Help Yourself

Greenwich Peninsula Team
Date10 October 2019

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Kevin Braddock was a successful, funny writer and editor, covering music, style and popular culture for such magazines as The Face, GQ and British Vogue. In 2009, he relocated from London to Berlin, more or less on a whim, and built himself an (outwardly) successful and glamorous life as a magazine editor in the German capital. Then, one afternoon, in August 2014, after a series of setbacks and personal problems, he found himself at the bottom of the TV tower in Alexanderplatz, very close to taking his own life.

“It was on the cards,” he explains, back in south-east London, five years after that low. “I was trying to cope with too many things. I think it was really terrifying; it caused a huge amount of alarm among family and friends.” He was hospitalised with what the German physicians called a major depressive episode; the following day Robin Williams killed himself. You might assume that Braddock would turn to counselling, or medication, or rely on family and friends for help, or reach out for spiritual relief. Yet he chose to take a little of all those things – and find his own path towards, if not complete happiness, then certainly a steadier state of mind. This meant fashioning a sort of DIY approach to mental-health management, that strays far from the psychotherapist’s couch.

“You see a doctor and they’ll say: ‘What you’ve got is called depression’,” says Braddock. “The standard way of dealing with it is therapy and medication, which is great, but it doesn’t go far enough for me.”

Kevin’s own path towards a more stable head state drew on conventional psychotherapeutic and neurological knowledge, as well as more esoteric sources such as tai chi, the healing power of heavy exercise, as well as plenty of good old hippy-dippy practices, like heading out into the wilderness, building a fire and gazing into its leaping flames.

In healing himself, he dug deeper into the causes and fixes for his own mental imbalance, to create his own Torchlight System. This umbrella term covers workshops, two sets of cards – each of which details a daily exercise or nudges that the user selects at random – as well as a series of books, the latest of which is called Everything Begins with Asking for Help: An Honest Guide to Depression and Anxiety, from Rock-Bottom to Recovery.

The standard way of dealing with it is therapy and medication, which is great, but it doesn’t go far enough for me.

For this most recent work, Braddock interviewed everyone from CrossFit trainers to Oxbridge academics in an attempt to widen out his own holistic approach to mental health. He knows that World Suicide Prevention Day falls, on 10 September; that suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK; and that we’re still a long way from fully understanding how depression works and how to fix it.

Medical practitioners such as Dr Ian Drever from the Priory and Dr Will Napier, a Harley Street psychiatrist, told Braddock that depression is a pretty blunt term to describe a deeply nuanced affliction.

“They both said that the diagnostics of mental illness can be useful, but it doesn’t cover the human, subjective side of these illnesses,” says Braddock. “It’s always individual; the way yours might present would be different from mine.”

He also met with Amy Orben, an Oxford lecturer looking into the relationship between social media and mental wellbeing. Despite anecdotal evidence, she cautioned against medicalising the urge to spend too much time on Facebook.

It’s always individual; the way yours might present would be different from mine - Kevin Braddock on the subjectivity of mental illnesses.

“There’s so much talk about that,” says Braddock, “it’s becoming being slightly hysterical. Amy said there is something going on, but we don’t have anything like the amount of data that we need to back up any claims that iPhones are making our children unhappy; it’s all still in its infancy.”

Indeed, Braddock found Facebook helped him, when he was at his lowest, putting him in touch with supportive friends, and helping him get his message out now, as he tries to share his newfound knowledge with others who find themselves put in a similar position. He continues to use social media, as well as other simple fixes, including running, meditation and tai chi. “I’m not a regular meditator, but I’m best when I’m in movement: running, walking, digging, dancing,” he says. “Part of the problem is overthinking; I think anxiety and depression are diseases of thinking. Mike Tyson’s trainer once said: ‘Motion reduces tension.’”

He also understands the strengths and weaknesses of the city he used to live in, and the one he calls home once more. “My experience of Berlin was that it was a far more relaxed and open city, though the winters are very cold and grey,” he says. “Whereas in London there’s a nervous energy everywhere. It can offer you too much stimulation, which can present its own problems. Then again, Berlin could do with a bit more of what London has; it could be a bit more entrepreneurial.”

I’m not a qualified counsellor, or a suicide prevention professional. I’m looking at the human side; all I can offer is my experience. I got into it and I got out of it, and lots of other people have too.

Fixing a city’s psyche is a little beyond Braddock’s powers at the moment, but he’s still manages to reach individuals, schools, businesses and community groups to share his newfound wisdom. “I’ve got a story,” he says. “I’m not a qualified counsellor, or a suicide prevention professional. I’m looking at the human side; all I can offer is my experience. I got into it and I got out of it, and lots of other people have too.”

torchlightsystem.com; you can also call The Samaritans on 116 123