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Mental Health

Lzzy Hale's #RaiseYourHorns Campaign Promotes Mental Health Awareness

Renee Fabian
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Editor's Note

If you experience suicidal thoughts, the following post could be potentially triggering. You can contact the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.

Following the death of Huntress metal singer Jill Janus, who died by suicide on Aug. 16, fellow metal rocker Lzzy Hale took to social media to raise the flag for mental health awareness. Using the hashtag #RaiseYourHorns, the Halestorm frontwoman invited others to post their own selfie to help reduce mental health stigma.

“Hey Freaks, I’d like to do something,” she wrote on Twitter. “I want everyone who has ever struggled with mental health to #RaiseYourHorns take a pic, tag and share it. The more of us that put it out there, the less alone we will all feel and we will be one step closer to breaking the mental health stigma!”

Fans answered in kind, posting selfies tagged with #RaiseYourHorns and revealing their own struggles with mental illness.

Hale has long been an outspoken advocate for mental health, a trend she continued with the band’s latest album, “Vicious,” which was released July 27. With tracks that champion self-love such as “Uncomfortable” or other heavy songs like “Killing Ourselves to Live,” Hale remains frank about mental health. She shared with Overdrive Mag:

There have been a lot of people lately that have [been] struggling with things. They’ve been struggling with self-harm, they’ve been struggling with addiction, and there’s a couple people just struggling with their self-worth and their self-love….For years I think that when you talked about mental health, you’d think, ‘Oh god, psychology and mental hospitals,’ and, ‘Oh, you’re crazy,’ and so a lot of people would shy away from talking about it because it made them feel worse. That’s becoming less of a taboo, and it is a real thing, and it doesn’t just happen to people who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. It happens to everybody.

An estimated one in five people in the U.S. live with a mental illness in any given year, and an estimated 60 percent of those adults don’t receive treatment. While a social media campaign won’t completely remove the stigma of getting help, it certainly can be a powerful step to allow people to speak their truth and find support.

If you’re also “vicious” in the fight against mental health stigma, join Hale and #RaiseYourHorns on social media.

Resources

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.

Image via Wikimedia Commons/Achim Raschka

Renee Fabian
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Renée Fabian was the features editor at The Mighty. She has also written for The Washington Post, VICE, Healthline, Talkspace, The Fix, The Establishment, The Culture Trip, and GRAMMY.com, among others. Renée was named a 2019 AHCJ Comparative Effectiveness Research fellow, a 2020 USC Center for Health Journalism California fellow, and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and a master's degree in psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @ryfabian.

reneeyfabian
Originally published: August 17, 2018
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