Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness

From Loss to Legacy: Navigating Grief and Championing Mental Health Awareness with Jenny Rayner

• Richard & Andy • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Jenny Rayner joins us for an emotionally powerful discussion about the tragic loss of her daughter, Lucy, and the remarkable work she has done since to prevent similar tragedies. Jenny's heartfelt story begins with the pressures Lucy faced, including job loss and a breakup, which culminated in her suicide in 2012. This episode is a testament to Jenny's resilience and demonstrates the importance of recognizing mental health vulnerabilities in loved ones, a skill that even trained professionals find challenging.

We explore the profound emotions tied to losing someone to suicide, highlighting the importance of self-kindness in navigating grief. Jenny shares her journey of accepting this loss and the significance of understanding grief as an ongoing journey of getting through rather than getting over. We also discuss the Lucy Rayner Foundation's support for mental health, especially for young people transitioning through significant life changes, addressing the inadequacies in mental health services and the vital importance of accessible care.

Lastly, we tackle the broader societal influences affecting mental health, such as social media and persistent stigma, and the struggles faced by mental health foundations in providing consistent support. Through events like "Can Anyone Hear Me," we emphasize the need for open discussions on mental health and the importance of regular medication reviews. Jenny's story, combined with our focus on fostering resilience, aims to inspire a future where mental health awareness and support are prioritized, offering hope amid despair.

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Guest: Jenny Rayner
Website: https://thelucyraynerfoundation.com/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLucyRaynerFoundation/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenny.rayner/

HOSTS:
Richard Blake
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Andy Esam
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PODCAST:
Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
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Andy Esam:

Welcome, listener. I think this episode is probably notable for how it made me feel for the first 10 minutes, which was incredibly emotional, to the point where I couldn't say anything. Really, it was just so touching. We're speaking to a lovely lady called Jenny Rayner who has set up the lucy rainer foundation in memory of her daughter, um, you know, uh, jenny rich. What, yeah, talk to us about?

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

her, yeah, so jenny's doing some impressive and inspiring things in the world of mental health inspired by tragedy in her own life that she will tell you about in the episode and she has set up this foundation to deal with a lot of the inadequacies of the current mental health service that we speak about quite a lot on this podcast and we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about suicide, so sort of trigger warnings there, if that's something you need, or we are going to be speaking about the very serious matter of suicide and grief and losing family members and how to spot the signs of someone who's in a vulnerable position, how to speak to them, how to get them the help they need yeah and um.

Andy Esam:

I think jenny speaks with such authenticity and knowledge. I mean, this event happened to her in 2012 and, um, since then, you cannot imagine what she has done. So it's there's there's hope, as well as um the despair listener.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Do you love what you're hearing? If so, drop us a like, share your favorite episode with friends and help us grow by leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. Your support means the world to us and helps keep the conversation going. So tune in, follow like and, jenny, welcome to the pod. Can you tell us what is the story behind why you started a foundation to help prevent suicide?

Jenny Reyner:

okay. So I'm Jenny Rayner. I have got three children married and my middle daughter, lucy, always struggled with her mental health from like a really young age, and we just assumed that's how she was, and so she grew up having mood swings and we thought were just tantrums, but she had problems regulating her emotions. So back in 2012, she worked for a company called PSA Finance Peugeot and they did financing for cars and she was their it girl. She was on all of their promotional materials as their customer service frontline person. They promoted her and then within a week, the whole company relocated to Coventry and made her redundant. So at the same time, she bought herself a new car. Therefore, she was thinking how am I going to pay for my car? And she also split up with her boyfriend the night before, and that was done all on social media. And that night I just got a phone call saying that is Lucy, okay, from one of her friends that she'd broken up with her boyfriend. And so I checked in on her and I just said have you split up with your boy? She'd been seeing him for about a year and a bit and she said, yeah, we've broken up. And it was done on Facebook. So her status was single and so everybody was starting to text her and saying are you and your partner, have you split up? And I I think that again put a lot of pressure on her.

Jenny Reyner:

The following day we were supposed to be going to my other daughter who was at uni. She'd just finished her first year, sat her exams and we were really excited. We're going to take her out for dinner to say congratulations. But we also knew that Lucy had been crying all night and we kind of said to her out with us, just get away from the house. And she was like no, I just want to be on my own, just leave me, I'll be okay. And we just thought, okay, well, she's gone for a breakup, maybe we'll just leave her to kind of like have some time to herself and then when we get back we'll take her out for dinner. And so we set off and it was like an hour and a half's drive to where we were going to in London and we got to my daughter's university. We kind of like all congratulating her and we're asking about she was asking about Lucy and we just said that she'd just broken up with her boyfriend. She's a bit down, yeah, but when we come back we'll cheer her up.

