COURTESY FONDA BRYANT

Mental health advocate and suicide survivor Fonda Bryant, (right, with her aunt Kellie) will walk 27 miles from Charlotte to Gastonia on Saturday. Bryant is founder and CEO of Wellness Action Recovery.

For Fonda Bryant, Saturday’s 27-mile walk to stop suicide will be “emotional.''

As a suicide survivor and the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Wellness Action Recovery, the walk, which starts at 8 a.m. in Charlotte and ends in Gastonia, symbolizes her 27 years of defeating the mental illness and encouraging more people to not be a victim.

“We’re walking and doing a walk about something that is very hard to talk about,” said Bryant, 61, a Charlotte mental health and suicide prevention advocate.  It's not a warm and fuzzy subject, but it needs to be talked about. I want people to realize that mental health is health,” “I also want people to realize that suicide is the most preventable death of all deaths through education. The number one way to save somebody's life is, guess what? Simply caring, checking on people, asking people how are you doing today? Are you all right? Are you OK?”

A person dies every 40 seconds from suicide, according to the World Health Organization. It was the cause of death for nearly 46,000 Americans in 2020, or one death every 11 minutes according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There's a lot of risk factors that can contribute to suicide, first and foremost having a mental health disorder and that can be any kind of mental illness,” said Dr. Crystal Bullard, a psychiatrist at Atrium Health. “Most commonly someone will be diagnosed with depression, but it can include other mental illnesses as well. A previous behavior, previous suicide attempt, or self-harm behavior is also a risk factor for future suicide attempts.”

In 1995, Bryant suffered stress and depression as she approached 35 as an unmarried woman. At the time, she was in a relationship with a person that didn’t feel the same way about her and between her mother’s words on marriage and close friends getting married, it took a toll on her mental health.

“My mom used to tell me, ‘if you're not married by the time you're 30, nobody's gonna want you,’” Bryant said. “I just felt like nobody's ever going to want me, nobody cares about me. I would be better off dead. Now that’s what my brain was saying, and it's not that we want to die, but in that moment, that's how you feel because you're in intense pain, not only mentally but physically.”

On Feb 14, 1995, Bryant had thoughts of suicide and called her aunt Kellie, who ended up saving her life and helping her get the help she needed. Bryant is now a motivational speaker and works with local mental health organizations, churches, and others in the community to spread the word that “suicide is everybody’s business.”
In 2020, Bryant started the nonprofit Wellness Action Recovery to bring awareness to mental health and suicide through “education and positive action.” The nonprofit provides suicide prevention training and teaches the signs and symptoms of suicide.

Bryant serves on the state board of National Alliance of Mental Illness, and volunteers with NAMI Cabarrus County, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Mental Health America of Central Carolinas.

In 2021, she was named Black Mental Health Symposium Advocate of The Year and Nexstar Media National Remarkable Woman of The Year.

Bryant recognizes that with mental health, everyone has good days and bad days.

“Having a mental health condition is no quick fix. It's an ongoing journey, and we have to take ownership in it,” she said. “Medication is a tool if we have to take it, we have to take it. Therapy is a tool. But the two biggest things that helped us the most are self care, knowing our triggers, knowing our boundaries, eating right, exercising, putting people in our life, putting people out of our lives, and also educated support.”

The 27-mile walk will take place on Saturday with the help of police officials from Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Belmont, Mt. Holly, Cramerton and Gastonia. The walk will start at Fitness Connection on JW Clay Boulevard in Charlotte and end at Planet Fitness on New Hope Road in Gastonia.

Local organizations such as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Rho Psi Omega Chapter and Charlotte Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will also help out with the event.
Donations from the walkathon will support the Wellness Action Recovery and to celebrate 27 years of Bryant’s survival from suicide.

“This is a societal problem,” Bryant said. “Society created this by treating us differently than people with cancer and diabetes and heart problems. Imagine a society treating us the same way that they do for breast cancer. More people die by suicide worldwide than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.”

Join The Post on May 25 at 6:30 p.m. for a webinar on mental health in the Black community with Atrium Health psychologists Dr. Russell Hancock and Dr. Andrea Cochran. Registration is free.

Aaliyah Bowden, who covers health for The Post, is a Report For America corps member.

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