The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Navigating psychology from a wheelchair with complex pain

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Coming up in today's episode, we are looking at what it is like to live with complex

Starting point is 00:01:07 pain, what it is like to be a wheelchair user, and some of the struggles that they might navigate as they navigate the profession of psychology with those additional challenges. I hope you find it so useful. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, I have started learning a little bit more about podcasting really as I've gone along. And it was as I was recording an episode with Gavin, which you might well have listened to recently, which was all about master's level study, that I started thinking, oh, I think this other topic we've gone on to might well best operate as a separate episode, because I was thinking about something called search engine optimization, which you might have

Starting point is 00:02:03 heard called SEO. so we decided we were going to have two episodes so two for the price of one so if you might find it useful to listen to gavin's previous episode please do you can watch that either on youtube or listen to it as an mp3 across loads of platforms including, including Apple, and also directly from my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk forward slash podcasts. Whilst you're there, you might like to also download some of my lovely free lead magnets, one of which is the Ultimate Declin Sci Guide. You can get to that by going to my website and then looking at the free resources

Starting point is 00:02:45 tab, which will be either on the right of the screen as you look on desktop, or if you're on mobile, if you click the little, what they call burger icon, it should pop down and you can scroll until you find the sweet spot. So let's think today about welcoming Gavin back. And we're going to be thinking with him about pain, about being a wheelchair user. You might find it useful to listen if you are affected by some of the things that Gavin is experiencing or similar, or just to kind of thicken your narrative and your understanding of some of these very important issues. If you are working in the sphere of mental health. I will look forward to catching up with you on the other side.

Starting point is 00:03:28 If you're watching on YouTube, why not just like the video right away because we know it's going to be a good one. See you very soon. So Gavin, I want to welcome you back to the podcast. It was when we were recording the previous version and we were like, I think this might almost be two separate episodes. thank you so much for agreeing to to come back again

Starting point is 00:03:49 no no not at all it was it was really enjoyable the first time around uh so why not come back and talk some more tell us a little bit about yourself for those who might not have caught the first episode? Yeah, so my name is Gavin Clark. I am an MSc Psychology student. I'm a podcast host. And I also work in my kind of day job as a compliance manager, which sounds very grandiose. But it's basically about making sure

Starting point is 00:04:22 that people are doing the right thing by by customers and and acting in the right sort of way um i live with disability um and i have done since birth and that's been a kind of story throughout my life of different experiences and and different kind of joyous moments uh along with some frustrating ones too. Yeah thank you for sharing that so the earlier episode we did was about kind of doing conversion masters and doing that in a distance learning capacity and I think that's going to be so useful but we wanted to get together today to think about your experiences of being a wheelchair user of trying to navigate through your career with that and also of some of the more unusual but incredibly difficult physical health conditions

Starting point is 00:05:16 that you've struggled with yeah and there's a there's a lot to go through. And hopefully people listening find it interesting and insightful. I like to share some of the experiences that I have so that others can learn from them and maybe even realise something about ourselves in the process. So I was born with something called congenital talapaz equinovirus, CTAV. You might also see it named club feet, but please do not use that terminology because it's really offensive. So CTAV is the go-to, in my opinion. And basically what that means is that I had lots of surgeries when I was younger, lots of experiences of pain. That leads to a kind of dimension of trauma and just

Starting point is 00:06:06 to experiences as you as you grow up surgery is not fun it's not a nice experience particularly when you're a when you're a baby and then you know two three years old 10 years old 15 years old all those kind of experiences add up and it kind of brings you to a point where you just understand things slightly more not necessarily at that age but actually as you grow older and kind of see how other people deal with different different things and you have that broadened experience you can pull more from uh from your own past experience and you can either use that or or you or you don't um and that's kind of personal opinion uh kind of personal standpoint um whether you feel capable of of using that or not because for some that they just can't it's just it's just not something they can do i'm again very fortunate

Starting point is 00:07:00 that i am able to to kind of use some of that to at least try and help try and help others to to work through their experiences too. Thank you very much thanks for illuminating us a little bit have you always been a wheelchair user? So no I started using a wheelchair about two years ago. This will probably show you some of my stubbornness in life. So I've had periods where I could do a lot more. And even now I have some periods where I can do more, that I can kind of get up and walk around. And I'm what's called an ambulatory wheelchair user.