Jenny Reyner:

So we all went out for dinner, we sat down, we ordered and just got a phone call. And the phone call was like are all your girls with you? And my husband was like, no, well, they found a young girl at the back of our house and our house backs onto some woodlands where the public walk. They walk their dogs and they they meander around just walking through the park. And we said no, they found a young girl. She was found by a dog walker and she'd hung herself at the back of our house. And do we need to come back? Because the young girl was mixed race. Obviously my husband is Caucasian and I'm ethnic black. And we just thought, oh my god. My husband was like, get up, let's go. And I was like, no, that's not, it's not her. She would never do that to us. She'd never spoken about, you know, wanting to take her life. So I don't think it's her. But my husband was adamant Jen, we've got to go, we've got to go.

Jenny Reyner:

She was in a state the night before so it could be her. And I was in utter denial. I was like, even on the way back my husband was driving like a mad person just to get home with my other two girls in the back and they were phoning everybody that lived near us to go and check on Lucy and they were coming back and saying that her car was there. So she was in the house and Stuart was like no. My husband was like no, we're going back. We've got to go back and find out what's going on. I, it's her.

Jenny Reyner:

So when we got back to our road there was like police cars, ambulance, there was like it was all cordoned off like in a crime scene and I was just in total shock at what we arrived to. My husband was like really frantic and he had said we think it's your daughter and it was the most awful shock that we could have like arrived to. My husband was angry. We wanted to get into the house. They wouldn't let us get in the house because that had now become something of like a crime scene, because they needed to find out what actually happened. So we couldn't go in. We couldn't see.

Jenny Reyner:

Then one of the policemen came up to us and said your daughter's been taken to East Surrey Hospital. There is a heartbeat and you need to get down there. So we all got into the police car and we rushed down to East Surrey Hospital where we sat in the family's room while they were working on my daughter and we just sat and prayed so hard that she'd be OK. And then after about 45 minutes the doctor came in and just basically said we're really sorry. Every time they stopped CPR, her heart failed and there was nothing that they could do to sustain her life. That was it for us. You know, the whole, our whole world just changed really from that moment. It was horrendous. It took a long time for us to come back from it and it was done so publicly it was. It was where everybody was walking, so the newspaper got wind of it and they were like on our tails and we're on the front page of the summary mirror. It was. It was. It was really awful time, really bad time. I mean, yeah, good yeah.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Good my God. Yeah, it's such an awful story, Jenny. I feel very emotional just hearing it. I can't imagine how emotional it must be retelling it.

Jenny Reyner:

The ripple effect of something like that. It not only affects immediate family, but it affected Lucy's closest friends and she belonged to like a big group of girls about 10 of them and none of them knew that she was struggling neither. So when the news came out that she had passed, oh, the fallout for them was horrendous as well. A lot of them came to drink and had like really bad depression that we had to support them with. So when Lucy passed actually when looking back she had gone to her GP like two weeks before and she had told them that she was really struggling with her mental health and they just changed her contraceptive pill. They said it was hormonal. Now we knew it wasn't. When she came back and said I've just got new contraceptive pills, we knew it was more than just her hormones. We knew she struggled to regulate her emotions. There is bipolar in my husband's side of the family. There's depression on my side of the family, so you know it could have been something that was hereditary. So we knew something wasn't right. We did know, but we just didn't know how to support her. We didn't have enough information about mental health to support her in the right way. So when she'd gone to the GP and they changed her contraceptive. We just thought maybe that's what it was.

Jenny Reyner:

So when she passed we did a memorial for her and we raised £15,000. And we took that money to the GP surgery and we kind of said, look, we've raised some money, here's £15,000. Can we please have like a counsellor or even like a psychiatric nurse to be based at our surgery? And they said that we've already got that and I was like, well, hang on a second then why didn't you refer my daughter when she told you she was struggling with her mental health? And they said that she didn't present at someone that looked depressed. So I was like, well, hang on a second. What does depression look like? Got really angry and I said depression doesn't have a gender. Depression doesn't have a social standing. It doesn't have a gender. Depression doesn't have a social standing. It doesn't have a color. It doesn't have an appearance. Somebody can mask and some people, like Lucy, mask really well. Lucy was the life and son of a party. All her friends came to her with their problems. She was was very kind. She always helped people that was in trouble. We had letters coming through our door saying how Lucy had supported an elderly person because he'd fallen in the street. She'd taken him back to his house to give him a cup of tea, phoned his daughter to come to the house. She was always doing acts of kindness for people. That's not what depression is.

Jenny Reyner:

Depression is something that's inside you. It's something that you can't share readily. It's a feeling, it's an emotion, it's mental ill health. You can't physically see that in a person unless they actually tell you. So we kind of thought oh my God, they couldn't see it.

