Episode 17 – The power of peer support

MIND BEYOND THE MISSION EPISODE 17: THE POWER OF PEER SUPPORT

Brian

You found our podcast. We are Mind Beyond the Mission. This is a podcast about Veterans and their Families and specifically mental health. What goes on in our lives, what goes on in our heads. We’re not talking to you as doctors or professionals, we’re talking to you about living with it and what it’s like. Brian McKenna, 19 years in the Canadian Forces. I’m joined by my partner, Laryssa Lamrock.

Laryssa

Veteran Family member. I’m a proud military brat. My husband served in the military, proud military mom. We’re really excited about this podcast to delve into issues that are important to the Veteran and Family community.

Brian

Join us as we talk about mental health from the perspective of Veterans and their Families. All right, so we’re back with another episode of a Mind Beyond the Mission and we’re talking peer support today. We’re going to hit it from both angles as well. I think for both of us, we’ve done peer support, but we’ve also received peer support. I think for me, you don’t always know what you’re walking into, right? You can be going into a peer support session for the guy that phoned you and you may leave it an hour and a half later realizing, well, that might’ve been as much for me as it was for that person.

Laryssa

Absolutely. Peer support is something I’m pretty passionate about. I was excited when you suggested the topic, and it’s just Brian and I today, but I thought that was fitting for peer support because peer support doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to have a clinician running it or anything. Essentially peer support is just two people having a conversation that might have a similar experiences or similar outlook on stuff. As we were preparing for this, I was thinking about what is peer support? Can you define it? I think there’s such a broad range of experiences and exactly to put your finger on what peer support is. To me at a basic level, it’s two people having a conversation.

Brian

Since sometimes it’s so hard to define, it might seem weird to say, well, it can be done wrong, but it can be done wrong. There can be ways to walk it down a path that doesn’t work and also to maybe be dangerous sometimes. We’re going to get into that a little bit. I’m going to tell you, though, like one of the best peer support sessions that I ever had for a young man a number of years ago. What was best about it was he never actually brought up in the session what his main problem was.

His main problem was that he was considering things like self-harm, but he asked me everything else like job search and how did you find blending in with people? At the end, as we were walking away, we were at a Tim Hortons not so far from where I’m at. He said the one line he said as I left that session was what it was all about. He said, you made it. I’ve always remembered that because you don’t have to walk into these sessions with the perfect answer or you’ve studied X and you know it.

In fact, that’s generally left for other people. That’s what the professionals are for. What I realized in that conversation after we talked for an hour and a half about everything was the fact I was there to talk to him showed that it’s survivable. You can be here to talk to the next guy somewhere down the road. That’s one of the sessions that’s always stuck with me.

Laryssa

Yes. To put your finger on peer support. Number one, I alluded to the fact like for me, I think there’s a continuum of peer support. It’s interesting because I was at a conference recently and sitting in a roundtable with a bunch of folks who they were service providers for military Families. I’m a huge advocate for peer support. I delivered peer support for 15 years with a national program.

When I mentioned peer support, they’re kind of, yes, well, when you mention peer support to people, they bristle or not maybe bristle, but they’re hesitant because like peer support is its own expertise has grown and everyone assumes that it’s formal. When you say peer support, it means formal. It means I’m going to sit down with someone. I’m going to talk about my problems. I don’t want to do that. People are backing off of it.

I think one of the things that I mentioned at the kick off and want to talk about today is peer support isn’t always formal. Peer support can happen when two people are just walking their dogs.

Brian

We do it when we’re working out.

Laryssa

Yes, exactly. I think that’s one thing I want to put out there, is peer support is on that whole range. Sometimes it’s just about the basics of just being present, of just modeling. I provided peer support meetings with people before where I just sat with them while they cried. Sometimes that’s all people need is just that presence.

Brian

I think what you’re talking about too is that if practitioners are skillful, and brave to some degree, they can really start to see what they can do with peer support. For example, if you’re running a session and you’ve got six Veterans in the room and you’re going to start it with something to the effect of, let’s all get in a circle and put our feet on the floor and start breathing together, the eyes are going to start rolling. They absolutely are. When a tier one operator or former fighter pilot sits down next to you and says, guess what I’m doing? I put my feet on the floor and start breathing. This is how this exercise goes. We’re in a completely different scenario. That’s a way that just the credibility of who that person is can be utilized to get people better.

