3 Years After And I'm Answering Your Most Asked Questions

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Was it one particular case or one particular job that set it off that that case is kind of like the edge of the cliff? Like I actually think that you might need to go get some help. And as I was on the phone to my manager and they kind of like looked at each other and they looked at me, I maybe have been downplaying this. I vomited when I put on my uniform. How did my co-workers or my colleagues react? Oh, I'm going to get emotional over this. Happy Friday vlog vlog, guys. Happy Friday vlog.'s has come to say hi. Hi, darling. Hello.

[00:00:31]You know I'm talking to the vlog, not you, though. Yeah. Happy Friday vlog, guys. I know. Um, after our vlog challenge back in April, I said we're going we're going back to three vlogs a week. This is the first Friday vlog. I can't guarantee Friday vlogs like every single week, but I definitely am trying to do them as much as possible. I will usually post over on my Instagram story or my Tik Tok story when there is a Friday vlog up, but you can also just subscribe and like put your notifications on and that way YouTube will send you a notification every single time I post so you don't miss a vlog at all. Today's vlog is we're just going to keep it really chill, okay? Cuz it's a big topic and I know that there's lots of questions about it. Um, and I'm happy to talk about it, but I'm I won't lie, it's not easy for me to talk about it all the time or or go into depth in it. But I feel like I feel like it might be easier if I do this vlog and answer a whole bunch of questions all in one go versus constantly like like answering one or two every single day or every single week over on Instagram and Tik Tok. I feel like this will be easier to talk about it here. So, that's what we're going to do. We're doing a proper sit down vlog 3 years on after the whole saga happened for me and um and we're going to answer like the questions that I get asked the most or the the most frequently. So if you're new or you don't know me and my history, I've been on social media and creating content for six nearly seven years now. But in the first initial four three or four years, I was at university and working then after university as a paramedic back in my home state. And so social media was definitely like a fun side hobby that I did for fun on the side. Whereas now social media is like my whole life, my whole world. I do social media content creation full-time. I also have my own business that that is social media management and consulting. It's my whole world and I love it. But once upon a time, I was a paramedic back in the day.

[00:02:26]And for those of you who have been watching me for a while or have seen Tik Tok videos or Instagram videos and things like that, you will know that I left that job because I was diagnosed with PTSD. Within a pretty quick turnaround, it was determined that I would never be able to go back to do that work, right? And that's what we're kind of talking about today. That's what people ask me the most questions about.

[00:02:46]Whenever I like drop that piece of information or say something about it, people are always like, "Wow, you're a paramedic." Or like, "Oh, I didn't realize that you left for that reason or whatnot." So, we're here to talk about it today. We're here to actually answer the questions that I get asked the most.

[00:03:01]Yes. But I'm also going to like kind of tell you, I guess, a bit of the story of how it all happened. So, I think starting with the story is probably a good place to start, right? To give you guys the proper background of it all. I was a graduate paramedic in the year of 2021. So, a graduate paramedic um with the service that I was with is your first year on road. So, you're fresh out of university. You've just got the job.

[00:03:23]you've gone through the the couple weeks of training and then it's time for you to go be a paramedic and it's your first one and it's still a year of study but you're just doing the study on the job.

[00:03:31]So, it's a full-time study load plus full-time shift work. And on top of that, this isn't the case for everyone, but for me the case was I was um told to go to a small rural town four to five about 4 and a half 5 hours away from where I was living. You don't really get to pick and choose these kind of things.

[00:03:48]You're told when you get the get given the job where you're going to be placed and you just kind of go, right? And so for that first year, I was doing long distance with my partner at the time. I was traveling back and forth on my days off to try and see my friends, see my family, see my partner, while doing study, while living alone for the first time ever in a small town. It was a whole lot of new stuff, right? So it was a big year. I had the most fun though.

[00:04:11]It was a really, really fun year. So hard, so challenging, but so worth it. I loved it. And then things kind of started to go south for me when I came back. So after you finish that year, you get another placement. Okay? So you've completed your graduate year and now you're considered a qualified paramedic.

[00:04:28]Okay? And once you get that qualification, you get replaced or re um assigned to a different location. And I was placed back where I was living before um in a suburb close by. It was like 20 minutes from where I was living before I moved to that small town. And it was during these first three months when the pivotal situation happened for me. um that was the catalyst for going downhill after that. So what I didn't mention is I started my graduate year in that small rural town at in January of 2021. In December of 2020, so less than 30 days beforehand, my mom had passed away. So there was a lot going on at that time. I had just lost my mom from like a a medium to short battle with cancer. It was through the height of COVID. It was a really stressful, difficult situation to deal with, right?

