#ToWriteLoveOnHerArms

As mentioned in my social media campaign, mental health is an important topic to me and I have worked as an advocate for suicide prevention. To Write Love on Her Arms was the first nonprofit I ever discovered pushing for conversation to take place around mental health. Since 2006, TWLOHA has been a place for people to find community and to hopefully lift some of the weight that comes with struggling with addiction, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.

The original story started when Jamie Tworkowski started selling shirts to raise funds to cover the treatment costs for Renee Yohee. Read the story here. He then started receiving messages from people all over the world who were struggling and through the communication with them, TWLOHA the nonprofit was born.

Since then, social media has become a powerful tool in the mission of reducing the stigma around mental health and has provided a safe space for people to share their stories. Starting first on MySpace to give the story a home, TWLOHA now reaches people through Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.

Instagram:

TWLOHA uses hashtags to promote conversation on the platform. #TWLOHA, #PeopleNeedOtherPeople, and #YourStoryMatters are a few of the hashtags used over the years. Through the campaigns, TWLOHA raises funds to provide treatment for people who need it. This year for suicide prevention month, they raised over $300,000 through the social media campaign alone. In between campaigns, Instagram is used to provide resources, support, and statistics to help people feel less alone.

Facebook:

The TWLOHA movement has created a Facebook community where people share their support for the nonprofit and the purpose behind it. Posts showcasing the tshirt for the annual campaign with #TWLOHA share personal stories of survival, loss, and reasons to stay. While the company itself uses Facebook as a way to share resources, Facebook’s post style allows people to get more in depth with their stories than they might on Instagram.

Throwback with Jared Padalecki

TikTok:

To Write Love on Her Arms joined TikTok and built a massive following on that platform as well. For suicide prevention month, creators share videos of things they would have missed if they had not survived their struggle and then tag TWLOHA in them. Other users share how TWLOHA has helped as a resource or even showed the shirts and other swag they ordered to support the movement.

*I deactivated my TikTok account and now I can’t share videos but I highly recommend looking it up to see some of the happy moments people are sharing that they were able to have because they chose to stay.

Overall:

The movement for social change when it comes to mental health is supported by multiple organizations and messages on social media. With just a few searches you can find organizations and hashtags supporting mental health based on ethnicity, gender identity, mental health diagnoses, recovering addicts, and so much more. Social media has provided a space to start the conversations that have been considered taboo for so long but To Write Love On Her Arms was one of the first to really grow the message on social media and to this day is still highly successful in raising awareness and creating change thus opening up the space to other organizations or anyone who wants to share their mental health journey.