A Mental Health Journey
You never know where life will take you. For Bruno Guevremont, it took him into the Canadian Armed Forces for 15 years, including two tours in Afghanistan. It also took him on a battle with his own mental health, one where he got help, and is now helping others.
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Special Guest
Bruno Guevremont was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for 15 years including time in the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Navy. In addition to being a mental health advocate, Bruno does high performance coaching with organizations and individuals.
Highlights
- Bruno’s backstory.
- The experience of dismantling roadside bombs.
- 4:41 How he knew he needed help with his mental health.
- Impact on his family life.
- 10:49 You can only connect the dots looking backward.
- What he would tell military members and their families about mental health.
- 17:47 What really changed things around for him.
- The power of the expedition to the North Pole.
- Would he do anything different?
- 24:24 This journey of mental health is something you constantly work on.
Quotes
“The military told you you can no longer serve in the military. But nobody told you that you could no longer serve your country. We need you in the communities we need the training that you’ve done. Nobody puts the amount of money in training you all around and all kinds of things like the military does. Basically, the average price between basic training to fully trades qualified, whichever trades you’re picking up in the military is about a million dollars, you’re worth a million dollars, you’re a Million Dollar Man. So use those skills because they are needed in community.” – Bruno Guevremont
“And that starts by making a plan of before while you’re joining in basic training and all that and, and really creating that support system around you and saying, hey, guys, what if? Because it might happen. And what if it happens, how we’re going to deal with it?” – Bruno Guevremont
“If you want to find out who you are, the military will show you that. It’s the right platform to really find out what your abilities are, what you’re capable of, and who you truly are at the core.” – Bruno Guevremont
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Thank you
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript
Bruno
The military told you you can no longer serve in the military. But nobody told you that you could no longer serve your country. We need you in the communities we need the training that you’ve done. Nobody puts the amount of money in training you all around and all kinds of things like the military does. Basically, the average price between basic training to fully trades qualified, whichever trades you’re picking up in the military is about a million dollars, you’re worth a million dollars, you’re a Million Dollar Man. So use those skills because they are needed in community.
Intro
The military lifestyle is all encompassing. It’s difficult, but rewarding. Dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces, or a family member connected to the military. You know, the lifestyle can be a challenge. The military lifestyle is always changing. In this podcast, we explore the world of deployments, postings, and transitions. This is the military lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
You never know where life will take you. For Bruno Guevremont, it took him into the Canadian Armed Forces for 15 years, including two tours in Afghanistan. It also took him on a battle with his own mental health, one where he got help, and is now helping others. I speak with him about his career, mental health and his insights next. So I’m here with Bruno Guevremont. Thank you very much for coming.
Bruno
Thank you for having me.
Jon
You got a fascinating backstory, you got to tell us briefly about your career, and sort of give me an outline, some experiences that stood out for you.
Bruno
So I joined the Forces in 1999, in Ottawa, and then went to basic training in St Jean, Borden from my trades training, I joined the army first as a weapons tech, and then was posted to Petawawa. And we went on tour in 2003, I was posted the 3RCR there with the paratroopers. From there, when I came back, I was looking for something a little bit more challenging. So I decided to transfer over to the Navy to become a clearance diver. And the only way I could make that happen was to take the trade of being a Bosun and serve two years on the ship, become a ship’s team diver, then do selection for clearance diver, go on course do that. And I finished my career before being medically released as a counter IED on my second tour in Afghanistan, dismantling roadside bombs and all that stuff. So it was a very exciting and challenging career, is exactly what I needed. And I served for 15 years. And I still miss it daily.
Jon
That last experience you had. I mean, that’s, that’s intense work. Is that not?
Bruno
It was and that’s just said the tempo of it. We were the busiest team of the whole campaign, we did over 100 confirmed IEDs that we dismantle we either blew up or dismantle. And then on top of that, we did a lot of what we call post blast investigation. That means of IEDs that detonated either there was some casualties or damage, and we needed to reconstruct the scene and gather evidence and all these things. So we were pretty busy, about two to three IEDs, like calls a day. And then one day we did we had nine, that was busy.
