General

June 13, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide statistics. Being perceived as less of a man when expressing emotion. Facing unrealistic stereotypes and expectations. Being made to feel like your mental health doesn’t matter, or that you can’t struggle with your feelings without being invalidated. As a transgender man, these are all experiences I’ve dealt […]

June 10, 2022 — When I look back at the past four years of high school, and ahead to the future as a graduate, one of the biggest changes that I saw in my community of classmates was around mental health culture. How schools view and address mental health can vary widely – some schools have the resources to […]

June 3, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide statistics. Pride Month is a time when many organizations and communities show their support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community in hopes of creating a culture that is more accepting, welcoming, and inclusive. What started as a result of the Stonewall Riots in […]

May 26, 2022 — I was in my second year of college when my first major bout with depression hit. It was 2006 and at the time, I had never heard about depression, anxiety, or really mental health at all. I didn’t have the language to articulate what I was going through to the people around me, and they […]

May 25, 2022 — We forget. Again and again, we forget. We forget the lives lost. We forget the screaming and tears of the classmates. The gasping, breathtaking grief of the parents, and the ashen shock of the teachers. We forget the horror, the anger, the anguish. We forget. We allow complacency and suffering to perpetuate. Today, there are […]

May 20, 2022 — At one time or another, we’ve all said the wrong thing. Despite best intentions, anyone can commit a microaggression. Embedded in our culture, institutions, and interactions, these systems can become part of our thinking without us even realizing it.  When we use words or actions to create harm against stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups, such […]

May 18, 2022 — Today, a group of thirty youth mental health leaders, including five affiliated with Active Minds, presented creative, thought-provoking solutions to the youth mental health crises currently unfolding in our nation. The inaugural Mental Health Youth Action Forum, created by MTV Entertainment, and featuring mental health nonprofits, senior officials from the Biden-Harris administration, and special guest […]

May 13, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide. As a high schooler, I convinced myself that starting college would be the fresh start I was looking for. I was certainly ready for one. So as I sat on the long drive to Eastern Michigan University (EMU) I looked through lists of student clubs, envisioning what […]

May 12, 2022 — Active Minds is headquartered in Washington D.C., and for many years, I was too. I went into the office each day on a consistent schedule, and from there, it felt easy to achieve a work/life balance. I gave my all to our team in the office and was able to focus on my loved ones […]

May 9, 2022 — It’s that time of year again. A time when college students across the country are camped out in libraries, surrounded by stacks of flashcards, empty coffee cups, and months worth of notes, otherwise known as finals season.  I’m right there too – over the next week or so, I have three finals, a four-thousand-word essay, […]