My name is Kēphen Merancīs and I am a writer and behavioral health advocate. As such, I advocate for the fair and equal treatment of individuals with mental health conditions and substance use challenges in employment and society. I also provide peer support and information about resources and services to people who are struggling. Behavioral health includes both mental health conditions and substance use disorders. Mental health conditions, in this context, includes but is not limited to chronic stress, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, depression, grief, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidality, and so on.

I launched this website in 2010 to be an archive of my personal writings about my struggles with mental health and my philosophical explorations, but in the time since then it has also become a place to find resources and information for services for other people struggling with their own life challenges.

I grew up in poverty while living in a mobile home in a rural area outside a small town of less than 200 people in Missouri. An environment where my parents had to make tough choices about whether or not to buy food or clothing. It was also a situation where, as a child, bathing for me was not considered a parental priority and would frequently not be addressed for week or two at a time, and where I did not properly learn how to address my oral hygiene until adolescence, things that resulted in shame and social judgment during elementary school. I encountered adverse childhood experiences including sexual, physical, and religious trauma. All these experiences caused future struggles with depression and suicidality throughout my teens and early twenties.

Despite my early experiences, I excelled in high school academically and received enough scholarships to attend a local technical college in 2004 without having any out-of-pocket expenses except for food. Unfortunately, I experienced a mental health crisis that resulted in my early withdrawal from enrollment. At the time I was too ashamed to inform the school staff that I was experiencing panic attacks, feeling depressed, and could no longer focus on my studies. Mental health was such a taboo topic back then that I didn’t think anyone working for the school could possibly understand what I was going through. Neither I nor the school made any mention of mental health as a possible cause of my withdrawal and so if any resources or services were available through the school or that they could connect me with, they were not provided.

I got into a dispute with my parents about wasting the opportunity to be the first person in my family to attend college and to do so for free. In anger, and quite honestly in shame, I left home with no job and no plan for where I would end up. I bounced around from place to place, sometimes sleeping on the couches of friends or other family members, or sometimes sleeping in my truck wherever I could park it without being disturbed. It was the first time in my life that I was unhoused, and it made me realize just how much more difficult life was when shelter (and the amenities it affords) lacked certainty.

Months later I reconciled with my parents and moved back home. I was finally able to access mental health therapy at the encouragement of a friend from a local counselor and disclosed for the first time that I had attempted suicide when I was 16 years old. After this disclosure I found the courage to begin sharing my personal mental health experiences with others outside of the clinical setting via in-person conversations and by writing about it online through social media starting in 2005.

In October 2007, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) after receiving a waiver from the Military Entrance Processing Station for my depression diagnosis. Due to advice from a Navy recruiter I did not disclose to the military physicians that I had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder because he stated it was a disqualifying condition. I was also advised by this recruiter to stop taking my medications at least 6 months prior to shipping out for boot camp. While at boot camp in early 2008, I experienced a mental health crisis that reached the level of suicidality while in San Diego, California and was discharged from the USMC. Following this event I traveled back to Missouri and sought help from civilian health care providers and moved on with my life.

While employed from 2008 – 2017, I had regular opportunities to train and lead high school and college-aged students who were working for our agency in temporary office positions which afforded me opportunities to meet and interact with students of varying backgrounds and life experiences, including those who self-identified as transgender and others who expressed their own personal struggles with mental health and substance use. It was during this time that I learned firsthand how disclosing my own personal story, offering support, recognition, and compassionate engagement can positively affect teens and emerging adults struggling silently with those challenges and suicidal ideation.

One specific interaction with a teenager experiencing a suicidal crisis fundamentally changed the direction of my professional interests and eventually led me toward my own involvement in mental health advocacy, peer-support, and continued education in suicide prevention and behavioral health.

That encounter in 2016 changed the direction of both of our lives. From that point forward I stopped thinking about mental health from my own internal perspective and started thinking about it as something beyond just me. I realized my belief that I was isolated and trapped in my own struggle was a false narrative. I wasn’t lost at sea in a storm in a tiny boat alone without sails or paddles, I was on a massive passenger ship with countless others experiencing the same storms and isolation but had simply locked myself in my passenger room. I needed to find courage to unlock the door, walk outside, and be brave enough to start a conversation that mattered so I could notice I was not alone in my experience and figure out how I could help others.