Jon
How long does each one of those take?
Bruno
It depends on the IED, it’s a game of cat and mouse. When we first got there, there were very basic as in, you know, the jug was put into the ground either with a pressure plate or command wire or something like that. And then as they saw us, and how good we were with the robot and the way that we did things, they started getting a little bit more creative. So we knew for a fact that we were being observed every time and they got by the end of the tour, they were getting pretty creative. And then they had also what we call secondaries, which is there is the main IED. And then they they have a side IEDs to actually get the bomb teams that are dismantling that so we need to be on top of her game for sure.
Jon
Afghanistan. You did two tours.
Bruno
Two tours in Afghanistan, one in 2003, ROTO Zero in Kabul with the army as a weapons tech there. And then I did a second tour in Kandahar. I was in CNS and Masson Gar, for almost seven months. Yeah.
Jon
So you reached a point after the tour where you realized you needed help. So how did you know when you needed help. What were the signs? Who saw it?
Bruno
You know what that is actually, especially in the context of this podcast. It’s actually one of my favorite questions to answer because we’ve got so many people that are stuck at that level. And basically is this you know yourself better than anybody else. When I came back you like think about it before you went on tour. You were sharp everything was you know, your fit, your your mind was on target, everything was just flowing in one direction of, you know, level next level next level, let’s go and do this, let’s go and do that more training do this. And then when I came back one of the first symptoms for me was, I would get angry, really quick. Anger was one of my symptoms that was the most prevalent. And then it came the night terrors. And then the vicious cycle started and the ideation and not feeling good and all that like most people that know me, I’m like a big teddy bear. So when you get to be edgy, and a horn sets you off and, and you know, I was driving in traffic, and a smell of diesel would bring me back to Afghanistan and all this stuff. And I would get angry, because part of our training is is that if you’re confused, or if you don’t know what to do, act with purpose. And usually you kind of get angry at things to you know, get you to move. And so that was one of the symptoms. And it took three times to reach out to the medical system. Being at the fleet diving unit (Pacific) as a clearance diver, we had our own doctor, so it’s really quick. So the first time I went to see her, she she told me so I told her about the symptoms, and she says, Oh, Bruno, those sounds like symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. And I was like, no, no, not this guy. No, I don’t get that. That’s for other people, either weak people or people that don’t have the tools or whatever. But you know what, I jumped out of planes, I’m a diver, I blow stuff up. That doesn’t happen to me. And then I continued and it became, the nightmare was not sleeping at night is what kind of started the dark spiral and kind of made everything come into play. Because if you’re not sleeping, you’re not, your brain is not processing everything, you’re not kind of putting things where they need to be. And so what happens is that you wake up in the morning, and you’re just angry, and you’re just like running on an empty gas tank, basically, you’re trying to pour from an empty cup. And so I went to see a second time the doctor and once again, she came out with, you know, Bruno, these are the symptoms for post traumatic stress. I think that because of what you saw in Afghanistan, what you did, and all these things that just took a toll on you. And we can get you some help. And I you know, I very clearly remember I said, well, Doc, I don’t know where you went to school. But once again, I don’t got post traumatic stress always basically going up this big river in Egypt called denial. What happened is that it started showing up of ideation of suicide, I had a plan, I had a place to do it, and I was going to do it. And the thing that kind of like gave me the how should we say this, the clear path was to I wanted to be there for my son, I didn’t want my son to be growing up without a dad. And and I had read this quote that was says that suicide doesn’t end the pain. It just redistributes it. It just passes it on to your loved ones. So I didn’t want my son to grow up without a dad and to have to carry this burden. So I decided to one last time reach out to the unit doc. And she says, Listen, Bruno like I’ve told you before, this is what it is, would you like some help? And I said yes. And she acted right away. Within an hour I was over at mental health. And then the military took extremely good care of me. I like I had a psychologist, psychiatrist, they obviously put me on medication, they kind of started the process of getting me better. And unfortunately, at that time, that also meant there was a path that was being set up before me for medical release. And that’s what happened basically.
Jon
How did your challenges with mental health impact your family?
