Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: From service to survival, navigating ptsd purpose and purpose built rescue.
I really hope you'll join us here for a very raw, riveting conversation with Graham Betts.
He's a retired Canadian armed forces sergeant, 32 year veteran with the Peel Regional Police, ordained chaplain and the visionary behind the Valhalla Project Niagara. Now, after being diagnosed with PTSD himself, Graham turned his lived experience of trauma to survival and service into a mission, creating a safe, insightful community and program for veterans and first responders experiencing post traumatic stress. So thank you so much for being along here. My name is Rob Daniels and in this episode we are going to explore this journey from heavy frontline service to the personal reckoning of ptsd.
Also, how Graham transformed his own healing path into the creation of a nonprofit and residential program and learn to live again for others. Also, the power of peer based lived experience versus traditional therapeutic models, practical coping tools, lifestyle adjustments and the role of service dogs in PTSD recovery. Lessons on leadership, resilience and purpose driven change from someone who has walked the walk. So whether you are a veteran, a first responder out there, mental health advocate, or simply someone interested in how purpose arises from pain, this conversation is going to challenge, inspire and deepen and deepen your understanding of trauma, recovery and transformation. So officially, I'd like to welcome you to awareness. This is episode 28. Graham Betts. Thank you for being here.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Thank you for inviting me on, Rob. It's my pleasure.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Of course. And I say that correctly, right? The last bets or Betas?
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Bettis.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Bettis. My bad.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Okay, so no worries at all.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: So, Graham Bettis.
And I mean, you've certainly gone through a lot and you, you've sent me so many of your accolades. I mean, the lit. Your resume is huge. Do you have time to sleep? I mean, with all that you've. You do and have done in your.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: In your life, I. I guess I'd say I try to stay busy and along the way I've just managed to accumulate accolades. Along the way?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, things.
You've spent your life in service, first with the Canadian Armed Forces, then over three decades with Peel Regional Police.
What did those years teach you about duty along with identity and, and even resilience?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Well, I guess from as long as I can remember, I was always drawn to service in uniform in one way or the other.
As a young child, my family actually deployed overseas with my father and he was an observer for the United nations in Israel. So we lived there for approximately a year, spent a number of weeks in the Bomb shelters before we came back to Canada.
Shortly after my 16th birthday, I joined the Canadian forces as a reservist.
Underwent my training and on my 19th birthday, or sorry, and when I was 19 years old, deployed overseas with the United nations myself.
While I was there, my brother joined Peel Regional Police and he was telling me what, what a highly rewarding endeavor it was. So when I returned back from my deployment overseas, I, I applied to the police and started, well, I guess decades of service along the way.
I guess the biggest thing I learned is when I first joined we all have that sense of, you know, that invulnerability like Wonder Woman or Superman.
And it takes a lot to realize that we are not trauma proof, that we're not bulletproof. And that, and kind of like that vision of that or that myth of that strong one really isn't there.
It's just a facade, it's just a face we put on to show that we're not affected.
But in reality, it usually takes responders years to come to a realization that they need help.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Right. So at what point did you realize that the toll of, of those experience, everything you had gone through was becoming something deeper, like that you were living with Post Traumatic stress disorder.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: So when I joined the police in, in early 90s or in 1990, approximately 20 years later, a series of bad marriages just kind of, My alcoholism was, was spiraling.
There was a, there were some discipline issues at work.
You know, like life just kind of started to frazzle and kind of fall down all around me.
And eventually I found myself in a therapist office trying to make sense of what was going around me.
And what that quote sense was was that I was exhibiting all the symptoms of ptsd, including anxiety and depression, which are always comorbid with the ptsd.
And I just kind of started to realize that, you know, with this diagnosis came a lot of learning. And I was able to, as I, as I looked individually at all the symptoms and kind of applied them to my behaviors in the past, I was able to discern that it wasn't just, you know, normal job stress. It was, you know, the fact that I was broken on a number of different levels and that, you know, who I was when I joined in 1990 and the, and the grumpy, you know, shadow of my former self just kind of came out. And that was in 2012 when I first got diagnosed.
