Mental health is discussed more openly than it was a generation ago . Therapy has become part of everyday conversation. People share posts about anxiety, depression, burnout, and recovery. Social media can offer language for feelings someone may have struggled to name.

Yet knowing the language of mental health and telling another person that you need help can be two very different experiences.

That gap between talking about mental health and allowing ourselves to be truly seen is at the heart of September Letters , the mental wellness platform and letter-writing movement co-founded by actor Brittany Snow and entrepreneur Jaspre Guest in 2020. Six years later, the project is exploring what can happen when people put difficult feelings into words and allow someone else to recognize themselves in those experiences.

This week, September Letters marked its sixth anniversary ahead of World Mental Health Day with a public letter-writing activation at Rockefeller Center in New York City, created in collaboration with Bilt, Rockefeller Center and the Mental Health Coalition. Snow and Guest also joined Bustle Editor-in-Chief Charlotte Owen and other advocates and cultural figures for a private celebration at Radio Park.

Amid all the conversation about mental health, September Letters raises a quieter idea: Sometimes connection begins with admitting something we have been afraid to say.

Mental Health Conversations Are More Common, But Asking For Help Can Still Be Hard

Guest believes the increased openness surrounding mental health has made a difference.

“A decade ago, a lot of people didn’t have the language, or they feared judgment,” she says. “Today, talking about your therapist has been normalized.”

But normalization has its limits. Sharing a mental health quote or meme is different from looking at someone you trust and admitting you are struggling.

“There is still a gap between talking about mental health and asking for help,” Guest says. “It’s culturally acceptable to post a quote or share a meme that says ‘it’s okay not to be okay.’ It can be harder to turn to one person and say, ‘I’m not okay, and I need you.’”

Social media can give people access to enormous amounts of mental health information while still leaving them feeling isolated. September Letters created its Request a Letter feature partly to make that first act of reaching out feel more approachable. Someone can write, read, or request a letter about an experience they are going through, including anonymously.

The organization has also worked with the Mental Health Coalition and its mental health resources since its early days, giving people additional support options beyond the letters themselves.

“Sometimes a letter is the first step,” Guest says.

Mental Health Vulnerability Can Begin With Feeling Recognized

For Snow, one of the most revealing lessons from six years of September Letters has been that people who share difficult experiences are not necessarily searching for solutions.

Sometimes they want recognition.

“They want to read something from a stranger and think, ‘Oh my God, I thought I was the only person who felt this way,’” Snow says. “I know I did. I thought I was all alone in how I felt and what was happening with me.”

She remembers reading an article by a stranger who described feelings remarkably similar to her own. Seeing someone else articulate thoughts she had been carrying made her feel better and gave her hope.

That experience helped shape what September Letters became. Snow and Guest eventually collected stories into the book September Letters: Finding Strength and Connection in Sharing Our Stories , published in 2023.

“The more specific and honest someone is about their own experience, meaning, the thing they almost didn’t want to say out loud, the more universal it somehow becomes,” Snow says.

Guest has witnessed a similar phenomenon within the community. Strangers can form connections because one person is willing to share something first.

“That single act of courage, which in turn helps the writer, creates a ripple effect that reaches so many others, and it keeps compounding,” she says.

Mental Health Reflection Can Feel Different When It Happens On Paper

There is something almost unusual now about sitting down to write a letter.

Texts arrive and disappear quickly. Social media encourages immediate reactions. Phones offer a nearly endless stream of information, entertainment, and distraction. Writing by hand requires a different pace.

Snow admits she spends too much time on her phone and often finds herself consuming one thing while already thinking about the next.

“A letter asks something different of you,” she says. “It asks you to be still.”

That pause can create room for reflection. Snow says she often discovers something during the writing process that she did not recognize when she began.

“You can’t swipe away from your own thoughts,” she says. “You have to sit with them long enough to understand what you’re actually feeling.”

The idea has moved beyond an online community. At the Rockefeller Center activation, members of the public were invited to write letters to themselves or others that could later be shared through September Letters. Earlier that morning, TODAY host Al Roker joined Snow and Guest to encourage viewers to participate.

For Snow, putting a feeling on paper can provide a small counterweight to the constant demands for attention around us.

“I think we’re all craving more of that,” she says, “something that brings us back to ourselves.”

Mental Health Vulnerability Does Not Require Giving Everything Away

The growing emphasis on openness around mental health can create another challenge, particularly for people who speak publicly about their experiences. How much does someone have to share to be considered authentic?

Snow has spoken candidly about her own mental health and recovery, but she does not believe vulnerability requires surrendering privacy.

“I think I’ve learned there’s a difference between being honest and giving everything away,” she says.

She protects parts of her life, especially experiences involving other people and relationships she considers deeply personal. Instead, she may share the emotion without revealing every circumstance.

“Heartbreak, fear, shame, love, grief, insecurity, those feelings belong to all of us,” Snow says. “And when I talk about them honestly, hopefully someone recognizes themselves.”

Getting older has also changed how she thinks about how others perceive her. Snow describes herself as both outgoing and shy, explaining that much of her earlier shyness came from fear of judgment and pressure to present a version of herself that felt perfect.

“A huge part of my recovery has been letting go of perfectionism and taking accountability,” she says. “Healing, at least for me, wasn’t one big moment where suddenly everything was fixed.”

Instead, she describes recovery as repeatedly choosing to allow herself to be imperfect and vulnerable.

The lesson she wishes she could give her younger self is equally simple: “You don’t have to wait until you have it all figured out to let yourself be seen.”

Mental Health Communities Depend On People Feeling Safe Enough To Be Honest

Creating a space for that kind of openness takes more than inviting people to share.

“Throughout my career, I’ve seen that community is something you earn, not something you build once,” Guest says.

For September Letters, that has meant listening to how people use the platform and allowing their needs to shape what comes next. The book grew from requests for something tangible. In-person letter-writing experiences followed after Guest and Snow saw what happened when people wrote together physically.

“A safe space doesn’t happen just because the idea is good,” Guest says. “It happens because the people behind it care deeply and show up for it every single day.”

That emphasis on community also helps explain collaborations surrounding the sixth-anniversary events. Bilt’s involvement centered on creating connection within the places people live , while Rockefeller Center provided a public setting where people could participate in the letter-writing experience.

Rather than keeping conversations about mental health confined to clinical spaces, experiences like these can bring reflection and connection into everyday life.

Mental Health Connection May Start With One Person Saying Something First

Six years after September Letters began during a period of widespread isolation, Guest and Snow are thinking about what comes next. Guest hopes future projects may include a digital series centered on conversations about mental health, while both women want to continue creating opportunities for people to connect.

Snow’s goal is especially personal.

“I want more open and meaningful conversations,” she says. “Friends being able to share something they didn’t know about each other. A topic that might have felt too vulnerable before that brings people together.”

Perhaps that is one of the more useful distinctions to make as mental health becomes increasingly visible. Awareness can help give people language. Resources can point someone toward professional support. Social media can remind millions of people that struggling is part of being human.

Connection often happens on a smaller scale.

It can begin with a letter, a conversation, or a person deciding to share something they almost kept to themselves. As Snow has learned through her own recovery and through the stories submitted to September Letters, vulnerability does not require telling everyone everything.

Sometimes it means letting one person see enough of the truth to realize that when it comes to mental health, they are not alone.