Stories: The Language of Support, Care & Healing

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and spotlights the consciousness needed on mental health and diagnosable conditions and disorders, while promoting support for anyone and everyone. We all deserve good mental health, so it’s also a reminder to embrace the importance of caring for ourselves and one another no matter what challenges we face.

The experiences that shape our mental health are woven into our everyday lives. It’s important to take small but meaningful steps like practicing mindfulness, taking a moment for deep breaths, or going for a walk. Actions that help us feel more grounded and connected to ourselves and the world around us.

Just as these practices support well-being, the arts and shared experiences do too. When we engage in creative expression and build community togetherness, our minds and relationships grow stronger. At Speaking Out Collective, we believe that storytelling and story-making are both a form of healing and a way to build meaningful connection. Sharing our stories can be transformative not only for those who listen and engage with it, but the storyteller too.

For many of us, mental health is shaped not only by what happens inside our minds, but by our families, cultures, and neighborhoods. Stories carry the weight of survival; the ache of resilience; the struggles within and around us; and the moments of quiet hope. Language gives shape to what we carry inside. When someone says, “That happens to me too,” it interrupts isolation. When someone speaks their truth and it’s received without judgment, it creates possibility. 

We’ve seen firsthand how powerful it is when someone names what they’ve never had the words for—grief, fear, depression, trauma—and has that naming honored.And it’s not just the difficult emotions that need space. Shared joy, laughter, and moments of comfortable vulnerability are just as vital to our mental well-being. Stories offer a way to express all our feelings, highlighting the full range of human experience.

Speaking Out Collective is community centric and has been privileged to document untold, silenced and forgotten Minnesotan histories and stories. These stories carry wisdom, humor, endurance, and lessons that would otherwise be lost. When these narratives are shared through children, families, coworkers and communities, they breathe life into our collective identity. We don’t just preserve the past, we build a more connected and emotionally grounded today and tomorrow. Honoring these stories strengthens our communities and reminds us that healing doesn’t happen alone. It happens together.

Similarly, mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives in relationships. In the systems that shape us. In our cultural, experiential and geographic DNA. And yet, it is all too often treated as an individual burden to carry in silence.

We believe that sharing our stories, especially in families and however we define community, is a way to challenge that silence. It’s not just catharsis, it’s connection.When someone speaks out, it gives others permission to do the same. 

Our collective becomes a vehicle for those truths, creating a shared memory bigger than any one person. It’s affectionately called communal care. Storytelling is where we find each other, remind each other that we’re not alone, and begin to imagine something better—together.

Mental health care will always be essential, just as is being heard and seen. This month, we invite and encourage you to listen. Really listen. And maybe—if you’re ready—you’ll hear a story that needs to be told. Or maybe you’ll even share your own. You never know who might need to hear it.

If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to a crisis line, state and/or national resource. Just a few are listed below.

You are not alone!

• Minnesota Department of Health – Mental Health and Well-Being Resources
• NAMI MN
• The Trevor Project
• Minnesota Life Line (available online or by texting/calling 988)
• Speaking Out Collective