Roll With The PunchesTim Peck, a former member of Victoria Police, faced a severe decline in his mental health, leading him to contemplate suicide. Fortunately, Tim survived this dark period and has since dedicated his life to helping those with mental health conditions, particularly first responders.
After leaving Victoria Police and undergoing his recovery, Tim worked at Beyond Blue and the Police Association of Victoria as Manager of Welfare. He is now the Director of Responder Assist at Phoenix Australia, the Australian National Centre of Excellence in Posttraumatic Mental Health, focusing on the mental health of first responders.
In this episode, Tim openly discusses his battle with suicidality, so please note if you are feeling sensitive to such conversation today. However, his story also highlights the crucial message that even in the darkest times, recovery is possible, thriving is achievable, and these conversations serve as a beacon of hope and connection.
Tim’s recovery journey, documented through extensive journaling, culminated in a book 'The Invisible Obvious' that promises to be an incredible read.
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Good a team. Welcome to the show. This is Rob with the Punch's Podcast and I'm your host, Tiv Cook, and today we are having a conversation with Tim Peck. Tim Peck is the author of The Invisible Obvious, a homicide detective story of mental health crisis and recovery, and he is a former member of the Victoria Police of over twenty years. So we're talking today about some of Tim's experiences, and in this particular conversation we do talk quite openly about his experience with still Sidal ideation and how he moved through that and the work that he's doing. Now. I really loved this conversation. I think it is crucial that we have conversations like this and I cannot thank Tim enough for having this one with me today. So I hope you guys enjoy it. Nobody wants to go to court, and don't My friends are test art family lawyers know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to Mark and the team at www dot test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Tim Peck, Welcome to Conversations with Code nine and Roll with the Punches. This will go on both shows that are You're want of our Code nine friends, and it's a pleasure to have you on the show. I thought of your next book name just before, just before I logged on to meet you. Do you want to hear it? Love to tim Peckable. There you go, Timpecable, The Rise of Tim Peck. Now, like I said, it's an absolute pleasure to speak to you today. I just had a really quick read up with you. Your book is in the mail on its way to me. I can't wait to read it. You've lived a lot of excitement and not excitement, and crazy and good and bad and all of the things. And I guess when you introduce yourself to people these days, who's Tim Peck.
It's a complex question, isn't it. It's a long background and a long history, but I think it's still continuing to evolve. So I don't think I have an answer to who I am today because it continues to move and change. But I think most importantly, I'm someone that's been able to go through an experience and learn to adapt and live with that and come out the other side a much better person, and then being able to share that with some people and hopefully have an influence across a border sector to try and alleviate some of that thanks that members go through, particularly the emergency service workers. It's a difficult job. It's a great job, it's really rewarding and can have great outcomes for individuals and community, but there's a risk that comes with it. And I speak about that a lot that as a risk that comes with that. So we just need to look after ourselves a bit better while we're doing it. And certainly my experience and when I was in that culture wasn't built around looking after ourselves. It was more doing what we could to get through.
Yeah. Do you know what I love about these conversations with first responders, law enforcement, paramedics, you know people and fiery is because I was just having a conversation with my mate at the gym today, who's a fiery who's in the transition of stepping away from going out on the calls and working his way up to being one of the station officers and just a new transition. And I was talking to him and we were talking about that idea of identity and obligation and loving what we do, but sometimes losing yourself in the middle of it and being pulled into that identity. And I was talking about it even just from the idea of boxing. And what I love about the conversations with you guys, the first responders and law enforcement particularly is it's been such a gray area for you guys to there's been no education or awareness in the past for you to understand the implications of the job. And then the nature of the job means that you've put on both the physical and metaphorical armor, and you have this you adapt to the idea of being able to really manage and suppress your emotional and physical reactions to big things that most of us don't even dream of coming across in our lives. But it's to a degree it gives us listeners on the other side that haven't experienced that. It gives us something to reflect and understand in a way that I think we can all adapt to what we experience in our own lives on a really subtle level. So do you think.
I think one of the one of the challenges is that the work, particularly first responders, and my world was policing, and the work that you do is important. You are helping community. In my case, homicide was a big part of my career. Being an detective was my main role, So that idea that you're out fighting against the odds and getting results for people and for me and the teams I worked in, being committed to that was really important because that's how we got results. So a lot of the good attributes you had were the things that made you good at what you did. The challenge was stepping away from that understanding that there was more to life than work, and that over a period of time, if you're not careful, you're going to actually lose some of yourself. So some of those important things around who you are personally, your family, your physical health, your mental health, it sort of slowly slips away to a point where we go to ridiculous links just to try and keep going. And that's certainly the main tone of the book is the invisible Obvious was that I didn't get stick one day, that the symptoms were there for a long period of time, and I ignored them.
