Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans

Ep. 84 Mental Health & Leadership in Construction: Vee Holt on Real Support

• Darren Evans

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Mental health isn’t a weakness, it’s the foundation of strong teams and sustainable careers.

In this Thrive in Construction Podcast episode, Darren Evans speaks with Vee Holt, Mental Health Trainer at St John Ambulance, who brings personal experience and professional expertise to the vital topic of mental health in the workplace.

From overcoming their own struggles with anxiety and depression to training hundreds of professionals across industries, Vee shares practical strategies for creating cultures where people feel safe, supported, and able to thrive, particularly in high-pressure sectors like construction.

Key Highlights:
- Lived Experience & Professional Expertise: How Vee’s personal journey from university dropout to mental health trainer shaped their mission to support others.
- Recognising the Signs: How to identify when you or a colleague might need support—long before a crisis hits.
- Breaking the Stigma in Construction: Tackling the “tough guy” culture and empowering workers to speak up without fear of judgement.
- Active Listening & Empathy in Action: The skills every manager needs to serve, not fix, when supporting mental health.
- Preventing Burnout & Building Resilience: Why reflection, connection, and daily habits are crucial to long-term wellbeing.
- Suicide Prevention & Courageous Conversations: Debunking myths, asking the hard questions, and providing life-saving support.

This episode is a must-listen for leaders, managers, and professionals across construction and beyond who want to create healthier workplaces and support their teams effectively.

If you want to see our other insightful podcasts, click here:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHI_yaqB2U8KWbsfJDPCoYEfOh-TTnip

Find us on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dDkxLWZ25nT0krYWaTiIT
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/thrive-in-construction-podcast/
Our Website: https://darren-evans.co.uk/

Links:
Vee Holt's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vee-holt-746a01129/
St John's Ambulance LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/st-john-ambulance/
St Jon's Ambulance: www.sja.org.uk


#MentalHealthInConstruction #ThriveInConstruction #WorkplaceWellbeing #SuicidePrevention #ActiveListening #ConstructionCulture #StJohnAmbulance #MentalHealthMatters

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Vee Holt:

I've always dealt with poor mental health. Since I was a teenager. I've had anxiety-type symptoms going on. And then at university it kind of all came to a head because the course I was doing was very much hands-off a couple of lectures a week, but then you kind of just do your own work Because I was left to it. That just meant all the depression stuff just started. Cycling and cycling and cycling especially when you're trying to look after yourself, feed yourself, socialise, do all those kind of things. So I managed the first year, started the second year and was living by myself and then that just spiralled from there and luckily my parents are fantastic, they're really supportive. So when I said to them, look, this isn't working for me, they said, well, if it's not working, then take a year out, see how you feel, and then you can always go back if you need to.

Vee Holt:

So originally I was just taking a leave of absence for a few months and then I started working at an indoor ski centre and then found that actually being up and active and having that focus was a lot better for me rather than trying to self-motivate to study and things like that.

Darren Evans:

That's good, and so did that experience lead you to where you are at St John's.

Vee Holt:

Yes, definitely. So I started working at St John's about four years ago. I've been training the mental health courses for three years now, but part of the reason why I joined them was because I wanted to train the mental health side of things. Obviously, I've had personal experience myself. I've dealt with all mental health, suicide ideation and things like that. Obviously, I've recovered massively since then.

Vee Holt:

At my old job I was a manager, so I was managing a team of well, quite a lot of people at that point across multiple departments. 10 people how many people? Probably up to about 50. 50? Yeah, depending on the shift, you were the direct line manager of all 50 people. Yeah, oh, wow.

Vee Holt:

And quite a lot of them were going through poor mental health at the time and I didn't have any sort of formal training around it. I was just doing what I thought was best for them and definitely made some mistakes along the way, which I'm completely honest about. I think you have to make mistakes to learn and improve. And then after that, I actually applied to Central Ambulance as an apprentice trainer. They were looking for new trainers, people to come and do a qualification, and I knew that they trained the mental health stuff as well. So that's part of the reason I joined was to become a trainer.

Vee Holt:

I've always done a lot of first aid, again work at a ski center. People love to disc skate and break stuff and do all kinds of things. So, um, I had that experience and then obviously came over to do the training side of it. But I think that when I'm training courses especially the mental health side of things when people know that I have that personal experience, that personal connection, it helps them so much open up and have that trust because they can say, okay, this person's been there, they understand what I'm going through, they know kind of what they've experienced. Uh, I can actually talk about it and hopefully obviously take those lessons back into their workplaces as well okay.

Darren Evans:

So if I very well, that might be my theory and especially wasn't plugged in, that would be worse. Is that any better? No, still not. What about that? Is that better? Like that?

Vee Holt:

Yeah.

