Turning Point Ep7: Reclaiming Worth After the Fall - David...The Rest of the Story

A single phone call can erase a career, even after two decades of service. That’s the gut punch David, a British Army veteran from Scotland, describes when a medical board tells him to stop working immediately and begin resettlement. Add unresolved trauma, chronic injuries, and the pressure of pandemic support work tied to the NHS, and you get a story that hits every nerve in veteran transition, identity crisis, and mental health.

David takes us back to the first moment his nervous system learned what “not safe” feels like: performing CPR on a fellow soldier who died in the barracks shortly after 9/11. He shares the detail that never left him, the survivor guilt that followed, and how PTSD symptoms can hide behind discipline, fitness, and saying yes to everyone. We talk about stigma in the military, what it’s like to carry a still image for years, and why trauma doesn’t vanish, it changes when you change your relationship to it.

We also dig into the practical side of healing: therapy that reframes memory, the role of physical training as a coping tool, and how cycling became both rehab and a new mission after knee damage ended his old routine. Aaron connects the conversation to EMDR, faith, and the hard truth that asking for help is often the bravest move for soldiers and first responders.

If you’re facing PTSD, survivor guilt, or a sudden career change, David leaves you with one simple action you can take in a crisis to create a moment of clarity. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so these stories reach the people who are still trying to carry it alone.

Gift For You!!! Murders to Music will be releasing "SNAPSHOTS" periodcally to keep you entertained throughout the week! Snapshots will be short, concise bonus episodes containing funny stories, tid bits of brilliance and magical moments!!! Give them a listen and keep up on the tea!  

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Transcript

Welcome And Turning Point Series

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music Podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host, and thank you guys so much for coming back for another week. This is episode number six in the turning point series. Turning Point series is a 10-part series where we talk about different people's lives, and everybody has a story. And at the bottom of everybody's story is going to be a dark day. And the turning point series doesn't emphasize the ride, the drama, or the trauma that got us to that dark day, whatever that may be. But what it does is it emphasizes the turning point in life where things started to look up. And we talk about the healing journey, we talk about the positive side, what worked, what didn't, and a life renewed. That is the turning point series. At what point did the tide turn for you? And I think if we really contemplate that in all of our lives, we all have that moment, right? And this is we're in on this episode, on these series, we're talking about other people's journeys. On today's episode, this is going to be part two. You heard this from this gentleman last week, and he spoke about his overcoming of type 1 diabetes after getting kicked out of the military. This gentleman was from the British military, he's from Scotland, and uh we heard his story about the turning point of going from a type 1 diabetic and his world being dark and down and ending to winning gold at the Parliament Games. So this week we're gonna talk to David again, and David's gonna tell us a story about the military, but we're gonna talk about the story, what he did. You're gonna hear some cool stuff about what the British Army does, what he did, some of the experiences, but then how he got kicked out and overnight his life was changed. That is what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about the transition from a go fast, kick-ass, high speed, low drag world into the civilian life and what a kick in the nuts that can really be. So, David, why don't you tell us your story and thanks again for being back on the show?

Growing Up In Rural Scotland

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Uh yeah, I grew up in Northeast Scotland, but uh I was born in England, but um I was brought up here, I think I was 10 or 11 months old, something like that. And uh the we lived in a tiny little village, and I'll say we lived, we moved to another village uh when I turned, I think I was eight years old. Same kind of thing, no real difference in the sense that about a thousand people live in this village. So it's not it's not a huge place, but um Northeast Scotland, uh particularly Aberdeenshire is the name of the region, um, it is a very rural area. So there's uh everyone's really spread out, if that makes sense. Um there's lots of little villages, little communities um all over the place, really. So um the point of that is is that live growing up in a little village, there's there's not a lot of facilities for you, if that makes sense. So you've kind of got to make your own way. So we used to play uh football, soccer, you know, um in the local park. We used to make up our own games. There was um local sort of um walkways and paths and stuff like that. So we used to take the bikes up and down there as well, and we'd go and play in the woods and you know, those kind of stuff, you know. So we we didn't nip on down to the bowling alley or to the cinema or all those kinds of things because we just didn't have those kind of facilities, you see. Um the let me think. So yeah, at my secondary school, um, we got we my um first school was in the village, just a little, you know, primary school as we call it, up to the age of about 11 or 12. And the secondary school was a bus journey away, about five miles away in another little village, um, a little bit bigger this time. Um, but that's basically what they all all happened. It was like a central point for the schooling um for ages 12 to 18, give or take. Um, and then from there, kids would then either you know get their first jobs or they go to college or go to university, you know, um depending on what they want to do.

A Promising BP Apprenticeship

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Um, so I actually left school and my first uh job, I got an apprenticeship in chemical engineering with BP. So all of the North Sea, all the oil and gas that comes in from the North Sea, which is like the main um uh uh drilling area that the UK uses, um, it is I'm guessing about 50 miles off the coast of Northeast Scotland, something like that. Uh they it all comes in at the northeast of Scotland and it goes down to a place called Grangemouth, which is near to Edinburgh, which is the obviously the capital. And I went down there, it was supposed to be a four-year apprenticeship, and at the end of that, we would then be sent back up to Aberdeencher to work on the rigs, and I would be would have been what was what was called a process control operator, if I remember it right. And basically I'd be that guy in the control room in the rigs, just making sure everything's flowing the way it should be, and you know, turning knobs, spinning dials, you know, that kind of stuff. Um now when I got it, I was under no illusion for my my guidance teacher at school, you know, that that person that's kind of like your your go-to to get your um, I think they called a dean, I think, in American colleges. I'm not sure if something like that, maybe. Um the he made it made no bones about the fact that it was like a liquid gold opportunity, you know, to get an apprenticeship like that with BP with such an established company um straight out of school was you know, I was really lucky to get that. And uh and I I was I was chuffed, you know, to get it. Um as apprenticeships go, I was it was well paid. Um it was uh £500 a month, um, which is is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. What's that, six, seven hundred dollars? But it was a lot compared to what I was used to, you know, getting my £10 a week pocket money, that kind of stuff. So um where did we go from