I was able to stay in counseling through Veterans affairs, never even reporting it to my, to my full time employer, Peel Regional Police.
Eventually, the calls with the police agency Kept piling up.
I liken it to a stress backpack. Every, every kind of crappy call you go to is just, you know, a pinch of salt in your backpack. And then you got the big calls that kind of rock you. And those are boulders and bricks that kind of go into your backpack and eventually your backpack gets too full. And usually at that point in time, our ego makes us ask for a bigger backpack and we just kind of carry on, just keep accumulating all these traumas and getting more and more injured until eventually that backpack literally just, just takes you to your knees and cripples you. And, and, and hopefully I didn't really find myself in a high speed, flame out type of thing where, you know, you're getting chased down the street by the police or anything like that. I was able to kind of come to that cold, hard realization that I needed to be in therapy. And that's not to say that I didn't hurt a lot of people on the way. There were a number of marriages and relationships that, that looking back at now, PTSD would have played a major role in them.
Not, not, not to say that I don't take ownership for my behaviors. I do.
It's just that I can kind of at least kind of couch them, that they are creating kind of that lived experience for people with ptsd.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Right. For those listening in the background there, there is, I guess, some movement. Is that your service dog there?
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's at my feet. He's kind of scraping on the thing. I'll. Yeah.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Okay. So what's his name? What's his name?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: It's. It's Maverick. He's been with me for about coming up to six years now. He'll be nine years old on Remembrance Day. And he's been a great help to me.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: In getting out of the house. And he teaches me to breathe when my anxiety starts to get a little bit too much.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Isn't that incredible that animals can do that? Like, I just. It's just one. A wonderful thing. Right.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: I, I say that it's his. It's his superpower that he's able to kind of like just kind of drop anybody in and just kind of. He, he literally just kind of accepts all of the chaos energy that they're dealing with and.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
And the deep, meaningful purpose that he provides to you, which is outstanding. So I'm glad you find him very helpful. And I'm not sure if he said this a moment or two ago, but the moment of reckoning, like, for you, like the one that made you decide it was time to confront what you were feeling rather than keep pushing through. When it came to the ptsd, do you remember what that moment was?
[00:09:35] Speaker A: So I'm. I'm also a. A registered psychotherapist, and in the therapy field, we kind of refer to, you know, your first, your worst, and your last.
I guess the call that kind of knocked me off the road was a call that I intended involving a lightning strike, death of. Of a very young child and the emergency procedures following that.
So that was kind of my worst situation.
I realized I. I just can't be on the road anymore. Yeah. So sillily.
I'm not even sure that's a word. I got myself transferred to. To the Criminal Investigation Bureau, not realizing that they do every hot button call that goes on in the region.
So eventually the final call that kind of broke my back, as I say, was a.
Wasn't a. Was a medical call, again involving a young child.
The child didn't survive. It eventually became a homicide investigation.
And that one kind of like took away all my faith in humanity.
And with that, I then got myself transferred to Organizational Wellness, which is the bureau within our police agency responsible for the mental health of the.
Of our officers, both and. And our civilian members there. I was really able to put myself on a. On kind of a deep dive into the road of mental illness and mental health.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: I began to really, really study PTSD and anxiety and depression from both a lived experience as well as from a therapeutic experience of being a therapist as well.
And. And during my job with Organizational Wellness, officers would be coming into my office and explaining how, you know, life just wasn't right for them.
And I would able to kind of immediately show a connection by saying something along the lines of, it's. You're crying all the time. And then just that. That look of relief that somebody understood what they were going through.
And I kept explaining a lot of the things that I would do in order to make my life livable and, you know, quote, highly functional. Yeah. And a lot of officers kept saying, well, hey, maybe I should come live with you for a week. It was kind of like, maybe you should.
So eventually my symptoms just became too prevalent, and I eventually stayed home from work.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: And basically booked myself off sick with my mental health injury.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: And.
And for the first six months, I. I don't even think I left the house. I was.
