Being a Young Champion

When I first started as a Young Champion for Time to Change I was terrified. What could I really do to make a difference? Who would listen, who would care? And when I walked through those doors and saw 80 other Young Champions my anxiety went through the roof, but something extraordinary happened too; I felt like I had stepped into the right side of history. I had many mental health blips on my journey, I missed sessions and didn't do half the things I had wanted to achieve; but I was a part of something special and surrounded with so much inspiration and such wonderful people that I was just proud to have done the little things. I had many conversations, the most important one being with my dad, which changed both mine and other's perspectives of mental health and how it affects not just me but everyone around me. 

The other day I read my first testimony and realised people really do want to hear stories like mine. More importantly; they want to stop there being any more stories like mine.

Training always felt like a privilege. Not the travel or the hotel, but the fact I was being allowed to be a part of this amazing movement. I learned so much about myself, about mental health and the stigmas I'd previously accepted as fact, and how to reach out and affect change. I got to meet Glenn Close and other fantastic people working towards making the world a more welcoming and safer place to live. I've been inspired in ways I didn't feel possible; even when I turned up thinking I'd done absolutely nothing I left feeling proud of myself and knowing my worth, and realising just talking, tweeting, blogging is enough. We don't all have to be on BBC News to be champions.

It's made me the (slightly more) confident, compassionate woman I feel today. I feel like I'm one of the nameless faces that in years to come will have worked tirelessly for social movement, a modern day suffragette if you will; though thankfully I haven't had to die for my cause. But many do die, suicide claims a life every two hours in England and Wales and it's got to stop.

Being kinder to one another is the first step. Ask twice and be there for those around you. It really is just the little things that can help 💜