Things change

I am a bloke in my mid 40s with a half decent job who likes music and footy and is trying to do the right thing and I guess for many people that meet me they wouldn’t be aware or really that interested in my own struggles. That’s mental health for you I guess.

I am conscious that the words I have written so far have been very much focussed around my battles with anxiety and depression, and the traumas of the past having lost my mother to suicide.  It has been a hugely cathartic thing for me to begin to put a million jumbled thoughts that have developed over the years into words.  Once they are out they seem to act as a reference point for me, something with order that I have some control over.

I remind myself that it is now, after all these years, not all bad. I survived some very frightening and lonely times and some self destructive thoughts and behaviours. I am lucky to have a home, a family that care for me, and a job that allows us to survive. With so much terror and poverty and violence in the world it sometimes feels very self indulgent when I sit in relative opulence and safety. But mental health doesn’t work like that either.

I have had support over the years through counsellors, and a short dose of CBT as well as the inevitable green and white tablets.  But none of that really changed anything in me. It diverted me to some calmer times but didn’t change the path.

Hypnotherapy

A number of years ago I gave hypnotherapy a go and it felt different. I went for a small number of sessions and this enabled me the time and space to sort myself out.. Then years later my anxiety hit me with vengeance. A new job had quickly  become a nightmare and after breaking down in a sobbing shaking snotty mess (again) I realised I needed to do something once and for all.

I found Laura Salter a hypnotherapist through a website called Steps to Happiness. Exactly what I was after!  For my first session I somehow managed to get it all out, my history, my perceptions or reactions to the stresses and strains of life and to explain my desire for some peace.  I was comfortable with Laura, not something I had experience through counselling or CBT, which seemed very distant. It felt like she understood me and with a background in mental health nursing she had loads of experience.  The hypnotherapy sessions that followed brought me back from a really awful place. I would come home bouncing, remembering it felt like I had been on holiday for a week. And I would sleep so well those nights. Laura would talk about filling that well of positive thoughts in my mind and she did just that, well I did, but she helped big time. I am lucky that I seem to be very responsive to hypnotherapy and I can go into a very deep state of trance or whatever the technical term is.

Work remained an absolute nightmare but I took control, understanding what I could do about it and what was out of my hands. Understanding that I could respond by taking action and getting the hell out of there. So, I looked for another job and did my level best while I was there. I did some significant work with a renewed focus and whilst it wasn’t at all pleasurable I felt I did a good job. I found a new position albeit in very much more junior role but it gave me my life back, worth more than any amount of cash.

Headspace

Once the sessions with Laura were over and I was in an infinitely better place I happened across an app called HeadSpace through a friend. He had shared his own experiences of mental health issues with me as I have always been quietly open about my own struggles and told me about this app as being a decent thing to try.

HeadSpace delivers short bursts of meditation to your phone or tablet. I latched on to it pretty quickly as it felt very similar to hypnotherapy to me. 15 minutes a day I would enable my mind to do nothing, to not think.  This new wave of mindfulness is all the rage at the moment and it really does seem to have an affect. I don’t use it every day but I do when I feel like I need it. And again it made me feel different, more chilled, to have time and space, to give some perspective.  They are an interesting company headed up by a chap called Andy Puddicombe who is English but seems to be based in the States. Worth a look.

Life after suicide

One night last year I noticed a tv programme was on one of the BBC channels, “Life After Suicide”. Naturally it caught my attention and I watched a beautifully made documentary following a woman, Angela Samata, talking about her own loss of her partner and also talking to other survivors of suicide. There was a moment at the end of the film when she questioned whether she should be talking about it all so much with her young son, whether suicide would be normalised to him.

“So do you think I did ok, I did the right thing by telling you”

“Absolutely, positive”

“Thank you”

“Welcome”

This conversation touched me more than anything I had seen, heard or read before. Just brilliantly heart warming that she had got it so right and that her boy was so brilliantly alright too.

“I am that boy” I tweeted largely to myself.

It felt like something changed that day for me, there were people out there like me that were affected. Perhaps it wasn’t just me? I had to talk to this person.

(You can watch Life after Suicide on Youtube)

By royal appointment

Social media is a bloody marvellous thing and I tracked Angela down (in a non stalky way) on Instagram and expressed my appreciation of the programme and shared a bit of my own experience to her.  And because she is who she is she responded with words of kindness.

My first post on this blog I wrote in isolation years ago when I was struggling to sleep, a poem breaking down my personal struggles from losing my mum and not really knowing what the hell was going on. I had shared it with a couple of close friends but I felt compelled to share it also with Angela.

More kindness followed and I offered my support in any campaigning around mental health that may be happening.  I wasn’t expecting much to happen other than a supportive retweet or an instagram like, and I was conscious I may be bothering this stranger in another town.

Then one day, a tweet  followed by a call about a secret project she couldn’t tell me about. Ok! After a couple of weeks this bizarre conversation ended up with me being invited to Kensington Palace with Angela and a group of fellow survivors, many of whom appeared on the documentary,  to talk to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge about our own experiences. This was part of a day where the royal couple explored the topic of suicide both in front of the press and with us privately.

I agreed to attend but felt I couldn’t without talking to my father about it, really for the first time at length. We had spoken about my own mental health over the years but not really the root cause, not the detail.  In a long conversation which took us both by surprise I put together the details of a woman I didn’t know, a dreadfully sad story that echoes on.  We talked about how my father received no communication or support other than a change in tax code to single man status, and how his own difficulty dealing with emotion made speaking about it so hard. A hard but important conversation, one I am so glad to have had as he grows old.

The day itself was an absolutely surreal trip, meeting a group of complete strangers and feeling open to talking to them about this hidden story that I had carried around all my life.  And then doing the same (and being the first to talk – thanks Angela!) to bloody royalty. Properly mental.  I am no fan of the establishment but these 2 privileged people felt genuine and interested and showed compassion that they didn’t need to. I can sniff bullshit from a mile and there wasn’t any in that room. There was a connection as this young man had also lost his mother in tragic circumstances. I don’t know what good it will do in the long run but it seemed worthwhile, the fight to change society comes from people showing courage and being open to all and sundry.

It felt like I waffled on for an age, and then I sat and listened to others. There were  people who had been recently bereaved, extraordinarily brave to be speaking when it is all so raw. The cogs inside just seemed to click into place. One woman spoke about her son and shared with us her own blog that she had been writing every day since she had lost him. It is a lovely blog, often heart breaking but also informative and supportive. A recommended read.

And on we go

Since then things seem to have continued to change, my anxieties still bubble under the surface but I continue to do a good job of keeping them at bay. I realised that day that I need to look after myself more both physically and mentally and since then I have been out running (by that I mean stumbling) three times a week as well as a weekly game of tog and numerous miles walked as part of my job.  I have improved my diet and have looked for opportunities to develop me rather than just see the day out.

I count myself lucky that I gave hypnotherapy a go, that I had the cash eventually to pay for it for a longer period of time, that I downloaded Headspace learnt about mindfulness, and for once  I am thankful that I watch so much TV.

Look after yourself and each other.