That's Just Human
That’s Just Human, a podcast that explores all aspects of being human, living in a body, and dealing with life’s obstacles. We discuss people’s stories, learn practical tools for growth and healing that help you learn to step into your authentic self and aliveness.
That's Just Human
Episode 45: One Sunrise at a Time w/Lee Parks
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The Heart of the Episode:
This episode steps into the raw, unpolished corners of life where our plans are completely shattered by sudden, unexpected trauma. Elisha is joined by podcaster Lee Parks to talk about walking through intense family health crises, navigating the deep emotional wake of a sudden medical emergency, and dealing with life's heavy obstacles when everything happens all at once. The conversation focuses on the human instinct to protect the people we love, the vulnerability of asking for support when our own strength runs dry, and the messy, beautiful process of learning to take life entirely one day at a time.
The Transmission:
The dialogue explores the physical and emotional realities of navigating a crisis, breaking down how we process shock and build resilience:
- The Reality of Sudden Trauma: When a loved one faces a sudden medical emergency, your nervous system is instantly thrown into a high-stakes survival state. The transmission captures that visceral, human moment of watching an ambulance drive away and the immediate, overwhelming need to call on a foundational comfort system—like your mother—no matter how old you are.
- The Weight of Being the Anchor: During a crisis, we often default to a caregiver role, holding our emotions back to stay strong for those around us. True processing can only begin when we allow ourselves the space to step into the kitchen, drop the armor, and finally cry.
- The Shift to Radical Presence: When the future feels completely uncertain and out of your control, looking too far ahead triggers profound anxiety. Survival requires dropping the big picture and narrowing your focus entirely to the current moment—just getting yourself through to the next sunrise.
Invitation From Elisha:
“I invite you to give yourself permission to drop the heavy armor you’ve been carrying for everyone else. My deepest hope is that when the unexpected storms of life hit your shores, you allow yourself to be deeply human, reach out to your foundational support systems, and practice the radical gentleness of just breathing through the present moment, knowing that each tomorrow brings a completely clean slate.”
Time Stamps:
00:00 The Visceral Shock of Sudden Trauma
00:26 Introducing Guest Lee Parks
02:40 A Sudden Family Health Crisis
07:15 Navigating the Ambulance Ride & Isolation
12:34 Dropping the Armor: The Need for Mom
18:50 Holding Space as the Family Caregiver
24:15 Processing Trauma in the Quiet Moments
30:05 Balancing Work and Emotional Crises
35:40 The Mental Strain of Complete Uncertainty
41:10 Learning to Lean on Your Support Grid
47:32 Radical Presence: Taking It One Day at a time
53:15 Rebuilding Resilience from Ground Zero
56:38 Present Moment Wisdom & Closing Thoughts
Links to find guests on the internet or other resources they provide:
https://www.youtube.com/@UNFLTD
https://www.youtube.com/@alwaysconfused341
Link to Transcript of Show:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MtjRyitEX17OldtXg79cN30fpUHCdxgX/view?usp=sharing
Apply to be on the Show:
Find Elisha Elsewhere on the web:
https://linktr.ee/elishalightangel
Got took off in this ambulance, they told me where she was going, and I just had to watch her drive off. Going through this really traumatic experience, and I just went in my kitchen and I just burst into tears. And the first thing I did was just phone my mum. Because what does any young boy want to do, even though I was like in my 30s? You want your mum, don't you?
SPEAKER_00Hello, and welcome to That's Just Human, a podcast that explores all aspects of being human, living in a human body, and dealing with life's obstacles. I'm your host, Elisha Light Angel, and by day I'm a massage therapist. Right now I'm a podcaster, but like you, I happen to live in a human body, and I have a plethora of human experiences. And this is the space where I like to talk about my own and question other people about their experiences so that we can all navigate life together. Today I have a guest, and if you would like to see our faces, you can pop on over to YouTube to check us out or just keep listening, whatever floats your boat. And my guest is here to share much more of a personal story. He is Lee Parks, and he has two podcasts out there. One of them is Unfiltered Wrestling Podcast, and the other one is Always Confused, both that you can find on YouTube and TikTok. And this is part of his journey that has led him to where he is today, and then some of the mental health struggles that he's gone through and is navigating in life as they come up. So thank you, Lee, for joining my podcast and being willing to be vulnerable and share parts of your story.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're welcome. So um, you've gone through some traumas in life, and those have impacted some of your mental health. Why don't you start back what you were telling me kind of with childhood, and then we'll just kind of work chronologically on how the different things that you've experienced have affected you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um it I'm on a sort of I'm 41 now, so sort of on a journey of self-reflection. So I've had a lot of traumas happen around me, but during the time I haven't realised how much they've impacted me until sort of the last year or so where I've started reflecting a bit more. So it all sort of started back when I was about nine years old. My mum um left the family home in the middle of the night. So her and my dad were going for a divorce. My dad had moved out for a bit, he then came back home as a lodger, and the night before he was due to move back out, uh, we woke up and she was gone. Just a note, sort of saying bye, and that was it. There was no contact for six months. And it was really hard for me because they'd had an argument in the middle of the night, and we were staying in a room with my dad, and my mum and dad's room on her own. But she was sitting downstairs, and I checked on her three times in the night. And I think the last time I checked on her was about 2:30 in the morning, and I said, Why don't you go up to bed and she wouldn't, yeah, we'll do soon? Said goodnight and gave me a kiss, and then we woke up and she was gone. So I've carried a lot of burden thinking, what if I just sat with her? What if I just stayed there? Maybe she wouldn't have gone. So that sort of hit me hard, like, especially as a nine-year-old um kid. And then um, like I said, she went missing for like six months. There was no contact. My dad hired a private investigator, they had a joint bank account, so he was putting the money in. And one day it was drawn out uh down one end of uh the UK, and the next day it was drawn out the other end of the UK. Well, it was she went off with my stepfather, who was a lobby driver, so they were touring the UK in his lobby while he was working, and that's why the money was being drawn out in different places.
SPEAKER_00Um I found out a lobby.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, uh communication.
