Do you ever catch yourself putting on a front to hide how you’re really feeling? It’s fair to say most of us will have done it at points in our lives.
But for Gee Smith, a firefighter with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service, it became the norm whenever he was around his colleagues and friends – secretly masking a lot of difficulties he was experiencing with his mental health.
It wasn’t until all the stress and anxiety he’d been dealing with boiled over and started impacting how he lived his life that he recognised he needed help. Now, he wants to share his story to encourage others who may be finding things difficult to reach out for support early, to prevent it getting worse down the line.
“I’ve always known about The Fire Fighters Charity and supported it with things like Car Washes, but my personal interest in it came when I needed support,” says Gee, 46, who’s a father to four children – three sons and a daughter.
“Whenever we raise money, it makes sense it’s for the Charity – in my opinion, why would you not raise money for the Charity that’s working continuously to support you and your colleagues?”
He adds of his own health: “I think, in hindsight, I probably started struggling years ago with my mental health, but never knew. I could have cut it off if I’d been a bit more proactive – prevention rather than cure.
“At its worst point, I’d go into work with my mask on, being the noisy bloke that runs around the station. No-one had any idea because I hid it. I’d be there being a loud-mouth and laughing and joking, then I’d go home and be crying.”
Gee says it finally reached a point when his day-to-day life was seriously impacted a couple of years ago.
“I had my first ‘incident’ as I like to call it in 2018,” he recalls. “I was shopping and I just sat down and cried, in the middle of the mall, for no apparent reason – just something tiny sparked it. Eventually I got back to my feet and I kept shopping! But from then on it was happening four or five times a day, the smallest things down to seeing my son in his uniform and hearing a certain song on the radio.
“It was put down to me suffering from emotional exhaustion. It was basically a constant build-up of stress and not dealing with that stress, to the point I actually stopped functioning emotionally.
“I wasn’t processing emotions at all – happy or sad – I just cried. Anything that was above a normal level of emotion made me cry and I had no control over it.
“I always think of it as bailing the bucket… I couldn’t bail the bucket quick enough and it just overflowed. There was nothing in particular that triggered it, it was a build-up.
“I was off work for about three weeks, mainly because I didn’t want to miss it – it was my routine.”
That time, Gee learned to find coping mechanisms himself, with things like long walks outdoors and reading to keep him busy. However, when it started to happen again a few months later, he knew he needed some support.
“It got to the following March and I could feel it coming – I could recognise what I didn’t recognise before. I’d started writing in a journal and I suddenly couldn’t be bothered, so I’d just be writing one-liners saying everything wasn’t great,” he says.
“That time, I turned to the Charity to make a long-term change.”
Gee reached out to us to see how we might be able to help him and he was immediately offered 1:1 remote counselling over the phone, as well as a stay at Harcombe House on our Reset Programme.
“As it turned out, a space came available the week after at Harcombe and as I was off work at the time, I was free,” says Gee. “Due to going down there, I didn’t end up having the counselling – I found it so helpful.
“It felt like a reset, I was out in the lovely countryside and while things were still happening back at home, it felt distant because I wasn’t there. We did group sessions covering everything, walks, Tai Chi which I surprisingly really liked! I even fell asleep in the yoga session.
“I left there feeling hopeful and since then I’ve reinforced on myself what I need to be doing.”
“There’s no age limit to mental health”
Gee Smith
He adds: “Since I’ve come back, I’ve had a lot of messages from people from other services who don’t want to tell anyone in their own service. I can then share my story and offer them advice on how the Charity could help them too.”
A major aim for Gee now is encouraging people to reach out for help long before he did – having seen how it can get out of hand himself.
“The worry is a lot of people, especially anyone nearing retirement, may never ask for that help and just push on through – but they need it,” he adds. “It won’t just go away, there were people of all ages on the programme I was on, there’s no age limit to mental health.”
Gee now runs one of the national Walk and Talks in his area – which you can read more about here. He’s also begun organising extra fundraising challenges and events in aid of us, as a thank you for the support he received – and to ensure we can continue offering support to his colleagues in the future.
Southsea Red Watch, which he’s part of, have raised over £6,500 in the last three challenges they’ve done, which have included climbing the 15 highest peaks in Wales all in under 24 hours and a Ladder Climb scaling the equivalent of 100,000ft.
Gee received an award for his commitment to fundraising for our charity from the Asian Fire Service Association recently.
I actually can’t believe it 🥳 I WON 🥳 massive thank you to @AsianFSA and the panel🙏🏻 feeling extremely thankful and grateful #awards #charity pic.twitter.com/69nLhLvVKF
— Gee (@ItsGeeSmith) November 23, 2022
“If you’re in need of support, I’d highly recommend you get in touch with the Charity,” Gee says as a final word. “It’s extremely important we support it and work as hard as we can to ensure it continues offering this vital help in the future.”
If you’re struggling with your health and wellbeing, we may be able to help you. Call our Support Line on 0800 389 8820, make an enquiry online or register for MyFFC now and visit the ‘Access Support’ tab at the top of the MyFFC homepage.
You can also join our ‘Share Your Story’ Group in MyFFC, by clicking on the ‘Groups’ tab, to chat to others who have received our support or enquire about sharing your own story.