Stillness in the StormsA podcast with Steven Webb Join Weekly Calm

Episode 17 · 19 February 2020 · 18:57

How to Save Someone's Life! The MOST DIFFICULT Story I've Ever Told

Why is asking for help the hardest thing we ever do? Because shame is the lowest feeling there is, and shame does not ask.

Subject: Hard Times & Resilience

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Stillness in the Storms · Episode 17

Why is asking for help the hardest thing we ever do? Because shame is the lowest feeling there is, and shame does not ask.

This is the most difficult story I have told. I have been in the place where you are waiting for a phone that does not ring. I was there, and it got cold, and I had made my decision. Then I saw a face in my head and I could not do it to her. Not because I was being selfish. Because I loved her. The other lesson took longer. People want to help. At an air day in Farnborough in the summer of 1992 they lifted me into a cockpit, and I nearly said no, and saying no would have taken something from them too.

One thing to try: If you are in it, put one person on the end of the phone. You do not have to say what it is about.

In this episode

  • (1:42) Asking for help is one of the hardest things we do
  • (3:00) Shame is the lowest of the low feelings
  • (4:11) People want to help, but we have to ask
  • (5:30) Farnborough air day, summer 1992
  • (6:36) The cockpit, and what I nearly took from them
  • (9:06) Alone in a world of seven billion people
  • (11:16) The face that stopped me
  • (12:38) Nothing is permanent. Hang in there

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

The story behind this one

I recorded this and then left it on the computer for two days, because I did not think anybody would want to hear it. Then I listened back and thought somebody might need it.

It is heavy. That is your warning.

I have been in the place where you sit somewhere with a phone that is not going to ring, because nobody knows where you are or what you are about to do, and you are checking it anyway.

I wrote the letter. I left it printed out at home. I knew exactly where I was going and what would happen if I went over that edge, and I knew that unless somebody saw me the chances of anybody reaching me were about nil.

I sat there for a couple of hours. The battery got low and I thought, perhaps when it goes flat. The light started going and I thought, perhaps when the sun does. Then it got cold, and I decided I would give myself ten minutes to think about the good things, so that at least I would go with a decent memory in my head.

And in those ten minutes I kept arriving at the same picture. My daughter at the front of the funeral, and her face.

I could not do it to her. Not out of guilt about being selfish. Because I loved her. And the moment I saw that, it turned over completely, because loving her meant I had something to live for.

I came home. Nothing at all had changed and everything had.

What it taught me

Asking for help is the hardest thing there is, and shame is why.

Shame is the lowest feeling we have, and by the time you are in it you have already decided that reaching out will be met with ridicule, or that your problems are not big enough to bother anybody with.

Nobody is comparing. There is always somebody worse off and somebody better off, and you have no idea what muscles either of them built to carry theirs.

And here is the thing my friends would have said afterwards, if I had gone. They would have been furious with me, not for the leaving, but for not telling them.

The other half took me longer to see. People want to help.

Summer of 1992, an air day at Farnborough, a year after my accident. There was a queue to sit in a fighter jet and I was desperate to. An RAF chap came over and offered to lift me in. I said no, no, I am fine, and I lied.

I did not just disappoint myself. They wanted to do it. Putting me in that cockpit might have been the best part of their day, and I took it off them.

Not every problem needs solving. Pain is part of the course. Suffering is optional.

Questions people ask

What do I do if this is me right now?

Tell one person. Your doctor counts, a friend counts. You do not need them to fix anything, and they cannot anyway. Say it out loud to somebody, because the not saying is the part that does the damage.

What do I say if I ring somebody?

This: I do not need you to fix it, I just need you on the end of the phone. That is a complete and reasonable request and most people are relieved to be given it, because they were frightened of not knowing what to say.

How do I help somebody I am worried about?

Do not offer holidays and solutions. Say you are there, and then be there. A message saying how are you doing today, meant properly, does more than people believe.

Why is this so personal for you?