SPEAKER_00We just had different language that I wanted to clarify.
SPEAKER_02Apologies, yeah. So yeah, like uh he was a truck driver, so that's why they was always on the move. And I found out uh with my dad that um a pay he had to go and identify a few bodies that had been trapped up the Thames, which is a big river in the UK, because uh the description the police had for my mum matched these bodies that were pulled out. Obviously, none of them were my mum, but the fact that he had to go through through that's quite like shocking to hear. And then just one uh Wednesday daytime, my nan, like my mum's mum, got a phone call and she said, I'm phoning again in three days. Can you make sure the boys are up here? And then we just started speaking again. And I have got a really good relationship with my mum. She lives probably about 300 miles away at the moment, and we've been for visits, and she used to come down and visit us. So, and as I'm old and have my own family, I sort of understand as parents we all make choices that we think's right, it's not always right for the child, but you do the best you can. But I can't actually forgive her for the action that she did because that impacted my life moving forward, and like I said, I haven't realized it to sort of nowish.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's quite something. So you were in the know as a nine-year-old, what was happening, and like as far as police investigations and how it was being handled?
SPEAKER_02Not then. I found that out um sort of in my twenties and stuff with my dad. So my dad tried to keep that from uh me. My oldest brother, who was 16 at the time, he knew because he sort of had to step into the mum role because my dad was still having to work till like six, seven o'clock at night. We were having to take ourselves to school and bring ourselves home, and then he'd have to cook the dinner because my dad was still coming home later, so it's like we had to pull together, and it was really weird because it was me and my two other brothers and my dad. So we've gone from a household that had a female influence because my dad was off work and stuff, so my mum was at home quite a lot, to just a group of lads, in a way, trying to muck him together. So it was a weird experience. Um, it sort of made me grow up a lot quicker, I believe, but then it also gave me a lot of trust issues. My wife been married for seven. I spent the first eight or nine years just saying, I'm waiting for you to leave. Because I I think to myself, the closest woman to me can walk out on me than anyone can.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's absolutely. I can see how that would happen and how much that would impact your ability to trust somebody that you're with. So has she like in that relationship, has she helped you navigate this distrust that you're carrying from childhood?
SPEAKER_02Um, she's trying her best, but it's all I'm I'm a very harsh critic on myself, so I I've got dyspraxia. Um, I got diagnosed with that when I was like 16, so that's a bit like dyslexia, but I can read okay, but like my writing's like a five-year-old, my spelling's terrible, which is crazy because I've worked in education for the last 20 years, so I've managed to navigate teaching young people with with um having my own um issue. And part of that is a lack of empathy, for one, and secondly, it's um like I can't take compliments well. Um if someone says something nice to me, I think people just saying things like it's only words type situation. I don't sort of believe what people are saying to me. Um, and I don't know, part of that's the dyspexia, part of that's the trust issue I have. I've sort of had to build up a wall to defend myself. So um, yeah, so that's I don't know exactly where that's come from, but she's so she's trying her best and sort of put on the act that I'm believing it, but deep down sometimes I've it depends what mood I'm in, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um so you're obviously self-aware that this is something that's impacted you, and that you still have patterns that to this day are affecting you. So, do you have any kind of tools that you've learned over the years um when you feel some of these thoughts start to creep in?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um I'm actually um a level four trained counsellor. Um, I had to do that with my job probably about eight or nine years ago. So, and this is what makes things a lot stronger. When we get into other bits that's happened, um, you start to understand, right? I know what I'm feeling, I know why I'm feeling it, and I know what I should be doing, but I have that conflict with myself because I'm getting those feelings, I'm giving myself the tools, but it doesn't seem to be helping. So, jumping on later when my wife had a stroke, which we're gonna speak about later, I seek the cancelling then because I was just angry with the world and thought everything was unfair, and he gave me a really good tool, and I sort of try and live by this tool, and that was just living the moment, and I started resisting that for ages. I think for about 12 sessions, he kept saying, just live in the moment. I was like, Yeah, but where if the moment shit? And he's like, No, what I mean by that is you can't get back yesterday and you don't know what's happening tomorrow. And he said, Take yesterday, you could have had the best day of your life, you could have gone to a beach, the weather was beautiful, you had really nice food, but if you went back to that same beach today, it could be more windy, that would change your whole experience. So you're not getting that day back, good or bad, because I kept dwelling on the fact that I wanted things to go back to the way they were before, and he just kept saying, like, live in the moment, and then he said, and obviously, you don't know what's happening tomorrow, so don't worry about tomorrow until tomorrow comes. So he said, just stay in the uh moment, and then what I started doing was every day when I went to bed at between 10:30 pm and 11 pm, that was my day over, good or bad. I could have had the worst day of my life, I could have had the best day of my life, but it was done with, and then when you wake up the next day, it starts all over again, and that kept getting me through for years, and then in November I just got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and that hit me quite hard. Um, I think it's because of, and as I keep saying when I'm getting to the story of my wife's stroke, I sort of feel like I've got to be Superman for my family to keep it together, and because I'm now ill, what does that mean for us? So I'm actually in the process of seeking um therapy again at the moment, and we're doing a lot of work about looking at my inner child, and a lot of my feelings do stem back to what happened with my mum, and I didn't realise it until uh doing these therapy sessions this time around.
