Max is a long time volunteer turned employee for mindyourmind as a Youth Outreach Assistant. He enjoys blogging, cats, and the state of Utah. Check him out on Twitter: @maxamilli

Do you ever bike down a hill, with the wind at your back, and as you’re gliding as fast as you possibly can with your hands gripping the handlebars do you ever think: “man, I could do this forever!” Well, that’s exactly what one man tried to do, riding around the world on his bicycle, and why did he do it? For mental health!

Michael Schrattner was in University when he suffered a manic episode due to a collection of issues going on at the time in his life, he was able to seek treatment, but didn’t appreciate the way people acted as though he had something to hide; “That really struck me as an injustice, that this seemed almost like a mark on my character.” Therefore, Michael decided that he would bike around the world in order to raise awareness and help to eliminate the stigma that surrounds mental health.

The name of his bike trip, called Ride Don’t Hide serves as an inspirational message to people who are going through mental illnesses. Yes it may be incredibly tough to have to deal with it, but it’s going to be all the more tough if you have to hide it or act like you’re below anyone else because of it, the illness is never as big as you are and that’s something that gets lost in the mix a lot of the time.

Michael is currently on the last 10,000 km leg of his 40,000 km journey, so why aren’t we hearing about it all the time on the news? Is it because of the way he’s speaking about mental illness and the way stigma still haunts our society?  That is hopefully what Michael intends to achieve with this initiative, so that one day “a person can talk about [their mental illness] the way they talk about diabetes or strep throat."

You can find Michael’s official website for his journey here: http://www.ridedonthide.com/