#100 – Stuart O’Neill

Stuart’s Story

Raised in Melbourne Australia, Stuart O’Neill’s mostly self-employed life has provided its fair share of highs and lows. Stuart’s life story easily resonates with others. In the 1980’s Stuart became an Australian Surf Lifesaver. Saving lives is a passion that he still fulfills to this day. His desire to save lives now includes his book Just One Reason. 

The Just One Reason suicide prevention toolkit is the product of Stuart’s out of the box thinking and willingness to help others. Stuart takes pride in putting others first and bares his soul publicly about his personal battle with suicidal thoughts and depression. Throughout the book, Stuart reveals his own strategy for beating your inner demons and offers a powerful and very easy solution to a world problem that is getting worse, not better.

Episode Resources

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline | 800-273-8255
• Good Reads Reviews | goodreads.com
• Lionrock.life Shop | lionrock.life/shop-products

Connect with Stuart O’Neill

• Just One Reason Instagram | @justonereasonofficial
• Just One Reason Website | justonereason.com.au

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• Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life

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Episode Transcript

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to the Courage to Change, a Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, and I am still your host. Today we have Stuart O’Neill. Stuart was raised in Melbourne, Australia, so he’s got that awesome accent to listen to. He’s been mostly self-employed his whole life and has provided its fair share of highs and lows. Stuart’s life story easily resonates with others. In the 1980s, Stuart became an Australian surf lifesaver, saving lives is a passion that he still fulfills to this day. His desire to save lives now includes his book, Just One Reason. The Just One Reason Suicide Prevention Toolkit is the product of Stuart’s out of the box thinking and willingness to help others. Stuart takes pride in putting others first and bears his soul publicly about his personal battle with suicidal thoughts and depression. Throughout the book, Stuart reveals his own strategy for beating his inner demons and offers a powerful and very easy solution to a world problem that is getting worse, not better.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I really loved this conversation because I felt like there were a lot of new relatable things that to talk about with regard to suicidal ideation. I know that there are people out there who think about suicide a lot and would like to not think about suicide as much or have a solution or toolkit that would stop those thoughts. I know that a lot of people in recovery have dealt with this as well. So suicide is just this seeking relief, right? It’s just that need for relief. It’s the same as many of the other compulsions that we talk about where people who are seeking relief and suicidal ideation is really when we can’t think of another way to find that relief, when just disappearing and ending it feels like that’s the answer, and that will provide the relief, right? It’s the permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stuart has some really amazing advice. He shares his experience coming from a home where there was a lot of mental illness, and he still deals with his parents’ mental illness to this day. I love that he talks about the stories of people around the world who have received his book, Just One Reason, and what their experiences were, it sounds like it’s helped a ton of people. It’s just a really incredible story. I hope that you enjoy it. Please share this episode with someone you love. You never know who’s struggling. There are a lot of great insights into these thought patterns, especially as it relates to trauma. So without further ado, I give you Stuart O’Neill, Episode 100. Let’s do this.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You are listening to the Courage to Change, a Recovery Podcast. We’re a community of recovering people who have overcome the odds and found the courage to change. Each week, we share stories of recovery from substance abuse, eating disorders, grief and loss, childhood trauma and other life changing experiences. Come join us no matter where you are on your recovery journey.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay, welcome, Stuart. Thanks for being here.

Stuart O’Neill:

Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re in Australia. What time is it there?

Stuart O’Neill:

It is 8:00 AM here.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

8:00? Nothing like waking up bright and early to talk about recovery.

Stuart O’Neill:

Fantastic time.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

We are starting every episode in season three off with we’re trying to get bad, your worst haircut pictures. But some people are doing childhood, but your picture your worst haircut I feel like might win season three. This is the one that I got. This is amazing. Tell me about this.

Stuart O’Neill:

Just a second.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh my god, it is so good.

Stuart O’Neill:

Sorry. So we were at home, my partner and I. We were doing silly things to each other, like with textures and writing on each other. She had a penis drawn on her, and we had all sorts of different things done in a big black marking pen.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh my gosh.

Stuart O’Neill:

So then the stakes got up that … What do you call a bit? The stakes went up higher. So she decided that she’d try and shave a picture into my head, with some barbers electric clippers things.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

So that all happened. As it was progressing, it started looking pretty good. So she was working on her photo, and just copying the photo the whole time. So that was the outcome, but it got worse. So as part of all of that, I had to then do a full lap inside the shopping center and walk around with it on as well.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh my god. So funny.

Stuart O’Neill:

She did such a good job with it. It’s great.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah. So the picture, I’ll describe the picture. So I have a picture of your head is mostly shaved, except for the outline of a man squatting, pooping, two little poops. This is shaved into your hair and made into an incredible design. I’m so impressed. So impressed.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. When that question came through, there could only be one photo.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh absolutely.

Stuart O’Neill:

Because I don’t have a whole lot of hair. I went to a sporting match a couple of years ago, and I had my hair, I attempted to get my hair shaved into like the most famous player on our team, which it looked a bit like a raccoon but I’ve got nothing on the top, so the back part was done but it wasn’t successful on the top because there’s not a lot of hair there.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They’re working with what … You got to work with what you’re working with. You did the lap around, did people stop you?

Stuart O’Neill:

No. People got stopped. So people would didn’t actually notice, but my partner’s so caring that she actually stopped people and pointed it out.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh my god, I love it. Oh my god, it sounds like you guys have a lot of fun. That is so good.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, it was pretty …

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So amazing.

Stuart O’Neill:

It was pretty funny what was done to each other with the hair cut and the black marking pen is very funny.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, that’s so funny. Well, if you’re listening, go to Instagram and check out this amazing haircut. It is so good. All right, Stuart. So tell me you have an older brother. Is that right?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes, correct.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You have an older brother, and you grew up with both parents. Your dad, you said your dad was a bit of a gambler, but it didn’t have an effect on family finances. Tell me a little bit about that. How does that work?

Stuart O’Neill:

How does that work? Well, he could afford to gamble, apparently. He mostly gambled on his own horses. But they weren’t $5 each way. They were proper bets, big ones. So none of the horses ever won. He just enjoyed the gala of it all, putting his shirt and tie on and going to the track and being amongst everyone else. It’s got horses and then hoping that payday is going to happen, but it never happened.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It sounds like this was like a big part of his life in terms of he owned horses, or is that a big thing? I mean to own a racehorse seems like it would be a big part of your life.

