Claudia: What you're about to hear are the key parts of a one-off session with a real person, names have been changed for confidentiality. Please note that this episode contains some discussion around homophobia, depression, and suicide, which may not be suitable for all listeners.
Charlie: Probably if it wasn’t for my partner. I genuinely don't know if I would be here or not.
Claudia: This is How Did We Get Here? with me, Claudia Winkleman and the brilliant clinical psychologist, professor Tanya Byron. Each episode, we look at some of the difficulties people are facing in their daily lives with their families. Tan talks to our guest in a one-to-one session. And I listen in asking questions in the beginning, middle and end. 
Today we meet Charlie, he's 47 and has a partner of six years. The eldest of three boys, he was often put in charge of his younger brothers. Charlie's parents divorced when he was nine, then aged 21 Charlie told his mother he was gay. 
Charlie: She yelled at me before she left the room. He's not unreasonable. You're the one that's chosen to be gay. 
Claudia: Charlie suffers with anxiety and feelings of worthlessness. He wonders whether this springs from a lack of affection growing up or constantly looking after others and not himself. Let's go and meet Charlie.
Charlie. Thank you so much for taking part. 
Ch: Thank you for having me. 
Cl: Why are you taking part please? 
Ch: Throughout my life. And, and really, as, as long as I can remember, I've always sort of felt my life should really belong to somebody else. I don't really know why I'm here and I just, or anything I do or anything, I accomplish I always think, wow, somebody else could have done that better. Oh, it was a bit rubbish. Really? Wasn't it, you know? 
Cl: You look grounded and settled. So you've obviously got very good at hiding your anxiety. Does that make sense? 
Ch: Oh, completely. Because life is really a big act. It's really tiring just to keep that going all the time, which is why I probably don't. Like my partner's really sociable, which is great because, because it really helps pull me along. I can only sort of socialize around and, and be that happy person for a certain amount of time before. It's just too much. 
Claudia: If I said there was a big party. 
Ch: Yeah
Cl: 200 people you would rather not go, or you could go just for a tiny bit
Ch: I could go for a bit. And then, like I say, by, by 10 o'clock, I'd be like looking at my watch. Right? What's what's the excuse I can make to, to get back. 
Cl: I would be the same because you turn it on. Right. And you can't turn it on for too long, because then it just gets exhausting because you said you've been anxious, basically all your life. Tell me about when you were little. Because you're the eldest of three, I believe.
Ch: That's right. Yeah. But I'm also the eldest grandchild. So I'm sort of the eldest of, of my bit of the family generation. And my mother has said it before that she does regret not giving me a childhood. My brother's a year younger than me. I think from being sort of two, I was. The one in charge. And then, yeah, about six years later, my littlest brother came along and that was, you know, that was the same. So my middle brother would sort of manipulate the situations and he'd sort of get my other, my littlest brother on side, so they could gang up and get what they wanted. And, you know, obviously being. Only little myself. I couldn't sort of stop them, but then I felt responsible for that. 
Cl: Also hard to be the sensible one, the responsible one to “don't jump over there!”,  “No, don't climb that tree”. It's stressful. So, but you get on with your brothers now?
Ch: Yeah, yeah
Cl: And tell me about your parents. 
Ch: I think my dad was often absent and my parents divorced when I was about. Eight or nine, and my dad left and moved overseas, but my mother has always been a very practical person, but she was never really that sort of emotional. When she was pregnant with my littlest brother, um, she nearly lost him twice. Um, cause she had like an ovarian cyst. She knew he was her last child. So she, he did get smothered with love. I had the responsibility, I think my middle brother had the freedom and my littlest brother probably got the love.
Cl: I think it must've been incredibly tough. I also think as a parent, just looking at it from your mom's point of view, having almost an only child six years later.
Ch: That's exactly what it was. And she was very young when she had me and my, my, my next brother. Uh, she was just under 20 when she had me. As an adult, looking back, I can completely understand, I don't blame her or anything like that. 
Cl: How were your twenties? You must've felt quite sad, your dad leaving?
Ch: Yeah, I'm sure I must've done. Cause I think I was probably quite angry if I look back now. Um, my mom really was not nice about him at all, which, because I try and play devil's advocate and try and point things out. I probably then. In her eyes. I was sticking up for him.
Cl: Well that's hard.
Ch: And I look like my dad, apparently she denied. She ever said this, my mother will never, ever, ever admit she's wrong. Um, but she once in a temper said, um, I was a constant thorn in her side cause I looked like my bloody father. 
Cl: And how old were you when she said that? 
Ch: 12. 13, I think. I knew she regretted it the minute she said it.
Cl: Interesting. And tell me then about your twenties, you. Made a real life for yourself. You bought a flat early, I believe you go off. Does the anxiety heighten or lessen then? 
