Just think about it., the class of 2023 went to high school during a global pandemic, several school shootings and a fentanyl crisis...in addition to being a teenager.
My name is Ja'ona Carter. I am 17-years-old. I am in my senior year of high school. My favorite thing to do in my free time is to go out and take pictures with my Canon camera because it's just a little bit of me time to collect my thoughts.
Not a lot of people know but probably like people who are closer to me now as I struggle with mental health and other things. I've lived with my grandma since I was a baby. I got really sick and my mom gave me to my grandparents because she knew I would be safer with her.
During my sophomore year of high school, my grandpa died. He raised me along with my grandmother since I was a baby. He was like a father to me. I know you're supposed to react when people close to you die but I didn't. I shut down. I blocked all of my feelings and I started to make bad decisions because I didn't care. I had to deal with the death of my mom and of my grandpa. I've never talked to anyone about it.
My school life was pretty bad when I was going through all of it. I was hurting and I didn't know how to deal with the situation. The summer after he died, I met this girl — let's call her Ava. She was nice, like me. She suffered with a lot of social anxiety — we kind of bonded over it. We spent the summer going to skate parks or The Greene. Sometimes we just chilled at her house or we planned parties — we had a lot of them, which is where I was first introduced to drugs and alcohol. We were all underage, so getting alcohol was hard but that didn't stop some of them from stealing beer from the gas station.
That summer, I was never home for long. I would leave the house at six or seven in the morning and head over to his house. Sometimes, I didn't go home because it just made me sad. The group I was hanging around was pretty reckless. We were kind of teens parents do not want around. I knew this group was bad for me but I didn't want to leave it because I had no one else to hang out with in order to go. I suffered with depression and started taking medication for it. Adding drugs and alcohol wasn't the best decision. My grandma and I were getting into a lot of fights, especially about my going out and not coming home. She didn't like the kids I was hanging out with.
My grandma realized that I needed help and put me in therapy.
Christina has really helped me deal with my emotions and how to process them. I realize now that I was acting out because of all the losses I had dealt with in my life and how these losses affected me. Therapy has really helped me to understand who my friends are and how to put myself first.
I still take anti-depressants but I no longer do drugs or alcohol. I also have a different friend group and these friends actually care about me. Now, I realize that my struggles helped me grow as a person. I think teens should learn that yeah, there's going to be loss in your life and you're always going to have some things go wrong. But you shouldn't let it, like, take over your life. I mean, yeah, you can grieve about it. You can like you can talk about it to other people. That's the best thing you can do. But you shouldn't just keep it all bottled in like I did. And now its much better. I want to live something different every day.
My senior year has been the best year in my high school life. I'm getting better grades and I have a part time job. But I still miss my grandpa. For Dayton Youth Radio's Centerville High School. This is Ja'ona Carter.