My Year in Review
It’s been quite a big year for me and I’m reflecting on what’s happened in 2022. Personally I had made some pretty big strides with my mental health by the start of 2022, but I still wasn’t confident enough to talk with my wider family about what I was dealing with. Let alone anyone else.
Record scratch, fast forward to the end of December, and I’m writing this having given a presentation on mental health and self talk to two separate groups of 100 people about my mental health in the last month or so.
But I’ll rewind again to the start of this year. I had built version one of Dadpression. I think I had three modules and four stories on there and not much else. I’d been sitting on that simple version of the site for about four months. I’d thought a couple of times of how I might announce it, but had never really come close to doing so. If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t even know if I really wanted to share it at that stage. It was a good idea and I knew it could be helpful to others, but I almost wanted someone else to do it so I didn’t have to.
Anyway, one morning in February something came over me. I don’t know what changed, maybe I was feeling confident about where I was at with my mental health, or just exasperated with sitting on this thing and doing nothing with it. But I did it, I put it out on social media and my family and friends did the rest. I honestly haven’t regretted it for a second since.
Lots of my friends and family have asked me since, “were you worried people would come to you with their problems?” And I honestly was, in fact it was part of what had stopped me sharing it. When I wrote anything I always included a note about talking to someone, ideally a professional, if you’d experienced anything like what I wrote about. I think that was one of the main things that weighed on my mind, would people interpret it as me being a wannabe therapist.
But I needn’t have worried. I did have loads of conversations with people, some I knew well and some I hardly knew at all. But everyone was supportive, empathetic and if they wanted advice it was on engaging with therapy or what some of the books I’d been reading were. In fact I think I’ve had more real, vulnerable conversations with people this year than I have in my previous 37 trips around the sun.
Almost immediately, I also started to get asked “what do you want to do with it?” I hadn’t thought about that. I was more focussed on whether I could ever let anyone know about the thing rather than my grand plan for it. I still don’t really have a plan either. Like I said before, I’ve started doing some speaking which I enjoy doing and I think I’d like to do more in that arena. But in terms of what Dadpression is, I haven’t gotten much further than a place where I share a few stories and exercises around parenting and mental health. Which I’m fine with. If it turns into something organically, that’s great, but I’m not going to force it.
I’ve had my ups and downs this year. There were points where I definitely felt if I didn’t have a good exercise regime and was drinking I could have easily slipped into a bad headspace. But I’ve also continued to work on my self talk, my gratitude and my meditation/breathing too. It all adds up. If I’ve learnt anything this year, it’s that there isn’t one thing, it’s all the little things that add up. That point has been continually reinforced to me. All the things I’m doing are moving the dial slightly in the right direction.
And so that is my take away from this quite momentous year. The little things add up, and there is no substitute for doing the things that are good for you far more often than you do the things that aren’t. I’m not really one for new year resolutions, but if I have something to take into next year, it’s that. Keep doing more of the little things that make you happy, and less of the things that don’t.
I’ll finish off by saying a massive thank you. Practicing genuine gratitude has been a big growth area for me over the past year or so. I’m genuinely grateful for every single view of the site (10,000 and counting!) and for every single person who I’ve talked to this year who has given me nothing but positivity about what they think about Dadpression.
Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year, signing off on a pretty momentous 2022!