<div>Hi everyone, thanks for visiting my fundraising page.









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<div>You can view the progress of the walk on my Instagram and Facebook.


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<div><b>Facebook: </b><a href="https://m.facebook.com/DylanGero" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://m.facebook.com/DylanGero</a>


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<div><b>Instagram: </b>@dylangero_


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<div><strong>Introduction</strong>:









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<div>For those of you who don't me, as a very brief intro, my name is Dylan Geraghty, I am 25 years of age from Dublin, Ireland and I'm currently living in Belfast.








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<div>That’s me on the left and my good friend Miho from Japan on the right!








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<div>For work, I’m a Business Development Manager for an online cyber security training company called TryHackMe.<br /><br />Outside work I love playing and watching football, going to the gym, running and spending time with friends. Pretty standard!









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<div>On the 2nd of April 2022, I will begin a <strong>solo</strong> country long walk of Ireland in support of Mental Health and suicide prevention.









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<div>The walk will begin at the most northerly point of Ireland in Malin Head, County Donegal and finish at Ireland's most southerly point in Mizen Head, County Cork. 






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<div>The journey in total will be approx <strong>600 kilometres or 373 miles </strong>and I aim to complete this within 2 weeks give or take a few days. 






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<div>I know there will be challenges on the way, but this is the timeframe I have set a target for.









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<div>Here are two photos to show the route I plan to go.<br /><br /><img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/62503219_1648159818670234_r.png" width="100%" media_type="3" alt="62503219_1648159818670234_r.png" />
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<div><br /><img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/62503219_1648159848830627_r.png" width="100%" media_type="3" alt="62503219_1648159848830627_r.png" /><br /><br />
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<div><strong>Please continue to read a bit more into the charity I am raising funds for and background on why I've decided to do this walk.</strong>









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<div><strong>The Charity:</strong>









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<div>All funds raised from the walk will be donated directly to <strong>Pieta House</strong>. Pieta is a fantastic charity that supports people who are considering self-harming, committing suicide, suffering from suicide bereavement and other mental health-related issues. Pieta's vision is to have a world of suicide, self-harm and stigma replaced by hope, self-care and acceptance.<br /><br />Website: <a href="https://www.pieta.ie/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.pieta.ie/</a><br /><br />My target is to raise 2000 EURO but that is my conservative target. I’d love to raise something towards the 5k mark!






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<div><br /><strong>Why have I decided to do this walk?:</strong>









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<div>I have decided to do this walk for a number of reasons. 






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<div>Before the year began, I promised myself I would do something to play my part to raise money for a charity that supports people suffering from mental health problems and/or considering suicide as this is something I feel passionate about.<br /><br />Even though in today's world there is more support for people offered than ever before, mental health and suicide is still massive problem everywhere you look. 






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<div>In the community where I am from and grew up, mental health issues are a major problem and suicide, unfortunately, is not uncommon. <br /><br />I've noticed that this is even more common with young people. It always surprises me that people can be suffering so much in silence, they feel that suicide is the only answer for them. 





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<div><i>Before you read on, <b>please note, this is not a sob story. I’m just happy to share some info of my personal life regarding these issues. If it helps at least one person well then I’m happy </b></i><br /><br />So, with regards to mental health issues, this is something I face every day.  It's also something I've witnessed heavily in my family and in the community where I grew up.









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<div>I want to be very honest here. I'm a man in my mid-twenties, and I am not ashamed to say I have suffered extreme depressive states in my life, and I am constantly battling with anxiety on a daily basis. <br /><br />There were times in my life when I was so depressed that I didn't want to do anything, literally nothing. A couple of years ago, I remember forcing myself to work on my birthday completely depressed. 






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<div>My work colleagues brought me out a birthday cake and sang happy birthday to me but I decided to go home halfway during the day and get into bed and stayed there for the day. There were plans for a small work get together afterwards to have some drinks and food for my birthday.<br /><br />It took me time to get some sort of understanding of what was going on with me.<span> </span>






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<div><span>There were a number of personal and </span>






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<div><span>environmental factors that contributed to my poor mental health which I won't go into much detail about here. </span>






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<div><span>I was extremely reluctant to tell anybody about it.</span>






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<div><span>I didn't want to talk to my mother or grandmother who are closest to me. I didn't want to talk to anybody, I just wanted to be left alone and lie in a dark room.</span>






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<div><br />Luckily, I found the courage to confront what was going on with me and made small steps in order to help myself manage what was going on in my head.





