Two Years Since I Put My Hand Up

Mick Hughes

6 hours ago

9 min read

It's coming up to two years since I first really acknowledged that I was struggling with my mental health.

I'd had a really rough day. I couldn't get my thoughts, my feelings, my words or my emotions together, so I went to see my GP. It was a really humbling moment, and it changed the trajectory of where I am today.

This is what led up to that day, what's happened since, and why I think quieter, "low-grade" stories like mine are worth telling.

The lead-up

In a lot of ways, I'd been building towards a better version of myself for a year or two before that day. I'd stopped drinking and really committed to exercise. I'd started paying more attention to my mental health and trying to be better at it.

But the anxiety was still there. So was the negative self-talk, and the habit of playing out scenarios in my head about what might happen. Most of them never eventuated.

I want to be clear: I'm not saying I was severely depressed, or that I didn't want to be here anymore. I just had a constant feeling of pressure, of being overwhelmed and anxious, and I wasn't dealing with it well. I didn't recognise it at the time, and I think that's true for a lot of people who are just trying to keep their head above water.

Saying yes to everything

I've always been a bit of a yes man. If there's an opportunity to teach, I'll generally say yes. I love sharing my experience and what I've learned, and I really enjoy the mentoring I do, so I want to spread it as far as I can.

But saying yes often comes at a cost to the people closest to me, namely my wife and my kids. Before every trip I'd double- and triple-check it was OK at home. Grandparents, friends and family would step in to cover my role for a few days.

And when I was away, I'd feel so guilty about leaving the family that I couldn't really enjoy that bit of me time.

When you're a busy parent, a few days off the usual routine can be a massive win. Sleep-ins. Getting to bed early without having to walk the dog, lock up and reset the house for the next day. Not having to make the kids' school lunchboxes.

A few days of that can send you home refreshed and ready to go. But I couldn't even enjoy those little moments.

For a good 12 months before that rough day, I'd thrown myself into a really busy work schedule. In 2024 I travelled quite a bit and ran workshops overseas. I was starting to bite off more than I could chew, but I didn't know it at the time.

The weeks leading up to it were especially hectic. I had a trip to New Zealand running back-to-back workshops for four days straight. Even getting there was stressful, with delayed flights and plans recalibrated on the fly.

I came back to a busy caseload for a couple of weeks, then rolled straight into presenting at a conference in Brisbane. Presenting feels fairly natural to me these days, but that hasn't always been the case.

Public speaking held me back for decades. As a teenager I was school captain, and I'd shake with nerves and end up in puddles of sweat. Every talk and every conversation sounded like I was about to cry.

That stayed with me pretty much up until now. It's only recently that public speaking has started to feel easier, probably thanks to the lifestyle changes, growing more comfortable in my own skin, and starting to quieten the imposter syndrome a little.

That Brisbane conference was also the first time I'd be in a room full of physios I really look up to and respect, some of them presenting too. That added another layer to the imposter syndrome that was already there. Those few days were very stressful.

At the same time, the kids' schedules suddenly got a lot busier. What had felt manageable now needed a real rethink of where we needed to be and who was doing what. My usual self-care (sleep, journaling, meditation, exercise) quietly fell by the wayside.

Then came my wife's 40th. It wasn't a big party with guests flying in from interstate or overseas; it was a pretty low-key day.

But I put a lot of pressure on myself to make it really special. I gathered videos and birthday messages from friends and family who couldn't be there, so she'd feel incredibly loved.

Not long after that, the balloon burst.

For a lot of people, a busy patch like that is just life. For me, it wasn't something I was used to. The feeling of losing control, the constant negative self-talk, the anxiety and the self-imposed pressure got the better of me.

They say some of your lowest points in life lead to your best growth. I can vouch for that.

Starting medication

Since then, I've been on antidepressants, and I had plenty of reservations before starting.

I'd heard about the variety of side effects and I'd also heard how often people have to trial a few different medications before they find the right one.

For me, it was luckily a fairly smooth ride. The one my GP prescribed hit the mark pretty well. It took about a month to find a really good rhythm mentally.

I settled into a new, more consistent mindset where the anxiety and negative self-talk weren't running in the background. My general mood was much more optimistic, and there was a lot more positive self-talk. Even in those first couple of weeks, that was really encouraging.

Then came melioidosis

About two months after I started medication, at the start of 2025, I had a real scare with my health. I was diagnosed with melioidosis, a serious bacterial infection found in soil and water across northern Australia. As a consequence of the bacteria, I then had a pneumothorax (a collapsed lung).

My only real experience with melioidosis came from a placement in Darwin, back when I was just starting out. I helped with the rehab of a man who'd been badly knocked around by it. He lost both legs below the knee as well as several fingers, and I worked with him on his gait as he learned to walk with his prostheses.

On top of that, through my wife's work I'd heard plenty of stories of people who hadn't survived it. So lying in a hospital bed with that diagnosis was unsettling, to say the least.

But the panic didn't set in the way it once would have. I asked a lot of questions: what's the risk of this, what's the risk of that? It was all carefully explained to me.

I had no risk factors, we'd caught it early, and we'd started treatment early. That meant my prognosis was much better than for people who find out late or have multiple risk factors.

