'Tinnies, Tabs & Boys' - Charlotte's Story Part One

This episode we welcome our very first guest, Charlotte. 

Charlotte discussed her life, her journey and how she found recovery. We touch on boarding school, addiction, neurodivergence and mental health issues. A powerful and inspiring listen.

Show notes;
- Gabor Mate talks
- Life and Crime 1984-2020 (HBO Documentary)
- Recovery Capital

As always we would love to here from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:08

We live in a world that never stops offering more. More to buy, more to scroll, more to numb, and more to escape. Until the wanting becomes normal and stopping feels impossible.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And somehow the harder we chase it, the more burnt out, anxious, addicted, and disconnected we become.

SPEAKER_06 0:27

This is More, a podcast hosted by people with lived experience of addiction, mental health issues, trauma, and neurodiversity. Where the pursuit of more led us to rock bottom and has since led us to finding alternative ways to live.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Each week we have raw, honest conversations with each other and our guests, grounded in lived experience, about what the chase takes from us and what's possible when you stop running.

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Through these conversations, we hear a diverse collection of stories and experiences from those who have found an alternative way to exist in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

These conversations are recorded in a single take with no editing, so what you hear is real and unfiltered. Some names and places may be changed in order to protect those sharing their stories.

SPEAKER_06 1:14

Welcome to more. What's the word? Somebody. Disturbing. Disturbing. Disturbing.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I was gonna go distressing. Distressing. Distressing.

SPEAKER_06 1:45

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Slash disturbing.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

Thank God I'm not alone. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm Toby.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

And I'm Rudy.

SPEAKER_06 1:54

Uh today we're joined by our first guest, and I'm very excited to introduce Charlotte. Hello Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Hello. I forgot I was your first guest. Yeah. Yay.

SPEAKER_06 2:05

Yeah, really nice to have you on. Looking forward to getting into it a bit. Should we start off with a bit of checking?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, Nastara. Go on. Me checking in. I am checking in that I am feeling pretty grounded. Bit triggered today from a few mess family members sending me messages. But I think other than that, I've had a good weekend. So you know steady away. Yeah, what about you?

SPEAKER_06 2:36

Yeah, good. I'm uh checking in. I'm yeah, I'm feeling good. Actually, I'm feeling my cup is full. Yeah, I've had a a very wholesome weekend. Everything's going alright, yeah. Just just slowly podding in the same direction, in the right direction. Yeah, I feel I feel positive and grateful. How about you, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah, I'm very grateful for the sunshine this weekend. That's made a huge difference, and learning to keep it more in the day because I keep getting scared about the future. So once I've done that, then actually I've had a really nice weekend.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

Yeah, God, the sun's been shining, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

It's been four hours in the car yesterday, but it didn't matter just because the sun was absolutely glorious.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

It just makes everything so much prettier, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_06 3:31

God, it's been good. It's it like three days, two days of now, isn't it? We've had a like blue skirt. Three days, yeah. God, I've almost already forgotten how bad the weather's been. It's just how my brain is just instantly like it's summer.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, and the aquinox is the aquinox one for a while.

SPEAKER_06 3:54

Spring, yeah, spring solstice.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, amazing sunset as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Yeah, I drove past Stonehenge yesterday and it was parked.

SPEAKER_06 4:00

Yeah, mate. Yeah, yeah, I bet. Yeah. Yeah, everyone parked up on the side road, having a look. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:09

Everyone crashing into each other.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

But I think that's the only time you're allowed to touch the stones and stuff, isn't it? As Equinox.

SPEAKER_06 4:17

Oh, what they open it up, do they?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, mate. Pagan festival.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah. I think. It's quite a mad thing. I've been to the Souls list a few times, and like you walk up and it's like a music festival. It's like hot dog fans are then you go there and you just thought the stones well in the big. Yeah. It was a funny, funny experience. Yeah, yeah. Five o'clock in the morning. It's like walking back to the end of Gladstone and it's yeah, well, we we've got like international listeners, haven't we?

SPEAKER_06 4:53

So yeah. Stonehenge is a bit of like one of the seven wonders of the world, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:57

Which probably people in other countries only really sort of hear about, but yeah, it's strange. I've been there a few times, but like you go there and it's just it's like a couple of rocks on the side of the road. Yeah. Isn't it? Not it's not just a couple of rocks.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, if you if you believe in it, there's layer lines of energy that come from there. Is like the centre point, the tar. Yeah. And there's these energy lines that flow called layer lines. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:25

Is it the Michael line? And uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

There's quite a few. Yeah. I've got a map somewhere, but Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_06 5:33

The um yeah, but it's it's it's just so strange that when you live near it, because it's right on the side of the main road through, that it is just a massive backup of traffic because everyone tries to outward.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

There's no point in stopping though, is there? Because you can't go up to them anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:52

Funny. Yeah. How's your week been? Rudy?

SPEAKER_02 5:58

My week? Yeah, it's alright. I'm just getting ready to launch this business. So I didn't end up getting that job. Oh, okay. I'd priced myself out of it, said I was too expensive.

SPEAKER_06 6:12

You know your worth, mate.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

That was my rate. I went in at my cheapest. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they they've chosen some one cheaper. So I was like, whatever, fair enough. Yeah. But that means now I can just focus on doing a full launch of my business tomorrow.

SPEAKER_06 6:30

Nice. Going live. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Tomorrow, that's exciting. Yes. Do you like get to press a big red button and then it goes pa.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Just get to do a post on the very toxic LinkedIn platform. And then I can start messaging, you know, getting the word out. Nice. Yeah. So but yeah, had that, had my son a fair bit, and you know, some family time yesterday with some cousins who I don't see that often. So it's been good. Enjoying the sunshine, just doing the usual. Nice, mate. Meetings, exercising. I tidied my house.

