Latest / Moving Minds Forward / Men's Mental Health: Why It Comes Out Sideways | Anger, Alcohol, Shutting Down | Peter Ely

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Men's Mental Health: Why It Comes Out Sideways | Anger, Alcohol, Shutting Down | Peter Ely · Moving Minds Forward

• 0:57
  Gary Johannes: People aren't broken. And whatever they're carrying, there's always a way forward. That's true whatever's going on for you. And it's true for today's topic. I'm Gary Johannes, Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, founder of Inspire two Change, and the host of Moving Minds Forward.
• 1:19
  One condition per episode. What's going on? What's keeping it going? What actually is happening? And what actually helps?
• 1:30
  Let's get into it. So men's mental health. This one's a little different because I'm not doing it alone. May I'm joined by the lovely Peter Ely, solution focused hypotherapist with Inspired to Change based in Islington in London. Before he retrained, Peter spent twenty years in the security industry, a high pressure world where stress was a constant and resilience was just expected.
• 2:04
  Like a lot of men, he learned to push things down and carry on. Stress doesn't work like that, though. It doesn't disappear. It finds an outlet. Peter found his way into hypnotherapy through his own experience of doing that and now spends his working life helping men do something he spent twenty years not doing, actually dealing with what they're carrying.
• 2:33
  Some of you will already know Peter's voice. He's my cohost on Inspired Men Talk, a podcast for men who feel stuck, overwhelmed, under pressure, or like they should have life more together than they do. No lectures. No overcomplicating things. Just honest conversations about stuff men don't always say out loud.
• 2:59
  If today's conversation lands for you, that's where to go for more. Before we get into it, I want to say something plainly because it's the reason this episode exists. In The UK, seventy six percent of all suicides are men. That's not a statistic I want to dwell on, but I don't want to skip past it either, Because behind it are men who didn't feel able to say they were struggling or didn't know who to say it to until it was too late. This episode is for the men who are still carrying it, still functioning, still getting on with it, and for anyone who loves them.
• 3:48
  So this isn't about me explaining men's mental health to you from a script. It's a conversation with someone who's lived the exact patterns we are talking about. Twenty years of pushing it down and now spends his days helping other men stop doing that. If you've ever felt like you should have life more together than you do, or you're not sure what to do with the pressure you're carrying, stay with me. I think you'll find this useful.
• 4:19
  Let's get into it. So welcome, Peter, to our latest episode of Moving Minds Forward, and we're talking today, as we've said, about men's mental health. Peter not only is an expert in men's mental health, he's also a man who'd been through stages of mental health and can talk about it from lived experience. So, Peter, welcome. Hello.
• 4:45
  Peter Ely: Hello, Gary. Thank you very much for having me.
• 4:47
  Gary Johannes: So, Peter, we wouldn't get to the nub of what men's mental health really is. People talk about it a lot. And I guess we all come to it from a different angle and a forms. One of the things you've said you know, we I know you quite well. We host inspired men talk podcast together, and we'll talk about it later again.
• 5:13
  Well, one of the things you've said on there many times was there was a single sophistic that changed everything for you, and that's one in four months, one weeks the time of age, which
• 5:26
  Peter Ely: shocks me every
• 5:27
  Gary Johannes: time I hear you say it. So when did that land for you? What what makes made you realize you've been walking past this and not noticing it?
• 5:38
  Peter Ely: When the very first time I heard it, I'm I kinda mistook it as being all about mental health, and then I realized it was about physical health as well. And I think I had a recent medical scare, and it it kinda really stuck with me then that, actually, it was both. It was both mental health and physical health. Wow. Because men don't go to the doctor that much or as much as we should.
• 6:03
  We're not as good at getting to see the GP. We'll wait for things to to kind of get to their worst stage, and we do that in our physical health and our mental health.
• 6:16
  Gary Johannes: Do you think mental health actually comes first that stops us going to get that physical health sorted, or is it physical comes first?
• 6:27
  Peter Ely: No. I I think I do think it is the mental health thing. I do think that's what stops us. You know, we we'll struggle through. We'll fight it through.
• 6:36
  You look at things like the cold and flu epidemic, and they talk about man flu. We did the podcast on man flu, and we did some research. There was some research done up in Canada where men would actually just keep going up, getting up day after day rather than going to see someone early to deal with stuff. But I think we do that in all of our our health related issues, or certainly people of my age group do. I I don't know about your age group, You're a little bit older than me.
