June 25, 2022

#71: Stronger than you think. With Elizabeth Woolsey Herbert.

#71: Stronger than you think. With Elizabeth Woolsey Herbert.
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Season 1

This is an episode about courage. About putting yourself in situations that are out of your comfort zone and then finding it within yourself to make it work, because self-care does not equate self-limiting, and you're probably stronger than you think. 

Elizabeth Woolsey Herbert is a retired equine veterinarian and practice owner. She moved from the US to Australia as a young vet and practised equine veterinary medicine for over 35 years. She’s also the author of a series of fictional and non-fiction books as well as a string of professional papers. She recently retired and has returned to the US, where she is now focusing on her writing career, and catching more fish. Here are a few lines about herself from our initial ‘get-to-know each other' e-mails:

1. I did the hard yards.

2. I did it often on a 24/7 basis.

3. I went through every imaginable bad thing that could happen and survived.

Elizabeth’s story is filled with stuff we need to hear: It’s about a career driven by purpose and passion and a sense of responsibility. About the importance of relationships, continued growth, curiosity and creativity, using humour as a shield, and about finding joy in your work, but also fulfilment outside of work. Elizabeth also talks about turf-guarding between vets, gives some practical tips on avoiding worry, and shares what she’s learnt on how to build an amazing supportive team. We talk about the joys and challenges of rural practise, and about her creative writing career. 

"Never die without chocolate in your mouth!" 

But there’s also some darkness in this story, as there is in most good stories, and we're dragging that darkness into the light with the help of psychologist Duanne Smith, with Elizabeth's permission. Duanne helps to unpack aspects of Elizabeth's journey in a post-episode bonus section (at the 1 hour 17 min mark) by answering questions about where to go for help and how to ask for it (and how to accept it!) when you're hitting a rough patch, and also how to identify someone who might be in need of help, and how to respond, including how to talk about suicide. 

"Speak to another human voice, because it is about attachment. One of the main protective factors around depression mental health and suicide is that you're not doing it alone."

 

Some helpful resources if you need help: 

Samaritans Emotional Support: 135 247

Black Dog Institue list of urgent support resources.

Or contact us at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com if you feel like a chat with someone you know.

 

If you want to lift your clinical game, go to vvn.supercast.com for a free 2-week trial of our short and sharp high-value clinical podcasts.

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please get in touch via email,  or just catch up with us on Instagram.

And if you like what you hear then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening and sending a link to someone who you know will enjoy listening.

 

 

 

