Rochester woman is reaching millions using TikTok to help people battle mental health illnesses

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — A Rochester woman is reaching millions using TikTok to spread positivity and a helping hand to people who are battling depression and other mental health illnesses.

Over the past year, TikTok has taken over the social media world as people dance, sing, express themselves, and give advice to help others.

For Rochester licensed therapist Jamie Mahler, her goal was to do just that.

“When you have a really interactive person like engaging and talking right to the camera, someone will connect a little bit better to that type of education,” Mahler said.

With more than 600k TikTok followers and millions of views, she’s using the platform as a TikTok Mental Health Content Creator going to the app to help educate people on things they were never taught in school.

“So many people that connect with me the demographic is honestly roughly 25-55 and so many people are benefiting from the educational aspect of TikTok,” Mahler said.

She said mental health awareness is more important now than ever and using the video-sharing-focused social networking service is just another resource.

“A lot of them is what it looks like so if someone asks me what is high functioning depression look like? I will show them. I have an entire topic called what it looks like and that is basically showing people this is how high functioning depression can look, you know you can show up to work every single day and have all of these problems and all of these things going on in your head and you can still show up to work,” Mahler said.

She said the best part of it all is seeing people get the help they need.

“It’s just the most meaningful thing that happened is I keep getting these messages like ‘I picked up the phone and I connected with a therapist for the first time and now you know I’m six months in and honestly it’s because of this app’,” Mahler said.

You can reach Jaime @recollectedself or on her website by clicking here.