​I have never journalled before.

I always tried but I would look down at it sitting on my bed, and was too 
afraid to open it and start writing, afraid that all the feelings and the hurt would come out of that place 
buried deep inside. But this week I had my first appointment with my therapist. She’s a sweet lady, with 
nice round teal blue glasses, highlighted shoulder-length brown hair, and she wore this white and 
orange knit sweater that looked itchy but comfortable at the same time. Her office smelled like lavender 
mixed with cinnamon, I think that's because she drinks a lot of tea. She offered me some, but I just said 
no. It was an interesting experience, going to therapy. I don’t know if I’ll like it or not, but I figured it 
was the best option for me right now. Anyways, that’s all besides the point. Today, my therapist gave me 
homework, and it was to journal. She said this and I about cried. I have now sat in my bed for 14 
minutes, staring at the journal, but now that it is finally opened, I guess I can try to do what she said and 
talk about my journey. 
It has been a long road, one with many ups and downs and I have come a long way for sure. It 
began my freshmen year,​ “​My freshman year I was extremely depressed. I had suicidal 
thoughts and nothing could seem to make me happy. This was really rough for me 
just because I was at a completely new school and didn’t know anyone on top of the 
depression and the new workload.” ​I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know who to reach out to, since 
none of my friends from my old school came to Regis with me. I went into the counselors one day and 
they told me​ “It is impressive to have so much on my plate.”​ For me it was really hard to get 
the courage to walk into there, and I left feeling like there was something wrong with me, something 
that I could have done better.​ “They said maybe I should get more sleep.” ​The truth is, I tried 
to get good sleep, but I was overwhelmed. I was trying to make new friends, trying to get all my 
homework in on time, and trying to still be a good daughter and sister. And truth be told, most nights I 
spent crying for half an hour about the day before I could begin to focus on going to sleep. I just was 
laying in silence thinking about how I sat alone that day, how I was out of place, how I didn’t belong.   
 
 
I ended freshmen year dreading going back to Regis, but Sophomore year started and I began to make 
friends slowly. I joined a service club where I met a friendly, bubbly girl and we began to sit together 
during lunch and academic support. One day I told her about how I had been feeling, about my 
experience with the counselors and she told me about her experience during freshman year too. She 
said,​ “I ended up really relying on the staff at Regis that year and it kind of just 
showed me how seriously Regis takes mental health. The teachers would always 
check in on me and I spent a lot of time in the counselor's office talking with not 
only my counselor but Ms. Lotito (the dean at the time). Regis really does care 
about all of their students well being. It's just a little scary to me that if you don’t 
openly tell them that you’re struggling they don’t really try to ask or see how your 
mental health is.” ​I wished I was like her. I wish that I felt that I could rely on the staff at Regis. I 
wanted to trust the counselors, wanted to trust my classmates, wanted to trust myself and get the 
courage to reach out, but I couldn’t. I wanted to, but every day I became even more scared to go to the 
counselors, sat alone again, and fell deeper into the belief that I was meant to struggle. I believed I was a 
burden on those around me and so I never sought help. I think this was because “​ I have never felt 
comfortable going to the counselors. I know that they are great people but after 
hearing the stories of girls getting Safe2Told on, cops showing up at people’s 
houses, and parents getting told about what girls disclosed to their counselors I 
became discouraged from going in there. This fear of the counselors developed 
freshman year and has continued throughout my high school experience, even after 
having a counselor on my kairos and getting to know them better. I am still 
insistent that I would go to one of my teachers, long before I ever went to one of 
my counselors.” ​I never sought help, I stayed in my own bubble. I was trapped in the belief that I 
could never get out of where I was. I didn’t believe I would make friends, I didn’t believe that I would 
ever feel worthy of love.  
 
