Today is R U OK day. I wrote an article on R U OK day in 2020. At the time we were weathering the storm of COVID-19 and subsequent impacts to staff and the business in general. I was far from OK with either. Now two years on, and fifteen years in business, and sadly there’s an alarmingly different conversation to be had. Today I reflect on the importance of the R U OK message, and for very personal reasons discuss how shining a light on mindset and mental health is more critical than ever before.
In providing an authentic recount of my experiences, I would like to first give a trigger warning that this article contains information about mental health that some may find distressing.
Why? Because I have navigated experiences over the past two years that have taken me to depths that are personally unprecedented, and timely events and conversations that have subsequently changed my life. And on this day, that ultimately promotes being honest and brave, I’m certainly not afraid to talk about them.
I am also alarmingly aware that many of my friends and family, or their friends and family, are suffering from mental health related issues. From severe anxiety, to depression, personality disorders, and much worse. My journey has provided a heightened awareness around just how debilitating these can be, and how critical it is to lean into your support systems.
As a global community we have been dealing with a distressing war in the Ukraine, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions across most industries, high inflation, subsequent rising interest rates, and fears around a global recession. This is impacting businesses and individuals across global, national, and local communities. This is impacting my businesses, and me personally.
In addition to carrying the weight of these issues, I have been confronting greater challenges so much closer to home. I have been living with events that recently gave rise to my own direct battle with mental health as I faced my darkest and most frightening days.
I have been indirectly but closely linked to mental health for many years. My ex-wife openly suffers with significant anxiety and depression and did so for the greater part of our ten-year marriage. As a proud Danish woman her suffering started as home sickness and navigating a world outside of her native language. It soon deepened exponentially with the passing of her mother, leading to many challenging years for her, for me, our children, and ultimately ending in the loss of our marriage. During my time as a partner to someone suffering with such inner turmoil, sadly it took me too long to learn the importance of just being there. Not offering a solution, but instead sending a clear message that they are so dearly loved, and when they need to talk, or they require support of any nature, you’re there.
After trying to reconcile the loss of my family and everything that comes with that divide, I randomly met the maker of what would be my darkest days and subsequently faced my own direct battle with mental health. It was the onset of COVID-19, with lockdowns accelerating time spent together as well as major co-living and work decisions and commitments. It was as intense as it was euphoric. But ultimately it was not only built too quickly, but upon foundations that didn’t support the heights that it reached.
My mindset and mental health had deteriorated so rapidly to the state of doubting my own self and overall being. I was questioning everything about my reality. I detested the version of myself I was questioning if I had become, and desperately wanted the suffering to end. My friends and family were worried. My children were worried. I was worried.
My solution? I started talking. I had raw and honest conversations with my children, my friends, my family, and my work colleagues. I focused my sessions with my mentors and coaches. I spent more time with quality friends. Authentic humans that knew how to ensure I could fully appreciate what had unfolded and most importantly, the self-qualities I was questioning. I did the work to not only uncover what had driven the behaviours to question my relationship as I’d known it, but most importantly my own state of mind and self-worth. The journey, whilst not easy, was life changing.
I have learnt more in the past five months than in the forty-four years before that. I did the work. I did the work to understand the theory behind the behaviours, and to understand how I could fully discard external behaviours beyond my control and instead focus on what I could change. What I could do to release myself from the state of mind I’d found myself in. What I could do to start the journey to rebuild myself. And what I could do to implement boundaries and behavioural changes to ensure I’d never put myself and my children in that position ever again.
Even now, almost five months on, there is much more work to be done. I don’t know if that will ever change. I may always find myself on high alert for any behaviours that stand to threaten my boundaries and my own beliefs in self and self-worth. But in thanks mostly to my amazing three boys who were impacted greatly on this journey, and my isolated network of friends and family who returned immediately in support, I now have clarity. I can see what has transpired, I can see the authentic human I have always been and will always be, and I can appreciate this amazing life I have been blessed with and how positively I contribute to it.
To my closest family and friends, and especially the women of the Brisbane and Queensland touch football teams who have carried me through the past five months, I cannot thank you all enough. I cannot be more grateful for the messages, the calls, the coffees, the shared tears, and the many, many laughs. Day in day out you asked the question, are you OK? You started the conversations that made me see clearly and changed my life.
Today I am OK. Today I am strong enough to share this experience, and to ask that you embrace conversations of this nature and change someone else’s life.
Comments