Bruno
Well, you know, at the time, once again, when you’re you’re not sure what it is like just put yourself in the shoes of our military men and women you know, you’re trained to go towards bullets, you’re trained to jump out of planes, you’re trained to do extremely dangerous jobs. So you’re pretty sharp and pretty well conditioned to do these things. And all of a sudden, you’re having these feelings and emotions and and chemical reaction to things you don’t know about like panic attack, anxiety, depression, all these things, you know, like, what’s wrong with me is the first kind of thing that comes up. Because then your family saying something’s different. You’re not the same. Why are you so angry? Why is there screaming and all these things? And then yeah, so what happened is that my marriage fell apart. A lot of things kind of started falling behind and then in the culture that we were living at a time and now I hear it’s better now, there was a lot of alcohol consumption. It was encouraged, not in a way of saying hey, have some alcohol and and feel better. But it was just one of the things that would between guys and girls would just like it’s just something you did right is just to numb the pain and to kind of like, move forward and it’s probably the worst thing you can do. Because alcohol is a depressant and it doesn’t fix anything. It just numbs the pain for a bit and actually makes things worse because it doesn’t make you think right. It doesn’t make you feel good. And it makes you feel good for maybe that hour or two that you’re with your buddies and you’re doing that thing. But then it gets overboard. And obviously, you know, if you got the personality that does join the military, you don’t do anything halfway, you just you just go all out. Yeah, it was a problem.
Jon
Do you look back on yourself when you’re struggling and say, Oh, it’s obvious now, I’ll give you an example of that. And my dad, he had a stroke. He was a doctor. And he had a stroke while he was at work, surrounded by other doctors and professionals. And he had a stroke. And he didn’t know what was happening, right? He didn’t have no clue. None of his co workers clued in and thought, oh, he’s having a stroke. Yeah, his only kind of afterwards, it was kind of oh, I had a stroke. Yeah. When you’re in the moment, you might not realize that what what is actually happening to you?
Bruno
That is such a good description parallel to what it is, you’re absolutely correct. You’re absolutely correct. Ready, they say you can’t see the whole picture. If you’re standing in the frame, right? A Steve Jobs does a really good job at this school address that he does. And he says you can only connect the dots looking backward. Some guys that were at the unit that we thought, hey, man, what happened to the super sharp, Iraqi sniper jumper pathfinder, guys, why did they all of a sudden run a Jeep to the front doors and started breaking everything inside the battalion and all these things was because these guys had post traumatic stress disorder, they were like messed up, and they didn’t know what to do. And the first thing we reach out is reach out to the buddies. And well, let’s do something. But we’re so afraid to tell that something’s wrong with us, because it’s a world of we’re like a pack of wolves. And we smell blood. And we do something like that. And sometimes, that’s why I’m so big on caring and opening up the conversation about hey, guys, it’s okay to not be okay, let’s take care of each other. And let’s have way more discussion. Because I wish that I knew now that if we went on tour, you know, we made it part of our debrief, to talk about what happened in the day, whichever way you want it to talk about it could have probably bring down the symptoms in a way that we would have dealt with, it may be right there, instead of bottling everything up for seven months and coming back home. Because you’re so full of adrenaline and you’re so full of you know, getting your things done doing the job, that when you come home, your body says hey, you know what all this stuff that we went through for seven months, how about we deal with it right now, and adjust your central nervous system kind of like, releases all of that, and your brains trying to make sense of it and everything and we have the time now, the Forces are way better with road to readiness and all these things is that we didn’t have any tools, we didn’t have any skills and all that or people that were willing to you know that you could go and see. And then that was the difference between my first or my second tour. And that when I came back from my second tour, I had booked some appointments with mental health just to go and have a chat to make sure that everything was okay. And even at that time was so fresh out of the tour, that I was still okay, that time took a few months from hit to hit.
Jon
If someone was starting out their career, and wondering about their future, what would you tell a military member about mental health? And what would you tell their family?
Bruno
Oh, man, that’s a good question. Jon, you’d like full of good questions today. So basically, what I tell them is that you’re joining the right career, if you want to find out who you are, the military will show you that it’s the right platform to really find out what your abilities are, what you’re capable of, and who you truly are at the core. And it will create a really good presence that is really needed in your community. Now, with that comes, the downside of it is that you’re going to do things that nobody else does.