Wetland is filled with conversations about self-care some of the best of those conversations being right here on this podcast.But sometimes I wonder where the focusing on self get to Bunch can become self limiting in a way.Don't extend yourself, don't take risks, don't try because if you do you'll just burn out which is not true.
We are you are capable of so much more than we think.There's a quote that I really like.That says, most of us never reach our limit.You almost certainly haven't reached yours.This is why when we set out on this podcasting Journey, our aim was to highlight more of the positive aspects of this career.
And which is why we look for people who take on the challenges of this profession with courage and drive and grit and a desire to make things better.And then they take those attributes and find ways to make it work for them, and for those around them, like, Elizabeth.Elizabeth would lie.
Herbert is a retired equine veterinarian and practice either.She moved from the u.s. to Australia as a young wit and practiced equine veterinary medicine for over 35 years.Most of it in her own practice.Here's a few lines about a self from our initial get to know each other emails.Number one, I did the hard yards.
Number two, I often did it on a 24/7 basis.Number three, I used to tell my students the cool stuff happens at night.Number four I went through every imaginable, bad thing that could happen and survive.She's also the author of a series of fictional and nonfiction books as well as a string of professional papers.
She recently retired and is returned to the US which is now focusing on a writing career and catching more fish.As you'll hear, this is a story of Courage of putting yourself in situations that are way out of your comfort zone and then finding it within yourself to make it work.
Elizabeth story is filled with the stuff we need to hear.It's about Career driven by purpose and passion and sense of responsibility about the importance of creating relationships, and continued, growth curiosity and creativity using humor as a shield and about finding joy in your work but also fulfillment outside of work.
Elizabeth talks about Turf guiding between vets.She give some practical tips on avoiding worry and shares what she's learned on how to build a great and supportive team and we talk about the joys and challenges of rural practice and about her creative writing career.But there's also some darkness in the story as there is in most good stories.
There's an episode in Elizabeth's life that when I was editing this scared me for what it could have been see.This is a story with a happy ending but whatever it was.It is a risk with interviews.Like the ones we do on the red welt, we interview the people who triumphs that adversity and we asked them how and we admire them for the grit and the resilience.
And we hopefully feel inspired And learn from them, as we should again, that message of you are more powerful than you might think is really powerful.But what if it was someone else in that position someone with the different personality or somebody who didn't have that same passion for the job that Elizabeth has or someone who had just one more burden to bear.
See, I can't say with one breath that we should get better at being kind to ourselves.And then in the next breath, say, turn up that fat out.She'll be all right.I can't put not one more weight on my Facebook profile and then Mumble about the new generation being soft in my private conversations.
So I'm dragging the darkness into the light with Elizabeth's permission.We're trying something new you'll hear an addendum at the end of this episode with a psychologist where we pull apart some parts of this story, Dwayne Smith is an old friend from Perth.Why used to Adventure with we've explored Indonesia and motorbikes together?
She had many waves almost started a bar together, true story and I'm a big fan of this Chevelles, he served rock band, she bit of a big deal in South America.None of which has anything to do with psychology.Oh, maybe it has everything to do with psychology.Anyway, the drain.
I know it's so far removed from anything psychology based that I tend to forget the drain is actually a highly skilled and very competent psychologist with Decades of counseling, clients and training and mentoring other psychologists I pulled when in last minute to talk to us about what to do when those dark days, come as it will.
For most of us.What are the practical steps?Who do you reach out to?How do you reach out?And then something that I think is almost more essential for most of us, how do you respond when you see someone else hitting a rough patch including the very difficult conversation around.
Suicide Prevention, we maybe could have made this a separate episode but I think it fits nicely with Elizabeth story.Tell me if you think we should have done a different deal so that I know for next time.But first, let's start with the fun stuff.Story Time with Elizabeth, Wolseley, Urban amoeba.
Thanks Brett.I'm Dorado poly and this is the way it felt.Dr. Elizabeth Woolsey habit.Welcome to the vet.
Well well, thank you for inviting me.Well it's pretty exciting for me because I started.Sorry, we keep talking over one, another, I started watching or listening to your podcast in Australia when I was driving around the vet students that road with me, because I listen to a lot of podcasts and I think they got sick of the True Crime stuff.
So they said, why don't we do something educational?I go on Roll eyes.Yep, for sure.And then they put You guys on and I went oh my God, I love this, that's so nice to hear.So I'm so excited to be here.Oh well that's lovely to yeah thank you so much.
So we've got veterinarian retired veterinarian.Write you up yeah fully retired the not doing any more weight with huh?Yeah.Well my practice owner.Yep author yes researcher.Yes this is way to say you're a researcher.Yes, mountain-dwelling recluse recluse or not directly Well, not quite, I'm trying to be a recluse, but it's very hard in Georgia to be that.
So, I'm actually pretty much out there now.Okay.All right.So you're back in the US but you did live in Australia for most of your career.Is that right?Yeah, 30 years.Yeah, I've looked at some of your photos.I sent you an email.I've looked at your photos of where you live now I'm going to have to come and visit at some point so you could teach me how to fly fish.
Wow, well I had my classmate here this weekend and she had Ever fly fish before in her life in about 10 minutes.She caught her first fish and then she caught for and about 30 minutes.Wow.And she became an addict.
She was out the last day that she was there visiting.She was down at the creek practicing casting, so it's fun.Please.Come over anybody's, welcome.So, I'm so surprised because it's not easy, are these trout that you fly fishing for.Oh, what are you fishing for?
Yeah, these are trout.Out.And so I bought a property that has a creek running through it and it had existing trout and a what they call a feeder.So and at that keeps the trout in the area.So he had hurricane Ida and about had eight inches of rain and it kind of wiped out the trout population.
So I ordered a couple hundred, had them put in.They were 10 to 12 inches.And everybody kept saying, oh man, you're getting little ones I'm going.Yeah, well, I'm a girl, I don't care.Sighs.But they grew very rapidly.I put them in in November and now they're 18 inches.
I've had a couple that were 20 inches, so that's and they stay in the area.So, it's difficult fishing because there's a lot of overhanging trees.So you have to kind of slingshot your line into the water and then you have to do a lot of mending to keep it in an area where the trout are.
But after that then it's not that hard.I took a little Raft trip down a big river with a guy that whose father was a former dean of the Tennessee Veterinary College.And he showed me these special lure worms there flies, but they're kind of wormy looking and oh my God, they're fish magnets.
You see, I've had some horrendous lie, frustrating fly fishing experiences.I love the idea of it, but the bloody fish, I've had this experience.Where was it and easy?And years ago, Distributing pre kids are traveling with my wife and we were up in the, it's a like, but beautiful fishing countries, it's incredible streams and it's Crystal Clear streams and we went for a hike, one day and you can see the best.
It's just sitting there like they're just there.So I rushed back to town ran to the rod.Next day, when out there casting on them, like literally on them or they just sitting there just not even looking at me.Not even interested in my flight at all zero.
So I I don't think I've got the kiss.My granddad used to say that.Some people have a smell on their hands that fish died.Like and I think I've got that.No, that's New Zealand.So when I retired, I had two places that I was considered going and one was New Zealand and one was Back to America and my best friend had moved to New Zealand.
And I went out there several times to go fishing and it's hard work in New Zealand.Really, really hard work at the site fish.You have to see them.The numbers aren't there.Our and all the times that I ever came to America to fish.I caught lots of fish.
So I knew that it was going to be easier.And America don't think bad of yourself.I can't tell you how much money and time I've spent in New Zealand and not caught a fish.Okay, that makes me feel.I've got more fishing stories, but I think we're at risk of becoming a regular fishing podcast which I think many of our veteran.
Listeners probably wouldn't mind.I know several of them.Who would go?Yeah just go for it but But, but let's move on to, are we talking about stories and I would you that I do that question at the start about a statement that I saw once that says bad decisions lead to good stories like that because it often does lead to good stories.
Have you got any examples for me that would corroborate with that statement?Support the statement?Well my move to Australia.Oh yeah so I I had I was in the process of buying Property and a veterinary clinic in California.
My dad was a horse fat and I had practiced with him and he had retired and things, haven't quite worked out.I had planned to buy his half of the practice, but it didn't work out.And so I was started my own, and it was very successful, things were going well, and I was renting a place and and I always wanted a clinic, so buying a property.
And I met this Australian and although the accent he had kids from a previous marriage and there was no way that I was going to let him get out of being the father to those kids.So I decided to give up everything moved to Australia and you know to be honest with you, the marriage just didn't work out.
So that part was the bad decision but thank you, Lord.I moved to Australia because that was the best thing I ever did.I cannot begin to tell you what a great decision that was I just can't explain it all but I changed my entire lifestyle.
I changed everything I did and I don't regret an inch of it, good and bad.So that's the big one.So waiter, Australian Way, South Australian color which is about 40, 45 miles, north of Adelaide.
Just straight up near the Barossa Valley.How nice, you know, we were the gateway to the Barossa Valley and all that kind of stuff.So, and I had a huge practice area because there weren't very many vets up in that area.At the time they were, there were some and there was one, good horse practice right in that local area, but I drew clients.
Even at the end, I had clients that drove 88 hours, a couple 12 hours to come to me and it was, you know, very unknown.Served area.But then again there weren't that many animals and you know practically you couldn't be as bad up there very well.
So mmm what did you love about Australia's so much?Like what I do it's not necessarily a simple answer but what was some of the things?No.It's I think it's pretty simple.Yeah.It's pretty simple.I think it was the clients they were really good.
Horse people and California especially every horse was in a box and they were crazy.Z and Rich strike.I might say, I don't know if you know about rich strike but Rich strike is the horse, just won the Kentucky Derby and he's in a box all the time and he was a little enthusiastic after the race.
And it's a big controversy over here because he was biting the pony horse and biting the fellow ride in the pony horse when they were capturing him after the race and it was it just was controversial but over in Australia, I've clients they grow up through the Pony Club situation and they're actually very good Horseman and so yes I had drama and I had all kinds of issues with crazy horses and things like that.
But in general it was a much safer environment I felt and I grew up in it.My dad was a horse bet.So you know, I knew what crazy was and my dad especially, but sorry, your dad knew you.Your dad knew oil.
Well, he was crazy.Oh yeah, my dad how so, so trial by fire, my father had raised horses and he would heard them all up into the barn and then he would individually.Pull one out and then expect all the others to not comment.
And my job was to stand between the door and keep the one horse and one side and the one in the other and it was like this ritual.And so Actually, it was a test for my husband, he had to do it, and he had never been around a horse in his life, and she passed made in pass other things, but he passed that test.
So, that kind of stuff.Very rarely happened in Australia.I felt, you know, pretty safe, and, and I think it's because horses aren't boxed up as much in Australia there.Our, you know, and a powder can stuff.So, that's one thing, but it was just the whole casual, the very first horse that I saw.
Saw I was going through the airport, I was having my equipment and stuff checked by a quarantine person and the guy said, are you a vet?And I went.Yeah.And he says, would you go up and see a horse for me, I've got a horse serious.
He said, we think it has a broken leg.They can't get anybody up there for at least two more weeks and I'm going, what the heck?And I said, I don't have a license, I don't have.Anything says what?You just go up and do it.And so I said well okay, so We drove up there is really hot.
