Tim Rhys-Evans: All in the Mind

Every year, one in four people will suffer from a mental illness.

My name is Tim Rhys-Evans and I am one of those people.

There's still a massive stigma around this disease

and that's why I've decided to make this programme,

sharing the story of some of the darkest episodes in my life in

the hope that it might help others with this most taboo of subjects.

Thank you for watching.

In 2013, Tim Rhys-Evans was tasting success

beyond his wildest dreams.

His choir Only Men Aloud hit the big time

with commercial and critical acclaim

and Tim was made an MBE by the Queen.

In the same year, he attempted suicide.

"A suicide note is a weird thing

"and I want everyone to know that, as I write this, I don't have tears

"streaming down my face, nor do I feel much of anything, to be honest.

"I think I've gone past feelings except one - love.

"As I write this last paragraph, I can see all of you

"and you're all smiling as I am now.

"Keep smiling and thank you.

"I'm sorry that I've abdicated the responsibility but I have to.

"I can see no other way."

HE SIGHS

I had a classic Valleys upbringing.

Terraced house.

Very, very close family life.

They're still a bedrock of me emotionally and physically, I guess.

I started playing the piano when I was five,

but having a passion for playing the piano was very

different from most of the kids I was in school with, who loved

playing football or rugby

or doing "boys" things, you know,

and I wasn't one of those.

When you are a bit different

and you might want to go to school in your grandad's pocket watch

and waistcoat, a cravat on a casual-dress day,

and you go into Bedwellty Comprehensive School,

that's not the way to win friends.

And it kind of is inviting a kicking, really.

I had a pretty miserable time in school from bullying.

I guess I've always hidden parts of my personality

so eventually I began to realise there was something

about the way I behaved

and I got used to trying to not let that show.

The person who I really was

I knew that I didn't really like,

so I spent years trying to be somebody who I wasn't.

That was very difficult to reconcile,

those two strands of my personality.

Tim left home and followed his heart

to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

As his early career blossomed, he also found love.

'I must say I've been very impressed with how organised we've been,

'I must say, mostly thanks to Alun.

'Yes, I was just about to thank myself.'

LAUGHTER

'Ready, everyone?'

We had our civil partnership back in 2008 and it meant such a lot to know

that our family were happy to be there, supporting us, proud of us.

What we were didn't matter.

It's who we were that mattered.

I would say it was the best day of my life.

We met on a trip to America.

We'd both joined the choir as choristers.

That was it, basically,

and just before we were meant to be going out on a three-month

tour of America, the conductor became ill

and Tim took over as conductor of the choir,

so that was the beginning of his choral conducting career, really.

# Big world...

# ..here I...

# ..am! #

In the summer of 2008, Tim's choir, Only Men Aloud,

reinvented the image of male voice choirs and took Britain by storm.

When he mentioned he was starting this new, fashionable, sexy

male voice choir, I think I just jumped at the chance

and never looked back since.

# I'll march my band out

# I'll beat my drum. #

'It was the best damned performance of the series.'

Tim sprinkles the stardust. He just comes in and he makes it magical

and that's Tim.

That's just him and no-one else can do that.

I'm just really proud of the boys

because they've just done an amazing job.

Oh, gosh, this is ridiculous!

Winning Last Choir Standing, winning a Classical Brit,

playing stadiums, playing arenas, Only Boys Aloud being

on Britain's Got Talent and singing for the Queen in Buckingham Palace.

It was an amazing time. A very intense time.

Ridiculously intense time.

We were living with each other pretty much 24/7,

but it was incredible.

Last Choir Standing providing the platform

for seven plus million people to watch us every week,

we have an amazing opportunity now that I really want to seize.

Tim was always ambitious. He wanted the best out of us, I think.

He was a bit of a perfectionist

when it came to what we were singing, what we were looking like.

He would have fun with us as well.

He would always be one of the boys as well, which was great.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'The external perception of me was somebody who was revelling in

'being on red carpets and winning awards.'

