Latest / Dam Parenting / You don't have to do this alone: MamaSocial, mum friendship and maternal mental health in the Netherlands

Transcript

You don't have to do this alone: MamaSocial, mum friendship and maternal mental health in the Netherlands · Dam Parenting

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Down Parenting. This is day nine of our 12 days
• 0:03
  of Christmas. By now, the rush of festivities
• 0:06
  may start to soften and the noise may quieten and the
• 0:09
  overwhelm mighties and there's a little more space to take
• 0:13
  something in. So we chose today for this
• 0:16
  conversation. Day nine.
• 0:18
  It widens the village because parenting support is not about
• 0:21
  one parent. It's for all of us, especially
• 0:24
  the voices we don't hear often enough.
• 0:26
  And particularly at this time of year, fatherhood can carry a lot
• 0:30
  of silent pressure to cope, to provide, to stay strong and just
• 0:35
  keep going. And today's episode?
• 0:37
  Well, we open up space for honest, real conversations about
• 0:40
  mental health, burnout and vulnerability and fathers.
• 0:43
  It's not an easy topic, and it's one that still isn't talked
• 0:46
  about enough, which is exactly why this matters.
• 0:50
  I am incredibly proud of these guys for joining me on the
• 0:53
  podcast, both Christo and Liam. They showed up open, honest, and
• 0:57
  refreshingly real, and my hope is that this conversation feels
• 1:00
  empowering, not just for the fathers, but for parents and
• 1:04
  families as a whole. This episode is 1 to sit with,
• 1:08
  one to digest and one to remind us that support it works best
• 1:13
  when the whole family is included.
• 1:17
  Welcome back to Down Parenting. I'm your host, Steve, and I'm so
• 1:20
  glad you're joining me for this episode.
• 1:22
  This Men's Mental Health Week, we're creating space for
• 1:24
  something simple but powerful, real conversations with fathers
• 1:28
  about how they're really doing. In the Netherlands, nearly one
• 1:31
  in six fathers report symptoms of parental burnout, and up to
• 1:33
  one of four may experience postpartum depression within the
• 1:36
  first six months after the birth of their child.
• 1:38
  Yes, even with these numbers, the silence around men's mental
• 1:41
  health is still loud. Today, we're joined by two
• 1:44
  fathers from our international community, each with a powerful
• 1:47
  story. One face the emotional weight of
• 1:49
  having a newborn in the NICU, while the other opens up about
• 1:52
  raising a young family while managing life with ADHD.
• 1:55
  Though the experiences may differ, they each show how
• 1:57
  deeply fathers carry what often goes unseen.
• 2:00
  This episode is about to get real about burnouts, overwhelm,
• 2:03
  and the quiet battles so many fathers face but often keep to
• 2:07
  themselves. Because strength isn't about
• 2:10
  staying silent and vulnerability isn't limited by gender.
• 2:14
  Talking about what we carry isn't a sign of weakness, it's a
• 2:17
  step towards connection, healing, and support.
• 2:20
  These conversations aren't just important, they're human.
• 2:24
  So grab a coffee, take a breath, and let's get into it.
• 2:27
  Joining me today are Crystal and Liam.
• 2:29
  Crystal, Liam, welcome to Down Parenting.
• 2:32
  Thank you, Eva. Yeah, hi.
• 2:33
  Hi. How you doing?
• 2:34
  Hi, let me ask you both. Let's get a bit of context on
• 2:37
  your backgrounds. How many kids do you have, where
• 2:39
  you're actually from, where your partners from and how did you
• 2:42
  end up here in the Netherlands? Oh my goodness.
• 2:44
  So hi, I'm Christo, 43, dad of an amazing little girl called
• 2:49
  Olivia and I am originally South African.
• 2:52
  Moved to the Netherlands in 2007.
• 2:56
  Really work related. I'm in the construction
• 2:58
  industry. That's another boring story but
• 3:00
  yeah. Been living here since 2007.
• 3:02
  Had a short stint living in the UK for 2 1/2 years between 2009
• 3:06
  and 2012 and moved back to the Netherlands and it's been here
• 3:11
  ever since. Love living here.
• 3:13
  Where's your partner from? My wife's name is Tony.
• 3:15
  Some people might know how she's in the Dulo environment.
• 3:17
  An amazing woman. I met her here.
• 3:19
  She's British. We used to work together and
• 3:22
  that's how we met and it's been history ever since.
• 3:24
  Just been making memories. Beautiful And Liam, how about
• 3:27
  yourself? Hi, I'm Liam.
• 3:29
  I moved to the Netherlands about 12 years ago.
• 3:31
  Concurrently, at around the same time, my partner Vivi from
• 3:34
  Greece moved to the Netherlands. We decided to fall in love with
• 3:37
  each other and not for someone from the actual place.
• 3:40
  And we have two beautiful children together, Jonas and
• 3:42
  Ellie, who are almost 4 and 18 months.
• 3:45
  I work at Adrian as a tech trainer.
• 3:48
  I'm also a former, kind of. I'm a stand up comedian.
• 3:51
  Which everyone will hear in this episode.
• 3:56
  Welcome back to Down Parenting. I'm your host, Steve, and I'm so
• 3:59
  glad you're joining me for this episode.
• 4:01
  This Men's Mental Health Week, we're creating space for
• 4:04
  something simple but powerful, real conversations with fathers
• 4:07
  about how they're really doing. In the Netherlands, nearly one
• 4:10
  in six fathers report symptoms of parental burnout, and up to
• 4:12
  one of four may experience postpartum depression within the
• 4:15
  first six months after the birth of their child.
• 4:17
  Yes, even with these numbers, the silence around men's mental
• 4:20
  health is still loud. Today, we're joined by two
• 4:23
  fathers from our international community, each with a powerful
• 4:26
  story. One face the emotional weight of
• 4:28
  having a newborn in the NICU, while the other opens up about
• 4:31
  raising a young family while managing life with ADHD.
• 4:34
  Though the experiences may differ, they each show how
• 4:37
  deeply fathers carry what often goes on scene.
• 4:39
  This episode is about to get real about burnouts, overwhelm,
• 4:43
  and the quiet battles so many fathers face but often keep to
• 4:46
  themselves. Because strength isn't about
• 4:49
  staying silent and vulnerability isn't limited by gender.
• 4:53
  Talking about what we carry isn't a sign of weakness, it's a
• 4:56
  step towards connection, healing, and support.
• 4:59
  These conversations aren't just important, they're human.
• 5:03
  So grab a coffee, take a breath, and let's get into it.
• 5:06
  Joining me today are Crystal and Liam.
• 5:08
  Crystal, Liam, welcome to Down Parenting.
• 5:11
  Thank you, Eva. Yeah, hi.
• 5:12
  Hi. How you doing?
• 5:14
  Hi, let me ask you both, let's get a bit of context on your
• 5:17
  backgrounds. How many kids do you have, where
• 5:19
  you're actually from, where your partner's from?
• 5:20
  And how did you end up here in the Netherlands?
• 5:23
  Oh my goodness. So hi, I'm Christo, 43, dad of
• 5:27
  an amazing little girl called Olivia and I am originally South
• 5:31
  African. Moved to the Netherlands in
• 5:33
  2007. Really work related.
• 5:37
  I'm in the construction industry.
• 5:38
  That's another boring story but yeah.
• 5:40
  Been living here since 2007. Had a short stint living in the
• 5:43
  UK for 2 1/2 years between 2009 and 2012 and moved back to the
• 5:49
  Netherlands and it's been here ever since.
• 5:51
  Love living here. Where's your partner from?
• 5:53
  My wife's name is Tony. Some people might know how she's
• 5:55
  in the Dulo environment. An amazing woman.
• 5:58
  I met her here. She's British.
• 5:59
  We used to work together and that's how we met and it's been
• 6:03
  history ever since. Just been making memories.
• 6:05
  Beautiful And Liam, how about yourself?
• 6:07
  Hi, I'm Liam. I moved to the Netherlands about
• 6:09
  12 years ago. Concurrently, at around the same
• 6:11
  time, my partner Vivi from Greece moved to the Netherlands.
• 6:15
  We decided to fall in love with each other and not for someone
• 6:18
  from the actual place. And we have two beautiful
• 6:20
  children together, Jonas and Ellie, who are almost 4 and 18
• 6:24
  months. I work at Adian as a tech
• 6:26
  trainer. I'm also a former, kind of.
• 6:30
  I'm a stand up comedian. Which everyone will hear in this
• 6:32
  episode. Welcome back to Down Parenting.
• 6:37
  I'm your host, Steve, and I'm so glad you're joining me for this
• 6:39
  episode. This Men's Mental Health Week,
• 6:42
  we're creating space for something simple but powerful,
• 6:45
  real conversations with fathers about how they're really doing.
• 6:48
  In the Netherlands, nearly one in six fathers report symptoms
• 6:51
  of parental burnout, and up to one of four may experience
• 6:53
  postpartum depression within the first six months after the birth
• 6:56
  of their child. Yes, even with these numbers,
• 6:58
  the silence around men's mental health is still loud.
• 7:01
  Today, we're joined by two fathers from our international
• 7:04
  community, each with a powerful story.
• 7:06
  One face the emotional weight of having a newborn in the NICU,
• 7:09
  while the other opens up about raising a young family while
• 7:12
  managing life with ADHD. Though the experiences may
• 7:15
  differ, they each show how deeply fathers carry what often
• 7:18
  goes on scene. This episode is about to get
• 7:20
  real about burnouts, overwhelm, and the quiet battles so many
• 7:24
  fathers face but often keep to themselves.
• 7:27
  Because strength isn't about staying silent and vulnerability
• 7:31
  isn't limited by gender. Talking about what we carry
• 7:34
  isn't a sign of weakness, it's a step towards connection,
• 7:37
  healing, and support. These conversations aren't just
• 7:40
  important, they're human. So grab a coffee, take a breath,
• 7:44
  and let's get into it. Joining me today are Crystal and
• 7:47
  Liam. Crystal, Liam, welcome to Down
• 7:49
  Parenting. Thank you, Eva.
• 7:51
  Yeah, hi. Hi.
• 7:51
  How you doing? Hi, let me ask you both.
• 7:54
  Let's get a bit of context on your backgrounds.
• 7:57
  How many kids do you have, where you're actually from, where your
• 7:59
  partners from and how did you end up here in the Netherlands?
• 8:02
  Oh my goodness. So hi, I'm Christo, 43, dad of
• 8:06
  an amazing little girl called Olivia and I am originally South
• 8:10
  African. Moved to the Netherlands in
• 8:13
  2007. Really work related.
• 8:16
  I'm in the construction industry.
• 8:17
  That's another boring story but yeah.
• 8:19
  Been living here since 2007. Had a short stint living in the
• 8:22
  UK for 2 1/2 years between 2009 and 2012 and moved back to the
• 8:28
  Netherlands and it's been here ever since.
• 8:30
  Love living here. Where's your partner from?
• 8:33
  My wife's name is Tony. Some people might know her.
• 8:34
  She's in the doula environment. An amazing woman.
• 8:37
  I met her here. She's British.
• 8:39
  We used to work together and that's how we met and it's been
• 8:42
  history ever since. Just been making memories.
• 8:44
  Beautiful And Liam, how about yourself?
• 8:46
  Hi, I'm Liam. I moved to the Netherlands about
• 8:49
  12 years ago. Concurrently, at around the same
• 8:51
  time, my partner Vivi from Greece moved to the Netherlands.
• 8:54
  We decided to fall in love with each other and not for someone
• 8:57
  from the actual place. And we have two beautiful
• 9:00
  children together, Jonas and Ellie, who are almost 4 and 18
• 9:04
  months. I work at Adrian as a tech
• 9:05
  trainer. I'm also a former, kind of.
• 9:09
  I'm a stand up comedian. Which everyone will hear in this
• 9:11
  episode. I hope so.
• 9:15
  And yeah, I'm also a skipper. I'm a skipper for Warm Heart
• 9:19
  Sauna. Floating Sauna on a slot of
• 9:21
  blast. Doesn't lovely.
• 9:21
  So let's see, can either whoever wants to take this off, can you
• 9:25
  take us back to a moment when you started to feel like
• 9:28
  something actually might have been off in your situation?
• 9:31
  Maybe you were running on empty or just not feeling like
• 9:33
  yourself. What does it look like or what
• 9:36
  does it feel like to you? I, I think I was literally
• 9:38
  running on empty. I'm recently recovering from a
• 9:42
  burnout. I'm reintegrating into my
• 9:44
  company, but I was probably burnt out for a couple years,
• 9:48
  maybe, maybe longer. I had my my, my wonderful first
• 9:52
  child. It was lovely, but things were
• 9:54
  getting harder and harder and I kind of misdiagnosed myself as
• 9:58
  being lazy. And I just then decided to run.
• 10:02
  And I learned how to run 10K and I had to run half marathon still
• 10:06
  felt lazy and that to run marathon still felt lazy and
• 10:09
  that's run ultra marathon still felt lazy.
• 10:12
  And then I found out I have ADHD.
• 10:14
  So my coping mechanism kind of it kept me from breaking for a
• 10:20
  while. But when I did break, I was just
• 10:21
  useless. And it's one thing I kept
• 10:24
  reading every all, every time when I put my kids to sleep is
• 10:27
  from the boy, the mold of fox and the horse.
• 10:29
  And it was like, what's the bravest thing you've ever done
• 10:32
  ever said to I said the boy help, said the horse.
• 10:35
  I'd read that over and over again.
• 10:37
  And it took me so long to get to a point where I can go help.
• 10:41
  Like I'm struggling. I mean, it all just hits.
• 10:45
  And then it's like, yeah, when you've been backing it off for
• 10:47
  so long, when you actually do kind of like give in, then it
• 10:51
  takes a long time to kind of like come back.
• 10:53
  But I have wonderful supportive partner and and our wonderful
• 10:57
  kids and they've helped me so much.
• 10:59
  Yeah, that was my thing. I'm Crystal.
• 11:02
  Great. Thanks, Liam.
• 11:03
  I've got like AI think I've got a double hit and I'll explain
• 11:06
  that. So obviously became a dad in
• 11:08
  2018 and there was a story on here.
• 11:13
  You did an interview with my wife.
• 11:14
  It was a it was a difficult birth and you know, Long story
• 11:17
  short, we spent a lot of time in hospital.
• 11:19
  It was not the beautiful birth that you see on TV and
• 11:22
  everyone's happy and the wife is glowing and the dad's smiling.
• 11:24
  It was nothing like that. It was a very cold hospital
• 11:29
  environment for three months and not the introduction to becoming
• 11:33
  a dad for the first time that I ever thought it would be.
• 11:36
  And my struggles began when my wife went to hospital because I
• 11:40
  didn't understand how to deal with that.
• 11:42
  Because you don't think about that.
• 11:43
  When that moment hits you, you are in an absolute go, go, go.
• 11:49
  You know, there's there's nothing else to think about.
• 11:50
  You've got to be strong. Wife's not doing well, doctors
• 11:53
  around you all the time. You've just got to remain strong
• 11:56
  while you're doing that. Your energy levels are just
• 11:59
  draining and draining and draining.
• 12:00
  You're right. Liam said it.
• 12:01
  You are running on empty. You don't know how to ask for
• 12:04
  help because you don't know what to ask for.
• 12:06
  People would come and say to you, hey, just let me know if I
• 12:08
  can help you. I haven't got a clue what to ask
• 12:10
  for. I think back now and I go, yeah,
• 12:13
  I would have asked people to go and do my shopping, buy me food.
• 12:16
  I was living in a house that was being renovated.
• 12:18
  I literally, it was like Dexter. I used to pull plastic sheets
• 12:21
  off my bed to sleep at night and then put it back on in the
• 12:23
  mornings. When I went back to the
• 12:25
  hospital, I would have 2-3 hours sleep every night.
• 12:27
  This went on for three months. So at some point your body gives
• 12:30
  in, but you don't even recognize that.
• 12:31
  So not too waffle too much about that.
• 12:33
  I, I got to a point where Olivia came home, Tony came home, she
• 12:37
  was still recovering and I started getting back into work
• 12:41
  and I, I noticed that I was just not wired correctly.
• 12:45
  I was not processing what's happening at work.
• 12:47
  I was not focused on what's happening at work, constantly
• 12:51
  worried, constantly having a feeling of dread, constantly
• 12:54
  wanting to go home or understand what's happening.
• 12:56
  The pressure off not being at home and leaving Tony to look
• 13:00
  after Olivia and also making doctor's appointments and
• 13:03
  specialist appointments just really started to grate on me.
• 13:06
  And it got to a point where effectively we were in hospital
• 13:10
  because Olivia wasn't sleeping. We had lots of issues, were
• 13:13
  sleeping and she was a lot of crying.
• 13:15
  And we were recommended to go to the hospital for like a sleep
• 13:18
  test where Olivia was there for I think 3 or 4 nights and we
• 13:22
  were in this hospital for three or four nights.
• 13:24
  Nurses were making all sorts of notes about how Olivia, they
• 13:26
  were sleeping. And then at the end of it, there
• 13:29
  was this meeting. The specialist, she's a very
• 13:32
  well known pediatric specialist in the Netherlands.
• 13:34
  She came to have this conversation with us and I lost
• 13:37
  it with this woman. I swear the air blew.
• 13:40
  I was so upset that a, my wife and daughter got taken out of a
• 13:44
  safe family environment to be stuck in this hospital again.
• 13:46
  I just had lots of triggers from three months in hospital.
• 13:50
  They went out, they went back in and the doctor was amazing
• 13:53
  because she listened to me rant for 10 minutes at her, really
• 13:57
  not very pleasant. I was incredibly rude to her and
• 14:00
  she said have you spoken to someone?
• 14:02
  I said why the fuck do I need to speak to anyone?
• 14:04
  And I went home and that's when I realized things are broken.
• 14:08
  I think it's not great. That was the first moment in my
• 14:11
  life that I realized this is this is not going great.
• 14:13
  And I ended up seeking support. I went to our house arts and I
• 14:17
  got booked off and I went to a great psychologist, a company
• 14:21
  called Sikkim Swangerskup who was based in Amsterdam.
• 14:24
  And it was an amazing journey with him.
• 14:25
  And that was my very first experience of understanding my
• 14:32
  own emotions as a man because it it never occurred to me that
• 14:38
  that sort of thing would happen to me, I would never have looked
• 14:40
  myself in the mirror and go, mate, it's not weak, but you're
• 14:43
  broken. That's sort of my first
• 14:45
  introduction to it. I was going to ask what stopped
• 14:48
  you from speaking up earlier, or what finally helped you ask for
• 14:51
  support, but yeah, yours yours is a bit different.
• 14:54
  Yeah, people around me was incredibly supportive.
• 14:56
  My wife saw through all of it as well.
• 14:58
  She's an incredible support to me, very connected to herself,
• 15:01
  very self aware. I think myself awareness has
• 15:03
  always been mediocre at best. I think there's a male growing
• 15:07
  up in a very male traditional environment in South Africa.
• 15:10
  Men don't cry. Men look after families.
• 15:12
  You know, we are the providers. We have to remain strong.
• 15:15
  Hunter gatherer sort of mentality that you know, the
• 15:18
  bumps and bruises you just don't mention because you don't think
• 15:21
  to mention it. You don't think it's important.
• 15:22
  It's not important to talk about my feelings.
• 15:24
  I need to make sure that my wife and daughter is OK.
• 15:26
  But you mentioned that you couldn't even identify your own
• 15:28
  feelings. No, I didn't see it.
• 15:31
  I didn't see it until that doctor literally looked me
• 15:33
  straight in the eye and went, mate, have you spoken to anyone?
• 15:37
  And I had to let that sink in. I had to digest that.
• 15:40
  I went away from that. And then, you know, my wife said
• 15:42
  to me, you need to make an appointment at the ISO.
• 15:44
  So just go and speak to her and see what she says.
• 15:47
  And I remember going to this appointment thinking what I'm
• 15:49
  going to tell this doctor because I don't even know where
• 15:52
  to start. I don't even know how to start
• 15:56
  saying what's happening inside of me.
• 15:58
  Like, I don't because I'm not connecting with me.
• 16:01
  Like I'm not connecting with those emotions because I've
• 16:03
  always buried those emotions very, very deep.
• 16:06
  Like if a traumatic experience happens in your life as a
• 16:09
  younger person, as a young man growing up in the environment
• 16:11
  that I did, I'm nurtured not to not to really open that box and
• 16:16
  share it. Don't speak to my friends about
• 16:18
  it. If people ask me how you doing?
• 16:19
  Yeah, I'm fine. That's literally it.
• 16:21
  It's like the it's the, it's the, it's the common sentence
• 16:23
  that, you know, mental health red flags.
• 16:27
  I'm fine. And I said that for years.
• 16:30
  And Liam, when did you start to acknowledge your feelings and
• 16:33
  what did reaching out or beginning to take care of
• 16:35
  yourself actually look like? Like what happened or maybe even
• 16:38
  surprised you about that part of the process?
• 16:40
  I thought, I thought I was faking it.
• 16:43
  I thought I'm just literally thought I was lazy and stuff.
• 16:47
  Like I thought by going to a company doctor and stuff like
• 16:50
  that and talking to him, I felt like I was missed misleading
• 16:54
  her. Like I was saying with the
• 16:56
  things I was feeling but I didn't wasn't truly believing
• 16:58
  them. What Christo said earlier.
• 17:00
  Like how can he know what to do? Because we've not seen it.
• 17:03
  It's not being modelled to us. Like I've listened to a lot of
• 17:07
  your episodes about mattress and stuff.
• 17:08
  It's not a nowhere near as big for, for men, but there is a
• 17:12
  shift and we tend, I, I do, I know enough people that they
• 17:16
  tend to reject it a bit and just kind of carry on and just, yeah,
• 17:19
  we don't know how to check in on ourselves because not being fine
• 17:23
  is weakness and, and it just takes time.
• 17:26
  It does take modelling as well. And it's something I really,
• 17:30
  really want to do for my son because I'm actually the way
• 17:33
  we're pairing him. Like I'm excited for his future
• 17:36
  because I know how all my emotions when I was a kid, I'm
• 17:40
  still the kid I used to be. I know that.
• 17:42
  And through therapy, I've kind of brought that back up and it's
• 17:45
  been wonderful. But it's been a big, big
• 17:48
  journey. Like growing up with with fueled
• 17:51
  by toxic masculinity. It's it's a fuel.
• 17:53
  It works for a while until it doesn't.
• 17:57
  And then what do you do? You have a midlife crisis or
• 18:00
  now, now we have burnouts or something like that.
• 18:02
  It's I was just listening to Christo there.
• 18:05
  Like it takes so many big moments, big signs saying get
• 18:09
  some help. And even still the big sign is
• 18:11
  still like, we still need the help getting to the help because
• 18:16
  we don't see it. It's not obvious to us.
• 18:18
  It's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a crazy thing.
• 18:22
  And it sounds like it could happen to both of you at around
• 18:24
  similar stages in your parenting life, like it was in the first
• 18:28
  year basically. Yeah, definitely.
• 18:30
  Like life has got more and more difficult and the old ways of
• 18:33
  doing it, the other ways of getting through life don't work
• 18:36
  anymore. I mean, you could do, you could
• 18:38
  disassociate from your kids and then just be dad or like just be
• 18:41
  like the breadwinner or something like that.
• 18:42
  But that's not, that's not how you do it now.
• 18:44
  Like you, you, you're there. You're present and presence
• 18:48
  takes a lot. So taking time for yourself or
• 18:50
  slowing down can actually feel like a very big shift.
• 18:53
  How did either of you change the way you approached parenting or
• 18:58
  for yourself, and how did it affect your relationship with
• 19:00
  your partner? Very interesting question.
• 19:04
  I would be honest in saying when I had the time out after my
• 19:11
  daughter was born and I sort of like took on the support and try
• 19:14
  to understand why I'm feeling this way and working through
• 19:16
  that was about a period of three months.
• 19:19
  I think one of the key things my psychiatrist told me at that
• 19:24
  time was take time for yourself by just going for a walk and not
• 19:28
  like going to the shops with a purpose, but literally just
• 19:33
  walking. I did that maybe once or twice.
• 19:35
  I wasn't hugely into it. I lost myself on silly apps and
• 19:40
  stuff on my phone to, you know, ignore what's happening around
• 19:46
  me. But my parenting style now
• 19:48
  that's a that's an interesting one for me.
• 19:50
  I think in the beginning I was incredibly scared and nervous.
• 19:56
  And I think it also really made me short tempered.
• 20:04
  It made me closed off. I kept a lot of things in.
• 20:07
  So it really affected my relationship with with my wife,
• 20:10
  with Tony. I think, you know, I just didn't
• 20:13
  share anything with her. I didn't talk to her.
• 20:16
  I would. I would have a conversation with
• 20:17
  her, but I'm not talking to her and telling her what's happening
• 20:20
  inside inside of me and how I'm feeling because it's just again,
• 20:24
  I'm not used to talking about those things.
• 20:25
  I don't, I'm not from a family environment where we share those
• 20:29
  sorts of feelings as a as a guy, as a bloke.
• 20:32
  So it was a very hard readjustment to accept that I'm
• 20:38
  not going to know everything. I'm not going to be good at
• 20:39
  everything related to parenting and I've got to take it in my
• 20:43
  own pace. So I tried to find moments to be
• 20:49
  on my own and be OK with my own company.
• 20:53
  Going for walks was what I tried to do.
• 20:57
  Getting lost in a game on my phone or whatever to just block
• 21:01
  out the world was also something that I did.
• 21:04
  I enjoy podcasts, so I listen to podcasts all the time through
• 21:09
  crime podcasts. Probably not a great way to
• 21:12
  support a low mental health, but it is really each individual's
• 21:17
  own journey. What works for me might be
• 21:20
  interesting for someone to go, OK, maybe I should do that, but
• 21:22
  it's really what you are comfortable with.
• 21:25
  But I think before you even approach the subject of what can
• 21:28
  I do? You've really got to understand
• 21:31
  and accept that you've got a problem.
• 21:32
  You've got a challenge. I mean, saying I've got problems
• 21:35
  sounds a bit like I'm an alcoholic.
• 21:36
  But you have a challenge. You have to understand where
• 21:40
  that comes from. And I didn't do that during
• 21:43
  those three months. I just went through a process.
• 21:46
  I went through EMDR therapy and got rid of the triggers I had,
• 21:52
  which was related to the beeps and noises of the hospital.
• 21:55
  I couldn't stand it. My my microwave beeped once and
• 21:59
  I nearly threw it out the window because I lost it, because it
• 22:01
  just triggered me from sitting next to Tony and listening to
• 22:04
  beep, beep, beep, beep, beep all the time for a month before
• 22:07
  Olivia was born. And that was a big deal for me
• 22:10
  to get rid of in the first sort of time that I took out.
