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When I was a kid,
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my mom and I made this deal.
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I was allowed to take three
mental health rest days every semester
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as long as I continued
to do well in school.
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This was because I started
my mental health journey
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when I was only six years old.
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I was always what my grade-school teachers
would call "a worrier,"
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but later on we found out that I have
trauma-induced anxiety
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and clinical depression.
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This made growing up pretty hard.
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I was worried about a lot of things
that other kids weren't
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and school got really
overwhelming sometimes.
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This resulted in a lot of breakdowns,
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panic attacks --
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sometimes I was super productive
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and other days I couldn't
get anything done.
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This was all happening during a time
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when mental health
wasn't being talked about
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as much as it is now.
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Especially youth mental health.
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Some semesters I used
all of those rest days to the fullest.
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Others, I didn't need any at all.
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But the fact that they
were always an option
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is what kept me a happy, healthy
and successful student.
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Now I'm using those skills
that I learned as a kid
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to help other students
with mental health challenges.
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I'm here today to offer you some insight
into the world of teenage mental health:
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what's going on,
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how did we get here
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and what can we do?
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But first you need to understand
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that while not everyone has
a diagnoses mental illness like I do,
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absolutely everyone --
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all of you have mental health.
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All of us have a brain
that needs to be cared for
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in similar ways that we care
for our physical well-being.
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Our head and our body are connected
by much more than just our neck afterall.
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Mental illness even manifests itself
in some physical ways
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such as nausea, headaches,
fatigue and shortness of breath.
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So since mental health effects all of us,
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should we be coming up with solutions
that are accessible to all of us?
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That brings me to my second
part of my story.
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When I was in high school
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I had gotten pretty good
at managing my own mental health.
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I was a successful student
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and I was president of the organized
association of student councils.
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But it was around this time
that I began to realize
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mental health is much a bigger problem
than just for me personally.
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Unfortunately, my hometown was touched
by multiple suicides
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during my first year in high school.
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I saw tose tragedies shake
our entire community,
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and as the president
of a state-wide group,
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I began hearing more and more stories
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from students where this had also
happened in their town.
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So in 2018 at our annual summer camp,
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we held a forum with about
100 high school students
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to discuss teenage mental health.