Ep2. Why You Don’t Need to be Famous to Talk About Mental Health

G’day guys and welcome to episode two of the Mindful Men Podcast. My name is Simon Rinne and I’m the man behind Mindful Men. 

I’m excited to bring you today’s episode, because I have a hunch that you’ll walk away with something useful. In episode one, I talked about why I think we should get men talking. And if you haven’t listened to the episode, I recommend you check it out next because it sets the foundation for each episode. Now from episode one, I want to bring you back to my purpose. And that is to tell my story with the hope it inspires other boys and men to tell theirs. 

Now a quick recap on why I think this is important. Because us men, we need to speak up. We need to be ok with not being ok, to open up and get vulnerable. Because when we do this, we can work through what’s troubling us, and move forward with purpose.

So today’s episode is a bit about where I’m currently at. At the time of recording, its early December 2021. I’m 38, and next year I turn 39, and then the big 4-0 and boy does that sounds scary! I remember when I was a kid and thinking that 40 was old. You know, you’re 40 and you’re pretty much retired – it’s all downhill from there and then by 60 you’re in a nursing home! Well, let me tell my younger self that there wasn’t much truth in that! In fact from our generation onwards, we’ll be working and living longer than our dads and their dads did.

Now health wise, I’m a bit pudgier than I used to be and its certainly harder to shift the kilos. My hair seems to be growing inwards, and I’m now at the point where I’m slapping on sunscreen to my bald spot, and also, I’m slower, sorer and more tired than my younger self. I’m that classic type of bloke who thinks they can get back into sport again only to end their first training back with a pulled or torn muscle, and then suddenly be out for the rest of the season. Yep, that’s me! But that’s life hey? 

I’m happily married to the most amazing woman in the world, and together we have two beautiful kids. We got lucky with a boy and a girl, which means no more attempts to try and even out the team! The kids are turning five and two in the next few months, and we’re finally starting to get rid of baby stuff from the house! YES! As a family, we’re in the middle of the toddler years, where time seems to stand still, but also go so fast at the same time. What were once a quiet brand new bubs, has turned into two, then three, then fournagers; with the youngest one taking notes from the oldest one on how to bend mum and dad to their will.

Our lives are pretty much, wake up with the sun, eat, have about five cups of coffee, play with the kids, and when we need a rest, we watch them watching other kids playing with toys on YouTube. YEP! Blippi, Ryan’s World, T-Rex Ranch, Baby Shark, all the greats. And as they’re bouncing around in front of the TV, we’re saying to ourselves “I bet I could do this” or “think of the cash this bloke must be making!” And if it’s not YouTube, it’s the Wiggles, or Bluey or the same movies on repeat. 

Then its long drives to get kids to sleep. Or it’s looking out the window on rainy days waiting for the sun to come out, so we can escape the madness of our own home and go to the park to play. Or it’s swimming in the pool, playing with Lego, drawing, trampolines and bubbles. Oh the bubbles! Bubbles everywhere. it’s funny because our almost two year old can navigate Kmart looking for the bubbles shelf. 

It’s the escaping to the toilet to have five minutes to scroll through Instagram, or watch my crypto fly to the moon or even crash to the ground. It’s getting the kids to sleep then sitting down to watch your show on Netflix, only to fall asleep five minutes later. It’s the endless sickness, and the time you need to take off from work to care for sick kids. It’s the gastro, the rashes, the viruses, the snotty noses. It’s the nappies, the vomit, the tears and the tantrums.

But it’s also the most wonderous joy. It’s the “daddyyyyyyy!” when you walk in the door. It’s the wrestling and giggles, the handmade crafts just for you and the endless cuddles and tickles. And it’s their desire to just have you around. For all the parents out there, I’m sure you can agree that this is #parenting, and you wouldn’t have it any other way!

We live in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and if you haven’t been here, think paradise. It’s down to earth, has amazing beaches and hinterlands within a 30minute drive; and the weather is pearler most of the year round, with a mix of sunshine and spectacular storms in the same day. Our kids love the outdoors so much, and this is the perfect place for that.