I can and we had, you know, I just moved there, I had a car without an air conditioner, and I get up there and this horse has a broken leg.There is no question.And of course, you know, Australians have all kinds of means for euthanasia and which are quite acceptable and so I don't think that horse ever was seen by a veterinarian.
I think I think that was just me and going.I mean, you could just take the fetlock area You move it.And you can hear a crunch crunch crunch.And, of course, it was non-weight-bearing.And these people were quite happy to wait, two weeks.To, of course, was eating the quite wait, two weeks for their veterinarian to get up there.
He came from a different area and so I thought that was pretty huge.I don't have a single client that would wait, two minutes in a California.And so it was a lot less pressure, and that was another really nice thing.Was less pressure for those kind of Things.
And I also worked in a rural area and the clients were.They weren't high-end and the horses weren't high-end.I mean, occasionally saw the high-end horse, but these people were pretty pretty, pretty good, and pretty accepting.And I can remember lots of cases where like I was special.
I did a lot of colic surgery on ponies and in our area and people didn't have the money and I'd say, We'll look, I got a vet student here or I've got a new vet How about if they do the surgery and I'll be standing right behind them.Yeah.And we'll charge you five hundred dollars and you know, normally that that's way less than what I charge and and they'd go.
Yeah that's fine.And so it was really fun to work with these people.Yeah.Well it's and has that changed.You haven't?It's not bring all that long since you've left that sort of low pressure.Yeah, she'll be.All right, Australian attitude.
I mean, those people probably were happy to wait two weeks because while they didn't Have much of an option.I'm guessing I'm not sure it did have you felt that change over the course of your career?Is it more high pressure and more more demanding or is that a perception on our side?I think it could have been if I decided to work with more high-end clients but I chose not to okay and there were high-end vets around.
And I mean talk about pressure.I had a veterinary school move in next door to me.I mean, they were 15 kilometers away and So I went from being at that stage.I was just about all the other.Equine vet said pretty.
Well retired a move into small animal or done something so I was kind of it and then all of a sudden I had, you know, eight board certified veterinary ins and various areas of horse vets and I thought this is the end it's over, but it wasn't at all because we Of different kind of people, they kind of well, that means they were new clinic and it's, you know, on a new school and they struggled with all the stuff that you would expect when you're starting off and building an empire, but we ended up kind of serving different clientele and so it only enhance my practice, it didn't, you know, I could, if I had one of those kind of cases, I would send it over.
I did lots of colic surgery on ponies and things, but I didn't want to do big horses because Physically, I'm only five foot two, I just didn't want to do it.So I ended up, you know, referring things that I didn't want to do to them and I kept all the good stuff.
Yeah.And the choosing of the clients is that a an active process or that it happened sort of by default?Yeah, they choose me.They choose me so it really is.It's there.It's there thing.Yeah so you know I think you know, I was there for Two years.
I built a reputation.I had my things that I was super good at and things that I was, you know, not that great at.I didn't like, I didn't like certain aspects.I didn't like Dentistry for one thing I did it and I did it for years but it just wasn't my thing.
Now I did a lot of reproduction, we collected stallions, did you know, did the all these call X?And I love the weird and wonderful but Dentistry to me was kind of it just was Boring and it was physically difficult and you know all of my friends that really love Dentistry or now all have bad, you know shoulders or something like that and so for me that was just something I didn't like I just didn't like routine and I think that was another thing that was really nice about Australia and I forgot about that.
This is really important, there's nothing routine.I never knew what I was going to do day-to-day.We didn't vaccinate horses.Like in America you just about make your entire living doing health care.And Vaccines and dentistry and preventive stuff over here to me.
It was like, I chased fire engines on fire engine, do all day.I I never knew what I was going to do.That's so interesting that that's a plus for you because for a lot of people don't know, is that always been your nature because for a lot of people not knowing what's coming in that that anxiety, almost done for shit.
What's the next thing going to be is a downside.So why is it an A+ for you?Well, okay, so right to the very end, if I had a slow day, I'd go.Oh my God.They don't like me anymore.Am I gonna make a living?The very last day.
We've only got three cases on the last day.Well, we're having a party, you know?I know.But there's only three cases, so it is.And I think it's our nature.I think we worry about, you know, where's the next dollar coming from.But most of the time, that was not the issue.
So I just love I loved it and I purposely didn't look at the book and to see what I had scheduled for the next day in case, there was something I didn't like to do.And that way, I didn't worry about it.So in the morning, I would walk up because I, my clinic was at my house.
I would walk up to the front and kind of look at the, well, I could look online.I had a great little system for scheduling our, our appointments and stuff, and I would look and see, you know, oh good, I've got three.Castration Zorro good.
I've got this or I've got that and things that I like to do and then if I saw something like a Dentistry thing, I'd go, I'll get it done.Is that why you only looked on the day and not today before?Yeah, because I didn't want to know ahead of time if it was something, I really didn't like why stress about it.
Mmm, you know, so, you know, I had a good idea about what I was doing because, you know, not normal, but You know, there was if I didn't have to look, I didn't look until that day.It used to be that there were things that really would stress me out.
Like I can't I'm trying to think of what the collecting a really difficult stallion, something like that.Like, you know, we had, we had some stallions that I used to pay.I had a guy working for me, who handled the stallions while I collected and we had one stallion who was crazy in quite dangerous, and I To pay him $50 per collection extra just so he would handle it.
And then I switched.And I said, okay, we got a bad cell and coming in, here's some chocolate.So I'd hand everybody piece of chocolate and we would go out and do this then towards the end.I had, I was just so blessed with people that work with me and towards the end, the last couple years, my nurses would not.
Let me collect stallions, they said not, you're too valuable now.We need a paycheck and so they did all of that at the very last two years, but, you know, I was like 68, I think when I was collecting my last stallion, so I, yeah.
And you know, it's not, you know, we were pretty good at doing this and no one ever got hurt.And we very, very, very rarely couldn't get the job done.We took a lot of horses that other people were trying to collect what they needed semen that.
A and they it was you know critical we get it, they get it done and their vat couldn't get the job done and so they would run it down to us and we could almost always do it.We just had a great system and I had great help.So what's the secret?
I think it's our setup was really nice.It was outside and it was in a good safe environment and candles romantic music.Yeah, pretty much pretty much.Just had everything.Thing going, we had a great mayor that we could use.
I was so blessed to have two different mayors over the 30 years that lasted a long time and and were easy to use.But we mostly collected off of a phantom and we had it set up.It was comfortable.It was a good size.We had, you know, Frozen urine from mayor's that were in season and put a little bit of that in their nose and off.
They went, it was a great system, but my staff were just so good.And none of them had ever done that so I taught them how to do it and they you know, went Way Beyond me.They were just absolute experts.We even had a stallion who was deaf and the staff used hand signals to they'd hold their hand up in the stop motion in the horse would stand.
And then they would, you know, kind of circle their hand.And this horse would jump on the mount and they were really good.So I think really important thing is my staff that I had with me over the years.And really enhance my life and they were fun.Innovative just great.
Great people.Is that because you're good at choosing the right employees?Or you just really lucky.Do you think, like, did you have a very stringent interviewing process?So I think, you know, a bit of both a bit of both.Obviously, when people didn't work out, you know, we found ways to move them on, but if in general, it was again, there was this plethora of really incredible.
Bleak talented horse people in my area and so I did have a bit of choice on it.Okay.That helps to have choices.And yes, yeah yeah definitely.So once in a while, you know someone would leave and I would put out a notice saying that I was looking for somebody and I didn't necessarily want, you know, certified vet nurses.
I mean we had some but most of them I chose them because they were going to be good to work with safe and they always knew their number one job was to keep Me say that was.And if you ask any one of them today, they will say, my employ, most important task was to keep the boss safe.
That's impressive.I'm going to interrupt you here, to remind you about two things.First of Elizabeth said, in the intro earlier about how she was driving around with the students listening to the vet.Well, now fantastic choice of podcasting, but if she'd wanted to brush up on a smallest medicine surgery, and her emergency, And critical care knowledge.
She could also have subscribed to the vet felt clinical to listen to us speaking to world-class Specialists about the stuff that we struggle with in GP practice.But instead of me going on about how great the clinical podcaster and make no mistake, they pretty great.I'm going to read you two lines from a very lovely email, received this week from a subscriber.
I won't read the entire email because well, it's personal, but I will do a bit of a humble brag with this.A subscriber says, I can honestly say that the podcast have genuinely saved by Korea.Honestly, no exaggeration.The podcast allowed me to revise knowledge that was buried in my brain, very deeply at the time and become current.
Again, it honestly gave me so much more confidence.I'm not going to promise you that the weight of all clinical will save your career but that bit about the conference, totally true.It's really nice to know your shit and this is the easiest way to get to know your staff again, taken thing with Wildlife Russa 22.
We're going live, baby, 22 to 25 November this year Professor.David Church visit Jill medicine, two days of learning with v style so that means no passive lectures.Justin Engaged into Active Learning with lots of questions, probably some interviews.
Lots of case studies were giving 50 people exclusive access to two of the best brains in smallest medicine in.One of the most Exquisite places in the world.And we're not just coming here for the learning, we're going to have some fun, kayaking, and hiking, and surfing, and yoga, and cooking classes, and gin drinking, and some deep work with Philip mechanic and much much, much more website isn't live yet, but if you email us at the vet V, but At gmail.com that's without broadcast at gmail.com and tell us that you heard about the conference on the podcast and you're interested in coming.
We'll send you the Deets.Plus a special listener rate for the conference, okay?Back to Elizabeth Let's rewind a little bit.So you arrived went to see your first horse without a license and where you from there.
We're you employed, or did you start your own show straight away?Yeah, I tried to get some jobs but it was just when the banking issues were going on in South Australia and they changed the taxation laws that made horse racing was no longer a tax deduction and and things like that.
So the industry was way down and not nobody was high.In at that stage.So, I did something really, really scary.I mean, like, my heart was in my throat.I did some small animal work and I did some Locum work, and that sorry.
I'm laughing because I'm listening to you collecting stallions.And to me, that's the scariest thing in the world that he says, well, I'm always game.I know, I know exactly.Yeah, yeah.Well anyway, I don't go shark diving.
So I've got my limits.So I hadn't done anything for about seven years and I had to kind of re-educate myself, but also getting that license.So, I had to take the exams, I had to go up to Queensland and spend a week at that school, and being interviewed.
And at the very end, I had to spay a dog.And I went, oh my God, I can't do this.And so I went to one of these clinics, that was nearby, that was interested in using me.But at this stage, they hadn't because I didn't have a Essence and the guy said, come in, all you can spare a dog with me and so, I did it and I got through it.
Anesthesia was a little scary too because I was used to horse anesthesia.So I arrived at the day that I was supposed to do the surgery, and the guy looks at me and he goes reg Pasco, very famous Australian that equine veterinarian now.Deceased and he goes, you're a horse fed, aren't you?
Yes, sir.And he goes, you can do an intestinal resection and anastomosis and I'm fist pump.I'm going yes thank you and everybody else there goes oh my God because they're used to small animals and their think and this pay is nothing and I'm thinking I don't want to do a spay.
