A Child Lost

You may not have noticed the story in Monday's Globe. More bad news, like background noise - just another person you've never met, who had problems that you couldn't do anything about. Big deal - turn page to see photo du jour of Tom Brady and Gisele.

Except this was different.

This was a young woman, a hero really, named Yolanda Torres. Why was she a hero? Last year she testified on Beacon Hill in support of a bill to overhaul Massachusetts' system of children's mental health services. Having struggled with mental health issues since early childhood, she wanted to lend her face and her voice to make other children's lives and access to treatment easier than hers. Can you imagine the guts that took? At 15 all I wanted to do was be like everyone else. I wanted the same backpack, the same shoes, the same activities. Even though I always felt very individual and independent, I succumbed to the general anxiety of the teen years in wanting to draw the least amount of attention to myself as possible. To be different was the worst - I certainly didn't want my issues, or those of my family, out there for all the world to see. I certainly wasn't about to testify to lawmakers, the press, and -most embarrassingly- my parents.

Yet Yolanda did. She explained her most private struggle with mental illness, hospitalization, and the ostracization that comes with it. The bill she supported (the Children's Mental Health Omnibus Bill, of which United Way is a supporter and for which one of our funded agencies (MSPCC) is helping to lead the charge) had the potential to make Massachusetts' system of mental health screening and care for children stronger, better able to address the needs of those like herself. She had been through a lot, but look at this - she was a success story. Loving parents, years of treatment, special school placements... all rolled up into the beautiful girl at the microphone, the one who probably fretted about her hair and outfit that morning and looked like every other teenager. To lawmakers and the public gathered at the hearing, she looked like she had made it through, and was there to help others make it through as well.

Yolanda isn't here anymore. Just a few days ago she took her own life, unable to deal with her internal demons any longer. The child who bravely told us that her needs were important, that the system needed to be better, that she had needed help earlier, is gone. It is the most chilling of juxtapositions. Help came too late, and she knew it.

I'm proud of Yolanda. I wish I had known her. I would have told her that I, too, struggle with mental health issues. That at 15 years old I nearly committed suicide, twice. That I received treatment and was able to move forward with my life, and looking back on the last 13 years I am moved to tears by thoughts of the experiences I would have missed. That I will continue to manage my issues for the rest of my life, and that some times are better than others. I wish I could have told her all that. It probably wouldn't have mattered in the end, since by the time one chooses to extinguish life words of support are nowhere near enough. But I would have at least liked to have said thank you. Thank you for having the courage to put yourself and these issues on display, thank you for adding your voice to a public process that can too often seem to be about votes and line items, not children and lives.

I don't think I could have done that at 16.

We can only hope that the children's mental health bill currently on Beacon Hill will get all the support it deserves, so that the Yolandas today who are young or not yet born will live to see birthdays beyond age 16.

Click here for more information on the Children's mental Health Omnibus Bill.