MIRECC / CoE

Rocky Mountain Short Takes on Suicide Prevention: Giving Credibility to Other Views with Jess Stohlmann-Rainey

26 September 2018

I read Jess' piece, "Hegemonic Sanity and Suicide" in San Francisco during a rather desultory conference. The essay is a fresh look at a topic we all spend so much time thinking and talking about. For this podcast Jess came into our office at the new Rocky Mountain Regional VAMC, we sat by the window and talked. Jess had a lot of intriguing things to say about how we, society, think of mental health and how our collective inability to understand and accept differences places some of us on the margin and not part of the whole. And once we are on the margin how the credibility of our voices, our experiences are discounted. Tune in to the podcast to understand how listening to those with lived experiences can lead to a place where we trust what we are being told.

Listen to the podcast

From her essay we learn "Jess Stohlmann-Rainey is a researcher, trainer, and advocate serving as the Director of Program Development for Colorado's statewide crisis and peer support lines at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners. She has focused her career on creating pathways to intersectional, justice-based, emotional support for marginalized communities. Jess centers her lived expertise as an ex-patient and suicide attempt survivor in her work."

Resources

Follow Jess on Twitter @JessStohlmann

Solutions by Jess

Alternatives to Suicide - "The goal is not to simply force someone to stay alive from moment to moment. Rather, it is to support them to create meaning and a life that they want to live. Not killing one’s self is simply a side-effect of all that."

Intentional Peer Support - "Peer support is about social change"

The Icarus Project - a support network and education project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness.

Vermont Psychiatric Survivors

Mad in America - Science, Psychiatry and Social Justice