 
My battle with mental health continued throughout my sophomore year. I had gained some close friends 
throughout the previous two semesters, and had gotten into more of a groove. I was doing well my fall 
semester of sophomore year, as well as I could have been I guess, but then it felt like my life crashed into 
a million pieces, just as I was finally starting to be happier. “​ During the spring of my sophomore 
year, I shut down. I left my friend group and sat by myself for many lunches and 
academic supports. I felt isolated, unworthy, and unloved. I went home and cried 
frequently, wondering why I was not good enough for the people in my life. I was 
seemingly doing well. I had perfect grades, could say hi to anyone in the hallway, 
was a varsity athlete, and didn’t have too many problems outside of school. I put on 
a mask of perfection, but was screaming on the inside. I hated my life, and while I 
could name everything incredible about another person, I couldn't find one good 
thing about myself. I told few people about this, and limited the people I did tell 
from getting me help as I begged them to not tell the counselors, out of fear that 
my parents would find out and the situation would be even worse. I did not get the 
help I needed that year, and looking back, I wish I did, but I was too afraid. I was 
stuck in an idea of seeming perfect, of seeming like the tough badass that could 
take on the world. My walls were up so high that I never let anyone else in, because 
I felt like I was too much of a burden to them. I suffered alone by my own choice, 
because I look at my life now, and realize I am far from alone.” 
 
I came back to school to start my junior year after a summer that had just been,​ “The worst time of 
my life. I was struggling with the death of a friend’s parent and the close call that 
my own parent had with death.” ​I decided I would go to the counselors and just try to get help. I 
sat there being the most nervous I have ever been and was told​ “Crying daily is normalized.”  
This was my plea for help, this was finally the moment that I got enough courage to face my 
battles, and then my problems were belittled as something that everyone else experiences. I would cry 
everyday because I never felt good enough, like I would never be happy, and was in constant hatred of 
myself. That is not normal, people hating who they are and hating their life should never be normal. 
Mental health should be taken seriously, it is not a joke, and it should not be undermined as something 
universal. My mental health struggle was defining my life, it was preventing me from looking in the 
mirror and being proud of the girl I saw, preventing me from going to hang out with friends, preventing 
me from sleeping. While that may be an everyday story for the counselors, it was the story of my life, and 
it wasn’t valued, so I felt even more alone.  
 
I got through sophomore year with a lot of determination and will-power, a few good friends, and a 
couple miracles and junior year was amazing. I got the opportunity to go on Kairos, and I won’t spoil 
anything, but that retreat was the only time I have felt Regis has handled mental health in a beneficial 
and proper way since I have been there (And yes, some people do not think this same thing, but for me it 
was very special). Throughout the year I also got the opportunity to hear stories of my friends who had 
experienced or were experiencing mental health battles. The story of one individual stands out to me, 
and I remember her telling me, ​“Something unique about my mental health struggles is 
that I process and experience a lot of my stress and trauma physically. meaning I 
suffer from occasional insomnia, headaches, and everyday I suffer from IBS. I 
guess what I want people to know is that I thought I was strong for pushing 
through the pain and going to school even if I slept an hour that night. For going to 
swim practice even though my stomach was bloated and killing me from IBS.”​ I 
remember her telling me this and this was the first time I realized that I was not alone in the experience 
of struggling with my mental health. I always thought that I was the only one who felt that way. The only 
one who had anxiety about going to school, who felt like I was strong for hiding my pain, who struggled 
with never feeling like I was enough. Her opening up to me showed me that I was not alone. Other 
people could relate to what I was going through, and this didn’t belittle my struggles, if anything, I 
finally recognized that what I had gone through was valid. I wasn’t stupid or troubled or less than for 
feeling this way. I realized it was not shameful to struggle with mental health. Rather it was part of my 
journey. It's not that I would wish it on anyone or that I think going through it is necessary or beneficial 
or anything like that, because none of us should struggle with feeling unloved, inadequate, and 
unworthy. It was just that I knew I wasn’t alone in my pain.  
 
