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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.

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Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: It is Mental Health Awareness Week, and clearly that's an

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Speaker 2: incredibly important week and clearly work in progress for a

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Speaker 2: lot of key we's out there who have gone through

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Speaker 2: their own journeys of mental health battles. And we're really

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Speaker 2: going to hear from you on O eight hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty ten eighty if you've been through a mental health

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Speaker 2: battle and come out on the other side.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've been talking about a little bit on

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Speaker 3: this show, but I read this fantastic book by a

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Speaker 3: gentleman called Harry Everil and it's called Hungry to Be Happy.

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Speaker 4: And he's here, he's in the studio with us.

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Speaker 2: He certainly is get a hairy Nice to see you mate,

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Speaker 2: good eight Yeah, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's get into your book and you're and

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Speaker 3: your battle with mental health and then eight hundred and

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Speaker 3: eighty ten eighty because we wanted to talk about how

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Speaker 3: you get out the other end of it, because you know,

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Speaker 3: we've had quite a lot of discussions on this.

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Speaker 4: About how it hits people.

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Speaker 3: But the path out is really the really the key

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Speaker 3: and that's what's one of the great things about your

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Speaker 3: book is it's epic. It's an epic journey into into

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Speaker 3: your mind. And at one point you describe it as

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Speaker 3: the demon that got into your got into your mind,

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Speaker 3: and part of your mind was working against you, which

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Speaker 3: but you managed to fight back against that part of

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Speaker 3: your mind, which is which it's incredible.

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Speaker 4: Read, actually so great book.

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Speaker 3: Tell us Harry, how your mental health struggle started, because

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Speaker 3: it's probably different than most people think these things happen.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for me, it all started when I

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Speaker 5: started high school back in twenty thirteen, when I was

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Speaker 5: year nine, and I went to boarding school and made

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Speaker 5: it into this running team and I'd never really been

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Speaker 5: a runner before, but kind of happened to be, you know,

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Speaker 5: happened to be one of the few who tried really

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Speaker 5: hard on these running races and made it in and

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Speaker 5: I kind of just got trapped and at that point

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Speaker 5: it was kind of really difficult to get myself out

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Speaker 5: of the team, put a lot of pressure on myself,

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Speaker 5: and it all kind of stuck with just wanting to

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Speaker 5: run faster and be successful. And yeah, eventually it kind

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Speaker 5: of turned into this thing called anarexia, which I didn't

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Speaker 5: know guys could get let alone kind of happy, healthy,

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Speaker 5: normal Kiwi blokes. It just wasn't something that even I

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Speaker 5: thought of as a possibility. So in a way that

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Speaker 5: was kind of my That had a big part to

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Speaker 5: play the fact that I didn't know what I was

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Speaker 5: going through and it kind of just snuck up on me.

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Speaker 5: And I think of it a wee bit like a bug,

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Speaker 5: Like I just caught a bug in the same way

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Speaker 5: you catch a cold, right.

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Speaker 3: So the motivation really was that you wanted to get faster,

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Speaker 3: and you wanted to be more and more disciplined, and

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Speaker 3: you wanted to be successful.

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Speaker 4: You were very focused.

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Speaker 3: You had an idealic childhood, idyllic childhood running around great parents,

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Speaker 3: a couple of fantastic brothers. But you had this idea

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Speaker 3: in your head that that childhood was over. You're at

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Speaker 3: high school now. You needed to succeed. So you had

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Speaker 3: this app ambition to succeed, and when it came to running,

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Speaker 3: it all all focused in on that and you were like,

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Speaker 3: to go faster. I need to be thinner, and I

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Speaker 3: need to exercide hard, and I need to be more

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Speaker 3: and more disciplined.

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Speaker 4: That is that a correct analysis.

