Mental Wellbeing My Story

[Music]

hi

my name is chris parsons and i’m a

partner

with a global law firm called herbert

smith free hills

i’ve been with the firm for 36 years

which is all of my career

and for the last 16 years i’ve been

focused on india as chair of the firm’s

india practice

then for reasons i’ll come to explain

i’m also

a mental wellbeing advocate and i’ll be

talking today about the importance of

mental wellbeing in the workplace to

make this as real as possible

i’m going to tell you my own personal

story

i will start with what i call my

facebook story

the story that i sometimes present to

the world and the story that the world

sometimes assumes about me i began life

as a trainee lawyer in 1984 in london

and on qualification i moved to our hong

kong office

the firm’s apartment had had dramatic

views over hong kong harbor

and the night and the view at night was

extraordinary

i almost had to pinch myself the

weekends were taken up with trips on the

firm’s junk

water skiing and relaxing with a beer

back in london

i worked on cross-border mergers and

acquisitions

and spent quite a lot of time working in

italy

for italian clients it was as the

italians would say

perifeto i was made partner

in 1993 and in 2001 i was asked to move

to singapore

with my family to help manage our

offices in southeast asia

three years living in a magnificent home

with a large swimming pool

and then traveling around asia to visit

our clients and offices after a short

time back in london i was asked to

become

the chairman of the firm’s india

practice and so commenced my monthly

visits to india

a place that was to become my second

home and where

i have made many good friends surely

with a facebook

story like that i can’t have had too

many troubles

but life is not always as it appears

now let me tell you about the real chris

parsons

i was a very anxious child and for the

reason and and the reason for this i

believe was my dad

he really struggled with being a dad he

loved my mum

very much though the relationship was

often volatile

but struggled when kids came along

especially me

as the oldest of three i think he saw me

as coming between him and my mum

her emotional energy towards me was seen

through a jealous rage at best i was a

nuisance and at worst public enemy

number one

he could not wait for me to leave home

and often said this

i realized with hindsight that he too

had a very difficult relationship with

his dad

and that this became his learned

behavior

he seemed to shout at me all of the time

all too often reducing me to tears

and frankly i was terrified of him i

remember he once changed a 25 watt bulb

in my room

to an 8 watt bulb to save money i could

hardly read

the only good thing that came out of it

was that i turned into

a bit of a swat and i spent most of the

time in my bedroom doing homework and

reading just to keep out of his way

mornings were worst and you got in his

way at your peril

friends really came around to the house

because of his bad moods

and i’m embarrassed to say that i had a

recurring daydream

that that when i was big enough and

strong enough i would beat him to death

so this became my worldview the world as

a dangerous and uncertain place where

people could not be relied on

and where bad stuff happened a world

view that i took to school

to university and then to work

another part of my story was alcohol

when i was old enough i found drink

and that took me to a magical place of

daydreams

and a carefree existence away from all

the anxiety and worry

my love affair with alcohol had firmly

begun and we would only be

parted decades later this

self-medication

as i saw it also brought its problems

though

i often said and did things while strong

that brought shame

and remorse and if you self-medicate for

long enough

and in large enough quantities you can

become an alcoholic

i became i am an alcoholic

a recovering alcoholic but whose black

specter casts a long shadow

and it remains ready to pounce again at

work i managed to keep a brave face

on things and appeared ambitious and

confident to my friends and colleagues

but underneath there was an excruciating

self-doubt and anxiety

i cycled to work in london for about 20

years

on countless mornings i prayed that i

would be knocked off my bike

and find myself in hospital so that i

would have a real reason

not to go to work rather than a mental

health reason

somehow i managed to keep a lid on

things until i was made partner

the series of goals and promotions acted

like a scaffolding to my

otherwise unraveling life but surely

after making partner in mid 1990

i was in the gym one evening when i

suddenly collapsed

my body had finally had enough too much

work

too many weekends too much alcohol too

much stress

i was rushed to hospital and over the

coming coming days had every test

imaginable

and at the end of the week the

consultant came to me with a smile

and said i have good news for mr mr

parsons

there is nothing wrong with you but that

was the worst possible

news i wanted some rare disease that

would explain everything

nothing wrong left only one thing a

mental health issue

