We've been gone for eight weeks. This is what happened.

In this episode Toby and Rudy get back in the seats and do what they always promised to do on More. Tell the truth about what's actually been going on. No polished comeback. No neat narrative. Just two blokes in recovery catching up honestly about one of the hardest stretches either of them has had since the podcast began.

Toby opens up about what happened in the weeks following the sleep episode. The not sleeping that continued regardless of everything he tried. The way exhaustion stopped becoming tiredness and became something far darker. The suicidal thoughts that came back, the fixation on the drive home, and the moment he knew something had to change. He talks about getting in the van, parking somewhere safe, and sleeping for eighteen hours straight. And about the slow three weeks it took to pull back out of it with the help of meetings, therapy, and people who kept showing up.

Rudy talks about launching a new business, the fine line between drive and addiction, and the realisation that the work was starting to consume him in familiar ways. He gets into changing medications, trialing ADHD meds again after a previous attempt that contributed to a breakdown, and what it feels like to finally set a boundary with someone and walk away with your self-worth intact. Properly intact. For maybe the first time.

There is also a motorbike, a broken down van, a ransacked Range store during a heatwave, a swimming pool that looked like a scene from Toy Story, a sound bath, a camp out, a lost land purchase, 700 fence posts, and a ten year old's birthday.

This is not a topic episode. It is a real one. The kind that reminds you why the podcast exists in the first place. Two people in recovery, being honest about the gap between the version of yourself you present to the world and what is actually going on underneath. The self-sacrifice that masquerades as virtue. The boundaries that feel terrifying to set and life-changing once you do. The sleep that still doesn't come easy. And the small, unglamorous, incremental business of staying well when life keeps arriving all at once.

If you've ever been too exhausted to care whether you wake up, or found yourself white-knuckling through the days on autopilot while everyone around you assumes you're fine, this one is for you.

More is hosted by Toby Lerone and Rudy Youngblood. Recorded in a single take. Unedited. Unfiltered.

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Everyone tells you to get more sleep. Nobody tells you what to do when your nervous system treats sleep like a threat.

In this episode of More, Toby and Rudy get honest about something that touches almost every person living with trauma, CPTSD, addiction or neurodivergence. And something that almost never gets a proper conversation. Not the tired version of sleep advice you've heard a hundred times. The real version. What it actually feels like when rest itself becomes the thing you can't have.

They dig into the science of why trauma hijacks sleep, what years of sleep debt genuinely does to your brain and your mental state, drawing on the research of neuroscientist Matthew Walker PhD and his landmark work Why We Sleep. And they get into why standard sleep hygiene advice completely misses the point for nervous systems shaped by trauma.

This is a raw, unfiltered conversation from two men with lived experience of Big T trauma, complex PTSD, addiction recovery, ADHD and chronic pain. No performance. No polish. Just honest talk about the nights, the nightmares, and what has slowly started to help.

What we get into:

The reason up to 90% of people with CPTSD experience significant sleep problems, and why it's a core symptom not a side effect. What Matthew Walker's research shows about sleep debt and what chronic deprivation actually does to your brain, your emotions and your decision making. Why less than 1% of people can genuinely function on six hours. How trauma nightmares work, why they keep replaying, and what the brain is trying to do when it drags you back there night after night. The ADHD sleep crisis, racing minds, delayed body clocks and why 67% of people with ADHD struggle to sleep. The chronic pain and sleep loop, how each one makes the other worse, and how substances became the answer for years until they stopped working. And what actually helps, including EMDR, somatic work, Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, breathwork and an honest conversation about sleep medication in recovery.

If you've ever dreaded going to bed, woken up more exhausted than when you closed your eyes, or spent years running on empty, this one is for you.

More is hosted by Toby Lerone and Rudy Youngblood, two men with lived experience of addiction, trauma, mental health and neurodiversity. Recorded in a single take. Unedited. Unfiltered.

LINKS:-

https://youtu.be/30VMIEmA114 - 54321 technique

https://youtu.be/zq07gbFLCAs - box breathing in 5’s

https://youtu.be/k_2feptc-Bg - Matthew walker PHD on another podcast

source:%20The%20Mind%20Company https://share.google/QYY4TBrzhlnnSkjuA - Balance, guided meditation app

https://www.headspace.com/app - bedtime story’s for adults

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series) - lord of the rings-watch it Rudy you weirdo haha

Keywords and Tags:

CPTSD, Complex PTSD, Trauma and Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, Mental Health, PTSD Nightmares, Trauma Recovery, Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep, Sleep Debt, ADHD and Sleep, Neurodivergent, Insomnia, Chronic Pain, Addiction Recovery, Men's Mental Health, Nervous System Regulation, Hypervigilance, Somatic Healing, EMDR, Sleep Disorders, Trauma Podcast, Lived Experience, Recovery Podcast, Sleep and Anxiety, Sleep and Depression, REM Sleep, Polyvagal Theory, More Podcast

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Everyone talks about fight or flight. Nobody talks about freeze. The trauma response that shuts you down completely, makes you look checked out, and gets mistaken for laziness, indifference or not trying hard enough.

In this episode of More, Toby and Rudy get honest about the freeze response from lived experience. Both are recovering addicts, CPTSD and Big T trauma survivors, neurodivergent, and living with chronic pain. Both have spent years being misread as disengaged when their nervous systems were doing the only thing they knew how to do: SURVIVE.

They cover what the freeze response actually is, why it's the dominant trauma response for CPTSD sufferers, how it overlaps with ADHD paralysis and neurodivergent shutdown, what chronic pain has to do with stored survival energy in the body, and crucially...what actually helps you come back online.

If you've ever been called lazy, difficult, emotionally unavailable or checked out - this one's for you.

*Bessel van der kolk - the body keeps score

*gabor maté - when the body says no

* https://youtu.be/qNffpAM5Zps - trauma releasing yoga

* https://youtu.be/WEvgacyBDN4 - Vegas nerve humming technique

Share it, save a soul.

Get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

Topics: CPTSD | Complex Trauma | Freeze Response | Trauma Recovery | ADHD | Neurodivergent | Mental Health | Addiction Recovery | Chronic Pain | Nervous System Regulation | Men's Mental Health | Trauma Podcast | PTSD | Somatic Healing | Polyvagal Theory | Lived Experience

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