(no music) #1222 Caring for others (for Kara) (24th October 2024)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. This is Healing Thursday. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

Now, this recording is going to be about caring for people with illness, someone with an illness, and I suppose I'm particularly focusing on mental illness, people with mental health issues. I'm coming at this with a perspective or from the perspective of someone with mental health issues, bipolar and EUPD, which is a personality disorder. But yeah, so I'm coming from that perspective, but I think really I'm just coming from a human perspective.

Like I'm going to be, I'm going to pretend to be a human today. So this might not be the most uplifting, funniest recording I've ever done. So if you're, it might not be the best recording to listen to, to go to sleep.

So I realize it's part of the Let Me Bore You To Sleep things, but I'm just letting you know straight away. So if it's, it's, it might, it's not so lighthearted as what I normally do. So that's, that's that really, I'm just letting you know, but I do this because it's been requested.

And I said, this is for camera. And it's for anyone else that's in a similar situation and that's dealing or kind of being forced really to deal with somebody that's very unwell, someone you care about that's very unwell mentally. And I'm also, I would say that that would apply to people that were physically unwell because the mental health issue comes in anyway.

I think it'd be hard to find someone that was constantly physically ill with a long-term illness where it hasn't affected their mental health. I'd be very, I mean, I'm not sure if such a person exists. So, you know, the mental health issue is part of that.

And then there are some people that are predominantly it's the mental health part that is the issue, not a physical, I say physical illness, to be fair, things like bipolar, it is a physical thing. It's an organic thing. It's in the brain.

It's not, it's caused by the brain being different. And so, you know, all different ways for not getting enough of certain chemicals or certain hormones or whatever could be the cause of mental health issues, as well as of course things like trauma and emotional issues, as well. So it's a very complicated subject.

And I'm in no way, and I feel a bit, sound a bit blocked up, don't I? I'm in no way, I'm in no way an expert on this subject or any other subject. So I'm not talking as a professional on anything. Although I have in the past dealt with people with mental health issues in a professional capacity as a counsellor for, I don't know, three and a half years in the past.

So I've got a little bit of experience with that. And I've also dealt with my own mental health issues since I was a child. So yeah, I've got, I've got experience, but I am and never will be an expert on anything.

I hope to, well, I hope to get close to being an expert on myself. But even now, I am surprised at how, sometimes how little I've learned. Something happened yesterday, and I said all the wrong things.

And it's like, I'm 54, have I not learned anything? Especially with communication and stuff like that. I've really tried to study that stuff. But yeah.

So just, just as long as you know, I'm not trying to be an expert on any subject. I never have tried to be. So I guess you could say this is all just an opinion.

Or I'd like, I prefer rather than opinion, my experience, my personal experience with caring. So I'm going to focus not on myself, but focusing on what it can be like, what I found it to be like, caring for someone that's ill, like long term. And I want to focus on that subject.

So as I said, it's not, it's, there might be the odd laugh, I don't know. So I've got no idea what I'm going to talk about. I don't know what I'm going to say.

So, and if I do say something that sounds flippant, then that might also happen as well. I might say something that sounds insensitive. I may say the wrong thing of my whole life, I've been saying the wrong thing.

But just know, or please remember that I'm not attempting to make light of anything that's happened. And I'm not trying to make fun of anything really, although I might make fun of it, but just in a way, maybe to deal with it, to cushion the blow a bit, you know, if that makes sense. So, so I'm going to talk about my friend who is ill.

And this is someone that I was probably arguably the closest to, the closest human being I've ever been closest to ever in my entire life. Someone I saw pretty much every day for nine years. And it was also one of the hardest, hardest things I've ever had to kind of go through as well.

However, the thing I want to, the thing I want to actually, and I'll say it right at the beginning, really, the thing that I want to put forward, the idea that I want to put forward is, for those that are caring for someone, whether it's physical, whatever the illness is, it, your best is good enough.

Okay, your best is good enough, no matter what the outcome, no matter what that person says to you, no matter what that person that you've been caring for does to anyone else or themselves, no matter what verbal, horrible stuff they may say, if you've done your best, you've done your best, you can't do any more than that. Because from my own experience, there's the whole, which I've had this many times, could I have done more?

Well, maybe.

But at what cost? And would it have helped? You know, could I, I could have sat down there with, with him 16 hours a day, I could have moved in with him, or got him to move in here, and had him in a bed here, and just be with him 24 hours a day. What would have that done to, what would that have done to me, to my mental health?

No matter how selfish that might sound. Sometimes, I had to have a break in order to recharge, so then I could be for him, be there for him the next day, or maybe two days later, maybe I need a couple of days to just do my own thing, and then I can be there for him.

So, yeah, the whole idea of, if you've done your best, that's enough. If you did your best at the time, and of course, we can always like, well, I can improve upon that, I could have done this, I could have done that. Yeah, but you didn't.

You can only really comment on what you did do, not what you didn't do. Otherwise, the what you didn't do is just a huge bunch of stuff, and there's no, kind of no sense in that really. It's not useful to you, I'm guessing, and it hasn't been any use to me, thinking of the things that I could have done.

So, I've literally thought, oh, I should have moved him upstairs, but I know I ended up hating him. He probably would have ended up hating me. I'm not a good person to live with, or haven't been so far, and I know that we would have got on each other's nerves, and that wouldn't have been good, because maybe that had lasted a couple of weeks, and we may never have spoken to each other again, which would be the opposite to what I wanted, because then how could I be my friend for the next, because really, it was the last two years that were the worst.

That's when he really went downhill, my friend, and it's been happening for a long time, and he went through periods, but this is, this was the worst part, the last two years, before he passed away last November. So, Vinnie, what are you doing? He's a little bit restless, I think he wants to go for a W-A-N, W-A-L-K, but, no, he's now going to come for a cuddle, that's it, good.

I've had a headache for about three days now, it's not as bad today, but it's just, maybe I'm not drinking enough water, I don't know, I'll be all right, I'm going to go, I'm going to take him for a long one, when I've done this, in the fields, so he'll enjoy that.

So, my experience, I'd say the hardest, the hardest thing, I think, I'm trying to think what the hardest parts of it, is feeling, yeah, feeling useless, which I did a lot of the time, I felt absolutely useless to him, even though he used to tell me that I was helping, but I still felt that if I was helping, he would be getting better, he would be improving, not getting worse, and, I mean, technically, I know enough about mental health issues and mental disease, whatever you want to call it, to know that,