SPEAKER_00Wow, well awesome. Um, that's it really sounds like you're doing some deep inner work, and I'm sure parts of it suck. Yep, and and other parts when you have a breakthrough, those are the good parts. I definitely hope as you continue on this journey that you find more healing that give you an inner peace that you don't know exists right now. Keep keep sharing your story, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So um, like I said, um, so that happened when I was younger, and then I went through a stage, I think, between the age of 15 and 21-22, where I'd go out, I was drinking a lot, uh, but I was partying, so I didn't see that I had a problem. And I think that was to sort of help me sort of be I felt accepted by a group of people if they were older than myself, they were like five, six older than myself years older than myself. Um, they gave me a nickname Burnout. So then that turned into a character, like Burnout had to be the party animal. Um, so I would get drunk, um, and because I was working, so I used to work in a school in the day, then I'd do an after-school club, and then I'd go to youth work. So I'd be finished by 8, 8:30. My friends had been out in the pub since six. I felt like I was playing catch up, so I'd down a litre bottle of vodka before I went out. I didn't go out, and of course, I'm more drunk than everyone else because I've downed a litre bottle of vodka before going out, and I'd just like do silly things. Like, there was times like we went to this club once, and I we just walked in, and I just said to me mates, I'm gonna go and jump on that speaker. So I went and jumped up on the speaker and all my trousers ripped at the back, and then I had to go the rest of the night sort of standing near walls in there because I did this massive split in my trousers and we were miles away from home and stuff like that. But I used to go out on a Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and it's weird because I look back on that with a lot of good memories, but I think I was trying to escape something when I'm doing my reflection this year. It wasn't the best thing to do, and like I said, it has helped shape me as a person because there was lots of life lessons I learned along the ways. I dabbled in a bit of drugs for like three months, and that was really hard because I was working at school during the day when we got giving drug lesson talks, but I'd be sitting there with all cuts in my mouth and stuff where I chewed off all my nips and stuff because the night before I'd been high, and then I'd try to tell these young people how bad drugs are, but it it and that's what I feel like a lot of my life's been is been masked by characters. So to my friends, I was burnout, at work I was Mr. Parks, to uh my wife I'm a husband, to my children, I'm a father, and it's only sort of doing this self-refection the last six months with this counsellor. I'm starting to learn who Lee is, and like you said earlier, it is a bit hard. There's some parts of me I don't actually like, but I didn't know that's what it was because I'd I'd be masking my traumas by just carrying on from I'd be blocking it out because I'd just be doing what I was doing there and then, and like I said, like the burnout character, even like me and my wife talk about burnout like now like it was someone else. So even said, like the other day a burnout had been out for a little while, and I'm like, yeah, because that's burnout's dead now. Stuff like that. So we even talk about that part of me like it is someone else.
SPEAKER_00Do you um is your counsellor trained in internal family systems?
SPEAKER_02I'm not too sure. So we've done a lot of work on uh looking back at either child. So we've done two exercises where I was asked to close my eyes um and picture myself aged nine when what happened with my mum. And then she was like, Oh, tell tell your younger self it's okay and and um you're okay now and stuff like that. But it was really weird because I was getting the feeling that my younger self felt sorry for me. So I think the exercise was to try and tell my younger self everything was okay, but it was like my younger self was trying to look after me, it was the feeling I got off it, and at first I was a bit like uh, oh, this this is not gonna work. She's like, you just shut your eyes, trust me, and all that. And it was really weird because I didn't actually picture myself as being young, and I felt feelings and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, I come out of it, and it was really weird because I felt a bit sorry for myself, but in a good way. Because it was like my younger self was looking out for me, and that felt nice. But I felt because my younger self would look out for me, I should be looking out for my younger self, if that makes sense. So it it's it's a bit weird to understand, but it's a bit nice at the same time. It's it's it's nice being vulnerable, and I think that's something I haven't done for years.
SPEAKER_00It it definitely is. There's a I feel like there's a freedom that internally that one can experience, even though it's also scary to be vulnerable. So it's it's like a both and thing. But going back to the internal family systems is all about having parts and pieces of yourself. So you having these different parts of you um kind of falls into the way that that does, and it looks at like these different parts that exist in each and every one of us. You know, you can look at it as putting on a hat or putting on a different clothing or a different part of your personality, but we all have them, and so then it's either integrating them, or even as you were talking about, there's parts of you that have died, and they just that that person's not you anymore, and now the person you are right here, right now, in this moment is a culmination of all of these experiences, and even going back to your teenage years, you know, you're you turn to alcoholism subconsciously, probably as a coping mechanism, and it worked for you for a while, like you did have all these experiences, they've led to all these things, because at that point in time, there's no way you would have been able to look at what was happening internally, and I think um that's just kind of part of life and part of our journey as we go through these different things in our human experience and our evolution of who we are, and it's those really hard times that give us that perspective, that contrasting perspective to learn something from it and then move and carry that forward as we become the next version of ourselves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and also I think it's like you don't realise at the time, because like you said, being a teenager, you're not mature uh emotionally to understand what's happening, and as I said, I look back now, and it was at the time it wasn't it probably was the drinking thought of me, but I didn't see it like that. I justified it by going out to meet friends, or I'm going out we're having a good time, and this is fun, and and I'm working, so why can't I go and spend my money like this? Like I sit back now and wish I never spent my money like that. But at the time, and don't get me wrong, like I said, the group of people I'm with, it's really weird as well, because at the time as well, you think this is it, this is my friends forever, this is like my family, and now don't get none of us have fallen out, whatever, but all our lives have moved on, we're just acquaintances. We might just say hi to each other on Facebook and all that, and these were people that I spent like five, six hours a night with, and it's really weird how your life develops, and like I said, there's no falling out, there's no ill will, it's just we've all sort of grown up and then gone on in separate directions with our life, and then I look back and think at the time you thought these people were like this was your life forever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can relate to that several times thinking, oh yeah, this will be this way, and then it it's not, and so now I'm at the point where I'm like, well, things are gonna change eventually. I don't know when, I don't know why, don't know how, but it will, because change is the only constant. So um as you move out of this phase of your life and you carry on.