Reserves Lead To Regular Army

SPEAKER_03 5:41

there? So I think it was within about six months I realized that it wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy it, wasn't liking it at all. So that was when I first looked at the idea of joining the military. Now, over here we've got uh just like in America, I imagine, you've got the Reserve Army, the uh uh is it the National Guard, I think, is that what it's called? So over here, at that time, it was called the Territorial Army. It's now called the Reserve Army, but the um it was the TA back then. And there was a TA center in Grangemouth, you know, a mile or something away from the where I where I worked, my main job. So I thought, bugger it, I'll go and sign up to that. The idea being that I could get a bit of fun and enjoyment and a sort of a side hustle, if that makes sense, and then make the most of this like you know golden opportunity to get this apprenticeship because I wasn't just gonna leave it and go and, you know, I don't know, stack boxes or or do some other job or whatever. You know, I was I wanted to still get the most out of it. You know, I wasn't silly enough just to quit. So that was my first step into the military. And I very quickly realized I was enjoying it. I was enjoying it more than my main job. And then within about a year, I realized that I was enjoying it so much more, I was actually thinking about leaving my main job, the apprenticeship, to become a regular soldier. And uh so those so after that first year, so we're what, 18 months into the into the apprenticeship by this point, uh, I thought, sod it, I'm gonna do it. So I used the last of my holidays um for the year from the main job to go and sign the dotted line and go through all the motions and do the selection weekend that you have to go and do, where you do your your basic fitness tests and you all you you pass all your standards for getting into the and into the into the army. And uh yeah, I signed my life away, as they say, on the uh 28th of March uh 20 uh 2001. And um, and that was me. 16 days later, I was away uh down to basic training uh down in England. That was me away from home then um until uh 2022 basically. So um I went to a place called Basingbourne, did my three months basic soldiering skills, uh, where they're that typical bit where they break and make you, you know. And uh I was like a duck to water, I loved it, you know, or as we say in England, uh like a tramp to chips, you know what I mean? Um and uh I was thoroughly enjoying it and I got the most out of it. And I actually started getting uh called General Jarve because I tend to be that one that was always getting section command or section two IC, you know, all the time. Um I just seemed to have a knack for it. Um so at the end of the three months, uh, because I was going into a trade, I was going to be a communications technician or a systems engineering technician, I think was the full title. Uh I went to a place called Blamford, and that was headquarters Royal Corps Signals. It's like the mecha for the course. So periodically in your career, you'll go back again and do further career progression courses and such like. So that's where we went, straight after basic training. We went to our first stage, our class three trade training. And I got there and we were immediately put into a typical 10-man room, big rectangular room, bed cupboard, bed cupboard, all the way around, you know, normal sort of military room, I suppose. And uh the the key there, the key uh detail there was is that a lot of guys going there would go home on the weekends. But because of myself and a few of the others, there was uh some Commonwealth soldiers as well from Fiji, from uh Nepal um uh and the Caribbean as well, the we we couldn't go home. So this was on the south of England, yeah. So you're talking, what uh it was 634 miles door to door. I made that journey so many times over 20 years, like you know, I remember that to the distance, to the mile, sorry. Um and I didn't go home very often, as you'd imagine. I only went home if I had at least a week, because it took a day to get home and a day to get back again, you know. So uh I got to know so a lot of the guys uh over the weekends, the ones that didn't go home, and one in particular was in the bedspace next to me. And this was the

9/11 Shock And Losing Tony

SPEAKER_03 9:30

first real short, sharp shock, as it were, to just how bad things could be being in the military and the things we could be exposed to. Because um this was obviously the the year of 9-11. Uh the when that happened, I think like most military bases in in the in any of the NATO countries all ramped up security. We were no different. The the QRF were all uh sorry, the reaction force were all stood up. Um more guard details are pushed out around the base. Um barricades are put across various different roads that weren't needed. It was all sort of, you know, just extra security for the sake of putting extra security up. Um it was uh just a national uh uh response to what happened on 9-11, you know. And um two days after that, so at that time, my the guy in the next bed space to me was ill. Um he'd he'd been going back and forth to the medical centre. Uh we'd been sort of taking care of him during the day. So between courses and training and things like that, we we would bring him his meals and and check he needed anything and you know that kind of stuff. And by the 13th September, um we woke up the following morning, on that morning, sorry, usual time, the room starts going, going, going Connecticut about half six in the morning. And I opened my cupboard, my double door, and all the uniforms are what you'd expect to see in a military locker. You'd have your all your uniforms all lined up perfectly one inch apart, straight lines, all bald, but you know, all that usual sketch you'd expect to see. So that was my cupboard. I'm getting ready to go on parade along with everybody else. Like I said, the room's in full, full mo full uh motion at this point. But I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there's no movement on his bed. So I opened my cupboard and his bed's there, you know, and there's nothing moving. I can't see anything, and I'm kind of like, okay, he's maybe just kipping. I know he's not well, he's been bedded down for the last day or two, so I'll just give it a minute. Um, and I'll just be tentative of what I'm doing, knowing there's still a lot of noise in the room. And after about a minute or two, I noticed that really nothing was moving, nothing at all. Um, so I actually stopped and looked at him at this point, and he was lying there, sort of starfishing it, as it were, in his boxers, and and the colour of his skin was the bit that gave me the first sort of sort of red flag. And uh I tried to sort of shake him, give the knuckle in the eye, the kind of, you know, that uh basic life support type things that we're taught in case if to try and get a response out of people who are unconscious. Uh, nothing's happening. Um, his eyes are open as well. And uh I call a couple of other guys over, and we're all sort of like, you know, wet behind the ears, not really knowing what we're doing, going, holy crap, you know, we're we're facing a real life situation the first time. And and so I make that kind of executive call to leg it and go and get one of the guards. So I ran off um in the direction of the guard room, which was maybe about a quarter mile, a little over a quarter of a mile away. But luckily, because of these barricades that had been put up, there was one only a few hundred meters away. So I legged it up there, got the guard that was there. He smashed out on the radio, you know, we need a QRF and ambulance here immediately. Um, I legged it back to the block to to meet the gut the guard commander and the and the two IC as they came in. Um because I'd called them uh or I'd I'd brought the attention to them, they kicked everyone else out of this room uh except for myself and the and the room corporal. So he had a 10-man room and then he had a screws room as well. Um so there was always like a room block commander, so to speak. Um so there was the four of us in the room then, the the guard commander and two IC, the broom, the room screw and um and myself. And the guard commander came in and said, Right, CPR, let's go. So off I went, doing doing the business as you'd expect, uh 30 and 2, 30 and 2. And um the as I understand it from the coroner's hearing a few weeks later, from that point to the point the paramedics arrived on scene, it was near between 25 and 30 minutes, something like that. Um, and when I've done BLS sort of training since, and they say, Yeah, you can only max out about sort of 10 minutes, 15 minutes before you're hanging out your ass. I I always sat there shaking my head, going, nah, you keep going. You don't stop until you're told to. You know, the adrenaline's pumping. Um, there's someone's life in front of you, you know. So that was one thing that I remember specifically. But the the other bit I remember when I do those courses is the bit they don't teach you is when you're doing life support, uh, you're doing the breathing, is that when you breathe in, the first the net very next thing you should do after each breath is turn your head away. Because whatever is in those lungs is coming out of those lungs as well. And as I found out with the coroner's hearing, it turned out he'd been they estimated that he died an hour earlier, which was explained the colour of his skin. And uh, because it was like a pale shade of sort of whity greyish blue, if that makes sense, and um, which is why it was the red flag when I first looked at him properly, you know. And um the and I got a full lung full of that, and it was one of those things that never left me ever since. And I've had a real problem like chewing my fingers, chewing the inside of my mouth, chewing and trying to get in habits of chewing gum and other things, just because that taste comes back, if I make sense. So that was one of those things that never left, if that makes sense. But the other thing that never left us was that after the paramedics arrived, the the one image that just stuck in my head like a light bulb. I say like a light bulb, it's probably not the right choice of words. Um, the one image that just just, I don't know, just stuck with me the whole time, irrelevant of everything else that happened around me, was him lying there, getting this tube pushed down his neck to open his airway. And the whole time he looks like, in my memory, he's looking directly at me, eyes open, you know, no life behind them. Um and I can never get that image out of my head. And the challenge I had was that the earlier in the morning, uh, we're talking maybe I don't know, half past four or five o'clock, somewhere there, um, he'd called out for help. Now, one of the other guys next to him, I think the other side of him, had gotten up to help him. But I always remembered that as going, well, I could have got up and helped him. Why didn't I get up and help him? So that guilt, you know, was there, you know, I could have done more. Um, so that stuck with me for a long time. And immediately after the event, so we're talking,

