Former rugby league footballer Russell Packer shares about his mental health challenges and how he found support. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Most of all, it was extremely powerful. Many of the men listening intently were visibly moved\u200b and the standing ovation was as long as it was impassioned. One of League\u2019s toughest, most intimidating characters had not only\u200b \u200b\u200bbared \u200b\u200bhis vulnerabilities with them, but, \u200b\u200bby doing so, had\u200b given them permission to go and share theirs. \u200b \u200b<\/p>\n
Off to the side of the makeshift stage, where Packer stood, Cass Hogan watched on like a proud mum. In many ways, she was. Hogan is the founder of He., an event she created to shine a light on men\u2019s mental health, with the belief that if men could hear other men speak openly about their personal struggles in a comfortable and relaxed environment, the message would resonate in a way that encouraged them to seek help. The energy in the room suggested she was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite overwhelming,\u201d she reflects. \u201cI didn\u2019t sleep that night. After an event, it takes me a good two to three weeks to come back down to earth, not necessarily from a high; it\u2019s just a lot. There\u2019s so much emotion going up and down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hogan, whose background is in psychology \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in how the brain works\u201d \u2013 and she is a life and business coach.<\/p>\n
Cassandra Hogan, founder of He. and She. Mental Health Events. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
She put on the first He. event at Mount Maunganui\u2019s Surf Lifesaving Club in 2023 after seeing what she describes as \u201cbig holes in mental health\u201d\u200b, especially for men\u200b.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was coaching women, predominantly, and a lot of the time they\u2019d say that their partner, or dad, or son was struggling and they didn\u2019t know what to do. I started looking into the kinds of support there was for men, and discovered there\u2019s not much at all. I knew women had done events like this before, but there was nothing for men where they could all come together and listen to actual, real lived experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200bThe need wasn\u2019t merely anecdotal. \u200b\u200bIn Aotearoa, three of every four suicides are men and it is the leading cause of death for men under 35, according to \u200b\u200b \u200bThe Real Face of Men\u2019s Health in New Zealand \u200b2025 report by global charity Movember.\u200b\u200b \u200b<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a really good group of guy mates at school, who I\u2019m still friends with now, and one of those guys was an incredible person,\u201d she smiles. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was somebody that you would never, ever expect to have depression. He was always smiling, always happy, and made people feel really good around him. When I moved to Australia, he reached out. He was living in the same town and was like, \u2018Let\u2019s catch up\u2019. I said, \u2018Yep, cool!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her smile fades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next day on Facebook, I saw all these rest in peace messages. I was confused and didn\u2019t know what was going on. He had committed suicide. I was absolutely shocked. I was like, \u2018It can\u2019t be him.\u2019 It really affected me for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just about one of the statistics we hear about of blokes taking their own lives,\u201d \u200bsays \u200bCraig Bulloch\u200b\u200b. \u201cLuckily, I was saved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bulloch is the co-founder of Mates Matter, a Hamilton-based organisation dedicated to providing the Waikato region with mental wellness and suicide prevention programmes and resources. So, when He. Expanded into Waikato, Mates Matter was a natural partner to join forces with.<\/p>\n
Both share the belief that cultural pressure to be fiercely independent and unwaveringly strong also discourages emotions such as sadness, shame, guilt or anxiety. Instead, they bottle it up and put on a brave face, assuming they are the odd one out for struggling with a work issue or relational breakdown, unaware that men around them may be bottling up the very same fears. This silent isolation is something Bulloch knows about first-hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d hit rock bottom. I had a business going under, my relationship broke up, and my pet died. In isolation, they\u2019re things that you can get through, but they all came at a similar time and just piled up. I didn\u2019t speak to anyone about them. And that\u2019s what really broke me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He credits his recovery to running, which he started after hearing former All Black John Kirwan speak about using physical activity to help his mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bought a pair of shoes and went for a run, which nearly killed me,\u201d he jokes. \u201cBut by the time I got home, the endorphins had kicked in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig Bulloch, co-founder of Mates Matter in Hamilton. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
