fail and all sort of stuff. But you know rejection, really big problem. Took me a lot to get over with. And yeah it did. It does shape your personality. And because I didn't really deal with the childhood trauma at all. You know it manifests in other ways as you'd be aware. You know like alcohol and drugs and all that sort of stuff. Until you get a bit more mature you realise it's all tied back to that sort of stuff. And that was something I was going to come to also. Was what kind of coping strategies did you develop? And were they, did they lead you down a bad path? It wasn't a really bad path. Like you know I would have, I'd just be like a typical you know person on the weekend go out and get really drunk with mates and you know and whatever else. I wasn't a bad person at all. But my coping mechanism was really, you know I was really really, I always had masks at school. So I was never bullied when I was younger at school. I was generally you know the popular kid. I was really good at sport and stuff. So that was my defence mechanism. Oh that's great. I was never really bullied as a young person like which was really lucky. Because I could imagine if someone was that would have been really really hard. Yeah. I was actually lucky but that was all you know a mask. And you know because you know I worked out early. If you're good at sport you get certain allowances. So I was you know I was always made sure you know footy cricket all that sort of stuff. And I always had a lot of friends which was really really good. And I was never at home. So I never wanted to bring people home because mum was there. Yeah. She would always ask me. So I always want to go to mates house and stuff just for my no malady and for sleepovers and stuff. So I didn't really want to be there. It was very very hard because with my mum because my dad wasn't around. She treated me almost like as a de facto husband in a way. So her emotional even though she was looking after me in terms of caring for me with you know food and shelter and stuff. Yeah. You know she'd be like I'll give you an example right. So where we lived in WA this might get me in trouble but it's a fact. There's a lot of indigenous population and my mum would never like to go to the Mirabuca shops alone because she would always get harassed you know about giving me my money or whatever it is right. So she'd always just say you better come to come with me and protect me as a 10 year old. What am I going to do about nothing right. So she used to make me 10 o'clock at night I need to get money out. Put me in a car driving in Mirabuca very scary shopping center at night. I'm sitting there in the car like this and she's like watch out if someone comes tries to get me like you know telling you that as a 10 year old. So emotionally she was really dependent on me and my younger sister. Yeah. Which it shouldn't have been that way. She should have been the one week should have been the ones who could rely on her emotionally. But tended to be the other way around you know and because she was very proud of us as well. She used to you know really really most people say parents embarrass them. You're gonna get embarrassed by your parents as a smaller but she was really over the top. You know used to really make us feel uncomfortable in a lot of situations and really inflate our egos per se you know used to say we'll be out all these sort of things and this and that. And you sort of think that's a good thing but it was really really a bad thing in hindsight. She used to dote on me so much and she definitely preferred me over my sister which was not good before our dynamic. And she used to stay that clearly like I was a favorite and stuff like that which is not good. So as a parent she tried to do her best but she didn't manage a condition as well as well and it really did come out in her parenting sometimes and it does it did cause a lot of issues but back then there was no real support for her so I understand that. You know even now you know there are some supports in place with organizations who help kids and young carers we would call them now but there was nothing then like even when mum was in psychiatric wards and stuff they never offered us any counseling and stuff. So yeah it was very yeah looking back now is very traumatic and very interesting times. Yeah you're right there wasn't a lot of support back then and I remember you know now I think if only I'd had someone to talk to at school and you know I often say that people usually have a safe haven at home or at school and I think I shared with you that I didn't feel like I really had one anywhere but it sounds like you had a safe haven at school which was a saving grace for you probably. I love being out so I was never home I was always doing sport and stuff and I was always riding the bike around the neighborhood and whatever causing trouble like I never went home. Yeah. So I always didn't want to be there because I knew as soon as I went home she'd just be on me like this and just full on you know and that was that was quite frustrating and I knew once when I went to my friend's house more and more made it worse because I saw how their lives were and how their parents treated them and you know advised them and all sort of stuff and I went home and it was the complete opposite so you know we had a really good house at the time which was great and as I said we were looked after really really well but our mum taught us no life skills and probably did a lot of harm to us psychologically when we were younger how we parenting and I'll give you an example of the harm that was done like for example when she was in the psychiatric wards for example like you know it was all about you know bring my kids to me bring my kids to me bring my kids to me and like they would want to do