“I had a rough time in high school. I was in a very deep depression. I’ve always been on the heavy side, so I got bullied a lot because of my size. I didn’t have any friends. There wasn’t a male figure in my life to talk to. Some people cared about me, but I blocked them out of my life. Someone told the school guidance counselor that they’d heard me talking about suicide, so I got sent to the psych hospital for nine days. I was the oldest one there. I met kids who were a lot younger than me, and who’d been through a lot worse things. One of the girls had been raped. The younger kids would come to me for advice, and for the first time I felt like a leader. I left the hospital with a different mindset. I realized that I wasn’t on earth to be helped, but to help others.”
