It’s been a very special week for me this week.  Time to Change, the national organisation committed to increasing awareness of mental health and reducing stigma and discrimination, launched a new campaign aimed at men and encouraging them to talk about mental health and to support their mates if they think they might be struggling.

I’ve been privileged to be involved in this campaign and to have my story featured in the campaign’s launch.  But it isn’t just my story, it’s also the story of my two oldest friends, Craig  and Simon, and how they were both there for me when I most needed them, helping in each of their own unique ways.

I was also invited to write a blog for Time to Change about how my mates were ‘In My Corner’, this has been published on their website this week and has also been published in a shortened form in London’s Metro (both links can be found below).

If my blog has one overarching theme it is of overcoming life’s challenges.  Not only can we come through difficult times, we can positively thrive following adversity, living richer, more fulfilling lives not in spite of but because of the very circumstances that at one point may have felt like dragging us under.

Never has this been more apparent in my own life than this week, representing as it does a journey from believing that my life was over and that I had nothing to offer life, to playing a role in a major campaign that will help many hundreds of thousands of people that find themselves in similar circumstances.

However dark things may seem at times in our lives, we never know what the future has in store for us; amazing things could be just around the corner and we should always hold onto that.

To read my blog for In Your Corner please visit:

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/blog/having-simon-craig-my-corner-helped-me-deal-depression

http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/27/no-man-is-an-island-how-my-friends-have-helped-me-cope-with-depression-6465272/

Matthew’s debut book, Something Changed: Stumbling Through Divorce, Dating & Depression, is available now Click here for info

Soundtrack:
Friend Of Ours – Elbow