Ariana Alejandra Gibson is going to change the world!  Ariana is a documentary filmmaker and mental health activist who spent her early career as a creative director and brand strategist for companies ranging from tech startups like Clearcover to Fortune 500s like Dell, Elkay, and Nationwide. 

Ariana is the Founder and CEO of STIGMA, a new mental health app that uses storytelling to fight loneliness and improve mental health. She is also one of the 46% of Americans who will personally experience mental illness in their lifetimes and believes the only way to normalize conversations about mental health is to be brave enough to have them.

When Ariana was growing up, she didn’t have an outlet for talking about her father who had schizophrenia. A boyfriend’s father even once said that his son couldn’t have children with Gibson because then their children would also have schizophrenia. She felt shamed and stigmatized for her father’s illness and figured others probably did too. 

So, she created the Stigma app, which allows users to share their personal struggles and stories and even ask for a message of hope. Gibson found that sometimes just hearing, “You are not alone,” can help a lot. Gibson is also partnering with BRAVE, which can connect users with mental health professionals. Gibson talks to host Jacoby Cochran about the origin of the app and how a social experiment in her neighborhood helped her decide she needed to create it.  

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You can connect with Ariana here:

@thestigma.app – IG

@arianavargas – IG

@TheSTIGMAApp – Twitter