#StartingTheConversation is my series of chats with fellow humans and their experiences with Mental Health. I think one of the most important ways to normalise Mental Health is to talk about it in frank and honest discussions, and this is my contribution to that cause! This week we have Kristian who is here to talk about his battles with Depression and Anxiety, as well as tell us about his brand new Vegan Friendly Candle Line! Enjoy!

Hi Kris! Thank you for taking the time to have a chat with me today. Tell me about yourself?

Hey Joel, thanks for having me dude! Well... my name is Kris, I'm straight outta Swansea and I'm 28 years young. Music is a big part of my life but I never really went very far with it, mostly I've just been working little jobs to live and more recently putting time into my own business. I don't really know what else to say!

Brilliant! Okay to start us off. Its time for some quick fire questions!

• Three best albums of all time?

Dayum, that's a toughie. Kaya by Bob Marley and the Wailers is up there. Toxicity by System of a Down is pretty timeless, and for the 3rd I'll have to say Elliott Smith's self titled album. Yeuh!

• First memory?

I have very few childhood memories intact these days. It's kinda sketchy but I remember being at the top of the staircase as a toddler or something, I think my mum saw me there and freaked out a little at the thought of me falling down the stairs. I would have been like 2 or 3 so i'm not even entirely convinced it really happened by this point.

• Last film you saw?

I watched like half of Tropic Thunder the other day, I forgot how good it was, but my attention sorta started to taper off after an hour or so.

•     Favourite thing to cook?

Oh mah gaaaad I'm well into cooking these days. My fave would probably be a hearty bolognese sauce with mushrooms, peppers, chickpeas, all that good stuff... but with no meat or dairy! Nom. I just make it up as I go.

•  Guilty pleasure film or song?

My partner Kash listens to a lot of new school gangsta rap and hip hop, so i've been exposed to quite a few things I might not necessarily have found or enjoyed on my own...

So at the moment a guilty pleasure song is Juicy by Doja Cat. There's a pretty good Colours session version on YouTube. It's about being body positive and stuff. Shhh, it's a secret.

Thanks for that Kris, that Bolognese sounds fantastic! Now lets talk Mental Health.

What’s your mental health situation and how does it affect your day to day?

I was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety more than 10 years ago and it's a pretty consistent, inconsistent illness for me personally.

What I mean by that is that my moods, motivation and drive can fluctuate pretty rapidly throughout the course of a day, sometimes due to external influences and sometimes for no apparent reason.

In my day to day the most noticeable things for me are varying levels of social anxiety and also varying degrees of dissociation, but like I said, each day it's a different amount of this and a different amount of that, it's hard to plan around and that's one of the hardest things to explain to family and friends and stuff- but the closest in my tribe gets it, and I guess that's why they're the closest.

People can feel excluded or pushed away, and I get that- but the intellectual understanding doesn't make it easier to go against the depressive or anxious behaviours.

I'd even go so far as to say it can make it worse sometimes... like you feel trapped by your own conditioned behaviours sometimes.

When you first started noticing your mental health wasn’t great?

Man... like retrospectively looking back... I had a lot of behaviours in school that were EWGE red flags. Self harm, other 'cry for help' sort of behaviours and stuff.

One characterising feature of people with mental health issues is that they often become very convincing actors/actresses to conceal their hurt and so they don't stand out.

It wasn't until I was 16 years old, after the death of my granddad when it really became apparent that I was not equipped to cope.

I think that's when I was first diagnosed and put on antidepressants. But I was young and rebellious and I didn't agree with being medicated.. I was very under informed.

I'm so happy that there is much more of a forum to discuss mental health more openly these days! Too many young you's and me's falling through the cracks.

What do you use as coping methods?

Well since getting together with my partner, my entire... arena of care and self care has been overhauled.

It's so important to have some kind of support structure you can count on- whether that's family or friends or whatever.. it's just so important that you not be trying to tackle this stuff alone.

As well as that, seeking help through existing channels is important too, even if you're on a waiting list for a zillion years, you're still on that trip, ya know? You're on the path. Progress is being made!

Meditation is an awesome daily self-care ritual but also a good tool for more immediate things like an anxiety attack or mood swings. I like silent meditation, japa mala (chanting meditation using beads) and kirtan (singing/chanting musical meditation usually done in groups).

