Improving Mental Health Through Social Sports with Nicholas de Graaf

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here, joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
Whether it's anxiety, depression or any other mental health issue, the journey to recovery can often feel isolating and overwhelming. But today's guest, Nicholas De Graaf, is here to offer a message of hope and practical advice. Nick has personally battled through anxiety, hypomania, mania, psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression. His story of recovery is not just about surviving, but thriving. And he's turned his journey into a mission to help others to do the same. Nicholas is the founder of MAWS: Mental Awareness With Sports, a non profit based in Australia that blends a love for sports into a supportive community for people facing mental health challenges. His inspiration for MAWS came from his own experience of finding solace and strength through bodyboarding and talking openly about mental health with others who've been there. In today's episode, Nick will share his personal story, the creation of MAWS, and how engaging in sports and open conversations can lead to recovery and happiness.

Jennifer Norman:
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, this conversation could be the catalyst for change. You'll learn how to find support, build resilience, and rediscover joy in the activities you love. So with that, let's welcome Nick De Graff to the show. Welcome Nick.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Hey Jennifer. How are you?

Jennifer Norman:
I am doing well. How is it there in Australia?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, it's a bit windy and stormy today, but it's not too bad.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm so glad that you are with me today. It's so exciting to be talking with you because I find talking about mental health so important these days. I feel like since the pandemic, it's just become something that we have brought out into the open because so many people are struggling with mental health issues and a lot of people were silently struggling beforehand. But talking about it helps and sharing support really helps. So I would love for you to share your story with the audience, tell us about your experience with your mental health journey and then where it's led you to today.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, I guess my journey started with anxiety that I wasn't really aware of. I never understood anxiety, I never had any kind of understanding of it. So when it started interfering with myself, it just kind of led to worst case scenario type of thinking and I would carry on extending that worst case scenario thoughts by adding another negative thought to the chain of thoughts. And now that chain was so impossible to break that I found it every day for day to day tasks to be very challenging. For it to be going to work was overwhelming. Thinking that I was going to get fired because I've managed to give myself all these negative thoughts for so long that every day was a disaster. So the anxious thoughts, the severe anxiety, the not wanting to leave the house to go to a food shop or not wanting to socialize, not wanting to enjoy the favorite sports that I always used to enjoy and that just got worse over time. So I didn't know what to do about it.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And I thought one day I'm just going to actually speak to my GP about it. And that conversation was to make that appointment, to have that conversation saying that you're struggling with anxiety or trying to describe my train of thoughts was quite difficult, difficult at the time. So I finally made that appointment with the GP and I sat there and explained everything and he kindly was just like, well I think what you're suffering from is anxiety. We can have medication to be back on track and then we'll re evaluate from there. So he asked a series of questions regarding any mental health background at all and I wasn't aware, I asked my parents, but my parents said there was no kind of mental health issues in the past. So yeah, I was put on a anti-anxiety medication. I carried on with my day. Another thing is with medication, I wasn't too familiar with taking medication to treat any kind of illness or mental health and I treated it as like okay, you take medication when you have a headache, so I'm going to take it when I have anxiety.

Nicholas de Graaf:
So the severe anxiety, I might take a tablet then. But what I didn't listen to, to the GP was it actually needs to take it at a set time and build the actual medication in your system over a period of time. So I was, I kind of must have blocked that out of my head and thought this is going to fix my anxiety, take a bit of medication. And during the heightened state of anxiety and taking my anti-anxiety medication actually flipped underlying mental illness of bipolar into activation really. So threw me from highly anxiety to starting to go into mania. And during that process of mania led to like a psychotic episode. I was manic for, I think it was quite a few days, wasn't making any sense, was just kind of seeing the world in a very different light and you know, chain linking everything, thinking that everything isn't making sense and not being here in the natural, in the kind of present moment and being able to just see the world as what it is. I saw the world as everything connecting and overstimulated in a very heightened mindset.

Nicholas de Graaf:
So I was doing this for quite a few days until my wife managed to check in to get a mental health team to come out and assess me which is a mental health emergency response team. They go on and they know, I think it is, and they came and assessed me and yeah, pretty much had to... they stated I was going from mania into psychosis and had to take me to a psychiatry, to a junior life hospital to get assessed. And then I was admitted to a locked psychiatric ward for I think it was about a week. And then during that time it took so long for all the nurses to be able to get me out of that psychotic state. They tried a lot of variations of medications to see if they could stop it in its tracks. But at that time I was also thinking that medication was the poison, it was going to poison me because of that bad experience I had with the anti-anxiety medication. So I was refusing to take it at some points and eventually they managed to calm my mindset down.