anything to just shut her up so they'd make us you know take us to the psychiatric and we wanted to see our mum don't get us wrong but um you know we didn't take her to the psychiatric ward by the case work or the social worker and they would just walk us through there and leave us in a room with our mum after she's at ECT and she's drooling on her face then she gets up and then she starts grabbing us and goes I want you to introduce you to people and starts walking us around a psychiatric ward and introduces us to people who've got cuts in their arms or just you know scary looking people and there's no context and the nurses and stuff just allowed it so yeah that's just one little small example of it but that stuff well isn't it it is but that stuff is really um that's just one small example I'm sure a lot of people went through that but um that was just um what we went through and you just expected to deal with it you know we had no debriefing no nothing as well and as you said we didn't have anyone to look at to in our situation so you know what would have helped me and especially is like you know if we had um some sort of mentor or some sort of person who took an interest in us who went through our same situation you know as soon as someone tried to help us who wasn't didn't have a parent with a mental illness I didn't really listen to them because I was just like what do you know so um you know if we had someone who had that similar sort of situation to us sort of mentor us have actually taken you just in our life and actually be be a proper adult or parent and in some ways that would have really helped yeah and so you thrust into this at seven all of a sudden it's gone from childhood to fight for survival as you're in and out of foster homes was there an inner vow that you told yourself back then about how you were going to which which enabled you to get through life um look I became I became very emotionally stunted and very harder so I was not very emotional uh person so I really didn't shut myself up because like you know you cry yourself to sleep every night as a young as a young person like I'm not a religious person but I was back then I was my mum was a big catholic and she used to indoctrinate us with all this stuff so I used to pray to Jesus every night all that sort of stuff and cry because that was the only way I knew how to deal with it and once the light went on you didn't want to show your weakness you put a mask on and away you go so I can be very emotionally cold and it's not because I want to be just because the way I've been conditioned yeah you know and I'm not overly friendly to new people I meet and stuff I'm always like a very skeptical of people and stuff so um that's something I try to change but um yeah now you do have to make mechanisms for yourself um and my mechanisms for myself is just try and be as good as many things as I can so I don't be bullied because I couldn't handle that um and have you know be as social as I could and not be at home so these are the sort of things I did and um you know sport guitar especially you know those sorts of things really definitely help with confidence and yeah but a lot of things change when we actually what happened was you know up until 12 our family didn't know what was going on with our mum to the extent so what happened was my grandma said right that's enough you know we're gonna I'm gonna pay for him to come back so my dad my mum split up they basically had to sell the house because she wasn't paying the mortgage because she's financially really irresponsible yeah so so we had to sell the house and dad basically left her and wherever he went and then within three days I think it's happened to like three days my uncle drove over we chucked they chucked everything that we had in the bin pretty much so like you know all legos and all the toys my mum's great in terms of spending her money on toys for the kids everything we had was chucked in the bin put in the back of a tiota camry and um we we drove back straight to um to warnable and that was it so within three days you leave your high school which you just started in perth and within three days you're back in you then all of a sudden living in warnable and our grandmother and her brothers and sisters did a great effort they would have paid for that all and um what really prompted it was my my granddad actually got burnt to death um left on a balcony in a hospital was actually on the seven news and all sort of stuff so that's what really happened what triggered her so my mum when things traumatic like someone died or something that really set her off so her dad got um left outside by a nurse dropped a cigarette on himself went up in flames was all in the news and when she heard that he was unlocked that's what happened he's on life support and then she heard that flew over and then the parents then it all sort of unraveled from there and then she went back and then they came and got us because she was obviously not well and then um yeah they moved this to warnable and basically yeah yeah that happened really really quickly and then once we went to warnable sort of better because whenever she went um unwell we would just stay with an auntie or a auntie or uncle or a grand a grand grandmother was still not good like i didn't we didn't like doing that we wanted to normal life but it was just a lot better than staying at random people's places or friends families and stuff which we did when we were younger and they were all really good people as well we had no bad experiences with foster parents or foster care and right yeah but what would happen is we generally go to the foster care and then after a month that would transition us to a friend's family if they would have us and those people were really good and that was that was sort of