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<div>Still to this day, even though I may not make it obvious to everyone close to me or on social media - this is something I’m constantly working on.<br /><br />With regards to anxiety, this is something that completely consumes my life.






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<div>I consider myself to be a very upbeat and outgoing guy. 





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<div>However, my mind races constantly about absolutely everything. 





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<div><span>The things I've said, thing's I've done, small things, big things, my mind is constantly trying to convince me that people talk about me all the time in a negative sense, including friends and family. </span>




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<div><span>Example, spending time with friends or family then once you leave them you feel like you’ve acted stupid, said stupid things and every body is talking about you and you feel like people dislike you, and didn’t want you to be around.</span>




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<div><span>Of course, this could all be complete nonsense, if I am part of a conversation, it’s generally nothing to be worried about.</span>




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<div><span>But honestly, I generally don’t give a toss about what anybody has to say about me anyway - and I crack on with my life as best I can. Although, you can imagine when your brain is constantly being negative to you and telling you bad things about yourself,  it </span><span>can get quite </span><b>draining and depressing.</b>




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<div><span>I've experienced anxiety manifest in different ways in the form of mental and also physical anxiety.</span>





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<div><span>There are times my anxiety can be pretty bad where I just need to sit in a dark room excluded from every body and watch tv until it passes.</span>





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<div><span>When this does happen though, I try to take action on it by putting on my running shoes and running until it goes away, or by simply going to the gym.</span>





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<div>I want to be transparent as possible here as I am not ashamed to admit and express some of my experiences with anxiety and I hope some people can relate with me along the way!




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<div>Recently, I had to visit my GP on a few occasions to understand how and why my anxiety was manifesting <b>physically</b>. 






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<div>There are times I go through extreme anxious phases out of the blue. My heart starts racing, I start sweating, my chest starts hurting and I start getting pains all over my body. 








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<div><span>Of course I got tests done to check that was nothing wrong with my heart or anything else in my body - but those tests came back completely fine and I’m pretty healthy, physically. </span>






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<div><span>It was purely my anxiety was contributing to the pains in my body physically.</span>








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<div><span>As a result, I was prescribed Propranolol to help reduce the anxiety pains.</span>








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<div>I know a lot of people have anxiety, and people get it in different forms and extremities. With mental health, and the sensitivity around it, I believe everyone’s feelings are valid and should be listened to. <br /><br />Rest assured, this isn't a piece for people reading to feel sorry for me, <b>it's just facts</b>, and I wanted to express this to add to the reason behind this charity walk. 









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<div>I'm pleased to say that over the years, even though I still have some really bad times -  I've worked extremely hard to learn how to deal with these issues at times - through the help of speaking to people, and the support of my family when it's needed. 





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<div>I also believe as it works a lot for me - that going to the gym, running, cycling and any other physical activity that a person may like, can hugely benefit negative thinking, anxiety and depressive thoughts.









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<div><br />Suicide and poor mental health is something I have witnessed and experienced with family, friends and people in my community. 





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<div>To add to this, more often or not, scrolling down my news feed on Facebook, I'm seeing people posting up statuses of young people taking their own lives.<br /><br />I don't claim to know everybody's story as to why they make the unfortunate decision to commit suicide, however, the ones that have been close to me have been a result of poor mental health.<br /><br />To wrap up this piece, I want to address anybody reading, that may be affected by some of the points above, who may feel like their life is not worth living, I'm here to tell you that's not true.









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<div>No matter how bad things get, whether it's in your mind or in reality, there's always a silver lining and people want to listen to you and help you feel happy about yourself and enjoy your life.









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<div>Life is good, I promise you that. Just give it time, and don't be afraid to ask for help. <b>Again, do not be afraid to ask for help. People want to help!</b>



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<div>I’ve realised that with all the bad a crappy stuff that go on in the world, there are really nice people out there that want to help you, and see you succeed.<br /><br />Whether you're younger or older, male or female, suffer from mental issues or not, everybody should play their part to be kind to one another and allow the opportunity for people to have a good go at life and enjoy it.<br /><br />To conclude, thanks you all reading, I'm hoping this charity walk makes a difference to at least one person's life because life is worth living, no matter how shitty it gets, I promise you all that.<br /><br />Stay positive, be kind and please donate :) much appreciated!<br /><br />Take care all,<br />Dylan.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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