Community members share stories of resilience and recovery at inaugural This Is My Brave event in Edwards

Editor’s note: This article contains stories of trauma, suicide, mental illness and substance abuse that may be triggering for some readers.

SpeakUp ReachOut held its first This Is My Brave storytelling event Thursday night at the Riverwalk Theater in Edwards, where seven community members took the stage to share their stories of resilience and recovery from mental illness and addiction.

This Is My Brave is a national nonprofit organization that uses storytelling and performance arts to reduce stigma and open conversation on these topics. Thursday night’s show was the organization’s 85th production and the first in the Eagle Valley.

Erin Ivie, the executive director of SpeakUp ReachOut, said that she has been working to host a local This Is My Brave show for a number of years because when it comes to mental illness and addiction, storytelling contains a lifesaving power.

“I am a firm believer that storytelling saves lives, and that somebody in the audience today had to hear these stories to save their life,” Evie said.

Seven community members — five from Eagle County, one from Summit County and one from Garfield County — took center stage to share their story in a format of their choosing, bringing their experiences to life for the audience through poetry, film, storytelling, multimedia performance art and music. Each auditioned for the show earlier in the summer and workshopped their delivery through four rehearsal sessions before taking the stage for a live show Thursday night.

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Ivie encourages those who are inspired to share their stories to make sure that they are ready, and said that anyone can reach out for support in the storytelling process by contacting SpeakUp ReachOut or accessing storytelling training online at UniteSurvivors.org.

“It’s really important that people are in the right place, and it’s good to have a conversation with maybe your therapist, or your family and support network, to really understand where you are in your journey and if you are ready to share your story,” Ivie said.

Visit speakupreachout.org to learn more about available resources, or contact the organization by email at info@speakupreachout.org and by phone at 970-632-3858.

Stories of Bravery

Dani Rodriguez was the first of the This Is My Brave presenters to share her story. She began by kneeling on the ground with a red blindfold over eyes, fighting an internal monologue of negative self talk that she said is always present in her mind.

“You shouldn’t be on stage. You still have time to go away. You’re not worth it. You are so ugly. You should be dead. You don’t deserve it… STOP,” she said, overcoming the words and removing her blindfold to face the audience.

Rodriguez is a recovering alcoholic and suicide attempt survivor. Born in Chile, she has lived in Eagle County since 2009, and she shared how she has learned to coexist with and ignore the destructive thoughts that have previously led her to substance abuse, panic attacks and suicidality. Even in the hours leading up to Thursday’s show, Rodriguez said that her mind was telling her not to show up, but where once she was blind to the distortion of her thoughts, she now knew how to face and disarm them.

“I just tell them not today,” Rodriguez said. “Today I have passion, I have determination. Estóy viva. Tengo fuego dentro de mí.”

Rodriguez said she was especially motivated to participate in This Is My Brave as the only Hispanic cast member. She wants to find ways to share her story of recovery with and provide support to the Hispanic community in Eagle County, particularly women who are struggling with their own mental health battles.

“That’s why I also tried to incorporate a few Spanish words, because it’s hard for Hispanics to actually talk about mental health,” Rodriguez said. “And then seeing it on the other side, more like the Anglo side, and being part of it with them and actually realizing that we feel the same — it just keeps opening my mindset. At the end, we are all going through the same stuff.”

Alex Mintling followed Rodriguez with a multimedia story that invited the audience to relive his recreational logging accident that occurred in the summer of 2019 in nearby mountains. Photos of the day were accompanied by audio of emergency responders, with a chainsaw and Mintling’s clothing from the accident brought out onto the stage. 

With this backdrop, Mintling shared how he had been trapped under an off-road vehicle for 45 minutes before being evacuated via helicopter to a trauma center in Denver. Though his physical wounds healed quickly, his mental wounds were left untreated, developing into post-traumatic stress disorder that ultimately led to pervasive thoughts of suicide.

Mintling said that he started reaching out for help by calling the Colorado Crisis Line (1-844-493-8255), which has been a constant and reliable source of support for him.

“If they’re busy, leave a message. They will call you back,” Mintling said. “There was one day that was so bad for me that I called four times. Every time I called they welcomed me. They were glad to hear from me. I knew most of them on a first-name basis, I’d say ‘This is Alex, from Eagle.’ At times I felt like they were the only friends I had.”

Seeing how connection helped him overcome his struggles with PTSD, Mintling started a podcast called “The Builder’s Journey” in 2019 where, among a variety of topics, he shares stories that help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and promote suicide prevention.

“We all have a pain-to-purpose story, turning lemons into lemonade,” Mintling said. “By the grace of God, higher power, universe, whatever you want to believe in, I’ve been able to change my post-traumatic stress into post-traumatic growth. I am truly blessed to be the recipient and the winner of the ‘lucky to be alive’ lottery.”

Following Mintling was Sherry Hall, who lost her son Gary to suicide in 2020. Gary had suffered from manic depression since adolescence, a disease that ultimately led him to take his own life.

Hall chose to share her story by reading poems that she had written at different points in her son’s life.

“My poems reflect some of his struggles and my reaction to them, because to survive trauma one must be able to tell a story about it,” Hall said.

She read a poem that she wrote when Gary was 15 years old, just starting to become a man and experiencing the difficult transition away from childhood, followed by one from when he was 17 years old and delving into self-destructive behaviors.

