The Best Summer I Ever S(H)AD
07/04/19 09:10
I first discovered the SHAD program at the start of high school from a SHAD Fellow who attended back in the eighties. It sounded like an incredible opportunity - a summer at a university campus, exploring a new city, making new friends, and getting to pursue all the things I was interested in. I attended SHAD at the University of Waterloo in 2016. I was definitely equal parts nervous and excited, but it only took a few hours for me to realize that SHAD was going to be synonymous to home. But hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself! Before attending, I had to get accepted. In this article, I’ll walk through the application process, what my experience was like when I got there, and the perks of being a SHAD Fellow.
BUT FIRST… For those of you who don’t know, SHAD is a registered charity that provides a month long summer enrichment program for “Canada’s best and brightest.” During the course of the summer, you are living, learning, and exploring with a group of 50-70 other high school students from all across Canada. The program is hosted at multiple universities across Canada, and you spend the entirety of July living on residence at one of the stunning campuses. You can find out more about SHAD here: https://www.shad.ca/
BUT FIRST… For those of you who don’t know, SHAD is a registered charity that provides a month long summer enrichment program for “Canada’s best and brightest.” During the course of the summer, you are living, learning, and exploring with a group of 50-70 other high school students from all across Canada. The program is hosted at multiple universities across Canada, and you spend the entirety of July living on residence at one of the stunning campuses. You can find out more about SHAD here: https://www.shad.ca/
BEFORE SHAD
Now, in order to get into the program, there is a rigorous application process that you must undergo. The application includes essay writing, a creative piece, and references. You write about your passions and share the reasons why you want to attend SHAD. The application allows SHAD to see why you’d be a good fit for the program, and is a chance for you to highlight what makes you unique. Although it’s a long application, I definitely felt like I was given ample opportunity to share my stories, and it is excellent preparation for other enrichment applications you may find yourself writing in the future.
TIPS FOR WRITING THE APPLICATION:
- Don’t procrastinate! It seems like very basic advice, but the application is long and detailed. Give yourself time to think about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to convey your message, because there is a word limit to the questions you are answering.
- Get strong references and give your references time to go through the form. When I applied, the reference was not your usual “send in a one page letter”, but a series of questions and evaluations about you as a student. It will take time to complete if you want a good recommendation.
- Be honest. Don’t fake enthusiasm for something you are not passionate about. From my personal experience, SHAD is pretty awesome at bringing together a group of people who come from a variety of backgrounds and have remarkable skills that will literally blow your mind. Whether you are a talented oboist or an award-winning debater, your story is valuable and it’s uniquely you. So share it!
- If you don’t get into the program the first time, don’t be discouraged and definitely apply again! You don’t want to miss out on what will probably be the best summer of your life!
AT SHAD
While at the program, I had the opportunity to learn about a lot of things that I never would have explored on my own. From matrices to Fermi problems to the applications of Finding Nemo in the real world, every day my mind went on this incredible journey. I’m going to be honest, some of the things we talked about seemed so far beyond me and my background knowledge, but that was probably the most fun part about it. One thing that we stressed a lot at our campus was to step outside of our comfort zone and not be afraid to try new things. Throughout SHAD, you were given multiple opportunities to do so. I went camping for the first time, played pool noodle hockey, performed in front of an audience, and lived away from home for an extended period of time. Every day was filled with new adventures, deep life questions, and the chance to make life-long friendships with a group of people that you can call family. Without spoiling too much, you can rest assured that your time at SHAD will be well rounded, and provide an equal balance between academic lectures, artistic endeavours, and experiential learning.
POST-SHAD
One of the reasons I thought of writing this post was because I was scrolling through Instagram and seeing the pictures from this year’s SHAD cohort. It’s been two years, but I still stay in touch with the friends that I’ve made, and I have also benefitted from the network as a whole. My connections through SHAD got me two summer jobs that I would not have had access to otherwise, and it’s such a cool feeling when you walk into a new place and you meet another SHAD. (You can trust me on this one!)