Stuart O’Neill:

You could make it that way if you wanted to. I guess that was his hobby, outside of work and family time. So the effect that I had more from that was that he chose to be with his horse more than his children. So that was probably, apart from knowing what was happening with the gambling, but never really been into gambling ever since. But it’s not for the reasons that other people don’t like gambling. I don’t like gambling because I got neglected as a kid that he’d rather get up at 7:00 in the morning and go to the track and watching the horse warm up and do things as opposed to come and watch me play a game of football.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right. Do you have a relationship with him today?

Stuart O’Neill:

I have a very difficult relationship with my father today. I’ve been the parent to my father now for probably 30 to 35 years. That continues to this day, unfortunately, which I dislike a lot. So there’s a lot of things that go on there. Our relationship, it’s been built on just total acceptance in the end because I have a lot of external influences around me for a long time saying, “You should do this and you should do that, and you should trade in like this and all these other bits and pieces.” In the end I just had to accept that my dad’s just a shit, and he’s still my dad. Nothing’s going to change.

Stuart O’Neill:

It’s either accept him for how he is and just know that that’s the case. He’s never going to be how I really liked my ideal database like I meet so many people who have great dads and I’m like, “Why can’t mine be like him?” So ultimately, I just have to go, “That’s just what it is. They’re the cards. That’s that, but we don’t see each other in person. Very often we communicate once every one to two weeks. But for the best part of, I don’t know, since for how long I can remember, actually I get a suicide call from him probably once to twice a month to this day that he’s had enough. He can’t go on and always other bits and pieces, and I probably had that now for 15, 20 years.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Wow, I want to come back to that your mother had a really horrendous childhood. What does that mean?

Stuart O’Neill:

So my mom grew up in inner city, Melbourne, and she was raised as a Catholic. In those days, back then, to the best of my knowledge, girls went to a convent school where they actually lived. So my mom, as far as I understand it, her first mom died when she was about two. Then so her father remarried or re-partnered and that person also died at some point like maybe five or 10 years later, so she’d lost basically both of her mothers at a very, very early age.

Stuart O’Neill:

That her father was a champion boxer and had been fit, popular type person, like a publican type thing, but he was a pretty mean bastard too. So she was, I guess, the unpopular daughter. She had an older sister who became a police officer. The oldest sister was adored and whatnot. My mom was like, I guess the pretty younger one who didn’t made up to his expectations, perhaps back in those days.

Stuart O’Neill:

In all in through all of that, Ashley, I believe that it was his friends, but she was certainly sexually assaulted a number of times when she was in her teens. My understanding is that it was his friends. I don’t know who I never got to meet any of his friends. I think kept me away from him as a grandfather pretty much my whole junior years. I think I met him three times before he died and I would have been maybe 10 or thereabouts when my grandfather passed away. So there’s been a relationship. With my mom, I’ve pretty much observed her whole of my life anyway and that my mom’s been a self-harmer for as long as I can remember.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. So that was kind of where I was going with the background, that’s where I was going with your parents background because it really sets the stage for some of the stuff that I want to talk to you about with your book and with the mental health struggles that you have had. You grew up in a house where dad, that there was neglect, right, as you described it, but it also sounds like he is has struggled with mental health things too, from your description. Then mom is self-harming. So did you see her self-harming?

Stuart O’Neill:

Never actually in the act. But certainly, certainly you can see the evidence of what had happened. So her most common thing was to burn herself with an iron. So that would be on her arms, and then there’d be a reason why it accidentally happened. Then you’d see really awful cuts on her legs, like on her knee and stuff. Then she’d walked into a table or whatever the case was, but you just know that there couldn’t possibly be that. The most recent one was probably inside the last 12 months. Now that she’s older, it looks even worse on a 77-year-old’s leg where their skin’s not so good. It’s like oh gosh. You just know that she’s still suffering.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah. As a kid, when did you start to realize that she didn’t walk into something or like it wasn’t … I’m sure the first couple times, you went along with that. When did that shift?

Stuart O’Neill:

Probably in my 30s, if I had to try and pick a time period. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So not not as a kid though.

Stuart O’Neill:

No. Not as a kid. No, no, not as a kid. But I did watch. I look back on things now and I can see things that felt normal at the time that there’s a thing medically that’s called … I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them in America, but it’s called a Ford pill. It’s like a little a little yellow. There you go. Just a little yellow tube, like a cylinder, and they’re laxatives. So they make you go the bathroom a lot, so my mom was addicted to those.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, wow. Okay, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

So I think that she used those as her dietary supplement would be my guess. So I don’t know for certain, but I know that she lives on them like lollies and they can’t be good for you.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. No, no. It’s not. So that kind of sets the stage for you growing up in this environment. Of course, our environments feel for the most part normal to us. I mean, it’s what we know. But it sets the stage for this environment that you grew up in that was very heavily colored by mental health struggles.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, looking back now, 100%. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, at the time. One thing that was interesting, I have this pre interview. One of the things that you told my team was that you and your brother were very mischievous, but that you didn’t get into trouble because you never got caught. I was thinking about that a lot. You’re getting into trouble getting in trouble, getting in trouble. Well getting in trouble is really a function of getting caught.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right? Otherwise, you’re just doing it. If no one’s paying attention, which is sounds to me like your parents were just really suffering and involved in their own suffering, like they just couldn’t. They had not healed from those things and didn’t have the skills. So you and your brother were out doing all these things. But you didn’t get in trouble because you didn’t get caught. So I think a lot of people, that getting caught stops them from escalating. But you guys, there was no governor on your ability to cause more and more mischief.

Stuart O’Neill:

There was, there was I did get caught once.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Once, okay, okay, one caught. Okay.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah, so that was a pretty bad one too. So I did get caught.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What’d you get caught for?

Stuart O’Neill:

Well, I took a car when I was underage, and I’ve had a few drinks. I hit another car.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’ll do it.

Stuart O’Neill:

That’ll do it. So I managed to get the car home. It was damaged. So to this day, my mom and I still talk about it sometimes to this day because my dad flogged me for probably an hour. It was like serious abuse. I still to this day, remember just how violent it was. when when they came home and discovered what had happened to the car. I got flogged relentlessly, like bruised and very, very badly beaten up.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do you have children now?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. Three, three boys.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Three boys. When you look back on that, and that used to be something that was much more common, if we interviewed your dad and said, “What was your goal there? What was the goal there? Did you think this was going to teach him a lesson? Did you think this was going to help him?” What do you think he would tell you?