Darren Evans:

Is that better? Sure, all right, oh, we're good, so, um, so it's two lines of thinking that I've gotten them. One line of thinking is someone wants suffering someone. Let me just try that in english. So one line of thinking is someone that is suffering with their mental health. The other line of thinking is someone that has observed someone or has become aware of someone with their mental health, but I've never, or currently don't, struggle with their mental health.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, so that's the way that things are kind of split in my mind at the moment. So if I could start with the first, which train of thought is, I think, if someone is aware that they have suffered or do suffer with their mental health, to me that feels like there's a clear path of. I know that I might need to reach out for help at certain times. I know that I might need to change my behavior at certain times or be aware of certain things, but if you're not aware that something doesn't feel quite right, what pointers would you suggest that would help someone identify? You may benefit from speaking to someone and being proactive, as opposed to just sitting and waiting for things to progressively get worse I think that's really the question.

Vee Holt:

Um, I think a lot of people do, as you mentioned, find it difficult to self-identify when they are getting to the point where they need that help and support. I tend to find that a lot of our focus is crisis mind from. To get support, you have to be in a really bad place, when actually I mean, most of us have a bad day. Sometimes we have bad weeks, and even though you might not be at that extreme point, it doesn't mean that you don't need help and support. Yeah, I think a lot of people worry that if they go to their doctors about their mental health, they'll end up getting put on medication and therapy and things like that, and whilst that is help for some people, it's not for everyone.

Vee Holt:

Kind of looking after your mental health can be as simple as talking to a friend, talking to a family member, looking after yourself. The basic things like getting enough sleep, eating vaguely healthfully, drinking enough water, things like that make massive differences. And I think as soon as someone starts to find that they are really tired during the day that's what I tend to find people often notice first they don't want to do things, activities they normally enjoy or people they usually enjoy talking to. They've just got no interest whatsoever. They wake up in the morning they've got that pit sort of anxious feeling in their stomach, something not quite right.

Vee Holt:

I think as soon as you notice that it's worth starting to look into support and organizations like mind you might have heard of before. There are that very big mental health charity in the uk. They've got lots of good information on their website for the self help side of stuff, as well as obviously directing people to professional support when they need it. And but I always encourage people as soon as they think that they're not themselves, something's a little bit wrong reach out, ask for support or even just turn to a family member or a friend or even a colleague and say have you noticed that I'm different to normal? Have you seen any sort of changes? Because often it's easier to identify looking from the outside view than it is looking internally normally I'm just thinking as well about people that may be good at masking.

Darren Evans:

So I'll give you an example. So my son, when he was first year at secondary school so he was 11, going on 12 he was really struggling to access the curriculum. The reason that he was struggling is because he didn't quite understand what the teacher was saying as quickly as other children in the classroom. So he would go and attach himself to someone that really got it quite quickly and he would learn effectively from this other person that he was sat next to teacher was like no, can't do that, that's not acceptable. You should do your own work, because sitting next to someone else's class is cheating, right, but what he was trying to do is manage the situation got to a point where he kind of just checked out. He's like well, if they're going to be like this, I'm just gonna just not show that I'm interested at all.

Darren Evans:

Um, we took him to a educational psychologist. That really gave us some really good pointers with him. That led us to changing schools with him. But had we not of, as his parents, being really proactive in that area and really and we've really struggled with the school quite a bit because the teachers were like he's not engaged, he's this, he's that, he's the other. So he's got problematic behavior. He wasn't revealing how he felt inside and was just showing a certain behavior, I think probably because I'm super inquisitive. That was the reason I kind of delved into it. But what about someone that is, um, that feels like they just have to put on a front or put on a show and to the outside world they may not, from their friendship network, see any change in behavior? Have you, have you got any, any thoughts or suggestions in that? In that scenario, how for them to?

Vee Holt:

reach out for support yeah, I've done recognizing.

Darren Evans:

Okay, I need to. The best way forward for me is to reach out for support, and these are my and these are my options. I think that's. I think that's probably what I'm, what I'm talking to yeah, definitely.

Vee Holt:

Um, I think that a lot of the time, they can reach out for support through their workplace sometimes, but obviously that isn't for everyone. I think, particularly in construction industry, there is that whole kind of tough guy mentality. We did a survey recently of some construction workers and they said about 20% of them said that they wouldn't want to reach out for support because they were worried about these things as weak or losing respect from people and things like that. And for people like that, I think there is a lot they can do when it comes to personally seeking support rather than directly telling people. They're a little bit concerned about that. Uh, again, places like mind. They've got support groups in person online. We've got calls uh phone numbers. People can call for support. Uh, you might have heard of the samaritans before. Yeah, yeah, fantastic organization.

Vee Holt:

A lot of people again think they're just for if you're in a really dark place, but actually they're a talking service. They're there to talk to anyone about anything that's going on as well. Uh, and a lot of people again think they're just for if you're in a really dark place, but actually they're a talking service. They're there to talk to anyone about anything that's going on as well, and a lot of it comes down to trying to understand why someone might be feeling like that. Is it general stress, which obviously affects a lot of people? Is it that they have got financial problems going on? Are they feeling overworked, undervalued, which is quite a big concern for a lot of people in the industry? I think once someone does a bit of that self-reflection, okay, think, why am I feeling like this? Is there a specific reason? Do I click into support of that, or is a wider issue that's going on I need to go and talk to you, doctor, about in some cases what, uh, what top three tips would you give to maintain to enable someone to maintain a good?

