JCIP #341 - Lucy MacLeod

In episode 341 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Lucy MacLeod. 

Lucy is a firefighter and has worked in the London Fire Brigade for over 16 years across a range of different roles since she joined the LFB in May 2009. 

Her current role involves her being a trauma and wellbeing dog handler, which she does with her dog Blue. Together, they have a social media account which brings awareness to wellbeing dogs and the role they play in the fire service. 

In her words, Blue acts as a ‘buffer and a bridge’ with people and he helps build trust with them who then feel they can disclose to Lucy on what is happening to them.

In this episode we first discuss her firefighting journey, why she joined it comparatively late in life, the roles she has had and the work she does with Blue now. 

For Lucy’s mental health journey, it centres around a terrible accident she experienced in 2004, when she worked as a duty manager at a pool and fitness centre. She inhaled chlorine gas and it burned her upper airway. She was on multiple medications and was diagnosed with PTSD (which we prefer to call PTSI). 

After struggling for a period of time, she decided one day that enough was enough and she wanted to take a more holistic approach to her mental health.

She tried everything she could to make her feel better, including CBT therapy, EMDR and acupuncture. 

She also got a dog called Lucky, which was a game changer. He got her out of bed in the morning, gave her purpose and was her ‘heartbeat’. Lucy soon got another dog called Poppy to keep Lucky company when she went to work. Lucky unfortunately died in 2019 and Poppy died in 2022.

We talk about the accident, why Lucy has a mantra of ‘you are not your diagnosis, it’s a start point’ and her recovery journey from 2004 to now.

In 2025, she published her first book, a children’s adventure book called ‘Lucy & Blue Save The Day’ and we discuss how the book came about, how she feels to be a children’s author and the impact it’s had on the children who’ve bought it!

As always, #itsokaytovent

Find out more about Lucy's journey and where you can purchase a copy of her book here: https://lucyandblue.com/.

You can follow Lucy & Blue on social media below: 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. And each episode I check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Lucy McLeod. Lucy is a firefighter and has worked in the London Fire Brigade for over 16 years. Lucy joined LFB in May 2009 and has worked in a whole range of roles, including station manager, group commander, deputy assistant commissioner, and national tactical advisor. Her current role also involves being a trauma and well-being dog handler, which she does with her dog Blue. Lucy has had dogs throughout her personal life, but the shifts she does are at unsociable hours. So she decided to combine the personal and the professional by having a dog who has become part of her everyday job. In her words, Blue acts as a buffer and a bridge. In this episode, we first discuss her firefighting journey, why she joined it comparatively late in life, the roles she has had, and the work she does with Blue now. For Lucy's mental health journey, it centres around a terrible accident she experienced in 2004 at work when she worked as a duty manager at a pool and fitness center. She inhaled chlorine gas and it burned her upper airway. She was on multiple medications and was diagnosed with PTSD, which I prefer to call PTSI. After struggling for a period of time, she decided one day that enough was enough, and she wanted to take a more holistic approach to her mental health. She tried everything she could to make her feel better, including CBT therapy, EMDR, and acupuncture. She also got a dog called Lucky, which was a game changer for her. He got her out of bed in the morning, gave her purpose, and in her words, was her heartbeat. Lucy soon got another dog called Poppy to keep Lucky company when she went to work. However, Lucky then unfortunately died in 2019, and then Poppy died in 2022. After Poppy died, Lucy questioned if she wanted to ever get another dog again. However, she then found blue and the rest is history. We talk about that accent in this episode, why Lucy says about her PTSD, You Are Not Your Diagnosis, it's a start point, and her recovery journey from 2004 to now. In 2025, she also published her very first book, a children's adventure book called Lucy and Blue Save the Day, and we discuss how the book came about, how she feels to be a children's author, and the impact it's had on the children who've bought and read it so far. So this is how my conversation with Lucy McLeod went. Lucy, welcome to the Just Checking In Pod. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you. When I came across your social media account as a big dog fan and animal lover generally, I was immediately hooked. I wanted to get you on the pod. You're also my first female firefighter, which I'm very pleased about. And in the time since we chatted, you're also a published children's author now. How are you on this Saturday morning? And how has the response been to the book?

SPEAKER_03 3:52

I'm great, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here. The book, there's been an amazing response, actually. I've got my first reading at children's school on Monday, which I'm really excited about. So yeah, um, I mean, I'm gonna give you a little bit of listeners, you are holding up the book to the camera. This is the book we're talking about. And it's about representation and actually children being able to see, believe it, be it. And what I did was a little bit of research and found there wasn't, and I wondered why. And so there we go, fill the gap, really. And so hopefully it will go on and do some good things. There's nine more in the series. The next one that's coming out is Rescue Rubbles and Rewards, which stars some of my incredible friends that I've met over my years in the fire service. So yeah, I'm really excited about it, and I hopefully it will do well.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Amazing. Well, we're gonna discuss it later in the pod as well. I've interviewed five firefighters now. So with Dean, Jason, Dan, Darren, and now you. So I've got a great little list there, great little collection. Without further ado, are you ready to start the show and talk all about your journey? Absolutely. We're gonna start your podcast, Lucy, by talking about your firefighting journey. So tell me back to 2009. You're 29 years old, and your friend who is also in the fire service recommends you go for a vacant role they have. Why did you decide to apply for it?

SPEAKER_03 5:12

It's an interesting and long-winded question. I'm gonna make it really quick. I had my own private business teaching first aid manual handling and things like that to the private sector and all people around. They had a vacancy in the immediate emergency care department, so teaching trauma, so first aid, enhanced first aid to firefighters. And she said to me, Lucy, you're working yourself into a ground. So I do have a tendency to work a lot. I enjoy working a lot, and probably we'll come to that later because it's a good distraction technique for me. She had a conversation with me and she said, Look, we've got a vacancy. You are working really hard. Why don't you try it? I really think you'd be good. And actually, I really think you'd probably be a good firefighter. And it never ever had I even considered that that might be something for me. So I joined and I started teaching immediate emergency care, immediate emergency care. That was a tongue twister, and I did that for 18 months, and then an opportunity came up to do something called multi-tier entry, which meant that you could transfer over to operational, be operational firefighter. But actually, it was one of the most hated programs in the country, and it's never been run since. There was only four of us, it was a huge competition to get in. Only one woman, that was me. And we were given three years to make competent station commander, which is a huge ask. Now, I'd previously done a law degree, and I'll tell you now for nothing that it was harder than my law degree. I didn't finish my law degree because of the accident that we're going to talk about later. But the learning curve was insane, and it was one of the most difficult things I've done. But I've done quite a lot. I like difficult things, right? But that started my journey in the organisation, and I did that. And I'm now coming up 17 years as an operational officer, and that's really exciting. It goes really quick. You know, when older people tell you when you're young, like, oh, you know, time flies, and you're like, no, it's not. I'm still not 18. And like now, suddenly at 45 and almost 17 years in the service after the journey in my life before that, you'd never have thought it. And I think quite a lot of minority groups like me, and I didn't know this. I went to Asian Fire Service Association, big event just before Christmas. And it's really interesting because a lot of minorities don't think the job's for them, and they have the same story. It's like, oh, my friend said that there's an opportunity or there's a vacancy, and I think you'd be good. And you go, oh, all right, okay. And then you try it out, and then next thing you know, you do it. And that again links into the book because actually I didn't know it was an opportunity for me, and actually, potentially I could have joined a lot earlier and be in a different place. Journeys are journeys, right? They happen for a reason. So I wouldn't change anything at all. And I think coming into the fire service later in life gives you a different perspective because you've brought in that life experience from your previous places that you've been and what you've done. So we do have a lot of firefighters that are joining later in life now, which is quite interesting because usually it's a young person's game, you know, 18, 20, in their youth. And, you know, as they progress, they go through the ranks, and therefore it's a different demand on them, you know. But yeah, that's how it started. Hopefully, I've still got a few years to go. So we'll who knows where we're gonna end.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Like you said, you've been in the service for over 17 years now. So prior to your role with Blue, what was your favourite role and what have been some of your favourite experiences to highlight?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Oh my goodness. There are a few. So I'm just coming up 17 years, just coming up. I probably sorry, I should have said 16 in a bit, you know, 16 and a bit, but I I'm always looking a little bit forward. So 17 in June, that will be when it is. So I'll be celebrating that. So 15 years operational and two years non-operational in total. So what are the highlights? Well, so passing and being a station commander, that was really important because that finished that contract for me. There have been some amazing opportunities that I've had. So I've worked alongside some incredible people and been part of projects, like Dave O'Neill, who is part of the Institute of Search and Technical Rescue, was my boss. He's a fantastic person. I had the opportunity to debrief all the international search and rescue people from London post-deployment to the Turkey earthquake that most people will have seen on the news. So actually being able to give back and provide mental health care for people in the service is really important with that peer-to-peer sport. That would be one. Another one would be in 2013, myself and my teammate Lara, the only all-woman team, won the National United Kingdom Rescue Organization's trauma competition, which took us to Clearwater and the World Rescue Organization. And we won it there as well. So we were the world champions. It's never been done before, never been done after. No one's ever done it in one year. So that was in 2013, and I don't think I've ever had anything that's topped that so far. So I'm incredibly lucky. I've got lots of amazing friends who, you know, ring me up and say, Lucy, do you want to come and do something? And I'm like, yeah, that's pretty cool. I'll come and do that, you know? And you build those networks over the years, and it'd be remiss of me just to say those two things, but I don't want to bore your listeners with all the other things that I can think of that are amazing. Every day's a school day, and every day, you know, you can take some good out of it. And I think that's really important, having those little glimmers of nice things when sometimes things can be quite mundane, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Let's come to your role with blue now. So, how did you find blue, first of all? And as we'll discuss later, you've always been a dog person and had dogs. So, why did you decide to combine your personal life and your professional life with blue as a firefighter well-being dog?