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Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was just kind of a chain

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Speaker 5: of all these misinterpretations. I kind of thought, you know,

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Speaker 5: to run faster, you have to be leaner, started losing

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Speaker 5: a bit of weight, started running faster because of all

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Speaker 5: the training, and then next minute I thought I had

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Speaker 5: to keep getting skinnier to keep getting faster. But it

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Speaker 5: was kind of the opposite. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Right, So as a fourteen year old and you're in

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Speaker 2: that scenario and obviously you know something is not quite

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Speaker 2: right here, but you're not quite sure what it is.

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Speaker 2: I mean, did you face that, because it is an

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Speaker 2: incredible thing for anyone to go through, let alone a

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Speaker 2: fourteen year old Feller dealing with this thing called anxiety.

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Speaker 2: How did you start to figure out? Right, I there's

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Speaker 2: something a lot more going on here than I might

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Speaker 2: might have thought of originally.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, Unfortunately, I kind of just thought it was all

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Speaker 5: part of growing up. Like I've been inter media primary

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Speaker 5: school and just had this really kind of perfect happy childhood,

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Speaker 5: and then arrived at high school things were a bit harder.

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Speaker 5: Wasn't feeling quite so happy. But I thought, maybe this

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Speaker 5: is just the price everyone has to pay if they

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Speaker 5: kind of want to achieve and be happy long term,

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Speaker 5: you know, get success and maybe a couple of decades

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Speaker 5: down the track, be happy. So I kind of just

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Speaker 5: let it slide. And then it got to the point,

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Speaker 5: like it does for a lot of people, where you're

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Speaker 5: kind of stuck and you're in a rush and you

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Speaker 5: can't really get out. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, what's interesting about it is that you played a

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Speaker 3: lot of rugby, and you were playing in the front row,

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Speaker 3: and then you were moving back and wait, and then

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Speaker 3: as you lost this weight for the running, that was

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Speaker 3: a pretty clear indicator that you were losing the muscle

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Speaker 3: and size you needed to play footy.

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Speaker 5: Yeah exactly. I would have been one of the leanest

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Speaker 5: looking hockers going around on rugby at the time. But yeah,

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Speaker 5: started losing energy and was quite clearly getting slower, running

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Speaker 5: a lot worse at rugby, and just kind of a

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Speaker 5: bit of a shadow of who I was the year before.

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Speaker 3: And it died so fast and so hard, and you're

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Speaker 3: at an all boys school, you're a border and then

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Speaker 3: it just becomes untenable to the point where there's no

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Speaker 3: other way to say it. It got within millimeters of

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Speaker 3: killing you.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, And that's the scary thing. About anorexia is

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Speaker 5: that it's a physical disorder as much as it's a

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Speaker 5: mental one. The mental ones are kind of gradual decline,

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Speaker 5: the physical ones really sharp. And yeah, I got really

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Speaker 5: lucky to get into hospital. It just in the nick

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Speaker 5: of time, and I was just lucky to have the

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Speaker 5: amazing doctors and nurses who were there to keep me alive.

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Speaker 5: And from that point, once I got the food on

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Speaker 5: board and got the energy back, I could kind of

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Speaker 5: start making progress myself in my mind. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, basically your heart was moments away from stopping.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, memory is always a bit kind of hazy

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Speaker 5: around that time, but I just remember it being pretty

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Speaker 5: serious and yeah, lots of concern and yeah, to be honest,

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Speaker 5: yeah I suppose it's just luck. And you could say

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Speaker 5: I should have been in hospital sooner, but yeah, just

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Speaker 5: lucky to be here.

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Speaker 2: But as Mental Health Awareness Week, and we are joined

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Speaker 2: by a great New Zealander. His name is Harry Averell.

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Speaker 2: When he's written a book Hungry to Be Happy. Thanks

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Speaker 2: very much for coming in, Harry.

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Speaker 4: Thank you so Harry.

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Speaker 3: When we left the story, you'd been very keen to

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Speaker 3: be successful. You're a sporty young lad at an all

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Speaker 3: boys school in Napier. You're a border and you decided

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Speaker 3: to get really really good at running. Unfortunately, that ambition

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Speaker 3: introduced anorexia into your life and it nearly killed you.

