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My Anxiety and Self Image Got Weird in Quarantine
When I was laid off from my receptionist job in March due to COVID-19 (with the promise of unemployment insurance), I was relieved. I had dreamt of shutting myself in, opting out of being perceived, only to venture out for food – and suddenly, when the lockdown began in March, to live like this was public safety. It was recommended. I breathed a sigh of relief – I could take off my carefully curated, public-facing mask for a while.
A Night for NAN 2020
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, The Nan Project will not be holding our annual fundraising event, A Night for Nan. However, we know the need for suicide prevention and mental health education is more important than ever.
Grief Ripples Out, But So Does Hope
Though Suicide: The Ripple Effect engages with some heavy subjects, it is not a somber film. Kevin Hines teaches us that some good can come out of the trauma and tragedy of suicide. We feel the “ripple” of suicide for better and for worse: a whole community grieves one fatal attempt, but one recovery can inspire hope in so many struggling people. The Ripple Effect is an earnest, tender, enlightening watch — and Kevin hopes that it’s the beginning of a movement.
You Are Not Alone: What Local Experts Want You To Know About Suicide
Last Friday, The NAN Project Peer Coordinators Lizzie MacLellan and Shilpa Thirukkovalur sat down to speak virtually with Mayor of Cambridge Sumbul Siddiqui about suicide prevention, mental health, and COVID-19.
ED-SAFE: A Study in Suicide Intervention
The ED-SAFE study, published in 2018 by the Massachusetts DMH, echoes some truths about suicide prevention that The NAN Project brings to high school classrooms: 1) the first step in suicide prevention is detecting risk; 2) persistence is the key to supporting a person at risk; and, 3) intervention led by the person at risk is most successful.
The Weight of Gold: Athletes and Mental Illness
The NAN project knows that in a society where depression and suicide are still heavily stigmatized, fostering honest discussion about mental health can literally save a life. These are sentiments of HBO’s new documentary The Weight of Gold, a must-watch for sports fans and mental health advocates alike.
A Different Kind of Summer with The NAN Project
While COVID may have slowed down many industries and left folks physically isolated, The NAN Project and our Peer Mentors kept hard at work and socially connected all summer! One of our major initiatives during the typically slower, sunny months of school vacation was our 2020 Senior Peer Mentor Training! The goal of these 8…
Nanner Virtual Hangouts
Our staff has been hard at work with a lot of different virtual projects over the past couple months! Our twice-weekly Zoom hangouts have been one of the more fun projects, allowing us to stay connected with our Peer Mentors during this period of physical distancing. Most times, we get between 15 and 20 folks…
The helpers are out there
I recently saw the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a look at the life of Fred Rogers (a.k.a. Mr. Rogers, the children’s TV character who wore button-down sweaters and sang the song of the same title as the movie). I didn’t really know what to expect, but I heard it was getting great…
Mental Health & COVID 19
Early on in my journey to mental health recovery, I learned that, on a societal level, there is a big discrepancy between the way we treat mental health and the way we treat physical health. Think about this example: Say you fall down and break your arm. You have a cast, which all of your…
