Why I'm Doing This
This work is personal. A family member of mine — someone I love — was bullied
until the weight of it became more than she could carry. She attempted suicide.
When she returned to school, some peers responded not with compassion but with
taunting — using her experience as something to mock rather than something to
understand. I watched that happen, and it raised a question I haven't been able
to let go of: why does our culture make it so hard to struggle openly? Why does
asking for help still feel like something to be ashamed of?
The answer is stigma. Stigma is what turns a mental health struggle into a secret.
It keeps students silent when they most need to speak up, and it makes cruelty
toward someone at their most vulnerable feel, somehow, acceptable. This is not a
problem unique to any one place — it is a cultural problem, and it starts young.
What I kept coming back to was a simple idea: teenagers need a safe space —
a place where they can say what they're actually going through without fear of
judgment, and where the people around them know how to listen. That kind of
space doesn't exist by accident. It has to be built deliberately, with trust
and consistency.
I can't undo what happened. But I can work toward something better — two initiatives
just getting started, one at my school and one across Wisconsin, both aimed at the
same goal: creating spaces where no student has to face their hardest moments
alone or in silence.
1 in 5
teens experience mental health challenges
60%
don't receive treatment
46%
of teens say stigma stops them from seeking help
