Brent Draper On Stepping Away From MasterChef and Putting His Mental Health First

Brent Draper – “My Master Chef and the Journey to Mental Health”

It’s hard to explain how “stuck” I felt after realizing that I’d been a boiler maker for over 12 years and didn’t want to do it anymore. I mean, I was pretty good at it and I was grateful for the opportunity to do the craft well, but I’d lost all passion for it along the way. I wanted to grind off the bonds and crack something else, but I had no idea how to do it. I just knew that I was drawn to cooking and eating over and over again.

After waking up at dawn every day for years with zero energy and very little purpose, driving to work with my iced coffee and a dirty old sausage roll in hand, I felt a little numb.

Not finishing 12th grade and going straight out of high school into a career made me believe my options were really limited, and I always thought that in this life I was all I could ever be in this life because I wasn’t ‘qualified’ for anything else.

I knew I wasn’t getting any younger and the only way to get out of the rut was to take a step forward into the unknown. I had to do something and just see where it was going.

One day at work during the Smoko, I made the decision “Fuck it, enough is enough” … and applied to MasterChef.

My journey on the show obviously ended differently than anyone else’s, with raising my hand and eliminating myself due to persistent mental and physical health problems that I have suffered from for some time. It’s been a great journey, but one I’m proud of.

I’ve had some pretty serious anxiety and mental health issues for some time while on the show, and it just got worse. As it manifested itself in physical symptoms I started turning mentally and I couldn’t pull myself out anymore, it got really dark in my last few weeks of shooting and I knew I had to get out of there.

I had to put my health first, even though I wanted to stay competitive and prove to everyone that I could do it. At the end of the day without my health, I have nothing so I had to put that first and leave the competition.

Leaving the path I did was definitely not part of my grand plan, but I had no other choice. I had to raise my hand and be honest about what was going on so I could get out and come home and get help. There was no other way. And that’s exactly what I am as a person, what you see is what you get. When I look back now, I am not surprised that I walked the way I did.

While it was definitely not planned to work that way, I’m glad it did because so many people have reached out to me since then to tell me that it really helped them with their own mental health issues, and that they did Have done it raise your hands and ask for help. I get goosebumps every time I read one of these messages, that’s huge for me.

After the show, I went to my doctor, I saw a psychologist, and I was religiously with one of these two professionals for a few months each week. My wife and I talked a lot about everything and that helped a lot too. Then I did all the good things, lots of time with my family and friends, cooking, meditation, surfing, cold showers, slowing down … just everything I loved and needed to get back on track. And I’ve relied heavily on my greatest supporter, my wife, Shonleigh, throughout this time.

I didn’t really think much of “fear” growing up, but in retrospect there were times when I was definitely afraid but just didn’t know what it was at the time. I guess it didn’t register that it was back then, and it wasn’t something we talked about in the country town I grew up in.

I now know what fear is, it comes and goes for me, and I can tell when it comes up now, which is great. I couldn’t see the anxiety during the show, but I now have the tools to deal with it before it gets out of hand, and that makes all the difference.

Looking back on my MasterChef experience, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. It taught me about resilience, it gave me a handful of best friends, it pushed me beyond my limits, and it really made me appreciate what I had at home and all the simple things I probably took for granted before I went to the competition. Oh, and I’ve learned to cook a lot better too (ha!)!

As for my message to other men, it’s pretty simple, just tell someone what’s going on in your head. It may seem daunting at first, but trust me, open up and tell someone. You will feel so much lighter. If you don’t speak it, you will store it and it will be hard to keep.

If you are thinking of suicide, experiencing emotional stress, or just need someone to talk to, help is available. Please contact Lifeline at 13 11 14 or http://lifeline.org.au.

source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/brent-draper-on-stepping-away-from-masterchef-and-putting-his-mental-health-first/