It has always been the two of us.

I was born in Zambia and I've made my home in Stirling. For around twenty years I've worked in IT, keeping complicated systems running when everyone needed them.

I've also lived with my own mental health struggles. I'm not going to dress that up. Breathwork didn't fix everything, but it gave me something I could do, every day, that worked. Learning to slow my breath helped me stop reacting and start responding.

In the culture I grew up in, mental health is rarely talked about. My family come from a generation that was taught to push through, keep quiet and trust that tomorrow will be better. I understand where that comes from. But mental illness doesn't work that way, and it meant I went through my hardest years without the support I'd hoped for from home. With them in Zambia and me in Scotland, the distance made it harder still. For a long time I kept reaching out, and in the end I had to accept that the support I needed would have to come from elsewhere.

What got me through was a small circle of people who kept showing up, again and again:

• Nathan Goveiamy son, first and always
• Jackie Gibbsmy aunt
• Dean VanZylmy cousin
• Malcolm Rileya true friend
• Ismail Galia true friend

Some of them are here in Scotland and some are thousands of miles away, but they all did the simplest thing. They picked up the phone, they checked in, and they listened. It doesn't cost much, and it made all the difference. I wouldn't be here doing this without them.

If you're dealing with this without much support around you, I understand. You won't have to explain it to me.

I trained as a SOMA Breath Advanced Instructor, completing 95 hours of breathwork instructor certification, so I could pass that on. You won't get a guru from me. You'll get someone who has sat where you're sitting and found a way to breathe through it.