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Your Worst Chapter Does Not Have to Be Your Last
By Daniel Hills
I woke up on life support. Today, I wake up grateful to be alive.
I Thought I Knew What Strength Meant
I was a father, husband, carpenter, business owner and SES volunteer. I was the person people relied on.
Yet behind the appearance of having everything together, my mental health was deteriorating to the point where I nearly lost my life.
Today, after rebuilding my relationship with my children, my career and myself, I want families to understand one thing:
Asking for help is not weakness. Sometimes it is the strongest thing a person can do.
For most of my adult life, I thought I understood what it meant to be strong.
I started my own carpentry business when I was 21. I worked hard, built a career, got married, became a dad and volunteered with the SES.
I was used to being the person who solved problems.
Something broke? Fix it.
A client had an issue? Sort it out.
Someone needed help? Turn up.
Like a lot of people, particularly those of us who work in trades and other practical professions, I became very good at dealing with problems I could see.
What I was much less equipped to deal with was what was happening inside my own head.
By the time I was approaching 40, my life began falling apart.
My mental health deteriorated dramatically. My marriage ended. The business I had spent years building disappeared. I lost regular access to my children.
Eventually I was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
At my lowest point, I attempted to take my own life.
I woke up on life support.
Today, I am incredibly grateful that I did wake up.
I have rebuilt my career. I have a relationship with my children again. I have found love again. I have work that gives me purpose and I have a life I genuinely want to be here for.
But there are things I wish I had understood much earlier.
If sharing them helps another parent, partner, son, daughter or friend recognise that someone they love is struggling, then telling this story is worthwhile.
People Can Look Fine When They Are Anything But Fine
One of the most important things my experience taught me is that you cannot always tell what is happening inside someone by looking at their life from the outside.
There were periods when I was still volunteering with the SES and helping other people through emergencies while my own life was collapsing.
Think about the contradiction in that.
I could turn up for somebody else on one of the worst days of their life, yet I couldn’t find the words to explain what was happening in mine.
That is why we need to be careful with assumptions such as:
“He seems fine.”
“She’s still going to work.”
“They’ve got everything going for them.”
People can be highly functional and deeply distressed at the same time.
They can:
- Go to work.
- Take their children to school.
- Laugh at a barbecue.
- Answer emails.
- Help everybody else.
And they can still be struggling enormously.
Sometimes “How are you?” Isn’t Enough
We ask it almost automatically and the automatic response is often:
“Good, mate.”
Try asking twice.
“How are you really going?”
Or:
“You haven’t seemed yourself lately. Is everything okay?”
Then give the person enough space to answer honestly.
I Confused Silence With Strength
For years, my definition of strength was carrying more.
Work harder.
Deal with it.
Don’t complain.
Keep moving.
I thought admitting that I couldn’t cope would somehow mean I had failed.
As a father and business owner, that feeling was particularly powerful. I believed I was supposed to provide, protect, solve problems and keep the family moving forward.
What I’ve learned is that there is a dangerous side to that version of strength.
If strength means you can never admit you are frightened, overwhelmed, depressed or unable to cope, then it can become a trap.
Real Strength Can Sound Like:
“I need help.”
“I’m struggling.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I need someone to talk to.”
Those are incredibly difficult words to say when you have spent your whole life believing you should have all the answers.
But saying them early can change everything.
Our Children Need to See That Adults Ask for Help Too
As parents, we spend a lot of time teaching children about resilience.
We tell them to speak to us if they are being bullied.
We encourage them to tell a teacher when something is wrong.
We say there is no shame in asking for help.
But what are we modelling ourselves?
If our children grow up watching adults bury every emotion, hide every struggle and pretend everything is fine regardless of what is happening, they may learn that this is what adulthood is supposed to look like.
I don’t want my children to learn that lesson from me.
I would rather they understand that a person can go through a very difficult period and still rebuild.
They can seek professional help.
They can experience failure without becoming a failure.
They can lose things that matter enormously to them and still create a meaningful future.
That has become one of the most important lessons of my own life.
Losing My Children Hurt More Than Losing My Business
When my life unravelled, I lost a business I had built from the age of 21.
That was incredibly painful.
A business becomes part of your identity, particularly when you have built it from nothing.
