Host:
[00:00:00] Welcome to "Holding onto Hope," a series that shares the stories of everyday Australians that have experienced moments in crisis and found a path to support. Whilst all of the stories shared offer hope and inspiration, at times you may hear something you find triggering. If you or someone you know needs crisis support, please phone Lifeline on 13 11 14, text 0477 13 11 14, or visit lifeline.org.au for Lifeline chat service, which is 24/7.

Interviewer:
[00:00:31] This episode features a guest sharing their personal lived experience. The language they use reflects their own journey and may differ from Lifeline's terminology or current best practice language around suicide. While not all views or language used in this episode reflect those of Lifeline, we believe it's important that people can tell their stories in their own words.

Today's guest is Mark. Mark is a men's mental health speaker, husband, father of 3, and someone who has spent much of his life searching for a sense of belonging. Growing up in New Zealand, Mark struggled with feelings of shame and not being enough. Over the years, he looked for answers in sport, alcohol, achievement, relationships, and anything that might fill the gap he felt inside.

At 20, a drink-driving crash changed the course of his life. His friend Tao suffered life-changing injuries, and Mark was sent to prison. What followed were years marked by grief, addiction, depression, and periods where life felt increasingly difficult to carry.

Today, Mark's life looks very different. Through recovery, fatherhood, running, and learning to understand himself in new ways, he has found a sense of purpose he never thought possible. He joins us to share his story of accountability, resilience, and what it means to keep holding on when hope feels far away.

Mark, welcome. Thanks so much for being a part of this podcast series. Life looks really different for you now. You're a husband, a father of 3, someone who spends a lot of time helping other people. What does life feel like for you at the moment?

Mark:
[00:02:11] Like, my journey has all been worth it to get to where I am now. And all the heartache and all those moments where I have wanted to give up has been worth it, turning up and finding those little rays of sunshine and hope along the way. It's almost like a sense of accomplishment to get to where I am today.

And I also feel like I've leveled up so much in my life. I'm excited for the challenges that are going to come up in my life in the future, to use the resources that I've learned over the years to navigate my way through it. I can create so much change, and I know I've already created a lot of change in the short period of time that I've gone on this journey.

Interviewer:
[00:03:04] You've spoken about spending a lot of your time when you were younger searching for something. Looking back now, what do you think you were searching for?

Mark:
[00:03:14] Searching for identity. That's pretty apparent now. From a very, very young age, I never felt accepted or good enough within who I was. And although I had a lot of good things in my life over the years, it just was just a feeling inside of just not being good enough and always wanting to be something else.

Interviewer:
[00:03:42] Growing up, you said you often felt like you didn't quite belong. Where do you think those feelings started, and how did they shape the way that you saw yourself?

Mark:
[00:03:52] I grew up on a very small farm in New Zealand with a mum, dad, and an older brother. My brother's three years older than me, so I remember him always having his older friends around and being that younger sibling. I never really wanted to hang out with you sort of thing. You were always just like, you felt like you were a bit of a pain in the butt, to be honest.

And I found myself trying to play up to their level as a young person. And yeah, it was tricky.

Interviewer:
[00:04:24] And when it's such a small family on a farm, there's not much else to do, right, for a young kid, but try to be there with your older brother.

Mark:
[00:04:33] I do remember a lot of chats with the cows.

Interviewer:
[00:04:39] Oh, lovely.

Mark:
[00:04:40] And a lot of adventures around the farm by myself, you know, like just that imaginary friend.

Interviewer:
[00:04:46] Sounds like a bit of a lonely time for you as a young guy.

Mark:
[00:04:50] When you reflect on it, absolutely. It was very hard to make sense of.

Interviewer:
[00:04:54] And sport became a huge part of your identity early on. What did sport give you that you felt you were missing elsewhere?

Mark:
[00:05:01] It gave me a purpose or an identity. I was always very, very competitive and gifted, naturally gifted, so I could find a group who looked up to me. It was great. I just poured my heart and soul into all of my sporting abilities over the years, and that was sort of my identity.

