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Mental health campaigner who started #FindMike to spend Christmas in hospital

Jonny Benjamin checked himself into hospital after his illness worsened

Monday 22 December 2014 17:42 GMT

Jonny Benjamin, who launched the 'Finding Mike' campaign to track down the man who saved his life (Facebook/Finding Mike)

A mental health campaigner who launched an international search for a man who saved his life during a bout of suicidal depression will spend Christmas in hospital after his illness worsened.

Jonny Benjamin suffers from schizophrenia and suicidal thoughts and told viewers on his YouTube channel last night that he was at “rock bottom” and was going to check himself into hospital for this own safety.

Earlier this year Mr Benjamin launched the #FindMike hashtag to help him locate a man who talked him out of attempting suicide in central London six years earlier. His search went viral and was ultimately successful.

"I absolutely cannot stand myself, being in my skin, doing this - hearing my voice. I hate, hate myself. How do you recover from that? I don't know if I can,” he said in his new video.

"Just when I think I can't get any worse, it somehow seems to. I really am at rock bottom and I see my suicide as the only escape from it. I can't be around anyone any more. When I am, I am shaking, trembling ... even around the people that I love,” he said.

"So, yeah - I'm going into hospital. I don't want to go - I desperately don't want to go, but I don't have a choice."

Quotes on depression

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1/14Quotes on depression

Quotes on depression

Alistair Campbell

Alistair Campbell: "One day, we will look back and wonder how on earth we used to believe that depression was a lifestyle choice, only to be debated and taken seriously when an A List film star took his life, and the world filled with people saying how shocked and saddened they were. "

Getty

Quotes on depression

On living with depression

Stephen Fry: "Depression is as real as the weather…it’s all about a kind of mental umbrella. 'Hey-ho, it’s raining inside: it isn’t my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage.'"

Quotes on depression

On living with depression

Ernest Hemingway: "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." (He also said "happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know")

Rex Features

Quotes on depression

On living with depression

Jonathan Davis: "A lot of people don't realize that depression is an illness. I don't wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it."

Quotes on depression

On passing judgement on depression

Geoffrey Boycott: "Until you've had depression I don't think you're qualified to talk about it."

GETTY

Quotes on depression

Jack Dee

Jack Dee: "I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere."

BBC

Quotes on depression

On living with depression

Jason Manford: "The world needs you even if you don't think it does. I promise, we need you here, now."

Getty Images

Quotes on depression

Author Jeanette Winterson

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.

FRANTZESCO KANGARIS

Quotes on depression

On life and depression

Agatha Christie: "I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know that just to be alive is a grand thing."

PA

Quotes on depression

On living with depression

Albert Camus: "In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Quotes on depression

On dealing with low mood

Dolly Parton "The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

Quotes on depression

If you're feeling depressed right now..

Annabel Giles: "If you’re depressed right now, then let's remember that we only have to do today, that's all. Nothing more. We can do just a day, can't we? And don’t forget, we haven't always been like this. The good days will come back. We've just go to do as much as we can, when we can."

Rex Features

Quotes on depression

Helen Keller on looking for the positive

Helen Keller: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Getty Images

Quotes on depression

On it happening to all of us

Mariella Frostrup: "Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression."

Getty Images

After receiving support from contacts on the internet Mr Benjamin tweeted his thanks.

"Thank-you for tweets -feel v touched by support,” he said.

Yesterday he tweeted that he was “really struggling but determined to overcome this”.

Suicide is preventable and anyone who feels they are at risk should contact Samaritans.

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