“Every single person here has a very specific story, a specific thing that they contribute to the world. You just have to find out who you are and try not to be afraid of it,” says Fleabag actor Andrew Scott.
Scott has revealed his struggles with mental health in the final episode of The HUMEN Series, a five-part documentary that has aired each Tuesday on the Evening Standard for the past five weeks.
The episodes are produced by HUMEN, a new men’s mental health organisation founded by actor River Hawkins. This week, in the episode above, HUMEN is looking at hope and what it means to men.
Scott continues: “I think hope is a very beautiful word and for me it’s about love. Love is hope and hope is love. Without hope, there is no love. Without love, there is no hope.
“I always find it very helpful to think of our emotions like the weather. I find that the sun does always come out, sometimes the winter lasts a very long time, and sometimes you think it’s always going to be summer but it’s never going to be that, it’s going to be all those things and to have as seasonal a life as possible is the thing to strive for.”
Hawkins himself also reveals his mental health struggles in this episode. He says hitting ‘rock bottom’ is what gave him the drive to start HUMEN and create a charity that is focused on action.
“Hitting rock bottom for me ended up being a blessing but at the time you lose all hope and I feel like I was rolling on the lowest of the low for about three months before I wanted to even try and do anything about it,” Hawkins says.
“During that time, what was really hard for me was that I felt as if I was in this no man’s land, because I didn’t want to kill myself. I was saying I don’t want to live but at the same time I don’t want to die. So I didn’t know what to do.
“There just wasn’t anything else that was accessible that was preventative to help people before they are on the edge or if they are low and that’s where the idea [for HUMEN] came from.”
HUMEN is a new organisation for men’s mental health and The HUMEN Space runs every Wednesday at 6.30pm at 14 Neal’s Yard, WC2. For more information, to attend sessions or make a donation, visit wearehumen.org
Watch part five of The HUMEN Series above. The HUMEN Series is a five-part documentary on men’s mental health featuring the likes of Bill Nighy, Andrew Scott and David Gandy, exclusively at standard.co.uk/HUMEN.