[00:05:19]And then I think about 4 days after she died, I got the call that I got the job.

[00:05:24]And then about 3 weeks later, I started.

[00:05:27]So this massive year that was like the the start of my career, I'd been training for it. All of this kind of stuff, a full-time study load, a full-time workload, relocating away from everyone and anyone I ever knew, all happened literally within 3 weeks of my mom dying. And that is going to take a toll on anyone, right? absolutely anyone, no matter how mentally strong you are. Okay? And so I went through that grad year and I really had to compartmentalize my my mom's death because it's such a full-on year. It's so intense in terms of study load, workload, exposure. Like you're you're doing this job that you you know, you've trained for as much as possible, but nothing will prepare you for it, right?

[00:06:04]Your first year on road is so fullon.

[00:06:06]And all the while my body and my mind is like trying to process the fact that this is all happening and my mom has only just passed away. And that was like really almost impossible to deal. So I do my graduate year and I complete that successfully. I get my replacement the year afterwards and I come back home and I'm back living with my partner at the time and things are going great and I really like the new branch that I'm working at. And then about 3 months into it, I went to a case. And a question that I get asked a lot is, was it one particular case or one particular job that set it off? And my answer is kind of yes and no. Right? There was one case that was the obvious, now in hindsight, the obvious catalyst for what happened after that. But I wouldn't say that that one case is what caused it because it was such an accumulation of so many different factors that caused it. Right?

[00:06:55]So I went to one case and I'm not going to go into the details about it at all but the reason why this case is pivotal for me is because the patient resembled my mom resembled my mom in the last kind of months of her life. Okay? And so in my brain that is already struggling to deal with everything that's going on.

[00:07:13]We're like 14 or 15 months past my mom's death. I haven't really still had a chance to process it or grieve properly.

[00:07:20]And I'm thrust back into a new situation. and I've just completed the grad year, but now I'm at a new branch and I'm back home readjusting to everything and I I meet this case and I meet this patient and something in me just like snaps. It just click like clicks but not in a good way. Um, and I couldn't see this patient as the patient that they were. I just saw them as my mom and it made me completely incapable of running that case well or successfully. The patient was okay. They didn't have any detrimental um issues or anything like that. my partner was very like on the ball and like was able to kind of work with me and bounce off it.

[00:07:56]And and paramedics will know or people in emergency services know like you're only as good as your last job. Sometimes you just have a bad day. Like sometimes your jobs just don't run that smoothly.

[00:08:05]Sometimes you you hiccup like you just have an off day and that's okay. It happens to everyone, right? I kind of put this job down as that. I was like gosh I must have just kind of dropped the ball a little bit, right? But everyone was okay. We went on me and my partner chatted about it for 15 minutes afterwards and then we just carried on essentially and now with the amount of therapy and work that I've done I know that that case is kind of like the edge of the cliff where things started to deteriorate from there right so another question I get often is how did you know what were the signs what happened right so this is in early 2022 we're talking it wasn't until February of 2023 where I recogn recognized and admitted that something was wrong and actually got assistance or help. Um, so that's nearly a year. Yeah. Nearly a year of me not being able to recognize what was going on. The people around me not recognizing, not that that's a blame, but people around me not recognizing my colleagues and my work partners not flagging what in hindsight we can see as symptoms of going on because it's so easy to just mask it all. It was just so easy to mask it all. Right. And it was it it really genuinely it isn't anyone's fault. All of the safeguards that could possibly have been put in place were in place. And I skipped through and breezed through every single one of them. There just wasn't a anyone's fault for not picking it up. And I know through so much therapy now, I still carry a lot of shame for not recognizing it earlier because it cost me so greatly to let it go that long. It cost the people around me so much more because things got so much worse before I even started treat.

[00:09:51]And the reason why it was like so easy for me to mask it or for people to not recognize what was going on is because there were really really small subtle signs. So things like my inability to concentrate. I just couldn't concentrate on a task. When someone was giving me instructions or something like a very simple task, I would lose my train of thought. I would lose I would get distracted. I would zone out immediately, you know? And these are all really common things that happen to people who are working a lot. You know, I was working shift work, 14-hour night shifts, right? It's reasonable for me the next day or two to be a little bit spaced out and and find it a little difficult to concentrate. Like that's a normal thing, right? But in this case, I I wasn't recognizing it for what it was.

[00:10:34]It wasn't normal for me because that wasn't the cause. The shift work wasn't the cause. Another thing was my anxiety exponentially. Exponentially. And I never dealt with anxiety before. I'd never experienced it as a person before.