Interviewer:
[00:05:22] You also started drinking alcohol at a very young age. Looking back now, do you think that alcohol became a way of coping with things that you didn't yet have the words for?

Mark:
[00:05:33] It was probably a little bit later on in life that it became that way. My 11th birthday was when I had a real run-in with alcohol. I drank a whole bottle of white wine, and I nearly lost my life like a few times through it. It wasn't because of suppressing feelings so much. It was more I felt like I was trying to create an identity that was attractive to people.

And alcohol in later years, it goes part and parcel. You go to a function and you don't know people. You have a few beers, you know everyone, your best mates. And then the more you become that fun and jovial sort of person, the more people gravitate towards you, and that's your identity.

Interviewer:
[00:06:15] One of the defining moments in your life was losing your cousin to suicide. How did that loss impact you, particularly when you were still really young?

Mark:
[00:06:25] I remember looking back on it and just seeing the devastation around his family. I remember being absolutely broken and, you know, we'd lost someone so close to us. However, to really understand or make sense of it took a lot of years. It was more the effect that it had on other people was what I remember.

I'll never forget seeing his mother. Like, we literally, he was still there and seeing his mother. The look on her face I carry as much as the look on his face. I actually seen him in the process of it. So I remember that vision, but I also remember the vision of his mother and how much that has stuck with me.

It has been super powerful in my journey. I contribute him to saving my life over the years because of those couple of memories that I have.

Interviewer:
[00:07:23] You had another very important moment in your life at 20. Everything changed after the drink-driving accident involving your friend Tao. Without revisiting details that don't serve you, what do you remember about the weight of what happened and the responsibility that you carried after that?

Mark:
[00:07:43] When it happened, it was devastating. Yep, absolutely devastating. Couldn't make sense of it. It felt like I had lost a big part of my identity that I'd created in the lead-up to it, and it had just been like thrown away.

So my new identity was going to be the person who had this accident, and with that come carrying the guilt, the shame, the hurt. I was like, okay, well, this is what the rest of your life is now. You've been the person driving the vehicle and caused this. So he's now a paraplegic. You are to carry that with you and feel those things for the rest of your days.

Interviewer:
[00:08:33] That sounds like a really heavy burden to carry.

Mark:
[00:08:37] It wasn't light. You'd convince yourself at times that you were good with it, that it was okay. No matter how many people would tell me, it's not your fault. I didn't force Tao to get into the vehicle with me. He was willing. We'd done it numerous times, countless times before this one incident.

So while everyone was telling me, let it go, it's okay, you don't have to feel guilty, it was like, no, no, I do. Because for me, that's my way of making sure that nothing like this will ever happen again. So unhealthy.

Interviewer:
[00:09:13] And following that, you did spend some time in prison, and you spoke about witnessing violence and mental illness and even suicide during that period. What impact did that environment have on you?

Mark:
[00:09:27] I really had to grow up and start to make better decisions with what was going on in my life. And one thing I learned in jail was that you can't make the decisions that impact other people without serious ramifications for those decisions. So it taught me that you needed to really think through what you're doing at the time, because the result is not just something small. It has the potential to be physically harmful to you. So it taught me a lot. Yeah, it did make me grow up a lot.

Interviewer:
[00:10:04] It wasn't easy, obviously. Being in prison never is. And you experienced some suicidal thoughts yourself. What was happening for you internally during those very dark moments?

Mark:
[00:10:17] When I was first arrested and sitting in the holding cells by myself, I just wanted to give up. If I had something to commit suicide at that point, that was it. I would have done it. I just lost all my fight. I just felt like that was going to be the easiest option.

I was facing a monumental mountain that I had to climb. And for me, I was like, fuck, you can't, like, you can't do this. You're not going to be strong enough to be able to get through this. So instead of being a burden on other people, take yourself away from the whole thing.

And I go back to my cousin losing him, and it's like a part of me has always had that with me. So when it has been my darkest of days, I've always been able to go back to those moments, see those faces, see the devastation it's caused. And it's always been like my little fighting hope that saved me and why I'm still here. I'm fairly confident if I didn't have that experience in my life, I would have found a way to commit suicide.