Vee Holt:

level of mental health? Very good question. Uh, I think self-reflection me personally and something I do for my mental health is, at the end of the day, write down three things that gone well. Okay, which sounds very minor and like a very straightforward thing to do, but it really helps you learn that positive outlook, yeah, that even if things aren't always perfect, you've achieved something that day. Something's gone well, and that can be as simple as having a nice coffee. It doesn't always have to be life-changing things that have gone on, but you have that kind of positive then end to your day.

Vee Holt:

I think physically looking after yourself does impact your mental health massively. There's all kind of studies going on at the minute with regard to, like, gut health and your mental health now all being interlinked and getting outside, getting some fresh air. I always try and spend at least 30 minutes outdoors at some point during the day. Even if it's raining, even if it's windy, you kind of get in that little bit of again fresh air, exercise, making sure you're moving your body, and they do find that obviously exercise, whether it's going for a walk, going to the gym, going for a swim, whatever someone enjoys doing and it creates those happy hormones and also it reduces your stress hormones, so it can have a really large impact, and for me as well, I think the other main thing is connection finding something or someone that you connect with, that you value, so that could be trying to spend time in your week factoring in.

Vee Holt:

Okay, can I spend an afternoon or an evening with a friend or family member if someone feels like they are quite isolated. It doesn't always have to be in person. Obviously we've got the internet these days. It's fantastic that people can still connect online digitally if they're not as comfortable in person and if they look for local support groups. Not always do with mental health, but there's many movements when it comes to getting people connected. Talking through the working together and if they do think actually I'm not people person, talking to people reduces my mental health, then find something that they like to do, whether it is reading, creating something. That kind of active planning your day really does tend to benefit people's mental health.

Darren Evans:

I like that. I know you said reflection for the first one, but what I took from what you said was a gratitude yes, yeah, definitely for the small things as well as the big things, if they do show up.

Vee Holt:

I think it's really easy to kind of get overwhelmed with. I've got this stress at work, I've got this stress at home. Everything's going downhill, especially when you kind of look at new cycles and things like that. It's all quite negative and whilst it is good to know, okay, yeah, that is stressful, that is a problem, actually there's a lot of good stuff going on in people's lives. I think that really helped kind of retrain your brain almost to have that more positive outlook going forwards where did you learn these things?

Darren Evans:

I'm going back now to the time where things were tough for you, when you were at university. How did you come up with these top three things?

Vee Holt:

so it's a little bit of a mix. So at the time I went through a little bit of counseling not full therapy, but I went through some counseling sessions and that was very much focusing on the building walks and then after that I've been through what I proper therapy, to call it. Uh, that something called cbt, which is cognitive behavior therapy, which is quite a common therapy for dealing with anxiety and depression. And one thing I retook from that was you have to get the building blocks right first before you can push yourself forward. Because if you try and build too quickly, if you've got a ladder you're trying to climb for your mental health and you're trying to go all the way to the top straight away, you're going to lose balance, you're going to lose your hands and you're going to fall off. You've got to do it step by step to get there.

Vee Holt:

And so, focusing on the basic things, I learned it's really good to try and make sure you get a balance of what we call achievement activities getting out of bed, going to work, having a shower, cooking your dinner, enjoyment, things that you want to do and then that connection and kind of finding that balance and not being afraid to actually plan your week out, think, okay, where am I maybe missing something? Where can I put in an extra activity? Or listen to music in the shower to add in that enjoyment side of it? Um, like I said, those building blocks are so important. Otherwise you can get carried away.

Vee Holt:

Our brains are very good at going into survival mode, but as soon as things get tough, they say, right, we just get through this day, get through this week, get through this month, and then we'll be over it. But actually just need to take that step back sometimes and go well, if I got up today, I've eaten my breakfast, I've gone to work, I've come home, I've washed the dishes, might not be life-changing, but you've achieved so much just within that day and just thinking that and focus on that can really help people, I think can you talk just in a little bit of detail about cbt and the type of uh benefit that that is for someone and why someone might want to consider doing cbt?

Vee Holt:

yeah. So cbt is all about kind of trying to rewire your brain, almost to think in a slightly different way, to have that slightly more positive outlook and also to understand that your brain is doing things because it thinks it's helpful. The reason you're feeling anxious about something isn't your brain fighting against you. It's your brain going right. We need to be worried, something's not right, I'm looking out for dangers. You have to work with that rather than against that and say, okay, well, that might be helpful, but actually we need to put that energy into something that is reducing that anxiety instead and that can come with pushing yourself.

Vee Holt:

In some cases, part of that is saying, okay, I'm anxious about talking to someone on the bus, go out and do that and see if there's any consequences, and you'll find that most of the time there isn't, and then that kind of helps to teach your brain that you have all these worries, all these anxieties sometimes, but actually the outcome isn't always going to be bad as you think it might be. I think it's really beneficial when people are feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they um, feeling like they don't know what to do, when they get into those cycles of feeling bad or feeling worried, feeling anxious. It really helps someone to break free of that and look at it from a slightly different point of view I like that, that testing, that theory of the negative speak in your mind.

Vee Holt:

Well, let's actually put that theory to the test and see what happens yeah, and actually it's not usually as bad as you think it might be. Yeah definitely.

