Episode 6
From Trauma to Transformation
Today we are talking to Jamie Hughes who shares his story of triumphing from adversity. He shares his advice for crafting a life that feels empowered and meaningful, no matter how many challenges you have experienced.
From an inspirational story to insightful advice, Jamie guides us through making meaningful change to our lives.
With Jamie Hughes - Jamie Hughes is a passionate advocate for mental well-being and the author of insightful works on resilience and self-care. Drawing from a Master's Degree in Psychology with a specialization in trauma, resilience, and self-care, Jamie brings a wealth of academic knowledge and practical experience to his coaching and writing. Jamie offers a blend of compassionate guidance and evidence-based strategies for cultivating inner strength. - Jamie's Website - @Managing.Mental.Health on Instagram - Jamie's Facebook page - Jamie on YouTube
And your host: https://www.eleanormarker.com/
Transcript
Welcome to the Aprica podcast because a little advice goes a long way.
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:Welcome to the Aprica podcast, where every week we'll be giving you a little piece of life
advice for you to take and try out in between the podcasts.
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:This week, we're talking about how to break through and move on from the challenges that
life throws us.
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:I'm joined by Jamie Hughes, who has used his life to learn how to thrive despite adversity
and now guides others to do the same.
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:Welcome, Jamie, and do share your story with us.
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:Thank very much.
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:Sure.
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:ah When I was a baby, my parents were divorced.
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:And so for the early part of my childhood, it was just me and my mom.
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:I didn't even know that I had a dad.
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:Never saw a picture, never heard a name, nothing.
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:And then a few years into life, my mother passed away when I was eight years old.
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:And I was uh sent by the family court at that time to live with my dad.
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:So here I was turning nine years old and being sent to live in a brand new place, a brand
new city, brand new family, going to a brand new school with someone that I had never even
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:seen as far as I knew.
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:And so, you know, obviously the grief of losing my mother was extremely difficult.
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:And the home that I was thrust into with my dad,
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:He was very emotionally and psychologically abusive.
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:Even like, you know, when I was trying to grieve my mother's death would say things like,
you shouldn't cry.
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:You need to be a man.
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:ah If you cry, I'm going to punish you.
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:Those types of things.
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:So I didn't even, I didn't even get to go through the normal grieving process.
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:So that led into depression.
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:So I grew up with
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:clinical depression, untreated.
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:It was never taken to therapy, never taken to a doctor or anything.
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:And it was very difficult growing up as a teenager, going through school.
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:And thankfully, I had some very strong friendships, had a great relationship with my
grandparents from my mother's side.
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:Didn't get to see them as much as I wanted or needed to, but they were always there as you
know, as a loving support system.
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:And as I got older though, I just, the depression was just overwhelming, led to a suicide
attempt when I was 18.
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:And that was the very first time that I had any introduction to the mental health system.
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:Ended up
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:staying at a facility for 30 days, which was normal protocol at the time.
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:And at least got an introduction to the concept that, hey, what you're dealing with isn't
just because you're a bad kid.
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:It isn't just because you're directionless ah or that you want attention or you're just
sad and you can't get over it.
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:mentally.
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:This is because you have a condition, you know, you actually have a mental illness of
depression.
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:But I still really wasn't capable, I guess, yet of dealing with it, especially on my own.
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:I remember when I was in high school, we were about to graduate and oh I was turning 18
after the graduation.
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:And I remember my dad saying to me, well, you're about to turn 18, so you either pay rent
or get out.
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:And this wasn't a, let me help you look for an apartment.
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:Let me help you, you know, talk about college or career.
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:This was just get out.
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:I don't care if you sleep in the streets, you're getting out.
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:uh So there were several years where I just.
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:You know, had no direction, no purpose, no idea even that life could be better or
different.
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:I wished it were.
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:I wished a lot that it were, but I just didn't know how to do that up until about my mid
twenties.
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:And that's where things kind of started to change.
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:After getting into some trouble, ah I started thinking about how
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:I didn't want to live that way anymore and how I would like to understand more about what
I had been through, the trauma, the abuse, the depression.
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:I wanted to find out why.
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:I wanted to find out how affected me and how I could change it.
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:So I started college and started studying psychology.
