E40: Conquering Invisible Wounds: A Journey with PTSD and Healing in the Great Outdoors with Joe Winch

When we think of scars from service, we often picture physical injuries. But what about the injuries we can't see? Complex PTSD, a condition brought on by repeated traumas, is one such invisible wound. Our guest today is Joe Winch, a former Royal Marine who was medically discharged due to complex PTSD and hearing issues. Listen to Joe's powerful story of service, trauma, and healing as he found solace in the world of climbing and mountaineering after conventional treatments failed to impact his recovery.

We delve into the healing power of the great outdoors, as Joe recounts his experiences with the charity 65 Degrees North and Climb to Recovery. Discover how mountain expeditions and outdoor activities can play a pivotal role in managing PTSD symptoms and aiding mental health rehabilitation.

The struggle is real when it comes to balancing family life and time away. We shed light on this delicate balancing act, reflecting on our own struggles and sharing how mountaineering and adventure can serve as a therapeutic escape. Hear how a supportive and understanding family can motivate recovery, and how involving them in outdoor activities can bring about numerous benefits. So, join us for an enlightening discussion on mental health, adventure, community, and the transformative effects of the great outdoors. Life may not be a smooth climb, but with the right mindset and support, we can all conquer our mountains.

https://www.c2r.org

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome, Joe Wynch. How are you?

Speaker 2: 0:01

Yeah, good thanks, mate. Thanks for inviting me along.

Speaker 1: 0:04

No, thanks for joining us. I think, as I said just before we started recording your cough and sneezing from last week, you've passed that on to me for some how so.

Speaker 1: 0:15

I'll have to say excuse me before we start. I did one of my nature walks that I had to one of my personal ones, you know for a little reset the other night and it was absolutely lashing it down. I felt great at the time. I've not felt very good since. Yeah, thanks for joining us, mate. I hope you're feeling better. Yeah, much better. Would you just give the listeners a brief introduction about yourself and then we'll look more in depth at why we thought it was a great idea to get you on and tell your story and tell us about Climb to Recovery.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Yeah, of course. Yeah, so my name is Joe Wynch. I'm the Chief Executive of a charity called Climb to Recovery. I'm an ambassador for the Royal Marines Charity as well, and prior to this, I served in the Royal Marines for 20 years and was medically discharged in 2021 with complex PTSD and some hearing problems as well. I guess the reason I'm here is because I've found that, through my recovery, conventional treatment hasn't had the impact or as much of an effect as I had always hoped it would, which has left me with some pretty challenging symptoms and conditions to deal with day to day, and the one thing that I find that does really help with that is climbing and mountaineering, being in the outdoors, being with great people, the activity of climbing and mountaineering, which is why I'm so passionate about, you know, advocating the outdoors to people and talking about this.

Speaker 1: 1:43

We've had. It was Becca, won't it Becca, have you? Also? She reported that she was suffering from complex PTSD and she found the outdoors on the cold swimming. Would you better tell us a little bit about what's the difference between complex PTSD and PTSD? I think people are sort of further term PTSD quite regular now, especially with me talking about my PTSD. We had this complex PTSD, so how does that figure with yourself?

Speaker 2: 2:09

In simple terms, the distinction is where you have many traumas or many stresses and those are accumulated over, you know, often years or decades, then the trauma is not so straightforward to unpack as if it's perhaps a single standalone event, which is of course not simple and it's not straightforward at all. But in terms of trying to treat that or unpack that, you at least know what you're dealing with. And I guess the complex bit is oftentimes we don't know necessarily where it started, where it finished, all of the ins and outs of what's actually contributing to that.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Yeah, I was in a conversation once talking about this and I think what sprung to mind was like trying to pick out the layers of a v-aneter. Do you remember them?

Speaker 2: 2:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Yeah, so very difficult and very complex. How are you gonna pick each of them layers out and remove them from the layer below or the layer above? I hope that simplifies it for some. Can we go back to your time in the Royal Marines 20 years that's? I mean, I don't want to put your words in your mouth, but I would assume there was active service in that, over what we've gone through in the last few years.

Speaker 2: 3:20

Yeah, yeah, I joined as an officer in 2002. So my career very quickly became very focused in on Afghanistan and I deployed out there twice. But I don't think that tells the whole story really, because although I only went out there for two seven month deployments 2006 into 2007 and then again 2008 into 2009, the reality was that for probably a period of about eight years, that was my life. Even when I wasn't there, I was getting ready to go, or I was doing a job that was all about servicing the frontline, or I had friends, good friends, colleagues that were out there for a period about eight years. And I'm not alone in that experience. There's pretty much, you know, all of us that were there and involved. That was the reality. Yeah, it was a really intense sort of eight, eight, nine year period for about 2006 onwards. But I guess you know I didn't. I can now look back and I can see a very definite point where trauma started for me. But what it didn't do after that very first experience, what it didn't do was leave me waking up in a night with nightmares. It didn't leave me a jubbering wreck. It didn't become immediately apparent that there was a problem. But over the course of that first seven month deployment. There were other things that then happened and they built up on that first experience. It added to it and accumulated and then I came home and it carried on and then I was back out there before I knew it again and it carried on and, interestingly, I kept things together pretty well.

