"If we really break it down, it's true discrimination that marginalizes those with mental pain," said Hines. "We don't call prejudice, racism or bigotry 'stigma', we call it prejudice, racism and bigotry. If you recognize it as the truth that it is - discrimination against those with mental unrest - then we can actually change and shift the paradigm toward a community and a country that fights mental instability and brain pain with all of the tools in the toolbox and not just some."
Cameron Hall is a parent of two elementary-aged children, and he agrees with this notion.
"It goes back to 2016 when we applied for a $75,000 grant from the Tower Foundation, and the purpose of that grant was to deliver youth mental health first aid to our employees," said Cornell. "So in 2017-2018, we provided every single one of our employees, 650 of them, with a full day of training in youth mental health first aid, where they learned about what the different types of mental illness are, how they manifest in young people, and some questions that you can ask young people to start to understand how they're feeing in a non-judgemental way, and then provide the warm handoff to a mental health professional, a school counselor, a social worker, a psychologist or even an administrator."
But there's more.
"Whatever you're going through, whatever pain ails you, I believe, having gone through copious amounts of pain myself, going through pain right now, that we can always defeat it," said Hines. "We can always rise up; we can always fight the pain. Suicide never has to be the solution to our problem, and it is in fact a problem, and no matter what I'm going through, I will always be here tomorrow and every day after that."