 
Then we hit the pandemic and everything went south from there. Not only was I now isolated from my 
friends and seeing anyone outside my family, but school became more unmanageable and stressful. 
“School this year has been completely exhausting. I feel like all I do is look at a 
screen. I do homework at all times during the day, and the nagging feeling of never 
being done with my work is draining. I have no free time and that has made this 
year difficult for me mentally.” ​I am constantly stressed, feeling overwhelmed by all the things I 
need to do, but I am too tired to do my homework because my eyes hurt from starting at a screen all day. 
My neck and back hurt from being hunched over sitting at a desk for four hours straight. I haven’t seen 
my friends in a long time, and while we can still FaceTime, it’s not the same.  
 
 
What kept me going through the online part of my junior year was the hope that the pandemic would 
just last a few months, and maybe we would miss the end of junior year. But we would still get to have 
senior year, and all the amazing moments that come along with it. But then the pandemic continued, 
and Regis went from online, to hybrid, to online, back to hybrid, and then online again, and I was back 
in the same spot. My mental health has once again been on a downward spiral. “​This year has been 
really tough. I feel isolated from my friends. I get distracted more during class 
because there seems to be no accountability for my education except me. I feel a 
lot of pressure when I look and see all the assignments I have to complete. My 
parents see me on my phone or playing games when I am not doing school work and 
they assume that is what I am doing all the time. It is frustrating when they make 
this generalization because I feel it minimizes my hard work and I feel like all the 
work I put into school to keep my grades up goes unnoticed. My parents do not 
really understand why people would struggle with online school or why I say I am 
more stressed now than during regular school. I feel that my life has lost so many 
of its normal activities that I have become hyper focused on school because there 
is nothing else to focus on except Netflix. There have been days on end where I 
have not gone outside because I do not have time because I go from one Teams 
meeting to another. The counselors say they are always available but you lose the 
personal connection you would normally get in person when you try to tell the 
counselor how you are feeling over Teams. I also feel I cannot express all of my 
emotions over Teams because my family is always home and we have thin walls. The 
privacy that I would usually get at school is now lost because I am at home all the 
time. I feel like my privacy has been violated by the counselors asking personal 
questions and my parents who are right outside my door. This hovering puts added 
pressure on me to say what I think my parents want me to say instead of how I 
really feel. The frequent changing of the schedule has also been hard because I 
like getting into a groove and when that groove is shaken then I feel out of sorts 
not only in my academics but also in my social life. I feel cut off from my friends 
because it is so hard to cultivate a friendship over text. I do my school work at a 
desk and I usually look up and see the blank wall in front of me. I would usually see 
friends face and be able to talk to them after class and joke but that has been 
taken away.”  
 
I know I am not the only one that feels this way. I know a majority of my classmates are struggling with 
the frequent schedule changes, being with their family 24/7, the stress of the pandemic alone—including 
loved ones contracting the virus and even some people who have lost individuals to the virus, increased 
screen time, feelings of isolation, weight loss/weight gain, and so much more. One girl shared her story 
with me and told me this,​ “I have been struggling with anxiety for about two years and 
it started to get really bad when COVID hit and I was no longer able to go out and 
see people in order to face those anxious thoughts. So it only got worse. I would 
never leave my house because anything I did made me spiral into panic attacks and 
sometimes I would have to pull over and vomit, that’s how bad it was. It was really 
hard for me because I felt like my anxiety was preventing me from living my life 
and being the bubbly, outgoing person that I am. I was meeting with a therapist 
during this time and for a while. We talked about it, but my parents didn’t want me 
to go on anxiety medications. After a while, I wrote a letter to my parents saying 
that fighting it mentally was too hard. Whenever I would go out, I would have use 
techniques to suppress my anxiety, but in doing that I wouldn’t be experiencing 
what I was doing. Doing this for hours upon hours would leave me mentally and 
physically drained. I would go home and cry and then fall asleep because I was so 
tired. I wasn’t giving up when I asked for the medication, I was just trying to find 
another way to battle the anxiety. I started taking the medication but I think 
what really helped me is how I was forcing myself to go out more and that really 
helped me overcome some of the anxiousness that had built up during lockdown. So 
my anxiety got a lot better and I also think that was because I had a lot of people 
pray for me. So basically a struggle that I face is that whenever we are forced to 
stay home because of COVID, that’s when my anxiety spikes.” ​I am proud of her for 
speaking up for herself, and prioritizing her mental health.  
 