I was. I was a complete recluse. But eventually I ran into another one of the founding directors, Sean Bedd, at an old military function and we began to have conversations and began to realize that we had the same shared, shared journey that we were both on in regards to ptsd. Yeah, I should mention that Sean was there with his service dog, so it was pretty easy to kind of pick out the other person in the crowd.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Type of thing.
So kind of from my background, both of us had a heavy teaching experience from the military.
So I kind of started putting together all the information which I felt was most helpful, all the information and the coping mechanisms the, that I was currently utilizing or that I saw people utilizing around me. And eventually we just kind of developed this, this five day program which was really a, a download of information, but it's real world information.
It's a shared experience. Everybody involved has that shared experience of ptsd. So we're speaking from the heart and we're speaking from experience. And you know, we've, we've made all the mistakes and we're trying to indicate where others can maybe become more highly functional with their ptsd.
And I guess the main mission is that they don't ever have to submit to, you know, that suicidality, which was a real reality in the world of ptsd.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: So what helped you in that six months though, when you were down and out and you were like, this is, I. You couldn't leave the house. Was there a turning point that was like, I, I just can't do this anymore. I gotta do something with the pain, with the, to distract myself. What was that turning point for?
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I didn't really have a proverbial rock bottom, but I think there was just a part of me that couldn't stand to see myself spiraling so just downward. And there were no real things. It was just. Life was just becoming more unlivable and the self loathing and the shame and the guilt and all the other things that the symptoms throws at you. But I think you.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Did a therapist help you at all throughout this?
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Well, by that time I'd been, I'd been in therapy at this point in time probably for about five or six years.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: And a lot of it was getting me manageable and stable and had given me the information and the coping mechanisms that, that worked and didn't work. And I, you know, and I had such confidence in my first psychologist therapist that any modality that she wanted to try, I was, I was very much willing to do whatever it took. So pretty much any therapy that was out there, I was able to try, give it my best efforts and I always got some sort of, some sort of benefit from it.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
So do you find, are you managing like currently these days without medication? With medication or a combination of both with therapy or.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Well, one of the, one of the things that we hearken on is a multifaceted approach and we're not saying that therapy is, is the, is the path and we're not saying medication is the path. It is the combination of all these things. Being in therapy, going to your support meetings, having a support network, lifestyle changes, having, having a, a toolbox filled with coping skills that you can use in the moment and then you've also got your medications.
I currently use hardly any pharmaceuticals and, And I also utilize cannabis as well.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Gotcha. All right. And cannabis, you find helps with anxiety.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Or it, it does, it helps me with the anxiety, it helps me with my depression.
I use the high sativa.
Yeah, the high strength sativas.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: You know, I was able to write university level papers.
You know, that's while medicated and that's.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's the medical grade cannabis.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. 100. And I would imagine that I, I would hope that you guys, they, they do some sort of a discount for first. Former first responders or people that have served in military and such.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Most of the license providers have usually get, I think it's like a 25 or a 35 discount.
And for those of us with Veterans affairs.
We're covered by Veterans Affairs.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Because I know those, the medication can get a little pricey. But I mean for those that are not covered or has, have issues with coverage, from my understanding, you can write them off in taxes. But let's change gears here for a moment and talk about the building of the Valhalla Project Niagara. The Valhalla Project Niagara and the Learn to Live Again program have helped so many veterans and first responders. So what inspired you to create it first off? And what, and what need were you hoping to meet that you didn't see elsewhere?
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Well, I found myself giving the same kind of welcome to the world of ptsd, which was usually about a four or five hour kind of one on one with officers as they would present themselves in my office and it would barely be scratching the surface.
I, I've attended a couple other similar type of programs. One being Project Trauma Support, which is up in Perth, Ontario, and another amazing program, nothing negative to say about it, they do amazing work. But a five day program can't be everything to everyone.
I went to another program down in California with, with the other director, Sean Bennett, called Project Sparta and Again, it's a lot of lived experience and, you know, kind of reclaiming your, your honor and your humanity type of thing. But one of the things that I always found lacking was that they never seem to deal one on one with the suicidality aspect. And suicide is a huge problem in the PTSD landscape. 22 veterans a day commit suicide in the United States.
