Journaling and verbalizing her emotions has helped junior Madeline Siu cope with mental health issues. Since first grade, at the time of her parents’ divorce, Siu has attended therapy. She has struggled with depression throughout the majority of her high school years and has used her experiences to discover effective ways to cope.
One of her approaches is to avoid dwell- ing on negative emotions. “When I sit in my room and I have to think and I need time to myself, it doesn’t help because you get caught up in your own thoughts and sometimes it can go to a pretty dangerous place,” she said. “There’s days where you feel really good and days where you feel really bad and you get down. You can tend to ruminate on a lot of the same thoughts, but it’s just trying your best to find differ- ent ways of not letting that super dark part affect you.”
Siu recognizes the importance of ac- knowledging negative thoughts instead of shunning them entirely. “It’s important to acknowledge those feelings, but if you have to distract yourself from them for some time, like [by] spending time with your friends or just talking to someone else about it, that’s better than just sitting and putting your earbuds in and staring at the wall,” she said.
She has found that talking to friends and journaling are effective practices that help her stay positive. “I think that probably the most helpful thing for me is journaling and then talking to a friend,” she said. “Because getting everything that you have in your head out and, even if you’re just texting a friend about it, just putting it into
words and sending it off in a way is not really you ac- cepting it, but just pulling everything together as to how you feel.”
As someone who deals with depression, Siu sometimes struggles to find the initative to take action. Capitalizing on little pieces of motivation has helped Siu accomplish
what she needs to get done. “Trying to get myself to find whatever little grain of motivation I have and just take it and go for it [is helpful],” she said.
Siu’s journey is ongoing, but she still maintains a positive outlook on her progress thus far. “Of course there’s still moments in which it feels like I’m being brought back down again,” she said. “But I feel like overall I’m definitely doing better than I was before. So it’s kind of good to know that even the small pieces of progress are still progress.”
Siu firmly believes that there is always someone out there going through the same issues as you are. “It’s really true be- cause there’s so many other people, every day, people just even at Gunn that you’re walking past that go through a lot of the same stuff,” she said. “People are open to help, even if you might not feel open to it. It’s just a matter of building trust.”