May is Mental Health Awareness Month, organized by Mental Health America and observed each year since 1949. During this national movement to destigmatize mental illness—which affects roughly 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 6 children in the U.S., according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)—personal stories bring powerful messages to the public. One of those stories comes from photographer and Duggal client Alan Scherer, whose introduction stops you in your tracks.
“I have Bipolar disorder,” Scherer writes on his website. “I am an alcoholic; I suffer from childhood trauma and I committed suicide at 11. I have been hospitalized from mental health struggles as a child and as an adult. I have been through short-term and long-term foster care. I was diagnosed in 2001 with Bipolar 2 and was on meds until 2008 as well as seeing a psychiatrist, and a therapist.”