• 22:13
  But my demons came back and they came back last year.
• 22:17
  You sort of go through life and you pave over cracks and you
• 22:20
  think I'm all right. And then you get to maybe a
• 22:23
  challenging situation in your life, in another aspect of your
• 22:26
  life, maybe your work life. In my case, it was my work life
• 22:29
  and it really made a lot of my old demons bubble back up to the
• 22:34
  surface, things that I never dealt with during the first
• 22:38
  moment when I cracked. And this time round, I took six
• 22:44
  months out and I took time out. I stepped away from my job.
• 22:48
  I completely shot myself off from anything that's going to
• 22:51
  take my attention and focus away from me and my family.
• 22:54
  I became a house husband, which I absolutely loved.
• 22:57
  I doted over my wife and daughter all the time.
• 22:59
  I filled my days with taking my daughter to play dates and
• 23:02
  becoming incredibly busy. And then my wife says to me,
• 23:04
  what are you doing? I said, well, I don't know, I'm
• 23:06
  just busy all the time. But I found a life coach and I
• 23:09
  found an amazing life coach that I absolutely have split open my
• 23:15
  soul to understand why I have certain behaviours.
• 23:19
  And six months later, I can talk very freely about things that I
• 23:23
  have had issues with for a long time.
• 23:27
  And to be very open. It's things like being liked by
• 23:30
  other people or being a yes man. These are things that caused me
• 23:34
  a lot of issues through my life, but I never connected the two
• 23:37
  until I actually really sat down and explored it.
• 23:40
  And, and I guess the point of why I've got, I've got such a
• 23:42
  long story is if you have an opportunity to take time out and
• 23:47
  understand your soul, your emotions as a man in today's
• 23:51
  life, really take a step back and, and do that.
• 23:54
  I literally just fell into a process, you know, seven years
• 23:58
  ago. And I just went through it, got
• 23:59
  through it, got the EMDR therapy out of the way.
• 24:02
  Triggers are dealt with. I can talk about my daughter's
• 24:04
  birth without crying. I'm OK.
• 24:06
  No, I wasn't because I went back into work and the same behavior
• 24:09
  started to come out of me a year later, two years later.
• 24:13
  And then, you know, 6 1/2 years later, I, I'm on the floor.
• 24:16
  My my mental health this time last year was shocking.
• 24:20
  It was probably the most scared I've ever been about myself in
• 24:24
  my entire life because nothing in my life felt positive.
• 24:27
  The only thing I clinged onto was my wife and daughter and
• 24:32
  taking that time out, focusing on myself and telling myself I
• 24:36
  have got to improve myself awareness as a man.
• 24:39
  I've got to understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling.
• 24:41
  I'm why I'm responding the way I'm responding.
• 24:44
  And I delve into that. And my wonderful wife found me a
• 24:47
  life coach probably a year before that moment.
• 24:50
  I said you got to contact this guy.
• 24:51
  But yeah, or I will. And you know, the moral of the
• 24:54
  story was probably listen to my wife more.
• 24:56
  But I think I took on that journey.
• 24:58
  I took on that challenge and it was an amazing support to me.
• 25:01
  And I still use that life coach today.
• 25:02
  I still speak to him once a month, but for the first time in
• 25:05
  my life, I understand how to use that person and that's meantable
• 25:09
  to me. Thank you for that.
• 25:11
  I got a lump in my throat when you talk about your child's
• 25:13
  birth as well still. So I can't imagine what it was
• 25:16
  for you. Liam, if you spoke about how you
• 25:19
  went on burnout, can you talk about then about slowing down
• 25:22
  and how's this change in your way in your approach to
• 25:25
  parenting and also your relationship with your partner?
• 25:28
  So with the burnout, yeah, so have.
• 25:29
  I had six months off and it took some time to get over the shame
• 25:34
  of feeling like I wasn't producing in a certain arena in
• 25:38
  my life, like I wasn't able to produce, but I was.
• 25:43
  I've done enough therapy and read enough and I've tried
• 25:48
  enough stuff. I've, I've thrown enough shit at
• 25:50
  the wall to see what sticks. Like I, I've tried all the bro
• 25:53
  science and stuff. All of them, of course.
• 25:55
  But like, I quite feel like I found out I like breath work.
• 25:58
  So breath work works. The Wim Hof stuff that that's
• 26:01
  nice, the cold plunges, that's nice.
• 26:03
  I don't have to talk about misogyny while I do it.
• 26:05
  We can take, we can take that out of the bro science.
• 26:08
  But yeah, doing ADHD therapy or getting diagnosed and then doing
• 26:11
  the therapy for it, it kind of accelerated the burnout.
• 26:15
  Kind of like when I got my diagnosis, when I started doing
• 26:18
  a therapy, like all the stuff I was holding off, it started to
• 26:22
  be unpicked with the therapy because we were actually
• 26:25
  addressing things. Because when Christo was saying
• 26:27
  like when he was saying about addressing his triggers and
• 26:29
  stuff like that makes sense in like 5 years ago, yeah, you just
• 26:33
  just get rid of the triggers. But now having gone through all
• 26:36
  this therapy, like, no, the triggers are there, that you're
• 26:38
  putting medicine in it, but you're not fixing it.
• 26:40
  You're just dumbing it down or like it's still there, all
• 26:43
  bubbling up. It's still there.
• 26:45
  It's not just a family thing of being brought up.
• 26:47
  It's the society and that's still there.
• 26:51
  I've gone a bit lost now. I'm sorry.
• 26:53
  Yeah. With the burnout after, I can
• 26:55
  get over the, the shame of being broken.
• 27:00
  When I started actually talking about it is when things started
• 27:04
  going quite well because I couldn't.
• 27:06
  I was almost rejecting it before then, but then I kind of
• 27:10
  accepted I call and I was given more time to spend my children.
• 27:14
  So all the learnings, knowledge, all this kind of stuff I've
• 27:17
  learned in life, forget the past, don't worry about the
• 27:20
  future, just be present. Just be present.
• 27:23
  And the therapy helped with the past, like how I was brought up,
• 27:28
  the time off helped with the future because I'm like Daddy
• 27:31
  don't have to go anywhere. And then I could just zone in
• 27:35
  and just be present with my kids.
• 27:37
  And I went from I will toot my own whore.
• 27:39
  I went from a good dad to a great dad.
• 27:41
  Like everyone needs this. Everyone needs some sort of
• 27:44
  like. And that's what's getting me
• 27:45
  like parenting these days feels like an uneven equation.
• 27:49
  You're borrowing from one side to fix the other side.
• 27:52
  You want to be working. You want to be a great daddy.
• 27:54
  You can't do all of it. And so if you keep, you can, oh,
• 27:58
  you can for a while or you can find new ways you can do coping
• 28:01
  mechanisms. You can drink, you can smoke,
• 28:03
  you can go running for fucking sorry for hours like you can.
• 28:07
  You can do all these things, but eventually you can't because it
• 28:10
  doesn't work. It doesn't balance out and
• 28:12
  you're just going to and that's that's it.
• 28:14
  I forgot where I was going with this.
• 28:16
  I mean, I'm a bit ADHD. I'm playing the card.
• 28:18
  I'm playing the card, but it's the the burnout was possibly the
• 28:23
  best thing to ever happen to me, which is sounds ridiculous, but
• 28:27
  it's just a, it's a consequence of how things are.
• 28:31
  And the more, yeah, here we go. The more I talk about, the more
• 28:35
  I'm vulnerable. I had this fault in my head
• 28:38
  where I was like, I'm marked. I'm marked as weak, I'm marked
• 28:41
  as as burnt out. Nah, I'm, I'm, I am marked.
• 28:45
  But that's good. But I can give space to others
• 28:48
  because we're all struggling kids, no kids, whatever.
• 28:51
  We've been through COVID, but I've just turned into a rant,
• 28:53
  sorry. But we're all struggling.
• 28:55
  There's a hangover from COVID. There's a lot of stuff and it
• 28:58
  doesn't matter. We're all struggling and
• 29:00
  allowing space for people to be open, especially for men because
• 29:05
  we're a bit Dum Dums. We haven't learned it properly.
• 29:08
  We're learning, but we're very far behind is massive.
• 29:11
  And it's my burnouts almost give me a bit of purpose.
• 29:15
  Like I I can make people laugh with comedy, but I can also make
• 29:19
  people happy with themselves just by allowing them to talk
• 29:24
  and talk to someone who looks like a buddy ruffian and stuff
• 29:27
  like that. A big beard or whatever.
• 29:29
  But it's actually a big like kind of gooey.
• 29:31
  I'll cry of them. I like, I like crying.
• 29:35
  So you're speaking there about vulnerability, Christo, Can you
• 29:38
  explain what vulnerability might look like to you then?
• 29:41
  Not just the idea, but actually like day-to-day.
• 29:43
  Are there moments where you catch yourself showing up
• 29:46
  differently than you might have before?
• 29:49
  Explain vulnerability. I think my vulnerability becomes
• 29:53
  my quietness. I lock myself away in my head
• 29:57
  and I would literally be at the office in a toxic environment
• 30:02
  and just stop talking, stop communicating.
• 30:06
  I would be in a difficult conversation and literally not
• 30:08
  interact. I'd have a complete closure in
• 30:11
  my throat. I would just stop talking.
• 30:16
  I'd stop sharing with my wife. I would be incredibly quiet.
• 30:22
  I would spend more time in the kitchen just to be on my own
• 30:26
  away from people. I would not even pick up the
• 30:28
  phone to call friends. I would not even respond to
• 30:31
  people on WhatsApp for weeks. That wasn't the case with you,
• 30:35
  Liam, I promise. I think at the end of the day,
• 30:41
  eight years ago, I had no idea that that's what I was doing,
• 30:43
  but I was doing it. And when I'm at the office and
• 30:47
  you're doing office talk, you're just not actually recognizing
• 30:51
  that you're you're not there. I think Liam just had a he said
• 30:55
  it really well. It's being present.
• 30:57
  I become not present. I'm sitting next to my wife on
• 31:02
  on the sofa and I'm just, it's like I'm not there.
• 31:06
  And, and, and that was the peak of, of my vulnerability.
• 31:11
  Sleep becomes a big issue for me.
• 31:15
  I end up staying up for hours. Now let's go to bed at like 3:00
• 31:19
  in the morning having not slept. And then I try and sleep and
• 31:22
  then I'm up by 6:00. And then you function and then
• 31:25
  you go through the day and then when you get home, your
• 31:27
  tiredness kicks in and you just you're Welt, you know, you just
• 31:31
  completely go down the tube. So I think that's, I guess the
• 31:36
  most honest answer I could give you is, is my quietness.
• 31:39
  I lock myself away. I just don't engage with people.
• 31:43
  I think, which is probably the worst thing you can do because
• 31:45
  that's the moment you should say to someone, hey, you know what?
• 31:47
  I'm not feeling great. Like I'm really, really low.
• 31:51
  I would have conversations with my parents.
• 31:52
  They'd be like, how are you doing?
• 31:53
  I'm fine, I am fine. Biggest lie ever.
• 31:59
  You build up the wall like you build up a wall.
• 32:02
  Yeah, if you address it, then you've got to deal with it kind
• 32:04
  of thing. But you build up the wall and
• 32:06
  you're just like, I'm fine. I don't have to think about
• 32:09
  this. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine
• 32:10
  because it's screaming. It screams.
• 32:13
  Somethings not right. So between your vulnerabilities,
• 32:16
  are there anything that you've learned?
• 32:18
  So Christa, you've been going to a coach, as you said, and Liam,
• 32:21
  you've actually done different forms of therapy.
• 32:23
  Are there anything that has helped you identify your
• 32:25
  vulnerability and actually help you sit in it?
• 32:28
  The uncomfortableness of vulnerability and help you
• 32:30
  process through whatever feeling you might be feeling?
• 32:33
  It's talking. It's it's just something we
• 32:36
  don't do. I'm talking about all for all
• 32:38
  men, but a lot of men, we don't talk because we then would have
• 32:41
  to address the certain things. So just talking, getting it out,
• 32:44
  if it stays in your head, it goes all over the place and it
• 32:47
  just, it gets warped and then you just compartmentalize it.
• 32:50
  Whereas just like I say with Christo, with myself, just
• 32:54
  talking, talking to therapist, having it out in the world and
• 32:57
  hearing it back, actually hearing it back is like a sanity
• 33:00
  check. Sometimes just even just that,
• 33:02
  that small thing that possibly women would take for granted
• 33:05
  because you there's, there's a lot more talking, there's a lot
• 33:07
  more sharing of emotions and you're used to it.
• 33:10
  It's, it's a, it's a skill. It is a skill and we don't do it
• 33:14
  as men. Generally.
• 33:15
  I. I agree.
• 33:17
  I, I think Liam summed up really well.
• 33:19
  Me and Liam bonded over, you know, our partners saying, hey,
• 33:23
  you 2 need to connect because you guys have similar
• 33:25
  challenges. And, you know, I think you guys
• 33:27
  could, could really, you know, do with a conversation with one
• 33:29
  another. He is Liam, who I literally met
• 33:32
  once because, you know, my wife helped them with the birth of
• 33:35
  their kids. And we, I think we first met
• 33:38
  just having a lunch and you guys were showing the little baby and
• 33:42
  that was fantastic. So here's me and Liam, we
• 33:44
  organized to see each other one day.
• 33:46
  We met up at a cafe in Amsterdam.
• 33:48
  And I think we spent 4 hours talking.
• 33:51
  We spent 4 hours talking to each other because we just both I
• 33:54
  think had very open minded sort of idea that we're just going to
• 33:58
  go and see how this goes. But within the 1st 10 minutes,
• 34:01
  me and this guy, we're just sharing everything about our
• 34:04
  lives as dudes. Like we were just like sharing
• 34:06
  the load and the similarities of what we've been going through
• 34:11
  and then sharing with one another how we felt in different
• 34:13
  parts of that. It's about talking.
• 34:15
  And I don't think that as men we do that enough.
• 34:20
  I, I have a amazing friendship circle.
• 34:22
  I have an amazing group of friends back home in South
• 34:24
  Africa and also here in the Netherlands and in the UK and a
• 34:27
  few other parts of the world. But, you know, growing up with
• 34:30
  my friends in SA, he did not sit in a in a pub with a beer and
• 34:34
  go. So right guys, before the rugby
• 34:35
  starts. Yeah.
• 34:36
  I'm just not feeling very well today, you know, I'm feeling a
• 34:38
  bit low. They've literally tell me to put
• 34:40
  take my handbag and go home. They would just not be bothered
• 34:43
  to explore that more. But that was 20 years ago.
• 34:46
  I think that has shifted a little bit today as well as I've
• 34:49
  seen some hints of of the guys sharing a few things with one
• 34:53
  another. But in general, I just don't
• 34:55
  think we do that. And, and I think that's
• 34:57
  cultivated through how we grow up and the environment that we
• 35:00
  grow up in. I think for some, and it's a lot
• 35:02
  easier maybe coming from a household that's a lot more
• 35:04
  open. If I look at the differences
• 35:06
  between myself and Tony, for example, she's from a household
• 35:09
  where they have it out all the time.
• 35:10
  If they've got an issue, it's on the table, talk about it, deal
• 35:13
  with it, scream at each other, whatever you need to do.
• 35:15
  But it might be multiple conversations, but they talk
• 35:18
  about it and they get it out and it's done and it's dealt with.
• 35:20
  I'm from a family environment where I don't think we talk
• 35:23
  about things enough. I think there's a carpet with a
• 35:26
  huge mound of emotional baggage hidden in my mom's lounge
• 35:30
  because we just, we just don't share.
• 35:32
  We pave over the cracks as a family.
• 35:34
  We don't we don't talk about things.
• 35:36
  And, and that was something that was cultivated in me and that
• 35:39
  gave me the challenges I had later in my life.
• 35:41
  So it's about talking, it's learning to talk about that as
• 35:44
  well. I don't think it's something
• 35:45
  that just comes easily. As males, as men, we need to
• 35:48
  learn to share what's going on inside.
• 35:51
  And I think maybe myself and Liam sort of had a trial period
• 35:54
  with one another where we were doing that, Hey, how do I talk
• 35:57
  to this guy about things going on?
• 35:58
  But he's being very receptive to that and I'm being very
• 36:01
  receptive to, to listen to him. And through that journey, we've
• 36:04
  connected and we, we catch up all the time.
• 36:06
  I think not enough anymore because I'm back into a, a work
• 36:10
  routine, but just finding a moment to make time to go and
• 36:13
  catch up with this guy and shoot the breeze and share how I feel
• 36:17
  and little ups and downs that I've had over the last, you
• 36:20
  know, six months being Liam got to a point where, you know, we'd
• 36:23
  literally be sharing small little winds with one another.
• 36:26
  I'd be texting and go, hey, I did this for the first time in
• 36:28
  six years. I feel great about it.
• 36:31
  He was sending me a text ago, hey, I've connected with XY and
• 36:33
  Z that I haven't done for a long time.
• 36:34
  I feel amazing. It's those little boost that
• 36:36
  kind of feels like, hey, I'm building up myself awareness.
• 36:39
  I'm becoming, you know, I'm recognizing what it feels like
• 36:41
  to build up what's been a bit broken inside.
• 36:44
  I think the one key thing that I took away from my life coach
• 36:47
  over the last six months has helped me a lot is to understand
• 36:50
  that within each one of us, male and female, they're self
• 36:54
  critique and self critique is toxic.
• 36:57
  Self critique is that voice in your head, mate, you're just not
• 37:00
  good enough. And it starts in your work
• 37:02
  environment and then it filters into your life and then it
• 37:05
  filters into your day-to-day and you start to doubt everything
• 37:08
  you do from running a bath for your daughter, is it hot enough?
• 37:11
  Is it enough water, you know, to cooking a dinner.
• 37:14
  Self critique is, is a demon that you got to deal with, to
• 37:19
  put it, you know, really, really hard, but it is it was it was
• 37:22
  toxic in me and I've had to understand how to deal with it
• 37:25
  and lay down things that I've thought about myself for a long
• 37:29
  time that no one else have said to me.
• 37:31
  But I have that in need self critique.
• 37:34
  And we all have it. We all have that voice.
• 37:36
  For others, it's stronger. For me, it was incredibly
• 37:38
  strong. And last year it was at its
• 37:41
  peak. And that self critique drove me
• 37:43
  down a dark route because you question everything, everything,
• 37:48
  everything. You don't listen to people
• 37:49
  giving you any sort of compliments.
• 37:51
  What do they know? They're just saying that to make
• 37:52
  me feel better. I'm rubbish.
• 37:55
  Oh shit. Just add on to that like we're
• 37:58
  both very open, honest to each other and I love listening to
• 38:02
  his experiences. I love being able to give my
• 38:05
  experiences to him and it be in a kind of way.
• 38:07
  I still have a voice in the back of my head saying, what the fuck
• 38:11
  are you talking about? Shut the fuck.
• 38:13
  Just that that's that's my programming.
• 38:16
  That's my initial programming and it's it's taken me years to
• 38:20
  kind of like it's still there. Whilst he was talking, I was
• 38:23
  like, shut the fuck. I wasn't because I'm in there.
• 38:26
  I mean, this is me, this is who I am, but I still have this this
• 38:29
  old reflection of who I was and how I was brought, how society
• 38:34
  brought me up. Though I I can, I can literally
• 38:37
  I'm looking at my friend. I'm like, shut the fuck up, but
• 38:40
  I'm not because I'm there. I'm in.
• 38:41
  I'm in. Those listening who are
• 38:43
  partners, whether they're mothers or fathers or Co
• 38:46
  parents, what are some ways you can createspace for emotional
• 38:50
  honesty and openness, especially when it might feel challenging
• 38:54
  or unfamiliar? Deliberately doing it, actually
• 38:58
  making it really easy access. So make it a simple thing once a
• 39:03
  week possibly. Let's spend this 15 minutes just
• 39:06
  chatting or just being deliberate with having some
• 39:10
  space. There is this space here.
• 39:12
  Now we could say what we want to each other and then there's no
• 39:15
  kind of like push back, just listen.
• 39:18
  And it's something I, I should do a hell of a lot more.
• 39:21
  I think I've done it twice. But I mean, I keep meaning to do
• 39:25
  it because it's very, very good. But then it's getting into the
• 39:28
  habit of it. So actually literally saying
• 39:30
  this is now a space. Let's talk.
• 39:33
  I think that's one, No, but I think that's what we have to do
• 39:36
  with me and Christo. Oh, you and Christo, but for
• 39:38
  partners though. Yeah.
• 39:40
  I mean for the partners, but I'm saying me and Christo literally
• 39:42
  did that as well. But our partners helped us do
• 39:44
  that. I'll recommend that.
• 39:45
  I think, you know, Liam is right.
• 39:47
  You've, you've got to partner up with your partner.
• 39:50
  I mean, she's an absolute rock in my life.
• 39:52
  You know, she, she sees straight through my Shields and walls and
• 39:56
  things that I raised around me. And she very quickly notices
• 39:58
  when I'm just perhaps not myself because she's come to know who I
• 40:02
  am. And she's amazing at that.
• 40:03
  I think what I am. Have to do more is use that
• 40:08
  ability of my wife to unpick and talk and digest and do that
• 40:13
  more. We talk often, we talk a lot.
• 40:15
  I would probably argue the last 3-4 months we've had a lot going
• 40:19
  on. Me starting a new job with
• 40:20
  buying a puppy and you know, life just gets busy.
• 40:22
  But every so often we'd have a moment where we just, you know,
• 40:25
  share a few thoughts and talk about it.
• 40:27
  And I've got to be a bit more forthcoming with that instead of
• 40:30
  her starting those conversations I should.
• 40:32
  Which is again. And that's because of me and my
• 40:35
  challenges. I don't think every other guy or
• 40:38
  person might be that way. But I have challenges with
• 40:41
  talking about my emotions to others.
• 40:43
  And that's because I have examples seen and growing up
• 40:47
  around a dad that is a wonderful man but doesn't share any of his
• 40:50
  emotions. And I probably saw him cry 3
• 40:52
  times in my life. So I learned through the
• 40:55
  experience with my wife and seeing how she deals with it, to
• 40:58
  understand also how I talk to her.
• 40:59
  So I've, I've started to learn to understand how to, you know,
• 41:02
  this sounds crazy. I've been married for so long
• 41:04
  and I'm starting to understand how to talk to my wife about my
• 41:06
  emotions. But it's true.
• 41:08
  It's, it's really, really true because, because you can spend
• 41:10
  years talking about the superficial stuff and, and being
• 41:12
  happy, but you know that there's, there's something
• 41:15
  inside that, you know, you got to work at.
• 41:17
  So, but it's talking and you've got to just be honest.
• 41:21
  You've got to just share what's on your mind.
• 41:24
  And I try and do that by, you know, it's great.
• 41:28
  My wife will say, how was your day?
• 41:29
  Yeah, it's fine. I think now what I try to do is
• 41:31
  say, yeah, it was great. You know, these meetings like
• 41:33
  this, like that. Oh, and this happened.
• 41:35
  I try and focus on on key things through the day to share because
• 41:38
  that then stimulates other conversation just to go, yeah,
• 41:41
  it was all right. I did this and the other, it's
• 41:43
  kind of like closed. It kills off the conversation.
• 41:45
  So it it starts with talking and, and Liam's absolutely
• 41:49
  right. You've got to just find those
• 41:50
  moments, connect and talk. Can I ask you for something on
• 41:54
  the other side so you're both yourselves now are quite open
• 41:58
  and honestly sharing your vulnerabilities?
• 42:00
  What about for anyone who's listening who might not be able
• 42:03
  to see through the mask and maybe their partner might be
• 42:07
  just keeping busy and just holding it all together?
• 42:10
  Is there a way that a partner or a Co parent is able to reach
• 42:16
  that person? With determination.
• 42:20
  I, I think you heard from Christo, from myself as well.
• 42:22
  Like it we, we take a lot of signs, like the signs are right
• 42:26
  there. Sometimes we just need, we need
• 42:29
  gentle cajoling into these areas where we are still the little
• 42:33
  children that we used to be. And sometimes we need a little
• 42:36
  bit you, you know your partner better than anybody really.
• 42:40
  So it's like find ways of helping them to help themselves.
• 42:44
  I think if you know, if there's someone out there listening
• 42:46
  that's struggling, caught up in a dark hole, doesn't see the
• 42:50
  light, doesn't understand how to get out of it.
• 42:52
  If there's one honest thing you could do is the next time anyone
• 42:56
  asks you how you're doing, you say I am not fine.
• 42:59
  And you might find that that person opens up, or you might
• 43:02
  find that person shies away. But that's OK.
• 43:04
  We're all wired slightly differently.
• 43:06
  But do that with someone that you trust.
• 43:08
  Maybe not a stranger in all behind, but that you know when
• 43:12
  you walk in the door and your partner asks you how we're
• 43:14
  doing, just stand there and say I'm not fine.
• 43:17
  You don't have to know the rest of the conversation.
• 43:19
  It's not scripted. This is the ugly Wartsen all
• 43:22
  truth that sits underneath all of us.
• 43:25
  Those layers of of guards and walls and shocking exterior
• 43:29
  structures that we've just got to break down.
• 43:31
  You've got to just be honest. That moment when someone asks
• 43:34
  you that you trust, whether it's your mom, your grandma, your
• 43:36
  partner, or a good friend or someone that you're familiar
• 43:38
  with like me and Liam, it's just to go look, I'm not fine.
• 43:42
  I am not fine and and see where that goes.
• 43:46
  Sometimes that first moment of honesty is the one that breaks a
• 43:49
  lot of barriers and just gets you go.
• 43:51
  And I think that's why, you know, I said it earlier, me and
• 43:53
  Liam spent the first time we met talking for four hours because I
• 43:56
  think we both went, there's no barrier here.
• 43:58
  There's no filter. I'm just going to share
• 43:59
  everything. I don't care what this guy
• 44:00
  thinks about me. That's the other point.
• 44:02
  Don't care about what the other people think about it.
• 44:04
  I think that's parenting in general.
• 44:07
  That's my style of parenting anyway.
• 44:11
  Definitely to deflect less. That's basically, as you say,
• 44:14
  when someone asks you how you're doing.
• 44:16
  Talk to him. I remember before I really
• 44:19
  succumbed to the burnout in the office, I remember someone
• 44:21
  complimented me on. I had a quite funky shirt on,
• 44:24
  and I love your shirt. I was like, dressed for the
• 44:26
  mental health you want, not the mental health you have.
• 44:28
  And then just wandered off into the thing.
• 44:29
  I was screaming it out. It took me so long to kind of
• 44:33
  just kind of to say you need to rest.
• 44:35
  It was, yeah. Deflect less, definitely.
