👋 Tell us a bit about yourself: how did you get started?
Hello! My name is Crystal Widado, a student journalist and public speaker who advocates for intersectional mental health justice. Mental health first became an issue of passion for me when I went through a dark period of my life in middle school. Experiencing suicidal ideation myself and surrounded by suicidal friends, I remember feeling drained of any hope that things could get better. Emerging from that period in the end of eight grade, I knew that I wanted to make sure no one had to feel the same way. As time went on, I realized that in order to make sure no one had to go through or feel what I had felt when I was 13, systemic changes needed to be made in our approaches to discussing how mental health plays a role in our healthcare system, criminal justice system, and our entire economic structure. Radically equipped with more knowledge, I began to involve myself in different organizations that I wanted to make a change in. To me, connecting mental health with my different passions for debate and journalism is parallel to connecting mental health to everything around us. Mental health is connected to our own personal minds, the wellness of the people we love, and the structures and systems around us. And with this growing understanding, my work continues.
👋 Our community is curious about all that you do: what do you do in your current role? What’s it like working at Mind Out Loud and Each Mind? Walk us through a day in your life!
A day in my life is a lot! As a full time high school junior, I am taking four AP classes and juggling around six leadership positions each day. A typical day in my life starts around 5:30AM. I’ve been waking up earlier to study for the classes I struggle in and also catch up on homework. I get to my journalism period at 7AM and will usually meet with a few teams and connect with my friends throughout my day at school. At lunch, you can catch me at our high school’s wellness center helping run a mental health club meeting or planning some club activities with our lovely board members and advisors. I get home around 3PM and will typically have a few meetings for Mind Out Loud or Each Mind after debate practice! As a writing director for Each Mind, I’ll usually hold weekly check in meetings to work on Each Mind’s blog or Each Hero, which is an initiative I started to interview mental health activists. It’s really fulfilling to do Each Mind work because we often get DMs or hear great feedback from our audience members in how beautiful and impactful our work is. For Mind Out Loud, I’ll sometimes attend “power hours” or work calls in the evening with friends to get some projects done. Last month, we had this huge mental health conference with thousands of student attendees, so I was really busy hosting IG lives, making infographics, and posting tik toks to our social media accounts! I’ve started going for runs around 6PM to relax a bit before jumping into homework around 7 or 8. Sleep has been really hard to prioritize as a student, but it’s still important so I try and get in bed before midnight on weekdays.
👋 How does your brand connect with their audience?
If I really had an official branding strategy or title for how I market myself as a person, I’d call it a very “human” brand :) I don’t really have an exact or precise intention with my Instagram or LinkedIn or most things I run. I just treat them/use them depending on my mood for the day. When I want to make or post mental health related content to my Instagram feed or make wellness reels, I will! If I find myself interested in political theory and posting my favorite book excerpts, I’ll do that too. In a way, I find this probably more relatable for my friends and “audience” of people who don’t know me personally since it’s realistic and human to have different interests and focuses that change over time. I would hope this makes me come across as more human and “casual” to people, since I think the activities and resume I sort of hold can make me seem really stuck up or unapproachable. My “brand” reminds people I’m literally a 17 year old trying to figure out life and am just as human as they are :)
👋 What is something you love about what you do? Any favorite projects you’ve worked on?
I really love how connected my three passions are. From afar, I understand how it can seem like journalism, debate/public speaking, and mental health activism can seem a bit far from each other, but a lot of the projects and roles I hold often have intersections that make my brain really happy. For example, I love combining journalism and mental health activism in the articles I write for Each Mind. My love for journalism and interviewing people to form meaningful connections propelled me to start Each Hero, which is a team of writers who interview mental health activists to write articles about their work. Each Hero brings me a lot of joy because it’s such a clear intersection of my love for journalism’s ability to share people’s work and highlighting the adversity of mental health activists in their fields. I also love combining the public speaking skills I use in debate with mental health activism, as I often participate in webinars and am a panelist for Mind Out Loud’s events with really cool partners at NAMI California, the California Department of Education, and other great mental health groups. I don’t know, something about being able to combine and synthesize the skills I’ve learned from different fields always makes my brain go woohoooo
👋 If you could tell gen z one thing about making career moves, what would it be?
Know why you care about something and talk to people about it! Recently in my AP Lang class, we did an activity about knowing your “why” or knowing why you’re putting so much effort into school and sports and extracurriculars etc. It was really challenging for a lot of my peers and I admit it was also a bit hard for me to conceptualize at first as well. But I think I had an easier time answering that question because I am really connected with the work I do as a mental health activist. This “well-connectedness” is definitely a privilege I acknowledge since I have been able to meet and interview a lot of people in a field I happen to be really interested in, which is not really an opportunity everyone gets. Even though a large part of it is luck, I think a good stepping stone for gen z to figure out their “why” is to start having conversations with people who do work in fields they’re interested in. The Pineapple app is a great place to start doing this since there’s such a variety of people in different fields, but Instagram mutuals and adults irl are also usually open to talking about themselves and their work too. I love talking and I love talking with people, so getting to connect with a lot of mental health activists in the last few years has really helped me get to where I am today.
👋 What is a superpower you know we have as a generation?
I think a superpower gen z has is being able to see the greater picture in things and sort of be a “visionary.” One of my favorite parts about gen z is how we are able to see the several areas around us that need to be changed and the amount of progress that can be made. Having that vision for a more equitable and just world reminds me of a video game or film hero who is able to see things in the greater picture and recognize the fact that there are certain steps that need to be taken in order to save the world around us.
👋 Here at Pineapple, we’re firm believers that we’re more than our work: we’d love to know one fun thing that gets you through the week?
Something that has been consistently getting me through the last two years has been coffee shops. I absolutely love coffee, matcha, and boba (because I love caffeine) and coffee shops have been such a great way for me to find a good place to focus while letting my extrovert self get out of the house. Coffee shops are also so interesting to me. There are always so many strangers around me working on their own work, conversing with a (potential) partner, catching up with a friend, or finding their own joy in reading a book or doing a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Each person has their own unique story and reason why they’re sitting in the seat they’re in and I find that strangely beautiful every time I enter and leave the doors of a new local cafe I am exploring. When I’m in a silly goofy mood I’ll try and befriend someone new (safely) or help out the elderly who are struggling with technology or ask an older student if they’ve studied the AP class I’m studying just because I want to be friends. Or other times I’ll drag a new (or old) friend with me to a new coffee shop to do work together. People are great, I love people. And I love coffee shops :)
👋 Is there anything you’re manifesting this year?
I really hope I find balance this year. As a workaholic, it’s been really difficult to justify self-care and sleeping, and taking care of myself. It’s quite ironic, actually, as a mental health activist to not be great at advocating for my own mental health sometimes. But it’s been a work in progress and I can definitely already see a lot of progress made this year, I just hope I am able to continue with that throughout 2022 and into adulthood.
👋 Where can others find you?
Pineapple: pnpl.io/crystalwidado
Instagram: @CrystalWidado
Twitter: @CWidado