Starting point is 00:07:41 And what that means is that I'm someone that can actually get themselves up out of the chair and move around to a certain extent whereas a kind of permanent wheelchair user would be somebody perhaps that had a spinal injury that kind of had some spinal cord damage and just cannot physically walk or kind of move themselves around in any kind of meaningful way without the use of a wheelchair. So there are different types of people within that wheelchair user population, including people with kind of chronic fatigue syndromes and just energy limiting kind of conditions. So there's lots of reasons that people would use

Starting point is 00:08:25 wheelchairs i started using it after one of my latest operations um which was a couple of years ago um and that didn't go that well uh it was always a bit of a risk um i was kind of willing to take that risk because there was a good chance it was going to work, but it just left me in a worse position. That then developed the complex regional pain syndrome, or at least it's probably the kind of bit that tipped it over the edge from normal, well, I'm saying normal complex pain, complex pain that wasn't the kind of defined condition to um this this complex regional pain syndrome or crps and from that point really i've been using a mixture of wheelchair

Starting point is 00:09:16 kind of crutches i did try using a a walking stick that didn't work that well um this might show my age slightly but um for those of you that are old enough to remember house i basically had an image in my head that i would be like house uh kind of going around being slightly ratty um but getting away with it um the reality was i just kept on falling over uh which was not so good um so yeah i've kind of been using a mixture of things and more and more the wheelchair um so i use the wheelchair when i'm out and about um if i'm going into the office at work so i predominantly work from home at the moment um but if i'm going to the office i'll use the wheelchair just because I just can't physically get around that much. And if I try, I will probably end up falling, which is just not that much fun.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And yeah, you're always at risk of causing yourself some other injuries. Or I might just be so wiped out that i can't physically get back home because i i kind of have to drive back and people might be wondering how is a wheelchair user driving at that point um so i will just say that you know wheelchair users can drive um not all wheelchair users can it depends on what what their broader mobility is but i use hand controls to drive um so that kind of gives me my freedom i was without a car for about a year um whilst a mixture of the dvla were trying to sort themselves out not a fun experience trying to get that one sorted um and then just trying to get things fitted and and everything to to the car so i use that to kind of get around

Starting point is 00:11:06 and having that that um freedom as i would describe it uh is incredibly important for me and for my own mental health so yeah i have had periods of depression i have had periods of of kind of being really very down really not wanting to be around anymore. And part of that was a lack of being able to do things. It was feeling like I was less than because I was having to rely on everybody else, despite having been born with an underlying genital condition that you know meant lots of pain over the years and use of crutches at some points and just not being able to keep up with other kids not being able to kind of do do everything that i wanted to um so yeah there's there's a kind of progression

Starting point is 00:11:59 with um with the type of of condition that i've had. That kind of links in with then developing arthritis, which is very common when you've had the type of surgeries that I had as a youngster. And yeah, for those of you that have ever lived with arthritis or know somebody that does, you'll see that quite often it just gets worse. So I was always likely to end up needing to use a wheelchair. But bizarrely, I actually feel like the wheelchair

Starting point is 00:12:28 gives me opportunity so i know it's it can be very frustrating when you have people uh kind of talking to you in the kind of oh this is terrible you've got to use a wheelchair or even saying that you're wheelchair bound so i had an experience recently where i was going for an mri um and they couldn't do it because i was a wheelchair user and they they were kind of describing me as wheelchair bound now that sort of thing is is a kind of ableist um reaction to somebody that's just trying to live their life but the wheelchair for me gives me more experience gives me more freedom allows me to do things, allows me to get to the gym, lift big heavy it was appropriate for me to do it and actually it was because of therapy um that i kind of got to the point of really feeling like i could use mobility aids because my my therapist at the time who um was was fantastic um i was kind of

Starting point is 00:13:44 seeing for probably about a year and a half and we were kind of talking about lots and lots of different things. But a lot of it came back to that I was struggling to do things. I was trying to kind of do what I'd always done and just find silly ways of being able to do what I thought was the expectation on me as a dad, as a human being, or as a citizen, when in reality, all I needed to do was to start using some mobility aids, let people help me a little bit more. But getting from one point to another of really not accepting that to accepting it