I wasn't enough to make it get better, he needed serious professional help, and possibly a change in medication, and I would argue time in hospital, both physically and mentally, near the end, he had a lot of physical problems, which I won't go into, out of respect, oh, my stomach's gurgling, it's weird, but I won't go into the, like, the personal stuff, out of respect for him, because I wouldn't want him talking about my personal stuff, I'm not going to mention his name, or who he is, anyway,

but I'm just going to talk about my experience caring for him, and it won't be personal, it'll be personal about me, rather than about him, my experience, and how it affected me, and so I guess it's, yeah, I'm turning something very serious about him, and making it all about me, maybe, narcissistic, possibly, oh, well, there you go, there we go again, it's all about JJ, it's kind of strange, I think the hardest thing about, the two hardest things, I don't know, there's so many hard things about it, one was,

and this sounds like a ridiculous statement, but sometimes I needed to be ill, a weird statement to make, but sometimes, I got bipolar, sometimes I needed to be, or sometimes I just need, well, sometimes I was ill, it wasn't I needed to be, but I was, I was unwell, and sometimes, perhaps, I needed somebody to care for me, but what caring for me meant is leaving me alone, that's how I'm cared for, I need to be alone, and to deal with it on my own, maybe practical help's good,

collecting a prescription from the doctors for me, if I've run out of milk, maybe getting me some milk, maybe helping with Vinnie for a few days, stuff like that, I don't have anyone to call, get help like that anymore, and my friend did do stuff, you know, he would do stuff for me, if he could, but for the last couple of years, he was so far gone, physically, mentally, everything, and the hardest things is, trying to think what the hardest parts were, in some ways, the hardest part wasn't even him dying,

because I'd spent at least a year expecting to find him gone, at least a year, like, constantly, and years before that, wondering when it's going to be, because of the constant times that he tried to leave, I've been very careful with my language, but at the same time, I'm still talking about the same stuff, so, as I said, if this is, I'm not here to upset anybody, this is really a, I just don't want to upset anyone, you know, I mean, I upset someone yesterday, in the park, because of Vinnie,

Vinnie attacked a little puppy, like, out of super excitement, and I said all the wrong things, I was trying to make it better verbally, but it wasn't working, anyway, I have to move on from that, that's a different story, so, not being able to help him, not really feeling that I was able to help him, because I like solutions, you know, if, so, when I went to doctors, and they said, our blood sugar level was way too high, I was pre-diabetic, I needed to cut sugar out, the solution was there,

it was an easy solution, I cut sugar out, and my blood sugar level went down again, after a few months, it was at a good level, maybe not perfect, but it was a much better level, the rest would just be probably sorted out by exercise, just to burn that excess, you know, sugar off, that's within the food that I eat, but there was a, it was a practical thing that I could do, I lost weight, which was something I needed to do, and all those things that helped, and it's like,

okay, a solution, not an enjoyable solution, but it was a solution, but for him, there was two things that he needed to do, three things really, as far as, it might have been a solution, but it might not have been, so his lifestyle, to stop alcohol and the other stuff, and to also stop smoking, like cigarettes, the cigarettes was because of his lungs, he had really bad lungs, but he did cut down, he got to the point where he could hardly smoke a cigarette, because he had really bad asthma,

and also, I forget what it's called, um, blimey, what's it called, anyway, it's a really serious lung, lung disease, so inherited as well, he's got it in his family, so he struggled to walk up the stairs or do anything, really, you know, I mean, he came back from the petrol station once, which is probably a 10 minute walk from here, and he came back, and there was a knock on my door, and he, I opened the door, and he collapsed, collapsed inside my door, couldn't breathe, and I said, oh, where's your,

where's your inhaler, COPD, that's it, COPD, he had, I said, where's your inhaler, he said, it's downstairs, oh, I didn't, okay, he gave me his key, I went downstairs, got his inhaler, I just grabbed all of them, I didn't know which one was, he needed, and I got him sitting down on a chair, and he took the inhaler, and it took about 20 minutes before he was kind of back in action, but he, you know, and when he could breathe again, when he could like, talk normally, I said,

why didn't you just go straight into your flat, well, first of all, why didn't you take the inhaler with you, because I bought him a necklace thing, where the inhaler went into, because he kept forgetting to take it out with him, I said that you need it with you, that's the whole point of it, I mean, technically, even if you're in another room, in your, in your flat, if you're in the toilet, or whatever, have it around your neck, and then you can use it, you know, when you're in the kitchen,

but, because he was collapsing, anyway, he, he said, the reason he knocked on my door, is because he'd forgotten it, I said, well, why don't you go in, go straight into your flat, it's downstairs, and get it, he said he didn't know if he'd make it, he didn't know if he'd, he might get in the flat, but then he might collapse, and not make it to get to the inhaler, so, he came to my door, knowing that he'd be safe, either way, he'd be with someone, and he'd be safe,

and I could get him help, if needed, and I could, I'd get, yeah, it just, that was the logic, and I understand it, makes sense, I suppose, just for me, I would like get in my own flat, and do it, but he'd thought beyond that, so maybe in the past, he had done that, he got into the flat, and he'd only just got there in time, so, that's how bad his chest was, so that was like a physical thing, there was other physical issues, he had a really, really bad stomach,

and was getting tested for that during lockdown, just before lockdown, and then everything kind of stopped, and they weren't, didn't know if he had celiac disease, or something, and he'd, he'd got a test, they lost the sample, bless him, and then he, see this, this is going to be, so I'm not an, I'm not a NHS basher, so those that know the NHS is a national health service in England, I realise people in England, or the, in the UK, will be going, we know what it is,

but there's people all around the world listening to this, so I like to just explain what it is, so National Health Service is our healthcare system, hospitals, paramedics, out-of-patients, doctor surgeries, I'm probably gurgling in my stomach, some dental surgeries, although most of them are kind of part NHS, mainly private these days, which isn't so good, and there's lots of other things the NHS do as well, it's the biggest employer in the country, as far as I'm aware, and it's, I love the NHS, I'm, I'm a, I'm a big fan, advocate,

whatever you want to say, however, this isn't dismissing the NHS being amazing, in this instance there was some failure, and I think one of the problems is that maybe needs to be addressed from the specialist's perspective, from that angle is, and even the mental health team, there seems to be this, and I noticed this when I was doing counselling, this ideology that the person has to make an effort themselves, if the customer, or the patient rather, not the customer, if the patient doesn't make an effort themselves, and they don't need,

they don't deserve to be treated, if the alcoholic doesn't make an effort to stop drinking, then you know, they won't get treated, if the drug addict doesn't make an effort to stop taking drugs, they won't get treated, they won't, and that to me shows a real lack of understanding of addiction, someone needs, the only reason they need treatment is because they can't stop, that's the whole point of it, they need treatment, if someone can like, I remember my friend, she had a gastric, gastric band thing, like an actual operation,

and she was overweight and stuff, I don't want to say anything about her personally, because she was my friend, but she was overweight, she asked to have the gastric band, she had to lose, I think, two stone or three stone before they would do the operation, just to prove that she was serious, and that, can you imagine how many people are not able to do that, because the reason, perhaps the reason so, so large is due to an eating issue, an eating disorder, where they can't stop eating,

it was for her as well actually, but so, that's what needs to be addressed, so the whole thing about a gastric band, is it stops someone from being able to eat, the way they did, it like physically stops them, in the same way as if you, if there's a tablet you can give to alcoholics, that stops them, it doesn't work for severe alcoholics, apparently, but it's a drug that actually makes them ill, when they take, when they put alcohol in the body, I know alcoholics that have actually over, overridden it,

by drinking, which is amazing, that like even something, and something, and also something that a lot of people might not know, and I didn't know this, and I'm going to generalize, but I'm going to keep it local, but it's a generalization, methadone, which is given to people who are on heroin, maybe crack as well, I don't know, in order to, is a replacement, it's a replacement for heroin, quite often what it is in reality, is an addition to heroin, that's what's so ridiculous about it, and the tablets,

