Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacy Ross

Hi Stacy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

Last month I turned 58 years old. As I performed my annual ritual of taking stock of my life, I noted this was the first year I can remember where I feel fulfilled both personally and professionally. For so long I took care of one or the other, but have rarely been able to say both are thriving at the same time.

Why? Because I began telling my story.

In my upcoming memoir, Searching for Slippers, due out early 2025, I tell my 28 year journey raising a child with Borderline Personality Disorder. I will let you read the book (www.stacyrossspeaks.com to pre-order) to learn more about that part of my story. Instead, here I will focus on how the book itself led me to where I am today.

During the COVID pandemic I was laid off from my marketing consulting role. Left home, I finally sat down to write the memoir I had been threatening to write, and had even started and stopped many times before. Without life to get in the way, and with a virtual writing group to keep me accountable, I wrote. And I wrote and I wrote. And when the world started to open back up I had almost 200 pages complete.

When offered, I. made the choice not to go back to my job and to see where this would take me. While I had a lot written, they were really individual stories around a common theme and I had no idea how to make them into a manuscript, never mind break my way into the publishing world.

I sought advice from friends and colleagues who worked in that world, and one suggested I look at similar genres, note who published them, and start to build a contact list as I finished my work. Soon after that I was mindlessly scrolling on social media when I saw an old colleague of mine had published a children’s book. While certainly not the right genre, I had also written a children’s book and thought pitching that would help me get my feet wet. I noted the publisher had a local address and decided to reach out.

When Jenn from Inspired Girl Publishing called me back, I dove into my elevator pitch for my children’s book. While we spoke, my background and memoir also came up. She pivoted to the memoir almost immediately.

“That is a story that has to be told. It will help so many. Are you willing to send me your manuscript?”

There were two things wrong with this. My 200 pages were not in manuscript form, and I hadn’t shown them to anyone so far! I hadn’t even reread them myself. But, I reasoned, I had nothing to lose.

Two days later Jenn called me and said the words that changed my life.

“We publish two memoirs a year, and we’d like you to be one of them!”

That was the beginning. Soon thereafter I was interviewed about my upcoming memoir on an alumni podcast, Cornell Thank U. I told my story for the first time publicly and the response was so overwhelming I realized I wanted to do more. I wanted to use my book as a jumping off point to become a mental health advocate.

Today I speak in all sized venues to parents, caregivers, health care workers, and educators about my experience raising a child with mental illness. As talking about mental illness becomes more and more acceptable, the landscape I speak in is changing quickly, and I have to continue changing with it. Real change, such as reducing stigma and increasing access to care will take time. But whenever I get frustrated, or wonder if I am heading in the right direction, it is the questions other parents ask, their shared stories, and the expressions on their faces, that keep me going.

Telling my story has helped me heal and to cope with the stressors I continue to face as a parent of a child with mental illness. Each time I talk to an audience I am reminded of the importance of what I am doing. While it is draining and emotional to share my lived experience, it is the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

My journey has been anything but smooth, but I think almost everyone can say that. Most of my struggles centered, and still do center, around my now adult child with mental illness. Coping with his illness, and all that went along with that, tried every part of me and my entire family. Over the years we have all learned to cope, find acceptance, and find happiness and peace.

It is these struggles that I now speak about as a mental health advocate for parents of children with mental illness. There are over 17 million parents and caregivers of children and adults with mental illness. While I am far from alone, I often felt very lonely through the years. Today, I tell my story with three primary objectives in mind:
1) To create a community to combat the loneliness so many parents and caregivers face
2) Create awareness and reduce the stigma associated with mental illness
3) Ultimately, affect real change such as increased access to care and increased services for all ages.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

As an Author and a Mental Health Advocate I specialize in the using the power of sharing my lived experience to reach others and to ultimately affect change.

While I am not unique. In fact, with over 17million parents and caregivers of children and adults with mental illness, I am far from it. What sets me apart is my ability to tell my story with an unrelenting honesty that makes me connect with readers, listeners, and audience members.

Through first hand experience I understand that mental illness affects the whole family and don’t just offer canned or sterile suggestions of how to cope. Instead, I share the coping toolbox I have built throughout the years. I speak about such topics as Healing Through Honesty, Building Strong Boundaries, Heros Who Helped Along the Way, and many others depending on the format and audience.

While I know I can’t fix the mental health crisis facing our country, I believe through sharing my experience I can start a sorely needed conversation, help keep it going, and ultimately make change along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stacyrossspeaks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stacyrossadvocate/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554362768816
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacy-ross/