88: The more I tried to pray the worse it got

Episode 88: Mike has wonderful memories of growing up Catholic in Liverpool, making friends for life in Catholic schools and becoming a doctor. But then, he says, ‘the cracks were showing,’ and ‘things became real.’ Here in Part 1 of this conversation, Mike speaks with raw honesty about his experience of overcoming mental ill health and finding maturity in his faith. Next week, in Part 2, we talk about the present. Mike will share how feeling accountable to his daughters and inspired by his faith, he is responding to the terrible events in the Holy Land.

All Kinds of Catholic: A Gathering

Newsletter sign-up: All Kinds of Catholic on Substack

Find out more:

Sacred Space

A new episode, a different conversation, every Wednesday!
Email me: theresa@KindsofCatholic.co.uk

Subscribe to receive our newsletter and be part of the All Kinds of Catholic Community: Click here

On Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky X/Twitter @KindsofCatholic
Find episode transcripts: https://kindsofcatholic.buzzsprout.com

The podcast is kindly supported by the Passionists of St Patrick's Province, Ireland & Britain and by CAFOD.

Music: Greenleaves from Audionautix.com

Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro.  My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today.  Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good.  We are the times. I hope you feel encouraged and affirmed and sometimes challenged as I am in these conversations. Join our podcast community, get news and background information about the conversations and share your thoughts if you want to. You can get the newsletter and each episode straight to your inbox by going to allkindsofcatholic.substack.com and clicking on subscribe. It's free. That web address is in the episode notes too, and I'd love you to draw closer to our community. Thank you.

Listeners, there's something a little bit different about today's episode. It’s just that the guest that I spoke to, we had a particularly wide-ranging conversation, which fell naturally into two halves. And so today's episode is the first part of that conversation. And in case it's important for you to know in advance, today's guest, Mike, does talk about struggling with his mental health in some detail.

Listeners, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. I'm joined by Mike, who is joining us from Liverpool actually. So you'll be hearing a Liverpool accent in a moment. Welcome Mike. 

Hello, and thank you so much for inviting me to be on the podcast. I'm from Liverpool, a GP. I've been here all my life, apart from in university when I went to Manchester. And I've also been a Catholic all my life of varying degrees of conviction.

That's good. That will resonate with people already. Tell us a bit about your family then, because you mentioned to me before, and I think lots of people will recognise this, that being a Catholic in Liverpool is a particular thing. So tell us a bit about growing up in Liverpool in a Catholic family. 

Yes. There were a lot of us. I've got five sisters and no brothers, and quite a large extended family as well. But when I was growing up, in childhood and into school, etc. Catholicism was just as normal as breathing, was just as normal as every other aspect of life. It was just the atmosphere that we moved in, including most of the people that I knew, because at that time there was a lot - and going to a Catholic school. So that was the milieu in which I was raised. It was a good start, I think. It really did set me on the right path.

Now, just for listeners, we had a guest three or four weeks ago now, Nell, in the new year, and she's a student in Liverpool at the moment. And she had moved to Liverpool from, I think, Kent. And she was saying how welcome she felt as a Catholic in this city where she felt there's a church around every corner. You know, she really appreciates that. So it's interesting that having grown up like that, that actually for Catholic people in Liverpool now, there's still quite a density of Catholic people and Catholic parishes and things around you. 

Oh yeah. Definitely there are still, I think.  I think that depopulation within the city in general has diminished some of the main areas like - where it was a very sort of very densely populated Catholic area. My dad is from Ireland. He's from Wexford and when he first came over the Scotland Road area of Liverpool, that was just very much a mono-ethnic Irish Catholic area. But that now, that's moved. Everybody moved with the slum clearances that occurred, say around about 1960s, 1970s.  And so then I think that the heartland of sort of old school Catholics, they got spread out across the city and then across the Northwest. So that's diaspora that occurred after the 70s really. But yeah, it still is very much a - as I said, I work here. It is still very much a living faith within Liverpool.

Okay. What a lovely place. You mentioned, you kind of gave us a little teaser that your faith has been more and less important to you over time. Can you give us a little flavour of what that's been like? 