I forget what they call it, that is sub, sub something, a subbie they call it, and they sell it to each other and stuff, and they, so people that are on the script, call it script, which is either, they get, sometimes they get morphine, they have to take it, or some derivative of morphine, and they might have to take it every day in front of the chemist, to prove they're taking it, and then eventually they can take it home, and or, you know, and then they gradually reduce the amount,

that's something that I know people do, and I was quite surprised at this, is when they get onto the script, and they're planning to do it, before they get tested, to see kind of what level they're at, they take a huge amounts of drugs, the night before, and maybe before they even get there, so that their script will be higher, so their morphine dose will be higher, so maybe the week before they'll take loads, and loads, and loads, and loads, and I've actually known people that do this,

I don't know if it's just, it might just be a local thing, it might not be a national thing, but you know why my friend didn't want to be on the script, because he had been, been on morphine, he'd been on the sub, I can't remember what his subbies they call them, they're really strong, and he used to take them sometimes, but they sell it amongst each other, they give it to each other and stuff, and the people living that lifestyle, he didn't like going to the,

there was like a local charity kind of rehabby place, where people with alcohol issues, drug issues, addiction issues would go to, and they would get support, get counselling, and that maybe they had to go there because they were on the script, so they had to go every week, for however long, some people would get sent there as part of their probation, or part of their suspended sentence, you know, it's part of the treatment, at rehabilitation or whatever, he didn't like going there, because he knew if he went there,

he'd end up back on drugs again, because that was what they did, they'd go there, people would congregate, go there, and then, not everyone, obviously, not everyone, but he said there's a group of people that would go there, they'd leave, and they'd all go into the park and smoke crack and stuff, like what? Don't the people that run that centre know that that's what they're doing? It kind of defeats your object, doesn't it?

Slightly. It's just like a bunch of, you know, if you go to AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and then all, it might as well just meet in the pub, and have a few drinks each, I mean, it's not, that's not the way, is it? It's not going to do the job. See, that's what I meant by flippancy, that was fully a flippant remark.

But it's true though, isn't it? It's just ridiculous, like, anyway, but they do, some people do get tested, so they're limited, but they know, they know their way around the tests, you know, if that's your lifestyle, you get to know everything about what you need to do, what you need to do, where you need to go to do it, and, and so much of that is due to mental health.

The thing is, someone might start doing drugs, because of their mental illness, and then drugs just make the mental illness worse. I mean, I think anyone, even if they were in the best of mental health, starts taking hard drugs regularly, you know, to the point where they're getting addicted, they got, they're going to have serious mental health issues.

Because, just because of the drugs, the lifestyle, the things they end up doing, all the lies they have to tell, this may be the stealing, the losing family members because of their behavior, all that stuff is just, I know a little bit about the old drug addiction scene, and it's awful, there's nothing nice about it at all. It's not just about overdoses, it's the whole thing, there's nothing nice, other than maybe a social element.

People get to spend time with people, where maybe they would have been on their own.

I'd rather be on my own than be in a room full of drug addicts, or alcoholics, that were actively, you know, taking stuff from me, because that's not a safe environment, I don't think. Never felt safe in that environment, and I've been in that environment many times in the past, including when I was a child, apparently. So, a very young child, but chaos, I was almost born into chaos.

And that's the other thing, chaos. You can't stop someone from being chaotic, you can try, but you know what they really want? Even if they don't know it, it's like, what they seem to really want is everyone else to join in with their chaos. I know that my friend wanted me to join in, he didn't want me, he'd much prefer me to be part of what he's doing, than to be outside, perhaps being a bit too judgy at times, which I probably was, but it's hard to be part of it, and also help.

So, how am I supposed to help him to stop drinking, if I'm also drunk all the time? It's an impossible situation, and as it turns out, I never helped him to stop anything. So, yeah, feeling a failure is kind of okay, it's natural, because you can't help someone, you can't help, sometimes you can't help them, but it doesn't mean you don't try.

So, that's kind of where I'm with that, in the sense of, what I did, I did my best, and that was enough, and if you've done your best, that's enough, and sometimes, it may not feel like it's your best, of course, it probably won't feel like it's your best, maybe even in the moment, like, maybe I could do more, but you know, you've also got to look after yourself, and it's like, I'm not going to start saying cliches, like, well, if you don't look after yourself, you can't look after anyone else,

however true it is, it's just, do we need any more of that, it's the whole thing, remember someone saying, well, if you can't love yourself, you'll never love anyone else, it's absolute bollocks, I understand where they're coming from, but no, it's not true, I love my Nan, I've never loved myself, I've never particularly liked myself, but I've liked other people, the idea is, you can't love anyone else, if you don't love yourself, no, silly, absolutely silly, I mean, I imagine, I can see you'd be more open to,

be more open towards other people, and be more positive towards other people, if, if I was more positive towards myself, yeah, that makes sense, I perhaps have more love in me towards other people, if I had some towards myself, yeah, it makes sense, but to be so, like, downright, you know, that's the line, if you don't, if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else, no, ridiculous, some of those cliches, it's like, I don't know why people, I don't know why really, what's the point in them anymore, nothing's black and white,

nothing's that simple, really, things are as simple as we allow them to be, I guess, take the emotions out, and a lot of things are quite simple, and also people's lifestyles, because, you know, I had a friend that, he could not get his head around my anxiety, or depression, or mental health stuff, he couldn't get his head around it, his attitude was, why don't I just buck my ideas up, be more positive, you shouldn't take medication all the time, it's not supposed to be long-term, okay, what's your alternative, my friend,

and he just really didn't get it, almost like I was putting it on, and he didn't get it, and then, a few years later, he was on antidepressants for, you know, depression, and I think he kind of, slightly got the thing, because it isn't something that you can control, if it was, who would choose to be depressed, you know, some people would, but generally, I don't think many people would, really, it's, I don't think many out there would take it as a lifestyle choice, nor looking after someone,

or trying to care for someone, that's mentally ill, or physically ill, I mean, if you open it up to the physically ill, then millions upon millions of people, have cared for someone that's ill, and it is, in my experience, one of the hardest things, ever, I've never had to, luckily, never had to deal with, like a child, I don't have any kids, so I've had to deal with that, I've never got married, so I've not had to deal with a wife, or never had any of my brothers get ill,