Darren Evans:

are there any books that you can recommend for someone? Not necessarily just for cbt, but if there's anything that you would recommend someone to read, um just to try and help them with their general mental health?

Vee Holt:

I don't know about anything.

Darren Evans:

Nothing comes to mind, I'll voice nothing. Okay, that's cool. So I want to speak now about that other group, which is a group of people that maybe have never experienced significant poor mental health, or maybe even their mental health issues at all. I don't think I can get my words out. I want to speak now about the other group of people which have never experienced, or seldom experienced, poor mental health. Um, what advice would you give to that group of people when someone presents themselves to them, say, mental health is really challenging. Or maybe even like a simple thing of do you know, I just cannot get out of bed. I don, I just cannot get out of bed. I don't want to get out of bed.

Vee Holt:

I think my first step is always just take a deep breath. I think, okay, relax, it's okay. Someone's come to me with this. I think it's really beneficial when someone does actively come to you and says I'm not quite right, I'm not for you and myself, because it means they trust you, and trust is always the first step.

Vee Holt:

Nor to getting someone's support, and something else that we always remind people of, particularly when we're training mental health courses, is that we're not there to teach you to be a therapist. You're not going to become a full-time counsellor in two days or a psychologist or anything like that. You don't have to know every single thing about mental health, nor to support someone. A lot of the time, people just want someone who can listen, and that's a lot of. What we focus on is kind of your active listening feels, your empathetic communication and not making it too much about yourself, which is hard, you might think in some conversations. It's all about acknowledging that someone is feeling that way. A lot of the time, we all tend to automatically go into solution mode someone's come to me with a problem, I need to fix it whereas actually, when it comes to conversation on mental health, we're not there to fix it. We're there to try and signpost someone to support, whether that is self-help or going down the more professional routes or charities or other organizations that can help. So someone does come to you and they say you know, I'm really struggling right now. There's a lot going on at home or, like I said, as simple as I'm struggling to get out of bed in the morning. Thank them, thank you for telling me this. I'm glad that we can have this conversation. Let's go somewhere where you feel safe and comfortable. Let's go for a brew, let's go for a walk around site, whatever it is that makes sure that they can open up and have that confidence and then take that step back and just listen to them. Why don't you feel that way? How's that affecting you? How's it affecting you in work, but also in your home? Why is there anyone else you talk to about it? Would you feel comfortable sharing this with someone else? And you'll find that once people have that opportunity and they realize that the focus on them, they do start to open up, they talk more, reminding that you are there to listen. It's okay to feel like that. It's absolutely fine to feel those negative emotions. You don't have to get out of it really quickly, so long as you're looking for that support and what I say support wise is if it was a colleague, for example.

Vee Holt:

Often workplaces do have their own intel supports that you might be able to help them out with. It's become more and more common for organizations to have what's called an EAP, which stands for Employee Assistance Program, which is free, confidential advice for their workers as well. We're finding out if that is something that your organisation offers, if not going down different charities and organisations there's many different ones out there. Obviously, I already mentioned things like Mind of Samaritans, because they are two of the big ones that do a lot of work. What a lot of people don't know, though, is the NHS 111, which you might have heard of before, for non-emergency medical advice. Last August, they have now opened up a mental health support line as well, and that could be for someone in a crisis point, someone who just needs a talk, or for a friend, family member, colleague who's concerned about someone else and wants to talk through options and what to do. So that's another really good, immediate option when it comes to getting someone a little bit of help and support nice.

Darren Evans:

I? Um. The thing that stood out to me was from what you said. There was about listening, about active listening skills and not making it about yourself. Yeah, when someone can you give an example of what that might look like, because it seemed to me as though you were just asking lots of open-ended questions. But is it? Is it just that, or is it more than that?

Vee Holt:

yeah, so kind of about active listening, empathetic communication, making it about them. Part of it is open questions, giving them that chance to open up and discuss more. A lot comes down to bobby language. Being open, not kind of sitting there with your arms crossed or anything like that having the openness around you, eye contact where possible although I always say appropriate eye contact. If you're staring someone down whilst talking to them, they're probably not going to feel too comfortable about it. Um, it's things like paraphrasing so someone tells you you something, summarize it, repeat it back, because they know that you've actually listened properly and taken in what they're saying. And that helps you out as well, because it means that you've actually you can confirm that you've understood what they want to say and you've not gone off on a tangent when actually that's not really what they wanted to focus on.

Vee Holt:

Empathy is all about trying to put yourself in their shoes as well. So you've got to think okay, if I was in their position, how would I feel? How might I respond to that? What would I see my options as being? Because we tend to find that a lot of times, people accidentally make judgments. Well, if I was in your position, I would do this or I would do that, whereas actually we're not in their position. They're going to react to it in their own way and that's absolutely fine. If they want to tell someone about it, that's fantastic. If they say, well, I don't want to tell my wife, my partner about this, we'd like to encourage them to, but that is their choice.