But nothing compared with the possibility of losing my relationship with my children.
There was a period when I had to fight extremely hard simply to be part of their lives again.
It changed the way I think about success.
When I was younger, success was:
- Growth
- More work
- More money
- A bigger business
- Achievement
Today, success looks very different.
Success is being there for my kids.
It’s being healthy enough to enjoy them.
It’s having people around me whom I love.
It’s doing meaningful work.
It’s being able to wake up and actually want to participate in my own life.
Sometimes it takes losing almost everything to understand what mattered most all along.
Work and Purpose Can Be Part of Rebuilding
Recovery isn’t one thing.
For me, professional purpose became one important piece of rebuilding my life.
Joining Jim’s Building Inspections gave me structure, work I knew I could do and a pathway back into an industry where I had decades of experience.
I was eventually able to build a successful business again, and being named Jim’s Building Inspections Franchisee of the Year in Victoria was enormously emotional for me.
The award wasn’t really about the trophy.
It represented distance travelled.
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine what my future would look like.
Then I was standing there being recognised for something I had rebuilt.
That experience taught me an important lesson:
Losing one version of your life does not mean your life is finished.
The next version may look completely different.
Families Don’t Have to Have All the Answers
When someone you love is struggling, there can be enormous pressure to say exactly the right thing.
You don’t have to.
You don’t have to diagnose them.
You don’t have to fix them.
You don’t have to produce a brilliant solution.
Sometimes you simply need to notice, listen and help them connect with appropriate support.
You Might Say:
- “I’m worried about you.”
- “You don’t seem like yourself.”
- “You don’t have to deal with this on your own.”
- “Would you like me to sit with you while we call someone?”
- “What can I do to help you today?”
And if somebody tells you they are struggling, try not to immediately minimise it.
Comments such as:
“Everyone gets stressed.”
“You’ll be right.”
“Just think positively.”
“I’ve got problems too.”
These comments are often meant kindly, but someone who is deeply distressed may hear them as confirmation that they should stop talking.
Listening can be far more powerful.
Don’t Wait for Someone’s World to Collapse
Today I support TIACS because I believe strongly in making conversations about mental health easier, particularly throughout Australia’s blue-collar communities.
TIACS provides free professional counselling by phone and text for tradies, truckies, farmers, other blue-collar workers and people who care about them.
I want people to seek support long before they reach the point I did.
You don’t have to wait until:
- The marriage collapses.
- You cannot work.
- Your relationship with your children is affected.
- Life feels unbearable.
Talk sooner.
That applies to men and women.
Mental illness does not care whether you’re a tradie, executive, stay-at-home parent, teacher or business owner.
Your Worst Chapter Does Not Have to Be Your Last
There was a point in my life when I genuinely could not imagine things becoming good again.
That is one of the cruellest things about being in an extremely dark place: the future can become almost impossible to see.
I wish the person I was then could see my life now.
I have rebuilt my career.
I have my children in my life.
I have a wonderful partner.
I have purpose.
And I have discovered a definition of strength that is very different to the one I carried for most of my adulthood.
Strength isn’t pretending nothing hurts.
It isn’t solving everything alone.
Sometimes strength is letting another person see that you are struggling.
Sometimes it is answering honestly when somebody asks how you are.
And sometimes it is simply being brave enough to say:
“I’m not okay and I need some help.”
I Woke Up on Life Support
Today, I wake up grateful to be alive.
There was a long journey between those two moments, but if my experience has taught me anything, it is this:
Your worst chapter does not have to be your last.
About Daniel Hills
Daniel Hills is the owner of Jim’s Building Inspections Essendon West and an experienced Melbourne building and construction professional.
He started his first carpentry business at 21 and spent years building his career before experiencing a major mental health crisis in his late 30s.
After rebuilding his personal and professional life, Hills joined Jim’s Building Inspections and was recently recognised as Franchisee of the Year.
He is now using his experience to advocate for greater mental health awareness among tradies and Australia’s blue-collar workforce and to raise awareness and funds for TIACS.
About Jim’s Group
Jim’s Group was founded by Jim Penman in 1989 and now has some 5,800 franchisees in more than 50 divisions servicing Australia’s government, corporate, business, health, education and household sectors.
It is the largest franchise chain in the Southern Hemisphere.
