Every one of us has carried a label we didn’t ask for. Some are spoken out loud, others whispered behind closed doors, and some quietly assigned by the world around us. “Strong.” “Broken.” “Addict.” “Weak.” “Dramatic.” “Too emotional.” “Fine.” Labels have a way of sticking to us, even when they don’t tell the truth. They flatten the complexity of our lives into a single word, and before we realize it, that word can start shaping how we see ourselves… or how we hide from the world.
When we recorded the Logan’s Voice episode “Beyond the Label,” my hope was to peel back something painfully familiar to so many of us, especially those of us who love someone who struggled with mental health or addiction, or who have walked that road ourselves. Because stigma isn’t just an uncomfortable topic. It’s a killer. It keeps people silent. It keeps people ashamed. And it kept my son Logan from reaching out for help long before fentanyl took his life.
Today, I want to take that conversation deeper. I want to talk about what labels steal from us, what stigma hides, and what it means to finally reclaim your own story.
The Labels We Carry Without Ever Speaking Them
One of the most exhausting parts of modern life is how often we’re expected to look like we have it all together. People assume that if you smile often enough, stay busy enough, or keep your walls high enough, then everything must be fine. But some of the people who look the strongest are holding themselves together with thread. Some of the people who look the happiest are fighting battles no one knows about. Some of the people who are “always there for everyone else” don’t have anyone who truly sees them.
Stigma doesn’t always come from judgment. Sometimes it comes from expectations, the way the world decides who you are before you ever get the chance to speak. When someone is labeled “the strong one,” they may feel like they don’t have permission to struggle. When someone is the “funny one,” their humor becomes a mask. When someone is labeled “fine,” their pain becomes invisible. Labels can be loud, but they can also be silent. And the silent ones are often the heaviest.
The Myth of the Perfect Life
One of the most heartbreaking truths I’ve learned from meeting hundreds of grieving parents is that many of the young people we lose never fit the stereotype society expects from someone who’s struggling. They weren’t withdrawn. They weren’t isolated. They weren’t “falling apart.” They were smiling. They were thriving. They were the ones their friends leaned on. And yet, privately, they were drowning.
We live in a culture that values image more than honesty. Young people especially feel pressure to present a polished version of themselves—online and in real life. Because if your life looks “too messy,” people judge you. And if your life looks “too perfect,” people assume you don’t need help.
So where does that leave the millions of people in the middle? The ones silently fighting depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, or overwhelming stress behind a well-curated smile? It leaves them misunderstood. It leaves them feeling alone. And sometimes, tragically, it leaves them gone, before anyone even knew they were hurting.
This is why we have to stop believing that someone’s outside tells us anything about what’s happening inside.
Pain doesn’t always announce itself. Struggle doesn’t always show up the way we expect. And labels don’t always tell the truth.
Addiction: The Most Misread Label of All
If there is one label that’s been twisted into something unrecognizable, it’s “addict.” People use it like a character judgment, like a verdict, like a reason to dismiss someone entirely. But addiction isn’t a label. It’s a condition. A chronic, medical, neurological condition that changes the brain, hijacks reward pathways, and takes hold long before a person ever realizes what’s happening. People don’t wake up one day and choose chaos. They don’t choose shame. They don’t choose dependency. They don’t choose stigma. What they choose—almost always—is relief. Relief from trauma. Relief from pain. Relief from emotional heaviness they’ve never been taught to navigate.
And then the brain, doing what brains do, adapts. It rewires itself. It demands the substance. It becomes dependent.
But the world looks at that person and says:
“They did this to themselves.”
“They made bad choices.”
“They should have known better.”
Or the worst one:
“They’re hopeless.”
No. They’re not hopeless. They’re human.
And humans deserve compassion, treatment, connection, and understanding, not labels that shove them deeper into the shadows.
Stigma Doesn’t Heal People, It Buries Them
We would never look at someone with cancer and ask why they didn’t “just stop having cancer.” We don’t talk to someone with diabetes and suggest they “should’ve tried harder.” We don’t shame someone after a heart attack or say their struggle is a moral failure. But with addiction and mental health, suddenly empathy becomes optional.
