\n Former Scottish Renewables director Nick Sharpe, who also lived life in fast lane as a journalist at a national paper, has spoken about his recovery from a major breakdown and crippling anxiety.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 46-year-old has turned his life around after being inspired to return to his first love – repairing bikes – after starting as a volunteer in his village during lockdown.\n<\/p>\n
\n Langbank man Nick Sharpe on mental health struggles (Image: contributed)\n<\/p>\n
\n Now with his new venture as a mobile bike mechanic, he also wants to reach out to talk about men’s mental health.\n<\/p>\n
\n Opening up about his own struggles Nick said: “I’ve battled with my mental health since I was in my early twenties.\n<\/p>\n
\n “But it took many therapy sessions to realise that it was my addiction to the adrenaline caused by stress which was the problem.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Despite that realisation, traditional talking therapies really didn’t make much difference in the long-term.\n<\/p>\n
\n “They say that sometimes things need to get worse to force you to make the change that’s needed – in my case that meant the stress of my job increasing to a point where I just couldn’t take it any more.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAnxiety is a terrible condition, but it\u2019s often downplayed by people who don\u2019t understand it.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Imagine feeling like you are just about to walk into the biggest job interview of your life but feeling that way for every waking moment indefinitely: that’s anxiety at its worst. I know there are so many people out there who will recognise that feeling.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Langbank man Nick Sharpe on mental health struggles (Image: contributed)\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick was at the height of his powers as a director of communications with Scottish Renewables, meeting the demands of powerful corporations making multi-million-pound investments.\n<\/p>\n
\n Langbank man Nick Sharpe on mental health struggles (Image: contributed)\n<\/p>\n
\n Prior to that he\u2019d spent 15 years as a national newspaper journalist \u2013 a job which saw him dispatched to an unfolding shooting massacre and take a helicopter flight into an erupting volcano.\n<\/p>\n
\n But two decades of living a pressure-cooker existence eventually triggered a collapse in three years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick, 46, said: \u201cAfter years of feeling ready to take on any challenge, suddenly I couldn\u2019t even catch a train or go to the supermarket without crying. I was crippled with anxiety.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I remember getting off the train in Glasgow one morning and having to lean against a lamppost because my legs were so wobbly. Sweat was running down my back. I felt terror as if I was being forced to meet a monster.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI desperately wanted to get back to \u2018normal\u2019 but eventually, after a particularly dreadful few days of anxiety, my therapist and I agreed that enough was enough. I went home to my wife and said, \u2018I need to do something else\u2019.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick was forced to take a seven-month absence and decided it was time for a complete change.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now he has a new joy for life, going back to the beginning and rediscovering his love of bikes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick has set up a mobile bike repair business, Nick’s Mobile Bike Surgery, covering Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dad-of-two Nick said: “I\u2019ve fixed bikes all my life. During lockdown, when there wasn\u2019t much to do, I\u2019d put a post on the village Facebook group offering to help fix folks\u2019 bikes for free. It was so popular, I almost ran it as another job, fixing about 40 bikes in nine months.\n<\/p>\n
\n ” I just loved going round the village chatting to people and even received a commendation from the local Provost for charitable work during the pandemic.”\n<\/p>\n
\n After working as a journalist and being first at the scene of some of the biggest stories, then in diving into the corporate world Nick says he is finally finding peace.\n<\/p>\n
\n He added: “I realise now that I spent 20-odd years fuelling myself on adrenaline, panic and caffeine.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I was stressed for decades but was too busy to notice the damage I was doing to myself until it was too late.\n<\/p>\n
\n “People would think I was knocking it out of the park, but I remember sometimes being being almost paralysed with nerves.”\n<\/p>\n
\n But after months of working as a bike mechanic he is finally learning to cope with stress after a dramatic career change and looks after his own mental health.\n<\/p>\n
\n He added: “Seven months in things have become much easier and I’m more in control of my life than I’ve ever been, which I think is what I have been needing all along.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Looking ahead he hopes that men’s mental health will be more openly talked about.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nick added: “The issue of men’s mental health has come to the fore since covid, with a much better understanding now of the dangers of keeping emotions bottled up.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I’m lucky in that my wife understands me better than anyone and I’ve got a supportive group of friends. I would urge others who don’t have that support network to reach out to professionals if they are struggling, starting with their GP.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Scottish Renewables director Nick Sharpe, who also lived life in fast lane as a journalist at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-253983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}