Molly to tackle the Great Ocean Road half marathon to raise awareness of mental health

Molly Smith said sometimes it’s the people you least expect who are struggling. She has experienced mental health challenges and stabbing chest pains due to her anxiety.

“I said to this girl ‘I get really anxious’ and she’s like ‘what, why would you?’ and it really annoyed me,” Molly said. “Just because I get described as that happy confident girl, it made me feel like I didn’t have any leeway to feel crappy.” 

Molly, 23, said in today’s society there was too much pressure to be perfect daily, “not just for ourselves but others too” and it was important to ask for help.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that a few years ago I’d be diagnosed with anxiety and that it was secretly ruling my damn life.”

After different medications produced bad side effects, Molly turned to running between eight and 15 kilometres almost daily. “I literally just started running. My runners were literally a lifesaver. Nothing (else) took away that pain I had in my chest so I kept running. 

“The medication worked for me at the start but in the end I was like ‘I can’t do this, I can’t live like this’. I know it’s different for everyone. Going for a run’s not going to fix everyone who’s feeling like this but in my experience, medication was turning me in a downward spiral and my runners got me going again.” 

Molly will run in next weekend’s Great Ocean Road half marathon. She has lost two friends to suicide and is using her first half marathon to raise money and awareness for Let’s Talk, a local initiative to encourage people to talk about their mental health.

She will run in a Let’s Talk singlet and hopes to complete the 23 kilometre event in two-and-a-half hours. So far she has raised $750 of her $1000 fundraising goal. 

“Let’s keep Sam (Fitzgibbon), Seamus (Blake), and the many others we’ve lost close to our hearts every day and try to live life with little judgement. We never really know someone’s story, until we know. Your greatest power is that you are you.”

She credited psychologist Jodie Fleming for helping her realise that “even happy confident types of people were allowed as many bad days as the next person, that life’s too short not to be lived with as much purpose and creativity as possible and that I was so loved.” 

Molly said she had put her story out there, not for empathy or sympathy, but in a bid to encourage conversation and for friends and family to check in with loved ones. She said there’s no one size fits all or quick fix and still has the occasional bad day. “It’s very live in the moment. One step at a time, literally with this and the half marathon.

“Unless you’ve ever felt this way before it’s all to easy to be naive about the topic and not care but for the sake of those around you, get knowledgeable for them.” 

She said it took her a long time to open up about her mental health struggles, because she didn't want to be seen as that whinging friend, and said she was pleasantly surprised by her friend’s support once she did. 

“Yes we’re in control of our own problems and our own lives and we’re the only ones who can change that but obviously people need to know there is help and people along the way.”

Molly thanked her family, friends, her partner Daniel for their support and invited anyone else who had supported her to share a drink with her after the half marathon.

To donate go to gofundme.com/molly-rose-smith