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Speaker 3: And how long because you ended up losing your freedom

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Speaker 3: because of this, You ended up being in turned basically,

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Speaker 3: didn't you? Is it in turn the word the word

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Speaker 3: where they take you off your parents and they put

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Speaker 3: you in a hospital that you can't leave.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, water of the state, I think, yeah, that's it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. I was in hospital for four weeks and that

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Speaker 5: was hospital hospital, like getting fed through a tuban, getting

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Speaker 5: the physical health back on track. And then yeah, that

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Speaker 5: was pretty tough obviously, And then got transferred down to

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Speaker 5: cy Ward and Wellington and yeah, away from family and everyone.

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Speaker 5: And that was for three months. And about the end

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Speaker 5: of the second month down there, that was when I

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Speaker 5: started to kind of turn a corner and finally start recovering.

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Speaker 3: I suppose yeah, because for a while, you know, they

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Speaker 3: could feed you, but you were so determined on this thing,

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Speaker 3: and you felt such guilt about putting on weight, and

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Speaker 3: because that had gone into your head that that was

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Speaker 3: success and that was discipline that you had to be

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Speaker 3: watched twenty four hours because you were just tense up

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Speaker 3: and bid like a board, wouldn't you So because you

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Speaker 3: knew that that would that would expand energy, so you'd

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Speaker 3: be like, Okay, well you could force me to eat,

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Speaker 3: you can put it down my nose or whatever, but

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Speaker 3: I will just expend that energy just by tightening up.

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Speaker 3: It must be. Can you see that mindset still? Can

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Speaker 3: you understand that that mindset now that you were at

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Speaker 3: the other end.

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Speaker 5: I kind of couldn't even see it at the time,

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Speaker 5: how irrational it was. My mind was obviously just so

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Speaker 5: malnourished and my thought loops were so kind of entrenched

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Speaker 5: at that point, I just there was no other option.

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Speaker 5: It wasn't like it was a choice. It was like,

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Speaker 5: in the same way that we have to breed, that

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Speaker 5: just felt like the only option for me. And everyone

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Speaker 5: around me was kind of acting as if it was crazy,

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Speaker 5: and I kind of knew it was, but for me,

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Speaker 5: it was like, there's no way out of us.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then you realized at some point that an erxia

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Speaker 3: wasn't you, which is kind of hard to understand, but

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Speaker 3: you explain it so well in the book Hungry to

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Speaker 3: Be Happy that you realized that part of your mind

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Speaker 3: was an entity into itself that was trying to destroy you.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think everyone has a little voice at

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Speaker 5: the back of them, you know, on their shoulder or something,

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Speaker 5: kind of barking at waters at them sometimes and sometimes

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Speaker 5: that's what helps us succeed, because it's kind of motivating

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Speaker 5: us to get up and do things and succeed and

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Speaker 5: be the best versions of ourselves. But for me, it

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Speaker 5: kind of just got out of control and that and

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Speaker 5: a critic just went haywire and was kind of the

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Speaker 5: only voice I started hearing in my head, and it

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Speaker 5: all felt like it was me thinking these thoughts that

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Speaker 5: I need to stop eating and exercise and all this

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Speaker 5: kind of thing. But Yeah, just completely took control and

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Speaker 5: there wasn't a kind of way to fight back against it.

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Speaker 3: It was interesting when you did fight it back against it,

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Speaker 3: you had to get into a dialogue in your own mind.

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Speaker 3: So anorexia was telling you to do things and You're going,

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Speaker 3: hang on a minute, that doesn't make any sense. This

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Speaker 3: isn't going to make my life better, it's going to

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Speaker 3: make it worse.

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Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, exactly. And it seemed almost crazy at the time,

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Speaker 5: kind of ironically that I had to start having this

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Speaker 5: conversation with myself in my head to get through it.

