I’m JD and I have mental illness. I’m also not alone. Every year, roughly 20% of the US adult population deals with some form of mental illness, however that number is MUCH higher in the tech community.

In this talk I tell my story of how I came to terms with the fact that I have mental illnesses, and how I came to realize that I’m not alone. Within my story, I tell how I came to realize I needed help, how I found help, what treatments worked for me, and how I came to be active in OSMI (Open Sourcing Mental Illness) with a mission of Erasing the Stigma that surrounds mental illness.

Attendees will walk away from this session with knowledge of resources that are available, statistics that have been collected, and hopefully a new view on mental illness that helps them Erase the Stigma from their own point of view.