Laryssa

Absolutely.

Brian

I do give people some, a little bit of credence. When they’re nervous about peer support, think about it this way. If you’re going through med school, how long till the first time you get to sit in a room with a patient and you’re the person that’s the practitioner? We’re talking the better part of a decade. Along walks Brian into the room with a coffee in his hand going, I’m just going to sit down and chat with this guy. I can see why it scares the socks off some people, right? I think we’ve got to embrace that reticence, but do it anyhow.

Laryssa

I agree with you. I think there’s benefit to both approaches and they can be complimentary to each other. I’m just curious, I want to ask, because this is something we haven’t really talked about. You know that I was involved in peer support for a long time. I talk about it. I miss peer support a lot. You have, been involved in organizations that provide peer support. What was your first introduction to peer support?

Brian

For me, it was on the receiving end. Again, I look at the mentoring and authentication side of it. The first peer support I ever had was an airborne guy who would go to the doctor. Right across the floor, when you look at someone you think is the hardest charger in the room and he’s putting up his hand going, yes, okay, I’ve got a problem. This is what I do with it. That tone change, you can’t buy that. There is no school that teaches that, right? It’s just bravery on his part.

You look at things that can spread poorly, you can spread a sickness in a platoon. Well, you can spread mental health well, too, if done the right way. I think that’s the first bit of experience that I had with it. I would say, though, the first intervention style for me was probably about almost 20 years ago. I got back from overseas and people could tell that I was buzzing a little bit, overcompensating, maybe, making sure that the message that got out to people was what a great time I had. People that knew me well enough eventually gave it a month, okay, what’s up?

Even then I pushed it away. I knew who it was. I was sitting in a room with a bunch of Croatia vets who had been through worse. Even that thing of, what’s worse and what’s better, that can sometimes be the negative side of just having peers in the room where we try to find a scale. I think it’s even my instinct to do it now. Suffice it to say, they had the ticket punched and the check on their checklist of having been through a bad thing. When they spoke, I listened. That was it. Rank didn’t actually matter. These guys, as far as I could see, they spoke, everybody listened. That was how to do a section attack, how to do a patrol. Here’s that guy telling me, Brian, it’s time. Let’s talk.

Laryssa

It sounded like it was people that already had credibility in your eyes. They had common experience. They’d been through something similar to what you’ve been through. One of the other things I’m hearing you say, though, and I hear it from a lot of other people, is someone approaches them. Someone takes the time to say, how are you doing? No. I ask you how you’re doing. How are you doing?

Creating that space for someone to, first of all, feel seen, and then creating a space for them to be heard. It’s not too often that I’ve heard people spontaneously putting their hand up and saying, yes, I need peer support. It’s about someone taking the time to approach them and opening the door and creating a bit of that trust for them to be like, okay, there is someone, I’m not in this alone, because I think many people think they’re the only one going through that experience.

Brian

It’s the military term of a double tap. In other words, the first round normally doesn’t get through the armor. The second one does, right? We have armor. How are you? Pretty good. Nah. How are you? That’s normally all it takes for the person, even you, to go, rough week. No, well, now we’re having a conversation. It’s not more technical than that.

What I say, though, is I feel the people that are really good at peer support, they have to have at least one credibility somewhere else. Because if you’ve got a guy in your unit that’s the peer support guy, but he doesn’t excel or even meet the standard in anything else, guys aren’t going to talk to that person, right? It’s when you show up with some credibility, in my opinion, and I look and go, wow, that guy won the patrol competition and he’s talking to me about how I’m doing? Then it must be a worthwhile conversation.

If you send me to go to the person, I happen to have peer support relationships with some padres, but because individually we’re friends, but every time the unit’s, oh, guess what, the padre’s going to be around. Well, it’s not like we’re lining up to go talk to him, right? You know what I might do in the corner while I’m talking about why I’m not in that line? Be talking to someone else.

Laryssa

Right. Doing peer support. Yes?

Brian

Yes.

