This episode looks at Alan's personal mental health experience and how mental health doesn't discriminate, it affects everyone. By giving you a brief overview of his personal struggles, hopefully you'll be encouraged and understand it doesn't matter who you are or what stage of life you're at, poor mental health affects everyone.
How do you manage your mental health? How do you support those around you experiencing poor mental health?
This episode looks at Alan's personal mental health experience and how mental health doesn't discriminate, it affects everyone. By giving you a brief overview of his personal struggles, hopefully you'll be encouraged and understand it doesn't matter who you are or what stage of life you're at, poor mental health affects everyone.
How do you manage your mental health? How do you support those around you experiencing poor mental health?
Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Therapy Guy.
Now, those of you who might have listened to
previous episodes will know what we're trying to endeavour
to do is to let you know about all
all things mental health, answer your questions, tell you
about different therapies and what's available and what sort
of support you can access.
But this week, I'm going to
change and do something slightly different.
This is going to be more about a personal
reflection of my own journey through mental health, what
mental health means to me, really my experiences.
And one of the key messages I'm hoping to
get across is with all that's going on in
the world, all the discrimination that we see, whether
that's racial, gender, et cetera, mental health doesn't discriminate,
it can affect absolutely anyone at any time.
And realistically, you don't know what's going on for
somebody or what thoughts are having, or how much
they may be struggling and they may feel that
they can't actually reach out for help.
So it's a difficult conversation for me to have this,
but it's come from some personal circumstances, just like me,
so I thought I'd share it to hopefully encourage other
people to understand mental health, except that it can happen
to anybody and at any time.
Now, I'll have to start a little
bit back my history with mental health.
There's been issues with mental health within my family now,
growing up, although I didn't realise it at the time,
because of a certain age that it wasn't really recognised
as well as it is now in schools.
But I was dyslexic, so I struggled with education.
I struggled because I didn't have the
support, I didn't have the understanding.
So that obviously started to feed into how
I felt about myself and with certain things
that I was experiencing within the family.
It led to quite a negative image that I had
about myself when I was going through my teenage years.
Now, I can't underestimate the effect this had really
on my education and how I saw myself.
Because I left school with no qualifications, I didn't
like education, I struggled all the way through it.
So, realistically, my image of myself at that time was
that I wasn't very good, I wasn't good at anything.
I was all the names that have been called in school.
I used to sort of say a joke that I spent
more time at the back of the class or outside the
class than I did actually engaging in the class.
Now, that was part of my defence, was to make a
joke and to be funny and that sort of thing.
Sarcastic.
Well, realistically, I was hurting on the inside because
my self worth and value was really low.
Now, this then went on to relationships, of
course, because I was quite an angry person.
I was angry at the way that I looked at myself,
I was angry at the way I thought and viewed myself,
so why wouldn't I be angry with other people, too?
I pushed friends, family, relationships away.
I had a real big impact because each time that
one of those relationships failed, I would then obviously reinforce
the image I had of myself, that when I was
no good was like, yes, everything the teachers, everything everybody
said about me growing up was true.
So I wouldn't try to go for that job.
I wouldn't try that relationship.
I self sabotage quite a lot of the time.
And this went on, really, and it's just a cycle
of this sort of self loathing that I had.
And the way I saw myself, it really
filled every part of who I was.
Then I met a woman who I had a
relationship with, and we had some amazing children together.
Unfortunately, I was still in a bad
way, still with that self worth, really.
So the relationship struggled no matter what
we did or what we tried.
And eventually, compounded by some issues that
my ex partner had, that relationship failed.
But it was a real turning point
for myself when I had the children.
I'm not suggesting that's the answer.
I'm suggesting that for me, it was my time to
start looking at who I was and sort of understanding
I had somebody else, somebody else was lying on me
to be better, to show them a different way.
So I worked really hard, not always successfully.
Eventually my children, I've got four
They come to live with me.
And once again, it was quite a pinnacle point for
myself, because I had these four amazing children who were
relying on me for everything, and I had to show
them that they could be who they wanted to be
there, they could have stability and safety in their lives.
