This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.
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A few words offered without judgment can leave a lasting impression. Decades ago, a stranger's gentle acceptance gave one woman a way forward when she needed it most.
In 1978, when she was 21, Stacia was struggling with severe depression and attempted suicide. Stacia asked that NPR use only her middle name because she was sharing sensitive information about her mental health.
She was living in a small college town at the time and taken to a nearby hospital, where staff attended to her and took away her shoes to prevent her from fleeing. They eventually left her unattended and after a few hours, Stacia decided to leave. Without telling anyone, she slipped away undetected.
Shoeless, she walked until she reached a nearby road, where she stuck out her thumb for a ride.
"I was very obviously lost," Stacia remembered. "Not lost in the sense of, 'I didn't know where I was,' but lost in the sense that I had no direction or purpose and I had just gone through a traumatic experience."
That's when her unsung hero appeared. A woman in a convertible slowed to a stop in front of her. Stacia noticed that the backseat was filled with canvases, which suggested the woman was an artist — a detail that put Stacia at ease. Then, the woman asked a question that has stayed with her for nearly 50 years.
"The only question she asked me was, 'Where do you want to go?'" Stacia said. "No judgment, no expectations. Just acceptance."
Stacia immediately felt relieved.
She didn't want to talk about her troubles; she just wanted to go home. She got in the car and they talked about things that gave her a sense of calm: nature, music and art.
After about 40 minutes, the woman dropped Stacia off at her house. Stacia didn't learn the stranger's name and she never saw her again. But she has never forgotten the woman's question or how it made her feel.
"What I experienced that day — a single generous act of compassion — has stayed with me ever since and it shaped the life I went on to live."
In the years that followed, Stacia devoted her career to human services, working with high-risk teens, people with disabilities and their families. In that time, she tried to approach people with an open mind — to help them feel worthy of kindness just as they are.
"And I could really pinpoint it back to that act of acceptance from that person in my time of need," she said. "It's meeting people where they are and letting them be who they are without being judgmental."
It's a lesson she's carried with her — one that still shapes the way she meets others in their own moments of struggle.
"I'm not going to say that throughout 40 years I never made a judgment or jumped to a conclusion," Stacia said. "But I made it a tenet in my life that that's not how I wanted to be treated and I don't want to treat other people like that. And that's the way I want to feel that I can contribute in this world."
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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