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How I Overcame My Mental Health Issues — and how you can too

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When I was eight years old, my father received a phone call at home, “we’re coming to kill you, tonight”, said the voice on the other end. It was 1972 in Uganda, and my family and I were forced to flee for our lives from Idi Amin’s ruthless henchmen.

For most people, the seeds of their mental health problems were sown in their childhood. While each person’s life is unique, we can, nevertheless, discern common patterns and scenarios that tend to produce certain types of mental health issues.

I’ve experienced more than my fair share of challenging childhood circumstances and subsequent mental health issues (depression, OCD, anxiety, body dysmorphia). While my childhood story is more dramatic than most, the challenges I faced are common enough: abandonment, rejection, alienation, guilt, unsafe environments, the need to be in control, unhappiness with my body, to name but a few.

Don’t give up

Having accepted and overcome my emotional traumas and healed my mental health issues, it’s now my life’s work to share my experiences and use what I’ve learnt, to help other people overcome their issues.

Often the very first step is to get people talking about their mental health issues — nothing gets better if you just bottle it all up and try to hide it. Often, speaking about it will lift the heavy weight of secrecy that has been adding to the other stresses.

(Please note that this article deals with the milder forms of mental illness such as depression, OCD, anxiety, phobias etc. It does not apply to conditions such as psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder etc.)

‘I realised that I was believing a lot of stuff that wasn’t true’

My mental health issues improved because I didn’t give up on them and I didn’t get let them own me – I kept learning about them and about myself, and I kept looking for the underlying causes of the symptoms.

I went to counselling, group therapy, personal development workshops, and I read books and talked to lots of people about it, and I learnt that I had to address the problem from two different angles:

  • Surface level stuff – I had to handle my day-to-day fears and dramas
  • Core level stuff – I had to sort out my beliefs about myself and about life

I realised that I was believing a lot of stuff that wasn’t true, and those beliefs were ruining my life. I didn’t know what all those false beliefs were, but I was determined to find out. Some of the beliefs that I discovered along the way were: “I’m not safe here”, “I have to make everybody happy”, “I am deformed”. The next stage of the process is to stop believing them – which is often easier said than done.

I realised that in order to free myself from my repetitive life script, I had to retrieve the lost parts of myself that had kept me repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Life kept showing me where I was stuck (by putting me in similar situations where I would repeat the same old mistakes) and finally I realised that it was all stemming from the moments in my life where my spirit got broken and I got emotionally stuck.

‘I notice, then I breathe’

I would have to re-examine those moments with fresh eyes, to see what I could learn from them, to discover what false beliefs I had created, and how they affected my behaviour.

Slowly I discovered how to release the ‘depressed’ pause buttons that had halted my emotional growth. There was no shame, no blame, just naming the truth of what had happened and unlearning the false beliefs about myself and about how life worked.

In order to deal with my day-to-day, surface level issues I invented the following self-calming technique:

  • I notice when my mind has been taken over by fear, fantasies of the future, or unfinished business from the past
  • Then in that moment, I take a deep breath, and think to myself, “Thank you for reminding me of who I used to be”

As I exhale, I allow myself to be calm, present and I remind myself that I don’t have to continue being the way that I used to be — I can choose to be different now — especially when I know that my old behaviours were based on false beliefs. I remind myself of what I now know to be true, and that I’m in my current circumstances and not back in some old, childhood scenario. Then I decide to respond to the current circumstances calmly and with awareness, rather than reverting back to the old, unthinking, reactive behaviours.

‘Never let a problem of the mind define you as a person’

I believe that there are important keys to dealing successfully with many mental health issues:

  • Never let a problem of the mind define you as a person. Own your story, don’t let it own you – don’t be it.
  • Don’t give up. Be determined to uncover and remedy the root causes that are negatively impacting your life. Keep taking the next step, and when something comes up, look for the pattern, look for the underlying cause. Sometimes the progress will be gradual and sometimes you’ll have big breakthroughs. But whatever you do, keep at it. I’m living proof that you can succeed.

I was able to undo my false beliefs and now I love my life, I accept my past and I live with purpose. I love working one-on-one with people, I love facilitating groups and I also love training people to run their own groups so we can spread the benefits to more communities — this is what I am here for and it brings me alive. It’s funny how my life purpose was buried under my fears and pain!

Follow Kenny Mammarella-D’Cruz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KennyDCruz

Photo: Flickr/Matt Cunnelly

Stressed? Try meditation

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Anxiety is the watchword of our times. Whether it is a question of global politics or the more intimate and personal matter of our appearance, the demands of 21st century life are precisely that – demanding. Meditation can help with that.

Leaving aside the sense of pervasive menace that spills out of every news bulletin, there is a more pointedly personal sting fired at us in every ad break. Are your abs up to scratch? Is your hair too grey/too thin? Is your belly out of control? Is your cholesterol too high, or your bank balance too small?

All too easily it can seem as though anxiety marks almost every aspect of our contemporary first world sense of self. Being asked to measure ourselves against the impossible ideals of Hollywood and all those airbrushed ads over and over again is a sure fire way to leave you feeling just that little bit less than up to the mark.