[00:10:47]So, I didn't recognize it for what it was. I was going to my work every single day and treating patients I was seeing with anxiety and I still couldn't recognize it in myself. I think one that one thing that people might be able to um be familiar with is what I now know as the term Sunday scaries which is when someone who works a regular job like a 9 toive job on a Sunday night gets like anxiety or dread for the next morning cuz they know that they have a full week of work. That was happening to me but on like an extreme level like an extreme level. Um I like wouldn't be able to get out of bed or I wouldn't want to get out of bed the day before my first shift. I could never sleep the night before because I was so anxious going into it.

[00:11:26]I would cry all the time for hours and hours and hours and I just couldn't stop. And then and towards sort of the later months of before I got treatment, all of those symptoms started carrying on while I was at work as well. So I would be crying constantly. I couldn't focus. I couldn't complete my job. I my skills as a paramedic were rapidly deteriorating and I was not doing well.

[00:11:50]I was not doing well at all. And so it took my partner at the time to say something to me and they said like I actually think that you might need to go get some help. I feel like you need help. And like I said before, all of the the the safeguards and the fail safes were in place. So the service that I worked for had all of these different programs set up that made it really easy for me to go and get the help that I needed. So I found a psychologist which you guys know very well. I vlogged I ended up vlogging so much of my journey with that with that therapist. I don't any longer work with them. Um, but it was about 3 years that we worked together. So, I met my therapist and you know, anyone who's been in therapy, it takes time. You have to see them a few times um to kind of build up a rapport for them to understand the situation, get the history and all of that kind of stuff. Um, and so we started seeing each other in February of 2023. So, I've been in the job 2 years now and the catalyst job had happened 11 months earlier.

[00:12:46]Okay. So all of these things have been going on completely untreated and constantly retro traumatizing myself every single time I went into work. And it was 11 months later when I met my therapist. And then we needed three to four sessions or so before she could diagnose me with anything or say anything or give me any treatment plan.

[00:13:04]And so after a few of those sessions, she said, "You know what? Like how about you come in again this week? How about you come in in a couple days?" And I was like, "Oh wow, that seems seems pretty frequent. I I thought everyone would go to their therapist like once a month or maybe once every two weeks. And she was like, "No, I think you should come in."

[00:13:19]And even then, I was like, "All right, cool. Sure. Whatever you say." I thought I needed to have a chat for a couple weeks with this person, maybe learn some breathing techniques, and we'd call it a day. Like, I had no clue, absolutely no clue how bad things were and what was ahead of me, right? So, I start doing these sessions a little bit more regularly, and then something comes up which is called leave. Okay? So, essentially, it's like the planned holidays for you as a paramedic. you get these certain blocks of weeks off in a year and that's when you take your holidays. And so it was February and at the start of March I was going to take my four weeks of leave. Okay. So she said, "That's a great idea. Really good timing. Really really good timing. How about we finish out your work for February and March we'll we'll take four weeks off. We'll be able to step back, have some breathing space from this job, and really be able to reflect." And during that month of leave, I went and saw her and worked with her a fair bit.

[00:14:10]And it was in that that month of leave that she said, "I think things are worse than you realize and I think you should take some extra time off after you finish your leave." So I had four weeks of leave and then she was like, "I think you need another 2 weeks and I think you need to take stress leave." And I remember laughing like not rudely, but being like that you're joking, right?

[00:14:30]Like I don't need two weeks of stress leave. I'm on four weeks of leave now.

[00:14:33]That'll be enough. You do your thing.

[00:14:35]I'll do the work. We'll all sign our papers and we'll walk out the door. And it took her weeks to convince me.

[00:14:40]Absolutely weeks. So it was a few days before my leave was supposed to end and I was going to go back to work. And I was like, I don't need the stress leave.

[00:14:47]Okay, I don't need it. And she was like, I really think that you do. I really think you do. And so it was a couple days beforehand and I had my last session with her and she said, I think if I haven't convinced you enough already that you need to take leave and you need to initiate it, then I'm going to need to step in. And that kind of rattled me a little bit cuz I was like, what do you mean step in? like, do you really think I'm that bad? You know, and I I had this moment and I was talking to my partner and I was like, I think like I'm going to have to do this. I think I'm going to have to, you know, take the another 2 weeks. So, I called my manager and as I was on the phone to my manager, this is literally 2 days, 48 hours before I'm supposed to come back to start work, right? And I'm trying to explain to my manager on the phone that you know what, I've been seeing this therapist because I was having a bit of a tough time and I I physically couldn't get the words out and I just broke down.