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Speaker 5: But as soon as I started differentiating my thoughts, my happy,

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Speaker 5: healthy thoughts to this anorexic thing that the doctors told

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Speaker 5: me I had, that was and I started being able

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Speaker 5: to kind of objectively fight back against it.

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Speaker 2: Did that journey take time when you realized that situation

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Speaker 2: and that work to talk against that critic? Can you

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Speaker 2: hear and figure out that this is that almost another

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Speaker 2: entity saying these things that aren't through? What did that

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Speaker 2: journey look like in terms of a timeframe.

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Speaker 5: Probably a couple of yeah, two or three months, and

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Speaker 5: working with chlinical psychologists who were telling me that this

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Speaker 5: was a different part of me that I don't need

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Speaker 5: to fight. And eventually, I suppose, just with time and

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Speaker 5: with strength and energy getting feedback into me, I kind

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Speaker 5: of got the strength to start. And then a few

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Speaker 5: weeks later I kind of turned this massive corner and

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Speaker 5: fluck the switch, I suppose, and from that point things

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Speaker 5: have just been onwards and upwards.

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Speaker 2: All Right afternoon it is Mental Health Awareness Week and

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Speaker 2: we are joined by Harry Averell. He's a great New

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Speaker 2: Zealand and he's written a book called Hungry to Be

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Speaker 2: Happy his journey with coming through on the other side

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Speaker 2: after battling with anorexia.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is mental health awareness weeks this timely

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Speaker 3: chat with this gentleman.

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Speaker 4: So you've worked out you've got this.

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Speaker 3: As the neuroscientist Ethan what doesn't Ethan Cross yet called

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Speaker 3: it the inner asshole. Sometimes we create an inner asshole

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Speaker 3: on our head that's just going at us and it's

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Speaker 3: part of us.

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Speaker 4: But it's trying to destroy us.

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Speaker 3: So you managed to differentiate yourself from anorexia and start

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Speaker 3: fighting back. And that was about two months after you'd

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Speaker 3: been incarcerated basically in a psychquard in Wellington away from

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Speaker 3: your family with a twenty four hour surveillance to make

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Speaker 3: sure you didn't exercise yourself to death. And so tell

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Speaker 3: us about the after that and how you came back

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Speaker 3: and the success that you've since experienced, especially at school.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. So I was kind of sitting there three meals

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Speaker 5: a day at this sight quard and this platophone in

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Speaker 5: front of me, and I just slowly started fighting back

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Speaker 5: against these sorts and realizing that it wasn't me and

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Speaker 5: it was someone else. And I started objectively looking at it,

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Speaker 5: you know, like I need to eat life back. I

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Speaker 5: want to be happy again, I need to eat. This

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Speaker 5: is just means to an end, and eventually it'll be easy.

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Speaker 5: And so I did that, and then eventually I kind

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Speaker 5: of had this epiphany one day, sitting there in the

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Speaker 5: psych ward that I was just angry and I'd had

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Speaker 5: enough of it. I was so sick of it. My

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Speaker 5: life sucked objectively.

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Speaker 3: So it doesn't get much more sucky than the position

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Speaker 3: you were in.

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Speaker 5: No, And you know, my mates were there at school,

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Speaker 5: still growing up and doing this cool stuff, and there

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Speaker 5: here I was, you know, away from my family and friends,

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Speaker 5: and I just at that point I had all the

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Speaker 5: motivation I needed. In a way, I was lucky for

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Speaker 5: things to turn so badly that I had no choice

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Speaker 5: but to start getting better. And from that point it

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Speaker 5: was just onwards and upwards, and fighting those thoughts got

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Speaker 5: easier from that point because I was just so angry

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Speaker 5: at what it had taken from me. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And as you said, you didn't know that anorexia

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Speaker 3: is something that can happen to males. And being a

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Speaker 3: rugby playing dude in all boys schooled did it make

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Speaker 3: it harder to admit your problems, you know, especially in

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Speaker 3: illness that's as misunderstood as anorexia.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, And the whole exercise component of it is

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Speaker 5: probably more common with males. And that's maybe why I

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Speaker 5: slipped through the cracks at school and didn't get picked up.

