I recently had the honor of sitting down with Spike Cohen and Johnny McCoy, founder of the mental health support app White Flag, for an incredible discussion on my show. Their openness and insights on embracing peer support to transform mental health truly blew me away. I wanted to recap some highlights from our wide-ranging chat.
Johnny's Moving Personal Journey
Johnny shared his deeply personal story of childhood trauma and adversity that eventually led him to create White Flag. As he described:
"I didn't believe in mental health whenever I you know, whenever I was growing up...I was born with generalized anxiety disorder and a bunch of other things. I was having panic attacks by the time I was five years old, nobody called a panic. They just said I had a nervous stomach back then, nervous is what I was always called."
After years of struggling alone and masking his pain, Johnny had a wake-up call when he witnessed the power of authentic peer support during PTSD treatment. As he put it:
"Oh, my God, I'm getting better, because they're telling me about how they're handling PTSD. They're telling me about what PTSD and nightmares are light for them. And it was making me feel like I wasn't alone."
This sparked Johnny's mission to create a platform for others to easily find someone who understands their mental health issues on a personal level.
The Magic of White Flag
As Johnny described, White Flag allows users to instantly and anonymously connect with peers who are going through or have gone through similar struggles. There's no training, no coaching, no red tape - just real talk between real people.
In Johnny's words:
"Let people connect and get the hell out of the way. Let them find each other and get out of the way...It's the only way out of this situation, because people aren't going to talk openly, if they're feel like they're being monitored."
Spike Cohen also weighed in on why this unfiltered, decentralized approach is so revolutionary:
"What white flag does is it says no, you don't need the multibillion dollar medical mental health industrial complex, if you don't need it, or aren't ready for it. We're not saying don't get a therapist or don't take medications if you're prescribed them...but you don't only need that and if that's not serving you especially it's not the only way to do this."
The Results Speak Volumes
Since launching just over a year ago, White Flag already has over 100,000 users who have exchanged one million messages. As Spike noted, this translates to potentially one million moments where someone chose life over suicide.
The sheer power of peers supporting each other through darkness is undeniable. And it is this authenticity and lack of corporate/clinical bottlenecks that allow White Flag to have such an enormous impact.
As Johnny so eloquently put it:
"We need the people who are creating the magic to feel a part of this...you guys who are listening, you guys who follow Brian Nichols & Spike Cohen, that this company was built for you and your belief system, that it's within us. And we don't need anybody else to tell us how to take care of each other."
Getting Involved
For anyone struggling with mental health issues or who feels called to help others heal, I highly recommend checking out White Flag. You can download their app for free peer support or even invest in their mission via their current crowdfunding campaign.
This was without a doubt one of the most meaningful episodes I've recorded to date. I'm endlessly inspired by Johnny, Spike and the entire White Flag team. They are pioneering mental health support for the people and by the people.
To listen to our full conversation, click here. I hope you'll tune in and hear these incredible insights firsthand. Together, we can end the stigma around mental health and create communities of understanding.
