Tommy Lowther interview | MQ Open Thoughts podcast

Tommy Lowther and Residing With PTSD – MQ Open Thoughts

CONTENT WARNING: this episode of Open Thoughts consists of tales about trauma and sexual assault. Listener discretion is suggested.

Within the expertise of psychological sickness, typically the query ‘What occurred to you?’ proves extra helpful than ‘what situations do you’ve?’.

Born in Dundee, Scotland, Tommy Lowther’s childhood dream was to turn into a soldier. Within the Nineteen Nineties, aged 18, he stood between protestants and Catholics in what he calls a “warzone” in Northern Eire. He talks on this episode concerning the “invincible” mentality he felt within the army and the way that angle shortly was concern.

“I used to be a boy in a person’s world… The hostility was unbelievable.”

After Northern Eire, Tommy was posted to Gibraltar. On one evening out in a bar, he skilled an assault and sexual assault.

“Taken what occurred to me in Northern Eire… that was a stroll within the park in comparison with [this experience]. In psychological well being, we discuss our struggle, flight or freeze which is our pure response to [threatening] situations. I all the time thought mine can be struggle. It all the time has been since. Aside from that one night. That was after I froze.”

As a psychological well being analysis charity, MQ is deliberately devoting consideration to analysis into the results of trauma on the mind and nervous system. For extra on our current examine into PTSD please click on right here.

As a consequence of misunderstanding and lack of help on the time, Tommy misplaced his job. Throughout this era his behaviour modified together with elevated misuse of alcohol and aggression, a standard means for these with PTSD to handle the nervous system overwhelm.

“Folks had been cautious of me. I had this bizarre feeling that it was respect… However it wasn’t respect. It was concern…I had utterly the fallacious outlook on what respect was.”

Tommy speaks concerning the nervousness and isolation concerned within the stigma he encountered and the signs of PTSD, together with suicide ideation, earlier than his prognosis.

 “To be trustworthy, {in relation to} psychological well being, I had a fairly neanderthal method to it earlier than… I assumed ‘It’s not even actual, it’s not a factor’.”

The turning level for Tommy was the help he acquired from Assist For Heroes.

“[A psychiatrist] identified me with PTSD. I felt so relieved. I realised I wasn’t a horrible, nasty one that needed to exit and get drunk and struggle, there was a cause.”

PTSD is a crucial space in MQ’s analysis. For extra on our current analysis into stopping PTSD and despair in emergency staff, please click on this hyperlink.

Tommy’s ardour for serving to ex-servicemen and girls into sport as a catalyst to make constructive change of their lives was the bedrock for his new charity Sporting Power. Working with veterans and their households to assist individuals in the direction of psychological wellness has helped Tommy and his household in flip with their restoration, contribution and rebuilding in the direction of a shiny future.

Tommy’s prognosis could also be PTSD, what occurred to him might have been a number of traumas however what occurs subsequent is the place his sights are actually set.

Tommy’s story shall be included in a guide being printed by MQ in Might 2023.