The_Kestrel's blog

What I am talking about here is addressing mental health, depression in particular which is apparantly one of the highest killers for men.

Why is that a statistic that is banded around? Simple - men do not open up about feelings by and large (myself included) and bottle it up. We create our own wall that prevents help and then put ourselves in a position of chaos and no hope.

In short I have been diagnosed with depression last year, and this has had a shocking effect on my character as well as my day to day life. Everything is a struggle, I enjoy my own company far too much and hardly interact with others, and my motivation to do anything is rock bottom. I would not wish this upon my worst enemy, and I am hoping this blog reaches out to some of the men doing a typically shit job of addressing their own problems.

How did it pounce on me? I did not have any particular single traumatising experience, this is usually what does the trick. With me it was like pouring a freshly opened bottle of coke - tilt the glass it pours in like water, stand it upright and pouring in the coke will immediately fizz. The more coke you add, the more the fizz flares up.

Translated to my scenario, I had problem after problem after problem happen in a short space of time, including family, work and financial issues. My brain was not prepared for these unforseen issues, and burnt out the wiring. The point where it was most apparant was when I asked my supervisor for the rest of the week off to clear my head (after yet more problems). When he looked at the calendar and said no, I was hit with the most overwhelming feeling of being trapped, and frankly broke down and cried on the spot - I did not know what else to do.

Since then, seeing my GP I am now accepting help in various forms to:

• Make myself functioning day to day with the help of medication

• Address the issue of how to get my brain working independantly again with some therapy I have coming up

So gentlemen, if you have got this far in this not so uplifting post, just take a moment to think about yourself, and do not let yerself get to my state. If any of what I mentioned has made an impact on you, then I suggest you have a look at these links:

https://www.nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth/Pages/Mentalhealthhome.aspx

http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/4972/Improving-Access-to-Psychological-Therapies-IAPT

Sorry but these are UK based pages, but to any friends overseas please feel free to look anyway simply just for the information. Webpages for where to find help in your area shoud not be hard to find when searching for it.

Apologies if this is not easy reading (or even boring to some of you) but this is aimed at addressing something that is common amongst us, and in the hope to help any who have not addressed/realised their problems.

Stay safe all and see you on the mats 💪👹

I had my first grapevine meet this weekend! I thought it would be a good idea to write something up on it, so any new guys may see this blog and want a go, or encourage any guys who gave not been in a good while to show their faces again.....

I confess i was bloody nervous to start with, didn't know what to expect and did not know what the guys are like that were turning up. I came into the matroom and was warmly greeted by andy (matroom owner) and pat (small_gladiator), a cuppa and chinwag with these guys helped calm me nerves down before more started to arrive.

Soon dave (matworker) arrived, things livened up considerably at this point, and like the other guys i found him very chatty and relaxing to be around.

As we were waiting for more to turn up, i had explained i had some good basics shown to me in a meeting with colin the week before, though i would be keen to learn more. After changing into our trunks this had prompted pat and dave to display some more to me as more arrived for the meet, they made it fun to watch as well as educational.

Then the wrestling began, i could spend forever writing this in detail though it would become a blinking novel. So in a summary over the next few hours as more arrived over time everyone took turns to challenge eachother in 3 minute bouts. I managed to have the privilege of challenging 6 guys before i hit my brick wall. It was great as every guy had a different style for me to try against. I came to learn and practice and i sure got that as the hours went by. When not wrestling i found everyone good to talk to, either sharing more tips and info on wrestling to me or just talking about everyday stuff.

Then after 6 (event started at 1!!!) Things seemed to wind down, everyone started to shower off, and dave became the groups torture toy while waiting for the shower que to go down. It was approaching 6.30 before i said goodbye to everyone and made my way back to my car.

Aching some today but it was a great day i had and i would not hesitate to go again. I fully recommend these group meets to anyone new to wrestling.