Join the Stop the Pain Movement

                                            Stop the Pain

                 Healing Hearts, Transforming Lives, Changing Attitudes

 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”    2: Timothy 1:7

 Join the Stop the Pain  Movement

My name is Chris Mahan; I am the public relations director for Redeemer Community Church located at 9230 Ridge Road in New Port Richey. I am also the cofounder of the Stop the Pain movement and www.crazy8freedom.org.  We started the Stop the Pain movement on December 10, 2012 one day after learning of the tragic suicide of Jessica Laney (16) on December 9. Sadly, that same day we further learned that five additional teens committed suicide in Pasco County in 2012.  It was reported that many claimed to have been bullied and harassed to no end, while others were simply at their emotional peak.

The purpose of Stop the Pain is to help the broken hearted in Pasco County and the greater Tampa Bay area, and to help realize the joy of living and dreaming. Every day in Pasco and the Bay area one can see the brokenness in people’s eyes. From the mother walking along Highway 19 with two small children, the third grader that wonders how she will eat tonight, the seemingly happy teenage soccer player that is found dead in his home to the 12-year-old girl that hides the deep self-inflicted cuts on her arms and legs, Stop the Pain seeks to mitigate the detrimental effects of emotional depravity.

Emptiness and sense of hopelessness has spread like cancer in our community, schools, and homes. Too many of our neighbors, friends, and even our own family members live in this constant emotional cycle we refer to as the Crazy8 cycle. The Crazy8 Cycle is a life that is filled with the darkness of depression, sadness, anxieties that swing to fear, anger and frustration.  For people that fall into the Crazy8 Cycle, life is filled with shadows of grey masked by prescription medication abuse and painted on smiles.

 The scary reality for all of us working to help these broken souls is that children as young as 10 and teens honestly believe that death is a viable solution to end  their misery, their stress, their emotional pain. Often the public’s response to these suicides—and hearing the constant media discussions of cyber bullying, teen anger, and addictions—leads them to ask the question “what could be so difficult for teenagers or fourth graders today?” The answer we have is, “have you seen what goes on in public school busses, school hallways and online?” Another narrative to suicide is that the family and friends are left behind, filled with guilt, asking even more questions like, “Why did I not do more? Why did the system fail my son or daughter?”

Join the Stop the Pain movement. We need your support and help for our upcoming community awareness events. Right now, we are collaborating with Papa Murphy’s Pizza, PHCC, Recover Pasco, Stay Well for Kids, ASAP and SmileFaith Ministries. If you would like to host a Stop the Pain event with your church, organization or community group log onto the web site for our parent church Redeemer Community Churches web site at Redeemerlife.org click on the right side bar that says host a STP event. Simply fill out the form and hit send. There is no fee and we will help you with the media and guest speakers.  To learn more log on to www.crazy8freedom.org

God Bless

Chris Mahan

publicrelations@redeemerlife.org