SPEAKER_06 7:13

Have you been painting?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

I did a bit of pen. I did that last week because I I didn't know if I was going to be getting this part-time roll. Yeah, okay. And so I was like, right, I need to get this done.

SPEAKER_06 7:24

Looks really good. Yeah. For anyone at home, it's a very earthy sort of zen feeling here.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, it's a very nice colour, nice contrasting colours as well. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

So that that's my week, really. Just taking it easy, otherwise. How about you guys?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I've been quite un I've had a cold, which I've been a bit dramatic about it. Because I feel like now I'm in recovery, I shouldn't get colds because I look after myself. But obviously that's just what happens. So I've been pretending that I don't have one, but it's yeah, otherwise I can't really complain. It's been fine. I've been working, doing some house sitting, and yeah, it's just been another week. Meetings and all that kind of stuff. There's the usual, it's nice though.

SPEAKER_06 8:14

Yeah, nice. Who who are you house sitting for? Obviously, I don't say the name. But like family, friends, or uh my boss.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Oh, okay, nice. Yeah, which is I'm very grateful to be trusted to do stuff like that now. Yeah. It's a really yeah, it's a big gift of recovery. Very good. Definitely, yeah. Lovely house as well, lovely views, couple of fires.

SPEAKER_06 8:39

It's always nice to house sit when someone's got like an uber shwanky house, and that and lovely dogs, really lovely dogs.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And it gets me out more, so that's good.

SPEAKER_06 8:49

Yeah. We were really lucky. Some friends of friends of mine ages ago. I think they still do, but I haven't seen them for ages now. But randomly they they dog sit for some friends of theirs who were like multi trillionaires well, and they've got this massive lake house. So they used to invite us up when they were house sitting for parties.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah, see, that's why I don't think I've done it before.

SPEAKER_06 9:14

Which was always a strange concept to me, and they're always fine with it.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:19

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

I don't think I trusted myself to look after other people's houses before, to be fair.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

No.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

I never got interested to look after. No.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

No, well, yeah, no one asked me either.

SPEAKER_06 9:33

Cool. Well, my week's been lovely as well. Just in the sun, isn't it? Yeah. Anything in this weather is is bloody lovely. I had a really ho homely note. Wholesome? Wholesome day yesterday. Like mowed the grass, cut the hedges, did the strimming, you know, just a bit of like that spring cleaning, like doors and windows open. Yeah. Wind just blowing through. And then then the neighbour was, I could see her like struggling with her lawn mower. And so went over to try and offer to fix it, but realised that she'd just bought, and she was like, Oh, I've just bought the second-hand lawn mower because my lawnmower stopped working. So I took her old lawnmower and fixed it and brought it back to her, and she was like almost in tears. And then got my lawnmower as well and helped her mower lawn. I got it all done really quickly. Yeah, and had a friend over. Yeah, it's just been yeah, just like I say, in in the sun, just it kind of just feels like we can all be outside again. Yeah. You know, in the garden, playing around, just kind of feels like a bit of relief, release, really.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

And it's lighter for so much longer as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 10:48

Yeah. Yeah, and that's makes a huge difference. Or yeah, it probably hasn't. Maybe it's the sunshine as well. It just feels like it went from being dark at four o'clock to like six o'clock with within like a day. Mega, well I think so we've invited you along today for you to share your story with us. I for one am really looking forward to hearing it. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

And I guess we'll just come in with any questions.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah. Shall I start at the very beginning?

SPEAKER_06 11:27

Start at the very beginning. Yeah, why not? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, and we'll just jump in and out.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Cool. Thanks. Thanks for having me. So I was born, obviously. So give me a second. The spicy brains going on. Born in London, southwest London. To my mum and dad, who are a good strong couple, still together to this day actually. I have a younger sister. But quite early on, I think I was six, my mum, my mum got ill with breast cancer. And so that's what, twenty-five years ago now? And it I think it impacted me more than I've ever than I've realized for a long time. But you know, we were told that she was ill. But that's kind of all we were told, and I go and see her. I don't really remember a huge amount of my childhood. I remember seeing her in hospital a couple of times and just thinking that I wasn't gonna ever gonna see her again because we didn't talk about it. So she was like, it's like right, we're gonna we're gonna go and see her now. And then it's a big I don't know, maybe a big thing was made about it, and then we cut me and my sister be whisked off to go and stay with family. All I can remember is like a window that I used to look out of when I was looked after by somebody. It's it's a really like blurry experience, but the only thing I can remember from it really is not is thinking every time I saw my mum, it was the last time I saw her, I was gonna see her. So I never we never spoke about the fact that she was having treatment or that she was getting better or kind of what was going on. It was they they told us we were on holiday in Portugal. I can remember sitting there on the beach. When I look back on it, I'm sitting there by myself, and it was a beautiful like sunset, and we were sitting there four of us in a row, and they told us that my mum had breast cancer. But when I look back on it, I can see myself sitting on a beach in a massive storm in exactly the same place. Like I can still still see the telegraph poll or whatever it was, it's mad. But I think from that moment I felt really alone because we didn't talk about it. So I didn't talk to my sister about it, my dad didn't talk to us about it, my mum didn't talk to us about it, no one in the fat, everyone was like, it was kind of like everyone knew something was happening, but no one was talking about it. It's like that Christmas Day thing, you know, when everyone hates each other but everyone pretends to get along.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, yeah. I think I had similar in mind, my mystery illness that we never knew about, you know, and it's just not spoken about.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

It doesn't help.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Makes it worse.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

But you know, I don't blame them for it because it I think even 25 years ago it was everything was a lot a lot less spoken about. It wasn't about the impact that it has on your kids. I've done research on it was after listening to that gabormatic gabomate thing that that you sent me, and like how that that was a traumatic event for me as a child because mine even though no one was doing it on purpose, my needs weren't being met because emotions weren't being spoken about or shown. So there was no I didn't see any emotion from my dad apart from being very quiet or being like happy singing, dancing dad, which confused me because it's like, but she's she's gonna die. Yeah. Like I'm I'm never gonna see her again.