It's even just like how we over like we go busy, busy, busy, and then the day after we go on vacation we pack it in right, because we allow ourselves to sit in what we're in, what we've been in the middle of, the kind of half step out of it and the body goes, oh, we's okay, cool, we can all let go now. I imagine that's kind of what an entire career in an industry like that is like.
Yeah, Unfortunately for me, towards the end of even holidays when to break, I was connected twenty four seven and you know, I do a court case for a phone call or so even when you're having time off, you really didn't step away. And unfortunately, as my symptoms increased, that led to more just isolation in my own time. So you know, I could have a weekend at home and not speak to the wife of kids, and in my own head to think I haven't done like that's just normal, or I hadn't realized that I hadn't spoken because there was so much going on internally for me, yeah, externally that they could see that I was really struggling. So it is about as extraordinary things we do to try and cover up and then recover quickly so you can get back into it. So a really nasty cycle to be caught in, and when you're in the cycle, really hard to see it and even harder to think about, how the hell am I going to get out of this?
Yeah? Who who sees it first? For actually what it is in the size that it is. Is it yourself that starts to go, oh, you know what, I'm in the middle of something that's really gripping me. Or is it that your family, wife and your kids who really goes this is big?
Yeah? I think for me, and it is different for different people, like we all experience mental health differently and everyone has their own experience of it. But I think for me, a subconscients, I knew something was wrong, Like I knew what I was doing, drinking every day, no sleep, panic attacks, anxiety, all those things. I knew that wasn't normal. But for whatever reason, that the push to keep going was so strong that you would just find a way to get through, and that was usually through alcohol or some other maladaptive behavior. No doubt, my wife and kids knew that I was really struggling, that there was some significant issues. And you know, part of the title of the book Invisible Obvious, is that it was obvious, but I didn't have the courage to be visible with it. I didn't have the courage to say, yeah, you know, you're right, I am really struggling. For example, early on, my wife's got me to go on to a psychologist and I did six sessions with him and absolutely lied my ass off the whole way through it, gave him nothing, walked out and said yeah, no, I don't see any more on fine and life goes on. So if you want to make it invisible, you can, But it's actually taking that step to really think about, well, you know, how am I going to get out of this predictument I'm in and ultimately it's up to you to be able to do that.
Well, that's so powerful to think that you went in for the six sessions? Was that I was that your own? Did somebody suggest that you go in and have those sessions? Or was that your own? You came to that decision yourself.
No, that was my wife who encouraged me to do that. That was here some time ago, and you know, there was no way I was something anyone at work. I paid for those sessions myself, I didn't tell another soul that I even attended to know the family. Nobody else knew, and I guess from a on reflection that was just a self protective factor to make sure that nobody found out, you know, because back then the stigma around mental health was such that most certainly in my mind, would have impacted my career.
Yeah, tell us a little bit about your career. What drew you into it in the first place, What was when, when did it start, and how did it roll out.
I started in nine and nine e four for no apparent reason. I was working in a factory out and west side of work with a chat who decided he was going to join her. No other family history, no other burning desire, sounded like a good job. I was twenty four to twenty five at the time and looking for something more secure and took the plunge. And from the time I joined, I wanted to be a detective. That looks pretty apparent straightaway. So all my early years were just saimed at being the best and trying to give me status as I could, and getting the note and so on. So I was really bought into the culture and as a white male of that age and played sport and like to drink and someone fitting into the culture really well. It was worked hard. You know, you're one of one of the crew. Went through the uniform stage into a divisional detective role and then into missing persons Inuit and homicide in the crime department. And I stayed there for quite a number of years, and then sort of about two thousand and nine, I got promoted to a uniform sergeant role, and that was probably when I was starting to struggle a fair bit. But ironically the next three and a half years I've got promoted another three times and ended up being a detect You seeing a sergeant at the Human Source Unit, which is a pretty rapid pathway through and often when I talk about this that you know, again on reflection, but from the outside looking in, it looked like that you know, is had a great career. Is that the tech POV. He's worked in great areas, He's flying through the ranks. Now, that's what we want to see in somebody. Internally, I was exploiting. I no way of coping with what I was dealing with. But you know, it's amazing the mask we can put on and get through every day, make good decisions and front up every day and do what you need to do despite how are you feeling outside of that?
