Stand together: Scott Reardon and AIS athletes speak up for mental health

The Paralympic gold medallist lost two of his closest mates to suicide within a fortnight of each other in 2014.

He has felt the despair, shed the tears and experienced, like many others coming to terms with losing a loved one to suicide, the struggle to make sense of it all.

But it was also a galvanising moment for Reardon, who has since proactively used his profile to raise awareness of mental health.

He's among a group of 21 athletes who were selected as Lifeline community custodians 12 months ago, in an AIS-driven program designed to help reduce the stigma of mental health by sharing athletes' stories.

"Every life we can save or help preserve is beneficial," Reardon said.

"If I can share what I've experienced with others then that's a good thing.

"As athletes, mental health is vitally important for us and some of us really struggle with it. It's being able to put that back into the 'human world' and show people no matter who you are, what you're doing and what people see, the reality sometimes is not the reality.

"It's a really nice way to humanise what we do, bring it back and spread that message.

"I was probably one of the only athletes in the program who hadn't had a bad lived experience of mental health. I kind of sat on the other side of it, of 'how do you deal with something like this when it happens? When you lose a couple of friends, what do you do and how do you deal with it? What things could have we done to prevent these types of things?' It's asking the little questions."

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The joint-initiative helped Lifeline to raise more than $2 million through engagements across Australia, reaching out to more than 35,000 people directly and indirectly.

Reardon shared his story and met with about 200 people from the Department of Social Services in Tuggeranong, as well as doing social media engagements.

The 29-year-old Paralympian has not re-applied for the 2020-21 program, but says their message of 'stand together' will resonate as society deals with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's now more than ever the message of 'stand together' is vitally important because we need to make sure we maintain human connection," Reardon said.

"We need to make sure we have support networks around us, if we don't then our mental health can suffer.

"It's a very challenging time for a lot of people, especially for those who have lost jobs and just even the change of environment. There's going to be positives and negatives to come out of it, but what's important is we sit down and ask ourselves 'are we doing okay?'"

Reardon has brought back his training to a base load since the 2020 Paralympics was postponed due to the global coroanvirus outbreak.

He's already run the qualifying time and sees the delay as an opportunity to be better prepared to defend gold in the 100 metre T42 sprint.

"Had Tokyo been this year, I would have been fine and ready to go - no doubt about it," Reardon said.

"We were preparing well and everything was going according to plan. I see this as an opportunity to be better than I was before.

"I think a lot of people see the flipside of it, they feel sorry about the Paralympics being pushed back another year.

"But it gives us another year to work on things, we have more time now and we're not in a hurry like we normally are because we have nothing to prepare for until September next year.

"We can take out time and do the little things we wouldn't normally do. That means, when I stand on the starting line in Tokyo, I'll be better prepared than what I ever have been."