Mental Health Awareness Week 2024

To mark and support Mental Health Awareness Week 2024, organised by the Mental Health Foundation , I'm publishing a story below that I wrote for last year's event. I was sharing my story about anxiety (last year's theme) to colleagues at the Vanquis on our internal intranet, and although an excerpt was promoted on the Moneybarn LinkedIn page I wanted to go a step further this year and tell the full story publicly.

I hope the story resonates with or helps someone else going through something similar, and further raises awareness of this important week and topic of conversation. According to Mind , each year 1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem and over 2 million people are on the waiting list for NHS mental health services - since 2017 the number of young people struggling with their mental health has nearly doubled.

Find out more about this year's event on the Mental Health Foundation and Mind websites, and get involved using the hashtags below.

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek

#MomentsForMovement

#NoMindLeftBehind

I think it says a lot about my mental health, and the subject in general, that it’s hard to know where exactly to start.

As things stand today, I am in a pretty good place with my mental health and being able to control my anxiety – something I have previously ‘struggled’ with. I never know what word to use there – struggle sounds too heavy to me and it’s something I discussed with a therapist rather than being ‘diagnosed’ by a doctor, so what is the ‘right’ word? It shouldn’t need a diagnosis should it? We all have anxiety in some form or another - so what makes someone ‘struggle’ with anxiety, what makes my anxiety any worse than anyone else’s?

For me I had to have a breakdown in a barber shop to start finding out! I had been waiting well over an hour to have my hair cut one Saturday morning. I had already been queue-jumped once, and when it happened to me again, not a single member of staff or fellow customer even looked at me, acknowledged what had happened or asked if I was OK. I felt totally invisible, humiliated and useless. I felt a physical rush of tension all over my body, my heart was pounding, my face went red and I became so hot so quickly.

I was absolutely fuming and wanted to shout at every person in there – not understanding what had just happened to me but somehow at the same time feeling like this always happened to me.

I stormed out and can barely remember the walk home. After I got back and reflected on how I had just reacted to something so seemingly trivial, I decided I needed some help.

I went to see a therapist and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. We spoke about my past, my background, my physiology, my values. I had my eyes opened to the fact that whenever anything bad happened to me, I was blaming myself. I had been so hard on myself for so long, that it had become normal and the voice of that internal critic had become so deafening that I’d stopped listening to reason and giving myself any kind of break.

That in turn led back to school and a really hard time I had when I was being bullied at around 13. In order to stop that bullying and ‘fit in’ I had stopped trying so hard in classes, got lower grades, dressed differently and hung around with different people. The adult me looked down on my younger self for that, like I had ‘given in’ to the bullies, like I’d let myself down and that I was weak. That theme then carried on into adult life – it’s amazing what your brain hangs on to.

That internal critic has spent 20 years or so questioning every decision I make, every word I speak, every item of clothing I wear. And for me, that’s my anxiety.

Looking back I’m actually grateful for my barber shop breakdown, as it brought me to the point where I finally got the help I had needed for some time, and acknowledged what I’d been through and what I still needed to face up to. The bullying itself left a heavy impact on me in many ways, and as much as I thought I had been through and processed all that, it was actually the starting point for me getting a handle on my anxiety, improving my self-esteem, my assertiveness and overall mental health. Forgiving my younger self was quite powerful.

I’m not ‘cured’. Unlike life insurance forms that ask you ‘When was your last episode of anxiety?’ – it’s not as simple as that. Those moments still rise up. That internal critic is still there.

These days I can spot the cues quicker, I know the physical warning signs and I’m equipped with better internal checks and things like breathing techniques to make that voice go a bit quieter a bit quicker.

I’ve also developed an internal cheerleader to bring some balance! I of course still get stressed (I had shingles a few years ago caused by stress, lost over a stone that I’ve still not put back on, and still have the literal scars from – if you think mental health doesn’t impact on physical health, you are so wrong!) but just manage it better today.

There are aspects of my mental health I’m not quite ready to share yet in all honesty and still feel on a bit of a journey with. But I am lucky to have a great support network of family and friends, with many of my male peers who have been through similar things. The culture we have here at Vanquis is also really helping me get closer to that place where I can perhaps share the full story, which I’m hoping will be quite liberating, but right now still feels absolutely terrifying, and I’ve been so inspired by colleagues who have shared their own experiences too of both physical and mental health issues.

What do I recommend when it comes to managing & improving mental health?

• Get therapy. It’s not a dirty word, it’s not for ‘loonies’! I would recommend it to anyone – and as someone said to me years ago, “Don’t wait for something to ‘go wrong’ before you see a therapist”. Even if there is no ‘crisis’ or ‘issue’ it’s just fascinating to learn more about yourself, unpick the way your mind works and see why you are the way you are. Why not equip yourself with the tools you need to sustain your mental health now, before it might decline and become in need of emergency repair? A lot of people worry about the cost (my sessions were ￡50-60 an hour so it’s not cheap) but if we didn’t have the NHS, many of us wouldn’t think twice about paying for treatment to a physical injury! Mental health should be no different. Plus we’re lucky to have access here to support via the Employee Assistance Programme (see below), and in fact someone in my family is using this at the moment, so for us, cost should not be a barrier.
• Friends are cheap counsellors (as I think I saw on Instagram once)! So do lean on your support network too. It’s so easy to nod and say ‘fine’ when someone asks how you are – be brave, be open. You’ll be surprised that sometimes the other person opens up to you too. If they are your nearest and dearest, they are asking because they want to know the answer. Don’t feel bad for talking about yourself if you’re having a hard time. If you’re worried about someone else, ask the ‘How are you’ question in a different way, ‘What’s going on in life for you at the moment?’, ‘How’s work, how’s the family?’. ‘Is there anything you want to get off your chest?’. We’ve all become a bit immune to ‘how are you’, ‘you OK?’ or just ‘Alright?’!
• Find your escapism. For me it’s probably playing Fantasy Football right now as I spend far too much time on it, usually for very little reward! Or it could be watching football, playing on the PS4, watching some rubbish TV with my wife and a beer, or (when kids allow) going for a run (physical activity and getting moving is the theme for MHA week 2024). Get some distance, sometimes just get distracted – don’t feel bad about either and do it as often as you need. Self-care is not selfish as they say!