I'm not really close to them anyway, really, but, so I've never had to go through that with a family member, other than with my Nan, and hers was due to being 96 years old, she basically just, just, the whole body was given up, really, just due to her age, and that was horrible to see, but it wasn't, it was just different, if that makes sense, it was, it was, yeah, I've seen the beginnings of, you know, actually, both my step-parents, my step-grandparents, both had dementia, and that was shocking,

to see the changes, I wasn't their carer, though, but I did care, I didn't hardly speak to him, because my step-granddad, he was, just didn't say hardly anything to me, the whole time I knew him, but my step-grandmother, we got on so well, we chatted for hours, we'd always have something to talk about, everything and nothing, you know, just, just chat, she was funny, she made me laugh, I made her laugh, so full of energy, and, yeah, she went downhill really quickly, to the point where she wasn't even,

we couldn't communicate, and that was very painful, because I wouldn't see her very often, and so every time I saw her, she was way worse, than if I'd have seen her, you know, regularly, because I didn't live near where she was living, no, that's not really an excuse, but I just didn't know what to do, in that situation, I'd never gone through the experience of actually caring for someone, until my friend got ill, he used to call me his carer, and I said, I'm not your carer,

he used to tell everyone I was his carer, and I never did personal care, other than, I think, putting ointment on his back once, I didn't do any personal stuff, I'd help him out, but he, yeah, he was a very, I suppose, a proud man, or whatever, so he didn't ever really ask for any help, sometimes he'd come and have a bath in my bath, because he was worried that he'd drown, because he had a habit of falling asleep in the bath, and he was scared, scared to have a bath,

and so, yeah, sometimes I'd just talk to him while he was in there, I wasn't sitting on a toilet singing to him, reading poetry, I was literally out here talking to him, and I think what was weird is seeing him physically decline, because he was, I'd say he's pretty healthy when I moved in there, physically, and even mentally, he seemed okay, he wasn't, you know, he had a long history of mental health issues, as I do, but he had, he was, anyone that knew him, especially people around here,

they knew him as being this, not a gentle giant, because he wasn't a giant, he was over six foot tall, but he had tattoos, he looked like a, I guess, like a ruffian, someone that you'd cross the road maybe to avoid, he, you know, this big white scary dog, but anyone that got to know him, especially the neighbours, just thought he was lovely, he was very respectful, he talked gently, and he was helpful, he'd help anyone, if he could, he helped me with my shopping, even though, to be fair,

he probably physically wasn't up to it, but he still, he got to the point where he would help me do this, he helped me carry the shopping out off in the hallway, or he'd bend over, and he would take the shopping out of the crates, into the bags, and when I got delivery, because my lower back is being, so arthritis in my lower back, and it hurts so much when I do, when I bend over, which, however weird that might sound, it just does really, so he would help with that,

but then it got to the point where he wasn't doing so good, so he'd help me do it, but I'd do it with him, and then it got to the point where I just did it on me, I just, you know, did it on my own, or I started getting deliveries from Amazon, rather than from the supermarket, because they just deliver in brown bags, so I can just, and I haven't got to answer the door, it's more expensive, but just easier, because then I don't have to hurt myself,

I'm not in pain, when I just, it's like a quick bend, and that's it, rather than bending over, and taking stuff out individually, and putting them into carrier bags, and all that stuff, and one of the worst things, is if I bend over the bath, wash my hair, doing it that way, sometimes I've got hours of pain afterwards, see, I managed to turn it back on myself now, let's talk about me now, oh dear, oh dear, so I've been thinking about him recently, maybe it's because the anniversary is coming up,

you know, it's not far off now, it's less than a month away, and just, this is kind of the period, when he was pretty much at his worst, the last six months were the worst, and there was, I tried to get him help, I really tried, and the, you know, the, he wouldn't, that's the whole thing, what I was saying earlier, is the expectation, that somebody needs to not only ask for help themselves, but need to take responsibility for themselves, and you know what, not everyone can do that,

sometimes that's part of the illness, is not being able to take responsibility for themselves, so to just cut those people out, you know, well we're not going to offer help if you can't, you know, you've got to turn up for these appointments, you've got to do this and do that, and he couldn't leave the house because of his stomach, you know, the last, well, not anywhere, not any kind of a distance, I mean, I won't go into details, but it was really bad, his stomach was really, really bad,

I've never known anyone with a worse stomach than that, and he'd given up, he'd completely given up, because he didn't know what to do, because he couldn't get help for his physical stuff, he couldn't, not unless he actually went out the house and turned up, which he, all I could offer was going with him, getting a taxi, and getting there, but even the taxi journey wasn't guaranteed, he'd make the taxi journey, he wouldn't, I got into a psychiatrist a couple of times, again in a taxi, his leg went septic shortly before he died,

don't know what that was about, that lasted for about six weeks, and in the end he wouldn't go, I say septic, it, this is not an official diagnosis, but it was really bad, and it was like he just had a hole in his leg, and he, we went to the, he wouldn't go to the doctors, because of his stomach, he wouldn't go, he couldn't trust himself to get there, and I said well we've got to do something, so in the end I called 111, and they said well what you can't,

you need to go to the hospital really, so we can call an ambulance, he said no, no ambulance, okay, because he, even though he was well, he had that, he still had that civic responsibility of not wanting to waste resources, or to take ambulance resources, paramedics away from someone else that may need it more than him, as far as he was concerned everyone needed it more than him, depending on his mood of course, but he didn't want an ambulance, the only time he ever had an ambulance for him was when I called it,

well when I was with him, I mean other people called ambulances for him as well, during the period that I knew him, and which I found out later, but this is, you know, when he was here, when he was with me, he never ever called an ambulance for himself, wouldn't do it, regardless of how he was, he wouldn't do it, so with the pharmacy, his leg, I called 111, and because he wouldn't go to do anything, I said well, they said well, your last option is go to the pharmacy,

and I think they contacted the pharmacy, and said he's going to give you, he'll look at your leg, and he's going to give you medication, antibiotics for your leg, and if that doesn't work, then you will have to call an ambulance, or you know, get to the hospital, so that's what we did, we went to the hospital, we went to the, we got a taxi, I got a taxi, to take him to the pharmacy, and I, it was quite funny actually, because he was, he went in there, got seen,

because they've got a special room that you can go into, he was, he went in there, and they were busy, and he gets on really well with the pharmacist, like the bloke that runs the place, and he's known him for years, and he just gets on with him, but he goes in there, but the pharmacist was rude, like, oh, this is not a good time, can't you come back when we're not busy, unless it's important, and I shouted, yeah, it's important Mike, you know, I mean, he needs to be seen,

the 111 called you up, didn't they, he said, oh, that was you, was it, apparently they didn't give the name of the person that they were talking about, he said, okay, and he, I think they were really busy, I think maybe they were giving Covid jabs, or something, I don't know, flu jabs, so he went in there, and the pharmacist looked at his leg, and said, okay, I didn't go in with him, which I did, I've been in, that's another thing I used to do,

I used to go into the doctor's surgery with him, like for years, and years, leading up to last year, I'd go in with him, whether it was for his physical, or whether it was for his mental health, I'd support him with that, and I'd go in with him, not if you needed an exam, like a physical, you know, intrusive examination, I wouldn't be in there with him, I'd wait outside, but I'd always go with him, to the, for the doctors, always go, sometimes we'd go by bus, or get a taxi there,

and quite often, yeah, if it was just like a routine thing, we'd go by bus, and I'd wait outside, in the outbid, with his dog, and then perhaps we'd go and get McDonald's and stuff, or then go home, so depending, I'm talking about like previous years, I mean he couldn't, he couldn't eat McDonald's the last year or two anyway, but yeah, so, but there were times when I'd go in, so if it was something like mental health wise, I'd go in with him, leave the dog at home,

