Sort Your Head Out: Mental health without all the bollocks

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In this extract from his new book, broadcaster and journalist Sam Delaney tells how he embraced a simpler, more idle lifestyle to save his mental health I was almost competitive when I was, like, a young dad. I was like, I wanted to be perceived as, like, this sort of expert dad. I really wanted to go, ‘I’ve already been to the safari park this morning, and ballet classes, and done their French homework with them. Like, being a dad was like a new sport, and that really took its toll.” Sam Delaney is an experienced author, journalist and broadcaster with a special interest in men’s mental health.

Keeping it all inside was what nearly dragged Sam under. Then he began to open up and share his story with others. Soon his life started to get better and better. Now, he’s written this book to help you do the same. Living in insecure housing and ­experiencing money worries puts you into a constant state of fight or flight,” says writer, broadcaster and former government mental health tsar, Natasha Devon MBE. Then I did something that was pretty alien to me. I started to own up to the fact that I was struggling. I went to a group called Andy’s Man Club where blokes meet every Monday night for a chinwag about life, all the shit it can throw at you and all the beauty that’s to be found in it too. It helped. I started chatting to mates about what I was going through and the things I was worried about. I was stunned by their empathy. Next, I started writing about this sort of stuff. A couple of articles in the newspaper about my own little struggles: the drinking, the anxiety, the childhood stuff I’d never quite shaken off. I’d been writing for years but never with much honesty about myself. I like making people laugh and found it was easy to use humour as a means of distracting from self-reflection.In the 90s, the lads mag ruled supreme – with Loaded the daddy of them all. They were publications aimed at hedonistic young men. Sam left university and set foot in that world:

His other books include Get Smashed – The Story Of The Men Who Made The Ads That Saved Our Lives (Sceptre, 2007) and Mad Men And Bad Men – What Happened When British Politics Met Advertising (Faber, 2015). In a past life, he was a lad mag writer and, from 2009-2011, was the editor-in-chief of Heat magazine. He later became editor in chief of Comedy Central UK.He recently qualified at Level 2 in counselling skills and became an ambassador for the mental health charity, CALM. Its starts, as many of its ilk, with the author hitting the low point. However, being pissed at the darts and holding up a sign that asks his wife to marry him does not particularly sound like a real nadir. It was - like a lot of the book - quite amusing though. We are then introduced to traumas large and small in his life. Its interesting. Raised by a single parent in relative poverty, whilst the other parent swanned around in a Bentley. There's quite a lot of this duality at play in the book. It is possible to be a blokey bloke, but be educated. Rich and down to earth etc. And it was probably unhealthy that this was my first proper grown up job doing that sort of stuff, because it kind of made me feel, well, right, this is just working life is lots of free things and free drinks and pretty girls all the time and all the rest of it.” Of course, in practical terms, there are people much worse than you. But what I would say to that is no socioeconomic advantage, no familial advantage, no advantage in relationships or family incubate you from being a human being. You’re a human being, whoever you are and whatever your circumstances are. This is a great book, and an important one. It's the one I would give to any friend who I observed struggling with those issues, as it's written in a genuinely human way, devoid of psychobabble, moralizing, victimhood embracing and judgement. It comes from a place of hard-won experience, told with total honesty. It will do more than just save lives, it will help those saved lives feel like they're genuinely worth living— Irvine Welsh

You didn’t get paid that much, really to be a young journalist on a magazine. But you were able to live a lifestyle that was that of someone who earned 20 times your yearly salary because every door was opened, and everything came free. Every weekend you had a different car that you’d been lent to drive around in or a hotel that you could go and stay in to review. They keep it all inside and that only makes it worse. There are still old-fashioned ideas on what it means to be a tough, strong man that exists across all social classes.”More than half would be celebrities either tipping you off or setting up stuff or, very often, one of the most popular things was to collude with the celebrity to set up a photo shoot that appeared to be stolen paparazzi shots. But which, in fact, had been fairly meticulously choreographed between us at the magazine and the celebrity’s team. I craved stimulation at all times. I was terrified of even fleeting moments of boredom. I thought of myself as being constantly on the run from lapsing into that fat bored kid I had once been. The truth is, I was probably just scared of ever being alone with my own unfiltered thoughts. Loaded kind of actually took what we were already doing and how we’re already living and sort of elevated it into something that was almost aspirational. Which seems hilarious now because I wouldn’t want my son to aspire to that lifestyle. But still, basically, by the time I graduated in 97, I’d gone off a career in politics, which is what I’d previously been aiming for, and I only wanted to work in magazines.

And you are allowed to feel exhausted, miserable, anxious because it happens to everyone. The important thing is recognise that. Don’t feel guilty. Because you should know that however together, your peers look, they are going through it too, whether they tell you or not.”My writing has appeared in The Guardian, Observer, The Sunday Times, Independent, Daily Telegraph, NME, Q, Grazia, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and numerous others. A funny, wise and above all valuable book. An arm around your shoulder from your next best friend— Danny Wallace But when he reached his thirties, work, relationships and fatherhood started to take their toll. Like so many blokes who seemed to be totally fine, he often felt like a complete failure whose life was out of control; anxiety and depression had secretly plagued him for years. Turning to drink and drugs only made things worse. Sam knew he needed help - the problem was that he thought self-help was for hippies, sobriety was for weirdos and therapy was for neurotics.