Ch: I went to one university first and that just did not work out. So then I moved to another one, which was great and I really enjoyed, but I was again, the outsider and I also came out at university, which was great cause I felt like I sort of started to find myself then, but then when I sort of hit 30 that's when it all started to the anxiety started to come back again. 
Cl: Do you have really bad days or are you just worried and anxious about absolutely everything. 
Ch: Pretty much absolutely everything. I mean, I do take medication for anxiety, um, which helps if I didn't take that, I think it will be a lot, lot worse, but I can go into some major serious black doubts where I just don't think I'm going to get through it. Um, but my partner is really good and he does help me. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm so I'm so, so lucky to have found him if I didn't have him, honestly, after this last year, I don't know whether I would have been here or not.
Cl: Oh sweetheart.
Ch: You know, big thank you to him. He is amazing for me. 
Cl: Okay, I'm going to leave, you will talk to Tan and you and I will be together at the end. Is that all right, Charlie. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Tanya: I'm going to ask you a really interesting, quite challenging question to begin with. Who are you, how do you see your true self, your identity? 
Charlie: I don't really know. One of my earliest memories was waking up in the middle of the night when I was about three or four, needing to go to the loo. And I was in the loo and I was, you know, I've done my business and stuff and I've washed my hands and stuff and then thinking, why am I here? Who am I, what am I for? 
T: That's interesting
Ch: Then feeling really, really dizzy about the whole thing. It's sort of how, you know, literally dizzy. And I just think that's what I've been thinking all the time.
T: You've not answered that question yet. Have you? 
Ch: I think what I could say is. I think I'm a nice person. 
T: Yeah. I agree. 
Ch: I think I'll do anything for my friends. Do you remember that Caroline Flack stuff that happened last year
T: Tragic, beyond tragic.
Ch: I mean I’m getting upset, thinking about it. Um, she tweeted before, um, be kind. 
T: Yes
Ch: That’s what I would like to think I am. 
T: And that's made you extremely tearful. And I just want to say to you and put it out there on the record, her taking her own life impacted so many people. Um, she comes up a lot in conversations that a number of us in the mental health therapeutic professions have with the people we work with, it was just truly tragic. Wasn't it? You know, it just, this complete lack of understanding. And I think it's something. That sits with you. It's the sense of, that's why I asked you who are you? So you can define yourself against how you relate to others, but when it comes to working out yourself and how you relate to yourself, you're still trying to answer that question that you asked when you were a little boy in the loo age, three or four. Why am I here? and what am I for?
Ch: Yeah, back in sort of November, I got found out that I was, my job was up for redundancy in lieu of not knowing who I am or what I am my work has sort of come to define me a little bit. I don't think I'm any good at it. Again, that's part of where the anxiety comes from and I think somebody else could probably do a lot better, but then being faced by this prospect of redundancy, just sort of whooshed the carpet out from underneath me. And as I was saying to Claudia probably if it wasn't for my partner, I genuinely don't know if I would be here or not.
T: As in what? You started to feel like you wanted to, perhaps I suppose, do what unbelievably tragically Caroline Flack did in the end. Do you want it to end in your life? 
Ch: I kept trying to sort of think, well, I'm going to pull my partner down. If I, if I die, then I'd have death in service money. He'd get that. So that would be fine and he would have the house. So that would be paid for. 
T: So you properly went down that route, you properly went down
Ch: Down the rabbit hole completely
T: To the point of planning it, or just the point of thinking about it in a sort of more abstract way. 
Ch: Somewhere in between it was abstract, but I did have thoughts of if it came to it, what could I do?
T: And did you answer those thoughts?
Ch: Sort of, yeah. Involved driving to the forest and my partner would have… I did share with him because, um, we have a really good open relationship. Obviously he got really upset, um, which, um, Obviously don't like seeing, um, that probably would have stopped me. 
T: Right. I just want to ask you a little bit more about these thoughts. Um, I'm presuming you're not having them anymore. I'm hoping, which is great. 
Ch: No, no, no, that all got sorted
T: Good. Um, and it's important just to say, I think for information as much as anything else, there is suicidal ideation and then there is active intent within the, my profession when people start to share it as you have very openly and it's it's to be encouraged of course, because speaking about such dark thoughts is a very useful way of finding a way through them without taking drastic measures. It sounds like it was a lot of suicidal ideation, a lot of thinking. The active intent bit, it doesn't feel like you had a firm plan where you were really absolutely clear, you'd nailed it, you knew what to do, but nevertheless, you did sort of wander towards that, those thoughts, but thankfully you have the presence of mind and the love in the relationship and the trust you have with your partner, that you were able then to say, Hey, I'm not in a good place. And between the two of you, you could pull you back from it.