And I tried really hard with that.
Again, I'm only human and I know I make
mistakes, but it was a real challenge, and it
was something I put pressure on myself to change.
Because what happened when my relationship with their mom broke
down was I entered into, I think, the worst phase
of my mental health that I'd ever been in.
I was in a really dark place.
I had lots of dark thoughts.
I couldn't work a lot of time, I couldn't sleep.
I was struggling to engage with anybody in anything, and
I didn't really see the point of carrying on.
So you can see how these things, saw them historical.
Some of them happening to me at that stage in
my life really had this big, overwhelming effect on me.
And I was reinforcing that myself too.
I'll take full responsibility for it now with this view that
the more I push people away, the more I upset people,
or the angrier I got, the less they were likely to
hang around because I was no good anyway.
So I ended up in a really dark place, fortunately
for me, and I appreciate this isn't for everybody.
At the time, I reached out to local
GP, a doctor of mine, and he encouraged
me to enter into the mental health services.
The support I got was great.
I'm here today, so I thank them for that.
The ongoing support that I got, the care in the
community that I got, I struggled with a lot.
Yes, it was difficult, but like I said, as
I work through that period, it then transpired that
these four amazing children come to live with me.
And I knew then that I had to rely
on myself and I had to pick myself up
and do better for them if not for myself.
So it gave me the focus, it gave
me that encouragement to change and challenge my
thinking and change how I reacted, try to
be a bit more stable in routine structure.
That has been my life really ever since that point.
And the point I'm going to make tonight is that
at the moment, I've been going through a difficult phase.
My coping mechanisms haven't always worked for me, but I
just wanted to reach out and let people know how
I've been struggling and let them know that it's okay.
It's okay for me to struggle, it's okay for you to struggle,
it's okay for me to go for a bad time too.
Yes, I'm just a normal person, but let me
explain a little bit about what's going on.
And again, I'll just step back slightly.
The pressure that I built on myself to be
this perfect person encouraged me to almost change from
this quite angry, aggressive person into almost that people
pleaser mode, where I had to make people happy,
I had to try my best.
And it was a huge pressure over the years
through the training to become a therapist, because at
that time I was a construction worker.
I sort of learned about myself.
I learned how to understand my emotions, how
to manage them in a different way.
Now, the majority of time, that
really works really well for me.
My coping mechanisms are some time away.
I enjoy some time by the sea.
Being in the water really helps me.
Going for walks outside really helps.
Just spending time almost alone, obviously, with other
people, there's, other people around, but with my
own thoughts helps me to calm and manage.
Just like I've noticed that I've
been struggling at different times.
Now, some of this isn't necessarily just
myself, but I take responsibility of it.
It's the external.
I run two businesses, two therapy business here in Plymouth,
and it's been quite stressful and there's a lot going
on and a lot happening, a lot of external pressures
that I haven't got much control over.
I've been working extremely long hours and
not eating properly, not sleeping properly.
All those classic cliche things that I talk about to
my clients that I discuss day in and day out,
and even when I'm discussing it, there's a little alarm
bell going off in my own head saying, well, you're
not doing this either, are you?
But those things slowly start to mount
up and unfortunately, my wife now
my partner now has gone into hospital.
So that's added extra pressure onto myself.
And it was interesting.
I had a meeting with somebody the other
day, somebody called Louise, and she asked me
what my goal in life was.
And you know what?
I couldn't answer that.
I really struggled to give her an answer
and I've been thinking about it ever since.
The conclusion I've come to, and it's like, obviously
three days later now is the goal I've got
is just to prevent somebody from feeling as bad
as I did, from feeling that low, from experiencing
the physical and emotional pain that I went through.
If I have one goal in life, it's
to try to prevent just one person.
If I can prevent one person from feeling
that amount of physical and emotional pain, I
think I'd be proud of myself forgetting that.
For the reason that I'm sort of talking to
you about this today is I found all of
these pressures have been building up for me and
they sort of come to the fore because I've
been witnessing my daughter struggle with her mental health
and struggle with some really low feelings.
