World Jenny’s Day
Normalising Conversations Around Depression & Suicide
“I want the world to stop and people to freeze, and to go up to people and change their lives, make them understand:
Suicide is an excuse, not the solution.”
Jennifer Jane Barry
1989-2005
Why World Jenny’s Day?
Yes – we can now talk openly about Mental Health and Wellness — at least we can talk openly about part of the subject . . .
But there’s a conversation that is still taboo — and that is why World Jenny’s Day is important.
World Jenny’s Day is the legacy of Jenny Barry, who tragically took her own life. By some twist of fate, Jenny’s death day (October 10th) happens to be World Mental Health Day. Also, by some twist of fate, Jenny’s legacy is the missing conversation.
What do we mean by “mental health”?
When people talk about Mental Health and Wellness, they talk about things like optimism, resilience, self-worth, mindfulness.
But before we can fully embrace those concepts, there’s listening.
Just listening. Sadness, grief, desperation, depression – they too must also be heard.
And when we can powerfully express our darker feelings, they are beautifully transformed.
It is the moments of greatest loss that bring out the most beautiful forms of love and understanding.
Pain, when it is expressed, becomes poetry . . . and dance and music and every form of art.
WJD, which we started commemorating in 2020, during those dark days of the Covid lockdown, has turned into a worldwide arts festival. There’s a special kind of light that enters souls when they seem shrouded in darkness.
World Jenny’s Day celebrates this light — and honors the darkness that makes it all possible.
We hear a lot these days about PTSD, emotional scars following trauma. But there’s also post-traumatic growth and resilience. And that is what WJD celebrates. There’s a rare and special light that enters our souls when we’ve hit rock bottom.
World Jenny’s Day celebrates this light — and honors the darkness that makes it possible.
World Jenny’s Day (held each 10 October on World Mental Health Day) was established to use the Performing Arts and The Arts to normalise and soften conversations around depression suicide and their solutions.
Fundraising
During the year
* Safari Cycle Ride over 6 days through Kenyan Game Park from Mount Kilimanjaro to Coast – August 2024
* Film-crew from SpiralOut Pictures, in 2023 captured British Gold Paralympian HandCyclist Karen Darke, MBE’s WJD Kenya safari cycle ride and Kilimanjaro summit. This fundraising documentary is being flighted in UK theatres in January/ February with Karen and fellow Gold paralympic blind Cyclist Steve Bate presenting alongside the film.
* Using 24-Hour Arts Performance Marathon & Gala Night on 10 Oct, for raising substantial funds through Auctioning.. UK Horse Racing Presenter & Commentator Derek Thompson (Tommo) to spearhead this Auction on the night
Raised funds will be used for:
* Future World Jenny’s Days – comprising a Year Filled with Events –
– Monthly Life Skills Seminars incorporating use of Performing Arts and The Arts
– Regular participatory mental and/or physical health-enhancing fundraisers
– 5 Hour Solutions-based presentations/discussions/performances held on-line each 25 September (Jenny’s Birthday)
– 24-Hour Worldwide Performance Marathon streaming online on 10 October – celebrating mental health wellness
– Red Carpet Celebrity Gala Evening with Variety Show on 10 October – Closing Ceremony
The truth is that we all feel compromised at some time in our lives. It’s very human, and it’s about having the skills to deal with it.
~Jenetta Barry
World Jenny’s Day –
Normalising Conversations Around Depression and Suicide
A note from Jenetta …
Our medical stance is that people suffering from dis-ease (not being at ease with themselves) are needing to be “fixed”.
Nowadays, finding the cause rather than just treating the symptom is becoming more popular, as people face medical challenges. It’s made being ill more of an investigation and subsequent understanding – that more holistic approach.
The same is beginning to happen with people who are feeling mentally and emotionally compromised – challenged by overwhelm and depression.
The truth is that we all feel compromised at some time in our lives. It’s very human, and it’s about having the skills to deal with it.
After I lost my daughter to suicide and having seen how she was mostly treated, I became extremely cautious in telling anybody how I was feeling on my journey to recovering after such extreme loss.
There were times in my grieving where I really didn’t think I’d make it.
I secretly planned my suicide three times.
The moment the words “depressed” and “feeling suicidal” were uttered, everybody’s energy changed around me and towards me. I appeared to have become “unsafe” and not to be trusted. In fact the human factor was taken out a lot of the time and a feeling of being treated like an object, kicked in.
Sometimes it felt like they had forgotten I was still present and able to reason!
I’ve also noticed how when we are in our Creative zone, it’s easier to deal with how we are feeling mentally and emotionally.
A natural Creative coping skill kicks in.
After all, we are Creatures Created by the Creator and are part of Creation and so when we are honouring our abilities to be Creative, we become so much more in tune with ourselves and all that is around us, through the Universe as a whole.
We fine-tune our Inner Light to seeing the Bigger Light and that’s when we can more accurately access our Innate Genius, our Inner Wisdom.
Hello, I’m Jenetta Barry, Founder of World Jenny’s Day.
On 10 October, I lost my 16-year-old daughter, Jenny, to suicide.
Prophetically, 10 October is World Mental Health Day… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
During the deep depression that followed, when grief took over my entire being, I lost my marriage, home, lifestyle, livelihood, other family interactions… the black hole I was in seemed endless.
But black holes are not endless — not in the universe, nor in our souls.
It’s been said that destruction is the mother of creation.
9 months after Jenny’s passing, I came across the basics of what I now call The Epiphany Process — a practice that brought me to a point of acceptance, and then to a place of being able to say:
“Depression has been my saviour. Depression has given me the insights and understandings that are now my life’s work.”