ST. GEORGE, Utah — A player on the freshman football team at Desert Hills High School in St. George is trying to block out the stigmas surrounding mental health.
As the Thunder takes the field, their center Ashden Zufelt does something unusual.
"I come out and I hold this banner, and it's just like for mental health awareness basically,” said Zufelt. “Generally men are scared to talk about it and stuff, and I just kind of want to get rid of that stigma against it.”
For every game this season, 15-year-old Zufelt has come out and unfurled the banner that includes the 988 hotline that anyone can call when they’re facing emotional distress or a mental health crisis.
His mother and sister had already been diagnosed with suicidal ideation — a preoccupation with the idea of suicide. Then, Ashden realized he may have been in the same downward slide.
“I sent a text to my friend and I was just kind of telling him about how I was feeling and then he ended up telling his mom and his mom went and messaged my mom about it and then I talked to my parents about it. And that's kind of where everything kind of started,” he said.
Along with medication, Ashden learned that something else proved to be a good treatment.
“A lot of just positive self-talk and talking about it to others is a really good way to deal with it," he said.
Ashden decided the best way to tell others was through his opening game banner. His sister Kajlyn is leading a “Stay Here” mental health and suicide prevention campaign at her school.
Their father says they have provided lessons for the adults.
“It helps me because I'm more aware of not just my own feelings, but maybe people around me. I find myself more patient with people in general, because you never know what somebody else is going through,” Ben Zufelt said.
His son noted while many have said social media has been harmful to those his age, it has also been a benefit.
“There's ups and downs of it because it's easier for someone to ridicule someone or bully them for something like mental illness or something like that, but it's also easy because you can find communities of people who share the same diagnosis as you,” Zufelt said.
Along with building awareness, the Thunder center hopes the banner will get others of any age to talk to a mental health professional or someone they trust. He said classmates have now come to him for help.
“I've helped them be more open about it and kind of look at themselves in a different way,” Zufelt said. “Yeah, I feel courageous about it.”
