LIMA, OH (WLIO) – Rhodes State College hosted a conference to help open the conversation about mental illness.

Community organizations, students, and people interested in behavioral health were invited to learn about other people’s mental health journey. One person sharing his story was former Ohio State Buckeye football player Harry Miller, who walked away from the team in 2022 to focus on his mental health. He created the organization “Don’t Make It Weird.” to help people have the courage to talk about mental health and also take the stigma out of talking about it, and he says there are no excuses to stay quiet.

“Whether that’s speaking on your behalf and advocating for yourself, or that’s communicating to someone that is in a crisis that you care about them and they matter to you.  You always have the right; you always can say something and speak up and say something. Whatever clever mental gymnastics that you are doing in your head, those are wrong. You can jump through so many hoops to convince yourself to be quiet, but you don’t have to be quiet. You can talk, you can tell people that you love them, and you can love yourself again,” says Harry Miller, Founder “Don’t Make It Weird.”

The name of the conference is “Falling Into Place,” and organizers hope people walk away learning something from the stories being shared.

“Sometimes you have to fall and have to pick ourselves up and come back together and have this beautiful story. To own your story, whether things have happened in your past or not, those things don’t define you. It’s how to take those stories, recover, heal, and share with others, to inspire others to promote healing and to help professionals like myself to help others going through those same things,” says Dr. Patty Hampshire, Chair of Public Services at Rhodes State College.

Rhodes State College will be holding another similar event in the spring.