Yeah? God, that's incredible. What when you reflect back, what were the factors that you think? What are the factors that are weighing down on police officers? Is it those one off experiences that you're seeing and not really processing or is it the identity and the culture.
I've part of the story after I police, you ended up with the Police Association for four and a half years as the well being manager. So I've had I've dealt with hundreds of other members along the similar journey to what I've had, and very rarely are they two that it was saying that they're all really different. Some people will be a significant number of incidents that happened in a small period of time. Others all recall incidents that happened fifteen years ago that have popped up now for whatever reason. A lot of the times, the organizational factors that rear their head around, you know, emotions or management or decisions that have made they're out of their control and they they don't like and don't agree with. And the identity thing, it's hard being a police person the whole time. You know, you don't switch off at the end of a shift, particularly in the areas I was in. You're on twenty four to seven, and you know the country police. That's absolutely what they are. They're known, that's who they are and what they do. So amongst your circle of friends and your family, you're known as the police person. So it's a it is a combination of things that build up. But I think the real challenge is how do we look at a little bit differently. And the example that gets me is that my bucket filled up and there was one two minim took me over the edge, and my experience wasn't I don't think like that. I think for me, what happened is that I allowed everything to build up so that the lack of sleep, the continued missus alcohol, I was suicidal, anxiety and panic attacks, nightmares and all the symptoms of PTSD, and I just kept pushing them down and couldn't do just the little things every day to try and get a solid grounding to start the day. So I think if we let those symptoms build up and we move further along the continuum mental health, if you like, and when we're at that pointy end, at the orange and red end, and another incident comes in, it'll be the one that tips you over. But it's not so much because of that incident. It's because we've had that build up of a whole accumulation at events and not looking after ourselves or ignoring our symptoms that led to a point where we can't manage anymore. So one of the strong messages that I'll try and get out is that we need to look after mental health every day. We need to be doing small steps every day to build a model that allows us to have that safety to go back to, no acknowledge it. Some days are going to be harder than others. Some days As an emergency worker, there's going to be some difficult days, and we know that how can we best prepare for that when we're well, rather than wait until we're really unwell and then what the hell am I going to do next?
Yeah? Yeah, if you're comfortable talking about it, can you share a little bit about the time where you started to realize that you were suicidally having suicidal ideation? How does that or for how did for you? How did that present and what was it like to be who were you in the middle of that?
It was again fascinating on reflection, it was twenty fourteen. I can remember it really clearly. It was about March or twenty fourteen when I first thought about it. I've just been promoted into a role. My alcoholism was really difficult, like I couldn't manage it. I was frustrated that I tried to get off the drink and couldn't. Obviously, I had a lot of other symptoms around nightmares and so I just didn't sleep. I chose not to sleep, so I do anything I could not sleep, and alcohol is my way of getting through and getting some sleep. So by about March of that year, in my own mind, I thought that there is a way out of this, and suicide the plan. Now, when I sit back and reflect on that, it's like it's like it's another person. But I can understand the way I was thinking because I couldn't go through that cycle anymore. And in my mind, my family would have been better off, the workplace would have been better off. Mum and Dad would never have found out. If I made it look like the hard working detective had an accident, everyone walks away winner that's how I was looking at it. And initially I thought, I thought, it, don't be stupid, that doesn't make sense, you know, that's ridiculous. But that's just my sort of level of the street. As the months went on, I was able to it actually became a safe place for me to go. It became nearly a protective place for me to go. And think about that because it gave me some relief from the symptoms. I was experiencing that comfort that there might actually be a way out of this mess that I was in. So it sounds ridiculous, but that's the way it felt. By August of that year, I told my wife I'd had a particularly bad week and we're up in a parkland at Durban Parklands, and she was always trying to get me to do the little things well, at least trying to eat well or sleep or exercise or do something and see asch and someone, and I said, well, it's not going to matter because I'm not going to be here by Christmas. I've made my mind up. I can't do this anymore. And that's a horrible place to put someone else in to sort of hang on to that. And it was about five or six weeks after that, I crashed an unmarked police car into a park car in Graduat and Fairfield. I was drunk, refused to breath test, took off and took off down to Warnable, actually sent the suiticide note suicide message out everyone that I was going to complete suicide that morning and it was only I still not sure why I didn't complete it if the incident that occurred, that's how I had planned to complete suicide, and I when I reenacted, it was only going twenty two k's an hour, So courage was never my strong point, and were