Youth suicide is frightening to talk about, which is one reason we need to talk about it carefully. Not loudly, not with easy answers, but in ways that make it more possible for young people to tell the truth when they are struggling.

One of the hardest things about adolescent distress is that it can sit alongside ordinary life. A young person may be talented, funny, doing well at school, loved by family, and still be in pain. Those things are not contradictions. They are part of what makes it so difficult for adults to know what is going on.

On The Nutters Club this week, Christchurch grandfather Jimmy Gifford spoke with Hamish and I about losing his grandson Justin to suicide, and about the conversation Justin had with him two years earlier. Justin had been bullied, was under pressure, and had been self-harming. He was 15 when he asked his grandfather to stop the car and told him he was struggling.

Youth suicide and the first conversation

When a young person discloses self-harm, suicidal thoughts, bullying or intense distress, adults can feel overwhelmed. Panic is understandable. So is the wish to minimise it, especially if what is being said is frightening.

But the first task is usually much simpler, and much harder: take it seriously.

That does not mean assuming the worst, or trying to solve everything in one conversation. It means slowing down enough to show that the young person has been heard. It means being direct and honest, rather than evasive. And it means not leaving the young person alone with the burden of what they have said.

In Justin’s case, Jimmy noticed something was not right before Justin spoke. When Justin did talk, Jimmy sought medical help and involved Justin’s mother, with Justin’s agreement. Those details matter. They show respect for Justin’s trust, while also recognising that adults have a responsibility to act when safety is at stake.

Trusted adults matter

Not every young person can talk to a parent first. That can be painful for parents to hear, but it is also true. Sometimes the safest first conversation is with a grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher, coach, neighbour or family friend.

Rather than seeing that as a failure, we might see it as part of the wider web young people need around them. Adolescents often need more than one safe adult. They may need someone slightly outside the immediate pressure of home, someone who can listen without reacting too quickly.

Jimmy’s message was that young people who cannot speak to their parents should find another trusted adult. That is a useful and humane idea. It also asks something of adults: to be available enough, calm enough, and curious enough that a young person might risk telling us the truth.

Grief, action and meaning

There is no simple redemption in grief after suicide. Fundraising, advocacy and community work do not remove the loss. They do not answer all the questions, and they do not make tragedy acceptable.

But for some people, action becomes one way of living with grief. Jimmy has raised funds for the youth mental-health support I Am Hope and their “Gumboot Friday” initiative.  He has also used community events to encourage more open conversations about distress and suicide. That kind of work can hold two truths at once: that someone is gone, and that caring for others still matters.

Psychologically, this is not about “moving on”. A better phrase might be continuing a relationship with the person who has died, while also turning towards the living. Hope, in this sense, is not cheerfulness. It is the decision to keep making connection possible.

Small openings to talk

Adults often underestimate the value of ordinary attention. Asking a teenager about their day, pausing long enough for the real answer, noticing when behaviour changes, offering a greeting or a smile: none of these things is a magic protection.

But they can create openings. And openings matter.

The difficult balance is to neither interrogate nor ignore. Teenagers need privacy and autonomy. They also need adults who are willing to notice them. Sometimes the most useful question is not clever at all: “You don’t seem yourself. What’s going on?” Then we have to be prepared to listen.

Listen to the episode

Jimmy Gifford’s conversation on The Nutters Club is a moving account of grief, love and the need for honest talk about young people’s mental health. Listen to the full episode for the wider discussion about Justin’s life, Jimmy’s response, and his ongoing work to support others.

Listen to the full episode here.

Meaning and mental health are closely connected, although not always in ways that are easy to explain. When life is difficult, it is rarely enough to simply feel better. Most of us also need some sense that our lives matter, that we belong somewhere, and that there is a reason to keep going.

For some people, that sense of meaning is found in religious faith. For others it comes through being in nature, making music, helping someone else, family, friendship, work, or simply feeling part of the ordinary rhythms of life.  For rugby tragics like Hamish and myself, it can be found in supporting your team.

On The Nutters Club this week, Hamish Williams and I talked about faith, nature and community, and how experiences of something larger than ourselves can support mental health. The callers made it very clear that there is no single path to meaning.

Meaning and mental health: why “something bigger” helps

One of the traps of distress is that it can shrink our world. Depression, anxiety, grief and stress can all pull attention inward. We become preoccupied with our own thoughts, our own failings, our own fears, our own exhaustion.

That inward pull is understandable. It is also often painful.

