tl;dr donāt fixate on those feelings of sadness, but donāt ignore them either. Sometimes all we need is to learn some techniques to keep us focused on the positives and stop the chains of negative thoughts from starting or dominating. Happy to chat over PM.
Does it just happen?
Donāt know about others Cobber but I now know that I was depressed during most of my professional life. I didnāt realise it at the time and I was āstrongā enough to just carry on.
I had a very high-pressure job that involved lots of travel and stress which impacted on my sleep and physical health but some drive within me just pushed me forward and made me ignore just how unhappy I was most of the time.
It was like I was on auto-pilot and it was only if I missed my weekly game of football due to travel commitments that Iād start to be aware of the stress. Iām the calmest person youāre likely to meet IRL, but on a football pitch Iām a real cunt. Football really was a stress release and without it, Iād notice the build up in tension to the point where I started to wonder if this was a ānormalā feeling.
Thatās not to say that I went around moping and unhappy all the time, far from it. I had great times socially during that period and my work colleagues would have thought that everything was fine - as did I really I suppose. Looking back, it was the mood swings and hair-trigger temper - usually reserved for the family that hindsight tells me wasnāt typical behaviour.
I moved out of direct corporate life and worked for myself as a consultant for 10+ years and, again hindsight informs me that I started to become quite insular. I worked from home most of the time and short, lucrative projects meant that I could, if I wanted to, have 6 months of the year āoffā. My quality of life had improved but I wasnāt getting the levels of human contact I needed. Iād often spend the morning in Costa Coffee āworkingā just to see people milling around me.
And then my Dad died and that was the trigger for my depression to slowly come to the forefront of my life. I took 3 months off work to look after my mum and afterwards I had no drive to network or look for the next contract. The ones I took werenāt as lucrative and I started to need to work but couldnāt face it.
I love walking and during this time that I had patchy work I would go for very long river/countryside walks and consider my situation. I told myself that I needed to get out and do something but all I did was get out and obsess about the problems I was facing. Everything felt wrong and I felt helpless to find a way out of where Iād got myself.
During the walks I would, and Iām told this is classic, look at trees and identify the good ones to hang myself from. I canāt now tell you that I was seriously suicidal but I can clearly remember the stark contrast between the complexity of solving my problems in life with the apparent simplicity of just going to sleep forever. At some points it felt like the logical and sensible thing to do.
I stayed in this fugue-like state for a long time, and people that knew me would probably not have guessed the depths of my unhappiness because I didnāt share it with anyone - not even my closest mates. Iād hide it and try to stay strong for those around me but the pressure was increasing all the time.
I pretty much knew I was depressed by now and remember playing scenes in my head of going to the doctors and asking for help. I didnāt because of some sort of pride or refusal to acknowledge my weaknesses. Until one day I was in the doctorās surgery for an unrelated condition and she said: āIs there anything elseā. And I said, āYes, actually, I think I might be depressedā.
Iāve no idea where that came from. Seconds earlier I hadnāt planned to say it, but it came out. And with hindsight, it was the easiest thing in the world to do and it set me on a path towards being the happiest person I can possibly be.
Nowadays I do all I can to remove the stigma around male mental health issues. Sharing this is part of that process.
If anyone else reading this can relate to any of it, talk to someone about your feelings and seek help. It feels fucking fantastic to find a way to let the happiness in.
