May is Mental Health Awareness month and NAMI Valley of the Sun wants youth in the Valley to know they're worth it.PHOENIX — At 25-years-old, Corinn Cook, had never experienced any mental health issues. However, one day at work she began experiencing a severe anxiety attack and realized something was wrong.
"I felt more shame and more guilt about having this mental illness," she said."Not knowing where to go, feel so alone I used substances like alcohol to cope. It was the only thing at the moment that made me feel better. I felt so alone, isolated, I felt so ashamed I didn't want to be labeled as 'crazy.' I didn't want to take medication every day for the rest of my life, and I just wanted to be"normal" whatever that might mean.
NAMI Valley of the Sun is a local nonprofit that offers free education and resources to youth experiencing mental health conditions. This includes ADHD, Bi-Polar Disorder, Anxiety, Depression, etc. They also go into Junior High and High Schools in the Valley to talk about mental health awareness with students. The programs help them understand the early warning signs, what mental health conditions there are and most importantly, it encourages peers to reach out for help.
"We're ending the silence," she said."We're talking about mental health; we're talking about suicide. This stuff is real, it's common and it's treatable. A lot of the stigma is generational because parents don't understand what our youth are dealing with, what they're going through. As parents we need to be equipped with the tools we need to help support them.