Both my sons held me up
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention and mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you’re not alone. Help is available:
• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
Lawrence spent his career climbing the corporate ladder, believing hard work and loyalty would secure his future. When three catastrophic events collided, his father’s death, retrenchment from Westpac, and a bike accident, he spiraled into severe depression twice, convinced his family would be better off without him. The breaking point came on his bed in Hornsby when both his teenage sons sat beside him, arms around his shoulders, and told him it would be all right. That moment of being held by them shattered the isolation he believed was protecting his family. With medication, therapy, and the people who showed up for him, he rebuilt. Today, he chairs Mr. Perfect barbecues across the Hunter Valley and beyond, sitting on the tongs next to men facing the same darkness he did, telling them they will get through it.
Lawrence Atkinson is a retired senior financial and management consultant who spent 27 years at Westpac before moving into professional services, intellectual property management, and mental health coaching. He chairs Mr. Perfect, a community organisation that runs monthly barbecues for men navigating disconnection, loneliness, and suicidal ideation, and previously served 23 years with Rotary.
In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Lawrence shares the story behind the moments below.
🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:
• Isolation masquerades as protection: Lawrence believed his family would be better off without him, until they showed him otherwise by holding him.
• Loyalty to institutions is one-directional now: 27 years at Westpac with hardship posts in Bahrain and Port Moresby did not protect him from redundancy.
• Men need to be asked what they need, not told: Mr. Perfect works because it makes no clinical demands.
🕒 CHAPTERS:
00:00 The two times I nearly lost myself
03:00 From Perth barbecues to disconnection
07:48 Seven friends lost
15:41 The corporate climb and the breaking point
22:34 27 years of loyalty, then retrenchment
27:23 Finding worth through service
33:41 What depression takes from men
40:46 The night my sons saved me
43:07 Why shame keeps men silent
45:09 We need to teach men how to think
49:31 Sharing stories from elder to younger
51:30 The sausage and the witness
🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.
📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Lifeline: https://www.lifeline.org.au/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome.
We’re glad you found your way here.
Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.
Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object’s history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.
This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn’t go to plan.
Here you’ll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:
• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham
• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale
• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova
• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience
• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer
Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.
Whether you’re navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you’re welcome here.
New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.
If you’d like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate
Thank you for being part of this community.
We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT WITH US
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes
📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes
📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes
#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #GoldInTheCracks #MensSpe…