Stigma Enigma – An Evening with Ginger Zee
Stigma Enigma, headed by local Family Physician Patrick Smith, will host the 5th Annual Stigma Enigma event the evening of Saturday November 3rd at the St Clair Centre for the Arts.
The Annual Stigma Enigma event brings in a high profile guest speaker yearly, in order to raise awareness about mental health issues and to bring a familiar face to the subject helping to eliminate the stigma to talk about mental health and encouraging individuals to reach out for help in times of distress.
This year’s event will feature guest speaker Good Morning America, Meteorologist, GINGER ZEE who is known to millions as the face of ABC News’ meteorology team, as well as for her third place finish on the 22nd season of Dancing with the Stars, Zee’s story goes far beyond the confines of television. With the release of her New York Times best-selling memoir Natural Disaster: I Cover Them, I am One, Zee brings readers along the immensely difficult path that took her from a depressed fledgling meteorologist to the first female chief network meteorologist at a network. But as she puts it, by chasing these storms she was avoiding the real one brewing at home—a string of misguided relationships, including a horrifically abusive one that wouldn’t end until she was forced to call the police, and a deep soul search that lead her to check in to a mental health hospital ten days before starting her job at ABC. Zee was struggling with significant mental health issues that went undiagnosed until she entered that inpatient therapy and began—slowly but surely—to get her on track.
Connie Martin, Executive Director of Maryvale stated that “Dr. Smith and the Stigma Enigma campaign he founded have been very extremely constructive for this community. Maryvale has not been able to keep up with the demand for help for children and youth suffering serious emotional distress. With gratitude for Stigma Enigma, we have been able to hire two experienced counsellors, and each year, will help 100 or more Windsor Essex teens through this additional funding source. These are youth who, we know, get more distraught when they have to wait for help.”
Tickets for the event are now on sale on Eventbrite under Mingle for Maryvale and will be available within the next month at Maryvale from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Monday through Friday or at Dr Pat Smith’ office Mondays 9-12 and Fridays 1-4.
Stigma Enigma Mission is to increase awareness and need of community involvement in dealing with mental illness. In light of major government funding cutbacks, children’s mental health treatments centres such as Windsor‘s Maryvale have suffered greatly.
