My Behavioral Health & Wellness Story: Kate
After struggling with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, 14-year-old Kate’s family knew she needed help. Through the Behavioral Health team at Children’s Nebraska, Kate found a pathway to recovery with therapy and family support, utilizing Children’s partial hospitalization and outpatient services. Now this bright teen who loves music, theatre and wrestling is courageously sharing her story to help others realize expert help is available in the face of mental health challenges.
Read more on Kate’s journey to hope and healing and Children’s commitment to pediatric behavioral and mental healthcare at https://www.childrensnebraska.org/health-hub/kates-story-finding-her-power-after-teen-depression.
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[Video Transcript]
(music playing)
Kate: This might sound like cheesy, but music is kind of my everything. Like it’s my family, my friends and then music.
Kate: Hi, my name is Kate and this is My Behavioral Health & Wellness Story.
For this 14-year-old aspiring artist, her song had a different tune two years earlier.
Kate: I was having depressive and anxious thoughts every day. I felt like everything was rigged against me by something I couldn’t control, and then I was just stuck on the bottom with, like, everything poking at me and there was no way to get up.
Heidi: We had talked about like, we’ll get therapy set up, right? But it wasn’t necessarily like a pressing issue, we thought. And then when we got the phone call from school, everything definitely changed.
Experiencing suicidal ideation, Kate started in a partial hospitalization program before transferring to Children’s Nebraska’s Behavioral Health outpatient services.
Heidi: I mean, we are like deer in the headlights. We don’t know the next step. And so we called and went there, actually, and they immediately, set everything up for her and did the evaluations and let us come in for times we wanted to learn about things, and then also gave Kate the time for us to step out so she could talk and share with them very freely.
Marissa Cumming: Saying you know what I’m dealing with or what is happening right now, it doesn’t feel good. And so I think reaching out and making that first initial appointment or taking the step to say, like I need help with this is probably one of the hardest things.
But for Kate, it was one of the best things as well. Thanks to a strong connection formed with her mental health practitioner.
Kate: Marissa, in one word I would say is my anchor. She’s taught me a lot about like, what I can and can’t control and like, my own self-doubt and self-love. Everyone has this toolbox, right? And I just didn’t have any tools in my toolbox. But Marissa came and she was like, here’s a wrench and here’s some screws. And now I’m able to take the tools that she’s given me to help myself.
Marissa Cumming: And I think that’s a really powerful statement of we are here and we have our arms stretched out to help you, but you also have to do some of the work to kind of pull yourself out, too, and will guide you in that process.
With an instilled sense of hope, Kate has returned to the things she loves, like music and theater, while also exploring new challenges like wrestling for her high school team.
(strumming guitar)
Now an advocate, Kate and her family believe the community’s investment into mental health, highlighted by the opening of the Behavioral Health & Wellness Center, will change the future for teens and families navigating similar struggles.
Kate: I think if I had been in a place that, you know, was colorful and was had some sense of normalcy and like wasn’t a cramped basement, I think I would have healed more smoothly.
Kevin: You know, this is state of the art stuff that like, I feel like mental health is changing every day. It’s evolving. You’re learning more of what’s right, what’s wrong, what to do, what not to do, and to to put these kids in the best situation to move forward and strive is such a, I think it’s a huge deal.
Heidi: It just sounds magical. Like if something happened again, we would just show up at Children’s ER and be like, help us. Like we would just know we’re in good hands.