Experiences of awe, connection or purpose can interrupt that pattern. Standing in a dramatic landscape, being absorbed in prayer, listening to music, fishing with a mate, or helping someone else can all shift the centre of gravity for a while. The self does not disappear, but it may loosen its grip.

Psychologically, that matters. We are not built to exist only inside our own heads. We need relationship, rhythm, belonging and purpose. Sometimes we need words. Sometimes we need silence. Sometimes we need to be side by side with another person doing something ordinary, where the conversation can arrive in its own time.

Faith, community and belonging

Faith communities can offer people structure, acceptance, friendship and hope. For some, walking into a church, mosque, temple or other spiritual community may be the first time in a long while that they feel welcomed rather than judged.

That should not be dismissed. Loneliness and shame are corrosive. A healthy community can be profoundly protective, especially when it offers practical care as well as belief.

But the word healthy matters. Religious and spiritual communities are human communities, and human communities can help or harm. Some people have been wounded by pressure, fear, exclusion or exploitation in the name of faith. Others have grown up with expectations that left them anxious and exhausted.

So the question is not simply whether religion is good or bad for mental health. That is too blunt. Better questions might be:

• Do I feel more connected, or more afraid?
• Is there room for doubt, difference and ordinary human struggle?
• Are vulnerable people treated with care, or used?
• Can I leave, disagree or set limits without being punished?

Trusting our instincts around any community is not cynicism. It is a form of self-respect.

Nature, ritual and ordinary forms of hope

One caller described fishing as his “little religion”. That phrase has stayed with me. Not because fishing needs to become a spiritual practice for everyone, but because it captures something important.

He was describing fresh air, movement, focus, friendship and time away from work pressure. He was also describing a setting where two men could talk without having to sit face to face and call it a serious conversation. That can be especially important in New Zealand, where many of us still struggle to speak directly about pain.

Nature often helps because it does not demand a performance. The sea, bush, mountains and sky do not require us to explain ourselves. They can place our worries in a wider frame, not by making them trivial, but by reminding us that we are part of something living and ongoing.

Of course, nature is not a replacement for treatment when someone is seriously unwell. Nor is faith, music, family or exercise. But these things can be part of the web that holds a person. Mental health is rarely supported by one thing alone.

Listen to the episode

If this topic resonates, the full Nutters Club discussion is worth hearing. It includes callers speaking about faith, fishing, blindness, recovery, family, music, laughter and the outdoors as different ways people find comfort and purpose.

There may not be one correct answer to where meaning comes from. But it is worth asking what helps us feel less alone, more connected, and more able to keep making something of the life we have.

Listen to the full episode here.

By the time a young person is deeply caught up in drugs, offending, or exclusion from school, the story has usually been unfolding for years. The signs may have been there early: disconnection, anger, shame, poverty, family stress, or the simple absence of someone steady enough to keep showing up.

That does not mean the path is fixed. Nor does it mean we can explain offending or addiction with one neat cause. People make choices, and those choices have consequences. But choices are also shaped by pain, opportunity, belonging, and what a young person comes to believe is possible for them.

On The Nutters Club this week, Joel Nicholson and Richard Heke spoke about moving from prison to prevention through Reconex NZ, the charitable trust they have set up in Tokoroa to support young people who may not fit easily in traditional education settings. Their work is informed by hard experience: addiction, offending, prison, and the long process of changing direction.

Prison to prevention starts before the crisis

One of the most useful ideas in their story is “pre-habilitation”. It’s a word they coined, and a great concept. Rather than waiting until someone has spent years in the justice system, it asks what support might help before patterns become entrenched.

In mental health, we often see this same problem. Help arrives once things are already severe. A young person has been suspended, arrested, using substances for years, or has burnt through most of the adults who once tried to help. By then, support is still possible, but trust is harder to build and the losses are greater.

Prevention is not about pretending risk is simple. It is about noticing the environments and behaviours that make harm more likely, and building relationships strong enough to offer another option.

Why lived experience can reach young people

Peer support is not magic. Having lived through something does not automatically make someone able to help others. Training, boundaries, accountability and good supervision matter.

But lived experience can do something valuable. It can lower shame. It can make it easier for a young person to believe, “This person gets it.” For young people who have felt judged, written off, or talked at by adults, that can be the beginning of a different kind of conversation.

I have written previously about resilience as something that can be developed, rather than a trait some people simply have or do not have. In practice, resilience often grows through relationships: someone notices, someone listens, someone holds a boundary without giving up.