Ch: Yeah. 
T: Which I'm really pleased to hear. And a lot of people will have similar experiences. It doesn't make us abnormal. Life is very challenging at times extremely so, this last year, probably for some people, you know, the pandemic has added significant other pressures. That feels like a tipping point. So I can understand why you went there.
Ch: Another reason I think that pulled me back is I've got this life that other people could do better with. 
T: Gosh, you really think you're failing on a number of levels? Don't you? 
Ch: Every level, every single level. I don't understand it. 
T: Your core belief around yourself. I suspect is something around. I am inadequate. I am worthless.
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. 
T: And if we think of beliefs as sort of the lenses in the glasses, we wear you know that we use that, we wear these glasses to look at the world for you those lenses mean that it doesn't really matter what you do. It doesn't really matter how much validation you get from people that love, those beliefs will skew it all the way back to I'm inadequate and I'm worthless.
Ch: Yeah. 
Claudia: Can you expand on lenses in glasses? 
T: What we're talking about here is this kind of idea of what sits at the bedrock of our identities and our identities are basically built around a number of core beliefs that we hold about ourselves and others in the world. And those beliefs come from a combination of nature and nurture. And, you know, that's how childhood and childhood experiences shape us. And these can be beliefs that are positive and enable us to respond to the world in positive, compassionate, nurturing ways to ourselves and others. And they can also be beliefs that are very negative. It sits around these core foundational beliefs, it’s like the foundations of a house. So if the foundations are a bit shaky, the house is always going to have a few cracks and a few, you know, so therapy, if you like in this sort of domain, which is very narrative is about being there together. You and your therapist with your pneumatic drills, sort of starting to drill into those beliefs and actually looking at them and saying a) are they functional i.e- helpful or dysfunctional and b) where do they come from? And that's what I meant when I said to him, you see yourself as inadequate and worthless because of the lenses you wear in the glasses when you think about things in relation to yourself
Claudia: Brilliant
Tanya: Have there been any times in your life where you've shared a part of yourself and the response hasn't been supportive?
Charlie: This probably cemented it. I suppose. When, when I did come out to my, to my mother, she was okay at first, first day and I was at university at the time so I'd gone back to my halls. And then a couple days later I had to come back because I had to do something and she not exactly yelled at me, but sort of ranted at me for a couple of hours, um, about how I couldn't be gay, um, nothing in my life had told her that I would be gay or indicated that I would be gay. She'd asked me twice before, by the way, at this point. 
T: What, in your life? Are you gay?
Ch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re not gay are you? Just out of the blue, I think she'd probably been building up and must've been thinking about it, but at this point, no, nothing had nothing had, uh, had, uh, indicated that I would be gay and I said you have asked me twice before. I was surprised that because she has got gay friends, you know. She told my stepdad, uh, six months later, he came to see me when he had that's what caught me off guard when we were at home and he said, oh, your mother told me something. She was really upset and now I understand now why she'd been crying herself to sleep, which killed me. Obviously, once she told him and he was okay, she, she seemed to be a lot, a lot happier and now she's, you know, she brags about it. 
T: So now she's happy to have her wonderful gay son. But back at the time, it sounds like she had a significant anxiety response. 
Ch: Yes. 
T: Which she pushed onto you. How far did her anxiety reach? 
Ch: There was once a time, like I said, when, most of my, me and my brother were away at university. Uh, but we'd come home for Christmas. So we were sharing a room. I had a load of junk, cause I'm a big doctor who fan. So I had like videos and all that sort of stuff. And, uh, had like collectible stuff just shoved in the bottom of the wardrobe. And, uh, he, he would come in from the gym and just chuck his stuff in the bottom of my wardrobe, but he was damaging all the collectible stuff, you know, that was, that was in the bottom of the wardrobe. I've got more space than him. It's, you know, it's it's fair enough. So what I did was, if you imagine it was like floor to ceiling wardrobes, and there was two shelves at the top of the wardrobe so I cleared the two shelves for him in one of the wardrobes and he came back in and chucked his bag in the. On the bottom. I said, oh, I said, I want to talk to you about this I said rather than putting your bag in the bottom of the wardrobe, cause you're damaging, you know, boxes and blah, blah, blah, that are collectibles and it'll damage the value. So I've cleared these, these two shelves for you up on the top. Would you just put your bag in there? No. I'm not doing that. You've got more space than me. I said, no, I agree. It's right. That you have more space. Um, so that's why I've cleared these two shelves will you put your bag in there? Nope. You've got more space than me and then it seemed to somehow turn into a push and a shove. And I am not a violent, but I hate any sort of violence. I will never do anything like that, but he just started like pushing me and I've always been the beefier side of things you can probably see. So I'm quite strong for my height and stuff. 
