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#BellLetsTalk: From Success to Suicide and Back: How I’m unhinging the swinging door of my mental health and A CALL FOR SECTORAL CHANGE
I have always been an overachiever, and it is rooted in my childhood. As a first-born of four, I had my parents’ sole focus and their anxiety-prone dedication to being good parental guides, engraved into me. An ever-vigilant glut of reinforcement and awareness-building - from ‘you can do anything’ to ‘be careful of strangers’ were examples of a dichotomy of extreme feelings that latched on and travelled with me early in my life. I was at a young age, told I was “such a good boy” yet also a “worry wart”. A desire to please, succeed and get praise for it, but also -- in process, to avoid all of the faults possible along the way that may lead to displeasing - created an acute sense and psychic frame of perfectionism.
This perfectionism and praise-directed action created an internal success system which was built on the positive effects of anxiety. I was driven; throughout my childhood and through my post-secondary degree in film studies, I took on exciting projects and did all in my life bigger and better, with each iteration… and I excelled at doing it -- in addition to my education I took on an ever overflowing schedule of extra-curricular involvement, to more adulting social and personal life accomplishments (long term relationship of 22 years, house, dog, adopting my son) including a very focussed career path, rising to a senior screen-media administrator at one of the leading organizations in its field in Canada.
The success system I had created for myself had proven it worked and there was no thought to breaks or pause; I took on more, succeeded through the stresses that came with it, and felt personal pride and public reinforcement of a job well done.
However, in doing so, this reward system I had engraved upon myself had a flaw I did not realize until the day I took on one more thing — a new project immediately after our annual major event at work, coupled with a more complex home and life, was a tipping point into uncharted mental health territory. My - what I have come to call a “Save the Day” syndrome -kicked in; I took on the project and ran with it. I felt I had to.
However, during the project, I had an unnerving sensation of uneasiness that was different than I had experienced, I didn’t know what it was at the time, but looking back, it was my body physically and my reptilian part of my brain mentally saying “no, don’t do it”. Little did I know, my success system was leading me down an untrodden path of anxiety and depression.
After years enduring an increasing intensity of these feelings, year after year of work and projects, my body and mind began venturing down deeper and darker into the brush of imagery and possibilities of escape. In 2018, on a morning a month before my workplace’s annual major event was about to take place, I was lying on my couch after hours of mental anguish trying to get the courage to go into work; I was trapped in my mind caught between stories and feelings of “I have to go” and “I can’t do it”, strung like a tension wire between my capacity as a human to take on more, and the perception of my limits (of which I had never learned there were any). In that moment, on the that couch, I had a dark, if only a fleeting thought: to hang myself at home from a planter hook in the ceiling so I didn’t have to endure the pain of being pulled apart between these now soul-destroying thoughts.
That was the moment, that scary yet casual, nonchalent moment of consideration of suicide - and the sudden shocking reaction to the thought of my husband and son finding me - that was THE ACTION MOMENT for me to make a choice -- to step away from work on sick leave. When I finally made the call, I remember hanging up the phone call with my boss, and the emotional release was immediate; my perceived failure of the perfectionist, never-let-them-down, please-like-me attitude faith in myself came roaring out- I just cried, heaving, and yelling out “I’m sorry” to all my co-workers I was perceivably letting down completely at a crucial time in our event planning (which was not the case, in reality). Looking back it was also my soul saying to my mirrored mental reflection “I’m sorry; I’m listening, finally, that you’re telling me in the most serious way to stop something I am doing, or it will kill us.” My reflection of who I perceived I was smashed into pieces that day.
With these fearful feelings and thoughts so strong, I went for support. I literally walked into an office in my work building with “therapy” on the door, knocked, and to a friendly face said “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m not myself, and I need help”.
My recovery process began with working with that AMAZING cognitive behavioural therapist whose door I knocked in, being assigned a psychiatrist in the public health sector and with several years of that increasingly difficult bouts of anxiety and depression, we peeled back the layers of my psyche and causes and effects of my history. I leaned heavily, literally in some cases, on my incredibly compassionate husband, and a community of those who loved me around and just listened to me in my mental space. Thirdly, I developed a toolkit (and I would say a toolbelt now because it should always be at your fingertips and not in the shed of your mind) which includes a routine of exercise, long walks in nature, meditation, podcast listening (Brené Brown, Tara Brach, Noah Rasheda) eating well, social engagement and allowing for real rest and alone time and finally, for me, a commitment to anti-depressant medication. In all of this support, came clarity and perspective to assess and query: “How ever did I get to this place, and how was it all going so well for me, to suddenly years of manic-depressive cycles?”
I looked to my work history which had been a triggering partner to my episodes in relation to my success system. I am an arts and culture administrator by profession with a knack for creative producing. During my career in the non-profit event-based sector, I have been through the swings of anxiety and depression to the thrills of adrenaline and satisfaction of achievement of annual, bigger, better events, well done for many years. My childhood development of an unhealthy mental system based upon praise and limitlessness of opportunity had travelled with me. As my work and life grew more complex, the anxiety of opportunity reached a peak of conflict. At 39, no longer could my body and mind reconcile to achieve a higher pillar of success in the praise-based system I had built and relied upon for my self-worth, soul and ego.
I am not alone, and I believe mental health support systems needs to change in the non-profit sector at large, who comprise of passionate administrators (many of whom are creatives themselves) who are overworked, under-paid, under-resourced and operate without organizational funding to support HR initiatives to improve the work/life/balance and when it becomes imbalanced and requires intervention. Many event-based organizations rely on a system of having to take on more project-based funding that rarely includes budgeting inclusion for sufficient staffing to properly administer them. THIS MUST CHANGE, to support those passionate administrators stay passionate, and prevent their own burn-out. I know from conversations with peers that my story is only one of many, many more.
Today more than ever, for #BellLetsTalk day, I call on all public funding bodies, municipal to federal to realize that mental health support are endemically absent in the arts + culture non-profit sector.
We can change the sector, and here’s some suggested starting points:
· A new HR development fund for wellness and training in the arts + culture sector
· Increased core HR funding for organizations that stop the poorly-sustainablecycle of project-based funding to drive growth
· Funding for training of board of directors and senior leadership in mental health needs and support mechanisms for staff
· A long term commitment by organizations to develop a culture of communication, acceptance and succession planning regarding sick leave, both short and long term.
I know and continue to have my own personal mindful work to do, which is ongoing and has been challenged by the pandemic. But as a sector and society facing even more acute mental support needs, I do not wish any of my fellow colleagues within it to experience pain, loneliness, abandonment or ostracism in their workspace.
I hope this perspective changes this story in our sector for the better, starting today.
Daniel Northway-Frank is a consultant for arts, culture and screen industry and a pivoting futurepreneur in the LGBTQ2SIA+ arts and business marketplace space.
