Jordan Corcoran talks mental health with Belle Vernon Area School District
Jordan Corcoran, author, speaker and founder of the mental health organization Listen, Lucy, shares her story with Belle Vernon Area High Schoolers Thursday morning. The district invited Corcoran to talk mental health, stigma and healing with grades 5 through 12 at four different time periods this week and next.
Katherine Mansfield/ Observer-Reporter
Jordan Corcoran, author, speaker and founder of the mental health organization Listen, Lucy, shares her story with Belle Vernon Area High School students Thursday morning. The district invited Corcoran to talk mental health, stigma and healing with grades 5 through 12 at four different time periods this week and next.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Jordan Corcoran, founder of Listen, Lucy, explains to Belle Vernon Area high schoolers that it’s OK to not be OK, and encourages anyone struggling with mental health to ask for help. Corcoran shared her story of at the high school and Rostraver Elementary Thursday, and will return to speak with middle schoolers and at Marion Elementary next week.
Jordan Corcoran stood at the front of the Belle Vernon Area High School auditorium Thursday morning, a bright presentation behind her, and announced, “We are in a mental health crisis.”
One in 4 Americans struggles with a mental health issue, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, that number has increased. Today, 1 in 3 school-aged individuals is dealing with a mental health issue.
Corcoran counts herself among the numbers, but, after years of healing, she is more than her mental illness.
“It’s not the biggest part of me,” said Corcoran, who founded the mental health organization Listen, Lucy in 2013. “For so many years of my life, I felt defined by my mental illness. I felt like it was the only important thing about me. I felt like it was ruining my life.”
During the presentation, Corcoran recounted her high school years, during which she struggled with sleeping, keeping food down and bullying. She didn’t seek help, Corcoran said, because she was embarrassed. Underlying issues that led to health struggles followed the three-sport athlete to Mercyhurst College, where her grades dropped and the panic attacks increased, and Corcoran was carted off campus on a stretcher and hospitalized more than once.
Eventually, her husband (then, her boyfriend) suggested Corcoran get help. When she was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, “I felt liberated,” Corcoran said.
“I don’t love reliving my trauma,” said the nationally acclaimed author and public speaker. “It’s important to me for you to understand how big of a problem this can become if you do not address the issues at hand.”
The issues discussed before Belle Vernon Area School District’s fifth through 12th grades ranged from defining and combatting stigma to normalizing asking for help. Corcoran was forthcoming about her past, offered coping techniques – including meditation, exercise, and writing – and demonstrated through her poise how things do get better, if one works at them.
Senior Olivia Saxon took Corcoran’s words to heart.
“I have the same anxiety disorder as her,” said Saxon. “I’ve also been bullied all of my life. (I liked the message), definitely the fact that it’s OK to not be OK, and stigmas affect a lot of people.”
Corcoran shares her story at schools nationwide; she’s a native Pittsburgher who has appeared at Peters Township and other local districts, and Assistant Superintendent Alisa King was excited to bring her to Belle Vernon both this week and next. High school principal Dr. Michael Sable said Belle Vernon was lucky to have her.
“I really liked the point she said, that you’re responsible for your own self and your own mental health and I thought that was really a big piece of the puzzle. We try to tell our kids to be your own advocate. That fit very well into what we say to them all the time,” Sable said.
The assurance that everyone is dealing with something also came through in Corcoran’s presentation and, Sable feels, struck a chord with seniors in the audience.
“Unfortunately, this senior class did have a student, when they were in ninth grade, (who) died by suicide right before the pandemic. They never really got to go through the process. It still sticks with them to this day; they talk about it a lot,” said Sable. “I think her presentation was trying to dissolve the stigma around saying hey, this is a bad thing. It’s more like hey, I need some help and this is how I should go about getting it.”
Corcoran’s mission is to create a less judgmental and more accepting world, and through sharing her story, she aims to end the stigma surrounding mental health and spread hope to as many people as possible. Several students stayed after the presentation to speak one-on-one with the pizza-loving wife and mother of two, and those moments with young adults is special to Corcoran.
“The conversations, while they break your heart, the progress that’s being made – it’s wonderful,” said Corcoran. “The most meaningful part, truly, is that I get to connect with people who need somebody to be speaking that language in that moment. I was such a lost teenager and I struggled so much when I was their age that being able to go back and help them maybe shed some light on some things that they are going through is, obviously, very cathartic. I want to be the person that I needed when I was young. There’s no better privilege than being able to impact somebody’s life in a positive way.”