I co-authored an anthology about mental health issues in teens that was published on September 21st. This project allowed me to showcase my passion for writing. The book took 9 months to complete and aimed to give voice to struggles with mental health and provide support. I myself have been suffering through depression and severe anxiety disorder for the past 2 years and have been in constant therapy. Throughout my journey I have met a lot of people who are going through the same emotional roller coaster. After meeting people and my own personal knowledge I decided to write this book which helps spread awareness for mental health along with that being a support system for those who don’t know what they are going through and are suffering alone.
LO 1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth: This project helped me recognize my strength as a writer, using it to express my own anxieties. As a collaborative effort, it enabled me to expand my skills in writing, reading comprehension, and communication. I have always loved to pen down my emotions especially in the format of poems. They have been my biggest support system throughout my journey and I understand how I can utilise my strength to spread an important message among various audiences. While the process of writing and realising I can actually write well based on the reviews I got from my friends and family I felt like I can do something with my suffering and turn it into a positive reminder of my journey. It is really important to realise my strengths and weaknesses because I can always learn from my mistakes and be more mindful in polishing my strengths and working on making my weaknesses more strong. I was never confident with publishing the book because the poems meant a lot to me and they are a huge part of my ‘secret emotions’ the ones no one knew about however, through this process I learnt how to communicate and be more confident with myself. I would really want to work more on my weaknesses and make them my strength.
LO 2 – Demonstrate challenges undertaken and new skills developed: Facing challenges like working with publishers helped me build perseverance and enhance my communication abilities. Working with publishers has been a major challenge for me due to the complex processes and high expectations. I had not published anything before, so navigating contracts, revisions and marketing was very new and intimidating. My co-authors had amazing skills too in writing and reaching upto everyone’s expectations was really challenging as well. I overcame some of these challenges by persistently educating myself on the industry, seeking feedback and implementing edits to improve my work. I learned I needed tougher writing skins. Though difficult, I believe facing this challenge taught me vital skills. Wrestling with critical feedback strengthened my perseverance and communication abilities. Now I better understand publishing standards and can advocate for my work. I feel the skills gained will help me succeed in the future. Taking on tough challenges expands my abilities and resilience. Even failures teach important lessons if I reflect on them, which is why I think it’s so important not to shy away from challenges. Pushing myself ultimately breeds confidence and growth. This was on of my most important learning in the entire process of publishing.
LO3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience. I am personally a very organised person and like to have everything planned this really helped me initiate and successfully accomplish my CAS Project. I organise myself by making lists for everyday and making sure that I complete everything as per the deadlines. Planning was more difficult since we were a group of 4 and having match all the ideas and being on the same page is difficult. While collaborating with everyone it is difficult to plan the project and that further brings barriers in the initiating process. It was more of a domino effect. I didn’t know that I could actually write and organise my book the way I did, because from A to Z the entire process of publishing the book was done by me and my group, I could do the entire process by myself, independently which shows how I can work independently without seeking unnecessary help. Since, I have experience now in planning and initiating projects, it would be a little more easier since, I would have confidence in myself. It is important to know how to plan and initiate activities because it is more of a life skill, further in life I will have multiple events and gatherings that I’ll have to handle all by myself and if I don’t know how to do I won’t be able to do it in the future, hence its significance.
LO 4 – Show commitment and perseverance: Despite difficulties that arose, I remained committed to completing all my writing responsibilities. Since writing a book is a long process I need to have strong perseverance and commitment in myself to complete the entire process and not give up in between when the things truly got difficult. I felt more strong and capable of completing my tasks in future after this long journey. I do get a little distracted and feel like I should give up at multiple times in different tasks however throughout this process I was quite consistent and committed to the book because despite of so many issues arising in the process I stayed persistent with my work and didn’t give up. This was mainly because I was emotionally connected with this project.
LO 5 – Demonstrate collaborative skills and benefits: Working as a team improved my interpersonal and communication skills. I have good social skills and have been working with multiple people for school and outdoor events for years now but I have a strong weakness – lack of satisfaction so sometimes it gets difficult to get satisfied with what others do as their part of the work and I have to approve of it because I trust them. It was little bit easier to work collaboratively in this task because my co-authors are my best friends and I can share my opinions freely with them which was genuinely helpful to me. We did have clashing opinions multiple times and it was challenging working with them at those moments but after a certain time we understood each other and come to solutions together. When you bring together a diverse set of minds, skill-sets and perspectives, you’re able to generate ideas and solutions that draw on your collective strengths. Individuals working alone can be limited in their perspectives, whereas teams consistently produce more creative outputs. And that was clearly visible in the final product that came out. Writing and publishing a book required strong teamwork and leadership skills at multiple stages. As the author, I needed to lead the creative vision and writing execution. Yet I relied on critical feedback from beta readers, editors and publishers to shape the book into its best possible form. This required openness to constructive criticism and selecting advice that aligned with my goals.
LO 6 – Engage with globally significant issues: This book addressed the global importance of destigmatizing teen mental health struggles by sharing personal journeys. Mental health issues in teens are rising nearly everywhere, so it’s becoming a global phenomenon rather than isolated cases. This suggests a systemic problem across numerous cultures. Lack of understanding leads to stigma and judgment globally, preventing struggling teens from seeking help. This results in self-harm, depression, anxiety and tragically high suicide rates. Personal stories are relatable across cultures. By humanizing struggles, the book likely breeds more compassion from readers globally. Identifying shared challenges can unite people globally into acting to address the problem more systematically. Global platforms enable rapid spread of ideas. Reducing stigma can initiate necessary policy changes around the world to improve youth mental health infrastructure and access to support. Adding on, knowing that people around you are educated enough in the field of mental health that every human should be along with being open minded about it will definitely help personally grow out of my mental health issues. I feel like by writing this book I have atleast began talking about the realities of mental issues and that keeps me motivated to talk more about it since I want to pursue psychology in the future.
LO 7 – Recognize ethical implications: We carefully considered ethics and privacy when sharing sensitive personal content. Since, the book talks about how one might feel during a certain mental disorders we also mentioned how this book does not bring solutions to their issues and it is not something an expert in the psychology field has approved of. the symptoms we have written are based on our personal feelings and not something everyone would go through.
Overall, this experience strengthened my open-mindedness about mental health issues. I gained knowledge in teen challenges and anthology writing. I also became more reflective and grateful to have a platform to share my voice.
Images:
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