Speaker 2: 4:51

I think after those two operational deployments I got married. I was promoted twice at the front of my peer group. I was getting great jobs and doing really well for myself. I got two master's degrees during that time as well. So you know, on the face of it, on the face of it, it looks like. It looks like I'm doing really really well, I was doing really really well.

Speaker 2: 5:12

But in the background there's this condition which is kind of laying dormant until the birth of a few things. A few things happened. There was a birth of our third child, lexi. She arrived. She was beautiful. We were looking forward to meeting her. Amy was absolutely fine.

Speaker 2: 5:27

Afterwards I've been promoted and I've moved jobs from. I changed jobs, from being in a small office with just a couple of people to them being on a course with two, three, 400 people and quite suddenly I went from being really involved, really engaged with life to suddenly unable to in a cope with really very simple things that previously have been very natural to me. So, looking after my children, I couldn't get physically or emotionally close to Lexi. I was struggling at home tremendously. At work, I was finding things that would ordinarily I'd really enjoy and find very interesting. I was struggling to keep up with what was going on around me, but of course, I'd just had a third child just been promoted with moved house. There were all these other reasons why I might be struggling and might be having trouble. That kind of explained it away, perhaps. So I guess we were kicking. I kept kicking it into the distance. Give it another week, see how we're doing, give it another week.

Speaker 2: 6:27

But then the anger started. I was getting very angry now, getting increasingly confused. Sleep was a real problem Getting to sleep, staying asleep and feeling alive and awake in the mornings, and so, yeah, there was a very definite deterioration from the summer of 2016 through to about the Easter of 2017, by which point, yeah, life was really chaotic and I knew something wasn't right and I had resolved in my mind that I would be going to see a doctor to have a chat about things. But in the days before that I'd been summoned for like a routine hearing test. This is one of those where you have, you know, headset on, like we're wearing now, and you've got a little button and I'm sat there in this booth and the sounds start coming through and all of a sudden, three or four sounds come through on each ear that felt like somebody coming up and clapping their hands right next to my head. You know, it hurt me physically hurt me. I was sweating, I was angry, my heart rate was going, and then it happened again and again and I was up on the floor in this booth, totally out of character and you know this had never knowingly happened before and burst out of the booth and said to the nurse you know that was really offensive, that really hurt Something up with the machine. And she explained that there's nothing wrong with the machine but there's clearly something going on with you. And I think that was the moment where I discovered, almost like the elephant in the room, and as I left the surgery, then the way it was meant to work was you go away for a week and then you come back and have another test.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Well, as soon as I left that room, I realized that all noise, every single noise, was going right through me and causing me enormous levels of discomfort. I genuinely don't know how I hadn't noticed it before, but I guess I think in that state of mind where I was just clinging on and trying to keep things going, I wasn't looking at what was happening to me and what was going on. And all of a sudden I've been given cause to take a bit of a look at what is going on and it was seriously dysfunctional. Yeah, noise was causing all of these physiological responses that were just out of control. So I very quickly had ended up back with the GP thinking I had a problem with my hearing, which I did. But the GP so very quickly brings me around to you know the idea that, although there are hearing problems, we're also dealing with an acute response to prior trauma. This is called PTSD, which was a huge shock, a huge shock.

Speaker 1: 8:57

I mean, there's a few things in there, isn't there? I would go and mention that or ask about that with this. You know, would these sounds have been a reaction to occasions that you've been involved in, the sort of lay dormant and then trigger like triggers, isn't it? That's what people talk about with PTSD and mental health is triggers.

Speaker 2: 9:15

Yeah, so for me, I think I have this double set of challenges. Almost every case of PTSD is very, very unique and I guess what makes mine unique is this double set of challenges where I have hearing problems, so I have hearing loss, but I also hearing damage. I also have condition called hyperacusis, where normal sound feels three to four times louder to me than most other folk. And on the PTSD side of things, noise and sound is my biggest trigger. So I have this reality where I'm really really really sensitive to sound. Sound is a lot more loud to me. I can also physically feel it and it is also the biggest trigger of my PTSD, which the two interact in ways which I'm still learning to, you know, learning to understand and but it but it makes life, it makes life Extremely difficult.

Speaker 1: 10:09

I mean from my own experience, which I can sort of relate to with I suppose it's slightly different was having people behind me. Because of the incident I was involved in which caused a lot of problems when I was working on doors. I had to stand with me back and some sometimes I still. If I go to sit down for food, I'll go out, or I go into a pub I have to sit me back to the wall because I was attacked from behind and it's weird. It's like a like an extra sense that you can know there's someone behind you. So I suppose this is where it comes into the hyper acute sort of sensitivity to these things.

Speaker 2: 10:38

I think if I didn't have PTSD and I just had hyperacusis life Rather, let's have a look at it the other way around. If I, if I just had PTSD, it would be difficult, but I could. You know PTSD though is, it's somewhat predictable. If that, if that makes, if that makes sense, there are, you have these triggers and you can, as long as you can manage life carefully, you can manage those triggers and you can manage your your way through life fairly effectively. That doesn't mean it you're cured. It doesn't mean that life is easy. It just means that knowledge of the triggers Can allow you somewhat to try and manage it.

