 I remember sitting in the doctor's surgery and just breaking down completely. I don't know whether that was relief because someone had finally found something that why I wasn't right, or whether it was because I was then thinking, how can I have this illness? How can I, you know, I'm pretty level headed, I go through processes, I do all that sort of thing. How can I have an issue of mental illness? What I've tried to do is get around to as many stations as I can to talk to people about what mental illness is, a little bit about my story, some inspiration that I had to help me get out, and then where you can actually get help if you need it. So the idea of the ride of don't do it alone come about because basically when you're in a position that I was in, you can't do it by yourself, you need help. You need your help with your friends, your family, if you need professional help that's there, if you need medication that's also another form of help, but you need to have people with you. So that was the idea, the idea of the bike was so that people could ride with me as we've got today, and I think there's only been one day that I haven't had someone ride with me at any stage, and I reckon that's really good. So I want to talk a little bit about mental illness. Now, mental illness, I've just got a few stats up here on the board, and I just wanted to show you that it's not an isolated incident. So in Australia there's been research done that's about a million people being diagnosed at the moment of being treated for depression, and there's about two million people being treated for anxiety. So you can see three million people out of the Australian population is a fair percentage of our population. The one, the stat that gets me is down the bottom here where six Australians die by suicide every day. You know, and when you look at the road toll and how much work we put into reducing the road toll, and this figure's double, or a bit more than double what the road toll is. So, you know, it's a pretty big area that we need to look at. I was nearly one of them. I'll talk about that later on, but I was nearly one of those stats at multiple times. So, you know, and I look at, from even a volunteer's perspective, when a volunteer joins, we sign up a member's form, we sign up the police check, we teach them minimum skills, and off they go. We don't teach any resilience or anything like that around mental illness. So it's an area where we need to improve, and that's part of the ride too. I'm looking at finding areas where we can improve to help people look after their mental health. So if one in 30 people will also have experience with PTSD, so you look at the shift here, you've got three guys on, three or four, when you go to four, your time's up by five shifts. You know, you're nearly up there already into the 30, so some people may be affected by somewhere along the line that you might know that you work with the station next door, whatever it is, but so one in 30 will do that. By 2020, mental illness is going to be the biggest illness in the world. So it'll overtake all your cancers and all your other illnesses around and will be the biggest illness in the world. So again, from our perspective, we really need to work on it. We've already put ourselves in a high-risk area. You know, we need to work out ways of reducing the impact that it can have on us. So this is a bit of the idea about the ride. Mental illness can be a number of different things. It doesn't have to be all of these. It can be one of them. But what you might find is grief is a normal emotion. You know, grief and even anxiety. Everyone gets butterflies in their stomachs from time to time. That's a normal emotion. But when it's prolonged and when it takes control of your life, that's when it starts to become a mental illness. Mental illness is treatable. That's one of the really big things that we've got to realise, that mental illness is treatable. If I was playing footy and I wrecked my knee and I needed to go and have a knee re-co, I go and do it, I'm back, there's no issue there. Same sort of thing. Mental illness is treatable. Whether it's by medication, whether it's by consultation, those sort of things, it is treatable. So there shouldn't be the stigma behind it that is out there in the community. There shouldn't be the stigma behind it. We should just be able to say, yes, this is OK. Oh, don't be ashamed. And I think that's the stigma that was made even only five or six years ago, I reckon. And that's what this ride's brought out. It's not something to be ashamed of. You've got to deal with it and everyone goes through different periods in their life. Just get it out there, talk to someone who you're comfortable with, find that person who you can linger on here and say, hey, I do need help. You need to talk to someone. Obviously, the bike ride was don't do it alone, but you obviously need to talk to someone about it because when you don't, you're actually bottling it up more inside and actually eating away at yourself. That's what I found anyway. So by getting stuff, starting to talk about things and getting things out of the way, you know, you can sort of see, yes, there is a process that you can use to get better. I wore every one of these badges when I hit rock bottom, which is about two and a half to three years ago now. I'm sort of somewhere about there. I was ashamed of myself. I didn't think I was any good at what I did. I wasn't worthy of being a person. I just hated myself, all that sort of stuff. So, like I said, it doesn't have to be one. It can be a number, but the idea is just to be aware that some of the feelings like stress and those sort of things are normal feelings. So just because you're stressed doesn't mean you've got mental illness. Mental illness is a clinically diagnosed illness, so the doctors can diagnose it. But yeah, it doesn't mean just because you're feeling a little stressed. So don't think after this talk you go, oh geez, I'm a bit down, I'm a bit stressed, and then all of a sudden you think you've got mental illness and the cycle continues, but don't think that. You know, look at the positives of things. So I want to talk a little bit about my story. And the reason I do this is because I don't want sympathy. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to show people that you can be at rock bottom, but you can still come out the other side. You know, I'm still getting treated. I'm still on antidepressants and all that sort of stuff. But you can come out the other side from being right down the bottom. And I don't want people to get to that point that I was at. So this is the idea of the ride. I'll just give you a little bit of background about myself. I started in a country town called Melton. We moved here when I was two and I can still remember Dirt Roads on Barry's Road, the next one parallel to this. And it was a great little community to grow up in. I couldn't have asked for anything more. Then I went to uni, got a Bachelor of Business in Accounting. There's a few uni guys here today, which is great. But got out of accounting and got into IT and then moved out of IT and joined the fire service in 2003. So I got posted down at Cario and I moved down to Clifton Springs. Part of the reason I moved to Clifton Springs was the fact that my anxiety levels were too high in Melton. My anxiety, looking back at it now, started a lot earlier than I realised. When I was a kid, I never wag school. I never graffitied. I never shoplifted. I never did any of that sort of stuff because I was always too worried of something was going to happen. So I look at that now and I think that was early signs that I was having issues with anxiety. I'm a massive worrier and I worry about the what-if situation all the time. Even at work, if I was going to an alarm at the hospital and I reset the alarm because we can't find anything wrong, my worry would be so much when I come back that what happens if I missed it? All that sort of stuff. So I couldn't relax. I couldn't relax at work. And that was because I wasn't quite right. I couldn't let people get too close to me. I didn't want to have too many friends that knew who I was because I thought I wasn't a good human being. I was ashamed of myself. I was pretty cut up on all those sort of things. So I moved to Clifton Springs and didn't really keep in contact with anyone really from Melton. You'd probably know that from, you know, I think I come back for the 75th dinner here. But other than that, people that I played footy with, played cricket with, you know, fire brigade stuff, I really didn't really keep in contact with anyone. And that was deliberate. That was deliberate. That was me pushing people away. But the same thing happened. My anxiety levels were getting so bad again that I couldn't stay in Drysdale. So I looked at the local, sorry, the CFA internal people moves and I thought, where's the spot that I can go that I don't know anyone? Woodonga was on the map. There was a leading fire whose job going there and I thought, yeah, that's pretty far enough away. You know, I reckon I can get up there and just be by myself. I then thought I'd better tell my wife that I was going to move to Woodonga. So Kylie had no idea at that point. So I moved up there and again pushed people away. Didn't need people. Thought if I don't make any friends, I'm happy. I could just be a loner. So then I, again, and then even when I was at home, I wouldn't answer the telephone. I still don't a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah. But I even got to the point where I couldn't go outside. My depression was starting to kick in and I just couldn't function. So I used to walk to the fridge, walk back to the couch, back to the fridge, back to the couch and I put on about 30 odd kilos in that time. And what I did was I even got to the point where I couldn't deal with people that I'd actually sit inside and when I heard a car door close, I'd opened up the Venetians and if it was for me, I'd turn the tally off and lock the door and go and hide in the bedroom because I didn't want people around. It was pretty easy because Kylie and the boys were at school and at work so no one knew what was going on. So I could still push people away. At that time too, I was self-harming a lot during this period. I'd go to bed before my wife and I would absolutely belt the shit out of myself. Trying to get something to burst or break. And that's not a real easy thing to do to hit yourself as hard as you can and keep going and keep going. My wife didn't know about it and it wasn't till I started these talks that some of this stuff actually came out and that she realised what was actually happening. So I was working at Wodonga and things weren't going so well. I was having a few issues there and I'm ready to pack up and move away again. But I did it once, I don't reckon I could try it again the second time without telling Kylie. So I still live there. Not that I didn't want to. So during that time the depression was kicking in. I had some incidents at work where a guy, a fire, he fell through a roof and threw a skylight and he caught himself at about this point before he finished all the way through and a couple of guys grabbed him on the BA and there was a cellar underneath and if he had fallen through he would have fallen straight through to the cellar and I don't know what the result would have been but I'm pretty sure I know what it should have been. He told me probably a couple of weeks earlier that he was expecting their first pub him and his wife and that got me because how was I going to go and tell them that I made the decision to put that guy on the roof? So I thought if it happened I killed him. When you're in that cycle it's really hard to look at any positives. Was it positive that he caught himself? Yeah it probably was. Sorry it was but I couldn't see. It was all my fault, it was all against me. I was done. I tried lots of different ways to talk to him and to get him to talk to me about it and yeah it was really hard and