SPEAKER_06 15:01

And when we're left to sort of figure it out in our own heads, we uh tend to catastrophise and as a child, you know, that imagination is you know a lot worse, really, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

But she's lying in hospital, but you you know, and there's it was just it was yeah. But I hard I I just don't really remember it.

SPEAKER_06 15:19

How how long was she in hospital?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 15:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

I mean, she had it twice after that as well. Okay. So it was that first time, and then I think she got it quite soon afterwards. But it was bad because it's it spread to her lymph node, so she I think she's in hospital for quite a long time.

SPEAKER_06 15:38

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

And then the second time it was caught quite quickly, and then the third time, I think I was sixteen at this point, she had a double massectomy and hysterectomy. So she was in hospital for a long time.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

And I didn't know what like none of us, even weirdly, sixteen, I was quite I was quite independent in what well what I thought was independent, but looking back on it, I was still six years old. It was still that same feeling because it still wasn't being spoken about. Yeah. I remember saying, Can I do anything? And my dad was like, Yeah, you can go home and cook a roast. I didn't know how to turn the oven on.

SPEAKER_06 16:14

Are they sort of like would you say they're sort of like upper class British stiff upper lip sort of get on with it, don't worry, don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Like they The middle c upper middle class that thing. It's upper middle class of things.

SPEAKER_06 16:30

Kind of like uh you know, yeah, get on with it, don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Very much so. Yeah, yeah. My my dad's very much like that. I actually think though that he's he's actually quite affected by things, but doesn't know how to talk about it. So he just pretends everything I I with the the beauty of hindsight, I can see that actually he's a very emotional man, but he doesn't know how to express it.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah, I think that's a lot of that generation, isn't there? Because then the generation before that were post-world war. Yeah. You know, or went through the world war. Yeah, so it's kind of like it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that but it's that thing where like you know that they're like it and it's really quite frustrating, but you can't blame them for it either, because that's just what they were like. So it's cut you it's kind of you just have to accept it, which it's not always that easy to do.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, yeah, I know that from my experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:26

So what about school then?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So yeah, so I went to boarding school when I was 11. So I finished, I went to a really tiny primary school in London. There was 10 of us in my year.

SPEAKER_06 17:38

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

And I think only two of us sat for the SATs.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Like it was because everyone, you know, everyone was going off. It was a private primary school, everyone was going off to other private schools. I remember having the absolute fear. I write in a really weird way. I write on my left, well, I just write in a weird way, and I was and the the head teacher was she was a very scary woman, she had a lot of Botox, which that was quite a long time ago, so it wasn't great Botox. She had these really droopy ears because she wore heavy earrings. And I just remember thinking that I wasn't going to be able to go to the school that I wanted to because she because I was bore I borrowed someone's fountain pen. And I thought it was that like I was I just spent my life petrified of being in trouble, which is ironic for how I ended up.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

I think that's the way though, isn't it? It's having that fear. Yeah. You know, that fear until you don't have it any longer.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah. Yeah, so I went, but I went to I went to boarding school, so I but I wanted to go. So both my parents went to boarding school. I read a lot of books.

SPEAKER_06 18:47

Did you know that that was where you were gonna go? Or is this sort of like as of because your mum wasn't well and you ended up I think they were always gonna send me. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

But they were quite clever and went, oh well, okay, you can go to boarding school. I read um Ina Blyton's Mallory Towers and was just obsessed with it. I mean, I did a lot of escaping from my reality by reading books as a kid. And yeah, Mallory Towers. Which is obviously not what boarding school is like because it's Ina Blyton. But I and I went to um so from the age of nine, I'd go and stay there at the weekend sometimes. They were called biff days, boarding is fun.

SPEAKER_06 19:25

Oh, what, as like an introduction, right? Okay. Biff, biff. Bunch of biffs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

So I did that for two years before I went there, and I just absolutely loved it. Yeah, so I went I went when I was eleven, had my little tuck box and off I went.

SPEAKER_06 19:38

Is that because you didn't enjoy it at home? Or because it was sort of like quite a good place for you there?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I don't really know. Okay. I just ended up there. It was really so I I could have gone to two, there were two different schools I could have gone to. I got into both of them.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Did you do double biffs?

unknown 20:01

I did.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

At the other biff at the other school, the the walls didn't touch the ceiling. They didn't have doors, they had curtains. So there was like a hundred of you basically in a room. And I was like, I'm not doing that. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

But I went to a really small school, so we lived above so all the classrooms were on one level, and then you'd walk upstairs, and that's where our bedrooms were. So, like my first year I spent I lived above the IT suite at school, and there was only ten of us. There's only 30 of us in the year, and ten of us boarded, and we were the weirdos. It was like, why I'm gonna go home. It's like, cool, I was gonna go upstairs.