I'd go in with him, and it was more to remind him of what he needed to say, because he'd forget, he'd get distracted, a little bit like me really, get distracted, and start talking about something that wasn't even relevant to why he was there, and it's not his fault, it's just the way he was, and that's always the way he was, like he, he'd just talk on about other stuff, and he'd, I guess try and make them laugh, and you know, he wouldn't present himself in, in the way that,

what was really going on with him, he'd put a, put a, like a smiley face on, and he'd try and make them feel better, even though he'd gone to, to the doctors, because of his own being unwell situation, so I'd have to bring him back, so like, okay, guys interrupt, remember this, this, this, this, and he said, oh yeah, okay, just like remind him why he was there, and I think in those situations it's important, I mean, I went into a, into the mental health thing with him,

where he was seeing a psychiatrist, with the, after he'd had the crisis team called out, so I managed to get him there with a taxi again, he wouldn't go, we had, no, not a taxi, we got a car, a local person gave us a lift, it took two of us to get him in there, not physically, but just he didn't want to go, and we, he was like, oh, wait a second, I'm gonna do this, and like, we both had to be at him, in order to get him into the car,

we got in there, I went in with him, the other bloke just waited in his car, or drove off and did something and came back, so we were in there for about an hour and a half, and I was sitting there, and again, he kept going off the subject, so he wasn't giving a true account of what was going on, and it was hard, because if, if, if this psychiatrist had seen what he was really like at home, or when he was up here, then I think he would have gotten the help that he needed,

but then, I don't know, because we called a crisis team out, probably six months before he passed, and they wouldn't, they came out, but they wouldn't take him into hospital, and that's what he needed, that's what he wanted, and trust me, he didn't, the idea of him wanting that, he'd had it before in the past, quite a long time ago, he'd been in a mental health unit, and he wanted to go back, he wanted to go, because he knew that he felt that either he was going to do harm to someone else,

or to himself, he really believed that, and he needed to be stopped, he needed help, and they wouldn't do anything other than give him an appointment in two weeks time to see a psychiatrist, he needed help there and then, and that day, he'd already tried to end things himself, so this wasn't just, you know, it wasn't a call, it was not a shout for help, because it failed, and to this day, we still don't know if that's what happened with him this time, and there's no way of knowing,

because he'd attempted it many times, I've called an ambulance at least three times in the past, when he's overdone it, let's say, on purpose, so I mean, why did, even once did the paramedics, the first thing he said to the paramedics is, when they brought him back, he said, I don't want a beer anymore, why wasn't he sectioned, that's the very first thing he said to them, and so it's obviously on purpose, yet they didn't do anything, it's on their camera, him saying that, because they're all cameras on there,

why didn't they, although the paramedic said you need to come to the hospital, and he refused, and the paramedic at that time said, well next time, we won't resuscitate you in your house, we'll take you into the ambulance, and we'll resuscitate you on the way to the hospital, but then how do they do that, because they needed two people, so it's kind of a, it's a difficult situation, I guess, because they couldn't stick him in the back of the ambulance with just one person, because it took both of them working on him,

to bring him back, from, do you know there's a, it's not cute, but it's some stupid term, that the drug addicts use, so when someone overdoes it, they say, he's gone over, he's gone over, like it's, just use the proper words, I know I'm not using the proper word, when I say overdone it, but I'm trying to keep it as minimum as possible, to using those words, I've never heard that term before, till I moved in here, and I just, it's such a ridiculous term, he's gone over, and I understand,

like they say, and everyone knows what it means, use the proper term, shout it out loudly, let everyone know what's going on, instead of keeping it your little secret, you know, maybe a medical person will hear, and they'll be able to actually help, you know, because let's face it, if you've got five people off their heads, and one collapses, they're very lucky, if they actually survive in that environment, I actually know, this is ridiculous, I phoned someone up once, there's someone overdosed in my flat, they just went into the toilet,

I said the word, sorry, they went into the toilet, their boyfriend was downstairs with my friend, they'd had an argument, and she came up here, said, okay, if I just wait here for a minute, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna go and get a taxi, I said, all right, I'll walk you to the taxi, I'll walk you to the petrol station or whatever, so she came in, chatted a bit, I said, let's go, walked her to the taxi, she got a taxi, came back, and then about an hour later,

she turns up again, knocks on my door, I figure it's my friend downstairs, it's not, she comes in, oh, she was all upset, like, what's going on, oh, can't find my boyfriend or whatever, they're not answering the door downstairs, whatever it was, drama, she said, can I come and stay sitting here for a little bit, I said, yeah, that's fine, it wasn't, I used to be up late at night anyway at that time, so it probably was early hours, so she just sat in the chair, the other side of the room,

I said, can I use your toilet, I said, yeah, fine, I'm wondering, like, are you gonna go, when are you gonna go, and she went to the toilet, and she came out, she sat on the chair, and just slid off the chair, and collapsed on the floor, vomited, and like, oh my god, what the hell is going on here, I did not know that she'd taken anything, I didn't know, she didn't, like, say, I want to go, and you know, no, nothing like that, because I just said, no, get out,

so I called an ambulance straight away, I had to do mouth-to-mouth, I had all this stuff on the phone before the ambulance gets here, and the paramedics are working on her, and when they do get here, the police come around, because it's a single, a woman, with, with a man, I guess they were suspicious about my activities, so they came in and started searching the flat, just looking around, and so that was, that was a pretty horrible experience, I phoned up a neighbour, not my friend, but someone else,

to ask for help, this was probably just before I called for an ambulance, like, it's like, instantly, like, what, can you help, because that person would probably know how to help her, just, you know, while we wait for the ambulance, his response was, let her die, so that's very hard to deal with that, that, that kind of, because, you know, there's another person that I know locally, or that around, or whatever, overdosed, and two people in the room said, just, let's just drag him outside and leave him out there,

because they didn't want the ambulance and the police coming around, my friend resuscitated him, but there's that, a lot of reasons, I guess, why people die and pass away, because they, an ambulance is not called, either they don't, don't do anything, or they try and do it themselves, and they're not medically trained, probably most of them, to do that, because I've seen, I've seen that your paramedics spend 40 minutes working on someone to resuscitate them, it's not just a simple, you know, chest compressions, mouth to mouth, it's a lot,

a lot of drugs pumping into them to get them back, you know, oxygen and all that stuff that a human being, normal person does not have, it was, so to have that, there's also that idea, like, oh, just let him, let him, let him die, and it's, I can't get my head around that mentality, so it just shows you what a dangerous situation it is, being in a room with people like that, if, you know, and they've all got mental health issues, and you know someone's in that environment, and you can't help them, you're not going to stop being in that environment, how do you help them?

