In partnership with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), Audacy presents a new episode in our I'm Listening: Talk Away the Dark limited series featuring host Liz Hernandez along with her guests, Vic Armstrong and Gabriela Vargas.

Audacy's Liz Hernandez from 94.7 The Wave in Los Angeles is a Mexican American Emmy-nominated TV personality, broadcaster, and journalist. With a career built on storytelling and the power of words, Liz continues to connect with the community as the Founder and Creator of WORDAFUL, a video and live event series focusing on the importance of how we communicate with others and ourselves.

In this episode, Hernandez is joined by AFSP expert Vic Armstrong and Gabriela (Gabi) Vargas, who was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and grew up as an undocumented child in the Chicago suburbs, becoming a mother at a young age and raising her two sons while working as a medical interpreter in a community hospital. Today, Gabi is the owner of Elgin, Illinois' Poiema Studio, a safe space promoting mental well-being, and also founded the National Hispanic Suicide Prevention Network (NHSPN), while volunteering much of her time with AFSP’s Chicago chapter to provide support as a grief specialist and bilingual youth mental health first aid instructor.

Discussing how her experience as an immigrant has shaped her mental health journey, and how she’s now using her voice to open the dialogue around suicide in her community, Gabi tells us her focus is on “mental health awareness and overdose prevention, as well as suicide grief support, supporting families that have lost someone to suicide.” As a volunteer with AFSP, Gabi adds, “I'm just really proud of the work they're doing and are a collaborator with me now in spreading the awareness within the Hispanic community.”

“Thank you for allowing me to share my story,” Gabi continues. As an immigrant born in Mexico whose family came to the United States when she was a small child, “I know firsthand the immigrant experience,” she explains. “I actually didn't even know that we were undocumented until my freshman year of high school.”

“It was a very unique experience being in a community that wasn't very similar to us within the household,” she says. “But at the age of 25 years old, I faced a severe mental health crisis. At that point, I was already a mother to two young boys and I felt trapped. I was in a place where I was a very young mom going through a divorce and I planned to take my own life. I do thank God and all the great people in my life that came through for me at that time. And out of shame, I kept that attempt a secret.”

Gabi adds, “I'm never imagining that a year later, my 18 year old cousin would take his own life and his loss led me to seek professional help. It also let me see the importance of mental health, especially in childhood. That was the beginning of a time in my life that I was able to see firsthand within my family how suicide loss affected all of us in different ways.”

Not wanting her family to go through another loss, she chose to seek professional help. “Now that I've been in the field,” she says, “I've realized how much we need to speak about these topics. And I love the name of today's topic, ‘talking away the dark,’ because it took me to share the darkness of my story to be able to get the help that I really needed. And now I'm able to do that within my community.”

“Becoming a loss survivor, I also got to see how little of support existed for survivors within my community,” Gabi admits. “So, working firsthand with families has allowed me to find a purpose and just give back now, and be that person that I needed when I contemplated suicide myself.”

Listen to the full conversation above, and visit I'm listening.org for resources to support your mental health.

AFSP and Audacy’s Talk Away the Dark series aims to give real-world insight into how having brave a ...