Vee Holt:

Ultimately, we can't make them decide who they feel comfortable talking to or what support they want to access, and and I think that, like I said, focus on them is really good. Whenever I'm talking to someone about their mental health, if they come to me with an issue, I usually try and keep a bit of an 80-20 rule in my head, so I want them to be doing 80% of the talking and I'm just doing 20%, and I'm mainly focusing on that listening side of stuff. Another thing to avoid is not accidentally doing some storytelling. What we sometimes do is someone says right'm struggling with this, this is what's going on, and then we go okay, I want to relate to this person. Yeah, I dealt with that a few years ago and this is what I did and this is how I dealt with it, and in that moment, you've accidentally made the conversation about you and not about them. And there's nothing wrong with saying I've been there myself, I can understand where you're coming from, but don't take over that conversation to it. Keep focused on them.

Darren Evans:

So why is it so important, then, to not speak about yourself when someone comes and says, look, I'm struggling with this, this is a problem for you. To share your experience with them and your perspective. Why is that problematic?

Vee Holt:

I think sometimes it is that comparison that they might have come to you with a concern. They have an issue they're having and they hear your experience and might think, oh well, mine's nowhere near as bad at that. Why am I complaining? I should just get on with it. I don't need support when that isn't true. Everyone's experience is different and we all react to things in different ways. I think as well.

Vee Holt:

Many people don't get an opportunity to just talk. Many people don't get our opportunity to just talk. A lot of the time we don't get an opportunity to discuss what's going on for us and have that sole focus of the conversation. And that's so important to remind them that we're there for them. We're not there for us. We're not there to big ourselves up or make ourselves feel better. We're there to try and support them and I think when we get carried away talking about ourselves too much sometimes, that just makes them feel not listened to and they might think twice then about coming back for support in the future.

Vee Holt:

Obviously, if you had someone turn around and say have you dealt with something like this before? Nothing wrong with then suggesting or sharing a couple of personal insights, that's absolutely fine. We're humans at the end of the day, we're not robots who are just going to stand there and say a set list of questions or phrases or anything like that, but we need to avoid it, unless it's asked for and someone's wanting out of the conversation, I feel so, as you're speaking now, I'm reflecting, thinking that this sounds very much like you're there to serve somebody yes, definitely, as opposed there to fix their problem, which is which is what we said not to do.

Vee Holt:

Yeah, and we quite often get people on our courses who might be particularly construction site managers or site supervisors and actually most of their job is fixing. Someone comes to them with a problem. They need to fix it, and I always suggest to them especially if they are becoming something like a mental health first aider at work separate the roles in your head. Someone comes to you as a manager. They probably want a solution. Someone comes to you as a mental health first aider.

Darren Evans:

What they might want instead is that listing instead and, like you said that you're there to serve and not fix it because the desire that most people have again yes, definitely in the construction industry, on-site, off-site design everywhere is to move on, is to move from where you are at the moment to a better point or a different point in the future. And the quicker we can do that, the better we feel. The more high fives we get, and probably the biggest you know paycheck or bonus or whatever we get, so everything is pointing towards let's move on from where we are as fast as possible. How might I be able to have a thought process that enables me to sit and serve someone without knowing how fast we can move on, because right now we just need to sit with them?

Vee Holt:

Yeah, I think it's worth knowing and remembering that with mental health, whether it's a short-term episode of someone just having a bad week or a long-term condition, there isn't always going to be a fix for it. So myself, for example, I got diagnosed with anxiety and depression when I was 20. That was eight years ago now. It's not that I no longer have anxiety and depression I still do. It's just managed to the point where it's not actually affecting my life on a day-to-day basis. And if you look at that from an objective point of view, you might think well, it's not fixed, it doesn't have to be fixed. A lot of the time when it comes to mental health support. It's allowing someone to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, so it's not having a negative impact or as much of a negative impact on their life. But that is a big mentality to have, especially when a lot of us are very goal orientated, like so we want to sign off a job and it's done and it's finished. We kind of wash our hands of it.

Vee Holt:

Mental health is a little bit more complicated than that and for a lot of people it's that ongoing support, the tools and techniques that I used when I was in quite a bad place. It's not that I stopped using them. I just use them now on a day-to-day basis. It's kind of become part of my routine to continue to support my mental health, and that's often the same with other people. They can't just take a magic pill or have two therapy sessions and then they're done and they're fixed. It's gonna be an ongoing thing for a lot of people. They have to deal with and manage on day-to-day basics so was that a shift in mindset for you then?

Darren Evans:

did you initially think I need to get fixed, I want to get fixed, and also those that are near and close to you? Did they have that same mindset as well?

Vee Holt:

to a certain extent, I'm very lucky. I've got a really supportive family, I've got very supportive friends and a very supportive partner and, for better or worse, unfortunately, a lot of those people have also dealt with poor mental health in the past as well. So it was less of an external pressure for myself anyway, and more of that internal pressure. Uh, I've always been quite goal orientated. I've always wanted to do my best, push myself to be the best that I can be, and so I was really hoping take two weeks of antidepressants and it would sort me out. But obviously it didn't. It helped and for me I really benefited from.

Vee Holt:

Medication doesn't work for everyone, but it did for myself. Uh, it just allowed me to get to a level where I could put in the self-care, the routines, the structures that I now use to make sure I'm not dealing with it too much on a day-to-day basis. But it took a good couple of years for that to happen and, like I mentioned before, I've dealt with some poor mental health for throughout my teenage years. It took me until I was 20 to actually go to a doctor and seek that support, and that's because I thought I can deal with it myself. I just need to get over it, improve, move forward, suck it up effectively.