Now my wife and I, we work average jobs, and we make do with what we can. Next week I get my final grades for my Master of Social Work, and now I’m thinking when a good time will be to do my PhD? After the last 4 years, I think I’ll have a break until the kids get older; and between you and me, I think the wife would appreciate having her husband back on weekends and weeknights!

In essence, we probably have what you’d term the average life. We’re bang smack in the middle of the pack with the rest of you. And this is the point I wanted to highlight today. It’s a point of being an average person. It’s a point of being an average person, and creating a space where you can talk about your experiences.

For me, I love talking about my mental health journey for two reasons. Firstly – I love talking about it because it helps me process it. I like to think out loud. I like talking openly about things, because it helps me to put things into context; it helps me see things for what they are. And it helps others (and this is usually my wife) to help me see things in a different way.

Secondly – I love talking about my mental health journey because I have a passion for helping others work through theirs. I want to talk about my mental health so I can inspire others to talk about theirs. I want to talk about my mental health because I feel I have something to add to the conversation.

But something that has held me back for years has been my inner critic. It’s the voice inside of me that says, “hey Simon, why would anyone want to listen to your story?” It’s the “you’re a nobody Simon, you’ll just make a fool of yourself if you open up” Or, it says “your story isn’t even interesting!” And you know what? I listened to that critic for year, and bottled my story up.

Now back in episode one, I talked about using Mindful Men as a platform to work through my burnout. And I’m glad I did, because what I’ve found is that there is value in telling my story. There is value in an average Aussie bloke speaking up. There is value in giving my voice to the men’s mental health conversation.

So how do I know this? Well, because the Mindful Men community is growing. Because you’re here listening to this podcast. Because as I came to the end of my Social Work degree, I had blokes wanting to keep working with me. And more and more people have reached out since asking if I can work with them, or their kids, or someone they know.

So what this tells me, is that you don’t need to be famous to talk about mental health. You just need to be you. You don’t need a gazillion social media followers, because I don’t. And that’s ok. I don’t do this for followers. I’m not doing this to become famous. I’m doing it because I want to help people work through mental illness. 

I’m doing it because I want other dads out there to recognise that yep, parenting is hard. It can be lonely, and it can be scary. I’m doing it because I want other blokes out there to be ok with opening up, to be ok with not being ok, to ask their mates how they’re going, and to want to grow and be the best blokes they can be. I’m doing this because it gives me energy. It helps me pursue goals I’ve always dreamt of but never pursued until now. I’m doing this because it silences my inner critic

So how do I do this? How do I speak up about my life? The first and hardest part of this for me was to speak up the first time. To recognise that something wasn’t quite right and that I needed help. Then the second hardest part was actually getting help.

And you can do this too. To recognise that the things your wife, or partner or mates are saying about you might have some truth. That maybe you have turned into a prick? That maybe you have seemed off? That maybe you’re drinking way too much and way too regularly?

Stuff like that, it’s hard to recognise in ourselves. It’s hard to think that maybe other people are right. That maybe there is something wrong? That maybe you need to seek out professional help? I know it’s hard, because I’ve lived it. It took me around 20 years to open up. 

Mental illness for me started before I was 10. I developed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalised anxiety. I started acting and thinking differently. I started feeling sick constantly, and then I went through high school and depression jumped into the mix. And these three demons – the OCD, the anxiety and depression, they swirled around my head for years to come. They fuelled my inner critic. They turned a happy go lucky kid into a nervous wreck; into someone that others tried to change; into someone that slowly became a shadow of my former self. And into adulthood, the fun continued. My mental illnesses evolved, and the triggers changed. But the overall fears remained the same if not similar. Sometimes they would intensify, and other times they would almost disappear.

I took my first stab at talking about my struggles in my teens. But it wasn’t by talking like I do now with a therapist. It was in that awkward teenage way. The warped sense of humour, the dark art and poetry, and the goth or emo mindset without dressing like one. Looking back at this period, I can’t help but think that anyone who did listen to me (and it was pretty much my classmates), must’ve thought I was a bit weird.

Then into my young adult years, I went through a couple serious relationships. And even though I didn’t allude to my mental illness in these relationships, I dare say my behaviour and personality showed signs. And in a couple of relationships, the parents wanted it to end because I wasn’t what they wanted for their daughters. I was too quiet, or too serious about relationships for my age. And in one relationship, I was even from the wrong part of town; or the fact my parents had separated meant that in the future I was going to end up separated. You know I’m still yet to see any research that validates that kind of bullshit!