Stigma doesn’t protect people. It doesn’t motivate them. It doesn’t hold them accountable. It doesn’t create safer communities. All it does is isolate the very people who most need support.
I can tell you this as a father:
Stigma was one of the forces that kept Logan silent. He didn’t want to be seen as a burden. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone. He didn’t want the label, even though he desperately needed help.
Many families I’ve met tell the same story. Their children were ashamed to speak the truth because the world had decided what that truth meant. Shame is loud. Fear is louder. Stigma is suffocating. And when someone feels like they can’t ask for help without being judged…
They don’t ask for help.
The Hidden Battles People Fight Behind Closed Doors
If you pay attention long enough, you start to realize how many people are barely holding it together. Grief taught me that. Losing Logan shattered me, but it also opened my eyes in a way I’ll never forget. You start noticing things other people miss:
The forced smile.
The exhaustion behind someone’s eyes.
The friend who jokes too much about their own pain.
The coworker who seems to be fading slowly.
The parent who never asks for help because they feel like they should be the strong one.
The teen who hides in their room because they don’t know how to say they’re overwhelmed.
These are not “weak” people.
They are people carrying something heavy that they don’t have words for.
If we want to save lives, we have to start listening to the things people don’t say out loud.
Reclaiming the Story That Stigma Tried to Steal
Here’s the truth nobody talks about enough:
You are allowed to rewrite the story that stigma tried to hand you.
You are allowed to stop living inside labels you didn’t choose.
You are allowed to ask for help without shame.
You are allowed to be human without apologizing for it.
You are allowed to struggle.
You are allowed to heal.
You are allowed to change.
And you are allowed to begin again, as many times as it takes.
The labels others give you do not define you.
Not your addiction.
Not your diagnosis.
Not your past.
Not your mistakes.
Not your hardest chapter.
You are more than every label that has ever been placed on you.
And you deserve a life built on truth, not shame.
What Logan Taught Me About Labels and Love
Logan was not “an addict.”
He was not “a troubled kid.”
He was not “a bad decision.”
He was a son, a friend, a grandson, a young man with a bright smile, a curious mind, and a heart big enough to fill a room.
He was funny.
He was stubborn.
He was compassionate.
He was loved.
Deeply.
And he struggled.
Deeply.
Not because he was weak.
Not because he didn’t care.
Not because he wasn’t trying.
He struggled because stigma told him not to speak up.
Because shame told him to hide.
Because fear told him silence was safer.
If I could rewrite one part of Logan’s story, it would be that he knew he could have been honest without feeling judged. That he could have reached out without feeling like he was disappointing anyone. That he could have asked for help without believing the world would label him forever.
This is why I speak out today.
This is why I tell Logan’s story.
This is why Logan’s Voice exists.
Not because it’s easy, but because silence killed my son.
And I refuse to let silence win again.
Moving Forward: Seeing People Beyond the Label
If we want fewer funerals, fewer grieving parents, fewer young lives lost, then as a society we have to do better.
We have to see people, truly see them.
Not as labels.
Not as failures.
Not as stereotypes.
Not as cautionary tales.
But as human beings with stories that matter.
It starts with how we talk to each other.
How we talk about mental health.
How we talk about addiction.
How we talk to the people we love.
And it starts with us being brave enough to challenge stigma when we hear it, even in casual conversation, even in jokes, even in the comments sections. Because every time we break stigma, even in small ways, we tear off one more link in the chain holding someone back from help, healing, or hope.
Final Thoughts: You Are Worth More Than a Word
Labels are easy.
Judgment is easy.
Assumptions are easy.
Seeing the whole human being?
That takes courage.
If you get nothing else from this article or the podcast episode it came from, I hope you take this:
You are more than what happened to you.
You are more than what people called you.
You are more than your hardest chapter.
And you deserve to live free of shame, fear, and silence.
Logan deserved that.
So does every young person walking a difficult path today.
And so do you.
If you or someone you know are struggling with mental health issues, please visit our resource page for helpful information and links.