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Speaker 5: And that's why I wrote the book to kind of

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Speaker 5: to raise awareness that guys can get it too, because

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Speaker 5: I think if it had been picked up sooner, it

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Speaker 5: would have been a lot easier to turn things around.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, it's yeah, it's strange to look back and

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Speaker 5: to think how bad things got, but I am grateful

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Speaker 5: for it in a way because it's kind of made

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Speaker 5: my mind such a nice place to be today.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting.

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Speaker 3: What's the one thing that because you know, everyone has

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Speaker 3: their mental health struggles, but most of us don't end

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Speaker 3: up in a pite cord, so you've you've seen how

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Speaker 3: intense it can get. So what's the one thing that

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Speaker 3: you think people misunderstand about mental health?

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Speaker 4: In your book, you call it.

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Speaker 3: Mind health because because because you want to change, change

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Speaker 3: the discussion on it. But what's the thing you think

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Speaker 3: that people most misunderstand.

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Speaker 5: I think the whole kind of misconception that that if

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Speaker 5: you've got a mental illness, maybe you're lazy, or you're

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Speaker 5: you're not fighting for me, it was the opposite, you know.

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Speaker 5: It was because I was so disciplined and strong world

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Speaker 5: I didn't even allow myself to rest and I just

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Speaker 5: exercized all the time and didn't it. So I had

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Speaker 5: to use that same well in a way to turn

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Speaker 5: it around. And it was a switch in my mind

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Speaker 5: of instead of putting success as the priority the whole time,

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Speaker 5: it had to be happiness. And once I made that switch,

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Speaker 5: priority shifted and life just got a whole lot easier.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautifully said. Is it an ongoing thing? You've

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Speaker 2: got that toolbox obviously that that you can utilize, And

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Speaker 2: I know there'll be a lot of people listening out

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Speaker 2: there that that it is an ongoing journey for them

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Speaker 2: to remain in that that good mindset. Is that the

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Speaker 2: same for yourself?

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Speaker 5: Yeah? I think having gone through something like that at

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Speaker 5: such a young age as an advantage in a way,

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Speaker 5: because it's given me this whole toolbox of strategies and

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Speaker 5: things that I have in place that prevent me from

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Speaker 5: ever getting to that place again. And I'm quite confident

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Speaker 5: that it will never happen again. But yeah, it's an

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Speaker 5: ongoing thing for everyone. It's not like you can get

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Speaker 5: this really good level of happiness and mind health, and

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Speaker 5: it's a constant work on and putting the things in

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Speaker 5: place and your kind of lifestyle to to be happy

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Speaker 5: and the best version of yourself that you can be.

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Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, well, good on your mate.

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Speaker 3: And it's a harrowing story, but it's a fantastic story

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Speaker 3: and it's and you know, you've done such a good

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Speaker 3: job putting it together and putting down your thoughts in

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Speaker 3: a way that I personally just found explained explain things

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Speaker 3: in a way I'd never really heard them explain before.

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Speaker 3: So it's a great book. Hungry to Be Happy by

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Speaker 3: Harry Everell.

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Speaker 2: Go by it, give it a read in the audio

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Speaker 2: book I think has just been released as well.

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Speaker 5: Right yeah on Spotify, Yeah yeah, yeah, lovely.

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Speaker 4: It's a good rate.

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Speaker 5: Yeap.

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Speaker 4: His mum comes in and does his mums but.

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Speaker 2: Mum's a good lightly.

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Speaker 4: I haven't heard that in an audio book before. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: it's good.

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Speaker 2: Lover it, Harry, you're a good man. We'll catch up

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Speaker 2: again soon.

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Speaker 1: For more from News Talk sed B, listen live on

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Speaker 1: air or online. And keep our shows with you wherever

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Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio