Mental health is always difficult to address, whether you or someone close to you is experiencing it. But, there is a new campaign to help those cope with mental health called Project Semicolon.
Created by Amy Bleuel in April 2013, Project Semicolon is a movement where people draw or get tattoos of semicolons on themselves to raise awareness and to represent that their story has not finished. As per Project Semicolon’s website: “A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.” Mashable reports that Bleuel created the campaign, having dealt with mental health issues herself before, as well as her father, who took his own life in 2003. Bleuel tells Mashable her personal life served as the motivation for the campaign: “The purpose of the project and me founding it [was that] I wanted to tell my dad's story. I wanted to honor him."
Bleuel started Project Semicolon when she posted a flyer online on April 16, telling people to draw semicolons on their wrists to showcase mental issues they or loved ones experienced. The flyer hit home for many, as the first Semicolon Day had an estimated 500, 000 members. With that, the campaign has had a steady following since, gaining more participants throughout the past years and last few weeks, especially. And with the fluid movement of social media, participants can connect with each other using hashtag #ProjectSemicolon. Also, described as a “faith-based movement,”,Bleuel tells Mashable: "I chose to call it 'faith-based' because I wanted to be open about it," she explains. “Christ was accepting of everybody and he wanted to help everybody."
While Project Semicolon is not a mental health organization, it is a way for those experiencing mental illness to cope, relate and realize there is always someone out there like them. "[For those who participate,] it's almost like knowing they're not alone, knowing that others are out there," Bleuel said. "They aren't just another person in the crowd feeling alone anymore. They feel they have found someone to relate, regardless of the direct conversation."