Interviewer:
[00:11:26] That little moment of hope that keeps that fight to stay there with you.

Mark:
[00:11:32] Yeah, and they just kept popping up all my life. And as the journey progressed, whenever things would get to that point, it was like something in those moments would pop up. And that's why I say I'm super glad and appreciative that my subconscious mind has appreciated those moments along the way and made sense of it.

Interviewer:
[00:12:00] And used them as a bit of protection for you in some ways, perhaps.

Mark:
[00:12:04] Yeah.

Interviewer:
[00:12:05] You've described the years that followed as a period of searching through a lot of things: alcohol, drugs, achievement, relationships, other pursuits. Why do you think none of those things were able to give you what you were really looking for?

Mark:
[00:12:19] From a very young age, I've hung on to certain things from before I was 10, like identity crisis and not fitting in and all these things. Never had I thought about the early years of my life and the effect that it had on me.

Countless amounts of therapy since 2019, '18, '19 sort of thing onwards has been, you know, because I'm a competitive person, so I'm like, okay, I know I've got a bit of a glitch here. I'll get to the bottom of it through therapy. So I'm committed to therapy, to getting this to work.

And I just went on this journey from around 2019 up until recently where it was like, I need to make sense of this. I need to understand this. There's more to this. Why is this happening in my life? And I've followed my thread, and that's led me to investing in myself wholeheartedly, like and financially. There's been a lot in personal development.

And for me, it's unlocked a lot of the answers in my life and the realization of these emotions that I've carried with me from such a young age. It's like it's the key for me to move forward in my life. Making sense of certain ways of thinking, making sense of habits is a big part of moving forward for me in my journey.

Interviewer:
[00:13:49] Between 2015 and 2020, say, things became really difficult for you: relationship challenges, financial stress, depression, chronic pain, substance use. That's a lot. You said there were times when suicide felt like a real possibility. Looking back now, what did life feel like during that period?

Mark:
[00:14:10] End of 2015 was really hard. I'd come out of a relationship with my ex-partner, a 10-year relationship that was just unhealthy from such a young age. And we knew it, we both knew it, but we were just holding onto it, thinking that it was going to get better.

I had a mortgage to pay by myself. I didn't have a job. I had a broken leg at the time because I tried to, I went back to playing footy, broke my leg. And I had minus $70 on a Go Mastercard. It was the only money that I had at that time. No job, nothing. So I had to sell whatever I could sell within the house: coffee machine, couch, everything. Yeah, like just to survive. That took me to a really, really dark place in my life back then. I got on with it. I followed my thread.

I was lucky enough that early 2016, I met my wife-to-be, and it was so unexpected. That changed a lot at that time.

However, from 2015 until 2019, I suffered a lot because my rugby league career was over. I didn't realize the effect that that was having on me as well. I'd played rugby league since I was like 12, younger.

Interviewer:
[00:15:24] Sounds like there were lots of internal struggles going on for you. What stopped you from giving up during those really hard years?

Mark:
[00:15:32] Definitely having my wife there, just reassuring me, her turning up all the time and telling me, "I am good enough, and you're a loving person, you're a special human being." I never wanted to believe that. Like this massive part of my brain was like, "You're not, you're not, you're not. You've never been accepted. You've never been good enough. You don't deserve this. You don't deserve it."

And I've got this girl all of a sudden in my life that's telling me, "Yes, you are, you are, you are." And I just like remember arguing with her because I literally hated looking at myself, thinking, "You're not good enough. Like you don't appear to be good enough. You're not educated well enough. You're not this, you're not that." Like so much dialogue in your head just saying how bad you are.

And then you've got this one human being there that's just reassuring you and telling you how special you are. I was like, just held onto that over the years, and it's just given me the little bit of hope to find the answers.

Interviewer:
[00:16:34] How do you stay on top of your mental health now?

Mark:
[00:16:37] Using the resources that I've been given and learned is a big, big thing. And one of the telltale signs that I was going to a dark place was through shutting down emotionally and through my communication.

