May 19 is Mental Health Action Day, created last year by MTV Entertainment to “inspire taking meaningful action for well-being” in response to the more than 1 in 3 high schoolers reporting poor mental health during the pandemic.

As reported in USA Today, yesterday MTV Entertainment led the first-ever Mental Health Youth Action Forum, hosted by First Lady Jill Biden at the White House.

Dr. Jill Biden, Ambassador Susan Rice, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joined Selena Gomez and 30 young activists and creators – chosen from hundreds of applicants – each with their own unique story, but all of whom know “what it’s like to not be OK.” Biden applauded each participant’s courage in speaking up, noting “The darkness inside of us can feel heavy at times, but we can share the weight of it together.”

Selena Gomez, a passionate mental health advocate who revealed her bipolar diagnosis in April 2020, has teamed up with The White House before. In October 2020, she shared a virtual conversation with Kamala Harris on the importance of using one’s voice to draw attention to health and mental health issues.

Emotional at times, Gomez vulnerably shared her journey: “I felt like once I found out what was going on mentally, I found that there was more freedom to be OK with what I had.” She has turned that freedom into powerful public leadership on mental wellness: “Bringing attention to mental health through media or just talking about your own journeys can help. It sets the example that it’s a topic that can and should be discussed openly and without shame.”

More than encouraging openness about mental health struggles, Gomez hopes to inspire concrete change, so that “everyone, no matter their age, their race, religion, sexual orientation, has access to services that support their mental health.

The event featured 30 young activists and creators who have turned their personal struggles into powerful advocacy for mental health resources in their own communities. On Twitter, Dr. Jill Biden called out a few of them:

• Jazmine – a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe, who sparked a conversation in her community by sharing her struggles with mental health
• Ayanna – a veteran and mother of two, Ayanna has been a catalyst for seeking mental health support first in her family and then in the workplace
• Jorge – first in his family to attend college, he coordinates an Active Minds chapter at Rutgers, so students have a community to discuss their mental well-being
• Diana – a first-generation Chinese-American working to destigmatize mental illness, particularly within the immigrant community

Channel 4 Washington highlighted a few other stories. George Washington University student Cynthia Yue shared how “growing up, mental health was highly stigmatized, and it was never a huge priority within the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community. There was always this pressure from my family, which had risked everything to bring us to come to America and bring us the American dream.”

Bekkadja, a Muslim American woman, revealed how the Our Minds Matter club at her high school was key to overcoming stigma and creating community: “There’s no shame in sharing about your struggles or if you’re feeling anxious or tired or stressed, because most likely, the person sitting next to you is going through the same thing.”

Sharing these authentic, courageous stories is powerful, and also just a start, MTV Entertainment President and CEO Chris McCarthy stresses. He’s calling for a “long-term solution” to destigmatizing mental health in the media. Since 2006, MTV has committed to overhauling how mental health is portrayed in the content it creates and to influencing the media industry at large.

He stresses that real change in embracing mental wellness and destigmatizing struggle “is going to take a societal movement. It’s going to take businesses, it’s going to take nonprofits and governments and friends and family to lock arms and really make a sustained difference. We’re at the very beginning of that journey. Just the fact that the conversation is being had at this level at so many different places is incredibly important.”

Read the USA Today article here. Watch a clip from the event here.

Ryu, Jenna. “An emotional Selena Gomez explains why mental health is ‘personal’ at White House, MTV event.” USA Today, 18 May 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/05/18/selena-gomez-visits-white-house-personal-mental-health-struggles/9816110002/