My granddad took his own life when I was twelve. He had his breakfast, said goodbye to my nan, and walked up into the fields. I did not understand then how final it was, and at forty seven I still find it comes back and knocks the wind out of me.

Read along

The transcript

It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.

suffering · vulnerability · personal-story · healing

Read the transcript

Just be on the end of the phone for me.

Just be on the end of the phone for me.

And I'm getting upset doing this recording because.

Not.

Because I'm at that position at the moment.

I'm not.

I haven't been there for a long time, but I can feel when I

was in those positions, I can feel when I was.

And it's a real hard place to be.

Taking your life is not a weakness.

That's.

That's something that takes such brevity that so many people

haven't got.

And I didn't have that.

I wasn't brave enough to do it.

Hey, I'm Stephen Webb, and welcome to my podcast.

I recorded this podcast a couple of days ago, and when I finished

it, I didn't edit it.

I left on the.

I was gonna say back burner.

I left it on the computer.

I did not look at it for a couple of days because it was more

so that I wanted to get something out.

I wanted to share my thoughts.

And I didn't know whether it was going to make a podcast or not.

And when I finished recording it, I was, nah, no one's gonna want

to listen to that.

That's like, really?

But it helped me in the moment.

And then I came to it a little earlier and I started editing it,

and I thought, you know, this is a story people need to hear.

People need to know about these things, and maybe it'll save

a life.

Maybe my story will save somebody out there, one of your friends.

Maybe it'll even save you one day when things take a turn for the

worst, or perhaps they have at the moment.

I think enjoy is the wrong word.

But, you know, now then I know that asking for help is one of the

most difficult things we can do.

We.

We feel so bad, and we feel such in a shame, guilt loop that

asking for help.

We feel like we're a failure or we feel like we should be able

to cope with this.

We feel like our problems are nothing compared to other people's.

Well, that's just all the bullshit we tell ourselves.

Let me tell you something.

Whatever you're going through right now, whatever your friends

are going through, what you've been through in the past, or what

you may go through in the future, it's relative to you.

And don't compare your troubles to somebody else.

There's always someone worse off.

There's always someone better off.

But what you don't know is what muscles they've grown to deal

with those things in their lives.

I want this podcast to really reach those people out there that

just sometimes feel like giving up and sometimes feel like

the pain is way too much to bear any longer and even reaching

out for help, that the shame is then too much to bear.

You know, shame is the lowest of low feelings.

When we get that low that we feel shame, we don't see any way

out.

The last thing we want to do when we're feeling that low is to

ask for help.

And I want to share a couple of stories of when I attempted suicide

and the next time when I wrote the letter and left home to kill

myself.

I'm going to share with you what stopped me doing it.

But before that, I'm Stephen Webb and I'm your host.

And this podcast may be of a somber mood, but it's really important

and it needs saying.

I'm not even going to do my normal introduction.

Let's just get on with the podcast.

We suffer to be a human means to feel things.

And the more pain we go through, the deeper we feel things.

If we go through problems as a child, we grow empathy.

Growing empathy means we feel our pain, we feel other people's

pain.

The more we wake up spiritually, the deeper we feel hurt.

We really do.

The most difficult thing I found with being paralyzed is asking

for help.

Yeah, just, hey, I need help.

And one of the really important lessons I've learned is

people want to help, but we have our own lives.

We're doing our own thing.

We don't always see when somebody else is suffering.

So I'm sorry to all my friends out there that are suffering at the

moment, I'm sorry, I don't overly know you are suffering, but

if you are and you don't say, I, I need help, I don't know what

to do unless you tell me, I cannot sit with you.

I cannot be there because I don't know.

It's not because your friends don't care.

It's not because.

It's not because we're wrapped up in our own lives so much that

you're irrelevant to us.

It's the fact that sometimes we don't know if it's not on our

awareness, if we're not.

If you don't bring it to our attention, we're not going to know

you are suffering and people want to help.

And this is on a slightly different subject now, but I remember

being at.

It was one of the very first times I was out in a wheelchair about

12 months after I broke my neck.

