Mental Health Hack: It’s Essential To Ask For Help

Field Notes on breaking the silence around mental health

This edition of Field Notes for Modern Life pull the covers back on an emotive subject, Mental Health. Before we dive into this important subject, don’t forget to subscribe.

The hardest part was not the phone call. It was admitting to myself that I needed to make it.

For years I have been the bloke who is “fine”. Former soldier, mid-career professional, the one people come to when things go sideways. I have lived through war zones, office politics and delayed trains. I have worn rank on my shoulders and responsibility on my back. People like that do not struggle, or so the story goes. I’ve spoken about mental health, delivering a message that “It’s ok to ask for help.”

Recently, that story stopped matching the reality in my head.

Sleep frayed. Focus slipped. Small problems felt bigger than they should. My body reacted to everyday stress as if it were an ambush. At first I wrote it off as being tired, overworked, middle-aged. Then I started to wonder if there was something else going on.

So I did something that still feels strangely radical for someone of my generation.

I asked for help.

Op Courage and an honest question

In the UK there is a service called Op Courage, the NHS veterans mental health and wellbeing service. It exists for people who have worn a uniform, are due to leave, or left years ago and now find that life is not sitting quite right.(nhs.uk)

On paper, it is straightforward. You contact them, they assess you, and together you work out what support you might need.

In reality, that first step can feel like crossing a minefield of old beliefs.

I caught myself thinking the usual nonsense.
“Other people have it worse.”
“I did not have it that bad.”
“I should be able to handle this on my own.”

Underneath those excuses sat a more awkward question.
What if this is post-traumatic stress disorder? What does that say about me?

Here is the truth I am still learning to accept. A label does not change who you are. It just gives a name to something that is already there, so you can start to work with it instead of carrying it alone.

I do not believe my military career is the only reason I feel the way I do. Life after service throws its own grenades. Careers stall, bodies age. You can walk away from a war and still find that the real battles show up years later, in the quiet of your own mind.

The stories we tell ourselves

Part of the problem is the way people of my era were taught to talk about strength.

We were raised on a diet of “crack on”. You keep your head down, crack a joke, have another drink, and trust that time will sort it out. If you break down, you do it privately, then wipe your face and get back to work.

That script can get you through some rough patches. It can also trap you in them.

The same culture that tells us to “reach out if you’re struggling” still rewards the person who never seems to need help. We praise resilience, but often what we really mean is “please don’t make anyone uncomfortable”.

Add to that the public myths about PTSD. The way it is portrayed as either a Hollywood flashback or a convenient plot twist. You start to worry that if you admit you are not okay, people will treat you like a ticking bomb or a fragile ornament.

So you stay quiet. And the pressure builds.

What talking actually does

Here is what surprised me when I started the process with Op Courage.

Nothing exploded.

No one told me I was weak. No one questioned my service record or asked why I had not come forward sooner. The simple act of saying out loud, “I think I might need some help,” was met with calm professionalism.

Talking did not magically fix anything, but it did change the landscape. Suddenly my thoughts were not just echoing around my own skull. Someone else was in the room with them, helping to sort signal from noise.

I realised how much energy I had been using to pretend everything was fine. Once I put the mask down, there was space to look properly at what was actually going on.

That is the quiet power of conversation. It does not erase your past. It just stops it having to live rent-free in your head.

This is not just a veteran thing

You do not need a service number to know this feeling.

You might be a nurse who has carried too many shifts and too many losses. A teacher who is exhausted from holding the emotional weight of thirty children and a broken system. A project manager who wakes at 3am thinking about deadlines and mistakes. A parent who loves their kids fiercely and still feels like they are drowning.

The details change. The silence looks the same.

We still live in a culture that finds it easier to talk about fitness apps and step counts than panic attacks or numbness. We will post our morning run, but not the hour we spent staring at the ceiling last night.

Field Notes for a Modern Life exists partly because I am tired of that gap. Life is hard enough without everyone pretending they are gliding through it.

Field notes for talking about mental health

I am not a therapist. I am one person in mid-life who finally pressed “send” on a referral. These are the small notes I am taking as I go.

You can be strong and struggling.
Those two facts can sit comfortably together. Strength is not the absence of difficulty. It is how you respond to it.

Comparison is a trap.
Someone else always has it worse. That does not make your experience irrelevant. Pain is not a competition.

Professional help is not a luxury.
If your leg was broken you would not try to “power through” and hope it healed in the right shape. Your mind deserves the same care.

One conversation is not a life sentence.
Talking to a GP, a partner or a service like Op Courage does not lock you into anything. It just opens a door.

You are allowed to want a better quality of life.
Not perfect. Not Instagram tidy. Just a life where you are not fighting yourself every day.

If this rings a bell

If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar, consider it a gentle nudge, not a diagnosis.

In the UK, your GP is a starting point. Veterans can contact Op Courage directly or through a charity or family member.(nhs.uk) If you are in real distress or thinking of harming yourself, urgent help is there too, whether that is NHS 111, emergency services, or helplines like Samaritans.

Wherever you live, there will be some version of this support. It might take a bit of searching. It might feel awkward. That does not mean you do not deserve it.

Talking is still important. I am late to that realisation, but I am here now, doing the work. If nothing else, I hope this small field note makes it a fraction easier for you to start your own conversation.

And if you are reading this and thinking of someone else, maybe today is the day you send them a message that simply says:

“I’m here if you ever want to talk.”

Sometimes that is all it takes to crack the silence.