As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, series of presentations about mental health are being conducted at all four Butte County Library branches.

The talks are a joint effort by Butte County Behavioral Health, the Care Enough to Act Task Force and the library.

A depression-ridden teenager Raven Mays recalled the details of a moment that transformed his life three years ago.

The teenager turned to the only solution of suicide after being tormented with depression for so long. But when his suicide attempt failed, the unexpected happened and his whole world opened up.

He said, “As I lay there upon the ground, this realization came to mind that there was more than this. I found the will to fight, to move on from the ashes of who I was to become someone I was meant to be”.

Since then he has rallied back from the brink of despair with an aim of shedding light on depression and saving others from the grasp of depression.

His goal is to raise mental health awareness and is encouraging people to attend as many of the workshops as they can.

He said it’s a good opportunity for people to become more aware. People usually get lost in depression is, but when someone talks about it, it shows them to stand up and fight against it.

The information about mental health in the workshops will be provided by community members. This will also help to decrease stigma about depression.

Topics include stigma within the gender and sexual minority community, the truth about self-injury, addiction as a disease, depression, and mental illness within the Latino culture.

Jeremy Wilson, Mental Health Services Act coordinator for Butte County Behavioral Health, mentioned that people can sit there, learn start conversations about the topic.

Through this opportunity, people can be heard and the taboo and that stigma can be decreased, which will allow them to help people in a proper manner.