Why we do it

We do it because of a gut-wrenching story.

A story about a roomful of blokes at a charity night raising money and awareness for men’s mental health.

About how one brave man stood up in front of this roomful of strangers and told them that he had tried to take his own life.

And about his mates, who were stunned into silence as they all sat next to him, listening to his story for the very first time.

His mates were devastated.

Devastated because he had just told a roomful of strangers a harrowing story of despair that he had not even been able to tell his own friends.

And devastated because even though they had all sensed that something might be wrong, none of them had realised things were really that bad.

So, this got us thinking……

No one wants to be the guy standing up, feeling that life had become so hard that the only way out was suicide. But we also don’t want to be one of the blokes sitting down, looking up at their mate and thinking: ‘I had no idea. Maybe I could’ve done something to help?’.

So….

We do this because we want to get men talking and start asking the questions that need to be asked.

We do this because we want men to know that you won’t have to go too far out your front door to find someone else who may be struggling too.

And we do this because maybe, just maybe, if blokes start really talking to each other, we might stop losing so many of the men in our community to suicide.

A conversation with a mate may not be able to solve all our problems, but it’s a bloody good place to start.