In conclusion, it’s honestly not possible to really define what SHAD is and how it makes you feel in words. I walked in to a room with 53 strangers and walked out with 53 new family members. You will laugh together, cry together, and make beautiful memories that will stick with you long after you leave the campus behind. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
— Written By Vaneezeh Siddiqui
The Maddie Project - Shine Bright
07/04/19 09:10
Mental health and mental health advocacy is incredibly important. A thriving organization called "The Maddie Project," is fully dedicated to raise awareness and create conversations about youth mental health. In the following interview with Nicole German, the founder of The Maddie Project, we learn about the importance of The Maddie Project, the importance of mental health, and ways YOU can get involved.
1. What is The Maddie Project? What things does the project stand for and what initiatives does/did the project host?
The Maddie Project (www.themaddieproject.ca) is a community effort in support of youth struggling with depression and other mental health related concerns. Driven by community collaboration and events, the project’s goals are to raise awareness by sparking conversations about youth depression and mental health concerns as well as to help provide uninhibited access to support for youth and their families.
The Maddie Project was founded in April 2015 in memory of Madeline Grace German Coulter. To date the project has engaged millions in active conversations around youth mental health and through community based events (gala, fashion shows, pop up shows, bake sales, direct giving, Run team and more) has raised over $1.6 million dollars in partnership towards the development of Maddie’s Healing Garden (http://www.nyghfoundation.ca/maddie-project) and support of other child and adolescent mental health services across Canada.
To learn how you can get involved or contribute visit www.themaddieproject.ca or follow us on twitter @maddie_project or facebook https://www.facebook.com/themaddieproject
2. Why is mental health and advocating for mental health important?
Every person has mental health and one in five will struggle with the mental health in their lifetime and only 25% of those will get access to help. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in youth behind automobile accidents. So we all need to be aware of what the signs are for those that maybe struggling, including self awareness and help t reduce the stigma to encourage people to know that it is ok to put up their hand for help.
3. How can Canadian youth get involved with The Maddie Project?
Start by joining the community and sharing stories!
Join the Maddie Project social community and invite your friends and family too
Twitter: @maddie_project
Instagram: @maddie_project
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themaddieproject
Or plan an event of your own in your school, with a team, in your community. We support all interests and ideas to help drive awareness and fundraising to support youth mental health directly in your community.
4. Words of wisdom/something for Canadian youth to remember in regard to mental health.
We all need to show empathy, compassion and kindness to those around us - especially when someone seems to be struggling.
There are some small things that we all can do in our every day life to help.
First – be self aware and reach out for help whenever you need … if you aren’t feeling well, you feel like you're worrying too much, you can’t focus, you can’t sleep – what ever it is – raise your hand for help – talk about it with someone, your parents, a teacher, a coach, a friend, an aunt, anyone… it helps to talk and it helps to let someone in so they can help you.
Second – have each others backs. ALWAYS! Even if it’s not your best friend… always stick together… always support each other … never leave anyone out or anyone behind. If you sense your friend or even someone you know is going down a wrong path — reach out to them and let them know, you have their back.
Third – treat each other the way you would want to be treated. You never know what a person is feeling on this inside …
Finally – Know that there is always an adult who cares about you & can support you - be it a parent, a loved one, a teacher, a mentor or someone else.
- Written by Nicole German, The Maddie Project
Youth of Canada Mental Illness Awareness Week Entry #3: All the "what ifs"
07/04/19 09:10
When I wake up to the sound of my alarm, the first thing I think about, is school. What’s going to happen today? What will I not understand this time? What teacher is going to be in a bad mood? Then I put my uniform on, if I put a short sleeve all I can think is, what if it gets cold? Then I should bring a sweater and put it in my bag, but when I walk home if it’s warm, I’ll get too hot and I don’t have room in my bag to put a sweater, what will I do? So, I decide to just leave a sweater in my locker.
Later on, I arrive at school. I put my things in my school bag and the one thing going through my mind is, what if I forget something? What if I took the wrong book? So, I double check, then triple check. Because if I forget something, after five times, I get detention and all I could think if I got detention, is what a bad student I have become, this is horrible, I’m definitely not going far in life. A few minutes later, I set foot in my first class of the day. That’s when the nerves really kick in. I stress, because what if I don’t understand what the teacher’s teaching? What if I get distracted while he’s teaching and on top of it he notices? Mostly, I stress because I’m stressed about being too stressed. You could say it’s ironic, others would say I just need to stop stressing out for no reason (as if I hadn’t thought of that before).