That is my story, it has been filled with many hard moments, many tears, and difficult 
realizations. But I am proud of myself for getting here. For getting to a place where I can improve my 
mental health. I am proud of myself for not giving up on myself, and continuing to fight for my life, my 
joy. I stand here today and am doing the best I ever have been, and no, I am not done, and I still battle 
insecurities and doubt every day, but I am doing better. I know that I am doing alright now, but I worry 
about the individuals who feel like I once did. Will anyone reach out to help them? Will their moments of 
courage be trampled on? Will they realize they are not alone and loved beyond belief? I don’t know but I 
hope someday people and their mental health will be taken seriously, I hope they will realize that 
reaching out for help is strong and a necessary step on the road to joy, and I hope they realize that they 
are never alone.  
 
 

———————————————————————— 
 
This may have seemed to be a fictional story, one that you read and were surprised by. Maybe 
you were shocked that your classmates or students experience this, maybe you doubted that this is what 
people around you actually go through. This is not fictional, this is our story. Every quote that was in 
this font ​throughout this story was a quote from an individual who is a member of the girls senior 
class at Regis. The quotes were taken from seven girls who voluntarily shared their story for this piece. 
This is just seven girls out of a class of 175. These are our stories, and they need to be listened to and 
taken seriously. I want to thank each of the girls who shared their story for this piece. I am proud of each 
one of you, and am thankful for your vulnerability and willingness to step up for the people around you.  
They have shared very difficult and vulnerable stories, and while their stories, their battle with 
mental health, their hardships don’t tie up in a nice little bow, they have fought and overcome and 
triumphed over their mental health battles. And while they may continue to struggle through them, they 
are fighting for themselves. I want to share a few of their reflections on how they are doing, and what 
has helped them on their journeys.  
 “​The shining light in this dark tunnel has been my morning yoga. I try to do a 
session every morning to check in with myself and stretch. This relaxes me and 
motivates me for the day ahead.” 
 
“The HARDEST thing I have done is go to therapy. It’s so hard to say you’re 
not ok. One of the things I have to work a lot on is accepting how I feel. I can't be 
in denial. I am so afraid of people not accepting me and I have experienced 
abandonment on many levels, so I push people away. I never realized how it 
affected so many facets of my life.” 
 
“I really didn’t begin to get out of that dark place until people came into my 
life that valued me, and I finally let myself accept their love. These were people 
who took me home after school, just out of kindness; people who would sit and ask 
me questions about my parents health battle and how it was affecting me; people 
who told me that it was okay to not be okay, who showed me that being strong and 
being vulnerable are the same thing. I would go as far as to say that these people 
saved my life. They showed me that I deserved love, and that it was okay to let 
people in. Now I sit here and am so glad that I am here. I look at the sunrise and 
think of all the people that got me there to that moment, I think of all the people 
I have impacted, and all the people who have impacted me. I look back now and 
realize that even when I felt alone, I was never truly alone.” 
 
 
To everyone reading this who is struggling with their mental health and who feels like they are 
unworthy, unloved, and alone, I wanted to share a few things for you, things that I wish I had been told. 
I cannot promise you that it will be easy, I can’t tell you what your journey is going to look like, I 
cannot make you believe that you are loved, worthy, and are deserving of incredible joy. I cannot make 
you believe that, you have to believe that for yourself and the road to get there may be difficult, it may be 
filled with painful realizations, dark moments, and struggles, but it will be worth it. Your life and your 
happiness are worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for. You have the ability to get to a place where 
you feel deserving of love, where you are in love with the life that you are living. You are never, ever 
alone. I know that everyone says that you are loved and never alone, and it can be hard to believe that, 
but I believe that to be true more than I do anything else in the whole world. Reach out and ask for help, 
asking for help is a sign of strength. Tell people how you are doing, I promise you it will not only comfort 
you, but your story has the ability to empower them and make them stronger as well. And I will say it 
again, Your life and your happiness is worth fighting for. YOU are worth fighting for.  
 