Nicholas de Graaf:
I had to be heavily sedated. But during that process of psychosis -- a lot of people experience psychosis differently. For me, I'm just more like a nurturer, kind of safe, loving kind of person, just real kitty like. So it's very different to what the media can sometimes portray it on the TV that another killing by someone who's psychotic. It's. We're not all labeled as killers in the sense of the media. So I just want to make that point. Yeah.

Nicholas de Graaf:
So then after that they managed to get me down as far as my medication goes. They managed to get my mindset back to stable and then I was in a voluntary ward so I could go out with a group and go for a walk and experience the world again and take it step by step. So I did that for another week and was released. But being released I needed to get straight back into work because you just. I had a lot of bills to pay and I needed to get back on top of everything. So going back into full time work as a construction worker was going to, was quite challenging, especially in the viewpoint of how mental health can be seen in the construction industry. So there was a lot of, a lot of hurdles I had to jump, a lot of negative moments throughout that process. But I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I could get myself back on track.

Nicholas de Graaf:
But the anxiety was still there. So I developed a system for myself that I would buy a pack of, a container chewing gum like, and every hour I would get through, I would reward myself with a piece of gum because that just gave me something to look forward to instead of looking for the eight hour day, which seemed impossible on my mental state that it was no way I was going to be able to achieve, to be on this site for 8 hours to finish the job. I would look at myself, look at my time and just say, I've got an hour. I would just have a piece of chewing gum at that hour. Once I've reached that hour. And then the senses kind of activated, the touch, the smell, the taste. And it kind of grounded me 100% to look forward to the next hour. So I did that over quite a significant amount of time until I could wean the chewing gum from 1 hour to 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours to don't even need it anymore.

Nicholas de Graaf:
So that was a really great helping tool to be able to get me through, through that high anxiety in the workplace. And then I ended up moving to a bit of work in the landscaping. Landscaping side of things. To have your hands in the soil when you're kind of traveled in your mindset, I think it's like so grounding to be able to pull some weeds or plant some trees. It's really relaxing. So yeah, managed to do that and then, yeah, just got back into full time work. And after that process of getting myself stable, I thought, you know, there needs to be more awareness for mental health, especially for men as well and for all ages. If I could start it from the base and work on my way through to the adults, that would be great.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And me and my friend who was suffering from depression, we both decided to go to a surf trip in Bali in Indonesia. And one of the guys there, he, one of the coaches, he actually lives with bipolar as well. And I found the courage to talk to him and say, look, I've only just recently been diagnosed. It was during that stage. I didn't know what it was, I didn't know whether it was schizophrenia, bipolar But I ended up having another episode of mania after my, during that work stage and that's when I got labeled type 1 bipolar disorder. So booked that surf trip, had a chat with him and that lived experience was so rewarding to hear it all come from him and hear all that guidelines and medication and how to treat yourself in these situations. I was trying to be the best student to be able to understand how I'm going to live the rest of my life with, you know, this mental illness. So I kept in contact, still keep in contact with them today.

