Sometimes it’s easier to walk and talk, other times it’s easier to open up to a stranger in the pub.
Lisa Cartledge has seen it all in a nearly three-week journey walking 700km, with blisters and the loss of four toe nails, in a quest to encourage open conversations about suicide and mental health.
She helped organise the Beechworth to Bridge walk which arrived in the Blue Mountains on April 18 after starting in Ms Cartledge’s home town of Beechworth near Albury-Wodonga on March 31. It was to finish at the Sydney Harbour Bridge on April 21.
“It’s been quite humbling, people talking to us about their story. We should be able to talk about our loved ones that we have lost to suicide,” Ms Cartledge said.
“You just want to put your arms around them and say it will be okay, but it may not, it’s tough.”
Ms Cartledge’s father took his own life when she was just 17, and she spent decades dealing with the stigma of mental illness.
Then in 2014 when her husband Sean took his own life, and she refused to let their three children, now in their 20s, face the same shame.
“The kids are my driving force and I want them to be able to remember their Dad,” Ms Cartledge said.
The group have been welcomed in nearly all the country areas they have travelled through and the country pubs they’ve stayed overnight in. Many pubs have thrown in free accommodation and Rotary clubs have provided lunch nearly every day. Some Rotary club members even offered to do the walkers’ laundry.
As the walkers talk about suicide and mental health, they’ve lost count of the number times people have said “we get a lot of that around here.”
Leaving Beechworth three weeks ago, an elderly woman walked up to Ms Cartledge crying, and explaining her husband had taken his own life 40 years ago and she’d never been able to say his name up until now.
Ms Cartledge knew the feeling well. “It felt like I couldn’t talk about Dad for 30 years,” she said.
When the group reached Blackheath on April 18 they did lots of walking around Govetts Leap and surrounds, returning to Gardners Inn in the evening.
“The elephant was in the room,” Ms Cartledge said. “But those people might go home and say these people were there, raising awareness.”
In Springwood, they walked out to the country club, and did countless laps around Buttenshaw Park, before calling it a night at the Royal Hotel.
Ms Cartledge’s daughter Olivia walked the whole way and her sons Thomas and Edward have been on some of the journey and were to walk the final two days.
For more information visit www.b2b.org.au.
If you or someone you know needs help, call Lifeline: 13 11 44.
