Darcy (Host):
[00:00:00] Welcome to "Holding on to 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.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:00:31] Today on "Holding on to Hope," we're joined by Michael, an accredited social worker, therapist, and founder of Lived Experience Solutions. Michael grew up in Egypt, where from a young age he cared for both of his parents in a culture where suicide was heavily stigmatised and rarely spoken about. After the loss of his mother to suicide in Egypt, he migrated to Australia carrying grief, silence, and the weight of cultural messages about masculinity, suffering, and help-seeking. In time, Michael reached a point where he sought support through Lifeline, a moment that helped him begin speaking openly about what he had been carrying. In this episode, Michael reflects on caregiving, migration, suicide bereavement, stigma, and what it means to reach out when you've been taught to stay silent. He also shares what hope can look like when life has felt impossible to hold alone. Hello, Michael. Thanks so much for joining us in our online studio today. Great to have you here.

Michael Elwan:
[00:01:33] Thank you for having me.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:01:35] Great. Well, we're going to have a chat through lots of different parts of your life, but your work now involves sitting with people when they're in some of their darkest moments. I'd like to ask you first, what has that taught you about what people most need when they're feeling alone and overwhelmed?

Michael Elwan:
[00:01:54] It's more about someone to be there to hold space for them. It's about presence, about someone to be around to just sit there, listen, or stay quiet. You don't have to say something. As human beings, we value connection. When we feel that we are unable to connect with someone, we feel that we are out of balance. My experience is that when someone is feeling really down or experiencing really difficult circumstances, having someone to sit with them, being present, often alleviates some of that stress.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:02:40] Besides that, you wear a lot of hats. You've got a lot of things going on in your life: social worker, therapist, advisor, PhD candidate, just to add a whole lot of other complexity to your life. But under all of that, you've said that what drives you is something much more personal. So how would you describe what gets you out of bed in the morning?

Michael Elwan:
[00:03:03] It's my passion that fuels me, fuels me that I go every day and start doing my work. I have my own lived experience with suicide bereavement and lots of other things too. But for me, I feel like if we're able to connect with people and if we're able to really understand people and at least change any of the circumstances that they're going through, we are doing really good things in our lives. For me, life is not about myself only. It's about others, people I work with people I really enjoy supporting. This is what it is like for me. It's not like I want to work every day to do something only for me. I feel really honoured and privileged to be able to do the work that I do.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:03:58] And it sounds like that sense of connection and service comes from a really deep place. So you grew up in Egypt as a carer for your parents, and you lost your mother to suicide there in a culture where suicide is deeply stigmatised and rarely spoken about. What did that environment teach you about what you were and weren't allowed to feel, and what did it mean to carry all that kind of loss in silence?

Michael Elwan:
[00:04:27] The loss started even before losing my mom to suicide. It was from the beginning, when I was a child and my father lost his eyesight. He was a war veteran and Air Force general, and he was always proud of himself and proud of what he did and achieved. Suddenly, he lost his eyesight because of a stroke. And I was 14 back then, and then I became the carer for him and for my mom. From that moment, all the losses started to accumulate. The loss of the dad I was always connected with and the experiences that we had, and the losses of my goals or dreams when I was young and what I wanted to do, summer or winter, vacations, whatever it is. The losses started to accumulate. I lost my dad when I was 16. Then I looked after my mom for 10 years, and she ended her life. Between that, during these 10 years, the losses also started to accumulate. You start to lose friends. You start to lose family members' connection. You start to lose neighbours coming from a collectivistic community or culture. We're all supposed to stick together. We're all supposed to support one another. And it happens. It happens on many challenges or difficulties, except mental health for some reason. The stigma is so deep that people start to I think this is where it's coming from they don't know what to say in situations like this. So, for example, when I lost my mom to suicide, neighbours, people in my community, family members, initially they were there during the initial stages of grief, et cetera. But then they started to disappear. And they started to disappear. And then I started to ask myself why they started to disappear. And then upon reflection, I think it's about the lack of knowledge. How can we respond or support someone going through grief when they have lost someone to suicide? What can we say about it? What can we say to support him in this situation? I don't know about now, but in my culture back then, there was no awareness around how to speak about someone who's bereaved from suicide. There was always fear, worry. I don't want to offend. I don't want to open a wound. Yeah. I don't want to mention. Yes, that's understandable. You don't have to right? But that was part of it. And that really affected me because if I cannot speak to people who I thought were really going to listen and they will be there for me, if I cannot open up to them, who would I open up to?

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:07:42] That's such a lot to carry by yourself. And you came to Australia with all of that, that you were carrying the grief, cultural messaging around masculinity and vulnerability, those cultural messages about keeping yourself to yourself in that collective responsibility and a loss you hadn't been able to speak about or many losses. What was it like to land in a new country with some possibility, but all of that inside of you?

