Why It Is Not Too Late To Change

Season 2 Episode 14

I’m recording from Newcastle while I’m deep in learning and thinking about what real change looks like when you live with PTSD. I use Green Day’s “Still Breathing” to remind you that if you’re still here, you can start again and you can move forward, even if it’s slow. 

• correcting last week’s song credit mix-up 
• taking The Change Room course and why I recommend it 
• simple breathing and movement tools you can weave into daily life 
• “still breathing” as a mental health turning point 
• why recovery has no time frame and no neat finish line 
• honest talk on suicidal lows, hospital stays, and rebuilding 
• choosing change, practising tools, and dropping relapse shame 
• swimming mornings with my son and the value of shared time 
• needing alone time as a parent and protecting downtime 
• sleep hygiene habits, reading at night, and reducing phone use 
• big kids bring big problems and we learn as we go 
• what my PTSD journey teaches my kids about mental health 
• thought of the week on choosing kindness 

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram, and don't forget to like and follow. 
Have a great week, and don't forget to be kind to yourself.

Song of the week:

Still Breathing - Greenway

https://youtu.be/SUzsih7QJSY?si=ndffQuJrrzBf56Gu

Thought of the Week:

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse - Charlie Mackesy

"What do you want to be when you grow up? asked the mole. Kind, said the boy"

Transcript

Welcome And A Quick Apology

0:00

Hey there, welcome to Mad Mel's Mike. Thanks for joining me. My name is Melissa and this is a podcast all about me. About my life. About my life with PTSD. About my life with the husband and kids and friends and everything in between. Thanks for tuning in. Hey everybody, and welcome to season two, episode 14 of Mad Mel's Mike. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get started, I actually just want to apologize for who I said sung last week's song in my episode, and I didn't realise I had actually said it until I listened to it again. And Bitch is actually sung by Meredith Brooks, not by Meredith Grey. And for those who of you out there who have watched Grey's Anatomy, you'll know that she is the main character of Grey's Anatomy, and clearly I have watched far too much Grey's. So I apologize. I apologize to Meredith Brooks. It is not Meredith Grey. She's the brain surgeon on a real on a fictional TV show. Anyway, let's get this episode started.

Newcastle Check-In And The Course

1:09

So thanks again for tuning in. I'm actually recording from Newcastle today. It's Tuesday, and I have got probably just over 16 hours until this episode is being released, and I'm hoping that a significant amount of that time I'm going to be asleep. So I figured that I had a better get recording. So I'm in a hotel room in Newcastle halfway through the course that I spoke about last week called The Change Room. And if I can recommend any course so far, and I have only done one out of two days of it, I would highly recommend this course. And we've been asked to do like breathing techniques and a bit of movement techniques and things like that, but it's not actually encumbersome. Like it's not taking over your day where you have to go, oh, okay, here we go. I need to go do my breathing for 10 minutes. It's about incorporating it into something that we're already doing and things like that. Jump on and have a look at the change room. I would highly recommend it. And I will probably go into a few more details next episode about what the foundations are and how can we incorporate that into our everyday lifestyles. I will, but at the moment, my head's still pretty jam-packed with my learning today, so I won't go too far into it. But yeah, definitely have a look. And just on a complete side note, I am dead set useless. I'm sure those regulars who listen to my episodes every week hear the ding of a message that's been received, and so my messages come through my laptop as well. And you would think after 35 episodes of a season last year, and this is now episode 14 of season two, that I would remember to put my laptop on silent. But no, I just had to stop then because I received a text message, and it's always from the same person, and this person knows exactly who it is. And look, in my defense, I had said to him that I'm about to record an episode, but dickhead Melissa didn't put her laptop on silent, so then you hear the ding. I think I even had it in one of the episodes where it was halfway through the song and it dinged through, and it's just so frustrating. Anyway, so talking about the song of the week from last week and how I really screwed up the name of the singer. Let's have a listen to this week's, and it is called Still Breathing by Green Day. And I actually got the name right.