Belonging, anger, trust and identity

The topics Reconex NZ teaches are telling: goal-setting, cultural identity, empowerment, anger management, rebuilding trust, and recognising high-risk situations. These are not just “life skills” in the narrow sense. They are about helping a young person develop a more coherent sense of who they are and where they might belong.

Anger, for example, is often treated as the problem. Sometimes it is dangerous and needs firm limits. But anger can also be a signal: of humiliation, fear, grief, or feeling powerless. If we only punish the behaviour without understanding what drives it, we may miss the chance to help a young person find safer ways to respond.

Trust is similar. Adults often expect young people to trust them quickly. But for someone who has experienced rejection, abandonment or instability, mistrust may be protective. Rebuilding trust takes time, consistency, and a willingness to keep doing what you said you would do.

This is why relationships matter so much. As I’ve explored before in relation to attachment and resilience, our capacity to cope is deeply shaped by whether we have had reliable people around us. That does not remove personal responsibility. It gives us a clearer picture of what real change often requires.

Listen to the episode

Joel Nicholson and Richard Heke’s conversation is worth hearing in full. It is not a simple redemption story, and it is not a policy paper. It is a discussion about addiction, prison, family, responsibility, and what can happen when people who know the road try to meet young people earlier on it.

Listen to the full episode here.

For a limited time, if you buy a signed copy of my book, Sh*t Happens: Lessons for Dealing with Life’s Ups & Downs, directly from me, I’ll include a free copy of Mike King’s The Nutters Club.  Click here to order your copy.

You can also request a personalised message if you’re buying Sh*t Happens as a gift — just let me know what you’d like written inside.

Buy Sh*t Happens direct

You can now order Sh*t Happens directly through psychotherapy.nz. Copies are $39.95, signed by me, with the option of adding a short personalised message.

I wrote the book because there is no shortage of advice about how we should be happier, calmer, more resilient or better at managing our lives. Some of that advice is useful. Some of it can make things worse by suggesting that if we’re struggling, we must be doing something wrong.

The title is deliberately blunt because, well, it’s true. Sh*t happens.

Difficult things don’t happen because we have failed to think positively enough, haven’t found the right technique, or aren’t sufficiently resilient. Life is unpredictable, relationships are complicated, and much of what affects us is beyond our control.

A book about life’s ups and downs

One of the traps in conversations about mental health is the idea that distress is always a problem to be fixed as quickly as possible.

Sometimes people absolutely do need treatment, therapy, medication, practical support or urgent help. But distress can also tell us something important about what is happening in our lives — loss, pressure, loneliness, grief, fear, shame, exhaustion, or the gap between how we are living and what we need.

A book isn’t therapy and it can’t solve those things. But a good one can give us some language for what we’re experiencing, offer another way of thinking about it, and sometimes help us feel a little less alone in it.

That was what I wanted Sh*t Happens to do.

Free copy of The Nutters Club

While stocks last, every copy of Sh*t Happens bought directly from me will also come with a free copy of Mike King’s book, The Nutters Club.

Mike has played an important part in changing the way we talk about mental health in New Zealand, particularly around depression, suicide, addiction and the shame that can prevent people from asking for help.

The Nutters Club approaches those subjects through people’s stories. That makes it a good companion to Sh*t Happens: two quite different books, but both interested in talking plainly about the difficult parts of being human.

Signed and personalised

Buying directly also means I can sign your copy and, if you’d like, personalise it for you or for someone you’re giving it to.

So, for a limited time:

Signed copy of Sh*t Happens — $39.95
+ FREE copy of Mike King’s The Nutters Club
+ optional personalised inscription

You can order directly through psychotherapy.nz while the offer lasts.

Money is never just money. It is food, rent, power, transport, children, safety, independence, status, and sometimes the difference between coping and not coping.

So when people talk about money and mental health, it is worth being careful. If someone genuinely cannot afford essentials, the problem is not that they need a better attitude. Rising costs, debt, job loss and insecure work create real pressure. That pressure has real psychological effects.

On a recent episode of The Nutters Club, the discussion turned to the way financial stress can narrow our thinking, increase shame, and make it harder to ask for help. That is a very familiar pattern. When money becomes frightening, our mind often moves into immediate survival: what has to be paid today, what can be delayed, what can be avoided, and what might make the feeling go away for a while.

Money and mental health are tied to meaning

The amount of money we have matters. But the meaning money has for us also matters.

For some people, money means security. For others it means success, freedom, being a good parent, being respectable, or not having to depend on anyone. Sometimes it becomes a way of soothing stress, buying connection, or avoiding difficult feelings.