Staying Busy To Avoid Pain

SPEAKER_03 15:25

you know, the first couple of weeks or so, we didn't we got offered the opportunity to go home, you know. I came home for a few days, so took a breather, we came back, and then we got on with it again. And I dealt with it by keeping busy, like keeping really busy. I mean, I've got some of the older bits you see behind me here, lower down, they're all runner-up medals for various different sporting events around the camp. So I did like uh football, rugby, uh basketball, volleyball, hockey, you know, all different things, no particular specialty. Um, but I just kept myself busy in my free time. And then during the day I'm doing my courses. And if I wasn't doing the courses and I wasn't doing sport, I was studying for exams and things of that nature. So I never gave myself a minute to think. Um and then what was it? I got to my first unit in the October, first field army unit in the October of 2002, and again hit the ground running, keeping busy all the time, getting involved in lots of different things. Um, lucky enough to get put forward for my all-arms physical training instructor course while I was there, because in the British Army, you can't join the army as a as a trainer, you have to have been in for two years and then get selected. And that's down to your your leadership and your um your fitness. So obviously, it's got to be at a higher level. And and I was lucky enough to get it, and um, and I there I then kept that for the rest of my career, and I still enjoy doing that now. I'm very passionate about fitness, but the bottom line is I was kept really busy the whole time, and I and I deliberately so as well. But the first time that uh the crack started showing was in the on the anniversary of the event, so in the September of about 2004, uh there was uh various things going on in the gym. I think it was like a regimental-level PT session, and on this particular day, I'd had sort of weird starts to most days that week. I'd struggled to get up on time, I was missing things, I was forgetting stuff, and it was just a lot of things played on my mind. And this one particular morning I came in late, and the boss of the gym, the QMSI, as we call him, um, he he he wigged out on me basically, and rightly so, because I'd been giving him problems all week and acting out of character and all this kind of stuff. Um, and uh at the end of the day, everyone had gone home for the day, and I'd done my punishment detail, which was to go mop the whole of the gym floor, you know, which is a basically a double-sized basketball court, you know. So I'd spent half the day mopping this floor, like, you know, feeling sorry for myself. And um he called me in and he said, right, you know, you've this has been gone on all week. This is not normal. You haven't done anything like this all year. What the hell's going on? And that's when I first kind of said, look, you know, this is not a particularly this is a particularly delicate time, you know, this is this happened three years ago, uh sorry, four years ago at this period, um, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the other. And he then he then sent me to the medical centre, who then gave me that first initial um uh uh dare I say it, sort of, sort of a diagnosis, not really diagnosis of PTSD. Um

PTSD Diagnosis And The Yes Man Trap

SPEAKER_03 18:10

the real crack came, let me think, uh, rolling the clock forward a little bit to I think it was 2011. Um by this point I'm a corporal. I was a uh the lead for um uh vehicle at a detachment um inspection phase. Basically, we had to do annual inspections of the vehicle attachment of the communications attachments, and I was looking after a fleet of about a dozen vehicles or so, and each vehicle had a commander, and I was basically the one that was responsible for making sure it was all prepped, you know, ready for this inspection team to come around. And basically, I was doing I'd gotten into that idea of I need to help anybody that needs help. You know, if someone comes asking for help, I will I will help them and I'll keep doing it. And I basically turned into a yes man in a nutshell. And the the the the the ultimately what happened was is I took on too much, stressed myself right out, and I decided I had a full-on crack. And I the the the the temper got the better of me, my uh punctuality went out the window, um, my sense of pride and and you know, making sure brushing my uh keeping my uh boots shiny and my uniform tidy, all that sort of stuff you'd associate being a soldier in with soldiering, sorry, all of that kind of started going out the window until a one of my staff has pulled us aside and said, What the hell is going on? And that's what I told him again. This was only the second time kind of told about it. And uh and he sent me to the actual that I can't remember the name of it, I think it uh the rural hospital psychiatry or something like that, I think. But this was a completely different unit. This was back in, this was uh uh a good couple hour drive away, and actually they actually gave me the full diagnosis there of PTSD um and sent me to start getting some some actual help with it, if that makes sense. Um but it always stemmed that down to the idea that um I blame myself for what happened, irrelevant of what happened in the circumstance itself, if that makes sense. Um and then there was no follow-up treatment afterwards, there was nothing happened, it was just brushed under the carpet, if that makes sense. Um, but that was kind of a defining thing in my career because um it turned me into that person of wanting to help everybody um and going to great lengths to do it as well, irrelevant of what was going on with me, if that makes sense. Um so I did loads of different stuff, particularly around fitness things. I organised loads of different clubs, I was uh helping lots of people in rehab as well, so people getting injuries and that kind of stuff. Um the all around my normal day job as well. And I was one of those uh I I was getting to be one of those reliable people over the years where the training commands could come to me knowing that I could be relied upon to get the job done. Um because they know I'd stick with it until it was done, if that makes sense, even if it meant me being up all night doing it. I mean, back in the military, back in the army, you we had this phrase where you're not paid by the hour, you're paid by the day, so you're on it till the job's done, you know. Um and that was just you get used to that, you know. So um, and I just grizzed it out for far too long until finally it caught up with me, if that makes sense.

Afghanistan Lessons And Self Worth

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Um, but it did things did change after that. The I had my last tour of Afghanistan um around that period as well, and I'd started to recognise my own self-worth and what I could bring to the table, if that makes sense. And um I'd had a lot of problems leading up to that point, and in terms of doubting myself and and and not having that that um uh uh uh sense of personal direction, if I make sense, and knowing what I wanted to do, you know. Um when I was on tour, that last tour, I was part of the forward repair team, and basically that meant I was you know traveling around, fixing radio, fixing comms, that kind of stuff. And a lot of the time, if we did the traveling around around the uh the area of operation, it was on our own. We occasionally would go as a team, but normally we'd travel on our own. We'd you know, we'd we'd we'd jump a ride on one of the helicopters or or one of the vehicle convoys, or we'd go with one of the foot patrols or something, you know. Um but we we as a as a technical Would go on our own, you know, and tag along with another team that's going out. And I've realized that I could pick up the technical detail quickly enough to get repairs done to equipment I've had very little time with, but at the same time was able to show detachment commanders and um section commanders how to get like emergency comms in if the like antennas broke or or uh cables got fragged or got snagged, sorry, or um, you know, or a vehicle got fragged with like the primary comm system on it and things like that. Um, so I was basically trying to give people layers of redundancy. So that was kind of my first um realization that I had a way of problem solving that allowed me to apply that I could apply to anything, if that makes sense. Um so and and that started showing in terms of my career progression as well, because it was after I got back from that particular tour. So, again, this is around that 2011 period, that um I have that one line that I remember of all the annual reports I ever got over 20 years and all the six-monthly performance reports and all that kind of stuff. There's only one that I actually remember, and I remember one specific line. I don't remember any of the others at all, of all the however many I had over the years. Um, and it was that my boss had basically noted, had observed me doing this certain thing. And I I couldn't believe it when he when I read it, and I was like, How do you where did you see that? And he said, Well, I've seen it, other people have seen it, and it needs to be highlighted. And basically what he said was is uh Corporal Jarvis is not perfect, he makes mistakes like everybody else, but unlike everybody else, he never makes the same once, same ones twice. He learns from his mistake, he adapts what he needs to, and he tries again. Um, and and I just remembered that and I just that stuck with me. And you can kind of, I think we talked about my process last time, didn't we? The that last step with learn and tap repeat. You can kind of see where that came from now, um, and and how it got there. But I never realized I was doing it or that I was even being observed doing it, you know. I just kind of went, uh if I made a mistake, I was just like, oh crap, okay, well, let's just park that. What did I do wrong? What can I, you know, and went from there. But I never at no point did I realise it was being noticed, you know. Um but that was the period where I started recognizing my worth and moving forward with my career, if I make sense. So the that report didn't get me promoted. That wasn't, I wasn't even given a recommendation of that particular report. But the next one, I didn't just get a recommendation. I think I came second out of my regiment in my out of my peers. And the next one again, I got promoted again. So I was promoted twice in very quick succession after that point. So 2012, I was promoted, 2013 was the gap because I was a sergeant at that point, and you have to have a one-year gap between promotion, and then the very next one I was promoted again, and that's when I went on uh my my engineering courses and and became that that sort of high-level engineer, if that makes sense. So it was a quite a turning point. It was getting that help, if that makes sense, that first bit of help. Um recognizing that it stemmed from guilt, recognizing that I was I was the yes man, um, and uh yeah, learning to prioritize what I was doing and how I was doing it, if that makes sense. I think that's where the process, that problem-solving process, really started to take shape because I was applying it more effectively, if that makes sense. So um, but throughout that time, sport and fitness was was a backbone, you know, like any soldier, you know, being physically capable is is is is a must. Um and I was no exception, except being a PTI. I needed to be that level above as well. So, because I and I had that idea, the the mindset where I cannot tell anyone to do anything that I can't, won't, or haven't done myself as well, if that makes sense. I have to lead by example. And uh I used to make a point of doing that as well. So the I used to throw myself at any kind of sport that would come along, no particular one. I never had an aspiration to do well at it. Um I was what was nicknamed a sport billy, not me, but PTIs typically were nicknamed sportbillies because we'd get roped into any gaps in different teams, you know. So if the there were short-on players for football or in the athletic squad or or uh hockey or whatever, because we were fit, we could just we could just run, you know. So they would rope us into stuff, and I was no exception, and and that's what I did, and I enjoyed doing it. Um the things I liked doing more though was things like orienteering um and that kind of stuff, because I could turn myself inside out, but at the same time apply my mind and follow the maps and all that kind of stuff, and I used to enjoy stuff like that, you know. Um so