good to have in a way you should almost felt like you know your mates house every day which was good that made it easier um but yeah and i was pretty very very chaotic oh yeah so much moving around adjusting not knowing what what to what was going to happen next and well you just wanted them to be normal and what annoyed me is when i used to went in my friend's house you would see what a normal mom and a normal dad was like we didn't have the data that's fine like i had friends who had you know single mums and stuff and they were you know they were working or they were just you could tell they were adults my mom was an adult but she was emotionally never an adult and she never treated us like kids she tried us she treated us like you know as i said she always treated me like a husband right so she never really provided me with any life advice and just gave me anything i wanted really which didn't make me into an overly good person as i got a bit older as you were talking about that i was wondering because you said she kept thrusting you into the spotlight whenever you know she would go out and that did you develop a fear of public humiliation as a result of that oh yeah definitely like even now like i don't like to make a scene or anything but even in my job i do like i do media and presentation i'm fine talking to people i think great great at it too yeah well i do all that sort of stuff but um but yeah no i didn't really like being the center of attention at all where she tried to make me and what really had it what really annoyed me she always used to say how good was it something joe did this like when someone would talk to her about something in a conversation she always had to turn it back onto me and say how good i'm doing at these all these things and it put a lot of pressure on me as well like i'm not that good at this or this what are you talking about what are you lying about but she made us she will almost like we'll put her possessions yeah that's what it felt like so we're her possessions and she was parading us around dressing us in things which just look stupid like you know that might sound like every parent does that but like if you saw some of our photos was really really strange and then um you know making us meet all these different people or go to these events and just saying how good we are all the times at these things and definitely not good for a young person or child they were valiantly in terms of how she was parenting us yeah and your sense of value would have been developed by how you performed and what you did rather than just who you were as a person yeah well it definitely reduced like my mom used to just say you know how good he is at this and this and i would never really work overly hard at anything because i just assumed i was good at it and i realized a lot later that was not the case i'm a very hard worker now i'm probably the opposite now i've worked extremely hard on things but um back then i wasn't because she never she never she just said oh you're brilliant at this and good at this and good at this and used to pump me up all the time that was really really bad developmentally for me as i got older i've always been it is and i just coached it all the time i never really worked hard because i was always good enough just to get by without really applying myself but um that was a trade i had to work really hard to get out of and get that that sort of separation out of and now i'm the other way where i work really hard and i know you know i've got nowhere to go really at all to be honest i've got to learn all these things whereas back then you know mom's telling you how good you are all time this and that you're gonna do this this and this and this with no that's all she would say there was no plan or you've got to study hard or you've got to work hard or you're gonna train this long or whatever it's just you're good you're gonna do this this and this and all that sort of stuff and you said in front of people all the time that was very very um very very annoying and not good for your development well you're an absolute inspiration i mean i've only met you like once and we're friends on you know different social media platforms now and that but just watching what what you do and like hearing your story of of where you came from you know and the childhood that you were brought up in um i think it's really amazing what you're doing today joel and uh i love i love your podcasts and i just love your mission i appreciate it when so so you were 28 when you first spoke about this yes yeah so can you tell us more about that why why did it take that long and what prompted you to speak out about this at that age for the first time well what happened was i kept seeing beyond blue everywhere right beyond blue everywhere and i started seeing people you know athletes talking about depression and anxiety and stuff and there's a whole big song and dance about it made about it and i always just keep hearing about depression anxiety and i never heard anything about um you know people who grew up in our situations or you know schizophrenia or bipolar and it really really annoyed me because you know we've got all this awareness for depression and anxiety and beyond blue is getting all this millions of dollars and people are virtually signaling you know mental health this and that and behind the behind the scenes they run a toxic workplace whatever you say it was getting really annoying that we just seemed to just focus on depression and anxiety and that was all mental health and everyone thought you know thinks beyond blue is the number one brand in Australia for mental health and that's all they talk about but they don't talk about young carers schizophrenia bipolar you know ocd all that sort of stuff right so what happened was basically