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, so so yeah, so um my apologies. Um my father met my stepmum and she brought along with her um my stepsister and my stepbrother. And it was weird at first, but it was fine because of even though what happened with my mum, I loved my mum to bits. I remember once, like, I think within the first year, I was probably about 10 or 11, my dad had gave me a Mother's Day card to sign for my stepmum. Uh they were going out at the time, they weren't married at the time, and I was like, No, I'm not doing it. And he was like, right, it's Mother's Day. So I was like, Yeah, but she's not my mum. And he was like, No, you write this card now. And I remember just bursting into tears, and I'm writing this Mother's Day card, crying my eyes out, because I'm writing Happy Mother's Day to a woman that wasn't my mum at that time. So I still had that love for my mum, even though she did what she did, and like, don't get me wrong now, like I love my stepmum to bits, like the best thing that could happen for our family is what happened in a way, not the way it happened, but my mum's so much happier now with my stepdad, my dad's so much happier with my step-mum, and it's better being in that environment than being in a house where you've got two parents that don't love each other anymore, and they're sort of just trying to keep it together because they've got children, and that doesn't work because it just makes the household feel miserable. So it's the best thing to happen, it's just the way things happened weren't great. But anyway, so I had the stepbrother, and to me, like as a kid, he was he was funny, he was fantastic, he was a little bit older than me, and he was sort of our area where we grew up, it was rough, but it weren't, if you know what I mean. Like, if you kept yourself to yourself, you were fine, but drugs were easily available, like we lived two doors down from a drug dealer, like it was always about and stuff like that. And he took that route, and he took that route from a young age, I think he was about 13, 14 when he started, and he just spiraled out of control and got to a point where he was taking her in. Um, he went to prison for five years because he armed robbed his video shop at knife point with his friend. He reckoned that he didn't know his friend had a knife and he was only told to lock the door. But the uh stupid idiot was found by the police um on the common with the uh videotape of the CTV up his jumper, so he's bound to rights, so he got sent to prison for five years. Um, and then when he came out, he just carried on down the herring route and it just turned him into a horrible person. Like my uh sister, like my stepsister, she was having a birthday party for her eight year old niece, and he came along and he shotted up um herring in the Toilet and got up his artery all over the toilet, he just didn't care. And um, he was found dead in some public toilets at the age of 33 on the floor of a heroin overdose, and it was really weird because another thing going back to how I felt with my mum, I had the same situation with him, was nine months before he died, I saw him five minutes from my house, and I couldn't tell him that's where I lived. So I see him, and like when we were growing up, he was all prim and proper, he would have all the design and gear, he'd get his hair cut every two weeks and stuff like that. When I saw him, he was on his crutches because he had a triple heart bypass at the age of 27 because of the drugs. Lon hair, all scruffy and beardy, and then he's like, Oh, what are you doing around here? And I was like, Oh, I'm just visiting a friend. So I couldn't tell him oh, I only lived there because I had my children at home, and I had my wife at home, and I was worried that if he knew where I lived, he'd come and burglar me or something. So I went off, I bought him some groceries, bought him some cigarettes, gave him a fiver and said, Yeah, I'll see you later. And then when I found out he'd died, I then had that thought go through my head. But what if I took him in that day? Could I have done something different? Could I have changed his his course? So going back to that feeling I had with my mum of what if I'd sat up with her, I sort of had that same feeling with him. What if I took him home? So then I went through a stage of thinking to it is it my fault? Could I have done something? And loads of people have told me no, you couldn't have, but I still had those feelings going through my head at the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to say something and a completely different thing to be experiencing it. Um kind of similar to something's easier said than done. It's easy to say that you should just not think those thoughts, but that doesn't mean that that doesn't still exist inside of you. It's something that you have to grapple with and work through over time and keep spiraling back around to the same issue until that spiral becomes you know, to that little point or non-existent, it just um changes every time you come back to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's really weird because like I said, growing up, because I was younger, like I had no bad experience with him himself. Like I've heard horrible stories about him. I heard so my dad and my stepmum had uh another child, so my half-brother, so my little brother, and I heard stories that my stepbrother knocked himself in the bedroom with my little brother when he was a baby, and him saying to my stepmum, Pass me money under the door before I hurt him, and she was sitting there having to slide 20 pound notes under. But I never saw none of that because when I was a younger and was growing up, he was the older brother that I knew he was a bit edgy because I knew he was smoking weeds and stuff, and he was the one that if you've got any problems, like just let me know. I never went to that because I always think you know when people go, Oh, if you've got any problems doing the one, just let me know and we're sort of out. That still doesn't stop you getting a hiding there and then, so there's no point going, Oh, do you know who I know and stuff like that because it's pointless. But because I was his brother, sort of people, the dodgy people in the area would be like, Oh, oh, he's alright, because that's so-and-so's brother. So I sort of was a little bit protected like that. And the the only time I really got annoyed with him, it's so stupid, was one Christmas I really wanted this uh mountain bike, and he wanted one too. So my dad and my stepmumma told him that I was getting the bike, they could only afford one bike, they told us, and then they told me that he was getting the bike, so we both felt a little bit of resentment towards each other because we thought this was only one bike, and then on Christmas Day we both got a bike each, and then one day I come home from school and my bike was all bent up, and I was like, Well, what happened? And he came down and said, I'm really sorry. I borrowed your bike, and then the local drug dealer he owed money to swiped him off the bike and picked him up and threw it at him, so bent all my bike up. And that was the only time I sort of got annoyed by him. But other than that, he was really good to me. But then, like I said, I've just told that story about my little brother. I've also found out from my dad that we had drug dealers knocking on the door on a Friday night saying, Oh, your son owes us £500, or pay now, we're gonna burn the house down with you and the kids in it. So he'd be giving out money, and then I'd go to him and Dad, can I get a pair of trainers? And he'd be like, I used to do weekend jobs for my man in uh like golf courses and kitchens and pubs and stuff. So I was earning a little bit of money, and he'd be like, Oh, you you've got your wages, you go and buy 'em. And that caused a little resentment between me and my dad because I'm thinking, like, you're working, you've got money, why can't you buy me these trainers, or why have I got to pay for it? And again, it went to older life that I found out where we didn't really have any money because he's paying off all these drug dealers to protect us from stuff happening to the house while we were in it. So uh again, and it all goes back to understanding what situations are happening, but it doesn't take away your feelings. Like I feel resentment to their situations, even though I understand these situations. I feel a bit of resentment towards my mum, even though I understand her situation. Feelings and emotions and logic are two different things that you're battling uh with yourself quite a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. It