My wife and I have committed to every single day having a nightly meeting. So we have our catch-up and just talk about things, you know, with the kids and how she's feeling and how I'm feeling and just being super open about it.

I've also got a very loving team of people around me that my wife knows very well, and they'll hold me accountable. So the night that I do show signs of this, we're on to it early, and we know who we're going to speak to and how we're going to deal with it.

I used to have dialogue. A massive part of my brain was all negative, negative, negative. For me now, my brain is positive all the time. And I can sit in a car and I don't need to listen to music. I don't need to listen to a podcast. I can stare at the road and I can be completely happy doing that.

And I guess the moment that it starts to become negative, I've got the strength and people around me to go, "Hey, I've just had this for the last 10 minutes. I've literally been driving down the road and I've been having negative thoughts." Like if I can't process that by myself and deal with it with the resources that I've been given, I'm not going to be too proud to go to my wife, firstly, and then the people around me to say, "Hey, I've just had this. Can you just make sense of why I'm feeling this way?" And then work our way through it that way.

Interviewer:
[00:18:20] How did having children change the way you viewed yourself and your future?

Mark:
[00:18:24] It wasn't about me when I first held her. It was like, this human being has no idea who I am. She has no preconceived judgment. She knows nothing. She's looking at me and I am her world. And I am her teacher and I am the person that's going to be turning up for her to give her the best chance at life. It was like just another one of those things where you're just like, "Okay, there's more hope. I'm not giving up."

Interviewer:
[00:18:59] You've explained that so beautifully there. The next part, not so beautiful, endurance running. For someone like me who cannot fathom that, but it's become a big part of your life, endurance running. What have endurance challenges taught you about resilience, discomfort, and the stories we tell ourselves when things get hard?

Mark:
[00:19:20] It has taught me a lot, yeah, resilience. The battle between my good and my bad side of my brain is the way that I break it down. My good will always win the battle. So when I'm running and I am in agony, that is a result of a thought in your mind. And if you can navigate your way around that negative thought in your mind and turn it into a positive, you're not stopping.

And when you start running a long way, at the start, when you're on the start of your journey of running, these negative thoughts are there a lot. However, as you keep running and you keep turning up every day, even though you don't want to, and you keep turning up, these thoughts, they're almost non-existent.

It's been very powerful in my journey to get to where I'm today, but all sport has. Golf was a big one for me. You can't be half committed mentally when you're standing over the top of a golf ball and you need to hit it where you need to hit it. You need to be fully present in that moment mentally. That for me has saved me over the years a lot.

While running has taught me the grinding physical pain, other sports have taught me the mental understanding that you need to translate into life to make things better.

Interviewer:
[00:20:55] You've also spoken about discovering NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, and beginning to understand your thinking patterns in a different way. What was it about that experience that resonated, that made sense to you so much?

Mark:
[00:21:09] It was definitely my last, like my last hurrah. I managed to meet someone on a physiotherapist's bed, who told me about this NLP thing. And I knew nothing about NLP. I did a little bit of a little bit of the Google search. I committed to doing the course like within two weeks of finding out about it.

And going there and having no idea about what it like really was, what I was getting myself into was the best thing that I've ever done. Because you just took it every single day and every single moment and learned so much about it rather than having any preconceived ideas.

The first course was seven days. I would sit there and I would just remember just staring and listening, just going, "What the hell is going on here?" Like, but at the end of it, what I realized is that so much was happening inside of my brain that I couldn't really make sense of at the time, but changing my behaviors subconsciously, I just couldn't understand in the moments that it was happening.

However, after it, my language started to change. I started to make sense of things to do with like the negative side, your thought patterns, your habits, your loops, all these things. And it was like, "Holy, holy shit, I'm cured." And that was the thought. Like I went away from this, the golf course, flew back home and I was like, "I'm so good. Let's go. I'm so happy." And for three months, I was like, "My kids, I had so much energy. I was feeling so good about myself and life."

