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Project UROK teaches teens how to talk about anxiety and mental illness
Source: Mashable
Mara Wilson, writer and performer who made her name as a child actress in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire, is sitting in front of a gray screen, hair gathered in a messy bun, wearing a sweatshirt with a stylized cat face on it and a big blue pin that says "UROK." In a casual tone that previous generations could never have conjured for such personal subjects, she is talking about anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and the arc of her life from "anxious kid" to "anxious adult."
"I wish somebody had told me it's OK to be anxious, that you don't have to fight it," Wilson says. "When you face anxiety ... when you understand it's just this false alarm in your body, then you can work with it, then you can overcome it."
Wilson is one of the celebrities who have recorded videos for a new video platform, Project UROK, which stands for "you are OK." The month-old nonprofit features candid videos with comedians, actors and other public figures talking frankly about their mental health and how they came to accept themselves.
"We're trying to think of ourselves as a sort of mental illness destigmatization network," Jenny Jaffe, founder of Project UROK, tells Mashable.
The aim is to use the force of the Internet for good — a vast departure from the texting, bullying, shaming minefield of social media that can, and has, driven teens to suicide from a sense of isolation. Project UROK aims to give teenagers struggling with mental illness a sense of community, an assurance that they aren't alone and permission to see mental health as a subject that can be mentioned out loud.
<snip>
"I wish somebody had told me it's OK to be anxious, that you don't have to fight it," Wilson says. "When you face anxiety ... when you understand it's just this false alarm in your body, then you can work with it, then you can overcome it."
Wilson is one of the celebrities who have recorded videos for a new video platform, Project UROK, which stands for "you are OK." The month-old nonprofit features candid videos with comedians, actors and other public figures talking frankly about their mental health and how they came to accept themselves.
"We're trying to think of ourselves as a sort of mental illness destigmatization network," Jenny Jaffe, founder of Project UROK, tells Mashable.
The aim is to use the force of the Internet for good — a vast departure from the texting, bullying, shaming minefield of social media that can, and has, driven teens to suicide from a sense of isolation. Project UROK aims to give teenagers struggling with mental illness a sense of community, an assurance that they aren't alone and permission to see mental health as a subject that can be mentioned out loud.
<snip>
Read more: http://mashable.com/2015/05/07/project-urok-mental-health/
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