• 7:06
  Not much. Just a little bit.
• 7:07
  Gary Johannes: We know Peter that I'm the oldest.
• 7:09
  Peter Ely: Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit. I'm not you know? But I think, you know, we we had we we've had that different upbringing to people that are being brought up now,
• 7:19
  Gary Johannes: and I think There there's definitely a a a change in the temperature of Yeah. Mental health in younger, particularly quite young men. But you spent twenty years in and around the security business, and men whose jobs it was to look solid, unbothered, you know, in control. She what did those years teach you about how how men deal with their feelings?
• 7:51
  Peter Ely: Well, they didn't is is a lot of it. You know?
• 7:54
  Gary Johannes: Did they not deal with them, or did they deal with them in other ways?
• 7:59
  Peter Ely: Well, so I can think of a couple of experiences. I was working with a chap on the Olympics, and we were looking after the Olympic Village. And he'd tell me a story of when he was working as a doorman and someone got shot. And he hadn't processed what had happened. That individual got shot with a shotgun and and and ended up passing away, and that person didn't process that.
• 8:25
  You know? And that came out at times when we were working. And I think for a lot of men in the security industry, especially if you're a doorman, I think it used to come out in a bit of violence. You know? They would look to have a fight where you've you've worked on clubs, you know the good doorman look to stop fights.
• 8:46
  You don't even invite the trouble into your building. Right? But people that have unprocessed issues, they're looking for the fight. They're constantly looking for it. And I think that's that was quite a difficult thing for me to deal with when I was working with those individuals because I wasn't like that at all.
• 9:05
  Gary Johannes: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Peter Ely: And I think it is that way, you know, people would would get angry very quickly. You know? The people that are there to look after you, and they're not looking after you. So I think it shows up sometimes in the security world where you see people having fights a lot, where a conversation actually can deal with stuff.
• 9:26
  Gary Johannes: So, you know, we're we're looking at men from every aspect and every age group. Yeah. Regardless of age, and particularly, regardless of industry, but do you see the same patterns here again? You know, men coping brilliantly on the outside, still turning up for work, dealing with family, quite exhausted unbelief.
• 9:52
  Peter Ely: Yeah. It's a constant
• 9:54
  Gary Johannes: that man look like when he first walks into your room as a therapist, as a specialist in men's mental health, when you see men? What do you see?
• 10:05
  Peter Ely: When they first walk in and chat with me, everything sort of feels normal because the barrier is still up. Right. And it's the outward persona that they've been putting on for a long, long time is always there. Over time, as they begin to trust and begin to be able to feel comfortable when they're talking with me, that's when things sort of come out, and that's when things they become more emotionally aware and are more capable of expressing themselves. And sometimes that expression can be through a bit of anger, or sometimes it can just be having the ability to feel safe and say what they need to say and whether that's a cry or whatever it is.
• 10:51
  Gary Johannes: So often it comes out sideways. So
• 10:55
  Peter Ely: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Gary Johannes: You know, we know we should talk, and lots of people are telling us to talk, but sometimes it comes out as anger or we reach for the bottle or the drugs or we just shut down. Yep. Instead of a man simply saying, do you know what? I'm not okay. I need to speak to someone.
• 11:12
  I need to go to GP. What's that about? Why why does it come out sideways? What's actually happening to us?
• 11:22
  Peter Ely: I saw or I read rather something really interesting quite recently on that, and it said that anger is like vulnerability, but we don't feel comfortable expressing vulnerability. And so it comes out as anger. And it's our way of kind of saying, you know, I need help or I need to talk or I I need something, but we don't know how to express it. It comes out as anger.
• 11:52
  Gary Johannes: So there's one man's anger, another man's bottle of vodka? Another man's coping mechanism, which is shutting off or getting depressed or or having panic attacks?
• 12:06
  Peter Ely: Yeah. I I think so, and I think a lot of it a lot of it can be stress related. You know, my my journey was alcohol was my crutch. For other people, it can be, as you say, the anger. It can be whatever the addiction is or or just shutting down completely.
• 12:23
  Gary Johannes: So only share what you're comfortable sharing, but can you quickly explain to us where you were and where you ended up and then how you got better very briefly?
• 12:36
  Peter Ely: Sure. So Irish heritage. So alcohol was kind of a big thing from a young age.
• 12:43
  Gary Johannes: Mhmm.