afraid. But when I went down to Warnable, I'd been around mobile phones and that long enough I'd taken the thin out and I knew they couldn't track me after I sent the messages to the bosses and the families and so on, and unfortunate, when I got down to Warnaville, I went into the pub because it had been all of like five hour since I've had a drink, so obviously they had another drink. It was early in the morning. They led me in and I plugged the phone in because my attention was to lead the suicide note on the phone, and within about ten minutes. There was a copy there. But that wasn't the end of it. It wasn't as if because I've been caught out that I stopped thinking about suicide. And one of the things I was seeing an alcohol and drug councilor for my grief counselor at the time, mainly for my alcoholism, and he said to me that I had to go and see a psychiatrist and so on and get through some tests so that they were very reluctant to let me out, so to speak. So that was a big suicide planning around it, but my thinking didn't change. My thinking was all, they've got you now, but there's always going to be another chance. So it wasn't as if I had an attempt and then stopped thinking about it. For me, it was an escape clause as I needed to have, And I remember that the first day when I saw him after it, he asked me to write a journal about my experience from then on and for fifteen months and parts of it in the book. I kept a journal and it wasn't un till recently, I recently say, four or five years ago, went back and reread it and started writing a book that I was actually suicidal for probably six or eight months after that. Now, when I look back, I thought I was titled for like two weeks. That's source sidal ideation, so memory changes over time, but all of that year basically, of course, if things didn't work out, that's how I was going to get out of this predicament I was in because if you think about it, I was going to lose my job, I was going to lose my license, My marriage was in a really difficult position. I stayed myself from all my work and so on because of the incident that occurred. I wouldn't work as a copper again. So the world was crumbling around me. I just couldn't let go of it. It was like I needed to have something to get me through, to take my mind to, to give me a safe place to think about. So it is ironic that suicide in itself became a safe place for me at times to alleviate some of my symptoms, which is absolutely counterproductive and counterintuitive when I look at it now, but back then, that's how I felt. Lastly that the one thing that did changed my mind is when I met my sight. And I've been through the reasons as to why suicide. It was such a great idea, why I would solve all of my problems and how people would be better off than rah Rah. And he did say to me, that's a very strong argument you have. Tim. His name is Alex, He was a great fellow, and he said, the only flaw in your argument is that you don't get to choose how other people feel. So what do you mean So when you're telling me your wife's going to be better off and your kids are going to be better off, you go and ask them first and then come back and we'll have another conversation. And obviously he was right, but you know, if they had their point of view, not what I'd made up, it'll be a different way of looking at things. And so it did take a lot of time and a lot of management around that to ensure that I was safe during that period. But I think it's important for people to understand that a lot of people do think about suicide. It's not something that just pops into a random person's head. It's out there. We need to talk about it more, We need to be more open about it so that we can understand and feel more comfortable with it. If you're feeling that way you can reach out and get to the resources that you need to keep yourself safe.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I've always find it so I'm so inquisitive about what it feels like. I went and as you were talking about that, I almost visualize it feels like suicide. This thing suicide is this entity that kind of lurks following you around and then momentarily grubs the controls and tries to make the decisions. And I think that when people are experiencing that, to be able to in the middle of a heavy space say it out loud because it it feels weird. And I remember what before I'd had a lot of the conversations that I've had around like this one here right now, the idea of someone saying, oh, I'm suicide or in order to help themselves. That's why, you know, I think about ten twenty years ago someone says, oh, one was suicide, and everyone goes, Oh, they're just after attention or they would have done it, you know, And it's I just think it's so valuable to be able to hear and really try and empathize and understand what that experience is like for you and I remember asking the question to another guest of mine who had had lined up a tree or a powerpole at two hundred and some CA's an hour and then made the decision not to at the last moment. And I and on the second conversation on the show, I said to him, how long did it take you to overcome that period of being suicidal and have not have suicidal ideation? And it was the most for me, it was the most important moment of conversation I'd ever had on the show when he said, well, I've never said this before, and he speaks around nationally around suicide and mental health, and he said, I've never said this, not even to my girlfriend. But there's times when I can still have those thoughts. But now I know that they're just thoughts and I know how to manage them. So and I just went, this is so important because there's people listening that are in the middle of that. There might be someone listening to this conversation today that's experiencing that for the first second or third time and going, yeah, but I'm different because I haven't gotten better in inverted commerce.