the actual elements of mental health all of it yeah and the reality of it the reality of a psychiatric ward the reality of electric convulsive therapy which they still don't list on various websites which i think is quite astounding and annoying and i'll get onto that in a minute but i do a podcast with um in my role jim's group jim's marlin founder ceo jim pennman and basically remember doing the podcast i said let's do an episode about mental health and i said i want to talk about this and um because i just want to tell you my story i told a friend 25 minutes you know we clipped it up and i put it online and you know i put it online it pretty much went viral one of the clips i was talking about um you know no one ever talking about you know people who have apparent with mental illness not complex mental illness and that sort of thing went viral and i've got a lot of messages and stuff saying you know thanks for doing that and you know i had the same sort of thing and it's good to see someone speaking up about it so i thought all right well there's not much content in this space let's start doing that and trying to share stories of lived experience and trying to share some stories of young carers and things like that because the way mental health funding works at the moment is there's so many advisory bodies you know there's so many people who get money that i don't think do anything you know i'm just talking about reality and i know counsels like yourself you know get nothing and it should be that's right where underground workers get absolutely nothing and no support yeah and you can't call it out like you know for me i'm pretty open in my stance like you know people like you know organizations like beyond blue like you know how much of your dollar goes to actually doing anything besides a hotline i mean if you call a hotline you're going to get preferred anyway like i've got you know you've got the peak mental health let's say charity in australia and look i'm not counting it they do move the conversation forward and stuff but this is just it's just conversations and there's a hotline all right well what are you doing for you know this kid's been taken to a psychiatric ward to see his mom do what support do you have in place for that what support do you have for bipolar do you just refer to someone or like there's so many things that come under the guise of mental health and we just seem to just be focusing on depression and anxiety and awareness and that's it we're still not moving we're not beyond we're not moving beyond that and governments throw money at it which is fine um but like you know even greg hunt like greg hunt was the federal health minister and this is a guy who shared his story i think only maybe a couple of years ago about having a mom with bipolar and he probably had similar experiences to me you think well you're the federal health minister why wouldn't you politicians are biases of course and they're going to favor funding certain things over other things and i've heard answers that when he spoke to people you know your mom had bipolar what are you why wouldn't you make it your mission to to do whatever you can and then he said oh that's true to his decision no it's not use your profile speak on podcast share your story more and more and more and look you know it's his decision to share how much he shares his story or not but i just think you know look if i was in that position i'd be going flat hammer and tong and trying to move the conversation forward the mental health awareness movement at the moment is good i do think a lot of people try and build personal brands around it and take advantage of that and they don't do much at all you know i think i'm going to be really blunt here kary i've seen some people for example linked him with 30 000 followers who you know who have a really pretty privileged background have been depressed one and once and all of a sudden they're running workshops in workplaces and charging thousands and saying they're a mental health advocate so i'm being really straight with you but um no one calls it out because it seems to be you can't call out anything in mental health but um you know i think me and you know the realities of the system and the treatments that happened as well you know like no one really online talks about electric convulsive therapy much at all no and i want and i want you to talk about this too now i was going to ask you to talk a bit about that because you never hear about it and it is one listed as one of the treatments for people with trauma and ptsd where nothing else is working yeah well my mum always had xt because she couldn't be brought down with the medication quick enough and they want to get people in and out so the quickest way for them was not trying wait for medications or the just the medications for her to adjust it was the quickest thing to them which is to chuck her in and do the xt pretty quickly so that's what happened she had an she had a lot of xt over her time i'm i'm a firm believer um that it did contribute to her at her end of life a lot quicker than what it would have been all things other considered um i don't think now if she was being treated they would treat with her as recklessly with xt as they did um but the way i look at it as well she didn't have the xt she might have committed suicide so i sort of it's a catch 22 and i ask it yeah so i don't i don't really know but it definitely did end her life probably ended her life i think 15 years earlier and then what should have happened um you know when i spoke to the neuro if you got a condition basically for progressive supranuclear palsy really very brain disorder it's like it's called parkinsonians or something like that and we didn't know what it was and then six months she got diagnosed with it