Darren Evans:

I think a lot of people feel that and actually getting that support means that you are going to be able to move past it and you are going to be able to improve and live the life that you want to lead without having that hold you back to a certain extent. So, looking back at that period now where you had that frame of mind, we just needed to suck it up, we just needed to get better. So your teenage years up to 20, there's there's quite a few years. Right, you were in that position, but I think that there's a few years in there that you were an adult as well. So, reflecting back at that time, what advice would you have given to a younger version of V that would have been more helpful than the path that you took.

Vee Holt:

I would say don't see reaching out for help as a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength that you could recognize that you need that help, you need that support and actually you can't deal with everything yourself. I've always been very much there or I used to be anyway very much a personal drive person. You can sort everything out yourself, whereas these days I'm a lot more teamwork focused and I think viewing that as a teamwork solution can be very helpful that actually mental health is so complex and so interconnected with so many aspects of your life that it is impossible to deal with yourself. You need help. You need support from other people around you as well and if you are feeling again someone sort of talked about core if you're not feeling right, get that support earlier. I always think I don't regret it anymore because it, you know it's made me the person I am today.

Darren Evans:

But to a certain extent I sometimes regret those years I spent not getting support because I could have felt a lot better and able to do things I wanted to do a lot sooner than I ended up, you know, being able to move forward from it yeah, I think, um, I think we all go on a path or on a journey and to look back and say that you regret something, I think that you need to be in a position to understand that there was an alternative and what the end of that line looked like versus the path that you're taking. So I think regret can only come from you knowing this is the outcome if I go down this road, this is the outcome if I go down this road. But unless you know the outcomes of both roads, then I'm not sure how you can regret anything, because the path that you never took but now you understand if you did take we didn't know it back then. So how can that be regret?

Vee Holt:

Yeah, and I now agree with that, especially because I've now come to the mindset of you don't necessarily fail in things you won't. From the opportunity you learn experience. There's a fantastic book, which is a fiction book, which is called the Bindite Library, by a guy called Matt Haig, and the whole concept of that book is this woman who, uh, takes her own life and the whole book is her living different life she could have made if she made different choices during them. Uh, I don't want to spoil the book entirely, but she learns a lesson around how you can't spend your life regretting and thinking about decisions you've made in the past. You can learn from them, you can accept them, you can understand why you might have made those decisions, but your life is still going to work out how you want it to, so long as you're working towards that I'm really, really simple in terms of the way that I view things.

Darren Evans:

So here's a really simple analogy when you learn to walk, you don't know how many times you fell down. When you learn to run, you don't know how many times you fell down. I'm sure, if you can ride a bike, that you fell off the bike quite a few times. But that's the part of the process of learning how to walk and ride a bike and run and all the rest of it. You have to fall down.

Darren Evans:

Falling down hurts often. Sometimes people catch us, but most of the time we're on our own when we fall. Sometimes people laugh at us when we fall. Sometimes we laugh at ourselves when we fall. The more often we can laugh at ourselves when we fall, the the better. The process is going to be right 100. So, taking that into a mental health frame or applying that to any action within the work environment or even home life, you have to accept that things are not always going to go to plan. As you learn to do something that you're not as competent at doing or as confident at doing or as able at doing as you'd like it to be.

Vee Holt:

I think that's also a really important mindset when you're trying to support or as confident at doing or as able at doing as you'd like it to be. I think that's also a really important mindset when you're trying to support someone with their mental health. I quite often get a lot of people that I'm training to be half-burst aiders, champions, who are very scared about getting it wrong and we tend to find that stops people reaching out. Again, we did a survey a little while ago. We found that seven in ten people in construction specifically knew or thought that someone was going through quite serious depression but didn't feel confident sort of thing.

Vee Holt:

And a lot of time that's because people worried about making it worse and, uh, getting things wrong, whereas actually so long as you're avoiding maybe the man up and get over yourself, which I think most would probably try and avoid in those situations, it is going to be a learning experience. You're not going to get every single one of those conversations right straight away, and that's absolutely fine as long as you are there to learn. And again, that's why reflection is quite an important part of that role, because you want to be able to learn and move on from those experiences, that fixation on getting everything perfect. It's never going to work. We're humans, we're not perfect. It's never going to work. We're humans.

Darren Evans:

We're not perfect, and that's absolutely fine. What things can I do to try and encourage other people to be more courageous in helping someone that is in need of help, because that thing that prevents them is that fear of making a mistake, or even something dramatic and and really extreme, as in anything that someone says, that's going to result in someone taking their life or their life being in the balance? What is it that I can say to? To try and encourage people to to have courage and move forward with that.

Vee Holt:

What I tend to think with that is, if we are worried about talking to someone and we're worried about getting it wrong, when we're not being in support and we say nothing, we're leaving that person with the options they've already got and the thoughts they've already had, whereas if you even say one word to them, you might change their perspective and you might have given them a slightly different option to what they were originally dealing with. And I think, like I said, particularly when it comes to very serious things, like someone who could potentially be at risk of taking your own life, a lot of people worry about approaching that because they're scared, like you said, about causing them to go through with that action. And there's a very, very common myth, which is if you ask someone, are you suicidal? That will then lead to them taking on life, and that is completely not the case, and whenever we cover crisis points like that, we do always encourage people to openly ask that question.

