Kalika Valentine-Erickson/ Winonan
Winona State University’s Active Minds club is going one step further to eliminate the stigma on mental health through the Mental Health Monologues.
“I think it’s great,” a student who wished to remain anonymous said. “As somebody who suffers from depression, it’s good that somebody is finally trying to break the stigma.”
Gretchen Haga, a member of Active Minds, summarized the club’s goal in regards to the monologues.
“Mental Health Monologues is essentially a project with the end goal of a performance, but what we’ve been doing is collecting testimonies of students and faculty on campus and their experiences with mental health,” she said.
One member of the club was looking around online for projects the club could perform and stumbled across the monologue idea. Another college had done something similar, and the club agreed it was a great way to normalize conversation about mental illness.
“Active Minds’ goal is to reduce stigma around mental health disorder conversation, because it is so stigmatized. We just really want to be able to open up conversation, so people can feel comfortable asking for help and using the resources available to get better. If they’re struggling, they’re not alone,” Haga said.
Students or faculty of Winona State University submitted monologues ranging from personal experiences with mental health to experiences with family and friends suffering from mental health disorders.
Abbey Hammel, another member of Active Minds, said “each story, besides two, were written by college students. Although each story tells something different, the feelings that come along with the pieces are similar in that they all talk about defeat and rising out of defeat.”
The monologues have been prepared for performance on a large stage. Auditions to perform the pieces were held last week. Six directors held the auditions and chose the actresses and actors to play the parts.
“Over the next few months we’ll be having rehearsals and creating a show,” Haga said.
There are fourteen pieces that will be performed, with a final number not yet determined. The show has a tentative performance date of April 9-11 with times to be announced.
“I think one of the coolest things about it is that the stories that we’ve received—eating disorders, depression, anxiety—even within those categories, each experience is completely different,” Haga said. “It’s not the disorder that defines the person it affects, but rather how they deal with and everything else in their lives is really what defines them.”
The main goal of the Mental Health Monologues is for people to learn how to cope with and grow from mental illness. “The possibility is there to deal with it,” said Haga.
“I have learned how to deal with mental illness, but I know many people haven’t. If the performance can help even one person, I would think it was worth it,” an anonymous student said.
The group is still accepting submissions of monologues and has plans to make a book of a compilation of all the monologues they received and will make it available for sale.
