I am sure we have had dog puns before. Perhaps that old thread can be found by someone who is a good retriever of information.
You all need a new leash on life.
Maz Kouhyar, Peter Tillâs dad, and Big Fat Jan.
Not good news that Mansfieldâs âalmost certainâ signing of a striker has hit the buffers.
If it does not happen their fans will probably be bleating at Cloughie for letting DJ go.
Hope is that a transfer has already been agreed for January, otherwise we could lose him and Knowles has been brought in as a considered âreplacementâ.
All in all the best most exciting start to a season for many, many years. We actually HAVE a multiple strikeforce that can score goals, and, fast attacking midfielders/wingers that will put âsideways and backwardsâ to bed for at least a season.
Might only be an admin slip but DJ is the only loanee on the 1st team page of the OS not marked as such. Iâm sure that there might be a conspiracy theorist or 2 on here who can put an interpretation on that ⌠?
At least youâve used Knowles signs when heâs actually signed unlike some wait for itâŚâŚPRATS!
Sorry itâs took a while to respond wasnt sure how much of this I wanted to put out there but apparently catharsis can be good for the soul so here goes.
I used to be that guy who was fully emotionally invested in every win and loss, every foul for and foul against but then the Keates season, and more to the point my life at the time happenedâŚ
Some background, and in the interests of peoples mental health Iâll try to keep it brief but its a long story. Up until she passed away in 2015 I had been caring for my old dear after a cancer diagnosis and once she did pass, being a kid who started his schooling in the Thatcher administration I did the wrong things and didnât grieve and then when that started affecting me I âmanned upâ (truly the worst phrase in our language) and kept it all on the inside and just went back to work. Long story short I ended up needing to get the F outta Walsall for my own sanity. Luckily my brother had a nice little property up in Leicestershire for rent and I found some better paid machinist work up there than I had in Walsall so on the surface thing were getting better but then my Dad had a series of mini-strokes and we decided someone was going to have to be his fulltime carer. Well my sis had just given birth and my brotherâs a GP so it fell on me. So I moved up to Wrexham to care for him and for around a year dad was stable, he did need fulltime care but we could cope. Then he had a stroke, a big one. He was in hospital for almost a year and when he did come out it was kickoff time for the Keates season. This time I really struggled to cope, it was like trying to care for a 5 year old child in an adults body whilst also dealing with the mindfĂĂk that that is your father but youâve swapped roles and now youâre the adult and heâs the child but I was determined Dad wasnât going into a home on my account so I soldiered on. Now for the first 6 weeks of that season we looked like the club legend just might do it and I went all in on that season as something to get me through the other 6 days of the week. By the end of season we were relegated and more to the point my Dad was dead and I learnt a lesson about getting emotionally invested in a Walsall FC team. Sorry for the long depressing read, but you did ask and I promise I tried to be brief.
If all that is too long to read allow me to summarise the pertinant points for everyone: if youâre struggling with mental health please, please, please seek help. Secondly if you need to become a fulltime carer for a loved one do it, it can be super rewarding in itâs own way but make sure you have the support structures you need to get through it. It can be a truly harrowing experience caring for the person who bought you into the world and raised you as their minds come apart.
64 Likes
Thank you for your story and sharing what you have been through.
There is still a stigma around mens mental health but I truly believe we are making strides in the right direction through people sharing like this x
2 Likes
Thank u for your story it does help talking I am having therapy at moment up and down most weeks comeing here helpsđ
8 Likes
Iâm sure anyone who has had to care for an ageing parent, or parents, will know just how incredibly stressful it is, and how it totally takes over your whole life.
I would echo that people should talk about it and not be afraid to seek help.
That you might be doing it willingly and lovingly doesnât prevent you from becoming mentally exhausted, and Iâd say that people shouldnât feel guilty if they sometimes struggle and it gets a bit much.
6 Likes
I can completely sympathise with what you must have gone through, and so sorry that you have lost both your Mom and Dad. I have spent the last 4 years caring for my Dad due to dementia. The last 9 months of that time meant that i had to give up work completely and move back in with Dad to virtually be there.24 hours a day for him. No carers, no help other than from my fantastic wife, who i cannot ever praise and thank enough.
There was no normal in my life for a long time. Everything was put on hold and turned upside down. You are completely right, ultimately you swap roles and you become the parent, and your parent becomes the child.
My Dad is in care now, simply because i could not care for him any more, and cope by myself. I am not ashamed to say that i couldnât cope any longer. I was physically, mentally and emotionally spent. But i do not regret a single second of what I did, i just wished I could have done it for longer.
Unless you talk to someone who has been through the same experience, no matter how you you try to explain to people what is like to look after someone with such a severe illness, then they never really truly understand what it is like. It is not just the physically exhausting side of things, you are right, it is the mental side as well. You end up feeling so alone and depressed, that you cannot ever see things improving, as that loved oneâs own illness becomes.more severe. I found i literally went into.self-protection mode and didnât want to talk to anyone about what was going on, or admit how I felt.
I did try talking to my GP, once, but to be honest i got more sympathy and understanding from the dog. All they want to do is prescribe you pills that make you feel worse, and move on to the next patient. After that i thought what is the point of speaking to anyone. It is so wrong!!!