Starting point is 00:14:27 you do need help and I think that's where I started to really think about okay it's it's time for me to rethink what I'm doing with my career as well as as well as anything else and started to kind of move towards the psychology side as well yeah it sounds like you sort of you'd noticed actually it was impacting on your ability to function and live your life as you wanted to and either you can carry on in that vein or you can kind of just do some accepting and embracing and then think that's not how I want to continue I want to have increased functionality I want to do all these things with my children in order to do that I'm going to need to start using that wheelchair embracing that yeah and it's acceptance really is freedom so and that sounds like such a grand statement doesn't it but it really is because as soon as you've started to accept particularly in that context of accepting that these things

Starting point is 00:15:26 these objects are just objects that facilitate me to do things that I want to do all they are all of ability aid is so once you accept that you then have the freedom to use them without guilt without feeling like you're less than like feeling like you don't belong you know all these kind of things that come up in your own mind um and that you formulate yourself because most of the stuff that i experienced was my own internal bias ultimately it was my own internalized ableism of thinking that oh if i hadn't move to using a wheelchair, then I'm properly disabled because I'd never really thought of myself as disabled prior to that.

Starting point is 00:16:12 I was by definition, but I never really thought of myself in that way. And it was that kind of acceptance period, whereas now I'm now in the position where I've just made it into the disability power 100 list as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the uk um yeah i'm doing loads of stuff in in in work around uh increasing the the kind of um the career prospects and the the the way that people are treated in in in work who are who are disabled or neurodiverse um in particular or or just live with um i say just live with uh mental uh mental

Starting point is 00:16:54 health conditions or or just going through a bad time for for that matter um and that's all because i got to the point where i could begin to accept that this is who I am and that that is okay. It wasn't a big deal. It was a freedom of being allowed to do the things that I want to go with my career is into psychology and is to to ultimately be able to help people in in a more kind of specific way that to work through their own um kind of self-limiting beliefs I guess to a certain extent but and the wider um collective of mental health uh problems conditions issues thank you that's soating. And thank you again for reminding me. I was told loud and clear

Starting point is 00:17:47 when I was working with people with physical disabilities in the early 2000s, I am not wheelchair bound. I'm not like literally tied to this thing. I'm a wheelchair user and that's really stayed with me. But it is still something

Starting point is 00:18:02 that we hear reasonably often. So thank you for letting us really connect to that still something that we hear reasonably often. So thank you for letting us really connect to that idea again, that that's not okay. And I think disability is something that most people will experience, but very few people are comfortable with experiencing. And there's a few reasons for that i think i think part of it is because we start to see our own morality we start to see that actually people do uh kind of change over over our lifetimes people do go through different things and and you know some of these things can be really big and powerful and a little bit scary um part of

Starting point is 00:18:44 that is the educational system that we all kind of grow up in. And part of it is just why the society doesn't accept it without getting too political. I don't think it helps with the kind of current, current governments and the kind of stuff that they've been saying recently in particular. I mean, to kind of call out people with disabilities

Starting point is 00:19:05 specifically as not being able to work isn't the problem. It's the wider societal and kind of workplace situation that, yeah, you just need there to be the jobs, the opportunities out there. And I think all of that stuff, and we kind of hear different terminology across different kind different pockets of people that are getting discriminated against. And you can hear institutional racism, for example. And I very much think that there is also institutional ableism. And ableism is effectively the kind of derogatory kind of thought of feeling against somebody that's got

Starting point is 00:19:46 a disability and the kind of negative treatment that's associated with that um and there's there's all this stuff that's kind of in the background that that kind of limits people that then makes people think that as soon as you're listed as somebody that's disabled and by the way you're not actually listed anywhere as disabled um but once you've kind of got that that kind of badge against you that that your life is over it it's not there is there is no there's no that's it you're done um and i think when you start to understand that yeah one people go through bad things and they come out the other side. Usually when you've been through something, you do change. Your experiences change you.

Starting point is 00:20:33 They transform you into the person that you're growing up to be. That's just the lives that we go through. And some of those experiences are really, really big and chunky. Some are kind of less so the really big chunky ones you you you go through the the processes and for me some of that was grief over the person i thought i was going to be that the kind of grief of of my my the person i was the day before and the and the next day was was kind of different because it's really quick acceleration, that kind of 2020, 2022 period, sorry.

Starting point is 00:21:09 So you go through all these things, but ultimately you're still fundamentally the same person just with different life experiences. And you're no better, you're no worse. You just are you. As soon as we get to accept that more broadly, I actually think the conversation about disability will really change very quickly and the support that sits around that will also change.

