It was in the middle of July and only two words can be in the first thought of a student: Summer Vacation.  In other words, Summer Vacation defines the isolated indoors and forgetting the aching pain of you banging your head against your desk when cramming for an exam. It would be days full of sleeping in and staying up late; two months of recharging your energy. Summer Vacation also defines the hot feeling of sand against your feet when you go to the beach in the middle of the afternoon. The smell of sunscreen and the ice cold tastes of popsicles and ice cream from the shop across the beach. My summer was full of ice cream, but instead of the shop across the beach, it was from the cafeteria at the Mental Health unit of the hospital. For my summer vacation, the fluorescent lighting of the hospital would be my source of sunlight.

            I had my fair share of outpatient, inpatient and group therapy treatments, but before all of that, I was first in the Mental Health day-treatment program at the children’s hospital (for those under the age of 18). Before summer came, I was admitted to the day-treatment program in May 2007. The summer before I started my first year of high school was spent with the day-treatment program. However, for summer 2007, we merged with the inpatient and eating disorder day-treatment programs. It was pretty hectic, as the attention was given to two to three people, and the rest of us were kind of alone to fend for ourselves. As luck had it, I was one of the invisible few, with the proof of me having to correct that my name was Amanda and not Amber or Daniel to the majority of the staff. From there, I remained silent and was an easy target for others; it didn’t help that many of the students were in anger management, because it created an easy atmosphere for bullying. In all, my experience was miserable due to the formation of cliques, but it wasn’t entirely miserable. There were a lot of lessons that helped me, and a lot of things I learned that are useful for my everyday life.

            This was the summer that I found out about mindyourmind. I remember the day vividly, the morning didn’t start off so great. I came in and was trying to join in a group, but was targeted again. As I was getting insulted, I started crying and asked if I could spend the morning in a different room instead. I had enough of spending time with people tearing me apart, when I came here to heal, so I felt like it was a catch-22 if I didn’t or did attend the program. I felt like nothing was going well, so I couldn’t stop crying, and as time went by, it was afternoon and I was still full of tears. While alone in the room, I was asked by one of the Child/Youth workers to come to the main room as special visitors are there. Obviously not in the mood, or looking that great, I refused. Then I was begged to participate, giving that if I didn’t I would have missed something great. So I finally did walked into the main room, and to be honest, if I still refused to do so, then I would have really missed something that great.
 
            The special visitors were three people from mindyourmind, one staff worker and two teen volunteers. They brought in stickers and pens about mindyourmind and talked about what it was and their site on the internet. Everyone around me seemed to know what mindyourmind was, so I pretended to nod on as if I knew about this before. I was surprised how I didn’t know about a site directed towards the cause Mental Health/Mental Illness, so I was curious to go home and check it out on the internet. During the whole time, I was still crying, and barely participated in the jeopardy styled game that everyone was playing. Near the end of the day, I finally participated, and ignored the glare of others around me.

            When it was time to go home, I was still upset, and yes I was still crying, but I was calmer than I was in the morning. While waiting at the foyer, looking out for my dad to pick me up, I looked down at the mindyourmind pamphlets, and thought, `Hey, what the heck, I`ll read them while I am waiting.” Then my father came, so I hid them in my bag and went home. After the ride, I immediately went upstairs to go to use the computer and checked out the site. I was amazed that mindyourmind was located in London, Ontario, as my family and I were new to Ontario by two years. It would be the first of many times that I would go on the website.

Part 2

By Amanda A., Age: 16