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Okay, so sometimes people say to me, Oh, how do you fit it all in? And the way I fit things in is I try and make them work together. So I try and introduce new things into my way of living, if you like. So blue was always on the cards. It was just a matter of when and how. And finding blue, funnily enough, is one of the titles of the children's book, actually.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Oh, look at this. Look at this.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

I know, right, Freddie. You jumped the gun. That's it's already been written, and it does talk about finding blue. I don't know whether it's the right time to go into this, but I love dogs, as you alluded to. And I lost my last dog, Poppy, in 22, and that created a huge hole in my life. And Poppy was a tiny little Yorkshire terrier who was four kilos, who in her twilight years, my mum used to come and pick her up from my work, and she'd come in and she'd sit on my desk in my fleece, and the firefighters would come over to see me in my office, and they'd be like, Oh, can we have a cuddle with Poppy? And I was like, Yeah, cool, no problem. And Poppy would sit on their lap. She was just an angel dog. She was absolutely incredible. You didn't have to train her, didn't have anything. She'd sit on your lap while you're eating a steak dinner, and she was beautiful, a beautiful soul. I mean, all dogs have their thing, but she was just an angel dog. Anyway, I lost her. No one would have known, except for those super close to me, that that really took me off my rails, if you like. I didn't go off the rails as people would think what that looks like. But I did feel like I had no anchor. So Poppy kept me anchored because I had to do things for her. I couldn't leave the country, I couldn't go for six months, I couldn't move to a different country. I mean, you can, you can do all of these things, but I felt like I couldn't. So about a year in, I was like, no, I'm I am gonna get another dog, I'm just not gonna get that same dog. And I've got some Australian heritage, I knew about Australian shepherds, always looking for the right dog. And it's a difficult one, actually, because I've always wanted to rescue dogs, but it's just not worked out that way. And um the trauma and well-being program is set up by Shelley Robinson in London Fire Brigade, and it links into a thing called OK9, so Oscar Kilo 9, which is a police ledger initiative, and we've been friends for quite some time, and I'd always said to her, Look, I'm gonna get a dog and do this work, and she's like, Well, I'm doing this work, why don't you come and do it with me? And I was like, Okay, well, that sounds cool. So I found Blue, we put him as a pup in training. You're not allowed to do the work till you're about two years old. He passed his tests and everything before he was two years old, so he's a bit of a high achiever. And then it's sort of like, well, it's an extra string to your bow. Um, when you talk to people about mental health, everybody's different. Everything works. And I know we're gonna talk about that. And I'm a great believer in trying something, try everything, as long as it's legal, try everything and see what works for you, and don't be scared of saying that didn't work for me. I'm gonna try something different. It's really important because I think people are sort of told one way, you can only do something.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

One size fits all therapy, not one size fits one.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Exactly, absolutely. I know we've had conversations about this, and it's really important that people know that you can say, Do you know what this therapist, I can't connect with or therapies and for me, feeling it at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you might see another therapist and you might go, I really like this person, and I can really relate and I respect them, and I actually I want to work with them. So, you know, talking therapies might not just be with that particular person. Anyway, to cut long story short, I've always had people talk to me about this stuff, and I'm really open and honest about stuff as well, my journey. I do wear my heart on the sleeve, and I do believe in it's really important for other people to understand that there is a pathway, and actually, you don't have to stay in that one place, and you don't have to be whatever label they've put on you, and you know, you're not your diagnosis, is what we talked about. And I said, So Blue's a tool, he's a tool for me, by the way, as well. He keeps me grounded and anchored. So I can't flit all over the place because I've always got to make sure he's in the background for me. So he's as much for me as he is for everybody else. And I want to just share how amazing he is, and he acts as a buffer at a bridge. So if I come in and I say, Oh, Freddie, how are you feeling? Like, do you want to talk about your mental health? You don't know who I am. I might be in uniform because obviously I'm at work, so my rank might get in the way, it might be a barrier. And if you're a firefighter and that firefighter is thinking, well, she's an officer, she wants to know if I'm not doing very well. I'm gonna hide all of that because I don't want to lose my job. Because actually, when I go home, it's worse for me, and I don't want to lose my identity. I'm not talking to her. However, you bring the dog in, bring Blue Blue in, and he's got these big bright blue eyes, as you've seen, and he immediately changes the environment. It becomes about him. So we're not talking about mental health and all that scary stuff and all the stigma in and around that. What we're talking about is this big fluff bull with blue eyes who wants a treat from you. And then they say, How are you allowed to bring him to work? What does he actually do? And I'm like, well, let's do some tricks with him and all the rest of it. So I keep them distracted while I start talking about some of the harder stuff. And not everybody, because it's, you know, it's important to remember that not everybody wants to engage with a dog, not everybody likes dogs, but if you have a positive interaction with dogs, it lowers your cortisol, so you're breathing right, your heart rate. Exactly. And it ups your feel-good hormones, so cortisol and oxytocin. And when you feel okay and you feel psychologically safe and in that environment, you might decide that actually I'm okay and you can connect with me. And then I might be able to say, Hey, it looks like you're having a bit of a hard time. Do you want to talk about it? And the other thing is with blue, is we can go for a walk. So you're not as we are at the moment, looking at each other. You're psyched with the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

No eye contact. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Exactly. And actually, children are the same as well. So teenagers. Women are interesting, they can do any of those. Like any of those can be good. It depends on, and actually, you know, with a lot of mental health conditions, shame and guilt play a big thing. So actually, then looking at someone and saying something that you'll really feel guilty about or you feel shame for is really hard. So, you know, your traditional talking therapies where you're sitting across from each other, looking at someone, they've got a clipboard, they're writing everything down, and 10 minutes to the hour, they're saying, Okay, we'll book the next session after you've unpacked Pandora's box and you go out into the big wide world and you go, What on earth? Yeah, that's not gonna work. So it gives us an option, you know, you can take Blue for a walk, and there's not a time limit on that. So I don't say I've only got an hour, so people are under pressure. I'm like, do you want to go for a walk? And my excuse is always Blue needs at least an hour walk. So we could walk and get a coffee and walk back. Do you want to do that? And they're like, Oh yeah, that sounds cool because they feel like they're helping me. And that's really important, especially in environments like the fire service. We are helpers. So if you're like, oh, you do us a favor, come with me for a walk, I've got to walk blue. And then on that walk, we'll discuss stuff. And then what's really important about that is I can then say, as a person away from the problem, I can say that must be really hard. You know, have you thought about this? And would you like me to help you with that? Or how long has this been going on for? You probably do need to get some professional help, and I'm more than happy to help you do that. And here are the some pathways. So it's just about having that position, less emotional position away, and that buffer and a bridge. Blue does that. Blue loves people, he makes people feel seen and he doesn't judge. So, you know, sometimes you're like, I feel horrible, I haven't had a shower, I haven't eaten, I haven't changed my clothes because you're having a bad time. Blue doesn't care, so that's okay. And that allows me to come in and then be like, okay, well, let's get you some help that you need. So that's where he came from. And you know, I come from a position of I can talk about these things because I've experienced these things myself. And sometimes sharing that story without putting your story on top of their story and trying to say, oh, well, this happened to me, so it must be happening to you. That's really important you don't do that. But if you can just say, look, in 2004, this happened to me, and I can understand some of these things, and I can share some of these things if you want me to. And I think that can be really powerful in a position where you're just sort of like, okay, well, let me help, let me listen, let me see what I can do.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You've spoken brilliantly about blue being a buffer and a bridge for colleagues and people in your personal life. How does he help when it comes to call-outs and when people are in really distressed situations? And obviously, you know, colleagues can be distressed too, but I mean in a very serious, distressful situation, a fire's going or fires just happened, and they're in that fight or flight mode.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Oh, he doesn't quite do that yet. We haven't got a policy in place for anything like that in London. And actually, I know that OK9 deployed dogs to the terrible Southport stabbing. So we were, as OK9 dogs, the people who were Shelley and Sarah were actually asked whether they wanted to go, but they couldn't mobilize. And it's to take the dog to be able to collect the evidence. So currently, we don't deploy to a scene with the trauma and well-being dog. It's an aftermath type thing, so peer-to-peer support. But there are other dogs there, so it's really important for people to know. Fire brigade have loads of dogs. We have fire investigation dogs, search and rescue dogs, and then obviously police have a myriad of different dogs as well. So you you might see those dogs there, but they're not technically well-being dogs. However, there's a really interesting story where this comes from. So you'll know about 9-11, and you know that it's a 25-year anniversary this year, and I'm involved in something called the Memorial Stairclimb, which is something else, which Blue is going to be on. So he's going to be doing the 110 floors with me. To be fair, he might actually pull me up the 110 floors. So that'll be really interesting. If you want to come and see Blue in Southampton on the 11th of July, anyone's more than welcome. And then we're going to Atlanta later on. But the dogs at the base of the Twin Towers were actually search and rescue dogs. However, that was the most documented event where those dogs provided emotional support for those rescuers and allowed those rescuers to work 12 and 24 hours with outbreaks, which is insane. To the point where there's some interesting stories about the dogs getting depressed because they didn't find any survivors. So those search and rescue dogs in particular are hardwired to find people. And when they are working for a prolonged period of time, way longer than they're meant to, they actually had to get some of the first responders to lay in the rubble so that the dogs could find them so they didn't get sad. Yeah, it's really interesting. If you're interested in it, please look it up. The dogs are incredible, and you know, search and rescue dogs are highly driven, amazing dogs that do provide that, but not all dogs can do that. So it's really important there's differentiation. Like Blue couldn't be a search and rescue dog. I'm sure he'd try, but he is just the love. So he wouldn't leave. He'd be like, right, I'm gonna stay with. And there's always loads of stories about dogs staying with owners when they get lost in the woods with dementia and things like that, and staying with their animals. Sorry, the animals staying with them. But yeah, he currently doesn't go on call outs, although the book does show that he does go on call outs. So that's a bit of artistic license for that.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