Starting point is 00:21:35 It is one of the fears that I've got around kind of going into a new career and kind of what that might look like as a wheelchair user and kind of needing that little bit of extra support. There is always that degree of kind of fear over will there be that support? I mean, the slight advantage that I've now got is that i i know how to fight for it um and i know that i i am allowed to kind of have that that kind of uh those reasonable adjustments to use the the kind of um the specific terminology um so it was a bit of fear but a trepidation there uh for me kind of moving into it and ultimately the good for me will will always outweigh the the

Starting point is 00:22:27 kind of negatives that that could come from it thank you and i yeah i love that idea of there is no actual register and i think it reminded me of when i was at secondary school and it used to be said oh so you'll end up on your permanent record you don't want that and then you get to the end of secondary school and you're like there was no such thing as a permanent record i've been like to it's it's funny because i i thought that there was uh a list somewhere of people with disabilities because you can see the stats and you can see that there are x amount of people so slightly differing figures but roughly 23 of the population has some form of disability and that's got to come from somewhere so that those kind of stats that sit around that

Starting point is 00:23:13 and as psychologists and aspiring psychologists we do like that we like to understand these things but there isn't a specific list that says gavin clark is disabled that just doesn't exist i genuinely thought that there was and as soon as i said i was that i was disabled that was it i was going to be on a list somewhere um but there just isn't doesn't exist but you can register for some additional support with things like energy companies and things can't you and even the kind of the role that you're doing currently is for people with additional needs so you can kind of flag yourself as perhaps needing some additional support or consideration

Starting point is 00:23:56 exactly so there is a kind of plethora of support out there, not always easy to access. And that kind of keeps me in a job at the moment because it's about finding easier or simpler ways to access that support and making sure that that's being followed through. There is a lot out there. There's ranging from something called personal independence payment, which is a I don't like the word benefit but a kind of extra payment that people with disabilities um can potentially get i stress that because actually most disabled people don't get it um it's it's quite difficult to go through the process for yeah so so pip um is this this kind of benefit um this payment that you get

Starting point is 00:24:49 that has two components uh one is a mobility your daily living um component and one is the the kind of pure mobility side so you have to go through loads of tests and and uh and filling out ridiculously large documents, kind of explaining how your conditions impact the way that you live your life. And the nature of that is to try and bridge some of the gap. It doesn't get anywhere near the real gap of how much more it costs to live with a disability. So the latest figures, so Scopa, which is a disability charity, came out earlier this year with the kind of latest figures, and it's around about £975 a month more expensive to live with a disability. So that's just for me to get out of bed and just live my normal life it's it's

Starting point is 00:25:46 roughly um that a month if you have one disabled person in the household obviously that then increases if you've got if you've got more than one and there's some slight fluctuations if it's a child rather than an adult but broadly we're talking about about that mark the maximum that you can get with pip is around about 745 pounds i think from memory so there's there's a kind of an element of that i don't know anyone that actually gets the whole amount um most people don't um but it helps you with things like getting access to motability which is great for someone to get a car potentially, or it might not be a car, but it might be a mobility scooter

Starting point is 00:26:32 that just bridges some of that cost because these things are obscenely expensive. My wheelchair, so I've just got another one on the way actually, but my wheelchair was just over 8,000 pounds for the one wheelchair my next one is about seven and a half thousand pounds um and then i also play wheelchair basketball so that's about another four and a half thousand pounds um and that's just for me to

Starting point is 00:26:59 get from one place to the next um so there's a lot of costs um kind of associated with kind of living with it but there is support out there lots of great charities and then there is this thing called reasonable adjustments which is both in the employer employee relationship as well as in the service and and and patient or or customer perspective that as a disabled person you are protected under the Equality Act that you cannot be discriminated against that you have a right for reasonable adjustments and there's always been a debate over what that looks like and what that might mean to allow you to have the same experience that's important to to kind of realize that it's not an enhanced experience it's the same experience as anybody

Starting point is 00:27:52 that doesn't have um a disability so with work um that gets me things like the chair that i'm sat on currently um so it's a slightly different chair. It's got some slightly different adjustments than a normal chair and work brought me that. It might also be that I work from home more than others do because travelling into the office can be quite a big ask for me at the moment. Or it might be something as simple as some software on your computer. And you also get that when you're studying as well.