Yeah. The other thing that was I write it out in the book was really stark for me was the good luck, a good fortune. I was able to reconnect with my body when I was standing warnable and I was gone off to do something, and for whatever reason, I was able just to take time and try and feel myself in my body. So I have that physical connection and that's what actually shifted my thought pattern. There was only for ten seconds at the start I could hold it for but then as I continued to go, I was able to shift myself out of that mindset. So I know that doesn't work for everyone, and not everyone may have that awareness around their body and so on, but for me it was a really important part of having the physical connection to bring you back to some sort of reality and eating feet on the ground, things like that that really put you in that moment and bring some reality to it. Because as you say, the thoughts can come and go at anytime. You do learn over time that they are just thoughts and you can dismiss the thoughts.
Yeah, yeah, share with this that. I guess that. However many months it was that healing journey and that coming to a better place. Talk to me about what was the plan and what things did you feel working? And no now looking back no, now that that worked, what was the process to get well I was.
I'm very fortunate I wrote that journal because I don't think I would have remembered most of it honestly looking back. But the journal, it just showed me how up and down I was. I kept it fifteen months before I got a job. Obviously I have to go to court for the driving matter, and weired. I resigned from vic POL the day before I was going to get sacked. That was about fourteen months later. And the one thing that really sticks out for me is that right from the aupset, I knew, well, I haven't had a drink since that day, so that was the first thing I knew. So I now link suicidality to drinking, that if I have another drink, suicides on the cart, so I just don't go near it. That was my only way I could think about trying to stop that aspect. So after the years of trying not to drink, I haven't had a drink since then. But for me, it really was getting back to those little things that I could do that I had control of. And Alex my clinch was really big on that only I choose what I choose, whether the exercise or I don't. That's up to me. I choose if I engage with my family now. They can be hard choices to make, but ultimately no one else can make those choices for me. I choose whether I stayed in treatment and go and see my clinician. I choose whether I take my meds. There were things they mightn't have been total control, but there were choices I could make, and making those choices gave me a small foothold that allowed me to get some control back. And then over time, as those choices got stronger, and you've got better routine, and my routine was existent. I'm made sure I had breakfast, I didn't drink. I've wrote in my journal I would try and engage with families best I could. I was still isolating into a whole lot of things away from the workplace, but in my own little cocoon, I described it as I was starting to get a foothold again. And it was only through those small steps, over a long period of time that I was able to get that to a position where I could tolerate anxiety and could tolerate bad thoughts and in a difficult situations which were there were plenty. I've gone to court. Was horrible. Getting the sack was horrible, But I was still there and I was sitting in it and I was experiencing it, and I was.
Okay, what do you know what? That really just highlighted to me this another conversation I had years ago, completely different context, but the philosophy behind it is the same. And your ability to choose, and then the subconscious message that you get to yourself when you're choosing good things for you. That agency years ago when I wanted to move up a weight range for fighting, as my friends and nutritionists and I said, and I did a food dive. I said, can you just give me some because you know, I know I can put on weight, but I don't want to put on cookie weight to move up a level a weight division in boxing. And I did this food diary and she looked at it. She circled all the things she was really happy with, really happy with, and there were all these brilliant salads. I was like, what about all these super food? Look? What about this? What about this? And she just looked at me. He goes you shook her head. She said, you're outsourcing your self care. You're outsourcing and she goes to the act of spending five to ten minutes preparing your own food is a message to yourself and that never left me. I've got goosebumps for right now. It's like we forget the really powerful things. And yeah, just as you said that for your journey, it was like, I think that's a massive one.
Yeah. So it is a bit about and there's a quote in the book. We may not have freedom of choice, but we still have a choice. It might be that all the choices that we want, but you still have a choice to take action and do something rather than nothing. And I think that's one of the traps, particularly in the emergency work, that we fall into that as a quote that goes around, they broke me, they can fix me. So if we're going to have that attitude and you're refusing to engage with an organization or with any other assistance even outside of the organization, I'm not sure how you're going to get better if we're not willing to do something ourselves. The role I'm in now at Phoenix Australia, we do have services available for people to come and get clinical services, but as I often say, you know you can choose not to use the services available the agency. I've got no issue with that if the confidentiality or you're in dispute with them, whatever the case. But choosing to do nothing is also a choice. There are other alternatives that can help you. So really trying to embed that idea that individuals play such an important role in getting themselves going and if we're waiting for somebody to come and fix our problem, we'll be waiting a long time.