Knee Damage Sparks A Cycling Pivot

SPEAKER_03 26:30

the first real sort of significant lifestyle change came in uh 2014. I'd been having a lot of problems with my knees. Um, quite a common thing with the military. We usually squatters usually have problems with the knees and the lower back. It's all to do with the carrying all the weight, you know, on the burgens and so on over years. Um, but the doctors basically said that my my the the issues of my knees was that problem just accelerated. So um I was told in the June of 2014 that I had to start managing my impact training or I was going to be in a zima frame before I left the military. Um, and that's that was quite a pill to swallow, quite a bit of a pill to swallow because my uh running and tabbing, tactical advanced to battle, you know, loaded marching, that was like my mainstay. That was that's what I I did more than anything else. Um it was like the bread and butter of anything I was doing. So it was quite a challenge um changing my you know what I my day-to-day routine, you know, having to look at all my running kit and all my tabbing kit and and and all the other stuff, bits and pieces I've got to support that, and knowing I I have to stop using it, you know. So um it took about six months, but I finally got the kick in the ass from the wife. Um, because we got married in 2013, and she kicked me in the ass and said, right, come on now, we're gonna go across down to this this local shop. Um and it was it was just like a dare I say a general hardware store, nothing fancy. And they sold bikes, you know, push bikes. And uh we so the idea was that I I could save money on petrol and cycle the mile to work and back rather than driving it, you know. And uh, you know, can start doing something constructive and and and with my fitness as well. So, and that's how it started. So that was uh I got that in for my Christmas in the December of 2014, and I started cycling to and from work in in the January of 2015, and uh, and that's that's how that that started. So it began with a mile to and from, then it was one mile, one way, five miles back, and then five and five, and five and ten, and so on and so forth. Um, and I did my first race rolling the clock forward in the September of 2016, and uh I was absolutely rubbish. I got dropped by the Peloton and lapped repeatedly. Um so, but some reason or other, for some reason or other, sorry, I got the bug. Uh, really, really enjoyed it. It was the the tactics and the risks involved because you're you're riding at speed in close proximity to other riders. So I liked that feel, you know, of being able to try and jump on the back wheel of somebody and follow their draft and trying to make the sneaky attacks and get away and do that kind of stuff. I mean, I was rubbish at it, obviously it didn't do very well, but I

Training With Purpose Changes Everything

SPEAKER_03 29:10

I enjoyed it, and that was why I enjoyed it. So I thought I'll throw myself at this now. And I I literally, it was the first time I applied that uh uh uh clear specificity to my my routine, you know. I was focusing on one thing with the aim of making that one thing better, and it showed because the following year I went back and did the same race. It was the Raw Signals Cycling Championships. It was only the novice race, don't get me wrong, it wasn't anything special, but where I'd completely dropped out the first year, you know, um dropped and lapped repeatedly. Um the second year I went back and I won it outright. Um, clear gap. And uh I it just showed because of this the the how uh specific I'd made the training. Whereas before I was that sport billy doing bits of everything, you know, general fitness, you know. Um and and and that was that. So uh I kept doing it and I did civilian competitions and military competitions and and and I was doing all right. And uh I got selected for the core team as well, so that was like another level above. Um next round of racing, I didn't started doing the more elite sort of stuff, and uh unfortunately uh I had my first sort of uh taste of the bad side of the act uh of cycling. You go running and you might trip and scuff your knee or or sprain your ankle or pull a muscle, whatever. In cycling, if you come off, it's gonna hurt. You're going at speed, you know, and and I was no exception. So I had a bit of a crash in one race. Uh the bike slipped out from under me on a on a slippery bend, and I hit the deck at uh quite uh with quite an impact. I actually split my helmet down one side. Um I got an array of road rash down uh uh on that side as well, to the point where I couldn't walk, you know, it was so deep you could you could see the edge of the bone on one side, it was it was not pleasant, and I've got a cracking war wound. I I tell the kids it happened back in Nam, like you know, it's uh they don't understand it anyway, but um it's one of them jokes, isn't it? But yeah, it's some cracking scars to show them. So um, but it was that was the first sort of taste, and it was I wanted to keep doing it. I'd already had a one significant lifestyle change, but the chain of command I had at the time were not particularly supportive in their mind that because I'd had a crash, I wasn't very good at it, irrelevant of what the success I'd already had, you know, the the races had won and all the other podium finishers that, and so on and so forth. Um but and that kind of put a bit of fuel behind me, if that makes sense. Um I don't like being told I can't do something, if if that makes sense. If I think I can and someone says I can't, then when it comes to fitness, then that's usually, you know, gives me a bit of a spur on, so to speak. So I mean, I was on crutches for three weeks. I was off the bike for about another six weeks, I think, something like that. Um there's actually a video on my social media going back to then as well, where it the miss my wife took a sneaky video of me trying to get off the sofa because I had to I had to sit with my leg propped up because of the the depth of this this road rash. And um uh basically to try and allow it to the scabbing to seal. It was so deep, it took 10 days for it to stop leaking, if that makes sense. That clear liquid that comes out. Um and uh the missus took a sneaky video of me trying to get up the so get off the sofa to go to the toilet, and you can it it's I laugh at it now, but you can see the pain on my face for me just trying to put weight on my leg. Oh, it was excruciating. But that was my f that was the closest I'd come to what would be a uh a 10 on the pain scale, if that makes sense. Um, but I got back on the bike and yeah, I went back and uh it was all going well again. Um unfortunately, I had another crash uh a year later. Um, so this is 2019 by this point. Um and this time it wasn't my fault. I was coming to the end of a race. And again, you imagine the last 30ks of a Tour de France stage. You have got a um uh the the typically what will happen is the the peloton will stay together and it will speed up faster and faster, faster as they get closer to the finish line. And about two or three hundred meters out, you'll have like a train of single-line train with all the bikes one behind the other. And we're talking like an inch off each other's wheel, it's that close because you're all streamlining, doing about 40, 45, 50 miles an hour on the

