Michael* is a 25-year-old from a farming background. He has come a long way in learning how to manage his mental health over the past 10 years.
Musician Bressie (Niall Breslin) has been a big role model for him, while GROW, the mental health organisation, has been a valuable support.
Junior Certificate year was the year when things started to go downhill for Michael, he says. The first sign that the balance in his life wasn’t right was that he was studying hard, to the exclusion of all else.
“Looking back, I didn’t have a balance,” he says. “I know now that that’s the really important thing with mental health – having a good balance of work and play.”
Looking back at his state of mind then, he feels that his self-esteem was very low and that he was constantly looking for approval.
“I was trying to clutch on to something external to receive more love from my parents or something. I’d seen how they reacted when another sibling got very high marks, for example, and I was trying to do the same to get that kind of appreciation. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have been able to confide about how bad I was feeling to my parents at that time.”
Michael skips lightly over the mention of “some bullying” in community circles, simply stating that “being around some people wasn’t good” for him.
Anxiety and then depression manifested themselves that Junior Cert summer.
“It got progressively worse to the point where I isolated myself,” he says.
“I didn’t want to play sports anymore and I did a lot of ruminating – thinking negatively about things. I didn’t speak out about it and I wasn’t sleeping great, so I was tired all the time and there were angry outbursts at home, too.”
Getting excellent Junior Cert results didn’t lift his mood either.
“Now I was putting myself under more pressure to achieve the same marks or even better in the Leaving Cert,” he says.
He describes life over the next two years as being like a record – get up, go to school, do homework, get up…
“I didn’t even taste my food properly. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety around homework all the time.”
He lost interest in being around people then, and spent a lot of time in his room.
“I did my Leaving Cert and while I got a job that summer, I didn’t have the resources like I do now to cope when things got stressful. Over that summer I got tonsillitis a lot and missed days at work.”
Michael then went to college but knows now that he wasn’t able for the transition.
“That’s when I really noticed that my mental health wasn’t the best,” he says.
He found being in a new environment very stressful and living in digs very lonely.
“I was bottling up feelings and wasn’t making a lot of friends and I’d go out at night time and use drink sometimes as a way of escaping how I was feeling.”
Having to take time off for a tonsillectomy was followed by a crisis.
“My mental health problems all came to a head around that time,” he says.
“My mood was very low after the operation and I just couldn’t go back to college. I really wasn’t myself at all. I eventually went to my GP who prescribed anti-depressants. They definitely helped but I still wasn’t expressing stuff I wanted to say out. The tablets just helped me blank stuff. It was like putting a plaster over an open wound.”
He first came across GROW, the mental health support organisation, at that time, but it didn’t work for him that time round.
“Maybe I thought medication would do it for me and, at that age, I didn’t realise the full extent that each person has to play in their own recovery,” he says.
While he went back to college for a while, he knew that particular course wasn’t for him. Psychology drew him, however, because of learning about mental health, and he has since part-completed a degree in that subject. Around this time he also began following Bressie’s example of using exercise as a recovery tool.
“I was reading articles and trying to learn from people who had walked the road, so to speak, like Bressie, who had talked about how cycling had helped him. I had given the GAA a rest and joined a leisure club in town and taken up cycling and swimming.”
Cycling then became a huge part of Michael’s life and he has participated in a recent Cycle Against Suicide.
“It was the endorphin and serotonin release with it … I felt fantastic. That led to a later interest in qualifying as a personal trainer.”
He also returned to GROW and now attends a meeting every week.
“I knew I had to take responsibility for my own recovery. I was ready for it (GROW) now. Maybe I just knew more about recovery by that stage.”
GROW has a lot of useful principles, he says.
“We learn to think by reason rather than by feelings and imagination, for example. That’s very important because you don’t get lost in feelings then.”
FEELINGS LIKE INTERNAL FORM OF WEATHER
You mightn’t have the best feelings some days, but GROW describes feelings as being like an internal form of weather, he adds.
“You just have to keep living through the weather because the bad weather doesn’t last.”
Another GROW principle to live by is: ‘Go by what you know, not by what you feel.’”
Taking care and control of one’s body is another.
“We also have a surrender principle where we don’t try to do everything ourselves. We know we’re not on our own.”
Michael admits – with difficulty – that he did feel suicidal at one point in his life.
“I was in a place where I didn’t really know how to get out of it. I’m not proud to say that I did feel suicidal, but I thank God I got the help and support I needed. That’s why I want to raise awareness about mental health.”
