Jerri Clark is a mental health advocate, author, and mother who lost her beloved son, Calvin, to his severe mental illness (SMI). His life—and death—propelled her commitment to advocacy and support for other families attempting to navigate the poorly organized system.
Drawing from her lived experience, Jerri teaches others how to navigate the emotional terrain of an "ambiguous loss," when someone is forever changed by a psychiatric illness and/or is missing, incarcerated, or deceased for reasons that will forever lack clarity (like suicide). Her upcoming book, Gone Before Gone, offers guidance, tools, and hope for families walking this same path.
Jerri works as Resource and Advocacy Manager at the non-profit Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC). She has been featured in the Seattle Times, on PBS NewsHour, on the popular podcast Schizophrenia: Three Moms in the Trenches, and on networks in the Pacific Northwest and nationally.
Please join our grassroots movement by following key issues, outreaching to lawmakers and policy leaders, and spreading accurate information about what needs to change to improve the lives of people with SMI conditions that include psychosis.
Together we CAN change the system.
From Jerri Clark: My motherhood was shattered long before my son's suicide. Watching his "living death" was every bit as hard as losing him to his final desperate act. He was gone, but also not gone, as our family attempted to navigate the disordered mental health system to try and save him. He was homeless and incarcerated because of untreated symptoms, not because our family failed or gave up on him. His SMI and systemic failure caused our "ambiguous loss," and learning to cope with this unique form of grief was a survivalist act of self-care.
Stay in touch for news of my self-help memoir, Gone before Gone, to be released in spring 2026.
For information about my online ambiguous loss course, contact me at work: jclark@tac.org.
To seek support navigating the treatment system, click on Helpline at TAC.org.
Sign up for updates about the release of Gone before Gone, and other MOMI projects.
MOMI sends occasional emails with new blogs and updates about Jerri Clark's self-help book and advocacy projects.
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