Vee Holt:

It's absolutely fine to say the word. It's absolutely fine to ask. It's not going to make someone go. Well, yeah, you know what? That's a really good idea if they're in that state. There's been a path that's led to that point. You asking them won't make a difference either way. What it can do, though, is give them the opportunity to talk about it and get the support they need in that kind of crisis situation, whereas, again, if we say nothing and think, oh, I don't want to shake the nest, make things worse of uh, cause problems, cause tensions well, we're both in that situation we've left them, like I said, with the options they already have.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, that's really hard for you. Just said that, especially being able to use that phrase and just ask that question do you feel suicidal? Are you suicidal? Have you had those thoughts? Because there are lots of messages out there that make it feel as though even using the word is one you're gonna get short bound for.

Vee Holt:

Yeah. I think suicide is seen as a dirty word by a lot of people. Uh, when it very much isn't. It's a, it's a word, it is the word for that act. And one thing we do say is we are trying to move away from the phrase commit suicide. And that's purely because if you think commit, people tend to think of a crime, which it isn't anymore. It hasn't been since the 60s.

Vee Holt:

When you commit to something, it usually means you're definitely going to do it, whereas actually a lot of suicide can be preventable or at least supportable to a certain extent. I think people do shy away from it. They're worried about, like I said, causing problems, bringing it up with someone, making someone upset. There's nothing wrong with saying you know, have you thought about taking your own life? I really encourage people to use the word suicide. It makes it real and it means that also you're someone who is safe to talk about it with A lot of people who are in a suicide crisis.

Vee Holt:

Sometimes they worry about telling someone because they think that that person is going to panic and immediately write where he's called 999, I need police. I'm going to say right now this second, whereas suicide is very much. Again, it's a complicated topic but there's many different stages of that suicide ideation that someone can have and, yes, in certain circumstances with an active risk, yeah, we'd obviously encourage people to call 999 if needed, but for a lot of people it might not be there at that point. They might just need a conversation and as soon as I say the word suicide, they go oh, I can talk to v about it, they're not going to judge me, they're not going to worry about it, they're not going to overreact. They can just have a normal conversation around it. And that's really important when someone gets towards that crisis point you mentioned about suicide ideation.

Darren Evans:

Can you just delve into that? What, what is that and and what does that look like?

Vee Holt:

yeah. So suicide ideation is this whole idea that it's not just is someone suicidal, yes or no? Uh, suicide ideation could be someone just having the brief thought of oh, would it be easier, wasn't here at all, and they've planned anything. They've not looked into methods or anything like that, they've just had that thought and for a lot of people, they'll move on quite quickly and they'll know what am I thinking about and then they'll just go on with their day, and that's actually fairly, or probably more common when we think that people occasionally will have that sort of thought. From there, it can then progress. So that's when it might end up someone thinking about it on a regular basis. It's not just a one-off. They start to think more regularly this is too difficult, I can't cope with this and then they can start to build along that pathway to potentially eventually starting to put a plan in place where it does become more of an emergency crisis situation.

Vee Holt:

And, like I said, a lot of suicide is preventable. But it's about giving people options, and normally, once someone has come to the decision that they are going to take their own life, it's because they've run out of their options. That's the only one that they can see moving forward, and what we often do in the suicide prevention side of stuff is give people other ideas, other options. We'll have you consider talking to this person instead. Why don't we go for dinner at the weekend? Just give them something to look forward to, and that can do quite big steps when it comes to trying to put preventive measures in place.

Vee Holt:

Whilst we are on the topic of suicide, though, something I do always like to mention is we'd all love to always know and identify when someone is feeling that way. It's not always that obvious. Yes, sometimes you can clearly see it. Someone's talking about it, they're discussing it. It's very clear. People very, very good at masking this. So what I'd say for anyone who's listening, who has or might lose someone to suicide we do our best. We don't have a magic ball. We can't know what's going to happen, and it's definitely not our fault if that does end up being the outcome for someone.

Darren Evans:

We're doing our best to prevent it, but we can't, unfortunately, and prevent everyone from going through with that. And, yeah, that's and that's a really important point, I think, because people that have been in that position so I have, so I've known a couple of people that have taken their own lives you are left with the question of what more could I have done, what more should I have done? What did I miss? And it's important to know that you can't control everything, yeah, and you also don't know everything. What's going on in your head right now. I've not got a clue. I've got maybe a little inkling, but a tiny one compared to the full scope of everything that's going on in your mind. So for me to expect to know the full detail is unrealistic.

Vee Holt:

Definitely, and that's the same across all kinds of mental health support, whether it's a crisis like suicide, all the way through to someone just having a bit of a bad day. When someone comes to you with that, I think a lot of people then feel responsible and they think, oh, I've got this massive weight on my shoulders, now I need to solve this for this person, whereas although we are there to help, we're there to support, we're not there to fix it and we're not there to take full responsibility. We're there to give options, we're there to signpost, but someone is going to live their life the way they lead it and we can't control that. Like you said, you can't look into someone's mind and see exactly what's going on.