is something that we go back and forth with ourselves, and I I think it's valid to have some resentment feelings and um or even a bunch of other different emotions associated with that one event. And you know, it's just working through to try and get to where you're not working on the same nine-year-old patterning to keep you safe. That now that you're older and you've learned more, it it's learning a new patterning because you have a new way of understanding and being and navigating life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So like had that with all my brother, and then met my wife and stuff, and stuff was fine, and got pregnant when I was about 21, 22, think she was about 19, and my son came along, and in a way, he saved my life because it was buy beer or buy nappies. So I started picking by nappies and stuff like that, and that got me away from the party lifestyle. I think if it wasn't for him coming along when I was that age, who knows? Well, I don't even know if I'd be sitting here talking to you now. Because of back then I loved that lifestyle. Like I lost a relationship with someone else through that lifestyle because I've only seen her on a Wednesday and a Friday. I sorry on Wednesday and a Saturday, and I'd be too hungover on a Saturday to do anything. So she'd be like, why don't you just not go out on Friday night? And I'd be like, Well, you're gonna come over Friday night, and she'll be like, No, and I'll be like, Well, I'm gonna go out then, and it got to a point for her that it wasn't working out, but I didn't care at that point. Where with my wife now, she'd was pregnant and stuff like that, and she'd say to me, Oh, why don't you stay in? And I would. So I think that sort of recognising that you found your person as well, and it sort of looked, as you said earlier on about learning from your mistakes. So I I know like I saw where that sort of pattern led me, so I had to work harder at not doing that pattern, and then, like I said, by my son coming along, that just changed it completely. But then she got postnatal depression, and we wasn't living together at the time and stuff like that, and that was just hard because she'd like to rip me up and be like, come and get this kid now before I put him out on the street. And I've sitting there thinking, how can you how can you say that? That's our that's our son, and at the time, I'm obviously like 21, 22, and didn't recognise post-natal depression as as how bad of an illness it actually is, someone. So anyway, we navigated through that and just seeked help and had therapy and antidepressants and stuff, and then about four years later, she was like, I want another child. And I've sort of read somewhere that someone who's had postnatal depression once is more prone to get it again. And I was like, No, and she's like, No, come on, we'll be right now, because look, we're living together now, we're in a more of a stable job, our income's a lot better, we'll be fine. So I said, Look, if it happens, it happens, and it did, and my daughter came along, and bam, within two days, she went, I think I'm getting those feelings again. So it's good that she recognised it early, but you know, when you're thinking, like, oh my god, like and then she was just like, I can't stay here, I can't stay. And she spent 11 weeks away. She'd see the kids for an hour a day, and like it was so hard I had to miss work and stuff like that. And I just remember there's this one night we lived in a high-rise block of flats at the time, so we was on the 12th floor of these block of flats, and I'm standing there, it's two o'clock in the morning, and I've got my son who's like four years old, and I've got my daughter who's about a month old, and she's got really bad chicks, so she's just wouldn't be quiet. And I'm standing on this balcony, and I'm just standing there crying my eyes out, thinking, is this my life now? Like, I've got no partner who can't. So, like, even my mum came and visited um from where she lived, as I said, she lived two or three hundred miles away. And because I felt a bit of a shame, we didn't really let the family know at the time. And I said to my wife, like, my mum's coming, do you think you can cope through the weekend? She'd be like, Yeah, I'll find within two hours. She was like, pulled me in the kitchen, like, you've got to make an excuse for me to go, I've got to get out of here, I can't stay around these kids. Like, so that was like really so hard. And then again, like I recognise it's an illness, but when you think back about it, it goes back to them emotions. And when I think about it, those emotions are still there of like, how could you do that to your children? You're like the woman I love as well, and you sort of, and even now I think she's living with the regret. Luckily, their bond is really close with both children, so it didn't it hasn't affected that relationship, but I know she feels really guilty about it, and then um, so anyway, we got through that, and then 2019 comes, and unexpectedly she got pregnant again, and we were both quite happy about it uh this time round, and we spoke through it all again and stuff like that, and about six weeks after she was pregnant, it's around Christmas time, it was the December time, um, she started bleeding. So she was like, I think something's wrong. So we went to the ER room and they checked her out and they said, Yeah, um, yeah, there's some bleeding that's a bit concerning, but your baby's got a strong heartbeat. I didn't even realise when the baby was six or eight weeks old they can still hear a heartbeat, but they did pick it up and they said, So they said, come back to us in the new year, because obviously Christmas and that was happening, and then um well we'll go from there. So that was around like the 18th of December. We got through Christmas and stuff like that, and on the 28th of December, she miscarried, so she miscarried the fetus, and we had to go back to the hospital, and it was just horrible because they had us in this ER room for seven or eight hours before she could see a doctor, and it was only um a local doctor, and he said, You're gonna yeah, you've you've more than likely miscarried, but you're gonna have to come back uh on the 1st of January so the maternity doctors can confirm. So then we had to go through the next three or four days and to go back to the hospital, and the way they do it here in the UK, I don't know if it's the same in America, it's it's so odd because we're in the scanning area where you're watching couples coming out all smiles and happy because they've just had a scan where they've seen a baby, where you're knowing you're going in there to probably be told that you haven't got a baby anymore, and you're all in the same area, and it's just so like again, you're going back and you're looking at these people, and you think feel like in your head are you so lucky, like, and it's their special day, and you're just feeling all that resentment inside, and then obviously we went in, and then they confirmed yeah, there was no baby no more, and stuff like that, and then that hit us very hard because I throughout everything that's happened, I sort of lock it away. It happens, move on. She wants to speak about the loss a lot, and I didn't want to, so it was causing a lot of conflict in the house, and we'd go nights and stuff, and we wouldn't even speak to each other. Like it was really weird. It was like we was in the same house, but it was two strangers living together, and then I just got to a point where I said, Look, this can't keep going on like this. Why don't you write down how you feel, or write a letter to I call it, I call him Angel Baby. We don't know if it was a boy or go, I said it was going to be a boy, so I called him Angel Baby, and I said, When I'm ready, I will go back and read, read it, and then that way you feel like you spoke about it because you wrote it down, and then I can deal with it when I'm ready. And we did that, and that seemed to seem to help a lot, and that's how we got through that situation because it's it's like a male reaction instinct, you want to go back into your cave. So you just like you try and ignore it, it hasn't happened, but I don't want to speak about it, I'm just moving on with my life. Where I said, like, I don't know if it's a female thing or if it's just my wife thing, want to speak about the emotions and how sad it is and stuff like that, and I just wasn't ready for it at that time.