T: You're a strong man.
Ch: I just sort of held him in like a bear hug to stop him, shoving me to try and calm him down. And then he started trying to headbutt me as I'm trying to hold him and he's trying to struggle to get free. We were sort of dancing around the room, hitting beds, the beds, were on casters. So they were rolling all over the place. It was just ridiculous. So anyway, mom came storming upstairs. What's going on as, as she should, you know, I said, he's saying I'm being unreasonable because I said, but I have cleared the space. I'm not being unreasonable. He's being unreasonable. And she yelled at me before she left the room. He's not unreasonable. You're the one that's chosen to be gay. I got, I got really upset because I thought. This is obviously a reaction to me coming out. I just thought you know, that's it, I'm on my own now. Fair enough. So I started to cry and sort of actually I collapsed actually, when I think back, I sort of collapsed onto the bed in a very dramatic way
T: Just to point out, just sorry, just to point out to you and the listeners at the moment, you've got the biggest smile on your face. You're kind of laughing at the memory, but you've got huge tears in your eyes. 
Ch: So I sort of laid there thinking, oh, well, you know, um, have to just struggle on my own. And I've got some friends that will be okay, blah, blah, blah. I'm never going to be able to have a proper relationship with my mother. And then she came back in and apologized and said, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It'll be all right. And then we sort of made up, um, and that was actually. A really tender moment. It's probably the closest moment I've had with my mother ever. 
T: And again, making you feel sad.
Ch: Cause I did feel loved at that point. So, um, yeah, that was weird. 
T: And you felt validated.
Ch: Yeah I did actually at that point. Yeah. 
T: We all say things in rage that we later regret and wish we could take back. But my sense of your mom is she's a woman who does struggle with anxiety in a different way to you, but it's still there, which makes her at times really struggle with that filter that we all need when we're anxious and feel the fight bit of the fight or flight response. Anxiety is the fight or flight response. When we're anxious, we fight or we run don't we that's what anxiety is about. It's a survival response. Your mum, when she's in that space, she can get hugely anxious, very angry, and then she just pushes it out towards you
Ch: I think she just pushes out everywhere. She's a complete Tigris. She really is. I mean, she's only what, five foot one, she's tiny, but. I've seen her make men cry. 
T: Right. But that is… But that level of aggression actually comes from a place of feeling incredibly anxious. 
Ch: Yeah, I think so. 
T: You've had two experiences sort of one after the other, where you being gay has been expressed back to you by her with anger, she's angry. Where does that sit with you? I mean, that must've been incredibly difficult
Ch: Yeah. That sort of fed into those feelings of, I'm just a complete disappointment
T: Disappointment, inadequate, worthless. Also, if we go back to this idea of identity, which I think compelled me to ask you the question I asked at the top of our chat, which is so who are you? Sexuality is a huge part of identity. Um, and there you are revealing yourself and, and being really open and saying, this is who I am. You’re kind of told, that's not alright. I just wonder how much of a childhood you felt you had, whether you ever felt you could be a child? 
Ch: No, no. And my mother said as well, she, at one point she did say to me, once she said she did regret not giving me a childhood.
T: What did she mean by that? 
Ch: I think she just meant that I was always had the responsibility pushed on me. 
T: So you were a parental child? 
Ch: Oh, definitely. 
T: So you've always had this sense of responsibility. To keep the peace to make things okay. Ever since you were a little boy. 
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. 
T: Have you ever thought of it like that before?
Ch: Never, no. Yeah, because I would always be the one when my brothers were fighting that would have to go in and separate them out, calm them down. And with other people, if they're arguing, I would tend to sort of try and step in and negotiate. I never think about my own needs or wants or requirements. Like if, even if we're out with friends, I'd rather go where they want to go to eat or do what they want to do rather than what I want to do.
T: You talked earlier about medication, which you've been on for a number of years, and I'm surprised that you still have these breakthrough periods of anxiety, which makes me wonder whether actually the medication you're taking isn't. Quite working for you now, but, but there are a number of reasons that might be plus you've been on it for a long time. I suspect you do have an underlying predisposition towards anxiety. So you have inherited the gene that makes some people more anxious than others, because I think your mother has it. Therefore medication can be really helpful in that way. So I don't think it’s not right that you take medication. I just, I'm curious about how long you've been on a decent dose of a medication.
Ch: When I first started taking it, it was a bit of a revelation and I think it probably has worn off over time. 
T: Do you take it every day? 
Ch: Uh, I don't tend to take it at the weekends cause I forget, but every other day
T: You're not taking the dose that you should be taking. 
Ch: Hmm. 