This led to fundraising and eventually an Ironman triathlon, which gave him back purpose. Bulloch also got counselling and learnt self-awareness of his own triggers. Most importantly, rather than bottling things up \u200b\u200blike before\u200b, he began talking to his mates about what was really going on \u200b.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be able to reach out for help and have buddies around us that we can lean into and say, \u2018Dude, I\u2019m not okay. Can we have a chat?\u2019. We need to be able to create places where men can connect, because that\u2019s what we\u2019re missing. Females are fantastic at it. They get together, they chat, they go deep. We don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what he\u2019s trying to do with Mates Matter, to break down barriers, get people together, connecting, chatting and opening up.\u200b \u200b<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s showing people that their vulnerability is a superpower. I\u2019d much rather hear someone that I work shoulder-to-shoulder with talking about their struggles than JK, who is a wonderful human being, or Mike King, because they\u2019re up on that pedestal. They\u2019re the leaders in the space. It\u2019s the people next to me that I can relate to more. I can see myself in those stories. What Cass is doing with He. is very similar to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hogan agrees that\u200b He. has resonated, because \u200b \u200b\u200bit platforms men who may not be polished, professional speakers but have raw, relatable stories to share\u200b. While Packer is famous, he shared the stage that night with three local men who had all faced their own mental health battles. \u200b \u200b<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u201cThe best speakers that we have at these events are people who\u2019ve never told their story before, but now they\u2019re ready. They\u2019ve done their healing,\u201d she says. \u201cThe high-profile celebrities are great, but it\u2019s the everyday New Zealanders who are the most impactful. It\u2019s the warmth and their vulnerability that connect with the audience. When you actually give men a safe space to share their story, it\u2019s incredible. I had no idea how impactful it was going to be.\u201d\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n
When planning the \u201cone-off\u201d event at the surf club, Hogan never expected it would grow into something more, but venues and crowds have only got bigger as she taps into what people need.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t ever something that I had this massive vision for; it\u2019s just grown naturally. All of these events, I\u2019ve done out of my own pocket, the first one I lost money on, but it\u2019s never been about that for me. I\u2019ve always had that motivation of wanting to help as many people as I can, even if it\u2019s just helping one person from an event \u2013 which I know I have \u2013 that\u2019s my motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
When women started asking for an event, they launched She. and expanded into regions such as Hamilton and Christchurch.<\/p>\n
There are also specialised events in the pipeline for groups such as women in the construction industry, farmers and couples.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s come a long way since Hogan was paying out of pocket to host events. Today, event profits are donated to various mental health charities. The long-term goal? Turning He. into a charity that could fund 12 weeks of ongoing support for men, whether that\u2019s therapy, a men\u2019s group, or coaching.<\/p>\n
Men at a He. event in Tauranga. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest things that I\u2019ve been seeing is that it\u2019s really hard for a man to tell somebody their story. There\u2019s a huge block physically and mentally,\u201d Hogan explains. \u201cThe engagement from men watching men talk about their experience is like nothing else. They\u2019re so supportive. There\u2019s so much love and so much mana in the room. It\u2019s incredibly powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the heavy conversation, the clouds begin to part, and Hogan smiles and says, \u201cI\u2019m so proud of them. The men who speak are encouraging men to ask for help, to realise they\u2019re not alone, and to see that other men have been through the same dark places and come out the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThose men who stand up and talk are absolute legends,\u201d she adds. \u201cBecause they\u2019re saving other people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former rugby league footballer Russell Packer shares about his mental health challenges and how he found support. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[173945,18,98608,135,70422,8776,19,17,24194,7710,9579,251948,7839,167,502,24242,251949,1217,7001,3845,23602,8322],"class_list":["post-594838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-discusses","tag-eire","tag-he","tag-health","tag-helping","tag-how","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-is","tag-kiwi","tag-men","tag-mens","tag-mental","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-open","tag-organisation","tag-story","tag-suicide","tag-this","tag-up","tag-warning"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}