Episode Transcript
[00:00:28] Speaker B: A message from the Barbados Psychiatric Hospital in association with with the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Barbados. And this morning we say welcome again to Dr. Kira Ford, St. Hill consultant psychiatrist. And she has a special guest. I'll introduce him shortly. We've been talking a lot about mental health in the workplace, but I think we're going to take a little shift today. So good morning to you, Dr. Keogh.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Good morning, Carol. It's good to be in studio today.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Thank you. And we have joining us Robert Kroisak. He's a mental health advocate. Good morning to you.
[00:01:01] Speaker D: Good morning, Carol. Nice to be here.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: All right, so, Dr. Keough, you will tell me how we're bringing this all together today.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah. So we had a workshop at Psychiatry Hospital last week, and I knew of Robert from before, but Robert was so kind as to share his personal story of his struggles with mental health issues and his road to recovery and wellness now and the way that tied in with the issues he was having at work and what the stress at work would have caused because he is very young, looking for a retired person. Yes, he is. And living his best life.
No.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: But his story is one that is very, very touching and probably very relatable to quite a few of our listeners.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Robert, you're a case of. I don't know your story yet, but I suspect you are going to be a case of you don't look like what you went through.
[00:01:59] Speaker D: No, I'm thankfully a completely recovered person now, but I have been as bad as it gets, as K knows.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Okay, talk to me a little bit about some of the mental health challenges that you had, especially as we're looking at the workplace as well, because at the end of the day, we are all expected to function, quote, unquote, normally.
[00:02:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: When we go into our workspaces. What does that even mean?
[00:02:27] Speaker D: That is the expectation. And.
Yeah.
You know, sometimes things happen in people's lives outside of work that they. They can't ignore at work. And also work increasingly these days can be stressful and particular types of work can be more stressful than other times. And I take an interest in all aspects of mental health since I was ill.
But mental health in the workplace is particularly important to me because that's where my mental health journey started, at work and being stressed and getting increasingly Stressed. And it's one of those things, I think unless you have like a traumatic event, if your mental health is being affected by something like distress, it's a gradual. It's like an accumulation and it almost kind of like creeps up on you and you don't necessarily notice it building and building and it's kind of insidious in that way. And I got to the point where I realized that I was struggling, but because of the stigma, we're talking 10 years ago, initially now, because the stigma that surrounded mental health even in. I was in Europe, the UK and Spain where I was working, perhaps more so here, stigma wise.
But things haven't necessarily improved enough from that point of view yet. And that's why I want to talk about it as much as I can, because the more that it's talked about, the more it's normalized and people don't feel so bad talking about it.
I made the mistake of not seeking help and not talking to anyone at the time.
And the consequence of that is that I became more ill and for longer than necessary. Had I dealt with it earlier and better.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Well, so what did that look like?
Yeah, so when you talk about, you know, you struggled for a lot longer, but what did that actually look like? Did your colleagues actually recognize, hey, Robert isn't, you know, or was it so bottled up and internal?
[00:05:06] Speaker D: Yeah, I was very good. And I think a lot of people who are struggling, particularly at work, they're very good at putting on a front and acting that like they're, okay, you.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Have your work mask.
[00:05:23] Speaker D: I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to talk to my wife at the time. I didn't want to talk to my friends. I didn't want to seek professional help, certainly didn't want to talk to my employer because I thought, well, you know, I'm. I'm like a. I'm like superman at work. And I don't want to think that I can't handle it.
So, yeah, in the end, I had a breakdown, burnout, meltdown. It's called various things. I think both the mind and the body, as humans, you know, we have a limit. We seem to think often that we can push our minds, we can push our body and just keep pushing and cushion. But ultimately the body or the mind says, no, I'm done.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: It'll push back.
[00:06:14] Speaker D: And I just literally, it was like collapsing into a heap. And I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the uk, diagnosed with severe anxiety and severe depression. So what has started out as just stress because I hadn't dealt with it and because I've been, if you like, running with it for about a year, maybe a couple of years.
It had developed into anxiety and depression, very severe. And as I said, the mistake was.
And I often say that in life it applies to all things really. If you have a problem, you can't just ignore it. It won't go away. You know, if you don't deal with it, it's going to get worse. And I'm, you know, I'm an example of that.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Wow. Wow.