T: Why don't you remember? It's interesting. You're good at caring for everybody else. Not so great at looking after yourself in that sense. If you think about it, I suspect if your partner was on medication, you'd be absolutely making sure he took it every day
Ch: He had a brain bleed when he was 20, so it left him with epilepsy. So he takes, uh, Equilim. No, um, lamotrigine, lamotrigine every day. And I mean, he's never had, he's never had a fit since, you know? so if he doesn't take it, he feel starts to feel really strange halfway through the day. Um, so when we go on holidays, I'm the one that's have you got enough? Is it in the bag?
T: So you're on it with his meds, but you're not on it with yours. 
Ch: No I’ve gone on holiday before and forgotten mine.
T: Oh, Charlie. Okay. Right. We've got to look at that, then.
Ch: He's on it with me about taking my medication, have you taken it?
T: But you would never allow him to forget to take his? 
Ch: No. 
T: What does that tell you about your capacity to look after yourself? Your, you know, your own, the bit of you that needs care. 
Ch: I would always, and I have thought about this. I would always prefer it, that somebody else was okay rather than I was okay. 
T: Of course, because that's how you've basically been since you were a child, that was your job. 
Ch: Yeah. 
T: Can I just say to you, you're such a smart man. If you're on medication that has an evidence-based for really helping people with low mood and anxiety, actually, you're not taking the dose you've been prescribed because you remember you forget, you, remember you forget so the levels are going up and down all the time
Ch: It's usually only Saturday and Sunday I forget
T: It’s not like an aspirin where you take it and it works on the day and then you're done. So you know if you take it every day, then it works and I'm fine. These medications build up in the bloodstream. What's called a half-life. So as you probably remember, when you first started taking it, you start on a lower dose and you build up, but you, you build up to the point where you've got the right level in your, in your blood stream, in your system, but you've got to keep taking it to keep that level at that level. So if you're taking five days out of seven, the right dose, but then two days out of seven, the wrong dose, you're effectively halving the dose you're on.
Ch: My partners going to love this by the way
T: Well he's going to say I bloody told you, so, and he's going to do what I think was never done for you is he's going to be quite parental, maybe even make you a sticker chart but he's going to say, I'm going to help you learn to remember to do this because you need to know how to do this for yourself, because it's important because you're important of course, because you don't think you're that important. You don't really figure in your own mind in terms of your needs.
Ch: No
T: Right. But in order for you to break this cycle that you find yourself in, you need to start looking after yourself better. You were a parental child supporting and managing what you understood in your mum, you and your mum, I think are quite similar in some ways at the anxiety level. And I think you just got her
Ch: Oh, you've just stumbled into a minefield there, my partner always says I am a mini version of my mother. 
T: Does that annoy you? 
Ch: Yes. Incredibly. 
T: I think he’s right though
Ch: Oh yeah. 
T: Uh, why, why, why, why is that a problem? 
Ch: Uh, I've just remembered something else. When I was little, I promised myself I wouldn't be like my parents. I didn't like the way they treat each other. I didn't necessarily like the way they treat other people. Again, going back to being kind all the time and stuff like that. And I think I promised myself I wouldn't be like that. Um, so maybe that's where that fits into it. When he compares me, he says I'm basically like a mini me that terrifies me. 
T: Now you've nailed it. You've had to carry all this stuff and hold on to her anxiety and then when your partner says to you, you know you’re your mom sometimes it really pisses you off. And I think that's because you don't know how to allow yourself to feel angry about things that have happened in your life, particularly as it relates to your mum, because you just can't allow yourself to feel angry with her because you're so protective of her. But I think to release yourself from this, you have to acknowledge how you may have felt, which. Was probably very painful, but I think the fear you have is that when people become unhappy, they would become like your mum and they would become angry. And they would say things that are super, super hurtful and so on and so forth. So I think you eggshell around people like you probably egshelled around your mum when you were a kid, don't trigger mum. Don't upset mum. So you really struggled to know how to be assertive at any level for yourself, because you're so worried you're going to piss everyone else off. This child in, you has to be heard. The anger has to be allowed. The grief has to be expressed for the lost childhood. Then I think you will start to value yourself as the man that you really are.
T: You look stunned. 
Ch: There's an awful lot in that paragraph. Really. 
T: What I'm talking about is a process called individuation, which is a task of sort of childhood adolescence, early adulthood, which is where we understand the different parts of ourselves. And we kind of bring them together to integrate into a whole person a sense of identity. I think you have a number of separate identities, a number of which work very well together, you know, as the good kind, loving, supportive partner, friend, brother, son, all of the things that you are. But I think the part of you that you have as an adult, because you don't know how to soothe that part of yourself, you go into huge panic and then deep dark depression. When life isn't glued together i.e- there's a risk that you're going to be made redundant. The pieces of the puzzle are not fitting together nicely enough for you to feel safe. That part of you, that child part of you is triggered to the point of. The three-year-old standing in the toilet having a panic attack.