SPEAKER_00I like uh the way that you navigated that the the letter writing. I went I don't know if I would have thought of that as a good solution, but it is because that did allow her in her moments of emotion to get it out and then allow you still to have the space while you're going through your own process and then be able to take those emotions in of hers when you are ready.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I've I I sort of linked that through to obviously doing the counselling course and that jour journaling is quite a a a big tool that's offered out to people. Write down how you feel so you can get it out and stuff like that. So I thought instead of her just journaling in her thoughts, she journaled to Angel Baby or write to or write down how she feels, and she's written some really lovely letters to to Angel Baby and stuff like that, and that's where I sort of got that idea from. So then, like I said, we navigated that, and then in 2020, um, it was the October, and um luckily we was on half term, so we was on school break. Um, because I was washing up one morning, it was about half eight in the morning, and um I just heard uh a babe help. And um, as I got to the bottom of her stairs, if you look up, her bathroom's to the right, and my son's room's ahead, and then we've got three steps that lead up to the other bedrooms, and she was on the floor outside the bathroom, and I thought she tripped over, and we're quite a jokey couple, so I was like, Oh, what are you doing on the floor, you donut? And she was just like, Well, go away. But the whole of her face had dropped, and I remember an advert in the UK from when I was younger, a bat stroke, it was called Face, and it was like, I can't remember what the acronyms meant, but it spelled out face, and it just reminded me of that. So I quickly chatted to my son, and I was like, Oh, can you get the phone? So I run an ambulance, and they were like, Can you get her to say bees, butterflies? All these B words, and as she was trying to say it, she just couldn't move her mouth properly. So I was like, No, and they're like, Okay, we're sending someone now, and my daughter was nine at the time, and I thought, oh, this is quite a traumatic event, because like obviously they're both home, and I didn't want her to see much. So I just said to her, Well, you go and stand outside and wait for the ambulance so you can wave it in. Because I didn't want her to see what's going on because my wife's arm was sort of like a claw like that, and one of her left back leg was sort of round her back, and we couldn't move it. And then it was we laugh about that because it's funny at the time she's sitting there and then she's like, I need to go to the toilet. And I was like, No, no, just wait there. It's like, no, I really need to go to the toilet. So I've had to scoop her up and lift her onto the toilet while she's having a stroke, and then she's because apparently what happens is when you have a stroke, all your body functions feel like they want to open, so your body doesn't know what's going on. So she felt like she was desperate for the toilet, but to protect itself, it closes up at the same time. So she couldn't go and she'd just go near your pressurising me because she doesn't realise what's going on at the moment. She was like, Take me back to bed. I was like, No, no, I think it's just safe if we just sit you on the floor. She wasn't even aware the ambulance was coming, and because she'd just woken up, she um had nothing on her top. So I went and got uh a t-shirt, and as I put her arm through, she was like, Yeah, what about my arm? I was like, Yeah, I'll put it. And then she was like, Yeah, but what about my arm? That's all she kept saying. She hadn't even realised I'd put her arm through the t-shirt. So, anyway, the ambulance people come, and because it was COVID time, we weren't allowed to go. So, like, she literally got took off in this ambulance and told me where she was going, and I just had to watch her drive off. Going through this really traumatic experience. And I look back now and obviously think at the time, I thought, um, it's great that we're at home, it weren't for my children, it weren't for myself. Because if it was a week earlier or a week later, I would have been at work, my kids would have been at school, she'd have been here on her own and probably died. So the mate was fortunate, but at the same point it weren't because it's just turned our lives upside down. So, like I said, she drove they drove her off, and I just went in my kitchen and I just burst into tears. And the first thing I did was just phone my mum. Because what does any young boy want to do, even though I was like in my 30s, you want your mum, don't you? So I was just crying my eyes out to my mum and explaining what happened, and she went, Look, you've got to worry about the children at the moment. So do yourself, just go off to a cafe or something and try and take their minds off it. So we went off up to her um local Costa's, and this was one of the most heartbreaking conversations I ever had. My daughter that nine years old looked at me and went, Daddy's mum's gonna die. And I had to look at her and go, I don't know. And that just broke my heart. Like, and then so that happened on the Monday, and then on the Wednesday, she got diagnosed with heart failure, and only 10% of her heart was working. Um, and that's why I think she had the miscarriage, so that's why I call our baby Angel Baby, because they've said now since her heart's too weak for us to have children, so we can never have another child. And obviously, heart failure doesn't come on overnight, so it comes on over years, really. So I believe that was our baby, and I'm not a religious person, but I still believe that was our baby sort of going so it could save his mum, so that's why I call him our angel baby. Um, and then on the Friday, she got diagnosed with uh type 2 diabetes, wasn't diabetic before the incident. Uh, she stayed in hospital for two months, come home, she's got no feeling in the left side of her body at all. And what it turns out is um we're all born with a hole in our heart, and for 25% of us it doesn't um close, but it doesn't usually matter. And what it turns out's happened is she obviously went into heart failure, so clots formed in the heart. As it got pushed um through, it's fallen out of the hole and then hit the brain causing the stroke. But again, there was no signs of any of this before this happened. So since then, she's had the hole in the heart closed, she's got like a metal mesh over her heart. But a year after this happened, she then got diagnosed with epilepsy, so she's epileptic as well, and she came home and like her personality is a bit different because it affected the frontal lobe. That's your personality, that's your emotions. So she's a lot shorter now with her um her attitude. I remember once she was trying to put a shoe on, because she can't feel on her left foot, she got really annoyed and she came flying past my head, she just threw the shoe in anger. Um she also suffers really bad with fatigue, like she can sleep seven, eight hours a day, but it's in blocks, so she'll be up for like an hour and a half, then she can sleep for three hours, up for another hour and a half, sleep for four hours, like so. It's very hard for me to plan our day, and that's sort of why I got into podcasting. Like I said, as well, I saw a cancer at the time because I was angry with the situation because I always see it as you're grieving the person that you've lost because she's got different personality, and I've sort of become husband, carer, best friend all at once. Why trying to learn to fall in love with a new person why you've still got the face of that person? So that's