By the time British photographer Daniel Regan had turned 12, it was clear that he was different from his classmates. Home life was violent, chaotic and unstable; so much so that Regan struggled to communicate with words. So he picked up a camera that his grandfather had given him and started taking photographs instead. It was a move that would ultimately save his life.

At first, the photos were a means of documenting the minutiae of everyday life – of giving permanence to the people, places and experiences that seemed fleeting and prone to disappearing at any time. Regan then turned the camera around to explore his own sense of self by photographing his skin and body. By his teens, when he was regularly self-harming, he used the photos of the cuts and scars – “the impact of the self-harm”, as he describes it – as a way of sharing his feelings with his mother, a social worker with mental health difficulties of her own.

Images from Insula (2003-2013), in which Regan documents the emotional difficulties of living with a chronic mental health disorder, as well as using photography as a tool for recovery

“I was a very quiet child and any time my mum tried to speak to me I’d shut down,” says Regan, 34, from his south London studio.

“I relied on the photographs to communicate with her in a way I felt less vulnerable. Sharing through photography gave us a new way to communicate and strengthened our relationship. It became such a therapeutic outlet for me that I really think if I hadn’t gone on to study photography, I wouldn’t be here.”

In 2004, Regan was hospitalised in a psychiatric facility after an attempted suicide. After his release, he began photographing abandoned Victorian mental asylums scattered around the UK as a means of understanding his own experience in and out of services, eventually putting himself in the frame and finding himself able – for the first time – to “start talking about my own difficulties”.

The resulting five-year photo project, Abandoned, is a haunting portrait of the institutions erected to care for vulnerable people. Once grand hallways now stand littered with torn curtains, broken chairs and crumbling ceilings. Photographing himself in this context allowed Regan to contrast his own experience of hospitalisation with the notion of being “locked away” in an asylum.

“Hospital was a very frightening experience,” says Regan.

“Throughout my hospitalisation I was being told what to do, told what medications I had to take, even when I said I didn’t want them. There was only one nurse, on just one occasion, who actually listened to me without talking – it was a very profound experience of finally being heard.”

In 2008, after he lost his job and his relationship broke down, Regan attempted suicide once again. This time, he fought hard to not be hospitalised and underwent an intensive 18-month course of psychotherapy, during which time he began his MA in photography in London.

Regan was also introduced to the Maytree suicide respite centre, a residential centre in north London where people with suicidal feelings are able to come in for a free five-day, one-off stay to talk about what’s going on. The centre’s non-judgmental, non-clinical approach to suicide was eye-opening to Regan, who later underwent six weeks of training to become a volunteer there.

“The experience of being hospitalised made me disclose things less, which is awful, as it made me scared to say how I was really feeling in case I was at risk of having to go back to hospital,” says Regan.

“That one positive experience of being heard in hospital was what made me want to be at Maytree, where you’re not there to rescue people but to listen and to help them understand themselves better so that they can find their own solution. Non-clinical treatments like this are really beneficial for people, especially those who are concerned about disclosure and the effect telling their GP they feel suicidal might have on their record or future.”

Regan produced a series of photographs about Maytree and some of its residents and volunteers, entitled I Want to Live. The photographs and interviews initially comprised part of a four-month exhibition at the Free Space Project, a charity working within the Kentish Town Health Centre, which provides care to more than 29,000 patients.

Images from Regan’s Fragmentary series

Regan now facilitates arts workshops and creative projects for the charity, which sees him run a variety of services ranging from creative writing for LGBT patients to classical music events. He also holds monthly peer groups and runs Fragmentary.org, an arts website dedicated solely to photographic projects and artworks that deal with mental health and emotions.

“I try to make it really diverse to challenge people to try something new. Creativity is just as valid as clinical treatments in understanding how you are and facilitating your own self-expression,” says Regan.

“It’s not enough to go to your GP and say you’re not well. Coming to activities that feed your soul are just as important: it’s about the social element of the activity, trying something novel and the discussions that take place as you’re being creative. It’s those things that connect people and ultimately make them feel better.”

In February, Regan’s mother passed away unexpectedly, plunging him into profound bereavement. The photo project they had been working on together, What Light, What Darkness – which juxtaposes portraits of his mother with letters she and Regan used to write to one another – took on a new significance as a permanent record of their “special relationship and connection”.

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The series is also a record of how far Regan has come in understanding and responding to his own mental health. In one of the letters to his mother, Regan writes of “a void inside me … a vessel that is sinking slowly”. These days, on a new round of therapeutic treatment and with a rescued cat for company, Regan feels far more comfortable talking about his struggles and what it means to “be different” to other people.

“It’s very easy to feel ‘othered’, but as soon as you open up you realise everyone has difficulties,” he says.

“If anyone tries to shame me now, I just try to see it as their problem and not mine. I’m just living in my truth, who I am and where I’m at.”

‘I want to live’ is currently on display until September 25th at the Maudsley Hospital in partnership with Bethlem Gallery and funded by the Maudsley Charity.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.