SPEAKER_06 20:42

Yeah, it was I d I know nothing. This is me learning for the first time anything about boarding school. Yeah. I haven't even got a clue really what goes on. Can you talk us through like what like a the boarding bit is means you live there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

That's about Yeah, so I didn't have Saturday school, so I could go home on a Friday evening and normally get the bus back into London.

SPEAKER_06 21:06

Oh, so you could go home for the weekend? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

There were some people that stayed, but I went home because I was only like 45 minutes away from home. Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I go back on a Sunday night. It was I played a huge amount of sport, so that took up quite a lot of time. Yeah. But we'd have like prep time where you'd all go and sit together and like do your homework.

SPEAKER_06 21:30

Okay. That was gonna be my next question. What what like so the bell I'd never really did very much over? I know.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I um I didn't really follow it. Yeah, it's a word one. We watched quite a lot of TV, ate a lot of the toast.

SPEAKER_06 21:46

The bell rings at a normal school, 3 30, wherever it is now. And we'll just go. So then you go upstairs to your room, and then what the evening's yours, or you have like more in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Or it was always some no, no, no more schooly stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Okay. All right. Do you socialise together?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

It got more sociable the more it went on, the more people boarded. So when I left, so I left when I was 18, and there was probably over half of boarding by that point.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Because it was actually just a really sociable thing to do. You know, the summers were lovely because you'd finish school and then you go out and sit in the fields. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:24

And it was weird. And there so is it a just a r otherwise a regular school?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:32

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

I mean it wasn't like the academ people weren't high achieving.

SPEAKER_06 22:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

They only like I sat down for my GCSEs and they realized that I hadn't learnt anything and hadn't done any revision. They kind of weren't pushing for academia. Okay. They were quite happy for you to be your own person, which which is why I liked it. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, so I didn't expect you to fit into a mould, which was good.

SPEAKER_06 22:56

Sounds good. There's obviously boarding school syndrome, something that we sort of looked up briefly that we wanted to sort of see if you'd heard about. Is it something you've heard about?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

I've heard of it, but I don't I just I've heard of it. That's kind of where it ends. I've heard of it full stop.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Do you feel it affected your you know boarding school affected how you show up in the world now?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

I think it helped me.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Helped.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah. I don't think I could have been at home.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I had a very my relationship with both of my parents involved a lot of conflict. Now I don't I don't but I don't know if that was because I was at school so we didn't know each other very well. Yeah, I I I went to school at eleven, I then went straight to university and I came home, I dropped out of uni. So between the ages of eleven and nineteen, I never spent more than a month and a half at home with my parents. Yeah. Which is like that's quite that's a significant amount of your child well, it's my childhood basically, so we didn't I didn't grow up with them really.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah. And do you think that left you feeling like not part of the family unit when you were together or not?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

No, it was a very standard thing to be going to boarding school. I felt a lot more involved than some people that I knew. I mean people that I knew that went to other schools that that would that would stay at school five weeks in a row and then be able to go home. Their parents would go, don't come home, like just go to the London flat, here's two grand, have a nice weekend. Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't want to see them.

unknown 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:31

Did you when you first went in, you said your sister went to boarding school as well. Did you both did did either both of you or either of you have sort of like that separation anxiety? Was that experience the same for both of you?

SPEAKER_00 24:45

My sister did. I was the only night I ever got upset was the first night that I got there. I think I cried. And it was only because I didn't know what I was gonna do if I was unwell. I had this thing. My sister was a really sick child.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

So it wasn't like your first night in prison crying yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

No, I was it was quite overwhelming. I get quite overwhelmed. It wasn't traumatic, it was and I was just a bit like, oh god, this is like a new thing. But I struggle with change, so I think it was it was the change part. Whereas my sister really, really struggled. She's two years younger than me, and I'd kind of be called upon the like, can you come and see her? Because she's really upset, and I just kind of like tap her on the head and be like, Well, you'll see them on Friday. Like it'll be fine. Like I didn't, I I'll be right. Yeah, exactly. Just get on with it.

SPEAKER_06 25:33

So did did you go at the same time or she came in two years after?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

She came in two years after.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Did she did she struggle with like the abandonment and things? Yeah, massively.

unknown 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

We have very different I mean, I I would do it again. I would send I mean not that I've never been able to afford to, but I would not be against sending child my children, if I have them, to boarding school. Where she would keep them as far away as possible. Yeah, okay. But I think it gave me skills and life skills and independence. Yeah, I think so. But also but then also was I just left to my own devices because like no one paid was did I actually just enjoy it because I was living a different reality? Yeah. And you know, that's when everything started for me. I was prescribed coding at 14 and no one kept tabs on how much I was taking.

SPEAKER_06 26:25

So it is that because obviously you would have a prescription, take it there. And then when you went home at the weekend Well, I just heard left it at home. You couldn't just get another prescription.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah, or I just lost it. Like no one I I learnt to lie very quickly and manipulate very quickly. I used to practice like, like I I looked up how you lie. And like there's that thing where if you look left, so you say something, so you say a truth to somebody, and then if you look left, it's like, oh, they're lying. So I just like the amount of times people go, all right, I'm looking you in the eye now, and I'm like, yeah, bring it on. Because I know what I'm gonna do. I've practiced this for years, you know.