I much rather do that and I had done several of them so that's what that was my thing.And so we're all different and what we you know, what we're used to but the so I did small animal for a while and then eventually slowly built in the equine practice and I had some issues.
With trying to find a property.But I eventually found a property that was just ideal.It was amazing.It was an old factory where they made gliders planes and I was right next door to the airport.I had a hanger that you could put 12 planes in, we did one day, it's huge and I had some good clients that help me that built and insert into one of the smaller buildings and we put up fences and different.
Things So eventually over maybe three or four years, I had a beautiful building and practice and I lived there and it was really really good but it was only sadly until maybe four or five years before I ended up finishing that I put in cameras so I can see these horses in my life really changed because in the middle of the night, you're looking at a colic and you have to get up, go outside and look.
And then all I had to do, Look at my phone after that and I could see, you know, what was going on.And you know just all these things innovations that just were wonderful to make it easy and it was it always just you or did you start did you employ other vets as well in your practice?
Yeah, I did off and on, I had some really, really good bats that work with me that over the years, but they didn't want to stay.And I think a lot of it was, I mean, it could be me, I don't think so.Imagine that it could be me.But I have to say the area isn't really conducive to young people, to be honest with you.
And I think that's a problem and I know that the vet school has the same problem that people just don't want to stay in the area, I don't know.I loved it.But again there was no there.Well, there was trout but trout or just as difficult there as they were in New Zealand.So I wasn't going to stay once I got done but as far as my practice life, if I had to do it over again.
I would do it in Spades.I loved that area.I love those people.I love the clients and I love the type of things that I saw the variety.It was amazing.Variety people kind of said that I was the weird magnet and I think it was that there was so many things out there that we didn't know about.
There was a plant that a very interesting plant Oxalis Pesca prey, which is sour sob and it's very high in our communities.Oxalate and everybody gets in knots normal.It's no big deal, it's no big deal.And then all of a sudden, I had miniature horses with bilateral fractured Cannon, bones or wob Miniatures with wobblers because their spinal columns were so depleted of calcium that they yeah, really weird.
And it just went on and on and on I mean like I five or six horses died anyway.So I was lucky in that I talk to somebody at the His own University and they said, no, that's your sour sauce.And we actually had a video of 11 of them walk in, and you could see them walking with this.
Our SOB Sarah sobs been around for years.But some years it's just really Lush and I think they'll eat it more.If that's a lot of water and moisture, I think it takes the the sourness and the bitterness out.So I did some research on that and I published my first paper on that, which was pretty exciting.
And I really wanted to publish in a particular Journal.Equine Veterinary education, which is the publishing journal for the American Association of equine practitioners.Not because I didn't think that the Australian Journal was a good one.
But the problem was is that this was something that was International and it needed to be seen a bit further away.And then also, I thought it had would have a bit more scope going there, so I put it in and they accepted it and that The graphs are amazing.
It's like skeletons of skeletons.You see the outline of the bone that it's like so thin.That was pretty cool.And I should say, that's another really great thing is that I had two men over the years that picked up my dead horses and they were as I always thought, told everybody the most important men in my life and then we had these bizarre horses that were laying down or bowing down when they ate or shaking and all those kind of things and I called Purser, primary Industries and said, hey, I got some pretty weird stuff going on here and they weren't.
Yeah, and I do this a lot.So I'm kind of like, the girl that calls wolf all the time.So I think they took that with a grain of salt and I said, well, it's pretty weird and they were in.Yeah, and I knew this horse is it come from the Riverland and it came down for a second opinion with me, and in the vet up there, had already sent some samples.
And so we had some stuff going on, but it was pretty weird, so, Just says, you know, well that's kind of interesting all that.And what we'll see how things go, let us know.So I sent I sent them a video of what these horses were doing and instantly, they were in.
So they went up the horses, went back up to the river and they went back up there to look around to see what was going on.And then I was seeing more and more of these bizarre cases, and it turned out, it was this kunj and virus, which is really West Nile.And it kind of came down from Queensland and And it was more of a variant pathogenic kind of a virus, and I think we had 50 cases and five died, but I became a big Advocate because I knew it would come back at some stage.
I wanted to get them vaccinated, you know, using West Nile vaccine and stuff.But then Hendra came on and the hundred debacle happened.And so the drug companies were not very interested in promoting a new vaccine.So, we were just living with it.
And I think, We might have had one case after that but it's cycles and it will cycle back and eventually it'll happen again.Pretty sure it does every place else in the world it sounds like you had a lot of fun in that role.So I have this perception and I'm starting to get just a perception.
You hear people talk about it or certainly like you said, young people are scared of rural practice because of loneliness did it?Get lonely when you were far away from family?We and all of that stuff with it.Is it what was that?An issue of you, having too much fun with sick horses?
Yes, it was definitely an issue because when I first started, there was no internet and phone calls were like, you know, really expensive and I refer to a lot of stuff to one of the big clinics.They're more of a billy Kwan clinic but I felt like I was becoming a bit of a pain and I didn't want to call them too much.
So I developed a few Through the, you know, just meeting colleagues and stuff.And I really wanted, you know, I needed some kind of, you know, I needed some friendships Veterinary, friendships, but that really took years and years to develop and very slow, I mean, they were, you know, they were Turf guarding and they were good and they were kind, all those kind of things.
But I just wasn't their friend.And plus, you know, they were kind of far away and stuff.So So over the years, I eventually did.But once I joined a group on the internet, when the internet finally came I developed many, many friends in America.
And I think that was kind of one of the reasons I tended to think that I might be happier in retirement over here, and it's really turned out to be absolutely true.I've been just taken in by the several members of the American Association of equine practitioners.
And I now have As network of retired, equine vets that are just like calls every day from these people.You know what's going on?How's the fishing gone fishing with some of them.I'm going fishing in Colorado next month with another retired bat, I'm just having the time of my life.
They all loved my books on top of that.So that's always nice.But yeah, it was a little bit.It was lonely.That was no.And especially, and I went through a divorce that was like, you know, No.I mean you name.I love my life and I love my practice but you know, I had the same dramas that are, you know, just doing people in and in our profession and I had to cope with a mic, I had a daughter and I had stepchildren and I had staff and I just had to suck it up and do it.
I think my nurses that eventually over the last, probably 10 years of practice became my Family, close friends, they are my family, I talk to them or chat with them on Facebook, almost every day, one or two of them and they are family now.
So but my very, very close friends tended to be Americans and they tended not to be in the profession over there.So, yeah, it was a little bit lonely, but, you know, suck it up, get on with it.And just, I kind of had this motto that I think is really important.
Orton, at least for me and I realized that it doesn't work for people that are going through, you know, horrific problems.But my motto is, I choose to be happy and I work darn hard at it because it's not easy.Sometimes I find humor in everything I do.
I mean, I can think of on one hand, the number of times that I euthanized the horse that I bawled my eyes out, not in front of the client, but it was just absolutely horrific, but all the other Times.Even if it was sad, I would meet with my funeral directors and we would have a laugh about something while the client was not there.
And this was our, both of our ways of coping with really sad events and I promise you that they cried to.Yeah, that Gallows humor the document.It's a known thing, isn't it?I've heard stuff about The Paramedic Services and them.
That's a defense mechanism.It's absolutely defense mechanism.Yeah.And getting You know, just getting through the day after my divorce, I actually went through a period of depression and I tried to get some help, but it was a Christmas and you just can't get help because my so I just kind of had to get through it.
And I remember I was playing tennis with my daughter in my house, that's how big my house was and because it was where they used to build airplanes and she said, something really funny and I don't remember what it was at this stage but I went that is so funny.
And I thought I'm not feeling the funny that I know it's funny, and I've got to remember this.Sadly, I don't remember what it was but that was the kind of that was how, you know, depressed I was It was kind of nice because I did lose 20 pounds of baby fat.
But yeah, it was tough and and I had to, you know, psych myself out of this eventually I did and it was, you know, but I pretty much had to do it on my own and I just I have all kinds of defense mechanisms.I surprisingly enough, you are going to be shocked to hear this.
I've made mistakes and when I made those mistakes, I you know I had to, you know, kick myself in the butt and find ways to get myself out of the funk that it caused me personally.And you know, humor was pretty important to me.
Hmm.I think doing laundry and helped as well because it kept me humble.Yeah, I'm listening to this.I'm astounded.I mean practice are alone.Divorce depressed over Christmas.Let's sounds like a recipe for disaster that.
That's the man.That's how things go wrong, isn't it?Yeah.Yeah would be but I think honestly I think you know we probably all go through extremely low periods.I mean, if you haven't been through an extremely long period, I don't think you've lived enough and you know, most people get through it and and I just found that I would find a way to, you know, get myself out of it, you know, you don't lose 20 pounds or 10 kilos because you want to.
I mean, it just, you know, your hearts racing.You can't sleep.You can't see anything funny.I remember going out to castrate a horse, and I had to think about everything that I had to do to do that, I just had to having to go through it in my mind because I couldn't just do it.
Like I would normally do it and I showed up with two belts on.And the guy said what's going on and I went and he goes, you got to Builds on this is you know, and think he was a good guy, good client.And I said, oh yeah, I'm kind of thinking about things.
It's basically, I think what I said.So anyway, those were tough times and it wasn't just that.I mean, you know, when you lost a case or something that you really wanted to say, you know, it was sad.But then again, I would remind myself that I needed to think of something funny.
I needed to do something that would make myself feel better and I would think of funny things and you know, you probably maybe can't tell from this interview or not but I'm pretty darn funny.So at least my kids laugh at some of my jokes and that's a real test because what teenager thinks their parent is funny but my you know my staff and stuff, they said I was funny.
So I just found humor in In situations, I can remember this, this one calling, we brought the pony to the clinic and all of a sudden this Pony lifted its tail and it had an explosion of diarrhea and sand and all kinds of stuff.
And I brought the pony back to them kind of on the other side of the oval, and they want.Yeah, we should have tried putting it in that horse float first.Then we wouldn't have had to do this.So, I'm sitting there, I am absolute.I'm exhausted, I'm tired.And I should have been mad, but I just saw it as a I thought this is going in book.
This is definitely going in a book in a book where you riding back.Then I will come back to the writing.I'd love to dig deep into that.Yeah, I started, I think, right after my divorce, I went from a very high social life 20, just about.
And so I had a lot of time on my hands.So I decided I would start writing up these stories and I had a Actually, one day, in which I had to dystocia says, I had a horse a stallion that jumped, the fence and ripped open his groin and his testicle was coming out the side of his thigh.
I had, I can't remember all the things that happen, but just tons and tons of things it was like, one of those days, like, you just would not believe.And the next day, I was talking to one of my nurses and she goes, I said, I never wanted a like that again.And got she goes, well, you're probably going to have And besides, it'll be good for the book.
