A Mental Health Bout
Imagine being an amateur boxer and getting in the ring with a world-class fighter like Anthony Joshua. You’d constantly get beaten down, if not worse.
At the start of our mental health journeys, we’re the amateurs, and the thoughts and feelings we face belong to the swinging fists of AJ. They can be brutal. They can be tough. More often than not, they’ll knock us for six.
It’s the uppercuts we don’t expect that hurt us the most, both physically and mentally. By the time we’ve realised what’s happened, we’re already on the canvas and out for the count.
And just like in boxing, every time we hit the floor, a choice has to be made. Stay down, or get back up. It isn’t always immediate, and it isn’t always pretty, but little by little we find our feet again.
Rounds 1–5: Survival and Learning
Rounds one to five are all about survival. We spend them learning lessons we never wanted to learn. We take punches, make mistakes, question ourselves, and wonder whether we’re cut out for the fight at all.
Some rounds we lose heavily. Others we just about scrape through. But with every punch we absorb and every time we climb back to our feet, we’re unknowingly building something far more powerful than we realise.
Round 6: Turning Point
By the time we get to round six of the bout, we’ve taken a good beating – but this is the turning point. The human mind is fascinating in the way it trains itself to be resilient, tenacious and perseverant in times of real struggle. It makes what seems impossible, possible.
Rounds 7–10: Momentum Shifts
Rounds seven to ten are a little more swayed in our favour. We suffer fewer knockdowns, we dodge those huge swinging arms, and we start to land a few jabs of our own. AJ’s starting to realise we’re not a pushover.
The fight hasn’t become any easier, but we’ve become better equipped for it. We’ve learned to take a punch, weather the storm, and keep moving forward when every instinct tells us to quit.
Round 11: Final Push
Round eleven. We’re exhausted, but we’re still in the fight. Left hooks, uppercuts, jabs, dodges, ducks, dips – this fight has got it all.
…
It’s now that time in a film when everything slows down because something unexpected and extraordinary is about to happen.
AJ is looking dazed. We’ve landed a couple of punches and his feet are all over the place. We dodge his feeble punch, step to the side, and throw our hardest punch yet with the greatest hope we’ve ever had…
It lands.
Knockout: Triumph
The force of our mental health fist connects so hard with his cheek that we see the ripples in slow motion. One hundred and ten kilograms of pure British muscle is now hurtling towards the canvas as he braces for the biggest upset of his life.
AJ is defeated.
Our mental health struggles have just had a wake-up call.
We aren’t going down without a fight.
If at all.