Maybe it’s due to the home isolation I’m currently in due to Covid19, maybe it’s the fabulous weather, maybe I’m just in a reflective mood, who knows, but I feel today is a good day to get down my thoughts on my mental health and my journey to its discovery.
Before I start, I want to frame this right, this is my mental health, this is my state of mind caused by things that happened in my life. I certainly am not a person qualified to give professional advice on the topic, and some of my terminology below may not be medically accurate and I apologise in advance, but I would like to share my experiences in case it proves useful to someone.
When I first started the HiddenText blog, its sub-title was “This is where I put things that don’t fit in my head” and this is one of those topics. It’s not a technology thing, it’s not even a cyber thing and that crops up everywhere … this is a human thing. A me thing.
I’ve had mental health issues for a good many years, some traits come and go, sometimes I am aware of themes kicking up, loneliness, periods of sadness, obsessing about stuff – but I didn’t know at the time that these were part of any mental health thing.
More recently, I went through a particularly tough experience where the work environment was not great, and I was deeply affected by workplace bullying issues of all kinds that lasted about 2 years. At the time, I dismissed it, it wasn’t anything like mental health, I was just upset, angry, frustrated. My sleeping patterns became radically altered and I still have poor sleep habits as a result. Those two years were a curse and a blessing but to those who put me in that position, do not find comfort in your actions resulting in a positive, your actions were the negative.
It took a conversation with a friend to finally talk about stuff. As I was talking about my experiences (he’d had similar issues too), the bullying seeing stuff happen to colleagues etc, my emotional response to what had happened I realised what I was describing. Depression, well depression as I know it. As I talked about 2 years of the changes to my life behaviours (I’ll explain that in a moment) the more and more it became obvious to me what I had gone through. For 2 years the behaviours that I did as natural changed, I had changed the person I was. I had pushed away emotions, everything was cold hard fact, everything was focused on what was correct and harshly dismissed anything that I knew was incorrect. I had distanced myself from my family. I was no longer a person that friends and family turned to with their issues. I had created a very big social distance to protect myself, to keep myself stable.
In doing so, I had withdrawn myself and found happiness very difficult. 2 years I lived with that. I accepted that that was life and I had fooled myself into somehow thinking it was normal behaviour and I never been any other way.
In that moment, sat in someone else’s lounge, talking to someone who had essentially become a stranger to me, I opened up about my experiences, we compared notes, our lives had been very similar and almost like some lightning strike I knew what was wrong. I had lied to myself. Worse, I’d lied to my wife and family. I had created this false face that they had grown to know for two years and it was not me. My kids had grown up with a dad that was in fact, not their dad and that hurt. It hurt so much that it caused me to instantly want to change. I gave my kids a huge hug that day, I put them to bed and I cried. Oh boy yeah, I cried. For any of you reading this who have suffered through mental health issues, you know how deep that upset is and how big that cry is too. I’m going to say it here … this realisation had cut to the bone.
And so life had to change. The following day, I sat down with my wife and we talked. I cried some more, but this was different, this was a relief. Life had dealt me a rough hand and through my mental resilience I had battled through 2 years of pretty tough depression and so life had to change.
I changed with little things, I talked more (I apologise to my wife for all that talking!), I slowed down. I took life at its pace rather than mine. I focused on putting away the tech and spending time away from the keyboard. I learned there was more to life than work. I prioritised home ahead of work. I learned to say no to stuff too.
I was fortunate that I landed a job which involved a lot of work from home, kinda like you’ll be experiencing with Covid19 I guess. It was all new and the team was new and the work was new, the clients were new and so I became new. I was no longer Stu, I was Stuart. I dressed smart. I cleaned up, shirts, jeans without rips, I even polished my boots, I smartened up. I then changed me. I stopped focusing so hard on right vs wrong, facts, and after a chance encounter reading about fuzzy logic, realised there was a third option it was ‘meh’. It could just be just another thing, something that was neither right nor wrong but still had a place.
My work involved helping people with nothing on their CV get a job. I was a go-between between candidate and business, helping businesses invest with our company to get the best out of the talent pool. Then the emails came in. To every one of the #ChallengeAssemble crew that I ever met, ever helped – the ones who said thank you, the emails, the hugs, the handshakes, the tweets – every one of those messages changed me.
