I tried to kill myself in the summer of 2006. I was 23. I spent a month deeply entrenched in an exhaustive cycle of breaking up and getting back together with Emma*, the girl I'd loved for three years. She was cheating on me, but neither of us could sever ties with the other.
On a chilly evening in late March of 2012, I walked into a room and sat down amongst a group of strangers. The only thing we had in common was we all had lost someone who died by suicide.
Layer One - Lies The blackness arose from the lies. The layers of blackness slowly turned to grays and browns. Each color representing some new form of deflection, self-preservation, or justification to make sure I never had to face the pain directly. Those layers let in peaks of light and, at very rare times, happiness. [...]
Read Director Lisa Klein's recently published piece on Mental Health on The Mighty. Looking back at loss and lessons learned along the way, “How could he have done that to us? It was so selfish.” I wondered this as well, until I started talking with and listening to people with lived experience – people who [...]
From the very start of my training as a clinical psychologist, I was interested in suicide prevention and have wanted to work with individuals struggling with suicidal thoughts. As an early career psychologist, I worked with and provided treatment to hundreds of suicidal individuals. When I deployed to Iraq in 2009, however, my relationship with [...]
After shooting the film “The Crucible,” during which I had a manic episode, I returned to Los Angeles and had to find a new agent. I told him at my interview I had bipolar disorder. He said, “Oh, honey, I’ve had actors wander off sets for weeks on a binge. You are the least of [...]
My name is Nikki Daurio and I’m currently a sophomore at Harvard University. Last year, I developed depression and suicidal ideation so I decided to seek help. I noticed several flaws within the Mental Health Services on campus and encountered several paradoxes in the public health system. Following that, I decided to dig deeper and [...]