Jon
So there’s there’s a huge element of risk.
Bruno
There is a huge element of risk and nobody’s and get this right is that nobody’s saying that that’s not happening and the Forces are not telling you about this, everybody signs up on the line, willing to give their life up for the country and everything. So it’s not something that they’re not aware of, trust me that in the training, there needs to be a certain the conditioning that the Canadian Forces do. It’s what makes us the best in the world, is that we’re really good. Like you need to train people to go towards the bullet not away from them. So there, there’s a certain conditioning that needs to do that. But there needs to be a conversation about, hey, what am I going to do when I see those things? And can we talk about it? And is it okay for us to talk about it? It doesn’t make you less of a warrior? If you actually go say, hey, listen, I saw some blown up bodies or I saw my friend who just got killed or you know, we had a big accident in a training area. It doesn’t make me weak, it doesn’t make you weak at all. And for the family to support is that a lot of people think like, they either good, get overzealous and come on talk to me or whatever. What can I do to fix you? Here’s what I’m going to tell you. There’s nothing to fix, because we’re not human. And there’s nothing to do because we’re not human doings. We’re human beings. So let’s just be the way that we need to be. Let’s just open up and have this conversation. Let’s just be aware that this will be a possibility because not everybody’s affected the same way when they see the same event. So this The thing that I that I now say outside in the world, when I’m doing my talk, see different mental health or for veterans and all these things, everybody’s got this blanket kind of cover everything. You know what the old adage of saying, you know, you see one veteran, you seen them all, actually, that’s false. You’ve seen one veteran, you’ve seen one veteran, because that guy that person deals with the events or what he went through, or she went through the way that they need, that’s why riding a horse might be good for you, like equine therapy might be really good for you, for other people is talking to psychologists, for other people is group therapy, for other people is crafting. So you need to find that for yourself. And that starts by making a plan of before while you’re joining in basic training and all that and, and really creating that support system around you and saying, hey, guys, what if? Because it might happen? And what if it happens, how we’re going to deal with it? Because now we’re kind of like the Forces and all of us were caught behind the eight ball. And we were reacting to all of this now. And in the Forces did so much work of bringing this up and saying like, we got to get ready. I don’t know what the I always forget the name of it, but it’s the road to mental health preparedness.
Jon
I know it is a road to mental readiness.
Bruno
That’s it. That’s it.
Jon
You probably know the acronym R2MR.
Bruno
Yeah, exactly. R2MR. And I’m trying to not say too many acronyms for the family members that are listening to this. But basically, that’s what it is use some of these tools and use the tools that work for you. And then if some of these aren’t working, or it’s not really aligning with the personality that you have, that your family have, then let’s find sums that are and it doesn’t need to be something like a how should I say that that’s out of this world, or that’s an urgency, let’s just plant the seeds right now. And then water them through our career. Because I’m going to tell you, I got some chiefs and and officers that have served their country for 20, 25, 30 years, that are now calling me and going like I don’t know what to do, I didn’t have any of those skills. And they’re they’re stuck in the identity, that the I’m a chief and I need a chief stuff. I know you’re human being and you need human beings stuff. And that’s what you need. So the conversation needs to be had. And I think that if you start that earlier in your career, and you set the groundwork for it, then when things happen, you might be a little bit better served, and have the skills to actually kind of weather the storm better, as well.
Jon
What were some things that help change things around for you? Whatt has helped the most, where were the things that kind of stood out for you?