I find it a little difficult to do every day, but another useful method of coping is to make a little diary or calendar keeping track of self-care things you do for yourself every day. I try and challenge myself to do like at least 3 things every day, for example- I do a session of learning Polish on Duolingo every day, that counts! A meditation sesh for 10 mins? Hellz yes. Mindfully cooking a meal? Definitely!

Keeping track of the little nicenesses helps me to remember i'm actively working on myself and i'm making progress.

I completely agree Kris! Self Care is so important! Tell us about your support system and how they help you?

My parents were always as supportive as they could be, but I think in the beginning they didn't really know how to accept how ill I was and what that meant for my own experience of life.

Honestly it took a few years for them to really begin to understand I was in this for the long run and it wasn't just a phase that was going to go away after a few months. That learning curve was tough, but I empathise with them and I get that it may not really have been something they would have discussed or experienced in their lives growing up or whatever.

So these days they kinda support me from a big of a distance, figuratively speaking. My partner Kash has been amazing at supporting me and more importantly helping me to support myself since we got together.

She has her own battles with mental health and so we kinda support each other as best we can.

I currently see a psychotherapist on a weekly basis- it is quite a big expense, I won't lie, but it really does make a world of difference. 

Bad Mental Health can be a pretty tough thing to describe to people, everyone see’s it in their own way. How would you describe it?

Great question. I think it kinda depends on the specific illness, as some issues are a lot more... visible than others, if that makes sense?

You could think about it a bit like the Matrix. If you get hurt or get some kind of trauma in a mental or psychological way (for example inside the matrix) then your mind makes it real and you show these symptoms in your body or in your behaviours in the 'real world'.

Oh god I hope that makes sense. It's a really good question but i'm finding it a little difficult to communicate my answer.

I think for people who believe they've never had any sort of mental health issues it would be difficult to grasp, because they might not have ever assessed their own mental health integrity or healthy/unhealthy coping mechanisms.

For those people it would be like trying to explain the 4th dimension- just a totally foreign concept.

Thank you for your honesty, my friend! Now we aren’t just here to talk about mental health, you also have a very exciting new project about to kick off - starting your own business selling Vegan Friendly Candles! Tell me about The Fox Workshop and how that came about?

Haha okay! To make a long story short, I basically just like candles and smells and stuff, they can be really calming and are fantastic for setting a chilled mood.

Going back like 3 or 4 years, I was starting to accumulate lots of partially burned candles and bits of wax from when the wick had broken and stuff, so I started melting them down and putting new wicks in, basically to save money.

Before long I had this whole method and I was starting to learn about different waxes and what goes into these cheap candles and it was... man it was pretty grim.

Like cheap candles from Tesco and Wilko or whatever, even Yankee candles tend to be made from the cheapest wax, so mostly paraffin, which comes from crude oil and is therefore not renewable.

On top of that there's a whole list of crappy side effects from burning paraffin wax, but also the crap they use to perfume and colour them! I could go on and on but i'll just say that cheap candles suck for you and suck for the environment.

So yeah, i stopped doing that and started using soya wax which is SO MUCH BETTER in literally every way. I started reading about essential oils and adding those to the wax for scents, and it just kinda seemed to be a logical path of making these candles as Eco-friendly and human friendly as possible! It's been a lush trip, I love it.

What sets you apart from competitors?

I would say the purity of ingredients for one. You could list all of the components on one hand: Soya wax. Essential oil. Hemp wick. Aluminium wick sustainer (metal thing that holds the wick) and Glass jar. Oh and a little hemp twine and recycled paper for the labels and stickers. And that's it! Oh actually I do add dried botanicals and garnishings like Lavender buds, grated dried lemon zest, cinnamon sticks and power and stuff.

But my point is that it's as close to nature as possible.

I'm certainly not the only soya candle maker in the country but you won't find them more natural than The Fox Workshop candles. That's my jam. 

Whats the future of Fox Workshop?

I'm not in it make a million bucks here, all I'm going for in the future is to keep it natural, grow the business a little and to keep it as affordable as I can.

I'd like to see natural candles take the place of standard cheap candles. I'll be experimenting with different scents and adding new things the range for sure.

Basically, I think the future is green and if I can be doing something that helps people to enjoy life while also living sustainably.. well that's just kick ass

I hope you enjoyed my chat with Kristian. The incredible Candles are going on sale tomorrow (29/4/2019) you can get the info on those over on The Fox Workshop Facebook Page or his Instagram Page and Kris has been nice enough to give one of you lucky people a FREE CANDLE. Follow the LionMinded Instagram and Facebook for the details on that coming very soon.