That's pretty powerful because we do tend to push things and shove things inside. We don't have time to deal with this. I want to. I want to go to this place where people sometimes don't want you to go to. But is it harder for men to deal with challenges with their mental health and say, and reach out for help?
[00:07:33] Speaker D: Definitely.
As Karen knows, as I said when I did my talk at the SCI Chapter hospital last week, last Thursday, which was mental health day, I think in general, men are not as good at talking as women. No, generally speaking.
And when you get to a subject like this, they're even worse compared to women.
Men aren't as intuitive and don't like to talk about their emotions and feelings the same way that women do. I'm much better at that now because of what I've been through and I don't have a problem with it. In fact, I relate to women in some cases much better than men because I'm. I'm almost like on their wavelength because of where I've been and what I've been through. I think men have this kind of thing where this kind of suck it up attitude.
And I don't want to, I don't want to make out or let on that have any kind of weakness of any kind.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Yeah, you said it. You thought you were Superman. You were supposed you were looked at as Superman in the workplace. So that's the Persona that a lot of men feel like they have to.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Put on and carry every day while another load bears down on you.
How can. Because, you know, this time, one thing this time does is fly. Yes, you didn't really talk to family and friends, but in a case where somebody may notice, hey, you know, he looks a bit stressed. And how can family, colleagues support.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: I think if people, sometimes people and work colleagues, they're so wrapped up in their own job and what they're doing, they're not necessarily watching out for their colleagues or noticing any differences in behavior.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: At least not on that deep level, because that's a really deep level when you think about somebody's mental health.
[00:09:52] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think work colleagues can be much better at this. You know, just look out for your neighbor at work, you know. Yeah, sure, everyone has a bad day, you know, but, you know, if someone's. If this kind of bad day is continuing and you're noticing it, then just, you know, just, you know, hey, how you. How you doing?
What's up? Now, that person, especially if he's a guy, may not want to talk and tell you, but by encouraging the person to talk, they're more likely to.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Okay, what advice would you give to someone who is struggling right now? Nobody else knows, because they have on their work mask and family mask and community mask. What would you advise?
[00:10:45] Speaker D: My advice is that if you are struggling at whatever stage, you know, even at what we might call an early stage, you know, you're just stressed out.
Please don't ignore it. Please don't just push through, because I know what happens if you do that. You know, there are people here, like Keo here and all the guys at psychiatric hospital, you know, they're so supportive, and they really want to help.
And it frustrates me.
I always make this analogy with mental health issues and a physical illness, for example, cancer.
Statistically, someone in their life is just as likely to have a mental health issue at some point in their life as they are to contract cancer at some point in their life.
Now, if someone is diagnosed by their doctors having cancer, from a society point of view, you know, they're not looked down on. Instead, they're kind of, you know, they're given sympathy, supported, but with a mental thing, it doesn't. It's not like that. And it should be the same. You know, there shouldn't be discrimination between a physical illness and a mental illness.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Okay. All right, we're going to be getting ready to wrap up shortly, so Robert Kroisak, thank you so much. Mental health advocate and talking given us a. Well that's skimming the surface of some of the challenge that he dealt with. So, Dr. Keough, before we wrap up, support, because somebody may be listening. Okay, I hear you, Robert. Yes. I want to reach out. What can people. Where can people go to get the support that they need?
[00:12:44] Speaker C: Yeah, so in the. Obviously, we have private. We have the private sector. We have private counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists. But also in the public sector, we have. In the public healthcare system, psychiatric hospital, we have an assessment unit where we take mental health emergencies and urgencies. And it's a case by case basis, first come, first serve. Almost kind of like how actually emergency is based on severity, but you don't need an appointment. And in addition to that, we go to your general practitioner. You can reach out to them because we have clinics in every polyclinic in Barbados. So we have lots of, lots of avenues. But I know that it's one of these things that a lot of the public doesn't actually know that these things are. These avenues are so accessible to the public because financially, it's tough.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah, well, time flies when you're talking some really important things. Thank you very much, Dr. Keogh, for joining me again this morning. And Robert Kroisak, thank you for sharing and this 15 minutes brought to you in association with this psychiatric hospital. Have a great week.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Make a help for me. Mental health for you.
Come on, everybody, let your love shine through. Whether you're a family member, a friend or a stranger.
Everyone everywhere let kindness matter. Let kindness matter, matter, matter.
Let kind.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: A message from the Barbados Psychiatric Hospital in association with the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Barbados.
