Sam, I fucking love you. I’m a member of the IFS and you are literally the guy I want as my best mate. Too much PDA, but you’re my life inspiration. I’ve been bad on the booze & gak, I’m from UK but live here in USA and covid, trump & brexit plus the stress of 2 kids in a different country adding extra pressure. Numbing it with what I thought best. I’m now going sober, I’m back back into my running and loving my new lease of life.
Bang into Betamax Babylon and loved Life Goals with Theo, and was very pleased your love of Massive attack. Basically, you’ve saved my fucking life you dickhead. I mean it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Sam - once again your words resonate. I left a career in which I was literally worrying every time I closed my eyes that a young person would kill themselves when I was in charge of their care - I worked in mental health because I wanted to be a superhero and I have a naturally caring nature - for years things were great and I loved my job; I helped set up services, trained staff and changed the lives of many young people and their families. But after a personal tragedy and at the same time the new Tory government pulling most of the support I’d fought to build (which turned Children’s Mental Health services from being proactive to reactive) the stress and anxiety overtook me and made me a shadow of the dad and husband I was (I didn’t arrange any fights but was constantly hoping some stranger would say just one wrong thing to me)- and so it came to head 6 1/2 years ago when I decided I no longer had the mental capacity to be a competent practitioner- I grabbed at the first opportunity that came along; my own window cleaning franchise and I haven’t looked back since - my family life is amazing now and I still use my mental health skills with loads of my customers (plus I get a good few hours podding in a day!) - sorry for longwinded rabbiting Sam, but it feels great to write it down - keep it coming! X
We’ve got two young kids, and super busy with that....But since May we honestly started actively avoiding the news.
The mental overhead of all the negativity pushed down the TV/newspapers/online, it was just extra stress and sadness that stopped us being present and living in the moment with ourselves and kids.
I came off Facebook 3 years ago and have never been happier.
Constant worry and fear and anger, it serves us no good to engage with that.
Thanks so much for doing this and sharing these things and sparking these debates....and being so honest.
Brilliant Sam. While i love the tftm stuff. This is easily the most impressive and important content you make. Thanks for sharing, making sense and being a complete fishcake... cheers buddy
Fucking hell mate, what a read that is. Well done on fighting your demons and coming out the other side, clearly, it would’ve been easy to go further into that spiral and be in a right state now. Don’t know you but proud of you for turning your life around, you must internally be buzzing with yourself.
Sam, you have again touched upon so many salient points, every one of them relevant and applicable to millions of us in one way or another.
The issues regarding the use of social media as the ineffectual crutch that it is, to deliver short lived and ultimately useless false gratification-and that we'll take & accept that so readily, exemplifies just where we are in our lives to ever fall into such traps.
I gave up Facebook as it was sucking up too much of my time, all wasted through not controlling those knee jerk reactions so easily evoked, through the idiocy of others, often, or sometimes others with diametrically opposed views to our own. All of it exacerbated, as you state so well, by situations that are at work within our own daily lives, and local, national/worldwide events that we feel....and are....helplessly paralysed to do anything about.
After 2 years self-suspension, I returned to FB on my terms, with a small number of friends and family, and vow to no longer wander or stray into troubled waters.
I seriously love & look forward to reading these posts that you're writing, Sam, and want again to thank you for your time in doing them. Thanks, mate, for giving & sharing those deeper parts of your life experiences, and doing so in ways that get through, and Sam, please stay strong, safe & well as we move forward in 2021.
Fuck me, I just deleted Twitter and Facebook today as it’s time for me to concentrate on my own family instead of reading about and watching videos of other peoples.
Sir John Cosmos?
I dunno but what I do know is this is great stuff Sam. Straight talking about mental health without all the fluffy stuff is exactly what most of us blokes want. Listening to you talk unashamedly about your struggles helped me finally do the same and get help.
I mirror what the others say, I’ve no doubt you have a bigger impact on more people than you will ever realise. You have a big impact on me anyway and I’m over 3 months on my road to recovery.
Some excellent thoughts in here, and many truths. The brain is definitely a Tory.
I seem to cope with the first lockdown quite well, but this one has somehow got to me. My 11 year old is also starting to show signs of a deep depression and her moods are quite horrifying at times, lots of threats etc. She is speaking to a counsellor, but child mental health help is appalling in the U.K.
I’ve not felt out of control for a while. Moments where you see yourself so tired, so sick with worry and just wanting it to stop somehow. Since I stopped boozing, food has taken its place, you get to the stage where you just hate the sight of it and seemingly how it gives you a gut and decent size breasts past 45...
Christ knows why I’m writing this. Apologies. Anyway, I’ll be off dickheads. The black dog is humping my leg like a bastard. TTFN.
Sam, I fucking love you. I’m a member of the IFS and you are literally the guy I want as my best mate. Too much PDA, but you’re my life inspiration. I’ve been bad on the booze & gak, I’m from UK but live here in USA and covid, trump & brexit plus the stress of 2 kids in a different country adding extra pressure. Numbing it with what I thought best. I’m now going sober, I’m back back into my running and loving my new lease of life.