Living the bad dream

It’s a complaint that feminist campaigners against the ad industry have been making for generations, so perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised. But against a backdrop of ever growing anxiety over our professional lives – micro management, shrinking budgets and the sense of flying without a safety net that government cutbacks have accentuated – all those minor and not so minor anxieties can build up to the point where life can feel like it is one of those bad dreams where no matter how hard you try you can never quite shake off the nameless threat is pursuing you.

Anxiety is widely recognised as the most prevalent form of mental illness in the UK today. But whilst women are one and a half times more likely to be treated for a mental illness than men, it is males who overwhelmingly dominate the suicide figures. Whilst women are more likely to ask for help, it seems, the tendency is for men to soldier on – self medicating with alcohol or some other potential addiction, rather than turn to their GP.

Rather than medical intervention, meditation is increasingly acknowledged as a successful means of corralling those swirling anxieties, learning to relax and taking control of our emotional reactions to the incessant demands of modern day living.

Taking control

Amidst the incessant clamour of our busy lives the quiet still space that meditation affords is not only immediately stress-relieving in itself, it is also well-recognised as leading to better decision-making and a more evolved and a more robust sense of self.

If anxiety is the watchword of our times, a robust psychological self-reliance is its antidote. For most of us that strength of personality is not something that comes as standard. Or if it does, it can be worn down or buried beneath the spoil heap of those minor day-to-day vexations.

But taking the time to consciously relax, to put yourself on good terms with your thoughts and emotions is easily achieved. Help and guidance for beginners is readily available and increasingly popular. All it takes is a few quiet moments and a desire to live a better life. No drugs, no public performance, no fuss and no stress – really, what is there to worry about?

Image courtesy: Hernan Piñera 

My name is Gary and I’m mental. Maybe you are too. Let’s talk about it.

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My name is Gary and I’m mental. No really, I am. I live with depression, acute anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder on an everyday basis. I’m tri-mental. I really don’t care who knows, so let’s talk about it.

The majority of people who seek help and support for their mental health are women, yet around 78% of people who kill themselves are men. These figures are echoed all around the world. Mental illness is an equal opportunity affliction so there’s a huge disparity somewhere. Mental health has long been a taboo subject. It’s something we’d rather not discuss in polite conversation. Why is that? Every one of us has mental health so why not talk about something we all share. We might not all have mental ill health, but the way we deal and talk about it has to change.

One in four of you reading this are as mental as I am. That is to say, you’ll experience mental illness at some point in your life. Maybe that time is now, perhaps it’s in the past or it could be still to come. Who really knows, but the fact is it really doesn’t matter. Mental illness, in all its guises, form part of who we are, but it’s not there to define who we are. I learned that lesson the hard way, I hope you don’t have to.

My mental health deteriorated when I became ill. During most of 2008 I was suffering with severe stomach pains. They would appear for a couple of days and they would go again. Like an unwelcome house guest, gradually the pain would come and stay for longer and longer periods and it hurt more and more. Despite not being a massive fan of going to the doctors, the pain was so bad that I couldn’t stop myself. I went every few weeks for about six months.

‘My life turned upside down’

Every time I visited, I was given ‘something’. Medication for a stomach bug….or spasms…or kidney infections….or Irritable Bowel Syndrome. None of them fixed it, because the root cause of my problem wasn’t identified. One night in late October the pain was too much to bear. My wife rang NHS Direct who, in turn, called an ambulance. My local A&E said it was gastroenteritis and sent me home. Two days later I was back and they finally admitted me. Within 48 hours, my life turned upside down.

From a Saturday night admission to a Sunday night bout of emergency surgery, I woke up in the High Dependency unit of my local hospital with tubes and wires coming out of almost every orifice and some-sort of bag stuck to my side. The morphine pump kept me sedated, but the chaos around me was about to get very real. I had developed diverticulitis and the internal damage had cause my colon to burst. You know that face you’re pulling right now, imagine how I was feeling!

Afterwards, as my physical health was starting to improve, my mental health was deteriorating. The sheer shock of what had transpired had a massive impact on me and my family. I’d also recently lost my only uncle and my beloved dog. On top of that my wife and I had become parents just two months earlier, so life as I knew it was unrecognisable. My head was struggling to keep up.

‘I didn’t seek help, but I needed it’

I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t cope with having a colostomy bag very well. I didn’t cope with it physically or mentally. I felt weak against those who live with one all the time and seem to manage just fine. All I know was that I couldn’t…and I didn’t. I became withdrawn from my family and friends and I became easily irritable. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but I wouldn’t talk about it. It’s not what men do is it. I wouldn’t seek help because I didn’t realise, or maybe accept, I needed it. But I did. Oh boy did I!

Even after the operation was reversed a year later, I could still feel the bag on my skin, I could still smell it in the air, I could still see it under my clothes, even when it clearly wasn’t there. It began to haunt my dreams, night after night. I began a blog to help me cope. I’ve always loved to write and so, to help myself make sense of things, I began to document my thoughts to try and understand why I felt like that. Could the internet help me understand what I couldn’t? Gradually that blog grew, it attracted more followers and then….it died. Well it didn’t die, but it certainly went into a coma for a while. Until this year when it was reborn, not solely as a blog, but a website devoted to men and mental health called Men Tell Health. See what I did there?

