A Little About Patricia Gallagher
A former teacher, small-business owner, former Account Executive-Industry Consultant for AT&T, a published author and stay-at-home mom with an MBA, in the first half of life, Patricia devotes the second half to responding to the vast mental health awareness needs facing our country.
Bio: Patricia Gallgher
A Philadelphia native, Patricia Gallagher spent the first half of her life taking turns as a teacher, a small-business owner, a telecom account executive and a published author. The role she enjoyed and excelled at most, however, was always the one that gave her the most reward – being a stay-at-home-mom to her four children. Patricia used all of the skills she learned in her first-half careers and applied them to staying home with her children while still earning an income. She ran a home-based childcare business and eventually had Doubleday publish a book called “Start your Own Home Childcare Business.” She later went on to write and have published “Raising Happy Kids on a Reasonable Budget.”
For any outsider looking in at the Gallagher family, it would have appeared that things were just about perfect. They were a happy, normal suburban family in which John Gallagher went to work, Patricia stayed at home, and their four beautiful children and all their myriad activities were the focus of the Gallaghers’ world. But then depression entered the picture, and everything changed. Ten years ago, John Gallagher, seemingly out of nowhere, was gripped by crippling depression followed by a suicide attempt that left him hospitalized for an extended period. Patricia was completely bewildered and wondered how such a thing could happen to a family as strong and happy as hers. The family’s reaction to John’s mental health crisis was one that is all too common – they felt shame and embarrassment and ultimately decided to keep it a secret from even their closest friends and family.
During John’s hospitalization, and using creativity as coping resource, Patricia wrote a poem called “A Team of Angels for the Overwhelmed.” The poem led Patricia to the craft store; she began making Angel Pins and distributing them to people feeling overwhelmed from depression and stress for any number of reasons. This inspired Patricia to launch Team of Angels, a small organization that creates these Angel Pins and their accompanying poems and hopeful messages. To date, Team of Angels has distributed more than 100,000 Angel Pins, and Patricia has received letters of gratitude from those who wear her pins from all around the world. She’s especially touched by the many soldiers who wear their Angel Pins in the hope that they will be kept out of harm’s way. www.patriciausa.com
Aside from Team of Angels, Patricia and John are active with mental health awareness speaking engagements. They speak at churches and conferences about the damaging stigma of mental illness and what we as a society can do to reverse that stigma. The Gallaghers run an organization called Speaking About Depression and worked together with their children to write and have published their book, “No More Secrets.” Patricia was recently invited to speak at the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s Pennsylvania conference, and she feels privileged to be a leader in lifting the veil of shame associated with the disease. www.speakingaboutdepression.com
Patricia plans to continue her second-half journey with plenty of adventure; she’s considering biking through Europe or living in Mexico, just as she did in college. She says her work helping others is a way of honoring her parents, and she is grateful for the love and support of her husband and children, and especially all those who have formed a community of strength by wearing their Angel Pins.
