Take The stigma free pledge
Mental health matters to everyone. Individuals, companies, organizations and others can all take the pledge to learn more about mental illness, to see a person for who they are and take action on mental health issues. Take the pledge and raise awareness.
- Learn about mental health—educate myself and others
- See the person not the illness—strive to listen, understand, tell my own story
- Take action—spread the word, raise awareness, make a difference
Take action on public policy issues
Public policy, makes a difference in the lives of both the people living with mental health conditions and the people in their lives. Changes in policy can mean better outcomes. Our advocacy efforts have led to many victories including:
- Securing better funding for research.
- Protecting access to treatments and services.
- Attaining mental health parity to ensure that mental illness is treated equally to physical illness in most insurance plans.
But we still have work to do, and we need your help. Talk to your neighbors, friends and family about why these issues are important. Visit the NAMI Advocacy Headquarters to add your voice to our advocacy efforts.
Share your story
It’s important for people living with mental health conditions to know that they are not alone. Sharing a story about your personal experiences with mental health challenges can help in your own recovery as well as provide encouragement and support to others with similar experiences. Telling your story can take several forms:
- Prose/poetry
- Song lyrics
- Inspirational quotes
- Drawings
- Photos
- Videos
NAMI offers two safe, moderated spaces for sharing stories and creative expression: You Are Not Alone and OK2Talk. These spaces also allow for anonymous public posting, unlike our NAMI blog.
Story Submission Form
You have an authentic voice. You can make a difference for yourself and others by sharing your experiences and perspective. What has helped? What hasn’t? What has been most discouraging about your condition? What has given you hope? There are all sorts of things you know that other people want to know—you are not alone. Let them know that they aren’t either.
- We hope that you will join us in giving a voice to a struggle that millions of people face every day.We’re here to inspire people to express themselves and find help if they need it. As a result, bad language, violent imagery and other offensive and explicit material are off-limits. Please refrain from promoting personal websites, blogs, books and other personal projects. You must also be 13 or older to participate on the page.Please note: Submissions will include your name as entered. Please DO NOT use your last name if you do not want your full name to be searchable. If you would like for your post to be anonymous, do not include your name in the body of the submission.We review all submissions and this process may take some time, so your work may not be posted immediately. We cannot guarantee that everything we receive will be published.