Tonight's packed house has therefore raised a fantastic £33,000

for Children in Need.

'I can walk out on stage.

'I could be the Tim Rhys-Evans that was fronting a concert or whatever.'

I enjoyed it.

It was great, but I can't say I ever stopped

and thought, "Wow!"

Really hard-working. Never really had any free time for himself.

It was always one thing after another.

He was having meetings in London and he would come back

and have a rehearsal and go back to London and have more meetings.

He would always double-book himself for things.

He kind of had our lives in his hands at that point,

which I think he felt very responsible for.

All the pressure is on him, because every time we saw him,

we had to ask him a question. "Can we do this? A TV company's called.

"They want to interview you.

"They want the boys on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'"

So I think the pressure probably started to build

just because there was nobody else,

there was only him that could answer that question.

When I look back now, I'd been burning the candle at both ends

from a work perspective, been asking too much of myself,

and this had been going on for some time.

And I'd become used to feeling...

..exhausted,

to feel constantly on the edge.

I remember him saying, "I think I've worked out a way

"I can get everything done and that's to work even harder."

And I thought to myself, "How is that even possible?

"You are working every hour God sends, seven days a week.

"You cannot do that."

So, at the time when he did say that,

maybe I should have thought, "Hang on, he needs to stop this now."

'The winner and Last Choir Standing is...

'Only Men Aloud!'

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Mental illness doesn't care about success.

All it does is feed off it and tell you that,

"Well, yeah, but that's not really YOU that's done that, is it?

"You've just taken all the glory."

It feeds off those moments of success in a very nasty way

and it turns everything on its head.

'They've been absolutely fantastic throughout this.'

I would come home and I would do nothing,

absolutely nothing.

I'd become very used to not sleeping so I would go to bed,

possibly the wrong side of a bottle of wine, and then three o'clock

in the morning wide awake in what I realise now were panic attacks.

I was not coping well at all.

But what I was very good at was

hiding the fact that anything was wrong.

I suppose a period of weeks of suicidal thoughts...

Probably, no, more than weeks, MONTHS of suicidal thoughts,

but then that got into a period of days of, "I must do this."

I was looking for ways in which I could buy a gun

and, ultimately, it was, "OK, I'm going to do this now."

Whilst Tim was suffering in silence, outwardly he was

at the height of his success and was honoured with an MBE from the Queen.

That was the pinnacle of his life, really.

He'd been recognised by the Queen for all the work he'd done.

I know that they went for some amazing food.

His nana had always wanted to go to Buckingham Palace

and things like that, so that was important to him.

He really wanted them to have an amazing day.

Whilst I was pleased as Punch, I felt a fraud.

I felt that people didn't know the real me and

if they did the last thing they'd be nominating me for is an MBE.

I don't know why I thought like that, but I guess

a lifetime of telling yourself you're rubbish, you believe it.

It was two days before the MBE

and I really wasn't sleeping at all,

so I went to my GP.

"Can you give me something to get through it?"

The following day he was visiting the Queen to get an MBE

and I thought that was a bit of juxtaposition.

This is someone who's very,

very successful in ways people judge success

but yet he was deeply, deeply troubled on that day.

He'd said something to me like,

"As long as you're not having any suicidal thoughts," and I said,

"Of course I'm having suicidal thoughts. Everyone has them."

And his eyes looked shocked and he said, "No, they don't."

It very much concerned me that he was presenting with a severe

depressive episode with suicidal thoughts.

That's something which needs to be taken very seriously indeed.

I remember Dr Pink saying to me,

"Well, look, if the suicidal thoughts get more commonplace and

"if you do anything like making any lists, like a goodbye list,

"you must call me."

And I remember coming back from an Only Boys Aloud gig

and, as I was driving home, I was just thinking,

"OK, I must write to them. Must write to them."

But then I just caught myself.

Hang on, you're making these lists of people you're going to say sorry

to because you're killing yourself, so I rang my GP and he said,

"I want you to stop what you're doing, come in and see me."