Speaker 2: 11:14

But then, where I have this hyperacusis, that ransacks any capacity that I have to try and manage it, because every single noise, every single sound in life is knocking up against me and and and exhausting me and triggering me. That's the really difficult sort of combination of things that I have to try and manage and I do manage, I try to manage it and I'm getting, you know, a lot of help from my wife and my kids and and I've. But I, you know, I guess the really big thing has been the mountains, though, climbing and being outdoors, because it's it's calmer out there right, that's why I've ended up sat here.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Really, would it be say, managing, I think, the mountains and the outdoors? Yeah, definitely a therapy, without me knowing it was a therapy, but also a bit of a distraction as well, which I wanted to ask you. You did too much masters degrees and the job changes that you were doing within the, within the Enforcers. Do you think they were distracting you from possibly the symptoms? But, with your opinion, manage the symptoms more without them coming to an acute level where you know their effect in your life?

Speaker 2: 12:13

I've thought about this quite a bit and you know what? What does PTSD do? It's a stress, it's a stress condition, right, and it what it does is inject a load more stress into our lives from the very get go, from right, from the very moment you're up in the morning and, depending on the amount of trauma that one has experienced, will will obviously determine how much stress is put into that, into that, into that day before you're out of bed. With Hindsight, I can look back and I can see that actually, for a few years, the amount of stress that the trauma had created it almost created. Like stress isn't necessarily and always a bad thing. It can stimulate, it can motivate, it can focus us and I and I think there is a truth to the fact that you know some of my Trauma gave me that extra drive, that extra focus, that extra motivation to To do the jobs that I've been asked to do. But it didn't make me a better person, it didn't make me more effective, it just gave me a furiousness to life. You know where it was.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Just, I pursued the master's degrees because I I had an interest in the areas in which I I was looking to sort of Learn about certain areas and interests and stuff, and I have a bit of a thirst for information. So I wanted to understand more about what gone on in Afghanistan and why, which led to my first master's degree, and the second then came from a sort of concern With how the military was organized, or not organized, to look after people, and I'm, yes, so. So that's how those two had come about. I'm sort of rambling a bit, charlie, I know.

Speaker 1: 13:49

You know it's not, it's all, it's all relative mate, because, like I say, when me going through my PTSD and you did say something earlier which I totally agree with 100%, that your pete, you know it's your PTSD and it's unique, I know a five. When I'm speaking to people and I've meant, if I mentioned that I've you know I was diagnosed with PTSD the first thing that people say is, oh, we win the forces. Well, no, I wasn't, because this is what brought it to the forefront the number of service staff, that service personnel it was coming back with bit in diagnosed with PTSD and with the I don't know, it's the US forces, american forces, the, the figures involved of People coming back from these war zones taking their own lives. You know, and it's you know that's Forced, these, this research and a lot of research going on and then and looking into the causes and it's, you know, ptsd. But it's not.

Speaker 1: 14:41

People shouldn't really believe that PTSD is just something, like you've said anywhere with the Complex pete is something that is just about one massive traumatic incident. You know this. These things can be triggered by something that's, you know, they dormant for years and years and I don't know, is it a new way of thinking, is it? Oh, we just better under, is it better understanding? So I'm gonna mention a book again Seb course go ahead. Yeah, because Because Joe mentioned it on his chat on his mountain in and climbing instructor, I've seen it there. The body keeps the score. Which a fantastic book if anybody wants to understand PTSD we spoke about this book.

Speaker 1: 15:16

We have, we have and then there's also another one that I read called working the tiger, just to explain to listeners where somebody had gone for counseling and working, working the tiger, and she knew there was some issue. It was, she had physical problems, but when they were talking to her it released an emotional reaction To something that had happened that she didn't know and she'd been abused as a child. And this is a, this is how complex it is, and the brain, the brains way of Protecting the person. I believe so. You know, like you're saying, with the stress and living in that Constantly, living with the stress and, as you said again, the. You know stress is there as a, there's good stress and bad stress Isn't there, but living with PTSD is a constant stress exactly that.

Speaker 2: 15:56

Yeah, I think for me the book the body keeps a score was, and it totally transformed my understanding of what it was I was I was dealing with. I'll hold my hands up to having quite a naive understanding of what trauma and PTSD is and was before I was diagnosed and I guess I Optimistically had thought well, I've managed to get this far in life by being smart and trying hard and working hard towards things and and I had I figured, well, if I just have that same attitude towards this, then surely I can, I can think my way through, I can Smart my way out of it, I can train harder, be smarter, get, get fitter, stronger, healthier, and.

