May is Mental Health Awareness Month — and this year, one of our own at Grow Wellness Group took that message to one of the largest talk radio audiences in Chicago.
Philip Martinez, LCPC, therapist at Grow Wellness Group in Naperville, joined Ray Stevens on WLS890AM on Monday, May 4, 2026, for a conversation about mental health awareness and suicide prevention. It was the kind of conversation that doesn’t happen often enough on mainstream radio — direct, honest, and grounded in decades of real clinical experience and personal commitment to this work.
You can listen to the full segment beginning at the 1:24:35 mark here: The Ray Stevens Show, Monday May 4, 2026: https://omny.fm/shows/ray-stevens-show/the-ray-stevens-show-monday-may-4th-2026?t=84m35s
This article is our way of expanding on that conversation — sharing the context and heart behind what Philip brought to that microphone, and making sure these messages reach everyone who needs to hear them.
There are clinicians who study mental health, and then there are clinicians who have dedicated their entire professional life — and much of their personal one — to showing up for people at their darkest moments. Philip Martinez is the latter.
Philip is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) with 30 years of experience working in the mental health field. He has spent those three decades in a wide variety of clinical settings, with a particular focus on therapy with teenagers, young adults, and the families who love and worry about them. He has a genuine gift for connecting with adolescents who have been through the system, seen multiple therapists, and arrived at his door convinced that nothing will help — and helping them find,often for the first time, that change is actually possible.
His specializations include anxiety and mood disorders, substance misuse and addiction, and the area he brings to this conversation with profound personal commitment: survivors of suicide and those affected by suicide loss.
What makes Philip's presence on the radio so meaningful is not just his clinical expertise. It is the 20-plus years he has spent volunteering with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) — quietly, consistently, without fanfare — working to advance their mission of saving lives and bringing hope to everyone touched by suicide. He has shown up for that work long before it was a trending topic or a media moment. It is simply who he is.
We are deeply proud that someone with Philip’s depth of experience, humanity, and commitment represents Grow Wellness Group in conversations like this one.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time our country sets aside each year to reduce stigma, open conversations, and remind people that help exists. At Grow, we believe in this month - not as a marketing exercise, but as a genuine opportunity to meet people where they are — including people who might catch a radio segment on their morning commute and hear something they needed to hear.
This year’s moment carries particular weight. We are living through a period of overlapping mental health challenges in the United States. Rates of anxiety and depression remain elevated, particularly among young people. Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death for Americans under 35. And despite real progress in public awareness, stigma — the quiet, persistent belief that struggling means weakness, that asking for help means failure — still prevents millions of people from reaching out.
Philip has sat with that reality for three decades. He knows what it looks like when someone waits too long. He also knows — with the hard-won certainty that only comes from years of doing this work — that intervention helps, that connection heals, and that the simple act of one person saying “I see you, and I’m here” can be the thing that saves a life.
One of the most important things any mental health professional can do in a public setting is replace fear with information. Suicide is a topic that our culture has learned to whisper around, to speak of in euphemisms, to treat as something unspeakable. That silence does not protect people. It isolates them.
Talking about suicide does not plant the idea. This is one of the most persistent and damaging myths in mental health. Research consistently shows that asking someone directly whether they are thinking about suicide does not increase risk — it can actually decrease it by opening a door and breaking isolation. If you are worried about someone, it is safer to ask than to stay silent.
Suicide is not a character flaw or a choice made from strength or weakness. It is most often the endpoint of a period of profound psychological pain — pain that has exceeded the person’s available coping resources. Understanding suicide through that lens — as a pain problem, not a character problem — changes how we approach both prevention and healing.
Warning signs are real and learnable. Withdrawal from friends and family, giving away possessions,talking about being a burden, sudden calm after a period of distress, increased substance use, expressing hopelessness about the future — these are signals that deserve a response. You don’t have to be a clinician to act on them. You just have to be willing to reach toward someone.
Survivors of suicide loss carry a unique grief. When someone dies by suicide, the people left behind often experience a particular kind of pain — complicated by guilt, unanswerable questions, and a grief that our culture is often poorly equipped to hold. Phil’s work with survivors of suicide loss is a testament to his belief that these individuals deserve the same compassionate, skilled support as anyone else navigating profound loss.
Help works. Crisis intervention works. Therapy works. Connection works. People who have experienced suicidal ideation and received support go on to live full, meaningful lives. Recovery is not a myth — it is what happens when someone reaches out, or when someone reaches toward them.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. Their work spans research funding, survivor support, advocacy, and public education programs like Out of the Darkness community walks held across the country — including right here in the Chicago suburbs.
Philip Martinez has been a part of that work for over 20 years. That kind of sustained volunteer commitment isn’t something that happens because of professional obligation. It happens because someone has looked at a wound in the world and decided to keep showing up to help heal it.
At Grow Wellness Group, we are grateful to have clinicians like Philip on our team — people whose commitment to this work doesn’t clock out when the session ends. To learn more about the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, visit afsp.org.
We want to say something plainly, and we want you to hear it:
If you are struggling right now — with anxiety, with depression,with grief, with a sense that things are darker than you can carry — you are not alone, and you are not weak. The fact that you are still here, still reading this, still getting through your day is evidence of a kind of strength that deserves recognition, not shame.
And if you are worried about someone in your life — if you have a feeling that something is wrong, if they seem different, if something they said is sitting in your chest — trust that feeling. Reach toward them. Ask the question. You won’t make it worse. You might make all the difference.
Mental Health Awareness Month is not about one month. It is about building a world where the conversation Philip had on WLS 890AM doesn’t feel brave or unusual — where it’s just what we do, all year, for each other.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Call or text 988 — available 24/7. Confidential support from trained counselors.
Crisis Text Line
Text HOME to 741741to connect with a crisis counselor via text.
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
afsp.org —resources, survivor support, and Out of the Darkness walks near you.
NAMI Helpline
1-800-950-NAMI(6264) — National Alliance on Mental Illness support line for mental health information and referrals.
If you or your loved one are struggling with mental health challenges and are in need of support, Grow Wellness Group would be humbled to serve as your therapy provider of choice in navigating life's invevitable trials and tribulations. We’re here to help!
Contact Us today to learn more about how Grow can best support you. We would be honored to walk alongside you on your journey to through growth, identity solidification and fulfillment.
