Meet the woman behind For Our Men
I love my men.
That’s the most important thing you should know about me or nothing that follows in this post or across this site will make as much sense as it should.
I’ve been specialising in men’s mental health for the last 5 years since I lived in Australia for a couple of years, self-studying, researching and supporting men and simultaneously specialising in workplace mental health for the last 3 years. This website and its objectives for it are a combination of both of my specialities but more importantly, my passions.
I don’t hold any qualifications in individual or organisational psychology etc.; my knowledge is purely through study and research but more importantly listening to men and supporting them against a background of lived experience. All of that works against me in organisations and companies that are founded on cultures that believe you’re not an academic or professional without qualifications but I quite enjoy being the rebel that continually proves people wrong!
I also swear and play games of Bullshit Bingo when I hear certain corporate wellbeing terms which doesn’t always lend itself to companies and organisations that think you shouldn’t run mental health education sessions with humour (FYI you can and you should…the topic is serious enough as it is!).
My journey to create this website, community and men’s network in police began in September 2018 during the worst time of my life, I just didn’t know it then. The last 2.5 years have been simultaneously the most traumatic yet life-affirming years of my life; I went to hell and I’m only just beginning to come back from it.
The details of why and how don’t need to be shared for the moment (though, if you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while you’ll know it) but you’ll get to know me and my story over time if you stick around. Right now, my focus is on my men; as it should be.
I’m not a massive fan of labels when many in society seem intent in viewing them with such narrow minds and simplicity but for the sake of ease, I’ve had chronic major depression with anxiety for 20 years and I’m currently getting used to the weird and exhausting new world of complex post-traumatic stress syndrome (the latter is a kicker that’s for sure!). I’m a ‘lived experience expert‘. I’ve also tried to end my life more than once so I know what it means to smile whilst you feel like you’re dying.
I know how scared you are of telling your mates how you’re feeling. Of worrying your doctor will laugh at you if you tell them you’re depressed. Of feeling like you’ll never be happy again or worse still, that you don’t deserve to be. Of feeling pissed off because you want to feel better sooner than your mind or life will let you. There’s not much about high-functioning chronic mental illness that I don’t already know or haven’t lived through.
As you’ll quickly realise when you explore the site and my Twitter account, there is a lot of focus on police and that’s because I primarily set this website up for them so that I can build an informal national network for men within it.
I became so frustrated by the exhaustive bureaucracy and obstacles surrounding our men – principally that the organisation isn’t yet ready to specifically recognise them nationally – (don’t ask! That’s another website entirely but you can read my (free) book on the topic here) so I decided I wasn’t prepared to wait for the permission I clearly wasn’t going to get when we are losing so many to mental health crises and suicide.
I wrote a piece about my first ride-along with police (as part of my Special Constable application which I later withdrew) on my blog in September 2018 (I’ve republished the piece here) which got wildly shared online and scored me an invitation to present to the Deputy Chief Constable and other Chief Officers at Devon and Cornwall Police HQ.
I went on to do another ride-along and wrote 4,100 words on why resilience wasn’t the answer to police wellbeing (which you can read here) in January 2019 sending a wave of police (majority men) my way who began to seek my support and the rest, as they say, is history!
It’s obviously a bit more complicated than the above. I spent the first 6 months of 2019 going through a criminal investigation as a victim of a serious sexual offence which broke me but it put me on course to have the steepest learning curve of my professional career as I connected with police and began to support dozens of them and whilst my story is important, now is not the time to share it.
I wasn’t supposed to become involved in police wellbeing and certainly not be considered the national voice for men in the police (or hold an international reputation for it), it just sort of happened but it’s a privileged position which I recognise holds a great deal of responsibility and one that I do not take lightly.
My work with men in general, but especially in male-dominated workplaces such as the police, is surprisingly founded on vulnerability, empathy, compassion and lived experience which typically aren’t traits seen to naturally lend themselves (in principle) to working well with men but it’s who I am at my core and I’ve connected with even the most hardened of men because of it and I think we’re doing just fine! The lives I have been credited with changing and saving are testament to that.
Except, I don’t ‘work’ with men at all but proactively build relationships with them. If you don’t have trust, transparent agendas and remove the ‘corporate’, you won’t get men to engage with many of the reactive workplace wellbeing initiatives many companies and organisations already have in place. That is the most difficult lesson I’m trying to get the police as an organisation to understand against its current reactive ‘command and control’ mentality around wellbeing.
Because men are supposed to be ‘tough’ right?! They don’t ‘do’ feelings? “Real men don’t cry!” Bull. Shit. I’ve lost count the amount of men (yes, even those covered in tattoos and built like brick shit-houses) I’ve listened to as they cried or how in need there were of a hug. You can still be a ‘manly man’ and need some TLC; the two aren’t mutually exclusive!
The objectives I’ve set for For Our Men are huge particularly for the police (and other emergency services if I can replicate them) but I don’t make them or take the responsibility of them lightly or with the expectation that I can achieve them quickly or on my own but saying “I tried” is always better than walking away from something on “what if?”
This website and police network were born from their needs and my frustrations that workplaces won’t allow men to have a voice. Whilst I fully appreciate that that may seem natural in male-dominated workforces who will, quite naturally, focus (as they should) on women and other minority groups, I don’t believe that minority focus has to come to the erasure of the majority simply because they’re men.
Men’s mental health is different and therefore requires specific advocation and support just as every group in a company or organisation will have their specific barriers to help-seeking and will require different support mechanisms. I know that’s possible to give men a voice without silencing other groups to do it and that’s what I want to teach companies and organisations.
Many awareness campaigns and organisations focus on targeting men’s social activities to discuss their mental health and whilst that’s great, how do we reach the men that don’t enjoy football or going to the pub? Work is said to be the most important aspect of a man’s mental wellbeing and since we spend so much time there, surely it makes sense to support them well to enable them to live happier and healthier lives in and outside the workplace? That’s what I’m striving for. Workplaces empowering their men to support themselves and each other.
So that’s me; the “woman behind the men” trying to give them a voice in the workplace to reduce mental health crises and suicides.
I hope you’ll join me in supporting For Our Men and what we hope to achieve and if you’re struggling yourself, I hope that some of our words can help you feel a little less alone in your pain because, Men:
Your life does matter.
You would be missed.
And you deserve to be heard.
All my love,
Toni
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