SPEAKER_06 27:06

There's a little bit of spice in there, isn't it? I've done almost exactly the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

But then you feel like you've won. You're like, and I've I've lied about some I've done some terrible things and I've lied about those things. And then I walk away from it going, and I'm just I'm still getting away with it. Like that is it's not a nice feeling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:27

I I I learned very early that you to maintain eye contact, even though it I find it uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

You're doing it now, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:36

And and I I just look in between your eyes, just that you'd look forward or one of your eyes or something for a bit. Because I know that people find that endearing. Um they f they find it, you know, they can trust someone who looks into their eyes, whereas I hate it, but I did it once and then I got just I got uh really obsessed with people's eyebrows.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I couldn't stop looking at people's eyebrows. That was a whole different thing. Yeah, but it is, but it's um I yeah, I don't know if it was really good for me or if it was I f I feel like it was good for me, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

I don't actually know. So is that not when you're using kind of thought?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah. Were you drinking and stuff in school?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

No, I started drinking when I was not at school, no. No.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Outside of school, yeah. But it was like, but it sometimes it was recovery time, like Sunday night to Friday. Be like getting better and then gear myself up to go back out again.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

And there was a place that we'd go when I was 16 in um in London, and they thought that we were at uni in Manchester, and I had a friend that would look up what the weather forecast was.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

In Manchester.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Yes, they'd be like, Oh, you guys are back again? It's like, yeah, yeah, well it was raining on Wednesday, wasn't it? So um we thought we'd come back to the big smoke. And they just thought we were all at they just thought we were all at uni.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

And we'd have lock-ins and everything, we were 16 years old. It was wicked, but then it but then I yeah, and I just spend a week well I play and I uh and I played a lot of sports, so that helped.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

What sports did you have?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Hockey mainly.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:16

Yeah. What position?

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Left midfield.

SPEAKER_06 29:20

Rapid. Still got your teeth.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

I had black yeah, well, just I wore a mouth guard. I had a lot of a lot of yeah. I got a really bad black eye once, so I was quite a but I was quite quick. Yeah. I was a little fucker. Yeah. Yeah. I was not, I played for a women's hockey hockey. Hockey's brutal. Yeah. Women, yeah, hockey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like I played for women and I used to get away with a lot because the referees would be like, oh, she's young, she doesn't understand. I'd be like hooking people's ankles. And I played for a boys' hockey, I got scouted for a boys' hockey team.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

So I was yeah, it's me and 21 boys and a hockey bitch. I I remember doing hockey out of schools in my hometown. You can just imagine how that was. I did it once and then I forgot a note for every hockey hockey section.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I think it's I absolutely loved it. I loved how aggressive it was. Yeah, yeah. And it you it's fast-paced and it's really intense, and I really, really enjoyed that. Yeah. And like smacking smacking people around with the hockey stage.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Well that's it. In my school, the the big lads, the bullies, were just whacking other people. I did one class and I was like, I'm not doing this again.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yeah, see, I I went I loved it.

SPEAKER_06 30:36

The first we we only played, no, we didn't play it once, but the um the first time we played it in high school and then didn't play it much after. I can't remember. I think it was because the court got all like matched up. But this lad, obviously I won't say his name, but I really want to. Like 30 seconds later, he got his two-front teeth knocked out. It was like, yeah, call it a day there.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Well, that was it no more.

SPEAKER_06 30:58

Oh, I can I can see it now still. Just like just the look on his face. I'm just like, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah. My family are a very sporting family though, as well. So it was kind of encouraged that I would play sport.

SPEAKER_06 31:10

What's the family sport?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Football and golf.

SPEAKER_06 31:14

Golf. Oof.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Bought my first set of golf clubs when I was four years old. I didn't. I was bought. Yeah, okay. Yeah, really exciting. I've retired. I'm retired. I'm the top.

SPEAKER_06 31:25

What was your um I didn't have a handicap.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I didn't play consistently enough. I just didn't enjoy it. It's it's very frustrating. You need a lot of patience, you need to practice. Don't like doing that. I can smack a golf ball. Oh yeah. But I don't enjoy it.

SPEAKER_06 31:42

I used to love golf.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yeah, I don't I can't play anymore with my injuries.

SPEAKER_06 31:47

Also retired.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:49

Three retired sports personalities, yeah.

unknown 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

I tried I tried I tried last last Christmas after my last surgery and went to the drive and injuries my family and took the kids over like Christmas. And I swung at 7am. It literally fell. Just felt like my spine just I was like, that's not natural.

SPEAKER_06 32:12

One ball down range taken out from a stretcher.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Oh man, I didn't I did two, and then I was like, it's gonna go off. I just can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah. For me with my dad, it was very much like he'd go, good golf shot. And I'd be like, Well, yeah, we're not playing another everything about it that he would do would annoy me. Yeah. So was it eyes on the ball, keep your eyes on the ballot?

SPEAKER_06 32:34

Him who sort of led you too, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

My sister picked up a a golf club left-handed, and he was like, This isn't happening. But she still plays. Uh why? Yeah. And with her husband, but they can't play competitively because it goes a bit wrong.

SPEAKER_06 32:51

It's a bit punchy.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

But that's the other thing. She liked to practice. I didn't like to practice. We were very we I think we were brought up quite competitively against each other.

