Project UROK teaches teens how to talk about anxiety and mental illness

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Image: Project UROK

 

Mara Wilson, writer and performer who made her name as a child actress in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire, is sitting in front of a gray screen, hair gathered in a messy bun, wearing a sweatshirt with a stylized cat face on it and a big blue pin that says "UROK." In a casual tone that previous generations could never have conjured for such personal subjects, she is talking about anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and the arc of her life from "anxious kid" to "anxious adult."

"I wish somebody had told me it's OK to be anxious, that you don't have to fight it," Wilson says. "When you face anxiety ... when you understand it's just this false alarm in your body, then you can work with it, then you can overcome it."

Wilson is one of the celebrities who have recorded videos for a new video platform, Project UROK, which stands for "you are OK." The month-old nonprofit features candid videos with comedians, actors and other public figures talking frankly about their mental health and how they came to accept themselves.

"We're trying to think of ourselves as a sort of mental illness destigmatization network," Jenny Jaffe, founder of Project UROK.

The aim is to use the force of the Internet for good — a vast departure from the texting, bullying, shaming minefield of social media that can, and has, driven teens to suicide from a sense of isolation. Project UROK aims to give teenagers struggling with mental illness a sense of community, an assurance that they aren't alone and permission to see mental health as a subject that can be mentioned out loud.

Jaffe was inspired by past campaigns that put a human face on important issues, such as the It Gets Better Project, which used YouTube and other social platforms to give hope to LGBT youth facing bullies and harassment. But while other destigmatization platforms exist for mental illness, such as Glenn Close's campaign Bring Change 2 Mind, they're geared more toward adults.

"The generational difference in how people over a certain age interact with the Internet versus how teens and young adults do is monumental," Jaffe says

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Teens, as always, speak a different language: the language of text, of Snapchat, of celebrity YouTube bloggers and Instagrams. So Project UROK, and its staff, always keep the language of modern sharing in mind. Instead of asking teens to seek information in a formal way that isn't natural for them — making a phone call or going to a library, as previous generations might have done — the project harnesses the power of the Internet.

In a connected age, using shareable video for something other than cats and memes has proven to have obvious appeal. Kids of all ages and backgrounds have written to the team, expressing interest to record their own videos and write blog posts. Since it officially launched on April 17, the platform has racked up nearly 900 YouTube subscribers, about 18,000 views and more than 13,000 Twitter followers.

The project also relies on another key aspect of the Internet: the first-person voice.

"This is a platform we built for whoever wants to use it. It's really great to have a celebrity or public figure endorsement, because it's someone people can look up to ... but we want it to take form as a two-way conversation," Jaffe says. "My message is, if you're comfortable telling your story, we want to hear your story."

Users can send an unlisted YouTube video or raw file to the team, and they'll post it to the Project UROK and also monitor comments to ensure a safe space.

What 'mental illness' really means

Mental illness is common among adolescents, and yet it's still a subject very much in the shadows. Approximately 1 in 5 teens between the ages of 13 and 18 live with a mental health condition, but only 20% of those teens actually receive help.

Stigma, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), is leaving them behind.
Jaffe feels we're finally progressing in terms of the conversation surrounding mental health, but she says there's a long way to go — especially in the U.S., where mental health and physical health are not given equal importance.

"Mental health is often seen as a luxury," she says. "Just as you need to be able to find an affordable doctor in your neighborhood, you also need to be able to find somebody you can talk to about how you're feeling. Destigmatization and spreading information about what 'mental illness' really means is the first step."

Acceptance of mental health

Jaffe, still in her 20s, is not so far removed from her teen years. She remembers keenly the isolation she felt as a teenager, when she struggled with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Even with professional help and support from her family, acceptance took years.

She turned to comedy to fight her demons and help other people talk about theirs.

"I got into comedy because it helped me when I was at such dark points in my life," Jaffe says.
She decided to switch gears after she wrote about her experience with exposure therapy and saw the outpouring of responses from people who could relate.

"I was doing [comedy] as a sort of indirect way of helping other people who were in similar situations. Project UROK is a way of doing what I was trying to do in a much more direct way," she says.

While these videos may be empowering to teens, Project UROK also makes sure to direct users to professional help if and when they need it. It has a comprehensive resources page, curated based on helpfulness and whether the staff members, all of whom have experienced mental illness or knew someone who did, would use them.

There are also several psychologists on the nonprofit's board, and it works with the Children's Health Council, which is the same organization that helped Jaffe as a kid.

"We can't ourselves administer any treatment, but we can point them in the right direction," she says. "If we come across anyone we're concerned about, we have an order of operations in place for next steps. Keeping our users safe is our No. 1 priority."

For immediate help, contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside the U.S., you can find the appropriate resources here.