then it came to that really crisis point. I couldn't reach him. He was in a dark place. So the depression was kicking in. I was suicidal. I'd worked out how, when, where. Worked out multiple ways. Worked out that if I did it at work it would be more beneficial for my family financially. It got really, really bad and I don't think he's going to get better enough. I felt at one stage I was going to lose my little brother which is pretty tough. So I was still playing sport at the time and we were playing soccer. When I say playing sport I was turning up and playing, I wasn't doing much else. I wasn't socialising, doing all that sort of stuff which I used to do. So playing soccer and I got given a yellow card which is not a big deal. The yellow card's a warning. I didn't get, I didn't get the yellow card for cleaning the bloke up. I got the yellow card for kicking the ball from here to the doorway because that's dissent. So I went, but what happened is I walked off the ground. Just walked off the ground. So all the spectators in the club rooms are over this side of the ground. I walked as far away as I could the other side. I sat behind, sat down behind the tree and cried. And I can still remember some smart aleck kids from Wadonga Drive ride and pass and their bikes having a crack. His bloke sitting behind a tree ball on his eyes that sort of thing. After the game the boys come and got me and I went home and I spent the next three to four days I can't quite remember. In bed, no human contact. Lights off, curtains closed, door closed. Not talking to anyone, the only time I got out of bed was to go to the toilet and that was the ensuite. So, you know, I didn't have to go real far. So I got to a point that my wife actually took me to my psychiatrist that I was seeing at the time. I don't know why I went. I just, I don't know, just went along with it. I think I don't think I had anything else to give. And I got hospitalised down in Wengeretta with Dan at Kerford there which is a psychiatric hospital I guess you'd call it. I spent a bit of time in there and I got a weekend release and when I got weekend release they had about a gastro go through and they rang up on the Monday and I must have spoke to Kylie and they said, oh, we've got a bit of gastro we don't really want Terry to come back into this you know, if you've got it. So obviously they thought I'd already had the shits enough and they didn't want to give me any more. So the psych said, yeah, no worries and I stayed out and I started to rebuild. Took my life back to basics. Took it back to basics. Friends, family and me. Because I'd pushed so many people away I didn't have many friends so I had to work pretty hard at it. Because I put up the walls and all of a sudden I've got a dint in my armour and you know, I was a bit ashamed and all that sort of stuff but I started to rebuild. Bought an old valiant to pull apart which turned into four which turned into a block of land to put the valiants on and needless to say I'm getting pretty good at grinding because my welding is very ordinary. So, um, so look, started to look at things and there's a guy called John Wooden who's a basketball coach who was a basketball coach in America and he made life really seem so simple. Life was so simple and he made a, he's got a heap of quotes and I've actually read a couple of his books which is pretty amazing for me to actually sit down and read anything but he said one thing that stuck with me is make every day your masterpiece. Do something every day that makes you happy. Do something every day that you can go to bed and say, cheese, I've had a good day and I'm proud of myself. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do it. My head was going to... thinking of all the bad things and then I was in that mode where I couldn't get out, you know and everything was bad, everything that happened was bad. So do something that you like to do every day. Um, whether it's talk to your kids, whether it's go Pokemon going with them, I don't know. But just, um, whatever it is as long as you can do something every day that you work for. His dad gave him a seven point creed and I only grabbed a few of these for myself. One is be true to yourself. Make every day your masterpiece. Help others. And I've grabbed my make friendship or fine art. To read deeply from good books I don't read very often. So, um, I still had textbooks that were in their wrappers when I left uni. So, um, but make friendship or fine art. I pushed all my friends away. I pushed everyone away. I didn't need friends. I could do things myself. I was pretty good, you know. I didn't need to talk to people. I didn't need to do anything. Sometimes that friend is the person that you need the most. You know, sometimes it's the, uh, the RUOK question that they might ask you. Sometimes it's just sitting there listening to what you've got to say. But because I didn't have any of those outlets I struggled. I had acquaintances at work, you know, I come and I talk to work and I do work stuff. But no one, you know, I wouldn't get deeply into things or do anything like that. So that's been a really big one for me. Helping others, well, I've always tried to do that and I've actually started getting back into coaching cricket, captain in cricket, on the junior committee, coordinator for the cricket, you know, doing stuff with the soccer, all that sort of stuff, you know, in the White Ribbon Ambassador thing. So I'm starting to give a little bit back again. Well, if you give something, the best shot you can give, you can't ask anymore. You can't ask anymore yourself. And to me, that's been really good for me lately. You know, because I know that if I give something a crack, well, I've given it a good go. Success is a piece of mind. Even if I just grabbed those first five words. When I was going through a uni, I wanted to be an accountant because they had the flashy cars. They had the holiday houses. That was success to me. That's what I thought success was. Now, because I've had to reassess