Stuart O’Neill:

Well, we’ve actually had that discussion because we’ve had some very colored discussions, my father and I over the years. The two most telling points out of that where that one is that maybe he should have gone a bit harder on me.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Wow.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay.

Stuart O’Neill:

The second one was like, I deserved it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Which kind of the same thing, right?

Stuart O’Neill:

In a sense.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I guess there’s a little technical … Yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

So he fully justified what he did, and in hindsight, wonders whether he should have done more. I guess the third point, he says, he had turned out all right, so maybe it worked.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. What do you think about that? You think in the context of having little boys.

Stuart O’Neill:

What do I think about that? Okay, where my thoughts were going then it was completely different. You just don’t touch your kids. Period. You have to find other ways, even when they get up you nose as far as they possibly can, you can’t touch them. There’s other ways, 100% other ways.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Because it’s damaging. You were on the receiving end of that beating, and I’m putting words in your mouth, but I’m assuming that that you did not feel like you were supported and learning a lesson. It sounds like that was your dad’s anger coming out.

Stuart O’Neill:

100%, yeah, 100%.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And not teaching you something.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. Correct. He was just angry within himself and I became the victim that night for sure. Because at the end of the day, it’s a car.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. At the end of the day, it’s car. The reason I’m just stopping on it is that I hear a lot of discussion around, well, it’s normal. My dad or my mom, whatever, was hitting me because I did something wrong. I deserved it. You turned out okay. I hear a lot of talk about children being hit, and I mean really hit as kids as punishment. A lot of people just Find that because that’s what they’re used to. They justify, well, my parents meant well, which I do think many of them do. But I just wanted to stop on that because I think it’s important for people to understand that that when you are beating your child, even if they did something wrong, that’s about you. It’s not about your kid. That’s an act of violence against your kid, and it is not useful in the long term.

Stuart O’Neill:

100%. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it changed everything from day one. The day one moving forward, everything changed completely. Wow.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How old were you?

Stuart O’Neill:

14, I think.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So you …

Stuart O’Neill:

But the time of the conversation was … Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

No, no. Please.

Stuart O’Neill:

Is that you continue to do it and then it doesn’t stop unless you get caught. Well, I’d already been doing it for ages.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Stuart O’Neill:

So it was just another Saturday night to me to go for a joy ride.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

This time I’d had beers.

Stuart O’Neill:

Right. Right.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Did you do it after that?

Stuart O’Neill:

No, did not.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

No. I have a million funny stories. Technically, yes. But I was legally allowed to drive.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. That’s a great technicality.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. So I was allowed to drive. But my parents had gone away for a weekend. So we decided that we’d take my dad’s car for a drive down the coast for a couple of days and an incident happened down there and his car got damaged.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Did you fix it?

Stuart O’Neill:

The people who damaged it, did. Yes, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Living on the edge. I love it.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, sorry to interrupt you before.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

No, no. Thank you. The next piece, you have this incident, a traumatic incident happened at the age of 18. I really related to the experience that you had a little bit different. Mine was a baby who drowned next door to my house, and I was the first responder on the scene. You had a very similar experience. Just when I was reading about what happened, I really related to the feelings that you had. I just wanted you to tell us a bit about that story and the effect that that had on you.

Stuart O’Neill:

It had two effects. The longest term effect that it had on me actually was that my brother was with me at the time and just couldn’t participate. So it probably had the greatest amount of effect on me, where I just lost complete respect for him that he=re I was, trying to save a person’s life and my brother didn’t want to get his hands dirty, so to speak.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do you want to tell a little bit about what happened? Explain the event for context?

Stuart O’Neill:

Sure, sure. Okay. Midnight, give or take. We were both driving home with separate vehicles and nearly home. The road runs we’re on was a long straight road. There was virtually no cars on the road. So 200 meters ahead of us, perhaps a car in front of us, veered off to the right and drove straight through a supermarket, a shopping center window, and came out the other side on the corner. So apart from the damage to that supermarket, the guy’s car caught fire. So he burned to death, unfortunately, the driver. But we managed to get him out of the car, and other other cars soon stopped past and was helping me get the person. We got him out of the car and commence CPR. The other person happened to be a doctor as well, which seemed pretty good timing at the time, but the fellow still passed away.

Stuart O’Neill:

So I remember the things that still, I guess I’m pretty passionate about today, a bit in some ways is that first responders want to know the updates. How did the person go? How did this turn out? I still feel like, generally speaking, it’s still a pretty average process for people who may not be retained as a first responder. If you’re an ambulance person, you’re probably going to find out through work and however the systems are. But if you’re a civilian, and you’re involved in an incident like this, usually you don’t find out anything until you read about it in the paper.

Stuart O’Neill:

So I remembered wondering and worrying, you know, because I didn’t know who the person was. There’s no hospital that I could read to find out what happened. I have no clue what his name was. So in the end, it’s in the paper and you find out that he died. So that was like a slow cook with no pans, like a slow thing to happen because I didn’t find out an hour later. I didn’t find out for maybe three days.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. So you pull him you out of the car, and he’s already been burning.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. He’s already charred and burned bad. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You guys did CPR on him?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I was performing CPR on a face that was melted and awful. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Then did the ambulance come pick him up or how did that …

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. There was people everywhere in a short period of time. Yes, yeah. But there was two responders, myself and the other fellow.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Your brother. So he pulled up, was he out of the car?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yep, yeah. And stayed there and watched. So he was obviously having his own situation at the time. But at that particular time and and for a while afterwards, I judged him pretty harshly that he couldn’t bring himself to participate.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Yeah, I’m glad you brought up the wanting to know after the fact because that was my experience as well. I was performing CPR on the baby, toddler. He ended up dying days later as well. I couldn’t sleep. I was constantly like, “What’s happening?” Wanted updates, I don’t know. The moment you’re involved in something like that, all of your senses are heightened. I mean, it’s a very, very intense experience.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You and I, it sounds like we had a very similar experience where we happen to be there the right time. we did the CPR, and then someone else took them, they were gone and we’re kind of left with like everything we saw and the intensity and the adrenaline. I’ve never had so much adrenaline in my body ever in my life. It’s very specific experience. It sounds like it made a big difference, especially on your relationship with your brother.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. See, I had a second incident that happened as well. I’d say if I had to look back in the timeframe, would have been maybe seven or eight years later. I was working in a place called Tasmania in Australia. I was driving at the time, I had a part time job. I was driving a forklift or a fork truck, if you know what that is.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Forklift.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. Forklift. Yeah. So the one that I was driving was a huge one like the shipping containers. About maybe three doors down in the same street, there was a scrap metal yard. A fellow came rushing into my workplace and was banging on the window of the forklift for me to come and help him straight away, a person had been trapped.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh no.

