Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Adaria Crutcher. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Adaria, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My whole life I was always told that as a young, Black girl mental health was not real: nobody goes through mental health problems. When I started high school, I started to see how bad people’s mental health could get. I saw students lose parts of themselves throughout high school. They lost their smiles, their joy, their motivation to continue. My school is known for being one of the best in our city; it is known for creating bright students. However, behind the A’s and perfect ACT scores lie students with declining mental health. After my junior year started, I realized that something needed to be done. In a school where most put aside their mental health in order to boost their class rank, mental health is seen as the forbidden fruit: nobody will talk about it. In February 2024, I and two other individuals -Aisha Ceesay and Satvika Kodali- took a risk and made an Instagram account tailored to mental health. We interviewed over 80 students, showing our school’s population how bad the great majority of their mental health was. We took a risk by mentioning how there were many suicidal students at our school, yet our risk allowed students to finally feel seen. For the first time, students at our school had a safe place where they could learn about mental health. For the first time, students at our school saw that they were not the only ones struggling to wake up and push through life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

In 2021, at age 13, my dad passed away from sepsis. His death completely changed my life, causing me to feel sadness and despair for long periods of time. Before his death, I was always told that it was wrong to cry; I was told that it was wrong to feel any type of sad emotion. Yet how else can a 13-year-old go on with life after losing half of her DNA. I started a mental health account, Storyunfinished, in 2024, because I understood how hard it can be to go on with life after feeling so defeated by your circumstances. I understood how hard it can be to find joy when it seems that only darkness controls your life. Many students throughout my school have never had anyone to go to for mental health problems. They have never felt comfortable talking to administration because adults do not always take child mental health seriously. Storyunfinished did the impossible. We created tips and advice for suicide prevention. Suicide is always viewed as a delicate topic that everyone is afraid to mention. Yet pushing away the subject only causes more people to kill themselves because they feel inhumane and disgusted by the thoughts that prance around their mind.
I believe that what sets me apart from others is that I am not afraid to talk about sensitive topics. I am not afraid to advocate for change. My dad’s death changed my mindset; it caused me to hate life for a good portion of my teenage years. I felt alienated throughout the process because everyone around me had two parents. However, in my sophomore year, when I met another student who lost her dad, I finally felt seen. That is my goal with Storyunfinished- to help individuals feel seen and heard. I am most proud of the influence and impact Storyunfinished has made not only through our school but through our city. People throughout our city view our post and feel seen. Students constantly tell me how Storyunfinished has allowed them to continue on with life; it has given them the strength to push through their circumstances. While Storyunfinished is run by teenagers and not professional licensed therapist, our goal is to bring light to students trapped in the dark. We try our best to provide helpful information that will help students push through high school and become the wonderful people they are destined to be. I want people to know that mental health is as serious as physical health. If a person is constantly beaten by their mind, they cannot possibly go through life without feeling defeated or getting help. In life, we conquer many enemies, but conquering the one that is stationed within your mind is the hardest battle to win. While there will be days when impending dooms seems near, know that you are not alone throughout the process. The bravest thing an individual can do is seek out help because so many people are afraid to admit they are not okay. Everyone has a story that is worth reading, a life that is worth completing. Keep writing yours and don’t let your story go unfinished.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Understanding your audience. Many people can give advice about what a person should or should not do with their mental health, yet only a few can understand the struggles. Losing my dad taught me that fixing your mental health is not a one step process: it takes trial and error. Mental health is not made up by students to get out of doing work; it is a real illness that can eat away at a person’s self-worth if they allow it to. You have to be very particular about how you phrase each post because people can take things out of context. When posting about depression and suicide, you have to handle the topic with care. You have to understand that many of these children have tried to reach out for help, yet their concerns were not taken seriously, You have to understand that many don’t want to die; they just want someone to listen to their problems and take their health seriously.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what helped us build our reputation was that we were students just like our audience. Many times mental health advice is given from the adult perspective, a perspective that has their frontal lobe developed. However, children understand each other better than adults, no matter the qualifications that adult may have. We made sure that our post evoked emotions in our audience by painting a picture of what mental health means. My two other co-owners have had their fair-share of mental health battles, allowing us to speak from a place of understanding, instead of using internet resources. Moreover, we survey students throughout our school to gather our own data and statistics. We ask students from all for grade levels questions about their mental health to make sure we represent our population to our best abilities. Every single quote we include from students is anonymous. Which has allowed more students to feel comfortable sharing their story and following our page. Seeing their fellow peers have the same struggle as them has helped Storyunfinished become notable throughout our school for showing the raw, unfiltered struggles of teenage mental health.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storyunfinished_wshs?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
• Other: Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adariacrutcher/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
  Published Written Works: https://whitestationscroll.net/staff_name/adaria-crutcher/