Headfit: This is my story
In the lead up to and after I left the military, many of the negative feelings I had seemed to explode.
All the confidence and positivity that I had gained during my career vanished and I lost my self-belief. Instead of dealing with negative experiences and moving on, I seemed to dwell on them, remember them and remind myself more of them. Before I left the Armed Forces and once after, I sought medical help but none of the solutions really helped me. I find it difficult to show weakness and pretended I was fine. My wife kept trying to persuade me to go back to the doctor, but I really didn’t want to.
In lockdown I suddenly had more time which I used to try to build up my self-confidence, refreshing my knowledge in areas of my job that I knew would help me when I returned to work as an Electrical Engineer. When walking the dogs, I began to listen to audiobooks with interesting or positive stories.
It was about this time when I received the email advertising HeadFit. I gave it a try and straight away understood how much potential it had to help me. It was easy to use and to the point. I had previously paid for similar software on my phone which probably had very similar messages and tools, but the scenarios were very cheesy and I soon gave up without any real benefits.
HeadFit is very different and easy to apply; I want to manage the negative areas of my life, my anxiety and my negative outlook, and it is starting to help me on that journey. I am under no illusion it will take time and by applying tools like HeadFit and other things I am positive I will get there.
As HeadFit suggests, turning the inner critic into a positive voice and shutting out the negative is now my daily routine. With a difficult task or a situation where I would normally start to panic, I calm myself down and remember to take one step at a time.
I try and implement other tools daily such as body posture; when I am walking the dogs or even sitting and working on my laptop, I try to adopt a better posture which encourages a more positive attitude. It’s clever but something I would not have thought of. To shut down my anxiety, especially when I wake up at night worrying over something irrelevant that I would never have worried over before, I adopt the breathing routine and listen to my breathing which helps empty my head.
I take mental health very seriously now, but it is a private issue for me and one that I will only speak about to certain people. Today’s environment is more forgiving towards mental health than it used to be — my Infantry Battalion was full of bravado and testosterone back when I joined up. Most people I work with today are understanding and as I grow stronger mentally, it is easier to stand my ground and let the confidence grow.
