Real People, Real Stories
By Anna Rowe, Stamp Out Stigma team
Sharing is profoundly healing and can transform the deepest pain into connection. Individuals have the power to find solace in empathy and discover a renewed sense of hope through sharing and understanding others.
During National Suicide Prevention Month, we encourage you to read or watch stories shared by individuals about their mental health or substance use disorder journeys, and – if you’re willing – to share your story. to help those who are in crisis know that they are not alone and that recovery is possible. Shared experiences can encourage people to reach out for help and create a more supportive and connected community.
Stamp Out Stigma is dedicated to giving a platform for those who have past or current experiences with mental illness or substance use disorders. By sharing real stories by real people, we can actively work to recognize the prevalence of mental illnesses and substance use disorders, reeducate ourselves, friends, and family on the truths of mental illness and substance use disorders, and finally reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and substance use disorders. Studies even show that when at-risk patients receive support phone calls that include risk monitoring and they are encouraged to engage in treatment and safe behaviors, their suicide risk goes down.
Inspirational speaker and veteran Ernie details his substance use disorder on the Stamp Out Stigma’s Share Your Story page. He shares, “I started drinking to ease the stress in my life but drinking made me sink deeper into depression and eventually, I started thinking about suicide because my worth was at zero in my mind”. While at the lowest point in his life, he didn’t see any hope. But all of that changed when he received a phone call asking if he would speak about his military career at a high school.
When he presented to the class, he recalls, “When I stood in front of those students I felt peace. I felt belonging. Best of all? I felt my worth. That is when I knew I found my new mission in life.” Ernie took a chance and shared this story, which changed everything.
You are Not Alone
Jeanne, Founder and President of Showering Love, shares her own experience with addiction. She notes in the Stamp Out Stigma Share Your Story page, “Addiction took me to places I never thought I would go: jails, institutions, the death of the loss of one’s soul, and at times, the loss of the will to live”. She didn’t know how to rise above her addiction until she started sharing her story.
She now knows, “On days when life has shown up in full force, I pick up the phone and talk about it. I’ve learned I’m only as sick as my secrets and secrets will keep me sick.”
Instead of experiencing her hardest days alone, Jeanne learned that sometimes the best way to get through something is to talk about it.
If you are experiencing a crisis, help is available. Call or text 988, or use the live online chat feature.
National Suicide Prevention Month is a time of remembrance for those who have lost their lives to suicide, to spread awareness of resources, and to come together as a community to show support. It is also a time to share and to understand that struggles shouldn’t be silent and that the most powerful way to end the stigma is to talk about it. Help us this month and every month in amplifying voices that have long been silenced. Join us in turning whispers into conversations, stigma into understanding, and isolation into community.
If you would like to read more stories or share your own personal journey, please visit our stories page.