Laryssa

I think one of the things I wanted to talk about, too, was, I mentioned to me, I described it as a continuum. A peer support can be colleagues walking down the road, having a cup of coffee. It could be your dog walking group. It can be very informal, and it can be all the way up to very formalized programs where people are trained coordinators, as an example. They cover a certain area, yes, that more formalized piece.

There’s national peer support programs now where you phone in and they’ll connect someone to you. I think one thing that I wanted to put out there and talk about was, what makes someone credible? I think if someone is looking for peer support, number one, any one of those programs across that continuum could be the right one for you. I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. They provide something a little bit different. What’s the right fit for you? Then on top of that is finding the right person to connect with for you. Even within the same program, when I provided peer support, I know this will be a shocker, but I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I was okay with that.

Brian

Tell me more.

Laryssa

[chuckles] I’m going to rustle papers here and then you’ll get it. Yes, so I think for people who are looking for peer support, do some investigation, find out what will fit for you right then, and then find the person that feels right for you for them. If you connect with someone for peer support, and you don’t feel that they quite got you, don’t give up on it. Just find the person that is the one that’s credible for you or the one that you find that connection with.

Brian

Yes. I think, why are we always looking for another one of us? It doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of us. The Veteran world’s big, 600,000 people plus. The next Veteran hasn’t done the same things I’ve done. I haven’t done what they’ve done. It’s not necessarily that you need someone that’s walked exactly beside you. It is more that they understand the general concept of what you’re talking about.

I look at it this way is that sometimes when, say, governments make rules for the people stamping passports and the people that are maintaining all the buildings around us here. The military is not just another part of the civil service. It is very unique. Its day job is the one percenter problems, the things that other people don’t deal with. Just that reality does create a little bit of a inward looking of guess what? We may look the same, but how come I can spot these guys from across an airplane and go, yes, that guy’s a vet? What am I seeing? I’m not seeing into his soul. I can’t tell what he’s thinking right now.

There is a difference. It’s that difference that I’m sitting down with. This actually really gets under the skin of some people that are close to me in my personal life, because their viewpoint will be like, how can you talk to this guy you bumped into at the airport and I’m your mom? We’ve been best friends for 30 years. Yes, you have. Been mortared? No? Okay, cool. I’m going to go talk to someone who has. I think that plays into it as well.

Laryssa

For sure it does. You’re a father, but you have not given birth to a child. There’s only so far that conversation with you and I could go. You’re looking for someone that might have that understanding of that common experience, for sure.

Brian

Sometimes it’s the connection thing. Sometimes it’s the protection thing. Do you really want me to talk to you about child trafficking? Because I saw a lot of that. That’s not day-to-day, transactional conversation. I think for a lot of us, we feel that if the thing that’s burning on our minds is somewhat tricky and nasty while there’s 1% of the world I’m going to talk to at times.

Laryssa

I think one of the other things for me too is, it’s about what’s not said or what you don’t have to say. I provided peer support for some first responder Families as well. At the time I was not a first responder Family member, I am now. There were some universal things, like it didn’t matter that my spouse was a military Veteran and their spouse or their child was a police officer, for example.

There were some things that we had experienced in common. Once we established that we’d experienced those things in common, for example, witnessing our spouse have a flashback, we didn’t need to go into that anymore. We just, you make the eye contact, okay, I see that you get it. Then from there, we can move on to, how did you deal with that or different things. There’s sometimes things that are just unspoken and you still feel understood.

Brian

I think one thing that helped me a lot, there’s many good doctors out there, but it was actually a guy out in the West Coast that was running a program I worked on. He sat me down when we were doing formal peer support. He’s the one who really taught me that it’s not the details, it’s the emotions around them. That changed my thinking. I have that saying at the tip of my tongue today. I’m a better peer because of it.

His point was simple. It wasn’t that if you went to a bad incident that had four casualties, you don’t need to find someone else that was at a bad incident with four. If you’re at the guy with a bad incident with eight, that doesn’t mean you have to shut up because his is worse, right? We need to park that. If at that moment you felt abandoned, that’s the thing that we’re talking about.