And I said, "I can't.

"I've got a sound check to go to and a gig tonight."

He said, "No, you haven't. I can get the police to come in and I can

"section you under the Mental Health Act if you don't come in."

So I said, "OK, I'll make a deal with you. I'll do the sound check,

"then I'll come in, I'll see you, then I'll go back and do the gig."

We were singing with Bonnie Tyler, we were singing with Ruth Jones,

so it was a kind of a real special evening.

At the end of the rehearsal he came up to me and said,

"I've got to go to the doctor's." I didn't think any more of it.

I just thought maybe it's cos he wasn't sleeping, maybe he

wasn't feeling very well, and he kind of kept things to himself anyway.

I was persuaded that I had to go to Whitchurch Hospital.

I said, "There's nothing wrong with me. Why would you hospitalise me?"

"It's because you're depressed."

"Well, I'm not depressed. I don't feel sad. I'm not tearful.

"I just don't want to live."

I then had a call from him probably about an hour before we were

due to go on and he said, "I'm outside, I'm in the car.

"I can't come in. Could you bring my stuff out?"

And he was quite distant, looked like he wasn't quite there,

so I said, "Here's your stuff. Are you OK?"

He went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've just got to go to hospital,"

and I didn't think more of it.

He just said bye. I closed the door and he drove off.

I guess that should have been the last time I'd ever see him.

That should have been the last time I'd have said goodbye to him.

So, anyway, they didn't have any beds for me in Whitchurch Hospital.

They said, "Is there somebody at home?"

I lied and said there was -

yet again, lies - and went home.

They gave me a sleeping tablet they said would knock me out

for 12 hours.

I got about five.

I wanted out.

I was adamant that I should kill myself,

that everyone would be better off without me here.

I couldn't see any point in my existence.

Couldn't see any point in prolonging the inevitable.

In the end I decided the best way to go about it would be to hang myself

so, forget the gun, it's got to be the rope,

the rope that we keep in the garage

to tie the Christmas tree on every year.

At this point, Tim sat down and wrote his suicide note in a journal.

It was 15 pages long.

As I'm just saying my final sort of...

..literally final thing that I was ever going to say,

or so I thought,

this...wail from inside me,

this scream, this primal noise,

nothing like I've ever experienced ever before...

..just erupted, just seemed to take over my whole body.

Before you know it, I'm kneeling on the floor of my kitchen

just...screaming.

And, with that, the phone rang

and I knew it was going to be the people from the crisis team

so I answered the phone, pulled myself together, thought,

"This is great cos you can arrange for them to call and,

"in the meantime, you can hang yourself."

So I answered the phone and she said, "Is that Tim?" I said yes.

"How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," and then...

..this...

..thing overtook me once again and I couldn't speak.

I was...

I was truly inconsolable,

just sobbing, and I'm not a crier particularly,

not at sad things anyway.

And she said, "OK, keep talking to me. We're coming to you."

And, before I knew it, the psychiatric team arrived at my house

and, er...intervened.

There was just something that I just didn't feel was right.

I phoned Tim's mobile and the house and he didn't answer,

which is not unusual at all.

But I just said to my husband, "I've got to go to Tim's."

I don't know what it was, just a sixth sense.

Then, as I drove up, the feeling of...

..doom, I suppose.

I didn't know what I was going to find, so as I pulled up to the house

there was a car jackknifed across the drive, a car I didn't recognise,

so I walked through, and through the glass in the door

I could see the back of a lady's head, again who

I didn't recognise, so I knocked on the door and she opened it,

so I went up and he was there and he couldn't...

get dressed so... I helped him to get dressed

and he came down and he was really sorry that I was there

and he'd put me out, you know,

those feelings of, you know,

that he'd put people out, really, and he didn't want to do that.

The support that the crisis team gave to us

on that day was really quite amazing, you know,

and they said they're not always that lucky, cos quite often

when they arrive at people's homes it's too late.