• 44:38
  Wow. So closing up, what's one thing
• 44:41
  you'd love people to walk away with from this episode?
• 44:43
  Who wants to take that first? You're both paused and staring
• 44:47
  off here trying to think. I see.
• 44:48
  I'm waiting for Captain Jack Sparrow there to say something.
• 44:51
  I was trying to be present and I'm not sure, definitely not
• 44:54
  trying to take some time and I wrote it down many times
• 44:58
  throughout the years, unlike notes in my phone to help me
• 45:02
  help, kind of actually trying to get to it.
• 45:04
  But I would say vulnerability is a superpower, especially for for
• 45:08
  men. Being vulnerable and being
• 45:10
  genuine is perfect and it doesn't.
• 45:13
  It doesn't need to be grand, doesn't need to be big, it just
• 45:16
  needs to be small. Going on, Christo said Just if
• 45:19
  someone says how are you doing that?
• 45:21
  I'm not too good now and again, if they shy away, cool, you've
• 45:24
  got information. But if they don't, you've got a
• 45:27
  little bit a little bit of pressure relieved.
• 45:30
  Be vulnerable. Try small, don't go, don't go
• 45:33
  too big too quickly. Definitely try small and then
• 45:37
  just be a bit more deflectless. And I'll stop listing things now
• 45:41
  and. Kristen.
• 45:43
  I think if there's anything I want anyone listening to this
• 45:46
  podcast to sort of digest and, and as a take away, just you
• 45:49
  know what, we're all human. And as a as a man, as a male,
• 45:54
  we're allowed to also not be OK. We're allowed to also have
• 45:58
  struggles. It doesn't mean you're weak,
• 46:01
  doesn't mean that you're not conforming to what society wants
• 46:04
  you to be. I personally think that there's
• 46:07
  just way too much influence in society today about what a man
• 46:10
  needs to be and what a woman needs to be.
• 46:12
  I think you have to be honest to yourself.
• 46:14
  And I think if you're in a place where you really feel like you
• 46:20
  need help and you recognize that there's a challenge and you
• 46:23
  don't recognize the person looking back in the mirror and
• 46:26
  they've listened to this podcast.
• 46:28
  Find that one person that you think you can open up to and
• 46:32
  just even walk up to them and say, I am not OK, can I talk to
• 46:37
  you? And you will probably find that
• 46:39
  any person that knows you will say, I'm stopping everything
• 46:43
  we're doing. Talk to me.
• 46:44
  Because I found that through my journey talking to a few of my
• 46:48
  friends, I've actually got them to also go crap, you know, I am
• 46:53
  also struggling. I've got a close friend here
• 46:55
  who's been going through his own challenges.
• 46:57
  And when he saw me talking about my challenges, he started
• 47:00
  opening up to me. So I think let's focus less on
• 47:04
  what society and Instagram and things wants us to be as, as
• 47:07
  men. And I think you can cry, you can
• 47:10
  be upset, you can wake up in the morning and also feel like you
• 47:14
  want a tub of ice cream and nothing else.
• 47:16
  Because we are all human. We're all made-up of the same
• 47:20
  things, but we're wired differently and we approach
• 47:23
  challenges differently. But recognize to yourself that
• 47:26
  you're allowed to say, you know, OK, and find that one person
• 47:28
  that you can talk to, whether it's your partner or a friend,
• 47:31
  that will start the journey. Yeah.
• 47:33
  I think that's that's kind of like hopefully a take away that
• 47:37
  someone will find useful for themselves in this podcast.
• 47:39
  Can I just jump on that clip quickly?
• 47:41
  No, but as you're saying that if something is from childhood is
• 47:46
  the big boys don't cry and it's basically big boys can cry.
• 47:51
  I've dumbed it down a bit, but it is big boys can cry because
• 47:55
  we were told that we were told big boys don't cry, big boys
• 47:58
  don't cry. So yeah, big boys can cry.
• 48:03
  Thank you so much, Crystal and Liam, for showing up so openly
• 48:06
  and honestly in today's conversation.
• 48:08
  Your willingness to speak about vulnerability, especially during
• 48:11
  Men's Mental Health Week, is not just powerful, it's necessary.
• 48:14
  We hope this episode gave you something meaningful to sit
• 48:16
  with. Maybe it's a conversation to
• 48:18
  have your partner a gentle check in with a friend or a quiet
• 48:21
  moment of reflection your own emotional well-being.
• 48:24
  Wherever it leads, you know that you're not alone.
• 48:27
  As international families living abroad, mental health isn't just
• 48:30
  personal. It's deeply intertwined with the
• 48:32
  strength and connection we bring to our homes, our relationships,
• 48:35
  and our parenting. Prioritizing men's emotional
• 48:38
  health helps build the kind of family culture we all want, one
• 48:42
  rooted in honesty, empathy, and mutual support.
• 48:45
  If today's episode spoke to you, please take a moment to rate,
• 48:48
  review, and subscribe to Down Parenting.
• 48:50
  Your support helps more people find the podcast, and your
• 48:53
  reviews help us grow a global community that values these real
• 48:57
  human conversations. And if someone in your world
• 49:00
  could benefit from hearing this, a friend, partner, fellow
• 49:03
  parent, please share this episode with them.
• 49:05
  Let's keep breaking the silence around vulnerability and mental
• 49:08
  health together. Thank you for being here and
• 49:11
  you'll catch us next time I'm down parenting.
• 49:23
  So, and yeah, I'm also a skipper.
• 49:28
  I'm a skipper for Warm Heart Sauna.
• 49:30
  Floating sauna on a slot of blast.
• 49:32
  Lovely. So let's see, can either whoever
• 49:35
  wants to take this off, can you take us back to a moment when
• 49:37
  you started to feel like something actually might have
• 49:39
  been off in your situation? Maybe you were running on empty
• 49:43
  or just not feeling like yourself.
• 49:45
  What does it look like or what does it feel like to you?
• 49:48
  I think I was literally running on empty.
• 49:50
  I'm recently recovering from a burnout.
• 49:53
  I'm integrating into my company but I was probably burnt out for
• 49:58
  a couple years, maybe longer. I had my wonderful first child.
• 50:03
  It was lovely, but things were getting harder and harder and I
• 50:07
  kind of misdiagnosed myself as being lazy and I just then
• 50:12
  decided to run and I learned how to run 10K and I had to run half
• 50:16
  marathon still felt lazy. And that to run marathon still
• 50:19
  felt lazy. And that's real run ultra
• 50:21
  marathon still felt lazy. And then I found out I have
• 50:24
  ADHD, so my my coping mechanism kind of kept me from breaking
• 50:30
  for a while. But when I did break, I was just
• 50:32
  useless. And it's one thing I kept
• 50:35
  reading every all, every time when I put my kids to sleep is
• 50:38
  from the boy, the mold, the fox and the horse.
• 50:40
  And it was like, what's the bravest thing you've ever done
• 50:43
  ever? Said to I said the boy help,
• 50:44
  said the horse. I'd read that over and over
• 50:47
  again. And it took me so long to get to
• 50:50
  a point where I can go help. Like I'm struggling.
• 50:55
  I mean, it all just hits. And then it's like, yeah, when
• 50:57
  you've been backing it off for so long, when you actually do
• 51:00
  kind of like give in, then it takes a long time to kind of
• 51:03
  like come back. But I have wonderful supportive
• 51:05
  partner and and our wonderful kids and they've helped me so
• 51:09
  much. Yeah, that was my thing.
• 51:11
  I'm Crystal. Great.
• 51:13
  Thanks, Liam. I've got like AI think I've got
• 51:15
  a double hit and I'll explain that.
• 51:16
  So obviously became a dad in 2018 and there was a story on
• 51:23
  here. You did an interview with my
• 51:24
  wife. It was a it was a difficult
• 51:25
  birth and you know, Long story short, we spent a lot of time in
• 51:28
  hospital. It was not the beautiful birth
• 51:31
  that you see on TV and everyone's happy and the wife is
• 51:34
  glowing and the dad's smiling. It was nothing like that.
• 51:37
  It was a very cold hospital environment for three months and
• 51:42
  not the introduction to becoming a dad for the first time that I
• 51:45
  ever thought it would be. And my struggles began when my
• 51:49
  wife went to hospital because I didn't understand how to deal
• 51:52
  with that. Because you don't think about
• 51:54
  that. When that moment hits you, you
• 51:55
  are in an absolute go, go, go. You know, there's there's
• 52:00
  nothing else to think about. You've got to be strong.
• 52:02
  Wife's not doing well, doctors around you all the time.
• 52:05
  You've just got to remain strong while you're doing that.
• 52:08
  Your energy levels are just draining and draining and
• 52:10
  draining. You're right.
• 52:11
  Liam said it. You are running on Mt.
• 52:13
  You don't know how to ask for help because you don't know what
• 52:16
  to ask for. People would come and say to
• 52:17
  you, hey, just let me know if I can help you.
• 52:19
  I haven't got a clue what to ask for.
• 52:21
  I think back now and I go, yeah, I would have asked people to go
• 52:24
  and do my shopping, buy me food. I was living in a house that was
• 52:28
  being renovated. I literally, it was like Dexter.
• 52:30
  I used to pull plastic sheets off my bed to sleep at night and
• 52:33
  then put it back on in the mornings.
• 52:34
  When I went back to the hospital, I would have 2-3 hours
• 52:37
  sleep every night. This went on for three months.
• 52:39
  So at some point your body gives in, but you don't even recognize
• 52:42
  that. So not too waffle too much about
• 52:44
  that. I, I got to a point where Olivia
• 52:46
  came home, Tony came home, she was still recovering and I
• 52:50
  started getting back into work and I, I noticed that I was just
• 52:53
  not wired correctly. I was not processing what's
• 52:57
  happening at work. I was not focused on what's
• 52:59
  happening at work, constantly worried, constantly having a
• 53:03
  feeling of dread, constantly wanting to go home or understand
• 53:06
  what's happening. The pressure of not being at
• 53:08
  home and leaving Tony to look after Olivia and also making
• 53:13
  doctor's appointments and specialist appointments just
• 53:15
  really started to grate on me. And it got to a point where
• 53:18
  effectively we were in hospital because Olivia wasn't sleeping.
• 53:22
  We had lots of issues, were sleeping and she was a lot of
• 53:25
  crying. And we were recommended to go to
• 53:27
  the hospital for like a sleep test where Olivia was there for
• 53:30
  I think 3 or 4 nights and we were in this hospital for three
• 53:34
  or four nights. Nurses were making all sorts of
• 53:36
  notes about how Olivia, we were sleeping.
• 53:38
  And then at the end of it, there was this meeting.
• 53:40
  The specialist, she's a very well known pediatric specialist
• 53:44
  in the Netherlands. She came to have this
• 53:46
  conversation with us and I lost it with this woman.
• 53:48
  I swear the air blew. I was so upset that a my wife
• 53:53
  and daughter got taken out of a safe family environment to be
• 53:56
  stuck in this hospital again. I just had lots of triggers from
• 54:00
  three months in hospital. They were out, they went back in
• 54:02
  and the doctor was amazing because she listened to me rant
• 54:06
  for 10 minutes at her really not very pleasant.
• 54:09
  I was incredibly rude to her and she said, have you spoken to
• 54:12
  someone? I said, why the fuck do I need
• 54:13
  to speak to anyone? And I went home and that's when
• 54:16
  I realized things are broken, like this is not great.
• 54:21
  That was the first moment in my life that I realized this is
• 54:23
  this is not going great. And I ended up seeking support.
• 54:26
  I went to our house arts and I got booked off and I went to a
• 54:30
  great psychologist, a company called Seek and Swangers Cup who
• 54:33
  was based in Amsterdam. And it was an amazing journey
• 54:35
  with him. And that was my very first
• 54:39
  experience of understanding my own emotions as a man because it
• 54:47
  never occurred to me that that sort of thing would happen to
• 54:49
  me. I would never have looked myself
• 54:51
  in the mirror and go, mate, it's not weak, but you're broken.
• 54:55
  That's sort of my first introduction to it.
• 54:57
  I was going to ask what stopped you from speaking up earlier, or
• 55:00
  what finally helped you ask for support, but yeah, yours yours
• 55:03
  is a bit different. Yeah, people around me was
• 55:06
  incredibly supportive. My wife saw through all of it as
• 55:09
  well. She's an incredible support to
• 55:10
  me, very connected to herself, very self aware.
• 55:13
  I think my self-awareness has always been mediocre at best.
• 55:16
  I think it's a male growing up in a very male traditional
• 55:19
  environment in South Africa. Men don't cry.
• 55:21
  Men look after families. You know, we are the providers.
• 55:24
  We have to remain strong. Hunter gatherer sort of
• 55:26
  mentality that you know, the bumps and bruises you just don't
• 55:30
  mention because you don't think to mention it.
• 55:32
  You don't think it's important. It's not important to talk about
• 55:34
  my feelings. I need to make sure that my wife
• 55:36
  and daughter is OK. But you mentioned that you
• 55:38
  couldn't even identify your own feelings.
• 55:39
  No, I didn't see it. I didn't see it until that
• 55:42
  doctor literally looked me straight in the eye and went,
• 55:44
  mate, have you spoken to anyone? And I had to let that sink in.
• 55:49
  I had to digest that. I went away from that.
• 55:51
  And then, you know, my wife said to me, you need to make an
• 55:54
  appointment at the ISO. So just go and speak to her and
• 55:56
  see what she says. And I remember going to this
• 55:59
  appointment thinking, well, I'm going to tell this doctor
• 56:02
  because I don't even know where to start.
• 56:05
  I don't even know how to start saying what's happening inside
• 56:08
  of me. Like, I don't because I'm not
• 56:09
  connecting with me. Like I'm not connecting with
• 56:13
  those emotions because I've always buried those emotions
• 56:15
  very, very deep. Like, if a traumatic experience
• 56:17
  happens in your life as a younger person, as a young man
• 56:21
  growing up in the environment that I did, I'm nurtured not to
• 56:24
  not to really open that box and share it.
• 56:27
  Don't speak to my friends about it.
• 56:28
  If people ask me how you're doing.
• 56:30
  Yeah, I'm fine. That's literally it.
• 56:31
  It's like the it's the, it's the, it's the common sentence
• 56:34
  that, you know, mental health red flags.
• 56:37
  I'm fine. And I said that for years.
• 56:41
  And Liam, when did you start to acknowledge your feelings and
• 56:43
  what did reaching out or beginning to take care of
• 56:45
  yourself actually look like? Like what happened or maybe even
• 56:48
  surprised you about that part of the process?
• 56:51
  I thought I thought I was faking it.
• 56:54
  I thought I'm just, you know, I literally thought I was lazy and
• 56:57
  stuff. Like I thought by going to a
• 56:59
  company doctor and stuff like that and talking to him, I felt
• 57:02
  like I was missed misleading her.
• 57:04
  Like I was saying with the things I was feeling, but I
• 57:07
  didn't wasn't truly believing them.
• 57:09
  What Christo said earlier. Like how can he know what to do?
• 57:12
  Because we've not seen it. It's not being modelled to us.
• 57:15
  Like I've listened to a lot of your episodes about mattress and
• 57:18
  stuff. It's not a nowhere near as big
• 57:21
  for for men, but there is a shift and we tend, I do, I know
• 57:25
  enough people that tend to reject it a bit and just kind of
• 57:28
  carry on and just, yeah, we don't know how to check in on
• 57:31
  ourselves because not being fine is weakness and, and it just
• 57:36
  takes time. It does take modelling as well.
• 57:39
  And it's something I really, really want to do for my son
• 57:42
  because I'm actually the way we're pairing him.
• 57:45
  Like I'm excited for his future because I know how all my
• 57:49
  emotions when I was a kid, I'm still the kid I used to be.
• 57:52
  I know that. And through therapy I've kind of
• 57:54
  brought that back up and it's been wonderful.
• 57:56
  But it's been a lot big, big journey.
• 57:59
  Like growing up, we're we're fueled by toxic masculinity.
• 58:03
  It's a fuel. It works for a while until it
• 58:07
  doesn't. And then what do you do?
• 58:09
  You have a midlife crisis. Well, now, now we have burnouts
• 58:12
  or something like that. It's I was just listening to
• 58:15
  Christo there. Like it takes so many big
• 58:17
  moments, big signs saying get some help.
• 58:20
  And even still, the big sign is still like, we still need the
• 58:23
  help, get into the help because we don't see it.
• 58:27
  It's not obvious to us. It's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a
• 58:31
  crazy thing. And it sounds like it could
• 58:33
  happen to both of you at around similar stages in your parenting
• 58:36
  life, like it was in the first year basically.
• 58:39
  Yeah, definitely. Like life has got more and more
• 58:42
  difficult and the old ways of doing it, the other ways of
• 58:45
  getting through life don't work anymore.
• 58:47
  I mean, you could do, you could disassociate from your kids and
• 58:50
  then just be dad or like just be like the breadwinner or
• 58:52
  something like that. But that's not, that's not how
• 58:54
  you do it now. Like you, you, you're there.
• 58:57
  You're present and presence takes a lot.
• 59:00
  So taking time for yourself or slowing down can actually feel
• 59:02
  like a very big shift. How did either of you change the
• 59:06
  way you approached parenting or for yourself, and how did it
• 59:09
  affect your relationship with your partner?
• 59:13
  Very interesting question. I would be honest in saying when
• 59:18
  I had the time out after my daughter was born and I sort of
• 59:22
  like took on the support and try to understand why I'm feeling
• 59:26
  this way and working through that was about a period of three
• 59:28
  months. I think one of the key things my
• 59:33
  psychiatrist told me at that time was take time for yourself
• 59:37
  by just going for a walk and not like going to the shops with a
• 59:41
  purpose, but literally just walking.
• 59:44
  I did that maybe once or twice. I wasn't hugely into it.
• 59:49
  I lost myself on silly apps and stuff on my phone to, you know,
• 59:54
  ignore what's happening around me.
• 59:57
  But my parenting style now that's a that's an interesting
• 1:00:00
  one for me. I think in the beginning I was
• 1:00:04
  incredibly scared and nervous. And I think it also really made
• 1:00:13
  me short tempered. It made me closed off.
• 1:00:17
  I kept a lot of things in. So it really affected my
• 1:00:19
  relationship with with my wife, with Tony.
• 1:00:21
  I think, you know, I just didn't share anything with her.
• 1:00:25
  I didn't talk to her. I would.
• 1:00:27
  I would have a conversation with her, but I'm not talking to her
• 1:00:29
  and telling her what's happening inside inside of me and how I'm
• 1:00:32
  feeling because it's just again, I'm not used to talking about
• 1:00:35
  those things. I don't, I'm not from a family
• 1:00:38
  environment where we share those sorts of feelings as a as a guy,
• 1:00:41
  as a bloke. So it was a very hard
• 1:00:45
  readjustment to accept that I'm not going to know everything.
• 1:00:49
  I'm not going to be good at everything related to parenting
• 1:00:52
  and I've got to take it in my own pace.
• 1:00:55
  So I tried to find moments to be on my own and be OK with my own
• 1:01:02
  company. Going for walks was what I tried
• 1:01:06
  to do. Getting lost in a game on my
• 1:01:09
  phone or whatever to just block out the world was also something
• 1:01:14
  that I did. I enjoy podcasts, so I listen to
• 1:01:18
  podcasts all the time. True crime podcast.
• 1:01:21
  Probably not a great way to support a low mental health, but
• 1:01:25
  it is really each individual's own journey.
• 1:01:28
  What works for me might be interesting for someone to go,
• 1:01:31
  OK, maybe I should do that, but it's really what you are
• 1:01:34
  comfortable with. But I think before you even
• 1:01:36
  approach the subject of what can I do, you've really got to
• 1:01:40
  understand then accept that you've got a problem, you've got
• 1:01:43
  a challenge. I mean, saying I've got problems
• 1:01:45
  sounds a bit like I'm an alcoholic, but you have a
• 1:01:48
  challenge. You have to understand where
• 1:01:51
  that comes from. And I didn't do that during
• 1:01:54
  those three months. I just went through a process
• 1:01:57
  and I went through EMDR therapy and got rid of the triggers I
• 1:02:02
  had which was related to the beeps and noises of the
• 1:02:05
  hospital. I couldn't stand it.
• 1:02:07
  My, my microwave beeped once and I nearly threw it out the window
• 1:02:11
  because I lost it because it just triggered me from sitting
• 1:02:14
  next to Tony and listening to beep, beep, beep, beep, beep all
• 1:02:16
  the time for a month before Olivia was born.
• 1:02:19
  And that was a big deal for me to get rid of in the 1st sort of
• 1:02:23
  time that I took out. But my demons came back and they
• 1:02:26
  came back last year. You sort of go through life and
• 1:02:29
  you pave over cracks and you think I'm all right.
• 1:02:32
  And then you get to maybe a challenging situation in your
• 1:02:35
  life in another aspect of your life, maybe your work life.
• 1:02:38
  In my case, it was my work life and it really made a lot of my
• 1:02:44
  old demons bubble back up to the surface, things that I never
• 1:02:47
  dealt with during the first moment when I cracked.
• 1:02:51
  And this time round, I took six months out and I took time out.
• 1:02:57
  I, I stepped away from my job. I completely shot myself off
• 1:03:01
  from anything that's going to take my attention and focus away
• 1:03:03
  from me and my family. I became a house husband, which
• 1:03:06
  I absolutely loved. I doted over my wife and
• 1:03:08
  daughter all the time. I filled my days with taking my
• 1:03:11
  daughter to play dates and becoming incredibly busy.
• 1:03:14
  And then my wife says to me, what are you doing?
• 1:03:16
  I said, well, I don't know, I'm just busy all the time.
• 1:03:17
  But I found a life coach and I found an amazing life coach that
• 1:03:22
  I absolutely have split open my soul to understand why I have
• 1:03:28
  certain behaviors. And six months later, I can talk
• 1:03:32
  very freely about things that I have had issues with for a long
• 1:03:37
  time. And to be very open.
• 1:03:38
  It's things like being liked by other people or being a yes man.
• 1:03:43
  These are things that caused me a lot of issues through my life,
• 1:03:46
  but I never connected the two until I actually really sat down
• 1:03:49
  and explored it. And, and I guess the point of
• 1:03:51
  why I've got, I've got such a long story is if you have an
• 1:03:55
  opportunity to take time out and understand your soul, your
• 1:03:59
  emotions as a man in today's life, really take a step back
• 1:04:04
  and, and do that. I literally just fell into a
• 1:04:06
  process, you know, seven years ago.
• 1:04:08
  And I just went through it, got through it, got the EMDR therapy
• 1:04:12
  out of the way. Triggers are dealt with.
• 1:04:14
  I can talk about my daughter's birth without crying.
• 1:04:16
  I'm OK. No, I wasn't because I went back
• 1:04:18
  into work and the same behavior started to come out of me a year
• 1:04:21
  later, two years later. And then, you know, 6 1/2 years
• 1:04:25
  later, I, I'm on the floor. My my mental health this time
• 1:04:28
  last year was shocking. It was probably the most scared
• 1:04:32
  I've ever been about myself in my entire life because nothing
• 1:04:37
  in my life felt positive. The only thing I clinged on to
• 1:04:40
  was my wife and daughter and taking that time out focusing on
• 1:04:45
  myself and telling myself I have got to improve myself, awareness
• 1:04:49
  as a man. I've got to understand why I'm
• 1:04:51
  feeling the way I'm feeling and why I'm responding the way I'm
• 1:04:53
  responding. And I delve into that.
• 1:04:56
  And my wonderful wife found me a life coach probably a year
• 1:04:59
  before that moment. I said you got to contact this
• 1:05:01
  guy. But yeah, or I will.
• 1:05:03
  And you know, the moral of the story was probably listen to my
• 1:05:06
  wife more. But I think I took on that
• 1:05:09
  journey. I took on that challenge and it
• 1:05:10
  was an amazing support to me. And I still use that life coach
• 1:05:13
  today. I still speak to him once a
• 1:05:14
  month, but for the first time in my life, I understand how to use
• 1:05:17
  that person and that's meantable to me.
• 1:05:21
  Thank you for that. I got a lump on my throat when
• 1:05:23
  you talk about your child's birth as well still.
• 1:05:25
  So I can't imagine what it was for you.
• 1:05:28
  Liam, if you spoke about how you went on burnout, can you talk
• 1:05:32
  about then about slowing down and how's this change in your
• 1:05:34
  way in your approach to parenting and also your
• 1:05:36
  relationship with your partner? So with the burnout, yeah, so
• 1:05:39
  have. I had six months off and it took
• 1:05:42
  some time to get over the shame of feeling like I wasn't
• 1:05:47
  producing in a certain arena in my life, like I wasn't able to
• 1:05:51
  produce, but I was. I've done enough therapy and
• 1:05:57
  read enough and I've tried enough stuff.
• 1:05:59
  I've, I've thrown enough shit at the wall to see what sticks.
• 1:06:02
  Like I, I've tried all the bro science and stuff.
• 1:06:05
  All of them, of course, But like, I quite like, I found out
• 1:06:08
  I like breath work. So breath work works.
• 1:06:10
  The Wim Hof stuff that that's nice, the cold plunges, that's
• 1:06:13
  nice. I don't have to talk about
• 1:06:14
  misogyny while I do it. That we can take, we can take
• 1:06:17
  that out of the bro science. But yeah, doing ADHD therapy or
• 1:06:21
  getting diagnosed and then doing the therapy for it, it kind of
• 1:06:25
  accelerated the burnout. Kind of like when I got my
• 1:06:27
  diagnosis, when I started doing a therapy, like all the stuff I
• 1:06:31
  was holding off, it started to be unpicked with the therapy
• 1:06:34
  because we were actually addressing things.
• 1:06:36
  Because when Christa was saying like when he was saying about
• 1:06:39
  addressing his triggers and stuff like that makes sense in
• 1:06:42
  like 5 years ago, yeah, you just just get rid of the triggers.
• 1:06:45
  But now having gone through all this therapy, like, no, the
• 1:06:48
  triggers are there, that you're putting medicine in it, but
• 1:06:50
  you're not fixing it. You're just dumbing it down or
• 1:06:52
  like it's still there, all bubbling up.
• 1:06:54
  It's still there. It's not just a family thing of
• 1:06:57
  being brought up. It's the society and that's
• 1:07:00
  still there. I've gone a bit lost now.
• 1:07:02
  I'm sorry. Yeah.
• 1:07:05
  With the burnout after, I can get over the, the shame of being
• 1:07:09
  broken. When I started actually talking
• 1:07:12
  about it is when things started going quite well because I can.
• 1:07:17
  I was almost rejecting it before then, but then I kind of
• 1:07:20
  accepted. I call and I, I was given more
• 1:07:23
  time to spend my children. So all the learnings, knowledge,
• 1:07:27
  all this kind of stuff I've learnt in life, forget the past,
• 1:07:30
  don't worry about the future, just be present.