Speaker 2: 16:39

But it was almost like the harder I tried, the worse it would get. It was, yeah, it was reading that book, though, and I came across the section quite early on in it where he talks about the comparative brain scans between those with and without PTSD and the spectacular damage that's done to the brain, and he showed you. The book shows some of those images, and I think that was the point that I realized that this isn't something that you know. A positive mental attitude or a bit of optimism, courage, you know those things are important, but they're not going to get you through this. It's something far more profound and and destructive than I had ever given it credit for. But that book really opened my eyes to the, to the scale of the challenge, I think, and and transform my understanding of what that challenge, what that challenge was. This is not, this is not something that was just gonna magically disappear like a cold or, you know, any other injury. You can't just you can't just expect it to kind of ease up and go, go away.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Yeah, I think it gave me a bit of acceptance that it wasn't just what's that, how do I put it? It wasn't just a mood. It's not a, you know triggers emotions, but it's not just emotion. There's actual physiological changes to the brain and neural pathways have been changed. And actually, although it's my PTSD and, joe, your PTSD is your PTSD.

Speaker 1: 18:10

There are similar traits to what's happening with people, but everyone's unique and the reactions, yeah, you know, like my reaction, I got a cat coming on me back. So back to you know I had to be facing people don't like people, still don't like people me on me back and my, my reaction with that was Again, we'll go back to it was masking and distraction with alcohol and party and keeping myself busy, because in the quiet times Then the thoughts are there, that's resurfaced. But then that's how I got into the outdoors, much like yourself. During your introduction, joe, you mentioned that conventional treatment did not work for you. I can't even imagine there being any conventional treatment for PTSD because it's I don't know. Is there anything there that they said well, this will make you better.

Speaker 2: 18:54

There are various treatment, clinical treatments and that that the go-to toolbox for psychotherapists, psychologists and treating people with PTSD, cognitive behavioral therapy. I've movement Realization then, and there are and there are others. There are others too and, to be clear, I think for me that those treatments have all had a. They've all helped me, they've all helped me Understand what's gone on and why they help. They've helped me understand what I need to do day to day, week to week, to help manage this, but in terms of absolute recovery They've had very little impact at all, I would say, and that that has been, yeah, that's been really challenging, but I don't think I'm Alone either.

Speaker 2: 19:48

The numbers of people that sort of labeled, I guess, treatment resistant and to PTSD, like depression, some, some types of chronic depression, there are quite a high number of high number, overstates it.

Speaker 2: 20:03

There are some people that conventional treatment simply does not seem to gain traction and For whatever reason we are left, we go through all of that treatment and we are left nevertheless, with Still very debilitating symptoms, which is why there's so much excitement about the use of psychedelics and MDMA, particularly the sort of magemosh from the psilocybin and the MDMA in the treatment of these conditions, because it would look like from the, from the clinical trials that are going on with the use of that.

Speaker 2: 20:39

They're taking people who have got, you know, chronic depression, desperate, desperate depression, and others that have very, got very, very dysfunctional, chronic PTSD, and they're going in for, you know, one treatment with these, with these new medicines, and they're coming out with spectacular results, you know really mind-blowing results, which which potentially will transform psychiatry and psychology over the next, you know, five to ten years, because it takes people with with these desperate conditions that can't face living any longer and Suddenly there's an option for them, there's an opportunity for them to take a medicine and that doesn't need them to relive, that doesn't need them to go through months and years of Endless treatment and in a treatment is hard work.

Speaker 2: 21:29

It's hard, hard work and it's it creates volatility and the rest of life. It's exhausting and it's important, though right, it's important that we do that. It's really important to be committed to, to our recovery and to try everything that the professionals give us, but if it, but if it isn't working or if it doesn't give that, you know much of an absolute recovery, I think that the potential with these new medications is really really interesting and really really exciting.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Yeah, I know my initial initial therapy was medication which didn't agree with me, and then talking therapy and writing therapy. Now the writing therapy I think has ruined probably ruined rest of my life because I used to have to write an account of what happened each morning when I woke up for six months and I have such a Real issues with blocks of words and I've mentioned this on the, on the podcast, and it was only recently. It's only when doing the podcast actually this is sort of came to light. I think I've ready in what it might have been in the body keeps a score of this fear, of fear, wait. So it's an unconscious, an unconscious reaction to something that may be stimulating bad memories in the brain and I think, because I actually know about that now and it diagnosed, but it's something that I can actually work with. But that used to be when I to do some admin outcome I can, I come to kind of stellar, you know. I mean to sort of, oh, my bit, that's just I'll call it extra. I know we'll talk about it, yeah, but and and with a psychedelics, I can speak from some experience of being in a position where I thought I need to have a, I need to have a look at this and I don't mind saying that every now and again.

Speaker 1: 23:03

It might work for me, but is it's like a for me? For myself, it's a sense of reset. So, yeah, I've tried that, I'm at. But it also very similar to the Audiovisual entrainment that we did with Gavin Lawson. I don't know if you much caught up seeing that episode and fact. I'll send you. I'll send you the link to it, joe, because it's very similar, as in the store plays and the music plays and it opens up these Pathways and these patterns in your mind. Sepsse tried it as well and the relaxation Instantly and it very similar feeling afterwards for quite a while. So a bit of a reset and getting rid of the stress, releasing that stress. It's like the brains processing it.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Yeah, I think, I think anything, anything that can complement those, the current sort of go-to treatments, and that doesn't necessarily they require us to to relive whether that's free, you know, writing it over and over or talking about it over and over, or I think these other other treatments are, yeah, a real lifeline.

