MONROE - Pennsylvania resident and public speaker Christina Halli will provide presentations on suicide prevention at Monroe High School and Monroe United Methodist Church on Tuesday, March 25.
Halli is the mother of a 16-year-old boy who was diagnosed with social anxiety at 8 years old and bipolar disorder at 12. Halli then became a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and began giving public talks and fundraisers near her home in Pennsylvania.
Halli has been a longtime friend of Monroe resident Louise Christensen, who lost her son to suicide last year. Halli said when Christensen asked her to speak in Monroe, she jumped at the chance.
"It sounds like we need to address the community and deal with some of the shock and denial about mental illness," she said.
Halli is a pilot for Delta Air Lines and she said she travels a lot, so coming to Monroe is no problem. Halli said there is a lot of mystery and myth surrounding mental illness and she performs these presentations to help demystify the problem.
"The only way to crush the stigma is to separate facts from myth," she said.
Halli said she is not a natural public speaker, but she said she feels it's her duty to get her son's story to the public. Her son was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts last year and she hopes to inform people of the early warning signs, and how to help those with a mental illness.
"I'm not a teacher, an educator, a paid national speaker, a therapist or any of that. I'm just a mom with a story," she said.
Halli said she will give about a 40-minute presentation with photos and discussion. There will also be a video of her son telling his story. Halli said it is her son's message to not give up that she hopes to spread.
"It's really his message," she said. "When I told him I was going to do this he told me "mom, no matter what you do, don't show a boring PowerPoint. Make it relateable to my generation."
Halli will be giving the presentation to students at the high school and then later at 6:30 p.m. at the United Methodist Church, free of charge.
Halli is the mother of a 16-year-old boy who was diagnosed with social anxiety at 8 years old and bipolar disorder at 12. Halli then became a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and began giving public talks and fundraisers near her home in Pennsylvania.
Halli has been a longtime friend of Monroe resident Louise Christensen, who lost her son to suicide last year. Halli said when Christensen asked her to speak in Monroe, she jumped at the chance.
"It sounds like we need to address the community and deal with some of the shock and denial about mental illness," she said.
Halli is a pilot for Delta Air Lines and she said she travels a lot, so coming to Monroe is no problem. Halli said there is a lot of mystery and myth surrounding mental illness and she performs these presentations to help demystify the problem.
"The only way to crush the stigma is to separate facts from myth," she said.
Halli said she is not a natural public speaker, but she said she feels it's her duty to get her son's story to the public. Her son was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts last year and she hopes to inform people of the early warning signs, and how to help those with a mental illness.
"I'm not a teacher, an educator, a paid national speaker, a therapist or any of that. I'm just a mom with a story," she said.
Halli said she will give about a 40-minute presentation with photos and discussion. There will also be a video of her son telling his story. Halli said it is her son's message to not give up that she hopes to spread.
"It's really his message," she said. "When I told him I was going to do this he told me "mom, no matter what you do, don't show a boring PowerPoint. Make it relateable to my generation."
Halli will be giving the presentation to students at the high school and then later at 6:30 p.m. at the United Methodist Church, free of charge.