Two thousand five hundred soles for 2500 souls; 2500 souls too many.
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The four pairs of runners Alan Thorpe will burn through on his walk from Ballarat to Canberra, will form part of what will be a powerful and emotional display of shoes at Parliament House, visually representing the thousands of Australian men and boys lost to suicide last year.
The men’s mental health advocate stepped into the Goulburn Valley on his 750km journey on Wednesday, October 29.
He said the first shoe he placed on the lawn in the nation’s capital, with a photo tucked lovingly inside it, would be to honour his own father, who died by suicide 45 days before Mr Thorpe was born.
Then, he lost his uncle in the same way.
“The list goes on,” Alan said, as he talks of the many family members and friends who are no longer with us.
Their deaths are one of the catalysts for his effort in trying to save other men and their families from the same fate and grief.
But his own mental health struggles have been equally inspiring.
Mr Thorpe moved from Tasmania to Shepparton at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He lived here for just five months when tragedy struck three days after Christmas.
His house burnt down and his mental health spiralled as he was dealt more blows.
He became homeless, his brother was diagnosed with cancer, his weight had escalated to 155kg.
“I was on suicide watch,” Mr Thorpe said.
His doctor suggested he “go for a walk”, for his mental health, but the physical benefits would be a welcome side effect.
“So I got out and went for a walk; I walked 1.8km that day,” Mr Thorpe said.
“I couldn’t walk for three days afterwards (because I was so sore), but within a month I was doing 10km.”
He says the positive impact on his mental health was significant, and it planted a seed in his revitalising mind.
“I had this crazy idea to walk all the way to Adelaide to raise awareness about men’s mental health,” Mr Thorpe said.
In March, 2021, he completed that walk.
He went from strength to strength, completing three more long walks — including a 900km one — within 20 months, raising $80,000 for Beyond Blue.
“I was on top of the world, kicking ass,” he said.
But then, further tragedy unfolded when he and his partner, Kelly Cassidy — who drives a support vehicle behind him for safety on his long walks — were at a burnout event in Stawell, where an 18-year-old boy was hit and killed by a car, narrowly missing the couple.
“It destroyed me,” Mr Thorpe said.
“I sat home for 18 months, I lost my kids, I was back to rock bottom.”
Laden with a series of mental conditions, including bipolar disorder, depression, two varieties of anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, his ailments are invisible.
Left untreated, they can be silent killers.
“Not all disabilities you can see,” he said.
Mr Thorpe knew what he had to do to save himself.
He re-engaged with trauma counselling and, 12 months later, in February this year, he got his mojo back and hit the road again.
“It was my first walk in two years, and two weeks in, I was like, ‘I’m back’,” he said.
He started planning the walk he’s currently on.
This time, the quest is not to raise money; it’s to raise awareness and drive real change.
Mr Thorpe said he’d become disenchanted with big charities and “band-aid fixes”.
“Millions get pumped into services and research, yet the numbers are still rising,” he said.
“It is a national emergency; there are more suicides each year than road deaths.”
Piggybacking off the Zerosuicide community awareness program, the ‘2500 too many’ exhibition at Parliament House on November 19 — International Men’s Day — is a quest to get the government to recognise that situational distress is responsible for many of the suicides that are recorded as being caused by mental health.
“Situational distress causes three of the seven male suicides a day we have in this country,” Mr Thorpe said.
“Those three aren’t due to mental health, they’re due to men losing their jobs, having relationship breakdowns, losing their mortgages.
“We need more services for situational distress, not just mental health.”
Mr Thorpe and Ms Cassidy stopped in Shepparton for two nights, taking in a rest day to meet with some local support services, including Primary Care Connect, Headspace and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Local.
The couple were chaperoned by local recovery advocate Jarvis ‘Chainbreaker’ Atkinson, who also organised a few businesses to get on board supporting the passers-through on their stay, with K&N Barber giving Mr Thorpe a complimentary groom and Nedal Kebabs providing a dinner, and the Big 4 Shepparton Park Lane hooked the travellers up with two free nights in a cabin rather than the powered site they’d requested for their camper.
“I am so grateful for a couple of nights in a cabin because I can’t even fit properly in the shower in the van,” Alan laughed.
Mr Thorpe left Shepparton on Friday, October 31, with a poignant message.
“Men and boys in this country need us to show we care,” he said.
“I live and breathe this stuff, it saved my life, it’s all I care about.”
To follow Mr Thorpe’s journey, go to his Iwalkformensmentalhealth Facebook page.
For 24/7 support, phone Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. If life is in danger, phone 000.