Yeah. So you're working now with both Beyond Blue and Phoenix Australia. Correct.
I'm a speaker with Beyond Blues, so volunteer speaking and I do some work as a community representative on their strategy committee, but my primary role is with Phoenix Australia managing a project called Responder Assists, which sits across the seven emergency service agencies in Victoria. We do a lot of work with clinicians, trying to educate clinicians around cultural awareness around what it's like to be an emergency worker and giving them some more skills around the eveness based treatments and how they can access those and providing training and so on. We have a clinical arm also, we do some research as well. So it's a lovely project to being from my perspective, and I work with a lot of great academics and clinicians and I'm just an ex copper who's they're throwing is to Bobsworthy and about well that might sound good on paper, but are they going to use it? So that's really the Lind experience and bringing that to the conversation is really enriching to say, understand where you're coming from, but there's all these barriers to why people may not use that, and how can we think about it differently?
Yeah, amazing And do you find it? Do you have to be actively? I guess aware that when you're moving into associations like that where where you're surrounded with people who and the conversation, you're surrounded by the conversation, surrounded by mental health, You're surrounded by the story of it, the idea of it. Do you have to manage that?
I think one of the greatest things I learned. So I have to manage my mental health every day, regardless it doesn't I think it's something I live with forever. And there were good days and every day days, but quite the opposite. I think being immersed in that allows you to think about it more, allows you to be in that environment. I think the comment I'll get most fact the other way is that you don't seem to get stressed too often. And I'm thinking, well, if you think of the past roles that I did, there's a whole lot less risk here than what there is what I used to do. So, yeah, it is enjoyable. But I think it's a really nice two way Patwaere we can educate each other on what works best.
Yeah, and what have you learned about how we can better support or be there for people? If we assume that there are signs we have someone's maybe at a point where you once were, where you weren't ready, you were told to seek help, you would told that your broccoli and kale. How can we if we've got friends or family that we see might be there, what's the best approach?
Yeah, I think there's a couple of parts that The first one is let's get in early. Let's have the conversations before the signs even come, because then you become somebody that can go to when the signs are present, or if you do reach out to them, it's not the first time you've ever discussed mental health. So it's really hard having a conversation with him that they've got no idea. Just picking up the phone of someone say hey, I actually you know I'm not going so well at all, that's a hard conversation. If people are aware of the type of work you do, and that will be times when you might be confronted by some things that impact on you, that conversation is so much easier. The second part is we need to have the conversation even if it's uncomfortable, even if they're not ready. If you think that somebody is not going so well, you might bring it up with them and they tell you to get stuffed, or whatever the case may be. I'll just guarantee you, just about guarantee you they'll they'll think, hell, somebody's noticed, somebody's aware. So even though you might not get the direct feedback that that conversation helped, there is a chance that it's helped anyway. The alternative, again, as I said earlier, is doing nothing, and doing nothing doesn't achieve a great deal. If we just ignore it and continue along and pretend like the symptoms aren't there, that doesn't help us either. So the worst thing could happen. You might get told to get stuffed. That's a risk I'm happy to take if it's going to illuminate to somebody that they're struggling, and maybe there's other pathways that can choose. The last part of it is if you are in that role and you are supporting somebody, make sure you know what the pathways are. There's no point saying let's get you some help and then all right, who we're going to ring? I've got no idea. So understand there's so many resources out there that you can use to have that conversation about well, where would we go? What would be? Is it a GP? Is it somewhere within the organization? Is it a respond to assists? Is it beyond blue? I don't know what suits you, but have that plan in place so that that's not the first time you're thinking about it, which.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And organizations are we getting better? Do we have better advice now? Do we have better product it? Or all? Just really just still learning what stage are we at in mental health and business?