• 1:07:32
  Just be present. And the therapy helped with the
• 1:07:36
  past. Like how I was brought up, the
• 1:07:38
  time off helped with the future because I'm like daddy don't
• 1:07:42
  have to go anywhere. And then I could just zone in
• 1:07:45
  and just be present with my kids.
• 1:07:47
  And I went from I will toot my own home.
• 1:07:50
  I went from a good dad to a great dad.
• 1:07:52
  Like everyone needs this. Everyone needs some sort of
• 1:07:54
  like. And that's what's getting me
• 1:07:56
  like parenting these days feels like an uneven equation.
• 1:07:59
  You're borrowing from one side to fix the other side.
• 1:08:02
  You want to be working. You want to be a great daddy.
• 1:08:04
  You can't do all of it. And so if you keep, you can, Oh,
• 1:08:08
  you can for a while, or you can find new ways.
• 1:08:11
  You can do coping mechanisms. You can drink, you can smoke,
• 1:08:13
  you can go running for fucking sorry for hours like you can.
• 1:08:17
  You can do all these things, but eventually you can't because it
• 1:08:21
  doesn't work. It doesn't balance out and
• 1:08:23
  you're just going to and that's that's it.
• 1:08:25
  I forgot where I was going with this.
• 1:08:27
  I mean, I'm a bit ADHD. I'm playing the card, I'm
• 1:08:29
  playing the card. But it's the the burnout was
• 1:08:33
  possibly the best thing to ever happen to me, which is sounds
• 1:08:36
  ridiculous, but it's just a, it's a consequence of how things
• 1:08:41
  are. And the more, yeah, here we go.
• 1:08:44
  The more I talk about, the more I'm vulnerable.
• 1:08:47
  I had this fault in my head where I was like, I'm marked.
• 1:08:50
  I'm marked as weak, I'm marked as as burnt out.
• 1:08:53
  Nah, I'm, I'm, I am marked. But that's good.
• 1:08:57
  But I can give space to others because we're all struggling
• 1:09:00
  kids, no kids, whatever. We've been through COVID, but
• 1:09:03
  I've just turned into a rant, sorry.
• 1:09:04
  But we're all struggling. There's a hangover from COVID.
• 1:09:07
  There's a lot of stuff and it doesn't matter.
• 1:09:09
  We're all struggling and allowing space for people to be
• 1:09:13
  open, especially for men because we're a bit Dum Dums.
• 1:09:17
  We haven't learned it properly. We're learning, but we're very
• 1:09:20
  far behind is massive. And it's my burnouts almost give
• 1:09:24
  me a bit of purpose. Like I I can make people laugh
• 1:09:28
  with comedy, but I can also make people happy with themselves
• 1:09:32
  just by allowing them to talk and talk to someone who looks
• 1:09:36
  like a buddy ruffian and stuff like that.
• 1:09:38
  A big beard or whatever. But it's actually a big like
• 1:09:41
  kind of gooey And I'll cry of them.
• 1:09:43
  I like, I like crying. So you're speaking there about
• 1:09:46
  vulnerability, Christo, Can you explain what vulnerability might
• 1:09:50
  look like to you then? Not just the idea, but actually
• 1:09:53
  like day-to-day. Are there moments where you
• 1:09:56
  catch yourself showing up differently than you might have
• 1:09:58
  before? Explain vulnerability.
• 1:10:01
  I think my vulnerability becomes my quietness.
• 1:10:05
  I lock myself away in my head in I would literally be at the
• 1:10:09
  office in a toxic environment and just stop talking, stop
• 1:10:15
  communicating. I would be in a difficult
• 1:10:18
  conversation and literally not interact.
• 1:10:20
  I'd have a complete closure in my throat.
• 1:10:23
  I would just stop talking. I'd stop sharing with my wife.
• 1:10:29
  I would be incredibly quiet. I would spend more time in the
• 1:10:35
  kitchen just to be on my own away from people.
• 1:10:37
  I would not even pick up the phone to call friends.
• 1:10:40
  I would not even respond to people on WhatsApp for weeks.
• 1:10:45
  That wasn't the case with you, Liam, I promise.
• 1:10:48
  I think at the end of the day, eight years ago, I had no idea
• 1:10:53
  that that's what I was doing, but I was doing it.
• 1:10:55
  And when I'm at the office and you're doing office talk, you're
• 1:11:00
  just not actually recognizing that you're you're not there.
• 1:11:04
  I think Liam just had a he said it really well.
• 1:11:06
  It's being present. I become not present.
• 1:11:11
  I'm sitting next to my wife on on the sofa and I'm just, it's
• 1:11:14
  like I'm not there. And, and, and that was the peak
• 1:11:18
  of of my vulnerability. Sleep becomes a big issue for
• 1:11:24
  me. I end up staying up for hours.
• 1:11:28
  Now it's go to bed at like 3:00 in the morning having not slept.
• 1:11:32
  And then I try and sleep and then I'm up by 6:00.
• 1:11:34
  And then you function and then you go through the day and then
• 1:11:36
  when you get home, your tiredness kicks in and you just
• 1:11:39
  you Welt, you know, you just completely go down the tube.
• 1:11:44
  So I think that's, I guess the most honest answer I could give
• 1:11:47
  you is, is my quietness. I lock myself away.
• 1:11:51
  I just don't engage with people. I think, which is probably the
• 1:11:55
  worst thing you can do because that's the moment you should say
• 1:11:57
  to someone, hey, you know what? I'm not feeling great.
• 1:11:59
  Like I'm really, really low. I would have conversations with
• 1:12:03
  my parents. They'd be like, how are you
• 1:12:04
  doing? I'm fine.
• 1:12:05
  I am fine. Biggest lie ever.
• 1:12:10
  You build up the wall like you build up a wall.
• 1:12:12
  Yeah, if you address it, then you've got to deal with it kind
• 1:12:15
  of thing. But you build up the wall and
• 1:12:17
  you're just like, I'm fine. I don't have to think about
• 1:12:19
  this. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine
• 1:12:21
  because it's screaming. It screams.
• 1:12:24
  Somethings not right. So between your vulnerabilities,
• 1:12:27
  are there anything that you've learned?
• 1:12:28
  So Christo, you've been going to a coach, as you said, and Liam,
• 1:12:32
  you've actually done different forms of therapy.
• 1:12:33
  Are there anything that has helped you identify your
• 1:12:35
  vulnerability and actually help you sit in it?
• 1:12:38
  The uncomfortableness of vulnerability and help you
• 1:12:41
  process through whatever feeling you might be feeling?
• 1:12:44
  It's talking. It's, it's something we don't do
• 1:12:47
  talk about all for all men, but a lot of men, we don't talk
• 1:12:50
  because we then would have to address the certain things.
• 1:12:53
  So just talking, getting it out, if it stays in your head, it
• 1:12:56
  goes all over the place and it just, it gets warped.
• 1:12:58
  And then you just compartmentalize it.
• 1:13:01
  Whereas just like I say with Christo, with myself, just
• 1:13:04
  talking, talking to therapists, having it out in the world and
• 1:13:08
  hearing it back, actually hearing it back is like a sanity
• 1:13:10
  check. Sometimes just even just that,
• 1:13:12
  that small thing that possibly women would take for granted
• 1:13:16
  because you there's a lot more talking, there's a lot more
• 1:13:19
  sharing of emotions and you're used to it.
• 1:13:21
  It's it's a, it's a skill. It is a skill and we don't do it
• 1:13:24
  as men. Generally.
• 1:13:26
  I. I agree.
• 1:13:28
  I, I think Liam summed up really well.
• 1:13:30
  Me and Liam bonded over, you know, our partners saying, hey,
• 1:13:33
  you 2 need to connect because you guys have similar
• 1:13:36
  challenges. And you know, I think you guys
• 1:13:37
  could, could really, you know, do with a conversation with one
• 1:13:40
  another. He is Liam, who I literally met
• 1:13:42
  once because, you know, my wife helped them with the birth of
• 1:13:46
  their kids. And we, I think we first met
• 1:13:49
  just having a lunch and you guys were showing the little baby and
• 1:13:52
  that was fantastic. So here's me and Liam, we
• 1:13:55
  organized to see each other one day.
• 1:13:56
  We met up at a cafe in Amsterdam.
• 1:13:59
  And I think we spent 4 hours talking.
• 1:14:01
  We spent 4 hours talking to each other because we just both I
• 1:14:05
  think had very open minded sort of idea that we're just going to
• 1:14:09
  go and see how this goes. But within the 1st 10 minutes,
• 1:14:11
  me and this guy was just sharing everything about our lives as
• 1:14:15
  dudes. Like we were just like sharing
• 1:14:17
  the load and the similarities of what we've been going through
• 1:14:21
  and then sharing with one another how we felt in different
• 1:14:24
  parts of that. It's about talking.
• 1:14:26
  And I don't think that as men we do that enough.
• 1:14:30
  I have an amazing friendship circle.
• 1:14:33
  I have an amazing group of friends back home in South
• 1:14:35
  Africa and also here in the Netherlands and in the UK and a
• 1:14:38
  few other parts of the world. But, you know, growing up with
• 1:14:40
  my friends in SA, he did not sit in a in a pub with a beer and
• 1:14:44
  go. So right guys, before the rugby
• 1:14:46
  starts. Yeah.
• 1:14:46
  I'm just not feeling very well today.
• 1:14:48
  You know, I'm feeling a bit low. They've literally tell me to put
• 1:14:50
  take my handbag and go home. They would just not be bothered
• 1:14:53
  to explore that more. But that was 20 years ago.
• 1:14:57
  I think that has shifted a little bit today as well as I've
• 1:15:00
  seen some hints of, of the guys sharing a few things with one
• 1:15:04
  another. But in general, I just don't
• 1:15:05
  think we do that. And, and I think that's
• 1:15:07
  cultivated through how we grow up and the environment that we
• 1:15:10
  grow up in. I think for some, and it's a lot
• 1:15:13
  easier maybe coming from a household that's a lot more
• 1:15:15
  open. If I look at the differences
• 1:15:16
  between myself and Tony, for example, she's from a household
• 1:15:19
  where they have it all the time. If they got an issue, it's on
• 1:15:22
  the table, talk about it, deal with it, scream at each other,
• 1:15:25
  whatever you need to do. But it might be multiple
• 1:15:27
  conversations, but they talk about it and they get it out and
• 1:15:29
  it's done and it's dealt with. I'm from a family environment
• 1:15:32
  where I don't think we talk about things enough.
• 1:15:35
  I think there's a carpet with a huge mound of emotional baggage
• 1:15:39
  hidden in my mum's lounge because we just, we just don't
• 1:15:42
  share. We pave over the cracks as a
• 1:15:44
  family. We don't, we don't talk about
• 1:15:46
  things and and that was something that was cultivated to
• 1:15:49
  me and that gave me the challenges I had later in my
• 1:15:52
  life. So it's about talking, it's
• 1:15:53
  learning to talk about that as well.
• 1:15:55
  I don't think it's something that just comes easily.
• 1:15:56
  As males, as men, we need to learn to share what's going on
• 1:16:01
  inside. And I think maybe myself and
• 1:16:03
  Liam sort of had a trial period with one another where we were
• 1:16:06
  doing that, Hey, how do I talk to this guy about things going
• 1:16:09
  on? But he's being very receptive to
• 1:16:10
  that and I'm being very receptive to, to listen to him.
• 1:16:13
  And through that journey, we've connected and we, we catch up
• 1:16:16
  all the time. I think not enough anymore
• 1:16:18
  because I'm back into a, a work routine, but just finding a
• 1:16:22
  moment to make time to go and catch up with this guy and shoot
• 1:16:27
  the breeze and share how I feel and little ups and downs that
• 1:16:29
  I've had over the last, last, you know, six months being Liam
• 1:16:32
  got to a point where, you know, we'd literally be sharing small
• 1:16:35
  little ones with one another. I'd be texting and go, Hey, I
• 1:16:38
  did this for the first time in six years.
• 1:16:40
  I feel great about it. He would send me a text ago,
• 1:16:42
  Hey, I've connected with XY and Z that I haven't done for a long
• 1:16:44
  time. I feel amazing.
• 1:16:45
  It's those little boost that kind of feels like, hey, I'm
• 1:16:47
  building up myself awareness. I'm becoming, you know, I'm
• 1:16:50
  recognizing what it feels like to build up what's been a bit
• 1:16:54
  broken inside. I think the one key thing that I
• 1:16:56
  took away from my life coach over the last six months has
• 1:16:59
  helped me a lot is to understand that within each one of us, male
• 1:17:03
  and female, they're self critique and self critique is
• 1:17:07
  toxic. Self critique is that voice in
• 1:17:09
  your head, mate, you're just not good enough.
• 1:17:11
  And it starts in your work environment and then it filters
• 1:17:14
  into your life and then it filters into your day-to-day and
• 1:17:17
  you start to doubt everything you do from running a bath for
• 1:17:20
  your daughter, is it hot enough? Is it enough water, you know, to
• 1:17:24
  cooking a dinner. Self critique is, is a demon
• 1:17:28
  that you got to deal with, to put it, you know, really, really
• 1:17:31
  hard, but it is it was, it was toxic in me and I've had to
• 1:17:35
  understand how to deal with it and lay down things that I've
• 1:17:38
  thought about myself for a long time that no one else have said
• 1:17:42
  to me. But I have that in need self
• 1:17:44
  critique. And we all have it.
• 1:17:45
  We all have that voice. For others, it's stronger.
• 1:17:47
  For me, it was incredibly strong.
• 1:17:49
  And last year it was at its peak.
• 1:17:52
  And that self critique drove me down a dark route because she
• 1:17:56
  questioned everything. Everything to everything.
• 1:17:59
  You don't listen to people giving you any sort of
• 1:18:01
  compliments. What do they know?
• 1:18:02
  They're just saying that to make me feel better.
• 1:18:04
  I'm rubbish. Oh shit.
• 1:18:06
  Just add on to that like we're both very open and honest to
• 1:18:10
  each other and I love listening to his experiences.
• 1:18:14
  I love being able to give my experiences to him and it be in
• 1:18:17
  a kind of way, I still have a voice in the back of my head
• 1:18:20
  saying, what the fuck are you talking about?
• 1:18:23
  Shut the fuck. Just that that's that's my
• 1:18:26
  programming. That's my initial programming
• 1:18:28
  and it's faking me years to kind of like it's still there.
• 1:18:32
  Whilst he was talking, I was like shut the fuck.
• 1:18:35
  I wasn't because I'm in there. I mean, this is me, this is who
• 1:18:38
  I am, but I still have this this old reflection of who I was and
• 1:18:42
  how I was brought, how society brought me up.
• 1:18:45
  Though I I can, I can literally I'm looking at my friend.
• 1:18:49
  I'm like shut the fuck up, but I'm not because I'm there.
• 1:18:51
  I'm in. I'm in.
• 1:18:53
  Those listening who are partners, whether they're
• 1:18:55
  mothers or fathers or Co parents, what are some ways you
• 1:18:59
  can createspace for emotional honesty and openness, especially
• 1:19:03
  when it mice feel challenging or unfamiliar?
• 1:19:06
  Deliberately doing it, actually making it really easy access.
• 1:19:11
  So make it a simple thing once a week, possibly, Let's spend this
• 1:19:16
  15 minutes just chatting or, or just being deliberate with
• 1:19:20
  having some space. There is this space here.
• 1:19:22
  Now we could say what we want to each other.
• 1:19:24
  And then there's no kind of like push back, just listen.
• 1:19:29
  And it's something I, I should do a hell of a lot more.
• 1:19:31
  I think I've done it twice, but I mean, I keep meaning to do it
• 1:19:36
  because it's very, very good. But then it's getting into the
• 1:19:38
  habit of it. So actually literally saying
• 1:19:41
  this is now a space. Let's talk.
• 1:19:44
  I think that's one. No, but I think that's what we
• 1:19:46
  had to do with me and Christo. Oh, you and Christo, but for
• 1:19:49
  partners though. Yeah.
• 1:19:51
  I mean for the partners, but I'm saying me and Christo literally
• 1:19:53
  did that as well. But our partners helped us do
• 1:19:55
  that. I'll recommend that.
• 1:19:56
  I think, you know, Liam is right.
• 1:19:58
  You've, you've got to partner up with your partner.
• 1:20:00
  I mean, she's an absolute rock in my life.
• 1:20:03
  You know, she, she sees straight through my Shields and walls and
• 1:20:06
  things that I raised around me. And she very quickly notices
• 1:20:09
  when I'm just perhaps not myself, because she's come to
• 1:20:12
  know who I am and she's amazing at that.
• 1:20:14
  I think what I have to do more is use that ability of my wife
• 1:20:20
  to unpick and talk and digest and do that more.
• 1:20:24
  We talk often, we talk a lot. I would probably argue the last
• 1:20:27
  3-4 months we've had a lot going on.
• 1:20:30
  Me starting a new job, we're buying a puppy and you know,
• 1:20:32
  life just gets busy. But every so often we'd have a
• 1:20:35
  moment where we just, you know, share a few thoughts and talk
• 1:20:37
  about it. And I've got to be a bit more
• 1:20:40
  forthcoming with that instead of her starting those conversations
• 1:20:42
  I should. Which is again, that's because
• 1:20:45
  of me and my challenges. I don't think every other guy or
• 1:20:48
  person might be that way, but I have challenges with talking
• 1:20:52
  about my emotions to others. And that's because I have
• 1:20:55
  examples seen and growing up around a dad that is a wonderful
• 1:20:59
  man but doesn't share any of his emotions.
• 1:21:01
  And I probably saw him cry 3 times in my life.
• 1:21:04
  So I learned through the experience with my wife and
• 1:21:07
  seeing how she deals with it, to understand also how I talk to
• 1:21:09
  her. So I've, I've started to learn
• 1:21:11
  to understand how to, you know, this sounds crazy.
• 1:21:13
  I've been married for so long and I'm starting to understand
• 1:21:15
  how to talk to my wife about my emotions.
• 1:21:17
  But it's true. It's, it's really, really true
• 1:21:20
  because, because you can spend years talking about the
• 1:21:21
  superficial stuff and, and being happy, but you know that
• 1:21:24
  there's, there's something inside that, you know, you got
• 1:21:27
  to work at. So, but it's talking and you've
• 1:21:29
  got to just be honest. You've got to just share what's
• 1:21:34
  on your mind. And I try and do that by, you
• 1:21:37
  know, it's great. My wife will say, how was your
• 1:21:39
  day? Yeah, it was fine.
• 1:21:40
  I think now what I try to do is say, yeah, it was great.
• 1:21:42
  You know, these meetings like this, like that.
• 1:21:44
  Oh, and this happened. I try and focus on on key things
• 1:21:47
  through the day to share because that then stimulates other
• 1:21:51
  conversation just to go, yeah, it was all right.
• 1:21:53
  I did this and the other, it's kind of like closed.
• 1:21:54
  It kills off the conversation. So it it starts with talking and
• 1:21:58
  and Liam's absolutely right. You've got to just find those
• 1:22:00
  moments, connect and talk. Can I ask you for something on
• 1:22:05
  the other side so you're both yourselves now are quite open
• 1:22:08
  and honestly sharing your vulnerabilities?
• 1:22:10
  What about for anyone who's listening who might not be able
• 1:22:14
  to see through the mask and maybe their partner might be
• 1:22:18
  just keeping busy and just holding it all together?
• 1:22:21
  Is there a way that a partner or a Co parent is able to reach
• 1:22:27
  that person? With determination, I think you
• 1:22:31
  heard from Christo, from myself as well.
• 1:22:32
  Like it we, we take a lot of signs, like the signs are right
• 1:22:37
  there. Sometimes we just need, we need
• 1:22:39
  gentle cajoling into these areas where we are still the little
• 1:22:44
  children that we used to be. And sometimes we need a little
• 1:22:46
  bit you, you know your partner better than anybody really.
• 1:22:50
  So it's like find ways of helping them to help themselves.
• 1:22:54
  I think if you know, if there's someone out there listening
• 1:22:57
  that's struggling, caught up in a dark hole, doesn't see the
• 1:23:00
  light, doesn't understand how to get out of it.
• 1:23:03
  If there's one honest thing you could do is the next time anyone
• 1:23:07
  asks you how you're doing, you say I am not fine.
• 1:23:10
  And you might find that that person opens up, or you might
• 1:23:12
  find that person shies away. But that's OK.
• 1:23:15
  We're all wired slightly differently.
• 1:23:17
  But do that with someone that you trust.
• 1:23:19
  Maybe not a stranger in all behind, but that you know when
• 1:23:22
  you walk in the door and your partner asks you how we're
• 1:23:24
  doing, just stand there and say I'm not fine.
• 1:23:28
  You don't have to know the rest of the conversation.
• 1:23:30
  It's not scripted. This is the ugly Wartsen all
• 1:23:33
  truth that sits underneath all of us.
• 1:23:35
  Those layers of of guards and walls and shocking exterior
• 1:23:39
  structures that we've just got to break down.
• 1:23:41
  You've got to just be honest. That moment when someone asks
• 1:23:44
  you that you trust, whether it's your mom, your grandma, your
• 1:23:46
  partner, or a good friend or someone that you're familiar
• 1:23:49
  with like me and Liam, it's just to go look, I'm not fine.
• 1:23:53
  I am not fine and and see where that goes.
• 1:23:56
  Sometimes that first moment of honesty is the one that breaks a
• 1:23:59
  lot of barriers and just gets you going.
• 1:24:02
  I think that's why, you know, I said it earlier, me and Liam
• 1:24:04
  spent the first time we met talking for four hours because I
• 1:24:06
  think we both went, there's no barrier here.
• 1:24:08
  There's no filter. I'm just going to share
• 1:24:10
  everything. I don't care what this guy
• 1:24:11
  thinks about me. That's the other point.
• 1:24:13
  Don't care about what the other people think about it.
• 1:24:15
  I think that's parenting in general.
• 1:24:18
  That's my style of parenting anyway.
• 1:24:21
  Definitely to deflect less. That's basically, as you say
• 1:24:24
  when someone asks you how you're doing.
• 1:24:27
  Talk to him. I remember before I really
• 1:24:29
  succumbed to the burnout in the office, I remember someone
• 1:24:32
  complimenting me on. I had a quite funky shirt on.
• 1:24:34
  And I love your shirt. Like, dress for the mental
• 1:24:36
  health you want, not the mental health you have.
• 1:24:38
  And then just wandered off into the thing.
• 1:24:40
  I was screaming it out. It took me so long to kind of
• 1:24:43
  just kind of just say you need to rest.
• 1:24:47
  It was, yeah. Deflect less, definitely.
• 1:24:49
  Wow. So closing up, what's one thing
• 1:24:51
  you'd love people to walk away with from this episode?
• 1:24:54
  Who wants to take that first? You're both paused and staring
• 1:24:57
  off here trying to think. I see.
• 1:24:59
  I'm waiting for Captain Jack Sparrow there to say something.
• 1:25:02
  I was trying to be present and I'm not sure, definitely not
• 1:25:05
  trying to take some time and I wrote it down many times
• 1:25:09
  throughout the years, unlike notes in my phone to help me
• 1:25:12
  help kind of actually try and get to it.
• 1:25:15
  But I would say vulnerability is a superpower, especially for for
• 1:25:18
  men. Being vulnerable and being
• 1:25:20
  genuine is perfect and it doesn't.
• 1:25:24
  It doesn't need to be grand, doesn't need to be big, it just
• 1:25:27
  needs to be small. Going on.
• 1:25:28
  Christo said just if someone says how are you doing that?
• 1:25:31
  I'm not too rude now and again, if they shy away, cool, you've
• 1:25:34
  got information. But if they don't, you've got a
• 1:25:38
  little bit a little bit of pressure relieved, be
• 1:25:41
  vulnerable, try small, don't go don't go too big too quickly.
• 1:25:46
  Definitely try small and then just be a bit more deflectless.
• 1:25:50
  And I'll stop listing things now and.
• 1:25:53
  Kristen. I think if there's anything I
• 1:25:55
  want anyone listening to this podcast to sort of digest and,
• 1:25:58
  and as a take away, just you know what, we're all human.
• 1:26:01
  And as a as a man, as a male, we're allowed to also not be OK.
• 1:26:06
  We're allowed to also have struggles.
• 1:26:10
  It doesn't mean you're weak, doesn't mean that you're not
• 1:26:13
  conforming to what society wants you to be.
• 1:26:16
  I personally think that there's just way too much influence in
• 1:26:19
  society today about what a man needs to be and what a woman
• 1:26:22
  needs to be. I think you have to be honest to
• 1:26:24
  yourself. And I think if you're in a place
• 1:26:28
  where you really feel like you need help and you recognize that
• 1:26:33
  there's a challenge and you don't recognize the person
• 1:26:35
  looking back in the mirror and they've listened to this
• 1:26:38
  podcast. Find that one person that you
• 1:26:40
  think you can open up to and just even walk up to them and
• 1:26:44
  say, I am not OK, can I talk to you?
• 1:26:48
  And you will probably find that any person that knows you will
• 1:26:52
  say, I'm stopping everything we're doing.
• 1:26:54
  Talk to me. Because I found that through my
• 1:26:56
  journey talking to a few of my friends, I've actually got them
• 1:27:02
  to also go crap, you know, I am also struggling.
• 1:27:04
  I've got a close friend here who's been going through his own
• 1:27:07
  challenges. And when he saw me talking about
• 1:27:09
  my challenges, he started opening up to me.
• 1:27:12
  So I think let's focus less on what society and Instagram and
• 1:27:16
  things wants us to be as, as men.
• 1:27:18
  And I think you can cry, you can be upset, you can wake up in the
• 1:27:22
  morning and also feel like you want a tub of ice cream and
• 1:27:25
  nothing else. Because we are all human.
• 1:27:29
  We're all made-up of the same things, but we're wired
• 1:27:31
  differently and we approach challenges differently.
• 1:27:34
  But recognize to yourself that you're allowed to say, you know,
• 1:27:37
  OK, and find that one person that you can talk to, whether
• 1:27:39
  it's your partner or a friend, that will start the journey.
• 1:27:43
  Yeah. I think that's that's kind of
• 1:27:45
  like hopefully a take away that someone will find useful for
• 1:27:49
  themselves in this podcast. Can I just jump on that click
• 1:27:51
  quickly? No, but as you're saying that if
• 1:27:55
  something is from childhood is the big boys don't cry and it's
• 1:28:00
  basically big boys can cry. I've dumbed it down a bit, but
• 1:28:03
  it is big boys can cry because we were told that we were
• 1:28:07
  talking big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry.
• 1:28:09
  So yeah, big boys can cry. Thank you so much, Crystal and
• 1:28:15
  Liam, for showing up so openly and honestly in today's
• 1:28:17
  conversation. Your willingness to speak about
• 1:28:20
  vulnerability, especially during men's Mental health week.