Bang into Betamax Babylon and loved Life Goals with Theo, and was very pleased your love of Massive attack. Basically, you’ve saved my fucking life you dickhead. I mean it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
TTFN x
Sam - once again your words resonate. I left a career in which I was literally worrying every time I closed my eyes that a young person would kill themselves when I was in charge of their care - I worked in mental health because I wanted to be a superhero and I have a naturally caring nature - for years things were great and I loved my job; I helped set up services, trained staff and changed the lives of many young people and their families. But after a personal tragedy and at the same time the new Tory government pulling most of the support I’d fought to build (which turned Children’s Mental Health services from being proactive to reactive) the stress and anxiety overtook me and made me a shadow of the dad and husband I was (I didn’t arrange any fights but was constantly hoping some stranger would say just one wrong thing to me)- and so it came to head 6 1/2 years ago when I decided I no longer had the mental capacity to be a competent practitioner- I grabbed at the first opportunity that came along; my own window cleaning franchise and I haven’t looked back since - my family life is amazing now and I still use my mental health skills with loads of my customers (plus I get a good few hours podding in a day!) - sorry for longwinded rabbiting Sam, but it feels great to write it down - keep it coming! X
Excellently put Sam.
We’ve got two young kids, and super busy with that....But since May we honestly started actively avoiding the news.
The mental overhead of all the negativity pushed down the TV/newspapers/online, it was just extra stress and sadness that stopped us being present and living in the moment with ourselves and kids.
I came off Facebook 3 years ago and have never been happier.
Constant worry and fear and anger, it serves us no good to engage with that.
Thanks so much for doing this and sharing these things and sparking these debates....and being so honest.
Lots of love to you and everyone here.
Keep safe and strong all! X
Brilliant Sam. While i love the tftm stuff. This is easily the most impressive and important content you make. Thanks for sharing, making sense and being a complete fishcake... cheers buddy
Fucking hell mate, what a read that is. Well done on fighting your demons and coming out the other side, clearly, it would’ve been easy to go further into that spiral and be in a right state now. Don’t know you but proud of you for turning your life around, you must internally be buzzing with yourself.
Sam, you have again touched upon so many salient points, every one of them relevant and applicable to millions of us in one way or another.
The issues regarding the use of social media as the ineffectual crutch that it is, to deliver short lived and ultimately useless false gratification-and that we'll take & accept that so readily, exemplifies just where we are in our lives to ever fall into such traps.
I gave up Facebook as it was sucking up too much of my time, all wasted through not controlling those knee jerk reactions so easily evoked, through the idiocy of others, often, or sometimes others with diametrically opposed views to our own. All of it exacerbated, as you state so well, by situations that are at work within our own daily lives, and local, national/worldwide events that we feel....and are....helplessly paralysed to do anything about.
After 2 years self-suspension, I returned to FB on my terms, with a small number of friends and family, and vow to no longer wander or stray into troubled waters.
I seriously love & look forward to reading these posts that you're writing, Sam, and want again to thank you for your time in doing them. Thanks, mate, for giving & sharing those deeper parts of your life experiences, and doing so in ways that get through, and Sam, please stay strong, safe & well as we move forward in 2021.
Thanks buddy
Lindsay.
Thanks Sam defo need to start following your advice
Fuck me, I just deleted Twitter and Facebook today as it’s time for me to concentrate on my own family instead of reading about and watching videos of other peoples.
Sir John Cosmos?
I dunno but what I do know is this is great stuff Sam. Straight talking about mental health without all the fluffy stuff is exactly what most of us blokes want. Listening to you talk unashamedly about your struggles helped me finally do the same and get help.
I mirror what the others say, I’ve no doubt you have a bigger impact on more people than you will ever realise. You have a big impact on me anyway and I’m over 3 months on my road to recovery.
Keep up the good work Nifty
Brilliant as always mate! This is so helpful to people! Thank you!
Some excellent thoughts in here, and many truths. The brain is definitely a Tory.
I seem to cope with the first lockdown quite well, but this one has somehow got to me. My 11 year old is also starting to show signs of a deep depression and her moods are quite horrifying at times, lots of threats etc. She is speaking to a counsellor, but child mental health help is appalling in the U.K.
I’ve not felt out of control for a while. Moments where you see yourself so tired, so sick with worry and just wanting it to stop somehow. Since I stopped boozing, food has taken its place, you get to the stage where you just hate the sight of it and seemingly how it gives you a gut and decent size breasts past 45...
Christ knows why I’m writing this. Apologies. Anyway, I’ll be off dickheads. The black dog is humping my leg like a bastard. TTFN.
Well done Sam. Ever considered working in/studying talking therapies? Think you could be Britain’s top shrink.
Thank you Sam x