Mission
Elyssa’s Mission educates and screens teens on warning signs of suicide to help identify at-risk youth, link them to vital resources and ultimately prevent suicide.
Approach
Elyssa’s Mission fully funds and implements evidence-based suicide prevention programs in middle and high schools, providing hands-on support with planning, training, program implementation and data analysis to ensure program success.
Vision
Elyssa’s Mission envisions making mental health and suicide awareness a comfortable and open topic of conversation, creating a culture of understanding and support that encourages people to seek help.
Our History
The community-based organization was founded in 2006 in honor of Elyssa, a bright, gifted and outgoing Chicagoland girl who bravely battled post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Elyssa’s Mission® provides hands-on support to area public and private schools in order to educate students, staff, parents and guardians on how to recognize and assist those teens most at-risk. We have helped educate well over one million students, staff and parents since inception.
Elyssa was a bright, beautiful, extremely outgoing girl.
Depression, Anxiety and Suicidal Ideation
Elyssa’s Story
Written by Elyssa’s mother
Elyssa was a bright, beautiful, extremely outgoing girl. What made her happy was a house full of family and friends. She was an avid reader and liked to journal and write poetry. She saw things as either right or wrong. She had a tremendous amount of empathy towards kids who were treated unfairly. She was impulsive and lived life to the fullest. She was a risk taker but cared what the result was and how people perceived her. She was very sensitive. She pretended to be tough on the inside but wasn’t. She was funny and made funny faces to get you to laugh. She tried to help others with their problems. She loved her friends; they were her world.
When Elyssa was twelve years old, she was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy. Following the assault, Elyssa was hospitalized and diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. I was informed by her team that Elyssa had a predisposition to depression. I was told by her doctors that the sexual assault and the bullying by her peers pushed her over the edge.
“i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)”
– ee cummings
Speak
by Elyssa Meyers
Speak. Chocolate milk sits on the table, my fear grows. 13 year old girl’s tears stream down her cheeks. Hate. A passion for happiness. Time passes, sickness stirs, the fuzziest sweater is no longer soft. Yet the flowers bloom and life goes on. Color or no color the windows open with truth. Power. Freedom floats above my head out of grasp, frustrated I give up. Problems block the tiled floor road and my blue jeans rip. Barbie dolls turn ugly and anger rises. Strength turns cold my friend, your help – useless. Your kindness appreciated but stubbornly I stand confused. Miserable as I am, I still love. Alone. Speak. Break the silence. Answer the phone now, before I’m gone. Dance. Take your dirty socks off and walk barefoot. People. Curiosity puzzles me, mind your own business. Trapped within a peanut butter jar, flashbacks strike. Help. The sky’s black, and now I sleep in the clouds. Eyes closed I see you. As I sharpen my nails, evil haunts. I hide behind a mushroom, and pray. Wrote a letter to a John. Abuse. When doves cry, I need you. Please taste my blood. Stormy weather is the signal. Challenge. I Speak the truth. Do you know why? Permanently ruined yet you roam free. The beginning of the summer and the sun has yet to shine. Sucked into the drain, forever drowning. Save me…The equation will never add up until you are behind bars. The bench in the park is gone and the stairs are never ending. Count your breaths. Guilt. Destruction. Intimidation. The young boy mows the lawn. Yet to touch the ladder. Shame is the rain that falls in the sidewalk cracks. Eagles nest. Memories are the building blocks surrounding the tower. Youth. The culture is in shock. Stripped away. Wall paper torn to the floor. It’s gone. All gone. Who I am will never surface. VICTIM. The birthday card is stained like the coffee you just spilled. The note that meant more than religion. Betrayal. I’ll never be alive again. Innocence lost inevitably. Drowned in pink. The olden days are a crack. What you brought me is finally here. The tease has ended, all must end with it. What I cannot say you read perfectly. Alienation. Control. Useless to the queen bee yet fortunate for this day. Quick. Failure. Her favorite shoes are birkinstocks. Save yourself. Lose yourself. I will survive. The unknown haunts.
Real
by Elyssa Meyers
Throughout my life so far, I conclude that one thing is certain: whatever we are, we are always real. I believe that at all times we feel, whether it’s with our hands or our hearts; we can embrace sadness, happiness, fright or madness. We are always in control of how we choose to deal with our emotions. How we deal with the past and future is irrelevant to how we deal with now, The Precious Present is the precious present, as Spencer Johnson teaches us.
Our journey is to find ourselves. Most of us spend too much time in our lives searching for our identity. “What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to figure out how things ‘really are,’ when all the time they weren’t.” I agree with Hugh Prather, we can’t strive for life, we have to be it. We can’t plan out our life on paper. We have to live it by our hearts. “Only the stillness of my heart is consistent, and it does not dictate how to behave but merely how to see.” I take that and think, well, then the question is not what to do, but where within me I am looking. We must look with our mind’s eye and unveil the truth.
The launch of my journey was when I decided I wanted to know the reason for the way I was feeling. That was my beginning. I have learned that to actually look for your path is a waste of time; it doesn’t exist. It’s whether we take the time to dig into ourselves to find our core that we truly understand ourselves. It is created with three relationships: surrounding people, the holy God and yourself.
I believe we create our own path. Faith in God will help guide us, but it is I who lifts my foot and takes another step. We take what we want from life and make it what we choose. Our choices determine our life. One of the hardest concepts is that once we do something, we can’t take it back. No matter what we say or do afterward, what’s done is done. Everything is so permanent. With that knowledge my outlook on life changes. It all comes down to one simple thing: I don’t want to mess up.
When I grow up, I want to help other people. That is my gift to the world. The way I see it, if I start understanding myself now, I will be able to understand others later. I don’t just want to listen to what people say to me, but feel what they mean. I have the power to make people smile, and I want to use that as much as I can. I know I am only one person, but when I grow up if I only make one person happy, it will make a difference. That is the world’s gift to me. That is real.