It was the summer of 1992, and I was at an air day in Farnborough,

and it was a really hot day.

It's crazy hot.

And there was a big queue for people queuing up to get to sit on

a fighter jet.

And I was really envious.

I was like, I'd love to go and sit in that fighter jet.

And someone was pushing me around because I wasn't in an electric

wheelchair at that point.

So someone was pushing me around.

And I watched them for a while, watched a few photographs

taken and all.

And one of the RAF guys come over and said, would you like to

sit in it?

I said, no, no, no, not at all.

I'm absolutely fine.

I said, are you sure we don't mind?

No, no, no problem.

No, I really don't want to.

But of course I lied.

I did want to.

And at that point, I think, well, I just disappointed myself.

I didn't.

I disappointed them as well.

They wanted to help.

They reached out to help.

They.

How do I know?

They might have put 200 people sitting in that cockpit that day,

but them putting me in that cockpit, lifting me up and placing

me in there, that might have made their day.

And I deprived them of that feeling because of my stubbornness,

my shame.

That's what it was.

My vulnerability and shame that, you know, I didn't want to

put anybody out.

Well, bullshit.

Put people out.

If you're suffering, put people out.

Make a phone call, turn around and get older.

Someone and say, look, I'm.

I'm suffering here.

I don't need you to fix it.

I don't need you to be a psychiatrist.

I don't need anything other than just be on the end of the phone

for me.

Just be on the end of the phone for me.

And I'm getting upset doing this recording because.

Not because I'm at that position at the moment, I'm not.

I haven't been there for a long time.

But I can feel when I was in those positions, I can feel when

I was.

And it's a real hard place to be.

Taking your life is not a weakness.

That's.

That's something that takes such brevity that so many people

haven't got.

And I didn't have the.

I wasn't brave enough to do it.

I don't want to say when, but I did write a letter at some point

in recent years, and I left it on the printer, printed out, it was

a suicide letter.

And I left my home and I planned where it was going to happen.

And I knew that if I drove my chair off the edge I would be rolling

down the bank and I would end up in a river at the bottom.

I knew that unless anybody seen me go over the edge, I would

have been there long enough that the chances of survival would

have been virtually zero.

And of course, when I left the house, that's what I wanted.

I wanted the pain, the guilt, everything else.

I just wanted it all to go.

I could not cope anymore.

I was alone in a world of 7 billion people.

I had friends around me, but I felt so alone.

And I didn't feel alone because my friends didn't care about

me.

I felt alone because I did not tell my friends I was suffering.

And if I had done that that day, I know how my friends would

have felt.

They would have been so mad with me for not reaching out to them.

Well, I left here.

And of course you know how the story ends, but you don't know why.

So I left here.

I headed down to the place and I sat there.

And I sat there for a good couple hours and my phone was getting

quite flat.

And I thought that, you know, well, perhaps when my phone goes

flat, I would do it.

Perhaps when the sun goes down, I would do it.

And I kept checking my phone to see whether anybody was messaging

me or calling me.

And of course, nobody knew where I was to or what I was doing

or what I was planning on doing.

And yet I was there waiting for people to call.

And then it started to get a bit cold.

And I made the decision that, right, I would do it in 10 minutes.

I'm going to spend 10 minutes thinking about all the good things

in my life and what I've enjoyed in my life.

And then I would do it because at least I will have a good memory.

So that's what I did.

And.

And after a few minutes, I kept going back to one vision.

And that was the vision of my daughter right at the front, in front

of everybody else at the funeral.

And her face and the tears down her eyes.

And I realized in that moment that I could not do that to her.

It wasn't about being selfish.

It wasn't about all that.

It was about that I loved her.

And that meant.

And then it flipped around suddenly because that meant I had

something to live for.

I wasn't alone in this world.

Someone was going to miss me.

And then I realized lots of people were going to miss me.

And I realized my life wasn't that bad that week.

And I decided that, well, if things don't improve, maybe I'll

come back next week.

So I came home And I come through the door.