why it really mucked up with my head, and I went through a stage of thinking it's a bit getting a bit selfishly. Oh, this hasn't happened to me. So have I got a part with this for the rest of my life? Why should I be here? And I think there's like six or seven times I wanted to pack my bags and go, and again, that's why I sent the help of counselling, and then that's when he said, sort of find something else to do. And like I mentioned before, I used to be quite a social person out all the time and stuff like that. And I thought, no, right, well, there's YouTube, there's TikTok, well, I've got to start podcasting. So I set up a channel called the Non-Identity Podcast, and it was just kind of what you're doing now: real lives, real stories, real people. Uh, done that for a while. Then uh a friend of mine who was a guest on there, he was like, Oh, I I quite like this social media stuff. Can we do something together? So we set up a boxing channel. I'm not a big boxing fan, I'm just a casual fan. He was like, got to semi-pro, so he he was like the Annist's guy, and I would just speak about it as a casual fan. Um, but that was getting a bit too much. So someone else who we'd interviewed on the show said, I'll buy the channel off you. It weren't making any money or anything at the time, and he bought it for like $170. So I made a little bit of money out of that. That was quite nice, thinking he has all the channel. Um, carried on with the non-identity podcast for a bit, um, had a couple of people say to me, Is it all about the gender stuff and stuff like that? Because non-identity, so I thought, okay, the name's a bit too neat, so I changed it to Unfiltered. Um, then spoke with a friend of mine where I was last working, was speaking about wrestling. Uh, both of our 40s still like watching a bit of WWE, and then I said, Why don't we do a podcast about it? So then we set up Unfiltered Wrestling, and what I noticed, which is a Big mistake if anyone's social media is don't change your niece on the one channel because it affects I spent like nearly two years building up like an interview channel, and then it's changed to wrestling, and the algorithm's still catching up with it. So um, we're working with that, and then I thought I still want to document my life, especially a bit when I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, so I thought, well, I'll set up this other channel. And at first it was just to document my diabetes journey, but with the UK hospital appointments and doctors' appointments are so far apart, it would be turning into going every day a highly still waiting for this appointment. So I thought, no, I'm just gonna, if I've got something to rant about, I'll rant about it. If I've got something I find funny or a clip I find funny, I'll do that. So I put that up, and it started off with being called My Diabetic Journey, but I've changed the name to Always Confused, and I'm thinking about I'm at the moment, luckily, because I've got so much old content of interviews, I'm repurposing them and moving them over, and then I'm thinking about resetting up the interview style on Always Confused, speaking to people like yourself and and stuff like I've really that was a that's a big passion of mine. I like the wrestling, but it's my passion of mine. I lot I really enjoy speaking to people and hearing their stories, so that's what Always Confused is heading into the future.
SPEAKER_00Nice. I like that. And are you still gonna do some of your solo episodes, or do you feel like you've conversed enough to work things out for yourself?
SPEAKER_02No, I'm still gonna do the solo episodes as in there only shorts. I always struggle speaking to a camera on my own. Like I've been doing it for nearly five years now, and I still can get like a minute out of myself, and I have to like film it two or three times because I've just it feels weird to speaking to a camera when no one's on the end of it. I always try and imagine I'm speaking to a friend or I'm just having a telephone call. So my sort of clips where I document things are about a minute to a minute and a half long, where the um interview style, as you know, can be 30 minutes, could be an hour. So um, and it's special when you get to be a podcast. I don't know if you feel the same, but when you hear someone's story and they're coming onto your platform, they're giving you the responsibility to share their story and tell their story for them. Because you're the producer, you're the editor, um, you're the host, and I felt a bit of pressure, but I also feel honored at the same time when I was. I don't know if you get that same feeling, because it's you're being trusted with someone's story.
SPEAKER_00I um I'll speak to both the solo thing and the interviewing, because I can relate to both, and I find it harder to just blab at a camera. Some people find it very natural, they just have a lot to say. I make an outline and then I that way I just stay on point with what I'm actually wanting to talk about, and I make sure that I get everything in, but I just talk off the cuff, and I've actually surprised myself that I can talk for 20 to 30 minutes once I have this outline on something, and I don't think I have a lot to say before I hit record. With interviews, I really enjoy connecting with people, and I really enjoy getting to hear somebody else's story. So, yes, somebody's vulnerable with me, but I also kind of get to live vicariously through other people when I hear another story, and I'm very empathetic. So, even you know, when you're telling me some of these hard parts of your life in this story, you know, I'm just over here feeling a lot of empathy for you and what it must be like to navigate these really hard moments. And I don't know that I've ever gotten to hear the perspective of somebody in your shoes having a spouse for the majority of your adult life and them having a stroke, becoming a different person, and uh and um I really appreciate the saying, you know, you had this person you're in love with, and now they're a new person that you're having to grieve this old person while falling in love with a new person, but it's still the same body.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's so conf it's such a mind confusing thing to navigate around. And and we're doing it, and it's it's hard as well because of again. I I keep coming back to this word resentment, but I find she's ill, so she needs all the help she can get. She takes like 130 odd tablets a week and stuff like that. But the doctors will see her for an appointment. Like at the moment, I feel really sorry for her. She's just been diagnosed with a thing called charcoal foot, which is a diabetic thing, it's where your muscles and your bones become soft in one of your feet. So, since she fractured her foot in November, we didn't know it was a fracture, she was just going to the bathroom and rolled her foot. Uh, unfortunately, it was a good foot because she's saying she's got a good foot and a bad foot because there's no feeding on the left side completely. That's her bad side, and um it swelled up. We went to the hospital, they x-rayed it, said it can't see a break or a fracture, so it's just uh a sprain. Sent her home, spent through all Christmas and stuff, like hobbling around and stuff like that. Um, got a follow-up appointment in February. He said, Yeah, it still looks like a sprain, but come see us again in March, went back in March, see a different doctor, and he was like, Oh no, it was fractured. He was like, Well, she's been walking around for the last five months on a fractured foot, and then when you've got this thing called charcoal foot, so she now has to wear a boot and she's got two crutches. Now we've got an appointment in a couple of weeks, but reading about