Ch: Yeah. And it just overrides everything else. 
T: So we have to think about how can you go back to that three-year-old with the relationship with someone like me, that where you feel safe, you have a space where you can just honestly process this and say what you want. So you can learn to look after that part of yourself. Then you integrate that part of you, the child, part of you into the rest of you, which is amazing. Great adult, fantastic guy. Then I think you'll feel more at peace and anxiety will not be such a big part of your backdrop because you'll know who you are, including the part of you that sometimes gets very anxious. That will be okay because you'll know how to deal with it. Individuation identity, whole self. There is a part of me that just wants to say, look, go and have a cup of tea and get a pen and paper and see if you can contact that child in the toilet. See if you can write to them and say, I know what you felt. I think this is what the question was about. I think this is what you and I still need to work out together as a summary, as a way of putting together the narrative that we've got to now, do you think you'd like to give it a try? 
Ch: I can give it a go. I don't know whether it'd be anything other than superficial, because I don't know whether I, I know really what I've got to say.
T: You're not saying anything. Don't be the Mr. Fix it. Part of you be the thoughtful part of you. What can you tell that little boy in the toilet, having a panic attack in terms of what new insights you've gained from today that will help you and that part of you move forward. With my support in helping you find the right place for that to happen into learning, to live together, the anxious little boy and the grown man. Just tell him what you think you've worked out from our chat today, do you think you could do that?
Ch: Okay
Claudia: I’m quite confused by all of it. 
Tanya: Can you help me understand a bit more about what you're confused about? 
Cl: If I looked up the happiest person who was ever been in Wind In The Willows, that's him. Right. And he's got this wonderful partner. He hasn't been taking his medication. I want him to understand that his childhood was marred and it was difficult and he had to be too big, too young. And he was worried about the anxiety around him. So he was just holding everything steady while basically growing up in a tornado and that that meant something and the biggest deal or the biggest thing that happened to him when he was in his twenties and he came out to his mum. What really shocked me is that she didn't tell her husband for six months. So it's like a, this is a secret for six months. That's enormous news. 
T: That’s a lack of acknowledgement
Cl: But you can't even be proud of me? You can't even go, that was a big deal. And I'm going to cuddle you. And I'm going to tell my husband and we're going to get a Chinese.
T: He got that cuddle once after the argument that led for his mom initially with her anxiety that comes out as anger to say, well, it's all your fault, isn't it? Because you chose to be gay. She then came back and apologized, which is great and held him. But when he was describing that moment of his mum, holding him after that awful incident with his brother, I can't tell you the pain on his face, well you saw it. I mean, we were both seeing him, you know, I mean, he. That moment for him, he felt truly nurtured. 
Cl: I want to snuggle that part of him. 
T: Exactly, exactly. And the reason he can't look after himself emotionally is because
Cl: Because he wasn't
T: That's why you feel confused because he's confused because he's a bright smart man who knows how to look after other people and practically he can look after himself ish. If that language has never been spoken to you so you can understand it, learn it and develop it into your own language. How are we supposed to be able to speak that language in our adulthood for ourselves? He can do it for other people because that's what he's always done that's the language he learned from literally the day he was born. But in terms of a language that says, I can identify this feeling, I have, I can identify my anxiety. I need to assert my feelings here. He a) can’t because he doesn't know how to, and b) he can't, because he's terrified. He's too much like his mother and if he did, he'd lose it. So spectacularly that, as he said, my mother is five foot one, but can make grown men cry. He's frightened of his anger. So when his partner says to him, you know, you’re quite like your mum it really freaks him out he doesn't like that thought. But the reality is if he can find a way to acknowledge his anger, acknowledge there were things that were not okay. Still love his mum, but acknowledge where she let him down because of her needs. At that time, he’s then acknowledging a part of himself that fundamentally he can only manage at the moment by being what was the word he used productive looking after other people, doing stuff. Fill the time, fill the time, don't think about me. And then as soon as something comes along where life does not feel safe anymore. Oh, you might be made redundant. The house of cards falls down. Because he doesn't know how to say I'm freaking out here. I'm freaking out. 
Cl: Yeah. 
T: All he can do is say, I don't think I can be alive anymore. Are you less confused now? 
Cl: Yes, I am very much. Let's get him in.
Charlie: It's strange. How in the space of what. An hour of just chatting to you. Things have started to make sense. Now I'm remembering things and you're helping me link them together, which is very clever. 
Tanya: Are you saying that you're starting to make some sense of things? 