[00:15:40]Completely broke down. And so much credit so much credit should be given to every single one of my managers and the senior people that were involved in this situation, especially in those immediate days because she recognized what was happening immediately. immediately before I had even really fully processed it, right? She knew that something was wrong and it was a mental thing. And so she said, "Okay, take a breath, get off the phone, do what you need to do, and then come in and we'll talk about it in person." So I went into branch, I think it was the next day, and I went into branch, and I had a chat with my um manager, and I kind of laid out everything that was going on. And even then, I was still in the mindset of like the therapist is making me do this. It's like it's not really that big of a deal, but it was starting to sink in. And when when I looked at when I had to objectively relay everything that was that that was going on with me to my manager and my senior manager, I stopped talking after I explained it all. And they kind of like looked at each other and they looked at me and they were like, "This is bad. This is really bad.

[00:16:47]And it's bad that it's gotten this far and and we haven't stepped in yet." And so like over these next couple days when when lots of things start moving and a lot of you know there's a lot of paperwork, a lot of people making a lot of calls really quickly. Um that's when it really started to hit me and I was like, "Oh, I think I maybe have been downplaying this or I haven't been willing to admit it to myself how bad things have got." So I went back to my therapist and I said, "You know, you win. You've got the two weeks of stress leave, right?" And in and in my head still at that time, I was like, "Well, she's got two weeks, so we're going to do what we need to do in two weeks and get me fighting fit because I'm going back to work afterwards, right?" I had this mindset. There was never the thought never crossed my mind that I would never return to that job, that I would never be able to do it again. It just never occurred to me. Fast forward many, many, many, many, many months, things got way worse once I had recognized and realized what was happening. Um that's when I feel like it was after that um and two weeks of stress leave which was essentially 6 weeks cuz I had four weeks off for leave and then those two extra weeks but I never went back after that but it was that 6 weeks that kind of is what I claim is like my downfall when things got really really bad. So my worst symptoms and PTSD is a very broad statement very complex. Although people who have the diagnosis have really similar experiences, I I'm not sure that there's any one person who has the exact same experience as you. For me, my major things were fatigue. I just couldn't stay awake. I was so tired, mentally drained. I was skipping meals. I wasn't showering cuz I was so tired. I physically couldn't get up and do those things. I just needed to sleep all the time. The reason why I was I was so tired is because so much of my nervous system was was burning burning burning through all of my energy. But I also wasn't sleeping at night. I would say probably the second thing for me was nightmares. I was having hours and hours and hours and hours of nightmares every single night. I was avoiding going to sleep as long as possible, staying on my phone. I used to turn up the brightness on my phone to like drill my eyes open because I was too afraid to go to sleep cuz I knew it was waiting for me. It was the same three nightmares again and again and again and again to the point where months down the line I was still having them. while I was in my nightmare, I was fully aware of what was going on. I I knew while I was experiencing it, so I'm asleep and having this dream, but in my subconscious, I knew that I was in a nightmare, and I would just be like, "Cool, I'll just wake this out. I know exactly what's going to happen." Like, that's how frequent it was for me. And then along with that, you're having all of the physical stuff as well. So, like my muscles were tense for hours while I was asleep. Um, so I'd wake up sore, exhausted. My jaw was so my teeth were ground down because I was grinding and clenching my jaw all night for hours and hours and hours while I was having these nightmares. I had a few episodes of disassociations. I had a few episodes of flashbacks. One really, really bad one, I was in the car. Um, I was sitting in the passenger seat, thank God, while my partner at the time was driving. Um, and they almost had to pull over. it got so bad I was physically um like lashing out um because in my mind I was not in that car. I was somewhere completely different. Um and then the anxiety the anxiety is something I never thought I would have to battle. I wouldn't like describe myself as a generally anxious person um until all of this happened.

[00:20:17]And that was probably one of the hardest battles and I the the most frequent battle I still have dayto-day. I still suffer from anxiety and I have just so much respect for every single patient that I ever treated with anxiety because I never knew what the experience was like. I never and I could have never understood truly what it was like.

