My name is Sarah and I'm a sophomore at Sacred Heart Prep.
My name is Walter. I'm a Junior at Menlo School.
My name is Sierra and I'm a senior at Menlo School.
I'm Julia and I go to Menlo School.
I'm Miranda and I'm a student at Menlo Atherton High School.
My name is Jessica. I am currently a Junior at Menlo College and an alum of
Sacred Heart Prep. I've struggled with anxiety since the fourth grade. My
parents and I never really knew what anxiety was or thought that's
what I was dealing with until high school when my anxiety hit the highest
high that I've ever endured and finding help in this area really was difficult
for us because we didn't know where to go, what to look for and it took me
several tries to find the right resources, the right coping methods
and the right therapist that fit me and with SafeSpace, I'm really happy that
the community at large now has the right resources at hand to help the
kids in this area battling with anxiety, depression,
everyday stressors that kids go through. They'll now have this space to come to
and get help. Even from you know just struggling with friendships, to crisis
mode that hopefully we'll be able to avoid with SafeSpace.
So in my freshman year of high school, I was really struggling socially, I was getting into some really
rough friend groups and I was struggling with my family. I couldn't find motivation in
school and depression anxiety was really, really affecting me and it started to
come out in really negative ways. I eventually was able to overcome the
depression and anxiety and the comfort systems I was using and find new ways of dealing
with my own mental health challenges and my own family problems and my
friend challenges and create something really cool with it and so it's really
important to me that I tell my story and I show my story and I help other
students and adolescents in this environment overcome the same challenges that
I was struggling with. I have a friend who suffers from panic attacks and today's the first
day of school and she threw up three times before school started and I was
just able to help her by being present and not reminding her
I think talking about mental health is super important because right know
mental health is so stigmatized to the point where people don't feel it is their right to
get treatment they deserve and talking about it is the way we break down the
barriers to treatment and allow people to truly thrive in the best way they can be. I
think that not only is conversation about to have super important but also
having correct conversation about mental health is also critical and that's
why I'm so excited about SafeSpace. I think SafeSpace can talk about mental
health in a more colloquial, non-clinical community-based way will help to talk
about mental health the correct way to create a long lasting defeat to mental
health stigma. It's topic that's deeply stigmatized in our community and you
know we can only work to to solve issues by being open to talking about them. It has
been such a taboo subject for years and everyone has been afraid to talk about
their feelings about what they're truly going through what they're feeling
if it is anxiety, if it is depression and speaking up about it
and fighting against the stigma that mental health has had around it is going
to be so great for this community because people will finally be able to
feel good about themselves, feel good about talking about their feelings
opening up and being able to share my story and hearing others,
just makes me realize how important it is to talk about mental health.
The youth voice is so important because we are the ones facing these issues and there's a
lot of organizations and a lot of people who think they have the answer to the
problem but they don't consult the people that the problem is affecting and I
think that it's really important that we are brought in on the solutions to these problems.
I think that the conversation about mental health is predominantly
dominated by clinicians and older people who maybe aren't as in touch with how
mental health affects the youth and how we feel in our daily lives and how
mental health kind of plays a part for us. Having that youth voice become more
integrated into the conversation about mental health, it's going to really
help young people struggling with issues.
I became involved with SafeSpace
because I think it is the future of mental health and particularly the mental health of youth who are
increasingly open minded about the struggles that they had and talking with
others as well as having wide access to people that necessarily would not be able
to afford traditional therapy. I myself have struggled with mental
health and when I was struggling there wasn't very good resources for me and so it's
important to me that there's other students that can get the resources that
I didn't have. I'm involved with SafeSpace because I think that the conversation
about mental health is something that our community can do better with. I think
that SafeSpace is providing our community with a really great platform
to talk about these issues and to have youth seek help when they need help
regarding mental health. I'm Lesley Martin and I am the Managing
Director of SafeSpace and I am so thrilled to be in this community.
There's a huge need. We have a team of 16 wonderful teens that are spearheading
this solution. All of the teens in this program are creating the space because they know it is
needed in the community and they define what's needed. We are having panel discussions. We're going out
in schools. We're creating a place that's safe to talk about mental health as well
as advocacy and awareness of issues and hopefully, we'll flip the conversation so
that everyone will feel comfortable talking about mental health.
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