Starting The Conversation #3 | Joel Davies
Its Mental Health Awareness Week, and I have wanted to do something a little different for this weeks post. As you may know, I am running a series on the blog called Starting The Conversation - which is where I introduce you to someone and we talk about themselves, their mental health, and anything else that comes up! Its a great series that always gets lots of positive feedback. So to do something different for this week, i interviewed MYSELF.
Whenever I start these conversations with someone, I always have a pre-written set of questions to help open up the discussions - so its only fair that I answer them too! So here we go, my interview with the very talented, handsome and incredibly humble Joel Davies!
Hi Joel! Thank you for taking the time to have a chat with me today. Tell me about yourself?
I’m Joel. I live in Swansea with my wife Sara and my two boys Rory and Ace. I run Lionminded (a blog focused on Mental Health and Parenting) as well as The Crimson Mask (all about the crazy world of Professional Wrestling) and Pop Culture, Pop Culture, Pop Culture.
Okay to start us off. Its time for some quick fire questions!
Three best albums of all time?
My favourite songs and albums change so often, but right now it would be:
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Atmosphere - God Loves Ugly
Led Zeppelin - Zeppelin 4
First memory?
I can hardly remember anything from my childhood to be honest. But I do have one super early memory that my dad confirmed to me recently to be true. Its probably only stuck with me through sheer trauma. I was One. I was in my cot in the living room, and I remember jumping out of my skin scared at something. My dad told me it was probably when it was the 1990 world cup and Italy scored a penalty. Some of my Italian family were there and they screamed the house down, apparently I was terrified and cried for quite a while.
Other than that, I remember being 6 years old and walking home from the shop on my dads shoulders with a kinder egg. A much happier memory for sure.
Last film you saw:
I started watching Mr Nobody the other day, but I wasn’t in the right head place for it. Apart from the massive amount of Disney flicks I watch with the kids, it would either be Rocky 4 or Avengers: End Game. Both incredible films.
Favourite thing to cook
I love to cook, i am just not brilliant at it. My wife, Sara has been doing a lot of the cooking lately as it seems to really help with her mental health. Personally, I love making burgers. Experimenting with toppings and different spices in the meat is always fun.
Guilty pleasure film or song
My film taste is questionable at the best of times. I flick between Sci-Fi, over the top action films and B-Movie horror films. Anything which has a Shark or “x vs x” in the title is always good. The Mission Impossible series is also quite entertaining in its own way.
Thank you for that! Now that we know you a bit more, lets talk parenting!
What did you find was the most difficult part about parenting when you started?
The balance of it all! Trying to learn how to look after a newborn, while trying to make sure your wife is okay, and also keeping yourself physically and mentally healthy is pretty taxing. Especially on little to no sleep. Our first boy Rory has never been a sleeper. I like to think he has so much fun when he is awake, that he doesn’t want to miss out on anything by sleeping. But yeah, trying to balance all that out while still trying to ENJOY being parents was super tough.
What do you miss about when your baby was a newborn?
Tiny cuddles and the fact that they stay where you left them! Our youngest Ace is trying to crawl (he can go backwards but not forward) and he just loves throwing himself around the room because he knows I will catch him. And Rory was getting up and down the stairs by himself since he was 9 months old, so he has always been an adventurer.
What’s your mental health situation and how does it affect your day to day?
Its currently not too bad! I have suffered with Depression and Anxiety continuously since i was around 20. Although I am on that elusive path of trying to get further clarification on my exact diagnosis. Day to day, it is very up and down - but I am currently in a place where I am dealing with it and have various coping methods in place to get myself through episodes.
When you first started noticing your mental health wasn’t great?
Maybe when I was around 18-19. I lost interest in a lot of stuff and became quite house bound. I drank a lot and lost all sense of confidence. My moods became very erratic and negative. I had a completely lost the will to be alive, it felt as if i didn’t deserve this life. Then when I was around 20, a friend was worried about me and asked if I had been to a doctor about depression. I hadn’t even considered that it could be depression. But it all made sense when it was explained to me.
What do you use as coping methods?
Meditation and positive affirmations every day helps set up a better mindset to take on the day. Having close friends that you can trust to talk to, and who will be honest about your situations are always super important too. Most importantly, self love. Taking the time to do something for yourself can be a great way to look after your brain and help give you a boost to take on any challenge
Tell us about your support system (family, friends etc) and how they help you?
I am blessed to have a fantastic support system. I have some very close friends that I can talk to about anything with no judgement, and they would get the same from me. I have a family who is very open about mental health and that helps a lot. Most importantly I have my kids who are a continuous source of happiness and motivation - as well as a wife who is currently on her own mental health journey. So we really help hold each other up as much as we can.
How will you teach your child about mental health - when to talk to them about it?
Sara and I are both very open about mental health. We believe in complete open and honest conversations with the kids about how they feel and how they handle those feelings. We are also very aware (maybe over aware) on how we handle our troubles in-front of the kids. Teaching positive and helpful coping methods is one of our biggest priorities as parents, and that has been a huge reason for us to push our own brains into getting to a better place. Sara and I have both had episodes that we haven’t handled in healthy ways - so showing Rory and Ace the best positive methods is super important to us.
Tell us about Lionminded and what is the plan for the future of the blog?
I have always enjoyed writing, and over the last couple of years i have wrote more and more about mental health and it was always the more popular posts I wrote, which was great because I loved writing about it. Then when we had Rory, my life became a lot more focused on Parenting and learning how to balance my wifes mental and physical health, my mental and physical health and raise a baby was very difficult. The more I spoke to people, the more I realised that there wasn’t enough support in place for new parents that are struggling. So I decided to try and write about both those things and hopefully try and let people know its okay and normal to have struggles with this - and more importantly that there are other people out there who want to help!
I want Lionminded to grow past a blog, I want it to be more of a central hub website for people struggling with their mental health, not just parents! Although there would be a larger focus on parents because I really feel they need more help than what is available currently. The pipe dream that my wife and I always discuss is to open a bricks and mortar Lionminded Coffee Shop. When you want to have a chat with someone under no pressure, its always easier with a cuppa! So it would be a coffee shop that also has a room available to do workshops every day, to get people out of their house and into a more social environment.
That’s the pipe dream anyway!