Let's talk about…the Mental Health Jedi

In this episode, Helen Macdonald speaks with Chris Frederick- advocate, suicide survivor, founder of Project Soul Stride, and self-described "Mental Health Jedi." Chris shares his deeply personal journey, from childhood trauma and racial adversity to becoming a mental health advocate and what helped his recovery- and the things that didn't.

Resources & Support:

If you or someone you know needs urgent help, reach out to Samaritans at 116 123 (UK) or visit samaritans.org

Brent Recovery College- https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/services/recovery-and-wellbeing-college

The Listening Place- https://listeningplace.org.uk/

James' Place- https://www.jamesplace.org.uk/

Find more information about CBT- www.babcp.com

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Credits:

Music is Autmn Coffee by Bosnow from Uppbeat

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License code: 3F32NRBYH67P5MIF

This episode was produced by Steph Curnow

Transcript:

Helen: Hello, and welcome to Let's Talk About CBT, the podcast where we talk about cognitive and behavioural psychotherapies, what they are, what they can do, and what they can't. I'm Helen Macdonald, your host. I'm the Senior Clinical Advisor for the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies.

Today I'm speaking with Chris Frederick. I'm absolutely delighted to have him here with me in the studio. He's going to share about his personal history and some difficult experiences that he had in his earlier life. How he ended up looking for help with his mental health and some of the things that helped as well as some of the things that were less helpful and how he's then started using his lived experience to help inform professionals, services and members of the general public about what helps and what helps people to access the kind of support that they need. He's also going to tell us how he ended up being known as the mental health Jedi.

Chris, would you just like to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about who you are?

Chris: So my full name is Chris Frederick. Born and bred in London, currently living in northwest London. I guess I like to introduce myself. Firstly, is I'm a suicide attempt survivor. I think it's important to get that out there. I'm an advocate and founder of Project Soul Stride, which we'll touch on a little bit later. And, also I'm a mad Star Wars fan.

Helen: Oh, fantastic. And you've just mentioned a couple of things, really important things about your background and who you are. Is there anything else that you'd be happy to tell people listening today about your background and challenges or barriers that you've experienced?

Chris: I mean I guess if I backtrack to the story that, that brought me to that point, very quickly in the barriers, because they might be things that listeners would identify with. I'm a twin, I'm 55. Growing up for us in the early seventies was a tough time. We lived as a small family of four in a flat in a council estate in Wembley and due to the pressures that my father and my mother who were very young, they were only 19 and 18, and they'd not long been in the UK from the Caribbean. So they themselves were carrying their own baggage, their own trauma, their own legacy and that transferred, I guess, onto us as young children.

My father was a very strict, sort of military type figure. A beautiful looking man- if you put a picture of Muhammad Ali at his prime and my father at his prime, they could almost be twins, brothers, because that's how you know, he was tall, statuesque, beautiful green eyes, but on the downside, he had a heavy hand. And you know what I mean by that Helen, he had a heavy hand. He was quite, he was an intimidating character. And that manifested itself in negative behaviour in the house, physical abuse of various descriptions. And we grew up watching and witnessing and being victim of that as we grew up, and this is all within a black community. And then we moved at the age of 11, we upped sticks and moved to Chislehurst, which was a suburb of Kent. So imagine now we've moved from an all sort of majority ethnic community to now an ethnic minority community where we were the only black family on the street. Elms Street Avenue number 60, remember it well. Went to Kenmore Manor, and I remember for the first three years we were two of only five non-white pupils in the entire school. So without going into too much detail, you could also now begin to identify with the certain trends, the recurring themes, the racism of course, the pressures from my family. My parents eventually split up and divorced. My relationship with my twin eventually split. And so we ended up the complete, the family was completely fractured and still is today. And you bundle all that up. I started to experience mental ill health probably at the age of 19. And I'll tell you what it was, it was alopecia. Because I used to have, I used to have, if you could see me now, I've bald hair. and I started to feel there were bald patches appearing in the back of the scalp. So I went to the doctors and you said, oh, you've got alopecia. we could inject you with steroids, give you some cream. I said, well, what's the underlying reasons? And he goes, oh, it's stress. you. What can we do? What can I do to overcome that? And again, that was in the late eighties so talking about counselling and therapy again wasn't really part of the dialogue back then. Right. And then at the alopecia came back 10 years later. So I was beginning to realise I had some problems. And then I took off to Asia, lived there for 20 years, had an amazing time, an amazing experience. Again, suffered racism, but of a completely different type in China, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong as a black man, very few in number, but I didn't let that deter me. I had a very good career. I had a lot of experience and beautiful people, travelling a lot. But it all came to a head. It all came to head, and it's something that I called the ripple effect because it almost as if there was an author I spoke to last year, he when he heard my story, he said, I'm sorry to say this, Chris, but it almost sounds as if it was inevitable that you would reach breaking point and attempt to take your life, based on everything that you told me and that ripple that had gone through, the desperation for wanting to find love, family, belonging, identity, all the things that have become so precious to me now manifested itself when I lost my last job in Singapore in 2018, and I tried to commit suicide later that year. And then that was the time for me to leave Asia. After nearly 20 years, I realised that I needed to close the book on that era of my life. And I moved to Los Angeles and then a few months later moved to London, and then I attempted suicide again a couple of years later during Covid. So, you know, I've looked into the precipice, I've looked into the darkness, and twice I wanted to disappear from the world.