Obviously, this seems pretty harmless, although it actually occupies my whole mind and keeps me from listening to the teacher and makes me take the wrong books to classes. But the real problem occurs when I have to take an exam, that’s when the cortisol level actually spikes. All I can think about is, what if I don’t get over 90%? Obviously 89% is good and all, but not good enough, not for me. Clearly this distracts me from the previously mentioned test, and so my brain doesn’t know what to put its energy on, it’s so confused. So, it just shuts down. Then ladies and gentlemen, I start sweating, my heart is pounding so hard it’s about to jump out of my chest, I start trembling and getting nauseous, next are the tingly fingers and toes and why not add on to that with chest pains, and finally, the tears start rushing down my cheeks. That is what an anxiety attack is.
I’m often told, not to stress, as if it were that easy, I am told I need to put less pressure on myself, but how can I, when my own teachers are putting all that pressure on me. I am told I have to aim for the moon, because if I fail at least I may hit a star, but don’t people know that stars are light years away, so when I miss, I’m just in nothingness. People tell me that the grades I get today won’t matter twenty years from now, but if I get 89% today and all I’m missing to get a 4.0 GPA is that one percent, couldn’t that ruin my chances of getting in that one university program I’m targeting. My friends and family tell me to lower my expectations, but if I do, doesn’t that mean I’m expecting and accepting what I see as failure. Then I’ll get told to accept failure, but if I fail, teachers will be disappointed in me, so will my family. All these words, meant to be helpful, are actually harmful. Each and every one of them make my self-esteem go down a notch.
All of this was kept inside of me for all these years. Recently I talked about it, although at the moment I hated it, today I certainly don’t regret it. I feel free, I feel light as a feather, as if all that stress and all those words were weighing on me. Today I can talk about it and it’s still hard.
— Written by Gabrielle J. Adams Khoury
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.
Later on, I arrive at school. I put my things in my school bag and the one thing going through my mind is, what if I forget something? What if I took the wrong book? So, I double check, then triple check. Because if I forget something, after five times, I get detention and all I could think if I got detention, is what a bad student I have become, this is horrible, I’m definitely not going far in life. A few minutes later, I set foot in my first class of the day. That’s when the nerves really kick in. I stress, because what if I don’t understand what the teacher’s teaching? What if I get distracted while he’s teaching and on top of it he notices? Mostly, I stress because I’m stressed about being too stressed. You could say it’s ironic, others would say I just need to stop stressing out for no reason (as if I hadn’t thought of that before).
Obviously, this seems pretty harmless, although it actually occupies my whole mind and keeps me from listening to the teacher and makes me take the wrong books to classes. But the real problem occurs when I have to take an exam, that’s when the cortisol level actually spikes. All I can think about is, what if I don’t get over 90%? Obviously 89% is good and all, but not good enough, not for me. Clearly this distracts me from the previously mentioned test, and so my brain doesn’t know what to put its energy on, it’s so confused. So, it just shuts down. Then ladies and gentlemen, I start sweating, my heart is pounding so hard it’s about to jump out of my chest, I start trembling and getting nauseous, next are the tingly fingers and toes and why not add on to that with chest pains, and finally, the tears start rushing down my cheeks. That is what an anxiety attack is.
I’m often told, not to stress, as if it were that easy, I am told I need to put less pressure on myself, but how can I, when my own teachers are putting all that pressure on me. I am told I have to aim for the moon, because if I fail at least I may hit a star, but don’t people know that stars are light years away, so when I miss, I’m just in nothingness. People tell me that the grades I get today won’t matter twenty years from now, but if I get 89% today and all I’m missing to get a 4.0 GPA is that one percent, couldn’t that ruin my chances of getting in that one university program I’m targeting. My friends and family tell me to lower my expectations, but if I do, doesn’t that mean I’m expecting and accepting what I see as failure. Then I’ll get told to accept failure, but if I fail, teachers will be disappointed in me, so will my family. All these words, meant to be helpful, are actually harmful. Each and every one of them make my self-esteem go down a notch.
All of this was kept inside of me for all these years. Recently I talked about it, although at the moment I hated it, today I certainly don’t regret it. I feel free, I feel light as a feather, as if all that stress and all those words were weighing on me. Today I can talk about it and it’s still hard.
— Written by Gabrielle J. Adams Khoury
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.
