I am not a very good writer nor story teller, as my friends can attest to, but here is my honest truth about my relationship with mental health. My freshman year of high school I became extremely depressed. I am not sure when it happened, and there is no answer as to how or why. At the time I did not have this knowledge of mental health nor this community, so I blamed myself. I became guilty, sad, lonely, numb, and tired. SO tired, all the time. Tired of just everything really. I would stay up until 4am because I did not want to face tomorrow, then sleep through all my classes. I went from an A student to a C student. I remember literally writing my name on my religion final and turning it over because I didn’t have the energy to care anymore. Sophomore year winter I had some of my darkest days. I wrote I wanted to die in my journal every day for a month. I did not want to die, I wanted the feeling to die. I wanted to stop hating myself. I loved my life.. I literally loved everything about my life and that was the hardest part. I believe I am one of the luckiest people in the world yet there I was feeling that way. I felt so guilty being sad around my friends and family. So I blamed myself. That winter a new friend and soccer got me through those days. I became happy again and I did not once look back; blacking out that part of my life. Coming to SMC was honestly scary because I did not want the same thing I went through freshman year (which I still didn’t quite understand at the time) to happen all over again.. and it was resurfacing from my memories. I remember trying to fight just the memory away. When asked to help out with HHH, it didn’t mean much to me at first; but it turned into something I never would have guessed. I finally came to full terms with my past and my present. This happened slowly, through different conversations with different people. From hearing other people’s stories. To being that one person to someone. To hearing feedback from events. To just simply stepping back and asking each other “what’s this all about?”. And I owe it to this Saint Mikes Community and to Hope Happens Here. I am still living with depression. And that’s okay. But what’s not okay is my freshman year of high school and not seeking help and confiding in the people who love me. My relationship with depression isn’t over. I had a rough start to the year and it ended in my parents being called by some friends. But the thing is, it is now okay for me and my friends to go over to each other’s houses and say “Hey I am sad and I don’t know why” and they’ll tell me it’s okay. And then they’ll encourage me to seek help, or in that case, do it when I couldn’t. That isn’t professional training, that’s mental health knowledge and awareness.