Jenny Reyner:

And these are people that are supposed to be trained to be able to pick up these things. So we kind of thought well, actually, how many other young people slip through that net who present to a GP and say I'm really struggling with other exams or whatever it is that they come to the GP with for their depression or anxiety or low mood? When they go to the GP and the GP says well, it's a hormonal thing. How many young people slip through that net and don't get seen and don't get heard and walk away thinking no one can help me. The GP can, who can help me? And in that moment us as a family thought oh my god, I don't want that to happen to another young person. So a year to the day of Lucy's passing, we started our charity in her name and now we see something like last year. We saw 866 young people and put them through our counselling service and we have 50 counsellors with no waiting list.

Jenny Reyner:

Wow, and we're really, really pleased to say that.

Andy Esam:

Don't miss it. What is the name of the foundation?

Jenny Reyner:

It's the Lucy Rayner Foundation.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

We will be sure to link in that in show notes. But yeah, what you share there, jenny, is so true, very similar to my experience. I had depression for I don't know, 14, 15 years, a couple of suicide attempts from myself, and when I really did my first suicide attempt, the response was I can't believe you know this happened. I had no idea. So many people just thought you know, I was just a bit down or you know I've just a bit low in energy. I was very good at masking it, just like you kind of have to be to get along in society. And I did reach out for help a couple of times and people were just sort of like, yeah, okay, have you tried? You know? Just like, just really sort of you know, good, good meaning advice, but not really what I meant. Like for me to just to speak like I'm thinking about committing suicide was just like I kind of whispered it almost, but it was a, it was a huge like effort to say that to someone. And then when nothing really happened, I was like, well, if I've made all this effort to share it with, I shared it with a couple of people and then nothing had happened. I was like, well, there's no hope for me, you know, so I may as well just give up. Um, so, and you know, I am a sort of a trained mental health practitioner as well in some regards.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

You know phd in psychology and study psychotherapy. The training to become a psychotherapist is incredibly rigorous. It is really hard. Most people don't make it. In terms like 50 of the people on my course from the first year dropped out because to become a psychotherapist is really tough. And that just just shows you like even these people who have really tough training, like high academic standards at university, they still can't spot someone who is on the verge of suicide. It just, yeah, it just really highlights how tricky mental health is. And yeah, um, but, andy, you want to, you want?

Andy Esam:

to share something I was just going to say. So, just so I'm completely clear, on the lucy reina foundation, lucy Rainer Foundation. This is anyone of up to 18 who's feeling it.

Jenny Reyner:

No, it's from 14 years of age to 39 years of age, and we have to have obviously a category, otherwise we'll just run out of money. Of course we have like an age range, but we kind of feel that 14 to 39 is where life really happens, where the transitioning periods happen. So you're going through puberty, you have exams, you go to university, you have exams, you get a job, you get into relationships, you have a family, you get married, you buy a house, you have kids, and so much happens in that timeframe that people really struggle with their mental health, because change some people just can't deal with change and when a lot of change happens puts a lot of stress on you. So we kind of want to be there to support people that when they're going through those big changes yeah, absolutely yeah, change.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

I mean age 14 was when my depression started as well. So I'm glad to hear you're helping people that young. But, ginny, I just want to go back to your experience. So you mentioned you were numb there. Your husband was angry. What else was going on for you?

Jenny Reyner:

Gosh. For me, when you lose somebody by suicide, the emotions that you feel are so complex that it's really hard to truly say that there's a linear way that you have to grieve for somebody that you lose. So for me, I can only speak about me. For me, it was denial to begin with. I'm quite a spiritual person, so I do believe that we go to somewhere else when we pass. I was first in denial. Then I just wanted to be in Lucy's space. Although I wanted to be in her space, I couldn't bear to hear her voice. I didn't want to see any videos of her because the pain was just too much, and the pain is a physical pain. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything really, and the only way that I could get through the day was just moment by moment and I had to find something to focus on, and the focus that I had was first her funeral. My husband wasn't any use to me because he just disintegrated. He was really really emotional and just couldn't articulate anything. He spent a lot of time in his room not wanting to speak to anybody, just barely getting through. He had to go on antidepressants For me. I just got focused.

Jenny Reyner:

What I call now is the doing phase. The doing phase is to find anything and everything that I could do to take my mind off the subject or my feelings. So I would go out off the walks, I would go and sit in the cinema, sometimes on my own, just to get away from reality and watch lots of Marvel films were my thing, just to be in a different thought pattern, to be in a fantasy land, to not feel what I'm feeling. I focused on her funeral, choosing songs and what I think she wanted with the girls. I also started a project because I knew I wasn't going to go back to my old job. I was trying to look at things that I could do to kind of be more present at home with my, the rest of my family. I had a massive fear about losing my other children as well, because I know when someone, when you lose someone by suicide, the actual reality of losing someone by suicide is real. So I didn't want anything else to happen to anyone else in my family. So I had an anxiety around that. So I kept doing things for them, making sure they were all right, making sure my husband was all right. So I did a lot of doing.