Helen: And Chris, I'm really grateful to you for sharing so openly about what's happened to you and just such, such a combination of difficult life events and the circumstances that you were living in. And I mean, I will say that the show notes will have links to help and more information for people who may experience similar things or be concerned about risks and safety. But I'm really grateful for you to sharing so openly and you've said that all of these things really have brought you to where you are now. Tell me a bit about how you went from what sounds like a real, you said looking into the abyss, to accessing something that made a difference to you, or how you got the right kind of support, the right kind of help.

Chris: So I mean, if I tell you, Helen, that when I got admitted into Ealing Hospital after my second attempt, at that moment in time, it was like, oh, finally I'm about to get some help. Finally, I'm about to be recognised as an individual who needs support from the NHS. And then through that whole process of being in the hospital, the psychiatric team at the hospital were very good, they were very helpful. The clinical psychologist came to see me. She spoke to my mum separately and said, okay, we need to help your son. And when I got discharged, I got put into the hands of the community mental health team, the Brent Community mental health team, and they were smashing. They'd come around two, three times a week. They'd make sure I was taking my medication. And then I started to ask them, okay, where do we go from here because I've got you guys for about a month. I'm really concerned what happens then. I just don't want to keep falling back into these bad habits. So they started to say, okay, firstly we're going to start to give you some information, some literature and then we're going to start to talk to you about what was then, Helen, IAPT, now Talking Therapies. I said to them, look, I don't know if I'm ready to go into therapy quite yet. I'd like something just to, just as a teaser, just to start giving me a little bit of confidence, a little bit of awareness of even how to talk or be around people who might have experienced this stuff.

So they said, we've got the solution for you, the Brent Recovery College, the CNWL Brent Recovery College. I said, oh, that sounds interesting what do they do? Oh, they've got a curriculum of courses, and you go online, and they've been facilitated by lived experience, peer support trainers. You are going to be in classrooms of about 12 people, they've all got experience of mental illness. They're all there like you. They want to see other people on the screen. They want to connect with people whilst learning new skills. And I said, I've been a lifelong learner this sounds just a ticket for me to get things going. And when I spoke to the admissions clerk, she said something that really, we talk about that light bulb moment. She said to me, Chris, the mantra at the Recovery College is we turn recovery into discovery. And when, and I used that today because it was like, this journey I'm about to embark on isn't just about me getting well. This is about me learning about myself and about the world around me and how it impacts me. And I said, I'm really going to invest a lot of time in this model and, ironically, ImROC which is the organisation that does all of the training for all of these recovery colleges, I'm now a trustee on the board of directors of ImROC and I tell my story, why did I want to join this charity? It was because of my experience with the Brent Recovery College.

Helen: Right. Okay. So I can really hear that, that was something of a turning point going into the Recovery College. So can you tell us a bit about what you learned at the college? What courses did you do?

Chris: Oh yeah. Listen, I think I did about 12 courses from sleep, sleeping well, diet, writing about mental health, mental Health First Aid. There were all sorts of really interesting courses, each semester they come out with about 20 different courses and they're always being adapted and some of them might be just one or two hours. There might have been others that are spread over four weeks, and you've got to put two hours in a week, and they give you a certificate. I mean, there were many more, and most of them were really good. One or two maybe was not so good. But I think the main thing was it was the people. I was feeling that sense of connection and that sense of belonging. It wasn't just about me anymore. It was about being with other people, and I think that was, for me, that was the main purpose of it.

Helen: And I'm really hearing you about how important it was that sense of belonging and that sense of connectedness with other people as well as learning specific, I mean, it sounds like a combination of knowledge and skills that you were learning at the Recovery College.

