Mustn’t Grumble
This anonymous personal story is written by a male hospitality pro as part of Kelly’s Cause contribution to International Men’s Day in November. Together, we hope by sharing true stories about Men’s Mental Health in hospitality, we will reduce the stigma and help the industry move towards better supporting men throughout their mental health journeys.
This article references suicide. For support you can find resources here: Samaritans, Square Health, The Wellness Wheel, Self Space & Better Help.
I never planned on being in hospitality, it just kind of happened. I was two grand into my overdraft, flunking an apprenticeship before the kitchen sink came calling. Grateful to be earning a few more pennies and free dinners, it was only a few months, without any discussion, before I stepped up to line cook.
I loved the community & solidarity of the kitchen. At the start I even loved the stress of it all, everything you do receiving immediate feedback as to if you did a good job or not. I wore the long hours, burns and calloused hands as a point of pride, but it soon became an environment that funnelled my anxieties and amplified them beyond what I could cope with. I was having panic attacks before work most days, locking myself in the bathroom with an owner screaming at me to finish an order before I continued “freaking out”. I hid a serious burn for two weeks out of fear I’d be seen as weak, though I realised eventually the real tragedy was I didn’t care about myself enough to make it known I needed help. I told myself I couldn’t let the team down. I went to work everyday before the chef caught me nursing the wound. I was afraid he would look down on me, but instead he chastised me for not looking after myself.
Despite the downward turn in my general wellbeing, my skills were developing and I felt I could start to plot a trajectory for myself. I could talk a good game enough to get myself in the right rooms, but I felt I just had none of that gritty self belief that I saw in my peers to sustain anything long term in this business.
One night cycling home after what had actually been a good shift in the scheme of things, I shut my eyes, took my hands off the handlebars and flew through a roundabout blind. Nothing happened, I just shit myself hurling into a curb on the other side and carried on cycling home. I said nothing. The next night I pondered all shift long how I’d do it “right” next time.
I’d made an attempt on my life before (stopped by a passerby). Several plans otherwise I’d been talked out of. But I was now in a different place. Ending it all isn’t an option anymore, I thought, I’m past that. Despite being happily married, rent paid and having a nice title at work, I’d chanced it anyway. I think I felt like making it look like an accident was the best way out. To look like that silly bastard who fell off his bike and died, that everyone could just move on quickly from, never to be mentioned again.
My struggles hadn’t gone unnoticed despite my dedication to saying nothing. I believed for a long while that one of the few things that I was good at was putting on a face. Wrong. Loved ones had noticed. Not wanting to upset anyone further I sought some help. I realise this shouldn’t be the motivation for getting help, but that’s where my head was at the time. I lacked any sense of self preservation for my own. I was looking for a way to make life bearable so I could continue on, not for myself, but to not cause a fuss for anyone else.
Having been on medication previously, I did everything to avoid going on meds again. I’d been dealing with this since my late teens, as well as meds through university until my mid 20s. They probably helped in some way, but without therapy to go in tandem, it was at best a patch over a wound. I came on and off them at will, dropping straight off pretty serious doses over and over again. Doctors would just offer me another kind to try each time. I’m not anti-meds, I just think there has to be more to recovery than just that.
This time was different I though. I started therapy first, advocating for myself at work and tried being honest about what I could deal with at that time. The former and the latter worked out well, but stuck in the middle was my relationship with work. On one hand, I felt unfit for this career, thinking I should blame myself for not being able to “hack it”. On the other hand, the industry in general doesn’t provide much space to work on yourself while maintaining a career.
A sick day in a kitchen is a big deal, more so than most other work environments. Within that, there is the balance of a day off for physical sickness vs time for your mental wellbeing. Even when I started trying to look after myself, I still didn’t feel comfortable explaining the root of my ‘why’ I’m off today. Why I’m a little slow or need some extra breaks. I feel shame over it still. It’s easier to just say I’ve got food poisoning or my shoulder is fucked. Which it is, but the funny thing is I’d find myself dragging my dodgy shoulder around on days I could have justifiably taken off given the pain, but other days when it felt okay, I used it as a scapegoat for taking time for my mental wellbeing.
I now work adjacent to the food industry, using a lot of the skills I’ve learned without all the late nights and on the spot pressure. If anything I hold more responsibility now than I ever have, but in a role more focused on mid to long term actions and decisions, and I’ve found my sweet spot for how I handle that pressure. I can take an hour when I need it, breath, then come back to it. If I can’t let go of something, I do the best that I can to get to the end of the day, then journal it aside for the next therapy session. For some reason logging that distress helps me distance myself from it, long enough to re-find my calm.
What would make a big difference in kitchens, is to build an understanding that the best, fastest, most creative chef isn’t always the best leader for your team as a whole. We need good, empathetic leaders at all levels, and if that isn’t the leading chef then there needs to be someone with decision making power who is. So at least if we can’t afford to give everyone what they deserve in regards to pay, holidays and working conditions, at least we can make sure everyone is being seen as the individuals they are. Valued as complex beings that are worth more than how many hours they’re pulling that week.
Anon