Bruno
Personally was fitness, moving, extreme adventures, and helping others. I can tell you in 2012, when I was on my way out and release, I was working out on the gym, basically, I was on a whole bunch of medications, I was basically kind of like a walking zombie. One day, I had two things that happened a PSP presentation about neural pathways, and post traumatic stress and all these things that kind of set up a light bulb that said, for seven months, my body created new neural pathways to be able to deal with the traumatic events that I’ve seen or the things that I’ve been through. So that tells me that if I work at it, I can recreate new neural pathways to be better. So that’s what came out of that talk. So these talks need to once again, I’m telling you that these talks really work, they plant the seeds. And you don’t need to think about if you’re jumping out of a plane, you’re not like thinking, you know, I don’t need to think about you know what I’m going to do when I’m broken because you won’t jump out of the plane. And the other thing is that I asked the question, when I was at the top of my game, when I was really sharp, what was I doing consistently? What were my habits? What were the things that I was doing that was making me fit doing these things? And it was working out. The military is really good at working out first thing in the morning, I still keep that morning routine. I go out, I go run with my dogs, I go to the first thing in the morning, then I do breathing exercises, I do reading and so you know it’s garbage in, garbage out. So now you try to keep that kind of routine. It’s very important for us because we’ve been no matter how long you’ve served. You’ve been conditioned to be structured. So keep that structure it serves you in the civilian world. I’m going to tell you, yes, sometimes you know what we think we’re operating at 30%, 50% of what our standards would be. And the civilian people out there saying man, you guys are like turned on, switched on, showing up on time and doing this and you’re like, oh my God. What? What’s out there? Yeah, so fitness and physical movement for me was good and helping others helping others is the is the right way to go.
Jon
I know you went to the North Pole.
Bruno
Oh, yeah.
Jon
Expedition to the north pole with true patriot foundation. Was that correct?
Bruno
That is very correct.
Jon
When like it was it in the summer or the winter
Bruno
It was in May. It was a 24 hour sun. So it was light 24 hours a day. It was probably one of the best thing that I’ve ever done as a healing thing.
Jon
We should send all of our veterans to the North Pole?
Bruno
North Pole, or they went north pole, they went to basecamp Mount Everest, they went to the South Pole. They went up north again, they do every year they do an expedition.
Jon
What was it about that experience that really resonated with you?
Bruno
It was just the whole, like I said, is that I’m a very physical person. And I knew that I was struggling and it just kind of aligned that. General me a call. I had just opened my gym. And I was still struggling and doing these things. But he said to me say listen, Bruno, there’s this organization called True Patriot Love. They’re looking for ill and injured soldiers to go on this expedition to the North Pole. So now at the time, because I had my business, I was reading Richard Branson, and he says, when somebody offers you an opportunity, say yes, then figure out how to do it later. So I said, yes, right away. And I like I said, I just opened my gym, it was brand new business and everything. But you know, what would a good support system, everybody kind of lined up and took care of my clients and all these things. So it was really, really cool. And then I went up there with the intention of leaving some of my problems up there. It was really well done for the simple fact that we were there with industry leaders and businessman and people of influence and all these things, that we’re actually really interested in learning on how they can help the veteran community. And then being part of a team again, with other soldiers was really healing, right. That’s why the Invictus Games are so busy, are very good for healing as well. But basically, and it’s one of the industry leaders that they notice right away says you guys didn’t know each other right now. And they go, No, we didn’t know, they noticed that within 15 minutes of being together, we started working as a team with our equipment and making sure everybody was okay. And we started checking the equipment of the civilians and showing them how to work together. And all these things, which they said, man, I want you guys in my company, like basically, they were saying like, if I could get my team to work like you guys so quick. And that’s the conditioning of the Forces. This is how we are we know what teamwork is all about. But to come back to the expedition is that I didn’t bring in electronics, I didn’t bring anything you had to pull your own toboggan was about anywhere between 75 to 90 pounds with your own water, your own food, your own stuff. And then you had a backpack as well. And I’m going to tell you something about the North Pole, is that it is the most cleanest, most serene place on earth. That it is a sound vacuum. As in, there’s no bugs, there’s no trees, there’s no planes, there’s no vehicles, there’s no nothing, the only it’s almost like diving, where you only hear your breathing and the cracking of the snow as you’re going or if you’re walking beside somebody the conversations that you’re having, which that was a healing factor as well, because you could talk and people were really interested in other vets. You we, we know we had a guy with us Bjorn, that he couldn’t walk or ski. So we had a sit ski for him. And we took turns pulling him up there. Because that’s what we do. It was really, really healing. It was it was out of this world that it was always talk about that.
