 Please note that Marcus's story contains references to drug use, overdoses, depression and may be triggering to some people. In 2021 we released our first ever comic strip, Journeys Through Mental Health, illustrated by Sabacan and made in partnership with Richmond Fellowship. The following is an animated version of one of the three stories featured in the comic based directly on real interviews with young people with lived experience. People's experience of mental health might be different at different times in their journey. Marcus's issues began when he was excluded from school, spiralling as he lost the structure of school provided. The first time things started to go wrong was when I got permanently expelled from school. I was 11. It was like losing out on a main structure in my life. I had to leave my mum's home because I was already doing bad things at that age. I had no real family connection. I didn't know how they felt. They didn't know what I was doing. I can now see why I didn't do my mum's health any good. She didn't really know how to cope with me. My family just wanted to see me do well. I thought I knew everything. I thought I knew best. Perhaps it's because I started smoking weed when I was 11. The same year I got excluded from school. I was put into complementary education. It's full of all permanently excluded children. That's when it started getting worse. I was there until I was 15 and then I didn't go back to school after that. I was dealing, yeah, little bits, nothing major. Then I started selling coke. For a young person doing nothing, the only thing to do was to make money, you know? We had a little van we used to use. It was the best little van ever. We used to drive about all the time because we were sniffing so much coke we didn't really sleep that often. I was also smoking major amounts of weed and my head wasn't all there. I can't really remember the heroin overdose. I nearly passed out and had to get an ambulance. I stayed in hospital for a few days. I think it was the next day that Jim came from engaged with Aquarius, an early intervention drug service for young people. At first I'm not going to lie, I didn't care who he was. I didn't care about myself. I didn't care about anyone else. That was it. The only thing I cared about was making money. I like having money so I never have to worry. That was the only thing that was going to make me happy and keep me satisfied in life. That's how it fell because my mum was a single mum and she never really had money. You get distracted by the light because everything is so amazingly flashy. Jim was like a gift from God when I look back at it now. He was someone that was constant. He was always there for me every week, every single week. I could ring him or text him anytime I messed up. Jim helped me re-engage with my family and helped me see that I could rebuild my life and know I wasn't trapped. I wanted to be someone for myself, but drug dealer isn't really someone. So I went back to college to learn to be a carpenter and now I am a carpenter. I was so involved and distracted by drug dealing that I screwed myself over. I could have been earning good money. I'm making more money now than I ever was selling drugs. I guess my perspective is that if you make skilled work attractive then people don't go down other roads. I understand it costs money but you know, so does taking drug dealers off the streets. If I could say one thing to my 11 year old self, I'd say don't give up on education. Give yourself as many opportunities as you can. Learn. Train up. Build things. Fix things. Expand your horizons. We know that finding routes to mental health support is not easy but there are still ways. Marcus has been able to hold on to the kindness of others and carve out a space for himself. The human condition in all of its diversity has so many shared overlaps. Getting support can help us see that. At the very least it can be comforting to know we are not alone. This comic is based on interviews with young people with lived experience of mental health issues. Their names and physical appearance have been changed to protect their privacy. Journeys through mental health is each other's first comic strip, created out of conversations we've been having with young people with lived experience of mental health issues. If you or anyone you know are struggling with mental health issues, there are resources on our spotlight page on young people with mental health. The address is www.eachother.org.uk backslash young-people-mental-health