INTERNATIONAL ALLYSHIP DAY

Our journey

My wife Terrie and I became parents at the early age of 19. It was a surprise, and it was tough, because I was still very much a child myself.

I felt the emotional changes of fatherhood almost instantly. I went from a young guy with no worries to worrying about everything. But to everyone around me, I acted like the laid-back, calm character they always knew.

Recently, I joined a talk from the Fathers Network Scotland where they talked about the changes that happen in a new dad’s brain, and explained why I felt what I felt back then: ‘Dads’ brains also change with?increases in grey and white matter in areas linked to affectionate care and threat detection, as well as those responsible for problem solving and planning.’

Our son Harvey is 16 now. He’s awaiting GCSE results so he can take his next step at Dover Grammar and do his A-Levels, and becoming his dad is still the best thing that’s ever happened to me. As any parent would, we’ve had our fair share of worries over the years, but luckily I haven’t had to solve many problems for him.

What I’m realising now, though, is those changes in my brain didn’t just make me want to problem-solve for my son.

After Harvey’s birth, my wife started to suffer with immense pain, which for a few years was put down to period pain. But the pain continued to get worse. She missed work, social events, even our honeymoon.

Eventually, she was diagnosed with endometriosis. Endometriosis effects 1 in 10 women, and I’d urge you to read up if you want to know more, and seek further diagnosis if you or your partner is suffering with ‘severe period pains’, as it’s still largely misdiagnosed. Endometriosis UK

Due to her age, they were hesitant to do a hysterectomy. So for the next five years, they prescribed pain killers and numerous operations to remove the affected tissue. It was a vicious cycle of pain, then a few months of relief, then back to the pain as it grew back or spread.

Losing mental fitness

Watching her endure relentless pain and navigate through a labyrinth of treatments, I found myself grappling with an overwhelming mix of fear, helplessness and anxiety.

As my concern grew, so did my urge to fix things, and so did the battle with my own mental fitness. From my brief career in mental health exercise referrals, I had some understanding of what was going on in my head, but it still took me a good few years to actually realise I was suffering and needed to make a change to be the support she needed.

The support she needed. Not the support I felt she needed. I wish someone had shouted that at me from the off.

I would spend hours beating myself up at night because I couldn’t ‘fix’ the problem. I couldn’t get rid of the endometriosis, I couldn’t get rid of Terrie’s pain, therefore I was useless. My thought process was: I am here to protect my family and to make them happy. I’m not doing either of those things, and if I can’t maybe someone else is better to take my role and do that.

At the time, I hid this from everyone – even the friends and family we were extremely close with. I didn’t hide it on purpose, I just felt it was my problem to solve. Terrie was the one in pain, she was the one who needed the help, not me.

I now realise that for a long time I was trying to solve problems that, one, I couldn’t and, two, Terrie didn’t actually look to me to fix.

But before I had that realisation, I looked for ways to stop the overthinking and constant pointless thoughts of trying to solve a problem I couldn’t.

One of the ways I found was drinking.

When you’re drunk, your brain turns off – there were no worries going around my head, and I was happy. On the outside, my friends and family thought I was happy when I was drinking, too. But Terrie began seeing the real effects being drunk was having on me.

It was at its worst around three years ago. I was getting ‘blind drunk’ and waking up in the morning with no memory. Did this help? Obviously not. It was a short relief from the overthinking, but Terrie was still in pain…and now I’m really no help at all.

We argued more, and I’m sure I pushed Terrie to the limits of her love with some of the ways I acted. I let my feelings of inadequacy turn into anger, we would argue over everything, I would upset her… and all of this just fed into my belief that I’m not making her happy, so perhaps someone else can.

In the end, it was Terrie who called me out…

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yer’

‘No seriously, are you okay?

The honest answer to this question didn’t come straight away, and it might not have ever come if Terrie didn’t keep asking (if you’re worried about someone, I’m here to tell you: never feel silly in asking more than once). I can’t remember what clicked, but we finally talked and I let it all out. How weak and helpless I felt. That I was sorry I couldn’t fix the pain. That I couldn’t support her.

It was an uncomfortable and uneasy conversation, and again, it didn’t happen over a cup of tea. We shouted, cried, stormed out, came back, tried again, slept it off… and over a few weeks the conversation happened in snippets.

My first realisation was….wow, Terrie is incredible.

But also I began to understand the support she actually needed and wanted from me. She didn’t expect me to solve the pain, and she didn’t expect me to force experts into solving it either. What she wanted was me, the Mat she met at 17 who would hold her hand or stroke or nose, make her laugh and let her vent ( without me trying to give her answers). The Mat who would be up early and always active not slumped in a chair or bed because he drank too much.

Re-building mental fitness

The changes didn’t come all at once, and in truth the first changes I made helped me more than they helped Terrie. But once I started to work on myself, I knew I could show up for Terrie in the ways she needed. It was a bit of a relief, finally understanding the support I needed to give to make Terrie happy and the problems I could actually fix to help us.

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I began exercising a lot more, and I now exercise every day. I got back into team sports after a break from football, and now I play cricket. I’ve set myself goals at the gym, and some days the goal is as simple as getting my heart rate up and doing some heavy breathing. I take the dog for a walk every morning, which gives me time to collect my thoughts, plan my day – how can I make sure I’m providing the right support for me and my family?

Just like physical fitness, mental fitness can easily change if you don’t keep on top of it. I’m aware that it may get worse at points, and I may need to up my ‘treatments’ to battle it, so I’ve set myself goals on this too. What really ate me up was overthinking whether I was making Terrie and Harvey happy, so now I see how many small things I can do each week to make them smile.

Unfortunately, Terrie did have to have a hysterectomy. I feel I was in a better position to be the support she needed as she went through huge changes both physically and mentally after the procedure – including the emotional blow of realising there’d be no more children.

After the hysterectomy, which we both felt was going to end this, the endometriosis has come back in other parts of Terrie’s body, and we’re awaiting the next steps to see how that can be treated.

A few years ago, if I hadn’t had Terrie to help me get out of my mental state, I dread to think how I would have been or what actions I would have taken after both of these pieces of news. But this time, thankfully, we are together on the same emotional journey, rather than me trying to solve an unsolvable problem by myself.

Finding resilience

Men’s mental health and fitness is a topic still not talked about enough in my opinion, but there is help out there.

I haven’t cracked it completely, I still have nights wide awake worrying about small things or trying to fix problems that probably don’t need fixing, but it’s certainly a lot better than where I was…or where I could have got to.

I may be one of the lucky ones who managed to get out of the feelings of being helpless and usefully, but I know far too many men who didn’t.

At NatWest Group , we have a gender network with an arm dedicated to men’s mental and physical health and allyship called AlliedMen. But I’ve also found social media apps like LinkedIn places where you can find connection. (Ive also strarted working with Movember and encourage people to find out more around all the great things they can offer you and your organisations)

But men, that’s over to us – we need to talk more. If we do, we can learn from each other, we can help each other, and we can find the strength and resilience to support the people we love however they might need us to.