Ch: Yes. I can see why I would constantly feel anxious because I've never had a chance to sort of work that out as a child and maybe where a lot of people would have had a chance to, um, express that through in a supportive way, probably I didn't cause I was actually the one that was supporting other people
T: A hundred percent, because one of the things that Claudia who is extremely intuitive, she was sort of, sort of saying to me, I feel confused. 
Ch: She's not the only one.
T: Exactly. Exactly. She is picking up. Your confusion. She is picking up that the issue for you, is about understanding and about learning about yourself and how you feel and being okay with feeling those feelings. However, sort of unpalatable they are including probably feeling quite angry with your mother about certain events that have gone on, but being okay with that of rocking the boat. So you'll hold everything down for yourself, squash it down, box it off. Try not to even look at it or think about it. Cause you don't want to upset the apple cart running in after your brother went off to buy the sweets. You going, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. That's the part of you, but of course, the more you try and hold it down and squash it down, the more it jumps off and bites us on the bum and then you start to feel anxious. So the, what I asked you to do in the break was to try and write a narrative that will begin to help you see through some of the confusion. So then we know what happens next. Were you able to do that? 
Ch: It's more of a, um, advice column
T: That’s fine if that's what you need to do, but that's also what you're good at. You're good at advice. So if that's the best way for you to manage this first step of the process. So I just want to be kind of very careful about how we pick through some of this stuff cause I think the big emotional moments for you need to be with someone that you're seeing regularly, who's always there for you so if you sense I’m a bit kind of careful about where, where we go with this it’s because I want to leave you feeling whole and not… do you get that because obviously this isn't therapy, this is a conversation. I just wanted to say that upfront. Okay. So I'm listening. So when you're ready. 
Ch: So I said, um, this is addressing my four year old self. Yeah. And I said, stop worrying. Everything's going to be fine, you don't need to worry about taking everybody's needs on board. You don't have to always look out for everyone else. Yeah. You don't have to constantly smooth, smooth over the cracks. If something goes wrong, it's not always your fault or your job to put it right. Let other people get on with it and give yourself the space to let them. Uh, even if it means they learn the hard way and have to have a bit of pain along the way, but then I said, so that means you also have to do the same for yourself. Uh, give yourself the space to make mistakes. You don't have to get everything right the first time, it's not a failure and this, and then I put think about yourself sometimes it's okay to put your own needs in front of others. It's not always selfish. 
T: And how awkward do you feel saying that out loud?
Ch: Oh very awkward. 
T: Yeah
Ch: I feel selfish just saying it 
T: Really? 
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. 
T: So how close are you getting to the self-loathing part of yourself now?
Ch: That's that makes me feel, self-loathing 
T: Talk me through it. Let me hear it.
Ch: Uh, I just get this queasiness in the pit of my stomach. Um, you know, just makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. It goes back to that. Yeah. Caroline flack thing we were talking about in the beginning, the things that people did to her were selfish. I'm always constantly second guessing the impact of my actions, which leads to the anxiety because you, you can't understand, you know, what the impact of what you do is going to do for everybody at all times every time. But then that makes me feel selfish. 
T: It's an either or for you either. I look after others or I look after myself, but they are kind of mutually exclusive.
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. It's binary. 
T: There's a difference between that level of identifying your needs and responding to them and reaching out to others to support you in the way that you would always support others and hounding a poor woman to choosing, to take her own life. I mean, there is absolutely no comparison, but somehow for you, you see yourself as possibly driving people to ending their own life. If you should be horribly selfish enough to choose, to put your own needs before anyone else, can you not see how bizarrely catastrophic that is? 
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. When you explain it like that, you can.
T: But that's fear, isn't it? Fear makes us magnify things and when you ran in, I know we go back to this sweet shop brother running across two roads you freaking out example when you were kids, but when you ran in. And your brother was proudly going, oh, look, I got some sweets and you were going, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. You were freaking out. What were you afraid was going to happen? 
Ch: I think I was afraid that my mother was going to lose it 
T: Exactly. As a child, you lived constantly at a level of sort of hypervigilance and fear of making sure that mum wasn't upset and therefore, as an adult, If you're tasked with putting your needs first or thinking about yourself, you react to it like a child. You're like, but I can't do that. What if it has the impact on someone like what happened to Caroline flack? You have a catastrophic childlike anxiety response
Ch: To normal stimuli. 
T: Exactly. So we get back to the idea that that is the part of you that you need to settle, because that is the part of you that is overactive. So the first part of your letter, easy peasy. That's what you do. It's what you tell people all the time. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. I've got this you're fine, blah, blah, blah. All the sort of self-empowerment motivational stuff. You're good at it. But then the second part of the letter required you. To step away from the advice and try and focus on what that felt like. And you could not do that. Can you go back and read that second half again? If that's all right. 