Men Tell Health is designed to be different. There are many great sites out there when it comes to mental health, but they all seem to look the same way and they all talk about an admittedly difficult subject in the same way, but the thing is, we’re all different, so we are trying to do something different.

I want to help those men who, like me, go through life fighting the good fight, keeping that ‘stiff upper lip’ and stubbornly refusing to accept they have a problem. Men? Stubborn? I know, right!

The fact is life is a pain in the arse at times. As people, never mind as men, we’re simply not designed to cope with everything life can through at us. We simply are not. Sooner or later, something is going to break and asking for help is not a matter of pride or weakness, it’s a matter of fact.

I said at the beginning that something has to change and the site is here to try and stimulate that change. It’s not arrogant enough to believe it has all the answers, but if you’re looking for information and signposts to people who can help you, or to explain mental illness in a way that delivers knowledge and humour, with just a touch of honesty, it’s a good place to start.

Do you want to make preventing male suicide a national health priority? To help raise awareness about this emergency join the International Men’s Day social media shout out by clicking here

Dads with mental health problems deserve better

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Where there is mental illness, there’s almost invariably social disapproval and discrimination. And a report released by the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows fathers with mental illness can face unique hardships.

By Rhys Price-Robertson, Monash University and Andrea Reupert, Monash University

People already afflicted by mental ill-health often face the additional burden of stigma; of being perceived as having a “spoiled identity”, to use American sociologist Erving Goffman’s evocative term. Indeed, stigma is increasingly recognised as a central issue for the entire mental health field.

For the estimated 20% of Australian mental health service users who have dependent children, stigma can take new forms. Negative stereotypes about parents with a mental illness are rife in the media, in the general public and even among mental health workers.

Parents are judged as incompetent or dangerous based solely on their mental health status. Regardless of how dedicated and capable they are as parents, many end up seeing themselves in the light of these stereotypes. (“I’m bound to screw up my kids somehow.”)

Families can also face “stigma by association”, where the children or partners of a person with mental illness are abused, blamed or avoided because of their family member’s condition. (“Na-na, your dad’s a psycho.”)

What about dads?

But the picture of what such families face has been incomplete. Almost all of the existing research on parenting and mental illness stigma has focused on mothers. There are many reasons for this, including their greater involvement in daily childcare activities and the well-known difficulties of recruiting men into research studies.

The discipline of psychology is only just emerging from decades of mother-blaming, so it’s probably fair that efforts at understanding parents’ stigma have mostly focused on exonerating women from unjust blame and shame.

But there are reasons why it’s important to focus separately on fathers’ experience of stigma. Men may experience mental illness differently to women, often use different strategies to self-manage their problems and are generally more reluctant to seek help for health concerns.

Perhaps most importantly, men and women are subject to different gender and parenting norms. Stigma tracks along gendered lines, with men stigmatised for failing to exhibit “masculine” qualities such as strength, stoicism and self-sufficiency.

Dads and stigma

Stigma is a prominent theme in the review of the research on fatherhood and mental illness released today. It found stigma especially prevalent in qualitative literature, which explores participants’ lived experiences of mental illness and family life.

Many of the fathers who participated in this qualitative research described fatherhood as central to their self-image.

Nonetheless, some felt discriminated against for their (perceived or actual) inability to meet the traditional paternal responsibilities of provider, protector and role-model. Some had internalised this discrimination. They described deep feelings of shame and failure about parenting.

Other fathers saw the welfare system as biased against them. They felt they were automatically viewed as a risk to their children because of their illness, and so were under observation much of the time. A few believed their illness had been unfairly used against them in custody disputes.

Most worrying of all, fathers shared their fear that if they accessed services, or revealed the true extent of their mental health issues, they would be at risk of losing custody of their children.

Unfortunately, there is evidence to support these fathers’ perceptions: a number of Australian and international studies have found that welfare workers often hold negative or ambivalent attitudes towards fathers.

An analysis of the child protection system in the United Kingdom, for instance, identified two dominant discourses about male clients: they were seen as “a threat”, presumed to be violent and manipulative; and they were perceived to be of “no use”, said to spend little time on and have few skills for child rearing.

Families deserve better

There are no simple answers in the fight against stigma. Public education and awareness-raising may help, especially when it seems that the most common catalyst for public discussion of fathers’ mental illness is a man tragically killing his offspring. Peer-support groups and father-sensitive parenting education programs could promote men’s self-empowerment.

The Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) initiative provides excellent resource and informational support for families. Such supports include The Importance of Being a Dad, which is specifically designed for fathers in families where a parent has a mental illness.

But COPMI’s remit falls short of the transformative system-wide reform that would be necessary to ensure Australian health and welfare services are capable of effectively engaging fathers with mental ill-health. Efforts at change will falter until we address the discriminatory practices embedded in mainstream service systems.

If parents fear accessing services that would help them become the safe and loving caregivers they are capable of being, then service systems are failing.

If the instruments we use to assess risk in families automatically record parental mental illness as a “risk factor”, regardless of parenting capacity or commitment, then we need new assessment tools.

Parenting is hard enough as it is, and fathers with mental illness tread a more difficult path than most. Ideally, their difficulties would be met by understanding and support. They certainly deserve better than the stigma and discrimination they are currently likely to face.

