Dear Twelve-Year-Old Callay, The first thing I want to tell you is that in the next eight years you are going to learn a lot about yourself. I am not going to lie to you and say the next eight years of your life are going to be peaches and rainbows because they are not. [...]
Director Lisa Klein and Craig Miller, who is featured in THE S WORD, brought the film to Lithuania last year through the American Film Showcase, a film diplomacy program organized by the U.S. Department of State and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. While in Lithuania, Craig sat down for an interview [...]
I never thought I would see my 18th birthday. If you had asked me on my 15th birthday if I saw myself living to be an adult, I would have said no. I am writing this a week after my 18th birthday. I am happy, healthy, and strong. Here is the story of how I [...]
Everyone has their one “go-to” person. You know, the person you call when you’re happy, sad, angry, bored, scared and everything else in-between. The person who listens when you need it, talks when you don’t want to and believes in you when you have a hard time believing in yourself. For my entire life, this [...]
My son Benji reminds me of Lovejoy, the glowing green comet that visited earth a few years ago for the first time in 11,500 years. Both are beautiful and rare, other-worldly phenomena transiting my life. Benji died by suicide on May 7, 2015, at age 15. I still struggle sometimes to believe this isn’t just [...]
It was in March of 1990 when I pinned on my badge, took the peace officer oath and began my career with the California Highway Patrol (CHP). I was stationed in Alameda County - Hayward to be exact, just south of Oakland, California. A busy place with a high auto collision rate and higher than [...]
My name’s Gwynn Lanning and I’m a musician, composer, Suicide prevention advocate, and LGBTQ rights activist. I’ve been composing music for ten years and view it as both a profession and a kind of personal/communal therapy. Over the years, I’ve played at LGBTQ community events, senior citizens homes, and local shops. My goal as a [...]
I’ll never forget the first time I stood in front of a group of 9th - 12th graders after a viewing of The S Word. I was more nervous than I had been at any of our other screenings - including a Governor’s conference, the Mayo Clinic and the dozens of universities where we had [...]
On July 18, 1993, I attempted suicide. I was at the point where the emotional pain was just too much for me. I had struggled with depression as far back as I could remember. As a child at the time, I didn’t know it was called depression - I was just sad. I wondered why [...]
I don’t remember how long it was after my suicide attempt that I knew I wanted to live. It wasn’t immediate, I know that. I didn’t wake up in the intensive care unit, fill my lungs with oxygen from a plastic tube and think, “Thank God I’m alive.” What came to me first was that [...]