Starting point is 00:28:32 So there's the disability allowance that you get, disability support allowance, which is basically through student finance. And that will help pay for some of the things that you might need that again because of being disabled you might need to to i don't print something out because you can't sit and stare at a screen because you get chronic migraines as an example or it could be that you have kind of support to get from um to uh in and out of um university um and kind of some support for additional um kind of transport costs because most normal transport you you actually can't use because they haven't got wheelchair access in in most vehicles um yeah or a suede of other things um so there is lots of support uh it can be a bit

Starting point is 00:29:30 grueling to access it um but particularly in the university context actually most universities have got a really good student support centers that will help you through that process as well um i think the most difficult about it part about it is knowing that these things exist, because I didn't even know that PIP existed up until last year. Thank you so much for helping our audience learn more about complex regional pain syndrome, living with that, being a wheelchair user, letting us think more about ableism, letting us think more about some of the struggles that a wheelchair user or someone with additional physical health needs might have as they navigate their career in mental health so thank you could you tell us a little bit about your podcast if that's okay before we finish yeah of course so

Starting point is 00:30:17 i've got two uh i've got the the safe place podcast which uh you'll hear my kind of dulcet tones uh on that as the host uh there's a mixture of episodes there's there's me sharing some of my own experiences which is kind of the the first season then season two and and the upcoming season three uh goes into more of of guests and you'll hear from people across the board. We've got pain psychologists on there. We've got CEOs of organizations. And we've also got people that just experienced their own mental health conditions and wanted to share their own experiences. So it's a real comforting zone that was kind of built out of me feeling like I needed a space to kind of think about my own life experiences

Starting point is 00:31:08 and how that was kind of impacting me. And then the Disabling Me podcast is brand new. You'd have to look for it at the moment. It's currently on YouTube only, but we're going to be releasing that properly in a kind of more of a kind of formal launch over the coming weeks. And that is really a kind of social conversation on how living with disabilities can be frustrating, can be wonderful, but also how society

Starting point is 00:31:42 kind of gets in the way sometimes and thinking about some of the things that we can do to improve that too. Thank you so much. And was it your podcasting that landed you on the Disability Power 100 2023 list? It was, yeah. So that was for the Safe Place podcast. A few other little bits that I do in the background, which I should probably give away time, but I never do.

Starting point is 00:32:07 Um, because I get a little bit kind of shy and, and, uh, and don't like talking about myself too much. Um, but yeah, that was that, that was for, for the podcast, for types of guests that was having on and just really bringing, bringing more of a voice to people with, uh, with disabilities. Thank you. So thank you so thank you so much for your time um and yeah if people want to reach out to you on social media where's the best place for them to do that so your best bet is uh either through linkedin and you can you can find

Starting point is 00:32:39 me uh gavin clark and i'm sure we can put a kind of link to that in the show notes or you can find me on Instagram which is I am Gavin Clark I will just caveat that I do tend to change my name on on Instagram now and again but it generally is I am Gavin Clark which you can find me at and you are Clark with an E for anybody that might not be watching this on YouTube. Perfect. Thank you again for your time. And if anyone didn't catch our previous episode where we were looking together

Starting point is 00:33:14 at studying for conversion masters, then we'd absolutely recommend that you check that out. Definitely. Thank you again for your time, Gavin. Thank you, Mariannene all the pleasure welcome back along I hope you found that interesting I certainly found that it helped flesh out some of my knowledge-based gaps so I hope you found the same too I'd love to know what you thought to this episode come along to the aspiring psychologist community and let me know please do bear in mind

Starting point is 00:33:43 that the aspiring psychologist membership is a wonderfully nourishing enriching compassionate space that helps you grow and helps you to achieve your potential but the peer support in that membership is also off the scale so if you are feeling like your journey is a little bit singular at the moment and you'd welcome some buddies come on in which you can do from just 30 pounds a month there's details in the show notes or you can always dm me for a link and i will ping that across to you please do also check out the books the clinical psychologist collective book the aspiring psychologist collective book and the podcast is an ever great resource bling a few likes around and tell your friends. Forward the links that you think

Starting point is 00:34:25 are really great links. And thank you in advance if you do do that. I will be along with the next episode of the podcast on 6am on Monday. Thank you so much for being part of my world and I'll see you very soon. Take care. I'm a psychologist. And let this be your guide.

Starting point is 00:34:48 With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. With Dr. Marianne Trent. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me with confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a

Starting point is 00:35:47 bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Navigating psychology from a wheelchair with complex pain

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.