• 12:43
  Peter Ely: Always was the thing that helped me to cope with stress. And then it became a habit, and I went kind of I've been in and out of alcoholism throughout my life. I've managed in the most part to manage that myself. And I think after I started training to become a hypnotherapist, I actually understood what was happening and why I was drinking. And then I was able to manage it a lot better.
• 13:16
  And now I choose when I drink rather than feeling like I have to drink.
• 13:21
  Gary Johannes: Mhmm.
• 13:21
  Peter Ely: And I'll still have a beer every now and again, you know, I'll meet my dad, and and we'll have a pint of Guinness or two. But it's my choice. Yes. You know? In in the most part, it never used to be that way.
• 13:33
  It used to be I'd get I'd finish work. I'd get off the tube, and the pub was across the road, and it was like, I need to go in there. Not I want to. I need to.
• 13:41
  Gary Johannes: So was there any impactful moments where you're saying when the only way I can get through this stage is by finding alcohol in your case, but something to cope with?
• 13:56
  Peter Ely: Yeah. Yeah. It it I mean, the only way I can describe it, for a long period of time, I would finish work. I would go across to the pub. I'd walk into the pub after work, get my laptop out.
• 14:09
  I wasn't socializing. I would get my laptop out, do more work while I sat and drank in a pub. And that was I was like, well, this is how I need to do work. This is how I need to cope with all of the stress that I've got going on. And I look back now and I think, oh my god.
• 14:26
  I can't believe I did that. But that was what I needed to help me get through things.
• 14:32
  Gary Johannes: So in plain English, are you able to explain what actually is happening in the average man's brain when stress goes on too long, whether it's a stressful job or a stressful relationship or a stressful family or stressful whatever? What takes us into that survival mode?
• 14:55
  Peter Ely: Yeah. Well, I mean, we we talk about it as a negative thinking kind of thing. Right? And we say, you know, when we have negative thinking and negative thoughts, we have anxiety. That that all turns into anxiety.
• 15:07
  We say that that's all stored in our metaphorical stress bucket, and I love that because people seem to be able to understand that that thing. And and when our stress bucket is full, it only takes a small thing for it to overflow. So it might be that you've just had a little bit of a bad day. It might be that you've had a a dodgy email from a client. It might be that someone's I don't know.
• 15:33
  Like, if you're on a construction site, someone's said something or given you the wrong screwdriver, and now you've got to climb down a whole scaffolding to climb back up again, and that's the thing that triggers your angry response. Right? And and that's what happens to us. We we get so worked up, a small thing turns us in turns us into monsters.
• 15:55
  Gary Johannes: So it's very funny because, you know, I've been doing this a while. I know how the brain works. But today, I've got to my office. I've been out this morning to a couple of appointments, and I've come to my office, and I couldn't park. Somebody in front my office over two bays, But they parked over two bays.
• 16:21
  All the other parking spaces were full up, and I'm about to park in somebody else's parking bay. Yeah. And I came in, and I've actually broke a cup in the kitchen, getting pumped about for a cup of coffee. And it's just like about five things went wrong, and I'm like, I'm getting really, really frustrated now. But I also know I've got some stuff going on in my personal life, which has already filled my bucket up clearly.
• 16:45
  Yeah. Yeah. So I don't care what I have, because I don't really care. If you break a cup, you break a cup. But that is today left me really frustrated.
• 16:55
  Yeah. And it's like, wow. I know it's me meant to be on top of things, but the little things just keep piling up, and you don't see them coming.
• 17:05
  Peter Ely: No. You never do.
• 17:06
  Gary Johannes: Excuse me. We're having to park somewhere else, baking a cup, you know, couldn't find a cup, and then realized I hadn't washed up. You know?
• 17:15
  Peter Ely: It is. It's it's those small things as well because it's never the big things. Even in security, I always found that when a big incident happened, it didn't matter how you responded. Everybody was everybody respected that you responded well when you'd responded. But it's all the small things.
• 17:33
  It's like, you know, people turning up a little bit late, people not in the right uniform. These were the things that would would kind of build up and make the massive issues. And when you look at the big scheme of things, you know, they're not that big of a problem. Right? Because someone else was there where you had to spare your uniform, but it just kept building and building and building.
• 17:50
  Gary Johannes: But it's that snowball, isn't it? It starts off small. As it rolls down the hill, gets bigger and bigger. But, honestly, it's still on your snowball. Yeah.