That was quite difficult to hear.

Tim's husband Alun, a professional opera singer, was away at the time

performing with the English National Opera.

I was sitting in Starbucks, of all places, right next to the

Coliseum in London and I just had a phone call.

I was so cross with the people who admitted him. God, was I frank.

I was really angry.

Maybe...

I didn't feel angry towards him actually, but maybe it was

an inverted anger towards him

that I was angry towards the medical people at the time.

I was really angry with the crisis team that were here.

I just wanted them out of my house.

I think I remember telling them, "You just have to leave now.

"I'll be back in two hours from London."

I went straight on the train.

"But you have to leave. I do not want you there when I'm back."

I thought I could deal with it all myself.

I thought I was able to deal with it myself

and to brush it maybe all nicely under the carpet

and none of this would have maybe existed at all and the great

superhero that I am would phone from London and think you're fine, you're

OK, you don't need any medical help, you don't need any medication.

We'll just carry on as we are.

I think it was to do with stigma.

That name of Whitchurch Hospital carries such a...

"Oh, my gosh, they're in Whitchurch Hospital!

"They must be absolutely mental!"

Tim was placed under emergency supervision

at Whitchurch Psychiatric Hospital, Cardiff.

The thing about mental illness is that it's a devious little shit

and it sits there and it knows exactly how to

get into those dark places that can really mess with your head.

That's what it does. That's its function.

I gave my less...

healthy mind a name.

I called him Derek.

It felt like he was there lurking

and when I was least suspecting it,

he would just come in

and poison.

It felt like he'd been doing that for years and years

and years and years and all of a sudden he was going to overtake me.

Despite strong antidepressant drugs and the highest standards of care,

Tim was still not safe from his demons.

I do remember...

..being in my room and there was a little sort of shutter on the door

which was periodically looked through to check every 15 minutes

that you were fine,

and I thought I'd timed it well,

that I could...

..I could strangle myself with my dressing-gown cord.

I waited for the shutter to open and then set to work but...

..it reminded me, the nurse said to me

that she'd noticed my behaviour that morning was slightly odd.

So, yeah, I do remember that, being sort of...

reprimanded...

..held down and...the thing being untied.

Seeing him in there was heartbreaking.

I just thought to myself, "You don't deserve to be here."

It's not quite One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but it's up there.

It really is up there.

At the time, I actually hated them with a passion.

I felt they were responsible for pulling him

into the mental-health system, which, of course, he needed.

I didn't know that,

but, looking back at it, it's a tremendous system.

That crisis team, if they weren't there,

I don't know what we would have done.

He wasn't aware at the time of telling people, telling his mother,

or telling my parents.

He just wasn't aware of it.

It was at the back of my mind constantly, you know,

"I have to ring them, I have to tell them,"

and that was hard.

Sorry.

I think you always want to protect your closest family

from any kind of hurt...

..and telling my parents, my sisters,

telling his mother, his brother, was just awful

because you knew instantly you'd...

..hurt them.

Not me personally hurt them, but the information that I was about to tell

them would change their life for the next, well,

however long it took him to get better.

It's hard to get your head to where he was.

He was in such a dark place, to try and kill himself, to try

and kill himself again when he was in the hospital,

you just can't imagine where someone is,

someone that you know, someone that has such lust for life

and that love of music

and making people happy,

to be in such a dark place that you just want to end it all.

I'd never been in anywhere like that.

It was very sparse and bare.

It was hard seeing him there, cos he did look smaller and tired

and older and all those things but he seemed quite...not happy,

but more content in there,

so that was some comfort.

Me and Alun were allowed to take him out. We took him for a walk.

I'd never been so frightened in my life.

So we walked down Whitchurch high street and I thought he was

just going to throw himself into the road, but it was fine.

We had a coffee and then he wanted to go and buy a notebook,

and then he started to write, which was great.

It was really cathartic for him to do that.

Over eight days in hospital, Tim filled six journals with thoughts

and pictures as his mind struggled to make sense of what was happening.