it, she could be in this boot for the next year, next three years. It could even come to surgery, and at some point it can come to amputation, depending on how bad it gets, and that's all diabetes related. So we're now navigating that. So again, it's even in my spot, she she's a bit worried about going out with the epilepsy in case she was to have a seizure while she was out, and now she's worried because she can't go out far with this boot. And because she's only 38, she's like she's coming around to the idea of getting a mobility scooter, but at first she was very resistant because what with people staring at me and stuff like that. I said, But you can't walk fast, so we're very limited with what we do. None of us drive either, so we've rely heavily on public transport, so that's hard to navigate as it is, and um so yeah, I do feel sorry for her, but then go back, and like I was saying, yeah, she gets all the help and stuff, which she deserves and need, but there's nothing for the spouses, or there's nothing for the partners, like we we've got to navigate this too, we've got to go through, like, like I said, I take my my wedding vows very seriously, and I feel like I've let her down because I weren't able to protect her. So, like I said, I then felt like it was my job to keep us strong and together, and now because I've got ill with a diabetes, I now panic that I'm a bit more tired now if I haven't taken my tablets on Grumpy, like, and I've even though I've had it since November, I'm classed as a new diabetic, so we've not sorted out my meds properly. So, and again, this just came out of nowhere. I went six or eight weeks, I'm waking up with sort of cramp in my hand and in my foot, and I was thinking I was like slept funny and stuff like that. I was going off to work and stuff, and then it got to a point where my hand sort of went like that. So I took myself to uh the A and E room, and they were like um done the blood test, and then it just came out and was like, Are you diabetic? I was like, No, and they was like, Are you sure? I was like, Well, I wouldn't know if I was diabetic or not, and they went, Oh no, you are diabetic, like so um, and that's how we found out, and then just like the situation with me now having to go to doctors and stuff with a foot like that, it got to a point I was TA'ing in um an alternative learning provision, and they sort of just said to me, Look, you're not in a situation where you can fully succeed. So we think it's best that maybe you let you go. It's the first time in 20 years, all I've done is work in schools, I've worked with young people with SMD needs, I was a behaviour lead for eight years, even this was and now I'm not working, and it's due to all now and partnering with her, and again that causes a little bit of resentment because I'm I'm sitting at home a lot now, and I'm bored, I need to be working, and the car needs to look after her, but I've also got to look after myself. So, again, that's why I said my mental health is just dicked at the moment. So I'm re-navigating now. It's frustrating because, like I said, I got angry with the world when she first had the stroke because I wanted my old life back. Then I went through years where I was thinking I'm living by this motto of every day's a new day, wipe the sleeping, and now this has happened again, and it's all flared up, and then I'm getting angry with myself for feeling like it again. But it's just is mental health the same as normal health, it's not a flat line. You have good mental health days, bad mental health days. And I heard a saying a little while ago, and it's one of the best sayings I think, you've always lived through your worst day. Because at the time you think it's the worst day ever, and you don't know how you're gonna get through it, but you do get through it, and then you do move on, and then something bad happens again, and then you get through that. So you always live through your worst day, and you always come out better on the other side.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Yeah, that's that's true. You already have lived your worst day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and another one's gonna come, but you'll get through that as well.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's part of navigating it, you know, even now, is okay, just it you you remind yourself. So we each have little reminders we have to give ourselves because we all have different things that plague us, and and therefore what we need reminded of varies. Uh but we're getting to the closing portion of our show, and you have shared so much from such a vulnerable space, and I really think it's it's just so relatable in that vulnerability of things that happen in life, how we deal with them, how it's a continual dealing with them. You know, there is no making it to a certain level, it's just continually having to work through the situations that life hands us. And I really admire that you're staying and taking care of your wife. I have heard statistics that men will often leave whenever the woman suffers um some kind of injury or something like a stroke that they need the caregiving, and um, it's it's really a rare person, I think, that will stay and navigate that in the way that you are, and I think that's really beautiful, even though it's hard.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that, but again, this goes back to my protection. I don't like hearing that because I feel like I'm a husband, that's my job. Right, that's what I signed up to. But then people, as I as as you just said, people say, Oh, you're doing an amazing job and all that, but that then goes back to what we said at the start. Like, I don't feel like I am, like, I'm just feeling like I'm doing it because that's I have to that's that's my soul, mate. That's my wife, like, so I've got to be. I don't understand these statistics that people can actually do that because it's it's no one's fault. It's not her fault. She doesn't wake up and feel like I want to feel like this every day. Like, I admire her for just waking up in the morning because what she must be going through, and then I get annoyed with myself because I get angry annoyed with the situation. I think, but what is she actually going through? She's got to live with it as well. So I appreciate you saying that and thank you. But yeah, it's it's life, and we've just got to run with the punches. Going back to a boxing phrase, it's not uh how hard you get hit, it's about how hard you get hit and keep getting back up.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah. Absolutely. So um, are the podcasts the only place that people can find you on the internet?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's YouTube and um TikTok, but um my Facebook's um open as well, so if people want to reach out, I'm happy to speak to people.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And I'll put links in the show notes for anybody. One last question for you. Um, if you could leave the listeners with any bit of wisdom that you have learned in your life, what would that be?
SPEAKER_02Um, like I said earlier, uh, the next day's a new day, like live in the moment. Be present and just get yourself through the day. And remember you've lived through your worst day and you're absolutely fine, and you'll be doing it again, and you'll be absolutely fine.
SPEAKER_00Good words of wisdom. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. It's been really fun.
SPEAKER_00If this episode resonated with you and you think somebody needs to hear it, please feel free to share. Go on and give me some five stars on Spotify and Apple iTunes. And as you embrace your humanness, be kind, be you, and remember everything is part of the journey.