In a society that shuns men for expressing their emotions, over three quarters of suicides are committed by men, making it the leading cause of death in men under 35.
76% of suicides in the UK are committed by men and 12.5% of the UK's male population are suffering from common mental health disorders.
Aspiring male model, Jack Walton, has been open about his battles with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression and post-traumatic stress disorder on social media and is working on using his modelling career to push for awareness of men's mental health.
Jack decided to pursue modelling in 2017 after peers recommended it to him as a way of boosting his confidence. He saw it as an opportunity to embrace who he was and share with the world what is truly important to him after suffering for years with low self-esteem due to bullying.
He used to struggle to be himself after coming out as gay during his high school life and is now fighting to make sure that those who struggle with mental health never have to feel like they need to be a fake version of themselves.
Jack said, “I haven’t always been a confident person. I used to be the total opposite, a lot of people say how confident I am, why now is true, but it wasn’t always the case. Through high school I was bullied pretty badly and that seriously affected my self-esteem and meant I always felt like I had to be a fake me, I was never myself until around 3 years ago, it’s that recent for me.
“I’ve struggled badly with my own mental health in the past. I had PTSD, anxiety and social anxiety at different times in my life, as a result of different things. Finding myself and coming out as gay certainly made me stress, because it was so tiring being a fake version of myself, I was scared to be the real me.
“I’ve had social anxiety at different times, even now when I’m in certain social situations I’ll find myself go into myself and go quiet, I know now what it is and have luckily have the tools to deal with it. Living with my anxiety it could be the smallest thing that will set it off, such as having a delayed train or having to do something I didn’t want to do, this happened more in high school when I was around people and had to do things such as PE, definitely triggered my mental health issues like anxiety.
“Ironically, I now love going to the gym and exercising, I think it’s because I’m in a totally different frame of mind now and enjoy the feeling of having a good workout. To begin with I had to start loving myself first, needed to work on myself and finding what worked for me, which has definitely been spirituality and using the Law of Attraction, I now meditate daily and absolutely love mindfulness, something I would have laughed at the thought of only 2 years ago.
“My main aim in life is to help motivate others, I can see how I’ve changed and want to help others, it’s ok to not be ok, no one truly feels fine 100% of the time and I still have moments and times where I’m not feeling my best. I hope to become a mental health advocate in some capacity in the near future.
“At this point I’ve done around 15 shoots I want to say, I started in May 2017 and have done quite a few since then. My favourite was a recent one which involved bubbles and a very colourful rainbow umbrella, it was around pride month too and was beyond fun, I love being self-expressive so that was perfect.
“In terms of my modelling I’ve used this more as a platform to express myself and to show off my fashion style, however I did combine my love for fashion at a recent fashion show event organised by many of my friends, including myself.
“In May 2018, my friends and I hosted a mental health themed fashion show that we had been planning for around nine months. We raised around £400 for the mental health charity Mind UK, a leading mental health charity and one I’ve previously raised money for.
“Models wore garments made to represent the various mental health issues that 1 in 4 of us will face at least once in our lifetime. I modelled a garment that represented stress and the afternoon was a total success. In the future I’d love to do more events for mental health. I also spoke personally about my own experiences with mental health, something I never would have had the confidence to do 6 months ago!”
Jack is also aiming to advocate for mental health in other ways as he also plans to take up public, motivational speaking and is currently working on a mindfulness themed book that he intends to release in 2019.
Jack added, “As long as I’m inspiring other people that’s all that matters. I want to raise more money for mental health and I also want to speak more about it too. Recently I filmed for a BBC interview which was shown on BBC News where I spoke about my own experiences with mental health.
“I want to become a mental health advocate, and also do work for LGBT which is beyond important to me. I know what it’s like growing up as a gay teenager and how incredibly difficult it can be. Being yourself is truly priceless.”