Stuart O’Neill:

Their forklift was too small to lift the weight off the person.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

The one you were driving was too small?

Stuart O’Neill:

No. The one they had was too small.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yours was the right size.

Stuart O’Neill:

So they’ve come to ask for mine because it’s got a greater lifting capacity. But also with a greater lifting capacity means that the fork’s thicker at the end. It’s not like a knife. It’s two inches thick sort of thing. So it’s not it’s not a delicate piece of machinery, which was what was required. So I raced down there in the forklift. Then when I got there, so this person was using, oxy, like gas cutting equipment to cut out steel. They were pulling apart some huge piece of machinery.

Stuart O’Neill:

For whatever crazy reason, the person popped his head underneath to have a look as to why what he was working on hadn’t succeeded so far. So this was like a huge cog that was say, four or five foot wide and on a steel shaft that he was trying to get it to drop. So he popped his head under to have a quick look to see how much more there was to go. It dropped. So pinned him by the head this weight.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Didn’t his head explode?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes, it did. Yeah. So this thing was probably about five tons.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, I mean, that’s it. He’s done.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah, game over. So the owner or her person that came and got me was freaking out and going, “Get it off, get it off, get it off.” But he was done. So all you can see was from his neck down was hanging out. So we’ve got the thing off. Unfortunately, you could have put his head in an envelope. So the reason why I saying that, so the experience from that is to the day I can still smell the incident and I can still see the incident. But I didn’t have any of that, what we talked about before, knowing did he live or didn’t he live. It was like he didn’t.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Well, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

Clearly. I feel like I’ll probably-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’ve had both.

Stuart O’Neill:

I’ll probably process, in some ways, that was a far more graphic situation that I had to attend. But I felt like I processed it a bit better. Maybe because it was the second time or because I knew that there was a finality there and then.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. If I had to guess, my experience was that you knew that there was nothing you could do to impact the situation to change the outcome. When you’re performing CPR on somebody, you’re-

Stuart O’Neill:

You’re hopeful.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re hopeful. There’s still a possibility.

Stuart O’Neill:

100%. Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re like, “Please let what I’m doing be helpful, please.”

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. Totally.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So I think that that’s the feeling. Right? Then it’s not helpful and you wonder if you did it right or you did enough. Like that was oh my god, maybe I didn’t do it hard enough. Maybe I didn’t blow hard enough or whatever. Like you just start to go over the incident in your head, whereas the one with the forklift, there’s nothing you could have done.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, Correct. Correct.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Have you been diagnosed with PTSD? Is that.

Stuart O’Neill:

No. I only go to the doctor when I’m I guess physically injured. Having said that, it’s like, you’re meant to go when you’re mentally injured too. But I go when I’m physically injured.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

That’s it. Period.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What’s interesting about that is that if you did a brain scan, your brain would show up.

Stuart O’Neill:

If I can find it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes, if they can find it.

Stuart O’Neill:

Presuming.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes. Assuming they can find it, if they did a brain scan, PTSD shows up in your brain as blunt force trauma to your head. It actually looks the same.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. I’m sure it’s there.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, there’s been so many of those types of things that have happened with me over the years that I’m sure that it’ll be there.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So this incident happens, and then you find out your wife is having an affair. This sends you into a mental health downward spiral.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes. Yep.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Why do you think it was? Do you think it was the accumulation of things or what about this really just was the thing that sent you down?

Stuart O’Neill:

Because it was in black and white, it was in writing, literally. So the transcript being sent to my phone was long and detailed. I look back on that now and think that someone wanted me to see that because I get-pop ups on my phone all day long from different things to do with internet purchases and whatever. The first and only time that there’s ever been detail included was the transaction that came to my phone. So I’ve had those same transactions constantly before over the years for varying amounts that she’d spoken to online psychics and wherever they were in the world. I just saw the amount and shrugged it and went, “Oh, well, if it’s helping her feel better, that’s great.” So I never I never ever knew the content ever. I just assumed that they’re having a private conversation, and hopefully, it’s all good.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So what was the dark place that you went to from this affair?

Stuart O’Neill:

I guess it was a confirmation, Ashley, that some of my suspicions. I think what I felt anyway, was that when you’re going through that type of thing, it’s often the other person makes you feel like you’re a loony.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yep, gaslighting.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. It’s just like, “No, you’re crazy. You’re paranoid, you’re suspicious, you’re all of these sorts of things.” Then after it happens, it’s just like, “Well, I was right all this time.” So then you start to second guess other things and how far back. Was that the first or not the first? So it’s a car wreck inside your head. It really is.

Stuart O’Neill:

So when it got to that point, I’m just like,” You know what, I can’t. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I don’t know if I want to fight this. It’s just going to be too difficult.” So I started to plan an exit. I guess some of the things that I’m good at is planning stuff. If you want something done, give it to me, it’s going to get done. No matter what. I’ll have a crack at getting whatever it is done, done. So now I might go, “Well, I’m pretty capable of this.” I had it all figured out that I’d be able to just … Because I was in a foreign country, and they’re driving with different rules, so I’d be able to make it look like I stepped onto the road and it was just a dumb tourist accident. So I had all of that sort of worked out. Okay? This a no contest. It’ll be just easy. I’ll just walk in front of a taxi and it’s game over.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Then you decided not to do that.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, I did. I did. I had a lot of anger. I had a lot of rational thoughts also coming through my head. Then I started to feel sorry for the taxi driver.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right. Think it through.

Stuart O’Neill:

Correct. So I’m like, “No, there’s a reason not to.” It’s like, the hell unveils that for the taxi driver. Then I’m like, “Where else?” I couldn’t come up with a better plan other than there’s no access where I was to weapons or anything like that you could go and do something. I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I did something more immediate and that I’d do it myself, so to speak. So that part came up. It wasn’t that long, Ashley, that we’ve moved into a new home.

