From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

Hello, I would like to thank my unsung hero.

He invited me to come over for Christmas because we're both.

We were my unsung heroes. I just want to say thank you.

Today's story comes from Missy Nicholson. In 1993, when her first born child was 18 months old,

Missy admitted herself to a psychiatric unit. She had a history of depression and was starting to realize that if she wanted to be a good mom,

she needed help managing her mental health.

Every morning there was a community meeting and everybody, all the inpatient,

sat in a circle and people were encouraged to tell their stories or open up about whatever happened to be on their minds.

And I didn't feel like I was really able to open up for a while, for a few days anyway.

And in the meantime, I noticed there was a woman who was admitted and was just in a hospital bed parked at the nurse's station because she had

attempted to kill herself. So she had to be under constant watch and she just seemed catatonic.

She just gazed into the distance and didn't seem to have any connection to the outside world.

And she was, it was sad. She was this

beautiful young blonde woman, but clearly in a lot of pain. So a couple days after that, we were in

the morning group therapy session. And for whatever reason, I felt able to open up and talk about my own history

and what had brought me there.

And it became very emotional.

I was just sort of pouring my guts out and sobbing.

And all of a sudden I felt a hand, take my hand.

And I looked over and it was this woman

...