Speaker 1: 24:06

Yeah, really really interesting research has been able to open up again on that. I've read you that you'd summited Everest. When was that?

Speaker 2: 24:14

I was there 2019. Okay 21st of May. I was really lucky. It's a be part of a wonderful team of wind, of raw Marines, and we had climbed together, together in Alaska on Denali in 2018 and, yeah, the team got back together to go to Everest in 2019 and we were successful. The team was successful. We won. One of the team members unfortunately didn't submit, but but most of us, most of us, got up and we had it on a day where there was no, nobody up there either.

Speaker 2: 24:48

We had pretty much the mountain to ourselves, which, which is the way I think. If people go to Mount Everest, they that's the way they would wish it to be right, and that no long lines of people. We didn't. We didn't have a crowd the whole way, which was, which was great.

Speaker 1: 25:02

When did you realize or when did it come to you know, like you actually noticed, being in the outdoors, being in the mountains, the climbing, the mountaineering, this was Working for you.

Speaker 2: 25:13

I got my diagnosis in 2017. For about six months, I I wasn't, wasn't, I was really very unwell, but in earlier, early 2018, I I am starting to. Things were starting to settle down and I Climbing, climbing a mountaineering, being in the outdoors, had always been a big thing for me growing up, and I said to the people that were Helping me through my recovery In in the Royal Marines I said to them that I wouldn't mine Trying to go to the hills, and I was at the time I was thinking, you know out to South Wales or the Lake District, and I was thinking, quite modest objectives, just get me outside, and I think it might have. I think there might be something there. And those that were helping me Said, yeah, I can queue you up with these guys. They do, they, these, this group, a charity, another charity called 65 degrees north. They run expeditions and They've got something coming up. They might be able to take you out on it.

Speaker 2: 26:17

And that very quickly led to a flurry of emails and an invitation out to the Alps a few weeks, a few weeks later, which was which was a dream come true, really. It was a huge step though, but I think, because it was with other Royal Marines, many of whom had taken the time to meet me beforehand, and we were moving through small airports and staying in small places, small bed and breakfasts At the Alps. A lot of the concerns I have kind of mitigated and managed away. It was a big step though, but as soon as I got there and we got up onto the, into the mountains and yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:50

It was like a wait suddenly lifted. I could suddenly literally start seeing and thinking more clearly. You know, I'm just like the colors got put back into the world and my mind started Speeding up again in ways that it simply hadn't been able to. You know, I hadn't had a had a chance to kind of pull myself, my thoughts, my mind together to make sense of the diagnosis, because I'm just constantly in that battle in normal life. But you know, out there on the mountain, it just gave me a little bit of breathing space, and with that breathing space, it affords me that perspective, really valuable perspective. So I could, I could take those few steps back and just start to understand, think about and understand what's gone on and maybe why and it was, yeah, it was it was like light bulbs going off in my mind, like you know, there's definitely something here, and so, very fortunately, a month later we were off to Alaska and we spent a month on Denali, which was extraordinary, absolutely Extraordinary journey a really wonderful mountain and a wonderful journey, and so peaceful as well, and not not without its challenges, you know it's, it's very, yes, a very cold, cold mountain, and but but a wonderful journey.

Speaker 2: 28:01

I'd say, though, that the, the, that my time on Everest I wouldn't. That was. That was difficult, that was really. That was a really difficult journey. That wasn't the same. As you know, I don't go to the math. I Draw a different, a difference between why I go to the mountains normally and the benefits I get from the mountains and my, my time and experience on Everest, which which Was a lot more serious and a lot more Dangerous and a lot more stressful and it was exhausting. It wasn't much fun. It was wonderful being part of that team and they're a wonderful team and a wonderful bunch of people, but it wasn't. It wasn't fun, it wasn't easy, it was. It was very difficult and it exhausting. But I'm very grateful that I got that opportunity and it allowed me a wonderful platform from which to be at us, start talking about these things that are important to me. But I guess it also it led me to climb to recovery off the back of that expedition. Because the way that charity works is it'll pull the team together to go off and do an amazing adventure and you know really big adventures but as soon as the adventure is over that's that's kind of that's kind of it the team then disperses and you, you, you go on your own way and To me that that missed, that missed something, because I go to the mountains to be with people, not to be necessarily on my own, and I love the challenge of working together with people and building teams and going for objectives and going for goals. And, yeah, I was really lucky to come across across climb to recovery in the later latter part of 2019.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Even initially, I got involved as a as a beneficiary, as a member, and it was great.

Speaker 2: 29:45

They were running a year-round program or at the time it was maybe six, seven courses over over Over a year, and what I found was this community of wounded veterans in circumstances and situations very, very similar to mine, but who were often two, three, four years ahead of me in their journey and who were able to give me the most incredible bits of wisdom and insight into you know, how to live or how to approach these challenges, and it was so refreshing. And so it was a community. It was a community of great people and I just really relished that, I think, being medically discharged from the military, it's tight-knit group of people that you live with, you, you fight alongside to have that ripped away and for nothing to be there. On the other side of it, it's very lonely, it's very disorientating, but all of a sudden we climb to recovery. I'm replicating the very best bits of my military service Wonderful community of people, regular adventures in the outdoors, and we're all working towards, you know, some sets of objectives, goals, qualifications, whatever it is. Yeah, that's, that's been really.