Ch: Um, think about yourself sometimes. It's okay to put your own needs in front of others. It's not always selfish. 
T: So that's where you need to begin. 
Ch: That is, that is mammoth though. 
T: If you're that afraid, my worry is that you won't pursue this process. Because it feels too risky to you.
Ch: No, I want, I want to pursue the process. I really want to pursue the process. That's why I'm here because it's got to the point where I can't let it rule my life anymore. I can't let it spoil or inhibit me from living. You know, my big worry is I don't, I don't know how, and I don't know, even if I can. 
T: You can, no doubt about it for me. The important thing is that we find a person that you feel really safe with that is open-minded and nonjudgmental. So you can show and reveal all these different parts of yourself that feel so ugly to you, but they will not be phased and will be there with you and supporting you through the process of getting to know these parts of yourself, that to use your word, make you feel awkward. So if I can help you recognize how afraid you are of looking at how these feelings impact on you and feeling them by doing that, you will move yourself into a much healthier. More individuated place, you know, you will pull together all these different parts of you. Yeah, absolutely. 
Ch: So maybe talking about the stuff we'll ease the uneasiness about talking about them and get through it.
T: Bingo
Ch: Okay, right. I'm with you now. Now I know how to do it.
Claudia: What have you learned if you could up sum it, if you like? 
Charlie: I’m frightened to face my own emotions for a start, um, I've buttoned them down, hidden them away. Split myself into a number of different bits to try and compensate. I've always sort of cast myself in, in, in a role of negotiator carer smoother so that I don't have to really face my own emotions. If I do something for myself that might upset somebody else, that'll just cause a catastrophe further down the line, but it won't.
Cl: It just won’t.
Ch: And catastrophizing, it won’t and it will just mean that I’ve done something for myself. 
Cl: Absolutely
Ch: It’s not the worst thing in the world. 
Cl: It really isn’t and by the way, it will just be slow. But even if it's, you turning to your lovely partner and going. I don’t fancy Thai, I actually fancy this. That feels already, it would be different for you because you just you're a comedian you'll fit in. You want everyone around you to make, to be happy. I'm talking about the small things first and then the big things, but just looking after Charlie. You talked about terrible things happening if you are selfish but if we look back to last year where it all just got far too much, something actually catastrophic could have happened. Do you see? 
Ch: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yes. And that would have been horrendous for other people. And I think when we talked about it, obviously my partner started geting really upset because he didn't know how he could help me and he didn't understand and that broke my heart even more, you know, because the last thing you wanna do is upset people. 
Cl: If you look after yourself that is helping everyone who loves you and is around you. 
Ch: Yeah, then I wouldn't have been in that position and he wouldn't have got upset and it wouldn't have got as bad as it, as it ended up getting.
Cl: It could have been absolutely horrific. Sometimes you do have to just look after you and that will help everyone around you as well as yourself. 
Ch: Yeah. 
Cl: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 
Cl: Well, thank you very much for having me.
Claudia: Can I ask you about a word I've never heard you use before individuation? 
Tanya: Yes. It's a term, it’s more psycho analytic psychodynamic. Uh, it's a youngian concept and it's a sense of. Development, emotional, psychological, the development of the self that sort of obviously starts in childhood and, you know, through adolescence, into early adulthood and, you know, and beyond really, we're constantly understanding ourselves and adjusting based on changes in lives and circumstances, but at the, at the core, it's about having a real sense of who we are and how we feel both good and bad, and being comfortable with that so that we can then sort of integrate all aspects of ourself in a way that enables us to look after ourselves. And I think with Charlie, this part of himself that feels anxious because of unmet emotional needs, because he, his role was to be the parental child. That's the part of himself that he hasn't fully integrated into his whole self. So while he can look after other people, he has no idea how to look after himself. So in a sense, he hasn't fully individuated and that would be the process for him in therapy, moving forward
Claudia: Do you think he's ready to put all of the bits of him together and to look after himself a bit? 
T: Yes, I think he will be okay. And I actually think, I mean, he's a very, he is actually a very strong man and he has lived for 47 years feeling like this. So things can only get better. Really. 
Cl: Thank you. I was going to make a joke about singing that song, but I won't.
T: It's in my head too. Things can only get better…………
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Eva: I just remember screaming at the top of my voice. Like screaming just I'd never felt anything like it. 
Claudia: This podcast was made by the team at Somethin’ Else. The sound and mix engineer is Josh Gibbs. The assistant producer is Grace Laiker. The producer is Selina Ream and the executive producers are Claire Solan and Chris Skinner with additional production from Steve Ackerman.
Thank you so much for listening.