RECOVERY TOOLS THAT MICHAEL
HAS FOUND HELPFUL
1. Exercise (as mentioned).2. Mindfulness. This is probably the most important tool that he has learned, he believes.“I’ve learned that I am not my thoughts. That realisation was fundamental to my recovery.” Getting caught up in negative worry cycles had been a pattern for him and in order to keep his mind off worry, he would keep himself so busy that he burnt himself out. “Mindfulness taught me how to observe my mind and gain more control over it, whether that included exercises like ‘coming back to the breath’ or sense perception – pausing to mindfully listen to the sounds around me – anything to help me get out of my head,” he says.3. CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT also helped Michael break the cycle of negative thinking. “I might have a feeling of anxiety and then that feeling would create a thought that a particular thing was going to happen. My action then would be an action to avoid. CBT helped me to start breaking the cycle by coming in with different thoughts, doing different actions so that different feelings were created. It almost reprograms the brain. You start to challenge your old black and white ways of thinking and challenging thoughts that weren’t beneficial. Over time, my thinking and my feelings and then my mood changed and all of a sudden I was nearly becoming like a new person.” 4. Hypnosis. He also listened to hypnosis CDs to help build up his confidence.5. Visualisation exercises were useful too.6. Art, writing and journalling also helped as channels of self-expression. CLMICHAEL’S TIPS COMING UP TO
CHRISTMAS – HOW TO LOOK AFTER
YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
1. Stay connected with people but at the same time take time out for yourself.2. Don’t get too stressed by the hustle and bustle.3. Taking time out could include a walk or meditation. 4. Have a checklist and prioritise.5. Listen to yourself and to your body – pace yourself and do things that help you relax. GOOD FRIENDS ARE SO IMPORTANT
Michael also highlights the value of good friends.
“It’s very important to have a couple of friends who can help you when you are going through a tough time. In college I was afraid of being judged and afraid of stigma, so I pretended everything was all right when it wasn’t. Sometimes when you confide in a friend how you’re feeling, the friendship becomes deeper and stronger. I know now that it’s okay not to feel okay - and to talk and ask for help. That’s how far I’ve come.”
GROW
GROW is a mental health organisation that helps people who have suffered or are suffering from mental health problems. It has a network of 130 groups in Ireland.
How it works:
• Members attend a weekly meeting lasting about two hours. • Members learn a practical psychology of mental health known as the GROW Progamme.• Members provide mutual support for one another.• GROW uses the 12-step programme of mental health.• There are no fees for membership.• GROW is anonymous, confidential and non-denominational. Telephone 1890-474 474 if you would like to talk to someone about GROW or see www.grow.ie to find a meeting near you.
Michael* is a 25-year-old from a farming background. He has come a long way in learning how to manage his mental health over the past 10 years.
Musician Bressie (Niall Breslin) has been a big role model for him, while GROW, the mental health organisation, has been a valuable support.
Junior Certificate year was the year when things started to go downhill for Michael, he says. The first sign that the balance in his life wasn’t right was that he was studying hard, to the exclusion of all else.
“Looking back, I didn’t have a balance,” he says. “I know now that that’s the really important thing with mental health – having a good balance of work and play.”
Looking back at his state of mind then, he feels that his self-esteem was very low and that he was constantly looking for approval.
“I was trying to clutch on to something external to receive more love from my parents or something. I’d seen how they reacted when another sibling got very high marks, for example, and I was trying to do the same to get that kind of appreciation. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have been able to confide about how bad I was feeling to my parents at that time.”
Michael skips lightly over the mention of “some bullying” in community circles, simply stating that “being around some people wasn’t good” for him.
Anxiety and then depression manifested themselves that Junior Cert summer.
“It got progressively worse to the point where I isolated myself,” he says.
“I didn’t want to play sports anymore and I did a lot of ruminating – thinking negatively about things. I didn’t speak out about it and I wasn’t sleeping great, so I was tired all the time and there were angry outbursts at home, too.”
Getting excellent Junior Cert results didn’t lift his mood either.
“Now I was putting myself under more pressure to achieve the same marks or even better in the Leaving Cert,” he says.
He describes life over the next two years as being like a record – get up, go to school, do homework, get up…
“I didn’t even taste my food properly. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety around homework all the time.”
He lost interest in being around people then, and spent a lot of time in his room.
“I did my Leaving Cert and while I got a job that summer, I didn’t have the resources like I do now to cope when things got stressful. Over that summer I got tonsillitis a lot and missed days at work.”
Michael then went to college but knows now that he wasn’t able for the transition.
“That’s when I really noticed that my mental health wasn’t the best,” he says.
He found being in a new environment very stressful and living in digs very lonely.
“I was bottling up feelings and wasn’t making a lot of friends and I’d go out at night time and use drink sometimes as a way of escaping how I was feeling.”
Having to take time off for a tonsillectomy was followed by a crisis.
“My mental health problems all came to a head around that time,” he says.