I went through a period when I got involved in that environment, and I'd be there, sitting there with these people, and it wasn't fun, there was nothing fun about it, because it was volatile, and I got on with most of his friends, I did, but some of them were just, just not the nicest people, and how many of them really had his, had, you know, good intentions towards him, how many people had his back, how many people really cared about his well-being, maybe they all did, but how many really,

he told me, this is two days before he died, he told me that he phoned up two of his closest people in his life, and they both said the same thing to him, that they got, they both said to him, they've got their own problems to deal with, that's what he told me, he phoned up two different people, and they've got, they've got, I've got my own problems, maybe not the day before, but like, you know, within a week or so before, because this was going on for a while,

and people just tell him that they've got their own problems, and which they probably did, they definitely did, however, it's a hard situation to be in, isn't it, how do you deal with your own stuff, when you've got someone else constantly trying to use you as a support system, when you're struggling to support yourself, it's just a, it's a no-win situation, I think, it's very difficult, I can see different sides, you see different sides, and it's hard, it's just hard, so you can't, I think, try to learn,

I think I've learned that you can't make someone else do anything, you can't make someone else better, I mean, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a physician or magician, I don't know how to heal someone from their disease or from their mental illness, and no matter how much I'd like to, I can't, I can't do it, I don't know how to, I don't know how to stop someone who's bipolar from being bipolar, if I did, then I wouldn't be bipolar, would I, because there's very little benefit, I mean,

I suppose the benefits would be when I'm in a good mood, when I'm in a good mood, that mood's better than anything, like anything, there's no, nothing can touch it, you know, when I'm in a, when I'm in that mood, that mode of like, yeah, buzzing, kind of, yeah, everything's brilliant, not everything, but you know, but then I can be in that mood at the wrong times, like the complete inappropriate times, and I can also be in a hugely depressive mood at the wrong times,

I've attended weddings when I just hated everything that was going on, and it wasn't because of what was going on, it was just because of my mood, I've been to a funeral when I was in a good mood, and I was looking around like, why is everyone upset, I was so, it's almost like I couldn't relate at all to what was going on, and I was like, even almost slapping myself, well, why can't I get upset about this, like, this is a long time ago, but not a recent thing,

this is 20 odd years, 30 years ago, but I was like, why, why am I able to be upset, but it wasn't that I wasn't able to be upset, it's just that was the mood I was in, I was in a good mood, and it wasn't dependent upon my environment, although my environment does, am I saying that word right, environment, environment, it does affect me sometimes hugely, and stuff that happens affects me sometimes in a huge way, in a more magnified way than is helpful, I mean, caring for someone,

that's unwell, I've been unwell, and I've cared for someone that's unwell, and I would say caring is worse than being unwell, now, I've never been physically in a sense of, like, serious, serious, serious physical illness, thankfully, but I have had serious mental illness, in the past, and it comes and goes anyway, it's just one of those things that happens regularly, but trying to support someone that is ill, from my own experience, and I've seen it as well, watching other people go through it, is, there should be, there should be medals,

I don't mean for me, but I'm just thinking about what my, my parents went through, when, so my dad, my stepmom, okay, they had both my nan, and, so which is my dad's mum, and her mum and dad, all ill at the same time, both her parents had dementia, Parkinson's, really, they were very, very unwell, needed care, and my nan needed care, but she had nurses coming in, and stuff, and it's one of those things, she went, we went to my nan's funeral, and then, my stepmum, had to go visit her mum,

in hospital, I think she'd, I can't remember, she'd, yeah, she, she was in hospital, and, it's like, there was no let up, there was no release, there was no relief, there was no, she went from one horrible situation, to another worse situation, really, because that was her own mum, her own person that gave birth to her, who she'd all been, always been very close to, and she's seen her deteriorate, I mean, my nan was chatty till the end, she was still chatty, she could hardly talk, she couldn't see hardly at all,

she pretty much, she was blind, I think she had a tiny little bit of blurry vision, she couldn't hear very well, the last time I spoke to her, I was almost inside her mouth talking to her, or inside her ear, I don't know, just, it was hard, I had a megaphone right over her ear, it was just very, but, she still had a sense of humour, she still had a, like, she was still there, you know, kind of, but, I knew it was near the end of her, but then, someone's 96,

it's quite an obvious statement, isn't it, really, I know some people live to be 107, but that's like the oldest person in the world, out of, what, 7 billion people, it, getting to 107 is not a regular occurrence, these days, it will be one day, probably, you know, in the future, people will probably live to be hundreds of years old, just like whales do, maybe we just need to, maybe that's what it is, we need to put more weight on, maybe it's the, it's, once you get really big, it's unhealthy,

but if you get really big, like, 5, 10 times bigger than that, then it becomes healthy again, maybe that's why whales do so well, and you have to live in the sea, the problem is we're living on land, the really big people have to live in the sea, and we just have to learn to gradually hold our breath a little bit longer, I don't know, it's not like they've got gills, they're not fish, are they, they're not in the sea because they like to swim,

they're in the sea because they couldn't live in any other environment, so maybe that's where us big, I say us, you know, I'm not slim, so maybe bigger people need to be, I have lost weight though, so maybe I am slim now, I'm not, but maybe I am, but I'm not, okay, that's that done, so yeah, none of this has probably made any sense at all, I've probably flip-flopped all around the place, but hey, that's what I do, I just wanted to just, I was asked to talk about the subject,

here's me talking about the subject, and I would suggest remembering that you're a human being, the question is, you know, about even if you're not an actual carer for the person, it's someone that you care about, if it's your brother, your sister, your relative or good friend, you might not be a personal one-on-one carer, and you might not be with them regularly every day, but if you care about them, and if you've done what you can do, or what you're able to do, because you know, there's limitations,

I was in a position with my friend downstairs that he relied on me, but if he hadn't relied on me, he might not have, if I didn't live here, I had his key, I had his front door key upstairs, so I could go in there if I needed to, if he didn't answer his phone, or he didn't answer his door, I would go in and just check if he was okay, it didn't happen very often, but he, you know, I did have his front door key up here, in an emergency,

or if he lost his keys, or if he left his keys somewhere, which he did sometimes, he'd turn his phone off, so people that lived in London or other parts of the country couldn't contact him at all, I'd get people phoning me, can you check up on him, is he okay, I said no, he's fine, he was up here 10 minutes ago, he's okay, or if I hadn't heard from him, I'd go down and say, you know, are you alright, and someone called, sometimes I'd keep them on the phone,

if it was someone that was, like his dad, or someone, you know, a close person to him, and he'd talk to them on my phone, and I'd be waiting there for an hour, while he was talking to them, like can you just turn your phone on and call them back, and sometimes he just wanted to, he wanted the company, I think, he used to say to me, you know, half an hour with me is what he needed every day, he felt better if he spent at least half an hour up here with me,

it was kind of like a healing thing, you know, just he felt better about the day, it put him in a better mood, and in, because it was, up here is very relaxing, a relaxing space, it's very calm, always has been, and that's how I live my life, I'm so calm, there's no drama, I've seen, I've had people try and be dramatic up here, so I had two people who didn't necessarily get on with each other, one was already in here, another one knocked on the door, I said come in,

