What is the meaning of the Semi-Colon?

The punctuation mark, the “semi-colon” has taken on a profound significance in mental health and suicide prevention movements across the globe. It forms the basis of the Keep Another Tomorrow Foundation’s logo.

Originally, the KAT Foundation started our logo journey seeking a symbol of hope, engagement, and humanity. We started with sunflowers, as they represent hope and positivity and relate to the sun and sunrise of another day, in line with the Foundation name. The color scheme was to connect with forget-me-not flowers to symbolize love, remembrance and loss that poured into the  creation efforts. The semicolon went into the flower to connect with the Semicolon Project’s message. The resulting original logo (which can be seen in the Battle of Plattsburgh blog photos) was beautiful and meaningful, and yet some elements of our passion were missing.

Some doodles on a sheet of paper evolved our logo to the next level. Pondering on how to capture the core of our purpose:  we are people working to help and support other people through challenges, keep them with us for another day, another sunrise, the importance of the semicolon symbolism, our new logo came to life:

The "Project Semicolon" movement, started in 2013 by Amy Bleuel, aimed to raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention. Getting a tattoo of a semi-colon and posting on social media, thousands of people demonstrated their commitment to their belief that we can overcome mental health struggles, like depression or suicidal thoughts. The message was to choose to "continue our story" rather than ending it; just as a semicolon in writing defines a pause where the author could have ended a sentence but chooses to continue. The movement went viral, taking hold in countries around the world. A primary goal of the Semi-colon Project is to bring mental health awareness out in the open and support individuals before they come to the place where suicide is a decision.

The founder, Bleuel said, “People want to know they’re not suffering in silence, you feel alone like no one cares, to know someone is there . . . [this] is what these people go forth with, they take this energy to better themselves, . . . [working to open] the minds of society. I would hope through my stories and platforms that they would see these are everyday people, just like you, and they are attempting to make their lives better, but here is what they struggle with.”

In May 2016, the Anti-Stigma Coalition of Clinton County and Coalition to Prevent Suicide did a Semicolon tattoo campaign in Plattsburgh where hundreds of people were able to get a semi-colon tattoo in solidarity with loved ones or their own struggles with mental health. The goal of the Semicolon Tattoo Project was to uplift and show support for people who struggle with addiction, depression, self-harm, and suicide. The goal was to encourage conversations and create space.

The KAT Foundation goals align with some of Project Semicolon:

• Reduce the stigma: Engage all parts of society to talk about suicide and take action to maintain good mental health, so that it is as normal as talking about and maintaining physical health.

• Encourage help-seeking: encourage people who are experiencing emotional distress to seek help before they become suicidal.

• Provide appropriate support: Ensure that when people in emotional distress seek help, they receive appropriate support from people/ organizations and are offered appropriate options.

• Reduce the impact of suicide on survivors: Offer people affected by suicide get the support we need to cope with the impact on our life.

• Work together: Get organizations with an interest in suicide prevention to collaborate to make a bigger difference.

If you want to know more about Project Semicolon, the Center for Mindful Psychotherapy has a great article on the origins of the Semi-Colon Project.

The founder, Amy Bleuel, lost her own battle with depression in 2017 at the age of only thirty-one, however her legacy of changing the awareness and discussion around mental health and compassion continues to inspire us. As one blogger described that perhaps “Amy didn’t know how deeply she affected so many people. . . she didn’t think there was a rescue boat for her, but I think it was just a foggy night, and she couldn’t see her lighthouse.” Many of us feel that way about the decision of someone we lost. We will continue to work to bring mental health into the light and bring suicides to zero.