National Alliance on Mental Illness

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, here are some additional resources.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 National Alliance on Mental Illness 1-800-950-6264 Crisis Text Line Text HOME to 741741 This episode was written and reported by me, Matt Stroud.

Associate producer is Asil Kipi.

Story editor is Casey Miner.

I want to be seen and I want someone to feel seen.

I used to joke way before AI, I worked for the National Alliance on Mental Illness at the state level.

And so I had to interact.

My job was to do all of the interaction with the national organization and then communication to all of our affiliates.

And then, um, I kept getting just a little bit better and a little bit better over time.

And then in 1996, the local NAMI affiliate, National Alliance on Mental Illness, and our county behavioral health program brought in a comedian, David Grenier.

He teaches stand-up comedy to folks with mental illness, with stand-up for mental health.

My wife encouraged me to take the class, and so I went to the first class.

We're going to give away baskets of you get, you know, you buy raffle tickets, you can get the free wine, of course, but you can get, the basket will contain my book, two bottles of the reserve label wine with the cover of the book on the label of the wine, a box of chocolate, a wine tote with Betsy Craig Foundation on it, and the more money I raise from these events, as well as book sales, that money will go into the foundation and that money will be distributed to, you know, my community first through my Rotary Club, Falk Center for Counseling.

Then if it gets bigger, you know, give it to National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, you know, donate to other charities.

And I want it to go worldwide.

Like I said, it's already in the Middle East.

Yeah.

I got involved with NAMI, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

And I really went hard on sharing his story and going to conferences with NAMI, talking about suicide prevention, youth substance misuse prevention, going into high schools and talking about those risk factors and warning signs.

And I was like, this poster child for talking about suicide prevention until I was like, Whoa, I didn't give myself any time to heal.

Also, of course, you can get treatment through the VA.

And then for civilians, and specifically for healthcare workers who are experiencing difficulties with secondary trauma or potentially PTSD, there's the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, N-A-M-I.

And they have a call center 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern.

You can call 800-950-6264 or text NAMI to 62640.

Yeah.

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

And she, Ash, is marking Suicide Prevention Month as her debut of a NAMI ambassador.

This is really cool because she is able to direct followers to mental health resources.

So they offer training on how to support and talk about mental health and substance use struggles and help respond to those challenges.

NAMI or the National Alliance on Mental Illness offers more of a support group or peer-led approach to those same concerns.

Then obviously we've got the 988 number that folks can text or call a trained person to respond to crisis.

And then finally, there's the National Harm Reduction Coalition that offers harm reduction resources and support, including where to find syringe exchange and naloxone resources in case that ever comes up.