and then within six months she was she passed away and i said to the neuro scientist or whatever he was um you know basically he didn't know her medical history which i thought was astounding but um and i once i told him the history said well yeah that's definitely bipolar and deterioration of the brain atrophy of the times contributed and that's what's brought it on because there's no history of this thing in our family so basically you know all things considered the xt in my mind ended her life at least 15 years 10 years earlier than what what it should have been yeah um but like you know as i said i don't hold it against that because if she didn't have it she might have committed suicide or she might have you know they weren't going to have you know they weren't going to keep her in there for eight months to adjust medications to try and bring her down with that method that's just the reality of it yeah when you weigh it up like that it's it's there's a real fine line isn't there because there are these extreme treatments uh and a lot of people are asking me for my opinion as an addiction specialist on psychoadelic sister treatment now and i'm i mean i've got got my own thoughts but the thing is if you weigh up somebody that's struggling with extreme trauma and ptsd and they are going to end their life if they don't find a treatment and then they find a treatment uh and it does prolong their life and give them some semblance of a satisfactory and happy life then it's it yeah there's a real fine line isn't there yeah look you know i it is and um you know and that condition she had was really really rare um yeah but saying that you're like even even up until her death you know it was four weeks four weeks before she passed away she was made palliative and you know the psychiatrist was still trying to you know adjust medication and basically ended up having a crack and then saying stopping it because you know she's palliative like why do i care if her if she goes manic or not like she can't move so um you know they were trying to even like a week and a half injected with like you know medicine and i basically had to you know pull pull rankin was pretty terse with them so you know it's one of those things but like i'll give an example like black dog institute if you look at bipolar and the treatments for bipolar they don't have ect listed for example you know and it's not mentioned anywhere else and you don't really see much stuff around it but um there are various facebook groups with people who are really against it um i still think you know in the future in 2030 years time um it's going to be interesting to see what comes out with ect um you know we'll think people be held accountable uh for it um but yeah it's it's amazing how we use this treatment we don't know how it works or why it works but we still use it and then um you know there's a lot of incorrect information that i see around it um but look it did save my mom's life but it also did end her life i'll put it that way yeah and my um my own uncle uh schizophrenia and bipolar are very closely linked uh and he had drug-induced psychosis and labeled with schizophrenia and he became so unwell that he believed aliens were out to get him and his family and he ended up holding them up in a siege one day and the SWAT team were called by his wife called the police and the SWAT team came and smashed the door down and he never laid eyes on his kids again i started to hear but it's interesting how you said they're closely related because even though delusions aren't mentioned too much with bipolar my mom did a similar thing she thought our dad was coming back to um kidnappers from saudi arabia because you saw a story on 60 minutes about that so she we had a big alarm system in the house and the alarm went off and i was crying and stuff she'd come out and slap me so get it together and march us around the corner then someone she must have been that manic because we never called the cops or anything on her but our neighbors always did so you gotta imagine how would you be acting for the neighbors to call the cops and you're right so yeah they called the cops and she was a similar thing marching us up the street and then all of a sudden the cops come around she buried her cat self in the room she wouldn't come out you know we're begging with her to come out so they had you know having to break the door down and and take it away and then you know we're at this lady's house around the corner who was a very ultra christian lady and she started blessing us in tongues and all that sort of stuff so it's similar sorts of things to what happened with with your uncle not as bad as the SWAT but um yeah i can relate to that yeah and and i'm and i couldn't let today's podcast go by without talking about self-care strategies for you because like you mentioned before we have a lot of people that talk about mental health all the time just talk about it talk about it but then you don't actually hear about okay well what do we do about it what strategies you know and i think that is such an important component of any mental health speech or mental health podcast so what i'd love to ask you joel is today even though it was your mum with the bipolar uh suffering the trauma of all of that growing up you your life has been significantly impacted and so how do you manage that today what self-care strategies do you have in place sort of interesting like um you know i've avoided psychologists for a long long time um i think i was 28 27 i tried to start getting it so excited relationship breakdown and i it's definitely due to stuff that was now like i don't want this to happen again i want to be good for my next partner but um i find it didn't work for me so i just couldn't relate to them i tried to and then stopped you know cost is