Next month marks twenty-five years since the collapse of Barings Bank, forever a period of my life that will be tinged with complete embarrassment. Unfortunately, there isn’t a great deal that I can do about that but the milestone does present an opportunity to reflect on changes over that period.
Mental Health
The subject of mental health receives a lot of attention in the modern-day arena and rightly so. I was struggling throughout my time at Barings but didn’t realise it and the environment didn’t provide an outlet where you could raise any concerns or issues. 1990’s banking was all about success, profit, ego and hitting the top as soon as you could. Celebrating success was the norm, failure wasn’t ever considered nor spoken about, health issues were dealt with in silence and very rarely, if ever, shared. The ensuing cocktail of biological, physiological and psychological challenges resulted in some really poor decision making.
At the time, had I the ability to communicate better, my life story could have, should have, would have been very different.
Asking for help and advice sounds like a simple thing to do but it never really is. At the time I chose to persevere with the only coping strategies that I knew – denial and avoidance, avoiding the real issues day by day for as long as I possibly could. This normally ended up with me slumped over a bar or blacking out late at night – the worst possible coping strategies, but I didn’t know any better and facing my own failure was too big of an obstacle to overcome
The power that being able to communicate and share your concerns can never be understated.
You often hear the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’. My life experiences tell me that there is no situation where that is really the case. My inability to deal with some simple choices, compounded with exceptionally poor decision making led to my incarceration.
My lifestyle which was predicated with excess ultimately led to a diagnosis of cancer of the colon, during my third year in prison in Singapore. the only thing that got me through those dark days was empowering myself with information and becoming less ignorant and a part of the process of recovering rather than blindly accepting what I was told.
The mind is a powerful tool but allowed to run at its own speed and in its own direction, it can quickly become quite dangerous. Simple communication and having the strength to ask questions and when required asking for help will keep you safe.
Part two to follow…