In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Neighborhood Dispatch will profile several local Latino community members whose stories, art, entrepreneurship, leadership and daily lives shape and enrich Milwaukee’s south side and beyond.
Mariel Mercedes never pictured herself in Washington D.C., speaking about the importance of mental health services with members of Congress — a subject close to her heart.
After being held hostage by her abuser for four years and battling through several suicide attempts, Mercedes now dedicates her life to supporting those who struggle with their own mental health or have lost a loved one to suicide.
In June, Mercedes’ mental health advocacy brought her to the nation’s capital, where she advocated for an increase in support for suicide prevention programs for veterans and first responders as a representative of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
It often felt impossible for Mercedes, 45, to move forward during some of her darkest moments, but now she said she’s grateful to be here to share her story.
“When I was in D.C., I kept going back and kept thinking about that girl in the basement,” Mercedes said. “The girl who was living through that bad moment and never thought anything was going to come after.”
“Now, that girl is in the Capitol talking about saving lives.”
Mercedes said her main goal is to spread a message of hope for those overcoming mental health challenges in Milwaukee and across the country. She does this through her work with ASFP, the largest private funder of suicide prevention research, and her own podcast called Best of MKE.
“I feel that it was meant to be, for me to go through those things, for me to be a better human being — to understand the pain that all people go through,” Mercedes said.
“It was worth it, and I can say that now.”
Out of darkness, into advocacy
Mercedes immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1998, arriving in New Jersey at the age of 17.
While she searched for a place to live, her cousin’s friend offered to let her stay in his home, she said.
That offer quickly turned into a years-long fight for her survival.
Mercedes’ cousin’s friend held her hostage in his New Jersey home from 1998 to 2001.
Throughout those years, Mercedes said she had two children by her kidnapper and suffered extensive emotional and physical abuse.
She said she attempted suicide multiple times during those four years.
“My mental health was so bad because I just needed to be free,” Mercedes said. “I just needed to be in a safe place with my daughters.”
When Mercedes’ brother caught wind of the abuse she was experiencing, he helped her and her children escape the man’s home and put them on a Greyhound bus to Milwaukee to live with a family friend.
Mercedes said she continued to struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder after she escaped but she still took steps toward recovery.
She started therapy, went back to school, took English classes, got her driver’s license and started working in social services.
Years later, her therapist helped her identify her experience as “being held hostage,” and from there she began to unpack the weight of what she lived through.
“As soon as I figured out what I went through, I wanted to be better for my girls, and I want to make sure my girls know that I will always be there, that I will protect them,” Mercedes said.
“That they will have a place to be and they will not have to go through the pain that I went through.”
In 2019, Mercedes said, she came across a man tabling for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Wisconsin chapter at a museum.
She said she told the man her story, and he recommended she get involved with the foundation to support others who have struggled with suicide.
At first, she attended a few events every year, but little by little, she became more involved, she said.
“I was going through my own stuff, so it was hard for me to try to be a part of the community, but I knew that’s where I wanted to be,” she said.
Increasing bilingual resources for suicide prevention
As a volunteer for the foundation, Mercedes realized there were only a few Spanish speakers involved with suicide prevention despite Milwaukee’s large Latino population.
She said she noticed a need for more bilingual resources and decided to increase outreach within the Latino community, where mental health can be a taboo subject in some immigrant households.
“We’re the ones who immigrate and have to leave everything behind. It’s a piece of our soul that gets left behind,” Mercedes said, adding that the search for a sense of belonging in a new country can impact people’s mental health.
She began attending community walks and workshops on Milwaukee’s south side and got involved in the bilingual version of AFSP’s program, Talk Saves Lives, a suicide prevention education course, to help distribute that information within Latino community.
Mercedes’ involvement helped expand AFSP’s impact, leading the organization to unanimously elect her to the Wisconsin chapter’s board of directors in March, said Gena Orlando, AFSP’s Wisconsin area director.
“She’s really been driving our mission, which is to save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide,” Orlando said. “We’re reaching more of the Hispanic and Latinx community than we ever have before.”
AFSP chose to send Mercedes to Washington, D.C., to advocate for suicide prevention because of her powerful personal story and her dedication to connecting with her community, Orlando said.
“People like Mariel, who aren’t afraid to share openly, they bring so much to so many people,” Orlando said.
“She’s really vibrant and charismatic, and she has that kind of presence where people listen to her and remember her.”
Amplifying community voices and resources
When she’s not sharing her own story, Mercedes is capturing the stories of other community leaders and advocates through her podcast, Best of MKE.
Mercedes started working on the Spanish podcast with producer Mario Ortiz and a group of her friends in March 2023.
Each episode discusses social and cultural events in Milwaukee and has become a space for her to discuss mental health and suicide prevention with a broader audience.
Mercedes has hosted around 40 episodes of the monthly podcast to date.
She said she often dedicates entire episodes to guest speakers who conduct mental health research or work within suicide prevention.
Through these episodes, Mercedes shares information about AFSP and emergency mental health services, the 988-suicide and crisis lifeline number.
She also invites community members who have lost a loved one to share their stories on her podcast as a way to highlight how suicide deaths impact the lives of those they leave behind.
“The more involved you get, the more you know that it’s something that’s happened to a friend of a friend, a co-worker, we all know someone who lost someone that way,” Mercedes said.
Highlighting the experiences of others as well as her own is Mercedes’ way of showing those who struggle with thoughts of suicide that they aren’t alone, and there is a way through the dark moments of life, she said.
“I’m hoping one day we can look back and say we’ve made a difference in the community, and more people chose to stay,” Mercedes said.
For those interested in getting involved in suicide prevention and awareness, AFSP will host an “Out of the Darkness” walk and fundraiser at Veterans Park to raise money for suicide prevention efforts on Saturday, Oct. 11. There is no fee to register for the walk. To learn more, email milwaukeeootd@gmail.com.
Alyssa N. Salcedo covers Layton Boulevard West for the Journal Sentinel’s Neighborhood Dispatch. Reach her at asalcedo@gannett.com. As part of the newsroom, all Alyssa’s work and coverage decisions are overseen solely by Journal Sentinel editors.
Support for this effort comes from the Zilber Family Foundation, Journal Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation and individual contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. The project is administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #36‐4427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association.
Learn more about our community-funded journalism and how to make a tax-deductible gift at jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation with “JS Community Journalism” in the memo, then mailed to: Local Media Foundation, P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How this survivor turned advocate champions suicide prevention on Milwaukee’s south side
Reporting by Alyssa N. Salcedo, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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