Nicholas de Graaf:
But yeah, managed to get all that help and having that chat in the surf about medication and mental health. I thought this right here needs to be a business and this needs to be in the world. So after Bali, I came back and I was brainstorming ideas and I was like, well maybe I should just like call it Mental Awareness With Sports and call it MAWS. And I pitched that idea to the coach and he's like, that's bloody awesome. Let's, you know, let's go, let's get it out there. So I opened it up and started with a lot of adults and people of all ages would come to a group setting on Thursday evening around 7:00 and we all people from all walks of life would be, and we just have a game of tempin bowling or a game of mini golf and we just spend, just chat and just chat about our struggles and achievements of our mental health journey. And we found that whatever worked for James might not work for Tom, but gabbing works for Tom. So all those different lived experience advice that people would come in and be like, I'm just feeling like really depressed.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And then you have someone who's highly experienced in depression and going, what are you thinking? And being able to give that train of thought and being able to guide that person in a lived experience manner. So that was working really, really well. But then I kind of dived into trying to let the kids and get involved with the kids to see if I can raise mental health a bit earlier. So I ended up opening up the skateboarding, more skateboarding and more surfing. So I would teach kids how to surf and teach kids how to skate. And the skateboarding was really good because I created a system for confidence based training that when you're at the top of the ramp, we can actually talk about anxiety. Because a lot of the kids who want to drop in on a big ramp on a skateboard for the first time, a lot of their inner thoughts come out and it's, I'm going to smash my teeth at the bottom of the ramp.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And it's like, no, no, no. That's what we can call anxiety. That's a worst case scenario train of thought. What happens if I give you my hands, I give you ten fingers, I hold your hands and we go down together and then over and over again you can actually reduce the amount of fingers you want to hold on my hands. So if you want to do five fingers and just I'm here to hold you and guide you through this ramp and then I do a body hover where it gets from ten fingers all the way down to my arms, just kind of surrounding them in but not touching them and they go off on their own and something they thought they never could have achieved. And it's a mindset game. So that gave them an early introduction into negative mindset and how it can be overcome by small steps of the ladder. So I had that in a poster for them to visualize what the training sessions like.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And that was really good. And then surfing was the same. You could actually have these chats in the surf and just be. You just be two of you out there having mental health chats about school, bullying, anxiety and having these grounding chats in the ocean whilst waiting for waves and then catching a wave and coming back out and just enjoying life like it was so much fun. So yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh my gosh, you shared so, so much. And I really appreciate your openness, your forthcomingness with sharing all of your story, all that you had been through. My heart aches a bit because actually.One thing that I wanted to share with the audience, this podcast is for education and of course, entertainment. And we don't give medical advice, we don't treat or prevent or cure any diseases. And anything in terms of what we talk about is for information. And so anything that you hear, certainly run it by your own GP or your therapist and see if anything is right for you, if you want to follow up with anything. But certainly this is a conversation about general mental health and about ways to build support within the community, just as Nick has done.

Jennifer Norman:
And I have an experience where I have actually gone through phases of anxiety and depression myself. And one thing that I have noticed is that there is a difference in quality of doctors. There is a difference with the kind of care and attention that certain doctors may give. And some of them can be wrong, some of them can misdiagnose and some can give treatments or recommendations that may not necessarily be suited for you. Or sometimes they're just doing their best guess, with the information that they have. But if they do prescribe medicine, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right one for you. It's really about sometimes a trial and error. It could be a trial and error with the dose even, or it could be a trial and error with the actual medicine itself.

Jennifer Norman:
I had gone through a whole phase where I was every, call it every week, I was trying something different - because this one was making me completely anxious and agitated, and it made me want to just hate the world. And I could tell that it was spiking my cortisol, it was spiking adrenaline and it was making me anxious. And then another one that I was given made me want to just crash and sleep all day. Finally, after a lot of different trials and errors, I was able to get to one that really seemed to work very well with my system and made me feel like a natural human. I have heard experiences like what Nick had where a medicine can throw somebody into another type of mental disorder and whether or not that is something that was underlying. I mean, I'm not sure.Maybe, Nick, you can share if that was something that had been underlying or exposed, or if it was just the medicine that kind of brought it out and caused biochemistry in the body to react in a way that was extreme. And, and boy, I empathize with you so much, Nick, for that period of life that you went through. It must have been really, really scary for you and your wife. And I'm so glad that you were able to make it through on the, on the other side and heal and get better and get to a place of balance.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I just like to note that there was mental health on my parents side that wasn't talked about. So if I was to be aware of that, and I was told that, and I told the GP that they wouldn't have prescribed that medication. I don't think so. Yeah. It's always important to make sure you do your research with the family history of mental health before you seek any medication from a GP and make sure that the GP is fully aware.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, and that's the important part about what we're doing here, is we're making it okay to talk about it. Because in past generations it was so taboo, it was such a stigma. Nobody did want to disclose if they had a mental disorder or something was going on. There was a lot of things shrouded it in secrecy. And so the fact that you've been so open about your situation is only going to benefit other people and that you've brought into the light this wonderful opportunity to combine support and community and sport and doing something active and fun, something enjoyable, mixed with real conversations about how people are doing and talking about things like fear, talking about things like anxiety and making it very relatable. And then seeing how these little tiny bites of bravery can really make a world of difference in people's confidence and self esteem. I love that you would talk about that with the kids especially because it really helps them to see that they can develop a more can do attitude about life.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, exactly like the kids. To realize that they're more than their thoughts is huge. Because a lot of the kids that I've trained, they would take that same approach with their confidence into all aspects of life. They might have changed in the way they see and they're putting their hands up more because they're not scared to if they make the wrong question or make the wrong answer. So a lot of them, I even have come back to me and say that, you know, my son's now we went on a holiday and he would never want to jump off this rock into the water and now he's climbing past it to jump off fire after a few coaching style, you know, with the confidence based training. So to hear all that was just amazing. So.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, and being around others who can do it so that they can see other people, that it's possible, it also helps to kind of boost their courage that there's really nothing to be afraid of as well.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah. I had some of the kids, some of the kids will be teaching the other kids that come into the class and be like, look, Nick will hold your fingers, he'll give you ten fingers. And then during the process, if you want to start reducing the fingers whilst you're building your confidence, that means you can reduce your fingers and then you can do it on your own. One day, hearing these little kids talk to each other like that and then I'm just like, this is absolutely wonderful.

