The story provides a roadmap. A young man experiencing suicidal ideation might not call a crisis hotline based on a statistic, but he will call after hearing a podcast where a survivor describes exactly that feeling of darkness and exactly how they crawled back to the light. The survivor story acts as a "permission slip" for others to seek help.

Perhaps no movement in history demonstrates the power of survivor stories like #MeToo. When Tarana Burke coined the phrase "Me Too" in 2006, she planted a seed. But when survivors like Ashley Judd and dozens of others spoke out against Harvey Weinstein in 2017, the seed exploded.

If stories are the fuel, awareness campaigns are the engine. A well-constructed campaign takes the raw energy of survivor experiences and directs it toward a specific goal. Education and Prevention