Youth of Canada Mental Illness Awareness Week Entry #1: Seventh Grade and its Discoveries - a Letter to Myself
07/04/19 09:10
To myself in seventh grade,
I want to start off by telling you that you are going to make it through this. Whoever it may be, telling you to give up, telling you it’s not worth it, telling you that you’re a failure, even if it is yourself, I want to tell you one thing: this. This will be worth it. If you go on to skip the rest of what I’m about to tell you know, I want you to remember this one line: this will be worth it.
The current you is in grade 11, just failed her physics and chemistry test, and will have failed her math test by this morning. She will be very sleep deprived, very tired, and very, very caffeinated by this afternoon. She will have a mountain of position-time graphs to finish, she will be behind a week of math homework, and she will have to finish her English IOP reflection by midnight tonight. She will have no idea what to do with a performance tonight and this letter to finish, and she will have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow morning. She may have to sleep at 1 am tonight or finish her physics homework by lunch tomorrow. She is ready to break down and cry, she is ready to drop out of school and go get ice cream, and she is ready to go home and sleep.
But there is one issue: she knows she will not give up. She cannot read into the future, but she knows this for a fact: she will not give up.
Seventh grade you will have to sort through a lot of garbage. Seventh grade you is an acne filled, sleeping at 10 pm, making friend groups and separating them again, sitting by your bed, piece of potential. You probably think you only have one chance. You think: I have one chance to get this right, and you will go through the next three years with this mindset as well. I want to tell you one thing: you will fail, and you will fail hard.
You will know social failure and academic failure. You will know the failure of love and the failure of loyalty. You will know artistic failure, and you will know familial failure. You will know failure more than you know yourself, and failure can be one of two things: the best thing that has ever happened to you, or something you learn and grow from.
You will learn many things in two years of high school, some of which are good, some of which are awful. No matter how good the ratings of Ontario teachers look like on RateMyTeacher, a large percentage of your teachers will not care about you, or your wellbeing. (Mostly the latter.) They don’t schedule things correctly, they don’t give the right instructions, and they don’t give you their blessing. Some will be the tough-love kind, some will just be love-love – you are going to have to live with both of these kinds of people. You will make new friends, some of which will be love- hate, and some of which will be love-love. You will love all of them, and they will love you – despite how much you may annoy each other for homework answers and pieces of their pizza. You won’t hang out every weekend, but you will know you all love each other anyway.
This cohort that you are in is a relatively good one. Snip away the weeds and the toxicity, and you will be left with the daisies and the roses. You will find good people to be with. I have people I want to be with, and I assume these people want to be with me as well. They will be the reason you make it through this. They are the reason I am getting through this today.
You will learn how to comfort people, and you will learn how to comfort yourself. You will learn how people cry, and you will learn how to cry yourself. You will learn how to talk to your parents like real people, and you will learn how to ask your sister for favours. You will learn how to be selfish and how to be selfless. You will learn how to play French horn, and you will learn to sing again. You’ll fall in love with a K-pop star name J-Hope, and you will start wearing nice jeans again. You will talk about Great Comet all day long, and you will protest gun laws. You will belt Broadway songs in the hallways, and you will learn how to find limits of functions. You will learn that you don’t want to have sex like how other people do, and you will learn to go to church to be happy for once.
Sometimes you won’t sleep. Sometimes you won’t eat. And sometimes you’ll forget that hydration is a thing that humans need to do to be a. healthy, b. alive. These are not good things. Please get enough sleep, eat all your meals (even breakfast), and drink at least 1 litre of water at the minimum. You will have to learn to sacrifice things for yourself first. Don’t worry about math homework, worry about your sleep schedule. Don’t worry about your reflection, worry about eating properly.
Sometimes you won’t do well in a course, sometimes you won’t do well in an interview, sometimes you won’t do well at home by yourself watching Brooklyn 99 clips. Sometimes you will feel like dying, and that’s okay. But you cannot feel like this all the time.
You will know what love feels like and you will know what hate feels like. You will know what heartbreak feels like, and you will know what breaking someone’s heart feels like. You will know responsibility like it is your job. You will know know procrastination like a drug. You will hate yourself, and you will love your friends. Sometimes you will feel the opposite, and that’s also okay. You will need love, and you will give love. You will give kindness, and you will receive it as well.