As I said, growing up, it was just part and parcel of life. And without questioning it really, we'd go to Mass. Made our First Holy Communion, first Confession, Confirmed. Confirmed - by that stage, it was the decision. There was no compulsion within the home. But it was very much like it was just, that was what was going to happen. I don't know what the reaction would have been if I would have said, No, I'm not going to Mass anymore because I don't believe in God. That would be quite a big thing to have done, but it didn't occur because it didn't happen. And then, I went to school here. I went to the Christian Brothers School in Liverpool to St. Edward's College.  And I think it’s probably worth pointing something out at this stage that, compared with a lot of people, I think my experience of the faith and just luck that I've had when it comes to parents, parish priests,  teachers, the Christian Brothers, the various people that I've met who've taught me the faith. I think I've been incredibly lucky. You do meet some people, or I meet some people and they felt, you know, they felt nothing but animosity towards it or sometimes trauma. Whereas I’ve found that it was really a very, very pleasant childhood that we had. And then into secondary school, everybody talks about the Christian brothers being disciplinarians. And I know there's been an awful lot of scandal as well. But it was brilliant. We loved it. Where I went to school and the friends that I had then are the friends that I have now. The people that I met there are still by far and away, you know, other than my immediate family, they're the most important people in my life. 

It’s good to hear those things. Sometimes people can focus so much, unfortunately, because of the dreadful scandals that have enmeshed the Church more recently - that it's good to hear good examples of people that had a really good foundation in the Church. 

So, it was all within a very, very Catholic atmosphere. Then I went away to university, went to study medicine at Manchester University and I kept up with the faith. But here’s another interesting thing which I've noticed with me: it was never, I've never had a problem with assenting intellectually. You know, I didn't ever have any doubts when it came to like actual belief, when it came to theology, when it came to dogma and doctrine, some of the things which people do find that they struggle with.  What I found, as I think a lot of people find, it's just a general sort of drifting away due to lifestyle, not any sort of conscious decision of like, No, I don't believe this aspect, or I do believe this aspect. It was much more of a sort of just the drift and lifestyle and not really not giving it the importance that it warranted. However, it was always there, always there. And I would still now and then I would go to Mass. Obviously when I was home I would, but also when I was in university. There's a church just outside the medical school called, I think it's Holy Name in Manchester and I think any of your listeners in that area will know it because it's quite famous and it's a huge and beautiful church. And there were sometimes that I would, when I was in university, I would just go in there during the day. And that was, I think, that was a beginning of a change in my faith, towards a more adult faith. I was more contemplative by that stage, but also it was like it was still very much a rarity and was at odds with the way I was living, I suppose. The way I was living my life at the time. But every now and then I'd feel drawn back. And sometimes when I was sitting, some of those times when I was just sitting and praying or sitting and thinking, they were some of the best and most important times. I think they set some groundwork for what was to happen later because it wasn’t always plain sailing with the faith. Or no, with life in general, I would say. 

Listeners, Mike really has set the scene well there. And I think you'll see some of those themes that he talked about as the kind of groundwork of his life. We'll see those come up again in the next part of what he shared with us, where we're really getting into the weeds of when things can go wrong. 

What happened then is I became a doctor and I was up in Burnley doing what used to be called house officer jobs.  And that was when I met my to-be wife. And she was working in Blackpool and I was working in Burnley, but we were both from Liverpool. And we were home one weekend in Liverpool and I met her then. I sort of drifted back to Liverpool, did psychiatry and I did A &E in Southport. I was on a GP rotation, a vocational training scheme in the Northwest around Liverpool. I was about 28 and I was in a job in Liverpool. It was then that - up until that age, I'd got through life without any sort of major, any major problems. I think I'd been, as I said, I've been very lucky. School was quite easy, good friends. I was good at sports.  Life was just quite a breeze. And then for the first time, I ran into difficulties. Something happened in work, a traumatic experience. It’s still, you know, it's problematic in my mind and it still is difficult to think about. And I don't think that we, don't think it was handled - I don't think I necessarily sought any help afterwards. It was just a very difficult problem. Um, and I remember, I remember that day, um, I was working and I was doing nights. And I went back to my own flat and I was feeling very bad. I didn't sleep at all during that day. It was very hot as well. I know that something changed then. I felt something change and I knew, I didn't know at the time, but I knew looking back that what was happening was it was the beginning of a period of depression and anxiety, would be the best way to put it. 