“My mood was very low after the operation and I just couldn’t go back to college. I really wasn’t myself at all. I eventually went to my GP who prescribed anti-depressants. They definitely helped but I still wasn’t expressing stuff I wanted to say out. The tablets just helped me blank stuff. It was like putting a plaster over an open wound.”
He first came across GROW, the mental health support organisation, at that time, but it didn’t work for him that time round.
“Maybe I thought medication would do it for me and, at that age, I didn’t realise the full extent that each person has to play in their own recovery,” he says.
While he went back to college for a while, he knew that particular course wasn’t for him. Psychology drew him, however, because of learning about mental health, and he has since part-completed a degree in that subject. Around this time he also began following Bressie’s example of using exercise as a recovery tool.
“I was reading articles and trying to learn from people who had walked the road, so to speak, like Bressie, who had talked about how cycling had helped him. I had given the GAA a rest and joined a leisure club in town and taken up cycling and swimming.”
Cycling then became a huge part of Michael’s life and he has participated in a recent Cycle Against Suicide.
“It was the endorphin and serotonin release with it … I felt fantastic. That led to a later interest in qualifying as a personal trainer.”
He also returned to GROW and now attends a meeting every week.
“I knew I had to take responsibility for my own recovery. I was ready for it (GROW) now. Maybe I just knew more about recovery by that stage.”
GROW has a lot of useful principles, he says.
“We learn to think by reason rather than by feelings and imagination, for example. That’s very important because you don’t get lost in feelings then.”
FEELINGS LIKE INTERNAL FORM OF WEATHER
You mightn’t have the best feelings some days, but GROW describes feelings as being like an internal form of weather, he adds.
“You just have to keep living through the weather because the bad weather doesn’t last.”
Another GROW principle to live by is: ‘Go by what you know, not by what you feel.’”
Taking care and control of one’s body is another.
“We also have a surrender principle where we don’t try to do everything ourselves. We know we’re not on our own.”
Michael admits – with difficulty – that he did feel suicidal at one point in his life.
“I was in a place where I didn’t really know how to get out of it. I’m not proud to say that I did feel suicidal, but I thank God I got the help and support I needed. That’s why I want to raise awareness about mental health.”
RECOVERY TOOLS THAT MICHAEL
HAS FOUND HELPFUL
1. Exercise (as mentioned).2. Mindfulness. This is probably the most important tool that he has learned, he believes.“I’ve learned that I am not my thoughts. That realisation was fundamental to my recovery.” Getting caught up in negative worry cycles had been a pattern for him and in order to keep his mind off worry, he would keep himself so busy that he burnt himself out. “Mindfulness taught me how to observe my mind and gain more control over it, whether that included exercises like ‘coming back to the breath’ or sense perception – pausing to mindfully listen to the sounds around me – anything to help me get out of my head,” he says.3. CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT also helped Michael break the cycle of negative thinking. “I might have a feeling of anxiety and then that feeling would create a thought that a particular thing was going to happen. My action then would be an action to avoid. CBT helped me to start breaking the cycle by coming in with different thoughts, doing different actions so that different feelings were created. It almost reprograms the brain. You start to challenge your old black and white ways of thinking and challenging thoughts that weren’t beneficial. Over time, my thinking and my feelings and then my mood changed and all of a sudden I was nearly becoming like a new person.” 4. Hypnosis. He also listened to hypnosis CDs to help build up his confidence.5. Visualisation exercises were useful too.6. Art, writing and journalling also helped as channels of self-expression. CLMICHAEL’S TIPS COMING UP TO
CHRISTMAS – HOW TO LOOK AFTER
YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
1. Stay connected with people but at the same time take time out for yourself.2. Don’t get too stressed by the hustle and bustle.3. Taking time out could include a walk or meditation. 4. Have a checklist and prioritise.5. Listen to yourself and to your body – pace yourself and do things that help you relax. GOOD FRIENDS ARE SO IMPORTANT
Michael also highlights the value of good friends.
“It’s very important to have a couple of friends who can help you when you are going through a tough time. In college I was afraid of being judged and afraid of stigma, so I pretended everything was all right when it wasn’t. Sometimes when you confide in a friend how you’re feeling, the friendship becomes deeper and stronger. I know now that it’s okay not to feel okay - and to talk and ask for help. That’s how far I’ve come.”
GROW
GROW is a mental health organisation that helps people who have suffered or are suffering from mental health problems. It has a network of 130 groups in Ireland.
How it works:
• Members attend a weekly meeting lasting about two hours. • Members learn a practical psychology of mental health known as the GROW Progamme.• Members provide mutual support for one another.• GROW uses the 12-step programme of mental health.• There are no fees for membership.• GROW is anonymous, confidential and non-denominational. Telephone 1890-474 474 if you would like to talk to someone about GROW or see www.grow.ie to find a meeting near you.
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