Mental Health Awareness Month: What We Wish You Saw About Us
- Pier 360 Staff
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
During Mental Health Awareness Month, we are reflecting on stigma, hope, and lived experience through the question:
What do we wish you saw about us?
For many people, the public conversation around mental health still feels narrow. We are often reduced to a diagnosis, a crisis, or a life-altering chapter. The fuller picture of who we are—our creativity, humor, insight, resilience, care, intelligence, and humanity—can get lost in the labels.
At Pier 360, we know that people are far more than the hardest things they have lived through.
When peers share their stories, something powerful happens. Stigma begins to loosen. Assumptions are challenged. What was once flattened into stereotype becomes real, layered, and human. Storytelling can also support systems into beneficial changes.
When people with lived experience speak honestly about what was supportive, what was harmful, what was missing, and what made a difference, they offer something systems cannot learn from statistics alone. Their stories carry insight. They reveal where people were misunderstood, where care came too late, where language caused harm, and where connection supported healing.
Peer stories also offer hope.
For someone facing difficulties, hearing that another person has survived, adapted, found support, or reclaimed parts of themselves can make a real difference. Hope does not require perfection. Sometimes it arrives simply through recognition: someone else has felt this too. Someone else made it through. Someone else still carries pain and also carries purpose.
Many people’s experiences are shaped by trauma, access, and systems that do not always see the full person. Too often, assumptions and labels have closed doors to health, to support, and even to longevity. In the United States, people living with mental health challenges or recovery journeys often face significantly shorter life expectancies than the general population.
At Pier 360, everyone—from peer support staff to leadership—brings lived experience. This shapes how we show up: with respect, responsibility, curiosity, and care.
This month, some of our peers participated in a staff prompt influenced by a video from Executive Director Brad Berry, “See Me for Who I Am,” reflecting on who they are beyond their challenges.
What do I wish you saw about me?
Following are excerpts from what our peer supporters shared:
“I want people to see me for who I am today, not for the mistakes I made in the past. My past does not define me. While I cannot change what has already happened, I made a hard decision to change my life and walk a different path.
That path has not been easy. It has felt dark, uncertain, and full of obstacles—coldness, rain, and fear. There were times it seemed easier to give up and return to what was familiar. But I knew I would never have peace. So I chose to keep going. I chose growth over comfort. I chose to accept and feel. I chose to leave.
What I want others to see is my strength, persistence, and determination. I don’t take “no” as failure—I take it as a challenge. I am a warrior, and I do not give up easily. Even if I have been seen as the “black sheep,” I see myself as someone who has fought through her own battles and come out stronger.
Black to me does not mean bad. It symbolizes power, elegance, and protection—an emotional shield for confidence and seriousness.”
—Sandy
“What I wish people saw about me is that my story doesn't end with what I've been through. I'm not just my struggles or my recovery. I’m someone who is actively choosing growth, accountability, and self-trust every single day. That doesn't always look perfect, but the effort is real.
I care deeply about people and about creating spaces where others feel seen and understood, because I know what it's like to not feel that way. At the same time, I’m building a life for myself—one that's healthy, stable, intentional, and aligned with who I'm becoming, not just who I've been.
I'm still becoming, and that matters just as much as where I've been.”
—Pier 360 Peer Support
“We wish people saw that we lived life on the hard setting like in a video game. That our resilience, willingness to learn from experience, creativity, and shared humanity have been our greatest gifts and tools. That we are more than what you have been taught to believe about our experiences. We are artists, writers, stewards of sweet, thoughtful, and compassionate canines, that we are in partnership with a quirky musician and artist, manage living on our own, and hold a position that is in service to the greater good.”
—Collective
Peer voices matter in how we support one another, how we shape services, and how we imagine a world where people are met with more understanding, dignity, and care.
This Mental Health Awareness Month, we invite you to listen more deeply.
Beyond the labels, beyond the assumptions, beyond the stigma—there is a person.
And their story may change what becomes possible.
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