SPEAKER_06 33:05

Quite common. So we say two years between you. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

So we were the we'd play a huge amount of tennis, she would always beat me because I'd get angry and just smash the ball, and she was like consistency and oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:21

Sibling rivalry.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah. We don't do anything similar at all now. Which is probably a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 33:30

Yeah. For her, probably. Right. Did was there anything that went on in boarding school that you'd say wasn't right, other than you know what you're saying about your and not just necessarily you, but the goings on No, I'm aware of I'm aware that something happened to my sister, but I've never known anything about it because she's never wanted to speak about it. Okay. And then you so you said that's where a bit of it started for you with prescription.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah, I just quite painkillers wasn't. Yeah, I had really bad um I've got hypermobility, so my shoulders dissipate. But I kind of realised that I could play the system by going to the sick bay. So I could, if I didn't want to go to French, for instance, I absolutely hated French. I just would say that I didn't feel very well or that my shoulder hurt. And I'd be sent to the SAN that was called. We had two different nurses, and I could just say, no, the painkillers aren't working. So they just said, I'll just try this. And then I really liked it because it just took me out of how I was feeling. So I think I was always already quite distanced from reality by not being at home. I was at school, I was in a different environment. And then I could just kind of float a bit more. And I guess it's like that thing, what do you do after school when you still live at school? And if I'm not playing, like what do I do? And I yeah, I just I don't think I don't even think I was aware of it. Actually coming into recovery is when I realised that that's when it started. I think that the drinking is where I thought it started, but I think definitely taking the codeine and just I could just take so much of it and no one had any idea.

SPEAKER_06 35:18

Yeah, abuse, abusing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

But I liked the floaty out-of-body experience it gave me.

SPEAKER_06 35:24

Okay. So take us from there then.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

So from there, my mum at 15 or 16, my mum got diagnosed again.

unknown 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

And I was obviously a bit more aware at that time, and it was quite sick, like it was quite serious. And I just got told she was gonna go in for a really long time, basically. It's su it's such a blur, but I just remember there was somewhere I used to I used to go on holiday every year, and we just used there was a lot of underage drinking that happened. And I think it was the year I think it was the summer that she got diagnosed. So my my grandmother died. A really close friend of mine got in got was in a terrible car accident, and I saw her two or three days after it. And she was my age, and she literally should they she broke both of her legs in ten places. To get ripped out of the car. And I just remember seeing her in hospital with literally like massive metal bars coming out of both of her legs, and she just didn't know what to do. And we were 16 and she and it was just it was absolutely awful. She lost her. I don't still don't know if it was her boyfriend or her best friend.

SPEAKER_06 36:36

It's a bit Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

But no one asked me how I felt after that, and it was really weird. So I just got dropped back off, and then I I wasn't with my family, I was just with a family friend, and I just kind of remember sitting on a grass bank being like, holy fuck, like that was the worst thing I've ever seen. Worse than seeing my mum. Like, I I remember comparing the two, yeah, and kind of that thought about life a bit, and like shit, that's this is like she's my age, it's not my mum, like she's I think we were 16, and then my mum said that she'd been diagnosed again, but they told us late because it she didn't want her mum to know it just passed away of cancer as well. And then I was down in this place for the summer, and it was just like we could just drink whatever we wanted to, and I remember being really, really unwell. You know how some people can remember like their first drink and all that kind of stuff. I don't really remember that, but I remember being sick from drinking too much and still enjoying the feeling. Like I wasn't it wasn't like oh I'm never gonna do that again. I was like, cool, like I'll just be sick and go drink some more. Because even that, even that thing when you when you've drunk too much and you're being sick, you're still not in your body. Yeah. And you still feel like you're floating and a bit spinny, and it was a bit like, yeah, I I'm down for this, like that's fine, I don't mind this feeling. It was better than feeling how I was feeling. Yeah, and then my mum went through all of that and then Yeah, it was no, it was my A level. And then I was doing my A levels. So th throughout that summer I just drunk more and more every day and made made quite good friends with people that lived around me. So we just carried on. So back in back home in London and at school, so I was going clubbing every weekend at when I was at school. So I'd finish on the Friday, go play a hockey match on the Saturday, then go out from Saturday until Sunday, kind of roll back in on Sunday at some point, and then go back to school. And just that would just become a pattern. Yeah. And then my grandfather was hit by it. Well, actually, so I couldn't get hold of my parents, I was trying to get hold of my parents, couldn't get hold of my parents. I called my my mum's work, she was always out, always answered, and they said no, she's not here, and then I called my dad, he said no, she's at work. And I was like, Well, something's going on, and no one's telling me. And I was sitting some exams, and we went to be going home, and I think I went like we could get the little bus into the tiny little town near the border, like the next to school, and I used to go and just chain smoke cigarettes for like two hours. I remember the teacher coming up to me and my sister. No, it wasn't no, she brought my sister and I was like, What's going on here? And my dad was on the phone, and basically my my grandfather had been hit by a van. He was cycling, and he was hit by a van, but uh four days ago.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

Oh where?

SPEAKER_00 39:39

And and I was like, Why didn't you tell us? And my dad said, Because you had your history exam.

SPEAKER_05 39:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

And I lost my shit because to me that was that was like broken trust.

SPEAKER_06 39:51

Were you close?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Yeah. Yeah. And my sit my sister was really close with him, and he was he was an amazing man. And it was like, okay, so your mum's been up there for four days, and I was like, but you've been fucking lying to me. Like, how can you? I'm your daughter. I don't I mean to me it doesn't mat that the lying was the was the like you can't just pretend that everything's okay when it's not okay. And that's just that you don't lie about that.

