Mental health as a whole is the gateway to overall wellness, whether that is interpersonal, physical, or emotional. In many ways, this makes it absolutely vital for human survival. Despite this, it is often overlooked and ignored. Society as we know it often brushes off and mocks mental health struggles, but in reality, mental health is of utmost importance for everyone. Mental health dictates our ability to live and thrive, and mental health awareness and activism defend those abilities. My own journey with mental health has been a long one. I've battled with depression, PTSD, and OCD for years. I was lucky enough to have a community there for me, which started as the mental health club at my high school. I became a leader of the club, and we transformed into a Sources of Strength organization, a mental health awareness organization that exists all across the country. Through this, I've found a community of people that care about mental health, and have created several new coping mechanisms that allow me to exist with ease. I always knew mental health was important, but I never understood the full impact it has on all aspects of a person's life until I began to heal. Mental health activism and awareness allow people to understand what life is like without a lens of doubt and fear. I don't think anyone can truly understand the complexities and hardships until they have experienced it, but mental health awareness makes it easier to sympathize with people who are struggling, even when you don't understand why or how. Sometimes, that's exactly what someone needs; a listening ear who is open to trying to understand. That way, people who may be struggling might feel a little bit less alone. Awareness of mental health doesn't just mean awareness of mental disorders. This is a common misconception that is slowly being broken apart. Mental health awareness is for and about everyone, because everyone has mental health, and everyone will struggle with it at least once in their life. Making mental health resources more available and breaking the stigma surrounding them will make it easier for people who are unfamiliar with mental health to access the resources they need without fear or shame. Overall, mental health is such a vast topic, and it is difficult to have casual conversations surrounding it, but fighting that discomfort and difficulty can save lives. It's hard to know exactly who is struggling, let alone what they're struggling with, but if everyone was willing to ask the simple question of "Are you okay?", even if it means asking a stranger, I think this world would be a much better place.

I believe I've grown as a person over the past few years. When I first started high school, I was pretty shy and timid. I've been bullied my whole life, and due to that, began to think very little of myself. Since then, through lots of help, I believe I've become a very brave, bold person. Going to a rural school in Kansas as an openly gay and transgender kid definitely isn't easy. I won't say I had it harder than everyone else, because I don't know what everyone else goes through. But I will say that having the courage to put the bullies and harassment beneath me and come out on top, head held high with pride and dignity, is bravery in my eyes. Since then, I've become a peer leader for the mental health advocacy organization in my school, led conversations about bullying and inclusivity, and inspired my underclassmen to do the same. None of that is easy by itself, but doing it with optimism and light-heartedness when you know that half of the kids in your school think your existence in itself is flawed is even harder. It certainly isn't as brave as flying to the moon alone or fighting a lion with your bare hands, but I think sometimes the small braveries that no one else really sees are what matter.

I am a peer leader and co-founder of my school's Sources of Strength organization, which is an organization dedicated to creating a safe, welcoming, and open community within our school environment. Specifically, Sources of Strength focuses on mental health discussions and finding strengths within yourself and your community. Previously to forming this club at my school, I was part of the Mental Health Club, but over the extent of quarantine, the club staff reached out to me and a couple of other students and asked us if we would be interested in creating a Sources of Strength club at our school. That was my freshman year. Now, as I go into my senior year, we are expanding the club, and gaining more members than we ever expected to have. It's refreshing to see so many people that I share a hallway or classroom with care so much about mental health and helping others. At my school, we've held events such as A Splash of Strength, which was an art-centric event with the intention of giving students ideas for healthy coping mechanisms. We had artists at the event who drew portraits of students and staff holding signs, which the art subject could then color in and write a message on the sign; usually something they were passionate about, or a kind message. This event sparked a lot of wonderful conversations and was a massive hit amongst everyone in the school. For this club, I have helped to plan events, such as A Splash of Strength, lead conversations during club meetings, check up on people in my school when I believe they may be feeling down or alone, and help encourage underclassmen to follow their passions for leadership and mental health advocacy. Not only do I believe that this club's efforts have made a difference in the community of my school, but I know it has made a difference in my life and mental health as well, as being a leader and making a difference has allowed me to realize that I do have a purpose in this very big, scary world. I hope to help other people make that realization as well. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity that I have been given to be a leader for such an important organization at my school, and with the experience that it's given me, I hope to continue leading in advocacy for mental health awareness and systemic reform.

I plan on going into social work, and what led me to that career was actually a social worker who helped me. She came into my life after I had escaped the toxic household I was living in, but she helped me to get through the emotional and mental turmoil that came with the aftermath. My mother was extremely emotionally, mentally, and financially abusive towards me, along with negligent to my medical needs. Her husband was even worse. It took me years to gather the courage to move out and leave that behind, and to this day I still have to deal with manipulation from my mother as she tries to get me to come back into her life. I don't want any child to ever have to deal with what I dealt with, because no one deserves to feel hated by a parent that should love them. While I may have not had a social worker when I still lived there, seeing one afterwards helped me work through the trauma-mindset that I had been stuck in for years. A child should never have to analyze footsteps or the sound of keys to make sure that they're safe when someone comes nearby. This social worker helped me rid myself of that habit, and helped me feel safe when I hadn't felt safe in so long. It's difficult to gather the courage to fight that mindset, and just as difficult to fight your abuser in court. I was not lucky enough to be able to do so, but I want to advocate for children so that they can. But it's not just the legal side that matters, even though that's mostly what media shows. Social workers also help with the emotional side of abuse, and help break the chain of abuse. Abuse causes so much anger, hatred, and pain to fester inside of the victim, but through social work and therapy, those feelings can be accepted and let out in healthy ways, in order to not only break the cycle and chain of abuse, but also to allow the victim to begin the long, difficult road of healing. With a degree in social work, that's exactly what I plan to do. I want to help victims of abuse find the light at the end of the tunnel when it seems as though there is no end, and help to advocate for them in their fight to recieve justice after the unjust and cruel ways they've been treated. Every child deserves an advocate, and I want to be that for the children that have none.