Laryssa

I think this is really important. I sit on a committee that has a number of representatives from different peer support organizations across Canada. This is a group of passionate folks. The conversations are so interesting because everyone has a different perspective and experience on peer support. I had said at the beginning of these meetings that every one of those people is going to come forward and tell us that their peer support program is the best one.

Brian

Yes, right.

Laryssa

Every single one of them are right because, for the peers they’re serving, that is the best one. I guess where I’m going with that is you and I will be sharing our own experiences and opinions of peer support. Everyone might not have the same perspective or opinion, but just to start a conversation for people who aren’t familiar with peer support or thinking about peer support, I think this is an important conversation to have and I hope it’ll lead them to ask more questions.

I want to ask you, what are some things in your mind that peer support isn’t? For me, as an example, my opinion is that peer support should not be about sharing war porn as an example. It’s not for people who might be wondering, you don’t sit down and talk about every excruciating detail of your trauma because if you’re sitting across from a peer, it’s just, it potentially could be triggering and difficult for them. As you’re talking about, maybe it’s more about how did that incident make you feel? On the days when you’re remembering how that made you feel, how are you getting through that day? My question again is like, what do you think peer support isn’t?

Brian

I think out of the kindness of our hearts, when something works for us, we want to spread it. If you do that the wrong way, you’re going to take on the appearance of a doctor and you aren’t one. I think that’s what it isn’t. It’s not direction. It’s not medical advice. One clear example in my own history was, well, it was other peers that made me consider the service dog program. I’m happy that they did. Everything was going fine. You know what? I have nothing bad to say, but I can look back at this point and remember talking to other people and telling them, no, you need to get an Elkhound. You know why? Because I have one and she’s amazing.

Therefore, this is what you need to do. It’s that last statement, that’s where you don’t go, right? Everything up until then is true. This is what other people recommended to me. I’m finding it’s working. These are the things I’m getting out of it. It’s all positive. Now what you need to do is buy leg brace X, or no, you shouldn’t be on that pill. I was. My doctor moved me off of Effexor and onto X. You need to go.

That’s where we’re wrong. That’s my sense of it, is it comes from the best place, Laryssa. It’s like, I think Veterans are so desperate to get healthier that they’ll try anything while they’ll recommend anything too. Even in your own history, you might look and go, okay, well, this thing worked. Now, did it work or was it the thing that pulled the clog out of the drain and then everything started flowing behind it?

I’m a peer support specialist. That is what I specialize in. I’m not the one that can actually look at myself and go, when did I get better or when was all the groundwork that got me to that point? If I think that it’s because I came off that pill or put on that knee brace or had that type of dog, that’s what I’m going to tell you to do. Whatever, that’s the absolute wrong answer for you right now.

Laryssa

Right. It sounds like peer support can be like one contributor or one tool to put in the toolbox. That recovery isn’t about just one tool in the toolbox. It’s about tapping into a bunch of different things. Maybe people can tap into peer support, but they’re also maybe tapping into yoga or trying something different. All of those things lead you towards recovery. I think that’s an important consideration.

Brian

You said at the beginning that you miss it. What do you miss?

Laryssa

I just miss my community in that way. I miss my peers. While I was the peer support provider, it’s interesting because I worked really hard to try and find a balance. I wasn’t there for my own peer support. That was something that I had to be conscious of. This is about the person I’m sitting across the table from. I’m holding space for them. If I need to get stuff off my chest, I need to go to the person I go to for peer support. That’s not to say I didn’t still get something out of there.

My peers taught me so much. I took a lot away from those meetings. I do miss that part of it. It’s very rewarding. As difficult as it was, it’s probably one of the hardest things that I’ve done work-wise. Especially because I live it every day, that was difficult too. It was so rewarding, especially when you could see people who felt so alone, they were at a point of desperation, they felt disconnected. Even if it was just for that hour with a cup of coffee, if they felt someone understood them and then maybe walked right back into difficult stuff, at least I gave them that reprieve and could give that different perspective to them. Yes, just lots of layers of stuff that I really do miss.

Brian

When other Family members would come to you to talk, in general terms, no names, no pack drill, right? What were they looking for?

Laryssa

It’s interesting. I think a lot of them didn’t know what they were looking for when they first came. I would often ask them like, what made you reach out? They just, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them wanted tools and strategies. What can I go home and do tonight that’s going to make a difference in my household and support my Veteran or my loved one?

