One by one, they rose from their chairs to indicate they’d known someone who had committed suicide or had mental illness, until nearly all of the guests were on their feet.
It was a shocking moment at the Erasing the Stigma Leadership Awards sponsored by the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center in Los Angeles. And it was meant to be. …
Also recognized for leadership in the field of mental health education at the May 16 event were author Andrew Solomon, whose illness inspired the 2001 book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression — which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize — and center volunteers Lois and Sam Bloom, whose depressed son Sammy’s suicide at age 23 in 1982 led them to two decades of activism in the field of suicide prevention. …
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