By far, my dad has been the most supportive person in my life, with my passions and hobbies, with my struggles with being bullied at school, and especially with my educational goals and needs. Despite being a single dad, he always does his very best to advocate for me, push me in the right direction, and help me be the best person I possibly can be. He may not always understand all of my problems, whether they're emotional or mathematical, but he always tries his best to help me solve them. I've been living full-time with my dad since 2020, and throughout all the ups and downs, he's been supporting my decisions and encouraging me to take risks. Thanks to him, I've enrolled and excelled in advanced classes at my high school, despite multiple setbacks, and I'm currently enrolled in a college-level technical school to get an EMT certification. My biggest goal in life is to help people, and with his guidance, I've been able to begin walking down that pathway. I plan to get a master's degree in social work, and possibly take on a dual major to achieve a bachelor's degree in secondary history education. With these degrees, I want to be able to help kids like me get through hard times, especially in school. My dad has been incredibly supportive of this goal, and has been my own personal "cheerleader" since day one. Things may not be the easiest for him when it comes to finances and tough times, but he's done his best to help, even when money is involved. He's always been the first to help me lift my chin up and keep going, even when it looks like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it's just the small things, like helping me with my math homework when I get overwhelmed or trying to understand chemistry formulas with me. Other times, it's big stuff, like advocating with me at my high school to get me the help I needed. Despite everything, I consider myself extremely lucky. I have a dad who supports me and has helped me pave my own path in life, and many people don't have that. I'm extremely grateful for the parent that I have. Obviously, nothing is perfect. We argue sometimes over what to have for dinner, or what time my curfew should be. But at the end of the day, he's still the best dad I could ever ask for, and I wouldn't trade what I have for anything.

I've been battling depression and PTSD for multiple years of my life. I've been bullied my whole life, and lived in an extremely hostile and unsafe household for a few years. I was lucky that my parents were divorced, and when I was old enough I went to live with my father full-time. However, I waited until I was almost fifteen years old because I didn't want to leave my little sister unprotected in our mother's house. There were financial and emotional setbacks, but it all worked out in the end. It has been two and a half years since then, and with therapy, my school social worker, and the help of my amazing dad, things have gotten easier. Despite things getting easier, they haven't necessarily gotten easy. I still have to deal with bullies at school, and my mother still throws financial manipulations at my father and me. But I was able to find support systems in my school and community due to the help of my school social worker. Without her, I would've felt endlessly alone all over again. I plan on going into social work, as well as secondary education, because I know that sometimes when it's rough at home, school *is* your home. But when your school feels unsafe, and your home does too, what do you have left to call home? With my social work degree, I want to help kids to have the support systems that I was so lucky to find on my own. With the degree in education, I want to be able to possibly even help sub-in at schools, or even teach at some point, because having a supportive teacher can help you feel less alone. It's extremely scary to reach out for help, but sometimes having just one person to lean on makes it a little easier to do so. When it's hard to reach out for help, it gets harder to keep living. I know that personally. But having a school social worker who understood what I was feeling, or was at least able to try and emphasize, made things so much easier for me. I felt like I was able to talk to someone without feeling judged or outcasted like I usually did when I was at school. I hope that I'll be able to help at least one kid feel like they're not alone in this big, scary world.

There's no specific word for the change I'd like to see, and it's hard to water it down to just one phrase. Change is also a tough word to narrow down on, as things are always changing. But lately, I've felt like they're only changing for the worse. When I wake up every morning, I see a news notification on my phone, and usually, it's about something more catastrophic or terrifying than the day before. Despite how horrifying it is, I believe it is finally motivating people to open their eyes, listen to their friends and family, and think beyond their own selves. If I could see one change, I would want the world to be so that no child has to grow up the way I (and many others like me) did... I'd want to make it so that when a kid is in the backseat of their mom's mini-van on Sunday morning, they don't have to see people holding signs on the side of the road shouting words that give them a sick feeling in their stomach. I'd want to make it so that no one has to see people that look like them in their Instagram feed, with a "rest in peace" in the caption below it. I'd want to make it so that no child has to listen to their own peers and friends use the word "gay" and "weird" interchangeably, and then wonder if that means that they might be weird. I'd want to make it so that when a kid considers coming out to their family, their first thought isn't, "I hope they don't disown me" because their family disowned a trans relative of theirs when they were younger. I'd want to make it so that when someone is walking with their friends down the street, they don't have to worry about being called derogatory words, or worse. If I could make a change happen in this world, I'd want to see the people I share this Earth with become a lot more loving and a lot less judgemental, because no kid deserves to grow up in a world where it feels like everyone is against their existence. This is something I strive for, and it may be unrealistic to think I could make that change for the whole world, but I think the best place to start is by providing a safe space to just one kid, because I believe that love and acceptance can be contagious if you try hard enough.