A new podcast production from Good Faith Media on mental health and addiction releases tomorrow.
The first episode of “Our Stigma,” a six-episode podcast written, created and hosted by Lutheran Pastor Seth Perry, drops Thursday, May 1. Listen to the trailer and follow the podcast here.
The documentary-style audio podcast explores mental illness, addiction, recovery and stigma in the context of diverse spiritual communities, with a particular focus on Minnesota. Perry is pastor of Elim Lutheran Church in Scandia, Minnesota, and is himself a recovering addict living with bipolar disorder.
Perry, who lives and works in rural Minnesota, has been working on the podcast for more than a year, spending time in small towns with no treatment options, and in African American communities facing rising opioid overdoses. He’s talked with indigenous populations with a 10-fold disparity in statistics, Muslim brothers and sisters, and third-generation immigrant families.
The result is a layered exploration of mental health and addiction challenges specific to these communities, as well as an unmistakable commonality: stigma.
The podcast includes interviews with people in long-term recovery, politicians, mental health professionals, family members who have lost loved ones, and many others.
Perry was a guest on GFM’s “Good Faith Weekly” April 4 podcast, in which he talked more about not only the podcast, but also his own history with substance abuse and mental health.
Perry openly shared his mental health diagnosis at his church more than two years ago on Ash Wednesday. Since then, he has been initiating conversations about mental health and addiction, and their relationships to different faith communities.
“I am in the recovery community,” said Perry on the April 4 episode, “and so I see a diversity of voices from different faith communities and from different folks out there that walk a different way of living than rural, Swedish folks at a Lutheran church here in Scandia, Minnesota.”
The podcast is just one part of Perry’s larger “Our Stigma” project, which works to break the silence around mental health within faith communities. Perry is also making available an educational discussion guide that works in conjunction with the podcast.
“Seth got my attention right away with his pitch for the podcast,” said GFM producer Cliff Vaughn. “He said a core constituency of his work has been elderly women—because they are concerned about their children or grandchildren and are looking for someone who will talk and help.”
“That mattered to me because it was a concrete illustration of how we all have people we love who are in pain—often from some kind of trauma—and we want the pain to stop. How do we do that in life-giving ways, while often battling stigma in faith communities? Seth is in the trenches, and we’re honored he came to us with this project.”
The podcast is sponsored by MHealth Fairview’s Community Faith Partners Network and was made possible with funding from the Washington County Opioid Settlement.
GFM will release episodes on Thursdays. Listeners can hear the free podcast on popular podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Amazon. They can also listen directly from GFM here.
Learn more about the podcast at https://goodfaithmedia.org/ourstigma/. Learn more about Perry and the larger “Our Stigma” project at http://ourstigma.com/
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