now my anxiety and stress turned to a

deep and dark depression

the whole edifice of my life had

crumbled how would i support

my wife and my family how would i ever

be able to look friends and colleagues

in the eye

i was defined by my job and my success

and now i had nothing left so what did

my depression look like

i could hardly sleep making decisions

even whether or not to have a shower

became impossible

everything that i previously enjoyed

a meal with a family listening to music

reading left me blank

and finally all i wanted to do to do was

to be in bed

under the duvet crying i didn’t think it

possible that someone could cry for

weeks on

end but you can i did not actively

contemplate suicide

but i knew i could not carry on living

like this

i wanted to go to sleep and never wake

up

desperation at least brought me to my

knees and i could then accept help

medication saved my life and continues

to do so

i seem to have a genuine chemical

imbalance and my daily tablet

regulates the serotonin in my brain the

chemical that impacts mood

therapy was also critical and i could

explore my relationship with my dad and

other challenges i’d faced when i was

young

i learned i have learned through the

mental health charity on which i

sit on the board mq mental health

research

that most mental health challenges are

embedded before you reach 18.

my return to family life and work was

both slow and painful

the narrative at work was that chris had

been working too hard

and needed to recharge his batteries

noah mentioned mental ill ill health

and neither did i my time in our

singapore

singapore office i came to realize was

what every good alcoholic would call

doing a geographic going somewhere new

with new people

new surroundings new challenges

but of course the only problem was that

i went with me

with all my existing problems and

baggage i remember one terrible evening

in shanghai

where i joined a management meeting to

discuss future partner promotions

and i sobbed down the phone to my wife

saying that i couldn’t even manage my

own life

so what on earth was i doing making

decisions about others

after two more depressive episodes and

time off work i was finally beaten

whilst i could do the job that was asked

of me there were aspects of it

that made me very ill it was time for a

radical reappraisal

so i sat down and i typed a note to our

senior management these are the things i

can do well

these are the things that will add value

to the firm and that became the

blueprint

for my role in india building the

business having important conversations

with clients

and potential clients teaching at law

schools

establishing various national and

international competitions and getting

involved in various

charitable initiatives i must say that

throughout my firm has been

amazing and supportive and understanding

and i recognize

how lucky i’ve been so what have i

learned over my long career and what can

i share with you

first that mental ill health is very

common

it’s the biggest cause of disability in

the workplace bar none

being absent from work is clear but many

of us are at work but operating

well below par because we are stressed

anxious

and exhausted second that mental ill

health is terrible

and can and does kill people and third

that each of us and the places at which

we work can

and must do something about it so how do

i

um try and look after myself

i make sure i have around seven or eight

hours of sleep a night

please read why we sleep by professor

matthew walker

you will never think about sleep in the

same way again

i exercise every day yoga in the morning

and cycling or running

later in the day endorphins are now my

only drug

apart from caffeine i’m careful with

technology

my iphone is always on silent and all of

my notifications are off

i try and maintain a strong circle of

friends humans were designed for

connection

and i love the ted talk by brene brown

called the power

of vulnerability when i’m vulnerable

i connect with people at a much deeper

level ironically

my brokenness has become something of a

strength

i have a strong sense of purpose in my

life

both through my faith and through my

interests

and i try and include my purpose in my

job when i’m talking or writing about

mental well-being

i’m doing just that and i have much

and i have a much deeper insight into

myself

and i’m clear about what drives me i’ve

done four major charity adventures over

the last 15 years

the last one saw me cycling over four

thousand kilometers

from kanyakumari in the south of india

to kashmir in the north

to raise funds for widows and their

children in india

that was just before lockdown in march

why do i do these slightly crazy things

well first of all

because i’ve been pretty pretty lucky in

my life despite everything

and it’s right that i should do

something for others second

because i’m an alcoholic and addicts

tend to do things to excess and thirdly

and perhaps most importantly

because i never received affirmation

from my dad when i was growing up

i still have a deep need to be affirmed

and if i cycle 4 000 kilometers

for charity people will say well done

thanks for listening