High Speed Crashes And Proving Doubters Wrong

SPEAKER_03 33:25

flat. And um, I was about fourth wheel, give or take, somewhere around there, um, with the clear aim of waiting for about the 200-150 metre mark to then sprint and go and hopefully try and get a good position. But the guy behind me went too soon, and as he came past me, he clipped my handlebars with his leg, and he's up sprinting. He actually hit my leg with a bit of force and uh ultimately knocked me off uh at about I was just under 43 miles an hour. And um luckily only one person in the Peloton hit me from behind as I was on the deck, but I hit the deck and slid and um basically did my shoulder in. And when I thought my leg was a 10 on the pain scale, um my shoulder paid to that, and my leg actually was only a seven. My shoulder was um, to put it in perspective, I was on the hospital bed with a nurse either side of me to hold me down while they were trying to clean it and put the dressings on and the iodine and all that sort of stuff. They had me on gas and air, and I was physically shaking all over, like vibrating, and I had no control over it. Um, all I could feel was this searing pain in my shoulder and nothing else. Um I can't I cannot explain it at all. It was it was oh, it was excruciating. Um, and like I said, if you if you see the video of me trying to walk with my leg, you can see the pain on my face. That was a seven, that was a seven out of ten compared to my shoulder. Um, it was awful. Um, so we have a running joke with the missus that when when she was having the gas and air with the with the kids and just saying, Yeah, I needed that, it really helped with the pain. And I was like, Well, that just shows you mine was more painful because it didn't touch mine. So, but yeah, you can imagine how that argument goes, like when you're arguing with the wife about childbirth, like you know, um, we'll never win, we'll never win. But um yeah, that was uh that was that. But that again, the chain of command came at me and they came at me harder after that one, saying you're absolutely clearly you're rubbish, you're you're even on social media and things like that. My my two IC actually put comments up to the effect of find another effing sport and things of that nature, because they were they weren't supportive at all. And um and that that just basically turned that screw like big time for me. I was I was like gunning for it after that. And I was on the bike the following week. Um after the race happened where the act the accident happened, sorry, on a Wednesday. I was back on the bike the following Thursday. Um I was training full throttle within 10 days, and the core championships, bear in mind, so this was in the June time. Um, the core championships are in the September. Um, and I basically wanted to go there and show them that I'm not just good at this, I'm the best in the core. Um, and that was probably the first time I wanted to do win something, if that makes sense. Um, and it was fueled purely because of what I'd got the way I was treated by my chain of command in that in that unit. Um, and uh and yeah, I I did, I managed to get it, and uh it was close, a really close finish. So I had to do a lunge to get the to get the line. There was only a couple inches in front of the next guy. Um and they got it on a photograph of it as well, which is really cool. But um, that was that was a real good feel feel-good factor moment then because I was able to basically give two fingers back up to that command and commander just to say, look, it clearly shows what you what you know, you know, crashing's quite normal in cycling, you know. We don't want to do it, but it can happen, you know. If you're in the middle of a Peloton and someone goes down in front of you, it's like dominoes, you've nowhere to go, you know. Um, and you see it in professional cycling as well. So it was it was not a pleasant, pleasant period, but it was a good end to that period, if that makes sense. The bad side to my injuries and the pandemic was that I didn't get the treatment I needed. So I'm doing all this stuff for charity and continuing doing stuff on the bike. And I was lucky enough to be in a job where it wasn't a deployable job. I was office-based, um, particularly with the when I got to Catrick, I was basically the um lead for all communications assets um used in relation to Operation Rescript, which was the the military support to the to the National Health Service during the pandemic. Um so all comms assets from laptops and mobile phones and infrastructure, and you name it, I was responsible for all that. And um the it was all desk base, was the bottom line for that. I wasn't deployable, so I didn't need to worry, didn't need to think too much about it. But my role was deployable, if that makes sense, or or there was a potential I could be deployed. The issue there was is that I couldn't deploy because of my injuries, um, because of my knees, because of my back, the the initial injuries that got me into cycling, um, because of my ongoing treatment with my shoulder from the crash I'd had earlier in that uh in the previous year. Um the they basically, that was when I that the discussion went towards the possibility of medical discharge. And it was one of those things where I shrugged it off. I was just like, okay, yeah, maybe it's a possibility, but at this point, I'm 20 years into a 22-year

Pandemic Role And A Medical Board Call

SPEAKER_03 38:15

career. 22 years is like a typical military career for the British military, British Army, sorry. So I didn't really think they would do that at that stage of someone's career. Given the amount of money spent on all the trade training that I'd done. So I think I'd done my initial trade training early on when I lost my mate, um, uh Tony was his name. And then you do your that was class three training, then you do your class one training, then you do your formula signals training, and you're talking about, I don't know, three, three and a half, four years total in the school over the whole career. You they they estimated somewhere in the million of it's somewhere in the realms of about a million pounds to tr in total to cost to train us for all of that. So it was one of those situations where I really didn't think it would it I would go down that route, purely because they've invested so much money into me, um, it's not gonna happen. They're not gonna do that. It just that would just be silly, it'd be a massive business mistake. You know, the the the short on these on people to do this job, there's plenty of jobs that are deskbound, so it's not gonna happen. So I didn't give it much thought. Anyway, roll the clock forward to August, and we have to sit, um, when you go for um when you've been put forward for possible medical discharge, you have to go and sit what's called a medical board. And outside of the pandemic, you would typically sit in an office with a doctor or a team of doctors and they'd look at all your reports, they uh they'd have a uh ask you loads of questions about you know how it impacts you day to day and lots of other stuff, and blah, blah, blah. And it can these interviews can last for hours. Um, because it was the pandemic, mine was done over the phone. And because, again, we were in the pandemic, the we were on a sort of a skeleton crew whilst I was in Cat Trick at the time. And uh, like I said, this is August 2021. And um, I was the only one in my office, and I was on the phone with this doctor for the better part of three and a half hours to give you an idea of just how long that went on for. And and to be fair, she was she seemed really nice on the phone. She was um asking me sort of you know specific questions. We were going through my entire medical history, all these injuries and how they impacted me. And I was being relatively honest and telling her about my job and what I was doing. Um, but in the end, it boiled down to the fact that my my role, my my position there, um, it was a deployable position. So I had to be available to be deployed, if that makes sense. So, and because of that, and my and because I was not deployable because of my knees, because of my back, you know, and and ongoing treatment and so on, um the they basically determined that I can't be can't be employed anymore in a nutshell. And I remember what she said exactly almost exactly, and it was quite a shock, really, the way she put it. I mean, she was nice about it, don't get me wrong, but the way what what she said, it was it was kind of a really weird thing to I found it very strange if it makes sense because I didn't know how to react to it afterwards. I was the only one in the office, so I couldn't tell anybody. But what she said was, at the very end, she said, I have to say this because we're now at a point where we've got to draw a legal line. Um, from the point you put the phone down, you have to cease all working activities, hand on the over hand over any ongoing projects or work and commence a resettlement activity. Um, your discharge date will be uh whatever the date it was she gave me. Um and then from that, you have till that point to get your affairs in order. After that, you'll no longer be in the British Army and you'll no longer be entitled to support. And that's how the phone call ended. Um and I put the phone down and I just remember sitting there thinking, I can't just not do this job. I mean, I've got all this responsibility that with this ongoing stuff with the, you know, with the hot with the with the NHS and so on. Um who do I hand it to? There's no one here, you know. Um, what do I do? You know, I had no idea what I was gonna do when I was getting when I got out. I had no plan. Um and yeah, it it I was just it was just a blur. It was I had no clue what I was gonna do. Um at the same time, I had to hand back all of my stuff in Cat Trick. So I had various equipment and sports equipment and such like that that I needed to hand back to the to the cycling committee. So who were based in Alder Shaw at the time. And this was where the real kick in the nuts came because I made the arrangements, I got the sign-off from my supporting officer, who is a member of the Royal Military Police. Um, she agreed my journey and everything. I met officers down there to hand the equipment back, signed over various documents, you know, whilst I was there. Um I had a bit of a medical situation, so I had to go to hospital whilst I was an older shop. So the point of that is there's loads of evidence to say that I've made the trip, I had authority to make the trip, um, and that I did what I needed to do, and that I was really there. Um I came back and I submitted the appropriate claims you'd expect. You know, travel claims, accommodation, food, and so on. Um it was to the tune of a few hundred pounds, it wasn't massive. Submitted the claim, didn't think anything else of it, carried on with what I was doing. I didn't have time to think because there was so much stuff going on as you'd expect. Um anyway, the the money never came. So come the so this was September, October comes through, next paycheck, we get that, and it's not in there. So I make the phone call and go, right, what's going on? And I found out that this claim was being audited. Um, and I was like, okay, fair enough then. What else do you need? So I sent in copies of all the receipts and the authority forms and so on and so forth, and the transport requests and so on and so forth. And um all you know, all above board. And uh I then found out that auditing officer, who in the politest sense was uh a disgruntled a disgruntled ex-officer who I'd somehow I must have done something to cause an upset which I didn't know about. I don't know. I couldn't tell you what it was, what had happened or whatever had been done, but uh somehow I'd annoyed him in some way. And he decided he wanted to make an exam. Of me. And he sent it for audit. And then he reported me for fraud in a nutshell. We I went to Edinburgh, met them halfway in Edinburgh. We did the interview under caution. And it was just like you see in a police station, I imagine just like it is in the US as well. They sit you down across the table, press go on the recorder, and they start it off by saying words to the effect of, you know, you you can

