My Afghan veteran boyfriend lost his battle with depression. I’m carrying on the charity he set up to help Hongkongers win theirs
Mental health resources are lacking in Hong Kong, and Olivia Parker is on a mission to change that – in memory of Laurence Grant, who died in October. Ahead of this week’s Time to Talk day, she explains how we can all do more for those who struggle with mental health conditions
In the bleakest moments of Laurence Grant’s depression, he said that all he could think of were the words, “Help me”. So this was the name he planned for the charity he began setting up in Hong Kong last year, to help the one in six people in the city who suffer from a diagnosable mental health condition and to campaign for cheaper, more accessible care.
And since Laurence died, on holiday in Laos last year, aged 30, it is these goals for Help Me that have helped carry me, his girlfriend, and his family and friends through our own dark times.
Laurence and I met in 2012. He was a lieutenant in the British Army, weeks away from a tour of Afghanistan, and in that dizzying time I assumed the upcoming tour explained the way he was – intense, vital and completely without either fear or limits.
He sold me on his plans of being a rock star, travelling the world and returning from Afghanistan not only alive but wearing a full-length bearskin coat.
In fact, it wasn’t the tour. That was just how Laurence was, as well as deeply loving, perceptive and totally unguarded.
He also carried depression as part of himself, and had done so since his school days. He described it as “black waves” that would colour everything until they lifted, usually a short time later. When he left the army in 2014 and started working at professional services company KPMG in London, churning anxiety joined the mix.