Darren Evans:

Do you think that people struggle more with their mental health now than they did maybe 20, 30 years ago? Appreciate, you're 28, so you don't remember that 30 years ago, but do you think that that is more prevalent now? I?

Vee Holt:

think it's a bit of a change in how we talk about it. So the way that we talk about mental health now compared to five, 10 years ago, let alone 30, 40, 50 years ago, is very different, and I think for a lot of people there used to be that mentality of get on with life, don't bring it up, don't talk about it. It's your personal mental health. You're the one that needs to deal with it. Maybe talk to your partner or family about it, but other than that you keep it quiet, whereas what we've realized over the years is actually it's better to be open about it, talk about it, otherwise it kind of sits and festers a little bit. Uh, it is partly, maybe potentially due to covid and lockdowns.

Vee Holt:

A lot of young people deal with anxiety around social situations because they didn't have that when they were in those formative years. They didn't have that interaction, so maybe that has contributed towards it a little bit as well. But I always shy away from saying it's a generational thing. I think a lot of people think well, people who are 60 plus don't deal with poor mental health. It's all 20 year olds, 30 year olds and things like that, when that isn't the case. Mental health affects all ages, all genders, everyone potentially could be dealing with something to do with poor mental health, but it's how they've been brought up to talk about it, which is the main difference. Someone who might be in their 60s, 70s could very well be told when they're younger, or we don't talk about that.

Vee Holt:

Depression is not real, it's in your head. It's not a real thing. That's going on and obviously, when it comes to mental health, you can't see it. You can see signs. If I break my leg, you can see it. It's very easy to say right, that person is a cast, and probably not to walk up the stairs too much, whereas when it comes to mental health, you can't see it as clearly and so, because you can't see it, it's difficult to know when it's real, know when someone's dealing with it and suffering from it, and so I think that is where we've changed in the past 20-30 years. It's not necessarily that it's more prevalent now, it's just more talked about and there's more support available, which I think overall is a good thing one of the things I've noticed as I reflect back to my grandparents.

Darren Evans:

So both of my grandparents were involved in the war. They would both talk about the funny things that happened in the war, but they would never, ever address any of the things that were horrific, that they saw in the war. So it was one of those things that it's like we're not speaking about this at all, nothing. We're just going to focus on those things. And I know that their parents fought in the first world war and they did the same thing as well. So my theory is and I don't know, it would be interesting to see what you think here is that this has been something that's been passed down from generation that if there's something really traumatic that's gone on, then the way to deal with it is to not talk about it. We'll just talk about the good stuff. We're not talking about anything else.

Vee Holt:

Yeah, I think definitely there's that, like I said, that teaching of keep it locked down. If we don't talk about it, we don't think about it or we'll just go away. And I think that's something that we've talked about. When it comes to things like traumatic incidents, mental health, horrible things that have gone on, like the World Wars and things like that, and when you've learned to do that, when you've seen your parents do that, your grandparents do that, you're also going to follow along as well. You'll think, okay, that is the best way to deal with it.

Vee Holt:

And there's nothing wrong, necessarily, with trying to see the positive in the situation or funny side of something terrible that's happened is how we cope on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, um, but I think we weren't really that. You need to deal with that trauma. You need to be able to talk to about it with someone. And, yes, it might not be your children or your grandchildren that you want to have that conversation with, but it should be someone. Otherwise, again, it just kind of infestors and it can cause problems in the short term and long term have you got anything that people can access really, really easily?

Darren Evans:

that will just go into things in a bit more detail than what we've been able to cover off in this podcast so far yes, so on our website we've got a lot of resource information around supporting mental health personally and in the workplace.

Vee Holt:

I really encourage people if they want more information, if they want to learn skills like active listening and conversations, knowing where to signpost someone to have a look at our Mental Health First Aid courses. You can find out lots and lots on there and share a lot of good experiences.

Darren Evans:

And in terms of the perspective that these courses have got, has this been built up over? You know 10, 20, 30 years type of experience? How deep is this learning?

Vee Holt:

So we've been running these courses for six years. We recently relaunched it this year to make it more practical, scenario-based, active, interactive for people to be on. But that has been based off well, 100 years really.

Darren Evans:

Such an ambulance supporting mental health as well as physical health at the events, concerts, various things that we do I think that's really kind of it's like a new thing for me to consider that st john's has for years and years, supported people mentally as well as physically. I've looked at the organization. I think if I'm at an event and I break something or hurt something, or maybe even my child's lost or I'm lost, I go find that, go see these guys. Yeah, that's great, thanks, good, you can, you can stitch that in here. Yeah, good, nice, it's been great having you on the podcast.

Darren Evans:

I've really appreciated the wisdom that you've given and the perspective that you have, and this may sound really odd, but I'm grateful for the experiences that you've had that have brought you to this point, because I know that that's the only way that you've been able to touch people's lives and make a difference to other people is by walking that path that you've walked yourself. So thank you, thanks, so much. Thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this, but before you do that, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you subscribed.