There's moments of real bizarre fantasy like,

"Who knows where in this emporium of wonders I'll find myself next.

"Maybe it'll be Space Mountain or fighting with Yoda

"while we fend off evil oompah-loompahs

"in the chocolate fountain.

"We shall see, my dear, we shall see."

I've written poetry.

I've written music, which is odd...

..because I didn't think I could face music.

It would take several weeks for drug therapy to stabilise Tim's mind.

Until then, he would be kept safe.

"All the meds, they're like manna from Heaven,

"like that first drink of cold tap water after a long run.

"They're like that cold rush of air that fills your lungs

"after swimming too long under the sea.

"They're a gift from God via the scientists' laboratory.

"I worry less about work.

"I care less about the future and I think less about dying.

"Surely that must be a good thing for now.

"Thank God the veil has lifted.

"I will face this demon head on.

"I'm not afraid to get into the lowest place

"and look it into the eyes, for then only can I rid myself of it.

"Only then can I tame this ugly and destructive, devious and clever

"creature and only then can I live my life properly."

Despite the austere building,

the care Tim received at Whitchurch was second to none.

In Whitchurch Hospital there was an art therapist.

She encouraged me to just get my old watercolours out

and we had this day when she was getting me

to experiment with different washes

and paint sunsets and paint

just sort of calming scenes

and she said, "I'll leave you to have five minutes

"and I'll come back and find you."

So I was doing a little bit of this watercolouring

and then I just thought, "No, sod this," and I got the biggest piece

of paper I could find and I got red acrylic paint

and I just painted the first thing which came into my head,

which was a question mark.

By the time she came back into the room

I'd painted 14 different question marks.

All red, all on white backgrounds,

variety of sizes

and they were getting progressively smaller,

but the question was always there no matter how small it was.

Sometimes it's screaming at you in the face and sometimes it's

just this little nagging, gnawing thing,

but it never left me.

It's cliched in so many ways, but it was fantastically...

invigorating

and it enabled me to do something that I just felt

I could be creative.

It did.

It made me feel better, and I think those types of therapies,

art therapy, talking therapies, all of that is this package of help.

Over two years on since his life-saving treatment at Whitchurch,

Tim's long-term care continues under his GP.

I haven't seen you for a little while. How have you been?

No, I've been good, actually.

Since we adjusted the medication tail end of the summer,

I've been finding that I've been coping with things much better.

I'd be lying if I said that I never have

suicidal thoughts

but they are few and far between now

and they are...

I think all the protective factors around me now of the need to be well

in order to be a fully functioning human being...

..when I have any of those thoughts

I'm able to put a lot of my coping strategies into place.

I think it has been a real wake-up call for him.

I think he's now established on some medication which seems to be

helping him and I think that

he's got a very good chance of recovering completely.

He'll probably always be a little bit vulnerable for mental-health

issues, but I think he's got a really good chance of making

almost a complete recovery.

OK, let's...do that again.

Just once, just once.

Tim's health continues to improve.

He's taken a big step by returning to work.

Who knows where this is going to go? Just feel it.

Just dance or whatever. Shut up, Tim. Here we go.

-ALL:

-# To stop the train in cases of emergency just pull on the chain. #

'I've always found music to be this chalice into which

'I could pour all of my problems,

'but when I had my breakdown,

'music was completely off limits to me.

'I just couldn't listen to music

'because it was too painful a reminder of the person I wasn't.'

THEY CHEER

To be back in work now, to be able to make music again

and enjoy this thing that is SO important to me,

to enjoy being in a room with no instruments, no piano,

just a group of people and then you start to sing and you create

harmony, so what I'm trying to do, and I would be lying

if I said I did this very successfully all the time,

but I am trying in the middle of a piece of music, when we're

in the middle of a rehearsal, just to think, "This is great.

"It's really, really good to be back

"and to be...happy."

THEY HARMONISE

LAUGHTER

I was thinking something completely different. Jesus Christ!