That let me rationalise things in my head, instead of letting my negative scenarios and anxieties play out. Physically, I was fairly unwell for the first half of 2025. But the medication kept me balanced and mentally stable the whole way through.

The weight question

Weight gain is something a lot of people debate when it comes to antidepressants, so here's my honest experience.

I didn't see any weight gain until the back end of 2025. My happy, healthy weight used to sit around 85 kilos. By late last year I'd worked my way up, fairly comfortably, to about 94 kilos, and I parked myself around 94–95 for a good three or four months.

At my highest I reached 98 kilos. To be fair, that was the day we got home from a family Christmas trip to Canada: lots of good eating, even if it was a fairly active holiday.

My exercise stayed fairly consistent despite being sick, but my eating wasn't perfect, and there was definitely some slackness on my part. Still, part of me can't help feeling some of that weight was a side effect of the medication. That's just my personal take; I'm sure the experts have their own opinions.

This year, especially the last three or four months, I've really reined in my eating. I've put what I eat under more of a microscope: the type of calories, the fuel before training and the fuel after. The work I can put into a session has been much better as a result, and I'm feeling my body better.

I'm eating more and training harder. At 46, I'm the fittest I've ever been.

I'm currently sitting around 87 kilos, down from 98 in less than a year and well below where I'd parked myself late last year. For me, that shows the role nutrition plays. From a mindset point of view, better energy, better-quality workouts and better fuel have complemented the medication beautifully.

Adding a Psychologist

The other thing I really doubled down on this year was seeing a psychologist, and mine has been absolutely amazing.

For a while, the plan was to let the medication do its thing and see if that recalibrated things. I didn't need urgent or acute mental healthcare. My struggles were anxiety, low-grade depression and negative self-talk, and the medication largely corrected those.

But I still had simmering, low-grade fears and negative thoughts that popped up now and then, and I didn't really know how to manage them. At home, I could still be a bit snappy and moody from time to time. We wondered whether that might be a side effect of the medication.

When we talked it through, I realised I hadn't actually tried psychological help yet. So I did, to build strategies that could complement the medication and help me reassess whether I need to stay on it.

It's been a game changer. I've posted about it a few times this year, so I won't go over it all again, but it's been overwhelmingly positive.

We've talked about the things that stress me out and give me anxiety, including my roles as a dad, husband, friend, educator and physio. More often than not, I feel pulled in many different directions. I'm saying yes, trying to please people, and often putting myself last and others first.

Working through that with my psychologist has helped me shift my internal monologue. It's changed where I prioritise my time, what I say yes to, and when I put myself first a little more. That's been huge for me, and I'd recommend it to anyone going through something similar.

My visits have slowed down a bit since my psychologist moved interstate. But he's made himself available via telehealth and made it really clear he's there for me if I need him. I haven't needed to use it yet.

Where I'm at now

Two years on, I'm handling this time of year far better than I used to.

Term 4 is chaos: a crazy work schedule, a crazy kids' schedule, birthdays, travel, Halloween, and Christmas around the corner. The version of me from two years ago obviously wasn't handling it well. Honestly, the version of me from three or four years before that wasn't either; I just hid it with alcohol.

Now I'm in a much happier place. I'm handling work and life challenges better, and the things that used to make me snap quickly or get a bit aggro with the kids don't get to me like they did. I'm a lot more patient.

I'm learning to prioritise myself a bit more. I say yes to selective things now, not everything. I'm comfortable saying no to things that wouldn't add much beyond what I already offer through mentoring or online.

Family and friends come first now, and everyone else is a very close second.

I'm still on medication. I've spoken with my GP a few times about weaning off, but I'm not there yet. It's a pretty low dose as it is, the side effects are very minimal, and I'm calmer and much more patient than before.

Whether to slowly wean off is a conversation for me and my GP over the next twelve months or so.

Sometimes I feel a bit funny sharing my story, because in the scheme of things it's pretty low-grade.

This isn't me being dismissive of anyone else's mental health struggles. I know many people experience far worse, including significant grief, post-traumatic stress and trauma. I've had a very comfortable life.

My anxiety and depression come from within, and probably from many years of drinking too much. But I think there are a lot of us who exist in this lane. Many of us probably don't know it's a problem until it becomes a bigger one.

If this sounds familiar

If my story resonates and you feel like it's time to make a change, it doesn't hurt to have a conversation with your GP or a psychologist, even just to let them know you struggle from time to time. That first conversation can open the door to lifestyle changes, psychology, medication or a mix of all three.

It's amazing how it feels to take that first step. Letting your friends, family or partner know feels vulnerable, but there's a lot of strength in it.

And if more people like me speak up, particularly more men, I think it can have a really broad, positive impact. From the outside looking in, the conversation about what it means to be a man seems to be in a weird place at the moment. There are a lot of loud voices pulling in different directions, and I think we need to move away from that and simply be respectful, communicative men.

A lot of young men are very impressionable, and they're seeing more of the negative messages about what it means to be a man. If me showing some vulnerability to a wide audience means a few young men pick this up and read it, I hope it changes how they see things.

The more men talking about this stuff, the better our chances of thriving and being better human beings.

Thanks for reading.