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Miles For Mind - Mark Fordham

Miles For Mind - Mark Fordham
Last year was the most hardest year of my life. At the start of the year I sat down and planned everything I wanted to do. This included my work and my personal life.

I'd started my running again at the beginning of the year and was loving it and doing reasonably good times. Then it got to this time last year and everything went down hill as from the beginning of April I noticed that my knee was so painful and had to stop work as I'm a postman and walk 12 miles a day!

This was to last for 6 months off work as it took 4 months nearly to get anything done to my knee ie scans etc. Eventually I had an MRI which showed I'd torn the cartilage!!!! This was not good and started me into a horrible place as I was getting depressed at not being able to do anything I loved. This included doing things with my children and loved ones. Holidays were cancelled too. As I was at home everyday I was getting worse and worse and not really telling my fiance and others how I was feeling.

This was making me worse as it was making me feel really horrible and just wanted a way out. Because I'm such an active person. It was becoming really hard for me and my fiance and it hit us really hard and due to this and lots of other things last year we split up.

This just hit me so hard and the only way out as I could see it was to commit suicide!!!!!

I then sat and thought about children and loved ones. It was then that I said to myself that I needed help and that's what I did. It was the best thing I've ever done by talking. It doesn't matter who you talk to but please TALK. It doesn't matter who too whether it's loved ones friends or people at work please just TALK as it's how I've got to know myself again. I'm better than last year but still have days when I feel crap but now I've got back into my running and I'm loving it more than ever as it is the best way to clear your head of day to day shit.  Get out and RUN as I think it's brilliant and is like a medicine for me. 
 
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Thanks to Mark for sharing this story. As part of #MilesForMind we want to raise money for Mind and also awareness of mental health issues.
 
It's OK to have a mental health issue, it's OK to talk about mental health, and it's OK to ask for help.
 
We firmly believe that running can contribute to a healthy body, and healthy mind and we hope sharing people's stories of mental health and running will inspire others to lace up for better mental health.

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