When I raised mental health awareness in the church from 2006 on, I spoke as a person living with mental health issues. It made a difference. People heard me. But today, people with such issues have no voice – are not given opportunities to be heard. Why not?

Do they really think we don’t know enough? Do they think we have no wisdom? Do we have no credibility?

We are real people, like everyone else. We need to be heard, like others are heard.

Let us speak with our own voices instead of the voices of people who don’t really know us, believe us, or understand us.

marja