The Tom's Talks Podcast is a place where we speak to a vast array of people from different walks of life and find out what makes them them. We will speak about their unique journey and delve into the highs and the lows which ultimately define them.
This episode discusses suicide, addiction and mental health. If you're struggling, Samaritans are available 24/7 on 116 123.
"When Liam died, all he really needed was somebody to put his arm around him and say: you're not a burden."
For this one we turned the show around. Tom has spent years asking other people the hardest questions of their lives. This time Joe asks them back, and Tom answers every one of them.
Tom's brother Liam was knocked off his scooter at 16 and spent months in hospital, some of it in an induced coma. At 18 the compensation came through. What followed was years of addiction that Tom freely admits he misunderstood completely at the time, because a decade ago nobody was talking about any of this. For a long time he just thought his brother was being selfish. Liam died at 22, and what came next was anger, self blame, and a long stretch of hating the world and himself.
This is the full story behind Tom's Talks, told properly for the first time. At the start of 2024 he had fewer than 10,000 followers. He now has over 600,000, and the whole thing started with one talk in a school and a photo of its final slide.
What we get into: Liam's accident at 16, the months in hospital, and the compensation that landed when he turned 18 How the addiction took hold, and why Tom spent years believing his brother simply did not care Liam's death at 22, and the anger and self blame that followed The first talk he ever gave in a school, and the last slide that ended it: suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem Getting paid to speak for the first time, and the moment he realised this could be a career rather than a mission he funded himself The man who stopped him outside a club in Leeds at 3am to tell him his videos had saved his life Becoming a dad to Daisy, the guilt of not being present enough, and what fatherhood has changed in him Why he spends so little time on social media despite the numbers, and the one rule he has about who to follow Why "it's okay not to be okay" is only half of it, and what has to come after the talking The conversation he would still love to have with his brother, and the apology he wants to give him What he would say to himself the day after Liam died
If you have ever watched someone you love change and not understood why, or lost them before you worked it out, this one will be hard to listen to and worth it anyway. It is an honest conversation about grief, addiction, men's mental health, guilt and what it actually takes to rebuild.
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