Okay. 

Which was definitely, you know, was definitely prompted by events, but also by the way I was living at the time. Because I was sort of working very, hard. And then the times when I wasn't working hard, was partying very hard. Drinking and staying up all night and not getting enough sleep and not really looking after myself because I was invincible. By 28, I'm not, that's the thing. And so the cracks were showing and then this happened. And it was then, it was then that my faith wasn't put to the test. But it was more things became real. It was like up until then, everything was, a breeze. Yes, this is true. You know, I assent to this, you know, and it makes sense. And what happened then was it was like, I gradually started to get more and more ill. And I was unhappy to put it mildly, but also it was different. It was like, I needed answers. I was questioning a lot of things and I was getting more and more anxious. And the more I questioned and the more I tried to pray the worse it got and I couldn't see the wood for the trees and I was trying to figure out. I was trying to answer some real big questions about - it would sound mad to go into it now, but like things that were ruminating in my head about life, death, about existence and reality and all just, just stuff like this. Which really up until that point I hadn't really given any real thought to. Then in this period when my mind was on fire, it didn't seem like the right time to be doing it, but I had to because I needed to know. And I remember I have a very analytical mind. And even when I was not well, I was spending all my time trying to find out philosophy. Studying what people had thought, what people had said.  And it got me pretty far. It helped with my faith. But at the same time, there was this one bit where it was like, it was almost like a voice, but not quite. It was like, You've got so far, but the rest of it now, you've got to give up. You've got to let yourself. You can’t understand what's going on. And you're going to have to just trust it. You're just going to have to trust Me. You're just going to have to. I remember thinking, Right, if I go down this route, if I, if I just give myself completely to this thought, I'll go mad. Like that's what will happen. I'll become like - because that was my big fear at the time. That was the thing I feared most. The thing that I feared most was upon me in that moment. I’d been doing psychiatry as well. And I was thinking, Oh, this is how it starts. You know, these people -Really ignorant and bad how I was thinking, and then it just got so difficult to carry on. I remember a day, I was living on my own, I was in the flat and was just on my own and I was so desperate I remember kneeling down and then becoming prostrate on the floor and just giving up and saying Show me, this is it, you know. I am no longer even really me. It's just all over to You. I remember that was the beginning of getting better. When I say getting better, it was like getting better from depression but also getting better from a point of view of like realising that I, realising the extent or the limits of my own capability intellectually. Which is a big deal for me because sort of the pride and all of that comes into it and this business of, Yeah, you can't know and you're going to have to take that step into the unknown. And I'm not going to give you any guarantees that it's going to be the way you think it's going to be. You know, feeling when you're a kid and you've to get a splinter out or something like that. You think, Oh, this is going to be bad. I don't want to do this. And like, what if, what if, and like, you know, it's not going to hurt, is it mum? No, it probably will hurt. And then bang, I was there. It was so good to give up, to give up in that way.  And I'd like to say that from there on in, was like, you know, I was back in Mass every week and I was back to being -  that's not how it was at all. But it was the beginning of a maturity within faith. That was definitely it. It was the beginning of a growing up within the faith and also the beginning of how important it is for me to say I don't know.

That is an amazing testimony. Thank you for being so honest about all of that mental health struggle.  It's not easy to talk about and even after all this time, I think the rawness of your experience is still very much present. I think listeners will hear that as I'm hearing it too. So thank you for speaking about that because it's not easy necessarily to share these really difficult experiences. It's very interesting though to hear somebody reaching rock bottom and surrendering somehow, not really knowing what that even is and actually beginning to find a way back. So, it's very powerful for people to hear that. It's wonderful to be talking to you now on the other side of that in some ways. Please do pick up the story. So you found Julian of Norwich helpful. That's going to be interesting to listeners.  

