Support my 110km challenge for mental health research!

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Total Raised

$883

Total Distance

52km

Distance Goal

110km

Support My Walk for Mental Health Research

Did you know that 1 in 5 Australians experience a mental illness each year?

This October, I’m taking part in One Foot Forward to help Australians impacted by mental illness and suicide.

I'm walking to raise funds for Black Dog Institute to put ground-breaking new mental health treatment, education, and digital services into the hands of the people who need them most.

It would mean so much to me if you donated to support my walk.

Together, we can create better mental health for all Australians.

My Updates

Day 4

Blisters have well and truely formed and the legs are sore, but here I am. A shorter walk for today…

Day 2

12km done this morning. 87kms to go!

Day 1

Day 1 off to a good start. 11km down. 99km to go!

My reason why…

For the small portion of people who know my whole story, you know why I am participating in this. For the larger portion of you who don’t know my story, just know that without treatment and education around mental health, my life may look very different.

Here’s my story:

After suffering silently with my mental health for as long as I can remember, at the age of 15, my mental health rapidly declined. I avoided support and treatment for around a year, until it became clear that seeking help was essential for my survival.

I was very lucky to have a few amazing mentors in my life who encouraged me to receive further help, yet continued to support me even when I refused to acknowledge that there was something wrong.

At the age of 16, I was medicated. By the age of 18, I was diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression after an intense trial of over eight antidepressants within a two-year period. I was also diagnosed with anxiety, OCD, and a possible panic disorder.

Between the ages of 18 and 19 — years that were supposed to be some of the best years of my life — I went through 17 weeks of daily treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive medical procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain.

This was the first treatment that resulted in a drastic decrease in my life-altering depression.

To this day, I am still medicated for my anxiety and OCD. I still experience symptoms of depression, sometimes debilitating ones. However, when surrounded by the right support and after educating the people around me about my experiences, these mental illnesses have become much easier to live with.

I am not telling you my story for pity. In fact, I don’t want any pity whatsoever.

I want to educate future generations about mental illnesses — what to look for, how to recognise the signs, and how to access help.

My purpose in life is to help young individuals, just like teenage me, in the same way my mentors helped me.

So yes, committing to walking 110 km throughout the month of October, while studying full-time and working between 45–60 hours a week, may be hard.

But nothing is as hard as silently fighting a battle alone — a battle that never needed to be fought alone