Jon
Looking back on mental health. Is there anything you did differently?
Bruno
Yes, now I’m way well aware of my abilities. And when I need time off, when I need to recharge boundaries, what’s happening, I continue to research, I continue to do these things and continue to conversation about it. Mental health is a personal thing that you need to constantly be in check, you need to check in on yourself. Recently, I still got back to seeing a psychologist for having the conversation about that even though that I could feel that distress of the COVID. And the stress of business and all these things were kind of like, I was basically once again pouring from an empty cup. So they weren’t kind of replenishing. I wasn’t taking the time because I couldn’t go to I usually rent the cottage for three days and go and relax somewhere or do something. I wasn’t getting that. So I decided to reach out to a psychologist through veterans affair and they it happened so quick. It was good to go. Yeah, I do those check in on that stay on top of that. I don’t let it go too far down.
Jon
So you never look at it like the journey is over.
Bruno
You know what Jon, I don’t think it’ll ever be over. And that’s the thing. I think that there’s this this journey of mental health of well being and all these things is a thing that you constantly work on. That includes fitness, nutrition, what you read what you watch, who you’re hanging around with, and all these things. One of the first things I say to veterans that are struggling, I said how do you spend your days and most of them will tell me well, I meet my buddies at Tim Hortons, and then we we chat all day. And I’m going to tell you that the conversation is about either the great things we did and we’re going to laugh about these things which gets them drawn in, you know, to still stay connected. But I’m going to tell you that they’re basically talking negative things about how military didn’t do good to them and Veterans Affairs not doing good. And all these things. So what I tell them to do is, hey, let’s just put that aside for a few months get you better, and then you can go back and help your friends. And then let’s find out a plan that works for you with a morning routine with anything and all that. So it’s something that needs to go and I still have my bad days, Jon, I still have my times where there’s difficult challenge for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just for the fact that it’s an injury that we had, there’s actually been a lot of research that that post traumatic stress that there is lesions in the brain and now with the mefloquine and all these things that we went through, there’s so much involved in the conditioning that we went through, because we created an identity while we were serving in the military. And all of a sudden, one day somebody told you, you can no longer do that. But I want to make sure that the the you know, the listeners listen to this, like the military told you, you can no longer serve in the military. But nobody told you that you could no longer serve your country. We need you in the communities, we need the training that you’ve done. nobody out there, I work for corporations. Now. I’m a consultant for corporations, like Lululemon, all these things, I’m going to tell you, nobody puts the amount of money in training you all around, and all kinds of things like the military does. Basically, the average price between basic training to fully trades qualified, whichever trades you’re picking up in the military is about a million dollars, you’re worth a million dollars, you’re a Million Dollar Man. That’s exactly what it is. So use those skills, because they are needed in your community.
Jon
So anything else you’d mentioned to military members and their families?
Bruno
Yeah, reach out. Absolutely. Reach out, reach out to me, reach out to MFRC, reach out to Veterans Affairs. And I know it’s difficult because you know of everything that’s going on politically with Veterans Affairs and all these things. But don’t give up. Get well, start with you. Start with your morning routine. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking, I started walking. This is how I kind of like sometimes help some veterans that are really stuck back in the day in the Roman Empire, which is my favorite part of history. When they used to go on campaigns and doing all the promise of when you come back home, you will have a piece of land and you will you can have spoils of war all these things to reward of serving Rome. So do the same thing for yourself is basically you served your country for how many amounts 5,10, 15, 20, 30 years. And don’t tell me the best you can do is working at Walmart, you can do so much better for yourself. Now is the time you’ve been told what to do for those many years. Now’s the time for you to decide, what do you want to do? What do you need, what you’ve always wanted to do? And then do that. And reach out for people that can help you to get that happening.
Jon
Thank you very much your time, Bruno.
Bruno
You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
Jon
In addition to being a mental health advocate, Bruno does high performance coaching with organizations and individuals. You can learn more about him and what he does at his website. Look for the link in the show notes.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode. And to check out our other resources like the deployment app, go to Esquimaltmfrc.com. A special thanks to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to the military lifestyle on your favorite podcast app. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.
