Honest conversations can help people struggling with mental health feel less alone.

The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag) hosted a Mental Health Day event on October 10 in Rivonia, allowing members of the media to hear directly from people who have experienced mental health challenges through a special human library of lived experience.

Rather than discussing mental health only through statistics, diagnoses, or professional perspectives, the human library let participants sit with people and hear their personal journeys, challenges, and experiences firsthand.

Among those who shared their stories was Darryl Gray, a counselling supervisor who spoke openly about the impact suicide and mental health struggles have had on his own family. Gray recalled losing his uncle to suicide when he was seven years old.

Read more: Sun International booklet tackles GBV

At the time, his family did not openly discuss what had happened. “I was just seven years old at the time, but I think I was old enough to realise that something was very wrong,” Gray said.

He said his family was told to describe his uncle’s death as a tragic accident, leaving him with questions he was unable to ask. “It terrified me that we had to package it in a way. We had to talk about it in a way that they died tragically in an accident. It was not.”

For Gray, the inability to talk about the death meant that the experience remained something his family carried silently. He said October became a particularly difficult month because it brought several significant anniversaries and memories to the surface. “We all hold it together 11 months of the year, and that month of October, it comes out. It still manifests. It still impacts us. It still confuses us.”

Also read: Bramley police stand against GBV

Gray said the experience also shaped his own understanding of mental health as he grew older. When he reached the age his uncle had been when he died, Gray said he experienced one of the most difficult periods of depression in his own life. “I feel like I’ve been living up to a lot of expectations of others about my own truth.”

Reaching that age forced him to confront his own mental health rather than continuing to suppress what he was experiencing. “I actually need to deal with my mental health for me,” Gray said.

For Gray, speaking about mental health became an important part of breaking the cycle of silence that had surrounded his family for decades. He said suicide can be particularly difficult for families to discuss because people often immediately turn to questions of blame. “When we hear that someone chose to take their life, we immediately start to think, what didn’t I say? What could I have done to prevent this?”

Gray said those questions can make an already painful experience even more difficult. Instead, he believes communities need to create spaces where people can speak openly about being overwhelmed or struggling before they reach a crisis point. “When we start talking about it, we start giving permission to have these conversations,” he said.

Gray also urged people not to disappear from the lives of those who may be struggling. “Quite simply, don’t disappear.”

He encouraged people to let someone know when they are concerned, without making them feel weak, broken, or pressured to immediately get better. “I can see you’re going through something. I’m scared because I care,” Gray said.

At the same time, he stressed the importance of allowing people space if they are not ready to talk. “Don’t disappear. Don’t try and fix.”

Gray said supporting someone through a mental health struggle is not about finding an immediate solution, but about walking alongside them. “There’s not something that you’re missing out on; like everyone else has a magical solution. You’re not weak. You are not broken. It needs support. It needs to be done together.”

Follow us on our WhatsApp channel, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok for the latest updates!