Who am I doing this for?

A best friend from high school, Kylie (left in the photo), very sadly lost her life to mental illness earlier this year, aged just 35.

Having suffered with mental illness myself, and since me and Kylie always loved a project with an important cause, I decided I would begin fundraising in her memory, to help those who may not otherwise receive it and to raise awareness that both she and I ARE the face of mental illness. That we are proud of who we are and that we have been fighters and that our mental illness DID NOT define us or take away from our fantastic individual qualities.

BigMoose charity provide therapy for those with mental health challenges who often end up on the streets, and while neither me nor Kylie have found ourselves in that position I feel she would strongly agree with me on this one and want to help those in the most challenging of circumstances get back on their feet. BigMoose provide hands on support to people in Wales and every donation you make directly helps a person, who may otherwise be another statistic among the many others who lose their life to mental illness.

About Kylie

Kylie was exceptionally intelligent, talented, emotionally aware and kind to everyone - her mum Julie describes her as "another Robin Williams" as she was always making others laugh, I cried with laughter almost hourly during my years growing up with her! It sounds such a cliche but one of our best has been taken, too soon and to an illness so misunderstood.

Kylie suffered with bipolar and bpd - but these were her illnesses, not who she was. I want to make that very clear and raise awareness that we are not our mental illness. She had been doing talks at our high school Porthcawl Comprehensive with youngsters to give them hope and to share their stories, which makes me immensely proud to know, and. I only wish we could have reconnected to do some projects together again for a cause close to us but that neither of us knew we shared (back in year 9 we dressed up as windmills and power plants to campaign for Green Peace in our school!)

She was adored by everyone in her family and all her friends, she leaves a gap, she is missed so terribly and while I wish I had remained in her life more permanently into our adult life I feel strongly that I should do something to honour her legacy, please donate!

My journey with OCD

I lived most of my life with debilitating OCD. Along with raising awareness of life loss through mental illness I want to help others understand what OCD is and what it isn't. OCD is not about being tidy, in fact my room was very messy during my worst years! I am proud of myself for the strength it has taken to have lived with OCD for such a long time though I consider myself recovered now. I want people to see the face of a person with mental illness is not what comes to mind immediately! I want to break the stigma and complete misunderstanding of OCD and in fact, how much of a joke it has been made out to be. Imagine hearing people name your disorder in passing and then laugh at the same time "haha, I'm so ocd" - I extend love to everyone as it's so often just not understood but at the same time I want to help raise awareness of what it is and how it affects people.

Why the Swansea Bay 10k?

Kylie and I went to school at Porthcawl Comp and during that time I was competing in athletics and had high hopes of a career. Sadly due to my anxiety disorder kicking in at competitions when I was hoping to soon make the Wales team (and honestly a bit of teen demotivation) I threw in the towel.

Since having kids I struggled to get back to running though always feeling a desire to, I am currently able to run around 5k without feeling like I need to stop or having some pains from some niggling issues I had after being a mum. What better time than to reconnect with my high school years in memory of Kylie - than now?

The run is Swansea Bay 10k on September 15th - while 10k is not the biggest of challenges there is I also want the message around mental health to be about not pushing ourselves too hard and to accept and love where we are, that said I currently can't run a 10k so I do feel this challenge honours Kylie's strength and determination.

The Swansea Bay 10k is a special place for me as I ran the 3k there without a number when I was 12 (you aren't allowed in below 16 I believe) and my coach Ridley Griffiths from Bridgend Athletics club found me and asked me to start coaching, so it's an emotional place for me to return to for more than one reason xxx

About BigMoose - the charity I'm raising money for!

We are bigmoose. We are a mental health charity providing therapy and early intervention to people who are struggling with their mental health.

We have grown from a small facebook page of our friends and family to a community of thousands of people all over the world. together we have achieved some amazing things, most recently completing project 1 million, raising 1 million pounds in 486 days! over 11,000 people donated and have helped us to save and change lives.

we are hearing on a daily basis how much our therapy is helping to change lives. the number of referrals we are receiving is increasing every day.

but there is more work to be done.

we have a big dream to make a difference in the world. we are on a mission to raise 15 million pounds for mental health, this is going to be a mammoth task, and we are going to need all the help we can get, but our passion to change lives is what drives us, and makes us believe we can do this.