And then it was like the universe went, "Well, hang on a second, mate. I've got another idea for you." Threw some heavy things at me, like my running had a serious toe injury that I had to get surgery on, which meant going under. The recovery was some very heavy medication, and I just lost it. It was like this negative side, the little monkey on this left-hand side was just like, "Haha, I've got your back now. Come on, let's go. We're going deep into those dark places that you've always lived in your life. We're going to go back in there." And at that time, I just didn't have the mental capacity, the resources to be able to combat that. I thought I did.

Luckily enough, I'd committed to another 15 days of going back into the training program. And I'm just so thankful that I had committed to that because by the end of the period leading up to it, I remember sitting on my bed with my wife, actually on my daughter's bed with my wife, and she came in and sat with me and she just said, "You're not right, are you?" And I was like, "No, I'm not. I am struggling, massively struggling." And that was definitely not the extent of the words that she got out of me.

When I shut down, I don't want, I just feel like a burden on people and I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to express how I'm feeling emotionally. So it was more along the lines of maybe a grunt or two and just sitting there and just staring into the abyss. And she's just like literally patting me on the head or just trying to navigate that moment to be there for me enough, but not overpowered so that it pushes me away from her.

And her saying to me in those moments, "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" And I remember, I know I said to her, "No, I'm not. Like I have you, I have my kids, I'm not. You're not thinking about it, are you?"

And I remember saying, "I'm not lying to you, darling. Yes, absolutely. I'm thinking about it. How can I not think about it when my life feels like it is just this constant battle with depression and negative thoughts? And like, how can I not feel like that? This is what it's meant to happen." Like it gets so low that you're like, "Well, of course I'm going to think about that." However, at this point in time, given all the resources I've been given over my years, no, I'm not going to do anything.

I was very lucky because it got very dark in the last part leading up to the second lot of the training. And then, you know, you go back into the first day of the 15 days and you've got a bit of an idea about what's going to happen. You're almost like you go into it like trying to be stoic and go, you know, "Yeah, I'm good. Like I've been going great. Like everyone's, most of the people from the first training are there." And it's like, "Yeah, yeah, how are you going?" "Yeah, I'm good." And then it's like, bump, bump. Yeah, you're kidding yourself.

And then the way that it's set up is perfect to exploit those false ideas that you have in your head. It took like maybe 24, less than 24 hours before I'm a bloody blubber a mess realizing that I have not got my shit together. I've got a lot of work to do and which is great. Like absolutely, it was great.

Because then I realized, like I went back into this, okay, this is competitive mindset of, "I'm going to sort this out. Let's go." My positive side of my brain became very active again in the environment we're in and went, "Let's gain the resources. Let's do this."

Interviewer:
[00:26:28] It sounds like you learned and got so much from those training programs. NLP was the thing that worked for you after trying a number of different things. It was right for you.

Mark:
[00:26:38] Absolutely. Everyone's on their different journeys in their life. For me, I had tried a lot leading up to this. And anyone that speaks to me and wants to be skeptical of it, good on them. Maybe it's not for them. However, for me, my alternative is not being here.

And it has given me a chance at such a, like my life now is amazing. Like I feel like it was almost set up to be the way that it was to give me this little taste after the first lot to just go into another massive spiral rock bottom sort of area at the moment in my life to then bring myself back out of it. It's like it was almost set up by the universe.

Interviewer:
[00:27:30] One thing that stands out in your story is the compassion shown by Tao and his family after the accident. What did forgiveness teach you?

Mark:
[00:27:41] Since the day of the accident, like I said, they were always, "You don't need to carry this. You can forgive yourself. You can forgive yourself." And I never wanted to because I felt like that was just part of my journey, my life to carry this through. So in order to forgive myself, I had to make sense of things that had happened in the early parts of my life. So you can't forgive yourself until you can make sense of it.

Interviewer:
[00:28:06] So you've also spoken about the importance of connection and sharing your experiences and bringing people together. Can you tell us a bit more about what you're doing?

Mark:
[00:28:14] I have created a platform and it is called Purpose Through Pain. I want to create a space where men feel safe opening up to other people to help them through their darker times.

