SO, in the past year I’ve done 2(.5ish) fundraising challenges for both CALM and akt, helping both suicide prevention and homeless LGBTQ+ young adults. Both issues are important to me and that’s why I’m running the 2025 Paris Marathon (VERY slowly) for CALM.

Over the past few months my anxiety has got worse but I know that it’s less general and specific - in the form of death anxiety. This is basically where I can get panic attacks and stressed beyond believe about death, whether that’s me or family and friends, and already I know this will follow me throughout my life. It’s definitely exacerbated by news articles outlining how people of all ages are dying of many many things, from sepsis to cancer to wars, and over the past month specifically I’ve been thinking more about consciousness, mortality, and most importantly, my legacy after I die (brief intermission, yes I am 20).

While my anxiety has been very bad in recent years, I know that retrospectively, this death anxiety would always ultimately stop me from ever even thinking about suicide. Yet I know there are people that are in a much worse mental state that can’t see any hope and feel like suicide would be better, which still makes me feel a strange mix of sadness, confusion, and reflection.

Hopefully this gives a vague sense as to why I’m running it next year, and in terms of the marathon itself, I am very much enjoying the search for running shoes, route planning, and meal prep (no sarcasm intended). So yeah, I’m very excited and please donate anything you’re able to 👍👍👍

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We’re Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), and we’re a suicide prevention charity. We’ve got loads of tools and resources to help people find the support they need, including a life-saving helpline for people who can’t see a way forward, have lost someone to suicide, or are worried about their friends or loved ones.

£12.20 is enough to fund one potentially life-saving call.