—Photo: Lloyd Morgan/Flickr

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

To mark the launch of the film Down Dog, insideMAN is running a series of articles about fatherhood throughout February and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.

For more information about the film see www.downdogfilm.com

Talking: The Ultimate Weapon Against a Leading Cause of Male Deaths

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Josh Rivedal lost his father and grandfather to suicide and is a passionate advocate for improving men’s mental health.

—This is article #86 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

Men are willing to talk about just about anything—the size of their prostate glands, or how much Viagra they’re allowed to take—but they’re still not willing to talk about their mental health. If men want to live long, healthy and productive lives it’s absolutely crucial that the dialogue surrounding men’s mental health has to change.

I lost my father Douglas to suicide in 2009. Douglas lost his father Haakon to suicide in 1966. Each suffered from undiagnosed mental health conditions and each suffered in silence because of the stigma surrounding men talking about and getting help for mental illness.

Haakon—a Norwegian man who served in the Royal Air Force (35th Squadron as a tail gunner) in World War II—killed himself in 1966 because of the overwhelming post traumatic stress he suffered because of the war. Douglas, an American man who was chronically unhappy and abusive, may have been clinically depressed for a very long time, but my mother filing for divorce was a catalyst (not the cause) for his action in taking his own life.

There’s a relatively new case study in The Journal of Men’s Health that says that men are affected tremendously by divorce. They have higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and detach themselves from personal relationships and social support.

I nearly attempted suicide

In 2011, I had several catalysts for my own near-suicide attempt: the dissolution of a relationship with a long-term girlfriend (similar to a divorce), a lack of work, and fallout from my mother’s betrayal. I was in terrible emotional pain and unknowingly suffering from clinical depression.

My thought life took a downward spiral pretty fast. How did I get to such a dismal place in my life so quickly, just a month shy of my twenty-seventh birthday? Coming out of secondary school and high on optimism, I thought by the time I reached my mid-twenties I would have it all together. After a couple of years singing on Broadway (yes, I’m a theatre geek), I would have scored a few bit parts on Law & Order, and transitioned seamlessly from having my own television show, A-Team 2.0 as Mr. T’s long lost son, to being cast with Will Smith in the summer’s biggest blockbuster. After which, my getaway home in the South of France would be featured in Homes & Gardens, andmy face would grace the cover of The National Enquirer as Bigfoot’s not-so-secret lover. Not to mention, I’d have my perfect wife and perfect family by my side to share in my success.

But instead, I somehow only managed to perform in an assortment of small professional theatre gigs and on one embarrassing reality television show; and over the course of the previous eighteen months my father killed himself, my mother betrayed me and sued me for my father’s inheritance, and my girlfriend of six years broke up with me.

Talking doesn’t make you less of a man

This perfectly imperfect storm of calamity and crisis had ravaged my life… and I wasn’t talking about it to anyone. My silence led to crisis and poor decisions—to the extent that I was hanging out of a fourth story window.

Those men who came before me, Haakon and Douglas; each of them suffered their pain in silence too, because of stigma and I too felt that same stigma—like I’d be seen as “crazy” or “less of a man” if I talked about what I was going through.

Standing at the ledge of a fourth floor window, I realized I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to end my inner torment and emotional pain. And I needed to break the familial cycle. So I came back inside, took a risk and asked for help by calling my mother.

Over the next few months I continued to take more risks. I called old friends to tell them I needed their support. I started seeing a counselor. And no one ever told me I was crazy, stupid or a bad person. They told me they loved me and wanted to help me.

There is always hope

While recovering from clinical depression, I wanted to help youth and other men like me. So I wrote a biographical book and one-man play The Gospel According to Josh that talks in part about my father’s suicide and took it to secondary schools, universities and community centers all across the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia. With it, I talk about the importance of mental health and various means and methods of suicide prevention. Most of my audiences were and still continue to be women. One of the things I’ve found is that most men (not just the Rivedal men) have a difficult time talking about and getting help for their mental health or if they’re feeling suicidal. There seems to be some societal pressure that says, “You’re not a true man if you don’t have it all together, all the time.”

But I have a message for men everywhere that’s simple yet profound. There’s always hope and help out there for you. As a man who has suffered from deep, dark depression—the “Black Dog” as Winston Churchill called it—I can say from personal experience that this is not a character flaw or a weakness. It doesn’t make you any less of a man. In fact, by asking for help it makes you a stronger man. It gives you a fighting chance to improve your life and become the person you want to be. Reach out to your family and friends and ask for help. Nip it in the bud before it can turn into a crisis.

* * *

If you need a bit of help and don’t know where to turn, here are list of resources for suicide prevention and mental health in the US, UK, Australia, and around the world.

Additionally, for International Men’s Day on November 19, 2014, I’m having a live Google Hangout chat on male depression, suicide, and how and where to get help with MensLine Australia in Australia (details HERE), and MenBeyond50 in the United Kingdom (details HERE). We’ll be covering a lot and you can ask questions and it’s totally free.

–-Picture credit: Britt Reints

 

Josh Rivedal is a New York City based actor, author, playwright, and international public speaker on mental health and suicide prevention. He writes occasionally for the Huffington Post. He is author of the book The Gospel According to Josh and is taking in part in an online discussion about men’s mental health on international men’s Day (Wednesday 19th November 2014).