[00:20:37]Anxiety is is probably one of the most debilitating symptoms that I have from all of this because it stops me from doing anything and everything. Not all the time, cuz some days I can go to a grocery store completely fine and things are things are great and I can complete that task without even blinking or thinking twice. Other days I'm completely incapable of stepping foot in a grocery store for no other reason than my anxiety has beaten me that day. It is truly one of the most debilitating things out of all of it. And then there's a a I would probably say a handful of other smaller symptoms, but then kind of the last one that was a really major one for me was my memory. I have now serious memory issues. I don't remember a lot of my time during all of this. I don't remember a lot of my time before this. My ability to remember small details is completely shot. The prognosis for that doesn't look great either. Um the prognosis for my anxiety and my nightmares and my memory issues, my fatigue and my concentration. They're kind of like my five major ones. They um we think are probably going to stick around for the rest of my life to some extent. So yeah, I became a really forgetful person. I would forget just day-to-day things. I constantly lose things. People ask me to do things and it it just leaves my brain completely.

[00:21:52]So objectively, when you look at all of that kind of stuff, it's kind of easy or I think it's easy to see how I could skate by and no one pick up what was going on cuz they're all quite expla easily explainable in the scenario that I was in. So I think that kind of answers the question of I get the question of what are my symptoms or what were what what did it look like for me in those initial stages and that's kind of what it was. After that 6 week period it became intensive therapy. I was doing therapy multiple times a week for months and months and months. After about 6 months or so we did start the process of me returning to work. I was determined to do it. So in about November or late October of that same year I attempted to return back to work. Um, and I was so incapable of even stepping foot into my branch, my familiar branch, um, that I vomited when I put on my uniform so that I could go in. And my managers had set up this whole day. Um, they were going to be there. They were going to be there to support me. All I had to do was just to show up to my branch or to my station and we were going to, you know, walk into the the garage. We're going to look at one of the ambulances. We might hop in there. That was the plan.

[00:23:00]um I vomited when I put on my uniform that morning and then I was incapable of stepping foot into the branch so I had to drive home. So, it was at that point that um all of the higherups, so everyone involved in my treatment, my GP, my um psychiatrist, my psychologist, all of my managers, the well-being team at my um the service I worked for were all having discussions and it was decided that I wasn't ever going to um recover enough, quick enough to maintain my skills and return to my job. I believe that determination was actually made much earlier than I was made aware of that um because there was a good chunk of that time where I wasn't capable or willing or able to make those decisions for myself. So I believe those discussions were had quite early on afterwards after that initial six week period when things were really diagnosed and and and like kind of announced. Um, but it wasn't until after that November um, scenario of me trying to go back that it was kind of shown to me and everyone around me was like, "Do you see what we're trying to tell you now? Like, this is going to take years for you to be able to successfully complete that, which is to put on a uniform, show up to branch. Can you imagine how long it's going to take for you to ever be able to maintain the skills and then and then be capable of actually applying them?" So, that was really hard. That was a really, really hard pill to swallow for me because I didn't have any other plan. I didn't know anything else. I had graduated from high school, took a couple years gap year because I was buming around and I didn't really know what to do. I was just working lots. I figured out what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a paramedic. And then I got myself into university. I did four years of study and I only got two and a bit years on the job before it was decided that I would never be able to do this job again or anything in the medical field ever again. And that was really hard to take. That was really, really hard to take because while all of this is happening, keep in mind that my partner at the time was also a paramedic. It was impossible for me to escape that world entirely. My partner was coming home every single day in their uniform wanting to talk about their work, what they did that day, all of that kind of stuff. I can't even imagine how hard it was for my partner when watching me go through that and feeling so helpless as well because they were continuing in their career. they were still doing what was causing me the most trauma. And I just I can't even imagine how hard that would have been.

[00:25:22]So, um, a question that I got that I actually haven't gotten before. This is the first time I think someone's ever asked this. There's two there actually.

[00:25:30]Um, but the first one is, how did my co-workers or my colleagues react when I left? And this is such a hard scenario to explain because in that first six weeks, the the four weeks of leave and then that two weeks of stress leave, right? No one knew. My colleagues didn't know that I hadn't come back. We were keeping everything hush hush. And it was easy because everyone moves around all the time. It was only my immediate like core people that would have been on shift with me like my partner that I was supposed to be working with not my life partner but like my paramedic partner would have known that I wasn't there. So it was easy to keep hush hush after it went on month after month after month though it was quite hard to keep that and anyone who has ever experienced this knows emergency services is like a small world right the rumor mill runs rough and so it didn't take long after you know a couple months of me just not being there anymore for people to start wondering and asking what was going on and truthfully I can only speak to my experience okay I can only speak to my experience. It was so hard because these people are not just your colleagues.

[00:26:42]They're your friends. They're the people that you see the most. You see them more than you see your family and friends outside of it. You live, eat, breathe, sleep, work with these people. Okay? So, I can't explain enough how ingrained in my life their presence was. And to go from that to just completely cut off.

