I grew up in a weird time for mental health.

During the 2000s, when I was an elementary

student, people definitely acknowledged that there were such things as anxiety, depression,
ADHD, etc., etc. but only in hushed tones. And when anyone talked about that vague general
population of people who dealt with mental health issues, their statements were usually
something like “I know some people do struggle with their mental health, but you have to learn
how to choose to be happy1” or “I have been depressed before, and I just worked out and got
over it.2”
You didn’t want to have problems with your mental health in the 2000s, and not
because struggling with your mental health sucks, but because it was a kind of Scarlet Letter.
But it was a Scarlet Letter that was maybe a pink shade, a lower case “a,” and people were kind
of vaguely sympathetic. Mental illness was acknowledged more than when my parents grew up,
and it was DEFINITELY more acknowledged than when my grandparents were kids, but there
wasn’t a mental health awareness month and my teachers, who were incredible people and I
still respect greatly, didn’t openly talk about taking care of our mental health.
And thank goodness things are changing around the issue. I hope today’s students don’t
shun their peers who have anxiety or think they need to hide their constant feelings of sadness.
I know we still have a long way to go, but the strides we have made in the past few years have
been remarkable. And that’s great.
But like I said, I grew up in a weird time for mental health. And so, I dealt for years with
what I realize was anxiety coupled with perfectionism and occasionally depression, and I did not
even know that was the issue. I was lucky enough to never have extremely long periods where
this beast lingered over my life, but it always popped up and showed its nasty face from time to
time. I just kind of always felt like I had to always delicately walk through life without doing
anything wrong or disappointing myself or embarrassing myself, and then everything would be
okay. And maybe if I did everything right, then my brain wouldn’t nag on me all day.
Unfortunately, I am human. And I did a lot of things wrong and disappointed myself quite often
and felt embarrassed all the time. And unfortunately, I am a particularly clumsy human, so I fell
on this delicate walk a lot.
My parents, who are saints and I absolutely adore, must have worried about me
constantly. I was bright and kind and very curious and loved school, but from a very young age,
I was unreasonably hard on myself. Anything less than a 25/25 on a spelling test meant I was
beating myself up for the rest of the weekend. So, my dad studied those words with me until I
felt confident that I could spell every word right (I still remember some of the pneumonic
phrases he taught me, and I still say “gee, I read lots” every time I spell girl). And my mom
would walk with me to school and calm my fears and promise me she would love me even if I
failed.
They even convinced me to go to a counselor to help me get over my crippling testing
anxiety. See, one problem with having anxiety and being a perfectionist is that you need to
receive professional help. But being a perfectionist means you never want to admit or show
anything is ever wrong with you, and going to a counselor, I thought, was admitting that I was
not perfect and maybe other people knew I wasn’t perfect3. Somehow, they convinced me to

1
Gross
2
Bleh!!!!
go, and I am so thankful because it made school much more bearable—most of the time. My
parents were brilliant and honestly quite ahead of their time to realize I needed counseling.
But as I have said, I grew up in a weird time for mental health, and I was too afraid to
admit to anyone how hard my brain was to live with sometimes. Because people didn’t talk
about anxiety, I didn’t even have the vocabulary to explain to people how I felt. And I honestly
did not realize that most people did not feel the need to constantly be busy because they were
afraid to stop and let their mind start thinking and hear all the negative things that their brain
had to tell them about themselves. I just thought that was normal.
And having a brain that always tells you that you’re a bad person can make tests
especially hard. Because you have your internal dialogue saying, “you aren’t smart! You are
dumb! You can’t do anything right etc. etc.” But if you get 100% on a test, you can respond:
“Take that brain! I did a lot of things right! Ha ha ha.4” But if you get 75% on the test (despite
getting only 25% of the questions wrong, which is getting a lot of questions right) you only see
the questions you got wrong and feel the need to admit that maybe your brain is right. And
that was something I dealt with a lot.
I’ll never forget getting a math test back in 3rd grade. That year we were learning
multiplication tables, and I liked them a lot. I was (am) a little nerdy and enjoy memorizing
things. It’s nice for me to know that something will always be the same. I like that 2 + 2 always
equals 45. It makes life simple. The third-grade math curriculum was mostly memorizing our
multiplication tables, so I was loving it. And I was doing pretty good until we branched out of
memorization a little bit. We had to start explaining through pictures why 3 x 3 = 9, and I
couldn’t do that. I had it memorized. I knew the answer, but I did not know why it was the
answer.
I got a bad test score. Honestly, it was probably just a fine test score, but I felt like I had
completely failed. My future was over. I would never get into my dream school, BYU, my
parents would disown me, my brother would laugh at me, I would never do math successfully
again, and I was just a dummy6. It felt like the world was ending. And if you feel like the world is
ending, crying is a pretty reasonable thing to do. So, I cried, which was embarrassing, and being
embarrassed only made me cry harder, and crying harder reminded me how stupid I was, which
reminded me that my future was over. A vicious cycle.
But I’ll also never forget how kind all the students were to me. Despite growing up in a
weird time for mental health, no one made fun of me. I remember a few students coming up to
me and asking me what was wrong. My best friend at the time begged me to come out to
recess with her. A boy in the class came and hugged me and told me it would be okay. It slowed
my tears enough so I could go talk to my teacher, who mercifully gave me another chance to
take the test after I felt like I knew the content better.

3
Disclaimer: I was not perfect, and everyone knew I was not perfect. I know now that perfection isn’t super
reasonable, and no one who really loves you ever would expect that of you. So, if you feel this way, go get
professional help!!!!!!!!!! They can help you! Seriously!
4
Do not get your validation from outside sources. You are good enough and worthy of good things. My childhood
self is a bad example if that is not clear.
5
Despite what the end of 1984 says.
6
None of that happened.
 And while I am much older now and have better skills to understand what is going on
when my brain acts up, I still remember their kindness to me even though they had no idea
what was going on. And that is remarkable. And that means a lot. And even though I still have
to deal with this stuff (vaguely gestures at life with anxiety), I have begun to be kinder to
myself, too, and think of that third-grader often who would figure out multiplication, get into
BYU, is loved by her family (despite messing up), and it gives me the hope to fight back and
keep pushing.