this talk: is about depression, destruction and the power of cycling - with Ryan Anderton
After many years of suffering with what has only very recently been diagnosed as Recurrent Depression Disorder and Disruptive Behavioural Disorder that culminated in several suicide attempts over a 20 year period I found peer support and cycling as successful ways of managing my mental health and wellbeing.
My 1st suicide attempt occurred when I was 17 years old, with several throughout my 20's and 30's including one which I refer to as my leaving Las Vegas attempt in which I tried to drink myself to death, cut my wrists in a shower and took as many tablets as I could purchase and swallow.
This attempt lead me to being hospitalised for 8 week in a mental health ward.
My last suicidal episode saw me staring down a train before I sort of realised that I needed to take control of my mental health, make changes in my life and pull myself out of the darkness.
I had many personal issues in my life that were affecting my mood but through talking about them I was introduced to cycling as a way of naturally increasing my mood and as a way of escaping from my destructive thoughts.
In 2017, aged 37, I started cycling and in my all out attitude I did it in style with a mental health fundraising ride for mental health charity Andy's Man Club that had helped me so much in opening up. I cycled 1,000 miles from Lands End to John O'Groats in just 8 days.
In 2018, after stopping cycling for a while and having my train line relapse, I followed this up initially with a 50 miles for 50 days training challenge that birthed my social media campaign called ‘Re-Cycle Yourself’ that simply means that I put my past me behind me and I set out to recreate a better me.
The same year I then went on to complete a 4,800 mile cycle challenge on behalf of Mind (the mental health charity) around the entire coastline of Britain that took just 41 days.
And last year, 2019, I cycled 4,400 miles from the most northern point of Europe to the most southerly point, cycling from Nordkapp in Norway to Tarifa in Spain, crossing 12 countries in only 30 cycling days.
In 2020 I am planning to repeat my Around Britain challenge to become one of very few people to have cycled it both clockwise & anti-clockwise.
Whilst my mental health recovery is primarily cycling based it is the sense of giving, accomplishment, focus and support that I have experienced that have helped me become the stronger, more gathered person that I am today.
I have developed friendships with people across the world, I have done talks that emphasise the things that cycling has taught me like the benefits of utilising exercise as a wellbeing tool, planning, having goals and through overcoming adversity and achievement how you can maintain a better mental health.
In the last 3 years I have gone from feeling suicidal, being unemployed and lacking in any self-belief to being recognised as one of the UK's leading charity cyclist's, a professional peer supporter worker, founder of my own charitable trust (The Lee Fancourt Mental Health Fund) and peer support organisation (It's Worth Talking About) as well as a keynote speaker that has told my developing story within several prisons, schools and universities, to some of the UK's industry leading firms in a number of sectors and on several TV and radio shows.
What I think my story shows is that if I can go from feeling like I did, having an undiagnosed mental health challenge along with life challenges, some of which are still not resolved to this day and I can still find the physical and mental strength to organise such cycling challenges, complete them and gain support along the way in terms of fundraising, having accommodation offered, meals provided, sponsorship given that no matter how bad things may seem that it can, with a bit of work, get better. It can be so much better - life can be what you want it to be.
Yes there will be setbacks, punctures that deflate you, hills that are hard to get over, obstacles and detours along the way but as long as you keep focused on the goal, on the end and keep moving forward towards it, that you can get to wherever you want to be in life.