And once it is all over, it takes a long time for you to start feeling normal again in yourself. Just because the caring has stopped, mentally you mind has been scrambled and takes a long time to start thinking of yourself again. I am still trying to get there myself, but hopefully by getting a bit more normality back in my life, it will do, it just takes time.
25 Likes
Currently on holiday with the wifeâs mum and dad visiting the battlefields of the somme.her dad clearly has the early onset of dementia. Itâs so sad to hear the same stories repeated almost on a loop and hard to keep responding in a positive way. First question whenever we get in the car is always âwhat temperature is it?â. Weâre only 4 days in so I really do think that those people, like WestieJack, who care for people with dementia on a long term basis have the patience of a Saint and I hope that this forum gives a bit of light relief for them - they do an amazing job!
13 Likes
To be honest even just posting on here what i said above, helps. At the end of the day Iâm just a typical bloke who finds it difficult to talk about how you are really feeling deep inside and let out your emotions. Even though stuff like depression, anxiety, and anyone who god fordid suffers with mental problems, is now more widely accepted amongst us all and is not frowned upon, it still doesnât make it easy for that person suffering to open up and talk about it. But you must.
The first hurdle is actually admitting to yourself that you are either struggling or have a problem. Donât keep telling yourself everything will be alright. Pretending everything is fine and you can cope is the worse thing you can do.The next stage is to open up to someone you can trust and, more. importantly, someone who will listen.
If this little bit of advice helps someone else on here, then my sharing this, like Pat_W above, makes.it worth it.
15 Likes
A big problem is people canât afford to be physically or mentally ill. The dramatic rise in the cost of living means most people are living on the bread line or below. A couple of days of work could see you struggle to pay your rent/Mortgage. Sad but true
1 Like
Just caught up on some of these posts and kudos to those who have spoken about their experiences, not an easy thing to do but a vital step on the way to finding help and dealing with those experiences.
Hopefully no one sees this as a shameless plug as it isnât intended that way. Kaleidoscope Plus Group have started a service called Lads Chat that take place every few weeks. In a nutshell, it is a virtual man cave where men can talk about their experiences, seek help, learn tips around coping strategies coupled with a mix of banter thrown in that you would expect in a lads chat, sometimes around football etc. Brendan Kiernan attended our first one as an ambassador to support.
https://twitter.com/kaleidoscope_pg/status/1554859808075005954?s=21&t=N9frNTsV34bDYVrfjJHgLA
Iâm not sure when the next one is scheduled for, but if you follow Kaleidoscope on Twitter, or other social media platforms then you will be able to see as they are announced through those mediums.
As always if anyone wants to talk please DM me, Iâm not a mental health specialist by any stretch, but I can listen and as Chair of KPG I can signpost to the right people for help 
4 Likes
Also a Weight Loss & Mental Health thread in SOT
2 Likes
My dad is 85 and has early onset of vascular dementia and alzheimerâs, i am lucky at the moment that my 82 year old mom looks after him.
I donât see him every day, but on the days that i do see him, he seems fine, then mom will tell me that he forgot how to wash his hair this morning, or he swallowed the tablet that he should have dissolved in water whole, and tried to dissolve the one that he should have swallowed whole.
We try to make light of it and he does see the funny side, i keep calling him by silly names like Bill or John (his name is Bob) and he responds with calling me by random names but my own and then says âyou do realise that it will be reality one dayâ 
I know, it is sad but that is the reality. My Dad is about the same age as yours and has the same illness and conditions. He was diagnosed just over 4 years ago now, and up until this season he used to come to the home games every week with me. We even got early bird renewals back in March for this season as we still planned to go as normal. I am sure some of you reading this may realise who we both are?
But as is such with dementia, unfortunately his illness has seen a massive deterioration in his condition over the past few weeks. Even though he went into full-time care at the end of April, we still planned to come to the games this season. Unfortunately that will never happen again as he is now so poorly.
So what has been the norm for 46 years of my life has suddenly changed, and not for the better. My Dad and me going to watch out beloved Saddlers will never happen again 
.
Watching us win 4-0 last Saturday was a mixed bag of emotion for me. It was one of the best Walsall performances we have seen jn years, yet I was sad that my Dad wasnât there to experience and share the joy with me. The reality is that even if he had been there, by Sunday he wouldnât have been able to remember a single thing about it, or even if we won or lost. But that is not the point. So much of what we all love about football is that has so much to do with that special moment that will live with you forever.
I know we probably havenât had many of those as Walsall fans, but those we have had I have been able to share every single one of them with my Dad over the past 46 years. Even stupid things like picking up the phone tell him we have just signed someone, talking every day about Walsall. All that has now gone and will never come back.
Now he doesnât even mention football, or Walsall, or canât remember anything about the sides, players, or games. He took pride in telling anyone who would listen that he had been going to watch Walsall since 1944 when we just used to play a few local matches again the Villa and the Albion during the war, and until the leagues started again. He went with his Dad as well as a 7 year old back then.
As with any serious, life debilitating illness, treasure the time you have with your loved ones because you never know when that will all suddenly change and be taken away from you. I am really sorry Chunkster that your Dad has got this terrible illness as well, We used to try and joke about it with Dad, just like you, just to try and play down the seriousness of it all, and it worked for a while. But then the reality of it all catches up with all of us, eventually.
14 Likes