My experience of reaching out for mental health support when I needed it most.
There are moments in life when everything becomes too much to bear. Moments when the pain, the sadness and the weight of everything happening around you become so overwhelming that you realise you cannot manage it alone.
For me, that moment came after a period of heartbreak, loss and emotional turmoil that I was struggling to make sense of.
After twelve years of marriage, my relationship had fallen apart. I had discovered things that left me questioning everything I thought I knew about my life and my marriage. On the very same day my wife left me, my father died.
Try to imagine that for a moment.
Twelve years of a relationship coming to an end, alongside the loss of your father. Two enormous blows, happening on the same day, leaving you struggling to understand how your world could change so dramatically in such a short space of time.
I was hurting. I was grieving. I was struggling to cope.
And eventually, I reached a point where I was thinking about ending my life.
NHS says to call, 111 – option 2. – The so called professional mental health line.
I Did What We Are Told to Do. I Asked for Help.
I went to hospital because I knew I needed help.
I wasn’t there for attention. I wasn’t there to waste anybody’s time. I went because I was in a desperate place mentally, and I needed someone to listen, to understand what I was going through and to help me find a way through it.
I waited for 15 hours.
Fifteen hours when I was already struggling with my mental health and had reached a point where I didn’t know how to cope with the pain I was experiencing.
When I finally spoke to someone from Livewell’s psychiatric liaison service, my experience left me feeling even more desperate and abandoned.
I recall being told to go home and do it. Those words, as I remember them, were devastating to hear when I had gone to hospital because I was thinking about taking my own life.
I cannot speak for what that person intended, but I can tell you how the interaction affected me.
I felt as though I had reached out for help and been left with nothing.
No meaningful support that I felt I could rely on. No sense that the pain I was experiencing had truly been understood.
I cried.
Think about that for a moment. I had reached a point where I was frightened by my own thoughts, gone to hospital seeking help, waited 15 hours and left feeling that nobody had been there for me when I needed them.
I ended up calling the police.
Let that sink in.
I had gone to hospital because I needed mental health support, yet I felt so desperate and unheard that I called the police.
What Happens When Someone Asks for Help?
This is the question I keep coming back to.
What happens when someone finally finds the courage to admit that they are struggling? What happens when a man who has spent years trying to hold himself together reaches a breaking point and asks for help?
What happens when that person walks through the doors of a hospital, hoping someone will understand, only to leave feeling even more alone?
We are constantly encouraged to speak up about our mental health. We are told to reach out, tell someone how we feel and ask for help when things become too much.
And we should.
But those words must mean something.
Telling people to ask for help is not enough. There must be meaningful support available when they do.
People experiencing a mental health crisis need to be listened to, assessed appropriately and treated with dignity. They need to know that their lives matter and that there are people willing to help them through their darkest moments.
Nobody should feel that asking for help was a mistake.
Men Cry, Too
This experience is one of the reasons I started Men Cry.
I want to talk about the things that are often hidden behind closed doors. The heartbreak. The grief. The loneliness. The rejection. The moments when a person feels they cannot take any more.
Men are often expected to carry on regardless of what they are going through. We can feel pressure to hide our emotions, to stay strong and to deal with our problems privately.
But we are human beings.
We feel pain. We experience loss. We struggle with our mental health. And sometimes, we reach a point where we desperately need someone to help us.
I am sharing my experience because I do not want these conversations to be swept under the carpet. I want people to understand that behind every person seeking mental health support is a human being with a story, feelings and a life that matters.
I cannot change what happened to me that day. I cannot speak for everyone who works in mental health services, and I recognise that many people work incredibly hard under difficult circumstances.
But I can speak about my own experience. I can explain how it affected me. And I can ask questions about whether people in crisis are receiving the care and support they need.
Because this is not about attacking individuals. It is about recognising that people need help, that services must take their experiences seriously, and that we must keep looking for ways to improve the support available.
Why I Will Keep Speaking Out
I am in a better place now, and I am grateful that I can talk about what happened.
But I will never forget how it felt to reach out for help at one of the lowest points in my life.
I want Men Cry to be a place where people can talk openly about their struggles without shame. A place where men can admit that they are hurting, where people can share their experiences of seeking support, and where we can have honest conversations about what needs to change.
I am only one person, and I know I cannot change everything on my own. But I can tell my story. I can listen to others. I can help raise awareness and encourage people to keep talking about mental health.
And I can remind anyone reading this that their life matters, even when they cannot see a way forward.
We need more than words. We need understanding. We need compassion. We need proper support when we ask for it.
This is why I started Men Cry.
Because men cry.
Because men struggle.
Because asking for help should never leave someone feeling that they have been abandoned.
And because every person who reaches out in their darkest hour deserves to be heard.