Stuart O’Neill:

The home that I built was like a forever home in my mind. It’s like this is going to stay in the family for 100 years and the type of house that I built that’ll still be standing in 100 years. So then I started to have all those other thoughts about the confirmations of that I was the crackpot and that I’ve been suspicious. Then I started to think like some guy’s going to move into my house, it might be that guy that’s mentioned in the text messages, he could end up in my house.

Stuart O’Neill:

I’m like, there’s no way some bloke is going to meet my ex and take on my great house and my kids. So that became a really powerful will to live now. So it was like a light switch went on. It was even more so … Yeah, it was just a big, light switch moment, I guess you’d say. At the time, all I was concerned about was that it looked like that I died with dignity so that my kids would never ever know what had actually happened. Then she would never have known that that text had arrived to my phone either. It’ll just be a secret that you take to the grave, so to speak. My kids would just think dad was a hero and was away working and this happened. What an unfortunate accident. No one else would need to know that it was deliberate because that would also break my mom to pieces. So they all started to become my one reasons.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment.

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Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It’s interesting as I think that you had all of the pressures. When you’re talking about stepping in front of the taxi, you’re talking about all of that turned inward. When you talked about not letting this person move into your forever home and your kids, the motivation is outward and the anger is outward. Right? It goes from goes from self harm to anger outside of yourself. In some ways, that’s much better, right, than turning it inward is I’m not going to let this happen. Like you said, you’re one reason.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So I think that one thing that I think is unique to your story is that the thoughts of suicide are something that you continue to struggle with. It wasn’t just a one time thing. You have this this great book, this toolkit for how to deal with suicidal ideation. What I think is interesting and what I want to know more about is we all have thoughts that comfort us, right? We return to thoughts that comfort us, that solve whatever problem we have, right? If we return to the thought of I want to use drugs and alcohol for example, like if I return to that, that’s because there’s something comforting for me about drugs and alcohol, right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Because when my life gets too stressful, and I have that using thought, that’s because it relieves me of my responsibilities. For you, when life has gotten intense, you’ve continued to struggle with suicidal ideation. What is it about coming back to that same thought of suicide that brings you comfort in those moments, when it feels like too much?

Stuart O’Neill:

I keep finding a reason. It happens over and over like constantly. I feel like it’s ever present and made for them for the greater part of a day or a week or a month, it’s dormant, but it’s just there waiting. When I get into those spaces, which is too often, I just find ways to get back out. It’s usually just any old reason. It doesn’t matter what it is and it can be different.

Stuart O’Neill:

It could be like, “Hang on. My football team’s playing next Saturday, and they might win. I want to find out if they win because it’s a final.” So I found that it’s often any number of random reasons, but one’s enough to get you back out again, and get your past that. I relate things to a cyclone or a huge storm. When you’re in that peak period, it’s the eye of the storm. I know now that the storm passes, so it’s in that half an hour or that 10 minutes, or that one hour that I just have to know that the clock’s ticking still, and that it will pass. So in that time, I have to find that reason. Otherwise, that becomes the crazy hour, where it’s final, and there’s no coming back.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What is it like being in the eye of the storm in this case? What are the thoughts?

Stuart O’Neill:

It all just feels too hard. Why would I want to? In some ways, it’s almost like you’re having an argument with yourself where I go, “No, no. I’m 54. I’ve achieved heaps. My kid’s at this age, they’re not going to be left broke, I’ve done that. I’ve seen the world, I’ve achieved all those other bits and pieces.” Checking out now isn’t such a bad thing. It’s not like these things that are on my list to do that I’m craving to do. So there’s a whole left side of the brain justifying all of this. Then there’s the right side of the brain arguing your football’s team playing on Saturday, don’t you want to know who wins?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Right. It doesn’t matter. It’s so interesting, it reminds me a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of using drugs and alcohol because what you’re really wanting to do is relief. What you really want is relief from the pressure. You want to let the lid off the pressure. For you, for me, it’s drugs and alcohol. For you, it is this idea of not being alive anymore, like ending it. But it’s the same feeling ,it’s the same like I just need the relief, I need to let the pressure out.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Correct.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

The solution is the same, which is this will pass, this feeling will pass and going, “Oh, I must really need relief, identifying what it is.” But the argument’s still going. Then finding I just need one reason to get to the next thing, it doesn’t matter why I stay sober that day. It doesn’t matter because in a year from now when I’m still sober, I won’t look back and go, “Oh. On March blah, blah, blah, I stayed sober for some stupid reason.” It won’t matter because you stayed alive and I stayed sober. But your suicidal ideation is your addictive pattern, is your addictive thought.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, completely. Yep. Yeah, it’s relentless. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do you ever worry that it’s going to take over you? Do you ever worry like, “Oh my god. It’s so strong that I may do it without my own permission?”

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. I guess the life that I’ve had, Ashley, is for all the good things, there’s been a huge amount of adversity over the years. I guess that’s probably in some ways that would tie into what you talked about before, the PTSD, is I’ve had so many different situations over the years that in some ways, I’m battle hardened as well because some of these big things might come to a person one time only in their life and it’s enough to tip them over.

Stuart O’Neill:

I feel like I’m a hardened sports person, so to speak, is like I’m stress fit. There’s so many different things have come my way.That just thickens your skin a bit and makes it look at things a bit different. Last year, in the volunteer organization that I’ve been with for half of my life I was completely bullied by two different people that didn’t want me to be a part of the organization because I knew, I knew that they’ll fight shit and they didn’t want me around. They had narcissistic personalities. They did everything they could to get rid of me, including when I went to one of the persons and said, “Listen, you’re a GP. You should know better than this.” Nothing changed. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a sports person or a doctor or a scientist, or however. If you’re a narcissist, you’re a narcissist. It’s not, “Yeah. You’re right. I’m a doctor, I better not be.” It’s beyond that. So I think in some ways, some of the exposures to things that I’ve had over the years have really hardened me up.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

In the beginning of our talk, you said that your dad’s calls regularly talking about ending his life and that your mother is still self harming. I mean, that would that would cause my recovery to wobble, to be inundated with people I love who were still struggling so deeply. It would also reflect for me what I might end up, like it would be a fear. If I’m struggling with this now, is this what it looks like in 30 years kind of deal? Do any of those thoughts come to you?