Speaker 1: 30:55

That's been a really Great community and a great project to be involved with you know you mentioned adventure that Clive to recovery, Run and operate, provide, and what sort of adventures are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 31:06

the charity's been delivering activity since 2016?. It became a registered charity in 2019 and this year, in 2023, we became an affiliated club of the British mountaineering council and a mountain training skills course provider as well. The big achievement this year has been Delivering something every single month of the year, normally a four or five day fully funded residential course for wounded, injured, sick, disabled, service people or veterans, and we we will welcome people that have had had no climbing experience at all all the way through to those that have. They've done some really exciting, really interesting interesting climbing, and and as soon as we've, as soon as we've got them involved, then a whole load of other courses will become available to them. Whether they want to do Multi-pitch climbing or scrambling, whether they want to be a rock climbing structure or a mountain leader or an international mountain leader, maybe they want to go climbing in the Alps, maybe they want to do sport climbing in Spain, maybe they want to do winter mountaineering, ice climbing or, you know, learn how to travel on glaciers. We we now have a program that can accommodate all of that and we are really excited to see where the members go with that and what they do with that. Some of them now are forming a small team to go off and do the Matterhorn. Year after next, I've got an aspiration to go and do some some big climbing, perhaps out in America in a few years.

Speaker 2: 32:31

But as much as we, as much as we're, as much as those, you know, headline events are going on. The most important thing to us, the most important thing, is providing something regularly, every single month, that everybody can come along to, because, again, like that sense of community and having something to look forward to, that's what's most important to us. So that's that's the challenge and that's that's what's so great about this program is it's it's. It's always there. It's always there. It's always providing opportunities to get people outdoors, get them into. It, gets them into a new sport, get them active, get them learning new skills so they can take their friends out, they can take family out, they can volunteer for other groups or Maybe they can just, you know, meet up with other members and and get after some, after some roots. So yeah, I think that's where.

Speaker 1: 33:18

That's where the focus of our effort is as an individual, going through the well, finding the, finding the hills and the mountains, the outdoors, was working for me as a therapy. What I did find and I've spoken about this, the times in between, with quite low, if you know what I mean come back from expedition, being away for three weeks, wherever three, four weeks, and then Thinking actually I've got nothing planned, and then descending, you know, get back on the downward spiral, filling this, I'm going, you know, going to the pub or whatever. So, yeah, I think that's really important, that you're doing that. I'm really good. What do you think they, the people that are attending, what do you think they're getting out of it?

Speaker 2: 33:57

Sort of, they may not understand what they're getting out of it, they just feel, feel a little bit better, but the sort of sort of eluding to the pillars of, of Improving mental health really to my mind, is, if we look at, we specifically target, you know, our Target group, member group, cohort community are people that have been Suffering with some sort of sort of adversity for, normally for a two or three years. They've been through several rounds of conventional treatment and yet they still remain Severely impacted and disabled by their, by their injuries and illnesses. So that's that's who we're looking. You know, that's that's the, the person that we support. Now what the, the research suggests is that for that person, you know, the clinical part of their recovery which they've, every one of them will have been committed to and they've done their best with. But the clinical part of that recovery, when it's so life-changing and transformative, the clinical part is actually only quite a small part. It's an important, but it's a small part of the overall rehabilitation, the overall recovery journey.

Speaker 2: 35:04

When we, when we are diagnosed with these life-changing conditions, it rocks to our very foundation that senses, you know, sense of identity. Who are we, what are we now? You know, it changes everything and so much, there's so much more to recovery than just like attending those appointments and going through and doing that, because yet to discover, to Rediscover who you are, needs Needs far more going on in the rest of life and I think that's where we try to, that's what we try to facilitate with with our program. It's that broader rehabilitation, that broader, broader recovery. There's a lot more focused on the person and that and that discovery, self-discovery who are you now? No, and who are you? What do you want to be? Where do you want to go with this? You're on a journey with us and you know where's that gonna, where's that gonna take us, and so I think I think that's that's been really Important and it's been important to us as well to try and get some Validation really of the work that we do. So we're very fortunate that a Psychologist recently did her professional doctorate, did her study on on us, on client recovery and a number of the veterans that have got PTSD.

Speaker 2: 36:16

In fact, yes, she, she observed in her research, if you made the observation, that, yeah, being involved with this project, it's so beneficial to that sense of identity, that sense of self-confidence. It gives that separation from the chaos that the people are normally battling through in normal life, just constantly trying to manage and stay on top of symptoms. The climbing affords them a bit of space where they can get that perspective. They can also have some fun, right, that's really important. They can have some fun, they can make friends, they can have a bit of a laugh and at the same time, they're doing something really healthy, really exciting, really interesting, where they can regularly complete that stress response as well.

