A Gift That Becomes a Lifeline

Mental health challenges touch tens of thousands of adults across New Hampshire.

I am one of the tens of thousands.

For much of my life, I knew what it meant to fight an invisible battle. As a young adult, I found myself working as a psychiatric nurse while quietly trying to survive my own suffering. I was caring for others while carrying wounds I did not yet know how to heal. That experience changed me. It showed me that mental health does not discriminate. It does not care about your job title, your strength, your intelligence, your past, or the face you show the world.

It also taught me something I will never forget: healing does not happen in isolation.

For years, I was at war with myself. I believed the voice that told me I was too broken, too far gone, too tired, too much. Two years ago, after decades of struggling, I was hospitalized for months after allowing an infection to overtake my body. By then, I had become so worn down by hopelessness that part of me believed I did not deserve to recover. I did not believe I deserved to imagine a future.

But in that hospital, in the darkest and most fragile season of my life, something extraordinary happened.

People showed up.

They offered me support when I had none left to give myself. They offered me connection when I felt unreachable. They offered me hope when I could not find even a flicker of it on my own. They believed in me before I could believe in myself, and slowly, that belief became a bridge back to life.

That bridge led me to On The Road To Wellness.

Through my healing, I was introduced to OTRTW and to the peer support model. I learned that lived experience is not something to hide from. It is something powerful. It is something that can become a lantern for someone else standing in the dark. I learned that connection is not just comforting; it is lifesaving.

Eventually, I was invited to join the OTRTW team. What I found was more than a workplace. I found a family. A community of people who smile together, struggle together, heal together, and keep choosing hope together.

On The Road To Wellness is built on the belief that people are not problems to be fixed. They are human beings to be seen, heard, supported, and believed in. OTRTW creates spaces where people can bring their pain without shame, their stories without judgment, and their hope, even when it is only the size of a seed.

This NH Gives, I am asking you to give to that hope.

Give so someone else can feel less alone.

Give so someone else can sit across from a peer and hear, “I understand. I have been there too.”

Give so someone else can find connection before the darkness convinces them they are beyond reach.

Give because healing is possible.

Give because lived experience saves lives.

Give because hope blooms, even in the darkest spaces, when someone is there to nurture it.

Please join me in celebrating On The Road To Wellness, the power of connection, and the life-changing truth that none of us have to walk this road alone.