Chris: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Helen: So tell me, out of all of those things, what was the best thing that you learned at the Recovery College?

Chris: Logical thinking about problems, problem solving. Being honest, even if you feel uncomfortable in a type of environment where you are talking about this stuff, which can be tricky with strangers. It's being honest, it's being articulate. And, if I look at my mind map now, some of the models that I learned from the Recovery College in terms of being able to segment information and data so that it makes sense with always thinking about the story arc. Where are you when you start? What's your, where are you at the midpoint and where do you want to end up? And when I went into the Recovery College program, I had, I already started to think about where I wanted to be at the end. And so I was building myself every time. I was building myself another pavement, another step in the journey and the journey now is very clear. It's crystal clear what I'm here to achieve and a lot of that was built from my time, with the CNWL.

Helen: So from that, given that some of our some of our listeners may be involved in services, or as therapists. Is there anything that you would like to see therapists and services doing more of? I mean, on the other hand, less of maybe, but is there anything that you would really want to see?

Chris: Yeah, I mean I, my first experience with CBT came after I started with the Recovery College cause that was, I was signed, actually, I was signposted to IAPT in Brent. My GP failed to do the referral, which I won't get into now cause it was a complete debacle. So I actually ended up doing my own self-referral and then I just had to wait and wait. So my early experiences of CBT were not great because I had response times are really slow, understandably, this was through covid and then waiting lists were very long. And then when I kept asking each time during the assessment what type of therapist can I get access to? Oh, can I speak to a black therapist? And the answer was no, we don't have any, or if you insist Mr. Frederick, you'll have to wait for an even longer period of time. So I was so used to hearing the word no, Helen. And then when I started to do research into therapeutic, sort of models and I challenged them. I said, look, I know what CBT is. I said, but for someone like me, I even wrote it down today. I was like, someone like me, what about something like EMDR, my friend's using in LA and says, Chris, it's perfect for you. What about ACT or solution focused therapy? And every time I kept saying to them, right. What are the chances? Can I get that instead- like a shopping menu. No. Mr. Frederick, no. We don't do that, you'll just, we'll have to funnel you down the CBT pathway and that's all you are going to be allowed. Six sessions with a therapist that we give you, and its only CBT.

So now imagine somebody who has been through suicide attempts, is still a risk as terms of assessment, and now I'm now the power shifts from me to this system that is just ignoring my needs. And then you have to just sit there and accept what they give you. You can, it's quite frustrating when you think about it like that, isn't it?

Helen: It really sounds that, and I mean I know that, nowadays you speak openly about being a suicide survivor, and you're saying about in that situation, having to wait a long-time and not being given the kind of choices that are supposed to perhaps be available to people. And I'm just thinking about that experience, that personal experience shapes your advocacy work now. And I'm just wondering about what you would say about reaching people who are under served. And I know that this is an audio podcast. You're speaking to a white woman from a British background here, and you asked, could I see a black therapist? And you were just told no. I'm just thinking how that all shapes what you do now and how you promote providing access to people from a variety of minoritised groups.

Chris: No absolutely, it's a great question. I mean, I'm not saying that because I've been through about 52 hours of therapy so far. Okay. I'm not saying, and that's across five therapists, only one of them was black, which I'll tell you how I found her in a second. So I'm not saying that the therapists, I'm not saying that they were not good, not at all. I'd say two of them were very good and we actually made quite a lot of progress. But I think the fact is that I kept repeating the CBT model every time with these therapists. It was like moving the needle, it was only fractions rather than inches. And I wanted to make some real progress. And the time came where, and in fact, before I tell you about that. it was while I was waiting, I needed to find something that I call buffer services so I'll quickly plug, The Listening Place, which were brilliant because when I called them in Kings Cross and I said, I'm experiencing suicidal thoughts. I've had two attempts. I'm on the IAPT waiting list for about six to eight weeks. Is there anything you can help me with in the short term, cause I'm really anxious. And they said, brilliant, you are just a type of client that we take on, come in to see us. We are going to give you eight, eight individual sessions with a volunteer listener. And you come in and you just talk about this stuff. And they specialised in speaking or hearing from people with suicidal thoughts. And I thought, brilliant. Now. The fact is though, Helen, I had to use Google to find The Listening Place, and it was only because I knew what keywords to search. So now I think about it, what would your average person on the street who doesn't know about this stuff, they're just going to sit and wait six to eight weeks and not realise that there are other services out there that can help them in the short term or in those gap moments. And I think that's one area that I do like to talk about in my work, which is we need to be more creative, we need to be more inventive, and we need to promote all services and let, and each of us, we can create our own menu because it should be bespoke for every single person. That's what I maintain. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Helen: Yeah, it's really helpful to hear you say that, Chris, because I know that a lot of the intention is to make sure that we are offering evidence-based therapies that are appropriately adapted to individuals and that we especially in some areas compared to others we've got a long way to go to really make that happen for everybody who might benefit from those services. And again, we'll put links on our show notes for some of those things that you discovered because you knew how to look for them and it could well be useful for our listeners to have that information out there.