a prohibitive thing i haven't started that up again so i sort of took it in my own hand i decided to stop being a victim which i think was a big one yeah i grew up with this thing like you know my life's been hard the world is just going to start handing you stuff when i get a bit older and my the odds will turn in my favor which never happened so you know i changed my attitude i realized no one's going to save me i'm going to save myself um so i really got out of the victim mindset i started working really really hard in different areas of my life i'm very look the basic stuff you know i go to the gym a lot um i try and stay involved in the community i try and be really positive um i play guitar a lot as well that really helped me growing up as well it gave me a lot of confidence my mum would leave me alone when i practiced guitar so i used to play a lot yeah mechanism as well it was yeah so when when she would hear me playing she'd leave me alone so i just to practice all the time i wanted to be left alone so i actually got really good at guitar when i was younger and um i still use that that's probably my main mechanism now i just switch off and do it but i think being out with my stories really really helped i find it hard to talk one-on-one in a room with someone about this sort of stuff but i can talk to a broad audience who doesn't really know me personally about this sort of stuff because i know it's going to try and help other people so yeah i love that yeah so i try and doing doing the podcasting content it's it's it seems like it's not selfish but it is selfish in a way because it helps me just as much as helping the other person even though i'm listening to them for 90% of the time about their story like when we interviewed you for example you know it's great to be able to sort of feel that that's my little bit that i'm doing and that i do believe one day you know yourself me when we do these sorts of things and as technology develops we're going to have this big library of content that can be yeah that you put into your books which is fantastic but at least we've done something in that space i think a lot of people do want to do something in that space and don't know how so sharing a story with you through your books or doing a podcast is a great way of doing it and i think the more stories we get off real people the better you know i'm sick of seeing celebrities it's when celebrities are someone who's off note talks about mental health that's fine because the pr runs it it's going to get clicks and it moves the conversations forwards but i find real people far more interesting that i do celebrities or sports people so there's so many good stories like your one for example is an amazing story to see what happened you went through and are now like great story of resilience and it's a great story of um an example for people who might be in a really bad situation to look at and i think that's what we need is we need a lot of examples where you haven't had the best start in life but you haven't let that bring you down and you can get to a good point no matter what and that's the things that we need to start sharing more and that's the stuff that would really help me um there are organizations as well who do look after young carers and stuff or they at least bring them together to do camps and things like that which would have helped me at work because when you're growing up in our situation you don't know you think that you're the only one with that scenario and when you find out when you get older there's a lot of people who have parents with complex mental health issues and they're still not concluded i think in the conversation at all you know my younger sister and i were never really concluded or considered by psychologists or psychiatrists we were just a number and a nuisance to them which was really annoying because we're the ones living with her so the decisions that a psychiatrist had made regarding treatment for our mom which affected her brain where the ones had to deal with her if you let her out early and she's still not that well we're the ones that are at risk so that i think the mental health profession a lot of the time is very negligent in regards to what the dangers they used to put my younger sister and i by letting her come out early because she was unwell or when she was getting unwell we'd tell the hospital hey she's getting unwell can you take it before she gets real all bloated manic well now we have to wait to get she's really unwell so she goes and kills you know she goes and kills herself or you know puts us in danger or whatever who's responsible for that so this is the stuff that i'm saying here right now you never ever see spoken about in the mainstream or general you might see a book or two which is written about it but um this is the real crux of stuff with mental health and you think about the family how much we're affected by a person with a complex mental health issue right affects the whole family so my mom was one of 11 you know it affects all of them around it and affects so many people right yet we're never really considered um or we're an afterthought in terms of how the psychiatrist especially um or the psychologist would treat us which i still hold a lot of resentment to it's been one of the main reasons why i've found self-care lards to getting myself help with therapy or with counseling or something i've always avoided because i've just still got really under chipping my shoulder uh towards the professionals because um they were never professionals to me so um that's just from a self-care point of view i say people should go and do things like talk to a counselor and stuff yeah but for me i don't because i just don't feel as though i really need it anymore i have a good experience with the ones that you