I’m smiling right now, if people can’t see, because it was just so interesting to me that the first time I would sit down with peers and I would ask them like, how are you doing? They would proceed to tell me how their loved one missed taking their medication for three days in a row. There was their clinical appointment that they slept through, and they had three nightmares in that week or whatever. They would proceed to tell me how their loved one was doing. I would let them do that because they’re so tied to their loved one. Then I would say, okay, thank you for telling me all that, but I want to know how you’re doing.

Often when I asked that the second time and just was quiet and held that space, they would break down because I think for a lot of Family members, it would be the first time that someone would ask them that question and not just breeze past it when they answered by how their loved one was doing. I think Family members were looking for tools and strategies. They were looking for validation, even though they might not have known it. I think they were looking for maybe permission to focus on themselves.

It might’ve been individual, but those are some of the overarching things that I saw for the Family members and just acknowledgement that they were impacted in their own right. As we were talking about, there’s lots of peer support programs, some national, some local. You’re more hard pressed to find ones that have carved out that niche for the specific needs for Family members.

Brian

I think for a lot of my peers, what they’re looking for is a place to say that it’s really hard to come back to Canada and that that’s okay. The lands of bombs and bullets and rockets and things like that, and it’s not all like that. Let’s be fair, there’s bombs and bullets and volleyball and poker games. That’s what those environments have. It is really hard to come down that escalator and no one at the bottom of the escalator wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that coming home to me is hard. We believe it’s joyous and it’s a Family reunion.

My experience is that give it seven days and half those guys would go back if it was humanly possible. Why? It’s so hard to explain to the people you really do love that it’s not you, but it is this environment. It is, “I don’t feel I belong here anymore.” Those things like, “Good luck trying to tell that to your wife four days after you’ve come back from somewhere.” I wouldn’t recommend it, by the way. There’s a reason we do decompression training with your peers. There’s a reason we don’t say, “Go on a six-week vacation right now.” We do disembarkation leave, and then you’ve got to come back. There are reasons that the military has structured how you come home, and they release you to your home in stages, and it’s wise, but I think it’s only really in a group of peers that you’re going to hear that come out, at least come out right away.

I think that’s what peer support can do at its best. Like, “You’re not saying I don’t want to be with my Family, but it might come out like that, maybe try it with Bob first.”

Laryssa

Yes, that’s right.

Brian

Right?

Laryssa

One thing I want to point out too is that, you and I sought out peer support for our own experiences. You’re talking a little bit about that transition piece and integration that that was difficult, so you turn to your peers. For me, I provided peer support around operational stress injuries within the military. Peer support can be for whatever you might experience things. As a Veteran, you might be experiencing chronic pain, there’s probably groups for that. It might be military sexual trauma, it could be a whole range of things.

For Family members, again, it could be, we’re talking about mental health, that’s what Atlas is focused on in our work is, so you might be seeking that as a Family member on how to support your loved one with a mental health injury, or it might be a toddler. You’re a mother of a toddler, and you’re looking for that. Just wanted to put out there that you and I are speaking to our own experiences, but seek out other peers for what you might be looking for that validation on or where someplace where you’re feeling stuck. There’s a whole range of folks who have probably gone through something similar to what you did.

Brian

If I look at the last bit of my time in uniform where the writing was on the wall, and I knew it was coming to an end. As you’re doing some activities that are relatively fun and interesting, the traditional army stuff, shooting, training, that kind of thing. I remember as those things were happening, thinking to myself like, “Man, I’m going to miss this. That’s the last time I’m going to fire that, repel off that.” That kind of thing. I don’t have any of that sensation now. It’s there. If there was the opportunity, yes, okay, I would go scratch that itch, but there’s no pain from that.

I wish that I’d have had a good honest conversation with each one of the guys that was there. That’s what I miss. Well, there are ways that you can handle that. In fact, you’ll find they probably miss you too, phone them. I get a lot of that out of, I guess, peer support now. It doesn’t even have to have the support side to it, sometimes. That will just naturally happen. It’s just, “Can we find an excuse for the five of us to be in a room together?” If I ride in a van in circles around Vancouver, but the people in it are fun, I promise you I’m going to have a blast.