Stuart O’Neill:

Absolutely. I like that you’re aware of those sorts of things. So I guess from a really, really early day of being … I’ll just digress for a split second as part of this is whenever I was younger, say 20 or whatever it might have been. Even when I was married, that the single worst thing that anyone could say to me who I loved was that you’re just like your father. I’ve lived my life to be anything but him. So to hear that come from two people that I really loved, which was one of them was my mom and one of them is my ex wife was just like you couldn’t say anything worse to me, because I have no respect for him whatsoever.

Stuart O’Neill:

I have love for him, but I have zero respect to this day for him as a person. So I’m actively aware that I do not want to have the last 20 years of my life even remotely like my father’s. I just can’t see that happening. His life is terrible by choice.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Right.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. All of his own doing and all of his … His life’s just terrible. I fully could see why he’d want to check out. But it’s still by choice.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Right. What does your family think about your book, Just One Reason? Tell me about the book and and what your family thinks about that. Because that had to open their eyes to how much you think about this.

Stuart O’Neill:

My mom and I’ve had some pretty big conversations about things, about the book. Probably when my mom got given the first draft and she said to me straightaway after she’d read it, she said, I wish that this had been around when she was a kid. So I felt like everything was validated like in an instant.

Stuart O’Neill:

It’s just like here’s my mom’s 77. She’s instantly taking herself back through the book to a 15-year-old and wishing that she’d had a tool like that. So in an instant, I knew the book’s good. So I was like my confidence went through the roof to hear that sort of compliment from my mom. It wasn’t like mom’s just love anything to do with their kids. It was much more than that. My boys haven’t really discussed the contents of the book with me. What I have noticed the most is that they’re really actively aware of what mental health is now.

Stuart O’Neill:

I can already feel and see the impact to them is that they’re more aware and more caring of others around them, whether that’s at work or within their friendships, I feel like it’s opened their eyes a bit more. It’s been fantastic to watch that going on and seeing that there’s a whole other layer to my kids where they’ve now got this awareness around them as opposed to just ignoring it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah, that’s incredible. That’s incredible.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. So that’s been pretty good to witness that, especially from my youngest son, who is 17. We now live at my house here. I’ve got a tray that sits over near the fireplace, and it just has free copies. So there’s always 10 or 12 copies of my book sitting there. So that if we get visitors or I don’t want anyone to feel guilty to take a book. I don’t want them to have to ask that the books keep disappearing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Wow. Yeah.

Stuart O’Neill:

I was like, “Wow, maybe just let go of it.” It’s like, I don’t know where they go. I don’t ask. They just go.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. So that’s pretty cool. I like that.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I like that too. It’s a toolkit for people who are struggling with suicidal ideation. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Stuart O’Neill:

So within the toolkit, so the book, firstly, the book, it’s my view that people have to buy in to what I’m offering them as a solution, potentially, within the book. The way for me, the best way is for me to tell my story. It’s not long because it’s only a small book. But there’s enough in there to go, “This person’s been where I’ve been,” or that sort of thing. So I guess people know straightaway that there’s no BS. I announce in the book that I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist, I’m not medically trained in any capacity. This is just my street smart way of how I deal with things. So then the book steps you through a series of questions that really stop you. So some of those questions are really simple, but profound at the same time. I put a huge amount of work into the questions and workshop them and tested them on other people to get people’s responses.

Stuart O’Neill:

So some of the questions in there for example is just like, “What am I grateful for today?” This is like six lines, it’s only a small book, this is like, “Write something, anything you want down in there.” So there’s that type of question in there, then there’s other things. It’s like, after I die, what do I want to happen? Then there’s other questions of like, when I die, what happens? It’s along that type of theme to make people stop and think and go, “Who do I don’t want to hurt out of all of this? What are the what are the consequences?”

Stuart O’Neill:

Through the book, it’ll step you through questions, if you’re up to a to them, which can just stop you in your thoughts. You only need to stop your thought for five minutes and just change tracks, like on a record. This is like if you’re heads going, “I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough,” you just need to lift the needle and change tracks. So the questions help you change tracks, and there’s a series of them through the book that can do that. They’re not in order. So even whilst I’ve put them in order, it’s up to the reader to decide they might not be able to answer the first two questions, but they can answer question six. It’s that whole process of just life’s not that bad. Maybe there is something that you’re grateful for.

Stuart O’Neill:

Then ultimately, it leads you to list some reasons that you do want to live for. It doesn’t matter what those reasons are. It could be you’ve got a fantastic car and I don’t want my brother to get it, or I don’t want my sister to get it or I don’t want so and so to get it or who’s going to look after my dog after I go. It’s like, it’s just to get your thinking. It’s just like do you realize that if you do die, what’s going to happen to your dog? Where’s he going? What happens to your money, or whatever the case is? So there’s things like that in there just to try and stop you and break the cycle of what’s happening with that track that’s playing in your head and you go, “I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough.” It works. It takes a minute.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I assume that you’ve probably had some pretty emotional responses. Have you had people tell you about how they’ve used it and have some pretty moving experiences with it?

Stuart O’Neill:

Endless. Amazing. Probably. I have. Yeah. So lots, lots would be an understatement. Some of the more significant ones that come to mind are like a mom wrote to me and her daughter, they already had my book. So the daughter had already, I think had three or four failed attempts. So another failed attempt had happened. The girl was in hospital now and the mom was by her bedside, and but didn’t have the book. So the mom reached out to me and said, “I think the book was working, but she’s here again. Do you think you could send another one to the hospital directly and put a note in it?” So I did.

Stuart O’Neill:

So I wrote a note in the book to the person. So the mom contacted me two weeks later, and I’m like her favorite person now. It’s like her daughter’s turned the corner. The daughter’s reached out to me and written really long letter, thanked me and told me a bit more about what’s happening for her and other things. Now, it’s morphed into part of what I’m planning to do now is I’m going to do a printed newspaper full of lived experience stories. The girl always wanted to be a writer. So now she’s going to be putting an article into the paper. So some of those things.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Wow. That’s awesome.

Stuart O’Neill:

Are so awesome. Then in Australia, we have an organization that’s volunteer that’s called the Salvation Army. I’m not sure if you do.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

We have. Yes.

