Tamworth White Elephant Spring Ball raises funds for batyr, a preventative mental health program

Two months later he took his own life. It's time to talk about the elephant in the room.

Campbell was only 27, he'd just been offered an opportunity for promotion at the Northern Inland Sports Academy in Tamworth.

Mental health was something the academy promoted, but mounting pressure that his anxiety would cripple his job application saw the couple seek help from their GP.

So he made an appointment for May 8, 2013, he was prescribed antidepressants and later spoke with a psychologist.

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"But there was a lot of self-doubt, and anxiety, sleeplessness," Mrs Campbell told the NSW Mental Health Commission in 2017.

"He had not slept for a week, so his rationale wasn't there.

"That combination of things ended up in that snap decision to take his own life."

The first year was one of the hardest, the inaugural White Elephant Ball that raises funds for youth mental health organisation batyr proved a welcome distraction.

Now in it's sixth year, the ball has raised more than $300,000 for the not-for-profit based in Tamworth.

Mrs Campbell has taken a step back from the ball, but each year more hands raise to take her place in the committee.

The White Elephant Spring Ball is on this weekend, the funds raised will help batyr deliver 20 mental health programs and a Being Herd workshop to school and university students in the area.

As relentless drought takes its toll on the collective mental health of the community, the committee felt it was more important than ever this year to make a point to support local.

From the lighting to the flowers, the delicious food and accompanying music, the committee has made it their mission to get behind the herd and spend exclusively in the area, committee chair Annabel Underwood said.

"We've challenged everyone who comes to the ball to work a local twist into their outfits this year," she said.

"Whether it's a bow tie or hand-made jewellery, the local twist is all about supporting the community.

"We all know about the drought at the moment and the toll that is taking on businesses, so the challenge is to shop local."

Mental ill health is a serious issue everywhere, but in the current climate it's even more important, Ms Underwood said.

"When I went through school no-one discussed it, there was no awareness around it, so to be able to bring light to that elephant in the room is amazing, and educate kids on how to deal with it."

Of every 30 students in Australia, there will be seven dealing with a mental health issue.

Only two will ask for support, that means five will suffer in silence.

Batyr began in 2011 when founder Sebastian Robertson struggled with the isolation of mental-ill health at university.

He realised it was time to have open conversations about mental health with young people and founded the organisation.

It's named after 'Batyr', a real elephant in a zoo in Kazakstan believed to havebeen able to 'talk' with meaningful human speech.

The programs aim to smash the stigma around mental ill health and encourage an open dialogue, batyr chief executive Nic Brown said.

"I think part of the problem is that the way we have spoken about mental health in the past is negative, when we hear the words 'mental health' we think of depression, loneliness and harm," he said.

"We don't think that with physical health, we think fitness, nutrition and energy.

"We need to change that as a key way forward."

The programs engage young people to talk about mental health and wellbeing, and in doing so hand them the skills to lead mentally healthy lives.

It finds strength in the lived experiences of young people, and recruits ambassadors through Being Herd workshops to tell their own stories in the hope it will help someone else.

Bridget Galvin is one of those young people who decided to share her experience with anxiety.

For more of her life she'd been self-assured, perhaps a little bit of a perfectionist but nothing debilitating.

When it came time to choose her subjects for the Higher School Certificate, the pressure all came to a head.

"I don't remember my first panic attack, but it feels like you're having a heart attack or a stroke - you can't breathe," she said.

"You have this real impending sense of doom, you feel like you're going to die."

The physical effects were so serious that she went to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with anxiety and received treatment and support at Headspace.

But there was still a nagging reluctance to talk about what was happening to her.

The physical injuries she sustained in car accident in Year 12 provided the perfect excuse for what was really happening.

"I'd say I had a really sore neck and had a headache because it's hard as a teenager to explain what's happening really underneath," she said.

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"You never know what's going on behind closed doors, you don't see what's truly going on and batyr encourages people to look out for their mates and reach out for support when needed."

Since 2015, batyr has reached 8,428 young people across the New England region, delivering 111 mental health programs in Tamworth, Armidale, Gunnedah and Glen Innes. Batyr runs Look Out for Your Mates, Stressed Out?, Get Talkin' Tour Advocate training, teacher development programs and parent forums.

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