I’m 42, looking nervously at 43 later this year. I have a job that pays less than the one I had 10, maybe even 15 years ago. My car is is 10 years old, compared to the brand new company cars I used to drive for much of my previous career. My clothes are often second hand, or at least economy brands. I used to go out Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and even have the odd few beers on a Sunday lunchtime. I’d think nothing of spend fifty quid ($100) on a good curry, half a dozen pints and more whiskeys on ice than I could count. I played football most Sundays (hangover Sunday morning football). I worked hard. I’ve always worked hard, but I played even harder. I would hardly say that I was the most attractive bloke on the planet but I hadn’t fallen out of the ugly tree either so there was plenty of female interest (strangely). I still had most of my hair (unlike now) and could point to a reasonably rich array of romantic, sexual or simply chaotic liaisons. On the surface of the glossy magazine that advertised my life, it all looked pretty good. There were definitely some good times in those years, one or two great nights and I think I had fooled myself that I was living a life to be envied.

You see, at 3 o’clock in the morning the truth would arrive and there was no one left to fool. It was then I used to feel so incredibly, bone-numbingly sad. Empty. A fraud. Somehow the alcohol that had made me the life and soul of the party only a few hours ago had managed to give me an insight into myself that seemed as real and authentic as the cold concrete floor I was sat on. And at those moments, with no-one around to care, the despair and the loneliness kicked in. And that’s when I would cry, I’d cry my bloody eyes out and no one ever saw it. No one knew. No one that is, except for me. I knew.

Of course the next day I was back in denial. Back to work, back to the nice car, the bachelor pad, the nice income, back to the pretending my life was great. It’s very easy (I think) to stand outside yourself and pretend you are happy. It’s a lot bloody harder to force yourself to look at the big black hole inside and admit that you are not. Deep down I knew something was missing. I just lacked the courage and insight to face it. So I didn’t. I just carried on, more hard work, more martyrdom, more beer, more unfortunate incidents, more guilt, more shop doorways, more tears and more despair. And much, much more denial.

I considered suicide. I really did. But deep down I knew I’d never do it. I didn’t have the balls. And that made it worse. I couldn’t change it and I couldn’t end it. How much more of a failure could I really be?

I’d like to be able to say that I found the courage and made the changes, but that’s not how it happened. Something else intervened. I got sick. I got ill in a way that forced me to come a grinding halt and all my choices were taken away from me. It happened when I was 17000 kilometres away from home. One day I was on holiday still living in cloud bloody cuckoo land and the next I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom. I cut my holiday short and travelled home, alone. I don’t how I did that, I just knew I had to. It’s a whole other story but as I think of it now I think of waiting at Singapore airport, exhausted and sick as the world walked past me, and feeling so completely and utterly alone. And so very scared.

And so there followed a period of years where my old life became impossible. I was forced to re-think it, to re-evaluate what was important to me and what needed to be discarded. This was the turning point, my second chance and it came out of the bitterest pill – illness.

Typically, I still fought the changes – denial repeated over and over. But gradually the penny started to drop. The friends that supported me through this period of my life are still my friends now. There aren’t many, but they are so important to me. Somehow they saw something in me that was worth supporting and I will be forever grateful.

One friend at that time, went beyond even this. She stuck by me despite my repeated attempts to reconvene my old life. I’ll never know why. And gradually our friendship became something more and we grew together from it. Our friendship grew into love, not the kind of fickle, intense, but brief and ultimately unrewarding love, but a deep love built on the foundations of mutual support, respect and friendship. A love of equals.

We married, one sunny day in 2004 – 7 years after I became ill. A zillion people came to the wedding and it was the best day of our lives. Shortly after this our daughter was conceived. She’s 6 now. Somewhere between 1997 and 2004 I re-trained as a counsellor and in 2009 I finally left my corporate IT career behind me (for good) and my wife, my daughter and I emigrated to New Zealand. Now I work full time in mental health, I help people with their big life decisions, and I earn comparatively crap money. Our son was born 9 months ago and we have a house with a decent size garden for the kids to play in. The big illness has gone. So has the despair.

There is no glossy cover to my life anymore. What you see is who I am. I still have the odd beer, the odd wine and even the very rare ice cold whiskey. I still play football (badly). But more often that not a good night is a damn good cup of tea, a good book or some armchair sport. A good day is any day that I’m with my family, or catching (rarely) a fish, picking lemons from the tree, gathering up the eggs from the chickens or eating something that we grew in the garden. Add to that lazy beach days, picnics, bed-time stories, spending time with friends and having honest relationships.

So what’s my message? I guess it’s to be honest with yourself, look at the things that aren’t right and seek to change them. Be man enough to seek help, stop pretending. I was lucky, I got ill, which I think is life finally running out of patience with me and forcing me to make the changes I needed to be made. Don’t be a bloody fool like me, and waste all those years. Do it now.

At 42 (still looking nervously at 43) I have 75% less hair, I have a bad back, an inguinal hernia and permanent neck pain. And I’ve never been happier.

Doesn’t that say it all?