Guest Post: No Man is an Island, and Even Heroes Need Help Sometimes
This is the second post of my Intersectional Advocacy Series, where people tell their stories of how other external factors in life have impacted their journey with their mental health. If you would like to get involved then you can tweet me or email me at onemorelightlb2@outlook.com.
This post was written by the amazing Daniel who runs the mental health podcast Know Yourself. Here he discusses how his sense of identity as a man raised by his mother to be independent and resilient impacted his journey with accepting help for his mental health.
TW: this post touches upon PTSD, assault, and suicidal ideation.
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The greatest thing I learned from my mum was to be an island.
She raised me to look after myself, to cook for myself and others in the house, and told me go out and get a job when I was 16 so I could provide; she taught me how to survive with a certain attitude towards adversity.
I think the attitude was “you just have to keep pushing through”, and it was written subliminally in our family that you had to be as emotionally hard as mum. Staring down at my Weetabix in silence, sprinkling a frosting of sugar onto the soggy cereal I was always so cautious at rocking the boat and causing more problems - because boy did we have some of those already. There were no warm cuddles for me because I was the man of the house from a very early age; whether mum meant to put me in that role or not, I don't know. I think she genuinely just wanted a man to be around to help her out, so she converted me into someone that could come and save the day.
This isn’t a sad story though, and save the day I did.
Dutifully, I would put my shining armour on and come to the rescue whenever I was needed, for anyone. Whilst this was obviously a good trait to have in many respects, it became problematic because I would literally help everyone to the detriment of my own wellbeing. I could help someone in a seemingly hopeless situation wrap their heads around life and get their stuff sorted but then I’d stumble back to my life tired and lonely to pick up the pieces.
One day when I was 18, during my apprenticeship, I found myself absolutely broke a week before my mum's birthday. I had zero in my bank account, but I needed new work trousers desperately, and I also needed to get my mum something for her birthday. I was ashamed that I had run out of money, that I was even in this situation, I couldn’t deal with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to get my mum something for her birthday, and I certainly couldn’t deal with telling her the truth.
I was petrified of having to ask for help.
I took out my first payday loan that day. I was able to keep up my façade that everything was alright and that I was on top of my life. I bought my trousers and my mums’ birthday present, but I had created a snowball effect that would only keep getting worse.
One loan a month became five loans, on which I was regularly taking out extensions and getting involved with more companies. Soon, my debt became more than £5000. The payday loan providers started calling up the office I worked in for my apprenticeship, my house, and lighting up my phone like 4th July when I couldn’t pay up. I’ll never forget the terror when my boss’ wife answered the phone one day to say that someone wanted to talk to me about getting their money back. Life can smack you right in the face with reality, and there’s no amount of avoidance or procrastination that can save you when it does.
Luckily, I managed to consolidate the debt and pay it off over 3 years through a company that reached out to me because I popped up on their database. This was perfect timing as I was at critical mass, I was backed into a corner and I had no way out other than going to court to declare bankruptcy. I felt like I had a weight off my shoulders and I could cope with normal life again without looking over my shoulder. Still to the rest of the world, I have my million-dollar smile and bright neon sign that said “I’m doing great, please don’t ask me how I am”.
Whilst this might all sound rosy, when I was 20 years old, I started feeling suicidal. I had these wildly intrusive thoughts about putting an end to things. At 16 I had been assaulted and dealt with the symptoms of PTSD for four years on my own because I thought that I was the only person that had experienced something like this in their life. I felt alone.
Suffering on my own and not feeling like I could be vulnerable with myself or anyone else around me isolated me and acted as an incubator for all these negative feelings. I had nightmares that were vivid and violent when made me afraid of going to sleep. I felt like I was in a spiral, trapped, alone, afraid. In my head, there was a way of making it all go away and it became more and more attractive. I just couldn’t admit to myself or anyone else that there was a problem. This was life now, I would push through like I had done when we were kids, and the more people I saved from themselves the more this would help me.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. One weekend when I was visiting my dad with the rest of my family in the sleepy village of Wythall, the truth came out. I spent the visit feeling alone in a room full of people, deliberately keeping to myself to avoid rousing any suspicion towards me and the fact that something was wrong. After all, I didn’t need their help, right?
When everyone had left, my dad came and sat next to me on the sofa; it sank under the weight of two large stocky men, and I found myself right next to dad as the middle cushion had caved in. When he asked me how I was, I gave an automated response: “I’m ok, Dad”, believing every word. He looked at me for few moments and asked again.
“But how are you really doing? I’m really worried about you, you don’t seem to be yourself at the moment, I’m worried that you might do something”.
At first, I was offended. “Is he saying that I can’t cope?". Now I know that what he was really saying was “it’s ok if you can’t cope”. Reflecting on these words that saved my life make me emotional because Dad saw underneath the veneer that I created on top of my actual life and knew exactly what to say. It seems that vulnerability and weakness are indoctrinated out of us from an early age, and for my single mum it was a necessity to have someone around that was like her so that she didn’t always have to be the strong one. It made sense for her to have someone to lean on.
Humility is difficult because we have to own and accept all of our parts, even the ones we don’t like, we have to acknowledge their existence which means we then should probably do something. I liked having my head buried in the sand, I liked not being fully responsible for my wellbeing, I liked not feeling like I had to depend on anyone. Through humility and accountability to myself though I have learned to love finding out what makes me tick, I love that I am my own best friend, I love that I am the first person in any room to admit my own faults first.
I’m not saying that this is some magic cure, I think that exploring your own vulnerability is different for everyone, and I think it’s about understanding what you think will be so bad about saying to yourself or someone else that you can’t cope, or that you need help. Understanding what is holding you back from reaching out is the very first step in asking for help, and we all need help from time to time, there's no shame in that.
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If you are struggling right now and feel like you need to talk to someone, The Samaritans can be reached at 116 123.
CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) specialise in male mental health and can be reached on 0800 58 58 58.
Interested in more content related to mental health? Click here to view more posts on this blog about mental health.
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