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