Fraud Allegation During The Exit

SPEAKER_03 44:20

you are being interviewed under caution, you're entitled to defense, you know, you have the right to no, not the right to be installed. That that blurb that they give you, the legal blur they give you at the start, I forget what it was. Um and the first thing they said to me was, is do you understand what you've been charged with? Um do you think you've done anything wrong? Or it was words to that effect. And I remember saying straight out the gate, going, I've done nothing wrong. I did exactly what I thought I was supposed to do. Um, and I I'm not aware of anything that I've done untoward, you know. And the interview lasted two hours, you know, they were going through every minute detail of everything. Um, and I remember when they hit stop on the button and we sat down, took a breath, they just looked at me and said, mate, you you've been done over here. There's no way you should have been put through this. So, you know, it was uh that was reassuring. You know, I kind of knew what the result would be. Um, but the the kick in the nuts was is roll rolling the clock back just a little bit to the end of November. Um, I'd had a phone call to try and complain about what was going on to my garrison commander. And he actually said to me over the phone, he said, Look, we we appreciate you probably there's nothing, no on to no wrongdoing been done here, but we're this far into the process, we need to see it through now. And that's what you remember him saying. I remember him saying that to me, and I couldn't, I just couldn't wrap my noodle around that one. I was like, why would you put someone through this just to finish the process? You've got X amount of money to it would cost to send guys up here, to send the RMP to do their job, to do all this, to then do the investigation. Um, it's such a waste of taxpayers' money. I didn't not only got the career taken away from me, um, but they essentially kicked me out the door on my ass in a nutshell. Um and it it didn't it didn't do my mental health any favors at all.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Well, dude, thank you so much for sharing. I want to go back and I want to touch on Tony. I want to talk uh about that death and that incident that morning. You know, based on your story, it seems like maybe that's the first time that uh PTSD kind of became an issue, or at least there was a chink in the armor that ultimately led to a PTSD diagnosis. Um, how did that death and the CPR of your friend uh affect you mentally that morning during that initial time? It took some time to get the PTSD diagnosis, but what were you noticing acutely right there in the moment?

SPEAKER_03 46:37

Um I think back to it, I mean I mean I've had I've had a lot of help with that. And the way I used to describe it um with the charity was that I had this image in my head, this still image in my head of seeing him lying on the deck with the paramedic, because I can picture the whole the whole scenario like clearly. I've got paramedic to my sort of half left on his knees with this this like hook contraption that you put into the into the person's throat to open their airway, and that's in in Tony in Tony's mouth. Um you've got the other paramedic on my right, you've got the um room screw off to my half-right, um sorry, the paramedics on my immediate right, the room screw off to my half

What PTSD Feels Like Up Close

SPEAKER_03 47:20

right, and the guard commander. So you've got Tony lying across the way, if that makes sense, then his bed, and then you've got the guard commander sitting, standing on the other side of the bed as well. So I've got his clear engine in my head, and I'm stood looking over Tony, I'm looking at my wardrobe, if I make sense, with Tony between me and the wardrobe. Um, that was the same one that I opened, you know, and and saw him next to me, if that makes sense. And behind me, there's a window, and uh, because we're on a ground floor, a ground floor room. And uh I just got this clear image of him lying sort of diagonally uh in relation to me, um, with his eyes open, looking straight at me. And that that's what I remember. I remember it clearly. I could not remember for love no money what the rest of his face looks like. I could just remember his eyes, if that makes sense. Um and that blank stare, unblinking, and the colour around them, and and it just never left me. And I the the other bit that I remembered was that bit where I I go back to um him calling for help um in the early hours, and because he needed to get help to the toilet, basically, he needed someone to help him because he couldn't walk on his own. Um he was that unsteady on his feet. Um, like I said, he'd been ill uh uh um for a couple of days up to this point. It turned out that um in the coroner's inquest that they he'd had a bacterial infection and uh pneumonia, and basically one had done his immune system in and the other one finished him off in a nutshell. And the the one of my other we're in a 10-man room, you know, you've got a cupboard bed, covered bed all the way around. And basically one of my mocker, one of my muckers on the other side had gone and helped him. But to this day, I mean, it it was, or at least for those early years, the that image coupled with the fact that I could never remember the time frame between when he asked for help and when my colleague got up to help him, you know. I could have got up to help him. Why didn't I get up to help him? What's what stopped me getting up to help him? You know, I mean, I was half asleep, everyone else was half asleep, of course, but it it it was one of those things where, you know, I could have done more, you know. Yeah. Why didn't I do more? And and I that that that stayed with me. That image and that that no that him asking for help and me not doing it stayed with me for a long time. And I really I that that was basically what I really struggled with, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

It m it makes total sense. So that's survivor's guilt. Um on that survivor's guilt side of things, uh did you ever get over it? And if so, how?

SPEAKER_03 49:48

Um well the honest answer is no. Um, I never did. It it is still something. I mean, there is that I I I can honestly say there's not been a day gone by where I haven't Tony hasn't been somewhere in my mind. Um he's never been forgotten about, even even though it's been 24 and a half years now, you know. Um it's uh it was the the one big regret I always had was um whilst I was still in Blamford, so that was early on in my trade training, by the sort of following year after the sort of dust had settled, so we're talking what, six, seven, eight months later, still in Blamford. Um I had uh a bit of a sort of an aspiration to maybe reach out to his family just to say, hey, you know, this is me, you know. We'd we briefly met, um, you know, we'd been invited to the funeral, we'd obviously seen them at the coroner's inquest um uh in nearer to the event happening. But I thought, well, maybe I could reach out and just you know, say something, you know, but uh I never did. And his cousin had come down as well, I think it was his cousin. He was down there doing trade training. I mentioned it to him a couple of times and what I thought. And he was like, Yeah, do it, just just do it. You know, they'd love to hear blah, blah, blah. And that was one of my main, always one of my biggest regrets, because I never did, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

