“In seventh grade, I was bullied a lot by people, mainly racial slurs, by who I thought were my friends, so I let it happen. I was growing more and more upset. Towards the end of eighth grade I was still stressed and sad, so I decided to do something. I took a lot of pills. I ended up getting sick from them and I had to go to the hospital. They took my vitals and gave me more medicine since it was too late to pump my stomach. After my vitals stabilized, I was given no choice but to stay at an inpatient facility. I didn’t like staying there, so my mom advocated for me to be placed in an outpatient group. I missed about four weeks of school. I had to get a therapist. I wasn’t put on medication at first, but a few months later I went to the doctor by myself to talk to her about putting me on anti-depressants.
About a year later, I stopped seeing my therapist as often, and more recently, I’ve been able to stop taking my medication. The combination of those things and my friends have helped me a lot.”

“It all started at the beginning of freshman year. It was difficult to adapt to the new environment and finding all my classes. I decided ‘This is it. I’m going to kill myself.’ But I got scared and I didn’t want to do it. I went to bed that night and I was scared and worried. I went to school the next day like everything was normal, but it was hard to get through the day and every day
after that.
After going through months of this pain, I filled out a sheet in Student Services, asking about hospitalization for depression. They called me down and said I had to talk to Ms. Kwiatt, a social worker. She recommended Linden Oaks. I went there after I was released from school. It was scary. I didn’t know what was going to happen. They let me go home that day because I did not say I was suicidal. The next day I had to take an assessment. It wasn’t scary, I was comfortable, and I told her everything. They recommended me for the out-patient program, where I would stay there all day long and go home at night. I did that for about a month, and it was the best thing. The environment was relaxed, and I didn’t have the stress of high school. It was disappointing that I missed out on a lot of my freshman year, but it worked out okay. Two weeks after I left Linden Oaks, the happiness I was feeling went away. Before I went to Linden Oaks, I didn’t know I had depression, I just thought I was a little upset. It was clearly much more than that. But now, to take you up to speed, it’s a year later. I am still at work with my depression. I’m still battling it, and it’s still a war. But now, I have survival skills I use to keep myself alive. Even though I still struggle, I have hope that things will get better.”