Video Transcript

Jake's Story - What I learnt from therapy.

[JAKE IN WOODSHOP]

There are certain things in life that are completely outside of your control.

You can have all your ducks in a row and then something's going to throw a spanner in the works.

Growing up, I was super energetic, super playful, loved getting out of the house.

My parents separated when I was six. Your parents at that age are God in your eyes, so not having  

one of them around, you don't really understand separation, you don't understand why they've gone.

And then dad was killed in a workplace accident.

When you're 11 years old and you're traumatised by something like that, you  

just immediately look for someone to blame or something to blame. And I blamed myself.  

So, I felt incredibly guilty, I felt extraordinary self-loathing. I was like, 'this is all my fault'.

It was really a case of pushing crap uphill all the time.

My lowest point came, I was 18 at the time, I was at a friend's  

house for New Year's and I probably had a bit too much to drink. I tried to take my own life.

I feel guilty all the time, I hate myself, and if I have to put up with this for another 50 years, I'm not interested.

[JAKE PLAYING BASEBALL WITH BROTHER]

I turned 22, I'd been around just as long without Dad as I had been with him.  

I knew that there was an issue that i wanted to fix, 

So I started going to therapy and my attitude was, I'll come in crack me open, pour me out on the 
table and let's just fix this.

[JAKE AT BASEBALL TRAINING WITH FULL TEAM]

I read 'The Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius.

He's very honest with himself in it, where he'll have a conversation with himself.

What I like most about stoic philosophy is that it really does try to encourage in you an ability to look after yourself.

To understand that there's a lot of things that are out of your control, and that's okay.

One important thing I learned from therapy was I had no responsibility for what happened to dad.

I learned how to understand and deal with emotions and I mean I'm not saying I've got

it all under control, but once you're aware of it, it makes it much more easy to manage.

My brothers and I growing up, we really weren't very open with each other.

We all dealt with what happened differently.

Having them there, knowing that I can talk to them about it just makes

any issue that you have to deal with so much more manageable, because you don't feel like  

I'm in this by myself. I have someone that I can talk to and get a perspective from.

And if I need to, they can take some of that weight off my shoulders.

You can lie to other people, you can lie to your spouse, your family members, your friends,

but you can't lie to yourself. Just acknowledging it, instead of letting it be  

that elephant in the room means that you can start putting steps in place to fixing it.

The initial pain of opening up might be extraordinary,

but I didn't talk about it for 11 years and it was much harder.