And I went, what both she goes.You're going to write a book and I went.No, she goes, oh, yeah, you're writing a book and I did.And so I wrote a book called horse doctor, American vets, life down under, and that was published in 2005.And, and that was just true stories of my clients.
And, you know, there was funny and sad things, all kinds of stuff, lots of, you know, drama and stuff.And that was very early in my career.And as far as my writing career, And so that's when I started and then I did another one, I found my dad was a World War 2 Navigator, and flew missions over Germany.
And he had sent letters home to his family, his parents, and his parents collected, all the letters, put them in an album, each one handwritten letters, and I didn't know about it until just shortly before he died.
He never like, most men.He didn't talk about it and anything and My stepson was a pilot in the Air Force and so he felt compelled to talk to Duncan about all of the things that he had experienced because Duncan was a fighter pilot.
And so he brought out these albums that I had never seen.Anyway, so when my dad died, I took all the albums and copied them and put them in a book mainly just for my family, but it turned out, it is historically.
Went.And so, that was my next book and then two years before I retired, again, I was going through a period of which I wasn't being very socially active and I developed this habit of getting up at 4:00 a.m. to study.
I actually attempted to become board certified.In they called Veterinary practice, basically.So I had to study for exams and I had to write papers and do all kinds of stuff and I had a full-time practice.So, I ended up just telling myself, well, the only time no one's going to call his early in the morning.
So I got up at 4 a.m. and I studied and I wrote the papers and I did everything.And then when that was done, then I also wrote one about colics and we had the Pinery fires which was a big fire event and we had eight horses in and we took care of these horses that were, you know, pretty critically burned and I was very lucky.
I had a really good friend in California, guy named.John Madigan I call him dr.Disaster.He's a very famous bet, he says write it down.He says nobody publishes about it.So I brought that up.Published that one and then did the colic one.Then I thought, what the heck am I going to do?
And so I'm awake at 4:00 a.m., I can't sleep and I thought I'm going to start writing a book and I'd always thought about this subject and so I decided I was going to write about vets and I just dedicated myself to that idea and so they're fiction and the This book is about a woman who time travels back to the 1800s and ends up in a kind of like a situation of a television program that she'd watch kind of like, you know, Rawhide or Gunsmoke or Bonanza one of those.
And so, she's in that.And so, but this, it has the perspective of modern time and meets real characters as she's moving across the United States to try to find how How she can return back to her tan and you know, she's going like, well, yeah, this is fun.
But, you know, come on, there's no tampons, there's no Oreos.You know, this is there's no antibiotics, you know?There's no X-rays.And so it kind of, you know, it's serious and it's adventurous sztyc, but it's also got lots of humor.
It sounds like a heap of fun.I'm just so in awe of, because, I know a lot of people, one of them.Sitting right here who have thought of writing books, but actually start doing it as if it's a whole nother thing.What was the dry?What was the motivator?What like, why do it just for fun?
Just as an outlet because I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep at 4:00 a.m.Well, I've always I thought years, I was worried about what I was going to do financially to retire and I'm not, you know, I wasn't that great of a business person.
Okay, I would failed in business.Let's put it that way.And so it wasn't like I was going to have a ton of money or anything like that, but I thought, what can I do?And I thought I was thinking about writing books that would follow these young kids like The Saddle Club and these kid novels where girls wanted, you know, had horses and stuff.
But then I thought, well, let's take it a bit older and so I started actually riding one about Kids who wanted to be vets and like when you, you know, ask you know, five to maybe eight year, olds 10 year olds, what do you want to be?If half of them don't want to be vets.
There's something wrong because that's what everybody wants to be.Now eventually, you know, there's an attrition to that but I thought that would be a good start.So I started to write that book wrote it as a novella and then I just wasn't getting the kind of response from my friends and family that I I thought I would get, so I kind of just put it away and I thought, you know, I wonder if you could, you know, make money writing books and stop and I have yet to discover that, I'm sure there are people that make money, but I don't care.
I'm having so much fun, I could care less.I just like it when people call me or write to me and say I read your book, I love it and thanks, you know, that kind of thing.And so that to me is the my motivation.Yeah, and then I follow I also fall in love with the characters and so Like as I written recently on Facebook, I'm sorry that I have been neglectful to you but I've you know falling in love with one of my characters and sadly, he's died.
I'm going through a grieving period and then I will rejoin.You, your one character is it Rebecca Hub?Yes, that's right.Yeah.Is that the one you were just talking about?
So she's an American.His bed do Works in Australia and then moves back to the United States.No, oh no, that's no.That's the that's Maggie Kincaid.That's the other.So there's two series.One is the Rebecca Harper series and that's for books and that's over.
She's from the 1980s.She goes back to the 1850s, and then she eventually in the third book, her daughter who she had left in America.You know, she couldn't get back.So her daughter becomes a vet as well and this it's her story to not going to say what happens but so the two years, you know, to vets Living Color almost in parallel universes.
So then there was the second series is a more about fly-fishing.Although I have Veterinary stories in all of them, I mean, and these are all stories from my life.You know, these are things that I experienced.The mega Kincaid is more like me, and it's a American vet who lived in Australia.
Practice retires, moved back to America.Finds a cabin with a creek on it.Now here's the thing.This was all written before I actually did this, I was just going to ask you that.I was going to ask, who is first, who had to do.Did you follow her?
Did she follow you?Nope, she was first and she becomes involved and she kind of becomes romantically involved.With one, there's two interesting men that are in the community that she moves to one.She becomes involved with one and then she eventually travels to New Zealand to go fishing.
And with one of them, you know, all these dramas happen, and that seems to be the one that I seem to have managed to find a lot of old geezer, retired, horse bats and a lot of them were past presidents of the a AEP and so they're kind of higher up.
Eyes and they threw one of them Ascent book, still a lot of them because he liked them and and he kind of got me going.And so then all these other vets kind of all got interested and but the problem is, is that I need a bigger clientele than past presidents of the AAP.
So, hence, I'm starting to feel a little advertising now.Anyway, so it's just a fun and then I've the one that I've just written the one where I'm, I'm still grieving.And I am grieving is Is about an older male that and I tend to write about older people because I am older, but an older male vet who's dying and he asked this woman, who's younger and slightly younger, not much younger that to come and help him write his story before he dies, and that's a really good one.
I really enjoy that one.That's probably my favorite so far, but they're all about veterinarians and that's what I stuck with.So, so I have to be kind of careful because I don't want the veterinary profession to be in a bad light.I mean, yes I could do that and make it a lot more exciting and all kinds of things like that.
It's pretty exciting as it is but I tend to keep the good guys as the Vets pretty much not completely, there are bad ones.The first book that got published is a book about a woman.American vet who lives in Australian, it's all in Australia and it's in a rural Australian Community which would be kind of like the town of Of Burgh in South Australia, it's not Burr but it's like it and she's married to a doctor and She's accused of murder and how she has to deal with this.
So that's called small-town secrets and it's gotten some really good reviews and things.So you know I got all kinds of things going on this so much that you pumping out too much content.They I'm still curious that the one that moved back to the US so did you write that while you're in Australia and then you ain't it was all written before I retired.
All of it was written before I retired.So I wrote it early in the morning.So is that was that subconsciously or plan?Or did you write that book and go?Damn it.That sounds really nice.I think I'm going to do what she did a bit of both.So I had always thought that I wanted to move someplace where I could fish and having fished in New Zealand like you said, it's hard work and walking over those stones and stuff.
And I knew that there were places in California and fought Ali in the South, I'd traveled to North Carolina to look around and I thought that might be a place that I might like to be.But somebody a veterinarian on one of the veterinary talk groups.
I'm on said, get a lot of bang for your buck in Georgia.So I started looking around there and then my sister found this place, it's unbelievably, it's just this most beautiful place you could ever imagine.And with the creek running through it, wonderful Neighbors.
Cute little town and access to everything.You could possibly need mountain.Climbing fishing hiking.It's just it's wonderful.No complaints.No complains that sounds like an amazing retirement.I want to just circle back briefly to your working life your career.
Again it sounds amazing but you said a couple of times you like through the tough times.You I toughed it out.I stuck it out.I tapped it out.Which is, I feel like these days, I don't know.We're trying to avoid it.I would try to avoid situations where we have to tough it out.
We soft.Are we too soft or should you have, like, looking back at your life?Other things that you think what I could have done that differently in a way that it didn't have to be that hard?Or do you think these days?But sometimes we should just say look just yeah you just have it outside.I think veterinary medicine is a very difficult profession and I think it was This difficult in during my time as it is with the younger people.
But what's different now is that we have social media and so we all know what we're going through and hence it maybe makes it.We just know that people are suffering because they say it, they say it right on on social media.
I even tried to say something.Nice to somebody that was having a really hard time and she said, she admonish me for.I have a right to be sad.If I want to be sad, I'm going to be sad and if I want to feel bad for myself, I want to be, I want to do that and I'm going.
Well, I got a real education from that woman.I think we've made it okay to be like that.It's not that it's okay or not, okay?It's more that it's acceptable and we know about it.And I think, Social media has probably made even the ultimate Choice slightly more acceptable than it, then it really was.
And that's not to say, I mean, I know lots of people who have made that choice before social media as well as after and I don't know.I just feel like, you know, when I was going through my thing, the one thing that never came up was the idea that I was going to kill myself.
I couldn't, I had family, I had responsibilities, I had all these things.Now, I wasn't going to do it and it wasn't like there was ever an thing about.Well, I could end it all.I was never that bad and so I don't I know that there's people where it's so bad, and I can't really speak to their problems because it's just not something I've experienced.
I'm not a professional in that, you know, in that respect.And I just, I don't know how to Is that other than to say that I think we keep looking and discussing the people.And I know that I remember, that whole bunch of vets were on television program in Australia before I left, which I can't remember the name of it on the ABC discussing, you know, depression and suicide and all the issues.
What I would love to do is to get together all the people who have gone through those same things, and came out the other side.And a, what did they do that?What were their coping skills?And I think we need to get more invest more in those people to figure out what they're doing.
That is different from the people that are not coping.Well, that's why we're talking to you.That's exactly why.I keep digging.Because when you talk about those tough times, that is always a tough times.Those were that's a really high risk times.That's when, as I said, that's when things can go around, but we're not.
I'm in suicides obviously there are extreme example that we often talk about but beyond that just create dissatisfaction or quickly just even getting winning practically, just quitting that I think we just need to get onto when we talk about people that were in the Olympics.
We don't go to the people that didn't make it.We talked to the people who at least got to the Olympics and so I think it's not that we don't need to look at that part but I think yes, there is an issue and and all those Those things are going on, but let's look at the people who succeeded who got Beyond these difficulties.
And how did they get Beyond these difficulties?And I know that in social media, when people talk about this kind of stuff, they're shut down by the negative Nancy's.Basically, you know, like they're almost, you know, like pariahs.I really feel like we need to have a different conversation.
