From Grieving to Giving: An Autoethnographic Journey from Suicide Loss to Healthy Mind Express Foundation

Format Type

Plenary

Format Type

Paper

Start Date

14-1-2021 1:30 PM

End Date

14-1-2021 1:50 PM

Abstract

It’s an unimaginable loss, a 17-year-old son with multiple atypical diagnoses takes his own life in August 2018. One year later with love and support from my immediate family, we established the Ethan Bean Mental Wellness Foundation. It was a therapeutic device to help alleviate my pain of loss and hopelessness. But we needed to contribute in a meaningful way and differentiate ourselves amidst a sea of philanthropic entities each vying for attention and competing for grants and donors. A co-author whom I had published a couple of peer reviewed curriculum books 4 years prior came up with an idea for children’s book on mental health that we collectively honed. After bringing in another friend and finding a talented paper arts illustrator, our self-published endeavor went live on November 23, 2019 National Suicide Survivors Day. Since then Ethan’s Healthy Mind Express has garnered critical reviews comparing it to the work of an Academy Award Winning animator and deceased Tony nominated actress. This effort and others lit a fire and today our organization also known as Healthy Mind Express is vying for prolific research studies, offers Zoom programming for autistic children and families who struggle with loss, and is primed to work with new authors to publish their mental health elixirs under our publishing arm. Join me for this autoethnographic session to take you through my journey of loss to hope for so many people as our society continues to struggle with mental health issues and the shame of having them.

Keywords

suicide, loss, grief, grieving, autoethnography, nonprofit, foundation, journey

Comments

https://ethanbean.org/

ORCID ID

0000-0003-4731-2135

ResearcherID

Q-1835-2015

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Jan 14th, 1:30 PM Jan 14th, 1:50 PM

From Grieving to Giving: An Autoethnographic Journey from Suicide Loss to Healthy Mind Express Foundation

It’s an unimaginable loss, a 17-year-old son with multiple atypical diagnoses takes his own life in August 2018. One year later with love and support from my immediate family, we established the Ethan Bean Mental Wellness Foundation. It was a therapeutic device to help alleviate my pain of loss and hopelessness. But we needed to contribute in a meaningful way and differentiate ourselves amidst a sea of philanthropic entities each vying for attention and competing for grants and donors. A co-author whom I had published a couple of peer reviewed curriculum books 4 years prior came up with an idea for children’s book on mental health that we collectively honed. After bringing in another friend and finding a talented paper arts illustrator, our self-published endeavor went live on November 23, 2019 National Suicide Survivors Day. Since then Ethan’s Healthy Mind Express has garnered critical reviews comparing it to the work of an Academy Award Winning animator and deceased Tony nominated actress. This effort and others lit a fire and today our organization also known as Healthy Mind Express is vying for prolific research studies, offers Zoom programming for autistic children and families who struggle with loss, and is primed to work with new authors to publish their mental health elixirs under our publishing arm. Join me for this autoethnographic session to take you through my journey of loss to hope for so many people as our society continues to struggle with mental health issues and the shame of having them.