I didn't know they had an issue with each other, so the one that just came in started on the other one, and I just said no, no, it ain't happening in here, and he didn't know what to say, like well, tough, it ain't happening in my home, you get on or you get out, as simple as that, and he left, to be fair, he did leave, and I said no, I'm not having, because he literally just straight away started, and he started grabbing him, I said no, no, no, no,

because I don't do drama, I don't want it in my home, and I've had enough of it in my life, but unfortunately, although it wasn't in my home, it was in the building, so much drama, the last nine years, more drama than anyone ever should have to have, without choosing it, it's different if you choose that lifestyle, and drama comes with it, you know, if you're going to spend all your days drinking alcohol, or taking drugs, you're going to have drama, there's going to be a chaotic lifestyle,

drama is going to come your way, because you're going to be around people that have dramatic lives, it just comes with the territory, I don't want that drama, I don't want that lifestyle, and I've never been anti-drugs in my life, I got no issue, I had an alcohol, I pretty much had an alcohol problem in my 30s, you know, kind of, I was drinking quite heavily, regularly for years, I stopped, but it was definitely an issue, and I've lived in a house full of alcoholics as well, and I've seen that,

I got on with most of them, I've seen the dramas, and all the stuff that goes on there, and ironically, that was during the year when I stopped drinking, I moved into this place, and I was surrounded by alcoholics, and I was almost like becoming their carers, helping them, and it was weird, very surreal, very kind of karmic moment, I think, and I don't want that drama in my life anymore, and I never did, to be honest, I was always like a secret, I used to call myself a secret lemonade drinker,

after that advert, I'm a secret lemonade drinker, so it wasn't that I was a secret drinker, hiding it from anyone, I was just a solitary, whatever I did in my life, whether it was alcohol or anything else, it was solitary, pretty much, because I'm a solitary person, and I don't, I enjoy myself better when I'm on my own, if I'm doing things, than if I'm with someone, that's not what I, as a couple of people, I've been able to, where I used to have a smoke, I'd do it with two of my friends,

Andre was one, and we experimented a little bit with different things, and he, he was someone that I trusted, Andre, and my other friend as well, so not the one downstairs, but this is back in the 90s, so, I'm not, I'm not a prude, and I'm definitely not anti, never been anti, I'm anti the lifestyle, for me, I've always been anti that lifestyle for me, never wanted that, scared the hell out of me, I saw documentaries when I was in my teens, of people, you know, with that lifestyle,

and I was like, that's my worst case scenario, and I ended up living in that environment, partly, so it was weird, that it kind of came to me anyway, but never again, I'm never gonna, I can't be involved in any of that stuff, I absolutely detest drugs now, and I don't detest people that take them, because I still know people that do, and someone, someone did ask me, excuse me, someone did say to me, well, why don't you just stop talking to people that take drugs, I said, well,

then I'd have no one to talk to, everyone I know, pretty much does stuff, so, that's their choice, but it's not my, they don't do it in my home, they don't do it in front of me, and I, I don't want anything to do with that aspect of anyone's life anymore, because I've seen it, well, I've seen what it's done, I've lost someone close to me because of that stuff, so, yeah, not my thing, but everyone can do what they want to do, it seems that I've, I've noticed that, yeah,

I don't know, it's weird, I don't know if anything I said has made any sense at all, it's a very serious recording, but the bottom line is, try not to give yourself a hard time, because you can't control what anybody does, you can't control it, whether you're a parent, whether you're a child of a parent doing something, whether it's your friend, your siblings, your partner, your wife, your husband, you can't ultimately stop someone from doing what they're going to do, you can't stop them, you can help them to stop,

but you can't actually force someone to stop doing something, it's just, it's kind of impossible, some people, you know, they can be manipulated in a sense of, I knew someone that, he met someone, and she said, she didn't know that he was doing stuff, and she said, if you, if you don't stop doing that, then we can't be together, because she'd lost her brother to that stuff, and he did stop, but that was his choice to stop, he chose her over getting high, and so that was his choice,

and there are millions of people that have stopped, millions of people that have stopped drinking alcohol, millions of people, the thing is, I think the alcohol, I would say the alcoholics, just using that as a term, they've got the right idea, is you go to AA, and you continue forever to monitor the whole thing, and you support each other, and I know there is NA, Narcotics Anonymous, but it doesn't seem to be the same, it's from what I've seen people, I've known people in AA, that have gone on to be,

have a really good lives, really good, successful, happy lives, and you know, they've always classed themselves as alcoholics, even 30, 40 years later, you won't, you'll be, you'll struggle to find someone calling themselves a drug addict, when they've just, literally just injected something 10 minutes ago, you know, it's the face in it, it's the, the actual face in the issue, it's one of those things, it's just, maybe it's the lack of support, maybe it's the lack of caring, as a society, there's definitely a, a negative, a negativity, I think,

towards people that are in that world, you know, that are doing that stuff, and I understand why, I understand why, I can see why, I'll be, I'll be honest, I was more compassionate about people with drug issues, before I met them, honestly, I'd met them as in like, I used to counsel people, and you should do relaxation sessions in 2006, 2007, but once I started to spend time, like, seeing what goes on, I kind of, I had less compassion, as a whole, I had more compassion individually for my friend,

but the reality was just like, wow, because the only people I was seeing at this drug and rehab center, were people that had actually stopped, and they were getting their lives back, it wasn't like a, a turning up for a quick session, and then going out and doing drugs, it's like, they were, they literally had stopped, and they were serious, some of them were really ill, and they, they couldn't do anything anymore, and even the counselors had previously been addicts, some of them, so this is a very successful place,

so I guess I've only seen the nice side of it, if that makes sense, the after, the recovery side, not the, the illness side of it, and there was one person at the charity, and he used to come in, and he was so ill, but just from the after effects of all of it, his body was just falling apart, but he still came in every week to do the relaxation session, and he loved it, and it's the only time that he stopped shaking, because his nervous system was completely messed up,

I'm not quite sure what he had, but he had some quite serious illness that was happening because of his previous lifestyle, and the one thing I noticed about every single one of them, not every single, but most of them, is they were nice, I was going to say every single one, there was some that were actually in prison, and they just came out for, for the, part of their treatment, like they released to come to the centre, and not all of those were so friendly, but I made a mistake,

