Maddie

20 Hours for 20Talk

If you asked any of my primary school teachers about me spending 20 hours in silence, they would've told you it was impossible. Year after year my reports always said the same thing; Maddie talks too much. I don’t really remember why I felt the need to be so chatty, but the therapists among us will probably say it’s something to do with growing up in a family of 6 surrounded by big personalities and even bigger mouths, but for some reason I could not and would not shut up.

But as I've gotten older, silence is something I've grown more comfortable with. Silence gives me the time I need to rest and the space I need to grow, and it’s within silence that I’ve learnt to understand and trust myself more. In silence I like to think and make meaning of the things that happen to me.

But for all the time I spend in silence I know that eventually there will be someone nearby, a friend or sister at the end of the line or the cashier at Aldi, for me to talk to. I’m lucky and privileged enough to have access to the things I need to mostly look after my mental health, although this is something I’ve had difficulty with over the past decade or so. And although silence can be golden, it can get to a point where the silence becomes deafening, where the sound of your own thoughts becomes too overwhelming. So something I try not to do in silence is suffer.

Unfortunately though too many of us are, and because of this mental health is a cause that should be dear to everyone’s hearts. Living in Sydney has given me a new appreciation for my long neglected physical health, but the wellbeing of our hearts and minds is something that many of us struggle to maintain in our current climate.

This is an issue that will not go away without action. 298 Australians age 18-24 died by suicide in 2023 and in that same year, Kids Helpline received around 12,000 calls about suicide. Young people are desperate for help and 20Talk, a charity here in my current home Australia, is doing the work to give young people access to mental health support using methods that are useful, relevant and effective. As a former young person and a current teacher of actual young people, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be to access any kind of support or help. We’re simply not taught, whether through our parents or in schools, how to take care of our minds. 

So on Saturday 28th June I will be taking part in the 20 Hours for 20Talk challenge, spending 20 hours in a 2x2 metre square in complete silence with no phone, no books, and absolutely no speaking. In order to do so, I need your help raising $1000 (about £500) which will go towards providing Australia’s young people with the kind of accessible mental health support that they need.

$200 puts a young adult through a one-day Mental Health Maintenance course, and $1000 can reach up to 80,000 people through targeted social media campaigns. 92% of people who completed 20Talk’s Mental Health Maintenance course felt more confident in managing their stress and maintaining healthy mental habits, and 85% reported a sustained improvement in their wellbeing, and the money you help to raise by supporting me to do this challenge will be integral to this.

Optimistically or perhaps stupidly I think this challenge will be a blast. 20 hours of complete silence with only my brain and a journal to keep me company sounds like a dream to me, especially as it comes at the end of a busy school term. But I also know my daily average phone time is around 5 hours and once you include the laptop, TV and iPad the numbers are actually a lot higher than that, and the only extended period of time I’ve spent away from my phone since about 2012 is while I’ve been asleep, so perhaps this will turn out to be a much more difficult challenge than I’m imagining.

For every person who donates, you can send me a question that I will answer when I am in my 20 hours of silence, or if preferred I will write you a letter in that time - please specify which you’d prefer by leaving me a message when you donate.

So please, if you love me, know me, have suffered with your mental health, have loved or known someone who has, or just want to see what the outcome is of me spending 20 hours without TikTok, consider donating.

Thank you.