Jenny Reyner:

And then, once Lucy's funeral had gone, I worked, focused on starting the charity and learning a lot more about mental health, because for me I didn't know enough, I wasn't able to spot the signs. I felt so much guilt around what if I had picked it up earlier? And there was a lot of what ifs and things that I could have done, the things I should have done, and I beat myself up about that that I wasn't a good mum and if I knew my daughter enough then I would have known, and I didn't know. She was really good at masking. So, yeah, there was a the blow of my guilt. So I had a mantra that was just be kind to yourself. Every time I had a random thought or I was being angry at myself or being angry at someone else for not understanding my grief.

Jenny Reyner:

Because you know, once you have the funeral, your friends and family rally around you, sort sort of like in the early days. But once the funeral is done, they all start falling away. But you're still left with that emptiness, that loss, that heartache, and people just seem to feel that you should be over it. But a death by suicide takes ages to even come to terms with and it's not a getting over something, it's a getting through it, and that getting through takes years, absolute years, and you never actually lose that.

Jenny Reyner:

I kind of liken it to you know, like when you're on a track and you've got this mountain that's ahead of you and you're carrying like a really massive backpack that is heavy and you're climbing up this hill and this backpack is so heavy that it's like almost dragging you down the hill, but you're taking one step at a time. Eventually, you build muscle, you build the strength to carry the backpack, and so, although the weight is the same, you have the ability to carry it stronger, you become more resilient to it, and so it's still there, but you just carry it better and if you look back at that grieving period, I mean accepting that you probably never stop grieving um, are there any?

Andy Esam:

are there any tips that you would give? I mean, you mentioned that you kind of threw yourselves in into different spaces and you went to see the marvel films and then you just went into projects. Any other advice you would give? And being kind to yourself seems like, yeah, the most important for you. But any other tips, advice you would give and being kind to yourself seems like yeah the most important for you, but any other tips that you would give perhaps so the other tips that I would say is not to push away your emotions.

Jenny Reyner:

Some people will want to shut it down and not want to feel what's coming up. I'm saying you need to feel everything. Don't push things away because it will come back and it will come back in with a vengeance. So you have to allow your feelings to arise and you have to acknowledge those feelings. Yes, today I'm feeling really angry, and allow that anger to come through. If it means screaming at the top of your voice, go to a top of a hill and scream. You know you're feeling really sad and tearful. Have a cry. And if you find that you want to cry and you can't bring that up, maybe sit in front of a tearful film or listen to songs that will allow you to cry. Know these are things you have to help yourself with because it is really really hard. It is really hard. So don't push your feelings down.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Allow them to come forward, because that's the only way you will truly get through the pain of this and come out the other side yeah, I often recommend that same strategy, like watch a sad film, and because I think for some people certainly people who've learned to suppress their emotions it can be like a relearning period of like where you stop, you know whatever you internalize as a child boys don't cry. Whatever you know, strong people don't show emotion. There is a relearning period there. I have used that technique many times. It's almost like I can cry for someone else, like in a sad movie, but then, once that door is open, then I can cry for myself. And then you said you thought a lot about what you could have done differently. I imagine there's a lot of sort of rumination and you said you're beating yourself up. Were there any conclusions? You came to things you could have done different that you might want to share with other parents.

Jenny Reyner:

So Lucy left a note and I know that for some they don't get the note, they don't get the final thoughts of that person that has passed, but we, you know, we luckily she left us a note on her laptop and in that note she exonerated every single one of us. She just said this is not about you, this is about me, this is about how I'm feeling and that this life is too hard. And she was really sensitive to everything. This life was too hard for her and she just wanted out and that we were not to blame ourselves for her. She's saying that it's the kindest thing and she just and she put it like I just want to go home, I want to return. And so you know, I felt for me. Although I felt for her, I didn't take too much of the blame.

Jenny Reyner:

After a while, when you exhaust yourself with all of that and you realise there was nothing you could have done, there wasn't. The decision was hers and it was hers alone. Nothing that I could have said, nothing that I would have done, no ifs or buts would have changed her decision. It was her decision and her decision alone. And even if I had saved her once once someone has tried to take their life. The likelihood of it happening again is going to happen and the decision to stay is down to them. They have to have that will to stay, and lucy didn't and I'm pleased with that.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

I miss her dearly every day, but I've come to peace with that now yeah, it's a painful realization that you know, even as a parent, you can't control. You can't control anyone as much as you'd like to. She was an adult, she was an adult, and an adult makes their own decisions and you know I keep looking back like it'd like to.

Jenny Reyner:

She was an adult. She was an adult and an adult makes their own decisions. And you know, I keep looking back. I keep thinking I wish she was three again so I could tell her what to do and keep her safe.

Andy Esam:

But once they're adults, you can't I was just going to ask can we talk a bit more about the good work of the lucy reina foundation? So what might it look like when someone comes to you? Can you talk a bit about the process?

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Sorry, Andy, before we go on to that, just want to talk about the issues of the mental health. What did you see that made you want to start up a foundation?