Michael Elwan:
[00:08:16] It was a mix of feelings. There was hope about starting a new journey. It's a new chapter in my life. But also at the same time, it was a worry and anxiety, fear. What's going to happen? Can I speak? What's going to happen if I speak? Are they ever going to understand? Are they going to continue shaming me? Or is it going to be affecting my livelihood in Australia? Is it going to affect me as someone who just moved in here? Like if I spoke about my experiences to my boss or to my potential employer, are they going to hire me? Are they going to hire me if they know anything about it? How open is the Australian society? I don't know. I don't know. It took me a while. It took me a while.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:09:04] Now we're opening and talking about it now in this podcast. So moving to Australia, there was a period of time when your own distress became very serious. What do you remember about that time and what made it so hard to speak out, speak up about what was going on for you?

Michael Elwan:
[00:09:24] You move to a new country and then you start over from scratch. Back in Egypt, I have a structure. I have a home. I have my education that allows me to work in a specific field. I was living a stable life. My life was okay. It was good. I did not leave Egypt because of economic circumstances. I left it because I wanted a new chapter, a new life that I am starting fresh. So you start from scratch. And coming from my background, men are seen through a specific lens. It is your role to be working and providing. It's your role to be able to be successful in your job. Your job is your identity. And if you're unable to find a job, and especially a white-collar job, you start to feel that you are not achieving. You're not doing well. That's why you find in multicultural communities, many people speak about parents and families who start to want them to be working in a specific field: doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants. That's how it is. This is the standing in the community or the culture. That's how it is. If you have these qualifications in your home, it is a source of pride, moving to another country, starting from scratch, it starts to hit your identity. And it started to hit it layer over layer over layer. So not able to find or afford a home, not able to find a job, not being able to afford things that you would like to buy. A layer after a layer of challenges. And then eventually, your nervous system starts to say something.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:11:17] What was it saying to you?

Michael Elwan:
[00:11:18] Michael, you're carrying a lot and you're keeping a lot to yourself. So that's not healthy. That's really unhealthy. You need to see someone, talk about what's been going on for you over the years and decades. It felt like I was holding a balloon underwater so that people don't see. And I kept holding it for a long time. And what happens when you keep holding a balloon underwater for a long time?

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:11:45] Tell us.

Michael Elwan:
[00:11:46] It comes up because you get tired. You cannot hold it underwater for a long time. 10 years, 12 years, whatever the duration is, is a long time to keep holding a balloon underwater. And it surfaced and everybody saw it. That was the time when I found myself, I need to see someone to talk about what's going on.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:12:05] What an amazing metaphor of holding the balloon underwater, that pressure of trying to keep it contained until you can't. And as you said, just too tired, too worn down to keep holding it anymore. So these thoughts and feelings you've kept to yourself for such a long time. You talked about the fear of consequences and the uncertainty about confidentiality and the weight of what you'd been taught about what it's like, what it means to be a man. What was it like to carry all of that alone? And then what finally moved you to reach out? Was it the balloon bursting? What happened?

Michael Elwan:
[00:12:43] The balloon popped up above the water. And that's also now reading about it and research and things like that. You find that many men experience the same. They keep holding it, keep holding the balloon underwater until something traumatic or bodily happens. And this is where you start rushing to the ED, thinking that you have a heart attack. They do all the tests for you and they found there was no problem there. And it must be psychological. And you get the referral or at least a nudge for the referral. You have to see someone, I think, because there's no explanation for what's happening for you from body organs, biological standpoint. So that's what happens. I went there. I was experiencing something. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what a panic attack meant in my culture. It's not something that we speak about.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:13:38] Totally unknown to you.

Michael Elwan:
[00:13:40] Yeah. Nobody told me that they experienced something like that. So it felt real. It felt like it really needed an ambulance. You know what I mean? And then I discovered there's nothing there. So they said, you need to see someone, which I did. And I'm glad that I did because it was another journey of unlearning things, which was really good.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:14:05] Unlearning all these things that you've been taught, the weight of these silences that you've been carrying, concerns about what people are going to say when you say something. That's a lot for one person to live with for so long. And you've said that calling Lifeline was the first time that you spoke openly about what you were going through. And important to have that clear explanation of confidentiality that made a real difference for you. What do you remember about making that call? What helped you feel safe enough to keep talking?