Speaker 2: 36:57

So in the rest of life, you don't often complete things, you don't often finish things, you don't often overcome, whereas with climbing amounts of earring, that's exactly what you do at the top of every single route.

Speaker 2: 37:09

You do, you complete it, you finish it, you achieve it. And achieving as frequently as you do when you're climbing day after day after day, that reinforces that sense of identity that you are still here, that you are still fighting, that you're still getting up and you're still getting up for it and you can do that. You can do it. Yeah, there's a sense of self, you know, a sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.

Speaker 2: 37:34

I think there's so much wrapped up in it. So what do our members get out of it? I hope they get far more out of it than we could ever hope to capture in a few minutes of chatting about it, and certainly more than I would dare to sort of just try and write out in a few minutes. I like to think that we are a community of friends, that we're a regular provider of activity, that people can come along and you know there's exciting, that's interesting where they can challenge themselves and they can have that laugh and they can keep coming back for as long as they want to or as little as they want to. So rambling again, charlie.

Speaker 1: 38:10

No, it's all good. It's all good. Yeah, I think it's brilliant what you're doing. I mean, I can only obviously my only expertise in mental health is from my own experience and a lot of people looking in would say, well, you made a bit of a mess of that, although I did keep the keep the profits for Jameson's up for a while. But yeah, I mean you're alluding to the community and the achievement and I think it's all these things going on around, around the actual focus of what you're aiming to do, aiming to get to the top of some green, horrible thruch-a-chimney climbing. You can't explain it to somebody as it's going to be a battle and you're going to be sore at the end of it, but you know the sense of achievement when you've actually done it and completed it is. It's a bit unexplainable.

Speaker 2: 38:53

It really is and you don't get that. You don't get that in many other places in life.

Speaker 1: 39:00

Yeah, I do find climbing a bit of a sort of a meditation. Unfortunately, I did have a great experience on the MCI, which again I'm going to congratulate you on, recently gaining the mountaineering and climbing instructor. Those. That was something you're down for for a while or.

Speaker 2: 39:14

Yeah, I think it's been an aspiration since I was a youngster, Then joining the military, I didn't think it would be something that I'd necessarily need, so I hadn't pursued it for during my career in the military. And then as I became unwell and climbing became such a central part of my recovery, it then became then a really big objective and as the opportunity to get more involved with climb to recovery presented itself, then the opportunities involved with me having the award and what we can do for the charity, that presents some really exciting opportunities as well. So I actually probably wouldn't have gone for the award quite so quickly If it wasn't for the opportunities with the charity. That kind of really motivated me to try and really get on with it actually and it has been a really yeah, it will be a really positive thing for the charity, for sure.

Speaker 1: 40:11

What we're looking at the future for both yourself and with the charity. Do you think You're involved in the charity and personally with your recovery?

Speaker 2: 40:18

That's a difficult one Because I love my time in the mountains. I think I said try and get away four or five days each month, which affords me that headspace, and it affords me some time out and a bit of respite from the normal day to day life which I find so difficult. It also gives my wife and my kids a bit of respite from me, which, to be honest, they really need that as well. But so much of my climbing and mountaineering is not about escaping, it's not about running away from things. It's about using that time as effectively as possible so that when I come home I've got that bit more energy. I've got a bit more energy and a bit more capacity to read some stories with my kids or I can stay a little bit longer at the dinner table during a meal. Maybe I can walk my daughter to school one more day out a week than I currently do. Those are my really big objectives in life. How much more can I?

Speaker 2: 41:23

Because of my injuries, my participation at home is greatly reduced, far reduced from where I'd like it to be. I can't play an equal role to my wife because I've just got such limited capacity and noise affects me so badly. Amy's shoulders are a tremendous amount at home. So I guess, charlie, what I'm trying to say is to me, the mountains and the time away is all about coming home. The goal for me really is to play an ever-increasing role at home. How I achieve that in combination with the mountains is just. I guess I've just got to play around with it. What is the right amount of time away and doing it versus time at home? What's the optimum amount of time away? What's the optimum type of climbing? Just trying to work all of that out so that I'm able to add as much value at home as possible.

Speaker 2: 42:24

I'd like to think that our members are doing similarly right that one of the reasons that we're doing so well as a charity, I think, is because of the type of people that we've attracted to our charity. We don't use expensive hotels. We use budget bunkhouses where we prepare our own meals. We all cook together. There's a bit of adversity there, which means that the people that come along really want to be there. They really want to be there for their own personal development and their own recovery. I think we all share that. We're all there because we want to do better in the rest of life, not just with the mountaineering and the climbing. In fact, the climbing and the mountaineering is that medium for helping us in the rest of life. I guess, yeah for us, if our members are able to make those.

Speaker 2: 43:16

We're talking five minutes here and five minutes there. We're not talking about completely transforming a recovery or a life experience. We're talking about minutes here and there of improvement in the day. That's what it's all about, right? That's where you claw back those vital moments and vital experiences in life. You can play a bit more of a role with your family. You can do that little bit extra here or do that little bit extra there. I think for us, that's what's really important. It's about that broader recovery and adding real value at home and beyond, not just in the mountains, but in the rest of life. I think that's maybe not the answer you were expecting, but I think that's what we're all about.