Jenny Reyner:

So the first thing was the attitude of the doctors. She didn't present as someone that was depressed. That attitude in itself angered me. You know you can't just look at someone and assume that they're okay when they're telling you they're not. She wasn't heard, she wasn't seen and they didn't treat her appropriately. They misdiagnosed her. They thought it was pneumonia and it wasn't. It was far more than that. And they weren't treat her appropriately. They misdiagnosed her. They thought it was pneumonia and it wasn't. It was far more than that. And they weren't prepared to delve deeper.

Jenny Reyner:

And I know doctors have a rough deal and they have very little time to see a person. But when someone's saying I need help, I need support, I'm feeling low. What's the harm in referring them to a talk-in therapy? I'm feeling low. What's the harm in referring them to a talk in therapy? You know? So Lucy needs to talk to somebody and share how she was feeling, and that wasn't an offer. So that's what we wanted to do Initially.

Jenny Reyner:

We wanted to offer that service to any young person that was struggling with their mental health, and at 14, they can self-refer. They do not need an adult for them to refer themselves, and it also means that their parents can refer on their behalf with their consent. It also means that GP can refer to us as well on their behalf. So anybody who is looking after a young person and above can self-refer to us. And and that's what we thought we wanted to do we wanted to offer that service to anybody, any young person in surrey who were struggling with their mental health, and not to have a waiting list, because it takes a lot, like you said, it takes a lot for someone to even say I'm struggling, that I'm having suicidal thoughts, and so when they come to their GP, it takes a lot of courage for somebody who is really truly depressed to say these words to a GP.

Jenny Reyner:

So we want to make sure that when they come to us they're seen very quickly. We don't have a waiting list, which means that we are reactive, so they can be seen straight away, because we I know personally of people who have gone to their GP and they have told them there is a waiting list of up to six months and then that young person has said can no one help me? And within days of that appointment have ended up taking their life, because once you reach the state of hopelessness, there's no hope. That's when the reality of someone ending their life becomes real yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

And yeah, it reminds me of that statistic from the Journal of American Medicine. A study showed that the third biggest cause of death in the US was iatrogenic illness, ie medical malpractice, which includes misdiagnosis that perhaps your daughter would go under there. And the medical system in America, where I'm based, is the subject of a lot of sort of conspiracy theories and things like that. But when you find out the third leading cause of death in a country is the medical system, it really raises a lot of eyebrows and I expect it makes me quite angry, because the medical system has such a a dominance and a little bit of an arrogance, like we know best. You know I'm a doctor, are you? You're not a doctor, your problems are hormonal or it's just in your head and it leads to, you know, tragedies like this so a physical um building for the lucy reina foundation, or is some of it online?

Jenny Reyner:

no, it's online. We do have a physical, a physical headquarters where we do training and we have our offices and so people can come and see us. Absolutely. We have an open door policy and we have some counselling rooms in there as well where our counsellors can use the service there.

Andy Esam:

And there's kind of a consistency of care there is there. So the first counsellor you see will be the person to take you through.

Jenny Reyner:

So actually, when we get the referral through, everything is done. The referral form is done online, otherwise we'll just be inundated. So everything is done online Referral. They fill the referral form in and then it goes to our counselling team. So we have a lead counsellor who will go through all of the referrals, and then we have then assessors, so the referrals will be distributed to the assessors. The assessors will then, within 48 hours, call the young person and then they will get as much information to why they need the service and then, once they know, then they will allocate the counsellor. The counsellor will then call them and then between them they will book their appointments, and they have six appointments with one of the counsellors and then it's up to the counsellor's discretion to whether or not they have more.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Jenny, how long ago did your daughter pass and how old was she? If you don't mind me asking when she passed?

Jenny Reyner:

So Lucy passed on the 5th of May 2012.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

So that is 12 years ago and she was 22 at the time you know the state of young people's mental health and I guess your daughter is not part of the gen z generation that are so affected by. You know iphones and social media and things like that, but you know running a foundation. I'm always really interested. Do you have any insight as to why mental health is getting so much worse and in particular, so much worse in the younger generations?

Jenny Reyner:

absolutely so. I think I can only tell you my beliefs. It's. For me it's a melting pot. It's a mixture of social media. It's a mixture of internet.

Jenny Reyner:

It's a mixture of what they hear on tv, the climate, the wanting of information, and I think there's too much information that young people can access and I don't think they fully understand what they've taken in. I know that young people when they have like an ailment, they will Google it and then they will see the worst case scenario and think that they're dying. They will google it and then they will see the worst cases are and think that they're dying. So they can catastrophize stuff.

Jenny Reyner:

And because of how the brain works for young people, there are certain ages, when they're in adolescent, where the brain will over dramatize things and things can seem 10 times bigger than they actually are. So so it is a mixture of hormones, about the brain developing, about society, social media, internet, the need for perfection, looking at other people on social media who they want to aspire to, who aren't necessarily the best role models. So it's a mixture of everything that really plays on young people's minds and we are having children as young as six self-harming with eating disorders and massive social anxiety and separation anxiety, and I think that's off of the back of the pandemic and that has something to play with it as well.