• 1:28:22
  It's not just powerful, it's necessary.
• 1:28:25
  We hope this episode gave you something meaningful to sit
• 1:28:27
  with. Maybe it's a conversation to
• 1:28:29
  have your partner a gentle check in with a friend or a quiet
• 1:28:32
  moment of reflection. Your own emotional well-being.
• 1:28:35
  Wherever it leads, you know that you're not alone.
• 1:28:38
  As international families living abroad, mental health isn't just
• 1:28:41
  personal. It's deeply intertwined with the
• 1:28:43
  strength and connection we bring to our homes, our relationships,
• 1:28:46
  and our parenting. Prioritizing men's emotional
• 1:28:49
  health helps build the kind of family culture we all want when
• 1:28:52
  rooted in honesty, empathy, and mutual support.
• 1:28:55
  If today's episode spoke to you, please take a moment to rate,
• 1:28:58
  review, and subscribe to Down Parenting.
• 1:29:00
  Your support helps more people find the podcast, and your
• 1:29:03
  reviews help us grow a global community that values these real
• 1:29:07
  human conversations. And if someone in your world
• 1:29:10
  could benefit from hearing this, a friend, partner, fellow
• 1:29:13
  parent, please share this episode with them.
• 1:29:16
  Let's keep breaking the silence around vulnerability and mental
• 1:29:19
  health together. Thank you for being here.
• 1:29:22
  And you'll catch us next time on DAM Parenting.
• 1:29:36
  Welcome back to DAM Parenting. I'm your host, Steve, and I'm so
• 1:29:39
  glad you're joining me for this episode.
• 1:29:41
  This Men's Mental Health Week, we're creating space for
• 1:29:43
  something simple but powerful, real conversations with fathers
• 1:29:47
  about how they're really doing. In the Netherlands, nearly one
• 1:29:50
  in six fathers report symptoms of parental burnout, and up to
• 1:29:52
  one of four may experience postpartum depression within the
• 1:29:55
  first six months after the birth of their child.
• 1:29:57
  Yes, even with these numbers, the silence around men's mental
• 1:30:00
  health is still loud. Today, we're joined by two
• 1:30:03
  fathers from our international community, each with a powerful
• 1:30:06
  story. One face the emotional weight of
• 1:30:08
  having a newborn in the NICU, while the other opens up about
• 1:30:11
  raising a young family while managing life with ADHD.
• 1:30:14
  Though the experiences may differ, they each show how
• 1:30:16
  deeply fathers carry what often goes on scene.
• 1:30:19
  This episode is about to get real about burnouts, overwhelm,
• 1:30:23
  and the quiet battles so many fathers face but often keep to
• 1:30:26
  themselves. Because strength isn't about
• 1:30:29
  staying silent and vulnerability isn't limited by gender.
• 1:30:33
  Talking about what we carry isn't a sign of weakness, it's a
• 1:30:36
  step towards connection, healing, and support.
• 1:30:39
  These conversations aren't just important, they're human.
• 1:30:43
  So grab a coffee, take a breath, and let's get into it.
• 1:30:46
  Joining me today are Crystal and Liam.
• 1:30:48
  Crystal, Liam, welcome to Down Parenting.
• 1:30:51
  Thank you, Eva. Yeah, hi.
• 1:30:52
  Hi. How you doing?
• 1:30:53
  Hi, let me ask you both. Let's get a bit of context on
• 1:30:56
  your backgrounds. How many kids do you have, where
• 1:30:58
  you're actually from, where your partners from and how did you
• 1:31:01
  end up here in the Netherlands? Oh my goodness.
• 1:31:03
  So hi, I'm Christo, 43, dad of an amazing little girl called
• 1:31:08
  Olivia and I am originally South African.
• 1:31:11
  Moved to the Netherlands in 2007.
• 1:31:15
  Really work related. I'm in the construction
• 1:31:17
  industry. That's another boring story but
• 1:31:20
  yeah. Been living here since 2007.
• 1:31:21
  Had a short stint living in the UK for 2 1/2 years between 2009
• 1:31:25
  and 2012 and moved back to the Netherlands and it's been here
• 1:31:30
  ever since. Love living here.
• 1:31:32
  Where's your partner from? My wife's name is Tony.
• 1:31:34
  Some people might know her. She's in the Dulo environment.
• 1:31:36
  An amazing woman. I met her here.
• 1:31:38
  She's British. We used to work together and
• 1:31:41
  that's how we met and it's been history ever since.
• 1:31:43
  Just been making memories. Beautiful And Liam, how about
• 1:31:46
  yourself? Hi, I'm Liam.
• 1:31:48
  I moved to the Netherlands about 12 years ago.
• 1:31:50
  Concurrently, at around the same time, my partner Vivi from
• 1:31:53
  Greece moved to the Netherlands. We decided to fall in love with
• 1:31:56
  each other and not for someone from the actual place.
• 1:31:59
  And we have two beautiful children together, Jonas and
• 1:32:01
  Ellie, who are almost 4 and 18 months.
• 1:32:05
  I work at Adrian as a tech trainer.
• 1:32:07
  I'm also a former, kind of. I'm a stand up comedian.
• 1:32:11
  Which everyone will hear in this episode.
• 1:32:13
  I hope so. And yeah, I'm also a skipper.
• 1:32:18
  I'm a skipper for Warm Heart Sauna.
• 1:32:20
  Floating Sauna on a slot of blast.
• 1:32:21
  Lovely. So let's see, can either whoever
• 1:32:24
  wants to take this off, can you take us back to a moment when
• 1:32:27
  you started to feel like something actually might have
• 1:32:29
  been off in your situation? Maybe you were running on empty
• 1:32:32
  or just not feeling like yourself.
• 1:32:34
  What does it look like or what does it feel like to you?
• 1:32:37
  Oh I think I was literally running on empty.
• 1:32:40
  I'm recently recovering from a burnout.
• 1:32:43
  I'm reintegrating into my company, but I was probably
• 1:32:47
  burnt out for a couple years, maybe longer.
• 1:32:50
  I had my my wonderful first child.
• 1:32:53
  It was lovely. But things were getting harder
• 1:32:55
  and harder and I kind of misdiagnosed myself as being
• 1:32:59
  lazy. And I've just then decided to
• 1:33:02
  run. And I learnt how to run 10 KS.
• 1:33:05
  And I had to run half marathon, still felt lazy.
• 1:33:07
  And I had to run marathon and still felt lazy.
• 1:33:10
  And I had to run ultra marathon still felt lazy.
• 1:33:13
  I then I found out I have ADHD. My my coping mechanism kind of
• 1:33:18
  kept me from breaking for a while.
• 1:33:20
  But when I did break, I was just useless.
• 1:33:22
  And it's one thing I kept reading every all every time
• 1:33:26
  when I put my kids to sleep is from the boy the mold of fox and
• 1:33:29
  the horse. And it was like, what's the
• 1:33:30
  bravest thing you've ever done ever said to I said the boy help
• 1:33:34
  said the horse. I'd read that over and over
• 1:33:37
  again. And it took me so long to get to
• 1:33:40
  a point where I can go help. Like I'm, I'm struggling.
• 1:33:45
  I mean, it all just hits and then it's like, yeah, when
• 1:33:47
  you've been backing it off for so long, when you actually do
• 1:33:50
  kind of like give in, then it takes a long time to kind of
• 1:33:53
  like come back. But I have wonderful supportive
• 1:33:55
  partner and and our wonderful kids and they've helped me so
• 1:33:59
  much. Yeah, that was my thing.
• 1:34:01
  I'm Crystal. Great.
• 1:34:02
  Thanks, Liam. I've got like AI think I've got
• 1:34:04
  a double hit and I'll explain that.
• 1:34:06
  So obviously became a dad in 2018 and there was a story on
• 1:34:13
  here. You did an interview with my
• 1:34:14
  wife. It was it was a difficult birth
• 1:34:16
  and you know, Long story short, we spent a lot of time in
• 1:34:18
  hospital. It was not the beautiful birth
• 1:34:21
  that you see on TV and everyone's happy and the wife is
• 1:34:24
  glowing and the dad's smiling. It was nothing like that.
• 1:34:27
  It was a very cold hospital environment for three months and
• 1:34:32
  not the introduction to becoming a dad for the first time that I
• 1:34:35
  ever thought it would be. And my struggles began when my
• 1:34:39
  wife went to hospital because I didn't understand how to deal
• 1:34:42
  with that. Because you don't think about
• 1:34:44
  that. When that moment hits you, you
• 1:34:45
  are in an absolute go, go, go. You know, there's there's
• 1:34:50
  nothing else to think about. You've got to be strong.
• 1:34:52
  Wife's not doing well, doctors around you all the time.
• 1:34:55
  You've just got to remain strong while you're doing that, your
• 1:34:58
  energy level. So it's just draining and
• 1:35:00
  draining and draining. You're right.
• 1:35:01
  Liam said it. You are running on empty.
• 1:35:03
  You don't know how to ask for help because you don't know what
• 1:35:06
  to ask for. People would come and say to
• 1:35:07
  you, hey, just let me know if I can help you.
• 1:35:09
  I haven't got a clue what to ask for.
• 1:35:11
  I think back now and I go, yeah, I would have asked people to go
• 1:35:14
  and do my shopping, buy me food. I was living in a house that was
• 1:35:18
  being renovated. I literally, it was like Dexter.
• 1:35:20
  I used to pull plastic sheets off my bed to sleep at night and
• 1:35:23
  then put it back on in the mornings.
• 1:35:24
  When I went back to the hospital, I would have 2-3 hours
• 1:35:27
  sleep every night. This went on for three months.
• 1:35:29
  So at some point your body gives in, but you don't even recognize
• 1:35:32
  that. So not too waffle too much about
• 1:35:34
  that. I, I got to a point where Olivia
• 1:35:36
  came home, Tony came home, she was still recovering.
• 1:35:39
  And I started getting back into work and I, I noticed that I was
• 1:35:43
  just not wired correctly. I was not processing what's
• 1:35:47
  happening at work. I was not focused on what's
• 1:35:49
  happening at work, constantly worried, constantly having a
• 1:35:53
  feeling of dread, constantly wanting to go home or understand
• 1:35:56
  what's happening, pressure of not being at home and leaving
• 1:35:59
  Tony to look after Olivia. And also making doctor's
• 1:36:03
  appointments and specialist appointments just really started
• 1:36:06
  to grate on me. And it got to a point where
• 1:36:08
  effectively we were in hospital because Olivia wasn't sleeping.
• 1:36:12
  We had lots of issues, were sleeping and she was a lot of
• 1:36:15
  crying. And we were recommended to go to
• 1:36:17
  the hospital for like a sleep test where Olivia was there for
• 1:36:20
  I think 3 or 4 nights. And we were in this hospital for
• 1:36:23
  three or four nights. Nurses were making all sorts of
• 1:36:26
  notes about how Olivia was sleeping.
• 1:36:28
  And then at the end of it, there was this meeting.
• 1:36:30
  The specialist, she's a very well known pediatric specialist
• 1:36:34
  in the Netherlands. She came to have this
• 1:36:36
  conversation with us and I lost it with this woman.
• 1:36:38
  I swear the air blue. I was so upset that a, my wife
• 1:36:43
  and daughter got taken out of a safe family environment to be
• 1:36:46
  stuck in this hospital again. I just had lots of triggers from
• 1:36:49
  three months in hospital. They were out, they went back in
• 1:36:52
  and the doctor was amazing because she listened to me rant
• 1:36:56
  for 10 minutes at her really not very pleasant.
• 1:36:59
  I was incredibly rude to her and she said, have you spoken to
• 1:37:02
  someone? I said, why the fuck do I need
• 1:37:03
  to speak to anyone? And I went home and that's when
• 1:37:06
  I realized things are broken, like this is not great.
• 1:37:10
  That was the first moment in my life that I realized this is
• 1:37:13
  this is not going great. And I ended up seeking support.
• 1:37:16
  I went to our house arts and I got booked off and I went to a
• 1:37:20
  great psychologist, a company called Seek and Swangers Cup who
• 1:37:23
  was based in Amsterdam. And it was an amazing journey
• 1:37:25
  with him. And that was my very first
• 1:37:29
  experience of understanding my own emotions as a man because it
• 1:37:37
  never occurred to me that that sort of thing would happen to
• 1:37:39
  me. I would never have looked myself
• 1:37:41
  in the mirror and go, mate, it's not weak, but you're broken.
• 1:37:45
  That's sort of my first introduction to it.
• 1:37:47
  I was going to ask what stopped you from speaking up earlier, or
• 1:37:50
  what finally helped you ask for support, but yeah, yours yours
• 1:37:53
  is a bit different. Yeah, people around me was
• 1:37:56
  incredibly supportive. My wife saw through all of it as
• 1:37:59
  well. She's an incredible support to
• 1:38:00
  me, very connected to herself, very self aware.
• 1:38:02
  I think my self-awareness has always been mediocre at best.
• 1:38:06
  I think as a male growing up in a very male traditional
• 1:38:09
  environment in South Africa, men don't cry.
• 1:38:11
  Men look after families. You know, we are the providers.
• 1:38:14
  We have to remain strong. Hunter gatherer sort of
• 1:38:16
  mentality that you know, the bumps and bruises you just don't
• 1:38:20
  mention because you don't think to mention it.
• 1:38:22
  You don't think it's important. It's not important to talk about
• 1:38:24
  my feelings. I need to make sure that my wife
• 1:38:26
  and daughter is OK. But you mentioned that you
• 1:38:28
  couldn't even identify your own feelings.
• 1:38:29
  No, I didn't see it. I didn't see it until that
• 1:38:32
  doctor literally looked me straight in the eye and went,
• 1:38:34
  mate, have you spoken to anyone? And I had to let that sink in.
• 1:38:39
  I had to digest that. I went away from that.
• 1:38:41
  And then, you know, my wife said to me, you need to make an
• 1:38:44
  appointment at the I. So just go and speak to her and
• 1:38:46
  see what she says. And I remember going to this
• 1:38:49
  appointment thinking what I'm going to tell this doctor
• 1:38:52
  because I don't even know where to start.
• 1:38:55
  I don't even know how to start saying what's happening inside
• 1:38:58
  of me. Like, I don't because I'm not
• 1:38:59
  connecting with me. Like I'm not connecting with
• 1:39:03
  those emotions because I've always buried those emotions
• 1:39:05
  very, very deep. Like, if a traumatic experience
• 1:39:07
  happens in your life as a younger person, as a young man
• 1:39:11
  growing up in the environment that I did, I'm nurtured not to
• 1:39:14
  not to really open that box and share it.
• 1:39:17
  Don't speak to my friends about it.
• 1:39:18
  If people ask me how you're doing.
• 1:39:20
  Yeah, I'm fine. That's literally it.
• 1:39:21
  It's like the it's the, it's the, it's the common sentence
• 1:39:24
  that, you know, mental health red flags.
• 1:39:27
  I'm fine. And I said that for years.
• 1:39:31
  And Liam, when did you start to acknowledge your feelings and
• 1:39:33
  what did reaching out or beginning to take care of
• 1:39:35
  yourself actually look like? Like what happened or maybe even
• 1:39:38
  surprised you about that part of the process?
• 1:39:41
  I thought I thought I was faking it.
• 1:39:44
  I thought I'm just literally thought I was lazy and stuff.
• 1:39:47
  Like I thought by going to a company doctor and stuff like
• 1:39:50
  that and talking to him, I felt like I was misleading her.
• 1:39:54
  Like I was saying with the things I was feeling, but I
• 1:39:57
  didn't wasn't truly believing them.
• 1:39:59
  What Christo said earlier. Like how can he know what to do?
• 1:40:02
  Because we've not seen it. It's not been modelled to us.
• 1:40:05
  Like I've listened to a lot of your episodes about mattress and
• 1:40:08
  stuff. It's not a nowhere near as big.
• 1:40:11
  For, for men, but there is a shift and we tend I, I do, I
• 1:40:15
  know enough people that tend to reject it a bit and just kind of
• 1:40:18
  carry on and just, yeah, we don't know how to check in on
• 1:40:21
  ourselves because not being fine as weakness and, and it just
• 1:40:26
  takes time. It does take modelling as well.
• 1:40:29
  And it's something I really, really want to do for my son
• 1:40:32
  because I'm actually the way we're parenting him.
• 1:40:35
  Like I'm excited for his future because I know how all my
• 1:40:39
  emotions when I was a kid, I'm still the kid I used to be.
• 1:40:41
  I know that. And through therapy I've kind of
• 1:40:44
  brought that back up and it's been wonderful.
• 1:40:46
  But it's been a lot big, big journey.
• 1:40:49
  Like growing up, we're we're fueled by toxic mass community.
• 1:40:53
  It's a fuel. It works for a while until it
• 1:40:57
  doesn't. And then what do you do?
• 1:40:59
  You have a midlife crisis. Well, now, now we have burnouts
• 1:41:02
  or something like that. It's I was just listening to
• 1:41:05
  Christo there. Like it takes so many big
• 1:41:07
  moments, big signs saying get some help.
• 1:41:10
  And even still, the big sign is still like, we still need the
• 1:41:13
  help, get into the help because we don't see it.
• 1:41:17
  It's not obvious to us. It's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a
• 1:41:21
  crazy thing. And it sounds like it could
• 1:41:23
  happen to both of you at around similar stages in your parenting
• 1:41:26
  life, like it was in the first year basically.
• 1:41:29
  Yeah, definitely. Like life has got more and more
• 1:41:32
  difficult and the old ways of doing it, the other ways of
• 1:41:35
  getting through life don't work anymore.
• 1:41:37
  I mean, you could do, you could disassociate from your kids and
• 1:41:40
  then just be dad or like just be like the breadwinner or
• 1:41:42
  something like that. But that's not, that's not how
• 1:41:44
  you do it now. Like you, you, you're there.
• 1:41:46
  You're present and presence takes a lot.
• 1:41:50
  So taking time for yourself or slowing down can actually feel
• 1:41:52
  like a very big shift. How did either of you change the
• 1:41:56
  way you approached parenting or for yourself, and how did it
• 1:41:59
  affect your relationship with your partner?
• 1:42:03
  Very interesting question. I would be honest in saying when
• 1:42:08
  I had the time out after my daughter was born and I sort of
• 1:42:12
  like took on the support and try to understand why I'm feeling
• 1:42:16
  this way and working through that was about a period of three
• 1:42:18
  months. I think one of the key things my
• 1:42:23
  psychiatrist told me at that time was take time for yourself
• 1:42:27
  by just going for a walk and not like going to the shops with a
• 1:42:31
  purpose, but literally just walking.
• 1:42:34
  I did that maybe once or twice. I wasn't hugely into it.
• 1:42:39
  I lost my cell phone, silly apps and stuff on my phone to, you
• 1:42:44
  know, ignore what's happening around me.
• 1:42:47
  But my parenting style now that's a that's an interesting
• 1:42:50
  one for me. I think in the beginning I was
• 1:42:54
  incredibly scared and nervous. And I think it also really made
• 1:43:02
  me short tempered. It made me closed off.
• 1:43:06
  I kept a lot of things in. So it really affected my
• 1:43:09
  relationship with with my wife, with Tony.
• 1:43:11
  I think, you know, I just didn't share anything with her.
• 1:43:15
  I didn't talk to her. I would, I would have a
• 1:43:17
  conversation with her, but I'm not talking to her and telling
• 1:43:19
  her what's happening inside inside of me and how I'm feeling
• 1:43:23
  because it's just, again, I'm not used to talking about those
• 1:43:25
  things. I don't, I'm not from a family
• 1:43:28
  environment where we share those sorts of feelings as a as a guy,
• 1:43:31
  as a bloke. So it was a very hard
• 1:43:35
  readjustment to accept that I'm not going to know everything.
• 1:43:39
  I'm not going to be good at everything related to parenting
• 1:43:42
  and I've got to take it in my own pace.
• 1:43:45
  So I tried to find moments to be on my own and be OK with my own
• 1:43:52
  company. Going for walks was what I tried
• 1:43:56
  to do. Getting lost in a game on my
• 1:43:59
  phone or whatever to just block out the world was also something
• 1:44:04
  that I did. I enjoy podcasts, so I listen to
• 1:44:08
  podcasts all the time. True crime podcasts.
• 1:44:11
  Probably not a great way to support a low mental health, but
• 1:44:15
  it is really each individual's own journey.
• 1:44:18
  What works for me might be interesting for someone to go,
• 1:44:21
  OK, maybe I should do that, but it's really what you are
• 1:44:24
  comfortable with. But I think before you even
• 1:44:26
  approach the subject of what can I do, you've really got to
• 1:44:30
  understand then accept that you've got a problem, you've got
• 1:44:33
  a challenge. I mean, saying I've got problems
• 1:44:35
  sounds a bit like I'm an alcoholic, but you have a
• 1:44:38
  challenge. You have to understand where
• 1:44:40
  that comes from. And I didn't do that during
• 1:44:43
  those three months. I just went through a process
• 1:44:47
  and I went through EMDR therapy and got rid of the triggers I
• 1:44:52
  had which was related to the beeps and noises of the
• 1:44:55
  hospital. I couldn't stand it.
• 1:44:57
  My, my microwave beeped once and I nearly threw it out the window
• 1:45:00
  because I lost it because it just triggered me from sitting
• 1:45:04
  next to Tony and listening to beep, beep, beep, beep, beep all
• 1:45:06
  the time for a month before Olivia was born.
• 1:45:09
  And that was a big deal for me to get rid of in the 1st sort of
• 1:45:12
  time that I took out. But my demons came back and they
• 1:45:16
  came back last year. You sort of go through life and
• 1:45:19
  you pave over cracks and you think I'm all right.
• 1:45:22
  And then you get to maybe a challenging situation in your
• 1:45:25
  life in another aspect of your life, maybe your work life.
• 1:45:28
  In my case, it was my work life and it really made a lot of my
• 1:45:34
  old demons bubble back up to the surface, things that I never
• 1:45:36
  dealt with during the first moment when I cracked.
• 1:45:41
  And this time round, I took six months out and I took time out.
• 1:45:47
  I stepped away from my job. I completely shot myself off
• 1:45:51
  from anything that's going to take my attention and focus away
• 1:45:53
  from me and my family. I became a house husband, which
• 1:45:56
  I absolutely loved. I dated over my wife and
• 1:45:58
  daughter all the time. I filled my days with taking my
• 1:46:01
  daughter to play dates and becoming incredibly busy.
• 1:46:04
  And then my wife says to me, what are you doing?
• 1:46:05
  I said, well, I don't know, I'm just busy all the time.
• 1:46:07
  But I found a life coach and I found an amazing life coach that
• 1:46:12
  I absolutely have split open my soul to understand why I have
• 1:46:18
  certain behaviors. And six months later, I can talk
• 1:46:22
  very freely about things that I have had issues with for a long
• 1:46:26
  time. And to be very open.
• 1:46:28
  It's things like being liked by other people or being a yes man.
• 1:46:33
  These are things that caused me a lot of issues through my life,
• 1:46:36
  but I never connected the two until I actually really sat down
• 1:46:39
  and explored it. And, and I guess the point of
• 1:46:41
  why I've got, I've got such a long story is if you have an
• 1:46:45
  opportunity to take time out and understand your soul, your
• 1:46:49
  emotions as a man in today's life, really take a step back
• 1:46:53
  and, and do that. I literally just fell into a
• 1:46:56
  process, you know, seven years ago.
• 1:46:58
  And I just went through it, got through it, got the EMDR therapy
• 1:47:02
  out of the way. Triggers are dealt with.
• 1:47:04
  I can talk about my daughter's birth without crying.
• 1:47:06
  I'm OK. No, I wasn't because I went back
• 1:47:08
  into work and the same behavior started to come out of me a year
• 1:47:11
  later, two years later. And then, you know, 6 1/2 years
• 1:47:15
  later, I, I'm on the floor. My my mental health this time
• 1:47:18
  last year was shocking. It was probably the most scared
• 1:47:22
  I've ever been about myself in my entire life because nothing
• 1:47:27
  in my life felt positive. The only thing I clinged on to
• 1:47:30
  was my wife and daughter and taking that time out, focusing
• 1:47:35
  on myself and telling myself I have got to improve myself,
• 1:47:38
  awareness as a man. I've got to understand why I'm
• 1:47:41
  feeling the way I'm feeling. I'm why I'm responding the way
• 1:47:43
  I'm responding. And I delve into that.
• 1:47:46
  And my wonderful wife found me a life coach probably a year
• 1:47:49
  before that moment. I said you got to contact this
• 1:47:51
  guy. But yeah, or I will.
• 1:47:53
  And you know, the moral of the story was probably listen to my
• 1:47:56
  wife more. But I think I took on that
• 1:47:59
  journey. I took on that challenge and it
• 1:48:00
  was an amazing support to me. And I still use that life coach
• 1:48:03
  today. I still speak to him once a
• 1:48:04
  month, but for the first time in my life, I understand how to use
• 1:48:07
  that person and that's meantable to me.
• 1:48:11
  Thank you for that. I got a lump in my throat when
• 1:48:13
  you talk about your child's birth as well still.
• 1:48:15
  So I can't imagine what it was for you.
• 1:48:17
  Liam, if you spoke about how you went on burnout, can you talk
• 1:48:21
  about then about slowing down and how's this change in your
• 1:48:24
  way in your approach to parenting and also your
• 1:48:26
  relationship with your partner? So with the burnout, yeah, so
• 1:48:29
  have. I had six months off and it took
• 1:48:32
  some time to get over the shame of feeling like I wasn't
• 1:48:37
  producing in a certain arena in my life, like I wasn't able to
• 1:48:41
  produce, but I was. I've done enough therapy and
• 1:48:47
  read enough and I've tried enough stuff.
• 1:48:49
  I've, I've thrown enough shit at the wall to see what sticks.
• 1:48:52
  Like I, I've tried all the bro science and stuff on all of
• 1:48:55
  them, of course. But like, I quite like, I found
• 1:48:57
  out I like breath work. So breath work works.
• 1:49:00
  The Wim Hof stuff that that's nice, the cold plunges, that's
• 1:49:03
  nice. I don't have to talk about
• 1:49:04
  misogyny while I do it. We can take, we can take that
• 1:49:07
  out of the bro science. But yeah, doing ADHD therapy or
• 1:49:11
  getting diagnosed and then doing the therapy for it, it kind of
• 1:49:14
  accelerated the burnout. Kind of like when I got my
• 1:49:17
  diagnosis, when I started doing a therapy, like all the stuff I
• 1:49:21
  was holding off, it started to be unpicked with the therapy
• 1:49:24
  because we were actually addressing things.
