Melissa Mooney, junior, scrolls through the stories submitted to her blog. She reads through experience after experience. One person suffers from bullying, another suffers from depression, another from an eating disorder and another from self-injury. Mooney finishes reading the submissions and posts these stories anonymously for the world to see.

Last year, Mooney started a blog called Truth Out of Shadows in an effort to stop teens from judging each other based on mental/emotional health issues. Her blog is separated into posts regarding various social and emotional issues about which she writes in an attempt to educate her viewers about mental illness.

“I noticed there was a lot of ignorance about what [some mental illnesses] were,” Mooney said.  “People just really didn’t understand, and it was so frustrating to go through the day and hear people make all these ignorant remarks about it, not knowing how many people might actually be suffering from it.”

Along with her personal posts, Mooney also encourages her viewers to submit their own personal stories, which she then posts anonymously for her other viewers to read and possibly relate to.

“[Posting the stories] just gives the way for the average population to see what people go through,” Mooney said. “I’ve gotten a lot of pretty heartbreaking stories from people.”

While Mooney first started the blog in hopes of enlightening her immediate peers, its popularity has become global. Her blog has attracted thousands of views from as close as Hinsdale and as far as Russia, Israel, and Australia.

Overall, Mooney says Truth out of Shadows has received positive feedback, and while she has not written any new posts lately, she plans to continue her project.

“I just want to help educate people,” Mooney said. “If [my blog] helps anyone at all, that’s pretty much my goal, and to let people let their stories out, if they want to.”