Writer, filmmaker, actor and OCD advocate Martin Ingle will join an impressive line-up of speakers and performers for the 2026 Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice, which will run as an online-only event for the first time in its 14-year history. Photo: Supplied.
They came out of nowhere when he was 23.
Dark, shocking, and completely unwanted thoughts.
For the first year, no-one from the outside world would have known Martin Ingle had OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
“For that first year, I didn’t know I had OCD,” says the now 36-year-old writer, filmmaker and actor.
“The picture I had of it was completely different … I mean wasn’t OCD that hand-washing and neatness thing?”
And yet Martin was under siege in his brain.
“I had no idea what was going on,” he says. “I was being bombarded by intrusive thoughts, obsessing that I was a very, very bad person and feeling the need to respond urgently to make those thoughts go away.”
Martin recalls that he withdrew from anything in life that caused joy, afraid he was a risk to others, that he would “contaminate” them with his character … afraid of the thoughts that would not leave his head.
Nothing, he says, compared to the darkness of that first year. Before his diagnosis.
Not even the period five years later when he could barely eat or sleep, with hands – “like leather sitting in the sun” – that cracked and bled whenever he bent his fingers.
OCD is the most misunderstood mental illness in the world, says Martin, who will share his story to a global audience as part of the 2026 Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice on Sunday 21 June from 6 pm.
This year will be the first time the event, founded in 2013 by advocacy group Survivors of Suicide & Friends, will be run as an online-only gathering with the livestream to be aired publicly via the event’s Facebook page.
The final in-person event took place at Albury’s QEII Square in 2025 and while it may look a little different this year, the heart remains the same, according to founders Annette and Stuart Baker.
“The Solstice is held on the longest night of the year, and serves as a reminder that even in the deepest dark, the light always returns,” Annette says.
“We’re bringing together an exceptional group of guest speakers, artists and performers to help us shine a light on the darkest night by engaging on the topics of suicide and mental ill-health. This year, our guiding theme is taking a gentle look back to help us look forward, and we’ve gathered some incredible people to help us do just that.”
In 2025, Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice co-founders Annette and Stuart Baker said the end of the in-person event would not be the end of the story. Photo: Nat Ord.
Among the line-up on Sunday is musician (and return speaker) Clare Bowditch, songwriter, guitarist and actor Tim Rogers, writer and comedian Charles Firth (of The Chaser fame), actor Mark Coles Smith, and Australian singer-songwriter Emma Donovan.
Trailblazing local suicide awareness and prevention advocate Lisa Cartledge and her talented singer-songwriter daughter Liv Cartledge will also join the event, with renowned wordsmith and Solstice stalwart David Astle to once again guide the evening’s presentations.
Martin, who has sought and found solace, solidarity and support in the worldwide OCD community while becoming an eloquent advocate himself, says it’s a great honour to be a part of the Winter Solstice.
“Everyone feels as though they are suffering in their own little bubble, and they don’t necessarily feel like their experiences are relevant to other people,” he says.
“But hearing about what (the Solstice founders) have built over more than a decade and the wide range of speakers that have shared their equally wide range of experiences is incredibly powerful … knowing this started from a most unimaginable place for the Bakers (the loss of their 15-year-old daughter Mary to suicide).”
Martin believes an event such as the Winter Solstice helps debunk any claim that mental ill-health is something only experienced by a minority.
“The things these speakers address resonate with everyone who will be tuning in,” he says.
“There are many things you can escape from in life – you can buy things, you can escape physical situations or even a bad haircut.
“But the one thing you can never escape is that little organ inside your skull!”
Martin says there is “no one thing” that helped his recovery although medication and therapy have been the most important.
He admits “the internal stuff is more or less the same as when I was at my sickest”.
“OCD recovery is about choices – through therapy you learn to change your relationship to your thoughts,” he explains.
“I still get the same thoughts today but it’s a choice of whether I respond to that or do the painful thing and override it.”
As an advocate, Martin has made it his mission to translate the illness in a way that is relevant to everybody.
“We all have a relationship with fear, to risk and to the horrible thoughts we are all capable of,” he says.
“People with OCD are the canary in the coal mine of those thoughts.”
With OCD, the brain literally can’t turn them off.
While media has honed in on outward manifestations of the illness – compulsive cleaning or hand-washing for example – the fact is OCD can latch on to any subject, according to Martin.
And the cruellest part of it is the bit you can’t see, he says.
“The brain doesn’t censor,” he adds.
“It’s shocking, it’s horrible at times but I’ve learned that talking about it is the thing that reduces its power.”
To join the 2026 Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice or find out more about the line-up, visit the Facebook page, where you can register for the event. If you don’t have a Facebook account, head to the event link from 6 pm, Sunday 21 June to view the livestream.
If you or someone you know needs help, you can contact:Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis support line – 13 11 14Suicide Call Back Service – 1300 659 467Kids Helpline – 1800 551 800 or kidshelpline.com.auMensLine Australia – 1300 789 978.