What I learned from these relationships, is that if anyone tries to change you then they don’t really want to understand you. They want you to fit within their box. They want you to be “normal” enough so they don’t need to engage with what’s going on inside. They don’t want to understand what makes you tick and what doesn’t. Ultimately, these relationships aren’t worth it, but you often don’t realise this until after the fact. Because when you’re in the midst of a relationship, you do your best to keep things together.

Thankfully I met the one person on earth who seems to get me. The one who wants to understand; the one who wants me to grow. She’s the one who encouraged me to get the help I needed 20 years earlier.

In 2012, I was living with my now wife, and I was in another one of my ruts. We’d moved from interstate down to Tasmania, and I just didn’t feel at home. I made a couple of mates, but I mostly felt lonely. I felt lost and things internally were throwing up red alerts! So my wife encouraged me to get help. At first refused saying something like “I’m not getting help, there’s nothing wrong with me!” I said that a few times, and I even tried to deflect and recommend she speak to someone. 

But eventually I came to realise that maybe there was some truth to what she was saying. I know she didn’t want to change me like partners in previous relationships did. She wanted me to go talk to someone so I could get better. She just wanted me to be happy. So I eventually did. 

I drew up the courage and went and saw my GP. Even though it’s now almost 10 years later, I still remember sitting there, and saying the words “I think I have mental health issues” I nearly choked on the words as they came out, but from there, doors started opening up. A door to stabilising my mood with medication. A door to talking about my issues with a psychologist. A door to understanding what was going on; to being diagnosed with OCD, anxiety and depression. 

Now some people will say that they don’t want to be labelled, or that they aren’t their mental illness. But for me, the labels helped me understand who I was, and what was going on. It’s been a bit of a windy journey since 2012, and I’ve realised that recovery from mental illness isn’t linear. It isn’t straight forward and it certainly isn’t easy. But with the right supports, it’s possible.

Since 2012, I’ve had numerous mental health care plans. I’ve been on numerous medications, trying to find the right one for me. I’ve seen psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health social workers. I’ve experienced highs, lows, and emotional numbness; but I’ve also had long periods in a good space. In fact, in one 12 month period, I could come off the meds completely because I was doing ok. And when things got shit again, I didn’t hesitate to put my hand up and say, “I need some help”, or “I need to speak to someone”, or “I need some meds”.

As you can see, my story isn’t filled with the glitz and glam that comes with being famous. It isn’t star powered, and likely to get millions of likes, comments, shares and follows. But what it is, it’s me. And I dare say even famous people go through similar challenges, because mental illness doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. It doesn’t matter what gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or age you are; it can happen to anyone!

But what does matter, is that famous or average, average or famous, it’s important to talk. It’s important to open up to someone you can trust. It doesn’t have to be to your partner. It doesn’t have to be to your friend or family. It just has to be to someone. There are hotlines around the world you can ring for free, hotlines like Lifeline here in Australia.

The hardest steps for me were the first few. To identify something was wrong and open up. But after that, each time I spoke up, it got that little bit easier… and now look at me! I’m now doing podcasts to tell my story to the world. And this is hard for me; the inner critic is jumping around my head and heart as I speak these very words. But I know it’s just trying to pin me down, to keep me in my box and to keep me suffering in silence.

Well, perhaps the younger me would. But the present day me, the 38 year old me says there isn’t no box big enough to keep me from speaking my truth; From living my authentic self; From giving a voice to mental illness, and more broadly to issues about men’s wellbeing.

Well that’s it for today. I’m sure that you got something out of today, but most importantly that you don’t need to be famous to speak up about mental health. You just need to be you, and people will listen. And when I say people, you don’t need to make it public like me. Just talk to your inner circle, or your doctor, or a hotline. Whoever it is to, just speak up! Don’t wait 20 years like I did.

Thanks for joining me today. In the next few episodes I’ll be diving into the various aspects of my mental illness in more detail. I hope you keep tuning in, and again. Don’t forget to also drop us some love in the socials.

My name is Simon Rinne. Until next time, stay mindful.