Hi I'm Andy "Crocman"

Growing up in the UK, with quite a traumatic upbringing where violence and alcohol played a major part in everyday family life, my parents sadly divorced when I was 11 years old.

Emigrating to Australia in 2005 with my wife and two young children, we have enjoyed spending our time encompassing the “Aussie” way of life.

I first became aware of mental health issues when my son experienced challenges with clinical depression when he was 16 years old.

Whilst supporting him, I started to recognise similar signs in myself that had always been there, which I had never faced up to, so I reached out and was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2017.

It was at this point that I decided that the only way to make progress dealing with my depression was to take a ‘career break’ from my then current job in IT, as this was not helping my situation and was leading to increased drinking of alcohol as I was ‘self-medicating’.

I then spent the next 19 months travelling with my wife discovering new people, new places and cultures.

These travels re-ignited my passion for wildlife photography and walking which really helped me put things in perspective and see the better things in life.

During our time away travelling, I started to work on my alcohol abuse issues and I finally gave up drinking alcohol in July 2019.

Upon returning to work, it was evident to me that there was still truly little understanding and acceptance around mental health and I used this to spur my passion to promoting mental health awareness, education and advocacy by career transitioning from IT to Lived experience peer mentor and public speaker.

Through sharing my story, journey and lived experiences, I want to encourage people to talk about mental health issues and thus remove the stigma and bad press surrounding it.