Monthly Archives: May 2018

I’ve had the most amazing reaction to my Instagram / blog post about my recent battle with depression. People have been incredibly kind and loving. A few have mentioned how ‘brave’ it is for me to share. But I don’t see that at all.

My whole career has been built around storytelling, and telling people how important it is to tell stories. I believe in them so strongly because of their power to create change. But that change only happens when the stories ring true.

It’s not easy to be vulnerable and talk about these things when you don’t know what the impact might be, but the stories we tell when we are brave enough are the catalysts for change. Before anything can happen people have to understand why change is needed.

I’m blessed to have a loving family, a caring and considerate employer, and the support of medical professionals who have helped me through a rough time. I have everything that many people struggling with mental health issues don’t have, which makes me feel bound to tell my own story from such a safe place.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Anon1

I want to see a world where people talk freely about mental health, and their struggles, without fear of what that may mean for friendships, relationships or employment. I want people not to wait until it’s too late, but to speak up early, to seek help and to recover quickly and fully.

Sharing pretty Insta-quotes and platitudes is all well and good, but how can I expect all those things to happen if I’m not willing do the same myself?

1. Often attributed to Gandhi, this quote actually has no reliable documentary evidence. Gandhi’s closest was from a 1913 publication saying, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.” Arleen Lorrance’s 1974 book The Love Project is closest to ‘authorship’ with “Be the change you want to see happen.” [↩]

I’ve had the most amazing reaction to my Instagram / blog post about my recent battle with depression. People have been incredibly kind and loving. A few have mentioned how ‘brave’ it is for me to share. But I don’t see that at all.

My whole career has been built around storytelling, and telling people how important it is to tell stories. I believe in them so strongly because of their power to create change. But that change only happens when the stories ring true.

It’s not easy to be vulnerable and talk about these things when you don’t know what the impact might be, but the stories we tell when we are brave enough are the catalysts for change. Before anything can happen people have to understand why change is needed.

I’m blessed to have a loving family, a caring and considerate employer, and the support of medical professionals who have helped me through a rough time. I have everything that many people struggling with mental health issues don’t have, which makes me feel bound to tell my own story from such a safe place.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Anon1

I want to see a world where people talk freely about mental health, and their struggles, without fear of what that may mean for friendships, relationships or employment. I want people not to wait until it’s too late, but to speak up early, to seek help and to recover quickly and fully.

Sharing pretty Insta-quotes and platitudes is all well and good, but how can I expect all those things to happen if I’m not willing do the same myself?

1. Often attributed to Gandhi, this quote actually has no reliable documentary evidence. Gandhi’s closest was from a 1913 publication saying, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.” Arleen Lorrance’s 1974 book The Love Project is closest to ‘authorship’ with “Be the change you want to see happen.” [↩]

I originally shared the text below on my Instagram account, a place where for some reason I find it easier to be honest and open than other places, even if the authoring experience is a little trickier than other places. Reviewing it (and the comments) this morning, I realised I needed to share it more widely because it’s important. More on that below.

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Let’s just put it out there: the first four months of 2018 have been — almost without exception — spectacularly unkind and unhelpful.

Physical illness, accidents, stress, anxiety, mental health problems and depressive diagnoses have combined for the worst run of form in all the time my wife and I have known each other. Usually we play off each other pretty well, see-sawing through life’s difficulties, helping to pull the other up when they’re down and let the other lift us when we’re struggling.

These last four months the universe seems to have knocked us down at the same time with the full force of both barrels. For me, it culminated in being off work for almost two months and being medicated for depression for the first time since my transplant.

But today is May Day. It’s the day I choose to embrace optimism again (thanks, cystic fibrosis), the day I take back the driver’s seat (thanks, mindfulness), the day I break free of the mental shackles that I’ve been in (thanks, Prozac) and see the light of life and not the dark (thanks, erm… light).

I know I can only do this with the right support, so I’m also giving cry to the international call for help: m’aidez. I need your help. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week or next month, but on this journey forward from this one single step, I will falter, I will fail and I will fall. And I may need more than one hand to lift me back up.

Today is the day I become a warrior against mental health issues. For myself, because I believed I was ‘better’ and it humbled me again. For my friends and colleagues, because stigma should never cost friendships or jobs. For others, because everyone needs to know it’s ok to not be ok.

May Day is my reset button. Let’s do this.

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This post is important not just because I failed to recognise the situation I had slipped into, but because I did it while spending a lot of time preaching about how important it was to de-stigmatise and recoognise mental health issues, particularly in the workplace.

There’s more to come on this, but for now it just felt important to get this out there as a statement of intent. This is not the end of my fight, and it shouldn’t be the end of ours.