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Men can recover from the edge of suicide

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James Withey  founded the mental health website Recovery Letters after facing depression. Here he shares the inspiration behind the project.

—This is article #66 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

I’m sat on a chair in my room on a psychiatric ward; the sun is reaching through the branches of the tree behind me and daubing a beautiful light show on the wall. A year ago I was a Training Officer with a large charity delivering courses including the life saving ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) to groups of social care workers and now I’m on 15 min suicide watch.

Depression crept up behind me and broke me in 2011 after a series of events that made my soul collapse. I was fortunate in some ways. I had worked in counselling and social care all my life and knew that I was unwell; I also knew that I was entitled to support.

I had taught others about suicide; how men are more likely to die by suicide, how men want help but find it hard to find the services to match and that suicidal thoughts are temporary but feel permanent.

When I was first ill I spent four nights in the Maytree Sanctuary for the Suicidal in London which saved my life and gave me time to reflect on the notion of recovery. Until my time in Maytree only one mental health professional had told me I could recover from depression; this was a student nurse who was accompanying the full time workers and leaving the flat she turned, smiled and said, ‘James, you can recover from this.’ At Maytree I had a chance to think about this and the importance of hope.

This is what helped me

Depression tried to steal everything from me and temporarily succeeded. It took my career, my memory, my concentration, my confidence, my sense of humour, friendships, sleep, eating, motivation and one of my biggest losses was reading. I used to be an avid reader, a few novels a month and suddenly nothing, I couldn’t read a page, I couldn’t read half a page. I borrowed some books from the library but couldn’t get past the first sentence and the more I tried the more of a failure I felt.

What I wanted was to read small pieces of writing that would give me some hope that I could get through; I wanted to hear about other people’s experiences of emerging through the treacle like existence that is depression. This is how the idea of Recovery Letters came about because I wondered, if this would have helped me, would it would help others too?

Recovery Letters is a simple premise; people recovering from depression write a letter to those that are currently suffering. I wrote the initial letter and then used twitter to ask other people to write subsequent letters. The response has been incredible, including men who have explained that starved of sleep, late at night, the letters have helped them survive until the morning.

We need to help men in different ways

As a man I know the difficulties of opening up; after one disastrous phone call to a helpline at 3 a.m. where the helpline worker didn’t say anything to me, I vowed never to call again and that night took an overdose of sleeping pills. I’m not blaming that helpline worker who no doubt was anxious and unsure of what to say, it was maybe their first call and they just wanted to help. My point is that men need to be engaged in different ways, we need to understand how hard it is for men to open up. Our duty is to provide a variety of methods of support so that the right fit can be found.

Talking about suicide is also hard. When Stephen Fry was asked recently why he didn’t tell close friends about his feelings before a recent suicide attempt, he responded by explaining that it’s like admitting the most embarrassing and mortifying thing you could reveal, so big is the shame. “Think of your very best friend. Very, very best friend. Suppose you suddenly noticed you had a massive and really disturbing genital wart… would you show it to your very best friend?”

The Recovery Letters blog has been running since September 2012 and we now have dozens of letters on the site from people who have taken the time and effort to sit down and write to people they’ve never met. They benefit too, writing down thoughts, feelings and reaching out to others helps to cement one’s own recovery. No one is paid any money to write nor read the letters, yet everyone benefits.

I use the letters myself. My recovery is up and down, as most people’s is, and because depression blinds you to the truth I will often sit down and remind myself that if the people who wrote these letters are alive, living their lives alongside or after depression then I can do the same, and I do.

—Picture credit: Portland Prevention

You can read the letters here: therecoveryletters and follow on Twitter @RecoveryLetters. This article first appeared at the CALM website and is republish with permission of James Withey.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

When it comes to health, the male elephant is still outside the room

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For nearly 40 years, as a man personally and professionally, I have struggled uncomfortably with the issue of the “male elephant in the room”; in fact not even in the room, but outside the door.

My journey as a boy, son, young male, man, husband, father, single parent father, community worker, unemployed male, mental health service user, founder of a social enterprise, social entrepreneur, counsellor, psychologist, criminologist and grandfather, has been enlightening for me as a male. I have observed both in my own life and through observing the many thousands of people that have been fellow journeymen, that men in England are as much emotionally outside the door as they were in my childhood days.

— This is article #59 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Equality between men and women has radically changed in many ways but in one way it has not. According to research by Professor Brid Featherstone men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women and four times less likely to ask for help.

Men’s gender issues overlooked

Men are still only 10% of single parents which is a figure that has not really changed since I became one in 1987 — not by choice, but by chance and necessity. In my world of family mental health, men are still seen as the “problem” not the solution and often seen as the perpetrator of the “problem”. Fatherhood as a specific subject within children and families policy “yoyos” in and out of favour, whilst motherhood is still mainly in a saintly position.

My argument is not that men at times do not behave badly, or are not perpetrators and abusers, but that the gender issues that men and fathers face are not given the same recognition as those faced by women and mothers.

For example, if we take the sad issue of suicide, it is statistically clear that 75% of these deaths are men in UK, but this is not debated as a male issue. Men and depression does now get highlighted, but the NHS and the Government have not made the issue a high priority.

