Facing his past head-on
SHANE MULLINS wants to talk about mental health. Sharply dressed in dark suit and black tie, he hovers at his laptop in front of a large group of transition year students at St. Cuan’s College, Castleblakeney, Co. Galway. His fingers are poised over the keyboard. He’s waiting for silence so he can begin his presentation.
Last September, the 24-year-old Galwegian enrolled as a media studies student at GTI College in Galway. Over the course of that month, he told one of his teachers, Anne Jennings, his story. She was so moved by it that she encouraged him to tell others and he made a presentation to the class. Their reaction prompted him to take his story to a wider audience.
For the past six months, Mullins has been travelling around the country, talking about the struggle he’s had with his own demons, and introducing the system he’s devised to help young people face theirs.
He calls it D’mess, which stands for determination, motivation, emotional support and social life.
“This is about the mess you’ve got yourself into, the mess you can get yourself out of. Each letter stands for a word which you use in life to get off your fat arse and do something about it.” It’s this presentation style, combined with the fact that he doesn’t look much older than the people he’s talking to, that allows Mullins to hold the attention of his audience.
“Lads go round with big depressed heads on them because they think they can sort things out themselves, and you can’t. There’s no way any human in this room can do anything about their mental health on their own. I can manage my physical health on my own but no way can I manage mental health. Learn to talk to people. You’re not a pussy, you’re not a wimp, you’re not anything if you do that.”
Mullins always begins his talks by telling his own story.
“I didn’t like school,” he says, “so I left when I was 14. Or I should say, I was politely asked to leave because I was bould out. I left with no Junior Cert, no nothing. I did a Fás course in block laying and got a job. Work was plentiful at the time. I was living it up. Fourteen- years-old and I was earning a man’s wage. But all I could think of spending it on was drink.
“On the 16th October 2005, everything changed. I was 17. I remember sitting at home in the kitchen that evening, listening to my mother and sister giving out to me. They told me I was drinking too much. My mother took the car keys and hid them but I saw where, and when she went upstairs, I grabbed them and off I went out the door. Usually, I’d shout out goodbye to her but this one time, I didn’t. I remember that.
“I went to a friend’s house and started drinking. This was around seven o’clock in the evening. At midnight, we got into the car and drove to the pub. They threw me out around 1.45 in the morning. I hopped into the car. I’d no seat belt. I could hardly see where I was going.”
Mullins lost control of the car not far from the pub. It hit a ditch and rolled into a field, which was empty except for a stone pillar not far from the road. The car rolled into the pillar, which smashed through the driver’s side and connected violently with his head.
As his friend climbed unscathed from the wreck to raise the alarm, Mullins slipped into a coma from which he would not emerge for four days.
In hospital, his parents were told to prepare for the worst. They were asked if they would be willing to allow Mullins’ organs to be donated.
“Just imagine your mother and father there looking down at you, and the doctors saying you have to donate your son’s organs. Luckily anyway, they didn’t.”
In the early stages of recovery, he suffered three bleeds from his brain. “I had a massive swelled head on me. I looked like ET.”
He contracted MRSA as soon as he was transferred to a ward and developed blood circulation problems. The resulting pain was unbearable.
As the days progressed, it became clear that Mullins had suffered irreparable brain damage. He describes his initial symptoms as stroke-like. “I’d no power in the right side at all, in this leg, or this hand. I could feel it but I couldn’t move it.”
He had to have a tracheotomy to help breathe, and for two-and-a -half months, he could not eat or drink. Even now, he has to be careful about what he puts in his mouth.
Mullins spent three months in hospital and three more in the National Rehabilitation Centre in Dún Laoghaire. He’s now blind in one eye, has limited co-ordination, reduced mobility and suffers from many of the cognitive impairments that go with acquired brain injury (ABI).
During rehabilitation, Mullins put in hours at the gym, working to regain physical independence. Progress came steadily in the early stages, but as it began to slow, Mullins’ real problems began to set in.
“I hated being told that I had a brain injury. It sent me into a deep depression.”
Though he’d been warned of the dangers of taking alcohol with his condition, he began drinking heavily. His father John would frequently get a call from the local pub and have to come down and carry Shane out to the car and home.
Mullins’ family talked to numerous organisations to try and help their son develop something approaching a normal life. Nothing worked.
Eventually Mullins checked himself into the psychiatric unit of Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway. This is where the turning point came.
“You don’t have to be mental to go there. I wasn’t, but I was depressed and I wanted to change my whole life. I wanted to change so badly that I finally accepted the medicine and counselling. I thought I was a hard man, I was pushing people away from me the whole time, but here, I finally accepted that a brain injury is for life.”
Mullins’ new goal is to develop a career as a motivational speaker. “I want to get off the disability, that’s my main aim. I don’t want it anymore, I want to make a steady income.”
Last month, he was awarded a place on the national Think Big programme, a joint initiative from O2 and Headstrong, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health. The programme supports young people in carrying out mental health projects in their community. Mullins was given grant aid, a laptop and a mobile, together with mentoring support to help put his venture on a commercial footing.
“I’m living proof that D’mess works. I’ve a happy and fulfilled life now. I’d like to share my story with others because I’m proud of what I’ve done. I believe this system has helped me so much and it definitely will help others.”
Check out D’mess on Facebook, or get in touch with Shane at shanemullinsgti@gmail.com