As part Of your work with Blue, you also post loads of great Blue content, social media, media interviews you've done. What has this new adventure been like? Has it been a little bit challenging to adjust to at times, or have you taken it in your stride?

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Oh my goodness. I've become like a social media manager. I have a new band of respect for it. So I work in it. Really hard work. And you know, I have an idea and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this thing. It takes ages. And yes, I know there's all this AI stuff, and I'm using that. I'm actually using that on some things, which I'm sure you'll have seen. I think what I tend to do is Blue's such a beautiful boy. I try and frame it around something positive, as you've probably seen in the comments. I'll be like walking along and I'll have an idea and I'll do a voice note and then I'll write that down later on. So yes, I'm adapting and overcoming. However, it's not my forte. I'm trying really hard because actually it's really important to get those things out there because you just never know who needs a little bit of motivation and a pick-me-up on the day. And sometimes you get, and I'm sure you get this as well, you get a lovely message back from someone saying, I really needed to hear that today. And that's another reason to do it. Because actually, in a world full of hate and misery, someone might just see something and go, okay, it's worth it. And you know, they light up my life. They really make me happy when you think you've done something because, well, it's just a nice picture of blue. But I don't know what it is about him. I've had so many.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Just those eyes, you're drawn to them.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Yeah, and his coat is it's so soft. You know, puppies. I don't know if you've ever you'll hear a dog like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

My mum had four kids, so there was no time for dogs.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Oh, I'm one of four as well. Maybe it's a four thing. We had a dog as well. She brought him over from Australia, Sydney Silky, Kushi. Anyway, cut a long story short, when dogs are puppies, they have like little baby teeth, razor teeth, we call them, and they're like sharks. And blue was like a land shark, high energy, an absolute love, very independent, which is good. But I did question my life choices because I hadn't had a puppy for 17 years, because I'd had Lucky and Poppy at the same time. When I got Poppy as a puppy, she was an angel and just copied Lucky. So I hadn't had a puppy for a long time. So question my life choices quite a lot. And there was this particular instance where this young child, probably about four, probably mentally younger, but definitely had some learning difficulties, ran up to Blue and put him in a beer hug. And I panicked because I was like, if he just playfully, because that's what puppies do, they mouth because they're nip, they mouth a nip, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Absolutely. If they he just goes like that, I'm gonna have a problem. He just sat there like this. This kid buried his face in blue's fluff, and he was just like happy as Larry. He absolutely loves children, obsessed with children, I would almost say. And he just draws people in. So I've had so many conversations about I've just lost my dad, and Blue's gone and sat next to this lady, or oh, my dog was called Blue as well. Or most recently, I'm partnering with a lovely lady called Monica, Nemo's Pet Goodies, and we've been dog walking it. We lived up the road from it. She opened a shop, and she opened up to me the other day, she goes, I love all your videos, and I'm like, Oh, I'll try, you know, like I try really hard. I'm sure if I got someone who was about 17 to do them, they'd do about a hundred of them and they'd be much better. But anyway, I try. She goes, Oh, I lost my dad a year ago, and his favourite colour was blue, and you came into my life just at a time that I was really sad, and I was like, Oh my god. And I was just like, Oh, and you know, it's these weird things that keep happening. So, yeah, here is the draw. And although you're talking to me, most people don't remember my name. They remember Blue's name, and they're really interested about Blue. And I love that because that's why I have him. That is absolutely why I have him. It is about him, and it is about what he can do, and it is about those connections and like no judgment and allowing people to open up in a safe space. And I'm just the conduit to a translation to help them move forward in a way that they can actually get that help that they might need, you know?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Before we talk about the book, between the time that we chatted off air and doing this, you also in December 2025 won a Firefight Award of the most influential women in the fire service. So, how did that feel?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Uh, crazy. I didn't think so. I was gonna win it. In fact, a friend of mine filmed them calling out and was filming me. Obviously, had loads of hope that I was gonna win it. And I was sitting there and I was listening to the names being read out. Fantastic group of people, thinking, oh, just great to be shortlisted. Literally called my name, and there was about a five-second delay. You can see it in the video. Five second delay, and I meant, oh my god, it's me. I need to get up and on this stage. So it's a fantastic opportunity. I was bold over. I didn't expect it. I try and do good, and hopefully that exposure will allow me to do more good. That's what is really important to me. And being recognised for it is a lovely accolade, but there's lots of people doing good. You don't need to have an award to do good, and it is lovely, it is lovely. But you know, next year there'll be another winner, and I'll be yesterday's news. So I I probably should ride the wave while I can, really. But thank you for mentioning it and embarrassing me at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

We've discussed it already, so let's dive into it. You published your first children's book, Lucy and Blue Save the Day. Tell me how the opportunity came about, first of all, and that process to getting it published.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Well, it actually really fits your series of podcasts. I had had some bad news, and you know, people only ever see the wins, right? They see that I've won an award, they see that I'm doing well, they see that I'm publishing a book. But actually, behind all of the successes, there's multiple failures, and it's always how you recover from those failures, right? So in February 2025, I was in the depths of my own despair, having a little pity party for myself about the things that hadn't gone quite right. And a little bit fed up. And I was like, no, Lucy, this is not you. You need to turn it around. What's bothering you? Kind of thing. Like, you know, this is in my brain. Like, what's going on? Like, why, why are there so many barriers in this particular area? So I'm also a great believer. If a barrier comes down, go and find somewhere else. Like, you will get through. You just keep knocking on those doors, right? So I unbelievably get called a fireman probably daily by members of the public, well-meaning members of the public, by the way. It's not a malicious thing at all. It's not, it's the lack of language, understanding of the language. So I thought, why does that happen? Because I've got educated people, judges, lawyers, doctors, people who I know I've grown up with who still will use that language. And I thought, right, well, let's have a look at children's books. Because children's books are where it all starts. So you've got the educators in the schools using children's books to educate, read, they go home, the parents read them. And I know when I was growing up, I corrected my parents' outdated language because stuff I'd learnt at school. You know, you challenge them, you go, no, mum, you can't say that. That's rude or that's racist or whatever it may be that has happened, you know? And we all learn, don't we? So I went and researched it and I thought, oh my god, there's no representation, and certainly not a series, and certainly nothing rooted in real life where people can actually go, this is a real life person, and I can actually go and meet Lucy in Blue. And then I wrote 10 books. I was just like, oh my god, I can't. I just can't. I know this sounds crazy. And for some of your listeners, they'll be like, What? But I did. I was just sort of sitting there and I was thinking, okay, so we've got Fyman Sam, brilliant. That's inspired loads of firefighters. We've got Bob the Builder, that's brilliant. That's inspired lots of people to go into the construction industry. And we've got token things, and don't get me wrong, every so often there is a woman in these environments, but there's not a lead woman, and there's certainly not an officer woman, and there's certainly not a real woman. So I thought, you know what, this is a really unique opportunity, and I'm still in service, and I'm still able to go and share that. So I can go, like I'm going to do on Monday to my first school and be there and say, you can do this if you want to. There's lack of representation in educational books about women in the fire service and also other minorities, by the way. And actually, there's only 8% women in the fire service in the country. So look, it's not for everybody. It's not for every man, it's not for every woman, it's not for every minority. You need to know that it's open to you in order for you to say no. And that's it. So Lucine Blue was born. The first one is a nice, easy one, which is a fire. So it's not very scary, but it talks about a fire, and they go to a fire, talks a little bit about what happens on the day responding to the fire. And really importantly, there is a safety message at the back. So it talks about what to do if there's a fire from a first person point of view. So if you're a four-year-old, five-year-old, all the smoke is everywhere, where do I go? How do I get safe? All that sort of stuff. So it's Lucy and Blue's tips. And then it goes into some activities. So there's some colouring pages and some questions about Lucy and Blue. And then at the end, there's a bio. So the bio talks about me and Blue in that environment. So people can then look that up. Every book is linked to a charity as well. So if someone's really interested, a kid gets obsessed by it, they can go from, oh, Lucy and Blue, that's a story. Oh my god, they're real. We might be able to go and meet them. And then they can do the activities and the safety message. So that gets embedded in an educational but fun way. And then they're like, oh, I can actually look them up online and see that this is real work that's really happened. So quite often we talk about firefighters and we automatically go, Oh, yeah, they only go to fires. We don't, we go to lots of things. And I'm a technical rescue specialist, I'm the only national tactical advisor for urban search and rescue, which is your collapsed buildings and structures and things like that. The only woman in the country. So in the books going forward, the next one, rescue rewards and rubble, is about a collapsed building. Now, have you ever had a safety message for a collapsed building? Probably not, but you probably know what to do in a fire, right? Hopefully you know. Hopefully, you know to have a smoke alarm. Hopefully, you know to test a smoke alarm. Hopefully, you know you ring 999, all of those things. But if it's a collapsed building and there's a working dog, how do you know? So, one of my very good friends and I fangirl over her all the time, she's brilliant, Lindsay, and her dog Davy star in it. And Davy is a highly trained search and rescue dog who has won awards and went to Turkey and found live people and rescued them. He's in the book. So the next book, if people go along with a series, or just pick that one up, because they are standalone, but every single one you look has the same process where you have a story, people are introduced into that story, a safety message activities page, and then bios at the back of these real life people that you can go and see. So children, adults, young people can see that there are different areas of work that they can go into. And these are real life heroes who do this every day, and that might be something that they want to do. And that's my end goal: providing that opportunity for the young people to understand that the fire family could be for them. They might not be a firefighter, but they could be a control operator. They might not be a control operator, but they might work in the back end of the back office, they might provide mental health support for firefighters, they might, you know, do procurement for us. Who knows? But actually, it's a big industry and we need the diversity for the diversity of thought. So start them young. Hopefully, by the time we get to the age where they can come and work with us, then we've got that more rounded, better representation in the organizations, which then in turn provides a better service for the people who need it. So I suppose it's doing it for the greater good and in the meantime having a great time doing it.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Let's reflect on your journey in firefighting, Lucy. So, first of all, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far?

