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Student focuses on improving mental health

The Wenatchee World
Jun 16, 2020

Jun. 16--WENATCHEE -- When Anna Horne was in eighth grade she thought about dropping out of school.

Horne was dealing with anxiety and depression and her schoolwork started to feel overbearing, she said. She almost failed some of her classes and barely managed to get a B average. In ninth grade, she decided to attend Wenatchee'sWestSide High School and everything changed.

Teachers and staff at the school taught her how to cope with her anxiety, Horne said.

"How to find resources for my anxiety and then how to interact with people while having these anxieties," she said. "How I can talk to people without shutting down."

Horne, 19, graduated from WestSide on June 11, earning the Ali Guerrero Leadership Award and the Principal's Award and was one of the class speakers at the virtual ceremony that will be rebroadcast at 7 p.m.June 19 on ncwlife.com.

Horne said she wants to go to Gonzaga University, but will take a gap year to help her family.

She is the only person in her family of four who is not immuno-compromised and wants to wait until the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.

"My dad has Type 2 diabetes as well as Lyme disease and some other 2"My mom is a Type 1 diabetic with another medical issue in regards to her nerves."

Also, her sister is battling a virus that attacks her nervous system, she said. Horne has inverted her sleep schedule to take care of her sister at night and see to her needs.

"It is definitely a lot of stress on me, because I never know when her legs are going to give out and she is going to fall or what she is going to need during the middle of the night," Horne said.

When she does go to university, though, she wants to get a degree in psychology and become a therapist someday, she said. She hopes to help children dealing with some of the same challenges as herself.

"Mental health is extremely important for students," Horne said. "Because how can you expect a student to focus on their academic career when they're fighting themselves all the time whether that be with their anxiety, their OCD, their depression, whatever?"

Mental health isn't discussed enough in the seventh and eighth grade, when students start to go through puberty and face those challenges, she said.

"That's when everything starts to pop up because you've got hormones going on and you've got kids who are just figuring out, 'Oh maybe there is something wrong here because I feel down all the time and I'm really scared all the time,'" Horne said.

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(c)2020 The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.)

Visit The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.) at www.wenatcheeworld.com

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