tried and sometimes it does we will say now sometimes it takes people you know like it does with medication three or four times to actually find somebody that you can connect with yeah it does but it's expensive as well you know carrie you've got to go and make an appointment get your referral yeah pay 180 bucks 200 dollars what it is like it's an expensive exercise i think well that's if you say the psychologist if you say counselor it's a bit cheaper cheaper yeah well that might be the way i have to go but um what also helped me was letting go of a lot of anger i had a heap of chip of my shoulders and anger from my childhood and i found a big one was with my dad so once i i always hated him for a long long time i never spoke to him like i didn't speak to him for like 20 something years like he'd call me i'd just say f off like i was literally like you know or at asking for reasons why or communicate via email just to get him but um recently last year i just basically just let it go and said i forgive you that's it bang and then made my life instantly better you know i invited him over for christmas last year he stayed with me for 10 days haven't seen for like you know 20 something years that's that's incredible yeah but i just thought it was holding me back so i think in regards to self-care you know what can you do for yourself don't rely you know if you can get support and stuff fantastic do it yeah but what can you do in your life to change your circumstances because you're responsible for your own mental well-being i can say you know you know i need to get help and stuff and blah blah but until i take that action i'm not doing anything no one's going to come and save me once you realize no one's going to come and save you and you're responsible for your own life regardless of what ever's happened to you it was almost like a flip uh a switch flipped in my head when i was in my mid-20s when this happened i wasn't where i wanted to get in life and my family was definitely cutting me off because i was just a jerk and i had that flip in my head and since then my life's been forever better it was just a mental shift that's all it was self-care is my responsibility um i'm going to do it my way and do different things and my attitude will not be defined by that and then as you get a bit more mature um you have a bit more perspective on things and you can start understanding you know your mom better or decisions and you let go of that resentment and anger much let go of that you move forward and and all those i'm a victim then not a victim you're not in a victim mentality anymore once yeah and i was i wasn't for a long i wasn't for a long long time and i can see a lot of people were and that's the half the reason for doing the podcast is to try and get that message out there that a lot of these people who i interview like yourself and other people have every right to be a victim you know there are professional victims now unfortunately there's a lot of it seems to be coming back in vogue that victim you know if you're a professional victim you can get you know publicity or whatever but like you know you look at your you look at your situation like you had every right to go you know and and do that like seriously if you told someone circumstances and you know you have every right to do it but it doesn't get you anywhere there's a lot of people worse than you having a bit more perspective was really really helpful probably in terms of self-care going on a bit here but um no having maturity and perspective was what i just needed i just matured later once i had the perspective and i could start empathizing with people's situations and how and and trying to really look at well why did my dad feel the need to go and take a high-paying job and get away from him i understand that she was very difficult to live with yeah so i understand why he did that you know yeah and with my mum as well like i don't hold anything against her anything that she did to us i just hold against the illness i never hold against her so i've separated those two people i love that hold the against the illness and not against her that yeah i haven't heard it put like that before that's really good well when she was well she was fantastic and what that was always the tragedy for me is like you know she's such a smart and really loving and really social and vivacious person and she always tried to work and when she worked you get stressed and she'd go well so she was always trying to do the right thing but this bloody illness kept pulling her back so she'd try and do short courses or try and get a job and stuff and then she would get stressed and work and manic and then bang and so she was always trying her best yeah you know and um and that's the thing her trying was good enough you know me and my me and my sister have turned out pretty well um you know she done a job and that was her goal and um and that was you know kudos to her so that's the way i look at it you just sometimes just need years and perspective and stuff and i think the big thing carries is not not being a victim and then just realizing you all regardless of what's happened to you like because a lot of bad stuff that's happened to people you just got to move forward and not let it pull you back i'm so glad that you came to that in you because you're only very early 30s now aren't you yeah i'm 35 so all right well i i have so many clients that are like probably you know 40 up and their life's unraveled and it's always as a result of unprocessed childhood trauma i agree for you and i think it's a big thing and people sort of like i wish you could get this earlier you know that's why i write light bulb moments through the eyes of men sharing the stories of 15 guys that had had had that light bulb moment and gone and sought help