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Do you know what? I think I'm gonna say blue. It was a poet dream, it was. I've always known that I was gonna have a dog, but I am incredibly busy, I'm operationally very busy, and it's difficult to manage and hard. And people often ask about balance, and I say there is no such thing, it's just do what you love, right? And I would say it's blue, it's um hard managing a working dog and working the hours that I do, but he is just a shining light and the love of my life at the moment, you know, and probably will be for a long time. All of my dogs will have been the love of my life and continue to be, but he is very special. He's a special boy.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

And as a final question before we move on, what has this journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 35:25

It's taught me that I am very stubborn, I don't like to give up. So I often talk to people about your greatest assets can also be your greatest problems, and being stubborn absolutely is usually classed as a bad thing. I don't class it as a bad thing. I think that if you believe in yourself and believe in a pathway, and don't get me wrong, I'm not like this every day. I have really bad days, just like anybody else, and I don't believe, and I think, oh my god, am I doing the right thing? Absolutely. But I think that sometimes being stubborn is actually like, no, I'm gonna do it anyway. You know, I don't think you should be a firefighter, your hair's too long, but I did it anyway. You're five foot two, how can you lift people? Because I can, like, you can't do that. Well, I'm gonna. So it may not fit how other people perceive it, but I'm gonna do it anyway. And I suppose that stubbornness is something that yeah, that is probably what I've learned that stubbornness is not a bad thing, it's actually quite a good thing if utilised in the right way. Being stubborn in a mindset is not gonna get you anywhere, being adaptable, moving, and being able to reflect and say, you know what, I could have done that differently. I am my greatest critic. That's also something that I've learnt to control because that can take you in a dark place as well. And sometimes things are just as they are, it's not anything else, it's just what it is. There's no depth to it, you know, and sometimes just being able to move on, leave it behind you. And it's very easy to say, sometimes hard to do, and sometimes people are better at it than others. Occasionally, and I I've definitely said this recently, I did the clip of World Race Leg 4 in 2023 into 24, so through Christmas and New Year, and when I finished it, people said, Oh, how was it, and all the rest of it. And I said, I don't really know because I'm quite busy, so I'm generally finished something, achieve something, and then get on to the next. And it's taken me two years to go back to it and go, Yeah, no, that was very different, and I'm really glad I did it. At the time when I finished it, I was like, Oh my god, thank God that's done. It was horrendous, like you know. But actually, the lessons that I've learned from that are two years later. So there you go. I think everyone does things differently.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

We've talked about your journey and career as a firefighter so far, Lucy. Now let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey. So I ask all my special guests on this topic this question first. Take me back to early life, teenagers, and looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? If any, who's the Lucy? We meet here.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Uh, it feels like a world ago that I was young. There wasn't really anything, actually. I was a pretty happy child, one of four, I'm the eldest. I've got twin younger sisters and a brother who were very close in age. My mum was a midwife, retrained as a lawyer. My dad was a doctor, so he didn't see the dad very much. He was always at work. And at that time, you know, like it was dad to provide um, mum stayed looking after all of us. So, you know, I went to school, everything was good. Yeah, I had a busy childhood. When I was born, we didn't have any money at all. Dad was a junior doctor, so we lived very frugally. And then as I uh got older, then all his hard work started paying off. So, you know, I had a nice upbringing, absolutely, went to a nice school. Mum and dad provided for us lovely. So actually, I can't complain at all. We had animals. The only one thing that sticks out in my mind is on my 21st birthday, my mum finally confesses that she's been replacing our animals that had been passing away to protect us, yes. So the only thing that she couldn't replace was the dog for obvious reasons. So now looking back, maybe I was traumatised because my rabbit Miffy was replaced four times. Oh my god. I know, right? But every time Miffy came, it's horrible, Freddie, when I tell you this story, right? On my 21st birthday, she decides to tell me this because she's like, I can't hold it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

That's almost harder to do than just letting them die and tell you.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

I know. Well, Miffy I got for my birthday, beautiful lopp peeled albino rabbit and gorgeous rabbit. I used to hold her like this and she'd sleep in my arms. Anyway, one day I'm at the back of the garden, see Miffy's tail, obviously quite young. Mum's like, oh no, that's not Miffy's tail. And Miffy's just gone on holiday, don't worry. Anyway, next day I come back and she's like, Oh yeah, I saw Miffy. And it sounds ridiculous now when I'm saying it, but at the time, because I was a kid and you know, you believe your caregivers, don't you? And uh she said, Oh yeah, I saw Miffy uh going across the crosswalk, so I just grabbed her and put her in the cage. I was like, oh, okay. Anyway, the next Miffy was horrible and didn't want to get picked up. Mum was like, Oh, don't worry, like she'll go back to normal. Anyway, the Miffy after that was okay, and the Miffy after that was not okay. And now I realised, and the the only time we knew that one of the animals had died is one of the friends of my sisters had come round and they were in the kitchen, and we had two birds, Rolf Harris and Tina Turner. Forget the names.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Well, one of them's a bit out of date now, I would say. I know, right?

SPEAKER_03 40:56

Horrendous. But Rolf Harris was yellow and green, and Tina Turner was blue and grey, and Tina Turner was laying on the bottom of the cage, and my friend went, Oh, your bird's dead. And obviously, her parents haven't been hiding death from them. And my mum was like, Oh no, Tina Turner's just sleeping. This happens all the time, don't worry. Anyway, sure enough, we had a new Tina Turner the next day, but I didn't know that, which is horrendous. So, yeah, there you go. That would be the only thing that really sticks out in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Those bird names are crazy. I know, right? That's terrible. The full name as well, not even just first name.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

No, yeah, and it's burns in my brain. So, yeah, and I was just like, thanks for ruining my 21st birthday, mum. Like, you know, but you know, I've forgiven her, of course. Like, feel sorry for her. I mean, it must have been a full-time job replacing gerbils and the next day. Good. One more. I've just remembered, you just reminded me, right? So the gerbils got out and they used to heat my sister's uniforms. My sisters had gerbils, I can't remember their names. I didn't like them very much.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Probably like Victoria Beckham or David Beckham.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Probably like some sort of spice girl, absolutely spice girls' names. So they disappeared into thin air. My mum said, Oh, don't worry, I know a way of getting them back. And I think about it now, I think you're so sneaky. You know those little fan heaters that you put on the floor, like to do your feet. She put one of those out and she said, Don't worry, they'll come to the heat. So, sure enough, the gerbils were in the cage the next day, and mum had put the heater out, and oh yeah, I know they just come to the heat. So I'm like a fairy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like fairy gods. The fan heater fairy. Insane, right? Insane. But there you go. So apart from that, yeah, they're good. So good. But sure, as the years roll on, more of these secrets will come out, much like they do with parents. They try their best. You know, we all traumatise people, but we don't realise parents all traumatise their kids. They're already trying their best. And I think more importantly, like as I've got older, I've realized why some of these decisions were made. Because you know, when you're an adult, you get context why people do things and you can understand that being empathetic is probably sometimes a blessing and a curse. Because you're like, Oh, I can understand why you did that, even if that was a bit rubbish. But yeah, the uh phantom animal replacer, my mother, struck for 21 years. Bar the dog. That was the only obviously she couldn't replace the dog because that would have been very difficult, but I'm sure she would have tried.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Fanny a gerbil fairy.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