• 1:49:26
  Because when Christa was saying like when he was saying about
• 1:49:29
  addressing his triggers and stuff like that makes sense in
• 1:49:32
  like 5 years ago, yeah, you just just get rid of the triggers.
• 1:49:35
  But now having gone through all this therapy, like, no, the
• 1:49:37
  triggers are there, that you're putting medicine in it, but
• 1:49:40
  you're not fixing it. You're just dumbing it down.
• 1:49:42
  Or like, it's still there, still bubbling up.
• 1:49:44
  It's still there. It's not just a family thing of
• 1:49:47
  being brought up. It's the society and that's
• 1:49:50
  still there. I've gone a bit lost now.
• 1:49:52
  I'm sorry. Yeah.
• 1:49:55
  With the burnout after, I can get over the shame of being
• 1:49:59
  broken. When I started actually talking
• 1:50:01
  about it is when things started going quite well because I can.
• 1:50:07
  I was almost rejecting it before then, but then I kind of
• 1:50:10
  accepted I call and I was given more time to spend my children.
• 1:50:14
  So all the learnings, knowledge, all this kind of stuff I've
• 1:50:18
  learned in life, forget the past, don't worry about the
• 1:50:20
  future, just be present. Just be present.
• 1:50:23
  And the therapy helped with the past, like how I was brought up,
• 1:50:28
  the time off helped with the future because I'm like Daddy
• 1:50:32
  don't have to go anywhere. And then I could just zone in
• 1:50:35
  and just be present with my kids.
• 1:50:37
  And I went from, I will toot my own home away from a good dad to
• 1:50:41
  a great dad. Like everyone needs this.
• 1:50:43
  Everyone needs some sort of like.
• 1:50:45
  And that's what's getting me like parenting these days feels
• 1:50:48
  like an uneven equation. You're borrowing from one side
• 1:50:51
  to fix the other side. You want to be working.
• 1:50:53
  You want to be a great daddy. You can't do all of it.
• 1:50:57
  And so if you keep, you can, Oh, you can for a while, or you can
• 1:51:00
  find new ways. You can do coping mechanisms.
• 1:51:02
  You can drink, you can smoke, you can go running for fucking
• 1:51:05
  sorry for hours like you can. You can do all these things, but
• 1:51:09
  eventually you can't because it doesn't work.
• 1:51:11
  It doesn't balance out and you're just going to and that's
• 1:51:14
  that's it. I forgot where I was going with
• 1:51:16
  this. I mean, I'm a bit ADHD.
• 1:51:18
  I'm playing the card, I'm playing the card.
• 1:51:20
  But it's the the burnout was possibly the best thing to ever
• 1:51:25
  happen to me, which is sounds ridiculous, but it's just a,
• 1:51:28
  it's a consequence of how things are.
• 1:51:31
  And the more, yeah, here we go. The more I talk about, the more
• 1:51:36
  I'm vulnerable. I had this fault in my head
• 1:51:39
  where I was like, I'm marked. I'm marked as weak, I'm marked
• 1:51:41
  as as burnt out. Nah, I'm, I'm, I am marked.
• 1:51:46
  But that's good. But I can give space to others
• 1:51:48
  because we're all struggling kids, no kids, whatever.
• 1:51:51
  We've been through COVID, but I've just turned into a rant,
• 1:51:53
  sorry. But we're all struggling.
• 1:51:56
  There's a hangover from COVID. There's a lot of stuff and it
• 1:51:58
  doesn't matter. We're all struggling and
• 1:52:01
  allowing space for people to be open, especially for men because
• 1:52:05
  we're a bit Dum Dums. We haven't learned it properly.
• 1:52:08
  We're learning, but we're very far behind is massive.
• 1:52:12
  And it's my burnouts almost give me a bit of purpose.
• 1:52:15
  Like I I can make people laugh with comedy, but I can also make
• 1:52:20
  people happy with themselves just by allowing them to talk
• 1:52:24
  and talk to someone who looks like a buddy ruffian and stuff
• 1:52:28
  like that. A big beard or whatever.
• 1:52:30
  But it's actually a big like kind of gooey.
• 1:52:32
  I'll cry of them. I like.
• 1:52:33
  I like crack. So you're speaking there about
• 1:52:36
  vulnerability, Christo, Can you explain what vulnerability might
• 1:52:40
  look like to you then? Not just the idea, but actually
• 1:52:43
  like day-to-day. Are there moments where you
• 1:52:46
  catch yourself showing up differently than you might have
• 1:52:48
  before? Explain vulnerability.
• 1:52:51
  I think my vulnerability becomes my quietness.
• 1:52:55
  I lock myself away in my head in I would literally be at the
• 1:52:59
  office in a toxic environment and just stop talking, stop
• 1:53:05
  communicating. I would be in a difficult
• 1:53:07
  conversation and literally not interact.
• 1:53:10
  I'd have a complete closure in my throat.
• 1:53:13
  I would just stop talking. I'd stop sharing with my wife.
• 1:53:19
  I would be incredibly quiet. I would spend more time in the
• 1:53:24
  kitchen just to be on my own away from people.
• 1:53:27
  I would not even pick up the phone to call friends.
• 1:53:30
  I would not even respond to people on WhatsApp for weeks.
• 1:53:35
  That wasn't the case with you, Liam, I promise.
• 1:53:38
  I think at the end of the day, eight years ago, I had no idea
• 1:53:43
  that that's what I was doing, but I was doing it.
• 1:53:45
  And when I'm at the office and you're doing office talk, you're
• 1:53:50
  just not actually recognizing that you're you're not there.
• 1:53:53
  I think Liam just had a he said it really well.
• 1:53:56
  It's being present. I become not present.
• 1:54:01
  I'm sitting next to my wife on on the sofa and I'm just, it's
• 1:54:04
  like I'm not there. And, and, and that was the peak
• 1:54:08
  of of my vulnerability. Sleep becomes a big issue for
• 1:54:14
  me. I end up staying up for hours.
• 1:54:18
  Now it's go to bed at like 3:00 in the morning having not slept.
• 1:54:21
  And then I try and sleep and then I'm up by 6:00.
• 1:54:24
  And then you function and then you go through the day and then
• 1:54:26
  when you get home, your tiredness kicks in and you just
• 1:54:29
  you Welt, you know, you just completely go down the tube.
• 1:54:34
  So I think that's, I guess the most honest answer I could give
• 1:54:37
  you is, is, is my quietness. I lock myself away.
• 1:54:41
  I I just don't engage with people.
• 1:54:43
  I think, which is probably the worst thing you can do because
• 1:54:46
  that's the moment you should say to someone, Hey, you know what?
• 1:54:47
  I'm not feeling great. Like I'm really, really low.
• 1:54:51
  I would have conversations with my parents.
• 1:54:53
  They'd be like, how you doing? I'm fine, I am fine.
• 1:54:58
  Biggest lie ever. You build up the wall like you
• 1:55:01
  build up a wall. Yeah, if you address it, then
• 1:55:03
  you've got to deal with it kind of thing.
• 1:55:05
  But you build up the wall and you're just like, I'm fine.
• 1:55:08
  I don't have to think about this.
• 1:55:10
  I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine because it's screaming.
• 1:55:13
  It screams. Somethings not right.
• 1:55:15
  So between your vulnerabilities, are there anything that you've
• 1:55:18
  learned? So Christo, you've been going to
• 1:55:20
  a coach, as you said, and Liam, you've actually done different
• 1:55:23
  forms of therapy. Are there anything that has
• 1:55:24
  helped you identify your vulnerability and actually help
• 1:55:27
  you sit in it, the uncomfortableness of
• 1:55:29
  vulnerability and help you process through whatever feeling
• 1:55:32
  you might be feeling It's. It's talking.
• 1:55:35
  It's, it's just something we don't do talk about all for all
• 1:55:38
  men, but a lot of men, we don't talk because we then would have
• 1:55:41
  to address the certain things. So just talking, getting it out,
• 1:55:44
  if it stays in your head, it goes all over the place and it
• 1:55:47
  just, it gets warped and then you just compartmentalize it.
• 1:55:51
  Whereas just like I say with Christo, with myself, just
• 1:55:54
  talking, talking to therapists, having it out in the world and
• 1:55:58
  hearing it back, actually hearing it back is like a sanity
• 1:56:00
  check. Sometimes just even just that,
• 1:56:02
  that small thing that possibly women would take for granted
• 1:56:06
  because you, there's, there's a lot more talking, there's a lot
• 1:56:08
  more sharing of emotions and you're used to it.
• 1:56:10
  It's it's a, it's a skill. It is a skill and we don't do it
• 1:56:14
  as men. Generally.
• 1:56:16
  I. I agree.
• 1:56:18
  I, I think Liam summed up really well.
• 1:56:20
  Me and Liam bonded over, you know, our partners saying, hey,
• 1:56:23
  you 2 need to connect because you guys have similar
• 1:56:25
  challenges. And you know, I think you guys
• 1:56:27
  could, could really, you know, do with a conversation with one
• 1:56:30
  another. He is Liam, who I literally met
• 1:56:32
  once because, you know, my wife helped them with the birth of
• 1:56:36
  their kids. And we, I think we first met
• 1:56:38
  just having a lunch and you guys were showing the little baby and
• 1:56:42
  that was fantastic. So here's me and Liam, we
• 1:56:44
  organized to see each other one day.
• 1:56:46
  We met up at a cafe in Amsterdam.
• 1:56:48
  And I think we spent 4 hours talking.
• 1:56:51
  We spent 4 hours talking to each other because we just both I
• 1:56:55
  think had very open minded sort of idea that we're just going to
• 1:56:58
  go and see how this goes. But within the 1st 10 minutes,
• 1:57:01
  me and this guy, we're just sharing everything about our
• 1:57:04
  lives as dudes. Like we were just like sharing
• 1:57:07
  the load and the similarities of what we've been going through
• 1:57:11
  and then sharing with one another how we felt in different
• 1:57:13
  parts of that. It's about talking.
• 1:57:16
  And I don't think that as men we do that enough.
• 1:57:20
  I have a amazing friendship circle.
• 1:57:23
  I have an amazing group of friends back home in South
• 1:57:25
  Africa and also here in the Netherlands and in the UK and a
• 1:57:27
  few other parts of the world. But, you know, growing up with
• 1:57:30
  my friends in SA, he did not sit in a in a pub with a beer and
• 1:57:34
  go. So right guys, before the rugby
• 1:57:36
  starts, Yeah. I'm just not feeling very well
• 1:57:37
  today, you know, I'm feeling a bit low.
• 1:57:39
  They've literally tell me to put take my handbag and go home.
• 1:57:42
  They would just not be bothered to explore that more.
• 1:57:45
  But that was 20 years ago. I think that has shifted a
• 1:57:48
  little bit today as well as I've seen some hints of, of the guys
• 1:57:52
  sharing a few things with one another.
• 1:57:54
  But in general, I just don't think we do that.
• 1:57:56
  And, and I think that's cultivated through how we grow
• 1:57:59
  up and the environment that we grow up in.
• 1:58:01
  I think for some, and it's a lot easier maybe coming from a
• 1:58:04
  household that's a lot more open.
• 1:58:05
  If I look at the differences between myself and Tony, for
• 1:58:08
  example, she's from a household where they have it all the time.
• 1:58:10
  If they got an issue, it's on the table, talk about it, deal
• 1:58:13
  with it, scream at each other, whatever you need to do.
• 1:58:16
  But it might be multiple conversations, but they talk
• 1:58:18
  about it and they get it out and it's done and it's dealt with.
• 1:58:21
  I'm from a family environment where I don't think we talk
• 1:58:23
  about things enough. I think there's a carpet with a
• 1:58:26
  huge mound of emotional baggage hidden in my mum's lounge
• 1:58:30
  because we just, we just don't share.
• 1:58:33
  We pave over the cracks as a family.
• 1:58:35
  We don't, we don't talk about things and and that was
• 1:58:37
  something that was cultivated to me and that gave me the
• 1:58:40
  challenges I had later in my life.
• 1:58:42
  So it's about talking, it's learning to talk about that as
• 1:58:44
  well. I don't think it's something
• 1:58:45
  that just comes easily. As males, as men, we need to
• 1:58:48
  learn to share what's going on inside.
• 1:58:51
  And I think maybe myself and Liam sort of had a trial period
• 1:58:55
  with one another where we were doing that, Hey, how do I talk
• 1:58:57
  to this guy about things going on?
• 1:58:59
  But he's being very receptive to that and I'm being very
• 1:59:01
  receptive to, to listen to him. And through that journey, we've
• 1:59:04
  connected and we, we catch up all the time.
• 1:59:07
  I think not enough anymore because I'm back into a, a work
• 1:59:10
  routine, but just finding a moment to make time to go and
• 1:59:14
  catch up with this guy and shoot the breeze and share how I feel
• 1:59:18
  and little ups and downs that I've had over the last last, you
• 1:59:21
  know, six months being Liam got to a point where, you know, we'd
• 1:59:24
  literally be sharing small little wins with one another.
• 1:59:26
  I'd be texting and go, Hey, I did this for the first time in
• 1:59:29
  six years. I feel great about it.
• 1:59:31
  He would send me a text ago, Hey, I've connected with XY and
• 1:59:33
  Z that I haven't done for a long time.
• 1:59:35
  I feel amazing. It's those little boost that
• 1:59:36
  kind of feels like, hey, I'm building up myself awareness.
• 1:59:39
  I'm becoming, you know, I'm recognizing what it feels like
• 1:59:42
  to build up what's been a bit broken inside.
• 1:59:45
  I think the one key thing that I took away from my life coach
• 1:59:48
  over the last six months has helped me a lot is to understand
• 1:59:51
  that within each one of us, male and female, they're self
• 1:59:54
  critique and self critique is toxic.
• 1:59:58
  Self critique is that voice in your head, mate, you're just not
• 2:00:00
  good enough. And it starts in your work
• 2:00:02
  environment and then it filters into your life and then it
• 2:00:05
  filters into your day-to-day and you start to doubt everything
• 2:00:08
  you do from running a bath for your daughter, is it hot enough?
• 2:00:12
  Is it enough water, you know, to cooking a dinner.
• 2:00:15
  Self critique is is a demon that you got to deal with.
• 2:00:19
  To put it, you know, really, really hard, but it is.
• 2:00:22
  It was it was toxic in me and I've had to understand how to
• 2:00:25
  deal with it and lay down things that I've thought about myself
• 2:00:29
  for a long time that no one else have said to me.
• 2:00:32
  But I have that in need self critique.
• 2:00:34
  And we all have it. We all have that voice.
• 2:00:36
  For others, it's stronger. For me, it was incredibly
• 2:00:38
  strong. And last year it was at its peak
• 2:00:42
  and that self critique drove me down a dark route.
• 2:00:45
  Because you question everything, everything, everything.
• 2:00:49
  You don't listen to people giving you any sort of
• 2:00:51
  compliments. What do they know?
• 2:00:52
  They're just saying that to make me feel better.
• 2:00:54
  I'm rubbish. Oh shit.
• 2:00:56
  Just add on to that like we're both very open and honest to
• 2:01:00
  each other. And I, I love listening to, to
• 2:01:03
  his experiences. I love being able to give my
• 2:01:05
  experiences to him and it be in a kind of way.
• 2:01:08
  I still have a voice in the back of my head saying, what the fuck
• 2:01:11
  are you talking about? Shut the fuck.
• 2:01:14
  Just that that's, that's my programming.
• 2:01:16
  That's my initial programming and it's faking me years to kind
• 2:01:20
  of like it's still there. Whilst he was talking, I was
• 2:01:23
  like shut the fuck because I wasn't, because I'm in there.
• 2:01:26
  I mean, this is me, this is who I am, but I still have this this
• 2:01:30
  old reflection of who I was and how I was brought, how society
• 2:01:34
  brought me up. Though I I can, I can literally
• 2:01:37
  I'm looking at my friend. I'm like shut the fuck up, but
• 2:01:40
  I'm not because I'm there. I'm in.
• 2:01:42
  I'm in. Those listening who are
• 2:01:44
  partners, whether they're mothers or fathers or Co
• 2:01:46
  parents, what are some ways you can createspace for emotional
• 2:01:51
  honesty and openness, especially when it might feel challenging
• 2:01:55
  or unfamiliar? Deliberately doing it, actually
• 2:01:58
  making it really easy access. So make it a simple thing once a
• 2:02:03
  week possibly. Let's spend this 15 minutes just
• 2:02:07
  chatting or just being deliberate with having some
• 2:02:10
  space. There is this space here.
• 2:02:12
  Now we could say what we want to each other and then there's no
• 2:02:16
  kind of like push back, just listen.
• 2:02:19
  And it's something I, I should do a hell of a lot more.
• 2:02:21
  I think I've done it twice. But I mean, I keep meaning to do
• 2:02:25
  it because it's very, very good. But then it's getting into the
• 2:02:28
  habit of it. So actually, literally saying
• 2:02:30
  this is now a space. Let's talk.
• 2:02:34
  I think that's one. No, but I think that's what we
• 2:02:36
  had to do with me and Christo. Oh, you and Christo, but for
• 2:02:39
  partners though. Yeah.
• 2:02:40
  I mean for the partners, but I'm saying me and Christo literally
• 2:02:43
  did that as well. But our partners helped us do
• 2:02:45
  that. I'll recommend that.
• 2:02:46
  I think, you know, Liam is right.
• 2:02:48
  You've, you've got to partner up with your partner.
• 2:02:50
  I mean, she's an absolute rock in my life.
• 2:02:53
  You know, she, she sees straight through my Shields and walls and
• 2:02:56
  things that I raised around me. And she very quickly notices
• 2:02:59
  when I'm just perhaps not myself because she's come to know who I
• 2:03:02
  am. And she's amazing at that, that
• 2:03:04
  I think what I have to do more is use that ability of my wife
• 2:03:10
  to unpick and talk and digest and do that more.
• 2:03:14
  We talk often. We talk a lot.
• 2:03:16
  I would probably argue the last 3-4 months we've had a lot going
• 2:03:19
  on. Me starting a new job, we're
• 2:03:21
  buying a puppy and, you know, life just gets busy.
• 2:03:23
  But every so often we'd have a moment where we just, you know,
• 2:03:26
  share a few thoughts and talk about it.
• 2:03:27
  And I've got to be a bit more forthcoming with that instead of
• 2:03:31
  her starting those conversations I should.
• 2:03:33
  Which is again, that's because of me and my challenges.
• 2:03:36
  I don't think every other guy or person might be that way, but I
• 2:03:41
  have challenges with talking about my emotions to others.
• 2:03:44
  And that's because I have examples seen and growing up
• 2:03:47
  around a dad that is a wonderful man but doesn't share any of his
• 2:03:51
  emotions. And I probably saw him cry 3
• 2:03:52
  times in my life. So I learned through the
• 2:03:56
  experience with my wife and seeing how she deals with it, to
• 2:03:58
  understand also how I talk to her.
• 2:03:59
  So I've, I've started to learn to understand how to, you know,
• 2:04:02
  this sounds crazy. I've been married for so long
• 2:04:04
  and I'm starting to understand how to talk to my wife about my
• 2:04:06
  emotions. But it's true.
• 2:04:08
  It's, it's really, really true because, because you can spend
• 2:04:11
  years talking about the superficial stuff and, and be
• 2:04:13
  happy, but you know that there's, there's something
• 2:04:15
  inside that, you know, you got to work at.
• 2:04:17
  So, but it's talking and you've got to just be honest.
• 2:04:21
  You've got to just share what's on your mind.
• 2:04:24
  And I try and do that by, you know, it's great.
• 2:04:28
  My wife will say, how was your day?
• 2:04:29
  Yeah, it was fine. I think now what I try to do is
• 2:04:31
  say, yeah, it was great. You know, these meetings like
• 2:04:33
  this, like that. Oh, and this happened.
• 2:04:35
  I try and focus on on key things through the day to share because
• 2:04:38
  that then stimulates other conversation just to go, yeah,
• 2:04:42
  it was all right. I did this and the other, it's
• 2:04:44
  kind of like closed. It kills off the conversation.
• 2:04:46
  So it it starts with talking and and Liam's actually right.
• 2:04:49
  You've got to just find those moments, connect and talk.
• 2:04:53
  Can I ask you for something on the other side so you're both
• 2:04:57
  yourselves now are quite open and honestly sharing your
• 2:04:59
  vulnerabilities? What about for anyone who's
• 2:05:02
  listening who might not be able to see through the mask and
• 2:05:06
  maybe their partner might be just keeping busy and just
• 2:05:09
  holding it all together? Is there a way that a partner or
• 2:05:13
  a Co parent is able to reach that person?
• 2:05:18
  With determination, I think you heard from Christo, from myself
• 2:05:22
  as well. Like it we, we take a lot of
• 2:05:24
  signs, like the signs are right there.
• 2:05:27
  Sometimes we just need, we need gentle cajoling into these areas
• 2:05:31
  where we are still the little children that we used to be.
• 2:05:35
  And sometimes we need a little bit you, you know your partner
• 2:05:38
  better than anybody really. So it's like find ways of
• 2:05:42
  helping them to help themselves. I think if you know, if there's
• 2:05:46
  someone out there listening that's struggling, caught up in
• 2:05:48
  a dark hole, doesn't see the light, doesn't understand how to
• 2:05:52
  get out of it. If there's one honest thing you
• 2:05:54
  could do is the next time anyone asks you how you're doing, you
• 2:05:58
  say I am not fine. And you might find that that
• 2:06:01
  person opens up, or you might find that person shies away.
• 2:06:04
  But that's OK. We're all wired slightly
• 2:06:07
  differently. But do that with someone that
• 2:06:08
  you trust. Maybe not a stranger in all
• 2:06:10
  behind, but that you know when you walk in the door and your
• 2:06:13
  partner asks you how we're doing, just stand there and say
• 2:06:16
  I'm not fine. You don't have to know the rest
• 2:06:19
  of the conversation. It's not scripted.
• 2:06:21
  This is the ugly Wartsen all truth that sits underneath all
• 2:06:25
  of us. Those layers of of guards and
• 2:06:27
  walls and shocking exterior structures that we've just got
• 2:06:31
  to break down. You've got to just be honest.
• 2:06:33
  That moment when someone asks you that you trust, whether it's
• 2:06:35
  your mom, your grandma, your partner, or a good friend or
• 2:06:38
  someone that you're familiar with like me and Liam, it's just
• 2:06:41
  to go look, I'm not fine. I am not fine and and see where
• 2:06:46
  that goes. Sometimes that first moment of
• 2:06:48
  honesty is the one that breaks a lot of barriers and just gets
• 2:06:51
  you going. I think that's why, you know, I
• 2:06:53
  said it earlier, me and Liam spent the first time we met
• 2:06:55
  talking for four hours because I think we both went, there's no
• 2:06:58
  barrier here. There's no filter.
• 2:06:59
  I'm just going to share everything.
• 2:07:00
  I don't care what this guy thinks about me.
• 2:07:01
  That's the other point. Don't care about what the other
• 2:07:03
  people think about it. I think that's parenting in
• 2:07:06
  general. That's my style of parenting
• 2:07:08
  anyway. Definitely to deflect less.
• 2:07:13
  That's basically, as you say when someone asks you how you're
• 2:07:16
  doing. Talk to him.
• 2:07:17
  I remember before I really succumbed to the burnout in the
• 2:07:20
  office, I remember someone complimenting me on.
• 2:07:22
  I had a quite funky shirt on. And I love your shirt.
• 2:07:25
  Like, dress for the mental health you want, not the mental
• 2:07:27
  health you have. And then just wandered off into
• 2:07:29
  the thing. I was screaming it out.
• 2:07:31
  It took me so long to kind of just kind of just say you need
• 2:07:35
  to rest. It was, yeah.
• 2:07:37
  Deflect less, definitely. Wow.
• 2:07:39
  So closing up, what's one thing you'd love people to walk away
• 2:07:43
  with from this episode? Who wants to take that first?
• 2:07:45
  You're both paused and staring off here trying to think.
• 2:07:48
  I see. I'm waiting for Captain Jack
• 2:07:50
  Sparrow there to say. Something I was trying to be
• 2:07:52
  present and I'm not sure. Definitely not trying to take
• 2:07:55
  some time and I wrote it down many times throughout the years,
• 2:08:00
  unlike notes in my phone to help me help kind of actually try and
• 2:08:04
  get to it. But I would say vulnerability is
• 2:08:06
  a superpower, especially for for men.
• 2:08:09
  Being vulnerable and being genuine is perfect and it
• 2:08:13
  doesn't. It doesn't need to be grand,
• 2:08:15
  doesn't need to be big, it just needs to be small going on,
• 2:08:18
  Christo said Just if someone says how are you doing that?
• 2:08:21
  I'm not too good now and again, if they shy away, cool, you've
• 2:08:24
  got information. But if they don't, you've got a
• 2:08:28
  little bit a little bit of pressure relieved.
• 2:08:31
  Be vulnerable. Try small, don't go, don't go
• 2:08:33
  too big too quickly. Definitely try small and then
• 2:08:37
  just be a bit more deflectless. And I'll stop listing things now
• 2:08:42
  and. Kristen.
• 2:08:43
  I think if there's anything I want anyone listening to this
• 2:08:46
  podcast to sort of digest and, and as a take away, just you
• 2:08:50
  know what, we're all human. And as a as a man, as a male,
• 2:08:54
  we're allowed to also not be OK. We're allowed to also have
• 2:08:59
  struggles. It doesn't mean you're weak,
• 2:09:01
  doesn't mean that you're not conforming to what society wants
• 2:09:04
  you to be. I personally think that there's
• 2:09:07
  just way too much influence in society today about what a man
• 2:09:11
  needs to be and what a woman needs to be.
• 2:09:13
  I think you have to be honest to yourself.
• 2:09:15
  And I think if you're in a place where you really feel like you
• 2:09:20
  need help and you recognize that there's a challenge and you
• 2:09:24
  don't recognize the person looking back in the mirror and
• 2:09:27
  they've listened to this podcast.
• 2:09:29
  Find that one person that you think you can open up to and
• 2:09:32
  just even walk up to them and say, I am not OK, can I talk to
• 2:09:37
  you? And you will probably find that
• 2:09:40
  any person that knows you will say, I'm stopping everything
• 2:09:44
  we're doing. Talk to me.
• 2:09:45
  Because I found that through my journey talking to a few of my
• 2:09:48
  friends, I've actually got them to also go crap, you know, I am
• 2:09:54
  also struggling. I've got a close friend here
• 2:09:55
  who's been going through his own challenges.
• 2:09:57
  And when he saw me talking about my challenges, he started
• 2:10:00
  opening up to me. So I think let's focus less on
• 2:10:04
  what society and Instagram and things wants us to be as, as
• 2:10:07
  men. And I think you can cry, you can
• 2:10:11
  be upset, you can wake up in the morning and also feel like you
• 2:10:14
  want a tub of ice cream and nothing else.