Nothing had changed.

It was okay, but everything had changed for me.

There was this sudden change in.

I wanted to hug my daughter.

I wanted to suddenly live.

I wanted to see more days.

The problem is with death.

It's final.

It really is final.

And there's no coming back from it.

There's no second try.

And nothing is permanent either.

Not your pain, not the hard times, not the good times either.

Nothing is permanent.

Everything is in a.

In a state of fluid flux.

The good times will come and go.

The bad times will come and go.

Just hang in there, ask for help, phone your friend and don't

phone your friend and say, I need you to help fix my life.

You know how to fix your life.

You know what you got to do.

It's not about that.

It's really about having a friend to just sit there with you

and listen.

Not to fix you, not to fix.

Not to come up with any suggestions.

Not to go, oh, let's go and do this.

Let's go on holiday.

Stop.

Stop.

Just be there.

Just phone a friend and say, I don't even need you to talk.

Can you just be there for me?

And then sit in silence, if that suits.

But allow your friend the space.

There's nothing more lonely on earth than when you're in such deep

shame that you cannot open up to vulnerability because you think

you're going to be ridiculed from.

Well, just completely.

So, yeah, this is a bit of a different podcast, a little bit of

a different downer.

You know, I make no apologies for it because I want people to know.

I want people to know this.

If you're suffering, reach out.

Just reach out to that friend and say, can you just be with me?

I'm suffering here.

So thank you for bearing with me on this podcast.

And I do know it's different, and I do know it's not so upbeat,

but I think it's really important to let people know that

they're not alone in this world and you're not alone.

You don't have to suffer alone.

And even if you don't think you're going through problems now,

one day you'll have problems.

I'm sorry.

That's.

That's the reality of life.

You know, if you've gone through life so far and you've never

had any problems, really, good luck when you get problems, because

you will really struggle.

If you've been through life and you've got through your problems,

congratulations.

You built the muscles to help you deal with it later.

And Remember, not every problem needs to be solved.

Not every problem is there to be got rid of.

Suffering is part of the course.

Suffering is no worse than any other kind of pain.

I should rephrase this really.

Pain and hurt is part of the course.

Suffering is optional.

You know, we can get out of suffering.

If you listen to some of my other podcasts, you'll see I talk

about that quite a bit.

But pain will happen again and again.

It's okay.

Pain is part of what makes us brilliantly awesome, amazing humans.

Please share this podcast with anybody you think may be suffering.

Or even if you don't share with them directly, let them know

subtly in some way that you're there.

A simple message of, hey, how are you doing today?

Hey, I'm here.

I know you're suffering.

It means the world to people.

And I think this subject really falls heavy on my heart because

my grandad committed suicide when I was 12.

He had a full breakfast one morning and he said goodbye to my

nan and went up into the fields and he shot himself.

And I didn't know how final that was.

And I still don't realize today.

I'm nearly, well, 47 years old, and every time I lose someone

in my life, holy crap, I'm never gonna see them again.

And it keeps coming back every now and again, doesn't it?

You ever think that about someone you've lost, it just suddenly

comes into your subconscious mind every now and again that they're

gone forever?

Man.

This isn't a podcast of miserable and suffering.

This is a podcast of love.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not this wonderful blissful thing that gives you these

wonderful orgasmic feelings.

Love is an open heart.

Love is about being alive.

Love is about feeling each other's pain, being there for each

other, helping each other, and recognizing that suffering is a human

condition.

And the best antidote for it is anecdote.

Antidote.

Whatever it is, whatever the word is, the best help for it is

for someone to be there and allowing that person to know that

you are there.

That take care, have a good week.

And I'm Stephen Webb and you can go to Stillness in the Storms.com

you can download a book, finding your inner peace, five simple

steps to more freedom, love and happiness.

And if you can support me in the work I do, that would be awesome

by sharing this.

And if you get a Stillness in the storms, you could treat me to

a coffee.

You're awesome.

Stay, you enjoy life.

Live every aspect of it.

Take care.

Bye.

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