a few things, doesn't matter. Doesn't bother me. It's more the stuff that spending time with my family, when we go up to the block, we've got power up there but we don't use power at all. Doing that sort of stuff to me, that's more success to me. So work out what your successes are and just remember that it is a piece of mind. So I started to work on a few things and with the inspiration side of it I needed a lot of inspiration. So, regardless of where I got it, regardless of where I got the inspiration from, whether it was a book, whether it was a movie, whether it was TV, whether it was just riding a bike and seeing how many good people there are in this organisation. It's been amazing. One of the things, I'm not a bit of a music person but I like Midnight Oil and AC DC and Violin Femmes and all that sort of music. But there's a song going round by Katie Perry called Raw. And she sings about getting held down, getting back up and becoming a champion. And it hits me. It just hits me. I've got it on my phone and my iTunes of the playlist on Spotify and the other day I was riding up near Oyun somewhere, or the other week. The other week. And I was riding along and this song has come on the radio. So I've got the headphones in and I've taken the GoPro camera off the front of the bike and I'm doing a selfie as I'm riding. And I am belting out this song like there's no tomorrow. I've seen it now because I am the champion. Absolutely just flying. And I'm just on top of the world thinking how good is this. I'm in the middle of the bush I'm by myself and I'm cruising around. I haven't replayed it yet. I don't know if I want to. I haven't put anyone else through it yet either. So we'll see how that goes. But again, it was inspiration to grab me. So any piece where you can get it any piece where you can grab any sort of inspiration and you use it and you can use it for yourself to make it better, use it, grab it. Do what you can. That sort of leads into a bit of the help situation. I pressed a button to start going to See Beyond Blue or use their website but kindly press the button to actually help me out and get to the stage where I am now. I had... Where was I? So with the inspiration again it doesn't matter where you get the help from it's the same as help it doesn't matter where you get the help from as long as you get it when you need it. So if you think it doesn't mean pressing the help button means you've got to go to a psych and you've got to go and do all this sort of stuff. It could be as easy as sitting next to your mate saying jeez I'm struggling a bit or jeez I'm not going too good what do you reckon? And just having that chat. That's still help. It's still there for you and that's where I've had to work on my friendships again because I didn't have those friendships to have those help. I didn't have the family behind me to do it because no one knew what was going on. So um... I'm still going I'm still on antidepressants and if I have to be for the rest of my life I don't care because it's given me a life that I didn't have. It's given me a chance to be with the kids, still be a husband you know gives me a bit of a shot to ride around on a bike and do something. When I was obviously I must have forgot I took me antidepressants one morning and then took another lot and that's when I thought I could ride around the state but um... I actually worked alright. Um... So there's probably four key messages that I really want to get across. The first one is to look after yourself. You are too important. You're too important to your family to your friends to everyone that needs you and everyone that wants you and loves you in your life. You're far too important. The second one is to look after your mate. Look after your mate whether it's your next door neighbour your son, your daughter shift mate whatever it is look after who you got because again they're just far too important. That question of are you okay? It's a pretty easy question sometimes we're a bit reluctant to ask it nine times out of ten we'll probably get the same answer yeah I'm all good but the time when you say no maybe I'm not travelling too hot you've made a difference by just asking the question okay so because someone's sought the help that they needed to start with. The next one I call is press the button press the big red help button the earlier you press it the better it'll be for yourself the easier it is for yourself but Kylie press that button for me and I can say that's been the best decision that's ever been made in my life because if that didn't happen I wouldn't be standing in front of you right now. So I've got a bit to thank I guess. So here we go actually I probably should say getting married was the best decision that I made but um to Kylie yeah yeah yeah I can get away with that one now but so press that button for help like I said whether it's your friend whether it is whatever it is as long as you can get that help when you need it and the last one I'm going to say is it's okay to not be okay it's okay to not be okay mental illness is an illness that can be treated if you needed a knee reconstruction you'd go to the doctors you'd get the knee re-co done you'd be back on your way to rebuild yourself exactly the same thing it's an illness and come back Regardless of rank where you come from which brigade you're at if you talk about it and get it out in the open it's going to help. It's been amazing I feel like I've got my husband back I feel like we're in a much happier better space and he's way more open and honest with how he's feeling and what he's going through and stuff so yeah that's amazing I'd like to say that life and your life is far too important you need to look after yourself and to look after your family and your friends and to be able to press that button when you need to get help and the bottom line I guess it is is it is okay to not be okay you know we need to look after ourselves and we need to work together to achieve that because we are too important in this world