It's a tricky one because I study see what you mean?You feel like it can become an echo chamber?Where we all say how bad it is and then you start thinking shit, the maybe it is bad, maybe bad.But yeah, I think there's all kinds of issues and I, you know, we keep talking about all the, you know, like the student dad and the pressures and the - clients will gosh.
I mean, I've, you know, had my butt chewed out by lots of clients over different things and And I've had, you know, I had student debt.You know, I didn't come from a poor family.My dad was a horse vet but I came from kind of an astute family.
He didn't pay for my education, I had to pay for my own.So I walked out with student debt just like everybody else and but by the same token, the the way veterinary schools are financed and stuff and universities in general of put a lot of pressure on students to come up with the money because the money that used to come from.
So in University, California system was financed by horse racing and then that petered off and so they had to come up with money from other areas of pretty soon.Those areas dried up and the financing dried up.And so it put the burden on to students.
On top of that the middle management grew enormously and I'm friends with a human Doctor Who was a professor at a university.City.And she said, when she started the entire financing for the medical school was in one room when she left, it was whole nother building.
And that there's this burden of feeding, the middle people, you know, and which the students are doing their tuition.Doesn't just go to the professor and the building that goes to a myriad of middle people.
So, And universities, you know, where the chancellor of the university is making more than the president of the United States.Like I'm going, what the heck's going on here.Like we've just high-end people are making bazillions of dollars and, you know, the low-end people or not.
And so that's an issue to look at.And and when maybe we need to refinance, How We Do veterinary medicine on the education, on top of that, the students are coming out with far less.Skills because they don't get this interaction that we got.
I don't know about you, but we went through surgeries, we did tons of surgeries.Now, these were going to be animals that were going to be euthanized.And as far as I'm concerned, it was a very safe and a very caring environment that no animal, you know suffered.
They had a needle stick and that was it that was the only pain they felt because that was the anesthetic and then the surgery was done will a lot of times that those kind of things.Don't even happen anymore and I know that the local veterinary school where I was, you know, the students were hardly getting to do anything because their caseload was so low and so I started a student castration Clinic thing.
I was only 15 kilometers away.So the students would come on a Saturday, we would castrate horses and it became extremely popular with my clients as well as the students and a few weeks ago.One of my staff members.Embers sent me a video.
We were having at one of our final lunches and we had the vet students with us.And so there was about, I don't know, ten of us or so sitting at my table eating lunch and talking about what the best part was.And one of the students said, you know, this is what I learned.
I feel confident, I can go out and castrate a horse and I went whoa, I didn't feel like that here was my dad as a horse bet and I did not feel comfortable.People.When I was so nervous when I did my first one and she said I really feel comfortable because I've done so many with you and that's something that we need to maybe.
Look at the way we we educate some of these kids.Instead of having these monoliths of Veterinary Schools, maybe we need to get them out in private, practice to get more of their per their experience that way.
Yeah.Well.Alright, we probably have started having up.I can talk to you, it'll be you.Lunchtime with the time we know you.Clearly, you're right.So I'm guessing your reader.Do you listen to podcasts at all?Are you said your part?Wait for the listener So that obviously puts you in a special class but I haven't any other podcast that you like to listen to?
Well, I've listened to a lot of podcasts from Veterinary things.You know, I do a lot of see that way and I still actually keep up even though I don't even have a license over here and I don't really have any expectations to get one.Unless I can't get some pentas in for my damn dog to these people here in a store in America that don't use it that much hint, hint to the general public and to send is always appreciated.
But I listen, I have to say a lot of True Crime that's so and things like that, but a lot of Veterinary.Like I do quite a bit of Cee through that bowring or ingelheim that has some nice ones.I don't listen to Oh, I used to listen a lot to the revisionist history.
Malcolm Gladwell.There was a favorite of mine.Yeah, glad well yes.Yeah, I love those.I don't even know if it's still going because I haven't listened for a while.No, no really.Yeah I know.He hasn't read.That's why I sort of stopped.It sort of fizzled.He's got so many other things but I like that one.That's like that's a good one.
Yeah yeah that was good and things like that but yeah she should that it.Great inside.You need to do a Veterinary.True Crime fictional no not true crime.Fictional crime podcast.Yeah, it's your tears.Your thing.Yeah.
Well, I, you know, there's a kind of bit of real crime going on typical, but I try to put veterinarians in a good life and I kind of keep it kind of clean to so.Okay.I mean, I might have thoughts that are way less than claim, but I don't put it in the book.
So I figure the Dean of my veterinary school is 90 years old and he's still alive and he's and he's read some of my books and he's a very just well-respected man.He's not going to read sex from me.
That's just not gonna happen.That's your, that's your filter.Is it, that you're so good.You have to, you have to ride for my sisters, are pretty good to us.Because help is there kind of their kind of clean people.
So if the right For an avatar and your avatar is at 90 year old XD, never something like you might be surprised.You might be surprised, but he enjoys actually well.
So one thing that I did want to mention that I really liked was I actually took a Dale, Carnegie course.And I learned how to do public speaking and I learned a lot of things about human interaction.Action and and also how to decrease your stress and part of that is by putting it in a compartment.
You know?You got a bad thing that happened.Put it in a compartment.Yeah leave it in the compartment.Don't necessarily you know dump it.Keep it in mind.I'm always reminded.When I my very first year of veterinary medicine, I had a full died from a ruptured bladder that I under-diagnosed.
And if I ever feel like I need to be humble or if I need to feel like You know this, you know, I'm not that great because that case and so but that's in it that's in a compartment and they only bring it out when I need it they said they'll kind of be book so old book that I really like something about how to worry less oh I was just how to win friends and influence people.
That's the famous one but then there's another one.I've got it here somewhere.How to stop worrying and start living or something.Yes.Yeah yes.So I thought that's a really good book.Like, it's, it's their original want to say self-help genre, but there's some pretty bloody good advice in a solid solid and that compartmentalization that's in that book as well, along with the, with quite a few other ones.
All right.Cool.Good book recommendation.Okay.And then our last question.So if you had the opportunity to speak to the current way, we now 2022 class of Veggie graduates as upon the graduation, you could give them one message.
What would you tell?Them.I think the important thing is that I talked to actually one of the AP president's last night saying that I was going to do this.And one thing he said that I thought was really important and he did a lot of financial advice for students and stuff today.
You cannot go to the bank.You can't go to your doctor, you can't go to anybody.And think that's the only that, their solution or their suggestion is, the only thing you really have to do your research.You research your where you going to work, research?
How you're going to finance yourself, research your medical or emotional problems.Get different points of view before you make decisions.And I think I thought that was pretty important.So I think just do that.
And then also just find ways to make yourself happy, you know, and find if you're not in a practice that you'd like and I The first practice I went into I did not like it all.I was gone in about three months.I just I'm not going to go why but it was not good and I was gone and I think instead of, you know, hanging in there and trying to change these old geezers or trying, to course I am one now trying to make things better.
Don't do it.Find someplace where you're going to be happy.And if it's your own, if you have to do your own practice, do your own practice.If you want to practice that is Is 925 make your practice 95, do what you want to do to make yourself happy.I think, as long as you're a good vet and you're a caring person and I think caring is 20 times more important than even being good.
You will develop a clientele and you'll be able to make a living he like that but of advice with basically be proactive.Yeah, I had this conversation today with somebody about.We get stuck in these situations and then we get so stuck in it and Side that almost about Gerard problems.
That you forget that too, for the most part in the Free World.It's up to you really, you can decide to stay stuck or you can decide to do something about it.I think it can.It can be tricky for us as well because you don't get through med school by being a quitter as so making that decision to say, well, I've got a stuff I'm going to leave this thing or I'm going to leave it behind can be hard, but it's in the End of this up to you.
Yeah, well I don't I'm not a fan of leaving the profession.I think one of the things that I actually have the world's record number of rejections and Veterinary Schools trying to get in.So I knew what I was getting into.I had worked at to veterinary schools for 10 years, I think before I even got into veterinary school and and my dad was a horse bad.
I knew what I was getting into and I boy I wanted it and I, you know, had to do all kinds of things to do it, but I eventually got in, but I feel a sense of responsibility.The fact that the government's the state did Finance part of it, you know, my tuition wasn't that high then and it was high enough but I feel there was somebody that didn't get in when I did and I really wanted to continue as a vat and I think quitting you know a couple years in is kind of like oil bad choices by veterinary schools on who they selected.
But by the same token I just felt this responsibility and I isn't going to retire you know at 40 or anything like that and financially I could have retired six years earlier but well I didn't want to I loved what I did but I did in deep down.
Feel a sense of responsibility responsibility to my clients to my staff to Society for the fact that they gave me this absolute privilege of being a vet and it has been an absolute privilege to do what I've done.
I worked hard at it but still there's a lot of people that would like to have been where I was.Can we forget that?So don't quit find some part of it that you can enjoy.Okay, so that's Elizabeth in her story.
I love her guts.I'll just jump on a plane and move to a new continent.I'll just go straight off the plane and go to euthanize a horse, start a practice to start a research project, write a series of books, love that energy, but I promised you a little bit extra for this episode.
I had some more questions.So here they are with psychologists, Dwayne Smith.First question at this point in time in Australia it's Christmas, you're alone in the Outback in a little practice things aren't going well with you mentally.
What?So first step, would you go with it?Look he it's an interesting one in the isolation.I think this is something that comes up for me as a psychologist even though she may have a good team around and be with a daughter or what was going.There's a lot of people that don't have those sort of support networks that are that actually there and end up in a hotel room by themselves.
I think Isolation is a big one right loneliness calls that have existential loneliness that I'm the only one in here.Experiencing what I'm actually experiencing but there's some great organizations out there to ring and speak to a human being over the fine or even digitally these days.
But speak to another human voice because it is about attachment.So one of the main protective factors around suicide, particularly all depression and mental health, is that you doing it alone?So, you need to connect to somebody.So I'll protect a factor is actually to Age.So that's why those things like are you okay days that happen around Australia and we can you know, laugh at the Simplicity of it.
But it is actually extremely effective which is that if you're seeing someone in distress or you seeing someone even if you know you're not seeing active signs of Tears or that they're they're burdened.But there there's something is not right with them that you know the RO are you, okay?
It's so there's another human being actually reaching out now for somebody who's feeling that that hasn't got those people around them, you know, beyondblue Is a really good helpline.Samaritans, around Australia for you can call that and speak to somebody 24/7.There's a, you know, obviously the kids is kids, sort of help lines in the kids do.
Use the help lines but it depends on our age, right?Because it's, there's, there's that sort of, still that stigma around about what, how do I reach out and who do I reach out to?And do I really want to do a really want to share the burden of what's going on?And those things can be barriers to people seeking support.
