Moderator: DeVona Wright Cottrell, GMR Marketing
2024 United Way Campaign Co-chair
Deb Mueller
Author, Love Hard
Deb Mueller is an author and women’s mental health advocate. In her new book, Love Hard, Deb courageously shares her journey of loving and raising a daughter who faced mental health struggles. She believes that by sharing her story and advocating for greater awareness, she can help break the silence and stigma surrounding mental health, guiding families toward healing, understanding, and hope.
Deb and her daughter Mia speak regularly throughout Wisconsin, telling their story and talking about the crucial need for more dialogue and education around the topic of mental health, as well as more resources for our youth.
She is currently a board member for the non-profit Serve. Deb is also a member of the International OCD Foundation Advocate Program and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Wisconsin Speakers Bureau. She volunteers regularly with organizations that support early childhood education and at-risk women and girls.
Deb earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from Concordia University Wisconsin. She is an online health coach, and mother of three.
Mia Mueller
For over a decade, Mia Mueller struggled with mental health issues, going mis- or undiagnosed for twelve years. Now she is an advocate for mental health awareness and education, and frequently speaks with her mom, Deb, author of Love Hard. She shares her perspective on how mental health played a role in her childhood, what tools and resources worked and didn’t work, what school was like, and how she manages today. She hopes her story will start more conversations, uplift other parents and teens, show them that they are not alone, and that there can be hope.
Mia Mueller is a 2022 graduate of Concordia University Wisconsin with a bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Design. She currently lives in Brown Deer and works for a home staging company in Mequon.