One Step Towards Me

Me:

My name is Mel Maendel, I grew up in Lakewood Colorado. I have an older sister and a younger brother. My mother is my one and only parent. I am very family oriented. I have an ESA named Leonard. I currently live in Juneau AK. My favorite color is purple because it reminds me of happiness. This is my story.

The Start:

Imagination is a wonderful thing. It gives life to new worlds all inside your head. But what if the imagination was real to you. It was something else, not imagination. These people that were created were real. You could hear their voices, feel their touch. What if they could hurt you just like the other people in this life. The little me, the little Melody, was way over her head. I remember back in fourth grade it was like a switch that flipped in my head. My friends would come over to my house, monsters would seek me out and voices circling my head telling me unkind words. My mother who has been my biggest support even now knew something was different. I could not understand the looks and why no one else would not see or hear these people and voices. The word crazy does something to a child, as it led to my mental break at the age of ten. I ended up being admitted to a mental hospital for wanting to end it all. It was then that we found out that I was not crazy, but I had schizophrenia. It was a rare early onset schizophrenia. But the diagnosis was not the end but the beginning. It took years of test medications and relearning basic functions in order to get back to the closet type of normal.

My mother never gave up and stood up for me time and time again. My older sister and younger brother also gave me support in any way they could for their age. They made me feel like I was just another person which is what I needed. We all took care of each other. We prioritized mental health and inner peace. Which is one of the things that saved me. This experience gave me a new way of thinking about life. No shame should come from any diagnoses and should be normalized. This also led to my interest in mental health and public health.

My Passion:

My passion for mental health only grew as I grew. I started working at the age of 14 to help with bills. So, I took on many different jobs to figure out which best suited me. I have met many different people at all of these jobs. One of the experiences and jobs that will always resonate with me the most will be the one I started my freshman year of high school. I took an opportunity to work for the state of Colorado where I grew up. Jeffco CTC, a public health organization that works on all kinds of projects for the community and health of the public. It started out as an internship and grew into a fulltime job. This bloomed into happiness for me as my work was helping not only the youth in my community but the homeless and addicts in my community. I ended up teaching classes on consent for teens, helping a pill drive disposing of pills in a safe way. I also gave clean needles to those who needed it. I gave presentations and went to conferences. Giving out resources for mental health and studying mental health in youth was also a part of my job and much more. This job was a safe space for me. I worked with other youth and adults who had as much passion as me. A few months after graduation I was nominated for a State Award. I ended up winning the award for all of the work that I had done for Jeffco CTC. This was more than a job for me; it gave me perspective into what others are going through without judging them for it.

One step towards me:

Alaska has become a home to me, I originally came here to study marine biology but as I studied and took classes I came to realize that I did not want to go down that path. So, I switched my major to Social Work. So, who am I becoming and why? Here is my answer. There are many people in my life that have given me support. Where would I be without these people? That is a question I will never be able to answer. One thing that I do know is that who I am becoming is thanks to experiences I have lived through, the opportunities I took and the people I have met. As I meet new people in this life I want to grow, and I want to make a difference. Many of these people gave me hope and light. I want to be able to provide that for many people too. I want to make a difference in people’s lives. Words I want to surround me would be helpful, reliable, kind, resourceful, and safe. These are words that resonate with me to this day as these are the words that are connected to the people who I looked up to. I wake up every morning and try to strive to be connected to these words.