Oh no, right.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Just to say we're so good. This is a mad segue now because we're going from something so ridiculous to something quite deep and stressful. But in 2004, you went through a very severe accident. You alluded to it earlier. You were at work in a previous job before firefighting, you inhaled chlorine gas and it burned your upper airway. So take me back to that day if you can, the events that transpired and the consequences for your physical health and also your mental health at that time.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

I mean, it's a pretty horrific thing that happened. I was super fit, 23 year old, doing a full time law degree. A manager of a fitness and pool, and I swam the swim-a-thon that morning with a couple of my mates for fun. That's the level of fitness that I had. Pool had been open all day, and there was a run-up prior to that. I was one of the youngest duty managers there. And also being female and small, they had one set of PPE and it hadn't fit. And I was constantly bringing this up in health and safety meetings, constantly saying we need to have more, blah, blah, blah, all the rest of it, ignore, ignore, ignore. Anyway, on that particular day, I'm going to do my pool checks. So downstairs in the pool plant room, there's an ultra-mastic dosing system. So usually you just check it and it's okay. But on that particular day, there was a malfunction in the dosing system, which meant that the hyperchloride and the hydrochloric acid dosed at the same time produced chlorine gas, which is highly dangerous. Some people might know some of that as mustard gas. And it's in a basement and it's dense, it's slow down. So I went into there. By the time I'd gone into there and smelt it, because chlorine's quite strong. So you know how you smell it at swimming pools. That's absolutely fine. You don't need to worry about that. This is about when two chemicals mix and the gas comes off. That doesn't happen usually in this actual swimming pool. So that's in your plant room. So I've come in, I've smelt it, I've gone, oh no, this is not good. Done the emergency cutoff switch, gone out the escape, cleared the pool, got everybody out. Now I was heavily compensating because I was super fit. I rang a friend, I didn't even ring an ambulance, locked up, rang a friend, rang my boss and said, look, I'm not good, I'm going to hospital. Friend came, took me to hospital immediately because we were meeting after work anyway, so it was really helpful that he was there. And he took me to Westmids Hospital. Now my parents were on holiday in uh Trinidad and Tobago. I was looking after the dog and my mum and dad's dog. And my sister and brother live in Australia. One sister lives here but was away. And um, I was like, oh my god, I th I think I'm gonna die. Now, when you go into hospital and you're young and you're compensating and you tell them a story like that, they are gonna look at you and go, You're standing up, you're conscious, yes, you're coughing. We're gonna listen to you, but we don't really believe you. And that's what I was met with. They did all the checks. A doctor rushed into me, put me in recess, and said, I don't know how you're still standing, your blood gases are so low you should be unconscious. So the oxygen in my blood, and I didn't know that at the time. So I was already on oxygen at that point, but I'm, as we discussed, stubborn. And something in me just I think knew that if I went to sleep, I was going to sleep, you know. So I was like, I'm a fighter, I always have been, or a warrior, I prefer to be fair. So I'm in the hospital, they panic when they get the results back, and they phone guys in St. Thomas's the poisons unit and they get some advice. I'm in overnight. My boss rings to say, Are you coming into work tomorrow? I'm on oxygen and on the nebulizer. The nurse takes a phone away from me, and that starts the beginning of a horrific journey, if I'm honest. Because the accident itself, you know, things happen. No one maliciously did that to me. It happened. It was a thing. But what happened after was the mistrust and misbelief that it happened, even though there was absolute medical evidence. You can't lie on blood gases, it's impossible. But what they were trying to do is say that they did. So I went from a super active person with a full-time job, part-time job, full-time university, super active, to sitting on my mum and dad's couch because I couldn't be at home alone, on a nebulizer, not being able to move. So the physical effects, other than the actual injury, the acute injury. So, what happens when you inhale chlorine gases, it produces hydrochloric acid, which will burn the lining of your lungs. So you've got a problem with that. And eventually, especially because I was young, that's going to repair itself. You might get scar tissue, but I was really lucky I didn't. And actually, because I had really good lung function, because I was a swimmer and uh really into my fitness, actually, I was able to compensate for so long. That's what the doctors have said. But that post-event was really difficult for me because what happened was they didn't believe me, they didn't support me, and they called me a liar. And I was like, What? And then the attack on my physical health, because I couldn't actually walk to the front door, I couldn't go to the toilet without having a coughing fit, I couldn't have any strong smells around me. So something like a trip to Nando's, where you get dropped outside, you walk inside, that smell would be enough to set me back for two days. So all the joints in my back swelled up. I had chronic back pain. So that was managed obviously with more drugs. I couldn't sleep, so that was managed with drugs. I slipped into depression because I couldn't do anything. I couldn't see my friends, I couldn't go anywhere. So that was managed with drugs. The trajectory nobody knew because it's not a normal thing. It's not something that AE normally deal with. It's not normal for doctors to have to deal with this. They're really good at dealing with lots of other things. And no one really knew what was going to happen. So my back seized up, my right arm seized up, everything started to deteriorate. Not eating, not drinking, not looking after myself, taking loads of medication that was messing with me. And, you know, we talk about PTSD, and I know you call it PTSI. Yeah, injury.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

Injury. And it's really important that to people to know that you get those things, but it takes a long time to get a diagnosis. And I was having everything flashbacks, a lot. So chlorine is really interesting because it smells like bleach. So most people know the smell of bleach. So anytime I smelt bleach, it took me back to that point. So every time I went into a place where the toilet had been cleaned or anyone had used bleach, I was back in that place. So what's really interesting is during the actual incident, I was calm and fine and everything was good. But it's after, and I think I sort of said this to you before, like it's a long time after you realize that actually, yeah, no, I could have been dead. Other people could have been dead. If I hadn't done those actions, I could have been dead, they could have been dead. I'm very lucky. And I always say that I'm very lucky, which is why my first dog is called lucky, and I'll come to that later because his actual birthday was the anniversary of my incident. So the 20th of March 2004, which was so weird and coincidental. But anyway. So that created this huge long journey of hell. And there's another side to this, which is now called moral injury. And it's really important that I talk about this because now I look at it, I actually know that a lot of this was caused by moral injury. So, yes, I had an accident that was horrible that was life-changing. Then I had all the medical fallout from that. Then I had the misbelief and mistreatment from my employer, which I later went to court for both personal injury and also from employment tribunal, which I won both. That bit there, that moral injury that was caused as a result of lack of support, lack of understanding, and basically trying to blame me for what had happened, even though there was loads of evidence prior and after, to the point where they actually even tried to use the story that my dad, as a doctor, had somehow magically changed the blood gas results whilst he was in Trinidad and Tobago at a hospital he'd never worked at with people he'd never met. That was their defense. And this is all documented. So if anyone's interested, you could have a look. And that has been the hardest thing, was the hardest thing to overcome. So prior to the incident, I'd been put forward to go for a front-of-house job. So I'd been a sort of like golden child, and everyone thought I was great, or so I thought, until this accident happened, and then that changed. And that was really difficult to reconcile because eventually I got the sack. So after six months or so, they sacked me. And that's why the employment tribunal happened. Like I said, I won that, reinstated it, and back then it was all about references and things. So it's a huge journey. It was a very, very difficult journey. That stubbornness got me through. The fact that I had this belief that actually it will come out in the wash, and I had that evidence kept me going. But oh my goodness, things were bad. Things were really, really bad.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

As you were speaking, Lucy, a brilliant book came to mind, and it's by a woman called Dr. Ageshri Dawayan. She wrote a book called Unheard, which is the medical practice of silencing. She worked at Bart's Health NHS Trust, which were where I used to work and hence why I came across her. And it talks about this idea of an institutional practice of silencing patients, not believing them, what you went through, and I'll send you the book afterwards if you want to have a read of it if it's not too difficult for you. When did your trust in institutions come back?