 

————————————————————————  

 
This piece was hard for me to write and I will admit that I have a hard time being harsh, or 
critical, but I can no longer I cannot sit back and watch the people I love suffer every day of my life. This 
piece was spurred by a meeting I had with Regis administration. After bringing up the scope of mental 
health by explaining the numerous suicide attempts and battles with depression of girls in the grade 
below me, I was told that the counselors knew about those. I have very rarely, if ever, been more 
disappointed. The counselors knowing this information should not belittle the fact that there are girls at 
our schools that are depressed and have tried to commit suicide. We need to fight to change that (and 
that doesn’t mean to never talk about mental health and pretend like it doesn’t exist, quite the opposite), 
and the school environment needs to be changed. Mental health needs to be talked about in an open way, 
not as something that will have consequences, not numerous meetings about how Safe2tell is so 
beneficial, but meetings about how it is okay to seek help. I was never told this, and I was never 
questioned or helped when I sat alone day after day. 
I hope that students at Regis can be shown talking about mental health is not only acceptable 
but is encouraged. I realize that I will be leaving next year and I feel a responsibility to try and make 
Regis a better place for my friends and many classmates who will continue to attend Regis, so this is my 
plea for something to change, for something to be done for my sisters. While it was me who wrote this, 
many individuals feel this way and have supported me in the writing of this piece so please take our 
words seriously:  
 