[00:27:04]Completely cut off. I didn't speak to any of them for months. I didn't hear from any of them for months. This is not a go with them. I'll explain it in a second. I was completely cut off from all of the normal people. And the reason was is because it was so traumatizing to me. I had to make a clean break. I wasn't allowed to be around anyone talking about it. I wasn't allowed to be around my my partner at the time had to leave their uniform at work and not come home in it because that was too triggering to me. Right? So all of my friends who slowly but quickly found out what was going on couldn't even reach out to me, couldn't even message me or hang out with me on the on their days off or anything like that. I needed such a a distinction away from that life and that world. And when you're in that, that's all it is. That's all you do. All you do is live, breathe, eat paramedics.

[00:27:56]Like, it's just all it is, right? And so, that was incredibly hard. Incredibly hard. Now, that is not a dig at any of them. Okay? The reason why that's important is because they all knew eventually what was going on. And the longer I was out, the more I'm assuming they realized how bad things were, how dangerous things were. And the last thing you want to do when cuz it's not like we don't know that this happens, right? in the service as you're talking.

[00:28:24]We all know about it. We see the the the guys who have been in the job 35 years who are a little bit, you know, rough around the edges. They've seen a lot.

[00:28:31]They've got their own trauma, right? We are aware that this stuff happens, right? But when it happens to someone close to you, when it happens to someone young early in their career, it's scary.

[00:28:40]It's frightening cuz you go, "Wow, God, I I just saw Grace like a couple weeks ago. I ran a job with Grace just a couple weeks ago. How could this have happened?" Right? It's frightening. It's unnerving for them. and you don't want to make it worse for them, right? So, them not reaching out, them not contacting me was the right thing to do.

[00:28:59]It was what helped me initially cuz things were dangerous in that initial early couple months. Like things were not good. And then and then it had been maybe about 9 months or so and I remember my partner at the time was going to some of our friends place. They were going there and it was going to be a big group of us. um all of the paramedics, all of my old friends, all of the people I hadn't seen in months and months. And I was so anxious. I was so anxious because I hadn't seen them.

[00:29:26]All of these these hangouts and gatherings I had just skipped and not gone to for the last like 9 months. And I was so nervous. I was so nervous. And I remember it so clearly. I arrived and no one was making eye contact. No one was making it a big deal. No one did or said anything. Everyone was just like, "Hey, Grace. So good to see you. Missed you heaps. Here's a drink." Like, everyone was playing so nice. And I remember sitting down at the table and two of my friends, my friends Gemma, Gemma on one side and Kell and Steph on the other side and I sat down and I was just I was riddled with anxiety. I was exhausted. We'd only been there like 45 minutes and I was exhausted. I could barely keep my eyes open. And I sat down at the table and they were talking about a job that they had recently been on.

[00:30:08]And as I sat down, they kind of looked at each other and they looked at me and they said, "Anyway, Grace, what have you been doing?" and they just stopped their conversation about work because they knew in that moment I hadn't been around for months. They knew what was going on.

[00:30:22]They could probably see how stressed out I was. And even though they were talking about a work situation that they wanted to talk about, I had come and sat down at that table and they realized without saying or acknowledging anything or making me feel bad or or insecure or anything about it that they needed to stop talking about work now that I was here. And that was the moment where I was like, "Oh my god." Like, they forgive me for this. Oh, I'm gonna get emotional over this. They forgive me.

[00:30:48]They don't blame me. It's not my fault.

[00:30:50]And they don't think any less of me for this having happened. And they were just happy for me to be there. And that was like such a pivotal thing for me. And it has it has been some of the best friendships I've experienced in my adult life. Um, these people are the kindest, most considerate people I've ever met.

[00:31:09]They have never ever once asked me about anything if I didn't bring it up myself.

[00:31:14]And if I had brought it up, they were so compassionate and so understanding and so friendly towards me in that situation that although I felt isolated in those first months, I needed that isolation away from it. But the second I was back and I reached out again, I was surrounded with so much love and just so much support and presence in all of it.

[00:31:35]And that is just like the greatest thing in the entire world. These people are some of the truly the greatest people I know. So, I can't speak for how they felt and how they took that news and what that meant for them, but I can just speak on my experience. And although it was tough and stressful, I wouldn't have changed the way that it played out. I wouldn't have being on the other side of everything, I'm glad that it played out that way. And I'm glad that I have those people who I still talk to now. I still consider some of them like good close friends. When I go back to Melbourne, I see them. I messaged them to catch up because I miss them and they're such good friends to me. And that brings me to something else. If you have been watching the vlogs for a while and you went back to earlier in this year, earlier in this year on um in February or so, I went back to Melbourne for my friend's engagement party and they were two of my paramedic friends who who got engaged. And when I went back, obviously I see all of my old paramedic friends. I see the whole group. I see the gang, everyone. It's been 3 years now, right?