• 2:10:16
  Because we are all human. We're all made-up of the same
• 2:10:20
  things, but we're wired differently and we approach
• 2:10:23
  challenges differently. But recognize to yourself that
• 2:10:26
  you're allowed to say you're not OK and find that one person that
• 2:10:28
  you can talk to, whether it's your partner or a friend, that
• 2:10:32
  will start the journey. Yeah, I think that's that's kind
• 2:10:35
  of like hopefully a take away that someone will find useful
• 2:10:39
  for themselves in this podcast. Can I just jump on that plate
• 2:10:41
  quickly? No, but as you're saying that if
• 2:10:45
  something is from childhood is the big boys don't cry and it's
• 2:10:49
  basically big boys can cry. I've dumbed it down a bit, but
• 2:10:53
  it is big boys can cry because we were told that we were
• 2:10:57
  talking big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry.
• 2:10:59
  So yeah, big boys can cry. Thank you so much, Crystal and
• 2:11:05
  Liam, for showing up so openly and honestly in today's
• 2:11:07
  conversation. Your willingness to speak about
• 2:11:10
  vulnerability, especially during men's Mental health week.
• 2:11:12
  It's not just powerful, it's necessary.
• 2:11:15
  We hope this episode gave you something meaningful to sit
• 2:11:17
  with. Maybe it's a conversation to
• 2:11:19
  have your partner a gentle check in with a friend or a quiet
• 2:11:22
  moment of reflection. Your own emotional well-being.
• 2:11:25
  Wherever it leads, you know that you're not alone.
• 2:11:28
  As international families living abroad, mental health isn't just
• 2:11:30
  personal. It's deeply intertwined with the
• 2:11:33
  strength and connection we bring to our homes, our relationships,
• 2:11:36
  and our parenting. Prioritizing men's emotional
• 2:11:38
  health helps build the kind of family culture we all want, one
• 2:11:42
  rooted in honesty, empathy, and mutual support.
• 2:11:45
  If today's episode spoke to you, please take a moment to rate,
• 2:11:48
  review, and subscribe to Down Parenting.
• 2:11:50
  Your support helps more people find the podcast, and your
• 2:11:53
  reviews help us grow a global community that values these real
• 2:11:57
  human conversations. And if someone in your world
• 2:12:00
  could benefit from hearing this, a friend, partner, fellow
• 2:12:03
  parent, please share this episode with them.
• 2:12:06
  Let's keep breaking the silence around vulnerability and mental
• 2:12:09
  health together. Thank you for being here and
• 2:12:12
  you'll catch us next time I'm down parenting.
• 2:12:24
  So, and yeah, I'm also a skipper.
• 2:12:28
  I'm a skipper for Warm Heart Sauna.
• 2:12:30
  Floating sauna on a slot of blast.
• 2:12:32
  Lovely. So let's see, can either whoever
• 2:12:35
  wants to take this off, can you take us back to a moment when
• 2:12:38
  you started to feel like something actually might have
• 2:12:40
  been off in your situation? Maybe you were running on empty
• 2:12:43
  or just not feeling like yourself.
• 2:12:45
  What does it look like or what does it feel like to you?
• 2:12:48
  I I think I was literally running on empty.
• 2:12:50
  I'm recently recovering from a burnout.
• 2:12:53
  I'm integrating into my company, but I was probably burnt out for
• 2:12:58
  a couple years, maybe longer. I had my my wonderful first
• 2:13:03
  child. It was lovely.
• 2:13:05
  But things were getting harder and harder and I kind of
• 2:13:08
  misdiagnosed myself as being lazy.
• 2:13:10
  And I've just then decided to run.
• 2:13:13
  And I learned how to run 10 KS and learned how to run half
• 2:13:17
  marathon. Still felt lazy.
• 2:13:18
  And I had to run marathon and still felt lazy.
• 2:13:20
  And that's real run ultra marathon still felt lazy.
• 2:13:23
  I then I found out I have ADHD. So my my coping mechanism kind
• 2:13:28
  of kept me from breaking for a while.
• 2:13:31
  But when I did break, I was just useless.
• 2:13:33
  And it's one thing I kept reading every all every time
• 2:13:37
  when I put my kids to sleep is from the boy, the mold of fox
• 2:13:40
  and the horse. And it was like, what was the
• 2:13:41
  bravest thing you've ever done ever said to I said the boy help
• 2:13:45
  said the horse. I'd read that over and over
• 2:13:47
  again. And it took me so long to get to
• 2:13:50
  a point where I can go help. Like I'm struggling.
• 2:13:55
  I mean, it all just hits. And then it's like, yeah, when
• 2:13:57
  you've been backing it off for so long, when you actually do
• 2:14:00
  kind of like give in, then it takes a long time to kind of
• 2:14:03
  like come back. But I have wonderful supportive
• 2:14:06
  partner and and our wonderful kids and they've helped me so
• 2:14:09
  much. Yeah, that was my thing.
• 2:14:12
  From Crystal. Great.
• 2:14:13
  Thanks, Liam. I've got like AI think I've got
• 2:14:15
  a double hit and I'll explain that.
• 2:14:17
  So obviously became a dad in 2018 and there was a story on
• 2:14:23
  here. You did an interview with my
• 2:14:25
  wife. It was it was a difficult birth
• 2:14:26
  and you know, Long story short, we spent a lot of time in
• 2:14:29
  hospital. It was not the beautiful birth
• 2:14:31
  that you see on TV and everyone's happy and the wife is
• 2:14:34
  glowing and the dad's smiling. It was nothing like that.
• 2:14:38
  It was a very cold hospital environment for three months and
• 2:14:42
  not the introduction to becoming a dad for the first time that I
• 2:14:45
  ever thought it would be. And my struggles began when my
• 2:14:49
  wife went to hospital because I didn't understand how to deal
• 2:14:53
  with that. Because you don't think about
• 2:14:54
  that. When that moment hits you, you
• 2:14:56
  are in an absolute go, go, go. You know, there's there's
• 2:15:00
  nothing else to think about. You've got to be strong.
• 2:15:02
  Wife's not doing well, doctors around you all the time.
• 2:15:05
  You've just got to remain strong while you're doing that, your
• 2:15:09
  energy level. So it's just draining and
• 2:15:10
  draining and draining. You're right.
• 2:15:11
  Liam said it. You are running on empty.
• 2:15:14
  You don't know how to ask for help because you don't know what
• 2:15:16
  to ask for. People would come and say to
• 2:15:18
  you, hey, just let me know if I can help you.
• 2:15:20
  I haven't got a clue what to ask for.
• 2:15:22
  I think back now and I go, yeah, I would have asked people to go
• 2:15:25
  and do my shopping, buy me food. I was living in a house that was
• 2:15:29
  being renovated. I literally, it was like Dexter.
• 2:15:31
  I used to pull plastic sheets off my bed to sleep at night and
• 2:15:34
  then put it back on in the mornings.
• 2:15:35
  When I went back to the hospital, I would have 2-3 hours
• 2:15:37
  sleep every night. This went on for three months.
• 2:15:40
  So at some point your body gives in, but you don't even recognize
• 2:15:42
  that. So not too waffle too much about
• 2:15:44
  that. I, I got to a point where Olivia
• 2:15:47
  came home, Tony came home, she was still recovering and I
• 2:15:51
  started getting back into work and I, I noticed that I was just
• 2:15:54
  not wired correctly. I was not processing what's
• 2:15:57
  happening at work. I was not focused on what's
• 2:16:00
  happening at work, constantly worried, constantly having a
• 2:16:03
  feeling of dread, constantly wanting to go home or understand
• 2:16:06
  what's happening. The pressure of not being at
• 2:16:08
  home and leaving Tony to look after Olivia and also making
• 2:16:13
  doctor's appointments and specialist appointments just
• 2:16:16
  really started to grate on me. And it got to a point where
• 2:16:19
  effectively we were in hospital because Olivia wasn't sleeping.
• 2:16:23
  We had lots of issues, were sleeping and she was a lot of
• 2:16:25
  crying. And we were recommended to go to
• 2:16:27
  the hospital for like a sleep test where Olivia was there for
• 2:16:31
  I think 3 or 4 nights and we were in this hospital for three
• 2:16:34
  or four nights. Nurses were making all sorts of
• 2:16:36
  notes about how was sleeping. And then at the end of it, there
• 2:16:40
  was this meeting. The specialist, she's a very
• 2:16:43
  well known pediatric specialist in the Netherlands.
• 2:16:45
  She came to have this conversation with us and I lost
• 2:16:48
  it with this woman. I swear the air blew.
• 2:16:51
  I was so upset that a my wife and daughter got taken out of a
• 2:16:55
  safe family environment to be stuck in this hospital again.
• 2:16:58
  I just had lots of triggers from three months in hospital.
• 2:17:01
  They were out, they went back in and the doctor was amazing
• 2:17:04
  because she listened to me rant for 10 minutes at her really not
• 2:17:09
  very pleasant. I was incredibly rude to her and
• 2:17:11
  she said, have you spoken to someone?
• 2:17:13
  I said, why the fuck do I need to speak to anyone?
• 2:17:15
  And I went home and that's when I realized things are broken,
• 2:17:19
  like this is not great. That was the first moment in my
• 2:17:22
  life that I realized this is this is not going great.
• 2:17:24
  And I ended up seeking support. I went to our house arts and I
• 2:17:28
  got booked off and I went to a great psychologist, a company
• 2:17:32
  called Seek and Swangers Cup, who was based in Amsterdam.
• 2:17:35
  And it was an amazing journey with it.
• 2:17:36
  And that was my very first experience of understanding my
• 2:17:43
  own emotions as a man because it never occurred to me that that
• 2:17:49
  sort of thing would happen to me.
• 2:17:50
  I would never have looked myself in the mirror and go mate, it's
• 2:17:53
  not weak, but you're broken. That's sort of my first
• 2:17:56
  introduction to it. I was going to ask what stopped
• 2:17:59
  you from speaking up earlier, or what finally helped you ask for
• 2:18:02
  support, but yeah, yours yours is a bit different.
• 2:18:05
  Yeah, people around me was incredibly supportive.
• 2:18:07
  My wife saw through all of it as well.
• 2:18:09
  She's an incredible support to me, very connected to herself,
• 2:18:12
  very self aware. I think my self-awareness has
• 2:18:14
  always been mediocre at best. I think there's a male growing
• 2:18:18
  up in a very male traditional environment in South Africa.
• 2:18:21
  Men don't cry. Men look after families.
• 2:18:23
  You know, we are the providers. We have to remain strong.
• 2:18:26
  Hunter gatherer sort of mentality that you know, the
• 2:18:29
  bumps and bruises you just don't mention because you don't think
• 2:18:32
  to mention it. You don't think it's important.
• 2:18:33
  It's not important to talk about my feelings.
• 2:18:35
  I need to make sure that my wife and daughter is OK.
• 2:18:37
  But you mentioned that you couldn't even identify your own
• 2:18:39
  feelings. No, I didn't see it.
• 2:18:42
  I didn't see it until that doctor literally looked me
• 2:18:44
  straight in the eye and went, mate, have you spoken to anyone?
• 2:18:48
  And I had to let that sink in. I had to digest that.
• 2:18:51
  I went away from that. And then, you know, my wife said
• 2:18:53
  to me, you need to make an appointment at the ISO.
• 2:18:55
  So just go and speak to her and see what she says.
• 2:18:57
  And I remember going to this appointment thinking, well, I'm
• 2:19:00
  going to tell this doctor because I don't even know where
• 2:19:03
  to start. I don't even know how to start
• 2:19:07
  saying what's happening inside of me.
• 2:19:09
  Like, I don't because I'm not connecting with me.
• 2:19:12
  Like I'm not connecting with those emotions because I've
• 2:19:14
  always buried those emotions very, very deep.
• 2:19:17
  Like, if a traumatic experience happens in your life as a
• 2:19:20
  younger person, as a young man growing up in the environment
• 2:19:22
  that I did, I'm nurtured not to not to really open that box and
• 2:19:27
  share it. Don't speak to my friends about
• 2:19:29
  it. If people ask me how you're
• 2:19:30
  doing. Yeah, I'm fine.
• 2:19:31
  That's literally it. It's like the it's the, it's
• 2:19:33
  the, it's the common sentence that, you know, mental health
• 2:19:36
  red flags. I'm fine.
• 2:19:38
  And I said that for years. And Liam, when did you start to
• 2:19:42
  acknowledge your feelings and what did reaching out or
• 2:19:45
  beginning to take care of yourself actually look like?
• 2:19:47
  Like what happened or maybe even surprised you about that part of
• 2:19:50
  the process? I thought, I thought I was
• 2:19:53
  faking it. I thought I'm just literally
• 2:19:56
  thought I was lazy and stuff. Like I thought by going to a
• 2:19:59
  company doctor and stuff like that and talking to him, I felt
• 2:20:02
  like I was missed misleading her.
• 2:20:05
  Like I was saying the things I was feeling but I didn't wasn't
• 2:20:08
  truly believing them. What Christo said earlier.
• 2:20:11
  Like how can he know what to do? Because we've not seen it.
• 2:20:14
  It's not being modelled to us. Like I've listened to a lot of
• 2:20:18
  your episodes about mattress and stuff.
• 2:20:19
  It's not nowhere near as big. For for men, but there is a
• 2:20:23
  shift and we tend I, I do, I know enough people that they
• 2:20:27
  tend to reject it a bit and just kind of carry on and just, yeah,
• 2:20:30
  we don't know how to check in on ourselves because not being fine
• 2:20:34
  as weakness and, and it just takes time.
• 2:20:37
  It does take modelling as well. And it's something I really,
• 2:20:41
  really want to do for my son because I'm actually the way
• 2:20:44
  we're pairing him. Like I'm excited for his future
• 2:20:47
  because I know how all my emotions when I was a kid, I'm
• 2:20:51
  still the kid I used to be. I know that.
• 2:20:53
  And through therapy, I've kind of brought that back up and it's
• 2:20:56
  been wonderful. But it's been a lot big, big
• 2:20:59
  journey. Like the growing up we're, we're
• 2:21:02
  fueled by toxic masculinity. It's a few, it works for a while
• 2:21:07
  until it doesn't. And then what do you do?
• 2:21:10
  You have a midlife crisis. Well, now, now we have burnouts
• 2:21:12
  or something like that. It's I was just listening to
• 2:21:15
  Christo there. Like it takes so many big
• 2:21:18
  moments, big signs saying get some help.
• 2:21:20
  And even still, the big sign is still like, we still need the
• 2:21:24
  help. Get into the help because we
• 2:21:27
  don't see it. It's not obvious to us.
• 2:21:29
  It's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a crazy thing.
• 2:21:33
  And it sounds like it could happen to both of you at around
• 2:21:35
  similar stages in your parenting life, like it was in the first
• 2:21:39
  year basically. Yeah, definitely.
• 2:21:41
  Like life has got more and more difficult and the old ways of
• 2:21:44
  doing it, the other ways of getting through life don't work
• 2:21:47
  anymore. I mean, you could do, you could
• 2:21:49
  disassociate from your kids and then just be dad, like just be
• 2:21:52
  like the breadwinner or something like that.
• 2:21:53
  But that's not, that's not how you do it now.
• 2:21:55
  Like you, you, you're there. You're present and presence
• 2:21:59
  takes a lot. So taking time for yourself or
• 2:22:01
  slowing down can actually feel like a very big shift.
• 2:22:04
  How did either of you change the way you approached parenting or
• 2:22:09
  for yourself, and how did it affect your relationship with
• 2:22:11
  your partner? Very interesting question.
• 2:22:16
  I would be honest in saying when I had the time out after my
• 2:22:22
  daughter was born and I sort of like took on the support and try
• 2:22:25
  to understand why I'm feeling this way and working through
• 2:22:27
  that was about a period of three months.
• 2:22:30
  I think one of the key things my psychiatrist told me at that
• 2:22:35
  time was take time for yourself by just going for a walk and not
• 2:22:39
  like going to the shops with a purpose, but literally just
• 2:22:44
  walking. I did that maybe once or twice.
• 2:22:46
  I wasn't hugely into it. I lost myself on silly apps and
• 2:22:51
  stuff on my phone to, you know, ignore what's happening around
• 2:22:57
  me. But my parenting style now
• 2:22:59
  that's a that's an interesting one for me.
• 2:23:01
  I think in the beginning I was incredibly scared and nervous.
• 2:23:07
  And I think it also really made me short tempered.
• 2:23:15
  It made me closed off. I kept a lot of things in.
• 2:23:18
  So it really affected my relationship with with my wife,
• 2:23:21
  with Tony. I think, you know, I just didn't
• 2:23:24
  share anything with her. I didn't talk to her.
• 2:23:27
  I would, I would have a conversation with her, but I'm
• 2:23:29
  not talking to her and telling her what's happening inside
• 2:23:32
  inside of me and how I'm feeling because it's just, again, I'm
• 2:23:35
  not used to talking about those things.
• 2:23:36
  I don't, I'm not from a family environment where we share those
• 2:23:40
  sorts of feelings as a as a guy, as a bloke.
• 2:23:43
  So it was a very hard readjustment to accept that I'm
• 2:23:49
  not going to know everything. I'm not going to be good at
• 2:23:50
  everything related to parenting and I've got to take it in my
• 2:23:54
  own pace. So I tried to find moments to be
• 2:24:00
  on my own and be OK with my own company.
• 2:24:04
  Going for walks was what I tried to do.
• 2:24:08
  Getting lost in a game on my phone or whatever to just block
• 2:24:12
  out the world was also something that I did.
• 2:24:15
  I enjoy podcasts, so I listen to podcasts all the time.
• 2:24:20
  True crime podcasts. Probably not a great way to
• 2:24:23
  support a low mental health, but it is really each individual's
• 2:24:28
  own journey. What works for me might be
• 2:24:31
  interesting for someone to go, OK, maybe I should do that, but
• 2:24:33
  it's really what you are comfortable with.
• 2:24:36
  But I think before you even approach the subject of what can
• 2:24:39
  I do, you've really got to understand and accept that
• 2:24:42
  you've got a problem, you've got a challenge.
• 2:24:45
  I mean, saying I've got problems sounds a bit like I'm an
• 2:24:47
  alcoholic. But you have a challenge.
• 2:24:50
  You have to understand where that comes from.
• 2:24:52
  And I didn't do that during those three months.
• 2:24:55
  I just went through a process and I went through EMDR therapy
• 2:24:59
  and got rid of the triggers I had which was related to the
• 2:25:04
  beeps and noises of the hospital.
• 2:25:06
  I couldn't stand it. My, my microwave beeped once and
• 2:25:10
  I nearly threw it out the window because I lost it because it
• 2:25:12
  just triggered me from sitting next to Tony and listening to
• 2:25:15
  beep, beep, beep, beep, beep all the time for a month before
• 2:25:19
  Olivia was born. And that was a big deal for me
• 2:25:21
  to get rid of in the 1st sort of time that I took out.
• 2:25:24
  But my demons came back and they came back last year.
• 2:25:28
  You sort of go through life and you pave over cracks and you
• 2:25:31
  think I'm all right. And then you get to maybe a
• 2:25:34
  challenging situation in your life in another aspect of your
• 2:25:37
  life, maybe your work life. In my case, it was my work life
• 2:25:40
  and it really made a lot of my old demons bubble back up to the
• 2:25:45
  surface, things that I never dealt with during the first
• 2:25:49
  moment when I cracked. And this time round, I took six
• 2:25:56
  months out and I took time out. I stepped away from my job.
• 2:25:59
  I completely shot myself off from anything that's going to
• 2:26:02
  take my attention and focus away from me and my family.
• 2:26:05
  I became a house husband, which I absolutely loved.
• 2:26:08
  I dated over my wife and daughter all the time.
• 2:26:10
  I filled my days with taking my daughter to play dates and
• 2:26:13
  becoming incredibly busy. And then my wife says to me,
• 2:26:15
  what are you doing? I said, well, I don't know, I'm
• 2:26:17
  just busy all the time. But I found a life coach and I
• 2:26:20
  found an amazing life coach that I absolutely have split open my
• 2:26:26
  soul to understand why I have certain behaviors.
• 2:26:30
  And six months later, I can talk very freely about things that I
• 2:26:35
  have had issues with for a long time.
• 2:26:38
  And to be very open. It's things like being liked by
• 2:26:41
  other people or being a yes man. These are things that caused me
• 2:26:45
  a lot of issues through my life, but I never connected the two
• 2:26:48
  until I actually really sat down and explored it.
• 2:26:51
  And, and I guess the point of why I've got, I've got such a
• 2:26:53
  long story is if you have an opportunity to take time out and
• 2:26:58
  understand your soul, your emotions as a man in today's
• 2:27:02
  life, really take a step back and, and do that.
• 2:27:05
  I literally just fell into a process, you know, seven years
• 2:27:09
  ago. And I just went through it, got
• 2:27:10
  through it, got the EMDR therapy out of the way.
• 2:27:13
  Triggers are dealt with. I can talk about my daughter's
• 2:27:15
  birth without crying. I'm OK.
• 2:27:17
  No, I wasn't because I went back into work and the same behavior
• 2:27:20
  started to come out of me a year later, two years later.
• 2:27:24
  And then, you know, 6 1/2 years later, I, I'm on the floor.
• 2:27:27
  My my mental health this time last year was shocking.
• 2:27:31
  It was probably the most scared I've ever been about myself in
• 2:27:35
  my entire life because nothing in my life felt positive.
• 2:27:39
  The only thing I clinged on to was my wife and daughter and
• 2:27:43
  taking that time out, focusing on myself and telling myself I
• 2:27:47
  have got to improve myself, awareness as a man.
• 2:27:50
  I've got to understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling.
• 2:27:52
  I'm why I'm responding the way I'm responding.
• 2:27:55
  And I delve into that. And my wonderful wife found me a
• 2:27:58
  life coach probably a year before that moment.
• 2:28:01
  I said you got to contact this guy.
• 2:28:02
  But yeah, or I will. And you know, the moral of the
• 2:28:05
  story was probably listen to my wife more.
• 2:28:07
  But I think I took on that journey.
• 2:28:09
  I took on that challenge and it was an amazing support to me.
• 2:28:12
  And I still use that life coach today.
• 2:28:14
  I still speak to him once a month, but for the first time in
• 2:28:16
  my life, I understand how to use that person and that's meantable
• 2:28:20
  to me. Thank you for that.
• 2:28:22
  I get a lump on my throat when you talk about your child's
• 2:28:24
  birth as well still. So I can't imagine what it was
• 2:28:27
  for you. Liam, if you spoke about how you
• 2:28:30
  went on burnout, can you talk about then about slowing down
• 2:28:34
  and how's this change in your way in your approach to
• 2:28:36
  parenting and also your relationship with your partner?
• 2:28:39
  So with the burnout, yeah, so have I had six months off and it
• 2:28:42
  took some time to get over the shame of feeling like I wasn't
• 2:28:47
  producing in a certain arena in my life, like I wasn't able to
• 2:28:51
  produce, but I was. I've done enough therapy in like
• 2:28:57
  and read enough and I've tried enough stuff.
• 2:28:59
  I've, I've thrown enough shit at the wall to see what sticks.
• 2:29:03
  Like I've tried all the bro science and stuff.
• 2:29:05
  All of them, of course. But like, I quite feel like I
• 2:29:08
  found out I like breath work. So breath work works.
• 2:29:10
  The Wim Hof stuff that that's nice.
• 2:29:12
  The cold plunges. That's nice.
• 2:29:14
  I don't have to talk about misogyny while I do it.
• 2:29:16
  We can take, we can take that out of the bro science.
• 2:29:19
  But yeah, doing ADHD therapy or getting diagnosed and then doing
• 2:29:22
  the therapy for it. It kind of accelerated burnout,
• 2:29:26
  kind of like when I got my diagnosis, when I started doing
• 2:29:29
  a therapy, like all the stuff I was holding off, it started to
• 2:29:33
  be unpicked with the therapy because we were actually
• 2:29:36
  addressing things. Because when Christa was saying,
• 2:29:38
  like when you're saying about addressing his triggers and
• 2:29:40
  stuff like that makes sense in like 5 years ago, yeah, you just
• 2:29:44
  just get rid of the triggers. But now having gone through all
• 2:29:47
  this therapy, like, no, the triggers are there, that you're
• 2:29:49
  putting medicine in it, but you're not fixing it.
• 2:29:51
  You're just dumbing it down or like, it's still there, it's
• 2:29:54
  still bubbling up. It's still there.
• 2:29:56
  It's not just a family thing of being brought up.
• 2:29:58
  It's the society and that's still there.
• 2:30:02
  I've gone a bit lost now. I'm sorry.
• 2:30:04
  Yeah. With the burnout after, I can
• 2:30:06
  get over the, the shame of being broken.
• 2:30:11
  When I started actually talking about it is when things started
• 2:30:15
  going quite well because I couldn't.
• 2:30:17
  I was almost rejecting it before then, but then I kind of
• 2:30:21
  accepted I call and I was given more time to spend my children.
• 2:30:25
  So all the learnings, knowledge, all this kind of stuff I've
• 2:30:28
  learned in life, forget the past, don't worry about the
• 2:30:31
  future, just be present. Just be present.
• 2:30:34
  And the therapy helped with the past, like how I was brought up,
• 2:30:39
  the time off helped with the future because I'm like Daddy
• 2:30:42
  don't have to go anywhere. And then I could just zone in
• 2:30:46
  and just be present with my kids.
• 2:30:48
  And I went from I, I, I will toot my own home away from a
• 2:30:51
  good dad to a great dad. Like everyone needs this.
• 2:30:53
  Everyone needs some sort of like, And that's what's getting
• 2:30:56
  me like parenting these days. It feels like an uneven
• 2:30:59
  equation. You're borrowing from one side
• 2:31:01
  to fix the other side. You want to be working.
• 2:31:04
  You want to be a great daddy. You can't do all of it.
• 2:31:07
  And so if you keep, you can, oh, you can for a while, or you can
• 2:31:11
  find new ways. You can do coping mechanisms.
• 2:31:13
  You can drink, you can smoke, you can go running for fucking
• 2:31:16
  sorry for hours like you can. You can do all these things, but
• 2:31:19
  eventually you can't because it doesn't work.
• 2:31:22
  It doesn't balance out and you're just going to and that's
• 2:31:25
  that's it. I forgot where I was going with
• 2:31:27
  this. I mean, I'm a bit ADHD.
• 2:31:28
  I'm playing the card, I'm playing the card.
• 2:31:31
  But it's the the burnout was possibly the best thing to ever
• 2:31:35
  happen to me, which is sounds ridiculous, but it's just a,
• 2:31:38
  it's a consequence of how things are.
