Ropey Racing x SadBoiRaceClub - Ropey Robin
Something interesting happened to me recently that I hadn’t experienced before. Something completely out of my control and not something I knew how to deal with. Being out of control and not being able to fix things is the complete opposite of my character. I was feeling a little ropey to say the least. My usual approach to everything has been that no issue can’t be fixed, at least with the right approach. I will explain what happened, however, there is context to this situation that is worth knowing first.
A side from chasing the dream of running my own motorsport business, I also work full time in the UK Higher Education sector for a University. I’ve done so for a long time now. Part of my job is to train and support students and student leaders. Part of this process is supporting them with a range of different mental health struggles. I am trained to support people having panic attacks, deliver seminars on Emotional Resilience and Emotional Intelligence, act as a Mental Health First Aider and am a qualified operational and strategic coach and mentor. All in all, I’ve got quite the arsenal for helping anyone having a bit of a shitty time.
Another aspect of my job is in operational and strategic planning and negotiation. I am damn good at it too. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m borderline sociopathic when it comes to being able to convince people to do stuff, but I promise you, I only use my powers for good! I’ve spent a lot of my research for my Masters studying Human Behaviour, Neurolinguistic Processing, Social Engineering and a range of other techniques to achieve positive outcomes for the organisation I work for. Effectively, stick me in a meeting, tell me what you need and you’ll get it. 100% satisfaction guarantee. There is, however, a downside to this.
I’ve had a lot on over the past 6 months, a fair few changes in my life, all positive, but changes non the less. Work has been very busy and most of my spare time gets taken up with Ropey Racing. All in all, it turns out I might have been a teeny, tiny, little bit stressed. For the past week, I’ve had the strangest sensation, one I haven’t ever felt before. Almost like a stone or tight grip around my heart and in my chest. I initially put it down to too much caffeine. Along side this, I thought I was overthinking a lot of stuff and this is where the downside to my academic skill set came in. It turns out that if you’re really really good at convincing people to do things, you’re even better at convincing yourself that entirely unrealistic situations are definitely 100% going to happen. I have been completely convincing myself that things I knew were imaginary situations, were going to manifest into reality. Turns out, I’m damn good at that and it was truly terrifying.
I didn’t have a clue what was going on or why my mind was being so counterintuitive. I’ve always been the happiest, confident and care free person but I was presented with a side of myself I had never met. Two days ago, I had a panic attack when I sat down to eat dinner. Yesterday I had another one at work. Again, something I’d never experienced before and the strangest part of it all was that it came completely out of the blue. No trigger that I could identify or rational cause. It hit me like a train and I wasn’t ready, I didn’t even know I was waiting for one! Luckily, my team are amazing and after a few minutes or so they smartly said ‘Robin, are you sure you’re not suffering with some anxiety’. Now i’m familiar with anxiety, trained on how to support people with it but I can honestly say unless you have experienced it, no amount of training will tell you what it’s really like. I had no idea, I thought I was just being stupid and that I needed to just get over it all. Today, things are great because I don’t feel out of control with it. I know that it’s a short term thing and can go about my day. Next week, this stress and anxiety will be a distant memory. I did, however, learn a couple of valuable lessons:
- The first and biggest mistake that I made is that I didn’t tell the one person who means more to me than anyone else in the world. I didn’t want to burden her with what I thought was just a little bit of stress and I didn’t want her to think any less of me. When I did tell her, I realised the mistake I’d made. She instantly made it all better and I remembered one of the many reasons she mattered so much, because she is there for me, regardless. Es tut mir leid, dass ich es dir nicht gesagt habe.
- I didn’t tell my friends or my family for the same reasons. I try too much to be responsible for my own happiness and spend a lot of time trying to help the happiness of others. Telling people seemed like an inadequacy of a skill set I should have been able to cope with. That was a fucking stupid thing to think.
- I didn’t acknowledge that I was acting abnormally until it got too much. Again it was probably a bit too much of my own ego preventing me for just thinking ‘something is not quite right’.
A few deep breaths, a bit of mindfulness and a smile from someone who mattered were all I needed to get out of what was a very scary few days. My experience will only be a very small instance of what is a huge problem for society. I hope it is something I never experience again. For those going through struggles with any form of Mental Health, there is a whole host of support out there but you need to take the first step. My good pal Dan runs SadBoiRaceClub, an organisation there to support those struggling with Mental Health who also have a passion for cars and motorsport. The work Dan does is awesome and I’ve been an advocate from day one. Having shifted from someone who was an supportive outsider, to someone who can now relate, these organisations are invaluable. SadBoiRaceClub may, if you’re reading this blog, be a good first step for securing any help you feel you need personally. You can find them @sadboiraceclub on IG. We’re taking one of our cars to be on SadBoi’s stand in July so come by and say hello! You’ll notice me as i’ll be that care free guy again, probably sat on my roof or doing something inappropriate. If you only do one thing, reach out to someone, for your own sake.