Andy Esam:

And would you say, there's still a stigma surrounding mental health, or have we made good strides in that space?

Jenny Reyner:

No, there's still a stigma. There's still a stigma around mental health. I think people are still frightened to say how they're feeling or to even tell somebody that they're feeling suicidal because of the stigma. I think we've got better at it. I think we've got better at talking about it and around it, but I think it still affects people in actually saying that I'm feeling suicidal or I feel anxious or I am depressed. I think there's still a lot of masking that is going on.

Andy Esam:

So have you kind of come up against challenges for your foundation? It sounds like you've done amazingly well, but has there been any kind of I don't know difficulties in advocating mental health care?

Jenny Reyner:

The difficulties that we really have is the amount of people that want to access our service to the amount of funding that we have. So we, if we don't want to get to a stage where we have a waiting list, so we have to constantly fundraise and, for example, this year we've done it in excess of 30 fundraising events just to keep the money coming in. See, I've got hiccups, the money coming in. So it's that is always a challenge and we're not a really big team, which means that all of the staff are stretched to maximum capacity.

Jenny Reyner:

So we're always mindful about our own mental health and our own well-being, because we can have burnout very quickly because, if you can imagine the services that we're providing and I've only talked to you about the counselling service, but we also have support services for men, support services for women, we run a suicide bereavement service and we run a robust schools program where we go into schools and we train up teachers, we train up colleges and universities and lecturers.

Jenny Reyner:

We also do workshops for the students and we go in as early as primary age five, six, seven year olds. So you know, for us we do quite a lot of proactive work and prevention work, because we feel that if we can get children young enough to be able to access their feelings and to understand what those feelings are for them and to let them come to the surface instead of burying it, then we can get them earlier and they can be much more resilient in understanding and finding the tools that they need to support themselves. Because I feel that we've lost the resilience during the pandemic stages in the gen z age and the generation alpha yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

I like the name you've got that robustness, because I think you know if you go into schools and be like we're going to teach you non-anxiety, how not to be depressed, you're just creating people about am I depressed, am I, do I have anxiety, do I have a problem? But if you're teaching robustness, that's, you know, sort of a positive direction. I did see in in your faqs a comment on no shows and this is something that sort of bothers me. It's a real challenge I have is like when you're dealing with people who are really struggling and you're showing up for them and giving them your time and then they, you know, cancel at the last minute, don't show up. How do you deal with that frustration of someone who's just not willing to help themselves?

Jenny Reyner:

yeah, that is always. That is a massive frustration for us, as well as it being a financial impact for us. Um, it is really frustrating when our counselors phone, email, text somebody before their appointments and they still don't turn up. And you know, we have to have like rules in place where if somebody doesn't show up twice then we have to take them off the books because obviously there aren't going to be other people that need that service. So we have to kind of like say to them if you don't turn up for your next one, then we're going to have to take you off, which is unfortunate because they engage with us, because they're struggling with their mental health. But if they're not showing up, how are we supposed to support them? How are we supposed to help them?

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

I think it is one of the hardest things in life is this to just let someone go. You know, as you said, you know burnout is really a real thing in mental health services. I think psychotherapists have one of the highest suicide rates themselves of any profession because it is such a taxing thing. And, yeah, when you really want to help someone, you know a family member and they won't help themselves. Just having to just let go and just be like, well, you know, I've done all I can is it's a brutal thing and you know, maybe it is. It's quite. Some people might think it's cruel, but I think sometimes fear of insanity, you have to just accept that some people are beyond your help. And I don't want to use the word lost cause, but that's the one that's popping into my head and that's it's really sad but there's a lot of factors to that as well.

Jenny Reyner:

You have parents who fill in the referral form for that young person and they haven't really had the consent of the young person and so they'll book the appointment for for that person and the person won't show up. And then the mum will call us and the person won't show up. And then the mum will call us and say, well, did so-and-so, make their appointment and we were like, no, they didn't show. And then she'll go back and say, well, can we do it again next week. But actually when we contact the young person and say, why did you not, they will say, well, my mum booked it, I didn't agree to that. But some of it is because the young person hasn't actually agrees to to the counseling sessions. The parents want them to have it. So that's why we have to say to, we have to say to the parents is there consent from your young person?

Andy Esam:

I had a question, jenny. Around, I suppose, like wider communities and and families, how do they better support people with, you know, struggling with mental health maybe, how do they stay vigilant and alive to to people who are struggling, perhaps?