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:What was your catalyst for change?
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:Was it that it sounds like you hit a kind of rock bottom?
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:Would you say that there just came a point where you somehow had enough, you kind of
reached maximum tolerance for it?
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:Yes, absolutely.
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:was going through, you know, a few years there of uh rock bottom living, actually.
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:And this was after the suicide attempt.
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:just, I just stayed there mentally and emotionally.
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:And after a few years, I ended up at a point where the apartment that I was living in, I
could not afford anymore.
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:And so,
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:I went back to my grandparents and re kind of reestablished that relationship and they
invited me and said, Hey, look, we see what you're going through.
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:So you can stay with us while we help you get back on your feet, get a job, you know,
things like that.
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:And that kind of gave me enough safety to contemplate and to think.
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:And so that was that was kind of the point where like I said I started thinking okay I
want to do something.
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:I want to understand this more and see if I can get out of it.
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:So you then sought out answers by studying psychology.
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:Yes.
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:And it's funny because when I uh started school, one of my professors uh kind of made the
joke to the class that, you know, everybody that goes into psychology is doing it to
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:figure themselves out, which was definitely the case for me.
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:So there was truth in that.
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:And it started working.
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:It started working.
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:I was instantly hooked.
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:I was always, even growing up, was always intelligent, always very curious and enjoyed
learning.
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:um Could pick up a book and read it and one time and tell you everything in it and what it
meant.
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:You know, it was just a gift I had.
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:ah And so the learning came natural, but it also brought out something else.
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:And that was
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:the desire to help other people.
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:Because I think it was always there in terms of wanting to.
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:I just didn't know if there was a way that I could, other than just kind of basic
volunteering or helping a friend out, that kind of thing.
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:It's interesting you talk about how learning gave you a kind of route out of your
darkness.
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:It reminds me a little bit, if you wanted to repair a car and you were to read a manual on
the car, it may not help you repair the car, but for you, learning helped you steer
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:yourself away from the depression.
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:Or was it that there were particular things that you put in place that you learned about?
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:there particular approaches that you...
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:used on yourself that you felt helped your depression.
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:Yes, um so the learning about it for me definitely helped because
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:It's one of those things in life where you can't fix a problem unless you admit that there
is one.
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:I'm not talking about the self-deprecation type thing like, you oh, I'm horrible.
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:There's plenty of that in depression.
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:That already exists.
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:You don't have to try to do that.
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:But when you can separate yourself from the problem and say, here's me.
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:And here's the problem.
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:Here's the issue that I have that I'm dealing with or have been struggling with.
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:So now let me see what I can do about that.
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:That kind of gave me enough strength to say, okay, now what?
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:So I was able to go to therapy and it be intentional.
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:Like, okay, I'm here for a purpose.
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:I'm not just here because I'm drowning anymore.
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:I still had the depression.
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:There were still days, weeks, and sometimes months where it was just debilitating.
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:But I was able to be intentional about what I was doing to help it.
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:And another tool that accidentally came into my life, I had enjoyed writing as a teenager.
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:as I grew up, I was a big fan of comic books.
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:So I would write these stories.
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:And I noticed that as I would write the stories, some of the characters in the stories
were in my circumstances.
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:I was writing that out.
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:You know, putting my life onto paper.
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:And I didn't realize it at the time that that was, you know, very therapeutic.
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:But as I learned more, I came across some things, some articles, some, you know, listening
to some people talk about therapeutic writing.
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:And I was like, whoa, wait a minute.
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:I've already been doing that.
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:I didn't know this what I was doing, I, you know, so I started being intentional about
that as well.
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:And that became probably one of the strongest tools that I've had in my entire life was
that therapeutic writing, learning to express my thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes,
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:everything, and get it out.
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:That was extremely beneficial.
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:So it sounds to me like being able to take that step away and identifying what the problem
was, what the issue was that you were having and what your challenges were then enabled
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:you to have that clarity about, okay, how do I now change it?
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:And then you were open to these possibilities.
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:Okay, well, perhaps it's writing and perhaps it's therapy, for example.
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:When you work with your clients now, are there particular approaches that you tend to like
to use or to recommend with them?
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:yes, definitely.
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:And this is probably the first step is acknowledgement.