I didn't realise, so I did this course, and I was helping run another thing, which was talking about anger management and stuff, this is with the boss who ran the place, I was just supporting him, he got called out, and the idea was I was going to support him, and then at the end I was going to do a relaxation session, so he'd do like half an hour talking, and I'd do half an hour relaxation session, and it was full, a full group, probably 20 people, adults, men,

and he had to rush off, and I said okay, an emergency, family emergency, so I said, when he'd gone, they said do we have to be here, I said no, of course you don't, I didn't know who they were, I didn't know why they were there, or who they were, I wasn't, no one told me that they were all people that were in prison, and he, I said we can do a relaxation session, they said, and they said, someone shouted at you, we need to be here, I said no,

go if you don't want to be here, go, and probably at least eight people left, and the next week I got told not to say that again, and a couple of them had a go at me, said you said we could go, but we weren't allowed to go, I said I didn't know you was all prisoners, how was I supposed to know that, I didn't know you had to be here, and I said look, it doesn't work, I'm not doing a relaxation session with people that have to be here,

doesn't work that way, you know, even though you could, they might have to be here for what you're doing, but they have to, it has to be optional for what I do, otherwise I'm not doing it, so they, they kind of said okay, for that, for my relaxation, only those that wanted to be there could be there, the rest could leave, they'd have to still be in the building, but they'd go into a section, because I'm not, relaxation sessions, it has to be voluntary, you know,

otherwise it's just going to be disruptive for everyone else, so there I am, I talked for about seven hours, I've still got a bit of a headache, sorry if I've talked complete nonsense for an hour and a half, which I probably have, and that's probably what I normally do, but I suppose really I'm just trying to get the point across is, you can only do what you can do, and if someone's set on self-destruction, there's, ain't a huge amount you can do to help, I don't say ignore it and don't help,

just still try to help, but just remember it's not your fault, right, it's not your fault, it's not my fault my friend's dead, it's not your fault, if someone's going through an illness, whether it's mental health or physical, you can't control another person, we don't have that right, the only time we get to do that is if we've got kids, and even then there are laws surrounding that, I know a lot of people think the law don't apply to them, but it really does, so children have a lot more rights now than they ever used to,

but ultimately you can't control another adult, you can't physically control them, you can't mentally control them, you can try and emotionally control them if you're in a relationship with them, that sometimes works, but they probably won't like you for it, so yeah, it may well backfire as well, you know, the whole thing, stop drinking otherwise you're not going to see your kids anymore, well that's probably just going to drive them to drink even more, even heavier, so it's kind of like trying to work out what the right way around it is,

and I don't have an answer for that, that's the problem, I wish I did, I don't, I don't know what the solution is, other than you do your best, and your best one week might not be your best another week, you might not be able to do anything one week because you're not able to deal with it, you know, unless you're a qualified carer, which I mean there's lots of qualified carers, there's a lot in their world, but probably more people caring are unqualified and doing it because they've kind of got no choice,

because it's a member of their family or you know, something like that, and nothing's ever going to be good enough, but whatever you do is good enough, just remember it is good enough, but it might not be good enough to them, and it might not feel good enough to you, but ultimately it is good enough, because if you're doing your best, given what you can give, it is good enough, even you know, I know it's like I'm just contradicting what I'm saying, even if it isn't good enough, it's still good enough,

you've done what you can, you're not an alchemist, you know, you're not a magician, you do what you can, and maybe it's time to realize that you're pretty amazing, and the fact is you care, if you care about someone, and you care about their well-being, even if you don't even, even if you're not with them, then doesn't that say something about you, the fact that you care, maybe just let them know that you care, that sometimes it's all you can do, you might live in a different country, you know,

it was easy for me in a sense, I lived downstairs, it was a 10 second journey, I say easy, but like as far as getting there, travel wise I mean, sometimes just a text message, letting you know that I care, I do care, and say it, say it to the point where they're annoyed sometimes, and that's when you know it's starting to sink in, I just want to know you, I care about you, yeah, yeah, no, bloody, I care about you, I really care about you, yeah, yeah, I really care,

and they're getting annoyed, but you know what, what are they going to remember when you've left, when you've gone, and they're thinking about what you said, it's annoying, but what they're thinking about, they're hearing the words, I care about you, I care about you, I love you, or whatever way you want to put it, I care about you, so they might be annoyed with that, just stop going on, but I care, I just want you to know I care about you, it's important, I do anything I can to help you,

and I care about you, and I am here, and only offer that if it's real, if it's true as well, if you can be there for someone, if you can't be there for someone all the time, don't tell them you can, because it's not fair on either of you, some people do have the ability to be there for someone in an emergency, because either they live locally, or you know, they live with the person maybe, but if you're not able to be there, you can at least say,

I wish I could be there for you all the time, but I am thinking about you, and I do care about you deeply, sometimes that it just, because it's real, it's true, rather than, I'm always here if you need me, well that's not true is it necessarily, it might be, but it might not be, and I said that to people, and it's not been true, but with him it was true, because I always, I was always here to answer the door, if he knocked, I was always here,

I'll answer the door if people knock anyway, but I'll always, I never, he's always welcome to come in, or if he needed me to go down, he would, sometimes he'd shout out from the garden, sometimes he'd shout from his flat, and I'd go down, but that wasn't that often, but I've never been able to do that for anyone else, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again for anyone else, because I don't know if I could put myself through that again, but when I said to him,

I am here, and I do care, he didn't question it, he knew, that's the one thing he knew, that I was here, and he knew, and he used to thank me, and I used to say, look, don't thank me, just pay me the bloody money back that you owe me, and he'd laugh, and I'd think, why are you laughing, I want that bloody money back, and he'd laugh again, because I say that, he said, no seriously, pay me my money, so tell you what, I used to make him laugh when I lost it,

occasionally I'd get angry, occasionally, not at him, but potentially, but just something would trigger me, I'd really lose it, it's very rare for that to happen to me, but he'd find it funny, because he always saw me as this gentle person, and he was like, I wouldn't want to upset you, it's like, what are you talking about, because he really just, because I perhaps not, it's a bit weird, but I used to make him laugh though, and that's another thing I miss, we had the sense of humour,

where we'd both say things that were very inappropriate, but it was very funny, and there's just certain things that he'd do to, I'll give you an example of him, in a, in a, some of the things he'd say, so he was sitting, we were watching, I don't know if we were watching boxing, but he was sitting there on a chair over there, I was sitting in my chair at the desk, another person came in, and he was sitting on the settee, he said to me, do you mind if I smoke a joint,

I said, I don't care, windows open, I'm not bothered, I've not been near that stuff for years, and it was proper pungent, he went, so my friend was still sitting over there, the one with the joint, put his, he said, I was going to pop to the toilet, is that alright, I said, yes, fine, my friend said to me, you've got to ask him to get rid of that, that smoke's disgusting, it's really making me gag, and it's getting on my chest, and it's horrible, I said, I agree,

it is horrible, he said, can you just ask him to put it out, please, so I said, when he came back, I said, I suppose you could do us a favour, could you not smoke that here, because it smokes a bit too much, and you know my friend, the other friend said, my friend, he said, oh, it's not bothering me, the first thing he said, and he looked at me, and he just like, he smiled and laughed about laughing, just with his eyes, that's how he was, very cheeky, very, just,

yeah, it was funny, and I still, I did tell, I didn't tell the person that had the joint, I didn't tell him at the time, but I told him after the event, after my friend passed away, and he found it funny, he said, that is exactly what he's like, that is just, it's just a wind-up really, oh dear, so I'm going to go, but I don't know if any of this was useful, or worth it, if it wasn't, I'm, I apologise, if it was, I apologise, I apologise to everyone for everything,

because anyway, I'm going to go, thank you for listening, remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy, be gentle with yourself, lots of love, and remember, all you can do is your best, and your best is enough, and that's woken Vinnie up, bye, all right then, you've just woken up, just as we were doing that, you just woke up, it's like he's primed to hear me say, bye, all the best, lots of love, and he just wakes up, all right, I've got to do wee-wee's, I've got to do wee-wee's.