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Map of My Mind
 As teachers of all people know, adolescence is a time of huge change. For some young people, everyday pressures during the teenage years are dwarfed by something much more serious: heavy mental health issues. It’s not always easy for young people to share their struggles, and to know how to find help when they need it.
In this first-person narrative, Youth Radio’s Belia Mayeno shares her experiences with depression and what a doctor once described as occasional “hypomanic episodes.” She talks about her decision to take psychiatric drugs, and her pathway to what she calls a “cease fire” to the war inside her brain.
When she sat down at Youth Radio to draft this commentary, Belia wasn’t so sure how or even if she wanted to tell her story. After all, she was revealing something personal about her own life, and she knew that mental health struggles still carry a stigma in many communities. And yet, her experience countered some persistent stereotypes about mental illness and recovery. Belia decided to put her story out there to a wide audience. The piece offers an intimate glimpse of an experience that is so often reduced, distorted, or all-out ignored in the mainstream media and public understanding.
Belia:
It was hard to accept that anything was actually wrong with me. I believed if I tried hard enough, I could heal myself. It was like expecting someone with a broken leg to just “walk it off.” My family wanted to believe that it was that simple too. I remember sitting with my mom, as she stroked my forehead just the way she did when I was a baby and she wanted me to take a nap. She asked me, with a hint of hope in her voice,
“M’ija, are you sure it’s not just PMS?”
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.4 COMMUNICATION SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.5 COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
NL-ENG.K-12.12 APPLYING LANGUAGE SKILLS
Subject: HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.1 HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
NPH-H.9-12.2 HEALTH INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
NPH-H.9-12.3 REDUCING HEALTH RISKS
NPH-H.9-12.4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.7 HEALTH ADVOCACY
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Language Arts:
Externalizing the internal:
Something that stands out in Belia’s commentary is her amazing ability to articulate what’s going on inside her own head, capturing moments when she felt “out of control.” Novelists talk about this glimpse into characters’ minds as a sense of “interiority.” Have students come up with a moment in their own lives when they felt “out of control,” and ask them to free-write about that moment, including what they were doing in the outside world, and the complex thoughts, feelings, and images swirling inside their minds. Have students share their writing and compare the various narrative techniques they’ve used to capture and convey their experiences.
Mom’s perspective: Belia’s mom shows up in a poignant scene in this commentary, when she strokes her daughter’s forehead and asks hopefully, “M’ija, are you sure it’s not just PMS?” What do you think is behind this question from Belia’s mom? How does it relate to Belia’s own desire to believe that if she tried hard enough, she could “heal herself?” Have students write a one-page narrative involving a parent and child that includes this line from the parent: “Honey, are you sure you’re not just [fill in the blank]” and this line from the child: “I really thought if I tried hard enough, I could heal myself.”
Beginnings and Endings: What writing techniques does Belia employ to “hook” the listener and frame her topic in the first paragraph? How does she develop the body of her essay? What are some of the creative ways she ties her conclusion back to her introduction? Belia uses maps and war imagery to describe a painful part of her life. How useful are these images in her writing? How would the impact of her story, and her characterization of mental illness, be different had she chosen other metaphors?
Health:
Diagnoses: See if you can find out how mental health professionals define, recognize and treat clinical depression and bipolar disorder. What differentiates these two conditions? Bipolar disorder used to be called “manic depression.” Do some research to find out the story behind the change in terminology. How does Belia’s creative narrative deepen or complicate your understanding of mental illness as compared to what you can find out from a clinical description?
Resources and Referrals: Do you have any friends or family members who have struggled with mental illness? How have you responded to their struggles? Imagine that a close friend of yours started behaving in ways that worried you, or expressing troubling thoughts or moods. Do some research to find out what might be some useful first steps you could take to help that person find support. Working individually or in small groups, students can identify and describe local community services for teens with mental illness, and compile this information as a classroom resource.
Anti-Depressant Controversies: In the last few years, doctors, parents, and patient advocates have raised concerns about the risks and side-effects of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications. Do some research to find out what those risks are, and identify the main themes that come up in debates surrounding the question of whether and under what conditions it’s safe to give psychiatric drugs to young people. What policy decisions have been made about how to warn parents about the risks associated with psychiatric drugs? What are some other treatments besides prescription medication?
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Stigma related to Mental Health Issues: Mental health affects everyone, yet it often carries negative connotations. What are some of the terms used to label people who have mental illnesses? What do these words tell us about society’s views on mental health? What are some preconceived notions about people who have mental illnesses? What are some of the causes of mental illness? How do different ethnic and economic communities view treatment for mental health? What are some of the obstacles young people face to getting treatment? What do students do on a regular basis to support their own mental health?
Media perspective on Youth Issues: Find examples of articles that express both negative and positive coverage of youth mental health. What stands out in the media coverage you collect? Can you find any articles that focus on positive youth development and wellness? How do these articles differ from stories centered on pathology and risk? Why is it important to give youth a voice in presenting their stories?
Race and Mental Health Issues: Martin and Grubb’s article noted below shows that in the juvenile justice system, white juvenile offenders’ crimes have a greater chance of being attributed to their psychological issues while the cultural upbringing of black juvenile offenders is often blamed for their crimes. While white youth are provided opportunities for treatment, black youth are often unable to experience restorative justice. Have you seen evidence of these inequalities in your own community? What are some steps a community could take to eliminate this bias?
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
A graduate of Youth Radio's 1997 class, Belia Mayeno was until 2004 an Associate Producer at Youth Radio, working with youth on local and national programming. Belia has been an intern for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Washington, D.C. and worked as a Teen Education Specialist at San Francisco's Women Against Rape. She’s won numerous awards for her broadcasts, including the duPont Award for her narration of "Emails from Kosovo,” and a Gracie Award for her commentary, Map of My Mind. Belia is now pursuing an undergraduate degree at Hunter College/CUNY in New York City.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• "Value of Anti-Depressants" (APA Monitor Sep98)
• "Controversial Study Questions the Value of Anti-Depressants" (APA Monitor Sep98)
• Depression Guide (Depression Guide Jan98)
• "Race and Mental Health Disparity" (Psychology Today Magazine Sep03)
• "Race Bias in Diagnosis and Treatment of Juvenile Offenders: Findings and Suggestions" (20 J. Contemp. Psychotherapy 259, 261, 1990)
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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