and it this is a prevention tool you know because if people could only read stories and realize look if i get help early my life doesn't have to unravel yeah absolutely and environment's such an important factor you know like um you know my mom had bipolar in her genes but it wasn't until an event that switched those gene on and then she was you know so it's your environment so yeah and and childhood trauma like you know big macho bloke sort of go you know i'll just get on with it and all that sort of stuff but no it really affects you it shapes who you are so you know the ages before 12 and 6 and stuff is so important to your development and your characteristics as a 40 year old were shaped all here and if you had a lot of significant trauma and stuff you know and you wonder why why do i drink all the time or why kind of form a relationship or why you know this and that you know it's all back to there so if you're not dealing with that um you know you can't really never move forward and and the annoying thing is is that you you know it all the time carry you'll probably hear people you've helped and stuff and i should have done this years ago or dealt with it and absolutely absolutely but people's egos and their pride and their macho-ness gets in the way and it's you know anyone might say well you know everyone has a bad child and stuff well no they don't for one no my husband had like the Brady Bunch existence without the parental separation yeah absolutely and then you know i'm presuming he's a great individual and well-adjusted person because he's had that but like you know not everyone gets that advantage right yeah it is an advantage of having a nuclear family where there's a stable household but um yeah men just need to get rid of their arrogance and their macho-ness and and if they have had those childhood traumas and stuff they're not dealing with like it they're who they are if they don't want to be that person who they are at the moment go back and deal with it and then reshape who you are because you just can't move yeah because the trauma has to go the trauma is locked inside it has to go somewhere and if it's not dealt with it's just going to spill out in anger and you know different places times when people don't want it to times when they don't expect it to uh in to you know relationships in toxic ways and so it's really got to be dealt with to be able to be healed absolutely touched on it but maybe you haven't just when i think that my guests have touched on it then they give me another one what as our final question what is your greatest light bulb moment um when i changed my attitude and um and was more proactive with people and um realized i had to be proactive and get to get anywhere that was my light bulb moment once i started being proactive with people and change my attitude i always used to be like if someone's to talk to me they'll come talk to me and all that sort of stuff never work like that once i started being proactive in my life taking control um you know and really putting myself out there and deliberately um taking on new things and challenges and stuff that's when i really started growing as a person improving and i've got a great you know partner now i've got a great house and stuff and that's all due to me just basically flipping a mine and deciding not to be a victim and the world doesn't owe me anything once i realize the world doesn't owe me anything i've got to take what i want and the way i'm going to do that is by being what my mum raised me to be and that was a really good person and stuff and and realizing i just getting rid of all that sort of stuff um that was my light bulb moment i didn't have that until i was mid-20s so it's a bit of annoying because if i had that when i was younger i'd probably be a lot more further ahead than what i was but um you sort of realize i wouldn't change any of my past as well i like who i am now and that's taken me a long place to get that i'm in a really good situation but that's all come down from me changing that victim mindset of deciding not to be a victim the world owes me nothing i need to be proactive here and if i want my life to be the way i want it i can't let this stuff hold me back i'm just going to move forward and use and use and use that as fuel all that trauma like i can put up a lot of crap because of all this stuff here like i can deal with really high stress work environment and stuff you know because of that sort of stuff that happened to me so trying to reframe my mindset um around using that traumatic situation as fuel um as an experience as well um was my light bulb moment was just basically yeah the world doesn't have me anything um i'm going to get out of life of what i put in it sounds very generic and cliched but my life changed tenfold once i once i had that mindset that's great and i and i usually ask people what their message for the world is but i'm presuming that's your message for the world yes well look the message of the world is regardless of what happens to you like you can you can take control of your circumstance there might be obviously exceptions to that rule but no matter where you are if you're not where you are in life no one's coming to rescue you and once i realize that once you realize that you're in fully control of your own life if you want to lose weight or if you want to get rid of you know resolve this childhood trauma you've got to take action no one's coming to rescue you and once you do that and realize that in your head your life dramatically improves Joel thank you so much i mean i could talk to you all day um and it's been some just some amazing insights today into mental health and what children go through and like you said how you can come out the other side thank you Joel thanks Kerry thank you for the opportunity