There have been some excellent reports at local, regional, and national level since 2010, but when I raise this issue with mental health commissioners they in the main see it as an added-value subject. This means that if we have some money at the end of the financial year, we will perhaps commission a report. Fatherhood is also in this relegation zone — there were an emerging number of father worker posts within children and families departments across England, but it appears that this add-on and non-statutory luxury is on the austerity cutting-room floor.

Men need to be empowered

My Time CIC — based in the West Midlands and strangely also now in Isle of Wight, which I founded 12 years ago and by some miracle still plods on like an over-active tortoise — still flies the flag for men and women to get parity and equality within mental health and family services.

A huge proportion of children in care are there due to the mental health problems of parents and as a consequence of domestic violence. This grave social and economic issue will not be resolved without the male elephant being invited firstly into the room and secondly engaged — whether or not society feels uncomfortable with this. There also has to be a strong focus on women’s, at times, unacceptable behaviour, and on promoting images of men that are positive role models and there are surprisingly many.

Men need to be empowered to take control of their issues and challenge men who are not behaving. It is our responsibility and right. This old elephant is very much sitting in the room.

Michael Lilley is founder and chief executive of My Time CIC (www.mytime.org.uk) which is part of the Richmond Fellowship Group (www.richmondfellowship.org.uk). Michael is currently working on establishing a Well-Being Hotel and Recovery Centre on Isle of Wight.

Reference: Talking Men – Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal October 2012

Picture credit: Lucas Santana

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Celebrating one year without anti-depressants

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Paul Brook blogs about mental health, birds and fatherhood. Here he celebrates a year without anti-depressants.

—This is article #55 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

It is one year since I last took an antidepressant, and I am going to celebrate – not because I feel wonderful and am bursting with elation, but because I want to rub depression’s face in it.

I’m going to celebrate because I do not want this milestone to pass without pausing to reflect on it. And that’s the kind of celebration it will be – a quiet, reflective one. Armed with a posh hot chocolate, I have sat myself down to write my first blog post for a couple of months, mainly out of sheer stubbornness (I put this evening aside to write, so that is what I am doing) but also because I get the feeling Paul Brookes – the name I give my depression – doesn’t want me to. And I will not let him have his way any more.

It has, at times, and for some prolonged periods, been a tough year without Citalopram, which was, after all, my constant companion for three-and-a-half years, and there have been moments when I’ve been very close to reuniting with it.

Brookes has lined up his henchmen, stress and anxiety, and sent them round to rough me up on a number of occasions, thinking that when they’ve given me a beating he can sneak back in. And he has come very close to doing just that.

Malicious Presence 

The difference between now and five years ago, when he crept up on me for the first time, or three years ago, when he reappeared with brute force, is that I am wise to his ways. I can hear his stealthy footsteps. I can see his shadow on the wall. I can sense his malicious presence.

The fear is still the same. He still scares me. The innate caveman instincts of fight and flight kick in – I want to run away from my troubles, and end up fighting those henchmen day after day.

But, to a certain extent, I know what to do about it. I have learned how to look after myself. That’s all very well, but the trick I have yet to master is how to remember and do those things when I’m feeling weary, worn down, battered and lethargic, or when my stress levels are threatening to make my eyes pop out.

Not dancing for joy but……

In those times when Brookes attacks, I need more than my natural fight and flight instincts, so I am building up a virtual box of tricks – some emergency rations for my well-being, and some weapons against the dark one’s powers.

To outfox my enemy, this box will need to be crammed full of quickly accessible wisdom and self-care. I will need ways of reminding myself what is in the box, and ways of remembering to look inside it.

The first thing to go in the box will be a bit of self-praise. Well done, Paul. You did it. You made it through a year without Citalopram, hard though it may have been at times. And you wrote this blog when you really couldn’t be bothered.

The second thing will be to look back on all the good things that have happened, which can be too easy to forget. Good job I keep a book of such things (note to self – remember to look at it).

Oh yeah, and Brookes? I may not be jumping for joy, but I’m not dancing to your tune either. And if that isn’t worth celebrating, I don’t know what is.

—Picture credit: Steve Snodgrass

You can read more of Paul’s writings at his blog Dippyman and follow him on twitter @PaulBrook76.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Time to act on men’s mental health

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Dr Luke Sullivan  is a chartered clinical psychologist and the creator of Men’s Minds Matter. He began to specialise in men’s mental health ten years ago, after he worked as a researcher in the London borough of Southwark and found that apart from punitive services for men, there was a complete absence of gender-sensitive information and research on men and boys.

— This is article #46 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

I have been interested in the mental health and psychological wellbeing of men and boys for over a decade. It’s something I’m passionate about and it has led me to question and challenge assumptions and prejudice that exists towards men. I wanted to share some of my experiences of working with men and boys and where I see opportunities to help.

My work in the NHS is within acute care services. We know men are more likely to take their own lives than women so it’s a place where many men eventually turn up for help, willingly or not. In my experience in crisis services and from my work in men’s mental health there seems to be some common experiences shared by men. These can help in some way to account for the high rate of male suicide.

One of the most consistent findings is that men seek help less than women. This is not just help-seeking from professionals but also help-seeking from friends, families and communities. Crisis services are the last point of call for people experiencing psychological difficulties. Not seeking timely help increases the likelihood that mental health crises occur which is when many suicides happen.