And, you know, not a week goes by that I don't hear about a suicide, even if not in Ontario, then, then, and then Canada.
So a number, one of my friends on the Niagara Regional Police committed suicide after.
After what I call a missed conversation or the conversation didn't go deep enough. And I didn't ask that question if he was in distress or suicidal. And a few days later, he, he committed suicide. So that kind of changed the way that I had conversations in regards to mental health. I started being very point blank to people. If we were having a conversation about mental health and it hadn't come up as part of the conversation, then it would be something like, yeah, Rob, just before we finished conversation, you suicidal or anything? Nope. All right, good. Don't have to explain. Just it's all you got to do is nod your head to show that you're in distress. So I started doing things like that.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: And then another acquaintance of mine or another good friend of mine also committed suicide due to ptsd.
And then I, I just decided I'd kind of seen enough. I, I knew that if you had good, good management of your PTSD and a daily kind of reconciliation with suicidality and the ability to have a conversation about it without everybody blowing bells and whistles, and all of a sudden you're surrounded by strobe lights all over the place.
So one of the biggest things that we teach the people our program is that suicide, it's not a swear word. It's. It doesn't have to be whispered like Voldemort from Harry Potter or anything like that, we can talk about it openly and we can talk about it in the fact that it is a sliding scale.
But, you know, the reality of our situation is, is our peer group is surrounded by the reality of suicide. And therefore, you know, we're usually at a 4 or 5 every day.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Just because we realize we exist in that stratosphere type of thing.
So ultimately, the goal of our program is to give people the tools and the education and the awareness to realize when they're in distress and to already have those networks established where they can communicate that they're in distress and end up at a place of safety, such as a hospital, if that's where oftentimes we have to end up. But we're there safely and there doesn't have to be high drama, the education and awareness, knowing what we have to communicate to the hospital staff. The next thing you know, we will be in the, in, in the special needs area of the, of the hospital where we are properly taken care of and suicide is no longer an issue. One of the maxims that we kind of use on our program is that PTSD is only dangerous if you're suicidal and alone.
We can't control if we're suicidal, but we can control if we're alone when we're in distress.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Right, right. So in regards to your program, how does it differ, would you say from like the traditional therapy models? Like what makes peer to peer support so powerful for those living with ptsd?
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Well, again, I just one thing I do want to stress is we are not looking to replace any other modality.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: But the research has shown that a strong peer support network can be just as effective as therapy. And when used in conjunction with therapy and proper medication and support mechanisms, we can start to have a more stronger ability to battle the anxiety, depression and the suicidality on a daily basis and on a more continued basis.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: What have been some of the most effective tools, habits or practices you have personally relied on in your recovery journey, would you say?
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Well, the big four. To start off the bat, the first one is breathing.
If you can control your breathing. And all sorts of research has shown that if you can control your breathing, you can change your state of mind and you can bring about a sense of calm. In order to have a panic attack, you need that shallow, quick breathing. It's kind of like the recipe for a good old anxiety attack. You need that shallow breathing.
If you can just control your breathing, you can start to send signals to your brain that you are calm. And then your brain will start to slow your heart. And as your heart rate goes down below 165 again, your brain can switch back into your thinking brain instead of your reptile, you know, reactionary or, or mammalian brain.
So breathing is the absolute first one.
You, you asked a little while ago how I seem to have so many accolades goal setting.
And I specifically use smart goals, which is just a little mental exercise you can use to really drill down and develop your goals.
And also realizing that any goal worth attaining you are going to fail gloriously a couple of times. And that is part of the learning process. And those glorious failures and hiccups along the way make us seek out mentors and get some more education and some more points of view, overcome those failing points, and then we kind of come out the other side with that goal being acquired.
The other two that I find really great are visualization and self talk. Those are, you know, the big four, you know, the big four stress busters. And they can be used before a stressful situation, they can be used during a stressful situation, and they can also be used post post trauma situations.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Can you elaborate a little more on the visualization part? What's that about?