These meanings do not come from nowhere. We often inherit them. The way our families talked about money, fought about it, hid it, spent it, saved it, or feared it can stay with us for a long time.

That does not mean our money habits are fixed. But it does mean that telling ourselves to “just be sensible” may not be enough. If a purchase briefly softens loneliness, shame or fear, then the behaviour has an emotional logic, even if it causes more trouble later.

When stress pushes us into survival mode

Financial hardship can push people into what is often called survival mode. This is not a diagnosis. It is a useful way of describing what happens when stress becomes immediate and relentless.

In survival mode, attention narrows. The future becomes harder to think about. Planning can feel impossible, not because someone is lazy or irresponsible, but because their mind is busy dealing with threat.

That is also why shame is so corrosive. Shame says, “This is my fault. I should be able to sort this out alone.” But isolation usually makes financial stress heavier, not lighter.

Some signs that money stress is becoming emotionally loaded include:

• avoiding opening bills, bank apps or messages
• spending impulsively to feel better, then feeling worse afterwards
• feeling unable to talk honestly with family or friends about money
• linking financial difficulty with being a failure
• feeling panicky, trapped or unable to think beyond the next payment

Planning is not the same as pretending

Having a plan helps when there is enough room to make one. It does not magically solve poverty, unemployment, debt, or the cost of living. We should not confuse planning with blaming people for circumstances they did not create.

But where there is some capacity to make choices, a plan can reduce the number of decisions that have to be made emotionally. Automatically paying essential bills when money comes in, getting help with budgeting, or talking through decisions before making them can all create a bit more space.

One of the most useful ideas from the episode was the need to “utilise another mind”. That might be a trusted friend, a family member, a financial mentor, a counsellor, a GP, or Citizens Advice Bureau. The point is not that someone else takes over. It is that another person can help us think when stress has made thinking harder.

Some useful questions are simple, but not always easy:

• What did I learn about money growing up?
• What feeling am I trying to manage when I spend?
• What am I most ashamed of saying out loud?
• Who could sit with me while I take the next practical step?

Listen to the episode

The full Nutters Club episode explores money worries, shame, hardship, compulsive spending, budgeting support and the value of asking for help. If money has become a source of stress or isolation, it is well worth listening to the whole discussion.

Listen to the full episode here.

Sports betting in NZ has changed quickly. What once required a trip to a TAB or a deliberate decision can now happen in seconds, on a phone, while watching a game. That shift matters because ease of access changes the psychology of gambling.

On The Nutters Club, Hamish Williams and I talked about why sports betting has become one of the fastest-growing forms of gambling, and why it is raising concern for young New Zealanders in particular. The point is not to condemn everyone who has a bet. Many people gamble recreationally and do not develop problems. But when gambling becomes more available, more normalised, and more immediate, the risks become easier to miss.

The psychology behind sports betting in NZ

Sports betting appeals because it sits close to something many people already care deeply about: sport. A bet can make a match feel more exciting, more personal, and more emotionally loaded. For some, it adds interest. For others, it can begin to shift the focus from the game itself to the outcome of the wager.

The global sports gambling market is now estimated to be worth US$123 billion and is expected to grow significantly over the coming decade. A major driver of that growth is mobile betting. Smartphones and online platforms reduce friction. There is less time to pause, think, or step away.

That matters psychologically. The easier a behaviour is to repeat, the more likely it is to become habitual. With sports betting, the behaviour is often wrapped in excitement, anticipation and the possibility of a quick reward.

Why young people are more vulnerable

In New Zealand, the latest gambling survey found almost 12 percent of people aged 15 to 24 had placed a sports bet through betting providers in the previous year. That is around 80,000 young people.

This age group deserves particular attention. Adolescence and young adulthood are periods when the brain is still developing, including the systems involved in impulse control, planning and weighing up risk. That does not mean young people are incapable of making good decisions. It does mean they can be more susceptible to risk-taking, especially when the activity is fast, exciting and socially normalised.

There is also a developmental concern: the earlier gambling habits are formed, the more likely they are to become lifelong behaviours. A pattern that starts as entertainment can, for some, become part of how they manage stress, boredom, excitement or disappointment.

How in-play betting changes the risk

One of the more concerning features of modern sports betting is live, in-play betting. Instead of placing a bet before a match and waiting for the final result, people can bet during the game as events unfold.

This shortens the time between placing a bet and receiving a result. Psychologically, that immediacy can increase the addictive potential. The cycle of anticipation, outcome and another opportunity to bet becomes much faster.