It's really difficult not to put the therapist head on
and to try to remain to the dad head, but
it's really struggle as a dad to watch your daughter
go through this pain and struggle with her own things.
And all of these things work tiredness my wife,
certain things that have been going on, people relying
on me, I've been struggling with that.
People coming to me and asking for help, and
I've been struggling and spreading myself a little bit
too thin, to the extent that, unfortunately, yesterday I
just felt myself wasn't in a good place.
It seemed strange for a therapist to
come on air and admit that.
But again, I like to draw yourself
back to what I said originally.
Mental health doesn't discriminate.
It can creep up on us.
It has its effect of affecting everything.
A little bit of this, a little bit that,
and slowly but surely over a period of time,
or sometimes really quickly, it can get you.
Now, I'm sort of lucky I
recognised it really earlier on.
Obviously, I had to get to that lower point
yesterday where I really needed some time out.
I really struggled to engage with other people.
For me to recognise that I need to pull back a bit.
I need to look after myself.
I need to ensure that I start to eat properly.
I start to work less.
I start to try to get those
routines that work for me back again.
So that I can give to my clients.
I can give to my friends and family.
But also I can give it to my sons
and daughters because they deserve it.
I want to give my best to everybody.
I want to be the best that I can be
and I can't do that without looking after myself.
So my question is for you guys, how do
you notice how do you notice when you're starting
to fall, when things are starting to go wrong?
What do you do?
What do you do for those around you when you might
witness somebody going through this pain and despair and there's nothing
you can do or say that will help them?
I struggle to help my daughter, to know what
to say, because I just want to pick her
up and make everything okay for her.
But I also know I can't she's got to go through this
for herself, knowing that I'm here and I'll be with her.
But also, she has to draw her own strength and
energy to know how strong and how amazing that she
is and that she can do this for herself.
I often say to my clients when they go
through this process, you tend to come out the
other end a stronger person, a more resilient person.
You become aware of the things that work
and don't work for you and you become
more depth at looking after yourself emotionally.
And I hope that all of you who are experiencing
issues and mental problems at the moment will get to
that point where you recognise that it's going to be
okay and you are going to get through this and
it's going to make you stronger and it's going to
make you better and more tolerant person.
Because I'm definitely that now.
I'm definitely a more tolerant and understanding
person than what I ever was before.
I never liked the person I was before,
but I like this person I am now.
I know that I try my best.
I can accept that I do things wrong, I get things
wrong, I say the wrong things at the wrong times and
I try to apologise in the best possible way for that.
But I really hope that what you get
from this is real understanding, that what you're
going through, what your friends, your family, your
partners, your children are going through, is temporary.
Be there for each other, look after each other, and
just try to take one step at a time.
I'm taking one step back, so that will enable me
to then feel better, do more things, start to structure
yourself and your life and just concentrate on, I just
got to get through this morning, this day, whatever.
Yes.
Rather than looking at the rest of your life.
The pain I went through when I was at my
lowest, it felt it was going to last forever.
It really did.
And I can't express how low I felt then and
how close I came to not speaking with you today.
But it didn't last, thankfully.
I reached out.
I got the support I needed if you reach out
and you don't get the support you want, please reach
out to somebody else, whatever way that is, whether that's
by text, by email, by letter, by phone call, by
talking to anybody, there are people out there, people like
me, like my colleagues in my service, that a whole
heart, 100% invested in you feeling better.
Remember, I just want one person to not feel the
pain I went through, to feel better about themselves, to
look in the mirror and say, you know what?
I'm okay.
I like myself and that's where I am now.
And I hope that you can get there, and I
really hope that soon my daughter gets there too.
But if you have any questions or you
have any comments, I'll be more than welcome
to answer anything that you've got more than
happy to hear your feedback, good or bad.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion
about these sort of things.
And I hope that you can continue to listen to
my podcast and me as a therapy guy and that
you get things out of it and it helps you
to find the support or the knowledge that you need.
For today, though, I'm just going to finish up and
I'm going to say goodbye and thanks for listening.
The therapy guy.