Semicolon tattoos signify new start, inspire hope in others with mental illness

Sept. 10--She had yet to turn 30, but the trauma of her childhood was slowly killing Naarah Pyscher.

Her mother suffered severe mental illness and was suicidal, sending Pyscher and her brothers in and out of foster care. Whenever her father was home from the Army, he was abusive.

In high school, Pyscher, now 34, escaped by studying and competing in every sport she could, taking drugs to keep her going. A scholarship away to college gave her relief, but she continued her rigorous schedule, ignoring the "You should rest" and "Are you OK?" comments.

After college, Pyscher married and discovered marathon training, where she could get lost for hours.

It was how she coped with an insidious anxiety, she said, that made her heart race, kept her up at night and gave her stomach aches. Getting high and drunk were also beguiling cures.

But Pyscher began to self-destruct. She could no longer run. She depended even more on alcohol and drugs. She stopped caring about her work as a personal trainer. She stopped caring about anything.

Within one month three years ago, she and her husband of eight years divorced, and her mom died.

"I made a choice to slowly let myself disappear," Pyscher said. "I did all I could to not feel, to not feel alive."

Pyscher remembers lying on her bed, crying, in her dark University City apartment. For the past three days, her only sustenance had been alcohol. "Is this how it's going to be?" she kept asking herself.

She decided that she had a choice. "I can live here in the darkness for the rest of my life and find ways to numb it all, or I can turn it around."

Like a semicolon instead of a period, Pyscher chose not to end her sentence; she would author a new narrative.

A month ago, she got a semicolon tattoo, joining millions of others across the globe inspired by Project Semicolon -- a movement dedicated to presenting hope and love to those struggling with depression, suicide, addiction and self-injury.

Amy Bluel of Green Bay, Wis., founded Project Semicolon two years ago because she wanted to memorialize her father, who died by suicide when she was 18. She wanted to share his story, as well as how her faith, friends and family helped her overcome her own struggles with depression.Bluel encouraged others to draw a semicolon on their wrists as a reminder that whatever they may be experiencing is only a pause along the way.People were so inspired, the message spread quickly across the world through social media. Thousands are getting tattoos of the punctuation mark and sharing their own messages of encouragement and starting anew.

The project has grown into a social media campaign that includes videos, pictures, stories, apparel and educational materials.

Colleen Odle, 39, of Jefferson County, discovered Project Semicolon in the days after her brother, Steven McCoy, 27, died by suicide a year ago last spring.

She decided to reach out to her friends and family and organize a day, just over a month after his death, where they could come to Iron Age Studios in University City and get a permanent or temporary semicolon tattoo. The event raised $1,000, which was given to the Taylor Family Institute for Innovate Psychiatric Research at Washington University School of Medicine.

On her ankle, Odle got a tattoo of angel wings with a semicolon in the middle and her brother's initials.

This past spring, Odle also organized an awareness event at Lafayette High School, where she helps struggling readers. Students were encouraged to draw semicolons on their wrists, talk about mental health and know it's OK to ask for help.

She led a group to participate in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's local Out of Darkness annual walk around Creve Coeur Park last year, raising another $1,000 through T-shirt sales and donations. She will do so again for this year's 3.8-mile walk on Oct. 4 at noon.

Six months ago, Odle created the St. Louis' Semicolon Project! Facebook group as another way to increase awareness about suicide, depression and other mental illness.

"It is still a struggle, and that probably will never change," Odle said about dealing with her brother's death. "But I think it's helpful for me to have positive things to focus on, and I feel like this message is positive. If I can help anyone, that is a good thing."

She recently got another semicolon tattoo on her wrist, with the top dot in the shape of a fist. "This one was for me," she said.

Pyscher's tattoo is a circle of semicolons, so that it looks like a sun. "The sun wipes away all darkness and is a beacon of hope," she said. "People ask me what it means, and I tell them that it's a symbol to remind me that there is hope and better things ahead."Her path to wellness started with finding the right therapist. Pyscher said she went through three before connecting with the fourth, who was respectful, encouraging and nonjudgmental.A year of therapy and anti-anxiety medication helped her process the abuse she experienced as a child. She learned to separate the sadness she felt then from any sad events that happen to her now, she said, "so I don't feel 35 years of pain very time I feel sad."

She no longer has to avoid feeling sad or angry. She can allow herself to grieve, because she knows it's only temporary. She determined she will be helpful, happy and to feel again.

"I must live my passion," Pyscher said. "Am I going to be a personal trainer? Am I going to be a motivator in people's lives? Then I must be motivated in my own life."

She hired her own personal trainer, she said. The trainer introduced her to power lifting, and Pyscher has twice made it to the national championships. For the first time, instead of escaping and running way away from her problems, she is standing and fighting.

It is her new narrative.

"As a power lifter, I have this feeling of empowerment," she said. "When you lift off that weight and have the power in your hands, nobody can take it away. It's yours."

Michele Munz -- 314-340-8263

@michelemunz on Twitter

mmunz@post-dispatch.com

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