Chris: And I'd also say, not that I've used them directly, I've visited them, but James' Place who are expanding really well, they've got a beautiful site in London and similarly to The Listening Place, they're not just listeners, they actually, again, deal with a lot of men with suicidal thoughts and their service is superb from what I can see online.

But let's talk about the turning point here, because this is where, it's the story arc you'll start to see where the transformation really started to take place. I was on LinkedIn, so you'll get, you're getting a sense now, Helen, that I'm a big user of technology that's helped me. But it does make you think though, because if you are an individual who's not confident on technology, you are already at a massive disadvantage. Right? Which is in itself is something needs to be addressed. But anyway, so I'm on LinkedIn and it was January last year and I happened to see this post from Black Minds Matter UK, which is a charity that I follow. And it had this poster, and it was saying we are now offering 10 free sessions for clients to see a black therapist. And it, and at that time I'd been about five, six months out of therapy and knew I was going to need some in the new year. And when I saw this, Helen, can you imagine the level of optimism and excitement? I jumped out of my bed, jumped onto my computer, quickly did the self-referral, and from the moment I logged into that website and did and filled in that form, right, it took seven days to get the response on email, acknowledging receipt of my form. It took just another seven days to get the assessment call done and then only another seven days before I was in session one of 10 with this black therapist. So it was totally seamless, and it was rapid response.

Helen: Yeah and it really sounds like that was going to meet a need, which just wasn't really being met.

Chris: Exactly, exactly. So the difference is it wasn't six sessions, it was 10. So that was one thing. Secondly, it was with a black therapist, and so we didn't have to go through the initial cultural familiarity aspect, she was happy to share some of her life story. We talked about parents from the Caribbean, we talked about food, we talked about music, and so we were beginning to build a relationship, a rapport, and that for me was fundamental because when I go into these types of therapeutic relationships, we talked about the power differential, the therapist and the client. And it was only until we got through to session eight, I made a note of this because I think it is quite important. I said to her, how is it that you are able to get so much out of me? How is it that we're making so much more progress than I've ever made before? And I was curious, I asked her, I said, what kind of me methodology, what kind of framework you're using? I think I understand roughly what this stuff is but just tell me. She said I'm an integrative counselling psychotherapist. I said, well that sounds interesting. What does all that mean? She goes, well, I use a combination of CBT, person centred, psychodynamic. And I was like, this sounds really cool cause nobody's ever told me about this before. I think I've only ever done the CBT, but the fact that we're using person centred and psychodynamic I think that's why we were really clicking. And I've circled that because I thought that was worth sharing with you today, Helen. I think this is very important.

Helen: Thank you. And again, it's the whole journey that you've been telling me about, the stages of what happened to you that meant that you did actually need to seek help. And then the whole journey of trying to obtain the right help and then really meeting somebody who's truly collaborated with you and really got it, really been able to, I don't know, it empowered you in that situation, which can be disempowering, especially if you're feeling vulnerable. And so really meeting somebody very skilled and the importance of that shared background as well.

So I mean, along this journey, you've also been very much focused on helping other people as well. And I know that you've told me before when we've spoken before that you've met people across the country and abroad as well. And this is Project Soul Stride that you've spoken about. So tell me about that project and things that you've learned or, what would you like to share about that?

