October is Mental Health Month. For the third year, Williamstown’s Justine Brogna has organised the Walk a Mile in my Shoes mental health event to raise awareness and funds. This year’s was different, not only due to COVID-19, but because today marks the first anniversary of her mother’s death after living with mental illness. She speaks with Goya Dmytryshchak.
Can you tell why you founded the event?
I started it to raise awareness for mental health issues and as a means to help reduce the stigma associated with it. It was also a way to bring the community together to celebrate lived experience.
For this year’s event, you ran a half marathon of 21 kilometres – one kilometre for each year your mother experienced mental illness. Can you tell me about your personal experience?
As a carer, it was tremendously difficult to witness her trauma and her suffering with the illness. She had voices every day. Some days, they really troubled her and other days they weren’t so bad. I guess, witnessing someone you really care about being quite tormented by these voices all the time, what’s helped me is to put what I have witnessed and what she’s told me about her experience into something positive and productive and trying to make a difference by the work I do: the walk, creating the TreeHaus Clinic providing a service to the community, and I started a new role as a senior social worker at Eastern Health working with children with a parent with a mental illness.
During the lockdowns, where have been some of your favourite places to go or outlets to cope and maintain mental wellbeing?
It’s actually why I took up running. Initially, I started running as a way to deal with the grief and loss in November last year, and then as COVID restrictions came in I found I started running for longer distances and more often in the week because it was the one thing that felt like I had a bit of a free liberty within the constraints of lockdown. It really helped me to release a lot of the stress that was going on through the week through the work because our workload’s increased at the clinic due to the demand of new referrals because people have been experiencing more anxiety and isolation.
What are you most looking forward to doing when restrictions ease?
Probably going to a restaurant and being able to sit down in a restaurant and be served – and not cooking so often. And catching up with people that I haven’t been able to.
Your GoFundMe page, Walk a Mile in my Shoes – Williamstown, has so far raised $6000. How will the money be used?
It goes to local primary schools for wellbeing hubs to be developed. So, they’re like retreats for kids to go to in times of anxiety, any distress, sensory issues.
To donate, visit: https://au.gofundme.com/f/3ses2-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes-williamstown.
