Active Minds

Joe Fraioli from University of Iowa says:

"I encourage everyone reading this to step up to the plate and take this social movement into their hands as well.  How will you end the silence?"  

During my college experience I have learned what it means to be an advocate - a discovery that was fundamentally shaped through my involvement with Active Minds.  Prior to college, I had never envisioned myself becoming a part of the mental health movement, let alone a promoter of mental health services and awareness. I had struggled with my own mental health in high school. In tenth grade, the burden of the coming out process and the pressures of school contributed to a long lasting depression. I was ashamed of my condition, keeping it to myself and putting on a happy persona around my peers and family. Maybe this was due to the fact that mental health is a taboo subject in high schools, or that the media ridicules the mentally ill and portrays mental illness as something to be afraid of. Regardless, I was embarrassed by my condition, not empowered by it.

This continued throughout my first year at Ithaca College. Although I had generally overcome my depression, I still struggled with it during my freshman year.  At this time, I still had not come to the realization that my experience was not unusual - many, many people continue to struggle with their mental health and are silenced by a negative atmosphere where "perfect" and "happy" people don't suffer from such illnesses. This wasn't really made clear to me until the beginning of my sophomore year during RA training where I sat through a session on recognizing the signs of depression and suicidal behavior in students. I went up to the presenter of the session afterwords, a counselor at the counseling center, and asked him why we didn't have a student led mental health awareness group on our own campus. He told me there was a group - Active Minds - that had been around a few years prior, but it lost momentum and was not revived as a student organization the following year.

I was shocked that no one was willing to continue with Active Minds. How could a college campus not have such an important student-focused group? He gave me the name of a student once involved with Active Minds, who later became my co-president, and agreed to be our advisor. We knew we would have to do a lot of work in order to get this club up and running with such short notice, but after having a successful first meeting and a full executive board, we were in full swing. Active Minds at Ithaca College has since become a recognized and respected organization on our campus, continually gaining the support of faculty and staff who share our goal. After an immensely successful first year, we were awarded the Revitalization Award from the national office at the 2009 Annual Active Minds National Conference in Washington, D.C.  for breathing life into Ithaca's once abandoned chapter.

As a member of the national Student Advisory Committee for Active Minds Inc., I am proud to take my membership with Active Minds one step further. This group of passionate students has truly inspired me, and the leaders of the national office are some of the most helpful and committed individuals I have ever met. This entire process has helped me take my own experiences, both positive and negative, and use them to help others who may also be silenced by the stigmas associated with mental illness.  I plan to pursue a legal career in civil rights and I hope to work with Active Minds in the future. I encourage everyone reading this to step up to the plate and take this social movement into their hands as well. How will you end the silence?