So there's two edges of what do I do and and My willing to do that reach out.So that's an internal individual responsibility.Look, you know, I think it is embarrassment that I'm not coping particularly if you look in a competitive work environment and what the culture is in within the work environment and you know, a lot more about the vet industry than me.
But you know, to be able to put your hand up and go.Look, I'm not actually doing too.Well, is seen as possibly a fire and I think this is changing culturally in Australia in particular, but that whole idea of, you know, before even asking for help or saying that you're not, okay, is the recognition within yourself that it's not.
Rod's.That might be your sleeping patterns are out your you worrying or ruminating about something.You're going down the rabbit.Hole thing, he about things is socially isolating with.So you're not taking on opportunities to go and speak with people or talk to people other than work stuff.You know, that is lethargic that you're not eating.
Well, all those sort of, well-known sort of signs that things are just outright with my body are usually, some of the things are not right with my brain because you know, there's a there's a mirror sort of thing going on there.You can't be not great and your brain and also great in your body.But in saying that some people do really well to mask it, right?
So you'll see people that on the outside.They got put up this big proxy self, which is, I'm all right.And I'm doing okay, that helps them and sustains it through and it's part of resilience.But we've got to be real and actually be vulnerable and to connect other human beings.And so, back to your question, we feel that we may be judged.
If we say, I'm sad, I'm Pressed.I'm lonely and isolated and we think that we are a burden and other human beings but an interesting happening happens here.It's human empathy, right?Which is that there's that we see inside someone, who's saying that our own sadness, and we want to connect, we want to attach.
We're basically, we're mammals, and we want to actually engage with other mammals in a social and support of sort of way the majority of us and look a lot of research points towards that.The, you know, I if I if I asked and someone's not going to be there for me is a big barrier, but the research suggests that I think it's a 90 91 a ride that 90% of people who will go out of their way to support you and do something about it.
Nine percent of people might not given the circumstances about what's going on for them and 1% of people just won't write stuck so, you know, it's pretty good percentage.Yeah.Yeah.If I think about it, For myself.But then also what I imagined in Elizabeth's guys a couple of stumbling blocks would be a, the people who become vet a problem solvers, and again, is a selection process that you just coping just qualifying as a veteran, coping as, if it requires some resilience and problem solving skills, and then our job is to fix other people's problems and then suddenly I'm the one with the problem and I go well I fix problems.
So I've got to fix this instead of acknowledging that maybe I'm not Best person for the job and then for people like a practice owners again, people are depending on you, they feel like, well, if I tap out because I'm not doing well, it's my practice.
What about my team?What about my daughter?What about any don't about the people?You know, you don't lots of us feel like you don't want to be a burden to somebody else.That's really good to hear that.Does he say?Most people actually don't want to be burdened by that?Yeah, you know, and I think this is a reciprocal Loop that actually happens to You feel quite sad a real and human when you've heard someone go that.
Well, I'm not, I'm not coping really well and you will engage with that because you're engaging to tear for yourself, on lots of levels.To because you recognize that within somebody, I'll tell you a really quick anecdote right eye.I decline it came in, it was quite high level management who burst into tears.
When he came to the rim on his first start of session.And he said, I think I'm going insane.I've been driving around looking for trees that I could just flip my car off the road into and, you know, me Really the suicide stuff come up for me and he was stalking through tears and I and I said, you know, you're wanting to end your life and he said, oh no, no, no I want I just I've looked at it and I just want to hit the tree hard enough that I could break my femur.
So I could have like two months off work, right?And then started crying.I see that, I know it's stupid.It's romantic is, it's just, you know, it's that crazy and he couldn't, he wasn't coping, it was stressed out very depressed.Not sleeping at all.
And he had equated.I could, I can legitimately how the time of work versus putting my hand up and going, I can't do this anymore.I need time off work, right?So we had to work through this conundrum.Being able to say I'm not.
Okay, and I actually didn't take a little bit of an extended break and I don't have to bring my femurs.Well, I mean it's insane, it's insane.But I've been there man.Yeah I've been there not not quite as extreme but I there was a possibility of knee surgery.Hmm.
And a part of me went.Fuck yes.Kick back for him, right?What a great excuse just to just chill a little bit, you know, this totally rational Rod but it was Whatever its timeout, right?It's tied up in.
I can divest from my responsibilities and accountabilities that I want on a daily basis which is why we're stressed and moving into a place where no one's going to contact me.No one needs anything after out of me, right?And this is like I'm the same way you know?I mean you know I have meltdowns, another meltdown in what March this year actually for just a couple of days where I just have to pull back from things and you know, I spent the whole bloody week crying and, you know, really upset about Stuff.
And it was extended grief over the death of my ex-wife.I think they don't once my kids had been doing really well.I just got to that point that I wanted to, you know, it was my time, we basically did.So it's quite complex grief stuff that was coming up for me because all my kids are doing well because I went into clinical dad mode for three years after she passed and mate.
And when they are actually okay then allowed my stuff to come at so Sykes, go through it.Look everyone goes through it, you know.And and I think it's good to talk about and it's good to raise your hand.And good to say I'm actually needing something the present point in time whether it's just a week off, or even like a couple of days off or 3 month off because it's, you know, the longer you leave it the longer you need, right?
And that's an aside that what I do is regular trips to as, you know, to barley in a foil for, you know, I regularly take a weekend off or regularly take a day off during the week.And I schedule that in now.And I think people in this fast-paced world don't schedule in enough.
I think it's called non-strategic time off where a lot of us who are busy and working in high-stress professions, when we take days off, it's not, it's actually non-strategic.And by that is that will go and do something else.Yeah.You think day 9 of, so you can mow the lawn and clean the gutters and and catch up and grow.
And that's not strategic time off.That's actually just organizing your diary, to do another activity.So the doing stuff rather than the being.This is a detour.I mean, I'm interested in what you talk about their you Current dad, caretaker mode.And then once the taking care of others, burden was shifted that things came to the fore and I think that goes back to my question comes back to what I was saying earlier, where we in constantly and I roll in that Kate a commode.
I'm taking care of others, there's no space for me.Is that why you sometimes have a crash made a far cleaner?Not a car, crash, and break your femur crash.But, but when you take time off because suddenly you've got a break and Some of that burden shifted and then this it comes out is that what happens if that's what happens right?
Because there's space in there for it to come out but the problem with you know which is that look a bit of stress.Okay right.But extended stress is not and it's the vicarious - of the job roles that you do is, you know, as well.It's very people sent sentence humanistic, you're dealing with grief and loss and death and pain and and all that stuff.
But also the good stuff that comes out of that ride but I think that it just catches up over.A time.And and it's, it's they're bubbling with you analogy is or a metaphor, is it?This is the pots feeling full of steam your domain.And you gotta let off every now and then and no matter how much you work.
And for how long you work.And for whatever stuff you take on you it at some point that's still bubbling away.So I think that when we take our eye off the ball and usually for a lot of people who have got quite successful in professions such as veterinary medicine or in medicine and in are all in, Psychology in that sort of Realm as well.
Is that once you take the foot off the gas, it'll blow up in your face and you know, I think for a lot of people we overworking sometimes is a coping strategy.So we won't let us have space because we do, if we really sat and we didn't, we had strategic time off where we were non-strategic time off, we just sat with it and we thought about how what's going on.
Everybody wants going in our brain that it would overwhelm us and we'd cry.So there's an Audience of feeling sad, obviously, and by okay, well, I'm just, I'm just too busy to look at me and inside my heart inside.My brain is, so you don't do it.
And then you'll listen, you get really good at not doing it.And then you get really good at putting other things into your life to stop you looking at it, right?So, an example might be, you know, you know, playing bands.And I like to record and I like to do motorbike stuff.
And I like to do all this stuff and that's really good when they're all in Balance, but sometimes Just going to do nothing.I'll be actually just got to sit there and focus within the present and go what's actually happening for me.And what do I need to sort of find to rectify?And sometimes there might not be time off, it might actually be that it's just working less or spending more time with my kids or spending more time with my partner or, you know, spending more time walking we've got a we've got to look at that.
And then fine, tune and tweak it.David Mann.Sounds like great.I need to organize another bike trip with you to body because all this stuff is saying is resonating like, yeah, yep.Yep.Is he right there?
They're awesome.The trips.You know, I need that a few of them and then, you know, that whole idea of doing it.But what's immediately goes through your head right is, or when am I going to fit that in, right?Well, how can I fit that in and I think, for me, anyway, the tender age of 55, is that I actually, Our ties that now more than I've ever done in my life, where I go, you know what?
Now I'm going to spine, or you know what?No, I'm going to actually take that wig off this afternoon.I'm going to actually just, you know, I'm not going to do those reports today.I'm going to do them tomorrow, and I'm actually going to binge watch Netflix right, sit around and sleep.This is so different to most of the stuff we hear, because Podcasts and books and productivity tips and shit doesn't allow for that it's like it's all finding new ways to avoid the desire for the Netflix binge because it's a waste of your time.
Well, that's the thing.The cultural thing which is like it's lazy because it's not an active way, it's about flipping it around which is that it's not about being lazy.It's actually assisting your productivity have time off to actually recharged because you're a lot more product productive.
Where if you're not stressed, It out, right?Because you just tinkering around the edges when you got so much on your desk.So to be able to sort of do that and I think sleep is a massive thing, right?I mean, all the research around sleep, the more and more we look into it.I mean, do you know that during REM sleep?
It's the only time that the noradrenaline system in your body gets turned off, right?It's the only time we're only when you're in rem now.So people who don't get good sleep and don't get good, REM sleep, have a Tenuous adrenergic system sort of working there within their body all the time right now, that's just stress system when that's active, as you would know, and when that's activated, you know, it's fight or flight, you're in there.
You got to amygdala activities going on.It's all your whole body sort of in there.Now, that's really good when you need to work on when you need to do stuff, but you got to switch it off.We've got to switch off.It's about working out.Individually, what sort of fits, you your body, your sleep, your mental health, and then design A life around it, not letting your life design, put those expectations on you.
So it's a flip that needs to happen around mental health and I think that the, our Western system of productivity at all costs.On lots of levels is counter-intuitive and counterproductive to to happiness and contentment.You need to come talk to her eyes to tell her that when I'm lying on the couch watching TV and the Lord needs to be mind doing it for a reason.
It's not Not lazy.Yeah, that's right.I said wine said it's non-strategic time off and it's essential to my mental health and productivity in going for and she's they're dealing with the the other question.
In back to my episode in her story.She talks about That tough period for her.She goes out to a farm and she's so scatterbrained and everywhere else there that, the one of the clients notices that she's wearing two belts and is like what's fuckin seat belts and she she just goes yeah, sorry my head somewhere else.
Being that guy ml being the colleague at work or, you know I've got a story that I almost don't want to tell but I back in Perth, I had a It's a guy.Have it moved in to my neighbors, a little flat in the back after he was getting divorced and I don't we chatted over the fence like I had going well, but not not a friendship at all, but I distinctly remember be looking at it.
