Teri Drake-Floyd works at Nuçi's Space, a musician's health and resource center in Athens, Georgia built to prevent suicide and keep working musicians alive, healthy, and making music. By night, she writes southern gothic and horror fiction under the pen name Lillah Lawson, pulling from her own family's history to tell stories most people are too afraid to tell. In this episode, we talk about the language shift Nuçi's Space uses on purpose, calling it "brain illness" instead of "mental illness," and why that one word change can change how someone accesses care. We talk about the moment Teri realized a friend had once used a real crisis intervention method to save her life, years before she got trained in that exact method herself. And we talk about the family story, and the great-great-grandmother nobody would speak about, that became the seed for her debut novel. This is a conversation about grief, about the stories families keep quiet, and about what it actually looks like to rebuild after your glass breaks.

Mental Health Resources:

• If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7. Call or text 988 to reach a trained counselor, day or night, anywhere in the U.S.

• Clearapy is a call-in support service for the moments when you're not in crisis, but you still need someone to talk to. For $15 an hour, you can call and be connected with someone right away, no waitlist and no scheduling weeks out. It's built for that in-between space, not a crisis, not nothing, just needing a real person on the other end of the line. Call (863) 334-2447 to connect. If you are in crisis, please use the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline instead. Nuçi's Space:
• Nuçi's Space is a nonprofit in Athens, Georgia built to prevent suicide, with a focus on musicians. They provide referrals for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, underwrite the cost of care for musicians, and help anyone find low-cost or sliding scale mental health support.
• Website: nuci.org
• Blog: https://www.nuci.org/blog
• "Beautiful Here: Emerging from the Overwhelming Darkness" by Linda Phillips, Nuçi's mother and the founder of Nuçi's Space. https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Here-Emerging-Overwhelming-Darkness/dp/1537413678 Also available for purchase through the Nuçi's Space website.
• Teri's Books (writing as Lillah Lawson):
  • https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=Lillah+Lawson&bkshp-astro=t
  • https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00ZGWF2DM

On this episode of Chasing Glass, I sit down with Steph Cave, board president of Athens Pride and Queer Collective, for one of the most honest conversations we've had on the show. Steph opens up about living with lupus, Hashimoto's, and complex PTSD, what it actually took to come out in a rural town fifteen years ago, and their time as a protest medic during the BLM protests. We talk about grief, chronic illness, mental health, and what it really costs to build the queer community you needed but never had. This is a conversation about identity, resilience, and choosing to show up for people even when it costs you.

Sharvil Kulkarni built a full photography business in one year, all while being a full time college student. On the outside it looks like a highlight reel. On the inside, it is productivity guilt, imposter syndrome, and a moment on a 3 AM flight that cracked everything open. In this episode of Chasing Glass, we talk about what it actually costs to always be the one behind the camera, why comparison culture hits different when your job is curating everyone else's image, and the friendship lesson that changed how he sees loneliness. This is a conversation about burnout, boundaries, and figuring out who you are when nobody is watching.

Some losses are publicly mourned. Others get pushed into silence. Why?

This week I'm joined by Melyssa Munn, a UGA neuroscience and women's and gender studies researcher who lost both her parents at 15. Now, she studies the brain science of trauma and writes feminist theory on how women are valued, then dismissed.

We get into the psychology of grief, why some losses are quietly erased, what disenfranchised grief actually is, and why so many women learn shame before they learn confidence.

If you've ever been told to stay strong or just move on, listen to this one all the way through.