In today's episode, I (Lizzy) was fortunate enough to listen and reflect with Mendi about her mental health journey thus far. Relationships and communication play a large role in Mendi’s story : after losing a sister to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Mendi often found herself feeling alone and wanting to escape her reality which manifested itself into panic disorder with situations of what she describes as paranoia. This paired with a reconstruction, if you will, of her community led to quite the reflection and shift in perspective. I will pause here as to not give away all of the episode, but I think that everyone in this audience can find a takeaway from her story and ultimate advice - please tune in if you are interested and able.

As stated above, the reflection of this journey includes much grief in addition to mention of suicide: please note that the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline number is 988.

If you are a teen and you have a story to share, or you know someone who does, please reach out to us using this link : http://fcwi.org/interview. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to follow and share with others. Thanks again for listening!

The content in this episode has been reviewed by the UMatter oversight committee.