“Our pasts don’t define us. Screw your past. Empower yourself, learn why you did what you did, then lean into what makes you, you. Know your truth, then wear it like a suit of armour.”
Paul Chambers
Paul is a Neurodivergent Mental Health Advocate and Co-Founder of The Creative Mental Health Charity PoetsIN; and has managed multiple addictions, personality disorders and mental illnesses.
He is now a voice for learning your truth, what makes you unique, wearing your mental health battle medals with pride and your past like a suit of armour. His mental health journey and diagnoses started after kicking 30 years of addictions when he began to put the pieces of himself back together in healthy ways.
An author and poet, Paul has always used words to manage his wellbeing – from when he learned his way out of a stutter to channelling intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideations and high-level anxiety throughout his turbulent life.
His days are spent growing his charity, helping others, mentoring children in need, delivering programmes and workshops to all ages and talking in schools, workplaces and other charities. His sole aim is to be the person he needed as a child through to adulthood.
Paul is candid, brutally truthful, humorous and hides nothing; to strip away the stigma attached to mental health, he believes you must be as honest with yourself as you ask others to be.