We're having a gathering. I moved away from the word the retreat because a lot of men sort of see that as being very damaging to their masculinity. So we've got a gathering coming up on the 18th of July and it's swags out by the river, fire, some breath work. A lot of men wouldn't even know what breath work is. However, it's going to be hugely beneficial to them. So we've got 15 people committed to doing it, which is great.

The result of doing this, I'm going to gain so many resources out of those 15 men that come to this through their stories and listening and making sense of why they're feeling that way is just going to level me up even more as a human being in my life in order to help other people.

Interviewer:
[00:29:10] It sounds like a wonderful experience out by the river in a swag with the fire going.

Mark:
[00:29:17] It's going to be beautiful. The beauty of living in the community where I am, everyone knows someone who knows someone kind of thing. It's got that country vibe about it.

I'm bumping into people. Yesterday at the supermarket, guys, I haven't seen for a long while, come up, shook my hand. He said, "Mate, you're doing a great job. I love what you're doing. I'd love to catch up with you."

Then I seen another lady at the checkout and she was with her daughter and she just turned around to me and she just looked at me and I just had this big smile on my face. I hadn't seen her for such a long time, but she hadn't seen me. And I was like, we didn't say anything because we were too far away from each other, but the energy that it created was just like, "Holy shit, this is so powerful."

And it's just so special that I can be a part of this and I'm so passionate about it and I'm fully committed to getting this thing going and helping a lot of people that need the help that had never thought that they could get the help.

Interviewer:
[00:30:09] If you could sit down with the younger version of you, the one carrying shame and grief, addiction and self-doubt, what would you want him to know?

Mark:
[00:30:20] It's okay to be feeling the way that you're feeling. You're doing the best you can with the resources that you've had in your life. I've always liked to think that there could have been something that could have changed my journey in my life. I always have thought that over the years.

Up until recently, it's like, well, you've been given this story to help other people. That is my pure belief. You've gone through all these things in order to make a change with other people. You're a special human being. You've been blessed with this story.

So while I would like to go back and change the way that things have happened in my life, it wouldn't have given me this opportunity to be where I'm today. The emotions that I get in my stomach and my chest and my heart when people are reaching out and just the little bits of advice that I can give them, I can't describe how it really makes me feel and how much that lights up my positive side of my brain and just drowns out the negative.

Interviewer:
[00:31:25] So lots of things have shaped your identity over time, your early life, the experience with the car accident, prison, drug use, grief. How would you describe your identity now?

Mark:
[00:31:39] My identity now is a loving husband with three very young kids who adore them and I adore my kids. I'm a very driven person. I love who I am. That's my identity now.

Interviewer:
[00:31:53] People listening right now who might feel trapped by the mistakes they've made in their lives or who believe their story can't change, what would you want them to know?

Mark:
[00:32:03] Be nice to yourself. Have hope. I think being open-minded is a big thing. Not beating yourself up about things that have happened in the past.

When you break it down and you realize why this has come about, because there is a reason that it's come about, it's not your fault. It's a result of the things that have happened in your life from a very young age that's led you to being where you're at in that time. So I think just being nice to yourself and holding on to hope.

Interviewer:
[00:32:37] There is so much power in sharing stories, Mark, and we're so grateful and thank you for telling yours today. It is wonderful to hear the journey that you're on and still on. And we know that people will listen to this and hear themselves in your story too. So thank you very much.

Mark:
[00:32:57] Thank you for having me. And like I said, I just encourage people to reach out to Lifeline, reach out when you're in your darkest moments to somebody, anybody, just to get through that moment. Those moments will pass and things will get easier.

Interviewer:
[00:33:15] Thanks so much.

Mark:
[00:33:17] No worries.

Host:
[00:33:17] Thanks for listening to Holding on to Hope, the podcast. Lifeline is grateful to all Holding on to Hope participants for choosing to share their personal lived experiences openly and courageously in order to offer hope and inspiration to others. Your act of kindness makes for a better world. And remember, you can call Lifeline at any time on 13 11 14.