Still Breathing And Choosing Change

4:31

The question is, are you still breathing? Because if you're still breathing, I can guarantee you 100% without a doubt in my mind that it is not too late for you to make a change. Whether that be with your alcohol, which I spoke about with Jeff, whether it may be your drug addiction, which I haven't actually spoken about, but that would be a good topic to have somebody on and speak about, or with your depression, depression, or your anxiety, or your PTSD, you're still breathing. It is not too late to make a change now. And I know a hundred percent that it is hard, hard work, but I also know that the hard work is so so worth it, and that if you can just put one foot in front of the other, that that tunnel will slowly, slowly get lighter. And I and I say it in a lot of my episodes every week that it's not about clicking your fingers and being better, it's not about having a time frame on mental illness. And I know my brother spoke about that really, really well in his episode. So if you haven't had a listen to my episode where I interview Matthew, my brother, I would recommend you going back and listening to it because he was of the assumption that I would have my first hospital stay and I would be cured. But that's not what mental health is, and that's not what it looks like. There is no time frame. Yes, I have been out of the police for five years, yes, it has been a journey, yes, it has taken me a long time to get there, but that's not to say yours isn't going to be shorter, it's not to say yours isn't going to be longer. Everybody's journey is different, but everybody's journey can get better and can get brighter. And it's even just with this course today that I was doing as well. And the only reason we were there is because we want self-improvement, and we're not going to see self-improvement unless you make the effort. And you could try all these different things and stuff like that, and it's like that old saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. That also goes in terms of yourself, like you might be showing up for your psychologist's appointments or showing up to your psychiatrist's appointments and doing all these different things, but unless you really want the change, nothing is ever going to change. So you need to make that conscious decision. You need to ask yourself, is this where I want to be in five months' time? Is this where I want to be in five years' time? Because if the answer is no, then today, today is the day for you to start and make that change and go, I want to be a different person. Like there was when my head was at its worst, I wasn't thinking that I was going to end up like this. I couldn't, I couldn't fathom that. Like the whole thought that, first of all, I don't have a podcast and that this podcast would be helping people around the world. That that is just so inconceivable in my brain. It's just baffling. And even now it still is mind-blowing to go, wow, like people are actually listening, and people are listening from the states and all through Europe and things like that. And that is so, so rewarding because I'm just little odd Mel. I spent my time in the New South Wales police force and worked in places that half the people in New South Wales, Australia, let alone the world, wouldn't even know of. And to think that I am making a little difference in somebody else's life is so, so humbling. And it really makes it important that I continue to do this. And I'm not gonna lie, like sometimes it's like becomes not so much a chore, but it's like, what am I gonna speak about? Like, I feel like I talk about the same thing over and over again, but I think with mental health, we all know that we need to hear the same thing over and over again because it may take the 10th or the 12th or the 30th time for us to actually sink in to go, oh shit, now I know what Mel was saying. Now I know what my psychologist was saying, and then put those tools that you've learned and that you've heard over the years into practice to make yourself a better person. And I remember when I was at my darkest, I like I was I was ready to end it, like I was suicidal, and the only thing that kept me going was my three kids, and I bless them every day for that because if they weren't here, then life would be very, very different for me. And I just want you to know the severity of my depression and my PTSD because it's taken a long, hard slog to get to where I am, and I don't want you to think that I'm here's Mel doing these podcasts, she's doing really well, and all her PTSD and depression was just bullshit, but it wasn't. I spent probably close to six, I really want to say six, seven, but if my son listened to this, I'd get in shit. Let's say five to six months in a psych hospital over a three-year period, and that's a long time. That's a long time to be away from my husband, it's an even longer time to be away from my kids, and knowing that the impact that it had on them while I was away is going to affect them in the future, and that hurts. But what hurts more is knowing that if I didn't put the effort in now, today, or back then, when I was really bad, I wouldn't be the person I am today, and I wouldn't be the mother that I am today, and I wouldn't be the wife I am today. And please don't get me wrong, I am far from perfect. I my tolerance is still shit. I still have my motivation is getting better, however, it is still not great. But looking back retrospectively to see where I've come, I've it's I've come a very significant long way. So, and that's something that I should be very proud of. And it's something that I want other people to know as well because there is hope for you too. You just have to want it. So, yeah, that just got very deep. And like my mate always asks me every week, like, what are you going to talk about this week? And I honestly don't have any set things about what I want to speak about. I just speak from my heart and go from there, and then I talk about my week and things like that. But I often talk about the song of the week. And so I chose this song of the week because if you are still breathing, it is not too late. It is not too late to put yourself first because you cannot be a decent husband or a decent wife or a decent partner or a decent sibling, friend, anything, unless you put yourself first and you love yourself. And without that, you are not going to be able to get out of the trenches, you're not going to be able to get out of this depressive state, you're not going to be able to put one foot in front of the other. So you need to start with yourself because if you don't put yourself first, then nothing is going to change and you're going to get stuck in this revolving door. And things might be okay for a little while, and it might come back and bite you in the ass. But then you just work harder for the next time. And I know that this journey that I'm on is this is something I'm going to have to live with forever. But it's just about being able to maintain longer gaps between the lows. And the longer it is, the more joy and satisfaction you should have in that. Because I still have flat days where it's like, oh shit, like, is this a start of my decline down? Am I going to have to end up back in hospital? If I have to end up back in hospital, that's okay because I know hospital helps and I know TMS helps. And I know that the systems that I have put in place for my own mental health help. So there's no shame in relapsing, and there's no shame in getting help again and continuing to getting help. Like this life that we're on without a mental health illness is hard bloody work. Like we're not meant to be on this earth and it's meant to be sunshine and lollipops all the time. It's it's hard, hard work, but I know that you can do it. You just need to know that you can do it. So I want you to move forward with this week and go, I can do it. And just start changing that negative self-talk just one second, 10 seconds, 60 seconds at a time, and seeing what impact that has on you.