[00:32:36]Everyone's fully aware and across what's going on. They know that I'll never be a paramedic again. They know that I've started my retirement process and that I've moved on to other things. I've moved states, all of this kind of stuff.

[00:32:46]They're fully aware that things are, you know, well and truly on their way up.

[00:32:50]Even now, 3 years on, I was at that engagement party and I got myself a drink and I walked over to the bar and I, you know, joined a group of of guys that were talking and they were talking about a work case they were on. And as I walked up, they both turned to me and said, "We're just talking about work.

[00:33:07]Are you all good? Do you want us to stop?" And I was like, "Oh my god." It was just it was just the sweetest, kindest thing that they could do that it doesn't take any effort or or, you know, skin off their back to tweak these tiny little things. But it means the absolute world to me. It means the absolute world because being back in that environment, being back in Melbourne, it could be triggering enough that I I might not need to like I might not be able to talk about that kind of stuff. In that scenario, I was completely fine and I was fully capable of talking to them about it. Sometimes it's nice for me to talk about it, especially with them cuz it makes me feel like, oh, like I'm back, you know, I'm back in that world and I like the feeling of familiarity that comes with it. But even now, 3 years on, these people are so kind and so courteous and so aware of my situation um that they will they'll ask me when I join the conversation that they're talking about work stuff, do you need us to stop or not? And it's and it means nothing to them. It's like zero stress and I just think that speaks volumes about the kind of people they are. I hope that answers that question.

[00:34:09]Yeah. Another question is, do you ever regret leaving? Um, I think this is an easy answer for me, right? But I think I'll clarify the question. It wasn't my choice. It wasn't my choice. I didn't get a say in it. Um there are a few times in in life in this society where when things medically are so severe with you, you lose your autonomy or your your capability of making a decision for yourself. And that was the case for me.

[00:34:37]I didn't choose to leave. The decision was made for me. And not in an aggressive way. I wasn't kicked out or told I could never do this again. I was given every chance and every support possible to make my rehab work to be able to go back. That was the goal. That was everyone's goal, right? But it just became clear that I was never going to recover enough or fast enough to be able to successfully do that role. And that was the end of it. That's the end of the conversation. If you cannot perform the task, if you cannot perform the skills required of you to do that job, you cannot do it. So when people say, "Oh, do you regret leaving?" and I go, well, you know, how can I get regret a choice that I didn't get to make? It wasn't my choice. But if you reframe the question and ask, would I go back if I could? The answer is a,000%. I would give up everything I have now. And I said this recently to a good friend of mine and their partner and they both looked at me like quite shocked and and I was taken back by their reaction to that statement because I thought it was clear to everyone in my life that paramedics was my like absolute dream. Being a paramedic was everything to me and I loved it. It was such a hard job. But it gave me everything I wanted out of a career. Like it truly was the greatest adventure I've ever been on in my entire life. And if I turned around tomorrow and they said, "You are healed enough to come back," I would give everything up.

[00:36:03]I would give it all up. And I wouldn't think twice about it. I genuinely wouldn't think twice. I would move back to Melbourne. I would give up all of this and I would go back to that environment just to get the feeling of being a paramedic back again. Yeah. So, like I have to remind myself that I did my time. I got my chance. It wasn't as long as I wanted. Certainly not as long as I wanted. And I felt I feel still like I have so much more to give that job, but you know, I have to be okay with having done my time and call it a day. So yeah, I don't know if I can like really answer that question, but I think that answers it. Okay, this is kind of like a double-layed one, but it was said, did you seek therapy or did you get professional help? What about medi medication and how long did it take you to recover? So yes, you guys know I saw a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a GP. I was on medication for months. I was on certuline. We did increase my dose to quite a high dose at one point to try and manage the nightmares and the sleep and all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, I got a lot of therapy, like a lot of therapy, intensive therapy actually. And that is um very recently. Um it is like considered phase one of treatment, phase one of of the of the long-term plan for treatment. So obviously therapy and psychiatric help during those initial stages to make sure that I was like safe and I was okay. Um and then that ongoing therapy to deal with the trauma of everything was required. Right. And once I had dealt with it, we had a full diagnosis. The diagnosis is not even um just PTSD. It's complex PTSD with an anxiety disorder. That's the actual diagnosis if you if you are interested.