Yeah, definitely.  It drew me to things like the cloud of unknowing, to Julian of Norwich. I suppose, well, there were various writers, there were various people and various writers who helped. I remember speaking to a priest more recently. He was a spiritual director for a while, and we were both of the opinion that conversion is not a one-off thing. It's something which is an ongoing process throughout life. And there seems to have been many, many times since then where it's, you know, one step forward, two steps back sometimes, but then ultimately, it's moving forward. That was definitely the beginning. Where that drew me, Julian of Norwich, yes. Most of all, big thanks I have to C.S. Lewis. The fiction, definitely, but much more the non-fiction. The clarity of exposition when it came to certain things was really, really useful. And that helped. But then other stuff which has been useful within my faith. 

It's really good to have C.S. Lewis mentioned. To my memory, that's the first time C.S. Lewis has been mentioned by a guest on the podcast. It's about time, so that's really lovely too. 

One of the most important discoveries that I came across was a website called Sacred Space, which is run by the Irish Jesuits. It's a very brief introduction to Ignatian spirituality. Just a daily practice of, you go through the various stages of contemplation, presence, then consciousness, then lectio divina, and then conversation, and then gratitude with a part where it's the examen as well. It can take as long as it takes, but it can really take half an hour. It's really good. And I got in the habit for a long while of doing it every day. And the importance of, sometimes it was a very, very moving experience and sometimes it was nothing. And that would be frustrating. But also knowing that they were teaching me that that was the important time. This is the important time. You know, when it's dry, the dryness is equally as important, if not more. To this day I've found it’s one of the most useful things or one of the most good discoveries that I came across. Because one thing, despite a very good upbringing in the faith, one thing which I've tried with my own kids, to do better is teaching them how to pray. And I don't mean teaching them the prayers. I mean, the type of prayer that I'm talking about, I would say, would be nearer to meditation. I'm definitely not saying that's the only prayer. I'm not saying that petitionary prayer is bad. When I say meditation, I think the rosary as one example would be, can be excellent for it. But I wish both as a doctor, as a parent, as a Catholic, as a human being, I wish that they would teach everybody in school some form of mindfulness and meditation. How to sit and how to be still. How to be still in your mind, how to be still in your body and how to listen to the stillness. I think if you get that right, then it's inevitable you will grow spiritually. I think it's an important skill for mental health. In fact, I think it's a false dichotomy to talk about mental health and spiritual health and physical health because the older I get, the more I realise we are incarnational. It's just the one thing. After I made that first leap of faith into adult faith, the rest of it isn't plain sailing, but it's a lot easier to be able to sort of recalibrate and get back to where you were and think, Right, I know what I'm doing here. When it's bad, when it's good, it doesn't matter. Just keep on practising the same thing.

Thank you, Mike. You've given us such a lot to think about there. That's been a very wide ranging conversation. If we can just reflect back to starting in your lovely Catholic childhood in Liverpool and your own struggles with your mental health, spiritual resources that have been helpful. I think it'd be really interesting to get right up to the present, just working to the end of this part of our conversation and setting the scene for Part 2 next week. 

I'm a dad with two daughters.  One is 18, one is 15. We may have been on holiday around about that time when October the 7th happened. The terrible atrocities that occurred then. And I was with my daughters and I was watching this and we were looking and I was surprised by my daughters knew a little bit more than I did about some of the situations already.

Listeners, I said at the beginning that this is a conversation that fell into two halves. And the second part of the conversation is about Mike's experience responding to the terrible situation in the Holy Land and his daughters actually are part of that picture, as you'll hear in next week's Part 2, where we pick up the conversation there. I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation and I hope you'll come back to hear more from Mike next time. And just to say, if Mike's description of his own mental health struggles was hard for you to listen to, do seek support from someone you trust.

Check out the link for our in-person event on the  21st of March if you haven't done already it's in the episode notes.

 Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time.  I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday and you can follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. You can also follow us on social media @kindsofCatholic and remember if you connect with us on Substack you can comment on episodes and share your thoughts and be part of the dialogue there.  Until the next time.