Maitland's Burt Kennedy paints a vivid picture in recalling a childhood memory that forms part of his mental health journey.
In a written piece he shared with the Newcastle Herald, he described growing up poor.
While living in a little village in the Great Dividing Range, he remembered "sleeping on a foam mattress on a timber floor in sub-zero temperatures with snow outside and just a single woollen blanket".
Mr Kennedy is working on a documentary with production company Rusty Cage about his mental health struggles and the death of his mate Dave Graham, a teacher and martial arts instructor.
Mr Graham died by suicide in 2020 at age 48 without showing signs of mental illness.
The film also documents his epic 265-kilometre run from Newcastle to Sydney last year, which he did in record time.
Titled Running Through Darkness, the film is due for release early next year.
"I've learnt that sometimes people won't talk about their mental health, but you can still be there for them," Mr Kennedy said.
"I can fully understand that, having gone through that myself."
He said reaching out to people to ask how they're going could "sometimes be enough to uplift them, even without going into great detail".
This could be the difference between "feeling like you want somebody to care and feeling like somebody already does care".
Mr Kennedy said depression "comes and goes in waves".
"I'm seeing a psychologist at the moment for it. I was very lucky getting in two months ago," he said.
"Sometimes with the pressures of life, you think how you're feeling is normal. It can be hard to recognise there's something more going on. I had that for more than a decade.
"Even though you're in a bad place, you're still far more capable than what you realise."
Mr Kennedy said approaching life in "small steps" helped him.
"Sometimes if you're looking at the end goal, it can be overwhelming thinking about the work needed to get to that point," he said.
"The small bits will turn into something big."
During his epic run, he "never focused on Sydney, it was always the next checkpoint".
Mr Kennedy has used his running challenges to raise money for the Black Dog Institute, which last month highlighted a "lack of new funding for mental health services" in the NSW budget.
"NSW currently invests the least into mental health services per capita, compared to all other Australian states and territories," it said, after the budget was handed down.
This was echoed on Monday at a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the availability and quality of mental health care.
NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson said yesterday that the government was "committed to closing the gaps in our mental health system".
Ms Jackson said the government was working towards this through the "Towards Zero Suicides initiatives" and "new and expanded" programs funded through a federal-state agreement on mental health and suicide prevention.
Along with the parliamentary inquiry, the government was working on a "detailed gap analysis within NSW Health to ensure our mental health system is fit for purpose".
Lifeline 13 11 44.