Tim's mother and family were there for him

throughout every stage of his illness.

The memories of that time are still very raw.

'I saw my dad's parents survive him.

'He died at the age of 49 of natural causes

'and they were completely devastated and they never got over it...'

Hi, Mam!

Hello.

'..and I had to see my mother witness her son wanting to just say,

'"Thanks for giving birth to me, thanks for all you've done,

'"I'm off now."'

You never want to tell the person who's given you life that

you're in that state,

but, thank God, Mam never judged me,

never questioned me.

Just supported me.

Yeah, I think

-one of the problems is that you kept everything inside you...

-Yeah.

..and didn't tell everybody.

Because you think you know the answer

and the answer is not good...

..but it's the last thing you're going to do, is tell people that.

But, yeah, thank God, things are...

Well, you know the story.

I got there, thanks to this one, thanks to Alun.

Look at that. An original lightsaber.

1979, that was.

I had my record player

and I had my double album of Grease.

Oh, yeah, you danced and listened to that for hours.

Despite being advised to get rid of them,

Tim has kept the journals in which he recorded his darkest thoughts.

I don't know why I keep them.

I don't know why I keep the question marks.

I don't know why I haven't had just a post-breakdown bonfire.

Um...

Maybe one day that will be the thing to do,

but, at the moment, I think

they're a very useful and...

arresting reminder of a period in my life

that I do not want to go back to.

So, at the moment, they're like a guard in front of the fire.

Today, Tim has chosen to read his suicide note

for the first time since he wrote it.

Right, OK, so, um...

"I'm sorry that I haven't been honest with you about how I've been

"feeling and if you're reading this then I've probably gone through

"with escaping from what seems to me like an overly exhausting situation.

"I'm not sure whether I will do this at the moment

"but, as this comes over me in waves,

"I wanted to make sure that I'd at least written something down.

"A suicide note is a weird thing and I want everyone to know that,

"as I write this, I don't have tears streaming down my face.

"Nor do I feel much of anything, to be honest.

"I think I've gone past feelings except one - love.

"I feel an overwhelming sense of love that can't be contained almost.

"I've loved you all with all my heart and continue so to do,

"so wherever I be, I know that will continue.

"I feel blessed, so blessed to have had a wonderful family

"and friends and to have an opportunity to do something good.

"I want you to know that this isn't anybody's fault."

It's very, very odd reading that.

Mmm, it's...

I don't recognise that man.

But I do remember writing it and I do remember how I...

..just the state I was in and it was a weird mixture of...

..calm and...

..complete mess.

I feel a bit shaken, to be honest.

No, maybe I should get rid of it.

Maybe I need to be shaken.

Maybe I need to have a constant reminder what happens

when you don't talk,

when you keep fears and problems in...

..and why I can never go there again

because, if I do,

if I go to that depth ever again,

I don't think I'll come out.

I do fear it coming back, of course I do. Anybody would.

Anybody would.

It's taken years, actually,

to get the right balance of medication,

and thank God for it, because that kind of realigns the chemical

inbalances of your brain and of your mental health and it helps.

I would urge people to, if they are feeling...

..any signs of depression

or can't cope at work or at home,

to seek advice or just tell somebody about it.

There's lots of help out there in different forms,

but I just hope that people don't feel

there's no other option or no way out.

I think him getting back into work

and getting back into doing the things he loves is great to see.

He's just inspiring these people again and it's great to see that.

It's what we've missed over the past few years,

so it's lovely to see and I just hope he continues, he will, he will

continue to get better and, one day, let's hope he's fully recovered.

I'm really, really lucky.

I'm in a very stable, long-term relationship with a wonderful man.

I've got a brilliant family.

I've got great friends.

It shouldn't really have happened to me,

yet it did,

and there are people out there who have nobody

and if, by making this programme,

I can increase the awareness of this

very common illness,

and if I can help to normalise it

in a very, very small way,

then that's why I wanted to do it.