Chris: Yeah. Soul Stride was born August 15th. I mean, I woke up one day. Listen, I hadn't washed for a week. I hadn't brushed my teeth for a week. I was smoking like a chimney. I was in a bad place. I was in danger of going back into some real bad depression and I woke up one morning and I said I've got to do something. So I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and I had my Chat GPT AI open, and I said, look, I started scribbling stuff down randomly, started circling stuff, and I was looking for a project for about three months that would force me to get my ass out of bed at least three times a week for about three hours a day. Number two. Connect me with people on the screen so that I could actually feel like I wasn't the only person in the world. Number three would force me to write and draw and highlight because I'm a very visual person and that's how I get my heart rate going. And so I put all of this stuff into Chat GPT, and it already knew about my mental health background. And I said, what do you think I should do? And it said, okay, why don't you do this lived experience project where you speak to 30 people and you tell them your story arc, and then you get their feedback, and then you ask them point blank questions like, what do you think about the state of the industry? Where do you think the opportunities are? Where are the gaps? What are doing to improve things for black people, blah, blah, blah. And because I came from recruitment into sales and business development, using my network to connect with people was a piece of cake for me. And so 30 people grew, it doubled and it tripled. And by the time I finished my Excel spreadsheet, I'd gotten to speak to about 185 people in 15 months from public health directors, academic professors, CEOs of major mental health charities, think tanks, talking therapy leadership up in NHS England. I mean, I mapped the entire sector, including grassroot, black owned organisations in London. And I think I'd written notes, maybe a hundred, 150 pages of notes.

Helen: Oh wow.

Chris: like, so half of that stuff I still haven't read back. I still don't even, so I'm sitting on a wealth of information and knowledge, but what it's told me, number one is that there is a gap. Number two, there is a distinct lack of strong black voices in this field, particularly men. Number three, if done well, this advocacy work can open so many doors into influential spaces, not just into terms of PPIE research projects, but also advisory board positions where you really are where the decision makers are taking are making critical decisions.

Helen: And I really hear you about that's an incredible number of people that you managed to contact and the influence that, that you have available to make a real difference to people's experience. And I know that you've been part of a recent evaluation, review of the organisation that I'm here as part of the BABCP, the organisation for CBT in the UK and Ireland. And one of the things that, that we've been doing as an organisation is reflecting on how we hear the voices of people who have personal experience, lived experience, expertise, however, whichever words we choose to use. Can you tell us a little bit about your reflections and what you would advocate in terms of involving people so that we really meaningfully include that?

Chris: Yes. I mean, when I've had such a joy in partnering with the BABCP from the 2024 annual conference in Manchester, which was just, that was probably the first time Helen, where I had taken myself out of the comfort of my bedroom because I do a lot of stuff online. But actually doing it in live in a, in an auditorium, God, it was shaking. There were maybe 40 people in that auditorium. But I knew that was such an important milestone in my advocacy work that I had to tell my story. I had to be totally and utterly vulnerable and let's, the chips were fall where they may, and you'd be amazed, the response was quite staggering. People were writing stuff down, they were looking at each other quizzically as if to say, we didn't know that, we need to be hearing more about this stuff and then when we had finished, we literally got mobbed from the audience because they, they started running down from the audience to take photographs of us., I wrote this article, from Panic to Paparazzi and I started to write it on the train coming back from Manchester because I wanted to capture the emotion.

And this leads back to your question, which I wrote a couple of things down here when I read that report about the BABCP, and it's not unique to organisation, but number one, more space for lived experience, particularly I feel in curriculum design and delivery, proves the point that Leila invited me to a three-four hour workshop that she delivered on cultural humility training, several weeks ago. And she had a spot in her training schedule for me to share my lived experience, and when she turned the microphone over to me, the response again was quite staggering, and so it made me again, reinforce the message. Having folks like me involved in delivery, design of training curriculums is important, and of course, leadership. Organisations such as yourselves to have voices like ours involved in decision making, leadership influence. It's not just about- and this might sound weird, but it's not just about ethnic involvement, actually. It's about lived experience involvement. If you can get the two together, brilliant. But I think lived experience for me is the most important and of course diversity, whether it's gender, race, neurodivergence, whatever that is.

Helen: Yeah and Chris, I mean, reflecting on what you've just said, and thank you for sharing that. I'm really hearing your courage and I like the panic to paparazzi, and your courage in being in a situation where we are wearing a hat where we are supposed to be being the helpful ones and helping people who need support, need mental health treatment and so on. And yet here we are learning so much from you and you actually teaching us a lot of things that we need to learn. And I just wondered if an organisation like ours had what a Mental Health Jedi might call a Yoda moment. What wisdom or lesson would you hope for us to take forward in terms of listening to lived experience?

Chris: The cultural humility and awareness aspect is essential, should not be taken lightly. I feel in some situations it can be given a tokenistic response. I think there must be genuine equity in the conversation, and co-production of we talk about co-production of solutions. Actually, I would like to talk about co-production of ideas right? Before we even get to solutions because quite frankly, folks like me never get to rubber stamp a service design model before it hits the market. Right? I understand that as somebody coming from private sector. But if we go back to the consulting and advisory part, I'd actually think we be involved in the earlier stages of discussion and investigation about some of these opportunities. Yeah.

