This October I'm walking the streets of London by night to shine some light on men's mental health. 

It's the first event of its kind by CALM, aka the Campaign Against Living Miserably, and theirs is a message and a service that deserve some attention and some $.

"Then courage, brother, dare the grave passage."

Officially I've been managing and/or suffering with major depression since 2013 (unofficially a lot longer than that). I had my worst episode yet in 2018/19 and there have been times when I've come very close to taking my own life. I have cried uncontrollably on staircases, in doctors' surgeries, on our bathroom floor. I have looked at my gym skipping rope in a different, dangerous light. 

Suicide is the number one killer of men aged 20-45 in the UK. Without the support of family and the local community mental health team, I would not still be here. And I'm fully aware that there are many young men out there without such luck. 

I try to stay open about my experiences with depression, but as a man especially, shame and embarrassment are still never far away. I hid for too long and lost a lot of my teens and twenties as a result. And I don't want a single other person to go through that alone.

The record needs to change, and new conversations need to be started around what it is to be a man in this day and age, in a country that's still full of stigma and stiff upper lip and 'snowflake' jibes and man-up-and-get-on-with-it-because-when-I-was-your-age-I-was-in-a-war-or-down-a-mineshaft.

That's why a dedicated campaign like CALM is so crucial. 

I'm in a stronger place these days, so the night the clocks go back, I'll be walking from Greenwich to Big Ben and back again for all those hours lost to depression and the damage it wreaks on everyday people and their loved ones. 

Cliche, yes, but if the money and awareness raised from the walk saves one life, pounding those pavements will have been totally worth it. So please take a moment for CALM and give whatever you can.

Thank you!

(For more on CALM and all the work they do, head to https://www.thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm/)