I have never forgotten the encounter; it taught me that while recovery is a journey and not a destination it also a path populated by others facing the same hardships and struggles and that if I wanted to truly be in recovery I needed to incorporate service to others. It inspired me in 2018 to become a field advocate for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In this outreach role I shared information within my community about upcoming education and engagement events, support resources, and participated in advocacy efforts. I also started attending the local annual Out of the Darkness Community Walk, for which I still captain a team each year made of family members and friends.

I began independently volunteering in peer support (at no cost) for anyone I encountered who appeared or reported to be struggling with a mental health condition or substance use challenge, primarily focusing on men within the late teens through early thirties age demographics. In 2019, I became a Certified Peer Specialist, a credential I still hold. I volunteered in my community with a group dedicated to suicide awareness and prevention. We met regularly to discuss actions to forward our cause and facilitated support groups for community members in need. I gave talks about my experiences and wrote for the local newspaper.

While employed from 2018 to 2021 as a professional development instructor I was able to form and lead a team that developed inter-agency partnerships, hosted training courses facilitated by the MU Psychological Services Clinic and the ComPsych Corporation. Additionally, I facilitated recurring training courses on conflict management, motivation, and stress and anxiety, during which I discussed my own personal experiences with a mental health condition, treatment, and recovery.

I have attended many in-person and online training events and conferences hosted or sponsored by Missouri organizations such as the Missouri Behavioral Health Council, Missouri Suicide Prevention Network, Missouri Department of Mental Health, UMSL Missouri Institute of Mental Health, Mental Health First Aid Missouri, Missouri Task Force on Children’s Justice, NAMI Missouri, Missouri Partners in Prevention, Missouri Crisis Intervention Team Council. I have also attended national training events such as those hosted by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center at EDC, QPR Institute, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention / the Jed Foundation, and the Trusted Provider Network.

In 2024, I completed a six-month course with the Trusted Provider Network on assessing, understanding, managing, and treating chronic suicidality. This course was incredibly personal to me as the topic of suicide awareness and prevention has been at the forefront of why I entered and have continued to gravitate toward the mental health industry. Not just for my own personal experiences with chronic suicidality but because of friends, family, and strangers I have met along this journey who have also struggled with suicidal thoughts and behavior or who have lost loved ones to suicide.

I am openly a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but while I was very public and vocal about this topic when I came out in 2008 I have not been actively involved in public events, projects, or organizations solely focused on the LGBTQ+ community because I have not wanted that small aspect of my life to define the entirety of my identity. I mention it here solely to highlight the extent of my personal experiences and because it was highly influential and consequential to my childhood growing up in a religiously conservative small-town community.

As a practicing secular Buddhist, my dharma practice is important to me and I firmly believe and credit my recovery to my conversion to Mahayana Buddhism in 2010. Primarily the lessons on impermanence, suffering, and non-self were critical for my journey out of the darkness. To learn more about Buddhism and how it may help you in your own life journey check out my article A Brief Examination of Buddhism.

Other interests include ​nature, history, astronomy, paleontology, gardening, baking, and ceramics. ​I enjoy​ hiking, road trips, documentaries, podcasts, nonfiction writing, and ​I’m particularly fond of cats and will befriend them anywhere ​I go. As a writer, I am influenced by the works of Fernando Pessoa, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Walt Whitman, and John Muir.

• Missouri Organizations:
  • AFSP Missouri
  • Mental Health First Aid Missouri
  • Missouri Behavioral Health Council
  • Missouri Crisis Intervention Team Council
  • Missouri Department of Mental Health
  • Missouri Partners in Prevention
  • Missouri Suicide Prevention Network
  • Missouri Task Force on Children’s Justice
  • NAMI Missouri
  • UMSL Missouri Institute of Mental Health
• National Organizations:
  • American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
  • Jed Foundation
  • QPR Institute
  • Suicide Prevention Resource Center at EDC