SPEAKER_06 40:16

And that's four pretty m major traumatic events, one after another.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

In a very, very, very short space of time. And I I didn't go, I never went and saw him. I got back to London, I refused to get in the car, my sister and my dad went up to meet my mum to see him in hospital. And I refused to go and sat in the pub with friends all evening, then partied all night, and then I was waiting outside the pub when it opened the next day.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

What what were the feelings? Anger.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

I was just absolutely fucking livid. Yeah. I mean I still am, but you can quite like I it's I've spoken to them about it, but it's like it's that's not that feeling is never like I was just still triggering. Yeah. It was they I don't understand why I couldn't be trusted for a history exam. Yeah. And I was taught the wrong syllabus, so I failed it anyway. Pisses me off even more. But like it wasn't I never said goodbye to him.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Because in my head I never saw him lying in hospital.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Yeah. You get to remember the good memories.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah. But it's I've never trusted them fully since that day.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Do you think that's affected how you show up in another relationship, trust another relationship? I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

I've never thought about that. But yeah, definitely. There's always an element of pretending everything's like this whole like everything's fine. And I think having that with my with my mum as well being unwell, it's that like I get that uneasy feeling where I'm like, I'm not getting the whole truth here.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

And I'm really a person that needs to understand everything, otherwise, I'm super anxious.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yeah. I think for me, having that as like a um that that similar thing where you don't know and you just can't really trust for like I just didn't trust anyone. I you know I read I still don't know to some extent. It's quite a it takes me a long time to trust someone and that the my class. So I I've couldn't not really got any maths these days. No, neither do I.

SPEAKER_03 42:25

No. It's a weird one though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Yeah. I don't know. Well, I think also it was I I was made I don't know if it was my head or they would they'd I I was felt like it was that I couldn't be trusted in my behaviour if they told me I would have acted out. Yeah. And that's something so I lost trust.

SPEAKER_06 42:49

Yeah, they just Was there any truth in that?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I mean probably. But I was so unsure, I just didn't know who I was. At 16 years old, you don't know who you are. Luckily, there wasn't social media or anything.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

Lots of belt of banger.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, I think Facebook, yeah, but hockey was helping, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

That's how I had similar for football was a place to let it up.

SPEAKER_06 43:11

Yeah, release.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah, I really did though.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Yeah. But I don't know, I don't think I don't my I was so, and I still am, my emotions were so not as much anymore, but I didn't know what my emotions were. So I'd release emotion, but because I was never sh taught how to show emotion, I didn't know what I was doing, and then my parents would be like, Whoa, that's way too much, like you're being way too much, and I didn't know what I was doing. So yeah, they I think they were put I know they were trying to do the right thing. But unfortunately that doesn't help how I feel.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

How like little me inside feels.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

No. Yeah. Which I think is where a lot of childhood trauma comes from, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

And like you said, there was a lot that happened in a very short space of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't dealing with or talking to anyone about.

SPEAKER_06 44:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

And and and not having any guidance on how to I remember when I ended up I ended up in therapy at about 22 and my mum I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety and they said I'd had it for eight or nine years. And my mum went, Well, I did like I did ask you if you wanted to talk to someone. Yeah, once. When I was 16 and I said no, and you went, All right then in Charlie taught it to the way. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Well I get I guess from like the um from the facts we got on the boarding school syndrome, it says that it's now recognised as a psychological condition characterized by depression and relationship difficulties, long-term emotional and behavioural struggles. I guess like that depression. Could you see that around the other people who who were in the school as well?

SPEAKER_00 44:52

No, I was I've always I've always felt very different to everybody else. I uh I had friends at school, but but I didn't have like especially like girls are really clicky, right? So there's like these groups of girls, and I never really found like what do they call it now, my tribe. Never found my tribe. But I kind of I was friends with everybody, but never really good friends with anybody. I mean, when I left and then dropped out of uni, I was shunned basically. People would say to my sister, don't turn out like your older sister.

unknown 45:26

I mean, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

It's probably a good thing that they're fair. But it was kind of no nobody, I was a very different person. But I don't know if I don't know if I was constantly trying to search for who I was. I've had a lot of different identities.

SPEAKER_06 45:45

There's there's a there's a big part for me, like when I was sort of younger and and kind of left to create my own sort of I'll say personality. You know, uh I guess you have quite a similar thing to that with in boarding school. Have we got it written down here as well? I just said a minute ago. Some people describe boarding as the moment they learned not to need anyone. And that is like again, it's like a mirror of that, it's like that early, too early, perhaps, of of of being, you know, able to cope on your own. Yeah. That's so interesting. Yeah, and you miss you might miss quite a bit of childhood.

unknown 46:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

And I think what I've always done is I've kind of gone in these like cycles of I don't need anyone, I don't need anyone, and then be like, oh my god, my life is about to crumble, and then call my parents and ask them to save me.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. It is. I think that's as a kid, like I was trying to play football. My parents were going on holiday and I was looking after my siblings, and then you know, feeding them oven food, getting them to school and stuff, and then like getting in trouble because I was having massive parties in the house. It's like I'm a kid. Left me in the house and look pile of money.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah, but then that's a confusing message, isn't it, as well? Because it's like look after and also but then also be a kid so you can't throw a party. Yeah, yeah. If you see adults throwing parties and then you're asked to play that adult role.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

That's my environment, and it's in that's a funny time. But that's it, learning, isn't it, to do to be on your own from a young age when it's like the lack of childhood thing again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 47:37

Yeah, it's it pays as a pays a heavy concept.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

And then I've been really bad at being on my own for a really long time now as well. But then was was I learning to be alone without parents, but I was surrounded by people? Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. There's like that's there's two different ways of being alone, isn't there?

SPEAKER_04 47:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

I mean, I spent a lot of time alone surrounded by people because I wasn't actually didn't actually want to engage with any of them. Yeah. It was all surface level.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

But it was noise. I liked having noise because I didn't want to be alone in my head.

SPEAKER_06 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:09

There's there's being alone and there's being isolated. It's definitely two different things. Yeah. Out of that time then, who who would you say has been the hardest person to forgive? Just going back to that sort of quite tumultuous time.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

I think myself still. Yeah. Yeah. There's parts of me that feel very lamed. Like I was I am still am blamed for my actions. But I s I cannot make the I can't see the diff like I still feel like it was all my fault. I still feel a huge amount of shame for all of my actions. It's a really tri yeah. Even though I know I was a kid.

