Thank You Covid: Turning challenges into opportunities after the crisis

Barry Williams, author of Thank You Covid. Photograph: Patrick Browne

The learning I had from counselling was my feelings were valid. I didn't have to feel upset or shame about them. I also worked a lot on my self-esteem

A 36-year-old Co Laois man, who has lived through some dark moments and found them to be opportunities for personal growth and transformation, has written a book, published just in time for this year's Men's Health Week, which runs from next Monday.

Barry Williams suffered "three hits in three months" during the pandemic — the break-up of a relationship, a house move because his landlord wanted the property he was renting back, and a job loss. Yet, at the outset of the pandemic, Barry – then based in Cork where he lived for 16 years – had no inkling of the challenges that lay ahead.

"I enjoyed the initial lockdown," he recalls. "I went back to my parents’ home in Abbeyleix. They have a large garden, the weather was really nice and I blocked out the news."

Life seemed to take an even more positive turn when Barry started dating someone he met online.

"I met him on Tinder. We started talking and arranged to meet up. We went for a socially-distanced walk around the Lough in Cork. It seemed really promising. Everything was going in a nice way."

Explaining how he had always had low self-esteem, Barry says he noticed a couple of behaviours that weren't OK. "Now I realise I should have cut my losses, but I chose to ignore them. We ended up having an argument and the relationship ended."

What Barry couldn't understand was just how upset he got at the ending of this relationship. "I was a bit embarrassed at how upset I was. I’d been in a 10-year relationship and I wasn't that upset when it ended. Now in my 30s — and with everybody around me getting married and hooking up — this was almost confirmation that ‘I am unlovable and I’m not going to meet anyone’. I started contemplating whether I wanted to be here."

A wake-up call came — ironically — when he fell asleep behind the wheel of his car on the motorway between Dublin and Cork. "I only woke because I drove over the cats’ eyes, heading for a wall on the road near Cahir. That evening, back in Cork, I realised I didn't want to end my life. It spurred me to ring my GP."

His GP referred Barry for counselling, but just an hour after his first session in October 2020 (he had been back in Cork since May), his landlord rang, giving him six months’ notice. "I’d lived there for seven or eight years. It was a little house, within walking distance of the city centre and my job. It was very convenient and I liked it."

Luckily he was able to move in with a former colleague and her friend. But then came the job loss.

"I was in a business development and events role and as the pandemic went on it became obvious the job would be at risk. I was let go over Zoom. That was hard. I was at my parents’ house when it happened and I remember them feeling very worried for me — like ‘wow, this is another knockback for him’.

"I was fortunate though to get a small redundancy and the pandemic payment. And life was cheap at the time — there wasn't a lot to do."

Before he started counselling, Barry had "felt so low" that he began having weekly acupuncture and reiki sessions.

"Acupuncture at the start of the week, reiki at the end. When I started the counselling I still kept these up."

He saw the opportunity to "go in and do the work on myself that I needed to do, and to have time for myself".

And counselling was helping, even at the basic level of figuring out why the break-up of a short-term romance hit him harder than that of a long-term relationship.

"The counsellor explained that when a long relationship ends, it's generally a slow process towards breaking up — you can be somewhat glad it's over. Whereas in a new relationship, it's still the honeymoon phase. You’re full of hope and expectation and you haven't seen the full personality. And because it ended during the pandemic, it felt all the more isolating and lonely.

"The big learning I had from counselling was that my feelings were valid. I didn't have to feel upset or shame about them. I also looked at things that had bothered me, going back to my teens, and I worked a lot on my self-esteem."

Barry describes going on a "complete personal development binge" between jobs during lockdown. "I lived like a monk — 7am meditation and affirmations. I cooked healthy meals, reduced alcohol and coffee. I did a workout with YouTube every morning and I started yoga. I went for a 45-60 minute walk every evening. I used my journal as a tool to get out my feelings.

"When I look back, I see it now as a blessing. I wouldn't be doing what I’m doing now, or be the person I am now, or know what I know now if it hadn't all happened," says Barry, who has trained to become a reiki practitioner and a life coach. He is also in a new relationship.

"Without the work I did, I wouldn't be in this relationship. It's a very happy relationship.

"I wake up with more energy. I’m more satisfied in my life. I practice gratitude a lot more. I’m a more relaxed, confident and content person."

He's a big believer in keeping what he calls a ‘mental first-aid kit’. For him, it is putting some money aside every month for an acupuncture or reiki session.

"Every month we should do something to help us de-stress – because a lot of stress comes at us."