SPEAKER_03 53:11

Okay, so I think I I like to understand. So when you're in a place where you are no longer, and I often talk about this, sometimes when you're having a bad time, it's a good idea to focus on something else, like a distraction. Not always, not for everybody, but sometimes that's a good thing. And when you get the space to think, why did that happen? So the accident, I'm absolutely fine with all the work that I did, and I can talk about some of that stuff and how I got back to being ultimately where I am now. That's work I did. You know, don't drink your own poison, is the saying, isn't it? Or if you hold on to that, you're only going to hurt yourself. So why did that happen? Why did they not believe me? And I genuinely think it's out of a place of fear. So the medical people initially were like, well, she's compensating, so she's fine. So actually, she's not a priority. When you've got someone who's 70, 80 years old who comes in grey, who clutches their heart and falls to the floor, it's very obvious what's going on. But when you've got someone who's 23 years old who's able to articulate these things and you've never come across them, that's coming from a place of I've never seen this before, but I'm gonna investigate. So that was fine. It was the institution that I worked with that really got me because I didn't understand how they thought I was okay and then I wasn't. They were held to account through the court system. That's helpful. That's really helpful. But not everyone has that opportunity to do that. And I mean that in the respect that not everyone can be held to account in the first instance, and secondly, like not everybody has the support network in order to be able to do that. I was in the union, the union really supported me, so that was unison. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to afford to do that. You know, their solicitors represented me in my personal injury claim. But I think most people are not bad people. There are some. There are. There are absolutely some psychopaths and you know the dark triad of personalities and things like that. But that's not most people. And a lot of people do things out of a place of fear, and actually, I can't control that. And I can either let my past define me or I can use it for good. And that was a conscious decision that I decided to make. And I think that's really important. And throughout my journey, and what we've talked about is at some point I've gone, do you know what? That's enough. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not doing that anymore. I don't want to do that, and I don't want to be that person, and I'm gonna grow from this. And that's my journey and my job, and I'm not giving that to anybody else. So having unique ownership and accountability and that reflective mindset where I can go, okay, well, I don't want to be that person anymore. I don't want my life to be like this. I want it to be like this. And then going, how do I get that? Okay, well, I need to fix this, and how do I do that? Well, I'm just gonna exhaust every single opportunity until I can. And I think that's it. You can absolutely stay in a place if you want to, or you can choose to be happy, you can choose to move forward, and you can choose to use that as your superpower. And this is definitely one of my superpowers, doing difficult things and having the resistance. When I talk to people about this, they're like, no way, you know? What? And you know, I was angry at the time. I was like, how am I ever gonna work? How am I ever gonna do something? Well, I did. I just put one foot in front of the other. That's what happens. Just baby steps, and they're not always right. I most certainly haven't always gone in the right direction. I have made huge amounts of mistakes, and I will continue to do so because I am human. But just being relentless, surrounding yourself with relentless people and people going, well, why can't you do that? What's the barrier? How do I help you?

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Let's talk about your recovery in more detail now. Because, like you said, when you were diagnosed without PTSI, you said, I'm not my diagnosis, this is my start point. And as you've also alluded to, you tried many different things to get better, right? So for the listeners, you tried CBT therapy, you tried something that was life-changing for me, which is EMDR, but doesn't work for everyone. You even tried acupuncture. It did. So tell me about all these methods and why Lucky was the method, very greatly named, who was that very good boy who, in your words, became my heartbeat.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

He did. So let's start. So I was on about 35 tablets a day. I was taking antidepressants, I was taking probably about eight to ten tramadol a day to be able to get out of bed. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Because that was the pain I had had two epidurals in my back, 13 facet joint injections.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

This is serious chronic pain for the listeners. This is serious chronic pain.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

Facet joint injections into my spinal column twice under general anaesthetic. And that's really unusual. Um yeah, I was in a chronic pain specialist. I was under so many different specialists trying to figure this out. So it happened in March 2004. Lucky was born March 20, 2005, and you don't get them straight away, you have them after a couple of months. So, probably around that time, around the one-year mark, I thought, I can't continue to do this. I am taking tablets to do everything. I am completely numbed out. I don't want to do this anymore. And I went to the doctors and I said, listen, I'm gonna come off the tramadol. I've managed to get myself down to six tablets. What do we do next? Could you give me a smaller dose? And they went, No, there's no smaller dose. I'll refer you to a clinic, we can help you. And I went, okay, that's great. So, in the background, because I am stubborn, I was like, I think I can get myself down to maybe four tablets. So I got myself down to four tablets. Uh, went to the clinic, and when I turned up, it was to a drug clinic dependents, so all your drug addicts. And I went in to see the doctors. Yeah, I absolutely shipped my pants. I shipped my pants, yeah. Because there was lots of people who were clearly on crack, clearly on meth, clearly on heroin. And I walked in as a 24-year-old who was clearly unwell.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

It's a bit of an unsafe environment as well, by the way, for you.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

I walked in and I was like, what's going on? Anyway, I got seen very quickly, which was good because my stress levels were going through the roof. Because as you know, with some of these mental health diagnoses, you're constantly on guard and on watch and scanning. And I was certainly doing that, and I was getting myself really hyper-vigilant, they call it right. My shoulders were always up like this. And I've gone into the doctor, really lovely doctor, and he goes, I'm not sure why you're here. And I said, Well, my GP referred me because of this, because of the drugs that NHS has given me to combat what I've gone through. And he went, Yeah, okay. So I see that you're on tramadol, so we're gonna have to give you methadone and you're gonna have to come every morning and get methadone. And I went, No, I'm not. And he went, No, no, that's the only way. If you come off tramadole, you could go into respiratory arrest. So your breathing can stop, and then you go into cardiac arrest if you don't do it in the way that we titrate, so like take you down. I'm like, I am not coming to this hospital every day, every morning for a bit of methadone, which is.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Which is also very addictive, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Yeah. So they substitute and then they can titrate down so they can make it less. So something in me went, no. Yeah, I'm not having this on my record, no. To what on earth are they talking about? And that's it. So I went back to the GP a little while later, very angry, because they hadn't explained to me. If they'd explained to me that, I would have gone, is there another way? Because actually, you know, my dad, like I said, he's a consultant and ethologist, my mum was a midwife. I do understand the medical side. I've done medical stuff for a long time. So I do understand that world, and I do understand it's there to help. But actually, that wouldn't have been for me. So at least we could have explored a different route. Like perhaps there could have been a weekend away or something like that at hospital and could do it that way. I don't know. I had never bothered looking into it at that point because I was so angry that this accident had happened, I'd been treated terribly, I've got all these ailments, and now because of that, I'm being classed as an addict. That wasn't my fault. Like, what? I couldn't compute. So I went home and I thought, nah, enough's enough. I'm gonna do this myself, I'll take the ramifications. So they came a little like, you know, covered things. So I opened them up, measured them out, weaned myself off, did something that they said that no one could do. So I am very good at going, when I'm done, I'm done, whatever it may be, and I'll find a way of making that work. Not everybody is like that, and people need help. I am slightly different in that respect. And there will be people who listening who'll be going, I'm the same, I'm the same. And absolutely there are people out there, and it is a mindset change. So I did a lot of research into how do I get some benefits in a more holistic way. So I'd try talking therapies. At the time, it didn't work for me, it wasn't right. There's lots of reasons why it wasn't right. I was in the middle of two huge court cases. So the solution is resolve the court cases, then maybe talk afterwards. Because actually, at this point, I'm still angry, so I'm not going to resolve it, and I've still got to be angry, to be in the fight. So that didn't work for me. I was recommended EMDR. That didn't work for me, actually. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason it didn't work for me is quite interesting. So by the time I got the opportunity to use it, so this was, you know, not many people did it back then. It wasn't really well known. And they said, Look, would you like to try? I'm like, Yeah, I'll try anything. And what happened was there's two things here. There's the accident, which actually I'd made peace with, and then the treatment. And the treatment was ongoing of how I was being treated by the organization that's a child. So when the accident happened, I was absolutely confident, knew my role, I wasn't scared, any of those things. But as they took me back to the incident, I was a different person. I was scared a shell of myself on lots of medication. And actually, that almost re-traumatized me. I had a really bad reaction in the treatment. Now, that's unusual. It was unusual. We recovered from it. We did a couple more sessions. I got back to the place that I was. We always do these treatments, and actually, there's always a what if it doesn't work? What if it makes you worse? That's a possibility. Absolutely. Drugs could do that, treatment could do that, whatever it is, you can actually make yourself worse. Sometimes you make yourself worse before you make yourself better. It is the way it is, you know. And then actually, there's a book that I really love, and it's called The Body Keep Score.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

And it now it's come up a few times on this pod. Yeah. I've got a lot of critiques of it. It's got some good stuff. I've also got my own critiques of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:09

No, I agree. I agree. It's really hard going as well. But actually, reading that, listening to that afterwards makes me understand why the treatments that I picked actually work for me. So acupuncture, shiatsu massage, all the rest of it. So I think probably the way I grew up is traditionally English, but my heritage is Greek and Australian. So traditionally English, I would say, is quite reserved and stoic. Yes. And my dad certainly is. And my mum is not. My mum's the Greek Australian.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