And yeah, look at you would know intuitively from your own experiences. There's more talk about mental health and more awareness around mental health than ever before. Yeah, I think the challenge is, first of the individuals really need to buy in and have their own plans, because very hard for someone else to design something that's going to work for you an outside of they say to you, this is what you need to do. That's really hard. So we need to buy in ourselves. The second part of that is the organizations need to have pathways for us. They need to have resources that are meaningful and can be accessed if the person chooses to access them. I think the big sort of you know difficulty at the moment is we know an emergency service work about thirty percent openly say that I'll never tell the employer, regardless of what happens, and never telling their employer they've got a mental health issue. As I said earlier, that's okay, understand that, but don't do nothing. You need to have another parts way to get some assistance and some support. So I think our support team, if you like, all the group around us needs to be really well rounded because, as you can imagine, if you're an emergency workout, the people you want to reach out to if you've been to a particularly difficult incident that's been challenging a likely to be quite different than the people you'd reach out to if your dad died or a loved one diet. So we can't just rely on one person or two people to be the contact. We need to have a group around us. And for me, I have all sorts of people that I reach out to, old mentals and people at work and friends and family and so on. But that idea of having a wide group of people that are diverse that you can reach out and talk to about different things. There's things I tell my psychologists. I never tell my wife. The things I tell my wife. I've never tell my psychologists the things I tell my best friend. I wouldn't tell either. So it's not keeping secrets. That's just the way we work. We work in different groups of people and talk about different things. The idea is have we got those resources available. One of the questions I asked at the presentations I do at the academy is I don't ask to put the hand up. I think it knows to be embarrassed. But are there's three people you could ring right now who you could have a conversation about mental health with and not be the first time you've had that conversation about mental health, and most look at it your blankly because they generally think of their partner maybe, and after that, there's not too many that they actually acknowledge that I'm in a high risk occupation, probably the highest risks for mental health injury in the state. But what am I doing to look after mental health? What am I doing to plan for that and try and mitigate that risk? So being open and visible around that is really important.
Yeah, it's interesting as you say that, I think back about, and I think about I mean, the boxing ring was my policing career. I guess in terms of this conversation, it was the place where I'd connected with this thing and all of a sudden it allowed me to peel back layers of myself and see what was underneath. It drew out traumas that have been suppressed and it got me, like you say, that connection with your body. It gave me this physical this coming back to my body. This obviously getting punched in the face. You start to learn how to feel funnily enough, tim eventually you start to feel But when I think of that idea of having someone to call, I can think back, you know, a decade ago and the perception I had of who I was and this strong, independent, you know, all good, I'm out here doing whatever, you know, king of the world, and getting to moments in my life where something would happen and I'd kind of all come crashing down. And I can remember being alone at home having that moment and being in tears and just thinking, who do I've got no one to call because no one knows this version of me because I didn't know that. But the problem was I didn't know that version of me. I thought I too believed the bullshit tip show. And the great thing about these conversations that you're allowing people and encouraging people to have now is we don't go on believing our own bullshit show and not realizing that there's something else going on underneath. And I think that that is in itself, is incredible.
I think one of the quotes I use is that Mike Tyson quote when I'm talking about having a plan around your mental health and quote, everyone's got a plan until I get touched in the face. Yeah, And that's exactly what it's like with mental health. We all you can talk about it and do a group and you've got a bigot. Yeah, I know what I'll do until it happens, and then they don't have a plan because they haven't actually thought it through. So that idea, that plan when you're well, plan for the worst. So plan when you're well, know what your resources are when you're in a good place. So if we think about that mental health continuum when we're in the green end, not the red end, then when you need it, at least you've got a plan in place that you can go back to. But you're exactly right. The parallel between I call it the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. That that story you've had around the boxer that was all in, they're not at all. And all those types of things is so relevant to policing where you need to be all in, or any emergency service worker you need to be all in to get the best result. And what's wrong with that? Like that, that's what you need to do. You're solving difficult things, you have to commit. But we need to be able to take that step back and understand that's not all of us. And the other thing is that that will change over time, and our plan needs to change over time. What we do as a twenty five year old would be different to what we do as a fifty year old, but we need to be conscious and aware of that.
Yeah, what's one thing that you've become really good at now throughout this and what's one thing that you want or need to work on most from this point forward?
Come good at talking? I talk a lot. The word I use is that I think I've become a lot more visible. And the other part is I have a much better ability to reflect and review on how I'm going so and being able to acknowledge and accept that I'm going to have bad days and that's okay as long as I keep that foothold and have that really strong plan around how I work things I like to improve. I think I'm still prod at the times I don't sleep great. I do my best. It's not great. That's also a bit of a bug beer to work on. But on the whole, I think being aware of what they are and trying to have little goals that you can set each day. I think it's I call it every day attention. It's those little things I do every day. If I can stick to those no matter what comes, I'll be okay. It doesn't mean, I'm not going to have a date it's bad or be anxious or whatever the case might be. But I have become much better at just doing the little things well and letting that build up into something.