I have gone through the past 11 years in school believing that there was no way I was going to make it through this. You likely believe now that you won’t make it through next month. But I want you to remember – I need you to remember, that your failures, your successes, your decisions and your actions will have molded you into the person I am today. And if you don’t like the person you are today, the person you are tomorrow is an entirely different person.
One day, you will have met the right people. You will have met the right teachers. You will have had the right days. You will have been given the best advice. You will make it through this.
I know you will.
Sincerely, Your Future, Grade 11 Self.
— Written by Jenniffer Meng
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.
I want to start off by telling you that you are going to make it through this. Whoever it may be, telling you to give up, telling you it’s not worth it, telling you that you’re a failure, even if it is yourself, I want to tell you one thing: this. This will be worth it. If you go on to skip the rest of what I’m about to tell you know, I want you to remember this one line: this will be worth it.
The current you is in grade 11, just failed her physics and chemistry test, and will have failed her math test by this morning. She will be very sleep deprived, very tired, and very, very caffeinated by this afternoon. She will have a mountain of position-time graphs to finish, she will be behind a week of math homework, and she will have to finish her English IOP reflection by midnight tonight. She will have no idea what to do with a performance tonight and this letter to finish, and she will have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow morning. She may have to sleep at 1 am tonight or finish her physics homework by lunch tomorrow. She is ready to break down and cry, she is ready to drop out of school and go get ice cream, and she is ready to go home and sleep.
But there is one issue: she knows she will not give up. She cannot read into the future, but she knows this for a fact: she will not give up.
Seventh grade you will have to sort through a lot of garbage. Seventh grade you is an acne filled, sleeping at 10 pm, making friend groups and separating them again, sitting by your bed, piece of potential. You probably think you only have one chance. You think: I have one chance to get this right, and you will go through the next three years with this mindset as well. I want to tell you one thing: you will fail, and you will fail hard.
You will know social failure and academic failure. You will know the failure of love and the failure of loyalty. You will know artistic failure, and you will know familial failure. You will know failure more than you know yourself, and failure can be one of two things: the best thing that has ever happened to you, or something you learn and grow from.
You will learn many things in two years of high school, some of which are good, some of which are awful. No matter how good the ratings of Ontario teachers look like on RateMyTeacher, a large percentage of your teachers will not care about you, or your wellbeing. (Mostly the latter.) They don’t schedule things correctly, they don’t give the right instructions, and they don’t give you their blessing. Some will be the tough-love kind, some will just be love-love – you are going to have to live with both of these kinds of people. You will make new friends, some of which will be love- hate, and some of which will be love-love. You will love all of them, and they will love you – despite how much you may annoy each other for homework answers and pieces of their pizza. You won’t hang out every weekend, but you will know you all love each other anyway.
This cohort that you are in is a relatively good one. Snip away the weeds and the toxicity, and you will be left with the daisies and the roses. You will find good people to be with. I have people I want to be with, and I assume these people want to be with me as well. They will be the reason you make it through this. They are the reason I am getting through this today.
You will learn how to comfort people, and you will learn how to comfort yourself. You will learn how people cry, and you will learn how to cry yourself. You will learn how to talk to your parents like real people, and you will learn how to ask your sister for favours. You will learn how to be selfish and how to be selfless. You will learn how to play French horn, and you will learn to sing again. You’ll fall in love with a K-pop star name J-Hope, and you will start wearing nice jeans again. You will talk about Great Comet all day long, and you will protest gun laws. You will belt Broadway songs in the hallways, and you will learn how to find limits of functions. You will learn that you don’t want to have sex like how other people do, and you will learn to go to church to be happy for once.
Sometimes you won’t sleep. Sometimes you won’t eat. And sometimes you’ll forget that hydration is a thing that humans need to do to be a. healthy, b. alive. These are not good things. Please get enough sleep, eat all your meals (even breakfast), and drink at least 1 litre of water at the minimum. You will have to learn to sacrifice things for yourself first. Don’t worry about math homework, worry about your sleep schedule. Don’t worry about your reflection, worry about eating properly.
Sometimes you won’t do well in a course, sometimes you won’t do well in an interview, sometimes you won’t do well at home by yourself watching Brooklyn 99 clips. Sometimes you will feel like dying, and that’s okay. But you cannot feel like this all the time.