Jennifer Norman:
You're developing all these little coaches. Amazing.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, yeah, it was great.

Jennifer Norman:
I also noticed that you decided to write a couple of kids books. You've got one which is called The Life of Little Nick: Helping Kids Discover The Power of Sports for Positive Mental Health. And then there is a corresponding coloring book. Why did you decide to write a kids book? And this is kind of autobiographical as I would imagine?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
What was it that drew you to actually want to put it in writing?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Because like I used the ocean just trying to understand my own psyche, I guess as a kid, like I Was had a lot going on. And from a very young age, I used to journey, take myself down to the beach and go for a surf. And I would find that the surf would actually, actually calm my train of thoughts. If something was going bad that day, I'll be able to escape it and just focus in the ocean. Or I would focus taking myself out on my skateboard and I could utilize the mental state that I was in, whether I was really confident and courageous that I might try something different on my skateboard. And I'll keep on practicing that trick because it's something new that I've got confidence to do. So I kind of explained it all in that way and had created a book that could highlight the important aspects of a mental health journey. From sleep to being confident, to being able to have your sports that keep it happy in a sense, that bring happiness to yourself.

Nicholas de Graaf:
So I created it from a viewpoint of an autobiography, in a sense of to what my childhood was like. And I wrote it in a poetry form because I've always loved poetry. So it came so natural for me just to added up, I think I wrote it in one night, the whole book, and then just sent it to the publisher because he was saying that poetry books are quite hard to create. I said, but I love poetry. I want to do it. So I did it that night, sent it off. And he's like, this is actually really good. So, yeah, I was really, really happy to get that one to raise more awareness of the mental health field.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And I thought if kids, if parents could purchase the books, just to have that conversation, to start it off, to see a person with bipolar at the end of it with a bunch of kids who is trained them all up to be confident and courageous in themselves as well. I thought if I could have had this book when I was a kid, maybe I probably would find areas to reach out to be like, hang on, it's not just like impossible to do. Someone's actually done it. So. And here's the person at the end of the book. So, yeah, I just thought that's going to be another way to get the message out there. So I think I got it. I got it here.

Nicholas de Graaf:
You see that? The light? Yeah, you can get that on Amazon. But yeah, I put a lot of work into creating the images to be very appealing.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, there's something magical about really connecting and integrating your mind, your body and your soul. And when you're doing that and knowing that your head might be spinning, your mind might be full of chaos. And if you can get yourself to have some semblance of control from a body perspective, from a physical perspective, either through sports or whether it's art or if you're writing, if you're doing something with your body that is going to help release some of that energy, it can be extremely therapeutic. And then also, I believe you also developed some mindfulness practices too, which help to also ground you. Nature is an amazing thing. As you were mentioning earlier when you were doing the landscaping. I think that's just a wonderful technique to really help to get yourself into a place of a bit more calm. Can you share with, tell us what other kinds of practices that you tend to do on a regular basis?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, so usually if I just go for a walk, get out into the weather or whether it'll be a nice day or rainy day and just take the dog for a walk and just take that time out just to relax and have a breather. Because I feel like life can be so fast paced that we don't actually manage to stop and breathe and check in with ourselves to see how things are going because it's. We're too busy. We're too busy with everything that is hard to see stop. I mean, I found it difficult to meditate in the past. I haven't been able to really master meditation just because I'm a very active person and sitting in one spot or that I'm just like. I prefer to go for a walk or walks in nature. So I would do the walking, I would do the running, I would do trips to the beach or even surfing.

Nicholas de Graaf:
It's a really grounding spot for me just to be able to sit in the water even if I only catch a few waves that day. I think that that's a huge benefit for grounding for myself. But everyone's got their own uni ways of grounding themselves. So yeah, for me it's definitely landscaping. Building is really grounding. I love to build, so I do that. Landscaping, building and surfing and running and walking is all of my categories that I can pick and choose.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, running and walking and surfing and landscaping, all of those things can very much be forms of meditation too because you're in the present moment for sure.

