The people along the way: Week Two - Mr. Wood

I started my work after a school-wide “TED Talk” contest during my freshman year of high school. The friends that were there to listen to my speech know how badly it went. I made no sense; I had no outlined speech, I was talking purely from experience with no clear subject, message, or goal. I still cringe thinking about that day - I walked off that stage angry and in tears because I knew that all I said was a jumbled mess of anger and confusion. I was angry at the school, my parents, and the situations going on in my life at that time. And I was confused about how I was supposed to approach the problems I was facing. I knew in my heart that the point I wanted to make was that as a school we should have an environment where students can access resources and be heard. Though, if anything, all I did was yell at my high school administrators about how badly they were running the school. At 15, I didn’t know how to communicate this problem, and I didn’t know how to approach possible solutions.

In my experience confusion can lead to so much anger. When we are confused about how we are feeling, our thoughts become tangled and our emotions no longer feel rational. Confusion can feel limiting to what we want to say and what we want to do. My confusion made me stumble through the TED talk. I felt a lot of shame for the way I handled the presentation and was embarrassed by how I delivered the speech. I took the summer of 2017 to brainstorm ways to help my community, but I remember thinking I would never be able to make another speech or presentation. In my mind, I didn’t have a voice.

At the beginning of my sophomore year, I took an introductory psychology course. For our final project, we had to find a problem in the high school and present a solution for it to our administrators. I saw this as a redeeming opportunity to make a proper presentation about the rising stress and anxiety rates in students at school. Yet as I began outlining the proposal for the final presentation, I was stumped once again. I didn’t know how to communicate what I was thinking and feeling. I became frustrated when my teacher, Mr. Wood, began asking questions. He asked, “how do you know stress and anxiety rates are rising in students?” He asked me “why is it important to talk about mental health?” These initial questions made me think that he thought the idea was dumb. On the contrary, he told me that these are the questions I should be asking myself.

Mr. Wood then told me that he knows mental health is important. But he asked me why it was important to me. That question made me think - why is mental health important to me? I thought about my brother who attempted suicide when I was eight and realized that since then it has always mattered. I saw my family struggle at an early age. At eight years old you don’t know terms like “suicide”, “depression”, or “mental health”. The confusion around not knowing what was happening created my frustration and anger. Seeing something is one thing, seeing something and not knowing how to talk about it is another. Mental health is important because by recognizing what we are feeling and are experiencing, we are able to make conclusions, ask proper questions, and move forward. You can’t control every situation you face in life, but you can maintain how you react to it. But in order to do this, we need to have the knowledge of what we are experiencing and feeling. This requires a great deal of self-reflection.

Until Mr. Wood, I never talked to anyone about my brother’s suicide attempt or the family situation I grew up in. I confided in a few friends, but even then I didn’t tell the whole story in full. I stayed in his classroom for hours after class that day. He sat at my desk with me and listened to me explain all of my emotions. I told him everything from beginning to end. I know I was crying during the whole conversation, but he remained patient and he listened. In the end, he asked me what I was going to do to help others if that is what I wanted. It was then I came up with a clear outline for the final presentation. The problem was rising stress and anxiety rates in schools - as seen by data collected from student surveys. And the solution would be to create a mental health resource club that raised awareness around what mental health is and the resources that our school provided. While confident with the idea, I still doubted my ability to voice it.

It was then that Mr. Wood told me something I still quote to this day, “you don’t ‘find’ your voice, but realize that you have always had one”. But to realize your voice, you must take the time to reflect on yourself, the things you have been through, and what you value. By talking through my life with him that day in the classroom, I was able to get my confusion, anger, and frustration off my chest. He didn’t offer me an explanation or advice, he simply listened. Listening is a virtue I hold deeply in my work. Listening is the catalyst to connection. But in order to connect with others, you have to connect with yourself too. In order to listen to others, you have to listen to yourself too. In order to use your voice, you must take the time to reflect on yourself. Your voice has been with you since the start of your life, there simply will be a point where you realize how to utilize it. And once you do, help others realize their own too. We aren’t meant to yell over one another, but to listen, connect and hear one another.

The cover slide to our final presentation (my sophomore yr in high school)

In the end, I was able to adequately speak through the entire final presentation. And while the school denied my club idea, I embarked on a much larger journey. From there my friends and I founded a non-profit organization that focused on mental health policy change and awareness. We worked in the Washington State Legislator for three years, assisting two bills, passing one in 2019. I graduated high school in 2020 and was awarded the principal’s award after creating a good relationship with my high school admin. Coming into university, I disbanded the non-profit and started a new initiative researching how mental health is defined across cultures and backgrounds. I’ve conducted interviews with individuals from over 10+ countries, listening to their lives, and helping them recognize their own voices. Letting them create their own change. Five years after the conversation with Mr. Wood, I’ve done presentations to a multitude of major institutions and universities.

But despite all of these things, the greatest accomplishment so far has been in the genuine relationships and connections I have made across the years. None of these things would have been done if it weren’t for the people in my life. So, Mr. Wood if you are reading this you have my deepest gratitude and appreciation. If it was not for you, I don’t think any of the things that were accomplished in the past five years would have been possible.

His brutal honesty in sitting me down and having me sort out my emotions and thoughts is something I still do today in prayer, journaling, and overall self-reflection. It’s a good reminder that we don’t “find” our voice, but simply recognize that it has always been there in the first place.

Much Love!