Men's Mental Health Blog

Nobody announces that they have run out of mates. It happens quietly, over about ten years, and then one day you need someone to call and the list is short.

Anger was the only emotion I had permission to use. It took me years to work out what was sitting underneath it.

Most men I work with are experts at coping. They know how to push through a bad day, numb out with alcohol or screen time, and get up the next day to do it all again. They are not weak. They are worn out. There is a big difference between coping and healing. Coping keeps you alive. Healing helps you actually live. One of the most helpful things you can do is build a simple mental health toolkit. Not a thousand techniques you never use, but a small set of habits that support y

Writing my story for “Trigger Warning” was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I had already lived it. The trauma, the collapse, the suicidal thinking, the slow climb back. Putting it on paper meant going back into some of the darkest moments of my life and looking at them up close. So why do it? Why drag all that out instead of locking it away and pretending it never happened? Because secrets were killing me. And because I knew other people were carrying their own se

If you read the words “positive emotions” and roll your eyes, I get it. When you are in a dark place, someone telling you to “just be positive” feels like an insult. It can make you feel more alone, not less. I am not interested in fake positivity. I am interested in what actually works to shift a brain and body that have been stuck in survival mode for too long. Positive emotions are not about pretending everything is fine. They are about giving your nervous system a chance

What does it mean to be resilient? Growing up, I was a pretty ambitious kind of kid. By the age of 21, I had finished high school, earned a Certificate III in Geoscience, worked in the Mines, worked on the oil rigs, was a volunteer firefighter for the Country Fire Service, had joined the army and had risen to the ranks of Special Forces. I knew what I wanted, and I always went for it. I look back and I can see that younger version of me…with a fuel tank full of optimism and a

People sometimes ask how a Special Forces engineer ends up standing in front of a room talking about mental health. The short answer is that I nearly did not make it here. The longer answer is this post. The short version I served as a Special Operations Engineer with the Australian Special Forces and deployed twice to Afghanistan. I came home with PTSD and major depression, and my twenties became a fight to justify each morning. Today I speak, mentor and advocate, because as