The Gazette's new Stars of Tomorrow series will highlight inspiring young leaders ages 19 and under in St. Albert, Morinville, or Sturgeon County each month. If you know of a young leader who deserves the spotlight, please email our newsroom: [email protected].
St. Albert student Saige Yakemchuk wants to end the stigma around mental health and mental illness.
Inspired by her own mental-health struggles, the Grade 11 student at École Secondaire St. Albert Catholic High School (SACHS) started a mental wellness group at her school. She also writes about mental health in a blog.
Yakemchuk said she has always had mental-health struggles, but her big struggles, which continue to this day, started when she was 12 years old.
“I've always been a perfectionist, and I'm a dancer as well. [When] I'm competing on stage I put a lot of pressure on myself. I would be very stressed out ... I would restrict my eating because it felt as if that was something I could control,” she said.
Over the last two years, Yakemchuk has been hospitalized twice due to her mental-health struggles.
She was hospitalized in January due to a suicide attempt; however, after hitting her breaking point, she had a breakthrough.
“They stabilized me, they gave me [coping] skills, and gave me more supports. Once I was discharged ... I lost so many friends during that attempt ... I understand why. It's very hard to be in a friendship with somebody who [is] so unpredictable ... Losing those people made me realize that I don't want to be sick and that I want to try and get better,” she said.
Yakemuch said getting to this point in her recovery has been difficult and she still struggles with eating, but she speaks with doctors, therapists, and dieticians.
“I am trying my hardest to tell people when I am struggling. Now I am here, I want to try and use my struggles to help other people because it can be really daunting,” she said.
The school group Yakemchuk helped create is called Mind Matters. It currently meets three times a week. She started the group in the fall and has been promoting different mental-health days and months throughout the year, said Laurie McCurdy, a counsellor at SACHS.
McCurdy said the group makes awareness posters to put up all over the school; they make mental-health awareness videos; and they also hand out treats with positive notes to students.
In March, the group wanted to look at eating disorders and created a breakfast program that is currently being held twice per week and will continue to the end of June.
“I'm very impressed with their motivation. Sometimes you start a group, and the teacher is doing more of the work. This has not been the case in this group,” McCurdy said, adding the school has had groups before, but nothing like Mind Matters,
She said groups like this — which focus on mental health and offer a safe space for students — are important.
McCurdy said the organizing students are all in Grade 11 and she expects them to expand the group next year so they can pass on the torch.
“They want to expand it so that when they leave, it's still going,” she said.
Yakemchuk said she found some strength in people who shared their recovery journeys on Instagram and TikTok.
“I found a community of people who were going through the exact same thing as me, and who understood. I think one of the biggest things is that somebody understands you, even if you don't know them,” she said.
Yakemchuk was inspired in February to start her own recovery blog called My Mental Health Safe Haven (mymhsafehaven.blogspot.com).
She said she wanted to do something different than the recovery Instagram accounts or TikTok accounts.
“There's not as many blogs where someone can actually sit down and read. It connects to people on a more personal level,” she said.
She also chose the blog format because she has always loved to write.
“I thought that I'd be able to combine my love of writing [with] my love of designing because I also design these infographics. And I combine that with a little bit of my own story and a bit of my view on the topic,” she said.
She said the inspiration for her posts comes from knowing it is difficult to struggle.
“I post because I want other people to make the decision to recover or at least get some idea of what recovery is. If you don't have a mental illness, or you don't really struggle with your mental health, [these posts can help you] help those people around you,” she said.