SPEAKER_06 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

But because there's so much blame put on me, even though like we know it's not your fault.

SPEAKER_06 49:04

It's a really yeah but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Yeah. But I still but that like inner child of me still goes, This is all my fault.

SPEAKER_06 49:12

Yeah. Have you done any inner child work?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

I've done a bit.

SPEAKER_06 49:16

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah. I'm going to try. It is incredible. That like golden thread thing. I try and do it so when I'm when I really struggle, I really struggle at night sometimes. And what I try and do is give my inner child a hug. So I try and find a hug.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

That's some good inner child meditations for nighttime. I'll send you some. Oh yeah, do.

SPEAKER_06 49:37

Stick them in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well.

SPEAKER_06 49:39

I do it, I do it through EMDR. Inner child stuff, like tapping it in. It by far throughout my recovery, it's the most important. It's it's got me the furthest in my recovery out of everything that I've done thus far.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

I did it. I I was having some therapy a while ago for something that happened, but I had I stopped doing it because my parents wanted to know what was wrong with me, so I stopped seeing the therapist because I didn't trust her.

SPEAKER_06 50:09

Uh what you thought you she might report.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

I didn't, but it just all became a bit like too close. But it was it was a really amazing thing and kind of that ability to be able to show when I when I do recognise that it's my inner child, yeah, and then I recognise her, it makes a huge difference in how I feel, definitely.

SPEAKER_06 50:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

The scary bit is when I can't find her and then I realise that I am being the child. Yeah, I don't like that one.

SPEAKER_06 50:37

It is yeah, it's amazing. It it's something I've never gotten behind before.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

But yeah, that but it's self-love, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 50:45

It is yeah, and like using it in a in a sort of like tricky situation, memory or whatever, you know, it goes back, it gives you a different perspective on a on a memory and it gives you a different outcome to the memory. Yeah, and being able to see yourself as a child in something, and being like no being able to see that, you know, and being guided by somebody good, obviously, but you know, you've been able to see that that was you then, this is you now, you survived, you know, all that sort of stuff. Incredible, highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

When I when I was in treatment, we had to read a book called Growing Yourself Back Up. And it's by this guy who basically, when you get triggered, you go back to the edge of the root of that trigger.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

And then he he has this method, a five-step method called the D2 method of growing yourself back up. As soon as you're triggered, five steps to getting back to your adult edge as quickly as possible. Yeah, that's cool. He's he's got an audio at the audio books on Spotify. I can link that, but the audiobook on Spotify is like a talk he did in the 80s, and it's very like non-piece. It's informative, like it covers it all in an hour, like the full five steps, but it's it's very 80s America.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

80s America is fun sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Yeah, um, yeah, cool. We'll see that see that in the notes as well. If you don't want to read the book, it's worth listening to.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

Yeah, yeah. Listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

I like these little hour things, they're quite good.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

Yeah, it's good for anything longer.

SPEAKER_06 52:20

Keep it in the back pocket.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, and um our mate Mate, you can actually listen to him on 1.5 because he talks so slowly.

SPEAKER_06 52:27

Yeah. Oh, nice. Life hack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Um I've been watching the stuff with him and his son. Yes. Which is quite interesting.

SPEAKER_06 52:40

Incredible stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He does Daniel. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're they're both great. Yeah, they've they they they lead the way in the par the adult parent.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Yeah, exactly. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_06 52:54

Adult child parent relationship sort of field. Yeah, I really love it. Okay, so you are I'm only sixteen. Sixteen? Sweet sixteen.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Yeah. Yeah, so six yeah. I think it all just school was a thing that I had to get through, but I liked being there because I wasn't at home.

SPEAKER_06 53:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

And I wasn't really at home during the the weekends either. I went out a lot. I was out a lot. Always I I mean I and I was arguing if I was at home, I was arguing with my parents when I got back up w when I left. It wasn't And then, you know, we get into the car and they drive me back to school again, which is a bit weird. I didn't want to go to university.

SPEAKER_06 53:40

So still no communication between yourselves and them in regards to anything going on. Yeah, it's all just like that. It was just why it was why you like this.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Yeah. Okay. And I was like, I'm just me. Yeah. And there was a lot of like I had very short hair and weird coloured hair. And like go to Portobello Market and like wear white pointy shoes and shit. It was pretty cool actually.

SPEAKER_06 54:05

Reading lots of books. I feel like I could imagine you have one of those like ropes where you like to put a rope around like four books and sling it over your shoulder. Skipping down the street.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

I was always I was I smoked a lot. I do you know, I didn't really I d I drunk and I smoked and I went to school, and that's all I did, really. Okay. Talked to a lot of boys. Lots of boys.

SPEAKER_06 54:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Lots, yeah, that was uh stopped reading books, start texting boys.

SPEAKER_06 54:34

Demise begins to uh I think that's a good point to wrap up this episode. What was it? Tinnies, cigarettes and boys.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Yeah, coding.

SPEAKER_06 54:46

We'll um because we're coming up on the hour, we'll just we'll just roll off, roll back on again, and and keep going, but just so it keeps it into two episodes. So yeah, we hope you've enjoyed listening along.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

So far, so good.

SPEAKER_06 55:01

Yeah, and uh we'll see you in the next one.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Yeah, bye guys.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

More to take, more to chase, more to know, more to escape, more screams, more pills, more noise, more thrills. We wanted more We lost ourselves We paid it cost the deeper with the Bible, and I think that's the same.