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:Because when you're hurting, when you're suffering from depression or anxiety, PTSD,
there's this part of you that you're afraid to admit.
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:You're afraid to acknowledge because then it's real.
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:Then it's, okay, now this is a real thing.
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:And sometimes that has to do with self-image.
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:Like, okay, now I'm going to have to wear this label.
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:But all healing has to go through the mud before you get to dry land.
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:It just does.
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:You can't heal anything by pushing it away, by denying it.
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:You can't just go from suffering and pain and hurt to
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:sunshine and fields full of flowers with a single leap, you have to go through the mud to
get to the other side to get to the dry land.
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:And that is, that's the first approach.
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:But in that is, okay, now you know where you're at.
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:Now we can chart a clear course forward.
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:So that's always, you know, the first step in which
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:Like I said, can be the most difficult sometimes.
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:You talk about charting a course forward, would you say that there is one general course
that is really helpful for all people that suffer from depression?
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:Or would you say that it's a very unique thing and that there isn't such a thing as like
this is generally probably going to work for everybody?
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:I think that pretty much for everyone, one is learning to identify and express what you're
feeling and what you're going through.
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:That is, I think is probably the most important step forward because that leads also to
several other things which would be down the trail.
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:learning to identify and express.
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:And one of the things that helps you do in the future, which this requires practice, but
it can come, is when you have a trigger, when you have a depressive episode, when you have
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:anxiety, you learn to say, I see what's going on here.
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:there's that feeling.
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:There's that.
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:sense.
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:There's that increased heart rate, there's that heaviness, whatever it is, but you have to
learn that.
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:You have to learn to be able to catch it, but you can.
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:And that comes from learning to identify those emotions and not just what we think of as
the mental side of the emotions, but the body side of the emotions.
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:And this is something that
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:extremely important for people to understand.
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:We're doing better in psychology about this, but it hasn't always been the case.
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:Mental illness is as much in your body as it is in your mind.
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:There is no separation.
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:Anxiety, it's a little bit easier to think about because anxiety, you immediately feel
like flushed or like your fight or flight starts kicking in.
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:That's your nervous system.
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:So going back to that identifying those emotions, you're also learning to identify what's
going on in your body that's connected to those two.
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:Yeah.
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:And I know that it's only really in the last sort of 10, 15 years that we've been more
widely aware of that kind of somatic link, you know, how our body kind of links in.
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:And I think what you say there is very true that there are some emotions like fear, for
example, panic, overwhelm, stress.
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:These we're more used to our physical response, our physiological response to these, but
there are emotions like sadness that I think we perhaps
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:need to learn our physical cues for.
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:And I assume that one of the reasons you think it's important to learn the physical cues
is because they might be our early warning system almost before we're cognitively aware of
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:the emotions.
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:Absolutely.
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:Yes.
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:Myself, for instance, after many, many years of healing and growth, I went from depressive
episodes that would last for weeks and would occur once every three or four months, almost
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:like clockwork.
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:After a lot of work and healing and growth, I got it down to where I might have a
depressive episode that starts in the morning and lasts half a day.
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:and that might be it for months.
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:What would your kind of controlling mechanisms be to truncate that to such a short period?
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:Uh, the controlling mechanism was just the healing and growth, the time to get there.
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:It wasn't something that like, you know, okay, I'm feeling depressed, so let me just try
extra hard and shrink this down.
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:It was the result of many years of, you know, self growth, self reflection, the therapy,
the journaling, all of those things.
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:But that's the point.
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:That's what it's there for.
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:It should be.
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:If you're putting in the work and you're getting the help you need, then it should lead to
that, to lesser and lesser and lesser.
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:May not always be a hundred percent gone, but I can tell you from 10, 15 years of straight
depression, I'll take the 95 % healing and keep the 5%.
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:You know, it's to me, that's a miracle in my life.
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:I think anyone with depression would feel the same, right?
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:If they could just get that down to 5%, that's, that is a miracle.
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:One thing I know from working with clients with depression is that there's a kind of
numbness, almost a dissociation that comes along with depression quite often.
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:There's a kind of withdrawal and a lot of that can be a numbness to your emotions and to
your body as well.