Self medication and risk taking

A further problem is that men have significantly fewer support networks. They often have fewer close friends to turn to when they are struggling and they’re less likely to turn to families or communities for support. We know that after the age of 30 men’s social networks begin to shrink and in later life isolation becomes particularly problematic for men. If men fail to nurture and maintain relationships outside of work and the family they reduce the range support we can draw on when life becomes tough.

Popular culture would have us believe that on average men are less emotionally accessible and able than women. If true this may also have implications for men when they do turn to their friends or professionals for support. For example, many men may not feel equipped to help their male friends with emotional problems or they may not consider it appropriate for their male friends to disclose emotional difficulties. The exact nature of the difference between the emotional experiences of men and women is not really known. What we do know, however, is that men do have emotional needs.

When men present to services they sometimes do no quite fit the criteria for a mental illness. For these men they are less likely to receive diagnoses for common mental health problems such as and anxiety and depression. Men may also identify less with these terms and are therefore less likely to receive statutory services which could be of help.

Men also have a tendency to express their emotional distress externally through problematic behaviour that can affect both them and others. Men use drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism more so than women, they are more likely to gamble and take risks, and men are more likely come into contact with the criminal justice system due to their behaviour. Such behaviours receive a more punitive response which often lacks compassion for the underlying causes.

Growing momentum

I see many of these observations as potential problems for myself and for the other men in my life. Anyone can be struck by a mental health problem given the right conditions. In such circumstances we would all need some form of compassion, help and support. Without it crises inevitably occur as problems worsen. It’s at these times that people are more likely to take their own lives.

The absence of any thinking, action or interventions for men and boys stimulated me to create Men’s Minds Matter as an online resource providing information on their mental health and wellbeing. We wanted to build on conversations that address the high rates of suicide and challenge the stigma attached to mental health specifically from a male perspective. We also wanted find a ways to intervene to help address some of the issues described above.

One of our proposals is for the creation of a national federation of men’s institutes. We have developed some guiding principles for an MI based on helping men to become more connected with each other and their communities. This would help to reduce isolation and increase social support for people to fall back if and when needed. It would harness men’s collective strengths and use these creatively for the benefit of their communities. Most of all it would be a space thoughtfully created specifically for men.

There is growing momentum in the field on men’s mental health but there’s a long way to go before we fully address the psychological challenges faced by men and boys in the UK. Nevertheless the conversations have well and truly started. The face of maleness will be changing as we reclaim and redefine what it means to be men. It has to, too many men are dying.

—Picture: Flickr/mic445

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not necessarily the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Men, it’s time to stop suffering in silence

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If talking about your problems was good enough for Plato and Hamlet, why do so many men today find the only time they discuss the things that are troubling them is when they’re down the pub after a few beers? Here Karl Coppack, writer for Liverpool Football Club’s The Anfield Wrap, explains why it’s time for men to open up.

–This is article #7 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Think of every bad soap opera you’ve ever seen. That should be all of them if you ask me but if you’re an aficionado of the form you’ve probably come across a scene where a doomed couple are in the death throes of their (shudder) ‘relationship’. The clichés fall fast and furious until they arrive at this one exchange.

‘Can’t we just talk about it?’

‘Talk? All we’ve done is talk!’

This usually concludes the scene thanks to one of the dramatis personae slamming a door or collapsing in tears. End of Part One.

It’s rare that a man seeks help from a man

Talking is the way we resolve situations or get things off our chests. I can’t believe I’m going to suggest such a thing, but let’s bring in Plato here. He wrote much of his theories in a character format where someone or other would question Socrates about what was on their mind that day – the rights of kings, whether might is right and the thorny issue of poets being banished from the city gates. These were known as ‘the Socratic dialogues’ and they make his point very well. Rather than standing around throwing out theory after theory, he chose to show all sides of the argument. This, as he and others saw it, was the way ideas progressed. Hence, Parliament – from the French ‘parlement’ – to speak. This is getting dangerously close to an ancient political lecture so let’s just say that talking about things tends to get things done. Sometimes.

Moving on a bit from Ancient Greece we only have to look at modern (ish) music. ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ sang Rod Stewart, while subsequently proving that he was actually quite keen on it. ‘A problem halved is a problem shared’ and all that. It’s true too. We’ve all got people we run to when we’re up against it. Thing is, it’s rare that male runs to male unless it’s son to father.

Men are strange like that. We find it very hard to admit to worries and problems and our mates are usually the last to know what’s on our minds. We either muddle through alone or run in the opposite direction.

Men don’t just sail through life with a hardened chin and the heart of a lion, ready to take on any challenges that come our way. We’re not all like Tony Soprano’s hero, Gary Cooper – the strong and silent type. If anything the only skill we truly master is the pretence of complete control. We can fake that easily enough and for the lucky amongst us who can steer their ship with a skilled hand so much the better, but there are many who have monsters below the surface.