Stuart O’Neill:

So they buy my book regularly. So there’s a person who was doing it tough. So a book was given to them by the Salvation Army. Then at some point in time, just recently, now, we’re at the person’s house. The book was next to their bed, and the person showed them the book that they’d written six reasons in there. So they shared that story with me by email about that sort of thing that they were pretty pleased. So those sorts of things are pretty frequent now with the book. I love it. Yeah, I absolutely love it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That must be so rewarding and so helpful in this journey of knowing that your experience can be so helpful, truly life changing for people.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, it’s fantastic. There’s a lady in another part of Australia. She’s got a fish and chip shop, which is like a takeaway food bar, let’s say. So her son suicided two years ago at the age of 22. So she runs her business still and discovered my book and has since set up an area on her shop counter where she’s got a poster and a letter written, it’s all like stuck to the counter. She’s got a pile of books there and says, “Just if you’re struggling, please help yourself and take a book.”

Stuart O’Neill:

So she’s got that set up in her shop and sent me photos. I think, to date, she’s bought 45 books. So that’s just like her silent way to help her local community, is just to go, “If you’re struggling, please take one of these, it might help.” She’s written to me a couple of times, a lady. To this day, she said, “Not one’s ever been stolen, they’ve gone to where they need to go.” She’s like, “And people ask it, aren’t you worried that they’re going to get stolen,” but other customers thinking that she’s crazy to have a pile of brand new books just sitting there saying, “Help yourself.” I think when a person thinks that someone’s going to take 10, they’re probably thinking that they might take 10.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Totally. I mean, that’s just incredible. That’s an incredible thing. It’s such a way, there’s something so healing about the process you’re describing of writing it out, workshopping it. You’re doing your work through all of this, while all of this is going on, getting these stories, having the opportunity, hearing about this, that that’s healing you from the inside out as well. I would imagine that if you needed just one reason, that you have all of these stories that you get from your book could be your one reason any day of the week.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. From a very early stage is that I think I’ve got that rescuer type personality, but I feel that’s my addiction is that I’m always rescuing situations and always rescuing people, and might be a business that needs rescuing. But I feel like I’ve been a rescuer type personality, and I’m addicted to that. So I feel with my book, that now I can rescue on scale, if that makes sense.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Without expanding your energy.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, correct. My mind and part of my other addictions are I don’t do one, do 100. Why would you do 100 when you can do 1000? So that’s clearly an addiction of mine is like, in everything that I do is maximized. So I feel now the book was just another branch. Why spend my life helping my person when I can help a million.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I love it.

Stuart O’Neill:

I think that’s going to happen. There are so many signs that are coming through to me now that it’s not a matter of if it’s just a matter of when, whether it’s three years or 10 years or 20 years. At some point in time, my book’s going to hit a million people for sure. I’m just convinced, the signs are just there. I’ve got like 99.9% positive feedback that comes from people. It’s like this hasn’t been anything shitty that’s come back. The stories are just non stop, of how many people that I’ve helped, and people even close to me that I’m surprised about is and neighbors of friends have come and found them and said …

Stuart O’Neill:

There’s a lady down the road that I’ve just found out that their daughters got anorexia, and the daughter’s struggling but the mom’s actually struggling. Do you think I can give the mom a book? I’m constantly giving books away for free, like non stop. Those sorts of things continue to find me that people seek me out and go, “Is it cool if I can grab a book off of you,” or they buy a book for those sorts of reasons. It’s endless, it’s really, really cool.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I always say that I’m going to use whether I make the decision to or not because I have the compulsive personality. So the question is whether or not I want a choice in what I’m going to use. So if I have a choice in what I’m going to use, maybe I’m going to give back. Maybe I’m going to do too much yoga or whatever. I can direct that intensity towards things that are positive in my life. But if I don’t participate, that’s when the intensity gets directed towards instant gratification things.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So it’s about channeling that energy that we have, that isn’t going to go anywhere. I mean, that energy is, it’s part of who we are. But if we channel it, right, if we channel it in the right direction, that’s the goal. That’s where the healing happens. I think, you’re saying the rescuing is an addiction. Well, it makes you feel good, it helps other people, and it helps you to be entrenched in a healing community. All of those things, that’s directing that energy in the right way. If that’s the difference, right, if your addiction is helping people, then so be it. Right? That’s a good outcome.

Stuart O’Neill:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I want this to reach an your American audience, of the million that are going to be reading your book, and for people to go out and read Just One Reason and have it on hand. I want that to be a big piece, come here to Americ. Are you talking to people in America about this?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes, a little bit. I got approached by a major publisher in America, he wanted to take my book soon after it was released. But they wanted to change the format of it. So I just stood my ground and said, “It’s not just the content of the book here, it’s an entire strategy.” So they wanted to change the size of the book to a novel size, they wanted it to be paperback. So that’s already breaking the tool. It’s like this thing’s designed to be robust, it’s in a hardcover, it fits in your pocket, and it’s small. It looks like your card. Otherwise you’re just putting what I’m saying just into another novel that’s going to be on a shelf somewhere. I don’t want that. I want this to be a book that lasts for five or 10 years. You buy a novel, if you check it in the city, a car and it is in your briefcase or your work toolbox, or wherever it’s going to be, the book’s going to deteriorate quickly.

Stuart O’Neill:

You can really leave my book out in some rain and it’s probably going to still function as to do what it’s meant to do, which is to keep you alive. You might be chucking it in the bin because it got damaged. So there was that there was that conversation, Ashley. Then I received an unsolicited letter, which was pretty remarkable. Someone in Canada is a first responder, is a major fan of my book. I don’t know how all the dots get connected and stuff. But out of the blue, I got an unsolicited letter from a really high ranking police person in the United States who is a professor in something or another, and wrote to me and just said, “I’ve received a copy of your book. I think that this needs to be the pocket of every new recruit, every new graduate that comes out of the academy.” I’m like, “That’s pretty cool. That’d be a nice feather in your cap.”

Stuart O’Neill:

So I’ve never actually escalated that to who actually puts the order in on behalf of the police department. I’m not on the ground. Probably if COVID hadn’t had hit, I might have come to America already to try and promote my book. But as it stands today, it’s still with the distance and selling one copy is expensive because of the postage.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, right. Right. Right.

Stuart O’Neill:

At some point in time, I’ll have that facilitated where I can send 1000 copies to one location, and then they can distribute it for me for sure.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, that would be great.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, that’s what needs to happen.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So where can people find you?

