Children’s Mental Health Advocate Mike King Calls For ‘role Models’ To Be More Vulnerable

Joint press release by Mike King and league star Wairangi Koopu

Mental health advocate and I Am Hope founder Mike King says now more than ever, Kiwi kids need their role models and people they look up to, to be more vulnerable.

King’s comments come in the lead up to iconic charity boxing event Fight for Life on July 21, returning after a six-year hiatus, where sporting icons and celebrities get in the ring to raise money for charity.

The event is headlined by rugby great and league icon Keven Mealamu and Wairangi Koopu. The undercard is headlined by sporting greats such as Liam Messam, Carlos Spencer, Honey Hireme-Smiler and passionate mental health advocates and footy legends Paul Whatuira and James Gavet.

This year’s Fight for Life is raising money for King’s I Am Hope charity and it’s fitting that many of the celebrities on the card bring their own compelling mental health stories, some of which are harrowing but also inspiring stories of hope.

King says in a sense, sporting legends and performing artists carry a different type of responsibility when they reach the pinnacle, because whether knowingly or not and willing or not, they become heroes to the kids watching them come up.

“When you’re a little kid, especially a Maori or Polynesian kid, and you watch someone who looks just like you achieve great success, you think maybe I could do that.

“But even more importantly, when someone who looks just like you and is at the top, who starts talking about things like their mental health struggles, not feeling good enough, not feeling like they deserve love, or battling the incessant inner critic challenging their sense of worthiness, you might think, hey, if this guy is feeling it and he’s so great, maybe I am not crazy, maybe it’s normal, just maybe there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Half of the Fight for Life main event, 42-year-old league star Wairangi Koopu says fighting on an event with I Am Hope as the principle charity is an opportunity to highlight and express the mental health challenges of Maori and Polynesian people, especially for men of similar age, who are struggling every day.

“This is an opportunity to put myself out there. Now more than ever we need to be vulnerable and raise awareness and have these discussions and normalise these discussions. If it takes two nice guys trying to flog each other for three two-minute rounds to get that message through, then that’ll be fantastic.”

Koopu says he had to reach out and ask for help when he was going through a hard time and he wants to let others know with some help, they come overcome it.

“I had been battling for a year or two with that inner critic. With self-esteem and confidence, a lack of identity and lack of drive. I enjoyed what I did for a living and have a very holistic approach to what I do, but it’s not like I was able to buy a house any time soon or save enough to get ahead.

“In order for me to pull myself out of the depression I was in, I reached out and asked for help and advice. I had to constantly work on little battles daily. I had to make little wins every day, going back to my Maori roots and drawing strength from my ancestry to help myself get out of this ratchet place I was in - and I eventually did it.

“Now I recognise that those little things are necessary proactive measure to progress my mental health and I recognise that I might be back in that dark place again in the future, but I have the confidence to know that the skills and information I have now will help me find my way out of that dark place.”

Koopu says mental health challenges don’t always mean all-out depression.

“Other times I would be stuck in a rut, maybe not depressed, but feeling like I wasn’t really going anywhere, feeling down about myself a little bit, and I would have those creeping voices coming back up ‘you’re not good enough’, ‘you’re not doing well enough’, etc.

“I reached out to a few people and one of them was Jimi Hunt. What emerged from that was that I was very good at physically looking after myself, by training, physical activity and nutrition, but I needed to train my mind just like my body. I needed to make my mind fitter, and I didn’t know how initially, so I learned.

“It took a crisis to really look at that. It took trying meditation, which I do every day now, it took journaling my thoughts to help with my mind clutter and making my mind activity something tangible that I could look at, it took creating a morning routine.”

King says Koopu’s story is a powerful story of hope for not just children but all Kiwis battling with their sense of self-worth and expectations on the daily.

Just recently, the passionate mental health advocate was sent pictures of pages inside of a book purchased from an op shop by a young boy in the community. The scribbles in the book moved staff and volunteers to tears.

“The pages of this book were covered by scribbles of another child who had had it previously. The writing in it broke all of our hearts.”

The scribbles on the book spelled out sentences that read:

I have no friends, I have no future, I have no love.

I have the worst life ever.

I wish I was never born.

No one likes me. I am ugly and fat.

She swears at me. My mum hates me.

My mum hates me. She wishes I was never born.

“This is what kids carry in their heads. Just sit with these words for a minute, you will feel their heaviness in your heart. Carrying these thoughts will kill a person. These thoughts are driving our atrocious suicide statistics.

“So we can’t just walk around saying ‘open up’, ‘reach out’, ‘ask for help’. We have to be the change ourselves. Are you being the person a child, a young person, someone going through it can open up to? How do you carry yourself? Who are you being today?”

© Scoop Media