Weekly Update And Family Moments

13:35

So let's get into what I have been doing for this week. So it's been interesting. So my son is wanting to work on his fitness for his basketball, which is awesome. However, it is also a pain in the ass because he's wanting to go swimming twice a week before school. And it's so funny. Like we don't get up on a normal school day, I set my life at 7:40. I'm a snooze presser, I'm not gonna lie. I end up getting out of bed at 8.07. It's a nine-minute snooze. I'm what I'd push it three times or something like that. I get up, I go into the kitchen, I make myself a coffee. Like my morning routine, routine on a weekday is identical. And so now that he's wanting to go swimming, we're having to get up earlier. So my alarm goes off at 6 40. Anyway, so I go and wake him up and he gets up and he looks at me, he's still half asleep, I'm still half asleep, and he goes, Oh, I say to him, Do you want to go swimming? He goes, no. He goes to me, do you want to go swimming? I go, no, and then we look at each other and both at the same time he goes, Let's go swimming. And so we go swimming, but it's actually really nice to spend that time with him. Not that we do a lot of talking because we're obviously swimming, but it's something that we can do together. And then we have a little chat in the car on the way to the pool, we have a chat on the way home, we whinge and bitch about how stupid the time is that we're going and that how the squads always take up all the lanes at the pool because the outdoor pools closed during winter, so we have to swim inside, and there's not a lot of lanes. And I don't know, it's just that shared experience that isn't something that I've had a lot, particularly since well, actually, probably since I were born, because I was so entrenched in work when the kids were born, and then once my head broke, I spent a lot of time on myself and recovery and and learning how to live with my diagnosis as well. So now that I've got the time and that little bit of motivation, it's nice to be able to spend the time with them as well. So um I came down to Sydney on Saturday and celebrated my nephew's 18th birthday, which was lots of fun, and then drove to mum and dad's uh singleton and spent the night with them, and then came over uh to Newcastle on Monday for the course, and it's a nice little escape. Um, I love my kids, but it's also nice to have some me time because what I have learned is that I am not so much of the extroverted that I used to be, and that I do actually get a lot of my strength from being alone, and I found it particularly hard in the last probably actually this year to be perfectly honest, because um, Rory is now at uni, so she's not at school Monday to Friday, and she's not at uni a lot, so she's at home a lot as well. And Mackenzie the eldest has been in between jobs, so she's been at home. So I've been so accustomed to having sort of from nine till three at home by myself when the kids have been at school or or at work, and my husband's at work, and so now having to um now having the kids at home during the day, there's sort of no downtime for me either, and I think it's important to to realize that it's okay as a parent to want time away from your kids. Like, don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but I also love and appreciate my time to myself, it's my unwinding, it's my relaxing time. So

