Today was one of those days that started off innocuous enough. I called my folks as they were going to come visit us then move onto my little sister's place.
During the conversation about the plans my dad gave me heartbreaking news - my brother in law committed suicide on Wednesday.
My brother in law and I got on well but since they moved away to Akaroa in the South Island I haven't seen them as it's far too expensive to make the trip.
As with a lot of suicide cases there was no real indication of it being something on his mind. I suspect it's something my sister is trying to ascertain and that's a sad journey of self-criminalisation that she will impose on herself and one that we can't ever truly help with other than support her.
Whatever his reasoning for the decision to end it, it breaks my heart that in this day and age we Kiwi males are too stupid to ask for help because we've been ingrained that it's a sign of weakness.
Sure, it's getting better in this day and age, but it sucks that while there is amazing help for women and children, there is still a lack of true support for men. It's bollocks and it NEEDS to change.
I've had friends commit suicide, I had a girlfriend that attempted it a couple of times while we were going out, but I've never had a family member do it. I've never had it so close to my back door. It's a wake up call that I need to be more in touch with my family.
We've never been truly close as a family. Once we left home we sort of went our ways and moved to various parts of the country. But that's not really a good excuse when we've got FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc to give us that meeting capability.
Mental health is something that I'm trying to keep a check on. It's not like I've ever had issues but if I'm being honest there have been times where I could say I might have had a problem. But like all males in this country, a self-check of my mental health hasn't been a thing for me. Hell, I don't even go for checkups at the doctors.
It's one thing to work on our physical fitness. Going for walks or going to gyms give us a sense of achievement but we fail to realise how important this stuff is for our brains.
Our brains determine whether or not we're actually healthy so we NEED more than anything to ensure that these are up to scratch because if the brain is stuffed so are our physical bodies.
So while I've railed on nutrition in these blogs for so much, it's now time to pivot and work on looking at fixing mental health.