Anton describes today as the most beautiful day of his life. “And also the most emotional.” His journey had one purpose, to let people know: it’s okay to talk about it if you have mental problems, including war veterans and men.
Crying in the car
He knows what he’s talking about. Anton himself was posted to Afghanistan three times as a soldier and although he can now talk about it, the sometimes horrific images of what he experienced are still clearly on his retina.
Shortly after his time at the Ministry of Defense he moved to Australia, where he started working in construction. He struggled with his mental health for two years, he said previously to RTL Nieuws. “Then I would be in the car and I would cry again. What the hell am I doing? I wondered. I stayed at home, but the walls came at me there.”
Taboo
And he wasn’t the only one, he saw. “I have seen many guys toil. I felt that it is taboo for many men to talk about mental problems.”
–
–
He had called on people to walk the last bit, to show that they also think you can talk about mental problems. This morning at 10:00 am (local time) the first people started to walk. There were more and more, he estimates that at the end there were between 100 and 200.
Every imaginable emotion
“Everyone started clapping, and there were a lot more people and cameras at the finish line. All those people that were there, the fact that I was so close to home… Every emotion you can think of was in one bomb, that one there. exploded.”
But what predominates are positive feelings. He can look back on a great success: around 12,000 euros has already been raised in the Netherlands, 55,000 dollars in Australia, and he expects even more to be added in the coming weeks.
–
–
More importantly, the messages he gets. “Every day people let me know that my story has made them aware that they can talk about their mental problems. Some have told their story to a friend, others walked little by little so they could talk to me. Those messages are the best part of this walk.”
Recover for a few weeks
And now? He will be recovering in the coming weeks. Give his feet a rest, because they have a very hard time. “They don’t look that bad from the outside, but on the inside everything is broken. That will take a few weeks, but it will be fine.”
Sitting on a chair, he now tells his story, the party is in full swing. “Now I’m going purely on adrenaline. I enjoy the people who are there. But I stay in my seat, have a drink. An Uber will take me home soon, and then I’ll lie down.”
He will never make a trip like this again, he says now. “But I keep sharing my story, telling people that they can talk about their mental problems. I will probably come up with a new challenge with which I can draw attention to this.”
–
–