[00:37:44]So yes, lots of therapy and all of that kind of stuff. But all of that is complete. I did all of the work. I now self-manage all of my symptoms. I manage it with breathing techniques, anxiety controlling techniques. I'm not on medication anymore. Um, and my day-to-day lifestyle, right? But I recently had um like a check-in session with a psycho psychologist and it is time for me to start phase two or the next phase which is going to be retraining of my brain during that trauma. So the recommendation is that I seek EMDR therapy through a emergency services trained trauma therapist. It is a lot. It is going to be a lot. Um during the discussion we spoke about you know what what that kind of therapy is going to look like, how long it's going to be. We're looking at 3 to 5 years, another 3 to 5 years of this work and that's after three successful years of therapy with my therapist and with a psychiatrist. So, when we talk about um recovery and all of that, it's a really long road. It's a really, really long road for me to get back to a new version of what grace will look like. A hard pill for me to swallow is to realize that I will never be back to what I was beforehand. I can be back to a or go to a a new version, a different version of me, but I will never be capable of um returning back to what I was like beforehand. So, I will probably always have um symptoms like these that I need to manage in some form and in some um level of severity and that will impact my day-to-day life for the rest of my life, which is a pretty hard pill to swallow at the age of 31. So, now knowing all of that story, you have all of the backstory. I've answered all those questions. we can answer some of the other questions that I get from and what I'm assuming are people who are interested in becoming a paramedic or are already baby paramedic so studying or early on in the their career and some of the questions I get is if you could go back would you still choose to become a par paramedic I would the answer is yes I would go through all of this again to have served my community and done the work that I did and learned what I did and met the people that I did for those two years that I was on road or two and a bit years so I would I would go through it all again what would you tell your younger self starting out, um, enjoy it while you can. My career was way shorter than I ever planned for it to be, and like I said before, I would give up anything to go back to it. So, enjoy it while you can. Have fun. What's something that you wish the public knew about PTSD? Uh, that's a great question.

[00:40:12]It's Gosh, what how do I even answer that? What's something I wish the public knew about PTSD? I don't know if there's anything that I I wish that the public knew. I think PTSD has its own kind of stigmas around it or stereotypes around it. I'm not going to argue. They're like pretty accurate like a good amount of the time, you know. Um I think even when I was, you know, I had a medical degree and I was working as a medical professional, I didn't give anxiety and PTSD, these kind of things, the weight that it deserves. I didn't realize it was as debilitating as it was. Um and so even when I was working and trained in that field, I still didn't fully understand it. So maybe if I wish the public understood the severity and the weight that those silent um diagnosises are for people. And then the last one is what are the signs and things like signs and symptoms for people to look out for in their colleagues in their friends around them or in themselves. I had a friend ask me this like relatively recently and it was really hard for me to answer because I genuinely couldn't say you know they were asking me what did I miss as your friend? like how could I have known um to like look out for that kind of stuff? And it was really hard for me to answer because I said I was living it and I couldn't even recognize it. I was trained in it and I couldn't even recognize it in myself.

[00:41:27]How do I expect my friends and family to recognize that kind of stuff? But what I would say is compare them to before and how drastic is the change? Because we all know the the analogy of the frog in hot water. If they jump into hot water, they jump straight out. But if they jump into cold water that slowly gets hot, they stay. So if you see a slow gradual change in them, you're less likely to notice it. But if you're starting to see changes, compare them to what they were beforehand. And if that is drastically different, then I think you should probably step in and or say something because I think if the people around me, and this is not a judgment on them, but if the people around me and myself had compared myself to what I was like when I first started paramedics to the month that I left, you would see a dangerously different person. A dangerously different person. I was fully incapable of functioning as an adult. Like as a as a person at all. And if you had compared those two, it would have said something really really is is wrong here. Okay, that is enough about all of that. I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you have other questions, send them in my DMs. You can post them in the comments down below. I try and answer as much of them as possible, but sometimes it is a tough topic for me to talk about. I hope this answered as many of them as possible. If you want to be a paramedic or if you're thinking about it, do not let this scare you, okay? It happens. It is part of life. But I would do everything over again just to experience the joy and adventure that that job gave me. And I don't regret it for a sec. If that is you, I wish you luck on your career.

[00:42:58]You're going to have the best time ever.

[00:42:59]It's it's truly the greatest job ever.

[00:43:01]And um and if you need to talk about this kind of stuff, my inbox is always open. Otherwise, I'll see you guys on Sunday for another vlog.