Sports betting has also become more embedded in the way sport is presented. Odds updates, sponsorship and promotional offers can make gambling appear to be a normal part of watching sport. For young viewers especially, that can blur the line between fandom and betting.

Warning signs sports betting may be becoming harmful

It can be hard to recognise when entertainment is turning into something more harmful. The warning signs include:

• Chasing losses
• Increasing the size of bets
• Gambling to escape stress
• Borrowing money to continue betting
• Lying about gambling habits
• Gambling interfering with work or family life

These signs are worth taking seriously, not because they prove someone is “bad” or “weak”, but because they suggest gambling may be taking on a role that is no longer simply recreational.

As with many addictive behaviours, the problem is not usually one single bet. It is the pattern: more access, more urgency, more secrecy, more money, and more difficulty stopping.

Listen to the episode

To hear the full conversation about the psychology behind New Zealand’s sports betting boom, listen to this episode of The Nutters Club. It explores why sports betting has become so appealing, and how to recognise when entertainment may be shifting into harm.

Listen to the full episode here.

Male survivors of sexual abuse are still too often left out of how we talk about sexual violence, trauma and recovery. That absence matters. When people cannot see their experience named, or cannot find help that understands it, suffering can become more private, more confusing and more dangerous.

Sexual abuse in childhood can shape an adult life in ways that are not always obvious, even to the person living with the effects. Anger, violence, emotional turmoil, shame, isolation, and suicidal thoughts may all be part of a much bigger picture. None of these responses are simple, and none of them tell the whole story of a person.

On The Nutters Club, Christchurch advocate Ken Clearwater spoke about seeking help at a crisis point in his late thirties, after years of distress connected to sexual abuse he experienced as a boy. His story raises an issue New Zealand still needs to take seriously: support for male survivors has improved, but there remain real gaps in services and in the justice system.

Why male survivors of sexual abuse may struggle to seek help

For many men, asking for help can be hard enough. When the help is about sexual abuse, the barriers can be even higher. There may be fear of not being believed, uncertainty about whether what happened counts, or deep shame about needing support at all.

There can also be a lack of language. If a boy grows up without anyone acknowledging that boys can be victims of sexual abuse, he may carry the effects for years without understanding where they come from. This does not mean every difficulty in adult life can be traced back to trauma. But it does mean trauma needs to be considered with care, especially when someone has lived for a long time with distress that feels hard to explain.

Trauma, anger and the search for meaning

One of the difficult truths about trauma is that it does not always look like sadness or fear. Sometimes it looks like anger. Sometimes it looks like drinking, fighting, withdrawing, controlling behaviour, or repeatedly getting into trouble. These patterns can hurt other people, and they still need to be understood in context.

Understanding is not the same as excusing. A trauma-informed approach does not remove responsibility. It asks a different question: what happened to this person, and what support might help them change?

That question can be the beginning of recovery. For Ken Clearwater, support from a psychologist helped him connect his adult struggles with childhood trauma. For others, the path may begin in a different place. The common thread is being met with dignity, patience and a willingness to listen.

The role of peer support

Professional help matters, especially when someone is in crisis or dealing with long-standing trauma. But clinical services are not the only form of support that can help.

Clearwater has spoken about the value of peer support for male survivors: being with others who have lived through something similar, and who understand some of the silence, confusion and shame from the inside. Peer support is not a replacement for therapy or for a justice system that works properly. But it can reduce isolation and help people feel less alone with experiences they may have hidden for decades.

New Zealand has developed community-led peer-support models that have attracted attention overseas. That is something to recognise. It also should not make us complacent. Survivors still report barriers to getting help, and the process of reporting abuse or going through prosecution can itself be difficult and distressing.

What better support might mean

Better support starts with believing that male survivors exist, and that their needs are worth taking seriously. It means services that are accessible, informed by trauma, and able to respond before someone reaches breaking point.

It also means holding more than one truth at once:

• New Zealand has made progress in recognising childhood sexual abuse.
• Male survivors have often been overlooked.
• Peer support can be deeply valuable.
• Clinical services and the justice system still need to do better.
• Recovery is possible, but it should not depend on luck or persistence alone.

Perhaps the most important shift is a cultural one. When men can speak about abuse without being diminished, mocked or disbelieved, help becomes easier to imagine. That does not solve everything. But it opens a door that has been closed for too many, for too long.

Listen to the episode

To hear the full discussion with Ken Clearwater about advocacy, peer support, and what New Zealand still needs to do for male survivors of sexual abuse, listen to the episode of The Nutters Club.

Listen to the full episode here.