Many of us have struggled this year and throughout high school, and it is hard to feel helpless as our 
administration is not prioritizing students' mental health. While our administration has sent out the 
“Counseling Corner,” if I had suicidal thoughts or was depressed, this would not be a helpful resource. I 
feel this way because on here there is not one line about approaches for asking someone about their 
mental health, reaching out to a friend, etc. The two things about mental health in the December issue 
were about how to prevent an anxiety attack and how Safe2Tell is still available to call. Meanwhile there 
are two things about advent, one about NHS tutoring, and one about checking our email frequently. 
Maybe that’s just my own opinion but the counselors should be more concerned about students reaching 
out for help than checking their email, especially in a time when mental health struggles have increased. 
I know part of their job is to help students with classes, time management skills, tutoring, and academic 
related things, and this is important to help students mental health and decrease stress. But many 
students can’t even begin to focus on their academics when they are struggling with their mental health. 
This pamphlet or online resource has value, but more has to be done. A three page monthly blog is not 
what is going to help girls suffering from mental health, especially when most students just delete the 
email before reading it. Connection, love, mercy, understanding, that’s what is going to begin to 
alleviate mental health battles, but that is not the focus at Regis, the focus is by the book or based on 
what has always been done. It's about how Safe2Tell is an amazing resource, how mental health can be 
tackled through some simple lifestyle changes like getting more sleep. Meanwhile, I know many girls 
who have had suicide attempts, who struggle with depression and anxiety every single day. They don’t 
need to be singled out in a Safe2Tell meeting, don’t need to be told the signs of depression, don’t need to 
be told to get more sleep and check their email frequently. They need to be shown that battling mental 
health is not weak, but prioritizing yourself and your needs is strong. They need to be shown that it is 
okay to reach out for help. They need to be shown that the counselors are there for them, not just when 
they come into the counselors office, but frequently in the halls at school. I say shown because telling 
students this is not enough, they need to be shown this constantly with a loving and supportive 
environment surrounding them. I have heard the administration say that they are going to start new 
programs, programs linking underclassmen with upperclassmen so that they can connect, apps to help 
with mental health, all this stuff, but none of it has been done. The phrase “men and women with and for 
others” is a common saying at Regis, as it is the character that Regis is trying to develop in its students. 
But when our administration is not with us as we are battling through mental health, and is not for us by 
advocating for effective ways to handle suicide and depression, how can we then go out and be with and 
for others in our larger community? I come to school or sit in online school everyday feeling helpless. I 
watch the people around me continue to break, and I can try to be there for them, try to check in on them 
and make sure they are okay. But I can’t be the only one. We deserve a school, an administration, that 
takes mental health seriously, that doesn’t just desire to be there for their students, but is actually there 
for them.  
Many people, if not all of us, experience mental health struggles, but we should not be trapped in 
these dark places because our school tells us that talking about mental health will ​“put suicide into 
people’s heads.”​ Yes I have been told this by an administrator at Regis when bringing up the idea of 
students talking about their mental health struggles. I was told that we can’t talk about mental health, 
which is completely opposed to the vulnerability, openness, support, and acceptance that will help 
combat mental health. I have sat through a countless number of Safe2Tell meetings at Regis talking 
about how Safe2Tell is an amazing resource. I have sat in these meetings that were set up after a girl was 
Safe2Told on. This meeting singled her out in front of her friends, the only individuals who she trusted, 
and it may have destroyed the one time she felt comfortable enough to open up and reach out for help. 
I’m not saying Safe2Tell can’t be a good resource, it can be, but you know what else is an amazing 
resource, other people. Our classmates, our teachers, our administration all have the power to walk 
alongside each other and battle mental health together. I know this because I have been approached by 
teachers who have asked about my personal life and how things are going, who have given extensions to 
students who are feeling overwhelmed, who truly truly care about us and want to help us. I have watched 
my classmates be there for each other in difficult times: making cookies for people when they are having 
a hard week, sending a text to check in on a friend, talking openly about what they are going through. I 
have seen the power that we can have, if we stop worrying about doing everything by the book (such as 
the presentations about signs of depression and how Safe2tell is a great resource) and we start doing 
what is actually beneficial for students. Yes I understand that you probably have to have a meeting about 
Safe2Tell and signs of depression, but when mental health is whittled down to just these two topics and 
that is all we hear about, we will never begin to help students who are struggling. The people at this 
school have the power to make mental health something that can be openly talked about. But instead of 
giving students the tools to talk to their friends in authentic conversations about their mental health, we 
are only told about Safe2Tell solely to say that the school is doing something to address mental health, 
when hundreds of students continue to struggle with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts within 
their own walls. More needs to be done. Girls at this school have been told to kill themselves by other 
classmates; girls have felt unloved, unworthy, and unwanted; girls have attempted suicide, and 
hundreds have struggled with depression and anxiety. We can’t shrug these issues off saying that​ “The 
counselors know about all those,” ​because we have to want to change that. This school needs to 
want every student to be in love with their life, and maybe you think that’s a fantasy or something that 
could never be achieved, but I don’t think it is. When we start to care about each other more than profits; 
start to authentically be there for one another; start to tell our friends, children, students, coworkers, 
that we are there for them and create spaces where we can share our stories; that is when this school will 
begin to prioritize its students mental health, and truly make an impactful, positive difference in their 
lives.   
 
There is power in our stories, and when we are not given a safe space or the tools needed to allow others 
to share them with us, and us with them, we will continue to live in a place of loneliness, a place where 
we feel like we have to take on all of our battles by ourselves. Just in writing this piece with the girls who 
chose to share their stories I received texts that it was comforting and a good experience to open up. 
Openness and being there for one another is the way to combat the solitude and feelings of loneliness 
that are often associated with depression, we can not be expected to take on our lives alone. This is my 
cry for help, and while this may have sounded rude, aggressive, critical, I have reached a point where I 
cannot sit back and watch the people I love suffer every day of my life. I realize that I will be leaving next 
year and I feel a responsibility to try and make Regis a better place for my friends, many classmates, who 
will continue to attend Regis. I worry everyday that we will lose someone from the Regis community to 
suicide, and we can’t lose someone to suicide because we were more concerned about following what 
had been done previously and only putting in the bare minimum to meet the requirements. At the 
current moment I know girls are suffering, and they feel alone, and like they can’t go to a counselor. I 
hope that something changes, and that this change doesn’t have to be spurred by someone in our 
community losing their life to suicide.