what do you think was the most important

factor or factors that that helped you

emerge from that

boy that's a good question i mean i was

talking to somebody you know a

professional about it that helped um

i uh

i was married to someone i really loved

but the marriage wasn't working and

eventually we both sort of like

confronted that and acknowledged it and

we ended the marriage and that was very

painful but it felt like a healthy step

we're still friends you know we did it

you know it wasn't it wasn't

the where's didn't work but the divorce

did you know what i mean like we we

um

and um

i stopped uh i i'd started drinking a

little more than i probably should have

i mean i've never

you know by no means was an alcoholic

but i i had a unhealthy relationship

with alcohol and i

i stopped drinking uh

i had atrial fibrillation which is a

arrhythmia in my heart and i was told

you know i fixed that i had a

an abolition that fixed it completely um

but um the doctor said you know you know

alcohol can trigger try not drinking and

i didn't drink for a month and i felt so

good like that i'd like sort of turn the

corner and all of a sudden i was

starting to feel like a healthy person

emotionally healthy person there's a lot

of it's a lot of different things a lot

of different things

how much did other people us outside of

the therapist how much did other people

contribute to

the improvement in your well-being again

i'm thinking about kind of the tribe

right who was your tribe at that point

in life you'd obviously lost a very

important member of your tribe

if i'm doing the math correctly you

would go on to lose another important

member of the tribe being your father

um

uh so

who are the important members of your of

your tribe and is it necessary that they

understand what you've been through

right so

can people who didn't know tim or who

have not been

in combat be a part of your healing

so i

i met someone else and remarried and she

had been through some pretty tough

things herself

um

not combat obviously uh not obviously it

could have been but it wasn't uh

um and there was something about her

compassion and understanding

um that was enormously helpful to me

um

that was that was really quite profound

and

um

i mean the problem with depression

i mean the problem with anxiety is it

doesn't make sense right you're actually

you know

you're anxious about something that

isn't rational

so being told rationally

you don't have to worry about this

you're not going to get an another

arterial rupture it never it's not going

to happen statistically you're fine

you have to deal with the emotional

you have to the anxiety isn't

necessarily tied to reality well

likewise with depression like

you can be very depressed

and

the the fraternity of other people the

love of other people might not reach you

because the nature of depression is that

you're at the bottom of the ocean

right i mean you're you're like you

can't reach me i know you're talking to

me i know you love me i see your lips

moving but you don't understand where i

am you can't reach me here right

and

so i i mean that's the you know

i think

one of the biggest

things that helps

some someone in that those circumstances

it's feeling needed and feeling useful

and being asked to contribute

like look bro you might be depressed

but we need you to stand guard duty for

a while or you need to kill that elk or

you know we need some sandbags the

river's rising like you

people when people are needed by the

group

they click into this thing that actually

improves their own psychological state

of mind i mean the

admissions to psych wards

in london during the blitz went down

went down during the blitz during the

bombings right as did depression post 9

11. suicide went down post 9 11.

that's right

so the the crisis engenders is a kind of

call to action which gets allows people

to be to buffer themselves from their

psychological troubles

and

um you know i think that

the love of one person sometimes is

quite painful to experience because you

realize that that person who loves you

can't reach you where you are

right and

um

but me being needed is a different thing

and and you know i think ultimately

that's

that sense of being necessary might be

the ultimate antidote to the experience

of depression

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