Good day everyone! My name is Evan Antonio Goetz, and I am a member of Moving Forward. Moving Forward is a mental health group by the students for the students. We try to make our community a welcoming place and strive to be kind and have fun. I have seen a lot come out of this group from my own experiences, and the experiences of others. So many great friends have been made from moving forward and I can’t thank them enough. I will share my story and journey of my mental health since I came to Gilbert.
Moving forward has been a lot of fun for me and my friends. In my life personally, I have had great overall mental health. I have been very blessed to have my friends and God on my side. Though in every great life there are some low spots and that is true in my life. When I came here in 5th grade I had a hard time fitting in. I was the new kid who nobody knew. I was not one of the cool kids,and I didn't have a group to call my own. That made it very hard for people to notice me or for me to reach out to others. I overthink things a lot and I definitely over think what people think about me. So far my lowest spot in my mental health was when I came into 6th grade. It was the first grade in middle school and I still did not have a lot of friends. I got into this sense of depression, because I thought that no matter what I said, people would not want to be my friend. I did have to go to counseling, because there were times that I wasn't ever happy. When I went to counseling, at first I was scared, but I started to feel better and I started looking better of myself and not overthinking things as much. ( there are still times I overthink things ) Soon I was getting better at speaking to people and getting better at making myself known to people.
The rest of middle school went pretty smooth. I kept getting better at meeting new people and soon the school knew who I was. Then came high school, and honestly it was like a big middle school, just with harder classes. I still had my friend group and I had new people that were helping me out. The first semester went ok for me and I was doing pretty good, but in the second semester I fell away from God. I won’t go into detail, but I was sinning against god and not asking him to help me. I was also hiding things from my friends and family, because I was shameful of what I was doing and I was scared of what they would think of me. In doing so I only brought myself lower and lower and I kept feeling guilt. During this time I was also starting a relationship with a girl who liked me. I thought that things were going pretty well, until she said we should just be friends, and I was a little sad, but I was glad we were still friends. Until she never talked to me again. That's right folks, she ghosted me. I felt pretty terrible, wondering what I did wrong, if I said something that made her not want to even be my friend. All these things going on at the same time ended up being a lot of stress, shame, and loneliness as I felt I was the only one going through this. I felt like I had no connections and was in my lowest spot.
My parents and friends started noticing that I was not myself. They were there for me and I was able to talk to the people I trusted. Then I asked God for help and he pulled me out of my shame. God plus the people in my life that I trusted me saved me from being alone in my shame and regret. Things eventually got better and I learned that it was better to get some things off my chest rather than hold on to them for so long. Sometimes there are situations where you might feel alone, and that's ok. There's times where you should have some alone time to think things over, but what you should never do is keep hiding and keep locked tight. Sometimes you just need to talk to other people. In my case those people helped me to get through this low spot. Like I said before, everyone has low spots in their lives. My 5 things that I did that helped me out were
1: make sure you have a trusted adult in my life that you can talk to. That could be your parents, a youth leader, teacher, or a guidance counselor.
2: Find friends that you feel comfortable sharing what you're going through. These friends are people who will be willing to listen to what you are going through.
3: Don’t be afraid to speak up. The more I hid my problems, the worse I felt. It felt like a weight was lifted when I was able to talk to people.
4: Don’t worry about fixing other people's problems. Just be there to listen and support them, don’t put it all on your shoulders.
5: Pray! You may not be a christian, but for me, praying to God helped me to reflect on myself.
I still make mistakes today, but I have found the people in my life who will be able to help me. I know that God will forgive me and help me out of the low spots that I have struggled with. Now that I am in Moving Forward, I am trying to be that person that anyone can talk to, while keeping in mind that it is not my job to fix their problems, but to help them and support them through their struggles. I have gotten out of my low spots and life has been going good. And hey, I am even starting a new relationship. ( Wish me luck ) Life is full of ups and downs, but if you have the right people in your life, the ups will be awesome, and the lows won’t be so bad. That all folks from Evan Goetz
Evan Antonio Goetz
Please reach out if you have questions or comments on my story, any questions about Moving Forward, or anything else!
My Email - goetze25@gilbert.k12.ia.us
Moving Forward Email - movingforward50014@gmail.com
Facebook - Moving Forward
Instagram - @movingforward50014