TURNING POINT others won’t needlesslystory in the hopes thatJames Hill shares his James Hill’s story is not unlike that of manytradies. He started an apprenticeship atthe age of 15 and never looked back. Heworked his way up to a supervisor role, suer in silence like he trained at the gym nearly every day and spent his did for so long. spare time on the beach or with his loved ones. ‘Everything was good,’ he says, ‘everything was picture perfect.’ Story: Sarah O’Donovan But almost out of nowhere, his health began to deteriorate. ‘It didn’t happen overnight,’ he says. ‘I think I knew something wasn’t right but I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself.’ James first noticed he was becoming increasingly fatigued when he began injuring himself at the gym. Soon, he was needing to sleep two or three times a day, even having to pull over for rest when driving. Despite having no energy throughout the day, James was too restless to sleep at night. He says he spent most nights awake and worrying. James had a number of blood tests and physical assessments, but says whenever the doctor asked about his mental health he would brush it off. ‘I just woke up one day when I was o work and had the urge to draw a picture’ ‘I was brought up old school, believing that you don’t talk about emotions, that it’s not a manly thing to do,’ James laughs, ‘it sounds so stupid now, saying it out loud, but that was my attitude!’ Then the negative self-talk began. ‘I’d think I wasn’t good enough of a leader for the job I was doing, I wasn’t training as hard as I could – really beating myself up internally – and then, I started drinking because that was a way of forgetting things.’ ‘Subconsciously, I knew I was going through some sort of breakdown, but on the surface my understanding was that only people who had lost a job or were going through divorce suffered from Fight the stigma depression.’ With an all too common misunderstanding of mental illness, it took some time before James sought Today, James volunteers as a speaker for beyondblue to raise awareness and help. encourage others to seek help. ‘It was when I was in a really deep hole that I He says that sadly, he felt more comfortable making up a physical illness when came across beyondblue,’ he says of finding an it came to taking time o work. ‘There’s still a lot of work to do – there seems to be online test. He promised himself ‘I’ll answer every more acceptance of physical illness over mental illness – hence the role I’m in now.’ question honestly, but just to get the idea out of ‘If you’ve got a sore back, you recognise it and go tell a doctor,’ he says. ‘With a my head and shut myself up – not because that’s mental illness, you know the symptoms are there but you try to ignore them.’ But that what’s wrong with me. stigma is what makes his work as a mental health advocate so important to him. HIA and the HIA Charitable Foundation have partnered with beyondblue to provide relevant information regarding mental health in the residential construction industry – available on HIA’s website. www.hia.com.au/about/initiatives/beyondblue 112 HOUSING MAY 2018 LIFESTYLES • HIA CHARITABLE FOUNDATION