Michael Elwan:
[00:14:42] That was after my presentation to the ED and being told that I need to see someone. And then I didn't know where to go. But I remember Lifeline. I'd seen banners and knew the number. It's everywhere. So I just like, I'm going to give them a phone call and see what's going to happen. The person on the other side was a male and he was really calm. And I remember his tone. It was like a calm voice that is willing to listen. Not rushing, not directing, not leading. It was just like presence. I remember speaking to the person like, look, I don't want to be identified. He said, that's okay. It's confidential. That's fine. And I remember when he said that to me, I felt relief. That was the initial feeling that I got. Relief. Oh, okay. That's good. So at least the person doesn't know me. I don't know them. That's fine. I'm going to say whatever I want to say and that's it. And he said, that's going to be the case if you want. So I spoke with him, started to explain about what happened. And I felt like this guy, he gets it. He gets me, right? He's not talking to me from a textbook perspective. And after finishing the conversation, I felt really good. I felt really good after that. And I decided to reach out to a professional to start my therapy.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:16:23] Good to know that Lifeline advertising works too, that you saw it and there's a number to call.

Michael Elwan:
[00:16:29] Yes. It makes a big difference.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:16:31] Yeah. In your own work, Michael, you're connecting with people. You're holding space in an empathetic and compassionate way for people who are going through their own issues of mental health. How did that learning and your training and your study, those connections, how did that help with your grief cycle, for example, with the processing what happened with your mother?

Michael Elwan:
[00:16:59] I think there are a couple of things here. So there's one lens that I use, which is my lived experience lens. And there is also the professional training and the professional lens as a social worker, as a therapist. And both lenses sometimes integrate and sometimes they push against one another. The way that I work is that I reconcile both of them together. For example, when I work with someone who has been bereaved by suicide, obviously I look at the values as a social worker. Yeah. And you start to implement those values and these principles of humanity, of dignity, of autonomy. Yeah. You start applying these lenses. And also you start to apply the lived experience lens because lived experience now has expertise of its own. It's a distinctive discipline now. That's why you see the lived experience workforce frameworks. You start to see people in designated lived experience roles. So there are values and principles that govern lived experience, such as mutuality, for example. There's no hierarchy. We are equal. When I apply those lenses, when I'm working with someone who is bereaved, I get feedback from them about what's been happening in their lives. And then I start to integrate that also and reflect on it on myself. So I sit down with someone who has been bereaved by suicide and then I apply the mutuality lens of lived experience by approaching them as though we are on the same level. I apply one of the social work lenses of person-centred or strength-based lens. So I don't ask the question of what's wrong with you, but what has happened to you? And then when I hear from them, I started to also reflect on my own experience and I start to make sense about what happened in my life. And often what I found as a missing lens was compassion. Often we are compassionate towards others, but not compassionate towards ourselves. And that helped me in my grief with what happened to my mom.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:19:25] Turn that compassion to yourself as well.

Michael Elwan:
[00:19:28] Yes. Internally. Yeah.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:19:31] It sounds like this is an ongoing thing too, that you might be learning or taking things from people you spoke to this morning or yesterday, as well as a while ago.

Michael Elwan:
[00:19:42] All the time. All the time. Yeah.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:19:46] So it's so important to have your story represented because it speaks to people who are rarely seen in conversations about mental health. Men who've been taught not to show vulnerability, people from cultural backgrounds where seeking help carries that stigma that you described. If someone from that world is listening now, what would you want them to hear?

Michael Elwan:
[00:20:11] I want to say that vulnerability is masculine.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:20:17] Nice.

Michael Elwan:
[00:20:18] Against everything I've been taught, but it's true. Vulnerability is masculine. We've been taught that in order for you to be a real man, you need to put your emotions aside. You need to dig deep and bury all your emotions and then cover them and leave them there. But I would say that it doesn't work this way. It doesn't work. This is not how it works. We are humans. Man or woman, you are a human being. And this is not how your nervous system was designed or is designed. So you cannot just bury your emotions or feelings and thinking that you're being a man by doing that. I think talking about it, expressing them in a healthy way is the way to go.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:21:15] You've said before that reaching out is a deeply human act and a courageous one, rather than a sign of weakness. If someone is sitting there with this right now, carrying something they haven't told anyone, what would you say to them?

Michael Elwan:
[00:21:32] I'll say, please, please reach out. You don't have to carry this alone. You don't have to. There is Lifeline. You can reach out to Lifeline. If you're in crisis, go to your nearest ED, speak with your GP, but you got to reach out. Don't carry it alone. There is no shame in talking and seeking help. Seek help so that you can continue in your life, so you can continue doing what you need to do, so you can achieve your goals and aspirations, and overcome barriers.

Carla (Interviewer):
[00:22:08] Michael, it's been so wonderful to have this conversation with you today. Thank you so much.

Michael Elwan:
[00:22:14] Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

Darcy (Host):
[00:22:18] 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.