That'll be the Greek.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:38

Yeah. So that book beautifully does put that if you don't get that out, it stores in your body. And that's what had happened. I wasn't able to talk about it. I wasn't allowed to talk about it in the way I wanted to. I wasn't allowed to express those feelings. I'd been completely numbed out by the drugs which absolutely needed to happen. I absolutely needed those drugs out of that time to be able to function and get up and do stuff. But there's periods that then after that you need to come away from those so that you can recover properly. But it was all stored in my body. And now I look back after reading that book and realize that that's why the Xiao massage, acupuncture, and physical touch really worked for me because that moved the pain out of my body. Someone else did that. It wasn't me. So I would get relief and I'd be able to sleep. And then obviously in this journey, I'd always had animals as we talked about, my mother replacing animals. But I read about dogs. And I was like, Do you know what I'd try anything? I don't really care. Like, I love dogs. So even if yeah, if it doesn't work, who cares? I've got my own place. I almost lost my flat. I'd already had to sell my car. It was horrific. Everyone said to me, You're mental. The only person who actually was like, Lucy, you do you, and I will help you however you need to be helped is my. Best friend Becky, and Becky said, Get the dog, I will come with you. And we trundled off to Hampshire and we picked up this little bundle of fluff. And Becky, uh, I'll never forget she was wearing white loafers, and we went onto this farm, and she was like, I didn't know we were going to a farm, and she got her dirty. Those loafers were finished. Yes, exactly. She's still one of my best friends, and she drove with me. And at that time, no one really put dogs in harnesses or anything like that. And she drove back with me with Lucky on her lap, and that was the start. And he got me to think about things that were bigger than me. And that's what got me out of the hole. So I was getting myself off the tramadol. I got lucky. He was named lucky because his birthday is the same day, the anniversary of the event. He came into my life. I was like, I'm going to crate train him. I'm going to do all of these things. I'm going to focus on doing all that. None of that worked. He's claustrophobic. He wouldn't go in a crate. He slept at the bottom of my bed. He worked out how to get into my bed and under the covers. And I lived in a flat, so he had to go out to walk him to do his business in the morning. Now, you know, when you're taking all those medications and you've got no structure, you're up all night, you're asleep all day, you sleep when you can and all of that. So he forced structure. So if I wouldn't get up in the morning, he'd go down into my bed and bite my toes to get me awake. And then I'd go, oh God, I've got to walk him. And even if I went out in my pajamas with a coat on over the top, it got me out of the flat. It got me doing something. I had to focus on, oh, he needs treats, he needs vaccinations, he needs this, he needs that. And the more I focused on him and the positive interactions, he came everywhere with me. He used to sit on my shoulder. He was six kilos. So I put him on my shoulder like this, that he had the same colouring as my hair. So consequently, my hair would come over the top because obviously I wasn't really looking after myself. My hair was uber long, and his little face would poke out the back and he'd like woof at people as they walk past. And it would be really funny because he was a little bit of a scaredy cat initially as a baby, or a puppy, I should say. It's not baby, but yeah, I used to hold his little butt like that and he'd be on the shoulder there. And yeah, he gave me so much joy. The other thing he did, which is why I call Blue a Buffer on a Bridge, is Lucky provided a positive thing to talk about. I had nothing positive to talk about in my life at that time. I had a huge court case, I'd lost my law degree, so I was at the point of finishing that law degree, and I couldn't do it because I couldn't study, I'd missed my exams, so I was absolutely heartbroken at that because that was really difficult for me because my identity had gone, I couldn't do my swimming, I couldn't do exercise, I couldn't do anything. I was literally a shell of who I was. I had lost everything in my eyes. I was still alive, absolutely, and I still had friends, but I'd also lost a lot of my friend group because I couldn't go out. I remember ringing a friend, we were meant to be going to my baia for a weekend, and I said, Listen, I'm terribly sorry. I've had a terrible incident. I've been in hospital, I'm not allowed to fly. And she went, Oh, well, that's gonna ruin our holiday. I suddenly realised that this was a me problem. And but you know what? We're still friends, this person actually. Is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

I'm surprised by that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

Well, I'll tell you why, because in that moment I didn't know she was going through a really horrible time and she really needed to get away. And she actually went on the holiday her own. And we did have a conversation afterwards, and she didn't actually realise because I'm terrible at telling the whole truth when it comes to these things. I will tell you a lot later. I don't like to tell people when I'm going through it. And a lot of people do do that, they won't give you the full weight of it. So she's just thought, oh well, she's been in hospital, she's come out, she's fine, she's on the phone talking to me. She hadn't seen me. So it sounds terrible, and it did at the time. It hurt me hard, but I lost a lot of friends at that time because who wants to come around and see a sick person at 23 years old? And also you find out who your friends are when you go through a hard time, you know, people who you think will be there and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:21

Who puts actions through words, mate?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

Yeah, you're absolutely right, and that's really eloquently put, and it's true. Yeah, sending a card, you know, in a world of emails and texts, send something. You know, I send often biscuiteers is one of my favourite ones, it's really cute. They'd send little biscuits through your letter box so you don't even have to answer the door and it have like thinking of you, and it'll be like a little hug or something like that. You may not be able to do much, but just letting somebody know that you're thinking of them and that you're, you know, you're there is really important. And actually, you do realise, and at that age, you know, when you're young, you've got a huge friend circle. You I would horrified to have as many friends now. You know, it you just can't manage it. They're not friends, they're acquaintances, aren't they? But at that time, I really felt it. I've really felt from like I was a very quite a popular person because I had all these other things that I was doing in all these walks of lives, and suddenly I wasn't nothing. I'd lost my university degree, I'd lost my job, I'd lost my friends, and I'm at my mum and dad's house nine times out of ten because I can't be at home on my own in my own flat, which I'm about to lose because I can't afford the payments, you know? And luckily, I was in a position where my parents could step in and help me with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

You got a paw print tattoo of Lucky on your wrist after he died. I've spoken to a few guests about grief when it comes to pets. So, how did Lucky's death impact your mental health given the role that he had played in your mental health recovery? And also, would you say that he had changed your life or he had saved your life in that period?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

Well, that's a good question. I would say he saved my life. He changed it, absolutely. He changed the trajectory potentially. I think I would have always found a way. That's just who I am innately. I just needed to have some time to go. I don't want to be in this place. But he saved my life because he took me out of the position that I was in, which was very uh introverted and very woe as me. Uh and look, it happens to all of us, it's just how you climb out of that hole. Known it. He did because I had to give him food. At that point, if I didn't eat, it didn't matter. Who cares? But I couldn't see him suffer. So I had to go to the shops, I had to buy dog food, I had to walk him, I had to give him a nice life. And the other thing with that is that the conversations, so I had become my accident, I had become what had happened to me, but that's not who I was. That was just a small part of my history and my journey in this world. So actually, I had something really nice to talk about now. I look at my puppy, look at Lucky, and actually that gave me an opportunity to have meaningful conversations that weren't related to the shit that I was going through, which is really, really important. I can't stress that enough. Like you need to have something that you can connect with other people with. And he was just a really, you know, not politics, not government, not angry things, like something nice. And that's what he gave me. He gave me a conversation, he gave me a start for 10. He gave me a love that I couldn't give myself, he gave me no judgment. So if I had a bad day, he still come and cuddle me. If I didn't have a shower, all of that stuff. And it's really important because people don't necessarily love unconditionally, they love conditionally, you know. And he didn't do that. So I'll make me that's the first time in a long time. So I always talk about animals, they never leave you, right? They're always part of you. It's just like a wave crashing, and sometimes it crashes hard. And when I started to go back to work, so I picked myself up and eventually decided that I'm going to work part-time because I had all these skills, and the only way I could sort of start going back to work was a couple of hours at a time because I was absolutely physically exhausted. And um, I was worried that he would get lonely. So the court case had finished the uh personal injury one, and I moved to Watford. And when I moved to Watford, I had a nice little garden, and I was like, right, I'm gonna get another dog. So I got Poppy, and Poppy kept him company, and they had a beautiful little relationship for a long time. She was the queen, she was four kilos, and when we went and picked her out, Lucky loved playing with her until he got her in the car, and then he, when he realised we were going home with her, he was like, Who's this? No mum, what the hell? But they became really good friends, they slept in the same bed together, they were absolute loves. And when I lost Lucky, I had to carry on because I still had Poppy and she went into a little bit of a depression because her whole life she'd been with Lucky, and he was sort of like her big brother. So it really did rip a bit of my heart out, you know. I think every animal does. He saved my life. I will often say that. That's the sort of phrase I use with him. So the tattoo is if anyone ever needs to find my pulse, because I know people find it's hard, it's directly over a main vein. He's my heartbeat. And three years later I lost Poppy, and again, that destabilised me by not having an anchor, like we spoke about. And then a little while later, I got well, just over a year, I realised I couldn't live without another dog, and blue was uh come into the frame then. So yeah, if you can, and that's your thing. Obviously, not everybody loves animals, but animals provide a comfort that humans sometimes can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Before we reflect, after the accident, you built yourself up to a point where you worked part-time and then you joined the fire service, you pass the physical assessment, you have a career of almost two decades now, not yet. Do you think the Lucy in that 2004-2005 headspace would have believed you?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:14