[00:25:07] Speaker A: So visualization basically utilizes the concept of how we store memories in our brain through a process called neuro linguistic programming. So for say for instance, I used to have very bad panic attacks when trying to do shopping at my local supermarket. You know those little bottlenecks that you get when traffic flow isn't perfect? Those things would drive me into a tizzy. And oftentimes I would have to leave the store, often crying or in a state of high, high distress. And then I'd be out in the parking lot having a meltdown.
So utilizing that the brain doesn't really know the difference between reality or a created memory. I would visualize myself drawing to this. Driving to the store, arriving at the parking lot, having my little anxiety in, in the parking lot, but breathing through it, using my self talk and my visualization.
And then I'd be, and then I'd be picturing myself coming into the supermarket and all the different areas that I had to go. And I wouldn't try to make it a perfect reality, like no panic or anything like that. I would include the panic, but I would also include me working through the panic. And then eventually I would work my way through this adventure. And then I would visualize it a number of times. And when it actually came time for me to do that shopping excursion, my brain had thought I'd already done it so the stress didn't manifest. Or I had the confidence that when I did get to those points along it, I knew that I could at all times. I was actively doing my breathing the whole time I was doing it.
And I got to have a successful shopping mission as I called it. Right now what I've done is I have sensed that big victory. I approach the store manager and say, hey, this is what I have. I have ptsd. If I ever have a panic attack, sometimes I flee the thing. Is there any way I can just.
Just put my stuff on a belt, It'll keep me busy. And when you guys get a chance, come over and deal me out. And they go, yeah, perfect. So I kind of established a bailout clause for a situation, and I've never had to use it. Since I've established that bailout kind of shoot, I don't need it anymore because I know I've got options now.
I still have anxiety when I go through and I do my daily shopping, but I know I can get through it.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: That's good. That's good that you've, you've found tools that, that work for you and hopefully others who may be listening to this podcast can, can find help through, through the tools that you use as well. Now you also, you work with service dogs as part of recovery. Can you talk about their impact and the unique bond that, that they create in, in the healing process?
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Well, I, I'm, I've had Maverick now coming on close to almost six and a half years.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: And he is literally, with the, with very few exceptions, he has literally went everywhere with me, restaurants, pubs, appointments, doctor's office, concerts, everything.
And that in and of itself has always given me kind of like a great solace. Now one of the things that service dogs do, by their very nature is they have needs.
So it causes what's known as behavior activation. Instead of allowing my depression to get the worst of me and just staying in bed all day, I can't do that. I have to get up, I have to go for walks. I have to let Maverick out. I have to service his needs. So I kind of have to become part of society in order to take care of, of my dog. He.
One of the strongest things that, that he did in the beginning was nightmare mitigation. As I would be having obvious nightmares. He would wake me calmly and gently out of these nightmares so that I didn't have that shocked awakening in the beginning.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Wow. Wow.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: He's been amazing.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I bet. And it sounds like it. I mean, it's fan. It's fantastic. You've had him for six years now.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Coming on six years. Yes.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Where do you, when someone looks into that, they're trying to get a service dog. Where did you, where did you get Maverick?
[00:29:32] Speaker A: I got him completely. I say by accident. I went into work one day when I was still working, and there was an advertisement on the, on, on our electronic bulletin board, Maverick, that that Maverick was being rehomed from his original handler.
So I immediately contacted the person arranged to meet him.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: As soon as we kind of, I, I brought myself down to his level and we just kind of put our foreheads together and he just Kind of gave me like a two minute hug and, you know, I of course started tearing up and everything. That's as I always do.
And then his previous handler said, well, Maverick's decided, so he'll be coming home with you on the weekend. And that's how, and you know, we've kind of been together ever since.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Incredible.
Now you've gone from also, I mean, you've gone from surviving trauma to helping others find purpose after it. How has your own understanding of purpose, would you say, evolved through this process?
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Well, I think helping others helps me.
I've often said that, you know, PTSD is healed through the heart. And what we have to do is we have to. PTSD shuts us off from positive emotions. It keeps us in, in a state of sad, mad, scared feeling shame and guilt and embarrassment and a sense of being alone.
