Gold Logie winner and high-profile cancer campaigner Samuel Johnson says he is ready to open up about losing loved ones to suicide.
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During an interview with ABC Goulburn Murray on Friday, Johnson said mental health was a cause close to his heart and he wanted to add his voice to vital awareness raising of the issue.
The actor and co-founder of the Love Your Sister charity will be among the keynote speakers for this year’s Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice event on Thursday, June 21 at QEII Square.
Johnson told radio host Gaye Pattison he was thrilled to be asked to speak at the event that aims to shine a light in the darkness of suicide and mental illness.
“I have spent six years sharing my family’s cancer story and that’s served as a warmup if you like,” he said.
“I’m hoping I can contribute to the conversation around mental health now my dear sister has passed and now that I am so convinced how prevalent an issue it is.”
Johnson, 40, said “losing a mum and beautiful partner to suicide puts me in a bag with a lot of other Australians”.
“I try not to talk about it too much because, you know, I’m the cancer guy,” he told Pattison.
“I have been deliberately not talking about mental health for many years while I work out how I feel, how I am and if there is anything I can possibly do to help any others.
“All I can say is I’m ready mate.”
Johnson prefers to talk about mental health, not mental illness, as an issue.
“One thing I’ve learnt talking to people around the country … is just how stigmatised this issue really is,” Johnson said.
“We really haven’t quite lifted the lid on it like we have with, say, breast cancer awareness.”
Johnson believes people need gentle opportunities, rather than direct questioning, to open up about their mental health issues.
“I advocate providing a space for a friend that encourages them to talk without having to prompt them,” he said.
Oh, and a hug.
“I’m a hugger,” he laughed with Pattison.
“I taught my dad how to hug when I was 14 and I’ve been on the rampage ever since.”
He explained there is some science involved when it comes to the art of hugging.
“We tend to go right when we hug and that avoids heart contact,” Johnson said.
“Hugging left is quite confronting – you have to allow your heart to literally touch another person’s heart.”
When it comes to safeguarding his own mental health, Johnson said it was pretty simple.
“I need to get outside, I need to walk the dog or follow the black line on the bottom of a swimming pool,” he said.
“I try to eat well, sleep well and make sure I keep my body moving.
“I’ve tried bloody everything else, you can trust me on that.”
Johnson lost his sister Connie to breast cancer in September, 2017.
He has been a relentless and high-profile campaigner for awareness raising and research.
He told Pattison he was outraged by what cancer did to families.
And he estimates he has met with “maybe 100,000 cancer stories face to face in every pocket of this country” during the past six years.
“It still breaks me,” he said candidly.
“The more it breaks me, the more it pains me, the more it pains me the more it drives me.”
Johnson’s aim is to “deliver cancer the ultimate shirt-front and put it on its bum”.
He advocates early detection as the best cure.
“I spend my life trying to tell people, please check your bits in the shower,” he said.
“It’s so easy to put your health second, and nearly all mums are guilty of it.
“(But) don’t push your health down the priority list.”
- Johnson is set to join fellow presenters NRL legend Ian Roberts, investigative journalist and author Tim Elliott, and acclaimed poet Les Murray at the 2018 Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice event from 5.30pm on Thursday, June 21.
- For further details visit the Winter Solstice Facebook page.