“Confused and angry, rejecting of hugs, my handsome young son sifts through his feelings with booze and drugs. To get him through these tough times, my love just isn’t enough, … my heart is torn up and so sad. Whenever his will is so strong, I know I have to stop asking myself where did I go wrong,” Hall read.

Her reading closed with a poem written just after her son’s death in February 2020, when she had to plead for a box of her son’s belongings, each with a close personal memory attached to it. She ultimately received the box, and shared how she keeps the objects close to her in his memory.

On stage at This Is My Brave, Hall wore a necklace with a round pendant containing her son’s ashes, close to her heart, right over a Snoopy T-shirt that he loved to wear.

Sean Boggs screened a short film called “Dear Dad,” a project that he directed and produced to advocate for suicide prevention. The film follows two letters, one from a son to his father and one from a father to his son, illustrating how communication and connection can turn a questioning, solitary state into one of mutual understanding and support, which is one of the strongest antidotes to suicidal ideation.

Boggs said that he felt called to make the film after his daughter’s friend died of suicide. He said that the project grew as more and more people wanted to be involved, and in the end, 34 people from around the world contributed to the film, each one, Boggs said, with their own point of connection to suicide and suicidality.

“I was talking to my friends and colleagues that also make films and TV shows, and something really changed there,” Boggs said. “Something that I thought was a minority, something that I thought maybe me and just a few people were going through, turned out to be something that everyone was going through.”

The film emphasized the life-saving power of reaching out for help and sharing with the people you trust that you need support. Boggs, who shared that his mother is the survivor of multiple suicide attempts, emphasized that silence on the topic of suicide is no longer the norm, and if you reach out you will find a large community of people who understand.

“That stigma is gone, that part is over for all of us,” Boggs said. “You’re not going to scare anyone away by saying you’re struggling.”

Mykaela “Myki” Jones, a 23-year-old writer from Carbondale, performed a poem of her own, in which she shared how the mistreatment and abuse she experienced during her relationships led to post-traumatic stress and enduring trauma around her relationship to her own body.

“A boy in my class got grabby and crass and I didn’t feel free as time went past,” Jones said. “And when I finally told someone, doesn’t matter who it was, I was told to just ignore that and walk through life with love. But how do you walk with love when every mirror you pass you hate what you see, how the hell was I supposed to love other people when I didn’t even love me?”

Jones is now a freelance reporter and poet who is working on her first novel, “I Ain’t Settling,” a fictionalized retelling of her traumas written to help empower survivors. In the deep and defiant emotion of her This Is My Brave poem, Jones condemned the lack of support that she found when she reached out for help, and committed to using her voice, her story, and her rage toward transforming the environment that she had to suffer through and becoming the support system that she once sought.

“So thank you, I guess? It took me long enough to see that no matter the beatings there is one thing you can’t beat out of me,” Jones said. “Despite all odds, I’ll pass it along to this next generation of kids. I will be who I needed when I was their age, and no matter the twists I will help them harbor that rage, help them turn it into something that will change the world into someplace more inhabitable, instead of what I spewed out when I was a kid, with my delivery sad and dull.”

Sarah Alder, an Army veteran from Summit County who works at the Department of Veteran Affairs and served as president of the only LGBTQ Veteran Service Organization In Colorado, shared the story of when she helped a fellow veteran experiencing severe PTSD to return from the edge of suicide and to a vibrant, creative existence.

Alder said that when she was called on to come and speak with the veteran, named Tiffany, by mutual friends, she had never met her before, but when she entered the apartment she knew what she needed from her.

“Tiffany was not seeking anything except emotional connection and presence,” Alder said. “She required pure, radical acceptance for how s—– she was feeling — not to be convinced to stay in this world because it would make someone else feel sad or hurt by losing her. She needed someone to just sit and be with her, right next to her in all of her s—–ness, shame, self-loathing and suffering.”

Recovered from her post-traumatic stress episode, Tiffany came up with a concept for the Paper Fashion Show to create a dress made out of red and black dog tags: red for service members and veterans that live with post-traumatic stress and black for those who “experienced excruciating suffering which facilitated them taking their own lives.” Tiffany asked Alder to be the runway model for her completed project.

“Five months later after that night, I was literally being super-glued into a green woven paper corset, slipping on my own black army combat boots and proudly, yet somberly, walking down the runway wearing hundreds of paper dog tags representing the stories of veterans and service members a moment away from, or just after, the worst moment of their lives,” Alder said. “Tiffany was not being represented by the black dog tags.”

Alder shared that Tiffany is now “very much alive,” and the dress that she made to represent those lost to and struggling with PTSD and suicidal ideation is now on display at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora.

The final story of the night was from Chris Davis, a Vail local who suffered with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder throughout his childhood and adolescence. He shared how as he grew older he began experiencing depression, which he would combat with substance abuse for over a decade.

“It was obviously not a very good mix,” Davis said. “It helped for a while but very quickly started becoming my own worst enemy.”

He shared that he first experienced suicidal ideation when he was 15 and he began struggling with his sexuality, and the thoughts increased after receiving multiple concussions in quick succession at the age of 18.

Davis said that he is still on a journey to work through the difficult parts of his life, but he brought to the stage with him one thing that has been a constant source of light and joy for him: his banjo.

“It took me a long time to figure out what my purpose was in this world, and I’m still working on that, but one thing that has stuck with me is when I got my first musical instrument that was my own.”

Strapping the instrument around his shoulder, he played an original song that rang through the theater and brought the night to a close.

“I’ve gotten a lot out of my experience, no matter how negative it has been,” Davis said.