Last Friday October 14, Love Me Love You held their annual corporate breakfast as part of Mental Health Week 2016. We were privileged to have a number of wonderful guest speakers on the day including former AFL player and mental health advocate, Wayne Schwass.
In a heartfelt speech, Wayne shared his personal battle of mental illness, along with the stigma surrounding mental health.
Wayne was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 1993, but he didn’t have the courage to tell his friends or family until 2005 – 12 years later. It was taking this massive step that gave Wayne the support and resolution to start the long journey of getting his life back.
Raising awareness for public health
During his speech, Wayne captivated attendees with a powerful comparison between the national road toll and suicide toll.
In 2015 there were 1,209 road fatalities in Australia – during the same period 3,027 lives were lost to suicide.
If you break down the numbers further, 1 person loses their life in a road fatality every 8 hours and 1 person loses their life to suicide every 3 hours.
The numbers shown above for both tolls are scary, but the national road toll is proof that raising awareness on a matter of public health can have a substantial effect on the community as a whole.
Road fatalities peaked in 1970 with 3,798 lives lost. This figure has been in decline ever since due to mass public education and media campaigns that were implemented as a result.
Reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness
To reduce the national suicide toll, we need to continue to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Wayne encouraged attendees to get involved by posting photos to social media with the hashtags #lovemeloveyou #mentalhealthmatters and #stampoutthestigma. As he said, the more people we can get sharing images of support, the further our message will go.
We can’t thank Wayne enough for such an inspirational speech. If you haven’t done so yet, jump over to Instagram or Facebook and show your support for #lovemeloveyou by telling your followers that #mentalhealthmatters!