One day going.Fuck you look so unhappy and I it went through my head to go here is a prime Candidate For Suicide.And he did, he did with a couple of months later, he did commit suicide.And you go.Oh, fuck howdy.And I the reason I never, you know, I thought that but I never did anything about it is because it's really scary if you recognize somebody like that and you go poof, that persons not doing great and specifically talking suicide, the enough that if you're actually thinking is shit, is this person is suicide rates?
Because again, I've spoken to friends and colleagues often who said, yeah, I've got a friend or an old colleague or somebody who's going down a path that I'm really uncomfortable with how he start that conversation.What do you say?What do you do?At it, I'm not a psychiatrist, talk them through it.
So yeah, what the recommendations especially message there minear that must have been difficult because, you know, but and suicide and had sort of a lot of, you know, it's been born.So part of my life for the last 35 years.Really, not just with clients, but with friends and families and things like that as well.But but you don't need to be.
I think the biggest myth is that, you don't need to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or we trained in mental health to talk.To another human being, right?Yeah, I mean you were well qualified as you know as I know you is a beautiful human being with a good heart.
Right?And I think they are barriers to sort of just going like I said before the simpler you okay mate.You need to have a yarn or a beer or two, just sort of connect.There's that barrier for us all that.I think that you know, we look even as psych sometimes because some of it is and we have to be honest about this is, do we really want to know?
Do we have time in our lives to be able to deal with?Hi Doyle.So, in that scenario, that I talked about, that was my excuse.I had a lot of shit going on, so I didn't feel like that, emotional burden.Yeah, a big tighter so selfish, but, but you know what?
I think it's protective right along the levels because, you know, we want, might want to melt down and look, we need to look at reality here, too, right?Suicide risk assessments that are done by psychiatrists and psychologists tribe with the piece of paper, they're printed on because suicide risk is never static, right?
It doesn't sort of, you know, and stay there.It'll whooping.I've had clients that I've suicide risks in the morning who completed in the afternoon?This is.And, you know, people family members that I that I was with them, almost sort of 24/7 that have managed to do it and I think I've told you about they, so it's You know, we can't save every soul to write.
So this whole idea of that suicide is totally preventable, is a misnomer.What we can do is everything that we can do on some level.That's right.And it's not about burdening.This with the guilt that we could have done more, we do what we can at the time that we can with the resources that we actually have.
And I think when you strip part all the research around it, some people who actually haven't completed or have an attempted suicide when you go and ask them about what that Was it might have been that they actually noticed an animal, right?Our, you know, bird in the tree or it might have notice that a smile on a child's face or a minor, notice that their neighbors said, hey you going, which made them go.
But there is someone else out there for me and might have been meant that they got on a podcast like yours, right?And they heard something that resonated with them.They felt like they were connected to a bigger thing to a greater thing and they weren't as lonely.So those protective mechanisms can be very wide and very Married, but I think the thing is to me is that it's a lot about being that I'm not alone and I've part of something else that's, that's actually greater than me.
And and there's some meaning and me staying in this world and it's a, it's quite intangible and sometimes magical.And I think the biggest risk factor is when people are very, very emotionally, disregulated or drunk, right?
Or under the influence of drugs because the rationality He around no one's going to miss me in the disinhibition, isn't there?You can imagine one of the first things that people talk about when they think about leaving this Earth is to go.No one's going to miss me, right?
Or other words, that we better off without me.That's a great, right?Yeah, exactly, right.So there's like they're doing their family a favor now that that takes a while to get to right, but it doesn't take a while to get to if you're drunk or Using drugs because you descended and you start thinking about that sort of patterns.
What?So these are these are the policemen of the new cortex that can think rationally and say, oh, look that emotion, that you're feeling is bullshit.It's fine a better way.You switch that guy off with a little bit of chemical help and then those primitive brain of yours takes control and goes.
Yeah, there's this is a reasonable reaction.Yeah, I think, you know, the impulsivity is one of the highest risks as well.So if you're impulsive on nature and, you know, we're all in for more, Impulsive when were disseminated through drugs and alcohol.So they're rational brain has to be.There is a bit of a policeman over the top of it.Otherwise we'll do rash impulsive sort of things and a lot of completed suicides are they call it death through misadventure to?
I don't know if you've heard about that but there's sometimes you get death through misadventure because they don't know whether it's a suicide or whether it isn't a suicide because it might be a little bit out of character.They're driving fast, but ended up hitting tree and then they go with no skid marks there or they were You know, stepping on the side of a small building in fell off The Accidental, but maybe not accidental, sort of frightening.
Well, that's when the impulse of brain.I mean, why are you in high-risk situations like that to start off with but your rationally going into high-risk situation where it may or may not happen.So you know, the rational brain plays a really big part of that.And the rational brain kicks in.When you've got to convert another human being, right?
Your mentalizing about the impact of what you're saying on them and they're impacting this, but they're saying on you.So there's this Loop that goes Whatever, which actually makes the rational brain start to talk and have social reciprocity in your communication, which then sort of distraction away from that, that ledge, if that makes sense.
So talking about it is an amazing thing that variability of suicide risk that you mentioned that see.That's the scary thing for me specifically with vent.Because if you for the common person or the let's say, the average person on the street of ice suddenly wake up.
Anna from suicidal.I want to do it, I'll idealization or it takes a bit of planning.You can't just, it's not immediately accessible to you to go all.Like I'm feeling that right now, but I can't do anything about it.Or maybe by the time you've got your plan in action, it's past, or you've had some some, you know, somebody spoken to your something you mentioned.
But again, my guess their job was to had a equine, vet practice.She would have had a car full of lethal, Bob.Mmm.It's a win that impulse hits.The means the availability, the skill.It's all there.
So it's a very very quick to be very quickly from maybe this is a good idea to actually finishing the job, just really, really frightening and I don't know what it's writing my he's in means is an important risk factor when we are dealing with someone who have got a safety plan.
When someone is actually quite suicidal, we remove things like ropes poisons panels medicines.That sort of stuff from their environment that if there are, they are in that state that is damn.Got ease of doing it, right?So that's almost Step 1.
So you bring up a really really important point which is that ours are working vet is depressed and possibly suicidal it there.Different sort of Sage's.I'm a, how do you remove that risk when they need needed as part of their everyday, working tool kit?It's a great question here.
And I don't know what the answer is to that.I think it is the pre-emptive.Stuff which they never get to the point or their assisted early intervention and educated around that.If they do get to that point it's actually not safe for them to be carrying around that sort of stuff.
And if it was any other profession, they wouldn't have access to it back to those conversations.If you do think, there's somebody interests, do you ask like is it because it sounds like such a kind of fronting scary shit, scary question to say to somebody because you mentioned it earlier, you said to somebody are you thinking of sir?
Is that a suicidal?Is that a question that you asked, or is it just a gauging in the conversations?Hey, how's things?What's happening?And anything I reason I ask is, I did it online.Suicide prevention thing and they said that it's very important that you front up and ask I use it.
I might not just.Are you okay day?I actually thinking of view that major suicide is that this is something that you ask.Yeah, well, what I do is, you know, the I okay is a good, you know, the And they are close to the relationship, you've got with the person but I think it's a good starter and then I wouldn't stop there which is that you know are you really okay?
Is there risk here?You know I actually actively suicidal right now, there's things called non concrete just to go a little bit into you know, pulling it apart a little bit.Someone who has got a concrete plan, is it a really high risk.So that tomorrow at 2:00, I'm going to take a length above dose.
Someone is planning that stuff, they're moving their schedule around that.They've been thinking about that, not just impulsively.So we spoke about the importance.Pulse of stuff that happens when people are not in a rational.Sort of mind when they're emotionally disregulated, that's a risk.The other risk, the higher higher risk is to someone who's planned it.
And, you know, they've got their note already that sort of stuff.So that's a concrete planning of a death date or a death time, right?They've got it all in place so we check out what's going on.So probably in that question, are you planning to hurt yourself, right, is the first sort of thing I would probably say.
Have you got an act of plan around?You going to do and how that would happen.You know, I and if they've got a date, then there are really high-risk.Now, they may be telling you that and they may not tell you that to remember, sometimes that happens to, I would imagine that you wouldn't do.If you've got a plan, the last thing you want is for somebody to intervene.
So you're saying, no, no stop right?Say they were they say, do they?Well, I think it goes back to the state which is, I've got too many barriers for me, even asking for help, but I'm not that highly suicidal.But you know, I need help with my mental health.Through to, I've got help-seeking Behavior.
I actually want to want to get some assistance with this but I've done not sure how like, well we're talking about to.I've made a plan and the help-seeking behavior stops and I'm actually going to complete suicide right now.That's the danger one.That's why it's high-risk.You can extreme my risk and sometimes you don't even know about that.
But you might see, you know, I had a friend.But while I was studying, as a psychologist, when I was in the very first year, second unique who was in the band scene that came in I have to ask these three guys living there in the band and gave us all her posters, all a band posters and some of her albums, right?
And she said, I'm just moving.I'm just needing to get rid of some stuff and I thought you guys might like a we said no worry Center and have a drink with, you know, full days later she'd overdosed.Now one of those things is I'm giving away my stuff, you almost planning a death.They're saying things that are usually don't say to you, you know, from a way you get a spike right?
Sometimes where they actually moved lifts.When they know that they're going to do it.So, any unusual behavior is that there are, you know, this is why it's so hard you because you don't know whether just having a great day, right?And that things are turning the corner or that is what happened with my partner's brother that he seemed actually okay and there's live in a unit right next to us.
And he was connected to all the services you doing really, really well.And it wasn't till after we, you know, that we found him that we checked his phone and had been on suicide.How do you hang yourself?Stuff for four weeks.Right now, we weren't aware that number try and bloody clinical side.
You know, that's, that's this living in the house next to him monitoring him.Having a cup of tea with him, every time he goes to bed and inviting them all this sort of stuff and I didn't even see what was going on.So I think all we can do is ask the question and be curious.And look, if we got an inkling, all they're going to say is or know, or don't be so silly if they don't want to tell us right?
But if we say I'm really Really concerned about you.This intuitively I'm just feeling that you need to have need some support, if that's what you're feeling you know you're either going to be right or you're going to be wrong and if you're wrong that's okay.They think the another human being cares about and that's a big bonus and a big tip and if you're right at least opens up the door or window that it that they can go through to connect with you and possibly not do it.
So recap for yourself, recognize that you're not doing well.Hmm, and connect, make sure you connect to somebody And as an outsider asked, if you think there's an issue just ask and be curious in that in that be don't hold back because of shame or embarrassment it because the end product is going to be that this person really cares about me and that could be a protective Factor your Legend.
When thank you so much.For the very short notice, the you're like, you and thank you for inviting me on your wonderful cast happy to help.

Elizabeth Woolsey Herbert