‘I get that too’

A few weeks ago I was out with some mates and somehow talk turned to what can be loosely described as ‘male issues’. That we did this at all was unusual. We’re a group of lads between the ages of 30 and 50 with differing backgrounds, careers and interests. We’re united primarily by a love of our football club and together we experience the peaks of troughs of emotion through that entity, but apart from that we’re a fairly mixed group. Some of us are obsessed with music, others aren’t. Some are married, some single. Some have kids, others not. We’ve all known each other for years and have travelled up and down the land together, attended each other’s weddings etc., but this is the first time I can ever remember us talking about aspects of our personality or health that concern us. This would never have happened five years ago when we were younger and more defensive about such things.

I don’t want to give the impression that we sat in the corner like some sort of moody Goth council –we’re not like that at all- but there was the odd raised eyebrow when people spoke up. Alcohol helped, of course. In vino veritas and all that, although Birra Moretti was the main lip loosener at the time, but what came over far more than the lack of embarrassment of admitting to perceived weaknesses was that we all saw something in ourselves through the words of others. The sentence ‘I get that too’ was muttered more than once.

Obviously, I won’t go into details about the general topics expressed that night, I’d like them to continue being my friends after all, but in the interests of disclosure I’ll admit to something I’ve kept quiet.

‘I spent a weekend in silence’

For the last few years, I’ve undergone periods of intense gloom. This is nothing like a teenage strop or anything similar but an absolute collapse in self-worth for no obvious reason.  There are times when I cannot face a living soul, times when I’d rather lock the door and not come out unless it’s absolutely necessary. Instead, I prefer to save the world from my interaction, my face and my sense of utter worthlessness. Only last month I spent a weekend in silence. I turned off my phone and just listened to my own mind tell me that I’m useless, hopeless and about to be revealed for the fraud that I undoubtedly am.

There’s no trigger for this. Oddly enough it comes when things are going well or I feel particularly loved – birthday parties, commendations etc. I don’t know what this is but I know what it isn’t. It isn’t depression. I say that not out of some ill-thought mantra about designer illnesses or anything so crass but because I know it will pass and I can manage it accordingly. This isn’t a daily struggle. I don’t have violent mood swings and I don’t seek medication. Furthermore, I am not a danger to myself so I live with it and wait for whatever it is to let me go.  It always does.

The majority of my male mates don’t know this but I have several close female friends who have sat with me and tried to talk me round during these miserable hours. Why is that? Why is one ear better than another? Why can they know but not them?

Well, the truth is that I’m a bit embarrassed by it. I know I shouldn’t be but there we are. Those paragraphs were difficult to write as I know what it is to come – he just wants attention, look at him with his fancy ‘sensitive’ condition, look at him begging for sympathy. Actually, that’s the last thing I want. If anything that would make it worse. During those times I’d rather not have proof that there are others who agree with the overwhelming consensus within my id. No thanks.

‘For every sympathetic ear, there’s a boorish lout…’

There are always people ready to cast stones of disgust. Look at the recent suicide of Robin Williams. Despite the outpouring of emotion at such a loss some just couldn’t help themselves. Here’s Alan Brazil, a former footballer and DJ of the radio station Talksport. Like many he thought that it was Robbie and not Robin Williams who had died in the night. He expressed relief at that live on air.

“And then when she said ‘Robin’, I thought, ‘oh, okay’. It didn’t hit me hard like it would if it had been Robbie, thank God it wasn’t.

“He’s got a daughter, what’s she feeling this morning? I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m sorry.”

“But that’s the way I feel, I’m sorry. What you leave behind is diabolical…. I’m really annoyed about that.”

Well, we’ll all have to live with your anger, Alan.

What he fails to realise is that Robin Williams knew full well the impact his suicide would have on his family. Of course he did. He’d probably considered suicide many times before but his family pulled him back from the brink. Then one day it wasn’t enough to save him. I don’t want to think about what it must be like to be in that situation and see death as preferable and it’s the likes of Alan Brazil’s with their derision that keeps these issues hidden. For every sympathetic ear there’s a boorish lout who bays ‘why don’t they just walk it off’ to anyone within earshot.  Little wonder then that men find it difficult to feel tell others that they are experiencing depression, drinking problems or whatever going on in their lives when they’re met with a cacophony of scorn from ‘those who must express a view’.

Gender divide

Of course women get depression and its various strains too but that’s treated differently. They aren’t subject to the stereotypical machismo that governs our lives. Men have to be strong. Men have to answer to peer pressure. Men can never admit to frailty etc. Quite ridiculous, of course, but there we are. The term ‘show your feminine side’ is generally pejorative in tone. Great. We’ll just eat ourselves up then, shall we? Harsh maybe, but that’s what many choose to do.

There are considerable pressures on us all these days. Life is an attainment race as it is and with these accompanying hurdles there’s no wonder that we struggle from time to time. Most of us would rather change an aspect of their lives be it career, health, looks or all of the above and that judgment is constant, whether it’s from ourselves or others.

There is a gender divide at play. None of my female friends have this need for validation. Whether this is because we’re just wired differently or because society expects different things from men and women is hard to say. But there is a difference in how we deal with life’s time bombs. Men seem less willing to ask other men for help.

So, did anything come of this chat? Not really. We simply went back to usual agenda of the evening but it was a start. We each admitted that we’re not all ‘well’ in a general sense. We all have things in our minds that dig into our ribs and sharing them doesn’t make us weaker. If anything it makes you the opposite. If you find that your friends have similar worries it makes your own a little more manageable.

Keep talking. It can’t hurt.

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.