You will know what love feels like and you will know what hate feels like. You will know what heartbreak feels like, and you will know what breaking someone’s heart feels like. You will know responsibility like it is your job. You will know know procrastination like a drug. You will hate yourself, and you will love your friends. Sometimes you will feel the opposite, and that’s also okay. You will need love, and you will give love. You will give kindness, and you will receive it as well.
I have gone through the past 11 years in school believing that there was no way I was going to make it through this. You likely believe now that you won’t make it through next month. But I want you to remember – I need you to remember, that your failures, your successes, your decisions and your actions will have molded you into the person I am today. And if you don’t like the person you are today, the person you are tomorrow is an entirely different person.
One day, you will have met the right people. You will have met the right teachers. You will have had the right days. You will have been given the best advice. You will make it through this.
I know you will.
Sincerely, Your Future, Grade 11 Self.
— Written by Jenniffer Meng
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.
Youth of Canada Mental Illness Awareness Week Entry #2: For the Time After the Next
07/04/19 09:10
Today I woke up five minutes late.
Yesterday I lost my house keys,
And tomorrow night at 3am I will soak my homework with the mascara stained tears that have been left
on hold since the last time I fell apart.
This is not the first time,
this will not be the last.
I will forgive myself, and eventually
I will forget.
I made a mistake in pen today.
I crossed it out,
ripped out the page,
could’ve even burned the paper if I really felt like it.
Even still, my mistake will not be destroyed.
It will linger in my house of memories until something larger hands it an eviction notice.
It will stay on the inside of my eyelids waiting to taunt me every time I take a moment to blink. But it has
no power over me.
I made a mistake in pen yesterday,
And the day before,
And the day before the day before the day before the day before.
I do not remember the first time,
So I will not remember the last.
I will forgive myself for failing this small activity.
I’ve been writing since pre-school.
At this point it should realistically be natural.
The voices in my head whisper; cooing me into their cave of self-loathe.
I do not remember the first time,
So I will not remember the last.
I will learn to forgive myself.
Tomorrow,
when I make another careless mistake in pen,
I will not burn it.
I will not rip out the page or even cross it out.
I will learn from my mistake,
I will leave it to stare back at me every time I open my notebook. I will give it a seat at the table and offer it some soup,
It can even have the other half of the bed.
This time,
I will add another note beside it, the correct answer this time.
A short letter to my future self.
A helpful piece of advice to look and learn from.
This time,
I will remember.
— A poem Witten by Paula Arkhangorodsky 17/09/18
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.
Yesterday I lost my house keys,
And tomorrow night at 3am I will soak my homework with the mascara stained tears that have been left
on hold since the last time I fell apart.
This is not the first time,
this will not be the last.
I will forgive myself, and eventually
I will forget.
I made a mistake in pen today.
I crossed it out,
ripped out the page,
could’ve even burned the paper if I really felt like it.
Even still, my mistake will not be destroyed.
It will linger in my house of memories until something larger hands it an eviction notice.
It will stay on the inside of my eyelids waiting to taunt me every time I take a moment to blink. But it has
no power over me.
I made a mistake in pen yesterday,
And the day before,
And the day before the day before the day before the day before.
I do not remember the first time,
So I will not remember the last.
I will forgive myself for failing this small activity.
I’ve been writing since pre-school.
At this point it should realistically be natural.
The voices in my head whisper; cooing me into their cave of self-loathe.
I do not remember the first time,
So I will not remember the last.
I will learn to forgive myself.
Tomorrow,
when I make another careless mistake in pen,
I will not burn it.
I will not rip out the page or even cross it out.
I will learn from my mistake,
I will leave it to stare back at me every time I open my notebook. I will give it a seat at the table and offer it some soup,
It can even have the other half of the bed.
This time,
I will add another note beside it, the correct answer this time.
A short letter to my future self.
A helpful piece of advice to look and learn from.
This time,
I will remember.
— A poem Witten by Paula Arkhangorodsky 17/09/18
A message from Youth of Canada: We are here to support Canadian youth and inspire them. For anyone struggling mentally, we hope the stories of our Mental Health Blog series, in honour of Mental Illness Awareness Week, will help you connect and realize that you are not alone. Thank you to the Canadian teenagers that were willing to share their stories with us.