Jenny Reyner:

yeah. So it's really difficult because when you have a young person that is struggling with their mental health within the family setting, it can cause a lot of disharmony and atmosphere within the household and it can lead to parents also having mental health issues themselves because they're constantly walking on eggshells, constantly trying to gauge how their young person is feeling. What mood are they going to wake up in this morning? Are they going to be in a good mood or are they going to be in an aggy mood where they're not going to listen to anything that you have to say? Are they going to be aggressive towards you? So it's very difficult sometimes for parents and siblings to be in a household with somebody who's struggling with their mental health. What I say to families is to build yourself up, get the support around you as well, so that your mental health is in a good place to support your young person. Get yourself clued up about mental health signs and symptoms. Put yourself on a mental health first aid course. Make sure you understand the signs and symptoms of what that looks like so that you can catch it quickly enough.

Jenny Reyner:

So if you have a young, for example, if you have a young person that is thinking of suicide. There are certain questions that you can ask to find out whether or not they are, and one of them is to ask that person directly are you suicidal? We sometimes think that if you ask that question then that person will go and do it. But actually that is not the case. Somebody who is suicidal and is thinking of ending their life want to tell someone. The whole point of it being secreted weighs heavy on them. Being secreted weighs heavy on them and they think that if I say it I'm going to really upset somebody, so that they kind of keep it close to the chest.

Jenny Reyner:

But if someone outrightly says are you suicidal, it's almost like a relief for them to say, yes, I am. And then the question would be have you got a plan? And if they say no, then you know you need to get your young person some help to the GP or to some counselling. If that person says, yes, I do, I have a plan, then you say, well, what's the the plan? And they will tell you. Then you know they got a plan, they know how they're going to do it. We now need to take evasive action and get them to either a and e or to the gp for a referral to psychiatrist, because that is serious yeah, those questions are vital.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, and that's interesting. You say the how a child's mental health can affect a parent's mental health. I know there's a lot of research about how a parent's mental health affects a child. You know there's the adverse childhood events. You know it's like one of the best predictors of addiction in children when they're adults. And one of them of those predict is did one of your parents have mental health issues? But I wonder if it's a linear relationship there.

Jenny Reyner:

It's food for thought. Honestly, it's so complex because you know you have parents who are highly anxious and they teach their children to be anxious children, you know, and then anxious children become anxious adults and so that gets passed down. So, you know, I know a young person who grandfather took their life and then the father took their life and they've tried taking their life, so it's three generations of learnt behaviour.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Yeah, there's this kind of contagion about it. Isn't there the same with self-harm, I believe?

Jenny Reyner:

but it's about education and it's about understanding about. What does that look like? What do I need to break patterns? What do I need to change a dynamic? So it's about learning about yourself, and I think that is the key is about learning about yourself, learning about your uniqueness, and what is it that I need to support my physical and my mental health? What tools do I need? Really important incredible advice.

Andy Esam:

Thank you so much, jenny. Yeah, it's. I feel you've been speaking to me like directly, heart to heart for this entire time. It's been amazing. Could you talk a bit more about um, any future goals or upcoming projects for the foundation?

Jenny Reyner:

yeah, I can. So I have a vision that we can build a centre and it's a wellbeing centre which bridges the gap from when a person goes to their GP and when there is a massive waiting list to getting seen by a professional. And this wellbeing centre will have everything in it to look at that person holistically, both physically and mentally, and a place where they can try different techniques to build their own toolkit. And that's what I want. I want a person to come to us in the Wellbeing Centre and either try trauma therapy, emdr, cbt, hypnotherapy, normal clinical stuff, see a gp, speak to a psychiatrist, mental health nurse, do a bit of meditation, do yoga if they want it, you know everything that they can art therapy, music therapy, whatever it is that will enable them to find the resources within themselves. So when they're having a low mood, they can pull on things.

Jenny Reyner:

Oh, I tried that and that worked for me. Let me do that again. So to have like a whole toolkit that they can pull on. If this isn't working, I can try this. If this isn't working, I can try this, because I know I've tried it and it has worked for me, because not one cat fits all. We're so different, so diverse yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

I think, thinking about the misdiagnosis of lucy, I expect there probably are people who just have depression because of the medication they're on, because of their contraceptive pill, and it's just there's so many factors, so many variables and, yeah, it's such a difficult thing, but the fact that you're trying to address all those different causes of mental illness I think is is the right way to go about it. And then you have some events I'm going to be a part of, uh, one of your events, jenny I'm excited about that.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Can you tell our listeners a bit about more about that?

Jenny Reyner:

so medication in mental health began about four or five years ago, so it started off. We did like an event called can anyone hear me, and can anyone hear me was a live event in London where we invited young people to talk about their mental health journey. And what we did we invited clinicians, counsellors, therapists, school teachers, senco teachers anyone that dealt with young people who struggled with their mental health in whatever setting. That would be be to come and listen to their experiences and to really just have a conversation around what can we do better for these young people? And that, for me, was so inspiring. People walked away and started things on their own projects that are now doing so well from that platform. But I just listened to young people's inspirational stories somebody who'd been in the facility for eating disorder, what they wished the people had done to support them, how they could have done better. Somebody who was in a facility for end of life what they wish somebody would have done for them, for their parent who was struggling, a carer, what they wished somebody would do to help them support a parent or a child who was, you know, struggling with their mental health all different scenarios that we could put in front of people so they could hear firsthand people's experiences, young people's experiences of life, and to make a change and to have a conversation. And for me that was great.