• 17:57
  Melts in the sun.
• 17:59
  Peter Ely: Exactly so. It is and I think that's a lot of that happens when we talk about men's mental health because men still have this perception that we're the providers. We still have this perception that we've got to go out and hunt, get the food, you know, whether that's doing the job that is hunting or doing whatever the job is. We've then got to provide for the family. We've got all of those things that we have to do, and we've got to keep it together ourselves.
• 18:24
  And all of that, we're already at a big snowball before things have even gone wrong.
• 18:31
  Gary Johannes: So you say most men don't need years of digging through. So you've said on previous conversation we've had that you you don't talk about the past. You sit and talk about who they are. Yeah. That's quite big.
• 18:50
  That's a big claim that you don't have to spend years of muck spreading. You don't have to go through all of the things you've ever been and ever done to work out how to get better. So what does change actually look like for you? You've talked about you've changed, and we can talk about other people. We can talk about the sounds of it.
• 19:12
  What has changed look like for you?
• 19:16
  Peter Ely: I think for me, a lot of it's come from acceptance, from understanding how my brain works because we go through that. Right? We you you know, you've you taught me all of that, and then I teach that to clients. But by doing that, it helped me accept who I was, why things were happening, and to understand that it was all normal and natural. Yeah.
• 19:41
  Because sometimes when you're feeling a bit down, you think you're broken or you think there's something wrong. Whereas actually, when you understand that that's part of your defensive mechanism, it makes it easier to kinda go, oh, okay. So I can accept that I'm having a bad time, and now I need to work on what was what are the steps that I need to do to come out of it. And I think it was accepting that I wasn't broken, accepting that this was the way I coped with life, and then I found a new way to cope.
• 20:15
  Gary Johannes: So before that Yep. And this is me asking for a friend. Okay. Actually, for hundreds of, hopefully, friends. Yeah.
• 20:26
  What's the first small thing a struggling man can do this week before they accept it? Because often we don't know. Yeah. So first thing, if I'm struggling or somebody else is struggling, what's the first thing they can do?
• 20:43
  Peter Ely: There's there's so many things out there, and it'll be different for each person, I think. But, I mean, one of the hardest things is to ask for help. So why not look up her podcast? Reach out to a friend. If you haven't got anyone that you you trust enough, reach out to a health care professional like your GP or one of us.
• 21:07
  He there's, you know, there's Andy's Men's Club. There's all these there's all these groups that are popping up that you can go and visit that you don't have to you don't have to talk at. You can go and listen and become, you know, a part of a group before you have to commit to anything. It's I think it's different for every single person, but there's so many options out there. My my thing to say to people is the first thing you can do is something.
• 21:38
  Right? Try and do something. Take action and find whatever that piece of action is for you.
• 21:45
  Gary Johannes: And I think if I was asked the same question, because there are thousands of things, but if you bowled it all down, bowled it all down, really honed it down, it still comes back to taking action. Do something.
• 22:00
  Peter Ely: Yeah.
• 22:02
  Gary Johannes: But Yeah. But I, again, I I would put on the end of that, do a positive action.
• 22:08
  Peter Ely: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. That's a very good point. Yeah.
• 22:10
  Don't go to the pub. Right? Because that pub is an action. Yeah. It's a good point.
• 22:14
  Gary Johannes: You know, it's like it's like every action, there's a reaction. Yes. But you're right. Just taking a simple action. It might be reaching out and asking someone.
• 22:27
  We know that's one of the most powerful actions you can take, but that's so big. What comes before that? Maybe it's getting up and getting a shower. Maybe it's going for a walk. Yep.
• 22:40
  What do you do? I know what you do.
• 22:43
  Peter Ely: I well, there's a couple of things I do. I love getting on my bicycle.
• 22:46
  Gary Johannes: That's my favorite thing in the world. All around the London.
• 22:50
  Peter Ely: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it is my favorite thing to do, and I do it even even if I don't have I I've got a turbo trainer, which is something that I can cycle inside my house. So even if I can't get outside, I still get on a bicycle and I go and cycle. You know, that's that's my thing.
• 23:08
  And I I say to people, find your thing. Right? Because it can be as simple as doing 10 squats, doing 10 press ups, or as you say, getting in the shower, just washing the grime off of you, washing the the kind of
• 23:20
  Gary Johannes: Or just talking to a friend without Yeah. Talking about anything. Just talk Yeah. To someone. Yeah.