It’s not about where we’re going, but that’s probably something in that whole transition phase that shocked me. I thought I was going to miss the stuff, the things. I definitely do miss the operations, but every soldier knows in the back of their mind that there’s going to be a time where the knees and the hips give out and you don’t get to do that anymore. Until the day I die, I get to phone those guys. It is sometimes the conversation. It’s also sometimes just the smirk from the other end of the room, knowing exactly what that person’s thinking. That’s peer support, too.

Laryssa

It’s connection.

Brian

Right?

Laryssa

Yes. It’s feeling connected.

Brian

Yes, it’s the people, but what about it?

Laryssa

Exactly. We talked a little bit about peer support isn’t. I think for people who are maybe interested in peer support, it’s okay to ask questions. Just like you’re shopping for a new car or whatever. If you don’t want to find a new clinician or a new doctor, ask them questions. If you’re wanting to engage with peer support, ask them questions. Ask questions about how they maintain confidentiality. I think that’s something that a lot of people, that’s important to them, especially within this community. Ask what type of peer support is it. One-on-one, is it group support? Just encouraging people to do a little bit of education. You can get online, there’s places to look that show you a map of peer support across Canada, and if it’s the right fit for you.

One thing that I want to talk about with you, though, is if people are providing peer support, support for the supporter. I said, for me, I loved my job doing peer support, was a full-time job, talking to other Families, supporting someone with operational stress injury, and then I would go home and support someone with operational stress injury. It was sometimes hard to separate that because you’re drawing from your own personal experience. You’re being authentic.

I wasn’t silent the whole time I was sitting across from people. I would disclose a little bit for them to know that I understood them or that I could see where they were coming from. Peer support, sometimes you’re giving a little tiny piece of yourself when you’re sitting across from your peer, or it might be triggering for something or reminiscent of something you went through. Let’s talk a little bit about support for peer supporters.

Brian

Put it this way. If there’s a no-go zone in your own life, a peer support group will probably go there. If you’re doing it in the truest sense of, “Laryssa, I don’t know what’s going on right now. Can we chat about it?” That could go anywhere. It could be kids, could be job, it could be anything. I think that’s one of the things you have to square up with when you walk into these situations is, “Do I have any demons I don’t want dusted off?” Because that’s going to happen. Then when that happens, “Okay, what about it?” If you walk into a peer support circumstance and you don’t already know exactly who you’re phoning, where a problem to come up, you’ve probably skipped a step.

Laryssa

I think there’s a number of things you just touched on. I think as a peer supporter, it’s important for you to explore that for yourself, what the no-go zones are. It’s okay to communicate that with your peer. Even if they’re getting into something and going, “Okay, well, wait a minute, I want to be here available to you. I’m really glad you’re opening up to me about this.” It’s really close to what I experienced. For my own boundaries, I’m going to like, I’m going to have to ask them that we not talk about it, maybe on another day, maybe I can connect you with someone who you can talk to.

I think as a peer supporter to understand where your no-go zones are and know it’s okay to set boundaries. Then yes, absolutely taking care of yourself. Setting up appointments for your own clinical support after, or if you have a mentor within your program or organization, reach out to them. For me, I have someone that I lean to for peer support. I might debrief to a certain degree with that person.

I think for peer supporters, it’s important for the program that they’re working for to be able to support them and turn to your program or organization, turn to your colleagues. Also, yes, making sure that you’re putting gas in your own tank too, and exploring a lot. It’s really hard as a peer supporter. I don’t know about you, Brian, but for me, it was hard for me to watch other folks struggle. It was hard to watch their pain.

I would almost try and sit in it with them, which is not always a good thing to do. I did peer support. I still try and keep contact with some peer support organizations, because I was passionate about it. When you’re so passionate about something, it’s hard not to give too much of yourself there too.

Brian

I was on a crabbing trip in Vancouver and out on a boat with a buddy of mine, throwing our traps out and we’re chatting. We had both been on a mission together overseas where we didn’t know that the other guy was in the country. Good friends, but we just hadn’t put two and two together, ran into each other at a bombing, right? It’s one of the funniest things in my life now. It’s like, I have a joyous moment from a bombing. I actually for that 30 seconds of running into him, I had a really good time.