Speaker 1: 43:58

I think it's great that you've mentioned your support from Amy and your family, because I think a lot of people don't get that and possibly don't get the understanding of mental health conditions. Of course, again, we mentioned everyone's mental health, poor mental health or mental health. It's there, it is unique. So to have that support around you, I think, is vitally important. Yeah, I'm so lucky.

Speaker 2: 44:22

Amy's a really remarkable lady who, right from the beginning, when I first said to her, look, this is what the doctor thinks, Right from that moment she's identified. She's identified those dysfunctional behaviors and the more dysfunctional elements of the PCSD. She identifies them not as me per se, but almost like this third party in the house that Egin, occasionally will ransack things and get angry and upset people and scare people and by identifying it not as me per se.

Speaker 2: 44:57

She doesn't blame me. She doesn't hold a grudge, which not always. Sometimes she does get upset by it. She does get frustrated, deeply frustrated, but she doesn't blame me and that's the really important thing. And I think that appreciation that is not my fault, it's not our fault has gone so far to then motivating me to do better, to show that I'm not just going to accept that. I think when we start to blame those dysfunctional behaviors on well, that's just because I've got PTSD.

Speaker 2: 45:32

I think as soon as we start blaming those behaviors on PTSD and not taking responsibility for them and not using them as a motivation to do better, I think we've lost the battle really and for our families that's when things start to break down really quickly. So for me, her understanding of it and her view of it is the biggest motivation for me to sort of just keep on battling and keep on trying harder. And it's working. It's working. I'm very, very lucky to have her and have her view of it, the most tremendous support and patience, and she accepts it that four or five days each month I'll go off and do my climbing, because that really helps. That really helps her and the children, but it also really really helps me and I come back and I'm a bit brighter, a bit more optimistic and I've got a little bit more energy to go at things. So, yeah, it does work for all of us, but it's not without tremendous sacrifice, particularly on her part.

Speaker 1: 46:33

Do you ever take your family out in the mountains with you?

Speaker 2: 46:36

Yeah, I try to, and we thought about do we move to be closer to the hills actually, you know, because where we live is quite noisy. It's nice, I'm very lucky where I live. It's a little village by the beach, but nevertheless there's a lot of ambient noise, there's still lots of people, it's still busy and that presents a lot of challenges. We did think about, yeah, whether we move somewhere a bit quieter. But I think, whilst that might be a perfect solution for me again, it's that balance with the family and I think it would be no solution for Amy or the children, Because Amy would need to be spending so much more time in the car driving the kids to schools and maybe she's not going to work so much, and I think that would take an even bigger toll on an already stretched relationship and her stretch capacity. So, in fact, where we've resolved is, as you say, Seb, it's me going away and then maybe once or twice a year we'll all go. We'll look at it.

Speaker 2: 47:38

It's wonderful, it's that? Yes, it's really. It's really, really, really fun. I love taking my kids my older two in particular climbing. We try to go to the Peak District once a year. I'll get them on a bunch of different routes and do some ab sales. Yes, it's. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 47:55

Yeah, do you struggle to get them to pay the full day rate? Because I know when I take Kirstie out I've got like two years of invoices that she's waiting to sell. I'm still working. You know it's on a personal note. I, from my own side, it's great to hear you talk about you taking control of your PTSD rather than PTSD controlling you. I know it's something that I went through for a lot, a lot of years. So that's brilliant.

Speaker 1: 48:18

And acknowledging the community and family around you, we should say thank you to Jason, who I can never pronounce his second name, can you? Can you pronounce? Is it Rosspens Jason, who? He was on his mountain leader assessment with me in Rome, and it does. It should have to retake it, really, because we didn't have a spot of rain all week, so. But he introduced and spoke very highly about the charity and then we bumped into you in a traumatic, didn't we? So that's where first met and then we're yes. So yes, have you anything to add? They're just a very remarkable. What a brilliant podcast, mate. I know you want to show when we first mentioned it, but I did.

Speaker 2: 49:01

Yeah, maybe we can chat a bit about that after.

Speaker 1: 49:03

So as if Don't stop, stop recording.

Speaker 2: 49:06

But I, I yeah, I guess it affects me in so many ways. Like I say, it's my capacity, my capacity for life and capacity to think and speak that it affects and and that's in. You know, I find that very frustrating. I find it quite embarrassing as well. I'm not, I'm not the person that I was before and and trying to, you know, I like to be coherent and I like to, I like to be, to be, to be very clear about these things, because they matter so much to me as well. They're really these are really important issues and, yeah, I know that there's that, that tension. You know I want to get that message out, but I know equally that I struggle, I really struggle doing this sort of thing, and it's important though. So I must, I must and I do. I do presentations for the Royal Marines charity, but I use a script that I sort of that I read from, because I feel that that's the same way of getting across everything I want to get across. But doing this is equally as important. I don't find it easy.

Speaker 1: 50:09

Right, well, thank you again. Thanks for being so open and honest and informative. I'm sure the listeners will love this. So don't go anywhere because we're going to talk about other things after this. But thanks a lot. Thank you, cheers.