Life’s complicated... Accept help

Michele A’Court

‘No one is coming.’’ At a conference I was MCing a couple of weeks ago, one of the speakers described the moment she understood it was time for her to step up, believe in herself and claim her place as a corporate leader. There had been a meeting called, and she and her colleagues had walked into a boardroom with that message written on the whiteboard. ‘‘No one is coming.’’ They were it. It was their turn. A challenge, and an invitation.

You probably recognise a moment – or moments – like that in your own life. I’ve talked to lots of parents who say similar things about the day they brought their first baby home from the hospital. Wondering where the grown-ups are, and realising that they are the grown-ups now. No one is coming. It’s terrifying. It’s thrilling. Often, these are the same things, but not always.

I’m living a complicated life just now so, despite being a grown-up, I hand off the decision-making where I can. I’m using my GPS to do the thinking for me even on the simplest of trips. A week ago, it showed me a brand new way of getting from Auckland to Rotorua – Route 27 (my favourite) but then suddenly left at Matamata (instead of right towards Tirau) and onto Route 28. New towns I’d never met before – Te Poi is a tiny delight – before dropping me back onto State Highway 5 just in time for Fitzgerald Glade.

I drove with the aircon off and the windows open a smidge, smelling spring flowers and hay and dairy farm poo. Arrived in Rotorua soothed and slow. Too slow for one local – on a side street, I idled for a moment to look for the hotel entrance (GPS is best at big picture stuff) and she wasn’t having the kind of day I was. Long horn blast, window down and shouting. I can’t say if I was more shocked by the horn, or the anger, or that she kept calling me ‘‘bro’’.

We make a mistake when we assume other people are having the kind of day we are. I think about that a lot now, with most days involving a visit to my mother in hospital. One building, housing every kind of human emotion. People are there for new babies, or old illnesses, or sudden diagnoses. Feet are skipping or plodding or hurrying or shuffling, and faces are strained or elated or devastated or relieved. Visit often enough and you’ll start to recognise people and put their story together. Sometimes you nod and smile, chat blandly in the ward kitchen – everyone is carrying a story, and you can only manage your own. No one is coming.

A hospital is like a small town, really, though not as pretty as Te Poi.

Jeremy Elwood

When I look around at people going about their daily routine, I regularly have to ask how they manage it. I ask that internally, of course. I don’t want to sound weird. Which is one of the issues that we have with mental health in New Zealand. Perhaps if more of us were more outspoken in asking that question out loud, we’d be in a better place.

I recently reached out for some assistance. The stress of my job and my life were just piling up too high. I thought I was coping, but I wasn’t. I thought it was too hard to get a little bit of help. Turns out, I was wrong about that, too.

We need to stop being ashamed of our difficulties. I’m thankful that I do not suffer from anywhere near the level of mental illness that leads to thoughts of despair or worse. I just get wound up, and occasionally the anxiety becomes too much. I am also grateful that my situation is such that I can take a day here and there to rest, that my colleagues and friends are both plentiful and compassionate, and that I have the wherewithal to find ways to get help.

So many of us don’t have access to those basic pieces of the puzzle. Too many of us are alone in this life. Too many of us give up, because it all seems too hard.

You hear these words and see these numbers all the time; in articles like this, on TV, or anywhere else where discussions around mental health take place. And yet, we lose more people, particularly young men, to suicide and self-harm every year. We need to be better, and we need to make getting better easier – both the practical access to support and the stigma of embarrassment, shame and weakness that still, far too often, is one of the blocks between people knowing they need to do something, and actually doing it.

I was afraid. I didn’t want to let anyone down. I still don’t, but I’m coming around to the notion that I’m not, really.

So if you can’t take an off-the-beaten-track road trip like Michele did, do me a favour. Use one of those numbers you’re probably tired of hearing about. They’re not a miracle cure, but they are a start.

Here they are again.

●Call or text 1737 at any time for professional help

●Lifeline is at 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)

●Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

●Healthline is here: 0800 611 116

●A more comprehensive list can also be found at: mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/ in-crisis/helplines