'Help does exist and it changes everything': Bressie shares mental health advice ahead of Cork event

A mental health charity co-founder has warned that while Ireland is destigmatising conversations around mental health, there is still a way to go regarding some more serious issues.

However, Niall ‘Bressie’ Breslin, who is also known for being a singer and musician, feels that although work and reform is required, Ireland has the potential to be a champion internationally with regards to mental health services.

“If we were all honest about mental health in Ireland, I think society is definitely destigmatising conversations around things like anxiety, stress, and resilience.

“But when you get into the weeds with the far more serious issues that we sometimes see, I don’t think we are there yet. I still think we are deeply stigmatising of serious mental illness,” he told The Echo.

Mr Breslin is currently undertaking a PhD focusing on the area of mental health. One of the primary motivating factors for him to do this was a HSE report published in 2022 on the child and adolescent mental health service (Camhs) in South Kerry.

The Maskey review found that significant harm was caused to 46 children and young people, including weight gain, sedation, elevated blood pressure, and galactorrhoea.

The report also found that the care received by 240 young people did not meet the standards it should have.

In the report, Dr Seán Maskey found “unreliable diagnoses, inappropriate prescriptions, and poor monitoring of treatment and potential adverse effects” exposed many children unnecessarily to the risk of significant harm.

Mr Breslin said: “We know the stories. I’m working with a lot of the families from the South Kerry reports. We should not as a country be tolerating this.

“The Mental Health Commission called for a root and branch change.

“That basically means we have got to start again. We have got to build a ground zero mental health system.”

While there is much work to be done, Mr Breslin believes “Ireland has the potential to be [a] world leader at this”.

“We have a small population. We are good people. We are relatively politically stable regardless of your politics.

“We have an opportunity to [have] really effective youth mental health systems.

“That is what my charity focuses on, which is early prevention and early intervention. That to me is the future.”

Mr Breslin is the co-founder of A Lust For Life, which is a mental health charity dedicated to empowering and educating young people through early preventative mental health programmes. 

When asked about what steps people can take if they are struggling with their mental health, Mr Breslin said that in the modern world it is ok not to be ok.

“I would argue that is a healthy response to what we are dealing with. It is really uncomfortable; I have been there for many years.

“I think sometimes people try to offer out advice to people, without any understanding of what they have gone through or what they have experienced.

“I don’t know what people reading this might have experienced in their life. But what I can tell them is that help does exist and it changes everything.

“I would say to them that this is stuff that a lot of us end up going through and dealing with. And we get through it. It ain’t easy but we get through it.

“The best advice I always give was from my good friend from Mullingar, Marty Mulligan. He always used to say ‘this will ’.

“The good stuff will , the bad stuff will , and the mediocre stuff will .

“That is the truth of being a human, everything changes.”

In comparison to the past, social media has become part of people’s daily lives. Politically, on a global scale, there is also plenty of uncertainty and fear with what the future holds.

Mr Breslin said he believes that “the modern world is absolutely and utterly out of control”.

“I don’t think our minds are designed to be able to deal with the chaos that is bombarding us every single day.

“They say sometimes in neuroscience that we have an old brain for a new world. It is like trying to run Windows 92 on a Mac.

“We haven’t evolved enough to be able to deal with the pace of the world.

“I think one of the best ways to actually acknowledge that and to deal with that is to develop an ability to sit with yourself and be a bit more mindful.

“It is an ability to be able to sit with all the stuff that comes up for human beings.

“It changed my life and that is probably why I am so ionate about it.”

Mr Breslin added: “When you look at the behaviours of some of our world leaders and grown men that is not normal.

“Ultimately what I tell people is that if you are overwhelmed in the midst of all of that, you are not sick. You are human and it is utterly overwhelming.”

Macroom show

As to what people who plan on attending his live show in the Briery Gap in Macroom this May can expect, Mr Breslin said: “What you think the live show is going to be, it isn’t.

“Anyone who has gone to the live shows will tell you that.

“People think when you are taking on a subject like the mind that it is going to be heavy and intense.

“If you are going to take on a subject like that, you have got to give people light and shade.

“Your job is to entertain, your job isn’t there to go and teach and lecture people.

“My background is of 25 years playing shows and gigs. So, you get a feel for how to read the room.

“Live podcasting had to up its game. You can’t just go on stage and talk to people for two hours; you have got to give them something.”

Aside from his show, Mr Breslin is looking forward to making the trip down to Cork to “switch off”.

“I am going to stay down for a few days and head down to West Cork for a night or two I think and just switch off.

“Anytime I am down there I try to spend a bit more time. I used to do a lot of training and work around Schull and Skibbereen.

“So, if anyone is floating around, that is where I hope to be for a few days beforehand.”

Tickets for Bressie’s Where Is My Mind? at the Briery Gap Macroom on May 17 are available at: brierygap.ie