Absolutely not. I thought I was done. And it's interesting actually, because I reflect now about this. The court case was horrendous, but like I said, I've got this fire that I was like, I'm just gonna get through it. So, what generally happens with a lot of these things, and I'm sure everybody knows this, but you get yourself to a point, it's much like having like a funeral for someone. You work yourself up, you do everything, you get to the point of the thing, and then you do the thing, and then you sort of collapse afterwards. Yeah, exactly. You're like, because that's been your whole three, four, five years, three months, whatever it might be, that's been your goal, and now you've done that thing. But the judge in his judgment said the solicitors, the doctors have said she's never gonna work again, she's always gonna be on medication. And I was like, What? That's insane. Like, I'm so young. Like, is it really that bad? You know, these people are respected, clever, experienced people. And I was thinking about all the stuff that I've gone through, and I'm thinking, oh, do you know what? They're probably right, but I don't think they are. And then the judge said in his judgment, he said, you know, you're still a young woman and you can recover from this and you'll go back to work. And at the time I was like, You know nothing. All these people are saying this. I can't believe you said that, you know. Outraged. But somewhere in that outrage is fire, right? And um I reflect now, and I think that probably started a fire, and you know, proof you're wrong, you know, something like that. And actually, look where I am now. So that saying I say you're not your diagnosis, it's a start point, is really important because actually you can go on to achieve things. And I've had lots of barriers put in my way. Even when I did my medical for the fire service, the woman, the occupational health lady was like, Oh, you can't ever be a firefighter because you've had PTSD. I said, I'm sorry, I'm not sure you're qualified to make that decision first. Second, actually, what I've learned by having PTSD and going through what I've done is that I've actually built the resilience. So actually, I know in myself when I'm not doing all right, and I will put things in place to make sure I recover okay. So actually, it's my superpower. So, how very dare you! How very dare. And look, it's again, that person was only speaking from their personal experience. And when I joined, they were very much of a case of, well, I don't see how this could possibly work. We want perfect people. People aren't perfect, regardless. They're just not. People have lots of things. Wouldn't you rather someone be honest with you so you could support them rather than lying about condition that potentially might hurt them in the future? So I was in a very privileged position that I already worked for the authority. I went back to my boss and I told him about it. And he was like, no, that's outrageous. We'll put a complaint in for we'll complain. I got sent to a specialist who said, This is an absolute nonsense. You're absolutely perfect for the job. And I also got sent to a specialist for my back injury, so the chronic back pain and all the surgeries and things that I'd had. And he said, There's absolutely no issue there. So again, it's about asking the right questions and having the right person answer them. All of my specialists were like, Absolutely, you're fine for it. But it's that people can't know everything all of the time, but it's about meaningful challenge and doing it in the right way, which was like, no, no, you're not qualified to make that decision. You're a generalist, and I I appreciate that, but you haven't seen the specialist reports, and that's it. And then there we go, we're here now. And actually, your experience, yours, mine, other people who've been through this is really helpful for other people who are at the beginning of their journey. It's really important that people could see that you know there's light at the end of the tunnel. Really important. So, no, in short, I didn't think I'd ever be in the fire service. I didn't even think I'd go back to work, and I was horrified at that thought because I'd been brought up in a very hard-working family that had come from nothing, and that's what I'd sort of been built into me that I needed to work hard to achieve the things that I wanted, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

Let's reflect now. So, similar question as the first topic. What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:20

I'm stronger than I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

Just that, I think. It's a very, very, very common answer on this podcast as well. Yeah, great company.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:30

Yeah, you are. It's a personal choice. There's another phrase that I use. So when things are not going well, and it often happens, the higher up the food chain you go, there's two things I'll say. If you haven't got any haters, you haven't made it in life. And there's a very famous speech which Margaret Thatcher says about that, and it's a Robert Mackay poem, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:54

In fact, is that if a man has no enemies, he's no man at all, or something like that. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:59

About that. So that, and when you are having hard times and it seems that the world is against you, just remember you're stronger than you think you are, and you get to break you. Nobody breaks you. It sounds a bit patronizing, but it's not meant that way. It's it's I break me. You don't get to break me. None of these people out here get to do that. I make the decision about what affects me, and I make the decision to move forward with those comments and hold those comments, work on those comments, reflect on those comments and be better and come back stronger. So I break me, you don't get that opportunity. And that would probably be something that's held me in really good stead my entire life.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

And as a final question, before we move on to our quick fire mental health chat, if you could go back and talk to the Lucy who had just experienced that terrible accident in 2004, the Lucy who was grieving over her dogs Lucky or Poppy, or the Lucy who was thinking about whether to join the fire brigade, what would you say to her, knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:05

Dream big. Never take no as an answer. Do what you love.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:15

Our final topic of conversation, Lucy, and it's one I try and have with all of my special guests, if we have time. It is a general natter and quickfire chat about our mental health. So, firstly, how is your mental health, pal?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:27

It's alright. I'm not really sure how to answer that. Good at the moment. It's a seven.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:32

I was gonna ask for scale out of ten, so seven out of ten is great. What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health and you realized that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:43

Uh that's a really interesting question. Um, I know that when I was going through my accident, quite often they would say something called it's psychosomatic pain. So it's in your brain and it's not actual real pain. And that used to get me very, very angry. It probably wasn't until 15 years ago that I realised how relevant and how linked they are. And you know, if you have depression, you're likely to have chronic pain disorder. So I don't know if I could put an age on it. Let's say 15 years ago, let's say 30.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

Okay, that's fine. There's no right or wrong age. Can you remember the first conversation you ever had with someone about your mental health? So if you can remember, who was it with? What did you say, and how do you look back on it? Did it feel like the big moment and weight have been lifted, or on the other, something quite easy, natural, and normal to do?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:30

I think it was probably post my accident and it was probably with my GP. And that triggered me into looking at a load of research, and I was just grateful it had a name. And then when it has a name, you can go look at it and then you can go work out how to fix it. That's what my brain worked at. So it was very uncomfortable, but I was relieved.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:50

What things do you find in life that trigger your mental health? So it could be things people say to you, a sound, a smell, a taste, a sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:59

I've worked really hard on my triggers, actually. So a particular one would have been chlorine. So that was exposing yourself to bleach all the time. So triggers like that are gone. I remove myself from environments where I can feel the energy is wrong. So that would be as soon as I recognise it, and it can be people or it can be a place, I will limit the time. Sometimes you don't have the opportunity to remove yourself completely because of the job that you do. And certainly, like operationally, it's different. Like you put in a barrier and you're in an operational mode. But if I'm there as a person, as just Lucy, as a member of the public, then I've got very good at going, okay, no, this is not for me, and I'm gonna leave now, or leave in a way that people don't feel sad. So I'm making sure I'm not obsessing them, but I'm also I'm gonna limit my time frame so that I don't ruin my day or my week as well, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:51

Conversely, what positive tools and methods do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have worked, maybe which ones that you've tried but haven't?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:59

Cuddling blue, walking blue, anything to do with blue.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:03

I'm sensing a theme here.

unknown 1:25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:06

Buying things for blue. No, seeing friends. So I've got a really good girlfriend group, and we talk utter garbage and don't judge each other, and that's really useful. Having a little rant with a rant, but a timed rant so it doesn't go on forever, and you don't pity party it, like uh throw yourself a pity party, as I suppose, for five weeks, just initially do it and done. Massage. So I go to uh Thai massage twice a week. Twice a week? No, that's a lie. Sorry, that would be really I'd have loads of money if I did that. No, twice a month is what I meant to say. So bi-weekly, like, and he gives me 90 minutes of body movement, which really helps release stress and all the rest of it. So that really works for me. I love food, but I'm not good at looking after myself if I'm on my own. So when I can host other people, or someone comes around, that's like a love language for me. Like, you know, like if someone brings me something nice to eat or something like that. So yeah, those are the things. Oh, and removing myself. So going on holiday. So changing my environment. I say going on holiday, it can be just going to a different place. So changing my environment and getting my senses involved in something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:15

You've answered my next two questions, which is about what is the best book and what is a mantra in life. So I'll ask my final two questions. The first one of which is what do you love about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

Oh um my ability to overcome difficult things and my resilience. So people talk about resilience as a really good thing. Your resilience because you've gone through lots of hard things, and that's how you build resilience. And I I would say that I'll always try something once.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:50

And as a final question, and you can answer it any way you want. What more do you think we have to do to ensure people from all backgrounds, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about the mental health issues or just their general mental health, if most importantly, they want to do it?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:07

I think we need to start in schools. I think schools need to teach that it's okay to talk. And I think that will then filter through. I think having the right people talking to people is really important. And the right person is different for everybody. So some people might want to talk to me, some people might want to talk to you, some people might want to talk to somebody else. But it's really hard because that's a changeable thing and not one size fits all. So having a myriad of tools, teaching people early that it's okay to feel your feelings early rather than suppressing them might help. And actually, what I'm really passionate about, because you know I work in the fire service, is that men, as we know, are less likely to open up, which means that they're more likely to die by suicide. And that needs to change because none of us want that. So if we can allow those conversations to happen when they're really young. They learn that it's okay. And then we're saving the next generation. We've got a lot of work to do in this generation already, that people are already at work. But we're giving them the tools already early. So yeah, really passionate about trying to get it into schools and let them understand those things. And I know there have been some really good avenues like teaching and meditation and whatnot, but that would be what I would hope. And then within workplaces, having an understanding, but not tick boxing, which is difficult because one size doesn't fit all. You can't just go, all right, well, you go and speak to talking therapies, we'll give you six sessions, you'll be fixed and come back to work. That doesn't work. Some people need to talk to people for the rest of their lives. Some people don't want to talk to people and they need a massage, like you know. So just be mindful that people are different.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:49

That's a great way to end it. Lucy, thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:55

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:00

Well, that's all we've got time for in this episode of the Just Checking In Pod. A big thank you to Lucy for being my special guest and for letting me check in with her. I'll put some links to where you can follow Lucy and Blue on social media in the show notes if you want some great dog content in your feed, as well as buy a copy of her book if you are a parent as well. As always, thank you to all the ventors who've tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, please give it a share on social media by tagging us at venthelpuk. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, you can write us a review and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to go even further, you can go to patreon.com slash ventshelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember, guys, it is always okay to vent.