This is the last in a four part series.
I’ve talked in other blogs about the changes in mental health that have started to happen, my own experience of trying to end my life, and how depression felt to me and the people close to me. This blog is about some things that helped me find my way out, and why we need to get the word out that it’s okay to talk about this.
Depression followed me around for a long, long time. And then in ’93 it got to a stage where that was it, I’d just had it and I planned it, had all this stuff ready, and I just did it.
Now I am really happy that it didn’t happen, but for a lot of other men, that’s one of the problems that we have. A lot of men don’t know that there is a way out. They don’t know that they can be happy at the end, that there is a happy outcome. That there is a way of moving forward and learning and growing and dealing with it.
When we take medication it sort of puts the lid on it but it doesn’t deal with the symptoms, it doesn’t deal with the ‘why?’ – and that’s what we need to deal with. And I found out what my ‘why?’ was, and, basically, I moved away from it and I learned a bloody great stack of tools to deal with it.
I learned to recognise my own triggers, the signs in myself when I was about to go down. I learned different tactics and tricks and things that I could do to actually stop me from going there, and they worked, they worked every single time.
Yeah, there were still days where I’d be really low and I’d be really pissed-off with things and I’d take a couple of days off work because I just couldn’t hack it. And suicidal thoughts were still there, but when the thoughts came in I knew how to deal with them.
I knew, okay, I need to do this, that, or the other and that’s what I did. And so sometimes the little full stop I was talking about before would get bigger and bigger and bigger, but this time I would notice it growing, expanding, creeping up on me and I would deal with it.
And the problem we’ve got is that 12 men every day in the UK are killing themselves, because they don’t know how to deal with it. They don’t know there’s a way out, whether the problem is debt, a crime they’ve committed, a romance that’s broken up, they’ve lost their job… Whatever it is they don’t see a way out and there’s always a way out, always, always, always.
It might not be easy but there’s always a way out and what we need to do now is to start reaching out to people. We need to get the message out there that there is a way out, there is a way to escape.
Because It’s not the end of the world. Your debt is not the end of the world, whatever your problem is, it’s not the end of the world. There is a way out and we, everybody, need to start getting this message out that it’s okay, particularly for men, it’s okay to talk about this stuff.
As I’ve said before, it’s not a stigma, it’s not a sign of weakness, it’s none of those things. We just need to let men who are suffering from depression, anxiety, or just getting stressed-out know that they can talk about it.
My goal is to get people to recognize that it’s okay to talk about this stuff. It’s okay for guys to open up, to cry, to bare their emotions, even if that emotion is anger. But there’s a lot of other emotions as well. It’s about time we allowed all men to let all of this out and open up, be open about emotions and discuss them.
That’s it, thank you for reading. My name is Paul and I help men who are battling depression, anxiety, and stress. What I do is I reboot your brain, get you back in the game. If you want to talk, give me a call on 07588 696896.
If you know someone who is suffering, get them to give me a call or send me a message. BOOK A SESSION
I also regularly post live videos on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/paulwilsonhypnotist
Part One: https://www.ahappyhead.co.uk/why-we-need-to-talk-about-your-mental-health/
Part Two : https://www.ahappyhead.co.uk/stress-anxiety-depression-arent-great-destinations-ive-been-there/
Part Three : https://www.ahappyhead.co.uk/depression-what-are-the-signs/
Part Four: https://www.ahappyhead.co.uk/getting-the-word-out-on-mental-health/