Jenny Reyner:

And then we kind of then had people talking about being in mental health institutes and how they were treated. And then we kind of then had people talking about being in mental health institutes and how they were treated. And then we thought, ok, let's do a new series around medication and mental health and how that affects the body and what we can do. So then we again we had people with lived experience, and this wasn't just for young people. Again we had people with lived experience, and this wasn't just for young people, it was for everybody, because GPs regularly give out medication and nobody ever questions is that the right medication for me?

Jenny Reyner:

I don't have a diagnosis, so why are you giving me this medication? Some people have been on medication for years 10 years plus and I've never questioned why have I never had a review of my meds? Why am I still on the same dosage? Or why am I given more? Because my body's got used to the dose that I'm on? Why have you never reviewed that? And so I wanted to give people just an inkling into. You have the right to ask questions about what you're putting in your body. Do you know what the contraindications are for the meds that you are on and people didn't know? And did you know that some medications make you feel suicidal when you change meds and they didn't know? And did you know that some medications make you feel suicidal when you change meds and they didn't know? So ask more questions around your mental health.

Jenny Reyner:

So these are the things that we wanted to do, and so we then did different variations of that and this year we're doing it on men's mental health. We want to look particularly around testosterone, because we know that low testosterone can bring on poor mental health and it has a knock-on effect on everything else Sleep, how you feel about yourself, your motivation, your sex drive, everything. So we wanted to bring that to the forefront because you know, ryan parr, who did something for our men's group, talked about men's mental health, spoke about testosterone and the things that he was saying resonated with our men and off the back of it, they all went and got their testosterone tested and a few of them had low testosterone and, off the back of it, are doing really well. Now how many other men don't know this information that testosterone can play a massive part in men's hormones and mental health and physical health.

Andy Esam:

It's a conversation to be had yeah, absolutely we actually had ryan park on here and he was. He was great in terms of the revelations he gave surrounding testosterone.

Jenny Reyner:

Why don't GPs tell you this information? Why don't they test you for it as a regular thing? I don't get it.

Andy Esam:

I'm really excited by your event as well, about medication, because my mum, when she was struggling with depression depression was on lithium for about 20 years and ended up almost having total kidney failure, to the point which had to come off it. And then, when she had another serious bout of depression, the meds didn't seem to be doing anything. We rarely reviewed such erratic behavior and you just sort of thought that there's got to be something in this, because it's not it. The medication was doing nothing as far as I'm concerned.

Jenny Reyner:

So yeah, had had got used to it yeah, no.

Andy Esam:

Well, those events sound absolutely amazing and will save lives, so yes, good luck to you.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

And they're november 17th. Is that the no?

Jenny Reyner:

it's the 21st of November 21st of November.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Sorry, I'll be there on both days. No, I'll be there on the 21st.

Andy Esam:

Thanks so much for giving us your time today, Jenny, and for talking so openly. Really really appreciate it, and I couldn't speak for the first 10 minutes, but that was just because it was so touching.

Jenny Reyner:

I was really moved by what you're saying.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Thank you, yeah, thank you so much thank you for inviting me on your podcast well, it's great to have you welcome back listener. We hope you enjoyed that interview with jenny. We hope you were just touched and moved and hopefully inspired and given some hope for the future, given what people like Jenny are doing taking action.

Andy Esam:

Yeah, seriously, seriously inspiring lady and has been recognized for it. So maybe we should end on the positive of her accolades Rich, if you want to rattle through them.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

Yeah, well, we just took these from her website, but she has received the british citizens award for service to the community, regional finalists for pride of britain award, british citizens award certificate of merit and the mayor's annual volunteers award, so it's great to see that she's being recognized because she is having a big impact. I think she's mentioned thousands of families that have been supported by this foundation and long may it continue and I believe they do accept donations. They do look for support, so go check out the Lucy Rayner Foundation One if you need support for your mental health and you're in the Surrey area, or if you want to provide some support. I'm sure they would be most grateful for that.

Andy Esam:

I absolutely loved Jenny's vision of the future as well, with all of that under one roof, the different therapy types and the different ways in which you can improve your mental health all under one roof. That sounds like such an amazing thing, and I'm sure she'll do it. And there's many more accolades to come, no doubt no doubt.

Dr. Richard L. Blake:

All right. Well. Thank at andy sam, at richard l blakecom, at verbeth geek on instagram. Yes, all right. Well, thank you, listener. We hope you enjoyed the episode and we will see you next time. Take care, bye.