Sleep Hygiene And Phone Boundaries

17:18

every night when I go to bed, I sort of I have the same routine. Like, I um I have my meds anywhere from probably 8 till 8:30. Sometimes it might be a little bit later at about nine if I'm living on the edge. Um, and then I go have a shower, hop into bed, I read the devotion to my mum and dad. I send them a voice memo every day. Um, I don't generally scroll. Um, there are occasionally occasions when I do do a little bit of doom scrolling on TikTok or something like that, but I just lose far too many hours doing that, so I try not to do it. And then I set my alarm on my phone, put my phone on charge, and then don't touch it again. And I know recently I've been very relaxed with that rule, and I know it's something that I need to continue to do and maybe change the settings on my phone so my my phone automatically goes into sleep mode at 10:15. But that I might need to change it earlier because if I get a message at say 9:30, I read it. And but I know it's very important not to be looking at our phones before we go to sleep, and we learned that today on the course. But I put my phone down and then I read, and I could read anywhere from half an hour to an hour, sometimes even longer. And it really frustrates me when the kids come in and they want to talk, and it always seems to want to talk at that time. It's like they know that it's sleep time, they know that it's my window time, and they know it's part of my sleep hygiene, and it's my routine at that time of night to read, but they just seem to get verbal diarrhea at that time of night, and that's hard as well. So, not only have I had both the girls at home during the day, they've also wanted to come and download on their days when I'm trying to unwind on mine, so it's just trying to find that balance because I don't ever want to turn the kids away. Mind you, I do. I lose my patience, and like I said, I am not perfect, but kids are hard work. Um, but I just need them to realise that hey, this is mum's time, mum needs to wind down as well. So, yeah, I might have to um put my big girl socks on and have a bit of a conversation with them, but it's it's just hard by the time they get home from basketball and things like that at night, it's already probably close to nine o'clock, if not later. So they're just getting home and I'm already in bed, so they still want to come in and see me and say goodnight and stuff like that. So yeah, it's just a fine balance, but I don't know. I just guess the thing about that is that it's okay to lose patience with your kids, it's okay to want time away from them.

Parenting Pressure And Mental Health

20:05

But I remember like I was obviously quite young when I had the kids. I was 22 when I had Mackenzie, 24 when I had Rory, and 26 when I had Cliff. And a lot of um friends my age have younger kids, and remember them saying to me, like, Oh, does it get easier as they get older? Fuck no, that's bullshit. All I'm gonna say to you is it is different. And we've had a few not dramas or troubles, but a few hiccups um over the last couple of months with the kids. And I just I remember saying to my sister-in-law and my sister the other day, I said, you know what, bring me back a toddler. I said, because little kids equal little problems, big kids equal big problems, and I feel very sorry for my eldest because she's doing everything first, and that has been the same since birth. But as parents, we're navigating these firsts for the first time. So she's learning as a young adult, but we're also learning as parents of a young adult about how to deal with these problems, and we mess up as kids mess up. Like we're not perfect, there's no rule book with this, but I think it's about being patient and being honest with your kids. And this is certainly not a child kid podcast by any means, but it all comes into that whole mental health and things like that as well. Like if you're honest with your kids as to where you are in that day and things like that, then they have a greater understanding for say myself for my mental health, but also of their own. And I was speaking to somebody the other day, um, at my nephew's 18th, about the podcast and stuff like that. And the one thing I am most proud of from my mental health journey is what it has taught my kids. And if you have listened to the episodes where I interview them, you'll hear they've been asked the exact same questions. They didn't know what the questions were, but I asked them a question along the lines of what have they learned from my journey with my PTSD, and they all said, and I could not be here proud, more proud of all three of them, is that they have a greater awareness of their own mental health and a greater awareness of their friends' mental health. And if I can take anything from my diagnosis, it is that because we can't teach somebody what to do during mental health, we can only guide them. And if my journey of my PTSD and my depression has guided them to be able to look after themselves better and those who they love better, well then I'm gonna take that as a win.

Kindness Reminder And Closing

22:51

Let's finish this episode with the thought of the week. And as this year's theme is from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Maxie, and up to a random page, and it is what do you want to be when you grow up? asked the mole. Kind, said the boy. And I say it every week. Kindness is free. Be kind to people and be kind to yourself. Have a good week and thanks for tuning in. Thanks for tuning in to Mad Mail's Mike. I'm Melissa Smith, and I hope you've enjoyed listening. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram, and don't forget to like and follow. Have a great week, and don't forget to be kind to yourself.