Reflecting on the past 12 months of Bonny Co.

Words by Kelly Müller.

Following the sudden and unexpected death of my best friend, I’ve shared pretty openly my experience with grief. When Michele died from depression, I felt helpless. I was so angry at ‘the system’. I was saddened that such an illness existed. I didn’t want anyone else to feel the way she did, (though sadly, I knew there would be many). I wanted to bring people together, to help one another process the grief and to normalise adversity. I wanted to know more, to do more, to be a better support person. I wanted to help people to understand the complexities of mental illness. My head was in a spin and by nature, I went into action mode. I wanted to do something.

I didn’t know what that was but in one of my eldest daughter’s favourite books, there is a quote: ‘When you don’t know where to start, start with what you know’.

So, I started talking to those closest to me. People who had experienced great success. People I looked up to. People who had endured sadness or mental illness. People who had experienced some, none, or all of those things. I simply started having conversations and trusted that from there, something would come from nothing. I realised I had no idea of the depths of some of my own friends’ experiences, nor them mine, and I wondered if perhaps that was part of the problem. We have no trouble speaking about our travels, our work, our relationships, even the weather(!!!) but opening up, even to those closest to us, about our families, our trauma or our past, feels too hard and too personal.

Through these conversations, I found that many of us were holding shame, fear and embarrassment over things we had endured, none of which were our own doing. We were keeping things close to our chests in fear of judgement, and for some of us - because we didn’t want to burden others - and it meant too many of us were holding onto darkness that we didn’t deserve.

From here, Bonny Co was born swiftly and without any real plan. It was a deviation from what my business partner Ollie and I imagined, but it was something purposeful and deeply personal. It was suddenly less about being a commercial idea and about something so much bigger.

As a society, we recognise and celebrate the good things about people and, generally speaking, it seems we just can’t comprehend that as well as those things, people can also be anxious. Depressed. Insecure. Humans are multi-layered and what we see externally is often only a portion of what we might suffer within our own homes and heads on the daily.

Bonny Co became my way of sharing the complexities of humans - of our friends, of our loved ones, and later, of strangers - in the hope of educating others, inspiring others and helping to heal those holding onto so much heaviness in their hearts.

In the past 12 months, we’ve told the stories of 15 incredible individuals, with plenty more to come. We’ve shared stories of loss, of love, mental illness, infertility, family, suicide and grief. And while I certainly haven’t achieved all I had hoped with Bonny Co, I’ve come to learn that that’s ok. Me-two-years-ago would have been annoyed at myself but me-now knows that I am only capable of so much and I am giving what I can to this platform, and to all of our readers, in this moment.

I read and respond to every DM, to every email and what keeps coming back to me is not how to ‘fix’ the system or those with mental illness, but how to be a better advocate.

It’s become abundantly clear that as a society, we generally view mental illness as something ‘that doesn’t affect me’. And because of that, too many of us don’t consider how we speak to people. Too many of us don’t think about what others may be battling behind closed doors and too many of us expect those suffering to simply ‘help themselves’.

I am not a mental health professional. I don’t have all the answers. I couldn’t save my friend. But I won’t ever stop learning. Trying to be better. To do better. And I invite you to join me.

If this past year has taught me anything (of which it’s actually taught me a lot) it’s that the next phase of Bonny Co is also the next phase of me. This platform as you see it and know it will now be run solely by me. It’s a dedication to my beautiful friend, it’s my way of continuing to connect with people and it’s about knowing better and doing better.

We can’t just sit back and hope that there will be more accessibility to professional help (which we all know is needed), it’s about changing our perception, our conversations and our approach to mental health as a whole. Nothing changes if nothing changes and it starts with you and me. It starts with all of us.