That’s not normal conversation of what a great time that bombing was, right? I find it funny. He finds it funny. We’re on this crab boat and we’re talking about and having a good laugh. As we start walking through certain things about that experience, we realize that we remember it differently. At that point, it was only about four years after the event. Now I’ll say 14, 15, some odd years past, we remember it exceptionally differently, and we were actually getting mad at each other over the fact like, “No, you’re wrong. We craned that thing up at this time and then this happened.”

I remember that conversation. We’re actually getting frustrated with each other. Not a good time to do it with only two people and it’s his boat, by the way. Bad idea.

Laryssa

Do you know how to swim, Brian?

Brian

Thankfully.

Laryssa

[chuckles]

Brian

We just got to this point, it’s like, “Who cares? Doesn’t matter.” Then, and this is where the peer support training took over because we both had a bit of it, we started talking about, “Okay, what are the things that we felt then that we can still remember feeling now?” Conversation was back on. That was a teaching moment. I learned a lot there. One, how not to get thrown off a boat. Also, why did we get hung up? This is what we mean by the war porn thing, it’s a term a lot of people don’t like. What we’re referring to is, it’s not that the details are inconsequential, but to why I’m suffering right now, they might not actually matter. If we felt that incident was avoidable, and we both do, that’s what’s bothering us. If we think it was handled poorly, reported wrong. If we felt isolated and hung out to dry, and we both do, it’s like, well, there you go.

That’s a mutual connection we have, is how that event made us feel, not did they crane the bus up at this time versus that time. In the world of peer support, I’m not telling people to go and have their own crabbing story with their friend. I am saying that I have learned that what works for me is it actually doesn’t matter for me as to whether it was eight or nine people or was it a Wednesday or a Friday. Who cares? That bothered you at that level, and I get it. I get that. I feel that. That’s what it’s all about.

Laryssa

I think part of my intention for the podcast is to be open about our experiences, talk about topics that might be relevant, and that maybe for somebody listening, it might give them a piece of information, or it might motivate them, or validate them, or whatever the case is. If there’s someone listening to this episode of peer support, they’ve been isolating themselves, they don’t think anybody else understands, like I said, whatever the mechanism is, whether it’s tour or harassment or assault, whatever, it doesn’t matter. You’re feeling alone in that. What would you say to that person that’s listening right now about, what do you want them to know about peer support?

Brian

I want them to know what I got out of it, not because they’re going to find exactly that. Again, it’s like what we opened with. I feel relatively happy. I feel relatively secure. I feel that my life is generally moving in a positive direction. Those things can be felt after struggling, after going through therapy, still struggling. As you know, still have bad days, still have bad weeks. It’s survivable. Better yet, you can thrive through it. That’s the modeling aspect of it.

I don’t think the job is to go find the other guy in the 600,000 that matches your exact set of experiences. You can. You probably will find one. That’s not what we’re going after. For me, a lot of it is, do I know what the emotions are from there? Do you? All right. Let’s talk.

Laryssa

I think that wraps up another episode.

Brian

We did another one? Look at that.

Laryssa

Exactly.

Brian

Thank you all for joining us on another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Laryssa

If this conversation resonated with you or helped you in any way, I encourage you to subscribe to Mind Beyond the Mission wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you’ll be the first to know when our next episode comes out.

Brian

If someone who might relate to what we’ve shared or could find it helpful, please feel free to send it their way. We’re all on the same team.

Laryssa

Plus, we’d love to hear what other topics you’d be interested in us exploring in future episodes. Brian and I have a lot of ideas and subjects we plan to dive into, but you, the listener, have probably experienced or thought of topics that haven’t crossed our minds yet.

Brian

Please reach out if this is the case. We’re on social media at @atlasveteransca on most platforms, so please feel free to tweet at us, send us a message, or leave a review on this episode, and let us know what else you’d like to hear us talk about.

Laryssa

Brian, it’s always a pleasure having these important conversations with you. Looking forward to next time.

Brian

You bet, Laryssa. Take it easy.