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MY SON'S STORY: MENTAL HEALTH, SUICIDE & A MOTHER'S PATH TO ADVOCACY
Published on November 8, 2022 by Executive Director


Jerri Clark lost her 23-year old son, Calvin, to suicide because of a “preventable social ill, but our service systems are not built to prevent them.”

“In disbelief, I watched my son’s world tilt away from a bright future punctuated by academic accolades and toward incarcerations, suicide attempts and hospitalizations in locked wards that didn’t make him better.

Families like mind strive to keep loved ones from hitting rock bottom, discovering that there really is no bottom and that help doesn’t prevent but instead requires a radical free fall. I watched my son delivered into society’s underbelly by design. He spent months homeless, met law enforcement again and again, and tried multiple times to die. These traumas are part of a tragic inventory of the requirements for public assistance when someone has a serious mental illness. Calvin was 23 when he died from suicide.

I have the wisdom to know this is a story I am responsible to keep telling.”

“My Son’s Story - Mental Health, Suicide & A Mother’s Path to Advocacy” should be read by anyone who cares about the 8M children (1 in 10) and 14.2M adults (1 in 20) in this country with a serious mental illness (please read serious brain disorder) trying to survive in a world not designed to heal them but in far too many cases hurting them, and letting them slip away.

Jerri has an answer to how we can help as does nonprofits like National Shattering Silence Coalition, the voices of the over 22M with a serious brain disorder.

Her moving and heartbreaking story of loss can be read in the newly released edition of AwarenessTies Mindfulness edition of AwareNow at:
https://awarenow.us/my-sons-story

#mentalhealth #suicide #suicideawareness #endsuicide #mentalhealthawareness #seriousmentalillness #bipolar #bipolardisorder #seriousbraindisorders #treatmentbeforetragedy #abedinstead #hippahandcuffs #shatteringsilence #jerriclark #ripcalvin
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