It’s hoped Mental Health Week in Queensland will help shine a light on individual and community health and wellbeing, removing the stigma around mental illness.

Sunshine Coast-based mental health and addiction life coach, counselling student and creator of the support platform ‘The Anxiety Bender’, Brooklyn Garrett joined 4BC Drive to talk about her own journey.

She was on anxiety medication for a decade from age 14, before detoxing in a psychiatric rehabilitation facility.

What followed was a dependency on illicit drugs and alcohol.

She credits a retreat on the Sunshine Coast for helping to save her.

“Without you even realising it, when you are living in that way or you are living with addiction, it kind of becomes an identity to yourself, and it’s like, who am I, without it?”

Press PLAY below to hear her story and her message to anyone who is struggling

Image: Getty

If you need help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or BeyondBlue on 1300 224 636.