• 2:31:42
  And the more, yeah, here we go. The more I talk about, the more
• 2:31:46
  I'm vulnerable. I had this fault in my head
• 2:31:49
  where I was like, I'm marked. I'm marked as weak, I'm marked
• 2:31:52
  as as burnt out. Nah, I'm, I'm, I am marked.
• 2:31:56
  But that's good. But I can give space to others
• 2:31:59
  because we're all struggling kids, no kids, whatever.
• 2:32:02
  We've been through COVID, but this has turned into a rant.
• 2:32:04
  Sorry, but we're all struggling. There's a hangover from COVID.
• 2:32:07
  There's a lot of stuff and it doesn't matter.
• 2:32:09
  We're all struggling and allowing space for people to be
• 2:32:13
  open, especially for men because we're a bit Dum Dums.
• 2:32:17
  We haven't learned it properly. We're learning, but we're very
• 2:32:21
  far behind is massive. And it's my burnouts almost give
• 2:32:24
  me a bit of purpose. Like I I can make people laugh
• 2:32:28
  with comedy, but I can also make people happy with themselves
• 2:32:32
  just by allowing them to talk and talk to someone who looks
• 2:32:37
  like a buddy ruffian and stuff like that.
• 2:32:39
  A big beard or whatever. But it's actually a big like
• 2:32:41
  kind of gooey. I'll cry of them.
• 2:32:43
  I like. I like crack.
• 2:32:46
  So you're speaking there about vulnerability, Christo, Can you
• 2:32:49
  explain what vulnerability might look like to you then?
• 2:32:52
  Not just the idea, but actually like day-to-day.
• 2:32:54
  Are there moments where you catch yourself showing up
• 2:32:57
  differently than you might have before?
• 2:33:00
  Explain vulnerability. I think my vulnerability becomes
• 2:33:04
  my quietness. I lock myself away in my head in
• 2:33:08
  I would literally be at the office in a toxic environment
• 2:33:13
  and just stop talking, stop communicating.
• 2:33:17
  I would be in a difficult conversation and literally not
• 2:33:19
  interact. I'd have a complete closure in
• 2:33:23
  my throat. I would just stop talking.
• 2:33:28
  I'd stop sharing with my wife. I would be incredibly quiet.
• 2:33:33
  I would spend more time in the kitchen just to be on my own
• 2:33:37
  away from people. I would not even pick up the
• 2:33:39
  phone to call friends. I would not even respond to
• 2:33:42
  people on WhatsApp for weeks. That wasn't the case with you,
• 2:33:46
  Liam, I promise. I think at the end of the day,
• 2:33:52
  eight years ago, I had no idea that that's what I was doing,
• 2:33:54
  but I was doing it. And when I'm at the office and
• 2:33:58
  you're doing office talk, you're just not actually recognizing
• 2:34:02
  that you're you're not there. I think Liam just had a he said
• 2:34:06
  it really well. It's being present.
• 2:34:08
  I become not present. I'm sitting next to my wife on
• 2:34:13
  on the sofa and I'm just, it's like I'm not there.
• 2:34:17
  And, and, and that was the peak of of my vulnerability.
• 2:34:22
  Sleep becomes a big issue for me.
• 2:34:26
  I end up staying up for hours. Now it's go to bed at like 3:00
• 2:34:30
  in the morning having not slept. And then I try and sleep and
• 2:34:33
  then I'm up by 6:00. And then you function and then
• 2:34:36
  you go through the day and then when you get home, your
• 2:34:38
  tiredness kicks in and you just you Welt, you know, you just
• 2:34:42
  completely go down the tube. So I think that's, I guess the
• 2:34:47
  most honest answer I could give you is, is, is my quietness.
• 2:34:50
  I lock myself away. I, I just don't engage with
• 2:34:53
  people. I think, which is probably the
• 2:34:55
  worst thing you can do because that's the moment you should say
• 2:34:57
  to someone, Hey, you know what? I'm not feeling great.
• 2:35:00
  Like I'm really, really low. I would have conversations with
• 2:35:03
  my parents. They'd be like, how are you
• 2:35:04
  doing? I'm fine, I am fine.
• 2:35:08
  Biggest lie ever. You build up the wall like you
• 2:35:12
  build up a wall. Yeah, if you address it, then
• 2:35:14
  you've got to deal with it kind of thing.
• 2:35:15
  But you build up the wall and you're just like, I'm fine.
• 2:35:18
  I don't have to think about this.
• 2:35:20
  I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine because it's screaming.
• 2:35:23
  It screams. Somethings not right.
• 2:35:26
  So between your vulnerabilities, are there anything that you've
• 2:35:28
  learned? So Christo, you've been going to
• 2:35:30
  a coach, as you said, and Liam, you've actually done different
• 2:35:33
  forms of therapy. Are there anything that has
• 2:35:35
  helped you identify your vulnerability and actually help
• 2:35:37
  you sit in it, the uncomfortableness of
• 2:35:40
  vulnerability and help you process through whatever feeling
• 2:35:43
  you might be feeling It's. It's talking.
• 2:35:45
  It's, it's, it's something we don't do talk about all for all
• 2:35:49
  men, but a lot of men, we don't talk because we then would have
• 2:35:52
  to address the certain things. So just talking, getting it out,
• 2:35:55
  if it stays in your head, it goes all over the place and it
• 2:35:58
  just, it gets warped. And then you just
• 2:36:00
  compartmentalize it. Whereas just like I say with
• 2:36:03
  Christo, with myself, just talking, talking to therapists,
• 2:36:06
  having it out in the world and hearing it back, actually
• 2:36:09
  hearing it back is like a sanity check.
• 2:36:11
  Sometimes just even just that, that small thing that possibly
• 2:36:15
  women would take for granted because you, there's, there's a
• 2:36:17
  lot more talking, there's a lot more sharing of emotions and
• 2:36:20
  you're used to it. It's it's a, it's a skill.
• 2:36:22
  It is a skill and we don't do it as men.
• 2:36:26
  Generally. I.
• 2:36:27
  I agree. I, I think Liam summed up really
• 2:36:30
  well. Me and Liam bonded over, you
• 2:36:32
  know, our partners saying, hey, you 2 need to connect because
• 2:36:35
  you guys have similar challenges.
• 2:36:37
  And you know, I think you guys could, could really, you know,
• 2:36:39
  do with a conversation with one another.
• 2:36:41
  He is Liam, who I literally met once because, you know, my wife
• 2:36:45
  helped them with the birth of their kids.
• 2:36:47
  And we, I think we first met just having a lunch and you guys
• 2:36:51
  were showing the little baby and that was fantastic.
• 2:36:54
  So here's me and Liam, we organized to see each other one
• 2:36:56
  day. We met up at a cafe in
• 2:36:58
  Amsterdam. And I think we spent 4 hours
• 2:37:01
  talking. We spent 4 hours talking to each
• 2:37:04
  other because we just both I think had very open minded sort
• 2:37:08
  of idea that we're just going to go and see how this goes.
• 2:37:10
  But within the 1st 10 minutes, me and this guy, we're just
• 2:37:13
  sharing everything about our lives as dudes.
• 2:37:16
  Like we were just like sharing the load and the similarities of
• 2:37:20
  what we've been going through and then sharing with one
• 2:37:23
  another how we felt in different parts of that.
• 2:37:25
  It's about talking. And I don't think that as men we
• 2:37:29
  do that enough. I have an amazing friendship
• 2:37:33
  circle. I have an amazing group of
• 2:37:34
  friends back home in South Africa and also here in the
• 2:37:36
  Netherlands and in the UK and a few other parts of the world.
• 2:37:39
  But, you know, growing up with my friends in SA, he did not sit
• 2:37:43
  in a in a pub with a beer and go.
• 2:37:45
  So right guys, before the rugby starts.
• 2:37:47
  Yeah. I'm just not feeling very well
• 2:37:48
  today. You know, I'm feeling a bit low.
• 2:37:49
  They've literally tell me to put take my handbag and go home.
• 2:37:52
  They would just not be bothered to explore that more.
• 2:37:56
  But that was 20 years ago. I think that has shifted a
• 2:37:58
  little bit today as well as I've seen some hints of, of the guys
• 2:38:03
  sharing a few things with one another.
• 2:38:04
  But in general, I just don't think we do that.
• 2:38:07
  And, and I think that's cultivated through how we grow
• 2:38:10
  up and the environment that we grow up in.
• 2:38:12
  I think for some, and it's a lot easier maybe coming from a
• 2:38:14
  household that's a lot more open.
• 2:38:16
  If I look at the differences between myself and Tony, for
• 2:38:18
  example, she's from a household where they have it all the time.
• 2:38:21
  If they've got an issue, it's on the table, Talk about it, deal
• 2:38:24
  with it, scream at each other, whatever you need to do.
• 2:38:26
  But it might be multiple conversations, but they talk
• 2:38:29
  about it and they get it out and it's done and it's dealt with.
• 2:38:31
  I'm from a family environment where I don't think we talk
• 2:38:34
  about things enough. I think there's a carpet with a
• 2:38:37
  huge mound of emotional baggage hidden in my mum's lounge
• 2:38:41
  because we just, we just don't share.
• 2:38:43
  We pave over the cracks as a family.
• 2:38:45
  We don't, we don't talk about things and and that was
• 2:38:48
  something that was cultivated in me and that gave me the
• 2:38:51
  challenges I had later in my life.
• 2:38:52
  So it's about talking, it's learning to talk about that as
• 2:38:55
  well. I don't think it's something
• 2:38:56
  that just comes easily. As males, as men, we need to
• 2:38:59
  learn to share what's going on inside.
• 2:39:02
  And I think maybe myself and Liam sort of had a trial period
• 2:39:05
  with one another where we were doing that, Hey, how do I talk
• 2:39:08
  to this guy about things going on?
• 2:39:09
  But he's being very receptive to that and I'm being very
• 2:39:12
  receptive to, to listen to him. And through that journey, we've
• 2:39:15
  connected and we, we catch up all the time.
• 2:39:17
  I think not enough anymore because I'm back into a, a work
• 2:39:21
  routine, but just finding a moment to make time to go and
• 2:39:24
  catch up with this guy and shoot the breeze and share how I feel
• 2:39:29
  and little ups and downs that I've had over the last last, you
• 2:39:31
  know, six months being Liam got to a point where, you know, we'd
• 2:39:34
  literally be sharing small little wins with one another.
• 2:39:37
  I'd be texting and go, hey, I did this for the first time in
• 2:39:40
  six years. I feel great about it.
• 2:39:42
  He would send me a text to go, Hey, I've connected with XY and
• 2:39:44
  Z that I haven't done for a long time.
• 2:39:45
  I feel amazing. It's those little boost that
• 2:39:47
  kind of feels like, hey, I'm building up myself awareness.
• 2:39:50
  I'm becoming, you know, I'm recognizing what it feels like
• 2:39:52
  to build up what's been a bit broken inside.
• 2:39:55
  I think the one key thing that I took away from my life coach
• 2:39:58
  over the last six months has helped me a lot.
• 2:40:01
  Is to understand that within each one of us, male and female,
• 2:40:04
  they're self critique and self critique is toxic.
• 2:40:09
  Self critique is that voice in your head, mate, you're just not
• 2:40:11
  good enough. And it starts in your work
• 2:40:13
  environment and then it filters into your life and then it
• 2:40:16
  filters into your day-to-day and you start to doubt everything
• 2:40:19
  you do from running a bath for your daughter, is it hot enough?
• 2:40:22
  Is it enough water, you know, to cooking a dinner.
• 2:40:25
  Self critique is, is a demon that you got to deal with, to
• 2:40:30
  put it, you know, really, really hard, but it is it was, it was
• 2:40:33
  toxic in me and I've had to understand how to deal with it
• 2:40:36
  and lay down things that I've thought about myself for a long
• 2:40:40
  time that no one else have said to me.
• 2:40:42
  But I have that in need self critique.
• 2:40:45
  And we all have it. We all have that voice.
• 2:40:47
  For others, it's stronger. For me, it was incredibly
• 2:40:49
  strong. And last year it was at its
• 2:40:52
  peak. And that self critique drove me
• 2:40:54
  down a dark route. Because you questioned
• 2:40:57
  everything, everything, everything.
• 2:40:59
  You don't listen to people giving you any sort of
• 2:41:01
  compliments. What do they know?
• 2:41:03
  They're just saying that to make me feel better.
• 2:41:05
  I'm rubbish. Oh shit.
• 2:41:07
  Just add on to that like we're both very open and honest to
• 2:41:10
  each other. And I, I love listening to, to
• 2:41:13
  his experiences. I love being able to give my
• 2:41:16
  experiences to him and it be in a kind of way.
• 2:41:18
  I still have a voice in the back of my head saying, what the fuck
• 2:41:22
  are you talking about? Shut the fuck.
• 2:41:24
  Just that that's, that's my programming.
• 2:41:27
  That's my initial programming and it's faking me years to kind
• 2:41:31
  of like it's still there. Whilst he was talking, I was
• 2:41:34
  like, shut the fuck because I wasn't, because I'm in there.
• 2:41:37
  I'm, I mean, this is me, this is who I am, but I still have this
• 2:41:40
  this old reflection of who I was and how I was brought, how
• 2:41:44
  society brought me up. So I I can, I can literally I'm
• 2:41:48
  looking at my friend. I'm like, shut the fuck up, but
• 2:41:51
  I'm not because I'm there. I'm in, I'm in.
• 2:41:53
  Those listening who are partners, whether they're
• 2:41:55
  mothers or fathers or Co parents, what are some ways you
• 2:41:59
  can createspace for emotional honesty and openness, especially
• 2:42:03
  when it might feel challenging or unfamiliar?
• 2:42:07
  Deliberately doing it, actually making it really easy access.
• 2:42:12
  So make it a simple thing once a week, possibly, let's spend this
• 2:42:17
  15 minutes of chatting or, or just being deliberate with
• 2:42:20
  having some space. There is this space here.
• 2:42:23
  Now we could say what we want to each other.
• 2:42:25
  And then there's no kind of like push back, just listen.
• 2:42:29
  And it's something I, I should do a hell of a lot more.
• 2:42:32
  I think I've done it twice, but I mean, I keep meaning to do it
• 2:42:36
  because it's very, very good. But then it's getting into the
• 2:42:39
  habit of it. So actually literally saying
• 2:42:41
  this is now a space. Let's talk.
• 2:42:44
  I think that's one. No, but I think that's what we
• 2:42:46
  had to do with me and Christo. Oh, you and Christo, but for
• 2:42:50
  partners though. Yeah.
• 2:42:51
  I mean for the partners, but I'm saying me and Christo literally
• 2:42:53
  did that as well. But our partners helped us do
• 2:42:55
  that. I'll recommend that.
• 2:42:56
  I think, you know, Liam is right.
• 2:42:58
  You've got to partner up with your partner.
• 2:43:01
  I mean, she's an absolute rock in my life.
• 2:43:03
  You know, she, she sees straight through my Shields and walls and
• 2:43:07
  things that I raised around me. And she very quickly notices
• 2:43:09
  when I'm just perhaps not myself because she's come to know who I
• 2:43:13
  am and she's amazing at that. I think what I have to do more
• 2:43:17
  is use that ability of my wife to unpick and talk and digest
• 2:43:23
  and do that more. We talk often.
• 2:43:25
  We talk a lot. I would probably argue the last
• 2:43:28
  3-4 months we've had a lot going on.
• 2:43:30
  Me starting a new job, we're buying a puppy and you know,
• 2:43:32
  life just gets busy. But every so often we'd have a
• 2:43:35
  moment where we just, you know, share a few thoughts and talk
• 2:43:37
  about it. And I've got to be a bit more
• 2:43:40
  forthcoming with that instead of her starting those conversations
• 2:43:43
  I should. Which is again, that's because
• 2:43:45
  of me and my challenges. I don't think every other guy or
• 2:43:49
  person might be that way, but I have challenges with talking
• 2:43:53
  about my emotions to others. And that's because I have
• 2:43:55
  examples seen and growing up around a dad that is a wonderful
• 2:44:00
  man but doesn't share any of his emotions.
• 2:44:02
  And I probably saw him cry 3 times in my life.
• 2:44:04
  So I learned through the experience with my wife and
• 2:44:08
  seeing how she deals with it, to understand also how I talk to
• 2:44:10
  her. So I've, I've started to learn
• 2:44:11
  to understand how to, you know, this sounds crazy.
• 2:44:14
  I've been married for so long and I'm starting to understand
• 2:44:16
  how to talk to my wife about my emotions.
• 2:44:18
  But it's true. It's, it's really, really true
• 2:44:20
  because, because you can spend years talking about the
• 2:44:22
  superficial stuff and, and being happy, but you know that
• 2:44:24
  there's, there's something inside that, you know, you got
• 2:44:27
  to work at. So, but it's talking and you've
• 2:44:30
  got to just be honest. You've got to just share what's
• 2:44:34
  on your mind. And I try and do that by, you
• 2:44:37
  know, it's great. My wife will say, how was your
• 2:44:40
  day? Yeah, it was fine.
• 2:44:41
  I think now what I try to do is say, yeah, it was great.
• 2:44:43
  You know, these meetings like this, like that.
• 2:44:45
  Oh, and this happened. I try and focus on on key things
• 2:44:47
  through the day to share because that then stimulates other
• 2:44:51
  conversation just to go, yeah, it was all right.
• 2:44:53
  I did this and the other, it's kind of like closed.
• 2:44:55
  It kills off the conversation. So it it starts with talking and
• 2:44:59
  and Liam's absolutely right. You've got to just find those
• 2:45:01
  moments, connect and talk. Can I ask you for something on
• 2:45:05
  the other side so you're both yourselves now are quite open
• 2:45:09
  and honestly sharing your vulnerabilities?
• 2:45:11
  What about for anyone who's listening who might not be able
• 2:45:14
  to see through the mask and maybe their partner might be
• 2:45:18
  just keeping busy and just holding it all together?
• 2:45:21
  Is there a way that a partner or a Co parent is able to reach
• 2:45:27
  that person? With determination.
• 2:45:31
  I, I think you heard from Christo, from myself as well.
• 2:45:33
  Like it, we, we take a lot of signs.
• 2:45:36
  Like the signs are right there. Sometimes we just need, we need
• 2:45:40
  gentle cajoling into these areas where we are still the, the
• 2:45:44
  little children that we used to be.
• 2:45:45
  And sometimes we need a little bit you, you, you know your
• 2:45:48
  partner better than anybody really.
• 2:45:51
  So it's like find ways of helping them to help themselves.
• 2:45:55
  I think if you know, if there's someone out there listening
• 2:45:57
  that's struggling, caught up in a dark hole, doesn't see the
• 2:46:01
  light, doesn't understand how to get out of it.
• 2:46:03
  If there's one honest thing you could do is the next time anyone
• 2:46:07
  asks you how you're doing, you say I am not fine.
• 2:46:10
  And you might find that that person opens up, or you might
• 2:46:13
  find that person shies away. But that's OK.
• 2:46:15
  We're all wired slightly differently.
• 2:46:17
  But do that with someone that you trust.
• 2:46:19
  Maybe not a stranger in all behind, but that you know when
• 2:46:23
  you walk in the door and your partner asks you how we're
• 2:46:25
  doing, just stand there and say I'm not fine.
• 2:46:28
  You don't have to know the rest of the conversation.
• 2:46:30
  It's not scripted. This is the ugly warts and all
• 2:46:33
  truth that sits underneath all of us.
• 2:46:36
  Those layers of of guards and walls and shocking exterior
• 2:46:40
  structures that we've just got to break down.
• 2:46:42
  You've got to just be honest. That moment when someone asks
• 2:46:45
  you that you trust, whether it's your mom, your grandma, your
• 2:46:47
  partner or a good friend or someone that you're familiar
• 2:46:49
  with like me and Liam, it's just to go look, I'm not fine.
• 2:46:54
  I am not fine and and see where that goes.
• 2:46:57
  Sometimes that first moment of honesty is the one that breaks a
• 2:47:00
  lot of barriers and just gets you going.
• 2:47:02
  I think that's why, you know, I said it earlier, me and Liam
• 2:47:04
  spent the first time we met talking for four hours because I
• 2:47:07
  think we both went, there's no barrier here.
• 2:47:09
  There's no filter. I'm just going to share
• 2:47:10
  everything. I don't care what this guy
• 2:47:11
  thinks about me. That's the other point.
• 2:47:13
  Don't care about what the other people think about it.
• 2:47:15
  I think that's parenting in general.
• 2:47:18
  That's my style of parenting anyway.
• 2:47:22
  Definitely to deflect less. That's basically, as you say
• 2:47:25
  when someone asks you how you're doing, Talk to him.
• 2:47:28
  I remember before I really succumbed to the burnout in the
• 2:47:31
  office, I remember someone complimenting me on.
• 2:47:33
  I had a quite funky shirt on, and I love your shirt.
• 2:47:36
  I was like, dressed for the mental health you want, not the
• 2:47:38
  mental health you have. And then just wandered off into
• 2:47:40
  the thing. I was screaming it out.
• 2:47:42
  It took me so long to kind of just kind of just say you need
• 2:47:46
  to rest. It was, yeah.
• 2:47:48
  Deflect less, definitely. Wow.
• 2:47:50
  So closing up, what's one thing you'd love people to walk away
• 2:47:53
  with from this episode? Who wants to take that first?
• 2:47:56
  You're both paused and staring off here trying to think.
• 2:47:59
  I see. I'm waiting for Captain Jack
• 2:48:00
  Sparrow there to say something. I was trying to be present and
• 2:48:04
  I'm not sure, definitely not trying to take some time and I
• 2:48:07
  wrote it down many times throughout the years, unlike
• 2:48:11
  notes in my phone to help me help, kind of actually trying to
• 2:48:14
  get to it. But I would say vulnerability is
• 2:48:17
  a superpower, especially for for men.
• 2:48:19
  Being vulnerable and being genuine is perfect and it
• 2:48:24
  doesn't. It doesn't need to be grand,
• 2:48:25
  doesn't need to be big, it just needs to be small.
• 2:48:28
  Going on, Christo said Just if someone says how are you doing
• 2:48:32
  that? I'm not too good now and again,
• 2:48:34
  if they shy away, cool, you've got information.
• 2:48:36
  But if they don't, you've got a little bit a little bit of
• 2:48:40
  pressure relieved. Be vulnerable.
• 2:48:42
  Try small, don't go, don't go too big too quickly.
• 2:48:46
  Definitely try small and then just be a bit more deflectless.
• 2:48:50
  And I'll stop listing things now and.
• 2:48:53
  Kristen. I think if there's anything I
• 2:48:55
  want anyone listening to this podcast to sort of digest and,
• 2:48:58
  and as a take away, just you know what, we're all human.
• 2:49:02
  And as a as a man, as a male, we're allowed to also not be OK.
• 2:49:07
  We're allowed to also have struggles.
• 2:49:11
  It doesn't mean you're weak, doesn't mean that you're not
• 2:49:13
  conforming to what society wants you to be.
• 2:49:16
  I personally think that there's just way too much influence in
• 2:49:19
  society today about what a man needs to be and what a woman
• 2:49:23
  needs to be. I think you have to be honest to
• 2:49:25
  yourself. And I think if you're in a place
• 2:49:28
  where you really feel like you need help and you recognize that
• 2:49:33
  there's a challenge and you don't recognize the person
• 2:49:36
  looking back in the mirror and they've listened to this
• 2:49:38
  podcast. Find that one person that you
• 2:49:41
  think you can open up to and just even walk up to them and
• 2:49:44
  say, I am not OK, can I talk to you?
• 2:49:48
  And you will probably find that any person that knows you will
• 2:49:53
  say, I'm stopping everything we're doing.
• 2:49:55
  Talk to me. Because I found that through my
• 2:49:57
  journey talking to a few of my friends, I've actually got them
• 2:50:02
  to also go crap, you know, I am also struggling.
• 2:50:05
  I've got a close friend here who's been going through his own
• 2:50:07
  challenges. And when he saw me talking about
• 2:50:10
  my challenges, he started opening up to me.
• 2:50:12
  So I think let's focus less on what society and Instagram and
• 2:50:17
  things wants us to be as, as men.
• 2:50:18
  And I think you can cry, you can be upset, you can wake up in the
• 2:50:23
  morning and also feel like you want a tub of ice cream and
• 2:50:26
  nothing else. Because we are all human.
• 2:50:29
  We're all made-up of the same things, but we're wired
• 2:50:32
  differently and we approach challenges differently.
• 2:50:35
  But recognize to yourself that you're allowed to say, you know,
• 2:50:38
  OK, and find that one person that you can talk to, whether
• 2:50:40
  it's your partner or a friend, that will start the journey.
• 2:50:44
  Yeah. I think that's that's kind of
• 2:50:45
  like hopefully a take away that someone will find useful for
• 2:50:49
  themselves in this podcast. Can I just jump on that quickly?
• 2:50:52
  No, but as you're saying that if something is from childhood is
• 2:50:58
  the big boys don't cry and it's basically big boys can cry.
• 2:51:02
  I've dumbed it down a bit, but it is big boys can cry because
• 2:51:06
  we were told that we were told big boys don't cry, big boys
• 2:51:09
  don't cry. So yeah, big boys can cry.
• 2:51:14
  Thank you so much, Crystal and Liam, for showing up so openly
• 2:51:17
  and honestly in today's conversation.
• 2:51:19
  Your willingness to speak about vulnerability, especially during
• 2:51:22
  men's Mental health week. It's not just powerful, it's
• 2:51:24
  necessary. We hope this episode gave you
• 2:51:26
  something meaningful to sit with.
• 2:51:28
  Maybe it's a conversation to have your partner a gentle check
• 2:51:31
  in with a friend or a quiet moment of reflection.
• 2:51:33
  Your own emotional well-being. Wherever it leads, you know that
• 2:51:37
  you're not alone. As international families living
• 2:51:39
  abroad, mental health isn't just personal.
• 2:51:42
  It's deeply intertwined with the strength and connection we bring
• 2:51:45
  to our homes, our relationships, and our parenting.
• 2:51:48
  Prioritizing men's emotional health helps build the kind of
• 2:51:51
  family culture we all want, one rooted in honesty, empathy, and
• 2:51:54
  mutual support. If today's episode spoke to you,
• 2:51:57
  please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to Down
• 2:52:00
  Parenting. Your support helps more people
• 2:52:03
  find the podcast, and your reviews help us grow a global
• 2:52:06
  community that values these real human conversations.
• 2:52:10
  And if someone in your world could benefit from hearing this,
• 2:52:12
  a friend, partner, fellow parent, please share this
• 2:52:15
  episode with them. Let's keep breaking the silence
• 2:52:18
  around vulnerability and mental health together.
• 2:52:21
  Thank you for being here and you'll catch us next time on
• 2:52:24
  Down Parenting.