Stuart O’Neill:

On my website, Just One Reason.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Just One Reason. Is it .com?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, .com.au. Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

.com.au. Okay. Awesome. JustOneReason.com.com.au. You’re working on … Can we buy it on Amazon?

Stuart O’Neill:

That’s nearly finished. We started that process I think four or five days ago. So even the Amazon process, they want to do print on demand. So we’ve got to actually send stock over to America so that they can fulfill from over there because we actually want them to buy this book, not a print on demand book. So yeah, it’s going to be on Amazon soon. Have you heard of Goodreads? Do you have that in America?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, I love Goodreads. I love Goodreads.

Stuart O’Neill:

Well, you should see the ratings on Goodreads on my book, it’s pretty cool.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s awesome.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’ll check that out. I’ll check that out. Then you’re working on your second book?

Stuart O’Neill:

Yes. Well, I guess you’d say yes. A lot of the chapters written and some of the stories are written. Everything I do sits in my phone in my notepad. So I’m like a two-thumbs part person.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You better back that up.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. So the answer is yes. So the next book is called the Product of Divorce. I’m going to do it in the same size and format. I just think in today’s society, more than ever, people need five minutes solutions. I feel if you can get something out of five or 10 minutes, you have a chance to use it, if it takes you all the energy in the world to try and get past the first three pages of a novel or a big hard bound copy of something, it’s already defeating the purpose because 5% of the population might try that way. Generally, everyone’s busy so we need the lazy way.

Stuart O’Neill:

So the Product of Divorce I observed that constantly amongst my own kids, and whenever I see things that aren’t going well for kids, around me and other areas or I hear a story, it was going, “This is the production of divorce.” If a kid’s off the rails or something’s not going well for them at school, it’s just like, you don’t have to scratch the surface part to realize that these are all things that are occurring because the parents went through a divorce. A lot of parents argue, I believe, sorry, they try to self justify and become salespeople to themselves that this is going to be okay, it’s for the best and the kids will be fine. That may well be the case. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Stuart O’Neill:

However, the kids aren’t fine. You just hope that they are. But they’re not. They’re just not. There’s a million stories. That’s a whole other podcast all again, but that’s what book number two will be about. Because I continually watch that even today here in Australia is my 17-year-old is going to like a university for a walk around tour, just to have a look and see what he might do when he finishes school.

Stuart O’Neill:

He’d been telling me that he’s probably got this planned and an interview’s coming up. So my son lives with me, not with his mom. So I said to him, “So Thursday, do you want to play in that? We’ll go down.” He’s like, “Yep, yep, yep, yep, that sounds pretty cool.” So then last night, he says, “Mom wants to go.” I go. “Okay, no worries.” What does that look like? It’s like, “Well, you won’t be coming, so to speak.” So whilst those sorts of things happen, I already know now that that’s already affecting his mental health while he’s 17 because now he’s already going, “F.” Sorry.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, you’re fine. We swear.

Stuart O’Neill:

He’s already having to have the stress of how does he break that news to Dad? He knows that Dad will just cop it sweet and I’d rather not have the stress on him or on myself and stand my ground and go, “Hang on. We had this plan for a week.” I just go, “You know what, life goes on.” So I process it that in my own way. But I look at that already and I go, “There’s another product of divorce.” A kid who wants to be proud and go and see what his new university might look like, would love to go with both of his parents. But now, one’s gone and put a wedge in there and taking the driver’s seat, so to speak. For the last week, we’re going, “Oh, that’s cool. Looking forward to it.” All of a sudden, bang. It’s over. He’s now got to tell his dad, “Sorry, Mom’s taking me and probably that means you’re not coming.” So that’s the Product of Divorce, and that means trauma.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah. destabilization.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah. Totally, totally. How shit is that? That’s just incredible to put that on your 17-year-old.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, I mean, it’s hard. I try not to have too much … I try not to judge it because I haven’t been there but my parents are both the product of divorce. There are still effects on me and my children, my grandparents’ great grandchildren, as a result of the divorce. One is funny, which is that my father’s father, my grandfather, paternal grandfather, married a woman who like we call her by her first name. My grandfather passed away. I don’t have a lot of relationships with grandparents, just a couple of them now, I had seven. So now that’s just a couple.

Stuart O’Neill:

Wow.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So I was spending time with her. I refer to her as the great grandmother, but I call her by her first name. We’re out in public, and sometimes it’d be like, “How do you know?” I will get introduced. She’ll say, “Oh, this is so and so’s granddaughter.” We are still jumping through hoops trying to define, how to define our relationship. We were asked in an Apple Store, and both of us just looked at each other not knowing what to say. How do we explain our relationship? I laughed. I wasn’t even alive when this stuff was going on. My children still are like … I can’t give them a straight answer about who she is or what to call her. It has long term effects. I know that it’s a difficult, really painful decision. Sometimes it’s not one of the people’s decision. So I try not to get into too much judgment about it.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah. Same. When all that happens, it won’t be about the judgment, it’ll be about you really need to think through the consequences to your own children because no matter what you do and how you handle it, there’s going to be a tail that’s long. It’s going to continue. Here it is. So a book that I read a number of years ago was called Divorce Buster. It talked all about that after your divorce, there’s often more work required than there was leading up to divorce, is to try and keep some form of a relationship on an even keel.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Well, it’s been wonderful having you on here and talking about this stuff. I think mental health is such a huge thing. I know people really struggle with suicidal ideation, but they don’t want to talk about it. To that specifically, they don’t want people to worry about them. I think that your book, Just One Reason, is an incredible resource for people. Especially, it gives you a really clear this is what you do right now. I love that, right? People don’t need a long explanation when they’re in the moment. They need a right now solution. You’re the perfect person to provide that because that’s what you’ve been using.

Stuart O’Neill:

And still use unfortunately.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And still use. No, I mean-

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

We all have our recovery, and we’re still in it.

Stuart O’Neill:

Yeah, indeed. Indeed.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Well, thank you so much, Stuart. I really appreciate it.

Stuart O’Neill:

No worries. It’s nice too. Thank you very much. I felt very comfortable.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Good. I’m glad, I’m glad.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

This podcast is sponsored by Lionrock.life. Lionrock.life is a recovery community offering free online support group meetings, useful recovery information and entertainment. Visit www.Lionrock.life to view the meeting schedule and find additional resources. Find the joy in recovery at Lionrock.life.