Mark Henick was barely a teenager when he first tried to commit suicide. It turned out to be one of many attempts.
After he was diagnosed and treated for major depressive disorder and psychosis, Henick wanted to share his experience with others.
Henick was enraged when his high school’s administration wouldn’t allow him to speak to his classmates about suicide. They said talking about suicide would encourage others to do it. He went to the media about his frustration. The reaction showed him the power of speaking out, he said.
After high school, Henick moved from Sydney, N.S. to STU. Here, Henick was given support when he asked to lead an annual lecture on his experience with mental illness.
Recently Henick spoke to a much larger audience about suicide.
Two weeks ago, three years after the talks at STU, Henick participated in the TedxToronto conference called The Choices We Make.
“I think the general view, especially around suicide, is that it’s your fault, that you can choose to feel that way,” he said. “I had people say to me that you can snap out of it, that you can just get over it. And it’s not like that. You don’t just tell somebody to get over it. You don’t say that to someone who just got diagnosed with diabetes or cancer.”
Henick said there has been progress over the past decade and it is understood now that mental illness is biological, but the stigma still exists.
“People still think suicide is a free choice that we make,” he said. “They don’t understand that the restrictions in somebody who is contemplating suicide’s perception makes it so it doesn’t seem like a choice to them, so it seems like the only option that they have. If it’s your only option, then it’s not really a choice.”
The reason he wants to talk about mental health is partially because of his own lived experience with mental illness as a teenager but also because it’s something that helps people who are affected.
“It’s the type of thing that we know it gets better when people talk about it,” said Henick. “People tell us all the time, and I felt the same way, that sometimes the stigma is more powerful than the symptoms themselves.”
When Henick spoke at STU about suicide, at the end of every lecture there would be a line of people who would tell him their own story or stories of loved ones who suffered from a mental illness.
“And that was really the encouragement I needed, that people were willing to open up.”
Henick said STU, as a liberal arts institution, has been influential in his thinking to challenge ideas and take positions that are controversial or unpopular.
“These ideas were really instilled in me. They became really important parts of what I do right now. That if something is not right – you speak up about it. You don’t let people suffer in silence.”
Today the 26-year old is not where he thought he would be. He works in Toronto as a clinician for youth aged 16 to 24 who have at least one year living with a disorder or psychosis.
“It’s been an interesting transition moving from being a person with lived experiences of mental illness into a role working with people, young people, who are going through many of the same things that I went through at the same age.”
Henick said he often shares his own experiences with his clients to show them that he understands, to give them hope and to be a role model.
Whether it’s one-on-one with his clients at work or speaking to an audience of millions, Henick thinks mental illness is something that should be discussed.
“I do this both to tell people that there are others out there who experience similar things and that there is a future after that – and that it’s okay to talk.”
