I’m running the London Marathon and would like to raise money for the Pearl Exchange, a really wonderful charity set up in my home town (Bude, North Cornwall) that supports 18-30 year olds, through free counselling and well-being/creative activities. As beautiful as it is, Cornwall can be an incredibly isolating and difficult place for young people, especially in winter. There is an epidemic of mental ill-health in young adults here, and it’s not spoken about enough. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for years, but never felt able to speak about it or address it. 18 months and 3 lockdowns in a rural village, with no car or many friends around, and which I didn’t think I’d ever be going back to apart from a flying visit, were hard. In May, I started going to the Pearl Exchange. I really don’t exaggerate when I say that I think it saved my life. I’ve received free counselling, learnt new skills, created art, been able to switch off from things for a while, gained confidence and made so many friends. The Pearl Exchange, and everyone there, has taught me that I’m not alone, that I belong, and that I deserve to ask for help. I wish something like the Pearl Exchange was around before. But they’re here now and they do so much good. And they need support and funding so they can continue to do it. I am absolutely terrified at the thought of running this marathon, but the prospect of getting to raise some money and awareness of this beautiful project makes it slightly less so.

In spring, I said to my best friend that i was scared of medication and counselling because all I had known of myself for so long was anxiety and depression and I didn’t know how to be, or who I was, without it. For so many years, I’d wrapped myself in this “protective” bubble of anxiety, isolating myself from people and shutting myself off from things. 6 months, counselling, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds later, and someone from uni said “nice to meet you” when we were leaving a reunion. I feel freer and more comfortably and unapologetically me than I ever remember being able to be. So much of that is down to the Pearl Exchange and the people I’ve met there, some of whom are now some of my closest friends, who’ve held me when I’m crying, made my stomach hurt from laughing, listened, asked and shared, and - for the first time in my 22 years in Bude - made me feel, that I belong.