Finding Growth Through Advocacy

HOW SPEAKING UP ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH ALLOWED ME TO TURN MY PAIN INTO PASSION

By Alyssa Goldberg

In the spring of seventh grade, just shortly before my thirteenth birthday, my grandfather suddenly passed away. Not only was I unable to prepare for this loss, but I was also limited in my ability to process the changes in my life that were to come. Though it was not my first experience with losing someone, it was the first in which I was old enough to understand the magnitude and permanence of death. I did not know how to properly grieve, so I bottled up the pain and refocused my attention elsewhere.

I first attempted to take control of my life by managing my weight by restricting my eating and engaging in other behaviors like excessive exercise, calorie counting, and daily weighing. I thought if I had the power to change my appearance, I wouldn’t have to address the parts of my life that I had no influence over. I struggled with both weight loss and gain, left with only the scale to measure these changes as my perception of my body became increasingly distorted. These habits, though they continued to make varying appearances in my life over the course of the following years, were ineffective in protecting me from reality.

In the fall of eighth grade, all the emotions I had locked away came crashing down on me. I found myself in a difficult state of mind, wanting desperately to help both myself and others, but without an outlet to channel these emotions. I began to isolate myself from friends and family, and would often find myself crying or overwhelmed for no apparent reason. I didn't share my feelings with my peers as I couldn’t bear to be seen as anything other than the smart, fun character I’d built myself to be. Though none of us truly knew what stigma was, it still flooded the middle school hallways. No one discussed mental health- it was as though “depression” was a dirty word. I felt isolated in my illness and struggled with the unfounded concept that there were no other students who felt the same way.

Eighth grade eventually passed, and soon I was in high school ready for a fresh start. After two weeks at my new school, I saw a poster for the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council, “MYLC,”: “Interested in Youth Activism? Are mental health issues and suicide prevention important to you? Consider joining the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council.”

Seeing those words alleviated me from a silent burden I had been carrying that past year. After struggling independently, feeling as though no one was comfortable discussing mental health, I was in a room with more than sixty people talking about it, in a way I hadn’t heard anyone do so before. With each activity I participated in, I fell more in love with the group and mental health advocacy. After two years as a general member, I took on an executive role for my junior and senior years.

 MYLC’s mission is not only to battle the stigma surrounding mental illness but also to educate students on the resources available to them. Typical activities included distributing informational handouts and awareness ribbons, sign-holding, and fishbowl discussions. In 2017, I traveled to D.C. to speak about the “MYLC Model” at the National Conference on Advancing School Mental Health. As the youngest speaker at the event, I spoke on ways to integrate youth-led mental health initiatives into schools. My last action before graduating was adding the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the local crisis hotline to the back of our school ID cards. Now, every student at my old school will have access to these numbers when needed.  Above all else, the club serves as a force of change and helps to normalize the conversation surrounding mental health, a topic that often gets silenced or shamed. When walking around my old high school, you’ll see thousands of students wearing ribbons to show their support for different mental illnesses and suicide prevention. And though that may seem like a small difference, it fosters an environment where students aren’t afraid to speak out about mental health.

Getting involved with youth activism helped me find my passion advocating for mental illness and other social issues. I now volunteer as a crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line and as a writer for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s “You Matter” blog. As a sophomore at New York University, I’m pursuing my B.S. in Global Public Health and Applied Psychology with a Minor in American Sign Language and concentration in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. I’ve started a chapter of Active Minds at NYU, a club that encourages students to start these open conversations about mental health and fight stigma on campus. This past summer, I interned with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Communications Department, an organization I could’ve only dreamt of working with back in high school. I also had the opportunity to intern with Everytown for Gun Safety and contribute to the development of their firearm suicide prevention resources for National Suicide Prevention Month.

I’ve grown immensely since losing my grandfather, and am thankful that my experience with loss and grief has allowed me to recognize my passion for mental health. My journey with mental illness was not linear, and it remained a prominent struggle for the six years following my grandfather’s passing. Though it’s easy to share a story in which a young girl overcame her mental illness, the truth is my wellness is still something I have to manage each and every day. Even in this piece, there are parts of my history that I’ve yet to become comfortable with. In early high school, my depression manifested itself in some pretty dark and scary ways. I went through cycles of depression, intense anxiety, complexities in my eating, and engaged in many unhealthy coping mechanisms. Even after devoting time to helping others, helping myself was the hardest step of all. Like many others with mental health struggles, I tried to suppress these hardships and refused help for many years. It wasn’t until just last year that I was able to open myself up to loved ones and return to therapy to work through the issues holding me back. Though there are periods of time in which I still grapple with my mental health, it only furthers my drive to stay involved with mental health advocacy.

It’s easy to feel powerless when you’re young, but I’ve learned that it’s even easier to allow yourself to be powerful. While reflecting on the past six years of my life, it’s evident that the pivotal moment in my story is when I realized that it was okay to talk openly and honestly about my mental health. Stigma can make people feel as though mental health should be a silent struggle, but I’m here to assure you that it’s not. It’s okay not to be okay, and it’s certainly alright to talk about it.

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Alyssa Goldberg is a student at New York University pursuing a joint B.S. in Global Public Health and Applied Psychology with a Minor in American Sign Language and concentration in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. She is a passionate mental health advocate and hopes to inspire other young people by sharing her story. Outside of activism, she loves writing, music, and going to concerts in the city.