Julie McLean on Suicide Prevention

Julie McLean, speaker and TEDx talker was raised in a small town in New Jersey and, at the age of 16, was ready to take her own life. She has struggled with her mental health from that time on, and almost every day since then has thought about dying by suicide. Like others, she felt the stigma associated with mental health and mental illness made her an outsider, and with no one to talk to, her struggles continued. In 2019, she reached a breaking point only to have her husband save her life by asking the three most important questions. Are you OK? Do you want to hurt yourself? And do you have a plan? The answer to these questions finally got her the needed help, and she was enrolled in an intensive talk therapy group. Finding out that talking had helped, she realized that she wanted to help others to be afraid to share how they felt. That’s when Julie decided to open Start the Convo and make it her mission to end mental health stigma and lower suicide rates. Today Julie is a mental health and suicide awareness advocate a suicide prevention speaker, a TEDx speaker, and trainer and coach helping organizational leaders get comfortable talking and implementing measures to address suicide prevention in their organizations.