Could you tell me a time you felt the need to share?

A problem shared is a problem halved or so the saying goes.

Sharing my perspective on mental well-being and how I manage my own mental health seems self indulgent to me. Like a lighthouse signalling from a rocky shore.

However I have found throughout my life that sometimes the most radical thing you can do is share. The sense of empowerment from stating something as objective fact fizzes with tension, but can create a signal in a world of noise.

In my early twenties, I had habitual panic attacks. Anything from two to ten a day. The waking hours were in the thrall of a tangible 'death is present' feeling that knocks you out of any regular reality and saw me live in a strange hyper-adrenal anxiety dream. I was ashamed that I couldn't control it and worried that it would forever control me.

This came after a long period of depression that had started in my mid teens and progressed from being generally 'blue' to a near complete breakdown at 20, where I couldn't articulate why I was so unhappy but was deeply, emphatically so.

It took a good while to navigate out of the breakdown, and what I was left with was a residual set of constant reminders that something wasn't ok. A breadcrumb trail back to the depression that was a bit less empty but much, much more difficult to navigate.

Having suffered for many years in silence, something occurred to me... It wasn't some profound realisation or epiphany, I remember it being more an internal dialogue that went something like "Where is being embarrassed about this stuff getting you? How can things get any worse? Surely other people feel like this. You should start telling people".

So I did.

The first time you say to a friend at a house party "Sorry, I need a minute. I am just having a massive panic attack" you'd think the world as you know it might change, reality folding in on itself, the shame you feel inside multiplied many times mirrored back at you by your peers, but what actually happens is that they say "Is there anything I can do?".

That first experience was positive enough for me to try it again and to my surprise, people broadly responded with sympathy, some responded with empathy and some felt comforted by the honesty enough to share their own experiences.

Fast forward over fifteen years and if you engage me in conversation, I will give even the most light touch acquaintance details of my mental health and personal experiences that I'm sure other people would feel embarrassed to share. The reason being is that I feel that everyone, but especially men need to show real vulnerability... Out in the open, in public, in diverse and useful ways, because if we don't we are a slave to a version of masculinity that was forged in the foundry of the 'man up', 'boys don't cry'-type buttoned down anger, which has served and will continue to serve no one.

I realised in that moment all those years ago that bottling up my feelings was majorly counterproductive and that to break patterns I needed to establish new ones.

So I did.

I have done and continue to do a diverse range of rituals, practices and activities that I know manage my proclivity towards feeling down.

If I can convey one message to anyone from my little lighthouse on this rocky shore it would be "be gentle with yourself", as your internal dialogue is your harshest critic and a very poor judge of your actual character.

At which point, I would like to commend tell me a time and heap praise on this platform as it is proof that my internal hypothesis from 2003 was valid.

A problem shared and all that.