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:What advice would you give people who say, you know, I'd like to understand what, what I'm
feeling.
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:I'd like to.
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:understand the sensations that go along with the emotions, but there's just nothing there.
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:I'm just can't access them.
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:Yeah, that's when some outside guidance is going to help you because you need someone to
help you build a routine.
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:So it's like, oh, there's a quote and I'm, can't remember exactly what it is, but it's, I
think it was by Rumi that says something like, you don't know the path until you start
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:walking on it.
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:Everything in life, you can't predetermine, you can't remap out, you know,
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:Some things you don't experience them until you start doing them.
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:So in cases like this, yes, that dissociation is there.
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:The way to get through it is to actually just start doing the things that are healthy and
that are going to put you back in touch with your body and your mind.
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:So for instance, physical exercise, you need to start a consistent routine of physical
exercise.
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:This is going to start regulating your nervous system.
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:It's going to get your body back into, you're going to get back in touch with your body.
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:And you can do this with yoga.
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:You can do this with just walking, know, going to the gym, whatever.
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:But there needs to be something consistent that you start doing and just keep doing it.
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:And it will start working.
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:The other thing is meditation and mindfulness practices.
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:this will start getting you back in touch with your own mind, with your own thoughts, your
own consciousness.
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:So there's a couple of things that you just have to set a schedule and a routine and just
start doing them.
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:And you will, you will begin to see the results later.
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:So it sounds like the advice you would give our listeners would be to have a kind of
three-part routine where you spend some time every day with physical exercise, I guess,
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:going outside, experiencing nature, moving your body.
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:And then you also spend some time with your emotions, trying to learn what they are, what
they feel like, how they show up in your body.
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:And then also something in the cognitive side where you use maybe mindfulness or
meditation to...
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:Just access your thoughts in a way that feels calm and controlled.
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:Would you say that that three-part routine should be something that we should all be using
daily?
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:Absolutely, yeah.
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:And if it's not, and you know, you gotta get up, go to work, come home, know, wash your
clothes, cook dinner, take care of the kids sometimes.
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:So it can be difficult to try to squeeze everything in every single day, but you need some
consistency in this, whether it's, you know, three times a week.
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:If it's every day, that's great.
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:So for instance, one job I used to have, I had
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:pretty regular office hours and I had a good solid, you know, one hour lunch break.
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:So what I did was when it was time for my lunch break, I would put on my tennis shoes and
when it hit 12 o'clock, I was out the door.
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:I would walk 15 minutes one way, turn around and come back.
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:So that was my 30 minute walk.
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:And then I would eat my lunch.
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:Took some discipline because I had to make sure I prepared lunch and brought lunch every
day.
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:Um, and you know, there were some days I missed and that was okay, but I built that into
my routine so that pretty much every at least weekday I was getting in my 30 minute walk.
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:And then usually at least twice a week, I would sit down in the evenings and journal.
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:So even if it's not every single day, literally you just build a routine and try to hit
those three areas that you mentioned.
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:that emotional, that cognitive, that physical, because you are, you're a complete being,
so to speak.
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:You know, you're a whole person and these struggles that we go through, these diseases,
conditions, issues, however you want to look at it, they're a part of you.
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:They've become a part of your life.
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:They affect you, but they're not the entire you.
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:And the more you build the rest of you,
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:the less those things have a hold on you.
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:And so often with depression, it's almost as if it swamps your identity, doesn't it?
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:It takes over and you forget who you were before and who you are underneath it.
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:Well, Jamie, thank you so much for that advice.
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:I think that is really good, solid advice for our listeners to go away with.
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:Do let our listeners know where they can find you on social media or websites or whatever,
if they'd like to get in touch and find out more about what you offer.
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:Yes, ah my website is managingmentalhealth.net and there's social media on there.
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:Please follow.
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:You can contact me through email there and also the books I have published are listed
there.
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:And all Jamie's links will be on our show notes as well.
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:Well, Jamie, thank you so much for that.
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:was really a pleasure having you on the podcast today.
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:Thank you very much.
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:Enjoy it.
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:If you've got the right voice for a podcast, you've got a very lovely accent.
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:I get the almost immediate, oh yeah you must be from the southeast in the US.
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:I'm like yeah.
