00:04I think I was born with anxiety, to be honest.
00:08I used to take a lot of time off school.
00:10I was brought up by my grandmother, my dad was 18 when I was born.
00:14My mum was only 16 and my mum was the first person to leave when I was a year old.
00:18And I was 24 and my dad took his own life.
00:22And it wasn't until years later when I did a documentary for the BBC.
00:26And I had a conversation with my nan.
00:29It's weird that this happened for the first time on camera.
00:31But we spoke about it properly.
00:33And I broke down.
00:35And I was petrified.
00:36It scared me.
00:37People are going to see me at my most vulnerable in a way that I don't often see myself.
00:41But that conversation changed everything.
00:44Because from that point, everything was out in the open.
00:47And I was able to then talk to my friends about it.
00:49Because my friends had watched the programme.
00:50I turned for you.
00:51I knew that something's not right for a long time.
00:56And I ran away from it.
00:58This is not me.
00:59This is not happening.
01:00And I bumbled on for a little bit.
01:02And then started living differently.
01:05I probably started to drink too much.
01:07And I tried to escape how I was feeling.
01:10And then I did this documentary like you did.
01:12I spoke to Ricky Atton about this.
01:14And I spoke to Neil Lennon and Dr. Snooker player.
01:18And I was listening to him, identifying, thinking, you know what?
01:20I've been through that.
01:22And actually, Ricky Atton, you've gone through this.
01:24You're probably one of the hardest people I know.
01:26Yeah.
01:27But you can talk about it.
01:28Yeah.
01:29But then I started thinking, if I start talking about this, talk about problems, one, the
01:35people who followed me through my career, they're going to turn their backs on me because
01:39they think I'm one thing.
01:40Everyone's going to think of me differently.
01:41Did that happen?
01:42No.
01:44It was the complete opposite.
01:46Yeah.
01:46It was like people come up to me and say, like, wow.
01:49And then they'd start talking about how they feel.
01:51And then even I'd like mates who I'd never think about.
01:53We get in a conversation.
01:55And we never had done conversations.
01:57It's a different relationship.
01:58It becomes more honest, doesn't it?
01:59Yeah.
01:59But then sometimes, you know when you have that conversation with someone and you do engage with what you're talking
02:05about?
02:05Yeah.
02:06And you do unload everything.
02:07And it's always, for me, it's never planned.
02:09It always just comes out at a random time.
02:11But the feeling of relief afterwards, it does feel like a weight's lifted, doesn't it?
02:18Yeah.
02:18But the hardest thing for me initially was talking.
02:20I'm not a big talker.
02:22Yeah.
02:22I don't talk about...
02:23I'm from the north of England.
02:25Actually, you're not when you're watching Dave.
02:25Exactly.
02:26I'm from the north of England.
02:27I'm from a working class family.
02:28We don't talk about our feelings.
02:29Yeah.
02:30It was no different from me, going up in a council estate in East London.
02:33It's just not something you spoke about.
02:35To me, it seems a shame that it's taken us all of these years to be able to do this.
02:39To be open and to be vocal about things.
02:41Yeah.
02:41And it's crazy when it opens up, doesn't it?
02:43And it just comes from being vocal.
02:45Yeah.
02:45That one time.
02:46It's definitely made me a happier person.
02:49I have less downs and more ups with being honest about how I feel.
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