And um, I just couldn't bring it again back to that guilt. I couldn't do it because I just didn't want to be the one to say trying to make light of a situation or or try to have a normal conversation, knowing that I'm blaming myself for why I didn't do more, you know. Yeah. Um, if I make sense. So that was one thing. I suppose you could say that was something I also took with me, uh, you know, from about six months on point onwards, so to speak. Um, but yeah, it's never gone away. It's never, you know, even with the help I've had, it's never gone away. I just look at it slightly differently now. They've given me a different perspective of it. So I mentioned that the window that was behind me, the that image, so so um af the year after I got out, um, when I started getting that help, you know, from uh it was a particular charity called Combat Stress, and uh they basically started to uh shift my mindset around what I was seeing in that image and and the perspective of it. And the the way they helped me to do that was to uh look at sort of happier memories and link them to it, if that makes sense. And one of the happy memories I've got of Tony was because we're both in Scotland, we're both there most weekends, you know, we didn't go home. Um, in the summer, which I suppose I only knew him for that summer, it gets really hot in the south of England. I say really hot, I'm I'm from northeast Scotland, so you're talking about 15-degree difference down south there, so that's really hot compared to it, uh, you know, as opposed to Afghanistan, which is like super hot compared to here. But um the uh we're we're um climbing out that window and lying out on the grass outside the window, you know, doing a bit of sunbathing. And I remember him falling asleep in the sun and coming in looking like an absolute lobster, you know, and that that just always made me chuckle that, you know. But they helped me link that to that that that bad image, if I make sense. Um, and instead of seeing him, you know, lying there with his eyes and staring

Therapy Reframes The Worst Memory

SPEAKER_03 52:50

up at us, I now see him with the light from the window shining in on him, if I make sense. So it gives me a brighter way, a better way of looking at that image, if I make sense. Yeah, and that's kind of helped me um embrace it a bit more. Because it the thing with PTSD is it doesn't go away. It doesn't matter what help you get, it doesn't go away. It's you just get better at managing it, if I make sense. So that's essentially what I've learned to do.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

It totally does. Uh faith. Uh do you have a faith background, Christianity, anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 53:21

No, it it's something I have thought about, and and and I do respect anybody, you know, and I'll sit and listen to anybody at the you know, uh, because I've like I said, I've known uh all these different Commonwealth soldiers, uh, you know, the Fijians, the Nepalese, the the the you know, any of the other people come from different places, I'll sit and listen to them what they want to tell me about their different things. I've got all respect for every single one, but I just never took to them because I just couldn't wrap my head around what had happened and and how you know a higher level could could allow something like that to happen and allow those sorts of things to happen. And I just it's not that I don't want to believe, it's that I don't want to have that conversation, if that makes sense. So I'd rather just not be involved. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Yeah, it yeah, it does. It does. Yeah, you know and I understand the um I understand the notion. In fact, I just spoke about it, which is weird. Uh, about three episodes ago, I spoke about why does, you know, why does God let the why does God let these things happen? You know, these terrible things happen to good people. Um, and it was literally, it's weird. I've never spoken about it before, but two or three episodes ago, it was a three-minute,

Faith And EMDR On Survivor Guilt

SPEAKER_00 54:31

you know, exit thought. Anyway, the whole reason I brought up that, um, and not to jump jump too much into my story, but you you and I have a little bit of similarities. In 2002, my partner was killed in the line of duty, and I was directly involved in it. And for years, for 20 plus years, I held on to that guilt of you know, had I not done X, Y, or Z, then he wouldn't have been there. And if he wouldn't have been there, he wouldn't have been killed. And he was killed on Christmas Day, and Christmas Day doubles as his wife's birthday. And the only reason he was at work is because he was covering my shift because I was on vacation. So had I not taken vacation, he wouldn't cover my shift, he wouldn't have been killed. His wife wouldn't have, you know, his daughter wouldn't uh be without a father. He was 18 months from retirement, he was my mentor. I had been riding on in a police car with him since I was 13 years old. So I had thousands of hours next to this guy, and uh now he's dead because of me. And that is the belief that I had for so long, and it wasn't until therapy and we worked through therapy, and it do you know what EMDR is? Have you heard of that? Okay, so I was doing an EMDR session, and you know, I don't know if you've ever done it, but when you're trying to reprocess those thoughts and look at them from a different angle and change your relationship with them, um you know, for me, EMDR was the most powerful type of therapy I've done. And but this EMDR session, we were stuck. I could not get over the guilt. I couldn't get over it, I couldn't get over it, I couldn't go over it. And my therapist, who knows I'm a Christian, she's you know, says, Aaron, stop. Let's stop for a second. You know, she's like, Who else was there that night? And I'm like, Well, it was John, the bad guy and the bad guy's girlfriend. And she's like, Well, who else? She's like, think, think your faith. And I'm like, well, you know, God was there. He was, you know, there that in that moment. And for me, that's all it took in my world to understand. I do believe in faith. I do believe that our final day is already written in the books. And regardless of where I was, what I had done, if I was on vacation or not, that day was preordained, it was pre-planned. That was the moment, and there's nothing I could have done to stop John from going home. And um, you know, that for me took a lot of that weight off of my shoulders, and it was for me, it was super helpful, right? And um it doesn't mean that I don't think about John, it doesn't mean you don't think about Tony. It doesn't, you know, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it. Um, but for me, it helps change that relationship. And I, you know, I've said it a couple times that I believe a trauma or a trigger is the relationship that you have with a set of circumstances that occurred in your life. And it's simply that relationship. And you spoke about it a second ago, reframing those thoughts, reframing those images of the PTSD or the tragic event, up until the reframing point, all you have and all you know is the truth, is the relationship that you initially had with Tony passing and you standing there and all that imagery. Now, that is if if you never do anything, if you never talk about it, you never process it, that is what you're gonna die with, and it's going to be a weight on your shoulders. But when we learn to change the relationship between what happened and how we processed that, you know, it's the difference in the conversation. There's nothing you could have done that morning, and I know you've heard all this, but there's nothing you could have done that morning to save Tony. You could have got up and helped him in the bathroom 154 times and it wouldn't have saved him, right? You had nothing to do with the bacterial infection and the pneumonia and everything else. And that was his moment. Um, but it's not until we look at it from a different angle, change that relationship, that we can reprocess that and maybe understand things and look at them through a different filter. And I think in my experience, and it sounds like yours as well, having that therapy and having those people that are willing to talk to us and walk us through that and help us see things from a different angle. You know, when you're talking, I hear you're talking about that window. Where I expect you to go was therapist, okay, put yourself outside that window and look in. Use that window as a picture frame and look in on what's going on, you know, and from that perspective, could have you changed anything? And the answer is ultimately going to be no. I couldn't have. Um, you know, and uh I talk about therapy because I think it's so important. You know, PTSD is something that in 2001, two, three, four, I guarantee you, you guys are not talking about feelings in your meetings. You're not talking about PT.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. So not a thing was said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

We're not talking about feelings. We didn't, I bet I I would almost bet a hundred dollar bill that you did not debrief Tony's death. You guys didn't get together, you did do a critical incident debrief and talk about your feelings. Am I right?