• 23:28
  So I've got a last question for you.
• 23:30
  Peter Ely: Okay.
• 23:33
  Gary Johannes: There's there's a man sitting in his car outside your clinic, not sure he wants to come in. Yep. What do you want him to hear before he decides?
• 23:50
  Peter Ely: I I get the impression from a lot of my clients that they're worried that anything they say might get back to people or might get put out there. And I think the most important message that I say to every single client, and I say it at the very beginning of the very first meeting I have with them, Everything that we talk about is private and confidential. You you're coming into a safe space. You're coming into a space where you can say whatever you want, and I'm there to support you. And I think that that's really hard because men don't always know whether or not a space is safe.
• 24:33
  Gary Johannes: Do you think that's not safe? Because they're not always fearing that you're gonna tell all their friends, but also that you might judge them.
• 24:44
  Peter Ely: Yeah. I mean, I've had that with with people that have come to me with addictions. I've I've actually had that conversation and said there's pretty much nothing that you can tell me that I haven't done.
• 24:54
  Gary Johannes: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Peter Ely: So, you know, I I kinda sit there and go, I've been there. I'm I'm there. There's no judgment on this. There's no you know, the the because that's, again, that's really important, isn't it? We we sit there as as individuals and and as men, and we kind of think people are gonna think I'm a weak or I'm a failure.
• 25:15
  I remember it was it was one of the things that relative of mine said when he was going for a divorce. He said his partner called him weak, and it made him feel like a broken man. Okay. And and I think it's really important to let people know that, you know what? That's never come enough from us.
• 25:33
  You're never ever gonna be perceived as weak. As I mentioned earlier, it's part of the way our brains work.
• 25:40
  Gary Johannes: So to sum it up, the work, what you do, and what men need to understand is you don't have to revisit the past. You will never be judged by anybody that you're ineffective, inefficient, weak, or not good enough No. And everything's confidential when you're talking to someone like yourself. But, actually, taking any action, any positive action is gonna move you forward. You don't have to stay where you are.
• 26:10
  Peter Ely: You definitely don't have to stay where you are, and, look, I think one of the worst things we can do is remain stagnant. Right? Even just as an individual, as a species, everything, we always need to move forward. Yeah. So just do something.
• 26:24
  Gary Johannes: Okay. Peter, thank you so much for joining me today, and it's like it's been a real pleasure and always a great eye opener. So thank you.
• 26:35
  Peter Ely: Thank you very much for having me.
• 26:37
  Gary Johannes: Peter, thank you. For the twenty years of context and for being as honest about your own journey and patterns as you are about the men you work with now, If anything in that conversation sounded familiar, here's what I want you to take from it. Struggling doesn't make you weak, and it doesn't make you unusual. It makes you one of the huge number of men quietly carrying more than they're saying out loud. Seventy six percent of all suicides in The UK are men, and behind that number are ordinary blokes who are functioning, showing up, getting on with it, right up until they weren't.
• 27:29
  That statistic isn't there to frighten you. It's there because the pattern it describes can be interrupted, and interrupting it starts with one conversation. Here's the thing Peter made clear today. Pushing it down isn't a character flaw, and it isn't laziness or weakness. It's a strategy a lot of men were taught one way or another, and strategies can be swapped for better ones.
• 28:06
  The brain that learned to carry everything alone can learn a different way of carrying it. If you take one thing from today, take this. You don't have to have a breakdown before you're allowed to ask for help. You don't need a crisis as your entry ticket. Noticing you're carrying too much is entry enough.
• 28:34
  So let me speak directly to you. If this is you, you're not weak, You're not failing at something everyone else finds easy. And the same brain that learned to push everything down for years can learn something different. That's not me being kind. That's neuroscience.
• 28:58
  Understanding what's going on is where it starts. You've just done that. If you found this useful, hit subscribe wherever you're listening. There's a lot more to come. One condition per episode.
• 29:14
  What's going on? What's keeping it going? And what actually helps? And if this landed for you, go find inspired men talk wherever you listen to podcast. Peter and I go further into exactly this territory over there, episode after episode.
• 29:35
  And if you'd like to find out whether Inspire to Change can help you, we have a nationwide network of solution focused hypnotherapists across The UK, including Peter in Islington. You can find your nearest hypnotherapist, read more about hypnotherapy and how it works for men specifically, and book a free initial consultation at inspiretochange.biz. The link is in the description below. See you on the next one.