Speaking at Festival Of Marketing for World Mental Health Day, Kem Cetinay opened up about his previous mental health issues and why his mum didn't want him to go on Love Island.
Kem, who kicked off heat's mental health campaign Where's Your Head At? a few months ago by talking about his personal experience with anxiety, admitted that after dealing with a traumatic experience where his mum nearly died when he was 13, he suffered from "PTSD and bad mental health".
When he was at his lowest points, Kem admits that "I used to turn aggressive on my family - that’s when my knew my was feeling angry and depressed. I didn’t know how to get my emotions out, so that’s when I would turn on everyone around me."
Afterwards, he received help from a therapist to improve his mental health, but when the opportunity came for him to go onto Love Island, Kem said "my mum was crying and saying 'You can’t go [on Love Island], you can’t go! You couldn’t even go to a restaurant for three years, and now you’re going to go on national TV?!'".
Watch Kem speak about mental health below:
Kem's appearance on Love Island actually helped open up the conversation around mental health, because he "showed such a vulnerable side on Love Island".
Kem said "it's normal to feel like that, anxiety and mental health is a part of my life and will never leave me, but I appreciate what it was."
Previously speaking to heat, Kem said that: "Our mental health is as important as our physical health, and this is why I’m supporting the Where's Your Head At? campaign to get a mental health first aider in every college or workplace. So please make sure you sign the petition," said Kem.
Where’s Your Head At? is a campaign that will improve the mental health of the nation by ensuring employers look after the wellbeing of their workforce. We want to make it easy for you to talk about your mental health at work, by ensuring that there are trained colleagues on-site who know how to point you in the direction of any help you might need.
We need YOUR help to make it a legal requirement to have a trained mental health first aider in every workplace or college. Please sign our petition at wheresyourheadat.org and use the hashtag #WheresYourHeadAt to support the campaign.