SPEAKER_03 59:29

You're absolutely right. Yep. When you were saying about uh they were saying to you about, you know, who else was there and and and and uh you know with your partner in that and and the it's funny because they asked me some similar questions as well, because when you said that it sparked a memory because they said the similar thing to me in that um they said, you know, you're in a 10-man room, you know, you're you're guilty, feeling guilty because you you didn't do enough, but you're the one that ran like off to get the guards, you're the one that met them there, you're the one that stayed in the room, you're the one that did the CPR. Um what did the other nine people in the room do? So, and it's not that they didn't care or they didn't do enough as well, it's just that um I just beat them to the punch to do those things. Um, there's nine other people in the room, someone else was able to help him go to the toilet. It didn't need to be me, you know, like you said, it it would have made no difference at all if I'd have taken him the toilet and put him back in bed, he just think the same thing would have still happened, you know. There was someone else the other side of him as well. So he was like the middle bed in that particular section. And uh so if I could have heard something or done something differently, so could they, you know. Um so when I think about it from that perspective, um, and I'm not suggesting that they should have done more at all, I'm not suggesting that. Um, but it it it takes it at the pressure away from me that it took the pressure away from me at the time in that I was able to step back and think, well, okay, I did do quite a lot then, really, in the grand scheme of things. There's it it wasn't that I did nothing. Um there's only so much I could have done, you know, and I pretty much tagged the limits of of that, you know, what I could have done at the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

So when I came out of law enforcement, you know, I wasn't ready. I had more murders to solve, I had more child abuse cases to work, I had a like you, I had a desk full of paperworks. I had just got done putting away Mexican cartel members, and I had seven case files on my desk of taking them into custody. Not a single report was written. What do you mean I gotta go? Who's gonna finish my work for me, right? But it's kind of weird how when we unplug ourselves, like the world just keeps turning and people figure shit out. But uh, when I'm struggling with this, and I'm struggling with this, I've got more to do, I've got more to do. I spoke to uh a fellow police officer who works for a different agency, and we're talking about this. This guy's been in the business a while, and he was like Aaron, he says, You've done your job. You don't owe anybody anything else. You've done it, you've you've helped so many people along the way. Now it's time for you to pass the baton, and it's somebody else's turn, and it's okay to let somebody else have a turn. And for me, that was such I mean, this was a sidebar conversation five years ago, four and a half years ago, and that was so impactful for me just to hear you've done your part, and now it's time for somebody else, and it's okay. There you, I'm giving you permission to let somebody else help you. In in our world, it is so hard to ask somebody for help. We are the ones that are used to taking care of business. You know what I mean? We're the ones that our superheroes go to because they know we're gonna, it's not about the hours in the day, it's when the job is done. Um and when you're used to using that kind of a having that kind of a lifestyle, asking for help is so hard. I didn't call 911, I was 911, you know? Um so it was so hard to take a step back and ask for help, especially when we're talking about PTSD. You know, when PTSD is not spoken about early on in your career and it's not a thing, it becomes a stigma. And I assume your stigma was the same where PTSD, it's not real, it's for quitters, it's weak, it's you know, all this nonsense. And for me, when I got diagnosed, I didn't believe it. You know, I I fought that diagnosis. That's why I asked you that question. I fought the diagnosis. I'm like, I don't have PTSD PTSDs, you know, it's a made-up thing for people that don't want to work. Um, but it's it's so not, it's such a real deal. Um, and so many people listening to this podcast, you know, I think we'll draw some parallels to what you and I are talking about. And it may maybe it helped them get over that hurdle. I know that, you know, people in the military and people in law enforcement, you said it a second ago, the suicide rate is so high. Well, they're not killing themselves because they feel great about themselves, they're killing themselves because they're suffering with depression and PTSD. And the best option is to put a gun in their mouth, you know. Um, hopefully, our stories and us just chatting about this, somebody out there may be on the brink, and we don't even know it, right? I've got no idea. And I'll say it, I don't know where who knows where God is putting this. I just surpassed 50,000 downloads on this podcast, and it's all over the world. And um who knows where this is going to find its way at the right moment and maybe save somebody's life. So I really appreciate you taking the time to chat today and to tell your story. Um, you know, it was it's so it's so cool to hear. Thank you for sharing with me today. Being vulnerable and talking about this stuff is hard. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

You're welcome. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Yeah. Is there anything that we haven't spoken about or any message you would give to anybody? We've I mean, today's episode, we're talking about PTSD.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

I'd always believe there were two certainties in life. The obvious one is mortality. We're all going to meet America. It's a free club, we've all got a membership to. The second one's change. Change happens whether we want it to or not, you know. Um, but I learned through this that it was dependency. We've all got um different differing levels of dependency on an array of different things, you know, from the obvious stuff like the air we breathe, food we eat, water we drink, to um mobile phones, to cars and such like and so on. But I'd become too dependent on the army, and I now needed to become dependent on myself. And to do that, I needed to reduce dependency on one thing, on singular things, if I make sense, and spread it out more. Because when I was in the army, most of it was on the army, and when that fell through, basically I was I was on my ass in a nutshell. Um, so that was really the turning point was was when we got the house and with the family in mind, it was about getting them on the on the on the right path, if I make sense. That's when I started getting the proper help for myself, um getting onto the Invictus Games as well, and then you know, trying to move forward, but not with the gold medal in mind. That came about for another reason, which we talked about last time.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

Yeah, totally. And then if if there was if somebody is

One Small Action In Crisis

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

staring down the barrel of a PTSD diagnosis or a critical incident or a Tony situation or a John Watson situation for myself, and Or a career just ended and we have an identity crisis and they're in that crisis moment, right? There's a difference between dealing with chronic PTSD and being in crisis, you know, Tony, PTSD, loss of job, et cetera. If somebody is in that crisis state, what is one piece of advice you would give them when they're looking forward to the future?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

I'm going to go back to that five-step process I mentioned last time. And it's doing that first step, is doing something simple. Something that does not require almost any thought at all. So for me, I go and get a brew and I just I'll I'll drink my brew. Um it could be going for a walk, it could be taking a big deep breath. Um, it could be some people get it from just going and doing some press-ups or or something like that. It's something that does not require thought, something that you typically do on a day, you know, um, because it gives that it allows that opportunity for that moment of clarity, um, that that that break from whatever it is that's going on, if that makes sense. Um it's something because you're not having to think about what you're doing, if that makes sense. You can just do it and and you can you can put this that take that first step forward, uh, you know, and it doesn't matter how small that step is, it's still a step forward, if that makes sense. And and the key there is it is an action. It's not just a thought in your mind. It's not um, you know, that thought in your mind could then be could could sprout arms and legs and turn into some overthinking, you know, and that's when the real problems start can start coming as well. So taking the action sets you off on that path to resolution, if that makes sense. And and so that's what I would direct people to every single time is to do something simple. Um find if if they're having a calm place right now, go and figure out what your your simple thing is. For me, it's going and get a brew, get a cup of coffee, and you know, um find out what your simple thing is that you would typically do in a normal day that you do without thinking, um, and do it. Anytime you're having a challenge, go and do that thing, and then you go on to the next step, which is to keep it simple. Whatever that challenge is, break it down. Um, so you can get to the next one, which is understanding. Um, and then keep moving forward from there. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

Awesome, man. Thank you so much, dude. I really appreciate you again. Thanks for sharing your story two weeks in a row, and it was great to hear kind of the the rest of the story, if you will. So thank you so much, and uh, look forward to chatting again. Ladies and gentlemen, uh thank you guys for listening. And uh, this was another part in the turning point series. You know, you've heard my story about crisis, and you've heard my story about coming out of law enforcement and the identity crisis and all that that followed. But here we got a gentleman across the world, completely different lifestyle, different set of circumstances, yet the story is the same. It resonates. And I would, I would submit that David and I are not the only two people in this world that have similar experiences, especially for folks, you know, that only know one thing. They know IT, they know computers, they're uh or they're in a military or law enforcement or fire or paramedics or whatever it may be, some high-speed, low drag community they're in, and then all of a sudden their world changes. There is life outside of that. So take an action, take a formidable step to relax and breathe. Understand, keep it simple, and there is a future out there. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. This is a murders

Closing Thoughts And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 1:09:30

to music podcast.