A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But in the haze of anxiety and depression, finding your footing is a challenge.
Jazz Thornton and Genevieve Moira know this too well. Both struggled with mental illness as teenagers and in their darkest moments, both found it hard to find tools that worked to keep hope alive.
They are co-founders of Voices of Hope, advocating for people with mental health problems, and they are co-authors of a new book offering a roadmap.
Genevieve Mora (L) and Jazz Thornton (R) Photo: @Points of Light
Thornton and Moira joined Afternoons to discuss the book, My Journey Starts Here: A Guided Journal to Improve Your Mental Well-being.
The pair told Jesse Mulligan they connected when Genevieve was on a summer camp in America and a girl who was at the camp had gone to school with Jazz in Timaru and connected them on Facebook.
“We started talking on Facebook. Jazz had sadly lost a friend to suicide and I reached out to offer support saying, hey I’ve been through my own struggles, let’s do something together,” Genevieve says.
Jazz says the pair didn’t meet in person until they had come up with the entire concept of Voices of Hope.
“The day she came back, we had a sleep over and then we launched it not long after that,” Jazz says.
Genevieve says that, for her, she wanted to start Voices for Hope because she felt a lot of shame for what she went through.
“When we launched Voices of Hope, which I don’t talk about very often, at that point I wasn’t very comfortable sharing my story. We were getting people along to share their stories and I still wasn’t comfortable sharing mine.
“Jazz was a big help in getting me out there and sharing it, which was a huge relief and bought a lot of closure and made me realise that everyone is going through their own battles.”
Jazz says the biggest catalyst for her was that when she went through mental health struggles, she would spend hours trying to find stories of other people going through the same thing.
“I couldn’t find any, so I think it was trying to become the people that we needed when we were going through that time.”
Jazz says the book pulls together the things that helped them the most through their own journeys.
“We were literally looking through our journals and thinking, what were the tools that we used? What were the things that helped? Some of the things we had come up with ourselves and some were things we learned in different kinds of therapy.
“We put our lived experience in there rather than it just being from a professional, which is really important, but I think it’s a whole other ball game being able to have it from people with lived experience.”
The book isn’t just advice and the pair’s personal stories, there are exercises and even pages to colour in. Genevieve says it’s something young people can work through on their own, or with the help of a parent.
“For parents, it can be really difficult to know how to support your child. I think there’s a great opportunity here for parents to work with their children or share it with their children and vice versa.”