Helen: And building on, what you've just said, you and I were talking about let's say certain film franchises before we started making the recording, but I would really like people listening to hear about how you became known as the Mental Health Jedi and what drives your mission. I know that one of the things that you've become very keen to do is to promote mental health access and particularly equity. Tell me how that happened.

Chris: You know, Star Wars for me and it's so strange that we're having an honest conversation cause when I started talking about this two years ago, I started to think, Chris, you're coming across as a real geek here, like a real nerd. Like, people were just not going to take you seriously. And I was like, no, no, no I'm going to stick with this. So when I started talking to this author, she said to me, Chris. I've seen some of your posts on LinkedIn and you are referencing Star Wars a lot. and she says like, you've almost become the Mental Health Jedi. And I said, say that again. And she said, the Mental Health Jedi. And I was like, I wrote it down on this piece of paper and I was circling it, and I said, I'm going to use that. And even when I started to sign off on my social media posts, Mental Health Jedi And I in one night I created the new Star Wars fans group. But what's really cool is when I look through the list of people and all the countries, I think at last count there was something like 35 countries or 25 countries around the world that people have joined this group. And I take great delight in creating some amazing content because what it does me is it helps me escape my advocacy work, because talking about suicide and mental health every week, Helen, you know what that's like, it can take a real toll. So when I down tools and just put on my Star Wars hat and my Star Wars gear and put on John Williams on my Alexa device, and I start typing stories and quotes and images and reels. It just helps me use all my creative juices. It's amazing.

Helen: And I, I mean it sounds amazing. It sounds really interesting. And also just that message that, in terms of looking after your own wellbeing, even though you are dealing with really difficult stuff as part of your work. You are also, you've got things that are rewarding. You've got things that are completely different that use your creativity and create connections with people. So you really are living what you are advocating in terms of looking after your own mental health.

Chris: Totally. I mean, people now connect with me on LinkedIn and say, Chris, we love the fact that you are an advocate and you are linking it with Star Wars because it's such a door opener. I love the darkness and the light story of Star Wars, that balance and that represents and reflects my life and the life of many. And the quote I had, which was the Jedi don't fight emotions, they learn from them. And actually that philosophy has really helped in my healing and my advocacy style of work. And so I really live it. I live it, Helen.

Helen: And that's a great quote. Thank you. And Chris, I mean, I'm really grateful for everything that you shared with us today, from your own personal journey and all the difficulties that you've faced and the things that you've done about it. What's been helpful, what hasn't, what we can do more. I mean, you've just covered so much. Is there anything else that you would really want to say that perhaps I haven't asked you about or that we haven't really covered properly.

Chris: I think to wrap up and I guess this message goes out to the clients because that's who I really want to look out for. So I have four things because I was going for four and they're very quick, rapid fire. Number one is you are not alone or broken. Okay? Remember that? Most important. Number two, you are only human. We are not infallible. Number three, please consider therapy. Okay? Become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable because that's when your body reacts, in a way, it's telling you are on the right path. No matter if you are feeling sick or you get a migraine, you know you're doing something right. And lastly, and this I think is also very interesting and I got this from therapy. Being in the courtroom feeling judged is only in your own head. So take ownership. Yeah. And be brave. Be curious, and please ask the help cause nobody really knows what's wrong with you until you ask for help. My friends made so many assumptions about the state of my mental health, but when I started to open up, it was only then they were like, why didn't you tell us before we could have helped you so many years ago? I just didn't know how to ask for help, but now I do.

Helen: Chris, thank you so much. I'm really grateful for you spending this time with me today. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Chris: You're very welcome.

Helen: Thanks for listening to another episode and for being part of our Let's Talk About CBT community. There are useful links related to every podcast in the show notes. If you have any questions or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about in future Let's Talk About CBT podcasts, we'd love to hear from you. Please email the Let's Talk About CBT team at podcasts@babcp.com, that's podcasts@babcp.com. You can also follow us on X and Instagram at BABCP Podcasts. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast by clicking subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so that each new episode is automatically delivered to your library and do please share the podcast with your friends, colleagues, neighbours, and anyone else who might be interested.

If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast, you might find our sister podcasts Let's talk about CBT- Practice Matters and Let's Talk about CBT- Research Matters well worth a listen.