I still remember the moment it happened. It was BSides London and I was in the foyer area and we were trying to do some photo thing and it wasn’t working because only half the people were there, couldn’t find a camera and I looked at every person in that line-up. Each one was a legend who was now working at some amazing places, had some pretty brilliant job prospects and were launching on to quite remarkable career paths. I felt so proud of the work I had put in, the graft, the time I had taken to learn about each person, their back story, their absolute dreams .. and as the photo finished pretty much each one of them gave me a hug, a handshake and said thank you. I knew at that moment, I had stopped depression. I had done it with friends and I had done it with being genuine to myself and my family.
I have to admit, that it is still a fragile battle, some days are better than others. I recently ran an event where the organisers came under attack for making the best of a bad situation – 6 speakers dropped out in 6 days. I took the criticism to heart massively. To have friendships undermined through social media, criticism said “it was only a joke” and to “stop being so sensitive.” Wow, and there I stood in my hotel room, alone, in the dark, cold and a broken man. I didn’t sleep and at 2 am I let rip on Twitter for which I regret, but I did and afterwards I slept. I deleted the Tweets when I woke up and publicly apologised for my tweets.
I went for a walk to find some breakfast and sat in a cold cafe eating a pretty bad bacon butty watching boats coming into moor and I picked up my phone and started to read Twitter – I had hundreds of notifications, countless DMs, LinkedIn was full, I had been swamped and I didn’t want to read them for fear I had screwed up again. I remember the feeling, it was fear. Depression and fear, wow, what a combination. But as I read I read the most amazing messages of support, I was being reached out to by people that even now it is still hard to even grasp how many people reached out. I count you all as friends and I thank you, each one of you. Thank you.
Then the crew reached out and Jenny … I hope you’re reading this, because you quite rightly put me in my place. I got a right telling off. In the midst of all this that was going on around me, I got put right. This wasn’t my can to carry, there was a team who created the event and we all shared it. I had forgotten that as it was me that was labelled from the stage, but the decision for me to be up there was, in fact, a group decision.
I also had a fabulous chat with someone, a conversation I will never forget. I will leave them anonymous for now. They gave me some sage advice about social media and how to use it. Made those echo chambers a bit more visible.
We live, we learn, we move on. We take time to repair and we pick ourselves up a better person and we move on and so I did. I came home, I sat with the wife and we talked. We talked hard, we talked about the what if’s and how things could have been different. I look back now at my life, I’ve had the ups, and I’ve had the downs. I’ve had the slaps and the hugs but I am grateful to say I’m still here.
If you are struggling with the isolation thing at the moment, know it will end. If you are feeling pretty down at the moment, know that after every downhill is an uphill. Life repairs itself, it’s pretty good at it. But if you feel the grey walls coming down. If you feel that dark cloud over you. If you feel the headache caused by you clenching your jaws. If you just want to cry because the clock has a one in it and you can’t take it … know this. You have friends, you have family, you have circles of people around you that want to see you make it through. You will have a day sitting in the sunshine. You will laugh. You will feel the hug of another person. You will feel love.
I am proud to say that my mental health puts me in a diversity category. I checked! One of the ones which are not based on what’s between my legs or my skin colour or my upbringing. Diversity is not just a visible thing and neither is mental health. Both should be respected, neither a joke. I welcome everyone with open arms, diversity is what makes this planet so amazing. We are all individuals, technically that makes us all diverse, but I think that’s stretching the meaning a little. I am proud of my family and their achievements. I am grateful for the friends I have and I am honoured to help anyone else who may be going through tough stuff themselves. I will be there for you.
We live in tough times right this second so my ask to you the reader of this post is this.
Take some time to call an old colleague. Find someone who’s gone quiet & could probably have a check-in with them. Don’t do a DM … do a phone call. Take time to talk to family. My 3 daughters & my wife were my guide all those months and years ago and continue to do so.
I also learned eight yr old kids can give the best advice too! If you feel like you’re having a bad time, take some time out with your family, engage them in conversation. Talk to them even if it’s hard.
For all those I have already supported, I am still here to support you.
To everyone else – I will always support you the best I can. If you DM me we can start the discussion and take it from there. eMail me if you need any help: HELLO@HiddenText.co.uk
Have an awesome week and weekend and I’ll see you later in the year.
Hugs to you all.
Stuart
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