Yeah, I love that your ace your ace before we plug your book and tell people where to find you. Is there anything I haven't asked or that you haven't said that you'd love to.
It's just like to acknowledge that emergency work is a great job. And sometimes I think like I'm talking it down all the time, but if you do that work, you get a mental health injury, and that's not the case. I think it's the most rewarding job that I've ever done. I love my work and I was good at it. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't something I could continue with. The Other part is that we've also got to acknowledge that it is a high risk industry. That there is we can't mitigate against people seeing trauma when you're in those roles. So as much of the organization, you're going to have resources and so on there for you to use and access if you're choosing not to use, and that's your choice. So all emergency workers are great at assessing risk and understanding risk and risk mitigation, and you don't go in anywhere unless you know who's there and how many people you've got if you're doing a search warrant. Everything's to the end to grow physically, we're covered from a mental health perspective, I don't think we're as mature yet, and we really need to start thinking about how can we develop those plans early and be able to bring those plans to life when we need them, through the connection with the people around us, through knowing what resources are so that two edge sort of. Ye, it is a great job with great reward, but it also comes with some risk around our mental health, and we just need to mitigate that better so it can be a great career. Just be mindful to take care and do the work.
I love that point. I love that point, and I think when I think about the things that I love most in life. I've talked about this a lot lately in different context, but the things that I love most, all that bring with the most joy, meaning and purpose, were born out of the toughest shit. They were born out of challenging experiences or traumas, or just simply like my thirty three minute dip in the ocean yesterday. They were born out of things that caused me dread to choose to do. But when I chose to do it, they were bitter. And I feel like that's an exact reflection of a career in emergency services. The reward is incredible, but it's a hard thing, and you've got to be willing to step in and do the hard and you've got to be very willing to put up all of the I was going to call them wolves, but I don't want to say wolves. Put up do all of the good things that support you, put all of the supports that make sure that you're going to be the best you. You're amazing, Tim, Thank you, Thank you. Where do we buy The Invisible Obvious? The book? The best book on Amazon? Is it on Amazon?
Else? Is it? It's on Amazon, It's in bookstores. It's available through Blacking Books, who are kind enough to assist me with the publishing and the distribution, so they've been fantastic. But it's available Amazon, any of the websites, in bookstores. Yeah, I hope people understand. I don't talk about any crime so I investigated. I don't talk about any other people in the book basically only about myself and that experience of going through what I experience. I really want others to understand that's just my experience, that everyone has their own life experiences and will have a different way with perhaps reflecting on that. I do have my own model in there how I look after myself now, which I think hopefully will be of benefit to some and quickly there's only all steps. The first one, really quickly is to be visible. Be visible around your mental health. Don't try and hide it. That's the invisible obvious that if we try and hide our symptoms, so I'll buy you. The second one is to have a plan, know what the plan is, share that with others, build that team around you in a hydriskin industry. The third one is to take action, and that's the hard one. When things aren't going your way, Do you have the courage to put your hand on so I do need to reach out to somebody, or if others are reaching out, have the courage to listen. So that's a much easier thing to do if we're aware of it. When we're shutting people out and being invisible, it's really hard to do that and give yourself a little bit of sack. Know what you do when you do what you do is the phrase I use some nights. If you get home and it's a man a shit shift and all you can do is sit down and drink half a dozen beer is it's not the end of the world. It's just you coping for that day. The skilly is understanding that can't be every day. Do what you can to get through, but understand you need to learn from that, find another way dealing with that better next time. And the last point is to reflect and review. That is what I'm doing working is the other things I have in place working for me now and if they're not, how do I change them up? And lastly, but the most importantly in the middle of all that is do the little things well every day because that's your choice. The little things you do are the ones that make the difference.
I love that. That's really powerful. That is the perfect balance between tough love and self love. The ability to be compassionate in the midst of also knowing when to kick your own ass. And I think it's the hardest thing. It's the hardest balance, but it's required, so thanks so much, Tim, Where can we find you online and reach out and get you to speak to teams and organizations and all of the things.
You'll note one of the phrases in the book is the blue blanket, so you can get me a blue blanket thirty five at gmail dot com. Are you obviously? I work with Phenics Australia, so my name obviously I could be contacted the Chang's Australia as well, and we do a lot of work for a lot of different agencies around mental health. I'm always happy to spread the word.
Amazing. Thanks Tim, Thanks everyone for tuning in. Go buy a book and to extras and send them to your two best friends and we will see you guys next time.