What our program does is it shows us how to actively engage and to, you know, create positivity around us, knowing that that could, you know, overwhelm us and tear me and tear us up. But the whole purpose is we have to basically grow our heart. We have to prove to ourselves that, you know, those positive emotions of, of peacefulness, empowerment and joy are there and that we are worthy and deserving of them.
That's ultimately what our program is, is to develop a sense of purpose. And that sense of purpose can come from becoming daily functional on a human level and realizing that we are part of society and that it is our depression and our anxiety, which is, you know, depression and anxiety are basically fear of the future and fear of the past all at the same time.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: So with that in mind, if we can get out there and engage, we can realize that we are capable of this and we can start to knock down the, the really strong, incredible hold that depression can have on people. And, and you know, I'm to the point now in my healing journey where I am very confident that that suicidality will not be a major issue for me. I, I, I, I, I kind of joke and brag that I created Valhalla around me as my own personal support group because there wasn't anything.
So, so I built it, I, I built it around me for, for my selfish purposes, as I often say.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Well, I, I have to give you credit because you, you did something with the pain, useful with the pain, right? Like some people can sulk in it forever and not do anything in regards to it, but you actually turned your pain into purpose. You probably got so fed up with it, you're like, what can I do with this pain that is useful, that will distract me where it doesn't even feel like it's distracting. It's just so natural to me. And you've built this, you know, this incredible, you know, resource for yourself and for others that can. Can get help as well. And I think that is a credit to you to do something useful with the pain. And so you. You deserve a lot of credit there.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. We're just about to run our 31st cohort of our Learn to Live program. So I think we've affected the lives of over 500 people.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: In regards to the Learn to Live program. And our next program is set to run on Sunday.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Amazing. Where can folks get more information, if interested, for the. For the Valhalla project in Niagara. Is it. Is there a Facebook group? Do you have a website for it?
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Our website is valhalla project niagara.org.org okay. Or.
And anybody who wants to email valhalla project niagara gmail.com for information.
Just in the last day or so, we unfortunately had two cancellations for our program set for November.
So always looking for people who are interested in, you know, undertaking a healing journey with us.
We spoke that our demographic is veterans and first responders. We have a very wide definition of first responders. That, of course, includes our corrections and border officials and our medical staff, like nurses and doctors and stuff like that.
Therapist, whose clientele is predominantly emergency services. We've had therapists on the program. We've had funeral directors.
And while we may be Project Niagara, we've had officers attend from Scotland and the US and office and.
And veterans from Quebec have attended. So we're starting to get out there.
Very, very grassroots, we like to say.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Incredible. That's good to hear that you're expanding.
Finally, for a veteran or first responder, let's say, that's listening to this podcast, who feels lost, or maybe they're disconnected. What would you want them to take away from your story?
[00:35:34] Speaker A: The big takeaway is you are not alone. Depression is telling you that you are and that there's no help out there. There is.
Reach out. It's there.
And just decide that you want to be healthy again.
And if you decide that you want to be healthy again, there's a lot of things that you can do in order to really start you on that road.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: It's good to hear. Thank you so much for. For joining me today. This has been very insightful and educational.
Graham, I thank you for being so open and honest and putting your vulnerability, wearing it on your sleeve, because that's what it's all about, that strength. So again, thank you so much for doing this and I hope that we can connect in the future again.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: You're very welcome, Robin. I and I appreciate the opportunity to come out here and kind of share the mental or share the message that mental health, you know, doesn't have to be any sort of a sentence.
You can have a very functional, highly fulfilled life with a mental health issue in your life.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: That's Graham Bettis, retired Canadian armed forces sergeant, 32 year veteran with the Peel Regional Police Service and the visionary and his dream behind the Valhalla Project Niagara and so much more. Resume is outstanding. I thank you again for for being here. Don't forget to to subscribe to this podcast if you have not already done so would certainly mean a lot Awareness with Rob Daniels. You can find it on YouTube if you're watching. Thank you so much for doing so. If you and of course you can get this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you so much for subscribing and for producer Mike on the other end. I thank him so much as always for for his help and his service. My name is Rob Daniels and look forward to catching you in the next episode.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: SA.