Nicholas de Graaf:
And colorading as well.

Jennifer Norman:
Arts.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
I've started drumming, which I find highly, highly meditative. Yeah, you get lost in a beat and I'm not great yet, but I just enjoy just hearing the different sounds of drums. And I've got a handpan as well, a djembe, and then a four piece kit that I've been kind of playing around with. Because it's also therapeutic to hit something!

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. And then hear a sound come out of it is great. Do you have one of those, those dome things that have the sounds come out of it? Do you?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah, I've got a handpan.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Oh yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
It almost looks like a UFO.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Sounds beautiful. Beautiful. Now MAWS is a non-profit. How are you funded? Do you seek donations or do you get grants?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, usually it would be through grants and then I would just run the classes once a week on Thursdays normally and we just meet up. You pay your way in a sense you just pay for your own bowling class and it just for a chat. But over the last year I've been studying, so I've studied a diploma of mental health and I also studied a full time course to be a facilitator of the youth mental health first aid. So I wanted to have a bit of backing as far as education with lived experience. So I'm hoping to bring that to the not for profit and be able to guide people in a way that is beneficial both in the sense of education as well as lived experience.

Jennifer Norman:
Brilliant. Brilliant. I know. Also you were mentioning that your wife had been so instrumental in being support for you and you wanted to say something about those who are caring for people who have perhaps mental health issues. What would you like to see in terms of support for those who are looking after people with a mental illness?

Nicholas de Graaf:
I would. I just wish there was like another community of some sort that could engage with carers of those of mental health issues. So whether it would have been like a chat group where people can come onto and discuss how their partners are doing with such and such because they also need the support. I mean they just go through just as much as the person with the mental health condition goes through because they're the ones that are having to try and support that situation when. Whereas at times in my mental state I could not even be aware of what's going on properly. So if they had a bit more support in a group where it could be connected to each other to be able to text each other, to be able to have a group chat of some sort, I think that would be highly beneficial.

Jennifer Norman:
I think that's a great suggestion and I know that there is a high degree of burnout among caretakers, whether it be for physical illness or mental illness. It can be extremely taxing on those who are caring for a patient or a loved One and so for them to have the opportunity to have, have that self care and know that they can have that break or a sense of community of others that understand and would listen and be there to give them a shoulder when they need it, I think it's really important. It's important for us all to be able to come together in our times of need to support each other in humanity. For sure.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
So looking ahead, what are your hopes for the future of MAWS and the impact that it can have on kids and adults struggling with mental health challenges?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Well, I'd love to...I always have this idea that like you could branch out more to mental awareness with skills and then I could have like almost like a recruitment group that we can have employee, employee people that have just coming back from depression or anxiety or this or that and wanting to get back into the workforce. And then companies can pass on some work, whether it be some landscape or this or that. And I could try and manage that process and be able to get these people back on track mentally as well as working as well. So there's always an avenue to go. Mental awareness or skills is something that I've thought in the back of my mind.

Jennifer Norman:
I think that's great. As well as some training for the employers of just knowing obviously from an inclusivity perspective and a sensitivity awareness perspective training. But it reminds me of the programs that are in place for those who have been in prison or in jail or juvie or things like that, where there is the education, the training and a way back a system and a process to get them back into having a job, having a career and getting some of the issues erased and knowing that, okay, this might have been part of my past, but I'm here and I'm willing and I am really excited about the opportunity to come in and extend some value to the company. So yeah, programs like that could be extremely instrumental for a large part of the population that has been affected with mental health issues. Needs days.

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, love it. Yeah, definitely.

Jennifer Norman:
Great, great. Well Nick, how can people find out a little bit more about you and about MAWS if they're interested?

Nicholas de Graaf:
Yeah, so you can find me on MAWSGroup.com and then you can find MAWS Group through Instagram and Facebook as well. So website there, Instagram and Facebook, they can always reach out that way.

Jennifer Norman:
Excellent, excellent. Everyone, this is Nicholas DeGraaf. I want to thank you so much Nick, again for sharing your story, for being so open and for the work that you're doing to really eradicate the stigma mental health for men, for youth, for adults everywhere that you are, and everybody that you can touch is the better for it, certainly. And I really just am so happy for your beautiful humanity. And thank you so much for being part of the movement.

Nicholas de Graaf:
All right, thank you so much. Jennifer.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, follow rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.