“Raise your hand if you or someone you know has dealt with suicidal thoughts, addiction or other mental illnesses,” said junior Allison Tan at one point in last Friday’s Speak Up for Change week assembly in the quad.

Students here and there raised their hands and looked around solemnly. 

Early in the event, the outreach commission — which includes seniors Catherine Kan and Alex Yang, sophomore Paul Hulme and freshman Ethan Yang — introduced this year’s SUFC theme, “Stepping Forward,” and the speakers for this year’s rally: Tan, junior Ishir Lakhani, senior Raya Khanna and assistant principal Matt Torrens. Following the introduction, the speakers talked about personal mental health struggles as well as how they reached out for help. 

Having hope in trying times

In his talk, Lakhani dissected how he coped with the loss of his mother in second grade. As an elementary schooler, he said he felt defined by her death as his classmates referred to him as “that kid with the dead mom.”

“When people met me, they were careful with what they said as if I was a bomb that could go off at the slightest touch,” Lakhani said. “When I tried to make new friends, I was met with the same five words — ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ — drenched in pity.”

Despite the sense of hopelessness, he was warmed by the support, patience and comfort he received from loved ones, including his elementary principal and his stepmother, who helped him to “launch [himself] out of his pit.”

Lakhani urged students to savor every moment of their lives and asked adults to be supportive, kind and available for people who might need support around them.

Everyone has bad days

Khanna then took the stage and shared her story. At age 12, she began feeling depressed and tired, despite having what she viewed as a privileged life.

“I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how selfish I was for feeling the way I did,” Khanna said. “I felt guilty that I had such a great life, I felt upset with myself for feeling this way and I felt like I wasn’t measuring up to my potential.”

Khanna then detailed her personal journey with healing. From confiding in her friends about her anxiety to receiving professional help and therapy, she discussed the obstacles she faced and the bravery required to reach out for help. 

As a result, her counselor set her up with a 504 plan, which is a list of “accommodations that a student needs,” and a psychiatrist as well as helped her drop a few classes and communicate with her parents. 

“It was a major step for me to get help from others,” Khanna said.

Khanna ended her speech by emphasizing the importance of normalizing “bad days” through checking in with each other, stepping forward for help, and allowing time for healing. 

“I am so proud of you”

Tan’s speech opened with a list of phrases and their negative connotations: “suicide,” “struggling with mental health” and “opening up about mental illness” were followed by descriptions like “selfish,” “crazy,” “shameful,” “weird” and “attention-seeking” to highlight the stigma against mental illnesses.

One of her words was “semicolon,” a piece of punctuation Tan said symbolized a choice to continue on instead of giving up. Project Semicolon, of which Tan is a part of, is an organization focused on building better lives for people with mental illness.

“The semicolon is emblematic of people struggling with mental health choosing to continue their story rather than ending it,” Tan said.

Tan said that her poor mental health manifested itself in crying fits, lashes of anger and a lack of motivation in school or extracurriculars. As time went on, it became harder for her to ignore her struggles as she suffered eating disorders, toxic friendships and self-harm issues. 

“There was no definitive breaking point within my journey to reaching out for professional help, but rather an endless conversation or monolog in my head consisting of pros and cons lists contemplating reaching out for help,” Tan said.

One of the most important steps in feeling worthy of recovery was realizing that her negative self-image was a result of her depression, and that she deserved to be happy and recover completely.

Although deciding to tell her parents about her struggles was difficult, Tan said it felt like taking a weight off her chest.

“The process of reaching out wasn’t perfect or magic and took me well over a year to get situated with therapy, medication, healthy friendships and rebuild my relationships with my family, but it was real and I am proud of myself,” Tan said.

Stepping forward TOGA-ther

Following Tan, Torrens stepped onto the podium and began  with highlighting the historical and collective strength of the school. He then discussed his personal experience with anxiety from the recent passing of social studies teacher Todd Dwyer and the need for students to confront mental health issues with positivity, citing rap lyrics from seniors Sahil Shaik (“Dr. Shakes”) and Rishi Atreya (“Reesh”). 

“[I hope students] find the courage to step forward — whatever that means for them — and get some ideas on how to step forward and that they think of a friend that they might encourage to step forward,” Torrens said. 

Embracing the message that “stepping forward does not need a triggering crisis,” Torrens expressed gratitude and hope for the stories, memorials and inspirational people that make this “prison-like” campus beautiful and “sexy.” 

To close off the assembly, ASB president Derek Hsu thanked all the speakers and cited a quote by Troy Bolton of “High School Musical”: “We’re all in this together.”

“The speakers who shared their stories today exhibited a great amount of bravery,” he said. “Although asking for help for the first time may be difficult, mental health should never be suppressed by social and academic stress.”